Food Lush

Orange Poppyseed Dressing: Vegan, Paleo, Whole30 Approved!

by Caitlin

Have you heard of the Whole30? In a nutshell (mmm, nuts, Whole30 approved!) it's 30 days of clean eating and whole foods; essentially just produce, meat, seafood, and certain nuts, oils, seeds, and fats. No wheat, no dairy, no legumes, no grains, no alcohol, no added sugar -- not even natural sugars like maple syrup. Fruit and sweet potatoes are okay, but no white potatoes. Zach and I are doing it January 2 - February 2, along with half the internet. 

At first glance you'd think the focus would be restriction, but there's just so much delicious food you can eat. And having done a strict allergy elimination diet earlier in the year, this seems easier in some ways. It's certainly a bit healthier (I miiiiiiiiight have turned to sugar to cope with that diet). Grassfed pot roast, smoothies, salads, shepherd's pie, grilled salmon, crab cakes, avocado on everything, lots of green vegetables, sliced pears with cashew butter: All things my body is thrilled to see after the past two months Zach and I have had of holiday indulging and stress, long hours, surgery, and too many convenience foods. It has actually been fun for me not to have an excuse to take shortcuts as it's forcing me to come up with things I've been meaning to try for a while. Like this orange poppyseed dressing.

I first made this for New Year's Eve (pre-Whole30), wherein I tossed it with mesclun/baby greens and added red grapes, toasted pecans, feta, and dried sour cherries. For Whole30 I think this would be delightful tossed with mixed greens, grilled chicken, avocado, and some grapes or fresh orange segments. Maybe cucumber and red bell pepper, too. It came together quickly and was fun and different from my normal default of olive oil & balsamic vinvegar.

Whole30 Orange Poppyseed Dressing

Juice & zest of an orange
1/4 c. red wine vinegar
1/3 cup extra light olive oil
small-medium shallot. (I had a huge one and used a quarter of it.)
1 T good mustard. (If doing Whole30 it should be free of sugar and wine.)
salt & pepper to taste
1-2 teaspoons poppyseeds. (I added a little at a time until it looked right.)

Wizz everything but the poppyseeds in the blender or food processor. When it's emulsified, add the poppyseeds and pulse once, just to mix. Taste it, add more salt and pepper and poppy seeds if necessary. If it needs more brightness or acidity, add a sploosh more red wine vinegar. With natural ingedients, your mileage may vary.

Fall Produce Recommendation: Comice Pears

by Elissa

I love a good pear, but my experiences with a lot of varieties are mixed. A good Bartlett or Bosc pear can be great, but the ones I get at the grocery store are often not that good. The variety that almost never lets me down is Comice.

They don't look particularly fabulous, but they ripen beautifully on the counter and are juicy and delicious. Keep an eye out for them at the supermarket, and let them ripen until they start to give when pressed. Then enjoy, but keep a napkin nearby because pears this juicy can get messy!

Easy, Delicious, Impressive Meal Accompaniment: Grilled Pineapple

by Caitlin

A great thing about being forced into an allergy diet is that you're also forced into creativty. When you've got very limited options you've just gotta figure out different ways of putting things together, and it's a great excuse to attempt some things I've always wanted to try. So! Maybe this grilled pineapple isn't impressive to YOU, but I was certainly impressed with myself upon first pulling this off successfully! 

It's perfect alongside your favorite meat dish, atop a salad, or mixed in with your favorite grain. It would also be a delicious, fun dessert with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. And it's super healthy: the only ingredient is pineapple. You can add oil, salt, and pepper if you want, but I think it's totally unecessary.

I quarter the pineapple using the technique my husband (the chef and former Hawaii resident!) taught me, which you can see in this video from about minute 1:15 to about 2:05.

 

I like them in big quarters because they're easier to monitor on the grill, won't slip through the slats, and there's just something satisfying about cutting into a big ole pineapple steak.

Set your grill to medium hot, and throw the pineaple right on. If you have the patience, do it low and slow for 20-30 minutes. You want to make sure that the sugar gets nice and caramelized, and that it's cooked all the way through. You'll likely end up flipping it a few times to check the progress: it's good to move them around to make sure they're cooked evenly, all the way through. Sometimes hot spots can trip you up, so just keep an eye on them. 

When they're done, they'll look like this: Deeeelicious!

Served here with carne asada, cilantro lime quinoa, grilled asparagus, and cabbage. (Photo by me.)

Have you ever grilled pineapple?

Eating Fresh Coconuts: a Tale of Woe

By Dani

My Hubs and I recently bought a VitaMix blender, and we have been whipping up delicious, healthy smoothies almost every morning for the last month or so. One upside to having a juicer or heavy-duty blender is that it makes us more adventurous -- I'm much more likely to buy produce that I'm not sure how to cook or prepare, because I figure I can always throw it in a smoothie if it doesn't work out.

There is a downside to this philosophy though, and it was made manifest with my most recent failed purchase: a peeled organic coconut.

It looked like this (minus the straw and fancy stand, of course) and I thought, "hey it's already been peeled! We have loved fresh coconut on every tropical vacation we've ever been on! I've discovered smoothie-making heaven!" But it was not to be.

Once I got it home, I started choppping slivers of the outside "meat" off and put a few pieces into a smoothie. While most of the smoothie was greens and other fruits, this coconut made it completely undrinkable. There were tough, stringy fibers in every sip that could not be blended or chewed. In other words, it was super nasty.

So I started to think that the outside (even though it's peeled, perhaps the white part is still considered "husk"?) wasn't edible. However that means that there's very little usable in a coconut - just the water and the few teaspoon-fulls of flesh from the water cavity. Is that right? Perhaps being peeled (as was suggested in this Chowhound forum) is bad for the coconut and makes it tough?

This lady seems to think that opening up a fresh coconut and using every bit of it is a walk in the park. What do you think?

(Image credit: AgroFruits, who seem to also believe that peeled coconuts taste great and I am a failure.)

Cook's Illustrated Perfect Roasted Cauliflower

by Caitlin

This roasted cauliflower is...wait where are you going?!

I know! It's cauliflower! I know! It's roasted, and what could possibly be new in roasted vegetables, and sure, your kitchen will smell like farts for a little bit, but I promise this is worth it. My perpetual problem with cauliflower is that it's bland and the texture...it's cauliflower. The fact that I can't think of much more to say about it than that about sums it up. But. Cauliflower is also wonderful. I love it in a curry, I'm a fan of cauliflower purees and soups, and have been meaning to try using it as a rice substitute, like this recipe. 

The head of cauliflower is cut into wedges, rubbed with olive oil, salt and pepper, then popped in the oven wrapped very tightly in foil for a bit to steam it: The foil is then removed to brown the sides, flipping halfway through. The result is crispy, crunchy outside, soft and creamy in the middle. I won't say it's exactly like a potato, but it's damn close if you're looking for a substitute. Be careful not to over salt (you can always add more later), and be sure to let it get nice and brown.The leftovers are tasty, but it's best when it's fresh out of the oven.

I love the little crunchy bits that fall off and onto the tray: so much that I think next time around I might try chopping the entire head into little bits. Cauliflower popcorn!

The recipe is from my go-to book: the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook ("2,000 Recipes from 20 Years of America's Most Trusted Cooking Magazine."). It's a collection of the best recipes from their magazines, and it's the first place I go for a recipe. I think it's even edging out my beloved Joy of Cooking. Look for it on this year's Food Lush Gift Guide. (Oh I know you think it's early, but it's only a few months away.)

 

Cook's Illustrated Roasted Cauliflower

1 head cauliflower (2 pounds)

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

salt & Pepper

1. Adjust rack to lowest position and heat overn to 475 degrees. Trim outer leaves off cauliflower and cut stem flush with bottom. Cut head into 8 equal wedges. Place wedges cut side down on foil- or parchment-lined rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons oil and season with salt and pepper to taste. Gently rub seasonings and oil into cauliflower. Gently flip cauliflower and repeat on second cut side with remaining 2 tablespoons oil, salt, and pepper.

2. Cover baking sheet tightly with foil and cook for 10 minutes. Remove foil and continue to roast until bottoms of cauliflower pieces are golden, 8 to 12 minutes. Return baking sheet to oven and continue to roast until cauliflower is golden all over, 8 to 12 minutes longer. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.

An alternative underneath the recipe recommends stirring two teaspoons of curry powder or chili powder into the oil before seasoning the cauliflower in step 1.

Spinach Dip Stuffed Jalapenos

By Ariel

Look what I got from my garden today!

Eleven tasty jalapenos! The first thing I wanted to try was stuffing them with something. Ususally I like to do sausage and cheese, or some other sort of meat, but I didn't have anything on hand and wanted to try something different. I think my next kitchen utensil purchase will be a jalapeno corer, because it's a pain to dig all the membrane and seeds out. I had some spinach dip in the fridge (this is my favorite simple recipe) so I took a half cup of dip, crumbled two pieces of bacon, and shredded 1/4 cup extra sharp cheddar cheese and mixed it together and stuffed the peppers. 

At some point I need to order this jalepeno rack to make this simpler, but for this batch I wrapped each of the peppers in foil to keep the creamy goodness inside from spilling out. I baked them at 400 degrees for half an hour and they came out great!

They were maybe a little too spicy, but I have to chalk that up to not getting enough of the spicy membrane out. I really liked the spinach dip/bacon/cheese stuffing and thought it was a nice change form the normal way I make them and would make a great appetizer. I can't wait for my banana peppers to come in so I can try out the stuffing with them! 

Anyone else enjoying some garden bounty?

Roasted Beets and Carrots Recipe

By Dani

I'm not usually very good at fancy side-dishes. I either make a swanky protein main dish and a little plain buttered rice or potato or a casserole-sort-of main dish that takes out all need for a side anyway because who doesn't want noodles, protein, peas and sauce in one pan? (I kid. Kind of. I did eat a lot of cream-based, pea-filled casseroles in our church kitchen growing up.)

However, I recently got some beets on a whim and had to figure out what to do with them -- enter my ever-awesome subscription to Bon Appetit and this recipe.

I made these roasted beets and carrots with grilled swordfish, which turned out to be a lovely combination. The swordfish flavor is mild and I'd only sprinkled it with some Old Bay seasoning, so the hefty flavors of the roasted veggies, feta cheese and spices offset it nicely.

Because of the vinegar and feta, it also didn't feel like a typical roasted root vegetable dish which requires sleeting rain and the wearing of thick sweaters to enjoy -- this was eaten with glee on our outdoor patio table with fresh roasted swordfish and a chilled bottle of Chardonnay -- perfect summer evening fare.

Diamond Jubilee Minted Pea Puree (The Easiest Dish Ever)

by Caitlin

I'm a bit of an Anglophile. I love Britain. I love British weather, British people, the accents, the Royal family, the Unionjack, the Tube, all of it. And I love British food. Perhaps my love of all things British comes from the same place my freckles, pale skin, light eyes, and curly hair do: My Irish, Scottish, and Welsh family roots. We're a bunch of sturdy, pale, freckled, curly headed people, my family. (Well, on one side. On the other side we're a bunch of sturdy, not-QUITE-as-pale, curly headed Black Irish, with fewer freckles.)

British food gets a bad rap, but I don't think that's entirely deserved. In fact, I already have an entire post with many of my favorite highlights planned to coincide with the start of the upcoming London Summer Olympics, as I'm embarassingly excited for them (Summer Olympics, which are the Best Olympics, and in LONDON!). But in the meantime I'd be remiss not to mention the Queen's recent Diamond Jubilee, glued as I was to the coverage of the festivities, the flotilla, the concert, and whatever flawless sartorial choice the Duchess of Cambridge had shown up in. 

Fun fact: My favorite nickname for Wills and Kate, aka William and Catherine, aka The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge is, wait for it, Bill and Cathy Cambridge. HAHAHA. Kills me every time.

(AHHHHAHAHHAAHAHAHAA Bill and Cathy Cambridge.)

Zach and I are lucky enough to have some wonderful British friends (Hi Bridget and Adrian!) who love food just as much than we do. (If not more. I mean, I thought we had an impressive cookbook collection; then we saw theirs.) We've all been lucky to visit each other 'across the pond' a few times in the last several years. Their knowledge of American culture, history, and politics rivals that of many Americans I know, and they've been incredibly patient and willing teachers when it's come to our many questions about Britain in return. 

When Bridget and Adrian visited us this past fall they brought with them a veritable buffet of British deliciousness, including many of our favorite treats, because they are incredibly generous and thoughtful like that. One of the highlights, though, was this book by the "Julia Child of Ireland," which we hadn't heard of.

When I first cracked this book, it opened right to page 396-397. On one side I oohed over a recipe for melted chard stalks with bacon and hazlenuts. On the other side I aahed over a recipe for Mushy Peas with Mint. British with a twist! How neat! (And it also reminded me of a Top Chef debacle over missing pea puree!)

Fast forward several months to a Sunday afternoon where Zach and I are playing our favorite game: "What Should We Do For Dinner?" Lately we've been into doing quasi fancy Sunday dinners, mostly as an excuse to try out a new wine. We had a rack of lamb in the freezer that we'd been meaning to use, and started brainstorming ideas around that. Lamb makes me think of mint jelly (yuck) which made me think of the minted pea puree I'd been wanting to try (yum). Luckily the lamb was wedged next to a bag of frozen peas. And voila, a dinner menu was born.

Zach made a few simple modifcations, but even so it's a very simple recipe. You're basically boiling some peas with seasoning and blending them up, which doesn't sound appealing, at all, oh but trust me.

I'm calling this minted pea puree because rather than mashing these, Zach used our immersion/stick blender to smooth them out. I really think I prefer the texture of a puree over mashed peas. Just think of the skins! Just lingering in there waiting to stick to your teeth! He used some leftover stock in place of water and also sauteed some shallots and threw those in ("Frenching it up" he says). The flavor of this was just so good, and it went perfectly with the lamb but I think it would be good with just about anything. It's somewhre between a sauce and a vegetable side, and the flavor is simple but layered: just when you think it's straightforward or one-note, you taste something else. What's more, it can be made with ingredients you probably have on hand, but it sounds and looks fancy. That's the best kind of dish, no?

Zach made up a mustard and herb crusted rack of lamb similar to this, and served it all along with these potatoes. Bam. So good. And so easy. (Especially if you're not the one cooking. Thanks, Zach.)

Have you made pea puree before? Or mushy peas? 

Darina Allen's Mushy Peas with Mint

1 lb. fresh or frozen peas
salt, freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon sugar
1-2 tablespoons chopped mint 

Bring 1 cup of water (or stock, as Zach did) to a fast, rolling boil. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt, toss in the peas, stir. (If you're adding sauteed shallots, do so here.)

Cover the saucepan, bring back to a boil on high heat. Uncover and cook for 4-5 minutes. Drain, but save some of the cooking liquid. Add butter, salt, and freshly ground black pepper and a good pinch of sugar to the peas. Pulse in a food processor or mash with a potato masher, adding some of the cooking liquid if necessary. Add freshly chopped mint. Taste and correct seasoning. Serve with "fish and chips." (Or lamb and roasted potatoes!)

Fresh Strawberry Jams, Sweet and Savory

by Caitlin

A few years ago when I moved to Virginia, my friend Laura (Hi Laur!) got me back into a family tradition that had gotten lost somewhere on the way out of childhood: berry picking and jam making. 

Though we didn't know each other then, we each grew up in Massachusetts, spending June mornings picking berries and making jam with our moms and aunts. It's been a lot of fun carrying on the tradition in our own way, as adults, each with our childhood memories in hand. Strawberry season here comes a bit earlier, and this year with our particularly warm March meant jam making before Memorial Day. Unprecedented! 

Laur and I start the day niiiiiice and early, aiming to get to the farm (Butler's Orchard) before the crowds and before it gets too hot, then we head home to spend the afternoon jamming. Sometime in between there's lunch and a couple of beers. Beer drinking makes jam making even more fun. Fact. 

This year in a little over an hour the two of us picked four full flats; about 40 pounds. That's a lot of crouching and squatting and sore arches and berries crushed on the seat of your pants, but man is it ever worth it:

There's absolutely nothing that compares to a warm berry fresh off the plant and red all the way through. They make grocery store berries ashamed to be berries. 

I've lost count, but we made somewhere around 6 or 7 batches of jam with this. The rest of the berries were frozen or eaten out of hand. We made four different kinds of jam. 

Up first: A few batches of Classic Strawberry Jam. This is the recipe inside the powdered pectin box and it's a good one to master because once you do you can start playing around with different flavors (more on that in a minute). For my palate it tends to be too sweet (you'll note that there's more sugar than fruit in most jams) so to one batch I added about a 1/4 cup of lemon juice and, toward the end of cooking, the zest of a lemon. It balanced it nicely and kept it bright while still being plenty sweet. I'd like to play around with even more zest and juice to see what would happen.

Up next: A variation on the Classic Strawberry: Strawberry Orange Black Pepper. We used the original recipe as above and at the start of cooking added the juice of one orange, 1/4 cup lemon juice, the zest of 1.5 oranges, and 1 T black pepper.

Verdict: The flavor is really lovely.

Tweaks: I'd like it to be a bit bolder on the pepper and the orange zest. Next time I'd do zest and juice of both oranges, and add them closer to end. I'd increase the black pepper to 2.5 or 3 T, and probably grind it a bit finer too. An easy shortcut with this one though: Add more pepper when I open a new jar. 

Experimental batch number three was this recipe for Strawberry Jam with Balsamic and Thyme. I'd been wanting to make a strawberry balsamic jam for a few years and was excited to try this recipe. I used half lemon thyme and half regular thyme because I have both in my garden. I tasted it about halfway through cooking and it didn't have enough acid or balsamic taste for me so I added another 1/4 c of balsamic vinegar. 

Jam at the start of cooking. 

Verdict: Yum. Though it doesn't taste particularly balsamic-y or thyme-y, there's a nice balsamic note somewhere in the finish. Balsamic changes so much while you cook it (ie: what it looks like when you start a reduction vs. what you finish with) and I think adding it at different stages helped give it a nice round flavor profile. This jam has a beautiful rich, deep, dark color from the vinegar and I'd love for the taste to match that. 

Tweaks: I'd add another generous 1/4 cup of balsamic at the end of cooking. I'd also spend more time chopping my thyme very, very finely to try and get all the flavor out of it. I like the taste of thyme, but I loathe working with it's tiny little leaves. 

Finally, we made this Strawberry Jalapeño Jam.

I haven't tried it yet, but I have high hopes. Two years ago I made an Apricot Jalapeno Jam (aka ApriHot) that has been a big hit. Jalapeños just have such a wonderful flavor that goes so well with fruit!

Other Jam notes: 

- Laura and I have sworn off liquid pectin. Even when following the recipe for liquid pectin batches, we never seem to have any luck. Laura was able to succesfully rebatch one of her regular Strawberry jams that didn't set using this recipe for Liquid Cement. It uses liquid pectin, I know, but she said it worked and I'm planning on using it on a rebatch this weekend. 

- I enjoy savory jams on bagels, toast, English Muffins, and all the places you'd traditionally use jam. I also like it as an accompaniment on a cheese plate or served with baked brie. I know some people like spooing it over cream cheese and serving that as a spread for crackers. They're fun to play with in cooking as well, used in glazes for chicken or pork. 

Have you made jam before? Do you have a favorite jam recipe? A recommendation for using a savory-sweet jam?

All Photos by Me

Current Obsession: Garnet Yams

by Caitlin

I go through phases with sweet potatoes. I went through a time in my early to mid 20s where they showed up regularly in my weeknight meals. Making oven fries, or baking them and eating them with a little butter, salt, and pepper: Whatever the preparation, I probably ate them once a week. Back around the holidays I wrote about how they'd become a tradition on my Thanksgiving table.

Somewhere along the way though, I fell away from sweet potatoes. I just haven't been eating them that often, and had gotten kind of turned off by them. They didn't taste good to me any more.

Lately though, we're back on. But it's not quite sweet potatoes I've fallen for: It's the lovely garnet yam.

 

That's a garnet yam there in the middle, next to a couple of sweet potatoes. Photo care of HoustonPress.com, and this great article which talks about yams vs. sweet potatoes and developing new breeds of the former.

To answer the question that seems to trail behind these orange tubers wherever they go: Yams and sweet potatoes are totally unrelated in the plant world. But. In the US everything we call yams and sweet potatoes are actually the same thing: they're all sweet potatoes. Theories differ on how and why that happened, but the consensus is that real yams, yams that are botanically yams, are large tubers grown primarily in Africa (pictures of them remind me of yucca root). They are not grown in the US.

This article succinctly explains that "Sweet potato varieties are classified as either ‘firm’ or ‘soft’. When cooked, those in the ‘firm’ category remain firm, while ‘soft’ varieties become soft and moist. It is the ‘soft’ varieties that are often labeled as yams in the United States."

In other words, try a yam.

This makes a lot of sense to me, as I've taken to garnet yams because they're not as dry or stringy as sweet potatoes, and they have less of that earthy, dirty taste. Their flesh seems denser and more thoughtfully put together: Like the yam actually wants to be eaten straight up and appreciated for its deliciousness rather than pureed, doused in marshmallows/brown sugar/nuts and baked with butter on top or otherwise disguised. Friends, this is a tuber that's happy to be what it is.

(Though I must admit that I'm a huge fan of sweet potato fries. I guess it makes sense that they'd make better fries, being that they're denser and drier. SCIENCE.)

An easy weeknight preparation: Cover a cookie sheet in foil. Rub a sweet potato in the cooking oil of your choice (we use a lot of olive oil in our house). Put your oiled potato on the sheet, and pop it in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes to an hour, until done.

Scrape the flesh out and eat it straight up. Straightforward, healthy, and delicious! Or top with butter, salt, and pepper, but if you do, at least try a bite of it on its own first. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Have you tried a garnet yam? Do you have a sweet potato or yam preference?

{Photo from: HoustonPress.com}