Category Archives: Recipes

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: TWO SOUPS FOR THE SEASON

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A friend of mine does her own thing by spending Monday mornings at 4 a.m. down at the city’s commercial organic vegetable market.  She elbows her way in between buyers from some of the best restaurants and grocers in town to bring home boxes of the most beautiful produce she can find.  Then she divides it into a dozen or so bags, which she leaves out on the front step for those of us lucky friends who all join in for this weekly bounty.  Did I mention that she’s a very talented cook, besides?
Last week she sent out a recipe for “Butternut Vegetable Soup.”
1 medium onion, chopped
4 large garlic cloves, minced
2 T. olive oil
1 medium butternut squash, cubed
3 sweet potatoes, cubed
2 carrots, sliced
3-4 potatoes, cubed
1 T. fresh basil 
1 T. fresh thyme 
1 quart vegetable stock
salt and pepper to taste
Sauté onions and garlic for 10 min.  Add carrots and squash, sauté for 10 min more.  Add all remaining vegetables, vegetable stock, and 4 cups of water.  Add basil and thyme.  Bring to boil and simmer covered 30-45 minutes until vegetables are soft.  Puree soup with an immersion blender if you have one, or a potato masher if you do not.  Add water to thin soup if you like. Salt and pepper to taste.
And then she explained how to make “Simple Cauliflower Soup.”
Break up cauliflower into florets.  Cover cauliflower with water in a saucepan.  Bring to boil, and simmer uncovered for 15 min or until cauliflower is tender.  Puree cauliflower and season with nutmeg, salt and pepper.  She says that her children love this simple soup.  
I’ll bet it also tastes great with a 1/4 cup cashews tossed in before the puree step, and I’ll bet I can make it in my new Vitamix!

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YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: JAPANESE EGGPLANT STIRFRY

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Not sure where I found this recipe, but I have at least 10 gorgeous Japanese eggplants hanging out in the garden and begging to be eaten in exactly this way.  This recipe has more ingredients than I usually choose, but I thought it was worth it.  Since almost all the ingredients are in the sauce, just skip it if you don’t have one of them.  It’ll still be delicious, just different.



1 medium-large eggplant or 3-4 Japanese eggplants (small, long, thin, dark)

2 long English cucumbers

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon honey

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons dark sesame oil

2 tablespoons coconut oil (or canola oil if you prefer)

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

2 tablespoons minced chives



1. Trim the eggplants. Cut in half lengthwise, slice 1/4 inch slices.

Toss lightly with approx 1 tsp. salt, and place in colander. Allow to rest 15 minutes, and prepare other ingredients. Then squeeze excess water from eggplant slices and dry with cloth or paper towel.

2. Meanwhile, trim cucumber ends, cut in half lengthwise, and slice again into 1/4 inch slices.

3. Combine rice vinegar, soy sauce, honey, salt and sesame oil in a bowl and set aside.

4. Heat wok or skillet over high heat until very hot.  Add oil and tilt the pan to distribute. Add eggplant and stir-fry 3-4 minutes until cooked through. Add ginger and red pepper flakes, stir-fry 30 sec. Add cucumbers and chives, stir-fry 30 sec more. Add soy sauce mix, and stir-fry 60 sec until cucumber begins to soften.  Serves 2-4.

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YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: ANOTHER GAZPACHO, THIS ONE GOLD!

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I saw this recipe on a site for new blenders.  Since I expect that I’ll have a new blender by the end of the week (!), I thought it was a perfect time for this beautiful, late summer, golden gazpacho recipe.  If you can’t find yellow (acid-free) tomatoes, use red ones and the soup will be orange.



5 medium yellow tomatoes, quartered

Corn kernels stripped from 2 cobs

1/2 cucumber, peeled if thick or waxy

1/2 yellow pepper, cored and seeded

1/2 clove garlic

1 scallion, cleaned and sliced

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 tablespoon white vinegar

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper



Blend the tomatoes first.  Then add in the remaining vegetables, one at a time.  Then add the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.  Serves 4.



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Creamy Kale (No Dairy)

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You would not believe how much kale is growing in my garden.  I’ve given some away, eaten some steamed, spun some into green smoothies, and still there is more.  So here’s one more way to use it up.  Many thanks to Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen for this great recipe.  They recommend serving it with quinoa, raw vegetables, and chicken or black-eyed peas for dinner.  They also warn that 10-12 cups of chopped kale may seem like a lot, but it shrinks a lot when you cook it.

Ingredients:
10-12 cups finely chopped kale

2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, chopped (approx. 1 heaping cup)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup raw cashews
2 cups water
1/2 small jalapeno pepper, seeded
1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 to 2 teaspoons Herbamare (an herb/seasoned salt mix–I used 1 t. salt + a mix of fresh basil and oregano)

#1  Chop the kale and set aside.
#2  Heat a large skillet over medium heat, add olive oil, then onions and garlic. Saute 5 min or until soft and turning brown at the edges.  Add to a blender with cashews, water, jalapeno pepper, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, and Herbamare. Blend until smooth and creamy. 

#3  Return sauce and chopped kale to the skillet and simmer 10-15 min until kale is soft and sauce is thick. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

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YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: GAZPACHO

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There were 10 large tomatoes in my CSA box today.  Here’s something wonderful to do with them, adapted from “Poor Girl Eats Well.”

Gazpacho
                                                                                                  
5 large, very ripe tomatoes                                                           
1 medium cucumber, unpeeled
1 small bell pepper, red or green as you prefer
1 small red onion
1 large carrot

1 T finely chopped hot pepper (serrano, jalapeno)  
1/2 t crushed red chili flakes                                                    
2 large garlic cloves
2 c tomato juice
1/4 c olive oil
2 T balsamic vinegar
Salt & pepper to taste

Directions:
1.  Dice and mix together the onion, bell pepper, carrot and cucumber.  Separate into two equal batches, but put one batch in a large serving bowl (or pot) and the other in a small bowl.
2.  Chop the tomatoes.  Add one cup of the chopped tomatoes to the small bowl of vegetables to use later.  Add the rest of the tomatoes to the large serving bowl filled with chopped vegetables.
3.  Add the tomato juice, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper to the serving bowl, now filled with tomatoes and vegetables.  Slowly puree the mixture using a blender or hand mixer.
4.  Finally, pour the reserved vegetables (from step 1) and tomatoes (from step 2) into the serving bowl.  Adjust seasoning and refrigerate for 30-60 minutes. 
5.  Garnish with cilantro, chopped scallions, or grated carrot, as you like, and serve.
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YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: POTLUCK BEAN SALAD

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Running out of ideas for what to take to summer potlucks?  Run no more…

16 oz can red beans
16 oz can black beans
16 oz can garbanzo beans
16 oz can corn, drained (or 2 cobs worth)
Rinse and drain.

2 large stalks celery, sliced very thinly
1 medium red onion, diced small
1 large tomato, diced small-medium
1 c spicy salsa (or 1/4 cup tomato paste + 1 small jalapeno, diced fine)
1/4 c olive oil
1/4 c lime juice (approx 4 limes)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder

Mix spices with lime juice at the bottom of a beautiful, wide pottery bowl, and then add in the olive oil and salsa.
Mix in corn and all the beans. Add all but 1/4 cup of the celery, diced onion and diced tomato.  Mix them together, and then pile the small mixture in the middle on top as a garnish.  Let sit 1/2-1 hour, and then take to a pot luck.  Delicious!
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YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Tuna with a Bite

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Some of the young people in my home have their own way of preparing tuna fish and I thought they might inspire you to think about other ways of making tuna than with the standard mayonnaise and celery. 

When I mentioned this to a co-worker, she shared that her favorite way to eat tuna is to mix in a tablespoon of olive oil.  That sounds delicious.  I like to cover a tray with lettuce leaves and then turn over a can of tuna in the center, surrounding it with piles of green beans, olives, new potatoes, carrots, and radishes.  All different colors.

1) Here’s a recipe for “tuna with a bite”:

1 large can of tuna (water pack)
1-2 teaspoons tabasco sauce
4-5 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 large sour pickle, diced
1 tablespoon of barbecue sauce (optional)

2) and here’s a recipe for “tuna with a bit less bite”:

1 large can of tuna (water pack)
4-5 tablespoons mayonnaise
3 banana peppers, chopped into small pieces
2 tablespoons mustard

Mix and serve.  Bon appetit.
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YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: CHIEF COOK-‘N’-BOTTLE-WASHER MAKES SUNDAY DINNER IN A CROCK POT

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On Sunday evening, we had a delicious dinner.  That’s because Chief Cook ‘n’ Bottlewasher tossed a few items into the crock pot this past Sunday morning.  These included:

2 pounds of chopped turkey (thawed)
6 medium tomatoes, chopped
all the corn kernels sliced from 3 large ears of corn
1 cup of dry white beans
a teaspoon each of salt, black pepper, and garlic powder
one very hot pepper that I brought in from the garden
enough water to cover the ingredients by 2-3 inches

You can disagree if you’d like, but I’d call this a very simple recipe.  Easy for substitutions, too.  No tomatoes?  So use up the zucchini.  Or green beans.  Or sweet peppers. 

Red beans instead of white?  Fine.  No dry beans in the pantry, only canned beans?  Wait until one hour before dinner, and add them then.  Otherwise they’ll get mushy.
 
No hot pepper?  Not a problem — use tabasco sauce if you have some, or spicy paprika, or just skip it.  

Garlic doesn’t agree with you?  What about some onion instead?  Or maybe not.  It’s up to you.

What if you don’t have a crock pot?  Toss the ingredients into a soup pot, cover, and place in the middle of the oven at 200 degrees.  Either way, check it in a few hours and add some water, if necessary, to keep all the ingredients covered.  Cook for 7-10 hrs, make a green salad, and set the table.  Dinner is served.

P.S. Tried dandelion greens tonight with lemon juice and olive oil instead of last week’s dressing.  Pretty good.
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YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: DANDELION SALAD

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Yup, you read that right!  And it was deeeeelicious!  Here’s how a bowl full of weeds ended up on our dinner table this past Sunday night:  I went out into the garden Sunday morning to pull some weeds, etc., and discovered a patch of mostly dandelions on the shady side near the magnolia.  As I began to dig them out and toss them aside, I remembered my daughter having mentioned a friend of hers in Toronto who used to cook dandelions.  I began collecting the dandelions in a separate pile from the other weeds.  Next, I soaked them a LOT in multiple buckets of fresh water to get all the dirt off.  Finally, I brought them inside, cut the leaves away from the roots, and then checked one last time to make sure the leaves were perfectly clean.   I had about 4 cups of dandelion leaves.

In a medium-large bowl I whisked together 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 teaspoon honey, 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (couldn’t find any fresh garlic), and 1/2 teaspoon salt.  I added the honey because I figured this wasn’t the kind of recipe that would appeal to your average uninitiated American, and I thought it would cut some of the bitterness of the leaves.  Bingo!

To the very-well-whisked olive oil mixture I added approximately half the leaves, now cut into 2-inch lengths (approx.), and stirred until everything was completely coated with the dressing.  Then I added the rest of the leaves and mixed again.

Dinner was served.  Barbecued chicken, homemade cole slaw, sliced radishes, watermelon, and the dandelion greens.  I called it “bitter greens salad” because I didn’t want to surprise anybody, nor did I want them to think it was sweet lettuce and be startled.  As I said, not a speck was left.  Kinda crazy when you think about it.  Weeds.
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YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: HOMEMADE COTTAGE CHEESE

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Some foods seem so pure and unadulterated that it would hardly be necessary to check their ingredient lists just to be sure.  A couple of years ago I would certainly have included cottage cheese in that category.  That, of course, would have been before the day my young shopping assistant and ingredient list reader, looking through the contents of my shopping cart, asked me what “food starch” was.  Food starch, I said absentmindedly, usually refers to corn starch or white flour.  It’s used to thicken foods.  “It’s in the cottage cheese,” he said. 

Food starch makes cottage cheese SEEM thicker and creamer.  We put it back and checked the other brands.  They all contained it.  The only place I have found cottage cheese without food starch is at organic food stores, like Whole Foods and Mustard Seed Market.

  • 1 quart of milk.  Milk that is no longer perfectly fresh, but not actually sour, is perfect for making cottage cheese.
  • 1/4 cup vinegar.
  • salt
  • heavy cream, or half-and-half, to taste

Heat the milk to 120 degrees, and then add the vinegar.  Stir until well mixed.  The milk will start to create curds.  Allow to sit for 30 minutes.  Strain the milk in a colander lined with a tea towel. 
Gather the sides of the towel to make a ball of cottage cheese inside the cloth.  Run the ball of cheese under cold water while squeezing and massaging the ball.  Rinse thoroughly.  Open the towel onto a large cookie sheet and allow the cheese to dry.  Massage to break up the curds.

This is dry cottage cheese.  When ready to eat, season with salt and mix with cream if desired for a more creamy cottage cheese.
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