YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Spiced Pumpkin Seeds

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This recipe made its way into my house in a booklet provided by Vitamix with the purchase of our high-speed blender many years ago. It is really delicious whether all by itself, sprinkled over a circle of warm brie, or tossed onto a tomato salad. Pumpkin seeds are a great substitute for nuts when you are feeding people with nut allergies, but they are also extremely nourishing in and of themselves, and worth the time you spend making them. 

Over the years I have collected plenty of recipes for sweet spiced nuts and seeds, but this is the only recipe I have for a savory version. 

Spice Ingredients
1 tsp. Kosher salt
1 tsp. cumin seed
¼ tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
2 tsp. curry powder
1 strip fresh lemon peel

Additional Ingredients
2 cups raw pumpkin seeds, shelled
1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Add salt, cumin, red pepper flakes, curry powder and lemon peel into the Vitamix container in the order listed above, and secure the container to the base.
3. Start the blender on its lowest speed, then quickly increase to its highest speed. Blend for just 10 seconds.
4. Pour the spice blend into a medium-sized bowl, add vinegar and pumpkin seeds. Mix well, and spread onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
5. Bake 15 minutes or until beginning to turn light golden brown.

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Grain Bowls, Your Way

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I figured I would share some strategies for grain bowls.

Start by choosing a grain. It could be something as simple as rolled oats, but it might also be something slightly more adventurous—like steel-cut oats or millet or even the brown rice left over from last night’s dinner. I happen to be a fan of kasha, a nutty tasting grain also known as buckwheat groats, and which my family ate often when I was growing up.  Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Marinated Eggs

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This recipe is in honor of our seven lovely hens, who are now 1 1/2 years old and laying on the order of 3-5 beautiful eggs every day. Yesterday afternoon my 3-year-old grandson and I stopped at the coop to collect the day’s gifts, but two of the girls were in the middle of laying and so we left them to their business and turned around to instead go climbing on a big pile of logs. This morning my husband needed some eggs to bake oatmeal cookies, so he ran out to the coop and discovered 7 eggs!  Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Tsimmes

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Preparing for the holidays with my mom was a major highlight of my childhood. Although my father was the main cook in our family, my mother took over the kitchen on the holidays, and dad’s primary responsibility was to make the brisket.

Like many other special dishes that we ate on dedicated holidays throughout the calendar, my mother made tsimmes twice a year, in the fall for Rosh Hashanah (it is traditional to eat sweet foods on Rosh Hashanah), and in the spring, for Passover. She never used recipes, preferring instead to combine ingredients as her grandmother and mother-in-law did. Truthfully, though, tsimmes is one of those dishes that probably doesn’t really need much of a recipe anyway. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Huevos Haminados (Slow-cooked eggs)

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Haminados are one of my all-time favorite Passover recipes! Simple, sublime and delicious, they have been a staple at the Passover tables of Mediterranean Jewish communities for millennia! I’ll be making two big batches in the coming days . Check out this recipe and you’ll see why. Whether you make this dish in your crockpot or oven, it takes just a few minutes to toss together and get cooking. Continue reading →

A Simple Salad

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I’ve been eating this salad for breakfast, yes breakfast, for many years. I know Americans consider it somewhat unconventional to eat salad for breakfast (though not Europeans and in the Middle East), but I believe it is such a great way to start the day. The success of this salad is built on simplicity. My strategy remains similar, week in and week out. It is never quite the same, but it is always delicious. On occasion, I make it with a sweet potato instead of a white potato. Thank you to Alice Waters for teaching me to eat simply. This salad makes one single serving, but is infinitely flexible if a friend or an army is coming to share a meal. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Mediterranean Roasted Onions

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Generally speaking, I read a lot about Mediterranean cooking, but lately I’ve been focusing on its emphasis on simplicity. I keep seeing one particular idea, that you need only a short list of ingredients in a small kitchen to make spectacularly flavorful dishes. No need for 40 herbs and spices. Maybe five or ten. Here’s what I mean. Today I have in mind an exceedingly simple recipe: roasted onions. These onions are really, really gooooood, and they add a special something to every meal you can imagine. Continue reading →

Setting an Intention

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I am writing today about what it means to set an intention. 

What is an intention? I was introduced to the idea many years ago by my friend and yogi Mel who is full of heart, full of smarts, and, yes, full of intention. She said that it’s good to “set an intention” for your yoga practice each time you get started. I had heard other people say that, too, but I had no idea what it meant, so I ignored them. But you ignore Mel at your own peril. So I smiled, nodded blankly, and tried to act like I knew what she was talking about. Oh yes, an intention, good idea. Yes, definitely. Smile. Continue reading →

Be Here Now

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“Be here now” is what the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh used to say. I think about that sentence a lot. It grounds me in the present and keeps me here, no matter what I’m doing, No matter when and where I’m doing it. Not there, not then, but here and now. For a long time I thought of “Be Here Now” as “be HERE now.” Sometimes “be here NOW.” But then I heard myself think “BE here now.”

Thich Nhat Hanh said BE here now, not DO here now. Continue reading →

On Ordering Food for Hospitalized Patients

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My mom was a very no-nonsense type of person. When her blood sugars began to rise slightly as she entered her 70s, she announced that she did not want take any diabetes medicine. From then on, she kept her blood sugars normal through a combination of common sense and careful carbohydrate consumption. Once, she was hospitalized for what she called a “minor procedure.” The procedure went fine, but not the food. The first meal they brought her consisted of breaded fish (frozen), mashed potatoes (instant), corn (canned), a dinner roll (frozen), and tea (2 sugar packets on tray). “If I ate that, my blood sugars would have gone through the roof!” she told me. She drank the tea (without sugar), and called my dad, who arrived in short order with a chopped salad, roasted peppers, and meat loaf. Continue reading →