Did you know one of my first jobs as a newly minted Ivy League graduate was as a bartender? I'd spent my entire life on the grind, and I thought I would do something "fun" for a change. My family wasn't too happy about it. My friends thought it was bizarre. I actually ended up finding it to be a total drag. I mean bartending did make the list of jobs that make the world a worse place. Ouch. I lasted about a year before I hit the refresh button; however, I'll always be grateful for that experience. I can make a mean cocktail, and guess who my friends and family members are always requesting to make their cocktails at reunions and social events? You guessed it. Me, of course. To keep things fresh and exciting over here, I've decided to incorporate a cocktail hour series with homemade cocktails. I'll try my best to keep them as healthy as possible by using good ingredients.
I love, love, love grapefruit juice! Quite naturally, one of my favorite cocktails to make is a Salty Dog. It's made with vodka and grapefruit juice and served in a rocks glass with a salted rim. Take away the salted rim and you have a Greyhound. For an extra special touch, use fresh squeezed grapefruit juice.
Ingredients:
1 grapefruit, sliced in half and juiced
1 1/2 oz vodka (one shot)
1 tbsp kosher or coarse sea salt
4 to 5 ice cubes
1 rocks glass
Directions:
Using a citrus reamer, juice the grapefruit over a medium bowl. Set aside.
Pour the salt in a flat saucer. Then, take the rocks glass and dip the rim in the grapefruit juice. Immediately place the moist rim end of the glass in the salt and twist it around until the entire rim is coated with salt.
Fill the glass with ice, vodka, and grapefruit. Stir and enjoy, preferably with some Michael Buble tunes in the background.
As a kid, I used to think protein-based salads were rather uninspiring and not fit for a proper meal. Little did I know I would eventually become pescetarian and tuna and egg salad sandwiches would be my default options at every lunch and deli counter known to man. At this point, I've had more than my fair share of egg salad sandwiches (some good, some bad) and picked up a few techniques along the way.
The single most important factor determining the aesthetic and taste of an egg salad sandwich is properly cooked eggs. If your hard-boiled eggs have green rings around the yolk, they are overcooked. For perfectly cooked hard-boiled eggs, place the eggs in a single layer in the bottom of a pot of water and bring it to a boil. Immediately, cover the pot and remove from heat. Allow to sit, covered for 7 to 10 minutes for soft, slightly creamy yolks. Allow to sit, covered for 10 to 15 minutes for hard yolks. The other factors to consider are the quality of your mustard and mayonnaise (I recommend Duke's), consistency and your fillers. I really like the flavor contrast that capers and Trader Joe's Veggie Sausage Patties provides so this is my go to recipe. I hope you like it.
Egg Salad Sandwich
Ingredients:
6 soft-boiled eggs
1/2 cup Duke's mayonnaise
1 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp capers, drained and chopped
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
2 veggie sausage patties, cooked and chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Using an egg slicer, slice the eggs horizontally and vertically so they are chopped into small uniform pieces.
Mix the first five ingredients in a bowl. Add the veggie sausage patties and stir to combine. Add salt and pepper as needed.
Cook's Note: Serve on a toasted grainy bread. I used olive bread that I bought at the local Giant.
This recipe is inspired by Orange Cow -- a smoothie that I made last week for a nutrition education class at work. The class participants raved about it, but I thought it was just okay. It definitely had potential, though, and I couldn't wait to get home and experiment with the recipe.
Recipes abound for Orange Creamsicle smoothies, but my recipe is extra special because it has creamy fat free frozen vanilla bean yogurt. Best of all, it taste just like orange sherbet. Do you remember the cooling orange sherbet push up pops from childhood? Here's your chance to recreate memories...
Ingredients:
6 oz frozen 100% orange juice concentrate, slightly thawed
Combine all ingredients, except ice, in a large blender and blend until smooth and creamy, making sure the sugar is well incorporated. Add ice and blend until smooth.
Who said you couldn't make a healthy(er) creamed spinach by substituting butter with avocado and cow's milk with almond milk? It definitely wasn't me...
So, I had this ginormous bag of spinach sitting in the 'frig, and I didn't want it to go bad because I absolutely HATE to waste food. That's not kosher, green, or a good way to manage my resources, is it? Nope. Back to that bag of spinach - every time I'd see it, I'd think how good it would be all creamy and silky, but do you know how much fat there is in butter and cow's milk? Well, I do. In the words of Sweet Brown, ain't nobody got time for that.
Then, it hit me like a rock, avocado (a healthier plant-based fat) and almond milk (also a healthier plant-based fat) might do the trick. Some mushrooms would be nice, too. So, I tried it and I like it.
So, they say you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him/her drink. Well, folks, this is a choose your own adventure story. If you like the fat in butter and cow's milk, follow Ree Drummond's recipe to the tee. If the thought of consuming that extra fat will send you into a tizzy and ruin your day or something to that effect, make the following substitutions:
1 stick of butter for one avocado and about 2 tbsp of olive oil
2 cups of cow's milk with 2 cups of almond milk.
The avocado and flour will clump up initially, but it will dissolve in the milk just fine. Regardless of how your story ends, I'd suggest adding some sauteed mushrooms:
1. Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood. 2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts. 3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move. 4. Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society--the social ramble ain't restful. 5. Avoid running at all times. 6. And don't look back--something might be gaining on you.
Satchel Paige, American Negro League & MLB All-Star, 1906-1982
Happy New Year! This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and Watch Night tradition observed in many African American communities of faith, and Haiti celebrates 209 years of independence. While New Year's Day is shrouded by the rapt history of slavery and independence, it's also a day of revelry, merriment, and superstitions.
Here are a few of my family's quirky New Year's Day superstitions: 1.) My mom never washes clothes on the last Friday of the year because she might wash someone out of the family. 2.) The first person to enter/visit the house in the new year must be a male. In my hometown, people are actually turned away over this one, resulting in frantic phone calls to men in the community. My dad would be out at the crack of dawn, making his round of early morning visits, and his brothers and friends of the family would stop by our house as well. My dad, who loves hosting, would usually break out the booze (which included muscadine wine and moonshine) for the special occasion. 3.) All Christmas lights and decorations must be taken down before the new year. Otherwise, you might as well leave them up for the rest of the year. Mom was always pretty adamant about this one. 4.) And my personal favorite are the food superstitions. It doesn't get any more southern than chomping on black-eyed peas for good luck and money, leafy greens to bring money (dollar bills), and cornbread for wealth. I've also seen this simplified to the phrase "peas for pennies, greens for dollars, and cornbread for gold."
In some cultures, fish is also eaten on New Year's Day for abundance in the new year. So, I expanded on my family's tradition and brought in the new year with black-eyed peas, kale, cornbread, and sudado (Peruvian fish stew). I loved eating this fish stew over jasmine rice. You will noticed that my stew is green and the one from the original recipe (see link below) is red. That's because I used green jalapeno peppers instead of red chiles.
Get the recipe for Sudado here: http://www.baconismagic.ca/food/my-first-love-affair-in-peru/
As the song goes, "I'm just a Mississippi boy. Still got Mississippi mud on my boots. I'm just a Mississippi boy. Well, I wanna go back to my roots. Tired of the fast food. Raised on cornbread and collard greens. Chitlins and hog maws! A big old pots of beans... " Uhh, now what y'all know 'bout that?
It's that time, again! The winter holidays are here. While the holidays are largely a time of year to celebrate cultural traditions and enjoy our families, it's also important to maintain the utmost regard for cultural competence during the holiday season. We can all do so simply by respecting the different faith traditions and cultures in our communities and country at large. For a case in point, consider an acquaintance whom I witnessed wishing someone Merry Christmas and the person turned out to be Jewish. Awkward. As another example, I was recently at a legislative breakfast for work and one of the attendees decided to pray in the middle of his introduction. It was not ecumenical. Then, on two separate occasions, the absolute worst thing imaginable happened: I had to eat stuffing.
I am obviously joking about the stuffing, but cultural competence does, in fact, extend to the traditional foods that we eat. About once a year, I tell one of my friends (from the Northeast) that I'm making cornbread dressing for Thanksgiving or Christmas and without fail, I'm met with a puzzled look. Then, I explain to them exactly what I mean, and we get a good laugh out of the ordeal because they usually think I'm talking about salad dressing. Bizarre! So, I figured it's as good a time as any to revisit the stuffing vs dressing debate. While the terms have technical meaning: stuffing the bird as opposed to dressing the bird, they are also regionalized descriptive terms: dressing (in the South) is traditionally made with cornbread and stuffing (in the North) is traditionally made with dry bread or croutons. According to Clinton Kelly from ABC's The Chew about "83% of northerners say stuffing and about half the people in the South say dressing". Over on the Food Network Blog, they state that "many southerners are die-hard dressing fans" and I fall squarely in that category.
Cornbread dressing has more of a cohesive, casserole-like consistency and there are a variety of techniques for making it. Some cooks use only cornbread, while others use leftover biscuits, sandwich bread, crackers, or other breads that are leftover and/or frozen for later use. I, personally, like the casserole-like consistency of dressing and the added textured of toasted bread in my dressing so that's what I use. Then, for some protein, I usually add oysters; however, I was out of luck this year. I went to two different grocery stores and they were both out of oysters. So, I improvised. Considering I've made yellow squash dressing in the past with great results, I decided to use yellow squash and a gourmet mushroom blend of baby bella, shiitake, and oyster mushrooms. After tasting the dressing, I must say that I'm officially sold. The dressing was absolutely scrumptious and considering that yellow squash and the gourmet mushroom blend cost about half as much as the oysters would have, I might call it a bargain.
Yellow Squash Cornbread Dressing w/ Mushrooms and Fresh Herbs
Ingredients:
1/2 lb cornbread
1 loaf Italian bread (1/2 lb total), cut into 3/4-inch cubes (6 cups)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 lb gourmet mushrooms (baby bella, shiitake, and oyster)
4 yellow squash, washed and sliced into 1/4" rounds
2/3 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, melted
2 1/4 cups vegetable stock
Directions:
Prepare cornbread batter and bake until fully cooked and golden brown. Set aside.
Preheat oven to 325°F. Spread bread cubes in two shallow baking pans and bake in upper and lower thirds of oven, switching position of pans halfway through baking, until golden, 25 to 30 minutes total. Cool bread in pans on racks, then transfer to a large bowl.
Heat olive oil in a 12-in heavy skillet over moderate heat. Cook mushrooms, celery, onions, thyme, sage, garlic, salt, and pepper, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened, about 8 to 10 minutes. While the vegetables are cooking, steam or blanch the yellow squash rounds until just soft, about 4 to 6 minutes. Set aside.
Transfer cornbread and bread cubes to a large bowl and crumble to the desired texture. I prefer to crumble the cornbread and some of the bread cubes (about 1/3) into small pieces and leave the remaining bread cubes intact. Add the vegetable mixture and yellow squash to the bowl, then stir in parsley and butter. Drizzle with stock, then season with salt and pepper and toss well.
Transfer stuffing to a buttered casserole baking dish. Bake, covered, in middle of oven for 30 minutes, then uncover and bake until browned, about 30 minutes more.
This is a recipe of convenience. I got home late one night with few groceries in the house and no leftovers. I didn't feel like making a grocery store run. So, I went in the kitchen seeking inspiration and suddenly the black void was filled with light. I decided to pull together a dish with lo mein noodles, garlic, and black beans. I just happened to have some leftover sweet potato rounds (thinly sliced with a mandoline) on hand that I used for a trial run of making homemade potato chips, and the sweet potato lover in me decided to add those to the mix. I used this recipe for Homemade Noodles with Black Beans and Tamari as a guide.
Garlic Lo Mein Noodles w/Black Beans & Sweet Potato Ribbons
Ingredients:
1 package Lo Mein Noodles
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp canola oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tbsp cilantro
1/3 cup scallions, chopped into 1/4 pieces
1/4 cup Low Sodium Tamari
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp tamarind paste
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup sweet potato rounds, thinly sliced with a mandoline
Directions:
Heat the sesame and canola oils in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the next four ingredients and cook until the garlic begins to brown. Add the scallions, tamari, brown sugar, rice wine vinegar, oyster sauce, and tamarind paste and cook until the sauce has reduced and is syrupy. Add the black beans and sweet potato rounds. Stir to combine. Cook for a few additional minutes. Add about 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer the sauce until it reaches the desired consistency.
Cook pasta according to package directions. Toss with the garlic sauce and enjoy. Garnish with chopped cilantro, green onions, or roasted sesame seeds.
