Category Archives: Recipes

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Two Israeli Fennel Salads

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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: Stuffed Peppers and Split Pea Soup

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While our kitchen gets its makeover, the refrigerator, microwave, toaster oven, and water kettle have temporarily taken over a corner of the den, and we are doing our best to use up everything we have. It’s a little bit like camping out, except it’s inside your own house. So I’m trying to be extra-creative.

Our lovely little makeshift pantry has a variety of goodies including a half-empty bag of quinoa, and containers of various dry items such as peanuts, raisins, and cashews; and canned beans, baba ganoush, tomato sauce, and pickles.  Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Red Bean Crockpot Soup

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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: Tofu Time

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One day last week my son-in-law made a fantastic tofu curry, and it came up in conversation at least a few times in the following days how much my 18-month-old granddaughter enjoyed that curry. By the third telling, I got the impression she loved that tofu curry so much that there wasn’t much left for her parents! Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Greens-and-Grains Winter Salad

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I love eating food in season, and many of the ingredients for this recipe have winter written all over them. Leftover nuts and dried fruit from the holidays. Quinoa, a staple in the cabinet. Some fall apples and a few leftover stalks of celery in the fridge. And a sweet memory of the large box of oranges sent every year to my parents by friends who used to spend their winters in Florida. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Cauliflower Latkes

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At our house, the ingredients for potato latkes have been collected on the kitchen counter, and our guests will begin to arrive around 4:30. It’s hard to imagine getting tired of potato latkes, but here’s a recipe for something a little different that you may be excited to try later this week if and when you’re ready for a change. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Citrus Edamame Salad

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You are in for a treat this week, but not that kind of treat. This salad is fantastic on its own, in a scooped out tomato, alongside a slice of butternut squash, or on a bed of greens or grains (quinoa, whole wheat pasta, or brown rice, for example). You can spoon some into the bottom of a Ball jar to start building a to-go lunch for work or school, and it makes a wonderfully colorful addition to a large festive serving platter covered in fruit slices, dips, pickled veggies, crackers, chunks of cheese, smoked fish, and the like. And did I mention how great the leftovers taste? It’s packed with flavor, protein, phytonutrients, nourishing fats, and fiber: in other words, it’s the whole package. Enjoy! Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Weekend After Thanksgiving Soup

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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: Luscious Lentil Salad To Go

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Here’s a wonderful recipe for you to try! Especially after weekends of the kinds of food extravaganzas that the coming weeks are sure to bring, this salad will be a great choice for helping your digestive system to get back on track. Lentils are a very special food. Not only are they a fantastic source of protein, but they are also rich in fiber. There are only a few categories of foods that can make that claim. Not just that, but they are delicious, especially as prepared in this recipe. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: October Soup

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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 →