Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast

This week I’m taking a look at Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast, one of several impulse Costco purchases I’ve made over the years. This book focus on simple (5-ingredient) quick recipes. It covers a while range of dishes: soups, salads, meats, poultry, etc… Some of the recipes include prepared ingredients (like canned tomatoes) which some might question but which doesn’t bother me. These recipes are more for weeknight dinners than for having company over.

May’s a crazy month for us. It includes Nathan (and my dad)’s birthdays, Mother’s Day, and our wedding anniversary (9 years this week!).

I wanted to make something a little special for dinner so I used this steak recipe. There was a bit of um, shall we say scope creep? The recipe called for 4 oz tenderloin steaks but the market was having a crazy sale on ribeyes so N’s dinner ended up looking like this (mine was smaller):

So it was fresh and fast but not so light. However, the flavor of the sauce was really good. And I’m officially in love with the salads we had with it: iceberg wedges with blue cheese dressing and dried cranberries and candied walnuts. Crunchy and fresh–yes, super healthy–eh, no.

Beef Tenderloin Steaks with Red Wine-Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

• 4 (4-ounce) beef tenderloin steaks, trimmed (about 1/2 inch thick)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• butter-flavored cooking spray
• 1 (8-ounce) package presliced baby portobello mushrooms
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 2 tablespoons better
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary

Instructions
Heat a large nonstick skiller over med-high heat. Season steaks with salt and pepper. Coat with cooking spray. Add steaks to pan: cook 3 min or each side or until they reach your preferred degree of doneness. Move steaks to a serving platter and keep warm.

Add mushrooms to same pan. Coat mushrooms with cooking spray, saute 3 min or until browned. Stir in wine, scraping pan to loose browned bits. Cook until the liquid is almost all evaporated. Remove from heat and add butter and rosemary. Stir until butter melts. Pour sauce over steaks and serve.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size 1 steak and 1/4 c sauce)

The Verdict:
3 out of 5 stars. This is a decent weeknight-dinner type of cookbook. Clear directions paired with recipes that use mostly fresh, easy-to-find ingredients make this book good for singles or couples that want to be able to put dinner on the table quickly and have enough leftovers for lunch the next day. Detailed nutritional info is included so you can figure out your points if you’re doing Weight Watchers. However, most recipes make 4 servings so it’s not really geared towards families with several kids.

Overall, I like this book. Recipes from it will probably make it into our regular dinner rotation (once we set up a regular rotation).