(10 seconds each to read and are almost that quick to prepare)
By Lisa Messinger
Food and Cooking at Creators Syndicate
All growls and scowls concerning food preparation usually fade away during warm-weather grilling season. Barbecuing cuts time and ups health benefits (as fat drips away when meats cook). Of course, it's fun, too, frolicking outside with friends and family. Often that distraction takes away the incentive for healthful side dishes that are instead replaced with bowls of potato chips and store-bought fatty salads, like potato and coleslaw. Ten-second solutions abound, though. It takes just moments from sunning and funning to grow your grilling menu repertoire with tempters, like angus-veal burgers stuffed with a treasure chest of surprises, a grilled salad whose dressing is even warmed, too, and toasty barbecued pound cake outfitted with melting lemon sorbet and fresh strawberry sauce.
Food preparation at any time of year can be easy, nutritious, inexpensive, fun - and fast - as the following split-second sensations prove. They take just
10 seconds each to read and are almost that quick to prepare. The dishes are delicious proof that everyone has time for tasty home cooking and, more importantly, the healthy family togetherness that goes along with it! Another benefit: You effortlessly become a better cook, since
there are no right or wrong amounts. These are virtually-can't-go-wrong combinations, so whatever you choose to use can't help but draw "wows" whether inside your kitchen or outside on your patio.
APPETIZERS
Mini Pizzas with Maxi Pizzazz
Place store-bought appetizer-size frozen pizzas on grill and grill a mixture of sliced fresh vegetables in aluminum foil at the same time. Carefully add the vegetables for last minute of grilling atop the pizzas and sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and crushed dried red pepper.
Sassy Salad
Prepare and toss a multi-vegetable salad, place in a grill basket, sprinkle lightly with barbecue rub for seasoning and heat on grill for 2 minutes, or until vegetables are warm. Also slightly warm vinaigrette dressing on the grill, either in a small grill-safe container or in a sturdy "bowl" you prepare from aluminum foil.
SIDE DISHES
Cobble This Creative Corn
Grill corn on the cob and roll in a mixture of room temperature honey butter that will become warmed by the corn. Sprinkle the rolled corn lightly with cayenne pepper and curry powder. .
Potato Salad to Warm Your Soul
Cut red potatoes into quarters and wrap in aluminum foil along with sliced red onion, green bell pepper, celery and fresh cilantro. Mix with low-fat mayonnaise, lemon-pepper salt substitute, and dried rosemary and grill until potatoes are cooked.
GRILLED MEALS
Better Burgers
Prepare patties with a combination of ground angus beef and ground veal. Make a well in the middle and fill with feta cheese, diced red onions, diced mushrooms, freshly ground black pepper and cover well with ground meat on top. Brush burgers with Worcestershire sauce before grilling.
Graffiti Chicken
Before grilling brush chicken with a mixture of honey mustard, chili sauce, maple syrup and apple cider. At end of grilling top with thinly sliced ham, muenster cheese and a drizzle of maple syrup until cheese melts.
DESSERTS
Toasted Marshmallow Fruit Tempters
On a grill-safe tray or aluminum foil, grill peeled slices of oranges, kiwi and grapefruit. Toast marshmallows until blackened (or just heat if there are not flames) and serve gooey warm marshmallows over fruit.
Pounds of Icy-Hot Perfection
Grill slices of pound cake on both sides until toasty. On plates, top the warm cake with lemon sorbet and strawberries you have pureed into a sauce in the blender.
QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK: Keeping a food journal that tracks what you eat and chronicles calories and nutrients is highly prized by nutritionists as one of the best ways to lose weight and keep it off. Four registered dietitian authors go over the benefits in detail in introductory chapters and provide you with a convenient 10-week log in "Bite It & Write It: A Guide to Keeping Track of What You Eat & Drink" (Square One, $7.95). An additional benefit I've developed: Turning my food journal into an easy and time-saving cookbook of sorts. Since each morsel is tracked, when I create a split-second recipe it's all there in black-and-white and calorie counts. I then mark it with a highlighter and place a post-it stickie atop the page with a shorthand name for the recipe to find it easily again.
Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food and nutrition writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the National Council Against Health Fraud and author of seven food books, including the best-selling The Tofu Book: The New American Cuisine with 150 Recipes (Avery/Penguin Putnam) and Turn Your Supermarket into a Health Food Store: The Brand-Name Guide to Shopping for a Better Diet (Pharos/Scripps Howard). She writes two nationally syndicated food and nutrition columns for Creators Syndicate and had been a longtime newspaper food and health section managing editor, as well as managing editor of Gayot/Gault Millau dining review company. Lisa traveled the globe writing about top chefs for Pulitzer Prize-winning Copley News Service and has written about health and nutrition for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Reader's Digest, Woman's World and Prevention Magazine Health Books. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.
