Food Memories

It has taken me a loooong time to get comfortable in my new kitchen. But as I sit here listening to music and waiting for my squash to finish and grill to heat up, I can say my heart is back in it and I am feeeeeling the joy of cooking that I grew up with. I don’t know if anyone will ever watch me cook the way I watched my grandma, aunt and mom, but if they did, they wouldn’t just see it…they would feel it. In my southern family, you cook for people to show them that you love them. Be sure that if I’ve ever cooked for you, it was with that sentiment as well.

So as I got my groove back, I realized that I was experiencing two of my favorite childhood things; the smell of celery, onion and sage cooking together and snappin’ beans. I have literal days of memory snapping beans and despite the chore as a kid, I still love doing it!

At the farmers’ market two weeks ago, I picked up some winter squash. They were beautiful and I love mashing squash up with curry. However, there was also some seriously gorgeous sage so I decided I would combine the two. Little did I know I’d be recreating my grandma’s Thanksgiving stuffing only sans the bread! But the flavor was spot on and it reminded me of many Thanksgivings of my childhood.

Squash

2 winter squashes

*It really doesn’t matter which kind although I’d stay away from butternut

1 celery stalk, finely diced

¼ onion, finely diced

2-3 Tbsp fresh sage, finely diced

2 Tbsp butter
olive oil
s&p

Cut squash in half and remove seeds. Rub with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake at 425 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour (until soft). In the meantime, sauté celery and onions in butter with just a pinch of the fresh sage until the veggies are soft. Spoon out the squash in a bowl, add onions and celery and fresh sage. Smash it until it is smooth. Salt and pepper to taste.

I grabbed some bone in pork chops from Stillman’s at the Turkey Farm, seasoned them with Borsari and grilled for 5 minutes a side. Done and Done.

Served the pork and squash with roasted brussel sprouts and beans. You know the drill, 425 degrees for 18 minutes. Always perfect!

In a moment I was back in Terre Haute, Indiana at Thanksgiving with my family. Funny how food can be so important to your memories. I hope you’ll try this and pack it away as something you share with your friends and family!

A Very Sparty Salad

In the great state of Kentucky, it is the middle of March Sadness. Well, in most people's houses, but not so much in my dad's house. In my dad's house, Tom Izzo may take my father's beloved Spartans to a national championship. I grew up in a divided home. My dad is a Michigan State fan to his soul and my mother always cheered for Michigan. Although I sometimes wonder if she just did that to get his goat. Either way, it was a home divided and game days were a sight. So when I decided to attend the University Of Kentucky, I am sure eyes rolled with regard to sports. Yet another family division. If we're being fair, Kentucky is the obvious better choice of teams to cheer for. I mean, caaahm aaahhhn! Big Blue Nation or Die! I don't feel strongly about this, hahaha! Anyway, my father's allegiance definitely translated in me a certain respect for a team, perhaps the only team in the NCAA, that trains for the tournament all year long. Year in and year out this team gets its butt kicked all over the place. I'm not saying they always lose, we know that's not true. But they kick, scratch and fight their way through their season and their unmatched difficult schedule. Izzo has no interest in making the season a cake walk for these poor kids. But they always show up to the tournament and this year, they just might win. So since my beloved Cats aren't in the tournament, I've been taking bribes at work for which team I cheer for. We have a Cuse fan, a Kansas fan and a State fan. The choice here isn't really a competition, but I do respect all of the teams represented in my office and love the friendly competition it brings come tournament time. It is always fun to be around folks with a similar passion for basketball! Anyway, I was cooking over the weekend and decided I had the ingredients to make a very Sparty Salad that my dad would love!

Here's the breakdown:

Vinaigrette

Easy Peasy Product

1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

*I used cabernet vinegar

1/2 cup olive oil

pepper

Salad

1 bunch green asparagus

1 bunch white asparagus
12 oz country ham, diced
*If you don't have country ham, which unless you're in the south, you dont....use serrano ham or prosciutto
1 6 oz package ArtiHearts grilled artichoke hearts
*or 6 oz of your own grilled artichoke hearts

Cut the woody stems off the asparagus and then cut the spears into thirds. Then divide up the artichoke hearts with your hands. Mix everything together. Food process the sun dried tomatoes and mix with the rest of the vinaigrette ingredients. Toss together some of the dressing with the salad and voila! A very Sparty green and white salad that any State fan would love!

Go State!

Try It Again

I hate salmon. I mean, no, I hate cooked salmon. Cooked salmon is like this year's UK basketball team. You want to love it because you know it's good for you, but ya just hate it! How someone's most favorite piece of sashimi can be someone's most hated fish when it's cooked is totally beyond me, but there you go. I am a freak of nature. The truth as I know it is that salmon changes almost completely once its cooked. So you can imagine we don't eat it in my house...ever. However, because of a great tip that Dave's Fresh Pasta has day boat fresh fish on Thursdays, combined with the fact that Josh likes it, added to the fact that it is seriously good for you, I decided to give it another whirl. Incidentally, did you know how good it actually is for you?

Due to the high amounts of Omega-3 fat and Vitamin D, salmon is great in preventing inflammation, improving cognitive function, preventing cancer. It also improves eye and , skin, hair and cardiovascular health. It is also high in Vitamin B12, protein and is moderately low in calories.

Here's what my little brain produced!

Marinade

2 Tbsp. fish oil
1/2 cup coconut aminos
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 Tbsp. spicy sesame oil
1" fresh ginger, minced
6-8 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp honey
pepper

Fish

3 salmon fillets
1-2 Tbsp. coconut oil

Sauce

left over marinade 
honey
1-2 Tbsp. almond butter
cayenne pepper

Put all the marinade ingredients into a ziploc bag and mix up thoroughly. Put salmon in the bag skin up so that the fleshy part is in direct contact with the marinade. Marinate for several hours. Remove from the marinade and dry off skin side of the salmon really well. You want it super dry. Heat coconut oil on high then add salmon to the pan skin down. Then turn the heat down to medium. Cook on that side until the fish is almost cooked all the way through. You'll see this happen by the color change. Then flip over for just a minute or two to brown the other side. Reserve the left over marinade and put in a small saucepan. Heat over medium with a little extra honey, almond butter and a dash of cayenne pepper. Stir until it thickens. Spoon over fish.

I served this with bok choy, leek and mushroom stir fry. So here's the verdict. The sauce was amazing! But I still don't like cooked salmon. Josh, on the other hand, loved it. So what have I learned? Stick with sashimi. For all you salmon lovers, I'm sure you'll love this too. If you hate cooked salmon like I do, try this recipe with  fish you like!

Salud!

Getting Wingy Wit It!!

When I was poor and in college, my friend Jason and I used to go out for half price tall boy beers and half price buffalo wings liiiike every week. We could pretty much get bombed and full for 10 bucks a piece! It was pretty glorious especially in hind sight living in a state where drink specials are illegal. Don't even get me started on this particular subject. Anyway, I believe these nights are where my buffalo chicken obsession began. I could legit happily eat them several times a week. However, those little spicy beauts will make you fat really quick. And in fact, they did! Did I mention I used to be a little pork chop? However, I do not think one should have to give up flavors they love. I think adapting them is the way to go. So that's what I did with this recipe. I seriously enjoyed it and because I thinned out the blue cheese dressing, I also suffered from a little heat induced sweat. Which I hear burns more calories, so rock on!

Here's the breakdown:

2 chicken breasts, cut into 1/2" cubes
4 cups mixed greens
1/2 yellow pepper, sliced
1/2 red pepper, sliced
1/4 english cucumber, sliced
1 crown broccoli
julienned zucchini
*I got this from the salad bar at Whole Foods to make my life easier
Franks Red Hot
*I put that sh*t on everything
1/4-1/2 cup grass fed blue cheese crumbles
1/8 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp coconut oil
pepper

Mix up all the veggies into 2 bowls. Sauté chicken in coconut oil over medium-high heat. Let me give you a great tip incase you aren't already doing this.....melt your oil then put the chicken in and let it sit. I mean really let it sit. Like 2 minutes after you think you should move it around, then do it. I just think the chicken tastes better when you let it get brown and it also sticks less to the pan at that point. So anyway, cook your chicken through and set to the side. Toss with the Franks. For the dressing, I wanted to thin down the blue cheese dressing, not get rid of it. It's one of my favorite parts of eating buffalo chicken! So instead of making it creamy, I made a blue cheese vinaigrette. Cut down some of that dairy and unnecessary fat. So start with the blue cheese in a container that has a tight lid. Then add the vinegar and pepper. Put the lid on and shake the bejesus out of it. It will look milky at this point but still have some chunks. Then add half the olive oil and shake again. Then taste it. If it's too acidic add more little by little tasting it along the way. When it's just to your liking, toss the veggies with the dressing and then place the buffalo chicken on top of your salad. 

This absolutely fixed the need for spicy and blue. It is a terrific alternative to the less healthy alternative and it has exactly the same flavor plus some. You won't even miss those greasy old wings!

Salud!

RoseBerry Mahi Skewers

So this weekend in my house we decided that the chore....I mean joy, of cooking should be shared a little more evenly. Don't get me wrong, I adore cooking! You know this. I love my job, but given the opportunity to build an amazing professional kitchen and join the cast of Travel or Food Network, I'd be done and done! Of course I'd still volunteer for my beloved American Cancer Society. But all this said, I'm still waiting on that call from Anthony Bourdain and Bobby Flay so for now, I work. And when I say work, I mean things are ramping the heck up and my hours are nutso! So again, as much as I love cooking, doing it every night is getting to be much too taxing!

So Josh and I sat down to make a menu for the week knowing we were sharing the cooking and I got a chance to really think up something I've not made or eaten. And with the added bonus of only having to come up with 3 meals for the week instead of 6, I was really able to think! What I came up with was creative, colorful and just plain delish albeit a little labor intensive....a little. Don't be skurred!

Here's the breakdown:

2 mahi mahi fillets
3/4 pint raspberry
1 Tbsp fig balsamic vinegar
*regular balsamic would be just fine, I didn't have any
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp honey
2 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
bamboo skewers

Put the raspberries in a bowl with the vinegar. Let it sit overnight. Then either in a food processor or with an immersion blender (hand blender) blend that up. Add the oil and blend again. Then stir in the rosemary and honey. You may want to quickly warm the honey in the microwave to loosen it up. Cut the mahi into chunks and put in the mixture in a gallon size Ziploc bag. Leave for a few hours. In meantime soak the skewers in water to keep them from burning. Skewer the fish and grill on each side for 3 minutes a side. Put the excess marinade in a sauce pan and heat until it thickens up. Serve poured on or beside the fish.

I served this with a similarly flavored and colored veggie that I was myself pretty skeptical about, but it was bomb!

Here's the breakdown:

4 small red beets, cooked and diced moderately small
2 zucchini, diced
1 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1/2 cup almonds, chopped fine
*I used the food processor for this
1 1/2 Tbsp coconut oil
Radicchio cups

Melt the coconut oil over medium low heat and add rosemary. Infuse the oil slowly. When it gets fragrant (2 min or so) add the zucchini and crank up the heat. Toss it around initially then leave it alone for a few minutes to brown slightly. Then toss it again and repeat. In a separate pan, sauté the beets slightly to get them hot, but not to brown. Put all of this in a bowl with the almonds and toss gently so as not to dye the zucchini red! I served it in a radicchio cup for looks! But it's great either way. The almonds really really change the consistency and the flavors marry well!

We loved both and Josh hates beets....or that's what he keeps telling me anyway even though he mowed them down this week!

Enjoy and salud!

All the Veggies to the Pool!!!

I am getting old. Or busy. Or tired. Or all of the above. My conversation with Josh post dinner went like this:
Me "I feel like my blog posts used to be witty and funny. Now they're not"
Josh "Why, blogging too much?"
Me "No I think it's too much of everything else! What did you say about dinner tonight?"
Josh "That the onions were really good?"
Me "No, I think it had something to do with the number 12. I remember thinking I wanted to quote you"
Josh Looking Puzzled

Holy shish kebab! Can someone follow me around with a voice recorder?

AAAAANNNYYYY WAAAAAAY!

Some time ago we had a small group discussion at the gym about veggie lasagna. Some use whole wheat noodles some not, some meat, some not. It wasn't until this week that I realized I've never blogged my veggie lasagna. It's always a little bit different, but this one pretty much killed it. I think it's because I decided to use less, but more complex cheese. In the past I've used shredded mozzarella. But I'm trying to use grass fed dairy and less of it. Because why cut up and cook so many veggies if you're going to drown it in boring cheese? I say no!

Here's the breakdown:

2 summer squash, sliced and grilled
1-5oz container baby kale, sautéed
1 red onion, sliced and grilled
3 roasted yellow peppers, jarred
2 zucchini, sliced and grilled
3 portobello mushroom caps, sliced and sautéed
1 container crimini mushrooms, sliced and sautéed
1 container shitake mushrooms, sliced and sautéed
1 lb ground turkey breast, browned
Spaghetti sauce
*I use my own recipe, stored in lunch meat containers and it took almost 2 containers
5 oz goat cheese, crumbled
1/2 container shredded parmesan
*The good stuff, naaaaht Kraft shredded in a bag
dried basil, oregano, red pepper flakes, garlic powder
chopped fresh basil

Cook all the vegetation as prescribed above. After you brown the ground turkey breast, mix it in with the spaghetti sauce and simmer until warm. Then start layering it all up. I went in this order: summer squash, kale, onion, 1/2 the parmesan, roasted yellow pepper, zucchini, mushrooms, 1/2 goat cheese, meat marinara sauce, rest of the parmesan and goat cheeses, dried herbs. Then bake uncovered in a 350 degrees oven for 35 minutes. Turn the heat up to 450 degrees and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Top off with chopped fresh basil and serve.

I had hoped to have tons of leftovers to take to the gym and share with some of my posse, but Josh and I destroyed most of it at dinner and I'll be eating it for lunch and that'll be all she wrote! Hope you enjoy it too!

Salud!

What's In Your Lunchbox?

If you've been reading the blog over the last few weeks or noticed my blogging, or lack thereof, in April and May last year you know that my job keeps me insanely busy. The nature of my job regularly has me on the road or at events where eating a healthy lunch is a real challenge. This is especially true since I don't eat sandwiches much, not because I don't eat wheat, but mostly because I just don't really like them. The other lunch problem I suffer from is that I am so finicky about wanting to eat exactly what I want, which regularly changes from the time I pack my lunch to the time I eat it! Don't call me high maintenance haha Knowing all this about myself, I decided to take control of the situation and over the summer I picked up a HUGE lunch box so that I could always have food with me and a variety of it no matter where I was or what I was doing. 

Just about a year ago, I filled you guys in on my childhood nostalgia and love for open face tuna salad on toast. I always have cans of tuna in the house just in case of a pinch, but I hardly ever eat them. Since they were piling up, I decided to use them for lunch. However, I wanted to try to cut down the sugar from traditional tuna salad and also maybe transform my childhood favorite into a more adult flavor with a few healthier things in it.

Here's What I Came Up With:

1 can white tuna in water, drained
1/4 - 1/2 apple chopped small
1 celery stalk, diced small
1.5 Tbsp raisins
1/2 Tbsp finely diced nuts
*I used a mix of some I had left over from cooking
1/4 tsp hot madras curry powder
1 Tbsp mayo, paleo mayo or 1/2 avocado, mashed up
*Simply, you need fat, you decide which you use

Mix everything except the fat in a bowl. Its important to mix all the curry powder around before mixing in the fat. You don't want clumps of curry powder. 

Picture's not great, but it taste great, swear!

I eat this with a green salad and that's it. Done and done! It's simple, interesting and healthy! What more can a finicky girl ask for? 

Salud!