Healthy & Green on the Cheap

Grilled Salmon with Roasted Red Pepper Potato Puree

2011-03-18T17:32:00.000-07:00

My poor, neglected blog! I have a pile of recipes waiting to be posted, if ever I have the time! This one I came up with tonight, and just loved it, so I'm making the time to post it, damn it! I apologize for the lack of picture. It was really a very pretty plate!

Grilled Salmon with Roasted Red Pepper Potato Puree
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 pounds russet or yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 red bell peppers, cored and cubed
1 large bulb fennel, cored and chopped
2 Tbsps. extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper, to taste
2 Tbsps. safflower oil
6 6 oz. fillets of skinless
1/4 - 1/2 cup milk or hemp milk
2 Tbsps. butter or Earth Balance stick

Preheat oven to 425F. Combine the garlic, potatoes, peppers, and fennel in a 13 x 9 baking dish. Toss with oil, salt and pepper. Cover with foil, and roast in the oven for 50-60 minutes, stirring twice along the way.

When the vegetables are nearly done, pre-heat a large cast iron grill pan (the kind that goes over two burners) or your outdoor grill. Once hot, add the safflower oil to the grill to keep from sticking. Season the salmon fillets with salt and pepper, and then add to the hot pan, reducing the heat only slightly. Grill for 5 minutes, seasoning the top with salt and pepper. Flip and grill for another 4-5 minutes. Remove from pan.

Once the vegetables are done, transfer to a blender, adding the milk, butter, and additional salt and pepper, if desired. Go easy on the milk, using only enough to make the blender do its job and to make the puree smooth.

Place a large dollop of the puree on a plate, and top with a salmon fillet, garnished with some fennel fronds. Serve with a simple green salad (we did escarole and grape tomatoes with fennel fronds and scallions dressed with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper).

The puree serves as both a sauce for the fish and a side dish. It is thinner than mashed potatoes, and thicker than most sauces. Happy food for toddlers ... my son was covered in it from head to toe!

This dish may take a little time in the oven, but it's very hands-off. The oven and the blender do most of the work, and you can give yourself a pedicure in the meantime.

Serves 6

Apple Hazelnut Stuffing

2010-11-30T17:44:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving really snuck up on me this year. Until about a week before the holiday, we had no idea who in the family would be hosting, or who would be coming. As it turns out, most of us went our separate ways to various branches of the family, and we hosted my in-laws. It was a small, very manageable feast for seven (including the baby). I must say, while there is something to be said for large holiday meals, they can also be very stressful, and this meal was not so. It came together easily, from start to finish, in the course of 3 days.

Although Christmas dinner doesn't happen in my house, I can imagine that this stuffing might be a very welcome addition to such a holiday feast, especially at one that includes those of vegetarian persuasion. So, perhaps it isn't too late to post it. It also happens that one of the key ingredients, ghee, also makes this recipe quite appropriate to enter into the Pure Indian Foods Ghee Recipe Contest. And that is another reason to post it. Incidentally, (and this endorsement is not at all required for the sake of the contest), this is the brand of ghee that I use. It is locally made (to me), it is made from grass-fed, organic milk, and it saves me the trouble of making my own ghee. It also happens to be OK for my milk-allergic son to eat. Apparently, ghee, being absent of milk solids, is also lacking lactose and casein. Let me stress that I am not and cannot give medical advice on this (or any) subject, and I do not recommend that anyone with a dairy allergy or intolerance eat ghee without consulting his/her health care provider first. For us, it was very freeing to discover that we are able to use ghee, instead of oil, to cook and flavor the foods we eat. That buttery aroma was well-missed in this household!

Apple Hazelnut Stuffing
4 cups whole grain fresh bread (wheat, spelt, rice), cubed
1/3 cup hazelnuts, chopped
1/2 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup ghee + 3 Tbsps.
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 apple, peeled & chopped
3 Tbsps. fresh sage, chopped
1 - 1 1/2 cups low-sodium veggie stock (depending on how moist you like your stuffing)
salt & pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 425F. If the bread is fresh, toast the bread in the oven on a dry cookie sheet for 10 minutes. If it's stale, skip this step. Toast the hazelnuts on a dry cookie sheet for 5 minutes. Transfer the bread cubes and hazelnuts to a large bowl. Reduce oven temperature to 350F.

In a saute pan, melt the 1/4 cup of ghee over medium heat. Sweat the onions and garlic in the ghee until softened, about 10 minutes. Add the celery, sauteing an additional 5 minutes. Season the onion mixture with salt and pepper. Pour the onion mixture over the bread cubes and hazelnuts, and toss well. To the bowl, add the apples and sage, tossing once again.

Warm the veggie stock, and add in small increments to the bread mixture, tossing after each addition, until you reach the desired consistency (the oven will dry it out somewhat, so aim for a bit more moistness than is your preference). Season with salt & pepper.

Using 1 Tbsp. of ghee, grease a large casserole. Transfer the stuffing mixture to the prepared casserole. Using the remaining 2 Tbsps. of ghee, dot the top of the stuffing with small fingerfuls. Bake, uncovered, for 1 hour.

Serves 8-10.

Chocolate Pumpkin Layer Cake with Cashew Icing

2010-11-06T17:37:00.000-07:00

On Halloween, my family got together to celebrate the sweetest day of the year, but we also took the opportunity to mark my brother's and my birthdays, which fall in late October and early November. I made the cake for the occasion (and my brother made lunch). This is the cake that I came up with. A little something for everyone - chocolate for those who think every dessert needs chocolate (my husband), pumpkin spice cake for those who like to taste and smell the season (my brother and me), and sticky sweetness to please the Halloween palate.

Although this is no health food cake, it is much more redeeming than most store-bought (or even homemade) cakes, so a little less guilt is in order. The recipe is very loosely based on this one. Enjoy!

Chocolate Pumpkin Layer Cake with Cashew Icing
1 cup unbleached white flour
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour, plus 1/3 cup more
1 cup turbinado sugar
1 1/2 tsps. baking powder
1 1/2 tsps. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp. ground allspice
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1/8 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 cup vanilla unsweetened hemp milk
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree (for fresh pumpkin, steam the pumpkin and then puree in a blender with a small amount of water)
3/4 cup sucanat
2 large eggs
1/4 cup coconut oil, warmed until liquified
1/4 cup agave nectar
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
Cashew Icing (recipe below)

Grease two 9" round cake pans. Line the bottom of each with parchment paper and then dust the sides with flour. Pre-heat oven to 350F.

Combine the white flour, 3/4 cup of the whole wheat flour, turbinado, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt in a bowl. Divide the dry mixture equally (by weight) into two bowls. Into one bowl, add the cocoa and whisk to combine. Into the second bowl, add the 1/3 cup of whole wheat pastry flour, and whisk to combine.

In a large bowl using an electric mixer, beat 1 cup hempmilk, pumpkin puree, and sucanat. Beat in the eggs. Then add the oil, agave, and vanilla, beating just to combine. Divide the liquid mixture evenly (by weight) into two bowls. To one bowl, add the cocoa mixture, stirring until just combined. To the second bowl, add the second dry mixture, stirring until just combined. Do not overmix!

Transfer batter to the prepared pans (the contents of one bowl into one pan and the contents of the other bowl into the other pan). Bake about 40 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean. Cool on a rack. Invert onto a work surface and remove the parchment papers carefully. Cool the cakes completely before proceeding.

Slice each cake horizontally to create four layers in total (to guide your knife in evenly cutting the cakes, place toothpicks just below the midpoint of the cake all around the cake, and cut using a serrated knife just above the toothpicks, as illustrated here).

Place a pumpkin layer at the bottom of your cake dish. Apply a thin layer of icing on top using a frosting spatula. If the icing is too thick, it will move to the edges and drip down the sides. The icing will seep into the cake somewhat, and that's fine. Add a chocolate layer, and top with a layer of icing. Repeat with the remaining layers of cake and icing. On the top layer, add a thicker layer of icing. Add a thin layer of icing to the sides of the cake.

If you are not serving the cake right away, store in the freezer. This will keep the icing from either dripping too much or getting too absorbed into the cake. Defrost at room temperature 2-3 hours before serving.

Cashew Icing
1 1/2 cups cashew butter
4 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
1/8 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. allspice
1 1/2 tsps. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. chocolate extract
1/2 cup vanilla unsweetened hemp milk

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, and beat well with an electric mixer.

Roasted Vegetable Pear Soup

2010-11-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

One of the issues many people face in subscribing to a CSA is that they are left with produce that they would not normally buy, or that is unfamiliar to them. Enter soup - the greatest vessel for miscellaneous foods that have no home.

I make most vegetable soups vegan, but I thought this soup might do nicely with some meat flavors, and I think that was a good decision. This soup has a pork stock base, which marries particularly well with the pear, pumpkin, and beets. The pork stock adds not only flavor, but also lots of nutrients, most notably calcium. If you prefer to make this soup vegan, it would still be very tasty using a vegetable or onion stock, or even plain salted water.

This soup can be prepared as a puree or as a chunky soup. I think the latter is really the better option, but I made it as a puree so that my little guy could eat it more easily (and so he has!). The recipe below is written as a puree with noted adjustments to make it chunky instead.

Roasted Vegetable Pear Soup
2 lb. pumpkin (or other winter squash), seeded, peeled and cubed (small dice for chunky)
1 small rutabaga, peeled, trimmed of ends, and cubed (small dice for chunky)
12 small turnips, trimmed of ends and cubed (small dice for chunky)
3 medium carrots, peeled, trimmed of ends, and cut into thick slices (small dice for chunky)
2 medium beets, peeled, trimmed of ends, and cubed (small dice for chunky)
3 shallots, peeled and quartered (chopped for chunky)
2 stalks celery, cut into chunks (small dice for chunky)
2 Tbsps. olive oil
2 Tbsps. safflower oil
salt and pepper, to taste
1 1/2 lbs. pork neck bones (your local sustainable meat farmer will likely have this very inexpensive treat in the freezer)
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
3 ripe pears, cored, peeled and cubed
2 bay leaves
10 cups water
1/4 cup chopped fennel fronds

Pre-heat the oven to 425F. Combine the pumpkin, rutabaga, turnips, carrots, beets, shallots, celery, and oils in a large covered baking dish. Season well with salt and pepper. Cover and roast for 1 hour and 20 minutes, stirring twice along the way.

Transfer roasted vegetables to a large stock pot. Add the pork necks, vinegar, pears, bay leaves, water and additional salt and pepper. Bring to a bubble, and then reduce heat to medium low. Simmer, covered, for 2 hours.

Remove bones and bay leaves. Pick apart the meat from the bones, and set aside (roughly 1/2 - 1 cup).

Using an immersion blender (or a regular blender), puree the soup (if you prefer a chunky soup, skip the pureeing). Return the meat to the pot. Add the fennel fronds. Adjust seasonings. Serve hot.

Serves 10-12.

Almond Cod Cakes with Roasted Garlic Spread

2010-11-03T17:48:00.000-07:00

This dish looks very sophisticated, if I do say so myself, but it's very simple. So simple, in fact, that my 15-month-old kept asking for more fish! It's even fairly simple to make, and is perfect for anyone who is not a big fan of chopping. The food processor does all the chopping for you.

Because my little one is allergic to half of the food web, I find myself making many adjustments that I wouldn't normally make, and sometimes the dish turns out better than it would have with traditional ingredients. In this case, instead of using bread crumbs (or wheat-free bread crumbs) in the fish cakes, I decided to use almonds (almond meal). The almonds give the cakes a much more interesting flavor, and because the cakes are pan-fried, the almonds were very aromatic, too. The downside to accommodating my son is that I could not use an egg to bind the cakes, and they would have benefited from some binding. Leaving the egg out leaves the fish cakes a bit crumbly. Fortuitously, the crumbliness was the perfect texture for my son, and the rest of us did fine. Even so, if you can have eggs, I would add one to the mix.

I served these fish cakes with forbidden rice with chopped cilantro and a simple green salad.

Almond Cod Cakes with Roasted Garlic Spread
1/2 cup raw, unsalted almonds (or almond meal)
12 oz. cod fillets, cubed
2 Tbsps. fresh cilantro
2 Tbsps. fresh Italian parsley or celery greens
3 scallions, cut into 2" lengths
1 1/2 tsps. salt
pepper, to taste
1 egg (optional)
1/4 cup olive oil
Roasted garlic spread (recipe below)

Process almonds in a food processor until they resemble coarse bread crumbs. Remove and set aside in a large bowl. Into the food processor, add the cod, cilantro, parsley, and scallions. Pulse to combine. Do not overprocess. Some small chunks of fish should remain. Add the fish mixture to the almonds, along with salt, pepper, and egg. Mix thoroughly, and form into patties.

Pre-heat the oven to 350F. Heat a large cast iron skillet over high heat. Once hot, add half the olive oil to the pan and swirl to coat. Allow the oil to heat for a moment, then place the cakes in the hot pan. Turn the heat down to medium-high, and allow the cakes to cook 5-6 minutes on each side. Add additional oil, if necessary, when it's time to turn the cakes. Put the skillet in the oven for 10 minutes to finish cooking through.

Makes 4-5 large cod cakes.

Roasted Garlic Spread
1 head garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. fresh cilantro, chopped

Pre -heat oven to 425F. Slice off the top of the garlic so that the top tips of the cloves are just showing. Wrap the whole head of garlic in foil and place on a cookie sheet. Roast in the oven for 45 minutes (can be done a couple days in advance, whenever you have the oven on). Allow to cool. Squeeze the garlic out of the papery skin. The roasted garlic should be very soft and fragrant.

In a small bowl, combine the roasted garlic with the olive oil, salt, and lemon juice. Whip the ingredients together with a fork until they become smooth and creamy. Stir in the cilantro. Top each of the cod cakes with a small dollop of the garlic spread.

Serves 4-5

Kohlrabi Mashed Potatoes

2010-10-29T20:14:00.000-07:00

I never know what to do with the kohlrabi that I get in my CSA box. They can be thrown into salads raw, they can be braised, and they can be roasted, although I've never thought they brought anything to the dishes (the greens of kohlrabi are quite another story ... for another post). This time, I tried making mashed potatoes with them ... with much the same result ... they still don't bring much to the dish, but they add some nutritional value to a side dish that is most often pretty empty, and I'm happy with that, and everyone was happy eating these mashed potatoes.

I chose to make these mashed potatoes vegan, mostly because my son is allergic to dairy. They can be made with more traditional ingredients (butter, cream, milk), if you prefer.

Kohlrabi Mashed Potatoes
4 kohlrabi bulbs, peeled and cut into chunks
1 1/2 lbs. red fingerling potatoes, washed well and cut into chunks (keep skins on)
2 Tbsps. cilantro, chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
2-6 Tbsps. unsweetened hemp milk, depending on preferred consistency
2 Tbsps. Earth Balance buttery stick

Combine the kohlrabi and potatoes in a large saucepan. Cover the vegetables completely with cold water, adding a 1/2 tsp of salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium and continue to boil until the vegetables can be easily pierced by a fork. Drain.

Transfer vegetables to a large bowl and mash with a potato masher. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Serve.

Serves 8.

Lentil Roast with Acorn Squash, Turnips & Carrots

2010-10-29T19:32:00.000-07:00

Talk about cheap! Yes, I haven't talked about cheap in quite some time. Not that I don't still revel in cheap, good food (not to be confused with cheap bad food, of which there is so much that no one in their right mind would bother blogging about it). While expensive food finds its way onto my dinner table from time to time, I have to keep to a pretty tight budget, like most folks these days, and I do everything I can to keep costs low.

That said, I am not in the habit of compromising about food. Quite the opposite! We eat delicious and healthy food at every meal. We just eat less of those things that make most Americans gluttons (meat), and we eat more of the things that most Americans avoid like the plague (veggies).

This recipe is a great example of that kind of eating. The protein is organic green lentils (which I bought in bulk on sale for the dirt cheap price of 66 cents/lb.), the veggies are nearly all from my CSA (to learn more about CSAs and other local food buying options, check out my post about that sort of thing), which means I used about $7 of produce on this meal. I served this stew/roast over kohlrabi mashed potatoes (the kohlrabi was also from the CSA, and the potatoes were local). The whole stew cost about $10, and it serves about 8. Wow! That's $1.25 per serving ... big servings! You can't even do that at McDonald's!

If the cheap, healthy, and green of this meal weren't enough, it's also incredibly easy (and one pot ... well, one baking dish), and it was a hit with the kids ... especially the baby!

Lentil Roast with Acorn Squash, Turnips, & Carrots
1 lb. green lentils, rinsed and picked over
1 small acorn squash, peeled, seeded and cubed
6 small turnips, trimmed of ends and cut into 1" chunks
3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1" chunks
3 medium tomatoes, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
2 cups homemade or low-sodium veggie stock
1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 Tbsps. garam masala
salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 425F. Combine all ingredients in a 13 x 9 glass baking dish. Cover with foil. Bake for 1.5 hours, stirring every 30 minutes, and adding water if necessary. Serve over kohlrabi mashed potatoes.

Rosh Hashana Honeycake - for Everyone

2010-09-07T18:37:00.000-07:00

Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is a day away, and so it's time to break out the honeycake recipe. Honeycake is my favorite part of Rosh Hashana, intended to help usher in a sweet new year. Of course, given most people's new year's resolutions to get healthy or to lose weight, maybe honeycake isn't the best choice. Still, traditions are hard to break ... and honeycake is too good to pass up. So, I just do what I can to make my honeycake a little healthier.

Here is my take on my Grandma Sarna's honeycake, with variations noted for the allergy-prone or vegan baker:

Whole Wheat Honey Cake
1 cup hot water
3 tsps. instant espresso
1/4 cup orange juice
1 1/2 cups honey
3/4 cup sucanat
3/4 cup safflower oil
1 egg (or 1/4 cup chia gel or 1 mushed banana)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (or barley flour)
1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour (or barley flour)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. cloves
1/4 tsp. salt

Grease a bundt pan with coconut oil or butter, and dust with flour to keep the batter from sticking. Pre-heat the oven to 325F.

Dissolve the coffee into the hot water. Then add the orange juice to the coffee. In a large bowl, combine the coffee mixture, honey, sucanat, and oil, whisking together well. Allow to cool well before adding the egg, chia gel, or banana to the mixture.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour(s), baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, mixing together until just combined (don't overmix!). A little lumpiness is fine.

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Allow to cool in the pan for an hour before turning out onto a serving dish. If desired, dust with powdered sugar or serve with ice cream (or non-dairy ice cream ... like this one!).

Serves 20.

Potato Chickpea Pancakes

2010-09-04T18:21:00.000-07:00

I must apologize for the long delay in posting. Life has been a whirlwind, and I'm a bit over-committed at the moment. That said, I will still post from time to time, whenever I get a chance to come up for air. I hope you'll be patient with me.

As we are in the process of readying our house to sell it, I've been going through all the nooks and crannies, and finding all sorts of interesting forgotten things. One thing that I found was a pantry item - chickpea flour. Ah, yes, I bought some chickpea flour several months ago to make falafel balls, and somehow I bought way too much. It's been sitting there ever since with no purpose, unless I make a lot of falafel balls. So, I racked my brain, and came up with these very tasty potato pancakes - a vegan/vegetarian complete meal all on its own, good for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Very seasonal! Very cheap! Very tasty! Very gone!

Potato Chickpea Pancakes
1 lb. potatoes, peeled and grated
1 medium onion, grated
1 medium zucchini, grated
2 scallions, thinly sliced (whites and greens)
1/3 cup olive oil, + 2-3 Tbsps. for frying
1/3 cup chickpea flour
salt and pepper, to taste
Yogurt Cardamom Sauce (optional) - recipe follows

In a large fine mesh sieve fitted over a large bowl, squeeze the excess moisture out of the potatoes and onions. Allow the excess water to settle in the bowl for five minutes, and then pour the water off gently, leaving the starch at the bottom of the bowl. In the same bowl, combine the starch, potatoes, onions, zucchini, scallions, 1/3 cup of olive oil, chickpea flour, salt, and pepper.

Heat a large cast iron skillet over high heat. Once hot, add about 1/2 Tbsp. of the remaining olive oil and reduce heat to medium. Spoon the potato batter into the skillet in flapjack size pancakes, and flatten the batter so it cooks evenly. Cook 3-5 minutes on each side. Fry pancakes in batches, adding additional oil between batches, as necessary. Keep the pancakes that are done in a warm oven (275F) until ready to serve.

Makes 12 pancakes.

I served this dish with a yogurt cardamom sauce and a side of quinoa tabouleh.

Yogurt Cardamom Sauce
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/8 tsp. salt
pinch ground cardamom
1 tsp. fresh lemon juice

Combine all ingredients. Place yogurt mixture inside a fine mesh sieve lined with cheescloth, and allow to drain over a bowl for 20 minutes. Serve a dollop on each pancake.

Homemade Southwestern Pork Sausage

2010-05-24T19:35:00.000-07:00

I didn't set out to make sausage myself. Originally, I was looking to serve some kind of game meat at my daughter's bear birthday party. Sometimes, after the spring thaw, bears eat animals that were trapped in snow or ice, so I thought game meat would work nicely with the theme. I tried to find venison or elk meat to serve, and thought that sausage would probably work best for grilling. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a source that I trusted, and buying wild game from hunters is illegal. Having gotten excited about the idea of serving sausage at the party, I went in search of some local, sustainable sausage of the more domestic kind. I found some, but none that really spoke to me.

What to do? What to do? A crazy voice inside of me blurted, "Make your own sausage!" "Yeah, right!" I said back (to myself). "I don't know the first thing about sausage-making, and this is an expensive undertaking for me to possibly louse up!" So, I did a little research ... very little research, and I made some calls to see if I could get my hands on some sausage casings (pig intestines). I scored some free casings at a local butcher shop, and I knew that was sign that I had to make sausage, know-how or no.

The general consensus about making sausage seems to be that it is necessary to have a meat grinder, or that meat must be ground to specification (coarse grind or fine grind) by a butcher. I found nearly universal recommendations to use a sausage stuffer, as well. One butcher practically bet me that I would be back to ask him to make my sausage for me. I nearly spent quite a lot of money on equipment, very unnecessarily, until I had a epiphany. I didn't want to invest $50-100 on stuff that I might never use again. Instead, I took a chance and decided to buy ground meat (coarse? fine? eh, whatever ...) and stuff the casings using a pastry bag fitted with a large tip. If even a pastry bag is an iffy investment for you, try just buying the tip ($1-2) and use it with a plastic bag.

I was absolutely exhilarated by the prospect of making something so out of my element. What an incredible experience! It was messy, to say the least, but it was also a lot of fun. I don't recommend doing this with young kids, just because there is a lot of raw meat involved, but older kids (maybe 9 years+) would probably do very well with it. Just make sure to encourage frequent hand-washing and counter-wiping.

I tried to avoid reading recipes for sausage-making, knowing that most are made with dried spices. I wanted to make something fresh and light. Yes, "light sausage" is a bit of an oximoron, but indulge me. So, I decided to go with Southwestern flavors.

I have no regrets at all about the way I went about this. Sometimes diving head-first into the unknown is the best way to get experience. Sometimes re-inventing the wheel isn't a waste of time. So, try this recipe, or make up your own, or make some other wacky dish that pleases your inner risk-taker.

Southwestern Pork Sausage
10 lbs. sustainably raised organic ground pork
natural pork casings for 40 sausages (ask your butcher to give you a little extra in case some parts split)
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
5 jalapenos, seeded and chopped
1 bunch scallions, sliced thinly
1 12 oz. jar roasted red peppers, chopped
10 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste

Work in batches of about 3-4 lbs. of meat at a time.

In a large mixing bowl, combine pork, cilantro, jalapenos, scallions, red peppers, and garlic. Season with salt and pepper, and mix well with your hands.

As a test, cook a tablespoon or so of the meat mixture in a hot skillet to make sure it's seasoned properly, and adjust seasonings as needed.

Scoop some of the meat mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a large tip. Place the end opening of the casing around the tip, and carefully pipe the meat mixture into the casing, pulling the mixture down into the casing. Be careful not to be too forceful as the casing can tear. Once you have about 2-3 feet of casing filled, pinch the sausage every 5-6" to create individual links. Twist the casing between links a few times. There is no need to tie between links; only at the ends. Repeat this process until you have filled all of your sausages.

Sausages can be frozen or refrigerated before use. When you are ready to cook them, cut apart the links. Grill or broil them until cooked through. Serve in a whole wheat hot dog bun with Cabbage, Fennel, and Jicama slaw and some mustard.

Makes 35-40 links.

Notes:
- Be careful to keep casing and meat mixture cold. If you find the meat temperature rising to a point where it does not make your hands cold to touch it, return it to the fridge for a while before progressing.
- This recipe is not spicy (hot) despite the jalapenos, so if you like things mild, you'll probably like this as is. But if you want some more kick, go for it!

Baked Tofu with Bamboo Shoots and Snow Peas

2010-05-22T19:15:00.000-07:00

In making up the menu for my daughter's bear-themed birthday party, it was easy to find things to make that reflected the diets of brown and black bears. For one thing, they live in the same regions of the world as we do, so the foods available to them are the foods available to us. Black and brown bears are also omnivorous, as are humans, and they eat a wide variety of foods, as do humans. The greater challenges came with the diets of Pandas and Polar bears. Polar bears eat seals and Pandas eat bamboo almost exclusively. I admit, I finally gave up on trying to find a way to get Polar bears represented in the menu. For the Panda bears, I thought I ought to make something with bamboo shoots, and so, this salad was born (not that any Panda would eat it):

Baked Tofu with Bamboo Shoots and Snow Peas
2 lbs. firm tofu
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 Tbsp. sesame oil
3 Tbsps. brown rice vinegar
3 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
1/4 cup orange juice
Coconut oil
2 Tbsps. orange zest
1 lb. snow peas, trimmed of ends and halved
2 15 oz. cans sliced bamboo shoots, drained

Place the tofu in a medium bowl. Place a plate on top of the tofu and weigh the plate down with something heavy, like a can. Place the weighed-down tofu in the refrigerate to drain overnight. Pour off the liquid. Cube the tofu and set aside in a covered container.

In a medium bowl, combine the soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, garlic, and orange juice. Pour the
mixture over the tofu and allow to marinate for 1 hour, turning the tofu midway through.

Pre-heat the oven to 300F. Prepare a large cookie sheet by greasing it with coconut oil. Remove the tofu from the marinade (reserve marinade) and spread around the cookie sheet in a single layer. Bake for 1 - 1 1/2 hours, turning every 30 minutes.

In a large salad bowl, toss together baked tofu, orange zest, snow peas, and bamboo shoots. Dress with remaining marinade. Serve cold or room temperature.

Serves 20-25 as a side dish

Salmon Balls

2010-05-20T18:37:00.000-07:00

Based on my salmon burger recipe, these little balls are a party hit! They are very easy to make, healthy, inexpensive, and very tasty. They're casual enough for kids' parties and fancy enough to serve at cocktail parties.

Salmon Balls
3 14.75 oz. cans wild Alaskan red salmon
1 ½ cups rye bread crumbs (made with 100% rye bread, crumbled in a food processor)
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
6 Tbsps. tomato paste
2 Tbsps. dried thyme, crumbled
3 Tbsp. dried parsley flakes
3 Tbsp. dried chopped onion
1 Tbsp. garlic powder
Salt & pepper, to taste
Safflower oil spray
Mustard

Pre-heat oven to 375F. Combine all ingredients (except safflower oil) in a large bowl. Mix well with your hands or a wooden spoon. Form into 1 1/2" balls. Grease two cookie sheets with safflower oil. Place balls on sheet, 1" apart. Bake for 15 minutes, turn balls, and bake for an additional 10 minutes.

Serve hot or at room temperature with brown mustard.

Makes about 7 dozen balls. Serves 50 as an hors d'oeuvre.

Mini-Spinach Knishes

2010-05-18T19:39:00.000-07:00

I knew I had to make something with potatoes for my daughter's bear birthday party, partly because bears apparently eat potatoes, but also because potatoes tend to be crowd-pleasers. Short of making potato salad (been there, done that), there aren't too many dishes to make with potatoes that can easily be served to a crowd in a park. So, I thought, why not knishes? As is par for the course for me, I make things for the first time when serving them at parties, and such is the case with these knishes. They were good, but not fabulous. A little wheat and egg would have done a world of good for the crust.

This recipe is based on this recipezaar recipe. I substituted cannellini beans for the tofu and I added spinach to the filling. Otherwise, very little is changed here. Here is my version:

Mini-Spinach Knishes
2 cups mashed yukon gold potatoes (1 1/4 lbs. boiled potatoes with 2 Tbsps Earth Balance stick, 1/4 cup milk substitute, and salt to taste), divided
3 cups barley flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup cold water
1 cup chopped onions
2 Tbsps. olive oil
1 1/2 cups cannellini beans
1/2 bunch of spinach
3 Tbsps. parsley
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
salt, to taste
safflower oil
milk substitute (soy, rice, almond, oat, hemp, etc.)
brown mustard

Combine 1 cup of the mashed potatoes with the barley flour and baking powder. Add the water, and mix well. Knead into a smooth dough. Let the dough rest in a glass bowl covered with a damp kitchen towel for 30 minutes.

While the dough is resting, heat the olive oil in a small skillet. Saute the onions in the oil until soft. In a food processor, combine the cooked onions, cannellini beans, spinach and parsley. Process until fairly smooth. Combine processed mixture with 1 cup mashed potatoes, garlic powder and black pepper. Season with salt, to taste.

Pre-heat oven to 350F. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper, and brush the paper with safflower oil.

Cut the dough into four sections, rolling each one out separately to 1/8-1/4 inch thickness. Using a medium-sized biscuit cutter, cut rounds from the dough. Drop 1 Tbsp of filling in the center of half the circles. Then top the filled circles with empty circles, pinching along the perimeter to seal the knishes (to look like raviolis).

Place the knishes on the prepared cookie sheet, about 1 inch apart. Brush each knish with a little milk substitute. Bake for 25 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature with brown mustard.

Makes about 4 dozen knishes.

Bear Break-Fast Salad

2010-05-18T19:23:00.000-07:00

What does a bear eat when he wakes up after months of hibernation, skinny and starving? No, he doesn't pounce on the first wild boar he encounters. He eats a lot of fresh, springtime sprouts and other plant life. So, at my daughter's bear-themed birthday party, I served a salad inspired by a bear's break-fast. If it satisfies an eight hundred pound ravenous bear, it ought to quiet the belly of a 34.5 lb. four-year-old.

Bear Break-Fast Salad
2 bunches dandellion greens, tough stems removed, leaves torn into bite-size pieces
1 container alfalfa sprouts
2 bunches fresh oyster mushrooms
1/2 cup pine nuts
2 navel oranges, supremed (see note below)

Toss ingredients in a large bowl. Serve with salad dressing of your choice.

Serves 20-25 people as a salad course, or 40-50 people as a side dish.

Note: To supreme an orange, cut the top and bottom off the orange, and then cut the rind and pith away from the sides, cutting from top to bottom. Remove individual orange sections by cutting between the orange membranes, so all you have at the end are segments of orange flesh.

Basic Balsamic Vinaigrette

2010-05-18T19:10:00.001-07:00

This is your basic go-to salad dressing. Easy to make, healthier and cheaper than bottled dressings, and goes with just about any green salad. Keep it in a glass bottle in the fridge, and use it whenever.

Basic Balsamic Vinaigrette
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp. stone ground mustard
1 1/2 tsps. dried basil
3/4 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. salt
20 grinds of fresh pepper
1 cup extra virgin olive oil

Combine vinegar, mustard and spices in a bowl, and whisk together to combine. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil, whisking constantly, until emulsified. Pour into a glass bottle, and use as needed. If the dressing separates, shake vigorously before using.

Note: Olive oil will get cloudy and solidify in the fridge. Take the dressing out about 30 minutes before you need it, and the olive oil should return to a liquid, clear state.

Happy Bear-Day!!!

2010-05-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

My daughter recently turned four, and she requested that the theme of this year's birthday party be about bears. Last year's party was about birds (the details of which can be found here). As I often try to do, I made the food reflect the theme, at least in part. I tried to make foods that bears eat, and fortunately, bears eat a lot of things, ranging from sprouts to tubers to fish to bamboo to blueberries. Lots of fun to come up with a menu. I did stray a bit from the theme here and there, but mostly, I kept to it. This is what I served:

Just for the Kids, I made a Bear Food Face Buffet. The idea here is that the kids get to make a bear face out of food, and then eat it. The kids really enjoyed this, and the parents seemed to, too. My daughter and I make food faces all the time, and it's always a hit. The great thing about the prep for this is that it takes virtually no cooking. It's just some chopping and shredding, and some things just need to be put in a bowl as is. The kids really do all the work! These were the buffet items:

- brown rice
- yogurt
- shredded lettuce
- alfalfa sprouts
- shredded carrots
- sliced kiwis
- hardboiled eggs
- grapes
- cashews
- peas
- olives
- broccoli florets
- mushrooms
- sliced beets
- grilled shrimp
- orange sections
- carrot circles
- celery semi-circles
- grape tomatoes
- blueberries
- very small cheese cubes
- pine nuts

I served a balsamic vinaigrette on the side, for those who wanted.

For the adults, and kids who wanted, I served:
- Bear Break-Fast Salad (made of things bears eat when they awaken from hibernation) with the balsamic vinaigrette above.
- Mini Spinach Knishes (wheat and egg-free)
- Salmon balls (wheat-free)
- Baked tofu with bamboo shoots and snow peas
- Southwestern Pork Sausages (made from scratch!) on Whole Wheat Buns
- Refried Bean Sloppy Joes (vegan alternative to sausage)
- Cabbage, Fennel, Jicama Slaw (a condiment for sausage and/or refried beans, or a side dish)

For desserts (kids and adults alike), I made:
- Bear-face mini-honey cakes with vanilla frosting
- Vegan lemon curd cups with blueberries
- Chocolate whole wheat bear cut-out cookies
- Berry Beary Plate (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, kiwis)

Ordinarily, I don't make drinks and serve just water, or sometimes water and hot tea. Given the 85 degree weather we had, hot tea would not work at all. So, this year, I also made blueberry lemonade.

Most of the food went over very well, but a few dishes need some tweaking. Although lots of people commented that they enjoyed the knishes, the dough was a little challenging, I thought, and that's mostly to do with the lack of wheat. Unfortunately, that couldn't be helped, unless I was willing to forgo eating them (and really, I was not too keen on that option).

The lemon curd, which was delicious when I made it two days earlier, had become a bit too tart by party time. The leftovers of the curd got progressively more and more tart as the days past until I couldn't bear to eat it anymore. A lesson learned about lemon curd. Next time, I'll make it the day of, or I'll just sweeten it much more.

The sausage, which I think was one of the best things I ever made, hardly was eaten, because by the time it came off the grill, people had already had their fill of food, and were looking for dessert. On a positive note, one dear friend of mine, who did eat a sausage, asked where I bought it ... it took a lot for me not to squeal with glee that I made it myself. That was a satisfying moment.

It was really a great party overall, and one that I think my daughter will remember for a long time. There are so many ways to celebrate with kids, and the party food is supposed to help make their day special and memorable. That's something pizza and ice cream cake just can't do.

Potato Hash

2010-05-09T21:04:00.001-07:00

Potato hash is one of those basic go-to dishes that I make when I need something quick, or when I want to get rid of some leftovers. Certainly, leftover potatoes can be used to make a hash, but just about any leftover veggies can be tossed in, as well. A hash can be a side dish for breakfast, a quick lunch, or a complement for an egg at any meal of the day. Best of all, it's a very cheap and healthy way to fill your belly.

This mother's day, I made a hash with some leftover slaw, which was mostly cabbage, fennel and jicama. Try making this with whatever you have in the fridge.

Potato Hash
2 Tbsps. safflower oil (or your fat of choice ... I went with bacon grease this time)
1/4 cup chopped red onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup leftover veggies
3 Yukon gold potatoes, cut into small pieces and steamed
salt and pepper, to taste

Heat oil in a large cast iron skillet. Add red onion and garlic and saute over medium-high heat until onions begin to soften. Add the veggies and cook a few minutes longer. Add the potatoes, and cook until warmed through. Season with salt and pepper.

Serves 6 as a side dish. Serves 2-3 as a main course.

Blueberry Sauce

2010-05-09T20:51:00.000-07:00

Serving pancakes with maple syrup is fine for Sunday morning breakfast with the family, but what do you do if you want to make breakfast a little more special? Try this blueberry sauce! It's incredibly easy and quick and it's actually healthier than syrup. Try it on pancakes, waffles, or french toast.

Blueberry Sauce
2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)
1 1/2 Tbsps. corn starch
1/4 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup water

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a bubble over medium-high heat. Rediuce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes, or until sauce thickens to a syrup.

Serves 6-8.

Mother's Day Menu

2010-05-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

Most mothers are not too keen on cooking on their special day. Ordinarily, I wouldn't be either, but this year, with all of our food allergies, I decided to host a small mother's day brunch at my house. Honestly, it was nice to have a good, home-cooked meal for brunch, for a change, even if I was the one who had to make it. Here is what I served:

Barley & Buckwheat Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce
Greek Frittata
Potato & Veggie Hash
Crisp local organic bacon

We've had a few bottles of champagne sitting around, so we popped one open for mimosas, which added a little to the festive feel.

Happy mother's day to all! Every mother deserves at least one day to feel appreciated.

The Case for National Organic Conversion

2010-05-08T16:33:00.000-07:00

This week, the organic movement got some much-deserved media attention, primarily due to two bits of news: lettuce has been recalled due to contamination with e. coli, and the President's Cancer Panel issued a report advising the government to steer Americans away from chemical use. The latter news bite was discussed in a thoughtful op-ed piece by organic/sustainability/health advocate, Nicholas Kristof, of the NY Times. Will we now have the collective chutzpah to do something about the state of our food system in this country? And do we, in fact, know what to do?

Certainly, this is not the first time that nasty bacteria, like e. coli, has found its way into our food supply. These incidents are increasing in frequency and happening several times a year now. What follows after such an episode is that people hoot and holler about how screwed up food regulation is in this country, they avoid the latest infected product, they rely even more heavily on processed foods, and then they forget it ever happened. At the rate we're going, in a decade or two there will be nothing fresh left to eat and we'll all be reduced to consuming chemical compounds so far removed from the earth and the sun as to be completely unrecognizable as food. Some might say we're there already (think Twinkie!).

This is also not the first time that it has been brought to light that chemicals are not good for us. After all, such forward-thinking countries as Canada, Denmark and Belgium banned BPA (Bisphenol A) from baby bottles two years ago. There are numerous products on the market that boast that they contain no BPA, phthalates, or parabens, all endocrine disruptors, all having the potential to cause cancer, abnormal reproductive development or function, among other health concerns. Chlorine, one of the most widely used chemicals, is also one of the most volatile and dangerous to our environment, most notably our water supply, and this has been known for decades! The petrochemicals and nitrates contained in synthetic fertilizers, as well as the pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides used to grow conventional produce all absorb into our food, drain into our drinking water, and deplete the soil of nutrients so that every successive harvest affords fewer and fewer nutrients to consumers. That chemicals are now being recognized as cancer-causing is no shocking headline. So, why are we still using these things?

Although a small portion of the population has come to recognize that the food Americans eat is killing them, an even smaller group of people has decided to do something about it. Our complacency has got to stop! If the government recommended to the American public that they eat organic foods, as is suggested by the Cancer Panel, that would be a step in the right direction ... maybe. Here are my concerns:

- Suggesting to the American public that they steer clear of conventional foods will cause serious problems with the food system. There are far too few organic farms to support mass conversion to organic, and it takes three years for a conventional farm to transition to organic. Conventional farmers also don't know anything about organic farming, and educating all of them is a serious undertaking! Perhaps the way to go is through legislation. Just as the government created the mess we're in by subsidizing corn and soy, they can get us out of it by stopping those subsidies and incentivizing farmers to grow organic, polycultural crops and livestock. They can offer free education and support to them. When there is more organic food available, the cost will drop and it will become affordable to many more people.

- There are substances that are deemed illegal in this country (some that are far less dangerous than the chemicals that we consume daily). Why not simply make the chemicals that conventional farmers use illegal? Why allow the uneducated and the poor to kill themselves, while saving the wealthy and educated, who can afford organic food?

- Eating organic foods certainly helps with regard to getting the chemicals out of our environment and our bodies, but it's actually not at all helpful in reducing the risk of widespread bacterial contamination. Organic foods are just as susceptible to contamination as conventional foods. To reduce the risk of contamination, we need to do exactly the opposite of what the government is considering - we need to DE-centralize our food system. Although centralization is what makes food easier to monitor, it is also what causes the spread of disease. If food was processed in small facilities and in small batches all around the country, contamination would be limited to local, regional supplies, and not to multiple states. For the same reason, livestock should not be slaughtered and processed in large, centralized facilities. One sick cow could contaminate every McDonalds in the country!

- While the government is telling people what to eat, they ought to also encourage people to eat local. This is not just a matter of community support and loving thy neighbor. Eating local significantly reduces the likelihood of consuming bacteria-contaminated foods, as long as they are locally processed (or unprocessed), as well. It also increasing the nutrient content of food, because the food is fewer days away from harvest. Eating local also increases the likelihood of eating fresh, unprocessed foods, and skipping the junk which is making us so fat in this country. These are the benefits to individual health. There are also numerous environmental, financial, and even social benefits to eating locally. The government can do more than suggest that consumers buy local foods; they can harness the creative marketing energies of supermarket chains by incentivizing grocery stores to carry local goods (say, if you show that 30% of your products (or more) are sourced within a 100 mile radius, you get a tax break).

I think it's great that organic food is getting more and more attention these days. I only hope that the organic movement doesn't become diluted by the sheer numbers of joiners, and I hope that we lead this wave (rather than follow it) with purpose and care.

Date Almond Balls

2010-04-09T07:28:00.000-07:00

On to dessert ..........

Once again, I've been inspired by my favorite local health food store, the Whole Earth Center in Princeton, NJ. If I'm honest, I've basically stolen this one, since I adapted this from the list of ingredients on their date almond balls, minus sesame seeds. The dates are so sweet that there is no need for any additional sweetener, although the chocolate chips are certainly sweetened. For those wishing to cut out even more sugar, you could swap the chocolate chips for unsweetened carob chips, cacao nibs, or chopped nuts. You do need something in there for texture/crunch, though.

My 7-year-old nephew called these balls "awesome". Ditch the cookies and candy and try these out on your own kids (or yourself).

Date Almond Balls
3 cups dates, pitted
1 16 oz. jar almond butter
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1 cup reduced-fat shredded coconut

In a food processor, puree dates until they make a smooth paste. In a large bowl, combine date paste with almond butter, mixing together well with a wooden spoon. Kneed with your hands a few times to disperse the almond butter evenly. Add chocolate chips (or other mix-ins) and kneed until combined.

Form mixture into balls about 1 1/2-2" in diameter. Roll balls in shredded coconut. Enjoy!

Store in the refrigerator. Makes about 3 dozen balls.

Sesame Kale

2010-04-03T19:24:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure how to count this dish. Every scrap that I made for the seder was eaten, but several people did not try it, and I had bags full of prepped kale (uncooked) waiting in the fridge to be cooked for a second round, which never came. Oh well. That not withstanding, I got lots of compliments on the kale. Most noteworthy was a friend, who does not cook and says she does not like leafy greens, asking for my recipe. "What recipe?" I thought. After all, I had come up with this on the spot (yes, I planned it in some vague form in advance, but it didn't come together in its specifics until I was doing it, five minutes before it was served).

This dish is very easy and very quick, but it needs to be made at the last minute, or it will get quite bitter. That's good news for those who will use this to feed their family of four on a weeknight, and bad news for those who will serve it at a big dinner party. I try to keep my dinner parties limited to almost all foods that can be made in advance, just so I don't need to be pulling my hair out at the last minute. This dish is a minor hair-puller because, even though it needs to be done at the last minute, it is not complicated or time-consuming. Just prep the kale leaves in advance so you're not busy washing and tearing leaves when you should be playing host.

Sesame Kale
2 bunches dinosaur kale, washed, dried, and torn into pieces
2 Tbsps. unrefined coconut oil
1 1/2 Tbsps. red wine vinegar
1 1/2 Tbsps. tahini
1 1/2 tsps. sesame oil
1/2 tsp. sesame seeds
salt & pepper, to taste

In a small bowl, combine coconut oil, vinegar, tahini, and sesame oil, blending thoroughly with a fork. In a large stainless steel skillet, add a large dollop of the mixture and melt over medium heat. Add the torn kale leaves, stirring frequently, until wilted. Once wilted, season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve warm.

Serves 12-15.

Roasted Carrots with Pistachios and Mint

2010-04-03T19:02:00.000-07:00

This may be the only dish that disappeared entirely at my seder. It was clearly well-liked, and I knew it would be the kid favorite, but I think I also didn't make enough. I had assumed that it would be mostly for the kids, but all of the adults wanted it, too, so most people only got a small amount to sample, including me.

Roasting makes everything taste better because it helps to caramelize and concentrate the naturally occurring sugars in foods. Of course, in the case of carrots, which are quite sweet to begin with, roasting practically turns them into candy. Hence, their popularity among kids. The mint and pistachios lend a more sophisticated, adult twist to the dish, but didn't seem to disturb the kids. I guess that's ultimately why this dish was so much in demand. Make lots of it!

Roasted Carrots with Pistachios and Mint
10 large carrots, peeled and cut into thick rounds
1/3 cup shelled pistachios
2 Tbsps. olive oil
salt & pepper, to taste
1/3 oz. fresh mint, chopped well

Pre-heat oven to 425F.

Combine carrots, pistachios, olive oil, salt & pepper in a mixing bowl. Toss well. Transfer to a covered baking dish/casserole, and roast for 55 minutes. Remove from oven, sprinkle with mint, toss and serve warm.

Serves 10-12.

Quinoa, Asparagus & Hazelnut Salad

2010-04-03T18:04:00.000-07:00

This was one of my favorite dishes from the seder, although I'm not sure my guests would agree. The dishes that received the most compliments were the matzah ball soup, the fish fritters, the brisket, the duck, the kale, and the date almond balls. In comparison to all of these, the quinoa was very light and fresh tasting, and for a meat-loving crowd, it might not have been exactly what they were expecting. Nonetheless, I thought it went well with the meal, as a counterpoint, and I have relished the leftovers!

What I like most about this salad is that it is well balanced in so many ways. Nutritionally, it's a complete meal, containing proteins, carbs, vegetables, and even fruit. The taste is well balanced in terms of acidity and brightness, which come from the lemon juice, lemon zest and parsley, and fattiness (which is not a strong point, since it's a light dish) from the hazelnuts and olive oil, and sweetness from the currants. The texture is also well-balanced because it has the airiness of the quinoa, the crunch of the hazelnuts, and the bite of the asparagus. All together, this dish is much more than a side dish. It could be (and has been for me) lunch, all by itself. Make it for as long as the asparagus keep springing up!

Quinoa, Asparagus & Hazelnut Salad
2 cups quinoa (mix of red and white varieties adds color interest)
3 3/4 cups water
1 1/2 tsps. salt
2 bunches asparagus (thinner is better), trimmed of woody ends and cut into 1" pieces
1 Tbsp. grapeseed oil (for brushing)
1/2 cup hazelnuts, chopped
1/2 cup currants
zest of 2 lemons
juice of 2 lemons
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 bunch parsley, chopped

In a covered saucepan, combine quinoa, water and 1 1/2 tsps salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes, or until water is absorbed.

Heat a large cast iron skillet over high heat. Brush with grapeseed oil. When hot, add asparagus and "grill" for 5-10 minutes (until you get some color), stirring occasionally. Season the asparagus lightly with salt and pepper. Transfer the asparagus to a large mixing bowl.

In the same cast iron skillet, toast the hazelnuts over medium-high heat until fragrant, about 3-4 minutes.

Toss the cooked quinoa, cooked asparagus, toasted hazelnuts, currants, lemon zest, lemon juice, and olive oil in a large mixing bowl. Season with salt and pepper, and toss to incorporate. Just before serving, add the parsley and toss.

May be served warm or at room temperature. Serves 15-20.

Roasted Rosemary Fingerling Potatoes

2010-04-03T17:41:00.000-07:00

If there is one dish that I was embarrassed by at my seder, it was this one. It's a good recipe, I think really good, but I goofed it up. So, please don't do what I did! I tried to make the potatoes in a casserole dish which was too deep for all the potatoes to cook evenly, and they were packed so tight that I couldn't stir them up well, even when I did try. I wanted something in which I could cook, refrigerate, re-heat, and serve the potatoes, and the casserole met those conditions, but at what price? Too many of the potatoes were undercooked in the end. Everyone at the table was very gracious and didn't complain a bit, but I can't imagine that they didn't notice a problem.

If you follow the recipe (the way I knew it needed to be done to begin with), you won't suffer such embarrassment, and you may even get a compliment or two.

Roasted Rosemary Fingerling Potatoes
4 lbs. fingerling potatoes, washed well and trimmed of blemishes
2 Tbsps. olive oil
2 Tbsps. grapeseed oil
3/4 oz. fresh rosemary, chopped
salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 425F.

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl, tossing to evenly coat the potatoes with oils and seasonings. Transfer to a half sheet pan (jelly roll pan), spreading evenly. Cover the pan in foil, and bake for 1-1.5 hours, redistributing the potatoes every half hour and checking for doneness with a fork (if the fork goes easily into the potatoes, they're done). Serve hot.

Serves 15-20 people.

Cod Fritters with Bitter Greens Salad

2010-04-02T19:04:00.000-07:00

The traditional fish dish for Passover is gefilte fish, but that's not an option for me right now since it's very difficult to make without eggs. Gefilte fish is also very much an acquired taste, and my husband has never managed to acquire it. So, as an alternative, I decided to make a fish fritter from one of my favorite Jewish cookbooks, The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden, with a couple of minor adjustments. The fritter is packed full of parsley, another traditional ceremonial Passover food. This, and the accompanying salad, got rave reviews from my diners. Here is the fish recipe as it appears in the book, with my own tweaks noted in parentheses (salad and dressing recipes follow below):

Calcutta Fish Cakes
1/2 green chili pepper, seeded
A bunch of scallions (about 9 thin ones)
A large bunch of flat-leafed parsley (1 cup)
1 teaspoon curry powder or to taste
A good pinch of cayenne pepper or to taste
3 tablespoons flour (I used oat matzah meal)
1 lb. (500 g) raw ground fish or skinned fish fillet (I used cod)
About 1/2 teaspoon salt
Oil for frying (I used grapeseed oil)

Finely chop the chili pepper, scallions, and flat-leafed parsley in a food processor. Add the curry powder, cayenne, and flour (matzah meal), and blend. Add the fish fillets and a little salt, and process very briefly (a few seconds only) with the rest of the ingredients. If using store-bought ground fish, turn into a bowl with the rest of the ingredients, mix with a fork, and work to a paste that holds together with your hand.

Heat a little oil in a frying pan (I used cast iron) and drop the mixture in by the tablespoon, pushing it off with another spoon. Flatten the fritters a little in the pan and fry on both sides till lightly browned but still soft inside (I cooked for 5 minutes of each side, then finished for 20 minutes in a 350F oven).

Serves 4 (I think this serves 6-7 as a meal, and 8-10 as an appetizer).

Bitter Greens Salad with Horseradish Dressing
Bitter greens are another traditional Passover food, intended to remind us of the bitterness of slavery. Unfortunately, horseradish, which is sharp and not bitter, has come to replace bitter greens on many a seder plate, so I'm bringing them back with this salad. This salad also featured one of the most beautiful vegetable I know: the chiogga beet (pictured below). Thanks to my brother and sister-in-law for their incredible help in making this salad possible!

1 bunch dandelion greens, torn into pieces, ribs removed
1 bunch daikon (roots and greens), greens torn into pieces, tough stalks removed
1-2 heads of frisee, cored
2 packages dried mushrooms (whatever kinds you prefer ... I had an assortment)
1 cup dry white wine
1 Tbsp. grapeseed oil
salt to taste
1 chiogga beet, peeled and trimmed of ends
Horseradish dressing (below)

Toss dandelion greens, daikon greens, and frisee in a large bowl. Set aside.

Mix dried mushrooms and wine in a bowl, and set aside to reconstitute for 20 minutes. Then drain wine (reserve mushroom-steeped wine for future use ... think risotto, poached eggs or chicken, rice pilaf, etc.). In a small skillet, saute the mushrooms in grapeseed oil, seasoning with a pinch of salt.

Make shavings of the beet and daikon root with either a vegetable peeler or a mandolin.

Toss the greens with the salad dressing. Divide greens onto salad plates. Scatter a few mushrooms, beet shavings, and daikon shavings on each plate. Top with a fish fritter, and garnish the fish with a bit of the dressing.

Serves 12

Horseradish Dressing
4 1/2 Tbsps. finely grated horseradish
1 1/2 cups olive oil
3/4 cup champagne vinegar
6 Tbsps. dijon mustard
2 tsps. celery seed
1 1/2 tsps. ground white pepper
1 Tbsp. salt

Combine all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Makes about 3 cups.

Roast Duckling with Apricot Balsamic Glaze

2010-04-01T18:44:00.000-07:00

I was incredibly lucky to find free-range kosher duckling to serve at my Passover seder. Believe it or not, I found it at a nearby supermarket that specializes in kosher foods. I jumped at the chance to cook duck, and ditched my much more basic chicken plan. If you are looking to buy duck, rest assured that as long as you don't need it to be kosher, you should be able to find it quite readily. And due to some helpful USDA restrictions, ducks cannot be raised using antibiotics or hormones, so you're safe from those regardless.

I bought four duckings, each about 4.5 lbs., for a crowd of 18 people, and we were left with a couple of scraps too small to use for a single leftover dinner. So, the perfect amount (except that I wouldn't have minded some leftovers).

Although it was a great hit, I would have liked the fat to render a bit more. So, that's something to work on next time. Nevertheless, the meat was delicious, tender, and flavorful, and the accompanying glaze was quite tasty.

Roasting duck is certainly not as easy as roasting chicken, but it's also not as hard as most people think. The trick is to score or pierce the skin all over and rotate the duck every so often so that the thick fat layer under the skin renders. If I had cooked the duck at a lower temperature for a longer time, I think I could have achieved that completely and had crispier skin to boot.

So, although this recipe is not perfect, it will still make everyone at the table happy:

Roast Duckling with Apricot Balsamic Glaze
4-6 lb. free-range duckling
salt and pepper
Apricot Balsamic Glaze (recipe follows)

Preheat the oven to 350F (perhaps next time I'd try 300F). Cut away any excess hanging skin around the neck and back side. Rinse the duck in cold water, inside and out, and then pat dry with towels.

Pierce or score the skin all over. Season the duck with salt and pepper, inside and out. Place the duck, breast-side up, on a rack in a roasting pan, and then put in the oven.

Turn the duck every 30-45 minutes. When the internal temperature of the duck (at the deepest part of the breast) reaches 165F on a meat thermometer, the duck in done (roughly 3 hours). If you like your duck a little more cooked through, you can roast it to 180F.

Increase the oven temperature to 400F. Glaze the duck and return to the oven for up to five minutes. Remove from the oven, and allow the duck to rest for 15 minutes before carving and serving. Make sure to reserve the fat in the bottom of the pan - it's a chef's gold!

One duck serves 4-5 people.

Apricot Balsamic Glaze
3 9 oz. jars apricot jam
3/4 cup balsamic vinegar
3/4 cup orange juice
2 Tbsps. honey

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan (if the jam is very chunky, first puree all ingredients together in a blender). Bring the mixture to a simmer, and then reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook down (if necessary) until thick and syrupy.

This recipe makes enough to glaze several ducks and pass as a condiment, as well. Goes well with chicken, turkey or pork also.

Passover Menu

2010-03-23T19:01:00.000-07:00

Passover is fast approaching, and I'm running out of breath just trying to keep up with my own menu. It isn't often that I host a seder, because I have the dinkiest dining room known to man. However, this year, the planets aligned, and I am hosting a seder at my gracious in-laws' house while they are snow-birding it in Florida. We'll be 18 people plus two babies, so a pretty good size crowd.

As is often the case, my guests will be guinea pigs. I get too bored making the same thing too often (or more than once), so I'm making up some new recipes (heavy on the roasting this year, for some reason). My family is somewhat in the middle about Passover kashrut observance. That is, we observe most of the Passover food restrictions, but we do allow eating seeds, which some Jews do not. With my long list of current food restrictions, I'll take all the allowances I can get!

Given that most of the menu is not tried and true, I will not post recipes until after-the-fact. Please forgive me ... but remember that next year, you can use these for you own seder, and if you celebrate Easter, you might still be able to use some of these this year!

Here is a sneak peak at the menu:

Soup course – Chicken Soup with matzah balls (and oat matzah balls)

Salad/Fish Course – Cod fish fritter on a bed of bitter greens (dandellion greens, daikon greens, frisee) with shaved raw chioggia beets, shaved raw daikon, and sauteed wild mushrooms, with a horseradish dressing

Main course –
BBQ organic pasture-raised brisket
Roast free-range duckling with apricot honey balsamic glaze
Roasted rosemary fingerling potatoes
Quinoa and grilled asparagus salad with chopped, toasted hazelnuts, parsley, and currants
Roasted carrots and pistachios with fresh mint
Sesame kale

Desserts –
Chocolate almond chia mousse
Chocolate walnut cake with mocha coconut frosting
Date almond balls
Fruit contributions from guests

Sweet & Sour St. Patty's Day

2010-03-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

I'm not in the least bit Irish, but my husband is a quarter Irish, which makes my kids an eighth Irish, so I'm out-numbered in my house. I need to do something to honor the day, but boiling corned beef and cabbage just isn't going to cut it. I would have actually made this recipe to include both corned beef and cabbage, but a pasture-raised corned beef eluded me, so I needed an alternative. I thought, Ah, Ireland must have plenty of sheep, and although mutton is fairly unheard of in this country, lamb certainly isn't. Alas, I couldn't find any lamb that would work either (I was looking for sausage). So, I settled on local, sustainably-raised pork sausage with cabbage.

This recipe might very well be the quickest (in prep time, not cook time) on this blog. It took me 10 minutes, if that, and then I turned the crock pot on and left the house. When I came home, dinner was ready and waiting. How do you like that?

Sweet & Sour St. Patty's Day
1 medium head green cabbage, shredded (sliced thinly)
1.5 lbs. fingerling potatoes
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
1/3 cup currants
1.5 lbs. lamb or pork savory sausage (avoid hot or sweet Italian sausage)
2 Tbsps. apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp. honey
1/2 cup beer, hard apple cider, or apple wine
1 tsp. peppercorns
2 tsps. salt

Combine the cabbage, potatoes, onion and currants in a slow cooker. Lay the sausages over the vegetables. In a small bowl, combine the vinegar, honey, beer, peppercorns, and salt. Pour mixture evenly over the contents of the cooker. Cook on low for 6 hours. Serve hot.

Serves 4-5

Update: Eating with Allergies

2010-03-13T06:30:00.000-08:00

It's now been more than 2 months since I started my new diet, which excludes wheat, dairy, eggs and cashews, thanks to my son's food allergies. Fortunately, his skin is clearing up nicely. He is off the Zyrtec and we're using very limited amounts of steroid creams to keep the eczema under control. He looks like a healthy baby again ... whew!

My battle with the un-foods has been mostly won, I'm happy to report! There are still three un-foods that I consume on a regular (though not daily) basis: oat milk, brown rice bread, and soy yogurt. But my diet is back to almost all real foods, and I feel much better. Yay!!!!

There are two things that I was battling with when I posted about this last (see here) that have since been resolved: pancakes and eggs. I've gotten rid of my box of egg replacer, which was a super-un-food and never worked anyway, and I've found a perfectly natural and extremely healthy alternative: chia gel! I use 1/4 cup chia gel to replace each egg in any baking recipe. Check out this video to learn about the benefits of chia and how to make chia gel.

For the pancakes, I've ditched the gluten-free mixes in favor of my own wheat-, egg-, and dairy-free recipe. Here goes:

Wheat-, Egg-, Dairy-Free Pancakes
1 1/4 cup barley flour
1/4 cup buckwheat flour
2 Tbsps sugar
2 tsps. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cups oat milk
1/4 cup chia gel
3 Tbsps. safflower oil
1/2 cup blueberries, frozen or fresh (optional)
Safflower oil spray
Maple syrup

Preheat a cast iron griddle over high heat.

In a large bowl, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a small bowl combine the oat milk and chia gel, whisking together well. Add the safflower oil, and whisk well again. Add the liquid mixture to the dry mixture and stir together until just moistened. Fold in the blueberries.

Spray the griddle with a thin layer of safflower oil. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Spoon batter onto griddle, allowing pancakes to cook about 2-3 minutes per side. Serve drizzled with maple syrup.

Makes about 10 flapjack size pancakes.

Note: Barley flour pancakes will stick to your griddle more than wheat flour ones will, so take a little extra care in the flipping.

Rosemary Apple Garbanzo Cholent

2010-03-11T16:15:00.000-08:00

Cholent is a traditional Jewish Sabbath meal that usually includes meat, beans, grains (barley usually), potatoes, and maybe some other vegetables. My cholent is not at all traditional. Don't serve it your bubbe (grandmother) and expect her to dance with delight at your return to your roots (if you're Jewish). In fact, this cholent may send many a bubbe rolling in her grave. I call this a cholent only because the cooking method is the same, and the combination of ingredients follows the same cooking principles as that of a traditional cholent. For any observant vegans out there, this is your solution to Shabbat lunch!

Rosemary Apple Garbanzo Cholent
1 lb. dry garbanzo beans, soaked overnight
2 Tbsps. olive oil
2 Tbsps. coconut oil or Earth Balance buttery stick
4 carrots, cut into chunks
5 parsnips, cut into chunks
1 large red onion, cut into chunks
1 medium celeriac (celery root), cut into chunks
3 cloves garlic, smashed
2 granny smith apples, cut into chunks (peel on is fine)
2 Tbsps. dried rosemary, crushed in a mortar & pestle
1 cup quinoa
5 cups weak veggie broth
salt & pepper, to taste
1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 bay leaf

Preheat oven to 275 degrees.

Drain the soaking water from the garbanzo beans, and set aside. In a large enameled dutch oven, heat the oils over medium-high heat. Add the carrots, parsnips, onion, celeriac, garlic and apples. Cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients, and bring to a boil. Remove from stove.

Cover the pot and cook in the oven for 2.5 hours. Let rest 10 minutes, and serve.

Note: To make this truer to the cholent method, you could make this one of two ways - cook in the oven at 200F for 12 hours or transfer to a slow cooker and cook on low for 12 hours.

Serves 4-6.

One Pot Chicken and Winter Veggies

2010-02-11T17:02:00.000-08:00

It's true that my modus operandi is not generally characterized by easy or efficient cooking styles. Of course, I don't dislike cooking this way, but I don't often go out of my way to make a recipe conform to these limitations. Food takes me however long it needs to take, and requires as many pots, knives, cutting boards, and heating elements as are necessary to get the job done right. Sometimes, the process is as long and meandering and unnecessary as this paragraph seems to be. But every once in a while, I come up with something that doesn't ask to be complicated by too many pots and pans. One Pot Chicken & Winter Veggies, which arose from some purposeless leftover cubed squash in the freezer, is one such recipe. So, enjoy the quick prep and easy clean-up this dish affords!

You might recognize bits and pieces of this recipe that were borrowed from a variety of established regional and ethnic stews and other popular dishes. You might even be inclined to call it Jambalaprikash Gumbisotto, or maybe not ...

One Pot Chicken & Winter Veggies
2 Tbsps. butter or Earth Balance buttery stick
2 Tbsps. flour (whole wheat, barley, teff, brown rice ... whatever you have will do)
1 Tbsp. safflower oil
1 large onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 lb. sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 lb. butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cubed
1 lb. boneless chicken, cubed
1 Tbsp. anchovy paste
salt & pepper, to taste
1 1/2 cups pearled barley
2 cups low sodium chicken stock
1 cup dry white wine
1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
2 Tbsps. dried thyme
1 tsp. paprika

In a large, heavy pot or dutch oven, melt the butter. Whisk in the flour and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes, or until slightly darkened. Add the safflower oil, onion, and garlic, and cook until onions begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the sweet potatoes and squash, cooking for another minute. Add the chicken and cook for 5-7 minutes, until the chicken is cooked on the outside. Add the anchovy paste, salt, pepper, and barley, and cook for one minute, stirring until everything is well incorporated. Add the chicken stock, white wine, tomatoes, thyme, and paprika, stirring well.

Bring to a bubble over medium high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the barley is done but still toothy (al dente) and has absorbed most of the liquid. If additional liquid is needed, add 1/2 cup water at a time until desired effect is reached. Serve hot in bowls.

Serves 6.

Goji Berry Oatmeal Cookies

2010-02-04T17:26:00.000-08:00

There is virtually no possibility of guilt in eating these cookies. They are made of entirely whole grains, they have no refined sugar, they are dairy, egg, and wheat-free, they contain goji berries (high in antioxidants) and walnuts (high in omega 3's), and they taste great! Your kids will beg for more, and you might just give in.

Goji Berry Oatmeal Cookies
1/2 cup (1 stick) Earth Balance buttery sticks
3/4 cup honey
1 very ripe banana
1 Tbsp. unsulphured blackstrap molasses
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups barley flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup goji berries (or other dried fruit of your choice)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease 2 cookie sheets and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the Earth Balance, honey, banana, molasses and vanilla with an electric mixer. In a separate bowl, combine the barley flour, oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and combine with an electric mixer until just moistened.

Drop batter onto cookie sheets in rounded teaspoonfuls 2" apart. Bake 12-14 minutes, or until the edges begin to brown. Cool cookies on a rack, and enjoy!

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

This recipe was adapted from Ken Haedrich's recipe for Honey Wheat Oatmeal Cookies in his book Country Baking.

Eating While Standing on My Head

2010-02-04T16:38:00.000-08:00

A wrench has been thrown into my happy culinary game plan. My poor six-month-old son, who has been suffering from horrible eczema most of his very short life, just recently tested positive for a long list of allergies. Faced with the choice to either eliminate all of his food allergens from my diet in order to keep nursing, or putting him on soy formula, I opted for the former. So, I am now neck-deep in diet overhaul, eating while standing on my head. My son's allergies include: dairy, wheat, eggs, and cashews.

It's now been about a month since we learned of his allergies, so I've gotten used to the alternatives, a bit. I'm disheartened by the fact that his eczema, while considerably better, is still not clear, and he scratches himself to a bloody mess if I don't give him Zyrtec every day. These things lead me to believe that there are undiscovered allergies, so perhaps more testing will be in order soon.

Eliminating so much from my diet all at once did do a number on my digestive system, I admit. And unfortunately, since most of these foods are among the most common in any dish, finding substitutes often means eating things that I've generally regarded as un-foods - something developed in a lab, not grown on the land. So, perhaps it is the addition of these un-foods that negatively affected me, rather than the elimination of the real things.

Life without breads or pastries is much more unbearable than I thought it would be. Initially, I was sure that I would miss cheese the most, and I do miss it, but not nearly as much as wheat products. Every Saturday morning, I used to make pancakes, and I'm still stumbling through that one. So far, I've tried a few gluten-free mixes, but they're just dreadful. For bread replacement, I've been eating brown rice bread, which is cakey and sweet, nothing like whole wheat bread. I also sometimes eat 100% rye bread, which can't realistically be used for a sandwich, since it falls apart so easily, Nonetheless, it still tastes pretty good. And if you think eating Asian food is a good idea, think again! Soy sauce contains wheat, and many restaurants marinate foods in soy sauce, so you can't just ask them to leave it off.

To replace eggs, I've yet to settle into a routine. There is a powdered product (a definite un-food) that is called egg replacer, but it really doesn't resemble eggs in the least, and doesn't seem to perform well in baking. I've had more luck with simple oil, or even a banana for moisture and binding. Oddly enough, pan fried tofu is a pretty tasty alternative to scrambled eggs (but nothing can replace my Sunday morning over easy eggs).

For the dairy, I've given up on most of it. I can't understand why most veggie cheese actually still contains milk ... that's just baffling! The one variety of non-dairy "cheese" that I found tastes inedibe ... again, un-food. I do eat some soy yogurt, maybe once or twice a week, and that's just to have something to mix granola and fruit into for breakfast. Sometimes, I also eat wheat-free cereal, and for that and for some cooking applications, I've needed a milk replacement. On the recommendation of a friend, I tried hemp milk first, which was just short of unbearable. I know I don't like soy or rice milks from having tried them in the past, and frankly, I don't want to overexpose myself to either of those, since soy and rice replace almost everything else in my diet. One of the few nuts I have left to eat (between my son's cashew allergy and my daughter's peanut allergy) is almonds, and I've been eating them often, so I thought adding almond milk might also be overkill on that front. So, that left me with one more option: oat milk. Thankfully, I can stand the stuff. It's also fortunate that of all the milk replacers, it's one of the least expensive.

Speaking of expense, sheesh! All of these un-foods cost a fortune! This is going to take a serious toll on our budget! I've resolved to find ways to make a lot of very unfamiliar things myself to spare our bank account and my stomach exposure to so much unhealthy stuff. So, lots of these sorts of recipes are soon to come.

I'll leave you with this last bit of wisdom that I've learned over the last several weeks: My relationship with food has changed so much since I started eating unnatural things. I think about nutrients more than I care to, always worrying that the un-foods I'm consuming are not providing for me in the ways that their true counterparts did. That worry isn't unfounded ... my diet is no longer comprised entirely of actual food. I'm filling my stomach, but I'm not always doing so in my body's best interests. Such is the case for most Americans, who consume un-food unknowingly on a daily basis, and are not meeting their bodies' basic needs. For me, there has to be a better way.

Happy Birthday to the Trees

2010-01-29T18:45:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow, Jews will celebrate Tu B'Shevat, the 15th day of the month of Shevat -- the birthday of trees. What better holiday could there be for an environmentalist with the first name Ilana (Hebrew for Tree Sapling) and middle name Tamar (Hebrew for Date Palm Tree)? While a relatively minor holiday in Jewish tradition, Tu B'Shevat has been central to my life. I was married on Tu B'Shevat (technically, since it was after sundown, it was no longer Tu B'Shevat, but you get the idea), and my Bat Mitzvah was also the week of Tu B'Shevat. Clearly, my parents knew the kind of person I'd grow up to be when they named me.

Given its importance to me, the very least I could do to mark the occasion is to post a Tu B'Shevat recipe. Traditonally, Jews eat foods that grow on trees on Tu B'Shevat. Here is my very simple no-bake treat comprised entirely of tree products:

Tree Bars
1 cup dried, unsulphured apricots
1 cup dried, unsulphured figs, trimmed of stems
1 cup dried, unsulphured dates, pitted
1 cup raw almonds
2 cups coconut butter

Grease a 13x9 inch glass baking dish. In a food processor, combine the apricots, figs and dates. Process until chopped well (some small chunks can remain). Transfer to a large mixing bowl. In the processor, chop the almonds until well chopped (small chunks can remain). Combine the almonds with the dried fruit in the bowl.

Soften the coconut butter, either on the stovetop or in the microwave, until it is just spreadable. Add the coconut butter to the dried fruit mixture and combine thoroughly, using your hands (and your kids' hands!).

Press the mixture firmly and evenly into the baking dish. Cover and chill in the fridge for one hour. Cut into squares and serve. To store, wrap each bar in parchment or waxed paper and keep in the fridge.

Makes 24 bars.

Note: For a less rich, less fatty option, cut down the coconut butter to 1 1/2 cups.

While you're celebrating Jewish Earth Day, check out a few mitzvot (good deeds) that go well with the Tu B'Shevat spirit:
- 5 Actions You Can Take in 15 Minutes to Protect Forests
- Help Protect Forestry & Ecology in Israel
- Protect the World's Remaining Rain Forests, Including the Amazon
- Plant a tree in your backyard

Holiday Roast Made Easy

2009-12-21T19:38:00.000-08:00

Although I don't make a holiday roast (my holiday being over and all), I've had a great big hunk of meat taking up space in my freezer, and I thought now is as good a time as any to serve it. This time of year is great for a good, hearty roast. Rich foods are a perfect comfort on a cold, snowy evening, and that's just what we've got here in the Northeast.

Roasts are often all-day cooking affairs, but that doesn't mean they have to be complicated or difficult. On the contrary, making a roast can be the most worry-free, hands-off choice for entertaining. Roasts pair especially well with root vegetables, which are in season anyway, and the veggies can cook right alongside the roast, making entertaining with a dish like this incredibly simple.

I made this dish with a beef roast, but I don't see why you couldn't use any number of other meats - lamb, bison, venison, elk, wild boar (if you're lucky enough to have access to these). But whatever you do, do yourself, your community and the planet we all share a great big favor - make sure your meat comes from grass-fed (or wild) animals from an ethical, local farm. Animals given the opportunity to roam freely, raised on a natural diet, are far less prone to disease, have much higher levels of omega 3 fatty acids, and are generally more nutrient-dense than their factory-farmed counterparts. Buying locally raised meats supports your local economy and avoids the huge carbon toll of transporting food over long distances.

A happy and DELICIOUS holiday to all!!!

Holiday Roast Made Easy
2 Tbsps. safflower oil
3.5-5 lb. boneless roast
6 small or 3 large turnips, cut into 1/8ths
3 large carrots, peeled and quartered
1 large onion, peeled and quartered
4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1 cup water
2 Tbsps. dried tarragon
1-2 Tbsps.coarse salt
black pepper, to taste
1/4 cup dijon mustard
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsps. butter

In a large cast iron skillet, heat the safflower oil over high heat. Sear the roast for 3 minutes on each side.

In a slow cooker, add the turnips, carrots, onion, garlic and water. Place the roast on top of the vegetables so that the meat drippings help to flavor the veggies.

Combine the tarragon, salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar in a small bowl and whisk together. Spoon the mixture over the top of the roast. Add the butter in small bits over the top of the roast. For an even richer flavor, you can add the pan drippings from the skillet to the slow cooker. Cook on low for 6 hours.

Allow the meat to rest for 10 minutes before slicing thinly against the grain. If you like, strain some of the juices and reduce in a saucepan for about 15 minutes, and serve as a sauce to accompany the meat. Serve sliced meat alongside the carrots and turnips.

Serves 6-12.

Breakfast for Dinner

2009-12-19T18:28:00.000-08:00

My husband has asked me to make eggs for dinner for ages, and I've always resisted. Finally, one night when I had almost no time to cook, I decided to give it a shot. OK, he was right (Did I just say that?). Eggs are not just for breakfast.

I served this very fluffy frittata alongside some baked veggie latkes, making it a sort of eggs and hash browns.

Greek Frittata
5 large pastured eggs
1/4 cup milk
salt and pepper, to taste
1 tsp. olive oil
1 tsp. safflower oil
1/2 bunch spinach, washed and dried well and trimmed of tough stems
10 grape tomatoes, halved lengthwise
10 fresh basil leaves
4 oz. crumbled grass-fed goat's milk feta

Preheat the oven to 350F. Preheat a 12" cast iron skillet on the stovetop over high heat.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, salt and pepper. Add the oils to the skillet, spreading them evenly around the pan. When hot, add the egg mixture and reduce the heat to medium-low. Scatter the spinach, tomatoes and basil leaves around the pan. Allow the eggs to cook for 5 minutes. Sprinkle the feta around the pan, and cook for 2 minutes more.

Move the pan into the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes, or until springy to the touch. Cut into 6 wedges and serve hot.

Serves 2-3.

Sustainable Holiday Table

2009-12-14T18:32:00.000-08:00

Think about all the ways you impact the planet when you make your holiday meal a sustainable one:
- Holiday meals are bigger than most, so the effects of one meal are multiplied;
- It's a great way to honor the spirit of the season;
- You'll support your local farmers when they need it most (winter is pretty lean);
- You'll be enjoying fresh, wholesome foods, and sharing them with your guests;
- If family or friends have come a long way to be with you, perhaps your food's short commute can offset some of those carbon emissions;
- Your guests may come home with more than a full stomach ... they may come away with new wisdoms that could carry into their daily lives.

Here are some links to help you find sustainable foods to put on your table this holiday season:
Find local farms, CSAs, farmer's markets - http://www.localharvest.org/
Find sustainable local meat - http://www.eatwild.com/products/
Find out what's in season in your area - http://www.eatwellguide.org/i.php?id=Seasonalfoodguides
Saving money on green foods - http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/save-money-local-holidays-christmas-meal-451202

Baked Veggie Latkes

2009-12-07T17:52:00.000-08:00

With Hanukkah just around the corner, it's high time that I post a good latke recipe. Latkes are a traditional Jewish potato pancake served on Hanukkah. Typically, they're made with grated potatoes, onions, matzoh meal and eggs. The mixture is fried in plenty of oil. The oil really is essential, because oil is so central to the Hanukkah story in which a tiny amount of oil miraculously lit the Temple menorah for 8 days. So, virtually everything for Hanukkah is fried.

Of course, we all know frying is not particularly healthy. So, how to get around this? Well, I say it's still a latke if oil is employed, but in lesser amounts. How much more in keeping with the story of Hanukkah would it be if, by some miracle, I could coax from a minute amount of oil something as delicious as a fried latke? I'll go one better! What a miracle it would be if I could use a tiny amount of oil to make latkes full of all kinds of good-for-you, seasonal veggies (that means no zucchini, folks) that kids would actually like!

Well, that miracle happened (yes, I know I'm tooting my own horn a bit too excessively here). I made these latkes (in bite size form) for my daughter's nursery school class's snack. I expected the batch to last for 2-3 days, but they lasted only one day (kind of a reverse Hanukkah miracle). The kids loved them, and apparently the teachers did, too, as I was asked for the recipe.

Happy holidays, everyone! Enjoy, but with a little less weight gain this holiday season.

Baked Veggie Latkes
6 Tbsps. safflower oil, divided
4-6 russet or yukon gold potatoes, peeled and grated
1 onion, grated
1 large carrot, shredded
1/2 bunch leafy greens (I used mustard greens), shredded
4-5 scallions, finely chopped
2 Tbsps. potato starch
1 egg, beaten
salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 350F. On a cookie sheet with a rim (jelly roll pan), spread 2 Tbsps. of the oil evenly.

Place the grated potatoes and onion in a tea towel or cheese cloth. Squeeze the liquid out, and then empty the potato and onion into a large bowl. Add the carrot, greens, scallions, potato starch, and egg and combine thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper.

Spoon potato mixture onto the cookie sheet in small dollops, flattening each pancake. Bake for 40 minutes, flipping halfway through. Repeat with remaining batter (should be about 3 cookie sheets full). Best served hot with applesauce or sour cream for dipping.

Makes about 1.5 dozen full size latkes, or 4 dozen bite size latkes.

Olive Oil Poached Salmon

2009-11-14T17:05:00.000-08:00

Poaching is not usually my cooking mode of choice, and so I'm not very experienced in doing it. Poaching in oil, I've never done ... until now. I don't know what came over me, but I had a vision of olive oil, capers, lemon, and fish, and I said to myself, "I have to do this!" And I'm glad I did!

Now, the olive oil component is certainly not cheap, but the oil can be reused for the same application mutliple times, so consider that the oil's expense is only partly attributable to this meal. So, say a bottle of good, organic olive oil on sale goes for $11, which is what I usually pay. If you use this oil four times, then the cost for this meal is less than $3 (which is less than $1 per serving) ... not too bad. And who's to say you'll only use the oil four times? You might get more out of it!

And what of the health component? Am I just going to break all the rules of this blog (chuck health and cheap ... maybe we'll keep the green part)? The oil that is consumed by this recipe is actually quite minimal. Measure your oil before and after cooking, and you'll see what I mean. Besides, fat is not our enemy, particularly the kind of fat in olive oil (monounsaturated), which has been shown to help lower bad cholesterol (LDL). In fact, extra virgin olive oil, which is generally cold-pressed, is as close to a whole food as you can get without eating raw olives (does anyone do that?); it is not heated, not refined, and since it is from the first press of the olives, it contains the highest concentration of vitamins and minerals of any other type of olive oil. Have some antioxidants with your fat and flavor, why don't you?

Given its non-refinement, extra virgin olive oil is a very poor oil to use in high heat cooking, because it has a low smoking point, but it's excellent in poaching, which is a fairly low heat, simmering application. And it is not simply used as a heat conductor either. Yes, it does function to impart heat, but more importantly, it imparts some serious flavor.

So, forget your dieting rules about avoiding cooking in oil, and enjoy a meal full of healthy fats and lots of deliciousness!

Olive Oil Poached Salmon
4 fillets of wild, Alaskan salmon (4-6 oz. each), skinned
3-4 cups of extra virgin olive oil
2 lemons, sliced into rounds
several sprigs of fresh thyme, or 1 tsp dried
1/4 cup capers
1/3 cup fresh parsley, chopped
salt to taste (capers are salty, so go easy)
white pepper to taste

Pour olive oil into a stainless steel skillet to the depth of the salmon's thickness (about 2 inches). Heat the oil over medium heat until it is quite warm, but not hot (you should still be able to touch the oil without being in excruciating pain). Lower the heat to medium low to keep it at a simmer. Do not allow the oil to boil.

Add half the lemon slices and the sprigs of thyme to the pan. Lay the fish fillets (in batches, if necessary) to the pan. The fish should be fully submerged in the oil. Simmer for 4-5 minutes. Remove from the pan, and allow excess oil to drain on a cooling rack.

In a small bowl, combine the capers, parsley, salt, white pepper and 4 Tbsps of the simmering oil. Serve the fish topped with the a slice of lemon and drizzled with the caper mixture. I served this with a side of wild rice with wilted seasonal greens.

Serves 4.

Tip: To reuse the oil, filter it through cheesecloth and store in a glass bottle (the original bottle is fine) in the refrigerator. Remove the oil from the fridge about an hour before you plan to use it to allow the oil to re-liquify.

Photo of olive branch from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Olivesfromjordan.jpg).

Coriander-Pineapple Acorn Squash

2009-11-06T18:45:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is fast-approaching. This year, I'm not hosting, so my chance to play around with Thanksgiving flavors is now, just on a smaller scale.

This recipe is reminiscent of the sort of sweet yam dishes many people serve on Thanksgiving, but with squash instead of yams. No, there are no marshmallows ... sorry, kids.

Coriander-Pineapple Acorn Squash
1.5 lb. acorn squash
safflower oil spray
1/3 cup canned crushed pineapple
1 tsp. ground coriander seed
1 tsp. coarse salt
2 Tbsps. apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsps. brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 350F. Trim the top and bottom of the squash to create a flat surface on either side. Cut in half between the two ends, and remove the seeds and strings. Spray an 8x8" baking dish with safflower oil, and place the two haves of squash in the dish, trimmed side down. Bake for 30 minutes.

Cool the squash until you can handle it comfortably with your hands. Scrape the flesh of the squash into a mixing bowl. Add pineapple, coriander, salt and vinegar. Mix well. Scoop the mixture into the same 8x8 baking dish, and spread evenly. Sprinkle with brown sugar.

Place under the broiler for 5 minutes, or until the top is browned. Serve hot.

Serves 4-6.

Trader Joe's? The Jury is Out

2009-10-16T19:35:00.000-07:00

I'm new to the wonders of Trader Joe's. I've heard such great things about it: the low prices, the large selection of organic and whole grain foods, the unique products. It seems like everyone I know raves about it. So, now that one opened just 10 minutes from my daughter's nursery school, I thought I'd better check it out.

I went for the first time last week and left empty-handed and a little let down and confused. I was unaware that most of the products they sell are their own brand. I suppose there must be a way to make such a variety of products and still have them all meet high quality standards, but it still doesn't make much sense to me. I always thought better products (food and otherwise) are made by companies that specialize in something. Now, I haven't actually eaten any of their products yet, so I really can't say if they break this rule. But that issue aside, there several other issues I have with TJ's.

I was a bit saddened by the focus on processed foods. It seems like at least 50% of the store is their store brand of stuff in a box - frozen meals, cereals, canned products, refrigerated prepared foods. I found it troubling to be in a store like that, especially when it has the reputation of being a healthy food store. Healthy food is whole food, not processed foods. I suppose there isn't a grocery store on the planet that doesn't have lots of processed foods (even most health food stores do), but I was expecting to get great deals on real foods, like grains, beans, spices, baking supplies, etc. (incidentally, some of those things can be found at TJ's, but they are less prominent than the processed stuff).

I thought TJ's was a mostly organic store, and although they do have quite a variety of organic foods, you have to be careful to look for the organic symbol. Many times, I thought I was spotting a great deal, only to notice upon closer inspection that the product wasn't organic, hence the low price. I was a bit thrown to see so much conventional produce, in particular.

There are also some environmental concerns that I have with TJ's. Although they certainly do some things right (using paper shopping bags instead of plastic, for example), their products (even in produce) are clearly not locally-focused. That means that buying produce from them, or any other potentially local product (dairy, meat, bread, eggs, honey) is not supporting your local farmers, and it is adding to your carbon footprint by transporting foods that could be sourced locally.

So, I obviously had some negative first impressions about TJ's. But in the week that followed, I thought about it again and reconsidered some things. I do buy some processed foods: bread, cereal, canned tomatoes and dry pasta, to name a few. So, I may as well save some money at TJ's and buy that stuff there, if it's good, and if it's truly a savings. I also don't buy everything locally: I try to buy nearly all local produce, and as much as possible I buy local meats, eggs, honey and dairy. But I can't buy local grain, flour, sugar or nuts, to name a few. So, I may as well save some money and buy that stuff there, too. Finally, although I buy nearly all organic products, I would consider buying some non-organic products at TJ's because their products are GMO-free, and that is a major concern for me in most conventional products.

I went back to TJ's today, and I did buy a few things, and at very good prices:
- Organic boneless chicken breasts @ $6.99/lb. - I have yet to find local boneless chicken breasts, and this is an excellent price
- Whole wheat organic spaghetti @ $1.29 for 16 oz. - that's $0.70 less than the spaghetti I usually buy, when it's on sale
- Organic whole wheat min-pitas @ $1.79 for 8 - I've never seen these anywhere else
- Whole wheat pizza dough (non-organic) @ $0.99 - I still would like to start making my own pizza dough, but for now (with the little one only 3 months old), I'll forgive myself
- Whole wheat small flour tortillas (non-organic) @ $2.29 for 10 - I haven't seen this size whole wheat non-GMO tortillas anywhere else
- Whole wheat large flour tortillas (non-organic) @ $2.69 for 10 - not sure this is such a great deal. If it were organic, it would be a great deal. At least it's non-GMO.
- Organic light brown sugar @ $2.99 for 24 oz. - this is a real bargain - the same amount would normally go for more than $5. Only problem is that it's not fair trade.
- I also thought about buying their dried unsulphured mango, but then I saw that the first ingredient is sugar, so I nixed that.

I have some guilt about buying all this stuff. None of it is ideal, but it's hard to argue with the prices given that they required only small compromises. Still, what good are ideals if you're willing to compromise them for a bargain? I don't know ... I have figured this one out yet.

Ultimately, I think what made TJ's a less than life-altering experience for me is the hype. I went in expecting a revolutionary shopping experience, and I came away feeling like all I saw was a different business model for the same old, same old.

Halloween Sweets Project for Kids

2009-10-15T12:08:00.000-07:00

I'm going to disappoint a lot of folks in this confession: I'm not into Halloween. I think I went trick-or-treating twice in my life, and it was no big thrill. My mother is lucky her house was never egged or TP'd, as she gave out pennies on Halloween.

That said, I was inspired today to post about some fun food stuff to do with kids on Halloween. Another mother who is also a member of Holistic Moms Network posed the question of what to use to decorate cookies on Halloween that is not grossly unhealthy. So, I came up with a list of suggestions, and here they are.

Dark (brown, but almost black):
- Raisins
- Sprinkelz brand makes a few different types of sprinkles with no artificial colors.
- Carob chips
- Cacao nibs
- Use a microplane to shred some fair trade organic chocolate

White:
- Shredded coconut
- Coconut butter sweetened with agave, maple syrup, or your choice of sweetener, if you need something spreadable
- Cream cheese mixed with maple syrup and little vanilla (I stole that one from my friend, Rose)

Red (think blood):
- Pomegranate juice
- Beet juice

Orange:
- Egg yolk mixed with a little pomegranate or beet juice and sweetened (you'd need to then bake whatever you put this on)
- Turmeric mixed with pomegranate juice and sweetened - mix this into a white frosting or coconut butter to make it spreadable
- Steamed, pureed and strained pumpkin, winter squash or sweet potato mixed into white frosting or coconut butter
- Pureed mango (deepen the color with just a little molasses or brown sugar)

Purple:
- Blueberry juice

You could go the traditional route and have the kids decorate cupcakes or cookies. Maybe make a bunch of different color "frostings" for the kids to spread on them, and then give them a few other decorating options, like raisins, carob chips, shredded coconut and a bowl of pomegranate juice.

Another alternative to cookies and cupcakes is to make a jelly roll cake (with a healthier recipe - maybe this one), but don't roll it. You can get some Halloween cookie cutters and have the kids cut out Halloween shapes. That way, the decorating colors don't need to be spot on to still look Halloweeny.

For a very artistically inclined child, you could even give them a whole jelly roll cake to decorate so they have a full canvas to fill.

Despite my own disinterest in the holiday, I do hope you and yours have a healthy, happy, spooky Halloween!

Tofu Tacos with Cashew Sauce

2009-10-13T12:11:00.000-07:00

Eight years ago, when I met my husband, I found out that I didn't have the adventurous palate that I thought I did; and even though his tastes were somewhat narrow compared to mine, he cooked things that I never considered. I even turned my nose up at some. Most baffling to me was tofu. Sure, I had eaten tofu here and there in Asian restaurants, but it was always because it happened to be on my plate mixed in with other more desirous things, not because I was specifically interested in ordering tofu.

I knew myself to be entirely open to foods of all sorts, so in realizing that I was wrong in this perception, I found myself in a challenging position. I didn't like being someone who wasn't open to new foods, even though I clearly was that person. So, I decided to simply be open and accept my newfound friend - tofu. And now, I'm a true fan.

As it turns out, tofu is a very complex food, which I am only beginning to understand. It can be eaten in any number of forms (soups, sauces, stews, frozen, fried, sauteed, grilled, baked ... you name it). It can take on virtually any flavor, so it can fit in any cuisine. Lots of culinary fun can be had with tofu, and that is what I am attempting to do.

This recipe is one of my adventures in tofuland.

Tofu Tacos with Cashew Sauce

16 oz. firm tofu
tofu marinade (see below)
safflower oil spray
20 leaves of greens (I used swiss chard and turnip greens), shredded
1/2 daikon, peeled and sliced into matchsticks
1 carrot, peeled and sliced into matchsticks
3-5 turnips, sliced into matchsticks
1 cup bean sprouts
cashew sauce (see below)
12 brown rice tortillas

Tofu Marinade
3 Tbsps. low-sodium tamari
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 Tbsp. brown rice vinegar
2 inches ginger, sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced

Cashew Sauce
1/2 cup raw cashew butter
1/4 cup wheat-free low-sodium tamari
1 Tbsp. brown rice vinegar
1 tsp. sesame oil
2 Tbsps. tahini
2 Tbsps. safflower oil
2 Tbsps. agave nectar

Place whole tofu brick in a bowl. Place another bowl or plate on top of the tofu and weigh it down with something heavy, such as a can of beans. Put the weighed down tofu in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours. Remove the weight, and pour off whatever liquid has accumulated in the bowl.

In a small bowl, whisk together marinade ingredients. Cut the tofu into four equally thick slices. Lay the tofu slices in a single layer in a small glass container or pan. Allow to marinate, refrigerated, for at least 4 hours, turning once.

Heat a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Spray with safflower oil. Once the pan is hot, add the tofu slices. Grill for 4-5 minutes on each side. Remove from pan. Once slightly cooled, cut tofu into thick strips.

In a small bowl, whisk together cashew sauce ingredients. It will be somewhat thick. If you prefer a thinner consistency, add water, 1 Tbsp at a time until you reach the desired effect.

Using one tortilla at a time, paint the center with a dollop of cashew sauce, add a few strips of the tofu and some of each of the vegetables. If using taco-sized tortillas, simply fold in half and enjoy. If using burrito-sized tortillas, bring one end over, fold in the sides, and then roll the wrap over the other end. Cut in half on an angle.

Serves 4-6.

Sweet & Sour with a Dash of Pomegranate

2009-10-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

One of the things that really says Fall to me, other than changing leaves and sudden gusts of wind, is the appearance of pomegranates in the produce section. There are so many products on the shelves that feature pomegranates, touting it's superfood capacity as an antioxidant, but so few people actually eat pomegranates as they are naturally, and in the short season that they're available. I think that's a terrible shame. I believe that what is stopping people is the foreignness of the fruit, and the mystery of how to approach it. Once you learn how get into it and how to eat it (which is as simple as cutting it open and eating the kernels inside, which look a lot like red corn kernels), you can do a million things with them! They offer great color and taste contrast in savory dishes, and they offer textural interest in sweet dishes. Here are a few easy things to do with your pomegranate (that you will surely buy this week):

- Toss into a green salad
- Toss into a fruit salad
- Toss a handful into your morning oatmeal or cold cereal
- Eat as a snack (lots of fun for kids)
- Cranberry Apple Pomegranate Sauce
- Garnish savory dishes featuring fruit-friendly proteins, such as fish, pork, chicken or shrimp
- Make Sweet & Sour Stir Fry ........

Sweet & Sour Stir Fry
1/2 cup brown rice vinegar
1/4 cup mirin (sweet rice wine - sold in Asian food stores and some grocery stores)
1/4 cup lime juice
1/2 cup brown rice syrup (sold in health food stores)
1 Tbsp. unsulphured blackstrap molasses
2 inches of ginger, cut into chunks (no need to peel)
pinch coarse salt
14 oz. brown rice fettuccini
1/4 cup safflower oil
1.25 lbs. mahi mahi, skinned and cut into 1" cubes
1 head napa cabbage, shredded
2 carrots, cut in thin 2" strips
1 red pepper, seeded and cut into thin 2" strips
1 bunch scallions, cut into thin 2" strips
1/2 cup pomegranate kernels
1/2 cup raw cashews or peanuts, rough chopped (optional)

In a small saucepan combine the vinegar, mirin, lime juice, brown rice syrup, molasses, ginger and salt. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and reduce the sauce by about half (about 15 minutes). Fish the chunks of ginger out and discard, and reserve the sauce.

Cook the fettuccini according to package directions.

In a very large wok or stainless steel skillet, heat the safflower oil over medium-high heat. Add the fish and stir fry until just cooked. Remove the fish from the skillet and set aside. Add the cabbage, carrots and red pepper, and stir fry until the cabbage is wilted and the carrot has softened a bit (10 minutes). Return the fish to the pan and add the sweet and sour sauce. Stir to combine. Add the fettuccini and toss until combined thoroughly and heated through.

Serve in bowls garnished with a sprinkle of scallions, pomegranate kernels and nuts.

Serves 4-6.

Source of pomegranate photo: www.producepedia.com

Maple Orange Glazed Halibut

2009-09-26T18:28:00.000-07:00

Tonight's dinner afforded me a very proud Mommy moment. My 3-year-old little girl completely cleaned her plate without any encouragement or prodding. Not that she's a bad eater - quite the opposite. Still, that she finished every morsel is really the best compliment I could get. And it feels particularly great that this meal was not at all "kid friendly"; that is, it didn't feature typical kid fare, like pasta, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, etc. Tonight's dinner was a wonderful example of just how much children can enjoy healthy, adult foods, if only we let them try them.

I don't typically buy Halibut. It's a very expensive fish. But last week, I saw some beautiful fresh wild Alaskan halibut steaks on sale for only $7.99/lb (Atlantic halibut should be avoided ... it's heavily overfished, and is therefore not a sustainable option). That's even less than I pay for my wild Alaskan Salmon, and that's frozen! I couldn't resist. It's a real treat for me. Halibut is a very sweet, moist, flaky fish. It's also very easy and quick to prepare, and needs very little adornment to make it special. Yum!

Maple Orange Glazed Halibut
1 lb. wild Pacific halibut steaks, cut into 3 portions (about 5 oz. each)
2 navel oranges
1 Tbsp. low-sodium tamari or soy sauce
1 Tbsp. pure maple syrup
pinch salt (optional)
safflower oil spray

Juice one of the oranges, and set juice aside. Zest the other orange, and set aside. Then suprem e the second orange, reserving the supremes for garnish.

In a small saucepan, combine orange juice, orange zest, tamari, maple syrup, and salt. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, and then reduce heat to medium low. Reduce the mixture down until it thickens a bit, enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

Heat a large cast iron skillet over high heat. Spray the skillet with safflower oil. Once the skillet is hot, reduce the heat to medium high. Add the halibut portions. Cook for 5 minutes on each side. Then brush the top with the maple orange glaze. Turn and glaze the other side, allowing the glazed fish to cook 1 more minute on each side. Remove from pan.

Garnish the steaks with the orange supremes. I served this with a quinoa pilaf and green beans with toasted almonds.

Serves 3.

Mystery Meat for Lunch

2009-09-21T18:18:00.000-07:00

What is it about school lunches? I always thought that it was just public schools that had dreadful cafeteria options, but apparently, even private schools that cost an arm and a leg are still feeding our kids pseudo-foods. What happened to the national health-consciousness trend (think Michelle Obama's organic garden)? Where are all the parents who are buying organic foods in increasing numbers, and where do their children go to school? Are all the statistics wrong, or are parents just ignorant of what goes on outside their homes?

As you may know from my previous post about my daughter's nursery school, we provide our own snacks for her because what is provided there is often questionable, to say the least. I'm not completely happy with the nursery school for a variety of reasons, and I'd love to find something closer to home (it's a 20-30 minute commute), so I've been keeping my eyes open.

Today, after coming out of the grocery store, I noticed a pamphlet on my car's windshield. Of course, I began immediately muttering profanities. Then I realized that the pamphlet was for a Montessori school that will be opening up in our area next year. I read the pamphlet with interest, went home and checked out the website. I was thrilled to see all sorts of great things, like natural material toys, mixed age classes, botany as a core subject area ... what fun! And it's walking distance from home! Yay! I thought I'd found a home for my kids! Then I see the bad news - lunch and snacks are provided by the school, included in tuition. What is lunch? Here is a sampling from their lunch menu:

Chicken Nuggets
Meatballs
Macaroni and Cheese
Grilled Cheese
Ham & Cheese
Mozzarella Sticks
Baked Ziti
Pizza
Corn Dogs
Hot Dogs
Beef and Macaroni

I can almost guarantee that these are all heavily processed, fatty, salty, sugary foods that are probably frozen or canned. Nevermind that this menu completely excludes vegan children, providing no options for them whatsoever. It's absurd for any child to eat a regular diet of these foods! All those great teaching methods will go to waste on children fed nothing but garbage. Kids need real, fresh vegetables, fruits, whole grains and wholesome proteins to sustain their energy, their growing bodies and their developing brains. And how will it affect our children if they regularly eat dairy foods full of hormones (known to cause early onset of puberty and reproductive cancers), meats full of antibiotics (which is how most antibiotics are consumed in this country, not by prescription), grain products stripped of their nutritional content (making them pure calories and nothing more), preservatives, stabilizers, artificial sweeteners, high glycemic sweeteners, and many other edible toxins? Will the Flintstones vitamin they took in the morning make up for everything lacking in their diets? For many of us, it matters what our kids eat. That needs to be the case even when our kids are in someone else's care.

Lunch is a part of every school day. In fact, for many kids, it's their favorite subject. That's no joke! What kids learn at the lunch table are life-long lessons, maybe ones that will ultimately affect them more than their ABCs will. A learning institution that doesn't see lunch as a learning opportunity, to teach kids how to get the most from their bodies and their lives, is failing its students, plain and simple.

Pumpkin Pineapple Chicken

2009-09-17T12:29:00.000-07:00

A while back, I learned how to cut up a chicken (see here). I resolved at the time to only use chicken that I'd cut up myself, with the exception of boneless chicken. Now that I have a baby to care for, time is not on my side, so that rule has been temporarily scrapped. Please forgive me!

This week, while looking for split chicken breasts on sale for $4.79/lb (good deal for organic chicken!), I noticed packs of chicken that included breasts and drumsticks for $2.49/lb. (also organic). Woo hoo! So, essentially, for the same price as 4 breasts, I got 4 breasts plus 10 drumsticks! What a deal! This recipe makes use of my free drumsticks, a small pumpkin from my CSA, and a can of pineapple bought on sale ages ago. Supremo cheapo!

Pumpkin Pineapple Chicken
2 cups fresh pumpkin, peeled, seeded and cubed
3 cloves garlic, smashed
2 shallots, rough chopped
1 tsp. ground coriander seed
1 tsp. cumin
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
salt & pepper, to taste
2 Tbsps. olive oil
1 1/2 cups homemade or low-sodium veggie broth
2 Tbsps safflower oil
10 chicken drumsticks
1 cup fresh pineapple cubed, or 1 can pineapple chunks
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

Preheat oven to 400F. Combine pumpkin, garlic, shallots, spices and olive oil in a large baking dish. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Allow to cool slightly.

Scoop pumpkin mixture into a blender, adding the veggie broth. Puree until smooth.

In a large stainless steel skillet, heat the safflower oil over medium high heat. Season the drumsticks with salt and pepper. Add the drumsticks to the pan, and cook for 5 minutes on each side.

Add the pumpkin puree to the pan. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the pineapple, and simmer for an additional 10 minutes. Add the cilantro and adjust seasonings. Serve over whole wheat couscous.

Serves 4-5.

Thai Red Curry with Fish

2009-09-04T11:28:00.000-07:00

I love any and all good curries -- Thai, Indian, Caribbean, you name it! I even remember having a fantastic North African goat curry at a hole-in-the-wall take-out place in Queens years ago. Curry is good, honest peasant food, which is to say that it has no airs and it requires no sophistication to enjoy it. It is not an acquired taste. It just tastes good!

I admit it ... I cheat when I make curry, which makes them supremely easy to make and foolproof. When making Indian curries I generally use jarred curry powder or garam masala, and when I make Thai curries I use jarred curry paste. These things can be made yourself, and in general I encourage that sort of thing. But some things ought to be left to the experts, unless you really know what you're doing. In the case of curry powders and curry pastes, there are plenty of perfectly healthy options out there that contain no MSG, HFCS, or other bizarre almost-food products, so this is a short cut I can live with.

A word of caution: curry can be hot, and especially if you are working with jarred Thai curry paste, it most likely will be. If you're particularly heat-sensitive, you might want to try making your own curry paste, and leaving the chilies out, or to a minimum.

Thai Red Curry with Fish
2 Tbsps safflower oil
1 - 1.5 lbs. fish fillets (almost any will work ... Mahi Mahi is what we used, but you needn't use such a firm fish. Stay away from very strong-flavored fish like salmon, tuna, or bluefish), skin removed
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 large onion, sliced thinly
3 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
2-3 heirloom tomatoes, chopped
2 bell peppers (any color), cored and cut into strips
1 bunch leafy greens (kale, beet greens, spinach, chard), washed, ribs removed, and leaves torn into large pieces
14 oz. can light coconut milk
1/2 - 1 1/2 tsps. Thai red curry paste, depending on your heat tolerance
1 cup cubed fresh pineapple, or 1 can pineapple chunks
1/4 cup fresh Thai basil (or other basil), torn
cooked brown rice

In a large stainless steel skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Season the fish fillets with salt and pepper, and place in the hot pan. Cook 2-4 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness of the fish. Remove from pan and set aside to cool.

In the same pan, add the onions and garlic. Saute until slightly browned, 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and peppers, seasoning with salt and pepper, and saute until the tomatoes begin to soften, about 7 minutes. Add the leafy green and saute until wilted. Add the coconut milk and curry paste, and adjust other seasonings. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer for 5 minutes.

Flake the fish or cut into large chunks, and return to the pan. Add the pineapple and basil. Serve over brown rice.

Serves 4-5.

Bulgar Lentil Salad

2009-09-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

I sometimes forget to use less common grain products, like bulgar wheat, and too often, when I do, I go with well-established applications, like tabouli. Although this is yet another cold salad, it doesn't resemble tabouli at all, so that's a relief to me. I've cooked out of the box ... yay!

I really like the nuttiness of the bulgar, but if you don't care for it, try this recipe with quinoa, barley, millet, or even brown rice. The vegetables can also be switched out for whatever is seasonal when you make it. This particular combination makes for a fun color palate.

We're eating this for lunch this week, but it could be dinner or a side dish. It would work very well for a picnic, now that the weather seems to be cooperating again!

Bulgar Lentil Salad
4 medium beets, cleaned and trimmed of ends
1 cup bulgar wheat
1/2 cup green lentils
2 2/3 cups homemade or low-sodium veggie stock
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsps. chopped dried onion
salt & pepper, to taste
1/2 lb. green beans, trimmed of ends and cut into 2" pieces
1/2 pint grape tomatoes
1/4 cup fresh dill, chopped
2 Tbsps lemon juice
2 Tbsps olive oil
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper (optional)

Preheat oven to 400F. Wrap each beet in foil and place on a cookie sheet. Bake for 40 minutes. Allow to cool. Peel the skins, and cut the beets into small cubes.

In a medium covered saucepan, combine the bulgar, lentils, veggie stock, garlic powder, chopped onion, salt & pepper, and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.

In a small covered saucepan fitted with a metal basket steamer, steam green beans for only 2-3 minutes, or until bright green, but still firm.

Combine the bulgar mixture, cooked green beans, tomatoes, dill, lemon juice, olive oil, cumin and cayenne in a large bowl, and toss. Season with salt and pepper, if needed. Serve topped with a handful of beet cubes.

Serves 4-6.

Food Face

2009-08-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was reminded of a very fond childhood food memory. Although I was never a terribly picky eater, every child needs some encouragement to eat sometimes. So, my mother came up with a fun and creative spin on serving food that did just that. We made faces out of food. Most often, we'd cover a plate with cottage cheese, and then decorate it with things like raisins for the mouth, olives for eyes, apple slices for ears ... you get the idea. It can be done with lots of different foods.

I'd forgotten about food faces until my mother came for a visit yesterday and made one for my daughter. She loved it so much that she asked for another one today for lunch. So, this is what we did:

Eyes - Hard-boiled egg sliced in half
Nose - Cherry tomato
Mouth - String beans
Cheeks - Potato rounds
Hair - Shredded carrot

Note: The tomato, string beans and potatoes were all taken from the potato salad that I was planning to serve her for lunch.

For younger kids, you might need to make these for them, but as kids get older, they can make them for themselves. It can really get them interested in cooking, and eating. Even a 3-year-old, like my daughter, had some input. It was her idea to shred the carrot for the hair.

Eastern European No-Mayo Potato Salad

2009-08-29T19:14:00.000-07:00

I know mayonnaise is all the rage in culinary circles, but I can't stand the stuff! It's flavorless and gloopy, and it must be the bane of the potato's existence. I think even the most mayo-crazy foodies might agree that what passes for potato salad in most cafeterias and delis is only made worse by the gobs of mayo slathered all over those innocent potatoes. Poor things! Well, no potato salad of mine will ever have to endure such torture.

While in college, I had the pleasure of tasting a fabulous alternative to American potato salad that really spoke to me. It was made, of course, by someone's grandmother. A Croatian friend of mine had a grandmother who lived to feed other people, and she was quite a good, homey cook, so I was happy to oblige. One of the dishes she made was a potato salad with green beans and tons of garlic. Instead of mayo, this salad was dressed in a clean vinaigrette that added brightness and flavor to the dish. Quite a welcome change!

This is my approximation of what that wonderful Babba used to make, with a few added ingredients of my own.

No-Mayo Potato Salad
1 lb. thin-skinned potatoes (any color), scrubbed and sliced 1/4" rounds
20 fresh string beans, trimmed of ends
3 large cloves of garlic, sliced thinly
1 very small red onion, or 2 shallots, sliced thinly
1/2 pint grape or cherry tomatoes
2 Tbsps. fresh parsley, chopped
3 Tbsps. extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsps. red wine vinegar
salt and pepper, to taste

In a large covered pot with a metal steamer basket, steam the potatoes until they are just cooked. In the last 3 minutes, add the green beans to the pot. Allow to cool.

Combine the potatoes, string beans, garlic, onion, tomatoes and parsley in a large bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper until well emulsified. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss well. Serve cold or room temperature.

Serves 4-6.

Summertime Grilled Chimichangas

2009-08-27T17:07:00.000-07:00

It's amazing to me how few vegetables I need to buy at the store in the summertime. The CSA has provided very well for my family this year. Looking at what was in the fridge, I threw together this recipe of very seasonal, colorful stuff. It's super easy, and it's very toddler friendly (if your kids are like mine, they might open up the tortillas like a present and eat the insides). It's also healthier than your average chimichanga, which is deep fried and full of greasy meats. This is much lighter, and much more figure-friendly. Hope you enjoy them as much we did!

Summertime Grilled Chimichangas
1 ear of fresh corn
6 flour tortillas (whole wheat or sprouted grain)
1 can aduki beans, drained and rinsed
3 Tbsps diced red onion
1 jalapeño, seeded and minced
1/2 bell pepper (any color), diced
1 large heirloom tomato, seeded and diced
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
6 oz. shredded monterey jack cheese
safflower oil spray
1 lime, cut into wedges

Steam the ear of corn for five minutes. Cut the kernels away, and reserve.

Preheat a cast iron skillet or large cast iron pan over high heat. Working with one tortilla at a time, add small amounts of the beans, onion, jalapeño, bell pepper, corn, tomato, cilantro and cheese in the center. Fold two opposing sides over toward the middle, and then fold in the other sides. Spray the pan with a film of safflower oil, and reduce the heat to medium. Grill the stuffed tortillas seam side down for 2 minutes. Turn and then grill for another two minutes. Enjoy!

If you need to keep these warm while grilling the others, you can put them on a cookie sheet in a 200F oven.

Serves 3.

Healthy Italian Hoagie

2009-08-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

My husband often reminisces about his days in Hoboken, New Jersey, when he could walk to the corner store and get himself an Italian sandwich, piled high with capicola, prosciutto, and fresh mozzarella. I'm not sure that gobs of salty, fatty meat would win as much esteem with my heart, but I can nonetheless appreciate a good sandwich.

Given that it is Jersey tomato season, and eggplant and basil are also plentiful, I thought I'd take a crack at my own version of an Italian sandwich, healthy style. So here goes:

Healthy Italian Hoagie
1 whole grain Italian bread or French baguette
homemade basil pesto
safflower oil spray
1 small eggplant (you could use the ordinary black variety, but the skin is tough on those. I used my zebra eggplant from the farm. Japanese eggplant would also do nicely, though you might need two of those), sliced thin, lengthwise
salt & pepper, to taste
1 large heirloom tomato (any color), sliced into thick rounds
8 oz. fresh mozzarella, thickly sliced

Cut the bread lengthwise into two halves. Toast in the oven at 400F for 5-10 minutes.

Spray a large cast iron skillet with safflower oil, and heat over high heat. Coat the eggplant with oil on both sides of each slice and season with salt and pepper. Once the pan is hot, reduce heat to medium and grill eggplant for 2 minutes on each side.

Slather both halves of the bread with a generous amount of pesto. Then pile the grilled eggplant, tomato, and fresh mozzarella. Season with salt and pepper. Cut into individual portions.

Serves 3.

Roasted Tomato Soup with Lemon Basil

2009-08-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

My daughter cheers for tomato soup year round, even in this sweltering heat we've been enduring. Somehow, she hasn't taken to gazpacho, which would be the more refreshing choice, I think. This week, since we were inundated with tomatoes from our CSA, and we picked an interesting assortment of specialty basils at the farm, I thought I'd try a new twist on tomato soup. The result is a sort of Thai-American fusion soup.

For a more traditional tomato soup, substitute standard basil and heavy cream for the lemon basil and coconut milk. If you can't find lemon basil, you could use lemongrass or just plain lemon juice.

Roasted Tomato Soup with Lemon Basil
8-10 medium ripe tomatoes, rough chopped
2 Tbsps olive oil
2 stalks celery, rough chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, smashed
4-6 shallots, rough chopped
2 Tbsps lemon basil leaves
salt & pepper, to taste
1 14 oz. can light coconut milk

Preheat oven to 400F. In a large baking dish, toss the tomatoes with the oil and a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper. Cover with foil, and bake for 30 minutes.

Add the celery, garlic and shallots, stirring to combine. Return to the oven for another 30 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 350F. Add the lemon basil and adjust seasonings, stirring to combine.

Cool completely. Pour the tomato mixture into a blender and puree. Pour puree into a stock pot or dutch oven. Add the coconut milk and heat the soup through. Adjust seasonings. Serve hot.

Serves 4-6.

Time for Lunch

2009-07-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

In an effort to encourage public schools to provide whole, fresh foods to school children, and to pass legislation that will support that goal, Slow Food USA has started a campaign called Time for Lunch. They are asking people around the country to host a public potluck, called an Eat-In, on September 7th (labor day), and invite everyone you can, including legislators, to attend. This is a serious step in the right direction to get our kids off to a healthy start, making them more equipped to learn. Establishing good eating habits in our kids could help this generation overcome the threat of increasing childhood diseases, like early onset type 2 diabetes, and could help them grow up to be healthier than their parents' generation.

To learn about organizing an Eat-In, visit http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/campaign/time_for_lunch/organize_an_eat_in/

Contact your legislators about this issue by visiting http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/campaign/time_for_lunch/contact_your_legislators/

Sign the Slow Food petition in support of the Time for Lunch campaign by visiting http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/campaign/time_for_lunch/

The Best Bang for Your Produce Buck

2009-07-10T06:42:00.000-07:00

One of the best things we can do to make ourselves and our families healthy is to eat real, fresh foods. Many of us may think that what we get in the supermarket in the produce aisle is fresh, but the reality is that much of that food comes from halfway, or all the way, around the world, and is far from fresh. For most foods, that means they have to be picked before they ripen, robbing them of their natural development. Once picked, most fruits and veggies immediately begin to lose nutritional value, as they start the decay process.

The longer something sits in a crate, the greater the distance between farm and plate, the less real food you are getting. If you're buying conventional (non-organic) produce, and it's from far away, you're barely eating a natural substance. In fact, you may be eating more chemicals than nutrients (many foreign countries use harsher and more chemical pesticides and herbicides than we do in the US). Sure, it may look nice, and we've somehow evolved to value the look of produce over its taste and nutritional value, a cultural phenomenon I'll never understand. But you are getting very little for your produce dollar in buying these products. Granted, if you live in certain parts of the world (like the Northeast US), winter makes sourcing local produce quite a challenge. The rest of the year is quite a different story.

Here are some options that could work for you to help get real food on your table, and avoid spending your life savings to feed yourself:

CSAs
As I've mentioned in many a previous post, we subscribe to a CSA (Community Support of Agriculture) program. This program is run by a local organic farm (the one we use is Honeybrook Organic Farm). It helps them to have this subscription program, because it guarantees them an income for the year, regardless of weather conditions. It helps me, as a consumer, because I get fresh, local, organic produce every week from a farmer I trust.

This is how is works: You apply for a share with the farm, and if you can get a spot (our CSA fills up FAST!), you then pay for the upcoming year's share. Many farms offer only one kind of share - a full share. At Honeybrook, we have the option of a family share, an individual share, or a delivered boxed share. Family and individual shares must be picked up at the farm. Boxed shares are delivered to a wide variety of locations on specific days, and individuals must come to pick up their boxes within certain times. We took a boxed share, which we split with a friend. The cost this year for our share was $624, of which we paid $312. The harvest season typically runs from late May to early November, depending on conditions, so that means we're paying an average of $12.50 per week for our share. What a terrific bargain!

Our CSA grows all sorts of vegetables (lately our box has includes lettuce, beets, summer squash, fennel, kale, cabbage, basil, radicchio), plus aromatics, like onions, garlic and herbs, so there's little need to buy other vegetables. Some CSAs grow quite a bit of fruit, too, but ours is limited to berries and some watermelon, so we do still spend additional money on fruit.

Another benefit to many CSAs is that they have some pick-your-own crops. For no additional charge, members can come to the farm to pick specified quantities of certain veggies or fruits. During strawberry season, we picked 8 quarts of strawberries in the course of two weeks!! Not only was there no charge for this, but my daughter and I had a great time in the fields, and she got herself completely covered in strawberry juice and mud (what fun!). The strawberries were also about the best I've ever tasted. Just incredibly sweet and flavorful!

We've also picked sugar snap peas, snow peas, green beans and herbs so far this season. Oddly enough, the act of picking these things gets my daughter interested in them. If you can believe it, she was eating raw green beans and chives right from the fields! It's a great way to familiarize kids with the growing and harvesting process, and helps them learn about their food, opening their minds to new tastes and textures. Now, my daughter happily eats chives, even though she'd always complained that they were too sharp before.

Although there is sometimes an overabundance of certain veggies or fruits during the season, this is really a benefit that can carry you through the colder months. Too much basil can easily become pesto sauce, which freezes quite well. Too many tomatoes can become tomato sauce or tomato soup, which also freeze very well. Zucchini is great for quick breads, another good freezer. Strawberries can become strawberry jam, which can be canned and stored in the pantry, or you can just freeze them whole (stems removed) and use them in smoothies whenever. Potatoes, carrots, beets, and other root vegetables can be stored in a cool root cellar for months. Winter squash can keep for a couple months right on your counter, or you can cut them up or puree and freeze them. Just because you receive a box full of goodies every week doesn't mean you need to use them up before the week is over. Making them last means you'll have more variety in your diet throughout the year.

Farmers' Markets
Farmers' Markets are everywhere now, as there has been such a return to local agricultural support. They offer many of the same benefits as a CSA, but with more flexibility and variety. Typically, the prices are higher than you would pay per pound through a CSA, but still lower than organic produce in the stores.

The great thing about Farmers' Markets is that you really can get to know the farmers themselves, since they often tend their own tables. You can find out how they grow their veggies and how they raise their animals, and see if their philosophy jives with yours. Just like in a CSA, you're still eating a seasonal, local diet, and very often their products are grown organically (even if not certified as such). You get to pick what you want to buy, and leave the rest (with a CSA, you get what you get), and you control the quantities of what you buy (so you won't have to figure out how to use 5 heads of lettuce in a week!). Although some CSAs also offer things like eggs, dairy and meat, these are much more commonly found at a Farmers' Market. You might even find local artisan cheeses, local raw honey (a very tasty way to keep seasonal allergies at bay), grass-fed beef, pastured chicken and eggs, raw and un-homogenized milk (in those states where this is legal), in addition to all the local produce.

Co-Ops
There are a couple of different types of co-ops that can provide reasonably local produce options. There are organic food co-ops, most often found in urban areas. Typically, members of the co-op must work a minimum number of hours at the co-op store in order to participate. Members are part owners in the business, and therefore might receive a small dividend annually. Food co-ops often stock similar products that would be found in a local health food store, but the prices are often lower.

There are also food delivery co-ops, like Purple Dragon, which deliver fresh produce, often sourced locally, throughout the year. These are generally higher in price than even store-bought organic produce, but since they emphasize seasonality, subscribing to such a program could be a boon to your health, which might not be available to you otherwise.

Farm Stands
Certainly, most farm stands that you might pass on the road are not selling organic or ethical produce and other products, but they are nonetheless fresh from the farm, very inexpensive, and seasonal, all of which can be great supplements to your diet, and a relief to your purse. You might not be able to fill out your fridge by stopping at random farm stands, but you may very well discover some great finds! Many also have pick-your-own produce, which is especially inexpensive. If you see one, stop by ... you never know what you'll find!

Nearly Free Food
This is one area where I have just about zero experience, but I'd love to apprentice with people who could show me the ropes. I'm talking about growing, finding, or hunting your own foods. All of these are nearly free ways to get food.

Growing vegetables or fruit is quite beyond me and my brown thumb, and being that I have no land at the moment, I'm off the hook. But when I get the opportunity, I will certainly call on my most knowledgeable friends and family to help me make sense of dirt and compost and seeds and such. It's a complete mystery to me.

Another very foreign option to me, but one that is gaining in popularity, is raising animals. There are people with tiny little yards in Brooklyn who are raising chickens. Why not? Come to think of it, I always did want a goat as a kid (excuse the pun). They would be awfully good at mowing a lawn. Hmmm ... something to think about.

Finding foods is a true skill, and I think employing someone to help you navigate, whether you're talking about finding wild greens or mushrooms, is essential. There are very few things I've ever scavenged. I suppose I was lucky enough as a child to grow up in The Bronx where wild mulberry trees and wild chives abound. I've also had my share of honeysuckle nectar from those very sweet smelling blossoms, but I'm not sure if I count that to be a true food substance. You'd need an awful lot of honeysuckle to sweeten your tea.

Hunting is one option that, I admit, is a bit unsettling to me, but I recognize that my distaste for it is cultural and familial, and not at all rational. Hunting is perhaps the best way to get healthy, natural meat. Some part of me is interested in learning about it, but I just don't know if my brain and my queasy stomach agree.

Worse Comes to Worst
If you have none of these options available to you, you can always buy from health food stores, or, at worst, the mega store. The smaller and more independent the store, the more likely their produce is sourced from local farms. Large stores tend to negotiate with large, corporate farms. So, even when Jersey tomatoes are in season, WalMart might still be stocking their shelves with Californian and Mexican transports. Do your best to find out what is seasonal locally, so you can go to the store with that knowledge in the back of your mind. If you buy foods that should be seasonally available in your area, you might luck out and get the local stuff, even at the mega mart.

A final note
So, where can you find information about your local options? Here are a couple of great sources:
www.localharvest.org - This is your best resource for local CSAs, Farmers' Markets and Food Co-Ops.
www.NRDC.org - Natural Resources Defense Council - This is a great source of information about seasonal produce. It is organized on a state-by-state basis, so you can always see your own state, and the neighboring ones, as well.

For most people, some combination of the above is what works best. See what's available in your area, and find your best fit.

Smoothie Pops

2009-07-06T17:44:00.000-07:00

It's July, and it's hot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone needs a good cool-down treat in the summer time, and this is my tried and true recipe that pleases children and adults alike. It's packed full of nutritious stuff, and nothing nasty to speak of. This recipe has even been tested on a friend's son who never ever eats fruits or vegetables, but couldn't get enough of these pops. Enjoy!

Smoothie Pops
1/2 cup frozen fruit (we usually use a mix of berries and mango)
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup milk
2 Tbsps. veggie powder (we use Triple Greens by Purity Products)
1 Tbsp. ground flax seed

Combine all ingredients in a blender. Blend until smooth. Add more milk if needed to thin the consistency. Pour into freezer pop molds (we use these great silicone ones). Freeze thoroughly.

These can be made vegan by substituting soy yogurt and any non-dairy milk substitute (soy, rice, hemp, almond milks).

Thoughts on School Food - The Beginning

2009-07-06T17:37:00.000-07:00

My 3-year-old daughter started nursery school two weeks ago (technically camp, but camp and school are pretty much the same thing at this age). Until now, I've never had to think too much about what my daughter eats. She eats what we eat, and we eat healthy foods. Sure, I've had to occasionally explain to a family member that she can't have certain foods in their house, and that's never a fun conversation. No one wants to be told that their food isn't good enough. Still, we've been lucky enough to have family that generally sticks to our guidelines ... generally.

School is quite a different story. My daughter has exposure three times a week to what most people consider acceptable food for children, most of which is far from what I would call acceptable. Since it's summer, the school treats the kids every day to ice pops. Now, that sounds like an innocuous, reasonable treat for a child, and most parents wouldn't object, and might even feed their own children such things. But what is an ice pop? It's frozen sugar water, most often sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, colored with artificial colors. Artificial colors contribute to hyperactivity in children and refined sugars like white sugar and high fructose corn syrup are exactly the sorts of sweeteners that can lead to type II diabetes, as well as contributing to the growing (pardon the pun) childhood obesity problem in this country. They are empty calories that don't serve the needs of the child in any way. Giving kids sweets like this, especially on a regular basis, makes it much harder to steer them toward healthier options at meal times. Why should they eat broccoli when they consider candy bars a food? What in the world would drive a parent or a school to give kids such seriously flawed "foods"? It baffles me, but that's the reality most health-conscious parents face when sending their children to school.

So, clearly, I cannot allow my daughter to partake in the foods provided by the school. But even avoiding that does not shelter her from the fact that everyone else is eating these things, and that becomes a difficult conversation to have with a 3-year-old. For now, my daughter assumes that she cannot have other people's foods because she has food allergies. But I would like her to understand that even when there is no danger of food allergens, there are other problems with some foods that make them bad choices. So, I've begun to tell her things like, "we don't eat that because it's not very healthy for us," or "we only have things like that as a treat, on holidays or special occasions," or "it's more fun to make things ourselves at home instead of buying them in a store." I think these sorts of statements help her to understand that we do have choices, but that not all the choices are equal. Eating isn't just about responding to hunger or cravings. It's about listening to the needs of our bodies.

I can teach her these things, hopefully with success, but I can't teach other parents or school personnel without crossing some boundaries. So, the question remains, what do I do to address them? Although I'd love to be an influence on other parents, I realize that's a long shot. For now, I'm contenting myself with modeling what can be done to feed good food to children. If a parent is interested in what I do, I'd be more than happy to share my methods. Otherwise, I'll avoid stepping on anyone's toes.

Thankfully, the school we've chosen is very accommodating in allowing us to provide our daughter's food and drinks. Instead of ice pops, we provide homemade smoothie pops (recipe to follow), and another snack of some kind (usually cut up fruit, but sometimes crackers or whole grain cereals).

The thought has occurred to me that my daughter might become somewhat preachy around other children, and that could become a concern for her socially. I try to stress that different people make different choices. We know what's good for us, but we don't know everything about other people. I hope that message gets through to her enough so that she won't go around judging everyone else. A physically healthy child with a severely injured psyche is not at any kind of advantage.

These last two weeks have given me a good lesson in letting go - something that is truly in order for me now that my little girl is becoming so independent. She needs to find her own way in the world, but as parents, I think it's still important for us to provide the tools and guidance that will help our children make choices that work for them, food-related and otherwise.

Super Cheap & Easy Salmon Burgers

2009-07-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

I envy the seriously inventive chefs out there who are capable of true originality. It’s been a very rare occasion that I’ve been able to come up with something that hasn’t been done before, and many times over at that. The reality for most professional chefs and home cooks alike is that coming up with a recipe starts with inspiration from someone else’s food. That means that when we create a recipe, we may be combining things in slightly different ways, or adding a single new twist to an old trick, but we’re really not making something entirely new. We borrow ideas and flavors and make them subtly our own. This is not revolutionary stuff.

The good news for home cooks is that this means we can practically steal most of our ideas, but still feel that we’re a part of the creative process. Many home cooks adapt recipes to suit the tastes or desires of their families; that’s basically the process I’m describing. And there are more and less complex ways of doing this. Sometimes, it doesn’t start with a written recipe, but with a taste of something worth copying. More often than not, this is where my recipes start. So it is with this recipe for salmon burgers.

As I mentioned in a previous post, some time ago I attended a dinner party put on by Healthy Pantry, a company that makes easy-to-prepare meals for the home cook. One of the dishes they made that evening was salmon burgers, which were a bit sweet for me, but still quite tasty. I noticed that they used canned wild salmon to make these, and I thought, wow, this is a great way to use an inexpensive, very healthy product. I’ve always tried to find ways to use canned salmon, since it’s pretty much always wild, and so much less expensive than fresh or frozen wild salmon. You can get a 14.75 oz. can of Bumble Bee red salmon (red salmon is higher quality and higher in omega-3 fatty acids than pink salmon) for around $5. The frozen wild sockeye salmon fillets that I buy at Costco for the bargain basement price of $26 for 3 lbs. works out to almost $8 for the same 14.75 oz. That’s 60% more expensive for essentially the same product! From an environmental standpoint, the can is also superior, because it eliminates the need for refrigeration. Good for your heart, good for your wallet, good for your world. There’s even another benefit to canned salmon that can’t be found in fillets – canned salmon contains soft, edible bones that are an excellent source of calcium, and a particularly bio-available form of the mineral.

The trick about canned salmon is that it really doesn’t taste as good as fresh or frozen fillets. So, some creativity is needed to employ it in recipes. Canned salmon needs a little help from other flavors to make it palatable, as opposed to canned sardines, which are also seriously healthy, and I think are just fabulous all on their own.

Somehow, salmon burgers eluded my bargain radar until I tasted the Healthy Pantry version. How could I have missed this opportunity? Needless to say, I got to work on a recipe. I’ve attempted to emulate the spirit of the Healthy Pantry version in that my burgers are made almost entirely from pantry items, rather than perishable ones. This reduces costs, makes prep time shorter, and makes it an easy go-to meal when you have no time to run to the grocery store. Feel free to substitute fresh products, if you’re so inclined. Here it is, my very own 30 minute meal:

Super Cheap & Easy Salmon Burgers
1 14.75 oz. can wild Alaskan red salmon
½ cup whole wheat bread crumbs
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 Tbsps. tomato paste
2 tsps. dried thyme, crumbled
1 Tbsp. dried parsley flakes
1 Tbsp. dried chopped onion
1 tsp. garlic powder
Salt & pepper, to taste
Safflower oil spray

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Mix well with your hands or a wooden spoon. Form into patties.

Heat a cast iron skillet or griddle over high heat, and coat with safflower oil spray. Once hot, reduce heat to medium high. Cook patties 4-5 minutes on each side. Serve on a whole grain burger bun. Top with whatever you like: sprouts, avocado, tomato, lettuce, cole slaw, cheese, sauteed mushrooms, onions, etc.

Some alternatives:
For meatier flavor – add 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce to the patty mix
For spicier flavor – add one finely chopped chipotle pepper, or one fresh jalapeño, or several drops of hot pepper sauce to the patty mix

Makes 5-6 patties

Note: Canned salmon is a cooked fish product. It does not require the same precautions as raw fish. This means you cannot undercook it, and you can taste the mixture before it is cooked to see if it is seasoned to your tastes.

More DC Restaurants

2009-06-26T07:12:00.000-07:00

Wow! This is long overdue! Life has been happening with a vengeance lately, but I'm finding a little time to catch up, now that my little girl is at summer camp.

I meant to post a good month ago about the food we were able to sample while in Washington DC on our last hurrah vacation before baby. In my earlier post, I talked about Ceiba, which was truly the dining out gem of the trip, but there are two others worth mentioning.

As tourists, we were most often in places where tourists go - treacherous terrain for finding remotely edible food. My big belly prevented us from running laps around the Mall, which would have been helpful in finding good food faster. Unfortunately, all that seemed to be available for ever and ever were ice cream carts, and in the muggy, hot weather, I was not interested in anything sticky or sweet. Even hot dog carts were few and far between! There was the MacDonald's at the Air & Space Museum, but that's not food.

Small tangent - since I've cleaned up my diet (which wasn't that messy to begin with), I find that even on vacation, I crave fresh veggies and fruit, healthy proteins, and whole grains. Junk just slows me down and makes me feel less alive. Good for me! but those are generally not realistic cravings in tourist areas. Fast food tends to be the "nourishment" of choice.

Well, we found our way over to the National Museum of the American Indian, which is adjacent to Air & Space. I wish we had time to explore the museum itself, but my swelling feet and hands and my rumbling tummy had other plans - the Mitsitam Cafe, possibly the best lunch option available in downtown DC.

The restaurant features a not-so-authentic Native American regional eating experience. Clearly, their preparations and prices are aimed at high end rather than tribal foods. Nonetheless, the quality of the food was far and away better than anything else available in the area, and so the prices are somewhat justified. Just don't expect to feel like you went back in time on the reservation after eating here.

Food stations in the cafeteria-style restaurant are divided by geography, and each station tries to emulate Native American cooking, highlighting indigenous foods of the region. I appreciate the homage to regionality and cultural marrying of food with locale that has become so rare in this country. My meal came from the Northwest Coast, and included Mussels with Spring Garlic and Wakame Broth and Fiddlehead Fern, Asparagus and Corn salad. My husband ate from the Great Plains, which (no surprise) featured buffalo. His dishes were the Indian Taco and the Pulled Buffalo Sandwich with Chayote Squash Slaw on a Whole Wheat Kaiser Roll.

My meal was much lighter and, I think, more satisfying than his. Probably the most unfortunate part of the meal was the taco, which was not much different than a taco salad from Taco Bell. In fact, I was reminded of Taco Bell's recent television ad, which boasts that their taco salad has just enough lettuce to qualify as a salad, while trying the Indian Taco here. With so many more interesting options (see the menu here), it was really too bad that we wasted money on this. I suppose it is necessary for the restaurant to serve something that would please the fast food masses, and my guess is that was the reason this dish was offered.

The pulled buffalo sandwich was tasty, but not incredible. I really enjoyed the chayote slaw, which was very flavorful and not at all oily. The fiddlehead fern salad was good, but a bit underseasoned. And the mussels with wakame broth hit the spot!

If we had been in Washington for more than a day (which was really all it was), we certainly could not afford to eat like this for every lunch. But, then again, if we were staying for a longer time, I would have probably visited a local market and stocked up on some stuff for picnics. That would save us money, but it would also save us from the perils of fast food, and the aggravation of trying to find somewhere to eat.

For dinner that evening, we visited Zola, which was touted as an experimental restaurant in the International Spy Museum. The food was good, but hardly experimental, and certainly overpriced. My husband found the emphasis on protein here particularly disturbing. We are accustomed to a truly balanced diet, where the protein is not the main event. Here, the protein was nearly all that there was, and anything else was a garnish. But I suppose the same could be said of a great many American restaurants. It's what the people seem to want.

The menu sounds more interesting than it actually is. I ordered two appetizers, the Citrus Cured Pork Belly and the Zola Chop Salad, instead of an appetizer and entree, mostly to compensate for the high prices, but also because we had had a late, filling lunch. Neither of these were anything to write home about, but they were perfectly adequate. My husband ordered the Butter Lettuce Salad, which was very plain and boring, and the Green Hill Farms Lamb, which he seemed to enjoy. He also ordered the Ancient Gouda Fries as a side dish, which were, well, fries. It was an uneventful dining experience. Everything was edible, nothing was astonishing. I probably wouldn't bother going here again, simply to avoid the inflated prices.

Restaurants - Ceiba

2009-05-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

My husband and I went on a very, very short trip to Washington DC this past weekend, and managed to pack in a few good restaurants while on our last romantic hurrah before baby #2 comes along. (My apologies to my Aunt, whom we did not get to see, as we were out nearly as soon as we were in the city. And thanks to my mom who kept our 3-year-old out of trouble, and showed her a great time, while we were away.)

The best of our sampling of restaurants, by far, was Ceiba, a Latin American restaurant, with a little Caribbean mixed in. It ain't cheap, but remember, we were going for romance and wow, not just filling our stomachs. Perhaps the only minus was the somewhat over-zealous wait staff, but that didn't manage to spoil a nearly perfect eating experience.

We lucked out a bit with seating. We were in a bright room that looked out onto the street. The inner rooms of the restaurant were not as inviting. The decor was nothing special, but I'm not one to be wowed by decor anyway. It was certainly modern and clean, and that works for me. Perhaps a little ethnic something-or-other wouldn't hurt.

Being our first romantic night out in some time, we did splurge a bit on food. We started with the Sampling of Ceviches, which included their Peruvian Clasico, Yucatan Shrimp, Yellowfin Tuna, and Wild Striped Bass ceviches (they were arranged in this order, each one being progressively hotter than the last). Yum! They were all so original! I think of ceviche as relatively simple and undressed, save some citrus juice and maybe a hint of heat. These were quite complicated, each in its own very distinct way, and yet they didn't confuse the palate. The flavors all worked well together, and even though each ceviche was different, moving from one to the next was not at all problematic.

We also had the Shredded Duck and Three Cheese Poblano Chili Relleno, another appetizer. The duck was so flavorful, and not a meat I would ever imagine having in a chili relleno. More often than not, I've had them stuffed primarily with cheese, which I find texturally very unappealing. I've had them done well with shredded pork, and this was similar to that sort of application. I think the real success of this dish is that the components of it could each be experienced separately and in combination, since everything stood out: the duck, the cheeses, the salsa, the relish.

For our main courses, my husband had the Slow Braised Pork Shank "Feijoada" and I had the Grilled Sugar Cane Skewered Jumbo Shrimp. Both were flawless. We cleaned our plates (which is par for the course for me, but my husband is usually a leftover-leaver). The pork was incredibly tender and flavorful. The shrimp tasted just as they should be, like shrimp. I often get annoyed at the way shellfish is prepared in restaurants; it's so often mixed into something, drenched in a sauce, or hidden in some other way. Why do people pay so much money for something that will only be buried in something else? I like my shellfish fairly naked, and that's just how this was. It had a subtle, sweet glaze and a slight char from the grill, but the taste was truly that of shrimp. It wasn't even slightly overcooked, as so much restaurant shrimp is. In an embarrassing moment, my eagerness to eat as much of the shrimp as I could got the better of me, and I accidentally flung a shrimp halfway across the room while attempting to de-skewer it. Our waiter quickly swiped it up, and next thing I knew, I was being served a replacement! Apparently, they were as eager to indulge me as I was to be indulged.

Alas, when the time for dessert arrived, we couldn't fit another bite into our glutinous selves, though there was plenty to entice! This, and the many other entrees and appetizers that we did not get to sample are reason enough for me to want to go back. I do hope this restaurant sticks around for quite some time, so I might have the opportunity to do just that.

Red Cabbage & Brussels Sprout Slaw

2009-05-19T12:22:00.000-07:00

I was very hesitant, at first, when I saw this recipe at 101 cookbooks. The idea of eating raw brussels sprouts somehow didn't appeal to me, and eating raw brussels sprouts isn't necessarily the healthiest option either. So, I really wasn't interested.

Then, in planning my daughter's bird-themed birthday party, I thought, "Hey, I need some kind of slaw that looks like a nest and has caraway seeds, but I don't want to make a run-of-the-mill cole slaw." So, I thought I'd give raw brussels sprouts a whirl. The rest of this salad doesn't resemble the one from 101 cookbooks at all, but I nonetheless stole the idea, so I'll give credit where it's due.

Given that brussels sprouts really are better, and better for you, eaten cooked, I think you could just as easily substitute green cabbage or napa cabbage, and no one would object. Those little buggers are also a real pain to slice, and they're seriously more expensive than other types of cabbage. So, why go out of your way to eat raw brussels sprouts? I can't think of a reason. Make it whatever way works, I say.

Red Cabbage & Brussels Sprout Slaw (aka Birdie Slaw)
1/2 lb. brussels sprouts, shredded (very thinly sliced with a knife)
1 small red cabbage, shredded
2 carrots, shredded
1/2 oz. chives, cut into 2 inch pieces
1/4 cup caraway seeds
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsps stoneground mustard
salt & pepper, to taste

Toss brussels sprouts, red cabbage, carrots, chives and caraway seeds in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together olive oil, cider vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper. Pour dressing over slaw, and toss well. Serve cold or room temperature. Will keep in the fridge for a few days, but best served one day after preparation.

Serves 10 as a side dish.

My Big Red Quinoa Lentil Salad

2009-05-14T11:54:00.000-07:00

Early spring can actually be a tough time to cook, at least in the Northeast. Most of the winter vegetables are no longer around, and are past their storing life. Asaparagus is everywhere, but what do you serve it with? So, I came up with this salad that makes use of winter's last remnant (beets) and spring's shooting star (asparagus).

For some kids, the bright red color of this salad, care of the beets, is especially alluring. For others, it's "gross me out!" If you're serving one of the latter, go with a golden beet instead of red.

My Big Red Quinoa Lentil Salad
1 red beet, washed and trimmed of ends
1/2 cup green lentils
1 cup water
1 cup quinoa
2 cups homemade or low-sodium veggie stock
1 bunch asparagus, trimmed of woody ends and cut into 1.5" pieces
1 navel orange, supremed (see note below)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
salt & pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 400°F. Wrap the beet in two layers of foil and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 45 minutes. Allow to cool, and then peel the beet's skin, and slice the beet into thin strips.

In a small saucepan, bring lentils and water to a boil. Reduce heat and cover, simmering for 30 minutes, or until liquid is absorbed. In another small saucepan, bring quinoa and veggie stock to a boil. Reduce heat and cover, simmering for 15-20 minutes, or until liquid is completely absorbed. Once lentils are done, add the asparagus to the pan, stirring the pieces in and then replacing the cover for up to 5 minutes, allowing the asparagus to steam slightly.

In a large bowl, combine the quinoa, lentils, asparagus, beets, and orange sections, and toss. In a separate bowl, prepare the dressing by whisking together the olive oil, vinegar, parsley, garlic, shallot, salt and pepper. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss. Serve cold or room temperature.

Serves 4 as a main course, 8 as a side dish.

Note: To supreme an orange, cut the top and bottom off the orange, and then cut the rind and pith away from the sides, cutting from top to bottom. Remove individual orange sections by cutting between the orange membranes, so all you have at the end are segments of orange flesh.

White Bean Hummus

2009-05-04T13:53:00.000-07:00

This is a slight variation on my regular hummus recipe, which uses the traditional chick peas. I wanted something a little different for my daughter's party, so this is the result:

White Bean Hummus
4 cloves garlic
1 (15 oz.) can cannellini beans, drained (reserve juice)
1/4 c. cannellini bean juice from can
1/4 c. fresh lemon juice
salt, to taste
3 Tbsps. tahini
1 Tbsp. chili powder
1 Tbsp. dried rosemary, crushed using a mortar & pestle
2 Tbsps. olive oil

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blend. Serve as a dip for crudite, pita wedges or crackers, or as a condiment in a sandwich or wrap.

Roasted Red Pepper Dip

2009-05-04T13:37:00.000-07:00

This is one of the several dips and sauces that I prepared for my daughter's birthday party. The recipe basically belongs to Jacques Pepin, but as I could only find his list of ingredients, and not an actual recipe, I made up the proportions myself. It's wonderful! I'm eating the leftovers as we speak.

Roasted Red Pepper Dip
8 oz. neufchatel or cream cheese (I use neufchatel because it's lower in fat)
4-6 roasted red peppers (I use jarred, but you could make your own, if you're so inclined)
1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds
1/2 ounce chives
2 Tbsps extra virgin olive oil
salt, to taste

Throw everything in a food processor, and blend until relatively smooth (the seeds might still provide some small amount of texture and crunch). Serve with dipping instruments of your choice (crudite, chips, pita wedges, bagel chips, pretzels ...).

The Birdie Birthday Menu

2009-05-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned in a few previous posts, my daughter, who turns 3-years-old today, is having a bird-themed birthday party this Sunday. I'm not sure which of us is more excited. Of course, I'm very excited for her, since she's bound to have a great time, and we get to see some people that we don't see too often (we're expecting about 40 people, adults and kids), including her much-adored cousin. But since I'm the caterer, I'm always a little too intently focused on the food.

The food is inspired by birds. To clarify, especially if my father-in-law is reading, this does not mean that we will be cooking birds! I can't think of a less honorable way to celebrate them. I also declined to serve actual worms and insects, which birds are known to eat. Once again, the idea is inspiration. So, a lot of dishes contain seeds, berries, and/or grains, and one contains fish (though not a fish that birds are likely to hunt). Many dishes don't contain bird foods, but look like something birds would eat (worms), or they look like something associated with birds (nests, eggs). There are no actual birds being served, and I managed to avoid using eggs, as well.

My other consideration whenever I throw a party is guests' dietary issues. There is the obvious peanut allergy, which belongs to my daughter, so none of that will be served. She's also allergic to avocado; otherwise we'd certainly have some guacamole around. We invited people who are vegetarian, vegan, gluten-intolerant, diabetic, and kosher. So, most of the food works for all of these people. As it turns out, the gluten-intolerant people will not be able to make it. Those who do come will not suffer for having eaten gluten-free food. Finally, I always need to make a dish that will please the typical American palate, which is not always so adventurous or interested in my health food spread. Last year, I made turkey chili for that crowd. This year, given that serving turkey would be a big no-no, I went with a big pot of homemade mac n cheese. It's not Kraft, and it tastes homemade, so hopefully no one will find objection with that.

Here is the menu (recipes to follow in subsequent posts):

- Cheese Plate (featuring mostly local, pastured cheeses) served with squares of dark rye with sunflower seeds

- Nest of Sticks & Twigs and crudite served with three dips:
**Roasted Red Pepper
**White Bean Hummus
**Spinach Tofu

- Nests of Crispy Shoestring Veggies (in muffin cups) each with one of three "eggs":
**Falafel (served with Tahina Sauce)
**Fish fritter (served with Cucumber, Dill, Yogurt Sauce)
**Veggie burger (served with bbq sauce)

- Worms & Seeds (with black and white sesame seeds and stir-fried shredded napa cabbage)

- Birdie Slaw

- Mac n Cheese

Desserts:

- Pineapple Right-Side Up Cupcakes with Pineapple and Raspberry Topping

- Chocolate Cupcakes topped with Coconut Pecan Fudge Nests and Dark Chocolate Eggs

- Shredded Coconut Nests each with one of two desserts "eggs":
- CB&J (Cashew Butter & Jam)
- Trail Mix

- Fruit Salad (apples, grapefruit, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, lemon juice)

This menu should please the crowd I'm expecting, but not everyone has to accommodate so many dietary issues. Even so, for a crowd this big, when I'm trying to keep spending and environmental impact to a minimum, I'd still rely heavily on vegetarian and vegan fare. It just makes sense. But the best way to serve healthy, eco-friendly, cheap food at a party is to make it yourself (and try not to serve rack of lamb!).

Good Things Come in Packages ... Did I say that?

2009-04-26T12:57:00.000-07:00

This week, I was invited to a friend's house for a Healthy Pantry dinner party. Healthy Pantry is a company that sells easy-to-prepare meals that are still relatively healthy (some organics, no GMOs, no nasty preservatives or HFCS, etc.).

Now, I'm probably the worst nightmare of anyone who gives a party like this. I'm far too cheap to buy anything, I love to cook, and I know how to cook. But I went, partly to support my friend, and partly because I was interested in looking at the business model. As it turns out, I came away with some surprising insights about Americans and food.

I am certainly an American, myself. Heck! I was born in the heartland ... in Missouri! Still, my palate was never typically American, maybe because my mother is a world traveler, and we ate (at home and out) foreign foods, many of which have since come into fashion (Middle Eastern, African, Latino, Asian and Caribbean foods). Maybe it's because I grew up in New York City, where walking a few blocks puts you square into another country. So, I've always had very broad tastes, and I tend to prefer my savory meals to be just that ... savory, not sweet. I also enjoy a good amount of spice, though any self-respecting Jamaican would pummel me in a spice-off! I didn't grow up on white bread, Kraft Mac n Cheese and Hellman's Mayo, so I never developed tastes for those sort of things. To the contrary, I was accustomed to rye bread, spicy mustard, and mostly fresh foods. In fact, making the transition to a mostly whole foods, fresh diet was hardly a transition at all for me. I forget sometimes that I'm the oddball in this country, and I think other people would want to eat like me, if only they would see the health benefits. Maybe not.

In sitting at a table filled with mostly health-minded people who wanted to do right by their families, and who were not afraid of words like quinoa or agave, I saw that even though the intention was clearly there, intention and taste have very little to do with one another. Intellectually, health-minded people want to eat healthy foods, but when they encounter healthy foods, they don't often inspire them to salivate or ask for seconds. Whether we like it or not, culture or media or family have conditioned us to like certain kinds of foods. Many of the people sitting around this table were really looking for ways to eat the sort of stuff that is the cultural norm - foods marketed to us by the big food processors - but they didn't want to pay the health price for the indulgence. That's not a completely unreasonable request ... certainly, it's human. I've even done it myself (see my taco recipe).

I'll give some examples. A number of the foods that were presented to us that night were too sweet for my taste (pineapple-turkey meatloaf, quinoa chili, wild salmon patties). Now, these did not contain sugar, and they were actually quite healthy in their ingredients. But the Healthy Pantry people clearly know the American palate, and they know we tend to favor sweet things, and we tend to shy away from spicy foods. So, the chili, which was supposed to be spicy, was flavorful, but not at all spicy. And the pineapple-turkey meatloaf, which was simply sweetened with a pineapple chutney (may actually contain some cane sugar ... I didn't see the label), was excessively sweet for me. But everyone else seemed to love everything. In fact, I was the only Scrooge there who didn't buy a single thing!

So, the question that remains is, does eating a healthy diet require a taste revolution? Or can we have our sweet meatloaf and eat it, too? I don't have the answer to that. Based on information I gathered at the party, and on the company's website, eating food from the Healthy Pantry is a vast improvement over the standard American diet, and yet it asks virtually nothing of you in compromise. It's really very clever. It is truly giving people what they want, without any guilt. You get whole grains, you get quality proteins without much fat, and you get some of the essentials nutrients often lacking in American diets, like omega 3s. The only thing you don't get is fresh produce, but as they said at the party, you can always throw together a side salad for that (or steamed broccoli, or stir-fried veggies, or grilled asparagus ... am I getting carried away?). For those who are looking for some healthy changes in their diets, but don't have the time to cook, and can't afford a personal chef, Healthy Pantry might be a good solution for you, especially if your tastes match their flavor profiles.

For the serious environmental foodie, or for the slow food advocate, any packaged food will certainly break the rules. There are ethical considerations in eating foods transported from the other side of the world, or even the other side of the country. There are some health considerations in eating foods that are processed at all, even if minimally so (mostly in that what isn't done in your own kitchen can't be known, and so there is risk involved). There are also the economic advantages that cooking from scratch allows. But I think that Healthy Pantry is still a strong step in the right direction for many people who are concerned about their health.

Grocery Shopping with the Kids

2009-04-22T12:53:00.001-07:00

Check out my recent guest blog post on Dr. Fuhrman's blog: http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/guest-posts-grocery-shopping-with-the-kids.html.

Some afterthoughts on the same topic:

For those who are a little grossed out by the idea of your child eating unwashed veggies in the grocery store, here are a few things to think about:

- In nearly all stores that sell produce (not farmers markets, but certainly supermarkets and health food stores), the veggies are being periodically sprayed with water. That's pretty much what I do when I wash veggies at home (with the exception of stuff that grows underground, which requires scrubbing or peeling, and some veggies that really love dirt, like leeks and spinach), so I think that counts.

- If you're buying organic, local produce, especially from small (non-industrial) farms that don't send their produce to processing facilities, you have much less chance of getting produce contaminated with anything really nasty, like salmonella or e. coli. It is in processing facilities that widespread contamination occurs. Incidentally, salmonella and e. coli are both types of bacteria, and can therefor only be removed/destroyed with cooking. If you cook every fruit and vegetable that you consume, then you're incredibly safe. If not, then whether you wash your produce or not, you're at about the same risk of getting these illnesses. Still, it's a good idea to wash your produce, just to get some of the lesser nasties off. Just keep in mind that washed produce is not sterile.

One note of caution: if you live in an area where there are lots of CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) or animal processing plants, there is a much greater likelihood that bacteria such as salmonella or e. coli exist in both your local produce and your drinking water. This is because disease spreads easily in CAFOs (yes, even with all the antibiotics these animals receive), since they are, as their name implies, concentrated. These diseases are even more easily spread in a processing plant where infected animals pass through the same machinery that non-infected animals do, distributing bacteria throughout the plant. Water run-off from these farming and processing operations ends up in ground water, absorbed by plants, and can trickle into the water supply. Scary stuff! If you live in such a place, cooking everything is essential! Hopefully, you live somewhere else.

So, that was a real downer end to an otherwise optimistic post. I apologize for that, and hope you'll reflect more on the former than the latter.

Happy Earth Day, all!!! Make a difference and buy local today!

A Good Egg

2009-04-20T12:06:00.000-07:00

In the past few years, as my family's shopping and eating habits have changed to favor healthier, more sustainable options, one of the grocery items that has most troubled me is eggs. There are so many options and possibilities, and which one is best is a true puzzle! There are cage-free eggs, free range eggs, pastured eggs, vegetarian-fed eggs, organic eggs, antibiotic- and hormone-free eggs, industrial-scale eggs, and local small farm eggs. And I haven't even gotten into the different varieties of hens that lay the eggs!

I started out buying anti-biotic- and hormone-free eggs that were fed a vegetarian diet. They were only slightly more expensive than conventional eggs, and I thought they covered my egg-related concerns. Then I thought, well, if the hens are being fed a diet of conventional grain, which is genetically modified and full of pesticides, is this the best egg for my family? So, I started buying industrial-scale organic eggs, feeling better that the hens were fed "safe" food.

Now, over time, I'd become aware of the environmental impact of long-distance food, and I began to take an interest in local eggs, but since local, organic eggs weren't easy to come by, and when they were, they were prohibitively expensive ($6/dozen), I couldn't justify buying them and stuck to my industrial organic eggs at about $4.50/dozen.

Then I read Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (an excellent read!), and the idea of vegetarian fed hens went out the window. Kingsolver explains in her book that if a hen is allowed to eat its natural diet, it will eat all sort of bugs and larvae and such in the course of pecking at the ground. That contributes to a better-tasting and more nutritious egg, and a healthier, happier hen.

Finally, I read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma (an even more excellent read!), and that made it abundantly clear that vegetarian-fed hens don't make the best eggs, and that cage-free hens and even free-range industrial hens are really in no way free to roam. Pastured eggs, that is eggs from hens allowed to roam freely on pasture, are probably the best bet. The hens get a natural diet that includes some grass, some bugs, some miscellaneous animal matter, and grain feed.

So, now I could buy those local, organic, pastured eggs for $6/dozen and feel justified in doing so, but nonetheless, the wallet always wins. So, what to do? Some compromise needed to be made, but what was unimportant enough to sacrifice? A very tough question, since now I had principles and convictions and knowledge that made anything short of perfection seem just plain disgusting!

So, here is the verdict: I decided to buy local, unclassified (non-organic) pastured eggs from a reliable source (ie. someone who could be trusted to really allow the hens large quantities of pasture-time, and who would not be interested in using hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, etc.). In many communities such eggs could be found in a farmer's market, or even at a local farm, if you're willing to get to know your local farmer. My eggs were found in my semi-local health food store (about a 20 minute drive). It happens that this store is vigilant in sourcing from reliable local farms, making sure the farmers' philosophies jive with those of their customers. Many of the farms that offer this sort of product are producing something just as good as organic, but they can't afford all of the fees, red tape, and regulations that come with organic certification. So, they practice many of the same methods (or sometimes better!), but nonethless can't call themselves organic.

My new $3.79/dozen eggs are better in many ways, but in one very important way: they contain many more times the omega 3 fatty acids of conventional eggs, and that's due in large part to the hens eating grass. One other major plus is the quality of the eggs. The eggs I buy show me not only the expiration date, but also the date they were layed, so I know just how fresh they are. I used these eggs in the cake that I make every Passover, which requires 10 eggs (yikes!). Since flour cannot be used on Passover, often whipped egg whites are used to give a cake height, as in this cake. Wow! The cake has never stood so tall or tasted so light. It was a different cake, and the only variable that changed were the eggs. Incredible!

Now, there are no guarantees that I'm getting what I think I'm getting. These eggs are certified by absolutely no one, and though they claim to be pastured, I can't know exactly what they mean by that, and I have no idea what other practices the farm may have that I might find objectionable. That's why this is somewhat of a compromise. Still, these are the best eggs I've ever tasted, and I feel reassured that they are pastured simply by the dark orange color of their yolks (that's beta carotene). There's very little doubt in my mind that I've solved my egg problem.

Crispy Shoestring Veggies

2009-04-05T13:38:00.000-07:00

My daughter has decided to have a bird-themed birthday party this year. Given that I can't stand to serve ordinary food, especially when a fabulous food opportunity presents itself, I've decided to make the party food go with that theme. So, we'll have lots of nest-shaped food, egg-shaped food, foods that contain seeds and berries, and even food that looks like worms. Fun, fun, fun!

In my search for foods that would resemble nest materials, I came up with this recipe. I was initially going to try to make potato latke nests, but those weren't working in baked form, and I was trying to avoid frying. This is actually much better nutritionally than latkes, and they're a serious hit with my daughter!

Serve these as part of an hors d'oeuvre, or as a side dish at dinner, or as crunchy munchies for a party, or even as an every day snack. It's a great way to get kids (and adults) to eat their veggies, and it's low in all the nasty stuff that snack foods usually contain (fat, sodium, sugar). Feel free to substitute any root vegetables or any dark leafy green.

Crispy Shoestring Veggies
2 sweet potatoes, washed well, trimmed of ends and halved lengthwise
2 beets (any variety, but the red ones will get you pretty messy), peeled and halved lengthwise
1 daikon radish, peeled and halved lengthwise
safflower oil spray
1/2 bunch dinosaur kale
coarse salt, to taste (optional)

Preheat oven to 275F.

Using a mandolin with a shoestring blade attached, cut the sweet potatoes, beets and daikon into thin strips. Toss in a bowl to combine.

Spray 2 large cookie sheets with oil, and spread 1/2 of the veggie mixture on each of the sheets. Spray with a bit more oil and toss the vegetables to get an even coating of oil. Spread the veggies in an even layer over the pans. Bake for 1 hour, shifting the veggies around after about 30 minutes.

While the veggies are baking, cut the kale into very thin 2" strips, and spray with oil, tossing to coat. After baking time is up, add 1/2 of the kale strips to each pan, tossing to combine, and then spreading the mixture evenly on the pans. Bake 30 minutes more, or until all veggies are crisp, but not burnt.

Sprinkle sparingly with coarse salt, if desired. Enjoy warm or at room temperature. Store in an air tight container or bag.

Serves 6 as a side dish.

There Are Going to Be Some Changes Around Here

2009-03-24T11:55:00.001-07:00

Well, I knew this would happen sooner or later, but life has gotten the best of me, and I'm not as able to keep up with this blog the way I was. I've taken on a leadership role in my local chapter of Holistic Moms Network, which is taking up a fair amount of my time. I'm also doing whatever I can now to prepare for the arrival of our newest family edition this summer, which involves some planning. I expect that I won't have significant time to devote to this blog until well after the baby is born.

For the time being, I will not be making the sort of mandatory weekly posts (weekly shopping lists, menus and recipes) that I was. I will still post recipes from time to time, and I may post some frugal tips and food commentary here and there. I hope you will stick with me through this somewhat thin time.

Miso Soup with Wakame, Carrots & Tofu

2009-03-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

Miso soup sounds like a daunting culinary embarking, possibly because it's something most of us have only had in restaurants. The reality is that it's about the easiest, and certainly the fastest, soup you can make. All of the work is done for you in the fermenting of the miso paste, so all you need to do is throw a few things together, boil water, and serve. Super simple!

My recipe for miso soup is loosely based on this one. I like to add wakame, a sea vegetable, to mine for a little authentic Japanese something-or-other. It also happens to be a very nutrient-dense food, particularly in iodine, which is essential for thyroid health. Wakame is a dry vegetable (so don't look in the produce aisle), and can be found in most health food stores, and even in many well-stocked supermarkets.

Many vegetables can go into a miso soup, traditional and non. One of the best ones is cabbage, particularly napa cabbage. Radishes (daikon) and turnips also compliment this soup well, but prepare them as I do with carrots (below). You could introduce fish or shellfish into a miso soup, as well.

Miso Soup with Wakame, Carrots & Tofu
8 cups water
1 1/2 pieces wakame (usually comes in 4-5" lengths), cut into bite-size pieces
1 Tbsp. unpeeled ginger (I use the little nubs on the root)
1 Tbsp. dry sherry or brown rice vinegar
1 carrot, cut into strips with a peeler, and then halved
1/2 c. white miso or brown rice miso (available in health food stores and Asian markets - refrigerated section)
2 scallions (green and white), sliced or julienned
4 oz. soft or firm tofu (avoid silken and extra firm), cubed

In a stock pot, bring the water, wakame, ginger and sherry to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the carrot (or other vegetables) and cook for 1-2 minutes.

Remove 1/2 c. of broth and dissolve the miso into the broth. Return this mixture to the soup. Turn the heat off. Add scallions and tofu to each bowl, as you are serving.

Serves 4-6.

Homemade Falafel

2009-03-08T17:34:00.000-07:00

My daughter's peanut allergy makes it a little more necessary for us to avoid processed foods, but it's a good idea for everyone. Processed foods are full of all sorts of hidden ingredients that make them questionable for your health. Making food yourself ensures the best quality, and you'll know exactly what's in it.

At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite, I usually do use a mix to make falafel, but the one that's peanut-free was not available this week, so I had to improvise. I think I may stick to this recipe in the future. It's less expensive than the processed version, and it's just as easy. Sometimes convenience foods aren't that convenient after all!

These can be deep fried, pan fried or baked. I baked them to avoid the extra fat.

Homemade Falafel
1 15 oz. can chick peas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed
1/4 c. chick pea flour (available in the bulk section of many health food stores)
1 Tbsp. parsley flakes
1 1/2 tsps. onion powder
1 1/2 tsps. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. ground coriander
salt, to taste
1-3 Tbsps. water
safflower oil spray

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a food processor, combine the chick peas, chick pea flour, parsley flakes, onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, coriander and salt. Puree. Add water, 1 Tbsp at a time, until the mixture is smooth, but still thick.

Spray a cookie sheet with safflower oil. Form the chick pea mixture into patties (or balls if deep frying), and place the patties 1 inch apart on the cookie sheet. Bake for 30 minutes, turning once.

Serve in whole wheat pita with Israel Salad and Tahina Sauce (recipes below)

Israeli Salad
3 plum tomatoes, cut into a small dice
1 cucumber, peeled and cut into a small dice
2 Tbsps. finely diced red onion
1/4 c. parsley, minced
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
salt, to taste

Toss all ingredients together.

Tahina Sauce
1/4 c. tahini paste
2 1/2 Tbsp. water
2 1/2 Tbsp. lemon juice
salt, to taste

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk until smooth.

This Week's Shopping List

2009-03-06T18:19:00.000-08:00

I should be very happy with the low, low cost of this week's grocery bill, but it happens to also be the week we get our co-op order, and that means digging a deep, deep hole.

The menu for the week goes like this:

Lunch: Miso soup with carrots, wakame and tofu

Dinner:
- Homemade falafel in pita with Israeli salad and tahina sauce
- Chicken in Tarragon Cream Sauce with wild rice pilaf and steamed broccoli
- Pecan-Crusted Salmon with Spinach Sauce over Israeli couscous (large grain couscous)

Dessert: Hamantashen for Purim

I didn't originally plan to make my own falafel. This is one of those times that I usually opt for the packaged stuff, but that's always a complicated matter for us. So many processed foods have the potential for peanut cross-contamination, and given my daughter's allergy, we can't take that chance. The most available brand of falafel mix in the natural foods world is made by Fantastic World Foods, which processes in a facility that processes peanuts. So, that is out. There is also a mix by Casbah, which is less available, but is safe for us. This week, it wasn't available at all. So, I thought, hey, I'll buy some chick pea flour and see what I can whip up. And so, homemade falafel was born (in my house, anyway).

Here is the shopping list for the week (* indicates non-organic):

carrots
tomatoes
cucumber
onions
ginger
broccoli*
spinach
shallots
apples
oranges
bananas
pears
catfish* ($4.99/lb sale)
popcorn
falafel mix*
Annie's worcestershire sauce
silken tofu
milk
yogurt
frozen mango
orange juice* ($1.69 sale)
seltzer
whole wheat pita*
dehydrated corn
dried apricots
dried figs
bread

There were only a couple of items that I could not get this week: the falafel mix and the dehydrated corn. The total for the groceries came to $82.28, which is $40.22 below our weekly budget. That would have brought our deficit down to $15, but ...

Our order from the Neshaminy Valley co-op threw quite a wrench into things. The bill for that was $137.52, which brings our total up to $152 ... eek! This order should hold us for a good few months, especially since we won't have the opportunity to order until May, at earliest. It included the following items: Annie's Whole Wheat Shells & Cheddar, Earth Balance Buttery Spread, Earth Balance Buttery Sticks, Eden Kamut & Quinoa Twists, Ezekiel English Muffins, Stick & Twigs, Bulk Brown Rice, Lowfat Monterey Jack, Neufchatel Cheese, Shredded Parmesan, Santa Cruz Lemon and Lime Juices, Wesbrae Whole Wheat Lasagna. I stocked up on some of these just for regular use, but a lot is also for my daughter's birthday party in May.

It's times like this when perspective is hard to achieve. Yes, it's worth spending this money now, because it helps to save money later. Buying in large quantities means not buying these things very often. The initial blow can be hard to take, but little by little it helps bring the weekly food spending down. The reality is that we were very nearly out of the hole, with only $15 left to go. It's disappointing to have not gotten to see the black ink again, but we will ... in time.

Watercress Salad with Mango and Shredded Chicken

2009-03-03T13:33:00.000-08:00

Having made chicken soup last week, I was left with about a pound of shredded chicken that needed a purpose. There are tons of ways to use leftover chicken. More often than not, I end up tossing it in tacos, chili or pasta. This time, I wanted something different. This salad is the result.

Watercress Salad with Mango and Shredded Chicken
1 lb. shredded, cooked chicken
2 Tbsp low-sodium tamari
1 Tbsp brown rice vinegar
1 tsp. sesame oil
safflower oil spray
2 bunches watercress, trimmed of thicker stems
2 scallions, sliced or julienned
2 carrots, shredded
1/2 c. mango chunks (frozen or fresh), or pineapple chunks
Ginger Sesame Dressing (below)

Marinate the chicken in the tamari, vinegar and sesame oil for 30 minutes to an hour. Spray a cast iron skillet with safflower oil and heat over medium high heat. Quickly heat the chicken in the pan, cooking for about 3 minutes, stirring frequently.

Combine the watercress, scallions, carrots and mango, tossing to combine. Toss with dressing. Top the salad with chicken.

Ginger Sesame Dressing
2 Tbsps. grated ginger
2 Tbsps. safflower oil
2 Tbsps. water
1 Tbsp. low-sodium tamari
1 Tbsp. brown rice vinegar
2 tsps. sesame oil
1 tsp. toasted sesame seeds

Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Whisk together until well blended.

Serves 5.

Note: On the label of my watercress was this - "Watercress is a better source of vitamins C, B1, B6, K, E,Iron, Calcium, Magnesium, Manganese, Zinc and Potassium than Apples, Broccoli and Tomatoes ... What was Popeye Thinking?" I thought that was cute.

Homemade Veggie Burgers

2009-03-01T18:04:00.000-08:00

I'm in the process of planning my daughter's third birthday party. Without getting into the specifics of it all, I needed a veggie burger recipe that would be vegan and gluten-free. No easy task to find, since many recipes call for eggs, and even those that don't, call for breadcrumbs. Now, I could have just substituted gluten-free breadcrumbs, but I thought, why not just come up with my own?

The burgers look very much like meat burgers, but the taste and texture are nothing like meat. So, if that's what you're looking for, I'd say look elsewhere. Without getting into textured soy or seitan products, most meat substitutes will not resemble meat. In fact, it's certainly arguable that even textured soy and seitan wouldn't fool a meat-lover.

But this burger will certainly fill you up, and it will give you a nice, hefty dose of protein, mostly from the lentils. The flavors are primarily Mediterranean, which I really enjoy. If it's a bit too much for you, just cut down on the mushrooms.

Homemade Veggie Burgers
1 cup green lentils
2 cups water
salt
6-8 oz. cremini mushrooms
1/4 c. kalamata olives
1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
4 oz. artichoke hearts (frozen or canned ... not in oil)
salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 Tbsps. vegan worcestershire sauce
1/4 c. quinoa flour
1/4 c. teff flour
safflower oil spray

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a small saucepan, bring the lentils, water and a pinch of salt to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover and cook for about 30 minutes, or until lentils have absorbed all the liquid.

In a food processor, combine cooked lentils, mushrooms, olives, oil, artichoke hearts, salt, pepper, cayenne and worcestershire. Puree until relatively smooth (some bits and pieces are OK). Transfer to a bowl and fold in the flours.

Form the mixture into patties, each about 3 oz. Spray safflower oil on a cast iron griddle (or skillet), and heat over medium high heat. Cook the burgers about 3 minutes on each side, or until a browned crust is formed. Transfer to a cookie sheet, and bake in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Serve on a whole grain burger bun with whatever toppings you like. We did sliced tomatoes, avocado and alfalfa sprouts, with a little bbq sauce.

Healthy Snacking

2009-02-27T19:30:00.000-08:00

The question of what to eat for snacks has come up on more than one occasion for me. Whether to snack or not is a matter of personal nutritional philosophy, so I won't try to tackle that issue. Clearly, I'm of the mindset that snacking is a good thing. That is, if the snacks you choose are healthy and relatively small.

A snack can really be anything, including things you might have as a meal, like pasta or salad. What makes a food qualify as a snack rather than a meal has only to do with quantity. The idea of a snack is mostly to get your body through to the next meal, so it should ideally be something that provides an energy boost. Of course, anything with calories would qualify there, although some calories convert to energy faster than others (fast conversion is actually not necessarily a good thing, as it also means a fast drop in energy afterward).

The unfortunate part of a typical American's snacks is that they consist mostly of junk foods. This is why snacking gets such a bad rap. Potato chips, m&ms, corn chips, cookies, and cheese doodles don't have nutritional purpose. They are basically emotional indulgences that do no service to our bodies (or our emotions, for that matter). Snacking this way will almost certainly cause you to gain weight, have higher cholesterol, have higher blood pressure, and be more likely to develop type II diabetes. Indulging very occasionally in these sorts of empty calories is probably forgivable, but making a regular habit of it will put you on a sure course to poor health.

Unfortunately, even the health conscious consumer can easily be duped into buying and eating things that have no business being ingested into a human body. The biggest scams in the snack food industry are the fat-free processed snacks, the sugar-free processed snacks, 100 calorie snack packs, and even many whole grain processed snacks. These give the consumer the illusion that they are eating something that is perfectly healthy for them, and unfortunately, that also creates the misconception that they can eat more of this junk. The reality is that instead of consuming fat or sugar, you are consuming chemicals and fillers that are likely worse for you than plain old fat and sugar. Artificial sweeteners don't make snack cakes healthy; they make them unhealthy in a different way. Products that say they contain whole grains may only contain a small amount of whole grains, and they may still be full of fat and/or sugar.

Reading labels is crucial, whether you're talking about snack foods or any other packaged food. The longer the list of ingredients, the more likely something unhealthy is hidden in that list. Unpronounceable ingredients are most often unhealthy chemical concoctions. Still, the practice of reading labels can be confusing and time-consuming, and labels do not tell the whole story. You will never be privy to the process of manufacturing as a consumer, and you will never know the origins of the various ingredients in the product. You will also be left in the dark about the exact proportions of ingredients in the product.

There is really no way to eat processed foods, junk or otherwise, and have control of your own health. But sometimes processed foods are hard to avoid. We're human, and most of us don't have the time to make everything from scratch. The key is to limit those processed foods that you do rely on to ones with short, simple lists of ingredients, with nothing objectionable or unpronounceable on those lists. Things like yogurt, granola, rice cakes, dried fruits and vegetables, can be perfectly reasonable processed snack foods (but read the labels!).

The best snack foods are not processed at all, and fortunately, they also require little or no preparation. Here is a list of those:
- fresh fruit (apples, grapes, oranges, pears, nectarines, peaches, plums, cherries, berries, etc.)
- fresh vegetables (carrots, celery, bell peppers, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, grape/cherry tomatoes, etc.)
- raw nuts (almonds, cashews, pistachios, walnuts)
- raw seeds (sunflower, pumpkin)

Here are a few ideas for homemade snacks that require some prep, but are still pretty simple:
- hard boiled eggs (thanks to my friend, Rose, who brought this to my attention today)
- baked sweet potato chips (Thinly slice a sweet potato. Spray a cookie sheet with safflower oil and spread the chips on the sheet. Spray the chips with a bit more oil. Bake at 250F for 1 hour, or until crisp.)
- homemade granola (I loved this recipe that I found recently. Add nuts, seeds and dried fruit, as desired)
- toasted nori (on a dry baking sheet, bake nori sheets at 350F for 10 minutes, or until bright green)
- trail mix (any combination of nuts, seeds, and dried fruit)
- smoothies (so many varieties ... I'll be sure to talk about this in a separate post)

Here are a few processed foods that we buy that meet our health standards:
- Just Tomatoes products (organic peas and corn mostly)
- unsulfured, low- or no-added-sugar dried fruit (raisins, figs, apricots, papaya, mango, pineapple)
- Annie's Bunnies crackers
- Lundberg's Brown Rice Cakes
- Stonyfield Farms or Seven Stars yogurt (plain, lowfat is best)

Snacks can be an important part of healthy living, if they are not abused. For adults, they are a great way to bring in small tastes of foods that don't usually make their way onto your dinner plate, which can help to balance out your nutrient intake. For kids, they can be a great way to get them to eat healthy foods, as so many kids tend to be more open to grazing on healthy foods than sitting down to a meal of them. Giving kids cookies and other such junk as snacks is, at best, a missed opportunity for healthy eating. At worst, it's a great way to contribute to the national childhood obesity crisis.

So, snack away! But keep to the good stuff!

Coconut Shrimp Quinoa "Risotto"

2009-02-26T19:13:00.000-08:00

Shellfish is almost never in my house. My husband doesn't like it, and since we're Jewish, there's a little weirdness about cooking something so blatantly non-kosher at home. Nonetheless, I love shellfish, and I've been craving it constantly during this pregnancy. My daughter seems perfectly happy eating it, too.

I happened to buy a 2 lb. bag of frozen shrimp at Costco last week, most of which will be used to make a dish to bring to a friend's house after her baby is born. But the remainder of the shrimp needed a home, and we found it this week in lunch.

I was inspired by a Ming Tsai recipe that I happened to catch on TV, Creamy Risotto with Shrimp and Bok Choy. I stole the shrimp and the bok choy, but I changed most of the rest of the recipe.

Since my version of this risotto uses quinoa (making it not really a risotto at all, save the cooking method), it needs something to create the creaminess of risotto that usually would come from the starchiness of the rice, and of course, the cheese and butter. Wanting to make this lighter, both in consistency and fat, I went with light coconut milk and a little coconut butter. The end result has a strong resemblance to risotto - the quinoa maintains bite because it is a whole grain, and the "sauce" is creamy and flavorful. Still, the flavors are not at all traditional for risotto.

Coconut Shrimp Quinoa "Risotto"
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 shallot, minced
1 cup quinoa (red, white, or a mix)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 15 oz. can light coconut milk
1 quart homemade or low-sodium veggie stock, brought to a simmer
2 large heads baby bok choy, thinly sliced
1 sheet of toasted nori, cut into thin strips, and then cut in thirds
1/2 lb. frozen shrimp, thawed, peeled and deveined
1 Tbsp. lime zest
2 Tbsps. fresh lime juice
2 Tbsps. coconut butter
salt, to taste

In a large stainless steel skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the shallots, cooking for about 2 minutes. Add the quinoa and toast for about 2 minutes. Add the wine, and allow the wine to absorb into the quinoa, stirring frequently. Once mostly absorbed, add the coconut milk, and allow that to absorb, stirring frequently. Once that is almost completely absorbed, add one ladle of stock at a time, allowing each ladle to absorb before adding another, continuing to stir. Once the curly "tails" of the quinoa grains are showing, the quinoa is fully cooked.

Add the bok choy and nori, and cook until each is wilted, adding small amounts of stock when necessary to loosen the risotto. Add the shrimp, cooking through, about 5 minutes. Turn the heat off. Add the lime zest, lime juice, coconut butter and salt. Whip the risotto briskly with a wooden spoon until it is very creamy. Serve hot, as either a main dish or side dish.

Serves 4-8.

This Week's Shopping List

2009-02-26T13:04:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, menus just come to me. I look in the fridge and see what's left, and there are obvious solutions that will carry me through most of the coming week, if not all of it. This week was not at all like that. I stared at the wall for what seemed like an eternity, having no clue what to make. It's times like these that I usually come up with my most creative ideas, and I think that's what happened this week (you be the judge).

Lunch: Coconut Shrimp Quinoa "Risotto"

Dinner:
- Homemade veggie burgers with alfalfa sprouts, tomatoes and avocado with sweet potato and yukon gold latke crisps
- Whole wheat penne with mahi mahi, grape tomatoes, brussels sprouts and feta
- Watercress salad with mango and shredded chicken served with pan fried potstickers

The menu above is the final menu for the week, but it started out a little differently. I had planned to use lettuce for the burgers, and mixed in with the watercress salad, but I found some very inexpensive alfalfa sprouts, grown locally, so I nixed the lettuce idea while shopping. In the penne, I had planned to use blanched green beans, but since none were available, I went with the more seasonal option which I hadn't though of before, brussels sprouts. Finally, I had intended to use canned pineapple chunks in the watercress salad, but when I saw the price tag, I thought twice about that, and decided to use some frozen mango that was already sitting in the freezer at home. Pineapple would have worked better, but the mango was still very good.

It's so important to go shopping with an open, creative mind. Looking just for what you need, and ignoring the rest of what's available, will undoubtedly leave you spending more money, and eating a narrower variety of foods. Look around. Check out the prices of different options, the look or feel of the produce, where the stuff came from (distance does a number on food quality, and the environment). Then, make your decisions and adapt your recipes. There is some skill involved in doing this easily, but it's something anyone can master with practice.

This is the shopping list for this week (* indicates non-organic):
bok choy
limes
cremini mushrooms
tomatoes
lettuce (changed to alfalfa)
avocado
yukon gold potatoes
sweet potatoes
grape tomatoes
green beans (changed to brussels sprouts)
parsley
garlic
watercress
scallions
ginger
granny smith apples (1.69/lb. sale)
braeburn apples (1.29/lb. sale)
bananas
oranges
feta
green lentils
kalamata olives
pineapple chunks (changed to mango ... already at home)
cashew butter
cheddar
milk
yogurt
boneless chicken breasts (6.99/lb. sale)
orange juice*
burger buns

Most of the changes I made to the list were due to price or unavailability. In addition to those items already mentioned, I was also unable to get the braeburn apples which were on sale. That turned out to be a blessing. My local health food store happened to have gala apples on sale for $0.99/lb. ... even better! We also spotted cereal on sale at the more distant health food store, so I bought a couple boxes of that.

Price-wise, this was a bit of a hefty week. I admit that I splurged a bit with some fancy veggies, like watercress, mushrooms, and brussels sprouts, and we did buy two varieties of cheese this week, and two packages of chicken (which will be used in future weeks), and a $15 jar of cashew butter. That last one is a killer, and something I've put off for quite some time, but since my husband doesn't eat shellfish, which was on the lunch menu this week, I needed to get him something he could make for himself without much trouble (enter cashew butter sandwiches).

The total for the week came to $119.15, which is only $3.35 less than our weekly budget. That means, our deficit is still lingering around $55. Next week, it will most certainly go up, even substantially, as our order from Neshaminy Valley will be in. Being that we will not be putting another order in for a good 3 months or so, the order is quite large. To help the budget along, we might need to do something drastic for next week's menu.

Meat Saag

2009-02-24T12:47:00.000-08:00

Prior to this week, I had only made Saag Paneer, which involves making your own cheese, a laborious and time-consuming task. It's also among the fattiest of Indian dishes, since the cheese is full fat and is fried in oil, and the spinach sauce (saag) is loaded with cream. This is one of those times when going with meat can actually lighten the fat load. Bizarre!

Now, I did not have very much meat available in the freezer that would work in a saag, and I was hesitant to buy more meat, since none was on sale and we're trying to fit into our budget. So, my choices were a very meager amount of chicken (8 oz. to last 2 nights for 3 people), or ground beef. Beef would have never been an Indian's choice, for obvious reasons, but since we do eat beef, I thought this would work out OK. Now, this was ground beef, and not cubed, making it a double-exception to the meat rule. Saag traditionally employs cubed meat (or cheese). I could have made meatballs from the beef to achieve a better resemblance to the original, but as I was sick (and tired), I really couldn't be bothered.

If I had a little more budget room to play with (and this is a matter of timing in the cycle of our budget more than anything else), we might have gone with another meat. Some of the best choices would be: bison, lamb or chicken, but I think pork would also work. Make sure to get tender cuts of any meat (so even if using beef, choose cubed sirloin, not stew beef), because this is not a slow-cooking recipe.

Half of the fat issue is addressed by the meat. Leaner cuts of meat also tend to be more tender. Also, because the meat can be cooked using little fat other than its own, frying oil can be kept to a minimum, or left off entirely. The remaining fat issue is the cream in the saag. I solve that by using low-fat yogurt instead. Nonfat wouldn't give you the creamy consistency you're looking for, but low-fat has enough fat in it to make the sauce a bit creamy (though certainly not as unctuous as cream). It's not authentic, but it does taste quite good. Clearly, I'm not shy about compromising authenticity for the sake of health.

This recipe is fairly loosely based on this one. My version is below:

Meat Saag
2 bunches fresh spinach, washed well and trimmed of stems
1/2 c. water
1 Tbsp. safflower oil
1 lb. cubed meat of your choice
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. ginger, minced or grated
1 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/8 tsp. cloves
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 large onion, quartered and thinly sliced
4 plum tomatoes, peeled and diced
3/4 cup lowfat plain yogurt
salt, to taste

In a large saucepan, cook the spinach and water over medium high heat, covered, for about 5 minutes, or until spinach wilts. Put the cooked spinach and water into a blender and puree until relatively smooth.

In the same large saucepan (dried), add the oil. Brown the meat over medium high heat for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, and onion. Cook until the meat is well coated with the spice mixture, and the onions are translucent. Add the tomatoes, cooking until they soften and start to fall apart. Add the pureed spinach, cooking about 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens a bit. Add the yogurt and season with salt. Serve over brown basmati rice.

Serves 6-8.

Chicken Soup

2009-02-23T12:15:00.000-08:00

Yes, this is the kind of soup your grandma used to make. I say, if it ain't broke ...

With the whole family sick during various parts of the week, what better way to heal ourselves than with a good, brothy chicken soup? Apparently, the ability of chicken soup to help make us well is not just an old wives' tale. There is some truth to it (see here). At the very least, the warmth of the broth will make you feel temporarily better, and the liquid in the broth will help to hydrate you. It certainly can't hurt.

For vegetable matter in this soup, I use a traditional mirepoix (fancy French word for onions, carrots and celery). You can feel free to add or replace additional veggies. Some of the best are root veggies, such as turnip, celery root, and parsnip. If the soup will be frozen, I'd stick to heartier vegetables like these, but if you'll be eating it quickly, you could include leafy greens, like spinach, kale, or swiss chard. For a twist on the traditional, you could add some stewed tomatoes, grated horseradish, cabbage, or any other number of things that pop in your head. I find it a very versatile soup.

The addition of vinegar in this recipe helps to draw the nutrients from the chicken bones into the broth. It's a great way to boost you calcium intake from a natural, and very bio-available source (but make sure you also have enough vitamin D coming in, so you can actually make use of that calcium). The vinegar also adds a little acidity to the taste of the soup, which means you'll need less salt to achieve the same depth of flavor.

Chicken Soup
1 3-4 lb. whole chicken, innards removed
3-4 carrots, peeled and sliced (halved lengthwise if carrots are very thick)
3 stalks celery, trimmed of ends and sliced
1 large onion, peeled and quartered (ends left in tact to avoid separation)
4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1/4 cup fresh parsley, minced
salt and pepper, to taste
2 Tbsps. white wine vinegar
3 bay leaves

Add all ingredients to a stock pot. Add cold water to the pot until the whole chicken is submerged. Heat over high heat until boiling. Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered for 2 1/2 hours. During simmering, skim the "scum" off the top of the broth every so often. This will prevent your broth from becoming cloudy.

Cool the soup somewhat. Remove the chicken, onions, garlic and bay leaves from the pot. Discard the onions, garlic and bay leaves. Pick apart the meat from the bones of the chicken. Discard the bones. Add back however much chicken meat you'd like in the soup, and store the rest for another use.

Adjust seasonings in the soup. Refrigerate overnight or until the fat in the soup has risen to the surface and congealed. Remove the fat from the top. Heat and serve.

Note: If you'd like, you can add some cooked brown rice, wild rice, couscous, egg noodles, barley, or any other grain you like. I'd keep these separate from the soup to avoid them over-absorbing your broth, making them soggy and the soup too thick. Just add them when serving.

Serves 8-10

This Week's Shopping List

2009-02-20T19:18:00.000-08:00

It's winter (nearing the end, finally!), so I guess it only makes sense that at some point, illness would strike. And so, it has. Starting with my daughter near the end of last week, then adding my husband last weekend, and finally me today. The beast has stricken us all. It's only a cold, but it's still making us all a little miserable. So, given the state of things, I started out the week's menu with a plan for lunch: chicken soup. That and a couple of sicky soup days (Ramen Noodles) have made life a little more tolerable.

The rest of the week was almost an after-thought. The chicken soup was clearly the key to making it a happy eating week. The rest is gravy. Nonetheless, here is the week's menu:

Lunch: Chicken Soup with english muffins

Dinner:
- Grilled Salmon with Spicy Soy Glaze over coconut brown rice and steamed bok choy (leftover from last week)
- Spaghetti with marinara sauce and zucchini
- Beef Saag over brown rice

I know, I know, beef saag sounds strange. After all, beef is not exactly served in India. Nevertheless, it's what I have in my freezer, and lamb is a bit pricey. Since when do I worry about authenticity? As long as it takes good ...

The shopping list for the week goes like this (* indicates non-organic):

carrots
onions
garlic
parsley
spinach
ginger
tomatoes
zucchini
bananas
apples
oranges
Bosc pears (1.69/lb sale)
crushed tomatoes
brown rice
milk
yogurt
eggs
frozen mixed veggies (1.89 sale)
OJ*
bread
ramen noodles ($0.95 sale)
english muffins ($0.35 coupon)
raisins
Annie's cheddar bunnies

The only item I was unable to get this week was the parsley. That was for the chicken soup. I used dried parsley instead, and that worked out fine.

The grocery total for the week came to $75.19. That would have brought us back to the plus side of things, but unfortunately we also had two other shopping bills this week: Costco and Frontier. The Costco trip came to $50.96 and included these items: cereal, wild salmon, shrimp, and bread. Although I don't generally make shellfish (in fact, I just about never make it since my husband doesn't eat it), I bought the shrimp in anticipation of cooking it for a friend and her family after she gives birth to her second child. She's due in March, so I thought I'd better be prepared. The Frontier order, consisting only of tea and coffee, came to $31.10.

So, the grand total for the week is $157.25, which is $34.75 over the weekly budget. Unfortunately, that means we sink further into the negative column. The deficit is now $58. We should be able to make a good dent in that next week. After that, we'll have yet another challenge: a big order (to last several months) is going in to our wholesale food co-op, Neshaminy Valley. Following that, we should have a few regular shopping weeks to look forward to, which should help to bring us back up to budget.

Baked Tofu Fried Rice with Peas, Carrots & Broccoli

2009-02-18T13:13:00.000-08:00

Immediately, you see "fried" in the title and assume that this means fatty. Well, I'll be honest, there is fat in the dish, as there is (or should be) in almost all dishes. The trick to making this a healthy dish is to avoid most or all animal fats. The oil, which is used as a cooking medium, makes up nearly all the fat in the dish. Since the fat in the oil is unsaturated, and since the oil is kept to a minimum, the dish is actually quite healthy, despite the frying!

Fried rice, in its take-out form, is one of those very-bad-for-you dishes that I just love. It's probably not Chinese in origin, as is the case for so much so-called Chinese food in America, but I don't have any history on it. So, I'll just call it an American comfort food. It's greasy, salty, starchy ... just what we Americans love to wallow in. Taking this food which seems to have very little to offer, nutritionally speaking, and making it a healthy, nourishing dish, which still strongly resembles the original, is quite the challenge. I think I've done just that (pat, pat on the back to me ... hee hee!).

The first issue to address is the fat itself. In most fried rice, lots of oil is used, and I can understand why. It's easier to fry in lots of oil ... less burning and sticking. To keep the oil to a minimum, a careful eye must be kept on the heat, and the food should be almost constantly shifted in the pan. In many versions of fried rice, meat of some sort is a main element. Here, that is not the case, so that fat is completely nixed. The other source of fat in fried rice is egg. In my recipe, I've kept one egg in the dish (which is optional), mostly for authenticity, but this is considerably less than the amount used in standard fried rice.

The salt factor is mostly brought on by soy sauce. To keep authenticity, I used tamari (a type of soy sauce), but I used the low-sodium version, and very little of it, so the sodium is considerably reduced.

The starch in fried rice is fairly obvious ... rice! But it's ordinarily white rice, which will give you that insulin spike that so many carbo-phobes protest. Switching to brown rice is very easy in fried rice, since your eyes will already expect the color to be brown. The extra bite given in brown rice also adds some nice textural contrast. The brown rice adds fiber to the dish, making you fuller with less, so maybe you won't eat quite as much of it. You also won't get Chinese Food Syndrome (ie. you won't be hungry an hour later), since the brown rice will keep you going longer.

The final issue in making fried rice healthy is to throw in a few extra veggies and some vegetarian proteins. Those can be anything. To keep with tradition, I used peas and carrots, but these are not requirements. Add as many and as varied veggies and proteins as you can find. I also added broccoli and baked tofu to the dish, and they got along just fine with the rest of it.

This recipe is also a great garbage pail, as many of my recipes are. Since it's so versatile, you can use almost any leftover you have in the fridge. I'll often throw this together for lunch when I have some extra rice in the fridge from last night's dinner. This week, I served it for dinner itself. It is also a great side dish, and can even be served cold. Please, make the dish your own. Here is the way I made it this week:

Baked Tofu Fried Rice with Peas, Carrots & Broccoli
1 c. brown rice
1 3/4 - 2 c. water
salt, to taste (optional)
2 Tbsps. safflower oil, divided
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, diced
2-3 carrots, peeled and diced
1 c. broccoli, cut into small, bite-size pieces
1/2 c. frozen peas
1 egg (optional)
8 oz. baked tofu, diced (I'd love to one day make this on my own ... but that is a subject for another day)
3 Tbsps. low-sodium tamari
2 Tbsps. mirin (Asian rice wine - available in many supermarkets)

In a small saucepan, bring the rice, water and salt to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes, or until all water is absorbed. Less water will make the rice more al dente and more water will make is softer.

In a wok, heat 1 Tbsp. safflower oil over medium high heat. Add garlic, onion, carrots and broccoli. Stir fry until the onion starts to soften. If the vegetables begin to stick, add a tablespoon or two of water to loosen things. Add the frozen peas and fry for one more minute.

Move the veggies to the outer edges of the wok, leaving an empty space in the center. Add 1 Tbsp. safflower oil in the center. Add the egg, piercing the yolk, but allowing the egg to simply set for a minute or two. Begin to break up the egg slowly, allowing the uncooked part to reach the pan's surface. Once mostly cooked through, break up the whole egg into bits, and stir it together with the veggies.

Add the tofu and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add the cooked rice, tamari and mirin, mixing them in well. Remove from heat, and serve.

Serves 4-5.

Grilled Salmon with Spicy Soy Glaze, Steamed Bok Choy, and Coconut Brown Rice

2009-02-17T14:51:00.000-08:00

This dish is one that has become part of my regular rotation. Granted, my rotation is pretty big, so that means we have it a few times a year, not a couple times a month. It's one of my go-to salmon dishes. It's very simple and requires very little chopping and prep, for those who like to avoid that sort of thing.

This week, I served this salmon dish with coconut brown rice and steamed bok choy (below). The bok choy is something that I thought would present well with the dish, especially given the subtle Asian flavors. The coconut brown rice was honestly a way for me to use up a small amount of coconut milk and veggie stock leftover from other recipes. It is not a traditional Thai coconut rice, and it is certainly not a sticky rice. That's still on my list of things to figure out. It is basically a slightly sweeter, creamier brown rice than the simple boiled variety. The flavor is very subtle.

The Spicy Soy Glaze is an epicurious.com recipe, but I make a few modifications. The recipe below is my version.

Spicy Soy Glaze
safflower oil spray
1 shallot, minced
2 Tbsps. low-sodium tamari
2 Tbsps. water
1 tsp. honey
1/2 Tbsp. peach preserves
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
dash of allspice
dash of hot pepper flakes
zest of one lime, grated
juice of half a lime

In a small saucepan, spray safflower oil to coat the bottom and heat pan over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook until starting to soften, about 3 minutes. Add the tamari, water, honey, preserves, ginger, allspice, and hot pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes, until slightly reduced. Remove from heat and add the lime zest and juice.

Grilled salmon
4 4-6 oz. fillet portions of wild salmon
safflower oil spray

In a large cast iron skillet or grill pan (or outdoor grill, if you're so inclined), spray with safflower oil and heat the pan over high heat. Once hot, reduce the heat to medium high. Add the salmon portions, skin side down. Baste the top (flesh side) with the Spicy Soy Glaze. Cook undisturbed for 4-5 minutes (depending on thickness of the fillets). Turn the salmon portions over and remove the skins (should come off easily at this point). Baste the skin side (minus the skin) with the glaze, and cook for another 4-5 minutes. Turn the salmon one more time just to sear the glaze to the other side of the fish, cooking no more than one minute on the skin side. Remove from pan.

Steamed Bok Choy
1 bunch bok choy
salt and pepper, to taste
juice of half a lime

Trim the bottoms off the bok choy (save these for stock). Separate the leaves of the bok choy, leaving each leaf whole. In a medium covered skillet, add enough water to the pan to just coat the bottom. Add the bok choy leaves, season sparingly with salt and pepper and squeeze half a lime over the top. Cover and steam over medium low heat for about 5-7 minutes, or until the green parts have wilted and the white parts are still somewhat firm.

Coconut Brown Rice
1 c. brown rice
1/3 c. light coconut milk
2/3 c. homemade or low-sodium veggie stock
1 c. water
salt, to taste

Combine all the ingredients in a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes, or until all liquid has been absorbed.

Serves 4-5.

Tomato Salsa

2009-02-17T14:37:00.000-08:00

This recipe goes with my Bison Fajitas, but it can be used as a dip or for any Mexican or Southwestern dish as a condiment.

Tomato Salsa
3 plum tomatoes, finely diced
1 Tbsp. red onion, finely minced
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 jalapeno, finely minced (optional)
1 Tbsp. lime juice
salt, to taste

Combine all ingredients.

Bison Fajitas

2009-02-17T14:04:00.000-08:00

I love making quick and easy Mexican food, and this is about as quick and easy as it gets. It's also full of very healthy things: whole grains, avocado, tomatoes, bell peppers, and even the bison, which is about the leanest red meat you can find.

Bison Fajitas
1/2 cup beer (avoid anything too fruity or heavy)
3 Tbsps. cilantro, chopped, divided
2 Tbsps. red onion, minced, divided
3 cloves garlic, minced, divided
12 oz. bison steaks or medallions (available in many supermarkets)
guacamole
tomato salsa
safflower oil spray
1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into large chunks
1 green bell pepper, seeded and cut into large chunks
1/2 red onion, peeled and cut into large chunks
12 small whole grain tortillas

In a small bowl, combine the beer, 3 Tbsps. chopped cilantro, 2 Tbsps. minced red onion, and 3 cloves of minced garlic. Whisk to combine. Marinate the bison in the mixture for at least 1 hour, and up to 8 hours (any more and it will taste more like beer than meat, unless you like that sort of thing).

Spray or brush a cast iron skillet with safflower oil. Heat the pan over medium high heat. Grill the marinated bison steaks for 3-5 minutes on each side, depending on thickness and desired doneness. Allow to rest on a plate.

Using the same skillet, spray a bit more oil. Add the chunks of green and red peppers and red onion to the pan. Cook over medium high heat for about 5-7 minutes, tossing frequently. Remove from heat.

You can warm the tortillas in the oven on a cookie sheet at 250F, but that's optional. Slice the bison against the grain into thin slices. Assemble the fajitas with a bit of meat, peppers & onions, guacamole and salsa.

Serves 4-5.

Baked Mac N Cheese with Cauliflower, Cilantro & Tomato Sauce

2009-02-15T13:48:00.000-08:00

Mac n cheese might just be the ultimate American comfort food, and cold winter days make for the perfect setting in which to eat it. It's relatively easy to make from scratch, but most Americans don't bother. Somehow, we've been made to feel that it's simply too complicated for ordinary humans to tackle, so we go for the blue box time and time again. Ick! I hate the blue box, and I'd never serve it in my house.

I've made a number of different varieties of mac n cheese, one other of which appears in this blog. I make them a little differently every time, mostly based on what I have around the house. Mac n cheese makes a pretty good garbage pail (that is, you can throw just about anything into it). Since I try to make even the most unhealthy of foods healthy, I stick to whole grain pastas, I try to use low-fat or non-fat dairy products, and I always add veggies to the mix. This is not exactly diet food, but it is full of nourishing, non-empty calories, and it's a far cry from the fat-packed version you might find in your neighborhood diner.

This recipe developed out of my desire to make something other than soup, which is nearly all we've had for lunch all winter long. It happened that I had some leftover tomato sauce and cilantro in the fridge, and I thought they would give the mac and cheese a nice little twist. It worked out quite well. The tomato sauce gives it a little acidity and edge, making the flavor somewhat unexpected for mac n cheese. The cilantro adds that fresh flavor that processed mac n cheese always lacks. The cauliflower was just because I love cauliflower and look for opportunities to use it (my husband doesn't care for it, so lunch is a better time to try to get away with it). Baking it gave it a little crunch and gives the cheese a little extra something that you can only get from oven exposure.

Baked Mac N Cheese with Cauliflower, Cilantro, & Tomato Sauce
1 box kamut/quinoa twists (or other small, whole grain pasta)
1 medium head cauliflower, cut into bite-size pieces
1 1/2 Tbsps. butter
1 1/2 Tbsps. whole wheat flour
1/2-3/4 c. skim milk
8 oz. shredded lowfat cheese (cheddar, jack, other semi-hard cheese)
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 c. tomato sauce
1/4 c. cilantro, chopped
1/2 c. whole wheat breadcrumbs
2 Tbsps. grated parmesan

Cook the pasta according to package directions. When the pasta is almost done, add the cauliflower to blanch it. Drain.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Melt the butter and whisk in the flour, cooking over medium heat for about 1 minute. Add 1/2 cup skim milk and whisk in, continuing to cook for 3-5 minutes, or until thickened. If the sauce thickens too much, add additional milk to thin to desired consistency. Add the shredded cheese and stir until melted. Add salt and pepper, to taste. Add tomato sauce and stir until incorporated. Remove from heat, and stir in the pasta, cauliflower and cilantro.

Pour the pasta mixture into a rectangular glass baking dish. Sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs and parmesan. Bake for 30 minutes. Serve

Serves 6-8.

This Week's Shopping List

2009-02-11T13:56:00.000-08:00

I'm very happy with my menu for the week. I look at it and drool ... can't wait to start cooking (in about 15 minutes)! Maybe it's the Bison that's making me ga-ga. After all, it's red meat, and I can't seem to kick that craving.

So, here it is, the week's mouth-watering menu:

Lunch: Baked mac n cheese with cauliflower, cilantro and tomato sauce

Dinner:
- Grilled salmon with Spicy Soy Glaze over coconut brown rice and steamed bok choy
- Bison fajitas with grilled peppers and onions, guacamole and tomato salsa
- Baked tofu fried rice with peas, carrots, and broccoli

The shopping list for all this scrumptious stuff goes like this (* indicates non-organic):
cauliflower
shallots
lime
bok choy
cilantro
avocado
jalapeno
tomatoes
red onion
garlic
broccoli* (1.29 sale)
red pepper
green pepper
bananas
pears
whole wheat crackers
kamut/quinoa twist pasta
rolled oats
cereal* (2/$6 sale)
whole wheat pasta (4/$5 sale)
cheese
milk
plain yogurt
safflower oil*
bison steaks* (2.99/12 oz. sale)
orange juice* (1.49 sale)
seltzer* (3/$1 sale)
tortillas
baked tofu

Once again, I bought everything on the list. I must be on a lucky streak! My husband keeps telling me I ought to play the lottery ... maybe I should!

I bought a couple of extra items that were on sale at the health food store: brown sugar and whole grain udon noodles. As it happens, they also had quite an assortment of cauliflower - white, purple and orange. I'd never seen orange cauliflower before, so I went ahead and bought that. It was a little smaller than the white, and a little cheaper. I'll post about how that works out for the mac n cheese I'm making this week.

The grand total for the week came to $96.88, which is $25.62 below the weekly budget. That brings the deficit down to $23. Woo hoo! I wish I could say that we'd be back in black by next week, but that may not be the case. Next week, we have a co-op order, and although I'm not anticipating any big spending, we may be at or around our weekly budget next week. The week after, we should finally get our heads above water. Holiday madness will finally be behind us! I can almost taste it!