Author Archives: Dr. Sukol

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Coleslaw with a Bitt of Bite

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Ever wonder about the COLE in slaw? What about KOHL-rabi, or COL-cannon? It turns out that cole is an ancient word for cabbage and other members of the cruciferous vegetable family, about which I have written previously. One thing I really love about cole slaw is how it gets better with time. I mean, make it at 5 p.m. and serve it with dinner, and it will taste perfectly fine, delicious even. But make it at 9 a.m. and serve it with dinner, and it will taste absolutely divine. That’s the cool thing about cole slaw. This week’s recipe, a magnificent take on cole slaw, comes from Mark Bittman, whose How to Cook Everything Kitchen Companion (which includes this recipe) is available free-of-charge, for a short time, at the App Store.
  • 2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
  • 2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
  • 1 small clove garlic, minced
  • 1 Tbsp. minced jalapeno or other fresh chili (optional)
  • 1 /4 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 6 cups Napa, Savoy, green, or red cabbage, cored and shredded
  • 1 large red or yellow bell pepper, seeded and diced (or shredded)
  • 1 /3 cup chopped scallion
  • salt
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 /4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
To start, whisk together the mustard, garlic, chili and vinegar in a small bowl. Add oil a bit at a time, whisking well after each addition. In a large bowl, combine the cabbage, bell pepper, and scallions, and add the dressing. Toss well, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and refrigerate until serving time. Try to leave enough time to let it sit for at least an hour. Finally, drain the extra liquid that accumulates at the bottom of the bowl, and toss with the parsley.

Weeks and Weeks of Meals

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I have an idea about how to get ready for the week, food-wise. The plan is to prepare a relatively large container of each of several types of foods. You’ll end up with about 5 different kinds of categories of food that you can mix and match through the week, throwing together soups, salads, platters, and whatever else you think of, like this:

  1. Cook a pot of legumes, whether lentils or beans. This category also includes tofu, sprouts, and canned beans.
  2. Prepare a large bowl of washed, shredded greens to eat raw or cooked. This can be lettuce, kale, swiss chard, collards, and so on. Place a dry towel (paper or cloth) at the bottom of the bowl, and cover with a second towel, this one quite damp.  This should keep everything fresh for 3-4 days. Re-wet the top towel as needed.
  3. Make a pot of grains, whether brown rice, quinoa, millet, bulgur, whole-grain pasta, or a pan of polenta.
  4. Cook a protein source such as tofu sauteed in olive oil and soy sauce, roasted chicken wings, barbecued drumsticks, hard boiled eggs, poached salmon, or the like. Canned fish (sardines, tuna, salmon) is also good.
  5. Roast a vegetable. It can be squash, beets, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, green beans, cauliflower, or broccoli, and so on. Choose a different one each week.
  6. Shake up a simple vinaigrette of olive oil and red wine vinegar with a touch of brown mustard and a few herbs, like oregano, thyme, and basil. Next week use lemon juice instead of vinegar, skip the mustard, and try a different herb mix.

Say this past week’s cooking yielded pots of white cannellini beans, red leaf lettuce, white quinoa, roasted broccoli, and drumsticks, while the coming week’s plan is for hard boiled eggs, swiss rainbow chard, brown rice, roasted cauliflower, and red lentils. Here are some ideas:

Week 1:

  1. Dice a tomato, add to lettuce, toss with vinaigrette. Serve with warmed drumsticks and roasted broccoli.
  2. Chop an onion, fry in olive oil. Add white beans and warm. Serve over grains.
  3. Place a scoop of cannellini beans over greens, and drizzle with vinaigrette. Blueberries for dessert.
  4. Toss greens with vinaigrette. Cover a platter with the greens and place in each corner scoops of the beans, broccoli, and quinoa.
  5. White beans + quinoa stirred with a few drops of vinaigrette and sprinkled with grated cheddar cheese.
  6. Strip the meat from drumsticks, saute with onion and garlic, and remove from fry pan. Fill pan with quinoa, stir to warm, and return meat to the pan. Serve with greens.

Week 2:

  1. Fry 2 onions in a large skillet, add brown rice and stir to warm. Spoon lentils over top, add one-half cup water, and cover for 5 minutes to steam.
  2. Fill a bowl with a few spoons each of the warmed chard, rice and lentils. Drizzle with vinaigrette. Slice hard boiled eggs into quarters and serve on the side. Watermelon slices afterward.
  3. Slice hard boiled eggs thinly, and layer over greens. Sprinkle with parmigiana cheese.
  4. Heat tomato sauce, and pour over a mixture of rice and lentils. Eat with cauliflower.
  5. Heat a quart of store-bought chicken stock to boiling, and turn off the heat. Add a few cups of greens and a cup of brown rice, and allow to sit for 5 minutes to heat. Afterward, you can also pour in a raw scrambled egg, slowly stirring the steaming pot the whole time to make egg drop soup. Salt and pepper to taste.
  6. Try a bowl of grains, heated with milk, drizzled with honey or maple syrup, and sprinkled with almonds, for breakfast.

There is still room for making extra things on the side, if you have time and the inclination. There’s room for fresh fruit, dark chocolate, cucumbers, peppers, pickles, sunflower seeds, peanut butter, and plenty of other add-ons. But the basics are in place. I don’t think it takes more time to eat well, but I do believe it takes a bit of planning.

Addendum: This plan is completely adjustable for individual diets.  Vegetarians can skip the eggs, fish, and meats in the protein section. Grain-sensitive, gluten-free, and Paleo eaters can adjust the grain group, or skip it entirely. Plant-based eaters can make a fat-free vinaigrette with tomato juice (my Grandpa Sandy loved to do this in his Good Seasons salad dressing cruet), and then proceed with vegan options.

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Bulgur Bean Burgers

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With the 4th of July almost here, and summertime in full swing, here is a really wonderful veggie burger recipe to share with friends, even meat-eating ones. If you bring these to a potluck (or barbecue or block party), bring extra.
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 /2 cup dry bulgur wheat
  • 1 can (approx 15 oz.) black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 container (6 oz.) plain yogurt
  • 1 /4 tsp. allspice
  • 1 /4 tsp. ground cinnamon
  • 1 /4 tsp. ground cumin
  • 1 /4 c. fresh mint leaves, chopped
  • 1 /2 c. shredded cucumber (the small flavorful pickling kind)
  • 2 whole-grain hamburger buns
  • 4 leaves romaine lettuce
  • 1 medium tomato, sliced
  • 2 tsp. olive oil
  • salt & pepper 
Heat the water and 1 /2 tsp. salt to boiling.  Add bulgur, reduce heat, cover and simmer 10-12 minutes until water is absorbed.
Meanwhile, mash beans with 2 tablespoons of the yogurt until almost smooth.  Then add cooked bulgur, allspice, cinnamon, cumin and half the mint.  With lightly floured hands, form 4 equal-sized patties.
Heat olive oil in a non-stick skillet over medium heat.  Add burgers, cook 4 minutes, flip and cook 4 minutes more. Set each burger on a bun half.
Combine cucumber, remaining yogurt and mint, 1 /2 tsp. each salt and pepper. Layer the burgers on the buns with lettuce and tomato, spoon yogurt sauce over top.  Serve open-face.

Knife Skills

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I’ve been thinking about knife skills, not just what they are, but why they are. If you take a cooking class, the chef starts by teaching knife skills, so they must be important, right? But why?

Last week I learned, in passing conversation, that cutting foods into smaller pieces increases the amount of moisture available for tasting. Moisture turns out to be a vehicle that carries flavor molecules into your taste buds. So the more moisture, the more flavor. And that explains the appeal of my dad’s chopped salad; the relatively small pieces of lettuce, tomato, onion and other ingredients markedly increase the amount of flavor (and mixing of flavors!) released with every bite.

How does Chef Ira create that magic? With his knife.

So I watched a whole bunch of youtube videos on knife skills. I learned all about weight and balance, about chopping and dicing, and about protecting my fingers by making them into the shape of a spider that crawls backward along the celery stalk while the knife rocks back and forth to form uniform, bite-size pieces. I learned to peel half an onion in 1 second flat, to tell the stem from the root, and then to use that root to keep the onion together as I slice and dice.

I watched a few videos about mincing garlic. Henceforth, I will mince garlic in an imaginary quarter-circle area. Then, when the bits of garlic begin to stray from the 90 proscribed degrees of intention, I will use the back of the knife to draw them back together. At least I’ll try.

Why, then, are knife skills so valuable? Because we use them to increase flavor. Have you ever tasted something so good that you put down your fork and sat still, concentrating on the flavor and allowing it to run over your tongue, fill your mouth, satisfy your soul? On those happy occasions when this happens, I never find myself searching the kitchen cupboard afterward for a little bite of something extra. I am already thoroughly satisfied. Knife skills are everything.

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Orange Smoothie

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Summertime!  Put this in your blender and drink it!
  • 1 whole orange, peeled
  • 1 small-med zucchini
  • 1/2 cucumber, peeled
  • 1/4 cup raw cashews
  • 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1/4 cup oats, quinoa flakes, or soaked buckwheat groats
  • a handful of ice
Blend all the ingredients in a high-speed blender until creamy. Makes one very generous smoothie, or two smaller ones to share. Thank you to Heather at Gluten-Free Cat for this awesome recipe, the closest thing to a creamsicle that you’ll find anywhere in or near the vicinity of me!

Sugar: The First Artificial Sweetener

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“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”  George Orwell

Lately I’ve been thinking about the four major stripped carbohydrates as each having its own century or two. In my mind, corn starch/syrup belongs to the 20th century, rice to the 19th, wheat to the 18th, and sugar to the 17th (and 16th) centuries. One foodstuff at a time, humans figured out how to strip away the germ and the fibrous outer coat to increase shelf life, marketability, and profitability. I have nothing against capitalism, by the way, just not at the expense of our health. I am a physician, dedicated to preserving the health of my patients and my community.

Is it possible that we simply tipped the balance, previously straining, but not exceeding, our abilities to tolerate increasing amounts of stripped carb over several centuries, until we reached the 20th century and the amounts in our food supply skyrocketed with the introduction of high-fructose corn syrup? Perhaps. I do think that most of us can tolerate a small amount of stripped carb now and then. Especially if we are active.

Today I want to focus on sugar, the first product humans figured out how to strip. The sugar industry obtains its raw materials from three major sources: dates, beets, and sugar cane. Each of these is high in fiber; that’s how it’s found in nature. What must it have been like when, for the first time, large amounts of sugar began to be manufactured and distributed? Yes, small amounts were being produced in pockets of communities scattered around the world, but there had been nothing like it before, at least not in industrial doses. Previously, recipes for sweets would have used honey, or maple syrup, or mashed dates. Applesauce also comes to mind, or other mashed fruits. Small amounts, restricted to certain times of the year. But the concentrated sweetness of sugar revolutionized the way people cooked, ate their meals, drank their tea.

Turning to what I call “sweet n pink, sweet n blue, sweet n yellow,” and so on, I am concerned about the food industry’s heavy marketing of these alternative “artificial sweeteners.” If you’ve decided that sugar isn’t good for you, the food industry has a variety of alternatives at the ready, and it markets strenuously the message that artificial sweeteners are a great way to get your “sweet fix” without having to pay a price, metabolically speaking.

Yet, there is now research showing that more than two diet sodas per week were associated with an increased prevalence of diabetes and stroke. In one particular study, depression appeared actually to be caused by diet sodas in excess of four daily. We don’t have sufficient evidence yet to prove causality for diabetes and stroke, but I’m not going to stand in the middle of the highway waiting to find out.

Other recently published research showed a 20% rise in insulin levels on consuming sucralose, marketed as a splendid alternative to sugar. High insulin levels are the underlying cause of so many chronic diseases, including diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, obesity, arthritis, gall stones, fatty liver, and more. What else raises insulin levels? Stripped carbs, like white flour, white rice, corn syrup, corn starch, and, of course, sugar. Sweet n white?

Fish don’t know about the water in which they swim; it’s their world. Birds don’t see the air in which they fly; it’s simply their world. All over the world, humans are surrounded by a diet consisting of enormous amounts of items that we did not evolve to eat. Though we ourselves no longer see it, I’m absolutely certain that George and Martha Washington’s grandparents would have more than a few questions were they to find themselves, tomorrow, in the “food court” at my local mall.

So I ask you to consider: Was sugar the first artificial sweetener?

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Falafel with Tahini

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Here’s a pretty amazing recipe from my hero Mark Bittman.  Traditionally, falafel are deep fried, but baking is easier, cleaner, and probably better for you. Falafel is great; once upon a time I lived on it for two years. You can eat it in whole wheat pita with lettuce, tomato, and cucumbers, and drizzled with tahini. You can thin the tahini with a little more lemon juice and/or water, and pour it over falafel and greens to make a yummy salad. Of course, you can also eat falafel cold, one at a time, straight from the refrigerator, for breakfast.
  • 1 3 /4 cups dry chickpeas
  • 2 garlic cloves, chopped
  • 1 small onion, quartered
  • 1 Tbsp. cumin
  • 1 /2 – 1 tsp. cayenne
  • 1 cup fresh parsley or cilantro, chopped
  • 1 – 1 1 /2 tsp. salt
  • 1 /2 tsp. black pepper
  • 1 /2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
  • 4 Tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 /2 cup tahini (sesame paste)
Place the chickpeas in a large bowl and cover with water by at least 3 inches.  Soak for 12-24 hours, checking the water level a few times and adding more as needed to keep the chick peas covered. Once the chickpeas are done soaking, preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Drain and rinse the chickpeas, and add them to a food processor along with the with garlic, onion, cumin, cayenne, parsley or cilantro, pepper, baking soda, lemon juice, and one teaspoon of salt. Pulse the mixture until minced, but not pureed. Add water bit by bit, by the tablespoon if necessary, but keep the mixture as dry as possible. This is a good time to stop, taste, and add more cayenne if you’d like.
Grease a large rimmed baking sheet with 2 Tbsp. olive oil. Using the palms of your hands, roll approx. 1 tablespoon of the chickpea mixture into a ball about 1 1 /4 inches in diameter. The recipe should make about 20 balls.
Place the balls on the baking sheet, one by one as you make them, and then flatten them into thick patties with the flat open palm of your hand. Brush the falafel tops with the remaining 2 Tbsp. olive oil, and then bake 10-15 minutes per side until golden-brown.
To serve, whisk the tahini with the remaining 1 /2 tsp. salt and 1 /2 cup water until very smooth, and drizzle over falafel.
This recipe makes approx. 8 servings.  Once the chickpeas have soaked, it takes about 45 minutes. Leftovers are great refrigerated or frozen. To reheat, wrap them in foil and bake 15-35 minutes at 350F until hot all the way through, time depending on whether they are cold or frozen.

A Shopping Guide for Crackers

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In case you’ve been wondering which crackers should be on your plate, this printout will provide you with a head start. Click on the link above to download the printable PDF.
Rule #1: Don’t let the name of the cracker guide your decision making. Remember my special name for the information on the packages — advertising! “Stoned Wheat” sounds pretty good, right? Not. What about “multigrain,” which sounds like it should point you in the right direction, yes? No. “Organic,” “bite-size,” “natural,” or even “wheat?” “What about TLC?” That last one cracks me up.
Then, there’s one more thing. Notice also the big difference in the number of crackers that constitute a 1-ounce serving! Could be 3; could be 30.
I’m not saying anything here about the quality or the sources of the wheat and other grains used to make these crackers. More than anything, this post is a lesson in how to read packages.

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Lila’s Lovely Loaves of Almond Bread

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My dear friend Lila comes for dinner almost every Friday night, and she always brings a couple of loaves of this bread for us to enjoy. You might say that we are spoiled, and you would be right. This is a great recipe, flavorful and satisfying. She’s made it with almonds, and she’s made it with pecans. Both are great, though the crust of the pecan version, a cross between crunchy and chewy, is slightly more satisfying to me.
Dry ingredients:
  • 1 1 /2 cups almond or pecan flour*
  • 3 /4 cups tapioca starch (substitute arrowroot starch for a paleo version)
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • 1 tsp baking soda
Wet ingredients:
  • 7 tbsp almond milk or water
  • 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tsp honey (substitute maple syrup for a vegan version)
  • 4 tbsp ground flax seed
Preheat oven to 350F. In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the wet ingredients and allow to sit for 5 minutes. In a separate larger bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Then add the wet ingredients to dry. If the dough seems stiff, add more water. Consistency should be more like a thick batter than a stiff dough. Don’t overmix.
Spoon into parchment-paper-lined small loaf pans. Bake 30 minutes. Turn out onto a cooling rack. Wrap up the loaves and share them with friends to enjoy together!  *Lila uses Bob’s Red Mill almond flour, but you could also grind blanched almonds (or other nuts) in a blender or food processor, as long as you’re careful not to overgrind them into almond butter. Pecan meal can be purchased at nuts.com.
Many thanks to Alea at myrealfoodlife.com for this recipe.  It won’t rise all that much since it’s gluten-free, egg-free, and yeast-free. But it’s still worth it. The flavor is beyond delicious and the texture of the crust is unbelievably good!

A Week of Chicken Soups & Chive Flower Vinegar

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Here is what you need to know as you read how I revived a spent chicken carcass this past week. From the time I was a young child, I was taught not to waste. It was a core value of my family. My parents were young children during the Depression, and my mother grew up with her own grandmother, an immigrant, in a 3-generation household. My great-grandmother was the family cook, and this is why my mother remains the only person in my world who knows how to make chicken fricassee with chicken feet. Her grandmother, for whom I am named, wasted nothing.

Now then, this week’s adventure. Last Monday evening I discovered a chicken carcass on the second shelf of the refrigerator. It had been pretty well picked over, but there was still lots of meat on it. Unfortunately, because those were bits that just don’t have a name, everyone else was done with it. But I saw opportunity.

I picked up the carcass and dropped it into a large soup pot. I covered it barely with cold water, and added 2 tablespoons of white vinegar. I turned on the heat to just 225F, and walked away. In the morning I found a lovely chicken broth, more full-bodied than expected, and almost sweet from the slow caramelization process initiated by the slow cooking. For breakfast, along with my scrambled egg, I ladled off a couple of scoops and drank the broth. I added a little more water to the pot to replace what I had taken. The broth continued to cook.

Tuesday evening I sliced a few leaves of kale into ribbons and put them into soup bowls. Then I ladled a few scoops of the hot chicken broth over the kale, which quickly turned bright green. I also scooped out a few large chunks of chicken. With white bean and cucumber salad, a great dinner. Once again, I added water to the pot to replace what I had taken, and the broth continued to cook.

The next morning, after I drank a mug of the warm broth, I added a few small white turnips (sliced thinly), a carrot (peeled and cut into large chunks), and a potato (scrubbed and quartered). Then once again, I left. Wednesday evening I ate a big bowl of chicken soup with vegetables. It was delicious. The soup was a warm caramel color now, full of flavor and body. The bones, especially the smaller ones, were beginning to crumble, so that if I missed one in picking out the chunks of meat, it didn’t matter, because it would simply disintegrate in my mouth.

The final morning of the experiment, after having filled a to-go mug with broth, which I later drank gratefully during an early-morning meeting in what turned out to be a freezing cold room, I dumped a large amount of kale into the remaining soup and left it to cook all day. That night, when I arrived home, I scrambled an egg and poured it into the hot soup as I stirred it in a large, slow circle. Egg drop soup, the final soup of the week. If I had had some tofu I might have cut it into cubes and added that, too.

At the end of this experiment, a few large bones remained in the pot, and not much else. Almost everything else had disintegrated. I had turned a chicken carcass, rich in calcium and collagen (the protein in the bones), into half a dozen meals. The collagen was what had made the broth so rich and full-bodied.

My great-grandmother would have expected no less.

[Note: I used plain white vinegar this time. Next time I will use the chive flower vinegar I made this week, which consists simply of stuffing lavender chive flowers into a glass jar and covering them with white vinegar. The resulting pink vinegar is visually stunning, with a magnificent aroma. You can see what I mean in the photo above.]