One-pot tomato basil pasta

Solve the weeknight dinner dilemma with one-pot tomato basil pasta -- a super-fast, healthy meal that can be made in only 10 minutes.

So, you know by now that my goal is to help you to cut the crap from your diet by showing you how to make easy, delicious, healthy meals and snacks at home. I don't need to beat a dead horse.

(OMG, where the hell does that awful expression come from? I don't even want to google it to find out.)

So, instead of horse beating, I'll just tell you about this one-pot tomato basil pasta recipe.

Yep, you read that correctly: one pot. Because I go completely cray cray over “one-pot” recipes that actually require you to cook the pasta separately. That's two pots, people; I may not love math but I can count to freakin' TWO. Therefore, I swear to you this recipe only involves one pot. Do you own a big pot? Good. Got a stove and 15 minutes? Excellent. That's pretty much all you need to get a wholesome, real-food dinner on the table tonight.

13 amazing strawberry recipes (CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014)

Enjoy this baker's dozen -- 13 -- gorgeous and delicious strawberry recipes: baked goods, beverages, salads and treats, all showcasing ripe, juicy, summertime strawberries.

Yo, peeps! Welcome to Week 5 of the CSA Share Ninja Rescue for 2014, where you tell me each week what produce from your CSA share (or garden or farmers' market) you're struggling to use, and I rescue your butt with a list of awesome and healthy recipes on Tuesdays.

Week 5 = strawberries!

OK, I'll admit it -- this week is a bit of a scammy installment of The Rescue. I mean, come on: we both know that no one is ever at a loss for what to do with strawberries, right?

Just. Eat. Them.

But I thought you might appreciate a baker's dozen of amazingly different and delicious recipes for those ripe, juicy strawberries that are showing up at produce stands, farmer's markets and pick-your-own farms all over (including Vermont, finally!). As usual, all these recipes come from my (and hopefully your) favorite bloggers.

Enjoy your strawberries -- and don't forget to stash some in the freezer for the winter!

Sweet carrot bread

Enjoy this easy, healthy recipe for sweet carrot bread, a perfect snack or breakfast bread. Serve either plain or lightly toasted and topped with a little crunchy, sea-salted butter.

So let's talk cookbooks. Do you still use them? I do -- well, not really. Or sort of. Let me explain.

I don't buy many cookbooks anymore. Historically, I found that I would wind up liking only about six recipes in each 200-plus page book. And those books take up way, way too much real estate for that kind of return on investment.

The exception to this rule is my collection of Cooking Light recipe annuals. Basically, after getting me to subscribe to the magazine for a year, the crafty marketeers at Cooking Light then convinced me to shell out a bunch of money for a book that contains all the recipes from every issue for that year.

(Yes: I just paid for the same content twice.)

For years, I justified it by congratulating myself on all the bookshelf space I was saving by replacing 10 bulky magazines with one simple book. Until I ended up with 10 books. Fail.

Finally, after much agonizing over how it might mess up my recipe-saving system, I just said no to the annuals.

And?

Honestly, it has worked out fine for me because, once I started this blog, recipe variety had to become my new middle name. I rarely make the same recipe twice anymore (with a few exceptions, of course) because I'm always looking for new, healthy-and-delicious recipes to share with all of you . Because, unlike some other bloggers, I blog about what we actually eat around Casa de Ninj: no special blog-only recipes, just our daily fare.

9 healthy recipes for spinach (CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014)

Nine healthy, delicious recipes for using fresh spinach from your garden, CSA share or farmers' market: enjoy spinach for breakfast, lunch, dinner and even in snacks and drinks!

Dudes. It's already Week 4 of the CSA Share Ninja Rescue for 2014. For a month we've been at this -- your telling me each week what produce from your CSA share (or garden or farmers' market) you're struggling to use, followed by my rescuing you with a list of delicious, healthy recipes on Tuesdays.

We have one of my all-time favorite veggies in the spotlight this week: spinach! Oh how I love it in crunchy salads, layered on sandwiches, paired with hot chicken dishes, creamed into dips, whirled up in a smoothie ... you get the idea. If you need some new-to-you recipe ideas for fresh spinach, look no further than these nine healthy, delicious recipes from some of my favorite food bloggers.

Lemon spinach pesto

Quick and easy lemon spinach pesto made with almonds and parmesan cheese -- enjoy on pasta, pizza, crostini and more. And it freezes well, too!

I rarely think about pesto in the winter. Now, I probably should -- the bright colors would certainly cheer up a dreary, gray December day. I mean, remember my hot pink beet pesto? Ha cha cha, now that's a color!

But when summer rolls around? Awwwww yeah, bring on the pesto, baby.

Pesto is so absurdly easy to make, what's not to love? Whirl up a couple handfuls of plentiful herbs or greens along with some good olive oil, nuts and cheese and -- voila! -- you've instantly got the makings of a quick dinner, appetizer, pizza, you name it.

Once you master traditional basil pesto, start thinking outside the box. Again, remember the hot pink beet pesto? Or my caper pesto? That's some good stuff right there, peeps.

Today I'm suggesting spinach pesto. Yes, spinach -- loaded with vitamins and other healthy, good-for-you stuff. You've been cramming it into sweet smoothies for months now (thanks to Detox January), so why not follow the same principle and turn that spinach into some yummy savory pesto?

Why not, indeed.

For this pesto, I teamed healthy spinach with bright lemon, almonds and parmesan cheese. Rich and nutty but with just the right amount of lemony tang. Wicked good stuff.

Chives and radishes: 6 healthy recipes (CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014)

Enjoy six healthy and delicious recipes for all those fresh chives and radishes from your garden, CSA share or farmers' market.

It's Week 3 of the 2014 CSA Share Ninja Rescue, in which you tell me what produce from your CSA share (or garden or farmers' market) you're struggling to use and I rescue you by offering a list of delicious, healthy recipes each Tuesday.

This week, we're tackling two of the most prolific early seasonal arrivals: chives and radishes.

Produce call, week 3 (CSA Share Ninja Rescue)

Time for the weekly call for produce for the 2014 CSA Share Ninja Rescue, a summertime feature in which you can get recipe ideas by request for fresh produce from your CSA share or farmers' market simply by leaving a comment, telling me what produce is giving you fits. Check back on Tuesday for a list of healthy, creative recipes for that produce!

HOLLA! Time for the weekly call for produce for CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014, where you leave a comment, telling me what produce from your CSA share or that you found at the farmers' market has left you clueless, and I will rescue you with some awesome recipes on Tuesday.

Here's the recap so far:

• Week 1: Rhubarb
• Week 2: Grape Leaves and Cabbage 

Alos, don't forget that you can  consult the recipe ideas from the past 3 years of this feature on the CSA Share Ideas page in my recipe index.

So what'll it be for Week 3? Leave a comment: The Ninj wants to know!

10-minute cherry and chicken couscous salad

Pair sweet, ripe cherries with savory grilled chicken and crunchy granola in this summer salad recipe that takes only 10 minutes to prepare. No need to turn on the oven for this easy and healthy weeknight meal salad!

There's a reason you're seeing so many salads showing up lately on food blogs and cooking shows. Well, there are three big reasons:

1) Salads showcase seasonal summer produce.

After a long winter of hot-house tomatoes and root veggies, we go a little cray cray with all the fresh produce at our fingertips from CSA shares, farmer's markets and local produce stands. Tomatoes that taste like tomatoes and not like cardboard? Why yes, I'll eat them with every meal. I'm guilty of adding a salad as the side and vegetable to nearly every dinner I make during the summer -- so fresh, so delicious, so easy.

2) Salads don't require you to turn on the oven.

Done and done. Maybe it's too hot outside ... or maybe you'd just rather be outside. Either way, a meal salad means you don't really have to cook and you can still have a delicious, healthy and satisfying meal. Yeah, how cool is that?

3) Salads are easy to prepare.

Really: Do I need a supporting paragraph here talking about how much we love quick and easy weeknight recipes? No, I didn't think so.

So be prepared to see more summer salads from The Ninj this year. Like this cherry and chicken coucous salad, which meets all the awesome criteria above: it's full of sweet, ripe, summer cherries; you don't have to turn on the oven; and you can make it in 10 minutes.

Yes, you read that correctly: TEN-MINUTE cherry and chicken couscous salad.

Cabbage and grape leaves: 9 recipes (CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2014)

By request, enjoy these five healthy recipes for cabbage and four unique recipes for grape leaves (yes, you can eat them in dishes other than stuffed dolmas!).

Yo yo yo! It's Week 2 of the 2014 edition of the CSA Share Ninja Rescue, a weekly summertime feature in which you tell me via blog comments on Fridays what veg you received (or will be receiving) in your CSA share box or found at the farmers' market that you don't know what to do with and I'll give you a whole bunch of recipe ideas on the following Tuesday.

By request, we've got two less popular leafy greens to tackle this week: cabbage (very ubiquitous) and grape leaves (less ubiquitous) -- and, specifically, recipes for grape leaves OTHER THAN stuffed grape leaves.