Fattoush Recipe

Is it sweltering where you are?  I would trade places with you.  As I write this it is raining and cold where I live in Southern California.  At the beach.  I want my money back.  Daughter #1, however, is in Connecticut with no air conditioning, and soon to be in Washington, DC where the temperature is expected to hit 97 on Tuesday and Wednesday and so on.  I’m jealous.  I love hot weather.  More than that, I love eating hot weather food in hot weather.

Did you know that all food has a thermal nature?  It has the power to warm you up or cool you down.  And that’s why nature gives us tomatoes and cucumbers in the summer and not the winter, because they are cooling and hydrating and the perfect antidote to beat the heat.  You know how obsessed I am with summer tomatoes and since they arrived on the scene a few weeks ago, I haven’t let up.  (I promise, however, that not every recipe this summer will involve a tomato.)  Even though the temperature is a perfectly mellow 70 degrees where I am, it hasn’t stopped me from making salads like Fattoush, one of my favorites.  I wish I could tell you with certainty if Fattoush is Lebanese or Syrian or Israeli, but I have no interest in starting a cold war on my blog so shall we just say it’s Middle Eastern?  My only goal is to convince you to make this salad because it’s delicious, addictive and good for you right about now.

Fattoush reminds me of Panzanella, the Italian bread and tomato salad which I happen to be teaching this month in my classes, although for sure it has its differences.  Basic Fattoush is diced up tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, parsley, and fried or toasted pita bread with a lemon juice-olive oil dressing.  There is also a special ingredient which I fell in love with only a few years ago called sumac.  Stay in your seats, it’s not the poison kind, but this sour, citrusy berry that is dried, ground up and adds a puckery, tartness to the salad as well as a vibrant dusting of red.  (Are you thinking anthocyanins and antioxidants like I am?  Yes!)  It’s very easy to find online or in Middle Eastern markets, spices shops or at some local natural foods stores.  You will want to get some!  Now that’s just the basic.  You can add romaine lettuce, radishes, purslane (a juicy green that is hard to come by), and/or mint.  It’s hard to go wrong.

I have eaten this salad at Middle Eastern restaurants and been served a little scoop of it on the plate as if it’s an after thought.  Hmph!   Why is that?  I could make a whole meal of Fattoush with a handful of chickpeas thrown in, especially if I don’t feel like turning on the oven or standing in front of a hot grill.  I have an Israeli friend who consumes this for breakfast and why not?  However you decide to eat this, you will surely be embracing summer and be in harmony with nature.  Enjoy!

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Fattoush
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Serves: 4-6
 
Ingredients
  • 3 medium tomatoes, cut into ½-inch cubes, about 1 pound
  • 2 ½ cups diced cucumber, about 1 pound
  • ½ cup diced medium red onion (soak in ice water for 15 minutes to reduce harsh onion flavor, if desired)
  • ¼ cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
  • 2-3 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, about ½ lemon
  • 2-3 Tablespoons unrefined cold-pressed olive oil
  • 1 Tablespoon ground sumac
  • ¼ teaspoon fine grain sea salt or to taste
  • A couple generous handfuls of pita chips
Instructions
  1. Place the tomatoes, cucumber, onion and parsley in a serving bowl.
  2. In a small bowl or glass jar, combine the lemon juice, olive oil, sumac and salt. Pour over the vegetables and toss to combine.
  3. Crumble pita chips on top and toss together. Serve immediately.
Notes
Other additions: cooked chickpeas, crumbled feta, diced green pepper, chopped pitted olives, cubed avocado, julienned radish, shredded lettuce. I noticed Sarah at My New Roots used raw flax crackers in her Fattoush instead of toasted pita -- great idea!

 

Eggplant caprese recipe

Ok, my kitchen is more or less back together except for a few cabinets, and I couldn’t be happier.  Never mind that every other room in the house has its contents spilled out into random hallways or in the living room which we never use.  It doesn’t even bother me that we are all still sharing one bathroom … I can cook again!  Takeout everyday was putting me in a cranky mood — and when Mama Bear ain’t happy, no one’s happy!  I think the novelty of eating out even wore off with Mr. Picky, although my husband keeps trying to remind me that I was “only” inconvenienced for five days.  Talk to the hand, dude.  Listen, I had to make a fruit crisp on the front porch Wednesday.

I did a great big shop at the grocery store and the farmer’s market on Tuesday and I was giddy with all the possibilities.  I think one of the reasons I get so excited when summer produce hits the stands is that I wait for it all year long.  Local peaches, corn and tomatoes are special!  I especially have a thing for summer tomatoes, and I’m hoping you do too, since there are lots of tomato recipes in the pipeline.  You know that once you’ve had a truly vine-ripened, sun-kissed tomato, you can never go back to those hard, tasteless orbs from the supermarket that have nothing to do with a real summer tomato.  I remember as child going into my father’s garden in the summer with a salt shaker to eat tomatoes with salt right off the vine.  Heaven.

Tomatoes make this girl’s heart grow fonder when they are paired with basil.  This classic combination is a favorite of mine and one I use in so many different dishes.  Just this past week, I posted recipes for pasta with cherry tomato sauce, as well as a frittata with garden vegetables, including tomato and basil.  In last summer’s classes, I taught pasta alla checca, which is a raw tomato and basil sauce.  Of course, the traditional salad on every Italian menu is a Caprese, which is nothing more than alternating slices of good quality tomato and mozzarella cheese with basil, olive oil and salt.  Several years ago I was in Italy with my family visiting a friend of my father’s on the Amalfi Coast.  We had all eaten a large lunch that day and weren’t really hungry for a full dinner, so our hosts pulled tomatoes and basil from the garden,  freshly made local mozzarella from the fridge, local olive oil and olives, and some bread from a bakery down the road.  I know it may not sound like much, but every ingredient was the best I had ever had, and to this day I consider that meal one of my favorites ever.

One of my go-to side dishes in the summer is simply grilled or roasted eggplant slices.  Occasionally I’ll add some mint and feta, but a few years ago I taught this recipe, which is essentially eggplant-meets-Caprese.  Eggplant is such a sponge and loves all that juicy-tomato-and-olive-oil-goodness.  I don’t eat very much dairy, so instead of big slices of cheese, I have added a few cubes mixed in with the tomato and basil mixture.  In this photograph I used fresh buffalo mozzarella, which is a little milkier and lighter tasting, but you can use whatever cheese you’ve got, including burrata, feta or goat cheese — or none at all!  I usually try to teach my girls to eat like civilized ladies, but I have found myself many a time eating this with my hands as an eggplant taco.  Like the other night when we couldn’t find the flatware.  It’s probably still in the living room…

5.0 from 3 reviews
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Eggplant Caprese
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Serves: 6
 
Ingredients
  • 2 medium eggplant, unpeeled, sliced crosswise into ¾-inch slices
  • 2 Tablespoons unrefined, cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil + more for brushing eggplant
  • Sea salt and black pepper
  • 2 cups chopped, seeded tomatoes
  • 2 large garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 small handful fresh basil leaves, julienned
  • 4 ounces (or more if you like) fresh mozzarella, cubed
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line 2 baking pans or cookie sheets with parchment paper. Place the eggplant slices on the paper and brush them generously on both sides with olive oil. Sprinkle with sea salt and black pepper, then roast for 40 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow to cool.
  2. Mix together the tomato, garlic, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the basil. Season to taste with sea salt and black pepper. Set aside.
  3. To serve, arrange the cooked eggplant slices, slightly overlapping, on a serving platter. Scatter the mozzarella chunks on top and spoon over the salsa. Remove the garlic cloves.

 

Summer garden frittata recipe

While I was away last week, my husband thought it would be a great idea to refinish the cabinets in the kitchen.  No wait, we might as well do all the cabinets in the entire house, he thought to himself.  Why do those four words generally end up as a bad idea?  Why do people think that a small project might as well be a big project?  We had a simple plan.  Mr. Picky and I would go back East to bring Daughter #1 to camp while my husband brought Daughter #2 to camp and we would come back a week later and my house would look like nothing had ever happened except that my kitchen cabinets would look pretty and fresh instead of beaten up because I’ve taught a hundred cooking classes in my kitchen.

Guess what?  This is what my kitchen still looks like!  And so does the rest of my house until who knows when.  So yours truly is in a bit of a funk because she didn’t get to make and photograph the sure-to-be-adorable and tasty raspberry-blueberry-yogurt popsicles she wanted to post today for Fourth of July.  Pouty face.  And yours truly has been eating take-out since she returned home from Long Island on Friday night.  Verrry pouty face.  I’ll get to the frittata in a minute.  What I’d like to discuss is takeout.  I definitely struggle with finding places to eat when I do need to eat out.  Fresh, organic, seasonal prepared food is not as common as you would think, even in Manhattan Beach, California. So I’ve been to Le Pain Quotidien for breakfast two days in a row and Veggie Grill for lunch two days in a row and Whole Foods for one meal.  And here’s what I’ve got to say — holy $$$$$! friends.  How do people eat out all the time?  It’s downright unaffordable.  Not only that, it’s beyond difficult for everyone to agree on what to eat.  Dinner should not be a democratic decision!  Seriously, the last few days have totally reinforced what I have said about cooking at home being easier, cheaper and always more healthful.

Now let’s get to the frittata, which I photographed at my house two weeks ago and again at my parents’ house last week (two different frittatas, naturally.)  I was going to post this recipe next week, but like I said, my husband thought it would be nice to surprise me.  Pouty face.  In any event, a frittata recipe fits in perfectly with my anti-takeout sentiment.  Eggs, and therefore frittatas, are an incredibly versatile and high-quality source of inexpensive protein.  They are also very easy to make on the fly with whatever you’ve got in your kitchen/garden.

I prepare frittatas all year long varying the ingredients based on what’s in season.  Click here for a delicious swiss chard frittata recipe.  A few weeks ago, when I saw zucchini blossoms at our farmers’ market with beautiful, tender zucchini, I knew I had to make what I call “Summer Garden Frittata.”  It’s the frittata I make most often in the summer and it’s really about celebrating whatever my garden or market has to offer.  My family inhaled these last week.  You certainly don’t need to use zucchini blossoms, especially if you can’t find them, but I think they’re so pretty and they have a nice, subtle flavor.  The blossoms without a zucchini attached are the male flowers which basically just sit around the plant doing absolutely nothing while the female blossoms actually produce zucchini.  Why not put those males to good use?  I’m here to tell you that if you don’t find something for them to do, you never know what kind of trouble they’ll create for you.

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Summer Garden Frittata
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Serves: 6 (although when I'm hungry, I could eat a fourth of this frittata)
 
Ingredients
  • 2 Tablespoons unrefined, cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil + additional
  • 1 bunch scallions, trimmed and sliced
  • 3 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
  • 3 medium zucchini (about 1 pound), ends trimmed and sliced thinly by hand or by the slicing disk of the food processor
  • Fine grain sea salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 8 large eggs
  • ¼ cup chopped fresh basil leaves
  • ½ cup ricotta cheese or goat cheese or feta (optional, but I used feta in the photographs)
  • 5-6 zucchini blossoms (optional, I used 4 large ones)
  • ½ cup cherry tomatoes or 2 Roma tomatoes, sliced
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a 10-inch skillet, warm the olive oil. Sauté the scallions until softened. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the zucchini slices and a generous pinch of salt and sauté until tender, about 6 minutes.
  2. In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs, basil, 1 teaspoon salt, and a few grinds of black pepper. Stir the cooked zucchini mixture into the eggs and combine well.
  3. Place the skillet back over medium heat and add a little extra oil if the pan seems dry. Pour the egg and zucchini mixture into the pan. Arrange the zucchini blossoms on the surface of the frittata or chop and scatter on top. Dollop tablespoonfuls of the ricotta and the cherry tomatoes around the frittata. Transfer skillet to the oven and bake until firm, about 40 minutes.
Notes
Alternatively, bake in a larger skillet for less time for a thinner frittata.

Or, cook gently over medium-low heat, covered until slightly set on the bottom, 15-20 minutes. Transfer the skillet to the oven and broil until the top is slightly puffed and golden, about 3-5 minutes. Serve warm or room temperature.

 

Pasta with 5-minute cherry tomato sauce recipe

Mr. Picky and I had the most glorious week on Long Island visiting my parents.  My sisters and their kids came to be with us too, so it was quite a full house.   It kind of felt like summer camp with lots of old fashioned fun outdoors from morning til dusk except for the brief break to watch a few games of Euro Cup soccer.  Even though the kids were always playing ball, swimming or taking turns on the hammock, I felt as though we were always eating.  Italians tend to linger at the table for quite a bit, so breakfast morphed into lunch, and lunch lasted for hours, although I surmise that was due to the daily wine.  I finally realize why my parents drink so much espresso.

Whenever I come into town, I am in charge of organizing and cooking all meals, which I don’t mind one bit.  The deal for the week is that whoever cooks, doesn’t have to clean up, so I think I have the better job.  It isn’t difficult to cook for my family.  They are so appreciative, easy going and I’m the only one with a child named “Picky.”  My sisters’ kids are the most fantastic eaters and they are all younger than mine!  I still kept it simple, making frittatas, tacos and salads for lunch and grilled chicken, roasted salmon and more vegetables for dinner.  My father’s garden is loaded with a variety of berries, herbs and greens right now, which was such a pleasure for me.

Besides cooking for the family, one of my other favorite things to do when I go visit is to check out the local natural foods stores.  Yep, that’s a fun outing for me.  I love to see what the Long Island stores carry that mine don’t.  This time around I was pleased to see many new sprouted grain products on the shelves.  I was able to buy Shiloh Farms sprouted spelt flour for pancakes and a sprouted wheat pasta for one night’s dinner.  There’s only so much quinoa and millet my father will eat.  Soaking and sprouting grains, nuts and seeds helps to neutralize phytic acid, which binds with certain minerals and prevents them from being absorbed by the body.  Soaking and sprouting helps to make the grains more digestible and the nutrients more absorbable.  It’s a much more healthful food that way.  I promise to do a post on this soon!

Even though I was happy to cook this week, I didn’t want to spend too much time in the kitchen when I could have been on the hammock with a book or chatting with my sisters.  So I thought spaghetti with 5-minute cherry tomato sauce would be perfect and it happens to be my favorite pasta dish too, and not just because it’s a quickie.  Sweet cherry tomatoes, basil, garlic and olive oil — how can you go wrong?  I even like it better than pasta all checca, which is essentially the same thing, but raw.  I love the silkiness of the barely cooked tomatoes and how it coats the pasta.  You get a little more depth of flavor when you cook the garlic and tomatoes even just a little.  The key is to halve the cherry tomatoes or you can use peeled and seeded beefsteaks, so that you get a nice juicy sauce.  I never simmer the tomatoes too much, though.  You don’t want it all to evaporate on you.

 If your garden or market has some new summer tomatoes that you’re anxious to use, do try this recipe.  All the kids slurped it up and asked for seconds.  It’s such a classic, as well as fresh and easy.  In fact, after you make it once, you’ll see how this sauce can be the basis for many other dishes including chicken and fish as well as beans with vegetables for a summer vegetable ragu.  The tomato season is just getting started and so are my recipes with my favorite summer vegetable (fruit, if you must), so look out for more of those.  If there are any gardeners out there, please share what’s coming up in your backyard!

5.0 from 2 reviews
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Pasta with 5-minute Cherry Tomato Sauce
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Serves: 6
 
Ingredients
  • ¼ cup cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil
  • 4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
  • pinch of crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
  • 2 pounds cherry tomatoes (about 2 ½ -3 pints), stemmed and halved
  • Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
  • ½ cup basil leaves
  • Kosher salt for pasta water
  • 1 pound whole grain pasta, such as whole wheat or spelt
  • Grated parmesan or pecorino-romano cheese (optional)
Instructions
  1. Heat the oil in a large sauté pan over medium low heat. Add the sliced garlic and red pepper flakes and swirl over medium until fragrant. When the garlic just starts to turn golden around the edges, increase the heat to medium and add tomatoes and 2 big pinches of salt plus pepper to taste. Cook tomatoes, stirring, until they start to lose their shape, about 5 minutes. Check seasoning and remove from heat. Tear or slice basil leaves and stir into tomato mixture.
  2. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add a tablespoon of kosher salt. Cook pasta until al dente. The time will vary depending on the type of pasta you use. Remove a ladleful of pasta water and reserve.
  3. Drain pasta and transfer to the skillet with tomato mixture and toss gently to combine. Add a little reserved pasta water if mixture seems too dry. Serve with cheese, if desired.

 

 

Grilled broccolini with lemon-parmesan breadcrumbs recipe

Every food magazine seems to be offering an entire grilling issue this month and for good reason.  In most parts of the country, summer is “the” season for outdoor cooking and grilling is an easy and tasty way to prepare a wide variety of foods we love.  If you’ve been hanging out at this site for a bit, you probably know that I’m not so fond of grilling animal protein too often since it can be carcinogenic.  Since this is not the case for other foods, I will, however, grill just about anything else from vegetables and fruit to potatoes and pizzas.

Although many of my students ask me for new ways to prepare chicken and fish, I tend to keep the animal protein simple and focus on interesting ways to cook my favorite food group, vegetables.  And I am always on the lookout for interesting, new vegetables to cook.  Enter broccolini!  I had never heard of broccolini until probably six or seven years ago, although it has been around since about 1998.  It is sometimes referred to as “Baby Broccoli,” “Chinese Kale” or the very appetizing name “Aspiration” (Who in the world came up with that one?  Certainly no one with picky kids.)  Broccolini is technically a hybrid between regular broccoli and Chinese kale, but it has a more tender stem and sweeter flavor than both.  Some people think it tastes like a cross between asparagus and broccoli and that seems pretty accurate to me.  However you call it, we love, love, love it!

Broccolini and all its cruciferous cousins are vegetables you want to include regularly in the meal rotation since they are nutritional powerhouses with lots of anti-cancer compounds.  We eat a lot of broccolini and broccoli, so I am all about mixing it up a bit so we don’t get bored with the same old, same old.  Broccolini is just made for the grill.  Its tender stems cook as quickly as asparagus do and the grill adds a fabulous charred flavor to the florets.  Normal broccoli tastes fabulous on the grill too, but you have to slice the thick stems in order for it to cook properly and then it looks a little awkward.

This is hardly a recipe and at its simplest you just coat the broccolini in olive oil, sprinkle them with salt and pepper and grill few minutes on each side.  The only trick is to avoid burning the florets which is possible if you just stay at the grill the whole time and don’t leave to check your email.  Done.  This is super easy for weeknights and cool enough to serve to your foodie friends.  If a simply grilled vegetable isn’t sophisticated enough for you, you can brush the cut side of a couple lemons with olive oil and grill them cut-side down for a few minutes to squeeze on the broccolini with or without a dusting of Parmesan cheese.  Or, make these ridiculously addictive Lemon-Parmesan Breadcrumbs which are so good on these broccolini as well as grilled asparagus, pasta, roasted cherry tomatoes and just about a hundred other things.  I have successfully used many different gluten-free breads to make them, used Pecorino (sheep cheese) instead of Parmesan (cow), and eliminated the cheese altogether.  I’ve heard the saying, “you can’t make everyone happy.”  I’m not so sure about that!

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Grilled Broccolini with Lemon-Parmesan Breadcrumbs
Author: 
Serves: 6
 
Ingredients
  • 2 bunches broccolini, washed, dried, dry ends trimmed (about 1 pound)
  • Unrefined olive oil for drizzling the broccolini + 2 Tablespoons
  • Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
  • A few slices of fresh bread or a roll, but nothing too “flavored,” hard crusts removed
  • 3 Tablespoons grated Parmesan or Pecorino-Romano cheese
  • Zest of 1 small lemon
  • 1 clove garlic, peeled and cut in half
Instructions
  1. Preheat a grill over medium heat. Too hot and the florets will burn. Not hot enough and you won’t get a char.
  2. Drizzle the broccolini with oil and toss with your hands until they’re evenly coated. (I put them on a sheet pan.) Season with salt and pepper.
  3. Make the breadcrumbs: cut the bread into cubes and place in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Process into crumbs. Measure 1 cup of crumbs.
  4. In a small bowl, combine crumbs with Parmesan, lemon zest and a pinch of salt.
  5. Heat 2 Tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium heat and add the breadcrumb mixture and the garlic. Toast the breadcrumbs, stirring frequently until they start to turn golden brown, like toast. Carefully taste the breadcrumbs to make sure they’re crunchy, but don’t burn your mouth doing it. When they’re done, immediately transfer to a bowl, otherwise they’ll burn sitting in the pan. Remove garlic and discard.
  6. Place broccolini on the grill and cook until tender, but slightly charred, about 3 minutes. Flip over and cook the other side another 3 minutes. Be careful not to burn the broccolini. Place on a platter and scatter the breadcrumbs on top or serve separately.
Notes
You can skip the breadcrumbs and serve instead with lemon wedges and/or shaved or grated Parmesan.

Peach and Blueberry Crisp Recipe

Were fruit crisps popular 30 and 40 years ago?  I can’t recall, but I feel like they started turning up everywhere about 20 years ago.  A fruit crisp was one of the first desserts I ever made on my own.  I think the recipe came from one of the Silver Palate cookbooks.  Remember those?  I am very certain it was an apple crisp with the classic oat and sugar crumby topping.  It was such an easy dessert, but so delicious and a total crowd pleaser.  What’s not to love?  It’s the ultimate comfort dessert.  Soft, sweet fruit with a crunchy, nubby topping that you would fight your best friend over.  Did you ever have a crisp warm out of the oven with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream on top?  If you have, then someone loves you!

I’ll tell you the truth, I use the same basic recipe for all my fruit crisps the whole year long.  I’m sure I could put a little more thought into it and start adding liqueur to the fruit or different spices.  I like Giada’s idea of using crumbled amaretti cookies in the crisp topping.  But we already love this the way it is.  Why mess around with deliciousness?

Today I’m bringing you a Peach and Blueberry Crisp because my favorite fruit desserts all start with a peach.  Did you catch my Stone Fruit Crostata last summer?  My husband, kids and I are all obsessed with peaches.  We have a couple of peach trees in the backyard that produce a whole lot of great peaches for two weeks in the summer and that’s when we grill them, add them to salads, make pies and crisps and even peach margaritas (for adults, of course)!  Outside of those two weeks, I rely on our farmer’s market, but a high point for us is going peach picking on Long Island when we visit my parents.  Have you ever had a just-picked peach, warm from the sun?  Put that on your to-do list.  It will just make you happy.

Believe me, I am completely content eating a perfect peach and not messing with it, but I also know there’s a time and place for a good, homemade dessert.  This Peach and Blueberry Crisp is one of my go-to’s during the summer.  I don’t make it too sweet, in fact my fruit dessert mantra is “it should taste like fruit, not just sweet.”  Most crisp recipes toss the fruit with extra sugar and flour, which I don’t think is necessary at all.  I used to make crisp toppings with brown sugar until I discovered coconut palm sugar which I think is a great unrefined sweetener.  If you can’t find it, brown sugar works completely fine.  One of the best things about crisps is that you can make the topping way ahead and keep it in the fridge for a few days or even the freezer for a few months.  Do you even understand the implications of this?  You can freeze a whole gigantic batch of crisp topping right now and have a dreamy dessert at your fingertips whenever you want.  That means an easy dessert for summer entertaining or simply put a handful of fresh fruit in a ramekin and top with a handful of topping and bake away for a yummy crisp for you and only you whenever you need a little love.  Now we’re talking.

 

5.0 from 6 reviews
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Peach and Blueberry Crisp
Author: 
Serves: 8-ish
 
Ingredients
  • 6 medium peaches, pitted and sliced, about 4-5 cups (you can peel if you want)
  • 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
  • 1 cup whole grain flour, such as whole wheat pastry, white whole wheat or your favorite GF flour blend (I like Bob's Red Mill and King Arthur)
  • ¾ cup coconut palm sugar or brown sugar (coconut sugar is less refined)
  • ½ cup old-fashioned rolled oats (look for gluten-free oats if you gluten intolerant)
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ½ cup chopped pecans (optional)
  • ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 8 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Place all fruit in an 8- or 9-inch baking dish or pie plate. Toss to mix them up a bit.*
  3. Add all topping ingredients in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Blend until mixture resembles small peas. This can also be done by hand or with a pastry blender. Squeeze with your hands to create small clumps.
  4. Arrange topping over fruit to cover.
  5. Place baking dish on a cookie sheet and bake for about 45 minutes, or until bubbly and topping is golden brown.
Notes
*You can toss the fruit with a Tablespoon of sugar and a Tablespoon of flour to thicken the juices that develop, but it is not necessary unless your fruit is really juicy.

**Crisp topping can be made ahead and kept covered in the refrigerator for 3-4 days or frozen for up to 3 months.

 

 

Acai Bowl Recipe

 

I am a little bit of a skeptic, I’ll admit.  When a new food comes onto the scene claiming to save your life, I have to raise an eyebrow.  One food can’t do it all.  If you’ve noticed, I try not to beat anyone over the head with nutrition facts but rather emphasize a diet of a wide variety of mostly plant-based whole foods.  Eating seasonally, locally and organically helps too, but first things first.

Many years ago I started hearing the praises of acai (prononced ah-sigh-EE), a berry native to the Amazon (the rainforest, not the online shopping site).  Acai’s claims to fame are its insane antioxidant levels (more than blueberries!), healthful fats and a good smattering of iron, calcium and beta-carotene.  It also happens to be very low in carbs and sugar.  What I love is acai’s deep berry, almost chocolatey flavor.  Delicious, I promise you.

“Acai bowls” are popular in Brazil, but have found a loyal following in the US in areas with year-round warm weather, such as Hawaii and Baja California.  They’re kind of like a super thick smoothie/soft serve sorbet that you eat with a spoon.  Beacause acai bowls are so soft and creamy, they beg for toppings with a little texture.  The most traditional way they are eaten is with a scoop of granola, sliced fresh bananas and a drizzle of honey.  I was at a hotel in San Diego a few years ago when I saw an acai bowl on the menu and I very enthusiastically ordered it.

Let’s cut to the chase here — my family and I have been addicted to these since that day.  Not only that, but I have taught all three of my kids how to make them so when their friends come over they can throw together a nutritious and tasty snack in minutes, and one which their friends probably haven’t had anywhere else.  Cool!  One day, the mom of one of Mr. Picky’s friends came over holding a packet of frozen acai with a look of desperation and said, “Just tell me what to do with this.”  Many of my kids’ friends are hooked, too!  I let everyone choose their own toppings, which can include granola, flaked coconut, walnuts, cacao nibs, sliced almonds and cut up fresh fruit like bananas, strawberries or blueberries.  Mr. Picky always adds a small handful of mini chocolate chips and I’m okay with that since there’s no other added sugar here.

Now that the weather is becoming warmer, I wanted to share this recipe so you could enjoy it for the whole summer (I love that word!).  Since my version isn’t super sweet, I think with the right toppings an acai bowl makes a great breakfast, post-workout snack or even dessert.  You can see from the recipe that there isn’t anything too suspect or worrisome, just a bit of fruit sugar.  Wouldn’t you prefer these ingredients which are paired with vitamins, minerals, fiber, good fats and antioxidants over artificially-colored and flavored popsicles?  Thought so.  But just so we’re clear, I’m not trying to convince you that acai bowls are a magic cure for anything other than a craving for something cool, creamy and very delicious!

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Acai Bowls
Author: 
Serves: 2 generously
 
Ingredients
  • 2 packets frozen acai puree (break it into pieces first to make it easier on your blender)
  • 1 frozen or fresh* ripe banana (cut into pieces) or a heaping cup of frozen mango chunks
  • 1 large handful frozen or fresh* blueberries, strawberries, mango or peaches
  • ½ cup freshly squeezed orange juice or apple juice or almond milk*
  • Topping suggestions: granola, sliced bananas, fresh berries, coconut, chopped nuts, cacao nibs
Instructions
  1. Add acai, fruit and juice to a blender and puree until smooth, but thick. A Vitamix does this very easily, but if you have a standard blender you'll just have to scrape down the sides every so often. Divide between two individual bowls and add toppings of choice. Serve immediately.
Notes
*Frozen fruit will give you a better texture and make it more like soft serve ice cream.

**fruit juice will make the acai bowl a little sweeter than almond milk but the almond milk makes it taste a little creamier. If you use almond milk, taste it before serving and if necessary, sweeten with a little raw honey or add a pitted date or two to the blender and puree.

**You can add your favorite protein powder to make it a more complete breakfast.

How to Make Pita Chips

One of our favorite snacks is chips, whether it be tortilla or pita.  We enjoy them alone or more often as a dipper for spreads like hummus, white bean dip, tapenade, or my favorite — “Greek Nachos”— which is pita chips and a whole mess of feta, yogurt, finely diced tomatoes, cucumber, olives, red onion, olive oil, lemon juice and oregano piled on top.  That’s a good one for summer entertaining!

In general, I don’t love buying too many packaged snacks, though.  They are very often processed, refined and contain ingredients I would never want to eat.  This is especially true when it comes to fats and oils.  I am not saying I don’t eat added fats, but more importantly I am picky about choosing higher quality ones.  I have yet to find a food on a grocery shelf that uses unrefined olive or coconut oil.  Further, when oil is heated over and over again at high temperatures, toxic trans fats and free radicals are created.  Not good for you at all.

I certainly don’t have time to make all my own food from scratch, but some things are easier than others.  Pita chips (although I’m not making my pita from scratch anymore) are just that — dead simple to make and just as (if not more) delicious than anything you can buy in a store.  It really hadn’t occurred to me for many years to make pita chips at home until I actually paid attention to how much money I was spending on the packaged variety.  That and I knew the ingredients couldn’t be as healthful as I would like, even the ones we were buying at the farmer’s market, which I found out later were deep fried.  Ugh.

The technique I use on pita is the exact same method I use to make baked tortilla chips, both savory and sweet.  Take your favorite pita bread (gluten-free folks can try this with brown rice tortillas — super delicious!) — here I used an organic whole wheat pita with no preservatives or scary additives — and split it so you have two thinner discs.    I prefer a thinner chip, but you can keep the pita whole and get a thick chip, too.  Brush both sides with olive oil, sprinkle with seasoning or just salt, cut into wedges and bake until crisp.  Are you so excited thinking about all the fun flavors you can come up with?  The possibilities are practically endless!  You can add lemon zest to the olive oil, or sprinkle with sea salt and cumin.  Garlic powder and paprika are great, too.  You can even do a sweet version with cinnamon, sugar and butter or coconut oil.  My favorite way to flavor these is with a Middle Eastern spice blend called Zahtar or Za’atar.  It’s a delicious combination of dried thyme, sesame seeds and sumac, which is a dried berry (not the poisonous kind) with a tart, lemony flavor.   Because Zahtar is a blend of spices and herbs, you might find some  which contain ground hyssop leaves or oregano.  I bought some on Amazon, but you can find it at a spice shop like Penzeys, Middle Eastern grocery stores, or from my friend Talia who brought me some from a recent trip to Israel.  How sweet is she?

With Father’s Day coming up (um, hell-o? It’s tomorrow and I haven’t bought a gift yet!), as well as a whole season of entertaining in front of us, I thought it would be nice to have a pita chips recipe in your back pocket.  This recipe will not come in handy however, when your husband tells you he volunteered an appetizer for Mr. Picky’s end-of-season football party.  In 30 minutes.  Awesome.  Happy Father’s Day to all you amazing dads out there! We love and appreciate you every day of the year!

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Pita Chips
Author: 
Serves: makes 48 chips
 
Ingredients
  • 4 6-inch pita pockets
  • approximately ⅓ cup unrefined olive oil
  • about 4 teaspoons of Zahtar
  • sea salt to taste
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper.
  2. Split the pita bread by inserting a thin knife into the side of the bread and cutting all around the circumference until you have two separate pieces. You can leave the pita bread whole and get thicker chips, but you’ll also have half the amount.
  3. Brush each pita round on both sides with oil. Sprinkle one side of each pita round with ½ teaspoon Zahtar. Cut into sixths.
  4. Arrange in one layer on prepared baking sheets and sprinkle with a couple pinches of sea salt
  5. Bake until crisp, about 15-20 minutes. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container for a few days.