Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »

A Platter of Pickles

Published August 6, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: , , ,

I have been having an urge to make pickles. Not the kind of pickles that you put up in big jars using a canner – I used to make those pickles when I was doing more earth mother sorts of things. I even still have the canner and tools.  I have been thinking about quick pickles, the kind you mix up an hour and after sitting in their brine for an hour or overnight, they’re ready to go. I found several recipes for quick pickles in a recent Sunset magazine.  I made these to take to an office barbecue – a change from the usual potato salad and cole slaw.

The cucumber pickles were gone by the tie the barbecue was over – none left to take home.  I had carrot pickles left, and they kept surprisingly well for a week or so. When a friend came to dinner and I brought them out to snack on, they still had a lot of crunch.

Mustard and Ginger Pickled Carrots

10 to 12 medium carrots (about 2 lbs.)
2 cups distilled white vinegar
3 Tablespoons sugar
3 Tablespoons kosher salt
3 quarter-size thin slices fresh ginger
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced lengthwise
3 Tablespoons yellow mustard seeds
1 Tablespoon coriander seeds
1/4 teaspoon red chile flakes

Peel carrots and cut into 1/4-in. matchsticks.

Bring 3 cups water and all ingredients except carrots to a boil in a large saucepan. Reduce heat to low and simmer 1 minute. Add carrots and simmer until almost tender, 2 to 3 minutes.

Transfer carrots and liquid to a bowl and let cool to room temperature. Chill, covered, overnight to let flavors develop. Serve cold. Keeps, chilled, up to 1 week. Makes 6 cups with 0 grams of fat.

Sweet and Sour Cucumber and Red Onion Pickles

1 pound Persian or English cucumbers, ends trimmed
1/2 medium red onion, halved lengthwise
1 stalk fresh lemongrass (I used I Tablespoon lemon grass paste)
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
1/8 teaspoon pepper
3/4 cup Champagne vinegar (I used Zinfandel vinegar, which was all I had)

Slice cucumbers and onion very thinly on a mandoline or with a knife. Put both in a medium bowl. Peel tough outer layers from lemongrass and smash core with a meat mallet or back of a small heavy saucepan until flattened. Mince core and add to bowl (or use the paste that comes in a tube).

Whisk sugar, salt, coriander, pepper, and vinegar together. Pour over cucumber mixture and chill at least 1 hour, stirring gently a couple of times. Serve cold. Keeps, chilled, up to 1 day. Makes 3 ¼ cups at 0 grams of fat.

Sweet Cherry Bundt Cake

Published August 4, 2011 Uncategorized 1 Comment
Tags: , ,

My cherry tree has gone crazy.  Every branch is covered with beautiful cherries. The tree was labeled “semi-dwarf”, but apparently it couldn’t read, because it is at least 20 feet tall – maybe more.


I picked 8 gallons of them, and the tree is not yet completely picked.

The first thing that people ask me when I bring in a big bowl of cherries is “don’t they get worms?” No, they don’t. The next question is “What do you do keep them away?”  Well, I grow organic, so really nothing. I sometimes have discussions with my fruit trees about their responsibilities to me: Give me lots of fruit – and mine to them: don’t chop them down, chase the magpies away occasionally, and if it doesn’t rain for a week or so, give them some water. I often go out and smile at them and thank them for their spring blooms and their generosity.

I had to call a halt to the picking, because I ran out of space to store cherries.  Fortunately, I just discovered that you can freeze cherries.  It’s really simple. You wash them, let them dry a bit, and then freeze them in a single layer so that they each freeze separately. Then your frozen cherries don’t stick together in a big clumps and you can take out as many as you need.

You pour the hard little cherries into a freezer bag.  I didn’t even pit them. I figured they would be mostly for cooking when they defrosted, rather than being beautiful specimens to eat out of hand – so the pitting can come when I defrost them.

By the way, if you are going to deal with cherries, you need some form of cherry pitter.

Mine is just a small hand pitter that works for a few cups at a time. If you are doing a large number of cherries, you might need to get the kind that you feed the cherries into in bunches.

The other thing you can do when life give you an overabundance of cherries is hunt up cherry recipes. This cake, originally from Eating Well, was already pretty low fat – 8 grams/serving – but I made it a bit lower by reducing the amount of oil. I left all the butter, because I thought it was necessary for the flavor. I also used egg substitute because I didn’t have eggs in the house. I didn’t have kirsch, so I used Cointreau, an orange liquor. If you use frozen cherries measure them while they are still frozen. The texture of the cake is a bit dry – like coffee cake, which worked well with the cherry filling. It was a huge hit at the picnic I took it to. There was barely a piece to take home to have with my afternoon tea.

Sweet Cherry Bundt Cake

Cherry filling
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
3 cups fresh or frozen (thawed) dark sweet cherries, pitted and coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons kirsch (clear cherry brandy), or orange juice
1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Cake
1 2/3 cups cake flour
1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons butter, slightly softened
1 Tablespoon canola oil
2 Tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
1 1/4 cups nonfat vanilla, or lemon yogurt
1/2 cup egg substitute
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
Confectioners’ sugar, for garnish

Preheat oven to 350°F. Very generously coat a 10-inch Bundt or tube pan with cooking spray. Dust the pan with flour, tapping out the excess.

To prepare cherry filling: Combine sugar and cornstarch in a medium nonreactive saucepan. Stir in cherries, kirsch (or other liquor or orange juice), lemon zest and almond extract. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture looks like very thick jam and has reduced to about 1 cup, 5 to 7 minutes.

To prepare cake: Sift cake flour, whole-wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a medium bowl. Beat sugar, butter and oil in a large bowl with an electric mixer on low, then medium speed, until very light and fluffy, about 1 1/2 minutes, scraping the sides as needed. Add the applesauce, half the yogurt and beat until very smooth. With the mixer on low speed, beat in half the dry ingredients until incorporated. Beat in the remaining yogurt, egg substitute, vanilla and almond extract until combined, scraping the sides as needed. Stir in the remaining dry ingredients just until incorporated. Do not overbeat.

Spoon a generous half of the batter into the prepared pan, spreading to the edges. Spoon the cherry mixture over the batter.

Top with the remaining batter. Grease a butter knife and swirl it vertically through the batter and cherries.

Bake the cake until a toothpick inserted in the thickest part comes out with no crumbs clinging to it and the top springs back when lightly pressed, 50 to 65 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let stand in the pan until the cake is completely cooled, about 1 1/2 hours. Very carefully run a knife around the edges and center tube to loosen the cake from sides and bottom. Rap the pan sharply against the counter several times to loosen completely. Invert the pan onto a serving plate and slide the cake out. Dust the top with confectioners’ sugar before serving. Makes 12 servings at about 6 grams of fat/serving.

Cake on improvised platter to take to a picnic.

My last piece of cake, cut into tea-sized slices for my afternoon enjoyment.

Mango and Cucumber Salad

Published July 24, 2011 Uncategorized 2 Comments
Tags: , , ,

I have a new cooking toy – a mandoline.

Don’t ask me why a person who is constantly and lovingly cooking never purchased one of these extremely useful tools. With a mandoline, slices are uniform, and can be made very thin, much thinner than you can make them with a knife. The reason I bought one at this time, besides a buy one get one free gadget sale, is to do this:

And the reason I wanted very thin cucumbers (and red onions) was to make a mango and cucumber salad that came from Dash recipes in one of those newspaper inserts.  The original recipe called for a little bit of lemon-flavored olive oil, but I didn’t have that, so I left it out. It also called for finely chopped Serrano chile. I left that out because I was taking it to a “celebration of life” for a recently deceased neighbor. I knew most of the attendees would be elderly and probably not like the extra heat. I think it would be even better with the chile.  The leftovers were very nice with lunch for a day or two.

Mango and Cucumber Salad

3 mangoes, peeled and diced into one inch pieces
1 seedless (English) cucumber, unpeeled and sliced very thin
1 small red onion, cut in half and sliced very thin (about ¾ cup)
1 Tablespoon finely chopped Serrano chile pepper (optional)
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a serving bowl, mixing well. Chill at least one hour. Makes 8 servings at 0 grams of fat/serving.

The cilantro is from my garden. It makes me happy.

In Memorium

Published July 19, 2011 Uncategorized 2 Comments

My beautiful dog Hoover died today. He was 14, and his back, which had been ailing, finally gave out. He could no longer move his legs. At 125 pounds, he still thought he was a lap dog.  Hoover appeared in this blog several times, so today there is no recipe, just a memory.

Lentil Soup with Greens

Published July 17, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: , ,

My garden has gone crazy. The tomatoes and corn are making progress but the various greens have grown faster than I can eat them.

I have been picking them daily, and giving away sackfuls.

I have salad greens – mixed lettuces growing at the foot of the corn:

I have escarole:

I have Pak Choy:

But most of all, I have a forest of turnip greens.

I need to thin them and eat them so the turnips can grow without being squished,

I decided to make soup to put in the freezer for lunches.  This soup is rather plain. When I ate the first bowl, I wound up adding some ground horseradish to give the soup a bit of kick. You might want to add some hot pepper sauce to the mix – although I think that having it a little plain lets me doctor it to suit my tastes when I eat it.

Lentil Soup with Greens

1 3/4 cups dried brown lentils
2 quarts water
1 cup diced carrot
1 3/4 teaspoons sea salt
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 parsley sprigs
2 bay leaves
3 cups chopped onion
1 teaspoon ground cumin
6 cups torn turnip greens (or chard or any other greens you like)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Plain nonfat yogurt  (to garnish)

Sort and wash the lentils. Combine lentils, water, and next 7 ingredients (water through onion) in a large Dutch oven; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 45 minutes or until tender.

 

Add the cumin. Discard bay leaves and parsley. Add the greens to soup; simmer, uncovered, 10 minutes or until greens are tender. Remove soup from heat. Stir in juice and pepper. soup into each of 6 bowls; top each serving with yogurt. Makes 6 servings at about 1 gram of fat/serving.

Sunshine Muffins

Published July 12, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags:

The weather has blissfully cooled off after several 90 degree days. There is a gentle breeze that makes you want to lie in a hammock. Instead of the hammock, however, I decided to take advantage of the break in the weather to bake up a storm before it got hot again. After working in the garden a bit, I hauled out the mixing bowls and baking pans and made breads, muffins, and other goodies to put in the freezer. Of course, I made my traditional banana bread, that staple that tucks in the lunch bag or goes with a refreshing cup of tea (or a glass of iced tea).  But I made other muffins and breads to go with salads for lunch.
These muffins, from Relish Magazine, were already very low in fat, as well as high in fiber. I reduced the fat a bit because I used non-fat yogurt (the only thing I have in the house), egg substitute, etc. I personally think that the granola on top of the muffins is superfluous. The crunch they add is not that appealing on a tender muffin.

 



Sunshine  Muffins
Cooking spray

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup old-fashioned oats

½ cup flaxseed meal

¼ cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup honey

1 egg, lightly beaten

¼ cup egg substitute

1 cup plain non-fat yogurt (I used Greek yogurt, but any would do)

½ cup orange juice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoons finely grated orange rind

1 cup chopped dried apricots (about 5 ounces)

1/3 cup granola

Preheat oven to 375F. Coat 12 muffin cups with cooking spray.
Combine flour and next five ingredients (flour through salt) in a mixing bowl. Combine honey and next six ingredients (honey through orange rind) in a separate bowl. Whisk well. Make a well in the center of dry ingredients. Pour wet ingredients into the well and stir until just combined. Gently fold in apricots.

Fill muffin cups two-thirds full. Sprinkle with granola. Bake about 20 minutes (mine took 25 minutes), until centers spring back when touched. Makes 12 muffins at about 1.5 grams of fat/muffin.

Smoked Trout Cups

Published June 25, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: , ,

There have finally been a few days dry enough for me to put my smoker out in front of the garage and have at the smoking. I will try to smoke almost anything! On this sunny morning I stoked the smoker with alder chips and I smoked 4 lamb shanks (more about them in a later post), a small pork tenderloin which I ate on sandwiches, and two fat trout. I admit, I “caught” the trout in the grocery store, but they were mighty tasty nonetheless. The first evening I shared the smoked trout with a friend, on crackers with cream cheese. The next morning I had it on a bagel. I decided to use the rest of the trout to make smoked trout salad, which I planned to have on crackers. Then I came upon these adorable little corn chip cups, called scoopers. I originally bought them to use with fresh salsa – the baked cups only have 3 grams of fat for 14 cups. Be sure you get the baked ones, though. The regular scoopers have a lot more fat.

At any rate, I proceeded to make the trout salad and fill the little cups. What a nice, easy, impressive little appetizer. I am going to experiment with more fillings for these little cups.

Smoked Trout Cups

4 ounces of smoked trout, bones and skin removed and chopped
2 Tablespoons finely chopped onion
½ teaspoon dried dill
2 Tablespoons non-fat sour cream
sea salt to taste
14 baked corn “scoops”

Mix trout, onion, dill, sour cream and salt thoroughly. Divide evenly among the scoops cups. Don’t fill the cups too far ahead of time; they get soggy.  You might also decorate each cup with a sprig of parley, sliver of radish or another garnish.  Makes 14 adorable and tasty smoked trout cups at just under 1 gram of fat/cup.

African Sweet Potato Stew with Red Beans

Published June 10, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: , , , , ,

Whilst cleaning out my potato storage drawer (note the “whilst” of procrastination) this is what I discovered:

Yams Gone Wild

Sweet Potatoes (not actually yams, which are grown in Africa, but rarely here) make lovely plants.  Once, I put sprouting sweet potatoes out on the kitchen counter where they grew into pretty little trees. I cut out the sprouting section and planted it in a pot, where, much to my then child’s delight, it grew and grew and grew.

But admiring the random growth of sweet potatoes does not put food on the table – or in a bowl to take to a potluck.  I rescued the remaining sweet potatoes, and went in pursuit of an idea to use them that 1) could be cooked in advance in a crock pot, and 2) could be hauled in said crock pot container to a picnic potluck.

This recipe originally came from Cooking Light, with some fat lowering alterations.  I had great plans to take home the leftovers to bring for lunch, but there was nothing left. The crock pot had literally been scraped clean. So be forewarned.

African Sweet Potato Stew with Red Beans

Cooking spray
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
4 cups  (1/2-inch) cubed peeled sweet potato (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 1/2 cups cooked small red beans (I used a 14 ounce can of red beans, drained)
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon grated peeled fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2  teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
1 (4.5-ounce) can chopped green chiles, drained
3 Tablespoons peanut butter (I used chunky, but either would work)
6 lime wedges (or ¼ cup lime juice)

Spray a nonstick skillet with cooking spray and heat over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; cook 5 minutes, adding water to “steam-fry” the onions as needed, until tender.

Place onion mixture in a 5-quart electric slow cooker. Add sweet potato and next 10 ingredients (through chiles). Cover and cook on low 8 hours or until vegetables are tender.

Spoon 1 cup cooking liquid into a small bowl. Add peanut butter; stir well with a whisk. Stir peanut butter mixture into stew. Serve with lime wedges or sprinkle with lime juice if you are taking it to a buffet. Makes 6 servings, at about 5 grams of fat/serving.

HINT: Serving sizes are usually a dinner size portion if the recipe is a main dish or side dish. But at a potluck or buffet, people usually take a scoop of each of the dishes offered, meaning that the number of servings you bring usually at least doubles. So don’t necessarily double or triple the recipe to bring it to a buffet unless you anticipate a large number of people.  Oh, and the fat grams per serving are proportionately lower, although most people at a potluck aren’t counting fat grams – they just want to eat good food.

Experiments with Arthichokes Part 1: Steamed Artichokes

Published May 25, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: ,

I have avoided cooking artichokes for a several reasons. They’re kind of scary looking – I mean in a strange and beautiful way.

I always wonder who ever discovered that they are at all edible, I mean looking at them, you don’t actually see something obvious to eat.  I can imagine the first hunter-gatherer’s conversation “trust me dear, it looks weird but its edible.”  In fact, there isn’t very much edible on the mature artichoke.  Which brings me to the other reason I haven’t made artichokes recently. My memory of making them many many years ago has to do with copious amounts of butter – or perhaps butter with a bit of lemon juice.  After cooking the artichoke, you sat around delicately peeling off each petal and dipping the fleshy end in melted butter, and then stripping each petal of its bit of edible flesh with your teeth while butter dripped down the chin, until you reached the soft, delectable heart. This was a rather lengthy and erotic activity to be shared with a friend, the details of which, for propriety’s sake, I shall not share here.

Artichokes, however, were bargain-priced at the supermarket, and they looked lovely in their weirdly beautiful way. So I bought two to see what could be done with them, sans copious amounts of butter, or necessarily, a friend.

Steamed Artichokes

Wash artichokes by plunging them up and down in cold water. Cut off the stem end, and trim about 1/2 inch from top of each artichoke. Remove any loose tough-looking bottom leaves. With scissors, trim away one-fourth of each outer leaf so that the sharp, often yellowed part is gone.

Rub top and edges of leaves of each artichoke with a lemon wedge to prevent discoloration (I more or less squeezed a quarter of the lemon over the artichokes.) Place artichokes in a large Dutch oven or other heavy pan with a tight-fitting lid. Add about 1 inch of water. Bring to a boil; cover and reduce heat. Simmer 40 to 45 minutes or until leaves pull out easily. Remove the Artichokes from the pan. Spread leaves apart; remove fuzzy thistle center (choke) with a spoon. Count on one artichoke/person – the artichokes themselves have no fat. The fat is in any dip you use.

This what the inside of the artichoke looks like. The purple insides, tiny inner leaves, and fuzzy “hairs” are what needs to be removed.
This is what the inside looks like with the choke removed. The sturdy-looking part on the bottom is the heart, which you may have purchased canned or frozen as a separate vegetable.

Alternatively, you can eat your way around the artichoke, pulling off each petal, dipping it, and stripping off flesh with your teeth until you reach the choke, then cut away the fuzzy innards, leaving the sturdy artichoke heart at the bottom. Cut up the heart to dip and eat.

As a dipping sauce, I mixed ¼ cup of low fat mayonnaise with the juice of a lemon, garlic, and herbs, for about 2 grams of fat/serving. I think they would be good with a curry mayonnaise, too. I even think melting a couple of tablespoons of light butter would be good, and give you the butter dripping down the chin feeling. Just count the fat grams accordingly.

Jam Bars

Published May 22, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: ,

These are the perfect last minute cookies. You know, your child announces that cookies are needed at school in the morning, or you need something for an unexpected event.  They are bar cookies, always my favorite because they don’t require dropping, rolling, or shaping. And they use ingredients you commonly have in the house – nothing exotic here. In fact, one of the great things about these cookies is that they can use any jam you happen to have around. The first time I made them for an unexpected potluck, I used bits of leftover jam – a few spoons of blueberry, some leftover currant jam, and even the rest of a jar of red wine jelly opened for use as a glaze on chicken. The mix worked out great – generic jam.

Jam Bars

¾ cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1¾  cups all purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1½ cups rolled oats (old fashioned oatmeal will work)
1 cup jam

Preheat oven to 400. Spray a 9 x 13 baking pan with cooking spray.

Beat butter and sugar together thoroughly. In a separate bowl, stir flour, soda, and salt together. Stir into butter mixture. Stir in oats, blending thoroughly. Melt jam slightly in microwave (I didn’t do this once, and it didn’t spread well enough). Press half of flour mixture firmly into prepared baking pan. Spoon jam evenly over bottom crust. Evenly sprinkle remaining flour mixture over jam and press down slightly.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Cool for about 10 minutes, and cut into bars. Remove from pan while still warm.  Makes 3 dozen cookies at about 3.7 grams of fat/cookie.

« Previous Page — Next Page »

ABOUT KAREN

I have lost 200 pounds. I did not do it through surgery – I don’t like knives and needles – or by joining a club, vigorous exercise, or rigorous dieting. I did it by gourmet cooking. To be precise, by cooking low fat, really delicious food. I love to cook as much as I love to eat. Food magazines are some of my favorite reading. I would feel deprived if I couldn’t have the sensuous experience of good food crossing my lips. This blog is about my perpetual feast, my passionate love of food, with recipes, photos, and occasional advice and principles that I have learned along the way.

More about me.

AddThis Feed Button

Follow me on Twitter

  • Ordered capri pants from Land's End in the hope that summer will someday happen. #still 48 degrees 2 weeks ago
  • It was snowing this morning. In May! The snap peas I planted are shivering in horror. I think the geraniums fainted. 3 weeks ago

Archives

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.