For pregnant women - quick and easy recipes - page 4

Most people don’t try making hollandaise sauce at home because the classic method requires a water bath and constant attention to ensure a perfectly textured sauce. In this fast and easy version, we use a blender to emulsify butter and egg yolks into a perfectly smooth sauce with a hint of brightness from lemon juice. Use it for classic eggs Benedict, or drizzle it over broiled fish or steamed veggies. Pick a great new blender to make this sauce and everything else you want smooth.

A combination of sugar, water, and strawberries cooked together, cooled, and strained. Use this sweet, fruity syrup in cocktails, desserts, or bubbly sodas.

With cabbage, carrots, radishes, and herbs, this slaw is as colorful as it is flavorful. It’s a great make-ahead dish, since the flavor develops as it sits; just be sure to give it a quick stir before you serve.

This salad is a great way to use up leftover or slightly stale bread. The original is typically made with red wine vinegar and the saltless bread found throughout Tuscany. Our version has a light lemon vinaigrette and cucumbers for an added dimension and some crunch. What to buy: Pull out your best extra-virgin olive oil for this recipe, as the quality becomes apparent after the first bite.

This tasty cucumber salad recipe combines honeydew, cucumber, and feta cheese in a garlic, lemon, pepper dressing to create an amazing salad. While honeydew is usually the backbone of fruit salads, it can also shine in savory recipes, like this one with crunchy cucumber, feta cheese, and mint. The lemon-and–olive oil dressing has lots of black pepper to temper the flavour of the melon.

This basic cream cheese frosting recipe is really easy to remember: Just beat together 2 sticks of butter, 2 packages of cream cheese, 2 cups of powdered sugar, and a splash of vanilla extract. It has just the right balance of sweetness and tang, so you can spread it on almost any sweet, from pumpkin cupcakes to ginger cake, or sandwich some between oatmeal cookies. Game plan: Refrigerate the frosting in a zip-top bag or an airtight container with a tightfitting lid for up to 4 days.

Rémoulade is essentially a homemade mayonnaise loaded with flavor. The sauce was originally created in France, but we put a Creole spin on it with the addition of Louisiana-style hot sauce, Worcestershire, and bell pepper. Though it’s normally served with fried-fish dishes such as our Cornmeal Fried Catfish, we also like it with boiled shrimp or mixed into a potato salad. What to buy: Have all the ingredients at room temperature before you start—the rémoulade will come together better.

I grew up eating a version of this dip made with only dried dill weed, and though it tasted pretty good, I like the addition of some fresh dill and a little parsley as well. The dip needs to hang out in the fridge for a couple hours for the flavors to blend, so this is an ideal recipe to make ahead for a party. Serve alongside some Long Island Iced Tea for an impressive party spread.

This creamy, comforting dessert takes hardly any time to assemble and can be left to cook unattended while you prepare, eat, and clean up after a dinner party. Just stir rice, milk, and sugar together in a slow cooker coated with butter and turn it on high. By the time the dinner dishes are cleared and folks are poking around for something sweet, dessert will be ready. Just before serving, stir in brown sugar, raisins, vanilla, cinnamon, and more milk to bump up the creaminess.

Two summer veggies combine for a light, healthy summer salad. Mix up a simple vinaigrette made with fresh lemon juice, olive oil, and shallots. Pour it over crisp blanched green beans and sweet halved cherry tomatoes, stir in some parsley, and serve with Grilled Rib Steaks, Grilled Salmon, a Leg of Lamb, or a Whole Grilled Bass. Game plan: This salad can be made up to 2 hours ahead, covered, and refrigerated. Toss briefly to recombine the flavors just prior to serving.

This recipe is a great way to use up leftover Thanksgiving turkey when you just can’t eat another turkey-and-gravy sandwich. Mix diced turkey with tart apples, sweet grapes, creamy mayo, and crunchy walnuts and celery. Serve for lunch atop leaves of butter lettuce, or stuff it into delicate French pastry shells as an elegant appetizer.

This chocolate cake recipe is delicious. We love a buttery and dense pound cake, but we thought a chocolate version would be even better so we folded lots of dark cocoa into the batter to give it a deep chocolate flavor. After the cake is baked and cooled, it’s drizzled with a chocolate glaze made from semisweet chocolate, cream, and a bit of corn syrup to keep the glaze gooey and shiny.

To get cheese to stick to popcorn, you need melted butter. The problem is, the melted butter makes the popcorn soggy. To solve this, we drizzle popcorn with some spicy butter, coat it with lots of finely grated Pecorino Romano cheese, then bake it in the oven for half an hour. The cheese melts and the popcorn gets crispy again. Serve this savory snack for happy hour with a mezcal–apple cider cocktail to wash it down.

A tangy, slightly sweet marinade of lemon, soy sauce, brown sugar, and ginger adds sparkle to salmon, and asparagus balances the richness. Pack up these kebabs for a summer cookout, or grill them on the back deck for a casual but stepped-up dinner party. Wild salmon in season is leaner than the farmed variety, and friendlier to the oceans.

Salt and pepper are classic corn toppings, but with the simple addition of nori (dried seaweed), dried orange peel, ground red chile pepper, black and white sesame seeds, and garlic, this common seasoning combination turns into the ultimate umami mix. Togarashi is a small Japanese red chile that can be found in both dried and fresh forms ranging from flakes to powder, and it is often associated with packaged chile-related Japanese spices.

Basic butter gets upgraded thanks to fresh basil and flaky sea salt. Generously spread this butter on corn for a simple yet sophisticated dish that truly epitomizes summer. Make a double batch and store it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks—it’s great spread on toast or tossed with farro.