Last weekend, we cooked dinner with our friends Angela and Enoch (who Kevin ran against in High School, and who is now training for the 2016 Olympic Trials – check out his awesome Facebook page here!) … and lucky for you, we came up with some great recipes! 

As we were chatting and cooking, we munched on veggies and tortilla chips with Homemade Basil Hummus and a Veggie-Loaded Guacamole.  For the main meal, we had a Lemon-Dill Broiled Salmon, Summery Squash and Zucchini “Pasta,” roasted asparagus and Brussels sprouts, and a Sweet and Savory Orange-Soy Quinoa.  We finished it off with a Healthy Peach Oatmeal Cake (and some vanilla ice cream).  Hey, with four hungry (but healthy) runners – what did you expect?  We needed a lot of food! 

For today’s Foodie Friday post, I’ll share recipes for the Basil Hummus and the Sweet and Savory Orange-Soy Quinoa (plus tell you how to make the zucchini “pasta” if you have a spiralizer)!  Since I’m out of town this weekend and won’t get the chance to cook (and also to avoid a monster post), I’ll save the Veggie-Loaded Guacamole, Angela and Enoch’s salmon, and Healthy Peach Oatmeal cake for next week’s Foodie Friday post.

Homemade Basil Hummus

Even though I followed my best tips for cooking for a group and had a schedule all laid out, I was still making the Basil Hummus when our guests arrived, and generally prioritized socializing over taking photos.  I’ll get the hang of this someday, but for now, I hope you’ll enjoy the recipes – even without step-by-step photos.

Serves 8 (while I calculated the nutritional information for 8 servings, these would be very large portions – the 4 of us came nowhere near eating ½ of the dish)

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup dry chickpeas (or 1.5 cups of canned chickpeas, which should be about a can)
• ¼ cup basil leaves (I used freshly-picked from my garden!)
• 2 cups “power greens” (or spinach)
• 1T lemon juice
• 1T olive oil
• 1T tahini (tahini is a nut butter made from sunflower seeds, and it’s very common in hummus recipes … you can find it in many grocery stores, especially higher end stores or health food stores)
• 1T water
• 1t minced garlic

Instructions

1. If using dried chickpeas, soak them overnight in about double the amount of water as chickpeas.  While I usually rely on canned beans, if you can find time to soak and boil them, dried are a great alternative – they’re very cheap, and a bit healthier (less sodium, no preservatives, no worries about BPA or any other canning byproducts)
2. If using dried chickpeas, boil them for 20 minutes.  Skim foam off top and drain.
3. Place all ingredients (including your drained chickpeas, from a can or rehydrated) in blender and blend until smooth.  You may have to continue adding water to get it to process.  I probably added another 1-2T of water to get it going, and it was still quite chunky.
4. Serve with veggies, tortilla chips, or pita chips.

If made according to these instructions with 8 (large) servings, each serving of Homemade Basil Hummus has 83 calories, 4g fat, 10g carbs, and 4g protein.

Sweet and Savory Orange-Soy Quinoa

This light and delicious quinoa mixture made a perfect accompaniment to a lemony salmon filet.  I also reserved some of the sauce as a marinade for Kevin’s chicken (I’ve gotten him so far on the seafood bandwagon, but he still doesn’t enjoy salmon), and that turned out great as well!

Serves 6

Ingredients

• 1 cup dry quinoa
• 4 baby bok choy
• ½ yellow onion
• 1t olive oil
• 5T low-sodium soy sauce
• 5T orange juice (I used Trop50 low sugar)
• 1T minced ginger
• 1t agave nectar
• ½ cup edamame (shelled)
• ½ cup corn

Instructions

1. Cook quinoa according to package instructions and set aside.
2. Chop onion and bok choy, sprinkle with salt, and saute in 1t olive oil.
3. Once onion and bok choy are soft, add in quinoa, edamame, and corn.  Saute another 3-5 minutes.
4. Whisk soy sauce, orange juice, ginger, garlic, and agave in small bowl.  Pour over quinoa and vegetable mixture, stir, and serve. 

If made according to these instructions with 6 servings, each serving of  Sweet and Savory Orange-Soy Quinoa has 175 calories, 3g fat, 30g carbs, and 8g protein.

Summery Squash and Zucchini Pasta

This light and summery alternative is a great way to add veggies to your plate in a fun way.  If you don’t want the lemon-parmesan flavoring, I recommend tomato or marinara sauce on top!

1. If you have a spiralizer, cut the ends off of 5-6 small squash or zucchini, and spiralize completely.  Look at Angela go!  If you don’t have a spiralizer, I wonder if you could cut into small matchsticks or even use a thicker setting on a hand grater … any thoughts?
2. Drop your raw zucchini and squash spirals into a pot of boiling water, and boil for 5-7 minutes.
3. Remove from heat, drain, and top with about 3T lemon juice, 4T shaved parmesan, 1-2t rosemary, and salt and pepper to taste.

As you can tell, this is hardly a recipe, and I didn’t measure much here.  My best guess is that, for 4 servings, this would run you about 55 calories, 1g fat, 7g carbs, and 3g protein per serving.

All together, it was a delicious meal.  Stay tuned for the three remaining recipes from this dinner in next week’s Foodie Friday post!

So tell me in the comments … Have you made any healthy recipes lately?  Feel free to link up if you’d like!