Tomatillo Salsa
Tomatillos look like small green tomatoes covered in a tan, papery husk. If you can’t find fresh tomatillos, substitute 2 cups of canned tomatillos, but omit step 2 and blanch 3 cloves of garlic in a small saucepan of water, then add to the food processor in step 3 along with the canned tomatillos. Serve the salsa with grilled meats, chicken, vegetables, or chips.
Quick Pickled Vegetables
Serve these as part of an antipasto platter along with small rounds of part-skim mozzarella and crusty bread. You could also serve the vegetables as a simple side dish for cold poached chicken or grilled flank steak.
Dr. G's World-Famous Nut Mix
To avoid overindulging in this treat, portion out 1/4 cup servings into individual plastic bags. All nuts should be unsalted.
Breakfast Bread Pudding with Apple-Raspberry Sauce
For a real treat, you could serve the bread pudding topped with some fresh raspberries and a dusting of confectioners’ sugar.
Babaganouj
This traditional Middle-Eastern dip has a good garlicky punch. If you'd like to tame the pungency, cook the garlic for 1 minute in a pan of boiling water before adding it to the recipe. Serve the dip with raw vegetable dippers, such as celery sticks, pieces of bell pepper, or yellow squash slices.
Lemon Poppyseed Cake
This update on a classic cake is low in fat without sacrificing flavor. Buttermilk makes the cake especially tender.
Banana-Tangerine Shake
If you don’t have time to sit down to a real breakfast, the next best thing is a breakfast fruit shake. Banana is an especially good ingredient, because it makes the shake thick. With so many interesting fruit juices and fruit juice blends available, you can use the basic proportions here and try this shake with other flavors. For an easy flavor twist, use maple syrup as the sweetener instead of honey. Or use one of the darker honeys available, like buckwheat.
Chunky Peanut Butter Blondies
There’s plenty of “butter” in this recipe--prune butter and peanut butter--but only a whisper of saturated fat. Each blondie gets only 5% of its calories from saturated fat.
Shells with Italian Butternut Sauce
The flavors in this pasta sauce were inspired by the filling for Italian pumpkin tortellini: a mixture of naturally sweet pumpkin complemented by salty cheese and a spicy-sweet condiment (we’ve used chutney). Since farmers’ markets now have more interesting winter squash available, you might want to substitute one of the more unusual squashes for the butternut. Try kabocha or sugar pumpkin, or buttercup or carnival squash.
Orange-Broiled Snapper
Serve this broiled fish with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice-or even a splash of fat-free salad dressing.
