YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Pumpkin Pudding

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Here’s a special and unusual recipe for what has always been my favorite time of year. It makes a spectacular addition to a brunch, but it’s also the perfect shortcut to a uniquely delicious and cozy dinner. When my children were young, they loved this pudding and asked for it often once the leaves began falling from the trees. It’s not that I couldn’t make it at other times of year, it’s just that they associated it with autumn. I think they also loved how it warmed them from the inside. I wish I could tell you where the recipe comes from, but I honestly cannot recall. All I know is that I began making it a very long time ago.

The children would get home from school, run outside, and spend a few hours creating and then jumping in leaf piles. When I started to see that, I knew it was time to make pumpkin pudding. I have always made it in the same large, blue bowl with broad, shallow sides. No particular reason, I just like the way it looks and cooks in that bowl. I wish you the same kind of simple pleasure. 

Ingredients
4 eggs
1 one-pound can of pumpkin pureé
1/2 cup molasses
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1 tiny pinch of powdered cloves
1 cup (organic) whole milk

Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare a casserole dish or large beautiful pottery bowl by greasing with butter or butter substitute. 

Break the eggs into a large bowl, and beat well with a fork. Add the pumpkin first, followed by the milk, molasses, and spices. Stir well.

Bake 1 hour until the pudding is firm in the middle and a cake tester comes out clean.

You can serve it hot, warm, or cold, and with or without whipped cream. Honestly, it doesn’t much matter, because there won’t be any left.

 

 

The Zen of an Orange Leaf in Autumn

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In the final hours of the day, between school and dinner, under yesterday afternoon’s cerulean blue sky, two of my grandchildren set out to build “the biggest pile of leaves in the world.” I sat nearby on the slightly damp grass, my arms resting around my bent knees, and watched the children running back and forth across the crunchy, leaf-strewn lawn, screaming in delight, and carrying large bunches of dry, crackly leaves tight against their chests. 

The elder of the two children dropped her most recent collection onto the pile as she pointed upward and cried, “Look!” Far away, up against the deep blue sky, a massive orange leaf was being carried off by the wind as it flew out from the tall trees populating the woods behind my house. “Wow,” said the four-year-old, like he meant it.  

The brilliance of the orange leaf against the deep expanse of blue felt like something out of this world. Long enough for the three of us to breath in and out. Long enough to appreciate its beauty. Long enough to witness a miracle. Long enough to share it with one another. Long enough for the leaf to disappear finally, once and for all, behind a tall, golden maple. Just long enough for all of these. The world stood still for a moment.

The children turned to me, and then agreed that it was time to start the jumping phase of their project. 

   

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Root Vegetable Fall Soup

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I arrived home one day to find my daughter frying onions. “What’s for dinner?,” I asked. “I don’t know,” she replied. “This is as far as I’ve gotten.”

And that reminded me of something my dad used to say. “First I fry the garlic and onions. Then I decide what to make for dinner.”

I got this recipe from a woman that I used to work with. The color is divine; and the flavor is a celebration of autumn, both sweet and earthy at the same time. Continue reading →

Meat Prices: The Bill Comes Due

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You’ve likely noticed that food costs continue to rise, including the cost of meat, especially beef. 

It happens that I come from a long line of butchers. My paternal great-great-grandfather arrived in New York along with a huge pile of sons, including my own great-grandfather, and they quickly set up shop on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. It was the family business, and I imagine it had been that way in Podhajce, Poland, for many generations prior. It skipped a generation because my grandfather declined to participate, but only one, because my father, his son, then decided that he wanted to raise steer on a small farm in northwest New Jersey, which is exactly what he did for the next forty-four years.  Continue reading →

Grandma Rosie’s Lunchtime Kitchen

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My Grandma Rosie of blessed memory had a saying: “Never cheat your stomach.” Until the day he died, my father still quoted her regularly. He especially enjoyed reminiscing about the meals that had him racing home from school every day at lunchtime. My dad didn’t eat a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, and there was no breakfast cereal in my grandmother’s kitchen. Here, instead, are a few inspired examples of my grandmother’s own creative cooking style. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Bean Salad for Your Next Potluck

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Running out of ideas for what to take to the next potluck?  Run no more…
Nourishing, beautiful, colorful, full of flavor, fiber, protein. And leftovers, if there are any, will make a superb lunch the next day. Continue reading →

Breakfast Candy Revolution

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Breakfast cereals have a praiseworthy origin. They were invented by health spa owners to offer an alternative to the typical breakfast of the time: eggs, coffee, and meat, usually in the form of beef, bacon, or sausage. Initially, breakfast cereal provided an economical use for the crumbs that fell to the bottom of the bread ovens at the health spas. The word “cereal” itself means, simply, grain, and derives from Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. We’ve traveled a long way from breakfast cereal’s origin, but unfortunately it’s been in the wrong direction.

The first mass-produced cereal, granula, was a product similar to what today we would call Grape–nuts. The name granula was derived from “granules” or “grains.” Granula nuggets were hard, and they needed an overnight soak to make them palatable. Its name, Grape-nuts, is derived from the fact that these early cereals, which were sweetened with maltose–also known as grape sugar,–had a vaguely nut-like flavor.  For several decades, a small number of whole-grain cereals similar to this one predominated. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Black-eyed Peas & Corn Salsa

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Years ago, I attended a special lunchtime celebration honoring a co-worker who was expecting her first baby. This salsa was contributed by an exercise physiologist named Heather, and it was so good that the recipe was distributed by popular demand to the entire department the following day. It was sooo good! Its simplicity is a huge plus, and the combination of sweet ingredients with mild sour notes and aromatics gives it wonderful flavor. Balsamic vinegar is sweet, corn is sweet, red peppers are sweet, onions are sweet, and tomatoes are sweet. Plus, I like honey. Continue reading →

A Hierarchy of Carbohydrates

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I’ve been thinking about an idea that I am calling a “hierarchy of carbohydrates.” This concept divides the enormous category of carbohydrates into discrete groups, each of which affects insulin release differently. Read on to learn more about what this means for you. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Basil-Artichoke Pesto

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This year I grew a very respectable herb garden in pots out on the back patio. Years ago I used to grow all kinds of herbs, but life got in the way, and all kinds of other projects grew up in their place, so I didn’t have fresh herbs for a long time even though I thought wistfully of those long-ago days and wished I’d gotten organized enough to grow more than the chives and lemon balm that grow wild all around my house. And then it happened. Continue reading →