Almond Biscotti with Orange Zest and Fennel

I’m told that biscotti means to bake twice. That is how these delicious cookies get their satisfying crunch. This is another great one to give as a gift. They will last for weeks.

Ingredients
1 cup whole almonds
3 cups flour, plus flour for work surface
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
4 large eggs
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons fennel seeds
zest from one orange
2 teaspoons almond extract

Method

  • Bake almonds 10 minutes at 350° F, let cool, roughly chop and set aside.
  • Sift together the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder into a large bowl.
  • In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, fennel, orange zest and almond extract.
  • Mix to incorporate the ingredients; the dough will be a little sticky.
  • Flour your hands and a clean kitchen surface and lightly knead the dough. Lightly grease a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper. Form the dough into two large logs. The loaves should be relatively flat, only about half an inch high and three to four inches wide.
  • Bake for 20 to 22 minutes at 350º F, until the center is firm to the touch.
  • Let biscotti cool for 15 minutes and then, using a serrated knife, cut into 1 inch wide pieces.
  • Turn the oven down to 300º F and bake for an additional 15 to 20 minutes or until crisp. Cool completely.
  • Let sit uncovered overnight in a dry space.

Makes about 36 small biscotti.

Roasted Root Vegetable Pizza

I used to be a thick crust pizza gal. I liked a Chicago-style, deep-dish pizza. Most of the thin crust pizza that I had eaten tasted like cardboard. When I moved to New York, I had heard about the famous New York style pizza. Sure, there is a pizzeria on every other corner and you can pick up a slice for a few bucks most hours of the day. But that pizza was just okay, some better than others, but certainly nothing to write home about.

Then I went to Grimaldi’s pizza in Brooklyn. My pizza world was forever changed. Grimaldi’s is one of many pizzerias in New York with coal-fired ovens, any of which could have been the first to rock my pizza world.

Pizza from a coal-fired oven is different. The intense heat works magic on the crust. The thin crust is crispy on the outside yet somehow remains tender and chewy. It is often dotted with delightful, giant dough bubbles. The coal imparts a slightly smoky flavor. In my opinion the way to order it is with few toppings, too many and the thin crust can get soggy. I like just tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella and basil.

There are many factors that go into making a great pizza. One, which the home cook may find challenging, is heat. To get that perfect combination of chewy and crisp crust, you need heat. 700 degrees should do it, which is a couple hundred degrees above the highest setting on most home-kitchen ovens.

People will go to great lengths to work around this limitation.

One way is to build an outdoor brick pizza oven. A grill can also reach staggering temperatures. Seeing how there is a chill in the air, I’m more interested in people who’ve tricked out their indoor oven to achieve intense heat.

In It Must’ve Been Something I Ate,Jeffrey Steingarten, food critic at Vogue magazine, details his pursuit of heat hot enough to make a proper pizza at home. (Let me first say that I want his job. Steingarten decides to write about pizza and gets sent to Naples, Italy, the birthplace of Neapolitan-style pizza. I, on the other hand, pay for my own flour.) Steingarten tried such things like covering the heat sensor on his oven and cooking (or rather burning) a pizza using the self-cleaning setting (which locks the door and imprisons your pizza).

The LA Times has another DIY indoor pizza oven idea. You take some firebricks and make a little box in your oven. Then you heat it on its highest setting for about an hour. The bricks hold the heat and increase the heat inside the brick box. Pretty cool.

The only pizza equipment I have is a pizza wheel. I would love a pizza stone and a pizza peel (yes, this is a hint to any gift buyers). The pizza stone retains heat and helps give the pizza a nice crisp crust. The pizza peel is that fancy paddle thing you see pizza makers skillfully use to slide pizzas in and out of a hot oven. For now, I make due with a plain old baking sheet.

Steingarten had a good tip. He suggested that if you have a gas stove, place the pizza stone directly on the bottom of the oven. I placed my pizza on a baking sheet then placed it on my oven’s floor. With a leery eye, I peered in every couple of minutes. I was hungry and didn’t want to risk burning the bottom. While I love a crisp crust with maybe a couple of chard spots, I don’t like burnt pizza one bit. Luckily, it worked beautifully. Though not as good as Grimaldi’s, I did end up with a darn fine pizza with a near perfect crust.

No-knead pizza dough

This is adapted from Sullivan Street Bakery’s Jim Lahey’s recipe. It takes a day to make, but don’t fret, the hands on time is only about 10 to 15 minutes.

Lahey’s version uses all white flour. I added whole wheat and buckwheat flour. I’m a little obsessed with buckwheat flour these days. I love its slightly nutty, complex flavor. If you are trying to replicate a Grimaldi’s pizza, use all white flour.

Makes four 12-inch pizza crusts

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose white or bread flour, more for dusting
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup buckwheat flour (substitute white or wheat flour)
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
11/2 teaspoons salt
1 3/4 cups water
cornmeal for dusting

Method

  • In a large bowl, mix the flour with the yeast and salt. Add the water and stir until well mixed. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave in a warm spot for 12 to 24 hours. If your house is cold in the winter like ours is, plan to leave it out for 24 hours.
  • Place the dough on a floured work surface and sprinkle the top with flour. It will be sticky, so flour your hands. Fold the dough over on itself a few times. Divide the dough into four pieces. Shape each piece into a ball. Set each ball in an oiled bowl (or plate). Cover with plastic wrap (oil the wrap if it might touch the dough when rising) and let rise for two hours.
  • Preheat oven to 425 degrees. If using a pizza stone, place it on the floor of your oven if it is gas, or on the bottle rack if it is electric.
  • Stretch or toss the dough into the desired shape. I roll the dough out on a piece of floured wax paper. If you are using a pizza stone, assemble the pizza on a pizza peel or flat baking sheet lightly dusted with cornmeal, then carefully transfer the uncooked pizza to the hot pizza stone. If using a baking sheet, lightly dust with cornmeal, then transfer the rolled out dough to the sheet and cover with toppings (see below).
  • Place baking sheet on the floor of your oven if it is gas, or on the bottle rack if it is electric.
  • Bake at 425 degrees for about 10 minutes or until the bottom is crisp, but not burnt and the toppings are bubbly.

Roasted root vegetable pizza topping

This pizza was inspired by the Isabella Pizzarella at Baba Louies in Hudson.

Ingredients
2 medium-sized beets
1 medium sweet potato
2 small onions
3-4 garlic cloves
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper
8-10 oz fresh mozzarella, sliced into thin rounds

Method

  • Heat oven to 400 degrees.
  • Slice the beets, onions and sweet potatoes about 1/4 inch thick. Crush the garlic cloves with the back of a chef’s knife and remove peel, leaving the clove whole.
  • Toss vegetables with olive oil to coat well. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
    Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet.
  • Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, turning at least once.
  • Remove and let cool enough to handle before adding to pizza.
  • Lightly brush prepared pizza dough with olive oil. Arrange vegetables in a single layer, covering the whole pizza.

Roasted Smashed Potatoes

This recipe is adapted from this month’s issue of Cooks Illustrated. They call for roasting the potatoes at 500ºF. They must (a.) have a powerful exhaust system and (b.) have a very clean oven. Two things I do not have. Any thing much above 425ºF and I have to take the batteries out of our smoke detector.

When these potatoes are done correctly, the insides taste like creamy mash potatoes and the outside like crispy fries. What’s better than that?

Ingredients
-1 1/2 –2 inch-sized potatoes (medium to low starch). Three potatoes per person should do it, though I could easily eat five.
-Olive oil
-Butter (optional)
-Sea salt and pepper

Method

  • Add well-washed, unpeeled potatoes in a single layer to a pot with a lid. Barely cover them with salted water. The water shouldn’t be higher than largest potato. You want to steam them more than boil them.
  • Bring the water to boil, cover and continue to cook over medium-high to high heat for 10-15 minutes. Check it occasionally to make sure all of the water hasn’t evaporated.
  • Heat oven to 400ºF.
  • Drain and let cool slightly, they smash better when cooled.
  • Transfer potatoes to a baking sheet. Roll potatoes in a couple tablespoons of olive oil to coat.
  • Use a potato masher to squash each potato flat.
  • Drizzle each smashed potato with olive oil then sprinkle with salt and pepper.
  • Bake the potatoes for 25-30 minutes until crisp and golden. During the last ten minutes of cooking, I like to add a little butter to each potato. I use grass-fed butter, which is full of all kinds of good nutrients like omega 3 and CLAs (conjugated linoleic acid), so I don’t feel a smidgen of guilt in doing so!

Serve hot.

Vampires Beware, we’ve been eating garlic!

Vampires cross the street when they walk by our house, especially since our visit to Virginia Ambrose from Scarecrow Farm. We met her at the Hudson Farmers Market last weekend. And we’re glad we did.

If you have a question about garlic, ask Virginia. She knows her garlic. They grow more hardneck varieties than softneck. Apparently hardneck is the garlic connoisseur’s choice. The flavor is said to be more complex. The cloves are larger, but fewer. They are easier to peel but don’t store as well as the softnecks. Softneck garlic is the type you most often see in the supermarket, though I doubt our local supermarkets carry either the Korean Red or Mediterranean Soft neck that Scarecrow Farms grows.

Scarecrow Farm has many types of garlic, each with their own characteristics. Virginia will mark each bulb with the name so you can go home and have your very own garlic tasting, which is exactly what we did.

I methodically set up for the tasting. First I labeled plates with each type of garlic.

The line-up was:
Two porcelain hardnecks: Carpathian and Romanian Red
One purple stripe hardneck: Siberian
One soft neck: Mediterranean.

Then I heated up bread with a little butter and placed the raw, minced garlic on each piece. I’m sure you could also conduct this taste test with cooked garlic, but I felt we would catch more subtleties eating it raw. Plus vampires hate raw garlic.

We sampled each one, noting their bouquet, start and finish. We cleansed our pallet between each sample, which with raw garlic is no small feat.

I had hoped to be able to pick out the nuances of each variety and write something that mimicked a wine review, but my pallet just isn’t trained that way. The only thing I got was hot and hotter. The Carpathian was by far the hottest.

My husband claimed that after our dog got a whiff of his garlic breath, she hopped off the couch, something she usually only does with great reluctance and a dirty look.

I’ve always used a lot of garlic in my cooking— going through at least a head a week, if not more. Conventional wisdom says that I’m doing my body a favor. Garlic is purported to have a host of medicinal properties including anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, antibacterial and antiviral benefits. I do believe it can ward off a cold, which may or may not be the result of its lingering aroma. In my experience, other people are the main cause of colds, so I feel garlic is pretty effective at keeping them at arm’s length. They don’t call it “the stinking rose” for nothing.

All food prices have increased in the last year but the price of garlic has skyrocketed. Last year I found that much of the garlic that you find in the supermarket comes from China. Apparently there has been a bit of speculation in the China garlic market and people have been pouring money into it. I read stories of farmers hoarding their garlic crop and of businessmen investing in fields of garlic rather than real estate. Is there irrational exuberance in the China garlic market?

I don’t know what the price of garlic in China has to do with our local crop, but the prices have risen here also. Last year I paid 50¢ a head, this year it is double that.

But I buy it anyway. Maybe if I hold on to it, I can sell it and double my money next year. Yes, I’m giving out investment advice in a food column!

Roasted Garlic
While I will eat garlic raw, I love the mellow taste of roasted garlic. Roasting garlic caramelized the cloves and creates a delicious, creamy paste. Spread it on bread or toss it into mashed potatoes.

Ingredients
Whole heads of garlic
Olive oil

Method

  • Preheat the oven to 400ºF.
  • Peel away any loose outer skin of the garlic bulb. Using a knife, or kitchen shears, cut off about 1/4 inch of the top of bulb, exposing the individual cloves.
  • Place the garlic in a baking dish, I use a small ramekin for each head, but they can all be in the same dish. Drizzle each with olive oil.
  • Cover with foil and bake at 400 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the cloves feel soft when pressed.
  • Allow the garlic to cool. You can either use a fork to gently pull each clove out or squeeze the garlic clove directly into your mouth, I mean directly on a piece of nice, crusty French bread.

Roasted garlic may be stored in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator for several days.

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Shared on The Nourishing Gourmet.

Paper Bag Microwave Popcorn

The oil/butter in this is optional; it just makes it taste better!

Ingredients
1/4 cup popcorn kernels
2 teaspoons olive oil or butter
1/4 teaspoon sea salt (and other desired seasoning)
Paper lunch bag

Method

  • Place the popcorn with the olive oil, salt and seasoning in the paper bag.
  • Fold the top of the bag over twice.
  • Place the bag in the microwave, fold side down. Microwave on high for about 2 minutes. Stay close and listen. Once the pops slow down to about 5 seconds between pops, it’s done. If left on too long, it will burn.

Popcorn Accidents

Making popcorn is dangerous. My top two kitchen accidents happened while making popcorn. First there was fire. In my early 20s, I invited a date over to watch a movie. I thought homemade popcorn would be a nice touch. I placed oil in a pot, turned it on high, and then retreated to my bedroom to quickly finish getting ready. I returned to near ceiling-high flames. Yes, this is how people burn down kitchens. Luckily, that didn’t happen to me. I managed to turn off the heat and place a lid on the pot. We watched the movie while snacking on saltines.

Lesson learned: Ask the date to bring the popcorn.

Second, there was an explosion. I had recently learned that you could make popcorn in the microwave with a paper bag. Brilliant. It’s a fraction of the cost of store bought microwave popcorn, you know exactly what you are eating and there are no perfluorooctanoic acid lined bags. When I ran out of paper bags, I thought why not try a glass bowl with a lid. I recently told my friend Christine this, and she laughed and said something like “Everyone knows you can’t microwave glass covered dishes.” Almost everybody.

I placed the oil and popcorn in a glass casserole dish and covered it with the lid. Shut the door and turned it on high. The gentle popping sound was followed by a big “BOOM.” Oops. One of my much-used casserole dishes exploded. It didn’t just crack in half; it shattered into tiny little pieces. The microwave nicely contained the disaster, but we kept finding glass bits for weeks.

I was surprised the microwave even worked after that. I still shy away from it. This week I started to use it to store flour (a tip I got from “Cooks Illustrated.”) I keep waiting for my husband to protest. I imagine it is coming.

Lesson learned: Microwaves are great for storage.

I finally mastered cooking popcorn. I make it on the stovetop in about five minutes. This method makes the best tasting popcorn and it is easy and cheap. A big bag of popcorn kernels will last forever. You only need a third of a cup to make a large bowl of the snack.

My new favorite popcorn topping is nutritional yeast. I first bought it for our dogs. My aunt told me that a sprinkle or two on their food is good for them. I then discovered that it is delicious. It has a tasty, cheesy flavor. It also supplies a bit of protein and a good dose of B-complex vitamins. I’ve been adding it to everything, but especially love it on popcorn. You can find nutritional yeast in the bulk section of most health food stores.

Of course, I also always add melted butter. Everything is better with a little melted butter!

Stovetop Popcorn

Ingredients
3 Tablespoons olive or coconut oil (I use a combo. Other types of vegetable oils will work, I just feel these two are the healthier option. )
1/3 cup popcorn kernels

Method

  • Heat the oil in a 3-4 quart saucepan over medium-high heat.
  • Place 3 popcorn kernels into the oil and cover the pan.
  • When the kernels pop, the oil is ready. Add the rest of the popcorn kernels. Cover and gently shake pan to distribute kernels.
  • Once the popping starts, gently shake the pan by moving it back and forth over the burner. Keep the lid slightly ajar to let the steam from the popcorn release (but be careful to keep all popped kernels in the pot).
  • Once the popping slows, remove the pan from the heat. Remove the lid, and dump the popcorn into a wide bowl. While hot, season as desired.

Makes 2 quarts.

Shared on http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/

Beet Humus

I modified this from the blog Simply Recipes. Even if I were a beet hater, I would make this dip just to look at it. My husband says it is a deep maroon color, I say it’s a dead ringer for Pantone 249.

Ingredients
1 pound beets (about 6 medium sized beets), trimmed, scrubbed clean, cooked (roasted, steamed or boiled), peeled, and cubed
1/3 cup tahini sesame seed paste
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1-2 clove garlic, chopped
Zest from one lemon
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

Method

  • Place all ingredients in a food processor (or blender) and pulse until smooth.
  • Chill for an hour to let flavors meld.
  • Serve with pita chips, vegetables or use as a sandwich spread. Store for up to a week in a refrigerator.

This post is a part of The Nourishing Gourmet’s Pennywise Platter.

Beware, picky eaters…

The world is divided into two camps-those who love beets and those who hate them. I’m firmly in the first camp, though I wasn’t always. It took my friend Jan and her perfectly roasted beets to change my mind. I think the problem was that I had never had beets prepared properly. In fact, I believe, correctly or not, that proper preparation is the key for anyone to like any food. And I often feel the need to prove it.

When people tell me that they don’t like a particular food I’m usually a little incredulous. I try to be tolerant, but often feel it is my duty to prove picky eaters wrong. Case in point, my friend Sydney despises eggs. She will steer clear of anything with the slightness whiff of egg. She doesn’t eat her father’s pancakes because they are too eggy. Once when she was visiting, I made a delicious custard-based (a.k.a egg-based) ginger ice cream and served it for dessert. I waited for her to taste it and I asked how she liked it. When she said, “Yum, delicious!” and took another bite. I jumped up and yelled, “Ha! Got you. There are six egg yolks in that ice cream!”

I never said I was the most congenial hostess, but don’t worry, if you are allergic to shellfish, I won’t sneak in any shrimp. If you are a vegetarian, I’ll use vegetable stock rather than my normal chicken stock. But if you tell me that you hate mushrooms, I just might chop them into teeny, tiny pieces and serve them to you hidden in a meatloaf. Fair warning, you picky eaters, you.

Thankfully, my husband is an excellent eater. The only thing I will occasionally find pushed to the side of his plate is raw green peppers. I guess I’m not hiding them well enough.

We both are beet lovers and fall is a great time to get them. This past weekend I went to the Hudson Farmers market. Red Oak Farm had beautiful red and golden beets. I picked up a bunch of each, roasted them, sliced them and served them with a roasted chicken. The two beet colors were quite pretty together. My husband and I ate them all. I meant saved some so that I could try a new recipe, but didn’t set any aside.

Earlier this week, with a deadline looming and a preference for local produce, I got on the phone and called some farms. I called Fog and Thistle to see if their road-side stand was open and if they had beets. It wasn’t open but a nice person offered to go out, in the rain no less, and pull some beets for me. Got to love that!

Red Oak and Fog and Thistle have become my favorite farms. Of course anyone who helps me out of a beet crisis gets points in my book, but I like both farms for two reasons. One, they are organic and two, they are reasonably priced, satisfying both my frugal nature and my quest for healthy food. They give me hope that you can eat pesticide free produce on a budget!


Roasted Beets
If you have particularly large beets, or just want to speed up the cooking time, half or quarter them before roasting.

Beet juice can stain your skin, so wear kitchen gloves if you don’t want pink fingertips. I also like to peel them in the sink to contain any beet juice splatter.

Ingredients
2 pounds medium beets
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Method

  • Heat the oven to 400 degrees.
  • Rinse the beets and trim off any leafy tops, cut any large beets into smaller pieces.
  • Place beets in a deep-sided pan, add water and cover with foil.
  • Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until beets can be pierced with a fork and the skin comes off easily.
  • Peel and slice the beets. Drizzle with olive oil, and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Serve warm.

Serves 4-6

This post is part of Fight Back Fridays at The Food Renegade!

Pear Walnut Cream Cheese Wontons

My husband made pork dumplings the other night and we had leftover wonton wrappers. He had the great idea of making a pear dessert with them.

Wonton wrappers can usually be found in the refrigerated section of grocery stores. If you are more of a D.I.Y. person, click here for a recipe on making your own.

Ingredients
2 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
dash of salt
1 medium-sized pears, roughly chopped (peeled or not is your choice)
1/4 cup walnuts, finely chopped
10-15 wonton wrappers
1/4 cup coconut oil (or vegetable oil for frying)

Method

  • Add cream cheese, maple syrup, cinnamon and a dash of salt to a medium-sized bowl and mix until smooth.
  • Mix in pears and walnuts.
  • Place 1 heaping tablespoon of filling in the center of wrapper.
  • Using fingertip dipped in water, gently wet around the inside edge of wrapper.
  • Fold wrapper in half. Gently push the filling down to keep edge of wrapper free of filling. Press to seal.
  • Repeat with remaining wrappers and filling.
  • Heat 1/4 cup of oil in a large sauté pan on medium-high heat, keep the oil under its smoking point.
  • Once the oil is hot, gently set dumplings in the pan.
  • Fry for 3 or 4 minutes on both side, or until the bottoms are a nice golden brown. Shift dumplings occasionally to prevent from sticking. (These are sometime called pot-stickers because of their predilection for sticking.)

Serve warm.
Makes 10-15 wontons

Pear Risotto with Mushrooms and Blue Cheese

It is hard to go wrong with pears and blue cheese. In fact, when making this dish, keep some sliced pears and blue cheese handy. You’ll want a snack between all the stirring.

Vialone Nano, Carnaroli or Arborio rice are traditionally used in risotto. They have a high starch content, which gives the dish a beautiful creamy consistency. You may substitute other types of rice but you won’t get the same degree of creaminess. Since we only have white rice in the house when my husband smuggles it in, I use short-grain brown rice. It’s not quite as creamy, but the blue cheese makes up for it. I could easily double the amount of blue cheese, but then that wouldn’t leave me enough for snacking.

Ingredients
5 to 6 cups chicken or vegetable stock (homemade preferably)
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups of mushrooms sliced (any fresh type will do)
2 cups rice (short grained, like Arborio)
4-5 medium-sized pears, chopped (peeling or not is your choice)
5 ounces blue cheese, crumbled
Fresh parsley, chopped for garnish
Salt/pepper to taste

Method

  • Using a large frying pan, sauté onions and mushrooms in butter for about 5 minutes over medium-high heat.
  • Add 2 cup of rice to the frying pan; toast the rice over medium-high heat for a few minutes.
  • Keep a pot/bowl of warm chicken/vegetable stock close by. Add a ladleful of stock to the pan with rice. Stir to keep the rice from sticking. Reduce heat to medium. Once the stock has been absorbed, add another ladleful. Keep repeating with the remainder of stock. The rice should be tender but not mushy. If the rice is not tender, you can continue to add small amounts of water until the dish has a nice creamy consistency.
  • Add pears and blue cheese and stir well until cheese is melted.
  • Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve risotto warm. Add a salad for a meal, or serve a smaller portion as a side dish.
Serves 4 as main course.

Part of Fight Back Friday.

Guacamole

The secret is to let the onions marinate in the lime juice. Don’t tell anyone!

Ingredients:

3 perfectly ripe avocados
Small onion, chopped
1 to 2 limes
1/2 jalapeno pepper, chopped (remove the seeds if you don’t want it too spicy)
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
Salt and pepper

Method:

  • Place chopped onions and jalapenos in bowl and cover with the juice of one lime.
  • Let sit for 15 minutes or more.
  • Cut avocados in half, scoop out and place in a bowl and mash with a fork.
  • Add cilantro.
  • Add salt and pepper.
  • Taste and add more lime juice if desired.

I’ve been told if you keep a pit in the guac, it will stay fresh longer.

Serves four.

Almond Date Balls and “I Will Not Diet”

My friend Molly McCaffrey writes a blog called “I Will Not Diet. No, it isn’t a gluttonous free-for-all. She focuses on healthy eating and exercise as a lifestyle, without falling prey to yo-yo fad diets. She also explores our culture’s attitude toward curvy women. It is insightful, informative and often humorous — a good read for sure.

She teaches English and creative writing at Western Kentucky University and September means back to school. For Molly, school means long hours and stressful days — a bad combination when you are trying to eat healthy. She is able to ward off the potential quick fix of a fast-food burger, by following a simple motto — be prepared.

Knowing that her weeknights will be hectic, Molly and her husband do their cooking on the weekend. They each make a big meal and parse it out for the week. They cook once, but make enough to have four healthy ready-made meals during the week. No need to order out for pizza.

She is also prepared when it comes to snacks. Molly finds that if she has a healthy snack every couple of hours, she can avoid junk food during the day, and when she gets home in the evening, she isn’t famished, so she eats a more sensible dinner.

Molly brings small snacks to work. Her snacks range from a piece of cheese and an apple or container of yogurt to a fancy cottage cheese dip with raw vegetables like red peppers, cucumbers and carrots. She makes the cheese dip often. It’s a Moosewood Cookbook recipe and is made by blending cottage cheese, feta, dill and green onions. Sounds like something good to have on hand. When you have easy access to healthy food, you are less likely to be tempted by the processed junk from the vending machine.

I am a big snacker myself, so I decided to experiment with various nut and granola bars. I wanted something easy to eat on the go and a bar fit that bill. The nut bar recipe I made was delicious, but was certainly not a bar. The crumbly mixture was excellent as a yogurt topping, but wasn’t the portable snack I wanted.

The granola bars were just OK, nothing too special, but they were portable. I’ll need to work on both of those recipes a bit more before they will be ready for prime time. Stay tuned. In the meantime, I switched my attention to other healthy homemade snacks.

Date balls were easy and delicious. I don’t know why I’m just discovering them now. You do need a food processor, but no oven is required. They have about 60 calories each. The good thing is those calories are comprised of all nutrient-dense ingredients. Plus it only takes one or two to satisfy my sweet tooth. Candy bars usually check in at about 250 calories, with rarely anything of nutritional value (dark chocolate, containing antioxidants, is the exception).

I made the date balls with almonds. Experiment with other nuts. Next time I plan to try pistachios.

Molly has it right. Instead of not allowing yourself to snack between meals, be prepared with healthy snacks and keep your change out of those vending machines!

Almond Date Balls

Ingredients:
2 cups California dates, pitted
1 cup sliced almonds
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon maple syrup (optional)
1/4 cup shredded dried unsweetened coconut (look for organic coconut with “coconut” as the only ingredient)

Method:

  • Pulse dates, almonds, almond extract and maple syrup in a food processor until the mixture forms a ball and easily sticks together.
  • Roll into balls and then roll in dried coconut to coat.

That’s it. Pretty darn easy!

Makes 25 small balls. Store in the fridge.

Tacos de Pescado

I wouldn’t call my mother an adventurous eater. While she will try new things, with the exception of sushi and oysters, two things she has no interest in ever trying, she usually doesn’t stray too far from what she knows. When she does find something new that she really likes, she will go out of her way to get it.

Case in point, my mother has thrown caution to the wind when seeking out a good fish taco. This obsession took us to some of the rougher neighborhoods in San Diego. I won’t say that we did this on purpose, but once when visiting my brother in San Diego, she and I went on a search for authentic fish tacos. We got lost. Very lost.

The cute shops and inviting cafés were replaced by auto repair shops and semi-abandoned strip malls. Luckily, the place was rife with food offerings, without a chain restaurant in site. Blindly picking a spot, we pulled into a parking lot of a restaurant. It was a nondescript white building. There were only a handful of people there, all of whom made note of our entrance.

The menu was not in English, but we were able to figure out that “tacos de pescado” meant fish tacos. We ordered them and were happily served perfectly prepared fish tacos. Mission accomplished, only we then had to find our way home, which, without a GSP system, was no small feat.

My mother has often complained that a good San Diego style fish taco is hard to find. She is very particular about what makes a proper one. They must use a light white fish, be lightly battered and fried, topped with shredded cabbage and a white sauce. She is a purist and doesn’t like guacamole or anything else messing up her taco. I, on the other hand, adore guac and whole-heartily add it to any taco I get my hands on.

She was delighted to find out that my husband makes fish tacos just the way she likes them. When we visit, they have worked out a deal. He will make fish tacos for her if she makes her delicious chicken-fried steak for him. Both think that they are getting the better end of that deal. I, for a change, get to sit just back and eat!

Tacos de Pescado

Ingredients:
1 pound of fresh fish fillets, firm white fish like tilapia or catfish
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon pepper, divided
1/2 teaspoon chili powder, divided
1 tablespoon lime juice
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup cooking oil (I use olive oil)
6 soft corn tortillas (2 tortillas per person)

Cabbage Slaw (recipe below)

Method:

  • Rinse fish fillets in cold water. Pat dry with a paper towel.
  • Add olive oil to a large skillet. Heat to medium-high heat, staying below the oil’s smoking point.
  • Sprinkle the lime juice over the fish.
  • Mix half of the salt, pepper and chili powder together and sprinkle the mixture on the fish.
  • Mix cornmeal with the remaining spices.
  • Dredge the fish in the cornmeal mixture.
  • Place fish in skillet. Cook for a couple of minutes, then flip. Cook until golden brown and fish is cooked through (cooking time depends on the thickness of the fillets). Drain on a paper towel lined plate.
  • Warm the tortillas either in a skillet on the stove or in an oven.
  • Place fish in the center of the tortilla. Top with cabbage slaw and guacamole. Fold tortilla in half and enjoy!

Serves four.

Cabbage Slaw
Ingredients:

2 cups cabbage, chopped or shredded
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoons plain yogurt
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
Salt and pepper

Method:

  • In a medium-size bowl, mix lime juice, yogurt, mayonnaise and chili powder.
  • Add cabbage and mix well. Salt and pepper to taste.

Cantaloupe Bread

My mom’s friend Sandy and her husband have a farm stand in Virginia. He does the farming; she runs the stand. My husband and I visited it this summer. They had a couple of large bins filled with cantaloupe. I asked Sandy to help me pick out a good, sweet one.

She started picking up the melons and sniffing them. She handed me one and said that it seemed like a good one but she wasn’t sure. She picked up another and gave it to us in case the first one wasn’t sweet. We picked out beautiful tomatoes, green beans and blue potatoes. We must have gotten the friend discount because she only requested a 10 spot.

On the way out, she ran to our car with yet another cantaloupe. “Just in case,” she said. With that, it became our favorite farm stand.

Smelling a cantaloupe is the best way to tell if it is ripe. It should have a pleasantly sweet aroma. If it has too strong of a fragrance, the melon most likely will be overripe.

Also look at the color underneath the netting on the skin. A ripe melon will be creamy white or yellow. Green indicates that the melon isn’t completely ripe. An unripe cantaloupe will ripen on your kitchen counter, but it doesn’t get sweeter. My understanding that for the sweetest melons, it is best to pick ones that have ripened in the field.

You’ll also want a melon that feels heavy for its size, is firm and doesn’t have any soft spots. Soft spots are a sign that it is overripe or has been bruised.

When preparing cantaloupe, it’s important to wash the outside before cutting. Whatever is on the outside can be transferred to the melon’s flesh when it’s cut. Wash the melon under running water and use a vegetable brush to gently scrub it.

Cantaloupes sport a bit of health prowess. One of my favorite sites for nutrition information is the World’s Healthiest Foods. It is well-sourced and gives nutritional profiles on everything from soy sauce to lima beans. It also makes me want to eat whatever it is I’m researching.

For example, the site gushes about the health properties of cantaloupe. Cantaloupe is an excellent source of vitamin A, vitamin C, a very good source of potassium and a good source of vitamin B6, dietary fiber, folate, and niacin (vitamin B3). According to the site, eating cantaloupe promotes lung health, protects your vision and reduces risk of death from heart disease, stroke and cancer. Wow, it’s a veritable wonder drug! Give me some!

As I was looking for recipes, I started wondering why you rarely see any recipes for cooked cantaloupe. I’m guessing it’s because cooked cantaloupe doesn’t sound appealing. I imagined that it would tastes a bit like overly ripe cantaloupe, which, in my opinion, can be summed up in one word: yuck.

Actually, cooked cantaloupe tastes a bit like cooked pumpkin. That’s no wonder since they are close cousins both haling from the Cucurbitaceae family. This explains why cantaloupe worked great in a sweet quick bread but my cantaloupe cobbler experiment didn’t go so well. My husband said that he liked it but I wonder if that is just something a sweet husband tells his wife to keep on her good side.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/3 cup coconut oil or melted unsalted butter
1 egg
2/3 cup honey
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup walnuts, chopped
2 cup cantaloupe, peeled, seeded and chopped (see note)

Method

  • Heat oven to 350º F.
  • Greased and flour an 8 x 4 inch loaf pan.
  • In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
  • In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together coconut oil, egg, honey, milk and vanilla and add to flour mixture.
  • Place cantaloupe in a food processor and pulse a few times, until finely chopped. You may also either finely chop the cantaloupe or mash it with a potato masher.
  • Add cantaloupe and nuts to mixture and mix until combined.
  • Turn mixture into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 45-55 minutes.
  • Cool and serve.

Note: Cantaloupe 101- After washing the melon, slice it in half and scoop out the seeds. Slice into wedges then carefully cut the orange flesh away from the rind.

I’m sharing this recipe on:
The Nourishing Gourmet

Watermelon Kebabs

These are refreshing and delicious. The heat brings out the sweetness of the melon.

You’ll need four to six skewers. If you are using wooden ones, be sure to soak them in water for a couple of hours.

Ingredients:
4 cups of watermelon cut into 1 1/2 to 2 inch cubes (about half of a sugar-baby watermelon)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste


Method:

  • Prepare grill for high heat.
  • In a large bowl, toss watermelon cubes with all ingredients.
  • Skewer the watermelon cubes.
  • Oil cooking grate, using tongs and a wad of oiled paper towels. Set kebabs on grate and grill covered. Cook for four to five minutes, turning once.

Serves four to six.