One thing I learned from The Gardener (my mom) is that if you have a can of beans in the cabinet, you have a meal. And since it was a rare day that there weren’t a few cans of garbanzo beans (also known as chick peas) in the cabinet, there was always a meal to be had. This recipe comes from glutenfreeeasily.com. It makes a great lunch, a great snack, a great contribution for a potluck. I think you’ll like it.
Category Archives: Recipes
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Pasta-ta-DIE-for
When a former Jersey girl tells you that she likes tomatoes, there’s a pretty good chance that she ain’t kiddin’ around. In fact, I would go so far as to say that there is only one time of year when a tomato is really worth eating at all, and now is it. Think about it this way: This time of year I celebrate tomatoes. The rest of the year I just go through the motions. So here’s one magnificent recipe for my fellow tomato lovers. It comes to you courtesy of cooks.com. If you can’t get Jersey beefsteaks, use the juiciest tomatoes you can find.
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
A few weeks ago I got the idea to make a special treat for our friends. It had to be easy and, since the supermarket was already closed, it had to be made from ingredients already in my house. What do I always have around? That’s easy — chocolate and peanut butter! Even though I had never made peanut butter cups before, they turned out fantastic.
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: It’s-All-Good Brownies
Lots of my friends think I never eat treats, sweets, or anything fun AT ALL. They are so wrong. Now it’s true that I don’t eat stuff that I would categorize as “food-like,” such as corn syrup, or white flour, or maltodextrin. But I definitely enjoy my share of desserts. For example, the peanut butter cups that I made a couple of weeks ago from quality dark chocolate and organic peanut butter (one ingredient — peanuts), were absolutely sublime, and easy. And yesterday I ate a chocolate macaroon that was pretty yummy. Continue reading
Ratatouille at Home
I would like to tell you about a recipe I made this week. This recipe is for a ratatouille (of sorts), but unlike most recipes it is not about the ingredients. It’s about the sources. Most of the ingredients came from around my own house. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Mint Fruit Sorbet
Thank you to Healy Real Food Vegetarian for an exceptional, delicious, and super cool sorbet made from mint, pineapple, and mango. That’s it. Stay cool!
- 1 /2 cup frozen pineapple
- 1 /3 cup frozen mango
- 6-8 mint leaves, chopped
Combine all the ingredients in a food processor or high speed blender (like a Vitamix), and process at high speed until it reaches the consistency of sorbet. Serve in a stemmed wine glass with a mint leaf on top. P.S. The mango is optional; if you don’t have any, double the amount of pineapple.
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Macadamia Parsley Pesto
I found a wonderful site called Rubies and Radishes with lots of wonderful and creative recipes. Here’s one that I especially like. I can see pouring a couple of teaspoons of this magic green elixir over an omelette, or roasted asparagus, or a cup of rotini; or stirring a spoonful into a mug of vegetable soup. If you have basil, parsley, and oregano growing in your garden like I do, then you are practically there.
- 1 cup flat leaf parsley
- 2 cups fresh basil
- 3-4 cloves garlic
- 1 /2 cup olive oil
- 1 /4 cup macadamia nuts
- 2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
- 2 tsp. fresh oregano
- 1/4 tsp. sea salt
- 1/4 tsp. pepper
Combine all ingredients in a food processor or high-speed blender until smooth.
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Green Grape Gazpacho
This week I’m delighted to share with you Wendy’s “White Gazpacho” from Healthy Girl’s Kitchen. You are going to be so excited when you taste this! True, it’s not really white, more like pale green, but why mince words when you can mince garlic instead? This stuff is goooood.
- 2 pounds seedless green grapes
- 1 /2 cup whole almonds, blanched
- 1 clove fresh garlic
- 6 Tbsp. fresh cilantro
- 3 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
- 2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
- 2 English cucumbers, in 2-inch-thick slices
- Salt to taste
Place all ingredients in food processor. Process by pulsing until just barely blended and kind of chunky. This “white” gazpacho will stay fresh in the refrigerator up to 5 days. Serve in clear mugs if you have, garnished with a sprig of cilantro.
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Coleslaw with a Bitt of Bite
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
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:
- Cook a pot of legumes, whether lentils or beans. This category also includes tofu, sprouts, and canned beans.
- 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.
- Make a pot of grains, whether brown rice, quinoa, millet, bulgur, whole-grain pasta, or a pan of polenta.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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:
- Dice a tomato, add to lettuce, toss with vinaigrette. Serve with warmed drumsticks and roasted broccoli.
- Chop an onion, fry in olive oil. Add white beans and warm. Serve over grains.
- Place a scoop of cannellini beans over greens, and drizzle with vinaigrette. Blueberries for dessert.
- Toss greens with vinaigrette. Cover a platter with the greens and place in each corner scoops of the beans, broccoli, and quinoa.
- White beans + quinoa stirred with a few drops of vinaigrette and sprinkled with grated cheddar cheese.
- 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:
- 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.
- 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.
- Slice hard boiled eggs thinly, and layer over greens. Sprinkle with parmigiana cheese.
- Heat tomato sauce, and pour over a mixture of rice and lentils. Eat with cauliflower.
- 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.
- 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.