12 April 2010

Join our Virtual Cooking Light Supper Club with 5 Ingredients or Less

Strawberries with Balsamic Vinegar

We are so glad that you have decided to join us once again for our Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club. This is a monthly event where 5 ladies in two neighbouring countries get together to create a delicious meal with a theme in mind. We all share a love for Cooking Light magazine which has an emphasis on healthy eating and living. Each issue covers light cuisine and includes more than 70 delicious and flavourful recipes. The idea is simple because we all share a common interest in cooking and healthy eating. We love to share these ideas with you each and every month through our Virtual Supper Club. This is a team effort where we combine what Cooking Light readers like best...good food with great company!!!Please join us over at their blog Test Kitchen Secrets in a few days.



For the month of April we enjoyed each others company virtually and continued with our healthy themes with a menu using 5 INGREDIENTS OR LESS. We were up for the challenge and created what we consider a delicious and healthy menu from the pages of Cooking Light magazine. This Strawberries with Balsamic Vinegar recipe is simplicity personified and well worth trying over and over again as I have in the past month.

In today's world everyone seems to be in a hurry. It's no wonder we stop off at fast food restaurants for supper. If you sometimes struggle to come up with a varied weekly menu for your family, for whatever reason, the good news is you don’t need a pantry full of exotic ingredients to create something delicious. With just a few ingredients on hand you really can create something pretty special and not break the bank.

This months theme proves that delicious dishes only need five ingredients or fewer to make cooking easier, faster and down right irresistible. Using few ingredients enhances the natural flavours of fresh carefully-selected ingredients to illustrate the belief that each ingredient should truly stand out in a recipe. This straightforward cooking style promotes healthy, seasonal eating as well as stress-free shopping. We can minimize fuss and maximize taste to achieve mouth-watering meals in no time!


This month Shelby of The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch started us off with a mind-blowing appetizer of  Chili Lime Shrimp. Adding to our healthy menu Aggie of Aggies Kitchen cooked up a colourful and flavourful side dish of Spinach with Chili Oil.  For finesse Jamie of Mom's Cooking Club wowed us with our main attraction... tender and flavourful Sherried Pineapple Pork Tenderloin.  Helene of La Cuisine d'Helene was unable to make it this month since she is tied up with moving across the country. She was going to make Barbecue-Stuffed Potatoes which made a delicious addition to our menu. To end our meal I chose Strawberries with Balsamic Vinegar as pictured above. They were the perfect ending to our meal paired with some vanilla bean frozen yogurt. And hey there were only 3 ingredients so how easy is that!!! I used a Blackberry Balsamic Vinegar with Pear from Made in the Napa Valley I received as part of my loot bag at the Foodbuzz Festival in San Francisco last fall.

Spring is definitely not a good time to be cooped up in the kitchen, so these recipes from Cooking Light magazine enable you to get delicious suppers on the table FAST. Each recipe offered by our group above uses no more than five ingredients and requires your attention for 25 minutes or less. The dishes are no fuss... but with lots of flavour. These simple recipes let you downsize your shopping lists, leaving you more money to spend on what really matters to you. For busy home cooks, getting a meal on the table quickly, and with few ingredients, means more time with their family and less time spent in the grocery aisles.

Would you like to join in? Based on this months theme,  create a dish from the pages of Cooking Light magazine and post your recipe on your blog; then comment with your link to your post on  the Cooking Light blog Test Kitchen Secrets once they do the write-up which is usually the following week.
Our theme next month will be Mothers Day Brunch. Post your recipe on your own blog on/or around the second Wednesday of each month if you would like to join in and then comment on the Cooking Light blog post when it has been written.

You are reading this post on More Than Burnt Toast at http://morethanburnttoast.blogspot.com. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to the author/owner of More Than Burnt Toast. All rights reserved by Valerie Harrison.
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20 comments:

  1. Val,
    A wonderful post. You said it perfectly about our busy lifestyles but still be able to put good tasting and fresh food on the table with few ingredients. Your strawberries and balsamic vinegar are a perfect way to end a meal. I can't wait to try this quick dessert myself.

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  2. What a great way to enjoy strawberries Val! Great pick!

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  3. Absolutely gorgeous photo Val! Thanks for the great dessert!

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  4. One of my favorite treats is fresh Strawberries with some wonderful aged Balsamic Vinegar. You picked the perfect dessert.

    I joined in with a plate of roasted asparagus with browned balsamic butter...Thanks for letting me play along!

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  5. Strawberries and Balsamic are a match made in heaven. Great post
    xoxo Pattie

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  6. Vall, lovely post, now I envy your strawberries, really lovely pictures, huggs gloria

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  7. 5 ingredients or less: does this include salt and pepper, water and olive oil? if i could use those three with up to 5 more ingredients, i think i would be able to think up a few good meals!

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  8. A few ingredients but a perfect match!

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  9. Balsamic and strawberries are such a classic combo! Thanks for showing the world that healthy food can be easy to prepare AND delicious!

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  10. Too many recipe these days suffer from ingredient overkill. I see recipes on the Food Network that have up to 20 ingredients. It's nice too see folks paring it down adn keeping it simpler.

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  11. mmm...i love me some balsamic-ized berries. lovely images, and hooray for spring!

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  12. Two of the three strawberry stands (yeah, right next to their own strawberry fields) opened this week. Time for a bit of your strawberry and balsamic heavan!

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  13. I enjoy Cooking Light magazine and all of the inspirational ways to make recipes more healthy. It's nice to see you dedicating part of your blog to this! Strawberries are not in season yet, but will be soon, so I'll have to give this a try! Roz

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  14. These are great recipes. Why make things complicated when simplicity tastes so good? Strawberries with Balsamic Vinegar just cant' be beat.

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  15. I do love Strawberies with good Balsmaic Vinegar...that some aged Parmigiano-Reggiano and I am in Heaven!!
    I am still new at this blogging thing and just so happy to have found BloggerAid.....anything we can do to help is a start.

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  16. Great recipe Val and your photo captures the essence of Spring. Love this time of year.

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  17. Your photograph is a stunner and looks like it came from the pages of a magazine. It sounds like you all have pulled off another feast. I hope you are having a wonderful day. Blessings...Mary

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  18. Who doesn't love quick and easy cooking? And light! I just made a light, low fat quick Tiramisu and it is similar to this delicious strawberry dessert you have made. Wonderful and refreshing. All of these recipes look fabulous! And the fewer the ingredients means more care in choosing extra good quality, fresh ingredients and tasting each one in the dish.

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  19. Very cool idea--a virtual supper club! I'm drooling over the idea of fresh strawberries w/balsamic vinegar :>).

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  20. This looks delicious Val. I wish we had a chance to meet each other before I move. Hope to be able to join you girls soon for the Virtual Club.

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Welcome to my home. Thank you for choosing to stay a while and for sharing our lives through food. I appreciate all your support, comments, suggestions, and daily encouragement.

Val

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