At this time of year, fresh herbs are growing everywhere, and large bags of zucchini, tomatoes, and other fresh vegetables continue to appear in the coffee room at work or maybe on your front steps, seemingly from out of nowhere. So even if you don’t keep a garden of your own, this is a great time of year to whip up a batch of an herb sauce that will channel the magical properties of those gorgeous vegetables. Not to mention that it will increase the likelihood that you and your lucky friends and family will eat more of the nourishing and colorful phytonutrients hiding inside all those beautiful vegetables, especially the phytonutrients in the herbs and other deeply colored green leafy veggies. Continue reading
Category Archives: Aromatics
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Watermelon Salad
Something fresh and delicious to make this week. If you can find them, beefsteak tomatoes are an amazing addition. Double the recipe and take a bowl to a friend or neighbor. It’s a perfect summer salad. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Lemon-Chickpea Soup
I found this recipe recently, and decided to make it for dear friends who were coming to dinner to celebrate the completion of our new kitchen. And was I happy I did! I had no idea how fabulous this soup would turn out to be. So much more than the sum of its humble parts. Yes it looked good on paper, but you never know, do you? Lucky us.
My Dad and His Ketchup
My dad used to bemoan the fact that most national brands of ketchup, barbecue sauce, and similar ultraprocessed items listed high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as either the first or second ingredient. He knew that high-fructose corn syrup was associated with the explosive epidemics of obesity and diabetes, and he hated the idea that so many people were unaware that they were putting themselves at risk. He was on a never-ending personal mission to improve the quality of the food that he fed his family. He spent a lifetime encouraging family, friends, and casual acquaintances (otherwise known as his pre-friends) to eat less HFCS. And, although he was not usually the kind of person to ask for even small favors, he once asked if I would post an entry on the subject. I was happy to say yes.
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YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Two Israeli Fennel Salads
By the time you read this I’ll be in Israel visiting my son and daughter-in-law, and celebrating the first birthday of my beautiful grandson. The next few weeks will be inspired by the delicious meals and celebrations for which Israelis are famous! First up are a couple of salads using the vegetable fennel.
Fennel is a very special bulb of a vegetable, with the faintest sweet taste of…what?…licorice(!)…but very faint, so don’t be put off. To me it tastes more like the bergamot that gives Earl Grey tea its characteristic flavor and aroma. If you’ve never eaten fennel before, these recipes are a perfect introduction. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Red Bean Crockpot Soup
All right, the holidays are over. It’s January, it’s been snowing for days, and it’s going to be this way for a while. There’s no going back; it’s only forward. Here’s a recipe that may help.
This is the kind of recipe that you start in the morning to cook all day and make the house smell amazing. It will work with any dark red beans, but I want you to know that I am absolutely crazy about the heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo in Napa. I like to add one-quarter cup of green lentils and 2 tablespoons (or 1/8 cup) of garbanzo beans for the added flavor and texture they give this recipe. Even this seemingly minute amount of garbanzos is guaranteed to put a few into every bowl. If the ingredient list feels a little daunting, once you gather and measure out all your ingredients I think it will feel a lot more manageable. You should feel free to mix together all the spices, and combine all the legumes (beans + lentils) before you get started.
I can imagine eating a bowl of this soup with a thick slice of crusty bread, but you can also consider it an entire meal all on its own. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Weekend After Thanksgiving Soup
This recipe is perfect for getting back on track after Thanksgiving. It will take most of the day to cook, but just 10 minutes to throw together. Some years we actually start it while we’re cleaning up, and leave it to cook slowly all night long. Except for the scallions and ginger, there’s a good chance you already have all the other ingredients. The only labor-intensive part of this recipe is the time spent looking through the bones for bits of meat. But don’t feel the need to go looking for every last piece. Whatever you have will be enough. If you don’t see much turkey on the carcass, that’s fine too. Since most of the flavor comes from the bones themselves, the broth will be delicious whether or not the bones are stripped clean. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: October Soup
I was looking back through old posts, and discovered this one from 2011, eleven years and almost 1000 posts ago. Though I do not remember who gave me this recipe, I do know that it came from someone I was working with at the time.*
I arrived home from work one particular evening to find my daughter frying onions, and I asked her what’s for dinner. “I don’t know,” she said, “this is as far as I’ve gotten.” Her amusing reply put me in mind of a guy named Jeff whom I had met many years prior. He became famous in our family, and remains there to this day, because of something he used to say: “First I fry the onions and garlic, and then I decide what to make for dinner.” And that is what my daughter was doing. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Spaghetti Squash Marinara
The squash has been coming in gorgeous and heavy this year! We’ve been making our way through dozens of delicata, acorn, and spaghetti squash. No Hubbards or butternut yet, but they’re coming! As far as I am concerned, there is always room for more. I especially love how they can sit on the counter for weeks and weeks without any negative consequences. So if we happen to have more than we can use at the moment, it’s no problem — just wait a little while! They will still be fine. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Parsley Pesto
I am a diehard waste-not-want-not kind of girl from way back. In the past, I tended to make a lot of surprises from whatever was left in the kitchen, and they could either be great or they could turn out as what my kids used to call “refrigerator soup.”
But every once in a while, I hit the jackpot. Continue reading