Walnut

Pasta Salad with Blue Cheese, Walnuts and Arugula

I’ve been meaning to post this delicious recipe for Pasta Salad with Blue Cheese, Walnuts, and Arugula, which made the cover of a recent Weight Watchers Weekly, for a while now. As soon as I saw it I had a feeling I would love it. Filled with many of my favorite ingredients (pasta, arugula, blue cheese, grape tomatoes and walnuts), this is everything I want in a salad – easy to make, pretty to look at, and delicious to eat.

Weight Watchers Pasta Arugula Salad

And I was right. Fresh and delicious, I have a feeling this Pasta Salad with Blue Cheese, Walnuts and Arugula will become a lunch and dinner staple for me this spring and summer. It is such a great reminder of how tasty and satisfying salads you make yourself at home can be when you get creative and show them a little love. This recipe is definitely a keeper in my book.

I made a couple of minor changes, substituting chopped scallions for the chives and using spiral pasta (fusilli) instead of bowties (farfalle). A little chopped cooked chicken or turkey would be a nice addition too.

Enjoy!

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Filed Under: 7 PointsPlus, Easy Healthy, Pasta, Salads Tagged With: Arugula, Blue Cheese, Pasta Salad, Tomato, Walnut

Mixed Greens with Apples, Irish Cheddar, Dried Cranberries and Toasted Walnuts

By Martha McKinnon 3 Comments

Mixed Greens with Apple, Cranberries, Irish Cheddar and Toasted Walnuts

I was craving salad for lunch yesterday. I wanted something light, yet tasty and satisfying. For me a nice big salad usually fills the bill. I’m a huge fan of salad, especially at lunch. It’s a great way to fill yourself up with a healthy dose of fresh vegetables and fruit.

But for a salad to really satisfy me it’s got to have enough interesting flavors and textures for my taste buds to say, “YUM,” not scream “DIET.” This means including ingredients with big flavors – nuts, seeds, dried fruit and/or strong cheeses – in moderate quantities as a garnish. And most of the time I opt for a tasty homemade dressing made with healthy oils and flavorful vinegars or citrus, instead of nonfat bottled dressing.

So, as I was walking Francie I found my mind wandering to what I had available to turn into a satisfying salad. This is what I came up with: mixed greens, chopped Pink Lady apple, Craisins, chopped toasted walnuts and shredded Kerrygold Irish Cheddar Cheese tossed with a simple vinaigrette.

Providing a combination of crunchy, crispy, savory, sweet, and chewy flavors and textures, I found every bite a delight. Being able to savor my lovely lunchtime creation on the patio under brilliant blue skies with birds providing background music didn’t hurt either

(Through the years I’ve discovered that paying attention to how and where I eat is just important as what I eat when it comes to living happy, healthy and slim.)

This salad of mixed greens, apples, Irish Cheddar, dried cranberries and toasted walnuts has 5 or 7 Weight Watchers PointsPlus values depending on how you do your counting.

Enjoy!

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Filed Under: 5 PointsPlus, 7 PointsPlus, Salads Tagged With: Apple, Cheese, Cranberry, Walnut

Weight Watchers Apple Slaw

By Martha McKinnon Leave a Comment

Weight Watchers Apple Slaw

Here’s a fresh and crispy take on coleslaw perfect for fall. Featured in the 10/21-10/27/12 Weight Watchers Weekly, its flavors and textures are a delicious combination of tangy, sweet and crunchy.

I usually don’t think about coleslaw much after the end of summer barbecue season. But seeing this recipe caused me to reconsider. Brimming with ingredients I love – apples, dried cranberries and walnuts – the recipe virtually shouted at me to make it, which I did recently. It was the perfect accompaniment to grilled turkey burgers, but would also go well with chicken, pork or fish.

I made several changes to the recipe mostly to save time and money. I substituted olive oil for the walnut oil specified. Canola oil would also work well. (Walnut oil is lovely, but expensive and I don’t use it enough to justify keeping it around.) And I used pre-shredded green cabbage from Trader Joe’s to save time and scallions instead of shallots, since they were in the fridge.

This is definitely the kind of recipe that works well with additions, subtractions and substitutions.

Enjoy!

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Filed Under: 4 PointsPlus, Salads, Side Dishes, Vegetables Tagged With: Apple, Cabbage, Cranberry, Walnut

{38 Power Foods} Mesclun Salad with Pears and Blue Cheese

By Martha McKinnon 3 Comments

Mesclun with Pears and Blue Cheese

Sliced autumn pears and mesclun greens tossed with pear Dijon dressing topped with crunchy toasted walnuts and crumbled gorgonzola cheese. All I can say is YUM! I love a salad that’s as great tasting as it is good-for-you and this simple classic combination really delivers. It’s easy, healthy and delicious.

At this time of year, my mind typically goes straight to apples. But thanks to my participation with a group of bloggers working its way through Power Foods: 150 Delicious Recipes with the 38 Healthiest Ingredients (by Martha Stewart and the editors of Whole Living Magazine) I was reminded pear season and apple season coincide, so, now is a perfect time to enjoy them too.

Soft and sweet, pears are low in calories and packed with nutrients, fiber and antioxidants, making them a healthy and delicious addition to your diet.

I used a recipe for mesclun with pears and blue cheese from my Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook as the starting point for this salad, making a few modifications based on what was available (which I’ve noted in the recipe) with great results.

Enjoy!

Mesclun with pears and blue cheese

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Filed Under: 4 PointsPlus, Salads, Vegetables, Vegetarian Tagged With: Blue Cheese, Mesclun, Pear, Walnut

{The Recipe Redux} Memorable Vacation Meals – Warm Goat Cheese & Fig Salad

By Martha McKinnon 2 Comments

Warm Goat Cheese & Fig Salad

It took me all of ten seconds to decide I should attempt a warm goat cheese salad for this month’s Recipe Redux’s “Most Memorable Vacation Meal” challenge.

Even though it’s been more than a decade, I can still see and taste the original warm goat cheese and fig salad on which this one is based. It just goes to show how powerful food memories can be!

So, where did this food memory take place? In a fancy restaurant? Nope. In a food court. Not just any food court, but the Galeries Lafayette department store food hall, a cross between a gourmet supermarket and food court, in the heart of Paris.

Galeries Lafayette

Photo Credit: Flickr – designmatters

I was taking part in a weeklong culinary vacation, called “Unpolished Paris” that forever changed my relationship with food. It was on this trip I vowed to never again settle for tasteless, over-processed food. (Life is too short and delicious real food too wonderful!) And to try to live my life more like the the slim and elegant French ladies I saw everywhere.

The flavors and textures of that warm fig and goat cheese salad delighted me in a way food never had done before. It was one of many food memories created that week, for which I am forever grateful.

This is my interpretation as best as I can recall and recreate it with the ingredients available. I enjoyed this warm fig and goat cheese salad for lunch today and was immediately transported back to that Paris department store lunch counter…

Enjoy!

Warm Figs with Goat Cheese

Warm Fig & Goat Cheese Salad

Warm Goat Cheese & Fig Salad Almost Like Paris

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Filed Under: 6 PointsPlus, Salads Tagged With: Fig, Goat Cheese, Walnut

Healthy Harvest Fresh Apple Cake Recipe

By Martha McKinnon Leave a Comment

Every October, I find myself craving a piece of my mom’s fresh apple cake. The apple cake recipe with fresh apples she made every fall when apple harvest season arrived in Connecticut. The apple and cinnamon cake I began making every fall during college. It’s a wonderful old-fashioned recipe, very similar to this recipe for fresh apple cake. It’s a great cake, but loaded with fat and sugar.

This year I found myself craving a different kind of fresh apple cake. A light, healthy, low-fat apple cake that would be both delicious and better for me. One that wouldn’t shoot my blood sugar sky high and pack on the pounds.

Healthy Fresh Apple Cake

I found exactly what I was looking for in The Sugar Solution Cookbook: More Than 200 Delicious Recipes to Balance Your Blood Sugar Naturally (Preventions) - a healthy apple cake recipe that strikes a healthy balance between taste and nutrition and is easy to make.

As the book explains, apples are low in calories and full of pectin, a fiber that slows digestion and helps control your blood sugar and lower cholesterol. Of course, you realize that the healthiest way to get your apple-a-day is by eating them whole and unpeeled, which is what I do most of the time. But every fall, for a few days, I opt for a slice of healthy fresh apple cake instead.

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Filed Under: 6 PointsPlus, Cakes, Easy Healthy Tagged With: Apple, Walnut, Whole Grain

Healthy Low Fat Banana Nut Bread Recipe – 4 Points+

By Martha McKinnon 1 Comment

Healthy Low Fat Banana Nut Bread

Here’s my take on healthy low fat banana nut bread.

I love love love all things banana, which becomes quite obvious when you take a look at all the banana recipes I’ve posted here on Simple Nourished Living. I especially love banana nut bread and have tried dozens of different banana bread recipes from simple to complicated through the years.

These days I’m having fun trying to make my favorite foods lighter and healthier and as simple as possible, without sacrificing flavor. Or texture – which can be a real problem when you try to decrease too much fat from baked goods.

This low fat banana bread recipe comes from an unexpected source. Not from my Weight Watchers cookbooks or Ellie Krieger cookbooks, but from my very first cookbook – The Fannie Farmer Cookbook by Marion Cunningham.

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Filed Under: 4 PointsPlus, Breads & Muffins, Breakfast & Brunch Tagged With: Banana, Walnut, Whole Grain

Nana’s Birthday Cake

By Martha McKinnon 2 Comments

Nana’s Maple Walnut Cake

Today my grandmother, who died just two weeks ago, would have turned 94.

For as long as I can remember, my Mom and Nana, whose birthdays are just a day apart, have celebrated them together.

And Mom has been making Nana the same birthday cake since she discovered it at a bake sale more than 50 years ago.

We call it maple walnut cake.

It’s just a boxed white cake mix made according to the package instructions that is embellished with maple extract and chopped walnuts, but Nana loved it and looked forward to it every year.

Nana’s Maple Walnut Cake

So for me this is the cake forever associated with Nana’s birthdays.

More than a decade ago I decided to try to be with Mom and Nana for their March birthdays as often as I could. I’m glad I did.

The years passed quickly and now a family tradition has come to a close.

Although Nana wasn’t here to enjoy her cake today. I made it anyway. The family and friends who have been celebrating with her all these years wanted it; needed it. We are still recovering from our loss. As we adjust to life without her gentle presence we craved the sweetness of her special cake.

Food can be so much more than fuel for our bodies. It can connect us, bridge cultures, carry history, make friends, create community and evoke memories.

Nana’s birthday cake helped to make today a just little sweeter.

Do you have a sweet food memory to share?

Nana’s Birthday Cake

Save Print

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

50 mins

Total time

1 hour

This is simply a white cake mix made according to package directions to which you add maple extract and chopped walnuts and bake in a bundt pan. Years ago someone told Mom that adding 1-2 tablespoons of flour to packaged cake mixes would improve their texture and though I have no idea if it works, I’ve carried on the tradition.

Author: Simple Nourished Living

Recipe type: Dessert

Serves: 20

Ingredients

For the Cake

1 package white cake mix
Ingredients for making the cake as directed on the box
2 tablespoons flour (optional)
1 tablespoon maple extract
1 cup chopped walnuts, plus more for garnish if desired

For the Frosting

¼ cup butter, softened
2 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons maple extract
2 tablespoons milk, plus a little more as needed

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a bundt pan.
Make the cake according to the package directions, adding the maple extract and additional flour if desired. Stir in the nuts. Pour into the prepared bundt pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a rack 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from the pan and allow to cool completely. Frost with maple icing. Sprinkle with chopped nuts if desired.
To make the frosting, put the butter and cream cheese into a very large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until very smooth. Gradually add 2 cups of the powdered sugar and beat well. Add the milk and maple extract and beat well. Gradually beat in the additional cup of sugar. Beat in enough additional milk until the frosting reaches the spreading consistency you desire.

Notes

Nutritional Estimates Per Serving (1/20th) (The results will depend on the brand of cake mix and amount of eggs/oil called for. I used a Duncan Hines white cake mix that called for 3 egg whites, 1 cup water, and ¼ cup oil.) 272 calories, 11.9 g fat, 38.7 g carbs, 0.7 g fiber, 3.3 g protein and 8 Weight Watchers PointsPlus

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Links:
Maple & Walnut Applesauce Cake – Whole Foods
Maple Nut Coffee Cake – Cake Mix Doctor
Maple Walnut Coffee Cake – Miss in the Kitchen
Maple Apple Ginger Cake – Baking Bites
Maple Walnut Blondies – Best Ever Cookie Collection
Whole Wheat Banana Maple Muffins – Vegetarian Family Table
Maple Pecan Bread – Betty Crocker
Maple Cookies – Simply Recipes

You might also enjoy…

Nana’s Crunchy Jumble Cookies
Simple Banana Cake
Lemon Supreme Pound Cake Recipe

Filed Under: 8 PointsPlus, Cakes, Desserts & Sweets, Nana's Old Recipes Tagged With: Maple, Walnut

News & Updates

Pasta Salad with Blue Cheese, Walnuts and Arugula

Mixed Greens with Apples, Irish Cheddar, Dried Cranberries and Toasted Walnuts

Weight Watchers Apple Slaw

{38 Power Foods} Mesclun Salad with Pears and Blue Cheese

{The Recipe Redux} Memorable Vacation Meals – Warm Goat Cheese & Fig Salad

Healthy Harvest Fresh Apple Cake Recipe

Healthy Low Fat Banana Nut Bread Recipe – 4 Points+

Nana’s Birthday Cake

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