Category Archives: Olive oil

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.

This year I stopped at the garden center in early summer, and brought home small pots of just a few herbs: creeping thyme and lemon thyme, rosemary, sage, and lavender. I repotted them, placed them in the bright sun, and kept them watered and happy. Last week, I added a pot of basil to the group. And I thought about what I could do with that basil, which filled my entire kitchen with its glorious scent. I experimented with a few ingredients that were already in my kitchen and took it over to my friend’s house, where we sat in the backyard under an almost full moon and devoured practically the entire plate. A late summer gift.

5-6 marinated artichoke hearts (quarters)
12-15 basil leaves
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1-2 Tbsp. marinating liquid (use 1 Tbsp. if making dip, 2 Tbsp. if making sauce)
1/4 cup raw almonds
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. garlic powder

Add all ingredients to a high-speed blender, and blend for 30-60 seconds until smooth. Refrigerate at least one hour to allow flavors to blend. Serve as a dip with a few raw vegetables (such as peppers, kohlrabi, jicama, carrots, radishes, green onions) or crackers. Or spoon it over a white bean salad or cold cooked salmon just before serving. Makes approx 1 cup.

 

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Chickpea Chica’s Summer Salad

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This week I am all about this summer salad, created by our very own Chickpea Chica! Chickpea Chica has a gift for creating dozens of recipes that showcase bright flavors you would never have thought to combine. If you have one can of chickpeas, a single peach, and a few herbs out back or on the sill above your kitchen sink, then you probably have everything you need to make this recipe. Continue reading →

Dunn with Ultraprocessing

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Some years ago, the science writer Rob Dunn published in Scientific American an article called The Hidden Truth About Calories. The article explained why two people could gain different amounts of weight even while eating the same diet. Visible differences do not begin to scratch the surface. There is a lot more going on underneath. For example, I recently read that the intestines of individuals of Russian descent appear to be five feet longer, on average, than those whose ancestors hail from Italy. That’s interesting… Continue reading →

Chocolate Mousse

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What follows is a true story. It really happened, and you can draw your own conclusions.

Many years ago, my daughter and I ventured out on a snowy evening in January and returned home with the sweetest, gentlest, eight-week-old Labrador Retriever puppy. We named our new chocolate lab Mousse. Mousse played ball; Mousse cuddled with the children; Mousse helped me weed the garden; Mousse stole food from the kitchen table when she thought no one was looking; Mousse hung out with the chickens and enjoyed visiting with our friends and neighbors, both human and canine. Mousse became family, and all was well. Continue reading →

Stripped Carbs and White Powder

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Have you ever thought about the fact that white flour, potato starch, confectioner’s sugar, and corn starch look remarkably similar, essentially identical? They have all been converted to a pile of white powder. What these examples have in common is that they have been ultraprocessed in such a way as to change their unique individual identities until all that remains, in each case, is a pile of stripped carbohydrate.  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: 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 →

Testimonial from an Old Friend

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I was scrolling back through some posts that I wrote over a decade ago, and came across this one. I decided to include it here once again to highlight the message that diabetes is reversible. A great many people feel that their diagnosis is inevitable, and that once it appears on their list it will stay forever. Not true. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Orange Soup

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One of our family’s favorites, Orange Soup (mah-RAHK kah-TOME), is a recipe that I have shared in the past. I have found that no matter how large a pot you make, it is always gone within a couple of days. In other words, this recipe makes a lot of soup, but it still won’t last very long. It’s quintessential comfort food. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Yellow Eye Heirloom Bean Soup

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Today was a lovely day, temperatures notwithstanding. School was cancelled, of course, because no one in their right mind could require children to stand outside in these temperatures waiting for school busses. This is why, having received the text from my daughter late yesterday, family camp was in session today. 

The children unrolled our many yoga mats end-to-end all over the living room, and then raided the pantry to build a long winding row of mostly dry and canned beans that they subsequently climbed over and among for close to an hour. In the meanwhile, I put up a pot of soup in my beloved 5.5-quart Staub Dutch oven (cocotte). Continue reading →