Viva L'Italia

A popular patriotic custom in Italy is to prepare a pasta dish reflecting the colors of the national flag. Recently, Mark Bittman published an updated cheesy pasta sauce coating bowties (farfalle) with arugula and cherry tomatoes.

This is fast, fresh and fabulous.

You know me, the Queen of Substitutions, I had grape tomatoes and some baby spinach, no arugula. Seemed a good alternative, so it was full steam ahead. (The spinach image is by Tony Sinecola.) Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and add 4 cups of bowties, while that cooks (13 minutes) wash and chiffonade two big hands full of baby spinach, wash and slice in half a cup of grape or cherry tomatoes.

Measure a cup of half & half into a small saucepan and gently heat, add a cup of crumbled Gorgonzola cheese. The cheese will melt into the half & half, leaving some lumps is fine. When the pasta is al dente, drain and immediately return to pot and place pot back on hot burner (turned off).

Add the cheese sauce to the pasta and stir well to distribute along with the spinach chiffonade. Stir for a few minutes to help the spinach wilt and the sauce thicken. Then stir in the cut tomatoes and some freshly ground pepper. Add a fresh grating of Reggiano cheese when serving.

Who says there's no time to cook?

Tuck this one away to make when you want something quick and easy yet soul-satisfying.

Till next time . . . keep on cooking.

Baked Fideo

On a cold rainy day what could be better than comfort food? For those macaroni and cheese lovers out there, here's a Mexican version that will warm the cockles of your heart and if you use a heavy hand with the chipoltes, as I do, it will warm everything from your lips, tongue, soft palate and esophagus all the way to your stomach!

This is one of my favorite, quick, easy, tasty dishes, thanks to Mary Sue Milliken and Sue Fenniger, those Too Hot Tamales. Served as is, straight from the oven on the first day, and then it transforms itself, with the help of a few cups of chicken broth and some broken corn chips, into a fabulous simulated tortilla soup the next day. Nothing could be easier.

Start by tossing four good sized, chopped, ripe plum tomatoes into the blender along with a cut up medium yellow onion, 3 - 4 good sized cloves of garlic, a generous teaspoon of salt and a half cup of water. Puree, then add another cup of filtered water to the tomato mixture. Break up a half pound of skinny noodles. I like to use vermicelli but you could also use the ones labeled 'thin' spaghetti.

Preheat the oven to 350°. Heat 1/4 cup of olive oil in an oven proof pan and add the broken pieces of noodles, turning them as they brown. Be careful they don't burn. Once the oil is hot, I turn the heat down to medium to allow the pasta to brown slowly. When most of the noodles have browned, add 3 - 4 dried chipoltes. The more chilies, the hotter the final dish. Toss the noodles and chilies around in the hot pan for another 5 minutes or so then add the tomato puree, cover the pan with foil and place in the hot oven for 15 minutes. All the liquid should be absorbed and the noodles should be soft. While this is cooking, grate 6 - 8 oz of cheese. Ideally, you should use anejo, but I've used everything from Cheddar to Jack to Monterrey and combinations thereof.

The pictured dish was made with about 6 oz of Monterrey/Jack cheese. Once the noodles are soft, raise the temperature of the oven to 400°, carefully remove the pan from the oven, sprinkle on the grated cheese and return to the oven, uncovered, for another 10 minutes or until the cheese has melted and started to brown in spots. That's it. It's ready to eat - the tastiest macaroni and cheese on the planet. The quantities given above make the amount shown. Double the quantity and pour into a 9 x 13 baking dish for a larger serving.

If you have leftovers, heat a quart of chicken broth, add the fideo and serve with some broken corn chips in the serving dish, a dash of fresh lime juice and a sprinkling of chopped cilantro give it a professional finish but the soup is fine with nothing extra added. Add this to your quick, easy, economical, superbly satisfying repertoire.

Till next time. . . keep on cooking!

The Lovely Lively Lentil

Cooking with legumes takes some planning. Remembering to soak beans and allowing enough time to cook them slowly with gentle heat assures flavorful, tender beans, but often busy people just don't have the time. Canned beans come to the rescue. Lentils offer an alternative to canned beans. They come in a colorful variety, are jam packed with protein and nutrition, cook quickly and require no pre-soaking. But I suspect, the lowly lentil is neglected by many of us.

I recently remembered making a great lentil chili from one of Mollie Katzen's books many years ago. It was delicious served over egg noodles drizzled with a little aged balsamic vinegar and I recalled that the preparation called for a lot of garlic, something like 10 -12 cloves. After scouring my bookshelves, I realized over the years some loaned vegetarian cookbooks never came home to roost. Still Life with Menu is one of them, unfortunately. But on the bright side, hopefully, whoever has it is cooking up a storm of tasty, healthful meals. Thanks to modern technology, a simple on-line search found the recipe on Mollie Katzen's website. The ingredient list appeared to have changed slightly. Where, I wondered, had the many cloves of garlic gone? I made half the quantity specified - working with 2 cups of lentils not four and I adjusted the liquid accordingly. I used 4 cups of homemade veggie stock I had on hand and added a bit of filtered water as the lentils cooked. I used 4 large cloves of garlic, minced and one medium onion, diced, and followed the suggestions for the herbs and spices, though, in fact, I used smoked paprika as well as a liberal spoonful of Mexican hot chili powder in addition to the cumin and thyme called for in the recipe. You can play with the seasonings to suit your palate. I added a touch of balsamic vinegar at serving time and Mollie's lentil chili tasted as wonderful as I remembered it. Give it a try. This is a fabulous meal, easily prepared for pennies. The leftovers are even better reheated and it freezes well, too.

Then there are the nights when you just don't feel like cooking anything, right? We've all been there and our solutions are sometimes pretty lame. Zip through a fast food drive-in on the way home, call for take out, pick on snack food. How about a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich with something green?

With a little twist to the common grilled cheese sandwich, a quesadilla fills the bill nicely especially if you've some interesting tortillas on hand. This little number is comprised of the end of a piece of Harvati grated and a sliced tomato. The broccoli and red pepper are cooked with a sprinkling of crushed red pepper and slices of shallot and garlic in a little olive oil and 1/3 cup of water. They were ready in 5 minutes with the one-pot steam/sauté trick. I don't consider the ten minutes it took to prepare and cook the above plate of food really cooking...and look -- four servings of veggies and the torts are whole wheat with green onion. Nice and healthy. Next time you don't feel like cooking, think of something fast and easy like the food pictured above. It's quick, easy, and to top it off, it's a budget pleaser as well.

Till next time . . . keep on cooking.

Popeye Never Had It So Good

As I recall, all pictures of Popeye eating spinach had him slurping it out of a can. Yuck. I would imagine that canned spinach, black, soggy, and bitter, accounts for the bad rap this veggie has collected over the years. With the recent recall of fresh spinach, I've been a bit reluctant to buy any. Prior to the e.coli outbreak at the end of 2006, I purchased and ate a package of fresh spinach weekly. Like broccoli, I ate half of it cooked and half of it raw, trying to cover all bases for getting the most nutrients from the veggie and the best flavors, too.

When one considers the number of people who die in automobiles annually (43,000) or the number of folks who innocently took prescription medications prescribed by their trusted physicians and have died from the drugs (565,047, since 9/11/01) and then look at the latest count of deaths from spinach related e.coli -- three, eating bagged spinach doesn't seem much of a risk, does it? We think nothing of getting in our cars or popping a pill our physician prescribed, so why not have some spinach?

Spinach salad is a versatile dish that can incorporate various fruit, such as strawberries or mandarin oranges, and reaps a great taste treat by adding red onions, various cheeses, nuts and seeds. Spinach salad with a warm bacon dressing is luscious, too. For those who can't take the straight hit of all spinach, it's great mixed with other greens like red leaf lettuce or romaine. The salad pictured is a straightforward rendition of spinach salad. Red onions, stawberries, pine nuts and crumbled goat cheese. The salad is dressed simply with a balsamic vinagrette. Using the standard proportions of one part vinegar to three parts oil, I mixed 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil with 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, a 1/2 tsp of Dijon mustard, a dash of salt, a couple of grinds of fresh pepper, and a teaspoon of Penzey's Raspberry Enlightenment. I put all the ingredients in a small glass jar with a tight fitting lid and gave it a hearty shake. Dress the washed and dried spinach with a couple of tablespoons of the vinagrette, just enough to moisten each leaf lightly then add some thin slices of red onion, a few sliced strawberries and a sprinkling a toasted pine nuts and top it off with the crumbled goat cheese. Divide onto two individual plates for a salad course, or use one big plate for an individual luncheon course.

One of the secrets to healthy eating is to make each meal as colorful as an artist's palette. Veggies with deep, rich tones are the ones that provide the most nutritional value.

This veggie plate includes edamame in a light vinaigrette, citrus flavored roasted sweet potato, green beans with roasted red pepper in a citrus/mustard sauce and some cranberry relish. The veggie plate was complemented with a small whole wheat pita bread and a cold crisp glass of Reisling. Even with all those veggies in the luncheon salad and the dinner plate, it only adds up to 8 servings, one short of the recommended daily 9 servings of fruit and vegetables. Though I will admit, the spinach serving was large enough to count as 2 or even 3 servings - might it be pushing it to count the grapes in the wine?

Green Beans Moutarde with Grilled Red Peppers

Any green bean preparation is made simpler by having the beans ready ahead of time. If possible, removed the ends from the beans, wash them well and blanch them with a sliced onion for 3 - 5 minutes depending on the size of the beans. You want them bright green and barely tender. Drain, refresh and store them in a ziplock bag in the fridge. Then, when you're ready to proceed, they're ready, too.

Melt one teaspoon of butter and one teaspoon of olive olive oil in a large skillet. Add the green beans (approximately one pound) and sauté for about 5 minutes. Add slices of a roasted red pepper, and sauté for another minute or so. Add a couple of tablespoons of water and cover and steam for 3 or 4 minutes. While the beans and peppers are steaming. Grate the zest from about half a piece of citrus (use what you have on hand: orange; lemon or lime) Place the zest in a small bowl, juice the fruit and measure two teaspoons into the bowl with the zest. Add a tablespoon of Dijon mustard a pinch of dried tarragon or a tablespoon of fresh and a little salt and pepper and mix well. Add the mustard mixture to the skillet with the beans and peppers, toss well to coat. Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding a little more citrus juice if necessary. Another delicious veggie preparation courtesy of The Passionate Vegetarian. For you carnivores, these green beans would be a great side with a thick juicy pork chop.

Till next time . . . keep on cooking!

Roasted Butternut Squash

After a great lunch that included roasted butternut squash, I found myself wondering if my life is so empty and dull that a plate of oven roasted squash gets me excited OR, if on the other hand, I've reached that mellow, relaxed place in life where small wonders fill me with joy -- no need for big extravaganzas. Whatever. . . I'll tell you, the image above is what's left of the best .88 cents I've ever spent.

I bought a little butternut squash that weighed in at just about one pound. With the oven set at 400°, I peeled and diced the squash, tossed it with a teaspoon of olive oil and two teaspoons of tamari and spread the pieces out on a cookie sheet. (I covered the sheet with a piece of foil for ease of clean up).

Bake the squash until the pieces are lightly browned, slightly shriveled and fork tender. The Passionate Vegetarian suggests cooking them to the al dente stage, barely tender, and then tossing the pieces with a teaspoon and a half of honey, returning the pan to the oven to crisp up and brown some more.

I went out to walk the dogs during the first roasting, when I returned thirty minutes later, we'd passed 'barely tender' and were definitely at fork tender. Light brown had come and gone, too. Not to be deterred, I removed the tender, slightly blackened pieces to a serving dish, drizzled them with a teaspoon of unfiltered orange blossom honey and made that the main component of my vegetarian lunch. For those who shy away from an all veggie meal, this will make a marvelous side dish with chicken or the other white meat.

Oven roasting vegetables is a smart way to prepare side dishes simply and quickly. Not only does the produce retain its supply of vitamins and minerals, but the high heat caramelizes the natural sugar in the veggies, bringing out the best of the flavors and adding that bit of crisp browning that we all love. Eating a wide selection of deeply colored vegetables is the best way to help our bodies fight disease. The taste treat above beats a pill any day!

Till next time . . . keep on cooking.

What's in the Veggie Bin?

I love to open the vegetable bin drawer and quickly fill a plate with fresh ingredients using what's on hand. Above we've a little romaine, some mixed young wild greens with radicchio, sliced radishes, sliced cucumber, slivered sweet onion, a few golden raisins, some walnuts and a generous sprinkling of Gorgonzola crumbles. The salad is lightly dressed with a dash of apple cider vinegar and a drizzle of high quality first cold pressed olive oil from Italy, salt and freshly ground pepper. I use a finer grade of olive oil for eating than I use for cooking.
On the other hand, practically the same group of veggies can easily become a spicy, hot stir fry.

Instead of romaine and wild greens, I've used some bok choy, radishes, sweet onion, carrots and jalapeno ( you can't see the chili - I added it as an after thought - found it in the bin after shooting the shot).

I started by sauteing the onion with some sliced garlic and a few flakes of crushed red pepper in a little olive oil, then added the crunchier veggies with a dash a tamari, saving the leafy greens to add last. In a separate pot, I cooked up a 1/2 cup of fragrantly delicious mixed brown and black Lundberg's rice. As the stir fry reached crunchy/tender perfection, I added a little more tamari, a dash of salt and pepper and plated it over a mound of the rice, topped with a few unsalted peanuts. Nice to have a 'found' meal with little effort.

If you shop with a little foresight, quick, easy meals are at hand in the fridge and pantry. Make your own 'found' meal with what's on hand. Give it a shot, and be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to turn out a plate of fine tasting, healthy food in record time.

If you need something to read while you're eating, check out:

Nelson DeMille's WildFire or Greg Iles' True Evil both are rapid page turners! Though reading while you eat is not recommended if you're trying to lose weight. It's so easy to keep moving the fork from plate to mouth as you turn those pages!

Till next time . . . keep on cooking or better yet, eat it raw!

Land of Plenty

Yet We're

Overfed and Undernourished

Tony Cinecola - NY Times

New Year's resolutions have a tendency to start out with a bang. Lots of good intentions, then we find excuses to slip back into our old ways. With a new addition to my cookbook collection, I've an incentive to stick to my guns about eating healthier this coming year by feasting on some interesting treatments of veggies, grains and beans.

Crescent Dragonwagon has long been a favorite, providing instructions for luscious breads and muffins with her Dairy Hollow House volume of

Soup & Bread. I recently purchased a used copy of the Passionate Vegetarian from Powell's Books.

When the package arrived in the mail, I was floored by the weight. Upon opening the box, I found I'd bought a monster volume of over 1,000 pages, chock full of fun reading and taste tempting renditions of old favorites along with directions and incentives to try lots of new things.

I dug right in, mashing up some baked sweet potatoes with orange juice, orange zest, a dash of Triple Sec, a little brown sugar and a generous dollop of butter. What a hit those were! So good they could pass for dessert. The recipe calls for Grand Marnier but, you know me,

If out, never do without, substitute!

I'm looking forward to exploring some new foods and using old favorites in new ways to keep mealtime interesting and challenging. I'll keep you posted!

I hope each of you has a great new year ahead. Make some positive changes to enhance your life. Remember, one step at a time is both doable and sustainable.

Till next year . . . keep on cooking!

The Joys of Winter

Not until I moved to Florida did I know that oranges aren't really orange until someone cleans them, dyes them, then waxes them. Straight from the tree, they're dirty yellow orbs that leave your hands black from handling them. City living deprives me of daily drives down a country road seeing hand lettered cardboard signs in driveways saying: O R A N G E S.

Despite the dwindling supply of oranges as groves give way to subdivisions, I've been enjoying freshly squeezed Florida orange juice every morning recently. I know that I'd have to eat a truckload of oranges to meet my daily vitamin C requirement, but nevertheless, I squeeze, then drink the pale yellow juice quickly, to get as much of the vitamin content before it oxidizes. The cold snap we had earlier this season was just what nature needed to sweeten up the citrus so that it tastes as if it were injected with sugar. The pleasure of drinking that cup of juice offsets the chore of cleaning the juicer each morning. Oranges are on my weekly shopping list while the abundant, reasonable supply lasts. The season is short, even living in Florida.

As I've been busy with holiday baking - baked and delivered over 15 dozen cookies to friends. Not to mention all those I nibbled on as I slipped sheet after sheet into the oven, out of the oven, onto the cooling rack then into the gift tins. At the end of the day I've wanted to keep the dinner making tasks to a minimum, so . . .I've been having high fiber veggie meals at night to offset all the sugar and buttery nibbles during the day. Oh, how we justify! Produce departments in the markets are swollen with wonderful selections, reasonably priced during this holiday season. It's a good time to make a meal with two or three selections.

Baked sweet potato, oven-roasted cauliflower and braised spinach with garlic.

Oven-roasted vegetables are delectable as well as more nutritious as the vitamins and minerals aren't leached out into boiling water. The taste is far superior to steamed veggies as the high heat of the oven caramelizes the natural sugars in the vegetables, transforming an ordinary carrot, onion, beet or cauliflower floret, for example, into a mouth-watering, nutritious treat. The florets pictured above were washed, then tossed with a spritz of extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled with a little Italian breadcrumbs and a pinch of Aleppo pepper flakes. Roasted quickly in a 425° oven, they browned nicely on the outside but are soft and creamy inside after about 20 minutes of roasting. The spinach was washed then tossed into a sauce pan that was placed over medium heat with a little olive oil and a sliced clove of garlic. As the spinach wilts down from the heat, just turn it over into the olive oil and garlic. Stop cooking once the leaves are wilted down but still bright green. I use tongs to lift the greens into a small mesh strainer placed over the cooking pot to rest while I plate the rest of the meal. The sweet potato can be scrubbed and cooked in the microwave for those in a hurry. But for purists who prefer the oven, start the potato 15 minutes before putting the cauliflower in the oven.

Another simple, satisfying meal that takes no time to prepare and even less time to clean up after! You don't have to be a vegetarian to enjoy the pleasure and the benefits of an all veggie meal now and then. And as a bonus, your colon will thank you.

Book Nook

Don't miss these.

Kim Edwards - The Memory Keepers Daughter

Carl Hiaasen - Nature Girl

Till next time . . . keep on cooking

Some Like It Hot

The cookbooks that merit shelf space in my house are those that teach, entertain and encourage experimentation. Hotter Than Hell is just such a volume. In simple, straight forward fashion, the author has included a guide to the various types of chilies and other key ingredients used in preparing spicy hot dishes. Ginger, horseradish, mustard, and pepper can all add a little kick to a common dish, adding new interest and a pleasing taste surprise as in:

Red Hot Warm Potato Salad.

The recipe was developed to showcase early spring potatoes. But I never let a little thing like it not being spring slow me down. A chilly day in December seemed a good day for hot potato salad. I simply substituted Idaho potatoes and moved right along. I also used a shallot instead of green onions. Use what's on hand, is my motto. I made a small portion, using 2 potatoes and one egg. Here's the full recipe to serve four generously:

8 small red thin-skinned potatoes ; 3 hard-cooked eggs; 1/4 cup unsalted butter; 2 TBS minced fresh parsley or 1 TBS dried; 1 TBS finely minced pickled or fresh jalapeno chilies; 1 TBS juice from pickled jalapeno or pickle or olive juice; 2 green onions thinly sliced; 4 red radishes, thinly sliced; 1 tsp prepared dark mustard; 1/4 cup mayonnaise; salt and pepper to taste.

Scrub potatoes and cut in halves or quarters. Boil until tender. Meanwhile, hard-cook eggs (15min), then drain. When potatoes are done, drain well; then immediately add butter to saucepan with potatoes. Cover and set aside until butter is melted; then stir to thoroughly combine with potatoes. Add parsley, jalapenos, juice, onions and radishes; shell and chop hard-cooked eggs and fold in. Stir in mustard, mayonnaise, salt and freshly ground pepper. Serve warm. Refrigerate any leftovers and serve cold or reheat gently.

This potato dish livens up a pot of boiled potatoes and it was a great accompaniment as a side with barbecued brisket, worked well with London Broil and the leftovers became a fabulous burrito with jack cheese and salsa rolled into a whole wheat wrap. Good mileage for two potatoes and an egg!

That's thinly sliced shoulder roast (pictured above) cooked quickly in a very hot oven, then sliced against the grain. (See London Broil November archives).

I usually do a little wine pan sauce to go with this dish, but the other day I decided to mix up a little horseradish cream sauce. I prefer horseradish with cold beef, I decided. The sauce worked better with the leftovers the next day. I'll stick with a minced shallot, stock and red wine reduction to go with the hot London broil and dress up the cold leftovers with the zingy cream sauce.

Mustard Horseradish Cream Sauce - Courtesy of Sheila Lukens as it appeared in a recent issue of Parade.

1/3 cup Dijon mustard; 1/3 cup sour cream; 1/4 cup prepared mayonnaise; 1/4 cup well-drained prepared white horseradish.

Hint: To make the small amount shown in photo above, I used 2TBS in place of 1/3 cup and 2 tsp in place of 1/4 cup.

Here's a peek at what I've been up to this week:

The Holiday baking frenzy...what fun!

Till next time . . . keep on cooking!

New York City

Does the Right Thing

The news is exciting. The New York City Board of Health has stepped forward and spoken out by banning the use of hydrogentated oils in restaurants effective by 2008. One can only hope that by doing so, not only will other cities follow suit, but the food giants, seeing the handwriting on the wall, will eliminate this ominous ingredient from their processed foods regardless of where they are being shipped. Not because they are eager to do the right thing, but because it would be more economical than producing two versions of each item: one with hydrogenated oils, one without.

Are you feeding your family poison?
Poison In the Food: Hydrogenated Oils reveals the raw truth the food companies don't want you to know about health-harming hydrogenated oils and trans fatty acids. Read it for yourself.

Those of us who use only whole foods have no problem avoiding hydrogenated oils, but millions of people rely on the conveninence of prepared foods that beckon from the grocer's shelves and freezer cases. For those who read labels, attempting to avoid the worst of the additives, take note of the following:

Consumer Health Warning

Do not buy any foods or groceries containing the following ingredients:

Sodium nitrite (meats)
Monosodium glutamate (soups)
Aspartame (diet soda)
Yeast extract (snacks)
Hydrogenated oils
High-fructose corn syrup

Reduce your risk of diabetes, colon cancer, leukemia, breast cancer, heart disease, dementia, osteoporosis and other diseases by learning to identify and avoid toxic ingredients in common foods and groceries.

Click here to learn more.

If reading labels slows the shopping process for you, try perimeter shopping. Avoid all the inside aisles and only buy from the departments and displays along the outside walls of the store. Caution still must be used, but this is where you'll find the foods with the fewest additives. Produce, seafood, meat, cheese, dairy. The inside aisles are jam packed with overly processed, over priced, prepared foods that contain a bevy of ingredients that do you no good and long term, may do you much harm.

Eating is more than a pleasurable past time, it's the method our bodies require to develop, function and stay healthy. For children, in the growth and formative years, it's sheer negligence for a parent to have no knowledge of what is needed to build a sound mind and body that will be free of disease as it matures. Food processors gear their mega-million dollar ad campaigns at kids. Just look at the shelf space devoted to sugared cereals, cookies, candy, and a variety of snacks that have absolutely no nutritional value. But we sure have a nation of fat kids, along with youngsters exhibiting high cholesterol and developing Type 2 Diabetes, diseases once only common in aging adults. We have a responsibility to ourselves and our loved ones to be aware and to buy the right foods.

Take the time to read the labels. Buy, prepare and eat whole foods. Spend some time investigating which foods will provide the most benefit to you based on your age and health. Protect yourself from disease before it strikes, rather than resorting to treating symptoms once you're ill. Good food is good medicine. Don't wait for your city to ban hydrogenated oils -- ban it from your kitchen and avoid it when eating out.

Till next time . . . keep cooking & keep healthy!

How Good Does It Get?

Better and Better . . .

The steam from the oatmeal fogged up my lens in the first image, nevertheless, piping hot oatmeal cooked with a handful of raisins layered over a bed of minced fresh organic Fuji apples, then laced with a sprinkling of brown sugar and a wee bit of half and half provides a high fiber breakfast that will please the fussiest of eaters. Don't shy away from the real thing, instant oatmeal is like eating shredded cardboard with about the same nutritional value -- less actually, because of the sodium and sugar content.

The oatmeal above is the old-fashioned Quaker Oats 5 minute variety. Better yet to cook up a pot of steel cut oats -- far healthier -- but if you're just starting out on the "I want to eat better" kick, the 5 minute variety is a good place to begin.

It's even better for you without added sugar but again, all things in moderation, a sprinkling of brown sugar and a dash of milk or cream will make it more palatable for a lot of folks and if that's what it takes to get started eating well, so be it.

On the eating raw front, I've been alternating a hot breakfast, as described above,with an all raw fruit meal as I had this morning. Diced fresh pineapple, a sliced apple and banana with a navel orange. The four pieces of fruit filled the same cereal bowl pictured above, and filled me as well.

The up side of the all fruit meal? No energy required for digestion. Fruit, with its high water content, slips in and out of the digestive cycle miraculously fast. No sluggish after effects like those following a heavy, cooked meal. All the body's energy resources go into the digestion process leaving us yawning, sluggish and feeling very lazy. Live food will give you the energy boost you need to jump start the morning. A little protein snack mid-morning (a couple of ounces of turkey, a few almonds or walnuts) will get you to lunch time with no hunger pangs and no urge to eat everything in sight when lunch does roll around. Try it and see.

****BOOK NOOK****

Someone asked if I'd stopped reading. Not likely. I tried several new releases this past month, but didn't get past the first 40 - 50 pages with some of them. Those that held my interest, I finished. Nothing particularly weighty, but plenty of reading enjoyment:

November Book List

Sharp Objects - Gillian Flynn; Proof Positive - Philip Margolin; The Wrong Man - John Katzenbach; Home to Big Stone Gap - Adriana Trigiani; Hundred Dollar Baby - Robert B Parker.

Till next time . . . keep on cooking.

Peasant Food

Perhaps that's not the best appellation for this kind of dish, but I always think of stew-like concoctions as country fare - not served at the squire's place but rather standard fare for his minions. We usually refer to this type of dish as comfort food. There is a subtle elegance to a fine cassoulet, the final dish far surpasses the sum of its parts.

Recently, I watched an episode of Daisy Cooks on PBS, and was treated to an Hispanic version of a cassoulet, made with ham, potatoes, and pink beans cooked to mouth watering perfection in a little chicken broth with a smattering of Alcaparrado (olives, pimentos, capers and brine) to give it a piquant twist. With that fresh in my mind, I wandered into the kitchen on a rainy day and wondered what to have for lunch. No ham on hand, but I found a couple of Boar's Head all beef franks tucked back in the freezer. They seemed a good substitute. I defrosted and sliced them and then tossed them in a saucepot for a quick sauté in a little olive oil. I added two peeled, diced Idahos and let them play tag with the dogs for a few minutes before adding a can of pink beans (rinsed and drained) and enough chicken broth to just cover everything, plus a couple of heaping tablespoons of Alcaparrado along with a smidgen of the brine, then I turned the heat down to simmer and let the stuff stew.

Once the potatoes were cooked, I was ready to eat. This is one of the fastest, comfort food meals I've ever undertaken. Thank you, Daisy. The olives and brine brought just enough zing to the overall dish to make it an amazing taste treat. Most of the broth had been absorbed but there was enough to allow for the dunking of a hunk of whole wheat bread.

Quick, easy, nutritious and very inexpensive. Think of something like this the next time you 'don't know what to cook'!

Till next time . . . keep on cooking!

Have a Healthy Helping

I'm excited. I ordered Nomi Shannon's book, The Raw Gourmet. To get a jump start on healthy eating for the new year, I'm starting before all the holiday temptations overtake my waist, butt and thighs.

Back in 1995, I'd managed to pack on a lot of extra pounds and was sluggish and feeling my age. I eliminated baked goods, sweets and meat from my diet. I had plenty of fresh fruit for sweets and made wonderful melon sorbets with no added sweeteners. I used eggs, beans and cheese to round out the protein portion of my intake. I'd say that my meals were 50 - 60% raw, accompanied by steamed or roasted veggies at dinner time. I occasionally indulged in a few sautéed dishes like latkes with freshly made raw applesauce balancing out a dollop of sour cream. As the man said, "moderation is the key". Not sure which man that was or perhaps it was a woman, but believe me, avoiding favorite foods entirely is ridiculous - there are no 'bad' whole foods. It's the processed, packaged, plastic, chemically laden, hydrogenized modern wonders that will do you in and certainly contribute to the national obesity epidemic.

While I wait for my new idea book to arrive in the mail, I've pulled out Marilyn Diamond's The American Vegetarian Cookbook, a veritable tome of fantastic ideas, excellent suggestions and recommendations with a raft of information regarding wholefoods vs. refined; fiber, protein, cholesterol, etc. This great resource offers a glimpse into how the body uses the foods we eat to help our immune systems fight disease, but it's also a straightforward volume filled with instructions for easy to prepare meals that will satisfy our appetites while filling us with vibrant energy. Check it out at a great savings.
One of my favorite finds from this cookbook is the goodwich. No, that's not a typo - - it's not supposed to be the good witch. It's an aphorism describing a healthy sandwich. In today's lingo, we call it a wrap. Tortilla based, filled with steamed and fresh veggies,tasty condiments and trimmings, a goodwich is ready to eat in minutes. Tightly wrapped and refrigerated, it's conveniently on-hand when hunger strikes.
Using a whole wheat tortilla for a base,we get the feel of bread without the bulk, (read extra calories) from two slices of bread or a bun. The filling can be any assortment of steamed vegetables, raw vegetables or salads that you choose with low fat condiments such as mustard, tartar sauce, soy sauce, barbecue sauce, fat free or dairy free mayonnaise, etc. and the trimmings are limited only by your imagination and how well you've stocked your pantry: sliced pickles, onions, chopped olives, sprouts, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted red bell pepper, etc.

Marilyn spends several pages with examples, suggestions and combinations that have proven successful. Even including a diagram on how to layer and fold the goodwich for ease of handling and eating (keeping the drips to a minimum).

Here's one that I whipped together for lunch using my very favorite combination, vine ripened tomato and avocado with alfalfa sprouts. A paltry filling compared to some of Marilyn's combinations.

To see some exciting examples of raw food, check out Heidi and Justin Ohlander's blog Raw Food, Right Now. They've made the transition from surviving on cooked, dead food to thriving on raw, live food. They posted some fantastic recipes for the recent holiday that will give you an idea of how foods we are so familiar with can be prepared and eaten in a whole new healthier way.
Eating 100% raw food isn't eveyone's goal, but gradually incorporating raw whole foods into our diets is a means to take control of our health. After all, we are each responsible for our own well being.

Bill Buford's column, Notes of a Gastronome, in the October 12th issue of the New Yorker discussed the changing face of food TV. His closing paragraph speaks directly to the lack of food savvy and dependence on prepared food that has become the state of our nation.
"Never in our history as a species have we been so ignorant about our food. And it is revealing about our culture that, in the face of such widespread ignorance about a human being's most essential function -- the ability to feed itself -- there is now a network broadcasting into ninety million American homes, entertaining people with shows about making coleslaw."

It's food that keeps us free of illness and disease and conversely, it is food that contributes to the myriad of fatal illnesses that plague us today. Why have we allowed the food giants, meat processors, fast food chains and agri-business to jeopardize our health and well-being? It's time to take charge of ourselves and our own. Making small changes daily is a step in the right direction.

Till next time. . . keep on cooking, but try a little raw food!

Cranberry Nut Bread

In keeping with the season, it seemed appropriate to make something with cranberries. With a fresh bag of King Arthur Select Artisan 100% Organic All Purpose flour on hand, a new supply of walnuts and a bag of Florida oranges, cranberry nut bread was an easy choice. The following recipe will make three small loaves, two regular size loaves or one large loaf with a soft, moist crumb.

Fresh cranberries and freshly squeezed orange juice make this quick bread a festive, flavorful breakfast treat or the perfect companion to afternoon tea.

The process is simple when taken step by step.

1.) Butter and flour the loaf pan(s); 2.) whisk dry ingredients in large bowl; 3.)whisk wet ingredients in medium bowl; 4.) chop cranberries and nuts; 5.) add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, gently fold until all is moist; 6.) fold in berries and nuts. DO NOT OVERMIX. 7.)Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in preheated 350° oven for 50 - 60 minutes. Cool on wire rack 8 - 10 minutes before removing from pan. Allow to cool completely before slicing.

Wet: 3/4 cup orange juice; one large egg, lightly beaten; 2 TB vegetable oil; 1 tsp vanilla extract. Dry: 2 cups flour; 3/4 cup sugar; 1 1/2 tsp baking power; 1 tsp salt; 1/2 tsp baking soda/ 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Fruit/Nuts: 1 cup coarsely chopped cranberries (fresh or frozen); 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans.

Till next time . . . Keep on cooking.

One for Me

Three for the Freezer

It's always fun to restock the freezer -- I get to sample everything that goes in. This morning it was Belgian waffle time. I made these sour cream waffles with white whole wheat flour from King Arthur, hormone & anti-biotic free eggs, organic, cultured butter and fat-free natural milk.

They're quick and easy to make. The first bite, laced with melted butter and Vermont maple syrup cried "heaven" -- with no hint of health food. But for a sweet treat, they're a big step up from the freezer case choices. Try them, even if you use regular flour, eggs and milk -- they still beat bought! Tuck extras away in the freezer. Cut in halves or quarters, they heat up nicely in the toaster.

Sour Cream Waffles

1 3/4 cups AP or white whole wheat flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 stick unsalted melted butter, 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup sour cream, 3 large eggs

Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl to combine and make a well in the center. Whisk the melted butter, milk, sour cream, and eggs in a medium bowl until well combined and pour into the well. Whisk just until smooth; do not over mix.

MORE FAST FOOD

THIRTY MINUTE MEALS

A protein with a light pan sauce;

fresh veggies; an occasional starch.

Master the pan grilled technique*,
Shop with a plan, toss in a little practice, and you'll soon be putting a tasty, satisfying meal on the table in thirty minutes or less.

*Start on top, finish in the oven, add a simple pan sauce.

Classes start in January. Watch for details.

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