Cream Cheese Pesto Toasts with Sliced Tomatoes and Onions

Here's another one from memory:

French Bread sliced thin
softened cream cheese
prepared pesto
sliced tomato
thinly sliced red onion
salt and pepper

Spread a layer of cream cheese on the french bread slice. Spread pesto over cream cheese, top with alternating slices of tomato and red onion. Sprinkle with salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Spiced Rub Pork Tenderloin with Mango Sambel and Zucchini Pancakes

What would you do with a Mango and some Zucchini? At the Early Household we make Spice Rubbed Pork Tenderloin with Mango Sambal and Zucchini Pancakes! We went the first five years of our marriage never eating pork because we didn't know how to cook it and it always seemed too dry. Over the past year, we've started to learn new ways to prepare it and are beginning to appreciate this very tasty OTHER white meat. We're particularly fond of tenderloin with it being both lean and affordable. The meat responds so well to a variety of spices particularly in shades of red and brown such as Paprika, Chipotle, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Cummin, and 5 Spice Chinese Powder. It also lends itself extremely well to fruit salsas, chutneys, and tapenades. This particular recipe includes a Mango Sambal (traditionally a Malaysian paste like condiment made with Chiles - I had to look it up). In this case the sambal acts like a salsa incorporating fresh diced Mango, Rice Vinegar, sugar, fish sauce, and serrano chiles for a bit of heat. It pairs amazingly well with the southern style spice rub made up of brown sugar, chile powder, paprika, cumin, salt, onion powder, dried thyme, and garlic powder. Delicious! Additionally, as a cooking light recipe, if you adhere to the recommended portion sizes it's only 208 calories! For a full printout of the recipe, please visit http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=356645.

While Don worked on the pork dish, I undertook the Zucchini Pancakes. Here we have another awesome Ina Garten recipe from the Food Network. Talk about a great way to use up an abundant harvest of zucchini. These make a great side dish. Think of these little cakes as a great substitute any time you would think to serve cornbread with a meal. They're just as tasty (even better in my opinion) and have far more nutritional value in them then a box of starch. Eggs, Flour and Baking Powder bind together the freshly grated Zucchini and Red Onion, just like a traditional pancake. These could be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner and they toasted up quite well the next day so they make even better leftovers than stale cornbread. For a full printout of the recipe, please visit http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/zucchini-pancakes-recipe/index.html.

Split Pea Soup with Rosemary and Pear and Walnut Muffins

It wasn't your traditional Easter dinner, but it had Don and I salivating nonetheless. We opted for homemade Split Pea Soup and made from scratch Pear and Walnut Muffins. I'm a great fan of Split Pea Soup and it couldn't be easier to make. Not to mention it's quite economical. The primary ingredients are the split peas (obviously), carrots, onions, and stock. The variations come with the seasonings. Ground Sage and a dash of cayenne pepper for kick are quite typical. This recipe from Cooking Light called Split Pea Soup with Rosemary, attracted me for it's interesting and unusual flavor components such as rosemary, paprika, tomato paste and soy sauce. We also added our own touch by substituting our homemade chicken stock for vegetable broth, and added about a half a cup of diced canadian bacon to the mix which gave it an excellent salty and smokey edge. Instead of garnishing with sour cream, Don and I prefer the tastier and healthier option of plain yogurt. For a complete printout of the recipe, please visit http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=225609.

The Pear and Walnut Muffins were also quite a treat. While we cook a lot in this household, we don't seem to get as excited about baking. The leftover fruit from our weekly Dandelion deliveries, however, is starting to challenge me to think of new ways to enjoy nature's sweet treats. So with the abundance of pears I had in my fridge, and realizing I can't make cobbler every week, I decided to try these low calorie muffins, also a Cooking Light Recipe. Instead of using tons of butter and oil, the recipe calls for a cup of plain lowfat yogurt for the primary wet ingredient and incorporates both white and wheat flour making it delicious and satisfying. Please visit http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1142032 for a copy of the full recipe.