Tasty Recipes from Recipe Wizards

Prep time: 25 minutes

Serves 4

This comes from Raley’s Web site, www.raleys.com.

INGREDIENTS

one 10-ounce bag oriental salad mix

1 1/2 cups chopped, fully cooked rotisserie chicken meat, chilled

1/2 cup diced mandarin oranges

1/4 cup sliced green onion

1/4 cup Chinese chicken salad dressing

4 burrito-size flour tortillas

INSTRUCTIONS

Toss together all ingredients except tortillas in a medium bowl. Place equal amounts in the center of each tortilla. Fold up the bottom and sides to enclose.

Note: For a lower-carb option, forgo the tortillas and serve this as a salad sprinkled with toasted slivered almonds.

Per serving: 400 cal.; 23 g pro.; 48 g carb.; 12 g fat (2.5 sat.); 45 mg chol.; 550 mg sod.; 3 g fiber; 8 g sugar; 27 percent calories from fat.

Prep time: 25 minutes

Serves 4

This comes from Raley’s Web site, www.raleys.com.

INGREDIENTS

one 10-ounce bag oriental salad mix

1 1/2 cups chopped, fully cooked rotisserie chicken meat, chilled

1/2 cup diced mandarin oranges

1/4 cup sliced green onion

1/4 cup Chinese chicken salad dressing

4 burrito-size flour tortillas

INSTRUCTIONS

Toss together all ingredients except tortillas in a medium bowl. Place equal amounts in the center of each tortilla. Fold up the bottom and sides to enclose.

Note: For a lower-carb option, forgo the tortillas and serve this as a salad sprinkled with toasted slivered almonds.

Per serving: 400 cal.; 23 g pro.; 48 g carb.; 12 g fat (2.5 sat.); 45 mg chol.; 550 mg sod.; 3 g fiber; 8 g sugar; 27 percent calories from fat.

Salad, especially dressing

I was wondering if anyone had the recipe for Tower Café’s Chinese chicken salad. I’m especially interested in the dressing. My husband would eat this every day if he could, but we just don’t get to the area very often. Thanks so much.

– Julie Hood, Citrus Heights

Appetizer made impression

I recently came up to the Sacramento area to celebrate my mom’s birthday. We had a wonderful dinner at Latitudes restaurant in Auburn, a restaurant we frequent for birthday dinners.

We had a lovely meal, but one dish stood out among the rest, the appetizer risotto-stuffed peppers. It consisted of a roasted red bell pepper filled with a mushroom-and-cheese risotto, topped with a tomato-garlic sauce. I would love to have this recipe, or one similar, so I can re-create the dish at home. Thank you.

– Melissa Miller,

Mountain View

So good, but lost

Does anyone have the recipe for “Italarina”? I lost it about 30 years ago. It was a casserole dish that included noodles, ground beef, corn and Tillamook cheese. I found it in a Roseburg, Ore., newspaper.

– Eloise Rubio, Turlock

Jack-o’-lantern cake

Prep time: 1 hour, 10 minutes

Cook time: 50 minutes for each cake

Serves 30

Judy Burghard of Roseville has been searching for years for one of her favorite recipes, a pumpkin cake that looks like a pumpkin. This magazine recipe called for canned pumpkin, had a cream cheese filling and orange frosting. She’s had no luck in tracking it down.

Pat Stewart of Rancho Cordova shares this recipe she found in a magazine. It sounds like a match for Burghard. This would be a fun treat to serve at a Halloween party – one for kids or adults.

Note: The list of ingredients is for two Bundt cakes. Use half of the listed amounts for each cake. The prep time does not include the cool times for the cakes.

INGREDIENTS

4 cups flour

1 cup sugar

4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

3 teaspoons baking soda

1½ teaspoons baking powder

6 large eggs

1 1/3 cups salad oil

4 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 30-ounce can pumpkin pie mix (not solid-pack pumpkin)

2 cups chopped walnuts

2 16-ounce containers cream cheese frosting

Food coloring

1/3 unpeeled banana

1 cherry fruit roll

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray a 10-inch Bundt pan thoroughly with nonstick cooking spray. In a large bowl, sift together 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice, 1½ teaspoons baking soda and 3/4 teaspoon baking powder.

In a small bowl, mix 3 eggs, 2/3 cup oil and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Stir egg mixture, 1½ cups pumpkin pie mix and 1 cup walnuts into flour mixture. Spread batter in pan. Bake about 50 minutes. Cool cake in pan for 10 minutes. Remove cake from pan, cool completely. Repeat this process for second cake using the remaining ingredients.

Spoon 1/3 cup cream cheese frosting into a cup. Tint green for stem. Tint remaining frosting orange for pumpkin. Set aside.

Cut a 1/2-inch thick slice off the bottom (not fluted side) of each cake to make it flat. Discard this slice or save for another use. Place one cake, fluted side down, on a plate. Spread cut side with 3/4 cup orange frosting. Top with second cake, fluted side up. Fill in hole with foil-covered cardboard round as base for stem.

Frost cakes with remaining orange frosting. Place banana on cake for stem. Frost “stem” with green frosting. From fruit roll, cut out jack-o’-lantern’s eyes, nose and mouth. Stick in place.

Per serving: 397 cal.; 5g pro.; 49g carb.; 21g fat (4 sat., 7 monounsat., 10 polyunsat.); 42mg chol.; 283mg sod.; 3g fiber; 25g sugar; 46 percent calories from fat.

Kathy Huschka loves Chinese chicken salad, but she wanted to lighten up her recipe for it.

“The dressing scares me. Can you slim it down?” she wrote me. “Half a cup of oil sounds like so much.”

I started by adding more vinegar to the dressing and reducing the amount of oil. Baking the chicken with some soy sauce and a bit of toasted sesame oil pumps up the salad’s flavor so that the dressing doesn’t need a lot of oil. I also substituted Splenda for the sugar and cut out the extra teaspoon of salt because the chicken seasoning packet comes loaded with sodium already.

Many Chinese chicken salads include a generous amount of almonds for extra crunch, but I use some shredded carrot instead to cut hundreds of calories and more than 50 fat grams from this recipe.

My alterations to Huschka’s dressing cut the calories by 63 percent and the fat by 68 percent.

You can have a serving of my Chinese chicken salad for 314 calories and 11.4 grams of fat.

KATHY’S CHINESE CHICKEN SALAD

For salad:

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts

1/2 head Napa cabbage, thinly sliced

1/4 head red cabbage, thinly sliced

1 large carrot, shredded

3 scallions, thinly sliced

1 (11-ounce) can mandarin oranges packed in water, drained

For dressing:

1 packet chicken seasoning from package of ramen noodles

2 tablespoons Splenda

1/2 cup white vinegar

3 tablespoons canola oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine soy sauce with sesame oil and brush onto chicken breasts.

Arrange chicken breasts in a glass dish and bake until juices run clear, about 15 minutes. Remove chicken from oven, cool completely and cut into \-inch slices.

In a large bowl, combine cabbage, carrot, scallions, mandarin oranges and chicken. In a small bowl, whisk together chicken seasoning, Splenda, vinegar and canola oil. Pour dressing over salad and toss to combine. Divide evenly among four bowls.

Serves 4.

Per serving: 314 calories, 750 mg sodium, 11.4 fat grams, 69 mg cholesterol, 30 g protein, 18 carb grams, 3.3 fiber grams

I’LL SLIM IT DOWN FOR YOU

Do you have a favorite food or popular recipe that you’d like to see made healthier? Send your ideas and recipes to me at:

dontsaydiet@gmail.com or

Don’t Say Diet

P.O. Box 780865

Wichita, KS 67278