 I am a nutrition educator, health counselor and gastronomic explorer. I help people create happy, healthy lives free of denial and discipline. I also write about what's good to eat and what's good for you. Contact me to discuss how I can support your health goals, or check out these opportunities:101 ways to love greens | avocado | carrots | coconut | dairy-free | dessert | dinner | fall | gluten-free | kale | lunch | soy-free | spring | sugar-free | summer | tomato | vegan | vegetarian | winter | zucchini
“We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are.” — Adelle Davis |
Archive for October, 201122 Oct White Chocolate Chocolate Molasses Crunch Cookies….
And, yes, I could have added more to the cookie and the title, thank you very much. This was unexpected, a total surprise. A kernel of an idea bloomed, transformed, morphed, evolved, was deconstructed, and reconstructed all on my 15-minute commute home. It didn’t turn out anything like I imagined. Nothing. Good news: it was still a total win! Very nice way to end the day. Two things: (1) Don’t be scared of the whole wheat flour. The molasses makes everything soft and chewy, so there isn’t that added earthiness that whole wheat flour can give that some people don’t like. (2) The molasses also gives these cookies a little nutritional lift (if you want to know more about molasses, try here), so you can feel better about the little bit o’ refined sugar (which you can feel even better about if you take advantage of the molasses to use less and if you use organic sugar or coconut sugar). I think this recipe is pretty versatile. In fact, I’m pretty excited by its versatility. But I’m not going to tell you all the great variations that occurred to me while I was baking, otherwise what will I post about once the rain starts and I want an excuse to turn on the oven? (Neighbors beware, there may be a lot of cookies in your future.) White Chocolate Chocolate Molasses Crunch Cookies
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prep a baking sheet with parchment paper. 2. Melt butter in a small sauce pan, keeping heat on medium so it doesn’t burn (browning a little is fine, but no burning). 3. While butter is melting, add sugar, molasses and vanilla to a large bowl. 4. When butter is all melted, pour on top of sugar mixture and mix well with a wooden spoon. It’ll take a few minutes for the molasses and butter to mix. Set aside to cool, so you won’t cook the egg when you add it. (You can put it in the refrigerator to speed this up, but it doesn’t take that long, really.) 5. While butter/sugar mixture is cooling, chop your semi-sweet chocolate and walnuts. (Either emi-sweet chocolate bar or chips will do, just chop fine.) 6. When butter/sugar mix is room temperature, add egg and stir until thoroughly incorporated. 7. Add flour, salt and baking soda. (Honestly, I rarely – well, to be really honest, probably never – do this in a separate bowl. Shame on me, I know. I just sprinkle the small stuff in first, then add in the larger measurements and mix well. Let your conscience be your guide on this one.) 8. Add chopped chocolate, stir well. Add walnuts and white chocolate chips, and stir well. The batter (you know you’re gonna taste it) will taste more molasses-y than the final cookie will. 9. Using a cookie scoop (best idea ever, thank you friend for converting me), place scoops of dough on prepared baking sheet. They’ll spread to 1 1/2-2 inches wide, so place accordingly. 10. Bake for 10 mins. Let rest on cookie sheet for a minute or two before removing to a cooling rack.
Ummm… now go eat one. Warning: when they’re still slightly warm, all that chopped chocolate mixed in will smear on your finger tips. The only solution is to lick them clean. It’s a tough life, I know. 15 Oct Ole!
A couple of weekends ago, after a lovely hike high above Truckee with a dear friend and her absolutely adorable baby, we stopped into a grocery store for dinner supplies. We didn’t have a plan for the meal, so while we wandered the aisles, I quizzed my lovely host about some key details that helped me shape a vision. (It sort of reminded me of the old Choose Your Own Adventure books:”Do you want Indian flavors, Italian flavors, or Mexican flavors?” “Okay then, do you want tortilla chips, tortillas or a cornmeal crust?” etc.) The result was a super simple and hearty dinner, perfect after a hike, perfect for that late summer, early fall transition with fresh cooked vegetable wrapped cozily in warming spices and light layers of beans and tortillas. Some of the things I especially like about this recipe:
Mexican Vegetable Casserole
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Find a small casserole dish, ~8in (preferably round). 2. In a large pan, saute onion and garlic in a little olive oil over medium high heat until onion begins to soften. Add pinch of salt. 3. Add all other fresh veggies and saute until tender. Season with cumin, oregano, basil and salt, to taste. (You can use a taco seasoning instead, but it’s hard to find one that doesn’t have a lot of nonsense added to it, e.g. maltodextrin.) Add green chilis (the first time I made this, I used salsa verde instead, which was perfectly fine – I also think this bit is entirely optional, but you’ll likely want to increase the other spices if you skip).
4. While the vegetables are cooking, mash half of the black beans with the back of a fork or spoon. Combine the beans with the diced tomatoes (including the juice) in a medium pot. Add 1/4 C salsa and pinch of salt, to taste, and heat over medium until warmed through. (Be sure to check your veggies, and adjust seasoning to taste.) And, if you haven’t already grated your cheese, now is a good time (trick: toss the cheese in the freezer before you start doing any of other prep – that’ll be just enough time to make it extra firm for faster grating, without making it a icy brick). 5. When vegetables are tender and beans are heated through, you’re ready to build the beast. Pour a little salsa or juice from the bean/tomato mixture into bottom of your casserole dish (maybe ~2 T – just enough to lightly coat). Put down a layer of tortillas (my dish used 1 whole tortilla, plus one split in half, the halves arranged to provide a full layer of coverage). Then add a layer of vegetables, a layer of beans, and a layer of cheese. Repeat. Top the final layer with tortillas and then a last sprinkle of cheese. (It’s important not to make the veggie layer too thick, or the wedges you cut and serve layer will fall apart.)
6. Immediately place in oven and bake for 15 mins. (If you assemble while the veggies and beans are still warm but don’t bake right away, your tortillas will get soggy and the top layer will curl up in weird ways. So, if you want to prep this ahead of time, wait until everything has cooled at least to room temperature and either assemble right before you’re ready to eat or store built casserole, covered, in the refrigerator. Realize, you’ll probably need to keep bake it a little longer to heat the inner layers all the way through again.) Use a large serving spoon to cut/scoop pie-like wedges. Serve with sliced avocado, extra salsa and yogurt or sour cream, as you like. Takes around 45 mins to an hour – from first chop to serving, depending on how fast you chop and how well you multi-task. Serves 4-6.
Posted under Recipes: Good For You Food Tags: black beans, broccoli, carrots, cheese, diced tomatoes, dinner, gluten-free, leftovers, red bell pepper, sugar-free, vegetarian, zucchini 07 Oct Tomato Chutney…
Tomatoes are late this summer (okay, sure it’s officially fall, but I live in San Francisco, so summer just started) and, oh, happy day. My house has been swimming in marinara and all things tomatoey. One fine Saturday a couple of weeks ago, I can home from the farmers market with a backpack filled to the tippy top with heirloom, organic cherry tomatoes. I quickly got to work slicing them all in half – a fair amount getting laid out on trays for the dehydrator (have you had dehydrated cherry tomatoes? So sweet and goooood!!) and the rest tossed into a huge pot for making chutney.
I spliced together a bunch of chutney recipes. I didn’t want anything too sweet, but rather a nice combination of sweet and savory. The key to the final product below is the panch puran. As far as I can tell, it means “five spices” in Bengali. I found a few different versions of panch puran, each using a different mix of spices. The formula below reflects what was already in my cupboard (warning: the recipe measurements makes ~1/2C, but you only need a few tablespoons for this recipe, so either reduce the amounts to make just what you need, or be excited to find other ways to use the leftovers). This is the perfect project for a day when you’re settled in at home, as the chutney takes a while to cook down. (You could potentially do this in a slow cooker, but the lid will make it harder for the liquid to evaporate and for the chutney to thicken up.) What I especially love about this recipe:
Tomato Chutney
1. In a large pot, toast dried chili (if using fresh, slice in half lengthwise and clean out seeds and membrane, unless you want the chutney hot-spicy) and panch puran for a few minutes, until the spices become aromatic. 2. Add the tomatoes and salt and bring to a simmer. Cover to expedite the initial break down.
3. Once the tomatoes have broken down – should be very, very juicy in there – add the molasses and raisins. Start conservatively with the molasses and add more as the chutney begins to cook down and thicken. Ditto for salt and panch puran (although, I don’t think you’ll need more of the latter).
4. Simmer with lid off and reduce tomatoes (and the juices) to at least half the current volume. This will take some time (e.g. my “quickest” batch reduced for 6 hours). You’ll have to decide how thick you want your chutney.
5. The skins of the tomatoes will shrivel off the flesh of the fruit as it cooks down. If you want a smoother chutney, use tongs to pull out the skins. It’s tedious work and I only do it until I get bored, largely because it’s tedious work that bores me and because I like the extra texture that the skins give to the chutney.
6. Makes around 6 half-pints worth of chutney. I canned them in sterilized jars and a water bath (clearly the pic below was taken for a much larger batch). I love canning! I love the process and then being able to revisit favorite sauces throughout the year. You can also freeze extras you don’t end up using right away.
Posted under Recipes: Good For You Food Tags: dairy-free, gluten-free, molasses, raisins, tomato, vegan, vegetarian |
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