Feeling kinda saucy...

I recently joined a CSA of organic fruit and veggies.  I had put it off for years because in Marin County I can go to a farmer's market 5 days a week, year round.  In the spring/summer months I can go to two or more every day (I don't actually do that, but I could if I were really crazy for farmer's markets - or farmers).  I always thought the veggie boxes were for people who didn't have access to farmer's markets or good organic produce.  But about a month ago I was feeling my culinary creativity slipping a bit and realized that I wasn't "cooking outside the box".  I was buying the same stuff at the market every week and cooking virtually the same types of meals over and over (but dang, that Mexicali Skillet is delicious!).  So I decided to step out of my comfort zone and get a mystery box of fruit and veggies delivered to my door every other week. Technically it's not a mystery box; you can go online and see what they are sending you, but it inevitablly includes things I may not have picked up on my own.

This week I got carrots and spinach and instead of turning them into an ordinary side dish, I turned them into delicious sauces.  The carrot sauce is fantastic over pasta, and the spinach and herb sauce is one of the most versatile sauces I've ever made - perfect with pasta and grains, over seafood and chicken, even tossed in a salad.  It contains neither oil or nuts, but is every bit as good as any pesto you ever met.  I have to hurry up and finish this...I'm making me hungry.

Spinach & Herb Sauce
1 bunch spinach
handful of flat-leaf parsley (or cilantro)
handful of fresh basil
2 large garlic cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespooon fresh lemon juice
1 large tomato, quartered
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Place spinach, parsley, basil and cloves in the bowl of a food processor and blend all ingredients.  Add salt, pepper and lemon juice, pulsing to combine.  Add tomato and cheese and blend for 1-2 minutes until sauce is smooth. Season to taste.

Carrot Sauce over Penne Rigate
1 pound penne rigate (rigate has the ridges that grab onto the sauce)
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 bunch medium carrots, peeled and diced
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garam masala
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 cup vegetable stock
1/2 cup frshly squeezed orange juice
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
1 tablespoon chopped chives or mint
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan (optional)

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook pasta according to package.

Melt coconut oil in a saucepan over medium high heat.  Add onion, carrot and garlic and cook 5-7 minutes until veggies begin to soften.   Add curry powder, salt, garam masala, and pepper pepper, stirring to combine.  Add stock, juice and maple syrup.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 15-20 minutes, until carrots are soft.  Transfer to blender and, working in batches, blend until smooth adding some of the pasta water to thin it if necessary.

Toss sauce with drained pasta and top with chopped herbs and parmesan.

A good start

On Sunday nights I usually make a big batch of granola, so that I'm armed for the week with a healthy and quick breakfast.  Granola also makes a pretty yummy snack, too.  I know my limitations, so I don't have normal "snack food" in my house - no chips, crackers, candy, ice cream - they wouldn't stand a chance around here!  A handful of this granola with a little yogurt on top usually takes care of the snack craving.

Store-bought granola can often be so full of sugar that you may as well eat a Three Musketeer's bar for breakfast (shoot, now I'll be thinking about Three Musketeer's bars all day).  I have found some brands at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's that are pretty good, but I started making my own granola about 6 months ago.  I can control what goes into it, I can pronounce everything that goes into it, and it makes the house smell yummy.

You can make one quick stop at the bulk bin aisle to find most of what you need: rolled oats (not quick cooking oats), nuts, seeds, dried fruit.  Nuts are one of the healthiest foods you can eat - in moderation.  They are high in fat, so go easy, but it's a healthy fat and it is one of the best plant-based sources of omega 3's.  There is a strong link between eating nuts and good heart health: the omega 3's and L-arginine found in many nuts have been shown to lower bad cholesterol, build strong artery walls, reduce plaque build-up and prevent blood clots. 

Be careful with the dried fruit; a lot of those are very high in sugar.  Check the labels.  I love dried banana chips, they are much lower in sugar than other dried fruit, so I add more of them to my granola and supplement just a little of the higher sugar fruits, like dried cranberries, cherries, and blueberries.  And try to go natural and avoid the packaged fruit that has added sugar (you know who you are, craisins) - fruit has plenty of natural sugar in them, you don't need anything but what nature gave it.  I'm going to play with drying my own fruit - my toaster oven goes as low as 150 degrees, which is perfect for dehydrating foods.   Hmmmm, does someone have a control problem??

Suzanne's Granola

2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup chopped nuts - I use walnuts, almonds and pecans
2 tablespoons chia seeds
2 tablespoons sunflower seeds
2 tablespoons shredded coconut
2 tablespoons grade B maple syrup
1 tablespoon flax meal (for extra omega 3's)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
pinch salt
1/4 cup dried fruit - cherries, blueberries, cranerries
1/2 cup dried banana chips, broken into small pieces

Preheat oven to 325. Combine the first 11 ingredients (through salt) in a large bowl, mixing to coat all the oats.  Spread in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for 15 -20 minutes, stirring halfway through, until toasted.  Remove from oven and add fruit.  When cool, place in glass container and store for one week.

I love mine topped with a little bit of Greek yogurt and a drizzle of local honey (honey from your area helps build your immune system as we get ready for cold season)

The Prized Sandwich

I went to lunch with my friend Sue today for her birthday.  I was telling her about my next planned blog post - my favorite quick fix meal.  I call it my Mexicali Skillet (coming soon) and I make it when I'm really hungry and looking for something easy and quick to throw together - onions, peppers, olives, corn, spinach, black beans, cheddar, corn tortillas, spices. After I spelledf out the first few ingredients, she started to smile.  Not a "that sounds yummy" smile, but more of a "you're a nut" smile (I get those a lot from her).  When I was done explaining my "quick fix" meal, she said that in a similar positon, most people just make a sandwich.

It occurred to me that a sandwich almost never comes to mind when I'm hungry - in a hurry or not.  I really only make two sandwiches: a friend egg and carmelized onion sandwich and a caprese sandwich.

Aaaaaaah my love for the caprese sandwich.  This time of year I make a caprese salad, sometime with bread (AKA Panzanella Salad as previously posted) and sometimes not or a caprese sandwich pretty frequently.  The heirloom tomatoes available now are not only beautiful but so juicy and tasty.  And soon they will be gone.  So right about now I eat tomatoes like there's no tomorrow...literally.  There's a HUGE difference between getting tomatoes off your own plant in your backyard or the local farmer's market and those that you buy in the grocery store.  I realize that we can now buy tomatoes year round, but there is just notthing like a fresh, local, in-season tomoato (and I mean "in-seson" for us, not another country).  Once this season come to an end, I will have to wait (unpatiently) until the season comes around again before I make my beloved salad or sandwich.

Another "No recipe" recipe: sliced baguette drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and a brush of dijon mustard,  layered with buffalo mozzarella, heirloom tomatoes, and basil.  Eat it cold or heat it in the oven until the mozz just starts to melt - yummy either way!

One more note on the seasonality of food....The culinary school I went to focused on therapeutic and holistic cooking.  One of the big take-aways for me was the notion of eating foods indigenous to our area.  We also discussed what I refer to as "hereditary" eating - eating the foods that our ancestors ate.  It made so much sense to me.  My ancestors lived on a farm in France and ate whatever the grew or raised, and they lived long, healthy lives.  And I love cooking with all the vegetables that my long-ago family used on a daily basis, thanks in great part to many years spent in the kitchen with my grandmere - my very first culinary teacher.  The idea is that our bodies- these wonderful machines that know how to have babies and fend off viruses- also know how to process food that they recognize, and utilize them in the best way possible for our ultimate health.  I think this is why I make things like the Mexicali Skillet ( I should work on a French Skillet), because it's my instinct to work with all the fresh, seasonal veggies I love and create one warm, delicous meal (and if I can make it all in one skillet and save time cleaning pots and pans, that's just an added bonus).  For me it's not just physically comforting and satisfying, it comforts my soul.

So next time, I'll share with you my Mexical Skillet....while I work on a French version.

Veg Out...

I love making my own vegetable stock.  It makes my house smell delicious (not-chocolate-chip-cookie delicious, but ya know) and it's so much healthier than boxed or canned broths.  Most store-bought stocks are so full of sodium - some as much as 24% of the daily recommended allowance - that you should be able to feel your blood pressure rise with each sip.  But with your own stock, you control the salt; I use no more than a teaspoon. 

What makes it easy for me is that I cook a lot of vegetarian meals, and I save all of the vegetable scraps.  When I cut off the ends of onions, carrots, cerery, herbs, etc., I save them in a container in the freezer.  When I have a good amount, I pop them into a pot, add more fresh veggies and herbs, cover with water and just let it simmer for about an hour.  The result is remarkably different from what you buy off the shelf of your local grocer.  Just look at the color difference from my most recent batch.  The little bowl contains a boxed organic stock; the jars contain my homemade organic stock...

That rich color equals flavor!  I substitute water for stock when I cook rice, grains, pasta and soups.  It adds so much dimension and great taste to the final product.

Now one word of note...learn from my mistakes: NEVER put broccoli scraps in the stock.  That fibrous stalk that you normally cut off is the equivalent to a stink bomb going off in your kitchen.  The first time (and only time!) I added it to my stock, I walked into the kitchen and thought an animal had died in the walls somehow.  Big mistake.  Go ahead and throw the leftover broccoli in your compost.  If you stick to the veggies in my recipe - scraps or fresh - you will be just fine, and you won't have to evacuate the house...

Vegetable Stock

Ingredients

2 medium yellow onions, coarsely chopped

2 medium carrots, coarsely chopped

2 stalks celery, coarsely chopped

1 medium leek, coarsely chopped

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 large tomato, quartered

6 sprigs fresh thyme

1 bunch parsley

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon peppercorns

1 teaspoon sea salt

2 ½ quarts water

Put all of the ingredients in a stock pot.  Bring to a simmer and simmer for 1 hour.

Strain the stock through a fine mesh sieve and discard solids.

 Once cooled, stock can be frozen in 1 or 2 cup containers for future use.  When freezing, be sure to leave at least an inch of space at the top, as the stock will expand as it frteezes (especially important when using glass Ball jars, which I recommend).

Seriously?

On The Biggest Loser this past week, Bob took one of the contestants into the kitchen to show her how to make a healthy snack…a smoothie.  He poured some milk into a blender and then pulled out a new item from Yoplait, a frozen package of fruit (and stuff).   When they cheered about how “easy” that was, I found myself yelling at the TV, “so is just putting fruit in a blender, you big doofus!”  I’m amazed at how we continue to make products to take the place of real food.  Nature keeps giving us the good stuff, been doing it for centuries, but corporations insist on taking a good thing and jacking it up by making “food-like” foods. 

I make smoothies a few times a week, and I do it without xanthum gum or sucralose or anything I can’t pronounce without having to sound it out.  In fact, a three year old can pronounce everything that goes into my smoothies, and can identify the ingredients on sight…. Milk, ice, banana, almond butter.  That’s my favorite go-to smoothie; it’s got the protein, fat and carb combo that fills me up and gives me energy.  Despite my best intentions I never seem to eat all my bananas before they start to get brown spots on them, so I throw them into smoothies.  Or I cut them up and freeze them – if you put frozen pieces of banana in your food processor and let it go for a while, you’ll have a healthy frozen dessert, like frozen yogurt, with just one ingredient: banana.

I realize that bananas don’t meet my “seasonal and local” criteria, but I make an exception for them:

A) I’m not moving to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Brazil or Mexico any time soon.  And B) they are so good for you – full of potassium which is one of the most important electrolytes in the body, regulating heart function and blood pressure.

Please don’t fall for the “convenience” foods created in a lab somewhere by some mad scientist, when the real thing is just as convenient and much healthier.  As Michael Pollan says in his book Food Rules, ”If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.” 

Banana Smoothie

2 cups ice (crush it beforehand if your blender doesn’t have an ice-crush mode)

½ cup organic, whole milk (can use almond milk)

1 banana, broken into pieces

1 tablespoon organic nut butter (almond, cashew or peanut)

Blend all ingredients adding more milk or water to get the consistency you prefer.

(When I’m feeling a little naughty, I add a drizzle of Trader Joe’s Midnight Moo Organic Chocolate Syrup and make it for dessert….shhhhhh)

Berry Smoothie

2 cups ice

Juice of 2 oranges

¼ cup Greek yogurt

1 cup fresh berries

1 teaspoon honey

Blend all ingredients adding more juice or water to get the consistency you prefer.

(Buy fresh berries at your farmers’ market before they are all gone and freeze them to put into smoothies until they come back in season again.)

So corny

In general I don't have patience for lines or crowds, but when it comes to farmers' markets I seek them out.  What sold me on this was a huge line one Sunday in front of a strawberry vendor.  At the time there were tons of strawberries at the market, but this was the only one with a line.  I asked a guy who was waiting if these particular strawberries were so much better than all the others, and everyone in line gave me an emphatic "yes."  So I walked around a little, waiting for the line to thin out some, and went back for a basket.  Man, were they right... those strawberries were like candy.  I don't use that "tastes like candy" line to describe much of anything (well, except candy, but that's obvious) because my mom used to try to get my sister and me to eat peas (which we hated) when we were kids using that old "tastes just like candy" line.  I promptly told all the kids at school to skip our house on Halloween.  But these strawberries DID taste like candy... sweet, delicious, juicy, healthy candy.

So now I look for the lines at the farmers' markets - let the crowd do the heavy lifting, as it were.  Just show me the good stuff.  And last week it was corn, so I grabbed a few ears of sweet corn from the stall with the longest line.  Now what?  Corn Chowder?  Delicious, but it's still too warm in Marin for soup.  Grilled Corn on the Cob with Lime Butter?  Certainly is barbeque weather, but too easy.  Instead I decided to challenge myself....polenta.  I say "challenge myself" because polenta and I have never really been friends.  I made a couple attempts, but was unimpressed. Now before you hit the "back" button, hang on a second...all that polenta needed was a slight makeover, and now we're finally friends.

Start with roasting pasilla peppers (or any other pepper you like - jalapeno next time!) and browning the corn with some shallot and garlic.  Instead of water, cook the polenta in milk and veg stock and finish with a little butter and cheese.....ooooh creamy goodness.  I ate some with lunch and put the rest into ramekins to have during the week.  Whenever I'm pressed for time or too tired to cook, I can just pop one in the toaster oven.  I made a mushroom sauce to go with it, but salsa or a marinara are good on top, too.  A little spinach salad on the side and you're all set.  So give polenta a chance.....she's actually very nice once you get to know her.

Pasilla and Corn Polenta

Servings: 4 entrées, or 8 side dishes

2 pasilla peppers

1 teaspoon coconut oil

1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels

1 Tablespoon chopped shallot

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 cup milk

2 cups vegetable stock

1 cup water

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup polenta

1 Tablespoon butter

½ cup grated gruyere cheese

Salt and pepper (cayenne if you like a little heat) to taste

Char all sides of the peppers, turning them over an open flame on the stove or under the broiler.

Once completely blackened, put the peppers in a large bowl and cover with a plate. 

When they are cool enough to handle, peel the skin off and remove seeds and membrane.  Chop and set aside.

Remove kernels from corn cob, if using fresh, or thaw frozen corn and place in a saucepan over medium heat with coconut oil, shallot and garlic.  Saute for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan heat the milk, stock and water.  Add peppers, corn mixture and 1t salt.  Increase heat and bring to a boil.

Add polenta, reduce heat and simmer for 25 minutes.  Stir in butter and cheese, then season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve immediately or put into ramekins, cover and refrigerate.

You say "tomato"...

...I say "yes, please!"

Went to Bistro Don Giovanni in Napa today for lunch.  This is my friend Stephanie's "Blondie Mary" - a Bloody Mary made with yellow tomatoes in a salt & pepper rimmed glass topped with two little tomatoes.  And so started my day of tomato lovin'.

We started with a fantastic bruschetta, followed by their tomato and rustic bread soup...both fantastic.  I should have stopped there, but becasue I ignored my "eat breaksfast" rule in lieu of the snooze button this morning, I was pretty hungry (I warned me about that!), so I also had a little one-on-one time with their mushroom risotto.  Just writing about it makes me full all over again.

Although I swore to never eat again, dinner time did rear its ugly head.  I decided to keep it light and make my favorite summer salad, the Panzanella.  There are a million variations of this salad, but they all start with bread and tomatoes.  I use sourdough baguette cubes sauteed in a small amount of olive oil and salt (about 5-8 minutes).  A couple minutes before the bread is done, I add a handful of sliced red onion to the same skillet.  In a bowl, toss the bread, onion, a couple of juicy heirloom tomatoes cut in cubes, basil, capers and mozzarella.  When you are ready to eat drizzle with lemon-infused olive oil and balsamic.  The bread soaks up the vinegar and oil, so don't dress it early.

The Panzanella salad was born of necessity, in a time when nothing was wasted (what else do you do with stale bread?), and often included lots of vegetables and other ingredients.  So give it a try and put your own spin on it...