You Shakshuka Me All Night Long

Had a very good summer as far as tomatoes go, and find myself making this dish which I’d heard about but never actually made until I found a great recipe in a book by Sally Butcher called New Middle Eastern Street Food: Snacks, Comfort Food and Mezze.

It’s basically a tomato and vegetable stew which serves as a poaching medium for eggs. Might be one of the easiest, tastiest healthiest recipes for breakfast or any meal of the day that I have come across in a LONG time.

While I don’t follow the exact recipe anymore, it’s too much fun to just throw in whatever is  handy..this is roughly what I do:

Ingredients

• Olive oil 0r cooking spray – to coat the pan
• Onion – 1/2 – whole medium
• Garlic – at least one clove
• Tomatoes – 6-8 medium sized (I put half in food processor and half I like to keep diced)
• Diced Vegetables – (I’ve found any of these are great: peppers, carrots, zucchini, mushroom)
• Eggs – 4 (probably can do more depending on size of your pan)
• Spices – Cumin, paprika, berbere, salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Heat up the oil in a cast iron skillet, medium high (so the onions sizzle when you throw them in)
2. Add onions & garlic, sauteing until they become fragrant. If you are using peppers you can add them in now as well
3. Add the tomatoes, stirring it all together. Expect people to start filing into the kitchen to see what’s cooking.
4. Add spices, and any other veggies you want. If you are using something soft, like mushrooms, I’d wait until right before you add the eggs.
5. Allow the mixture to cook down, around 5-8 minutes
6. The fun part! Make little “holes” in the mixture where the eggs will go, and then crack the eggs letting them land in the “holes” in the stew
7. Lower the heat a bit and cover the mixture until the eggs set to the desired texture. I’d recommend erring on the side of less well done, as they continue to cook even after you remove them from the heat.

I find this dish so filling I don’t usually need bread, but you definitely could sop up the stew with some. It’s a great dish for a few people or you can make a batch and save it for later, it holds up very well. Tons of lycopene and a good bit of protein, you can’t go wrong.

 

 

Miso Hungry Noodles

Still feeling like I need soups over salads while it has been chilly lately. Kinda burned out on stews and the slow cooker for awhile, but, the delicate Japanese broth known as miso has been so good for a quick meal.

I’m not crazy about how salty the packets are, but, you can always dilute them with more water, which is what I have been doing. Probably using double the amount of water that the directions recommend. Then, depending how I feel, I’ll add some quick cooking noodles right into the broth (in this case udon) while it’s boiling and whatever vegetables I have on hand. I have REALLY been feeling the bok choy lately. Plus, it comes in all different sizes, so you can make it work in any dish. And 100g of bok choy is only 13 calories! Lots of vitamins and minerals, especially vitamins A & C and potassium.

Occasionally I will throw in some curry paste because I like spicy food. Finally added in some firm tofu. Probably takes 10-15 minutes altogether to prep and cook. Calorie load is minimal, satisfaction quotient very high.

 

 

Tabbouleh or Not Tabbouleh

That is the question. Well, not really, but I need a loose recipe goal in mind sometimes, so that’s where I’m at today. Found myself hungry, but also motivated…Leftover whole wheat couscous at my disposal, which in all honesty is dry as sh*t. Had a pretty good set of veggies also, so when all else fails I’m going to make a salad. In this case, a grain salad, which is way more nutritionally complete than just some greens and tomatoes.

I didn’t feel like chopping so I threw every ingredient in the mini food processor separately, which made the salad nice and uniform.

Ingredients:

Whole Wheat Couscous (cooked) – 1 1/2 cups (? more/less)

1/2 red onion

1/2 an orange pepper

1 carrot

Handful of cherry tomatoes

Sunflower seeds

Dried Cranberries

For the dressing:

Red wine vinegar

Toasted sesame oil

Maille mustard

Mint, Chives

Berbere, Ras el Hanout

Method:

In a medium to large bowl, throw in your cooked couscous. Then add in each vegetable one at a time, incorporating them into the salad. Once everything is mixed, mix the dressing into the salad (Yes, I also made the dressing in the food processor). You can pulverize the seeds and berries or throw them in whole, it’s really your preference. I chose to use some chopped Romaine for the base of the salad, but you could use it as a side dish or on its own it’s pretty good and very satisfying.

 

 

 

 

Speculoos Cookie Butter Cream Cheese Toast

I made the fatal mistake of food shopping while hungry yesterday. I know toast is like “a thing” these days, but I did not know that cookie butter cream cheese was! Leave it to Trader Joe’s to come up with such a bad ass spread.

You might be asking yourselves, is that even healthy? I’m not gonna lie, there’s nothing particularly healthy about it. The same can be said for most cream cheeses. It’s basically a fat. There’s nothing wrong with some fat in your diet, especially if you exercise and are consistently a healthy eater.

I put it on some Ezekiel bread and paired it with some berries, and I feel like I just had a pretty decadent breakfast. All told, it amounts to ~300 calories.

My only caution is, similar to anything speculoos cookie butter related, you may be tempted to have more than a serving. Stay strong!

 

Noodles with Minced Pork and Bean Sauce (Zha Jiang Mian)

I got very inspired late last night reading a beautiful cookbook “The Food of Taiwan” by Cathy Erway. Since it was late and I probably shouldn’t have been eating OR cooking, I picked a pretty quick recipe, Noodles with Minced Pork and Fermented Bean Sauce. Most of the ingredients are common pantry items and things you would find in the refrigerator.

The ingredients waiting to be tossed

I made a few intentional and some unintentional substitutions, which I’ll list below. Took about 45 minutes including prep and cooking. Makes about 4 servings.

Ingredients

Sauce:

• 1 tbsp oil (vegetable or peanut) (I forgot this completely)
• 1/2 pound ground pork
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 tbsp fried shallots (I used fresh shallots instead)
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 cup sweet bean sauce (I used hoisin sauce)
• 2 tsps cornstarch
• 1 cup water
• 1 to 2 tsp dark soy sauce

Noodles

• 1 pound wheat noodles
• 1/2 cup fresh or thawed edamame
• 2 cups packed bok choy or napa cabbage leaves (I used bok choy)

For Serving

• 1/4 cup black rice vinegar
• 1 cup fresh bean sprouts (I only had canned and they did not taste good, so skipped these)
• 1 cup julienned cucumbers

Method for the sauce:

Heat the tablespoon of oil in your wok over medium heat and add the pork fat. Sprinkle with salt and sir-fry for about 1 minute. Then add the shallots, garlic and sugar and incorporate together. Stir in the sweet bean sauce. Separately stir together the cornstarch and water. Once the pork mixture is bubbling, add the cornstarch mixture, stirring until it thickens, ~10 seconds. Taste and season accordingly, soy sauce optional.

Method for noodles:

Cook the noodles according to the package directions. Drain and rinse under cold water until cool.  Next bring a pot of lightly salted water to a boil, and also prepare a bowl of ice water and keep to the side. Drop the edamame in and cook for 3-4 minutes, remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Drop the bok choy or cabbage into the boiling water for up to a minute. Remove and transfer to the ice bath to cool. When greens are cooled, shred them.

For serving:

Makes about 4 servings

Arrange your noodles in a large serving bowl. Drizzle the vinegar around. Ladle the pork sauce on top of the noodles. Then add all of the veggies to the top of the sauce. Toss everything together and serve. According to Ms. Erway, the dish is supposed to be lukewarm.

The dish was extremely tasty, and was a nice mix of protein, fat and carbs. Good dose of vegetables and the is not the star of the dish, but rather plays a supporting role. Definitely left me feeling satisfied. My only comment is that I like my food with a lot more heat, so I added a good dose of sriracha sauce just before serving.

The Food of Taiwan by Cathy Erway

 

Time for Dinner? Okie Dokie Artichokie and a side of veggies for 225 Calories

Looks good to me, I’d probably skip the Fage and just add some Sriracha, but if you don’t follow paleo, yogurt is cool

My Life Journey, unscripted and unrated...

 

Not in the mood for a heavy dinner and want to feel super clean in the morning? Here is a a healthy natural diuretic mix!

– 3 steamed artichokes  – steam for an hour , then let cool , eat the leaves and work hard for that super high anti-oxidant heart!

– wok up a bunch of asparagus and a red pepper in a tablespoon of EVO with garlic and add a tablespoon of Fage 0% yogurt on top for a little kick.

Yummy in the Tummy!

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Garlicky Baby Bok Choy

Chock full of vitamins C, A and K, you can’t afford not to add this food into your diet. It’s a member of the cruciferous family of veggies (ya know your broccoli, kale and Brussels sprouts)
These baby Bok Choy cooked up nice and fast in a sauté pan. I used about a teaspoon of coconut oil, sautéed the garlic for a minute or two and then added the Bok Choy (after rinsing and cutting off the bottoms).
I also threw in some red onion for color and drizzled sriracha sauce on before eating. Really delicious, low calorie mid-afternoon snack.

 

Paleo Noodles

I’ve been experimenting with the Paleo diet lately to see how it feels, and it feels really good. I know it’s not a new diet plan, especially being all “caveman”-like, but, I never gave it much thought before on account of it seeming so difficult to follow. No grains, no dairy, no processed sugar. ARGHHHHH.

That always seemed hard to do, but, forays into intermittent fasting kind of opened the door to me thinking following this kind of diet plan is not so hard after all.

And actually I have made these kinds of noodles before, and was very excited to see a recipe for them in a paleo cookbook. Only a couple of changes to the sauce, peanuts are a no-no on the paleo diet, but all other nuts and seeds are okay.

Paleo Noodles (makes 4 servings)

Ingredients

2 large zucchinis

1 clove garlic

Juice of one lime

Red pepper flakes

1/2 teaspoon rice vinegar

1/2 teaspoon soy sauce (not paleo ingredient)

1/4 cup sunflower seed butter

1/4 cup almond milk

Method

1. Julienne the zucchini via a mandoline into noodles, set aside

2. Mix all ingredients from garlic to almond milk in a food processor to make a sauce, add almond milk after all ingredients have been blended.

3. Pour the sauce over the noodles, distribute evenly over all the noodles.

I added leftover chicken to the noodles, but, any protein will do or even some cut up veggies.

~125 calories, 450 mg potassium, 5 g/protein, 32 mg/vitamin C per serving

 

Sauteed Kale with Cashews and Pyramid Salt

The less is more approach to kale…

The influx of kale chips, quinoa chips and chia chips is kind of getting me depressed. All I can think to myself while I take them down off the shelf to look at the label is, “Just eat the flipping food! It’s not that bad actually.” Why does it have to be a chip?

Don’t get me wrong, I really like chips of all shapes, vegetables, legumes and sizes. But, it seems like food manufacturers get a little crazy with taking a hot “new” health food and pretty much turning it into a healthy junk food before anyone gets a chance to actually see if they liked the whole food in the first place.

I continue to buy kale despite it’s becoming a bit of a diva around town. I honestly really enjoy it in the easiest way possible, sauteed.

Ingredients:

1 10 ounce bag of pre-cut Kale

3 cloves garlic

2 tsp peanut oil

1/4 cup chopped cashews (optional)

1 tsp rice vinegar

Pinch of pyramid salt

Preparation:

1. Heat a large pot until water beads up when thrown in the pot (sizzle)
2. Add peanut oil and coat bottom of pan
3. Add garlic and sautee for a minute or so until fragrant
4. Add kale to pot in bunches, 1/3 at a time. Use tongs to keep turning the kale over making sure each bunch gets some coating with oil. Throw in a pinch of the pyramid salt and distribute evenly.
5. Once all the kale is in the pot and evenly coated, turn the heat down to low and cover for about 5-7 minutes
6. Taste the kale, make sure the texture is not too crunchy
7. Add the rice vinegar and evenly coat
8. Once kale is plated, add cashews for garnish

This preparation can make anywhere from 2-4 servings, I like a lot of kale so I split it in 2. One serving in this preparation packs:

Over 100% daily RDA for both Vitamins A & C

Not to mention tons of fiber, iron, copper. The list goes on and on. Guarantee you can’t get those kinds of statistics from a kale chip…

 

 

Brussels Sprouts are the New “Kale”

Feeling kinda uneasy after watching a lot of food porn at work today (don’t ask), so thought I would post my own version of food porn and also declare the hot new food trend of 2014 to be:

BRUSSELS SPROUTS!

Okay, so maybe I’m not he first person to declare this, but, I’ve seen this one coming for awhile now. Brussels Sprouts ARE THE NEW/OLD “IT” vegetable. (mark my flippin words)

Ingredients:

1 turn of peanut oil

Butter (optional)

1-2 crushed cloves of garlic

1 package of Brussels sprouts (ends cut off and cut in half)

Low sodium broth (< 300 mg per serving minimum!)

Himalayan Sea Salt (to taste)

Method:

1. Preheat pan to medium high heat
2. Pour one turn of peanut oil in the pan and allow to heat up to medium high heat (throw some H2O molecules in the pan to test for “hotness”),  simultaneously throw garlic smashed into pan (remove within a minute of cooking to prevent  spread of “bitter” flavor)
3. Place Brussels sprouts cut-side down onto heated pan
4. After halves are placed face down, pour a small amount of low sodium broth into pan, wait for “SIZZLE” and then lower heat and cover for 17 minutes over medium low heat.
5. Sprinkle some Himalayan sea salt to taste over sprouts
6. Enjoy!

Here’s the nutritional information for Brussels sprouts in case you are doubting the serious nutritional benefits from these MOFOs: