Egg Salad Recipe and Other Things You Can Do with Hard Boiled Eggs

I’m thrilled to have my mother and my 4-year-old niece visiting me this week from New York.  We’re having a great time catching up on magazines, tivo’d shows and of course, cooking.  After she read my post the other day about hard boiled eggs, she said, “so I used to overcook my eggs?”  I speak the truth on this blog and I asked my mother if she remembered the telltale green ring around her yolks.  She remembered.  We reminisced about always eating egg salad sandwiches for lunch the day after Easter, and for old times’ sake I thought it would be fun to make them with my mom again.

The two of us had a little egg salad cook-off with my mom making the version I grew up with, which is no more than chopped up hard boiled eggs combined with mayonnaise, relish and a pinch of salt.  Always delicious and that little bit of sweetness from the relish makes this egg salad kid friendly, unless you’re Mr. Picky who thinks egg salad is one of the “scariest” foods out there.  2 plain hard boiled eggs for Mr. Picky, please!  I whipped up my favorite version of egg salad which is loosely based on a recipe from my heroine, Alice Waters and her fabulous book, The Art of Simple Food.  My more grown-up egg salad may taste more sophisticated than the old version, but I assure you it is just as simple, absolutely delicious, and still kid-friendly (for kids that would actually eat egg salad.)  And look, Mom, no green ring!

Hard boiled eggs are rather bland and the texture is soft, so I like balancing all that out with a little salty bite from some capers, some mild onion flavor from either fresh chives, shallots or green onions, and the smallest dash of cayenne for some kick.  I don’t see how people can eat egg salad on squishy, bland white bread, and not just because white bread is tasteless and devoid of nutrients (maybe I should tell you how I really feel.)  Egg salad just pairs so well with some texture and flavor, like from a nice hearty sprouted seed bread or other earthy, flavorful bread — always toasted.  After enjoying this tasty sandwich with my mom the other day, I asked myself why I never make egg salad.  It was such a simple and satisfying lunch with a side green salad.  Daughter #1 gave the egg salad a try and became a convert, although with mouth half-full announced she liked it just fine, but wouldn’t be taking any egg salad too school for lunch — “I don’t want egg aroma in my backpack all day, thanks.”  Whatever.

If you are in Mr. Picky’s camp and think egg salad is too scary or if you went all out, decorated a bazillion eggs and need something more than just an egg salad recipe, here are some other yummy ideas:

  • Sliced on top of toast with smoked salmon or sliced avocado.
  • Deviled eggs — I think this recipe for Caesar Salad Deviled Eggs at Smitten Kitchen looks interesting.
  • Nicoise Salad — a composed salad of potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, tuna and hard boiled eggs.
  • Cobb Salad — here’s a more healthful version by Ellie Krieger.
  • In a filling for empanadas.  I love my recipe which uses mixed greens, to which you can add a chopped hard boiled egg or two.
  • Pan Bagnat — a sandwich with sliced hard boiled eggs, tuna, tomatoes, onions.  Check out Alton Brown’s recipe here.
  • Chopped over steamed or roasted asparagus.  Then drizzle with one of my favorite everyday salad dressings.

Do you have any great ways to eat hard boiled eggs?  I’d love to know!

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Egg Salad
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Serves: makes enough for 2-3 sandwiches
 
Ingredients
  • 4 hard boiled eggs, peeled
  • 3-4 Tablespoons mayonnaise (I like soy-free Vegenaise)
  • 1 heaping teaspoon of capers, drained and chopped
  • 1 Tablespoon chopped chives (my favorite), scallions or shallots
  • tiny pinch of sea salt or to taste
  • a few grinds of freshly ground pepper
  • a dash or two of cayenne pepper (doesn’t make it spicy, just better)
Instructions
  1. Coarsely chop the eggs and place in a bowl. Add remaining ingredients and combine well. Taste for seasoning.
  2. Serve on toasted whole grain bread with greens like watercress or your favorite lettuce. I always love a little avocado, too!
Notes
Other delicious additions to the egg salad: diced celery, Dijon mustard, fresh parsley

My Mom’s Egg Salad

4 hard boiled eggs, chopped

3-4 Tablespoons mayonnaise

2 Tablespoons sweet relish

pinch of salt



Mix everything to combine well.

 

How To Make Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs

I imagine many of you are getting ready to boil eggs this week, either to decorate for Easter or to include at a Passover seder.  I loved the annual event of dyeing Easter eggs when I was a child.  (It also meant a basket full of candy was only a few short days away. ) My mom would buy a dozen eggs and my 2 sisters and I each took 4 eggs to dye.  It never seemed like enough eggs to us.  But whatever we decorated would also have to be eaten, because perfectly good food was not thrown away in our house.  So 12 seemed to be a good compromise.

I actually liked hard-boiled eggs and I still do.  A quick breakfast for me is a boiled egg or two with a sprinkle of sea salt and a piece of toasted millet bread.  Eggs are a great source of inexpensive, usable protein.  I’m so glad research is showing that the dietary cholesterol in eggs is nothing to get worked up about.  People used to think that foods high in dietary cholesterol increased one’s blood cholesterol, but it’s really saturated fat that seems to be the culprit and most of the fat in eggs is unsaturated.  In addition, the phospholipids in the yolk interfere with our absorption of the yolk’s cholesterol.  Now you’re not going to imagine I said something which I didn’t and go hog wild eating eggs like crazy every day, are you?  Good.  We still need to emphasize plant foods, people.

Sadly, my mom’s hard boiled eggs always came out slightly overcooked and with that unattractive green ring around the yolk, so I was never super enthusiastic about eating more than I needed to.   So on the eve of the great hard boiled egg cook-off, let’s figure out once and for all how to prepare a perfectly cooked hard boiled egg.  I’ve done a few videos for the amazing website, The Chalkboard, including one on boiling eggs which I’ve inserted below.  Click here to see the original post.  Once we’ve got this down pat, on Friday I’ll give you my favorite way to make egg salad, as well as few other creative ideas for eating hard boiled eggs, that way you don’t have to worry about what in the world you’re going to do with them all the day after.

Here are a couple of tips to follow:

  • Fresh eggs are harder to peel, so if you are getting them right from the nest or from the farmer’s market, it’s best to wait a few days before boiling them.  If this isn’t possible, add a half teaspoon of baking soda to a quart of water to make the cooking water more alkaline.  Also, allow the eggs to firm up in the refrigerator before peeling.
  • Cover eggs in a pot with cold water and plenty of room to move around.  No one likes cracked shells.
  • Bring the water to a boil and then turn off the heat, cover your pot and set your timer for 10 minutes.  Why not boil the eggs for 10 minutes?  Cooking the eggs in boiling water will overcook them, resulting in a rubbery white and a dry yolk with that unattractive ring around the yolk.   You want a solid, but tender white and a moist yolk.  Trust me, you do.
  • After 10 minutes in the pot, submerge the eggs in ice water to stop the cooking process, just like blanching vegetables.  Either remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and transfer them to a bowl of ice water or drain the eggs in a colander and run them under very cold water.  I usually run them under cold water if I want to eat the eggs right away and I want them to be slightly warm.  But for decorating, ice water is the way to go.

Video Here

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How To Make Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs
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Ingredients
  • Eggs
Instructions
  1. Place the eggs in a pot that’s big enough so the eggs won’t crash into each other. Fill the pot with enough cold water to cover eggs by an inch.
  2. Put heat on medium-high and bring the water to a full boil. Cover the pot, turn off the heat and set a timer for 10 minutes.
  3. In the meantime, prepare a bowl of ice water to accommodate the eggs. When the timer goes off, transfer the eggs from the pot to the ice water bath with a slotted spoon. Or drain them in a colander and run them under cold water if you’d like to eat them immediately.
  4. Store them in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

 

Coconut-Almond Tart with Strawberries Recipe

When I was a little girl, I loved any holiday where candy was involved.  I was crazy about sugar and my mother didn’t allow many sweet treats in the house, so I really looked forward to those “special occasions.”  Lucky for me, my auntie was all too happy to satisfy my sweet tooth whenever possible.  She was and still is an unbelievable baker as well as a top customer at her local chocolate shop.  You name the holiday, she had the matching sweets, especially on Easter, which was like sugar-on-steroids.  There were small little foil-wrapped bunnies for our baskets, large chocolate boxed bunnies, jelly beans in every color of the rainbow, chocolate eggs and the best one of all — a ginormous chocolate-covered coconut egg.  Imagine a moist, dense, sliceable orb of sweetened coconut covered in milk chocolate — I was obsessed with this confection!  Believe me, I’m not trying to tempt you here.  It was so sickenly sweet, I am sure if I had a bite of it today, I would be nauseous.  Definitely not worth it!

I’m no longer obsessed with that coconut egg (or candy, for that matter.)   But since then, I’ve always associated Easter with coconut, which is funny because it’s really a season-less food.  And in the last decade since I’ve been on the health food path, coconut has found it’s way to me in many forms, none of which is sweetened with sugar nor coated with chocolate-flavored sugar.  Today I rely on unrefined coconut oil, coconut milk, coconut water and unsweetened shredded coconut and my body is much happier with me.  So when I was coming up with a new Easter dessert a few years ago, coconut immediately came to mind.  But since I also celebrate Passover with my husband’s family, I wanted something I could serve on that holiday, too, so no grains or flours allowed.  Lastly, I wanted a delicious dessert that wouldn’t make me feel sick after I ate a slice.  And this is what it really boils down to for me.  I rarely eat sweets and when I do, I’m not looking for dessert to take care of my nutritional needs.   So whereas it’s nice in theory to know I may be getting a few extra minerals from unrefined sweeteners and unprocessed ingredients, I just want a tasty treat that doesn’t make me feel like hell afterwards.  Like this coconut tart!

 

This tart is so delicious and light, but it also happens to be gluten-free, vegan (if you use coconut oil), Passover-friendly, and adaptable to the fruits of the season.  I love making this tart with strawberries now since they are absolutely everywhere and super luscious.  But I’m sure you can picture this like a traditional fruit tart with raspberries, blueberries, kiwis, ripe peaches and/or apricots.  If you don’t like coconut (seriously?), you probably won’t love this, but you can always swap your favorite (hopefully not too toxic) crust for this one.  The coconut custard is very subtle and not overly sweet, so do give it a chance.  For those of you looking to get a jump-start on your holiday baking (I love the way you think), you can definitely make both the crust and the pastry cream 2-3 days in advance and keep both covered in the refrigerator.  You can even wash, dry, and slice your strawberries the day before and keep them covered in the fridge, if it makes your life easier.  It’s best to wait until the day you serve it to spread the cream on top of the crust to avoid it becoming soggy.  Leftovers (what leftovers?) should be kept refrigerated otherwise you’ll run into the same soggy crust issue.  For my other two favorite go-to Easter and Passover desserts, check out my Lemon Ice Torte, which I’ve been making since 1991 (gasp!) and Coconut Macaroons.  With desserts like these, you won’t be tempted by your kids’ Easter baskets!

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Coconut-Almond Tart with Strawberries
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Serves: 8
 
Ingredients
  • ¼ cup melted coconut oil or unsalted butter plus additional for greasing pan
  • ¼ cup 100% pure maple syrup, preferably Grade A
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup almond meal or almond flour
  • 1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
  • ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • ½ vanilla bean, halved lengthwise
  • 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
  • ½ cup coconut milk (not light)
  • 1 ½ Tablespoons 100% pure maple syrup, preferably Grade A
  • pinch fine sea salt
  • 2 ½ Tablespoons non-GMO cornstarch, such as Bob’s Red Mill or Rapunzel
  • ⅓ cup cold water
  • 1 dry pint strawberries, sliced
Instructions
  1. Make the crust: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously coat a 9 ½ -inch tart pan with removable bottom with butter or coconut oil. Whisk together coconut oil, maple syrup and vanilla until well blended. In a mixing bowl, combine almond meal, coconut and salt. Add wet mixture to the mixing bowl and stir to combine. It will be quite sticky. Press into bottom and up sides of pan. Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
  2. Make the filling: Scrape vanilla seeds into a small saucepan, and add pod. Stir in the almond milk, coconut milk, maple syrup and salt. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Discard vanilla pod.
  3. In a small bowl, combine the cold water and cornstarch and whisk until smooth. Pour into the coconut milk mixture and simmer, whisking constantly, until mixture is thickened like pastry cream. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Transfer cream to the refrigerator and chill.
  4. Just before serving, pour custard into crust and spread evenly. Arrange berries decoratively on top and serve immediately. Best kept refrigerated.

Baked Chicken with Artichokes and Capers Recipe

Something tells me that you organized cooks out there are in the midst of planning your Easter and Passover menus.  Am I right?  My mom had me on the phone the other day trying to get side dish suggestions for her traditional Easter leg of lamb.  After I spoke with her, I took a call from my mother-in-law to go over her Passover menu.  This year we’ll be staying in California for the holidays and I’m on dessert duty.  I’ll be making lots of coconut macaroons, my traditional lemon ice torte and a raw cashew cheesecake that I’m obsessed with.  But if I were hosting Easter or Passover at my home (not that there’s anything wrong with lamb and brisket), I would make this Baked Chicken with Artichokes and Capers.

Normally, I don’t post a recipe until after I have finished teaching it, but I am just so excited about this chicken I can’t wait another day.  It might be my favorite chicken recipe to date, which says a lot since I prepare chicken quite often.  This dish has it all — great flavor, ease of preparation, healthfulness and seasonality.    But really chicken isn’t even the star of this show.  I actually came up with this recipe to work around one of my favorite springtime vegetables, artichokes.

I am going to cheat a little here.  There are times when DIY is the way to go, as in chicken stock.  And there are times when there is not enough patience in the world that could get me through trimming the number of artichokes it would take to fill this saute pan.  (Although I am the same person that trimmed 10 pounds of Brussels sprout leaves for Christmas Eve dinner.)  What’s different about this situation is that Trader Joe’s has come to my rescue with frozen artichoke hearts, an absolute gift and an affordable one, too.   Not only do I always have a bag in my freezer at all times, but the other ingredients here are pantry staples, too — capers, white wine, bay leaves, mustard, which are all delicious with artichokes.

You may have followed similar recipes for chicken and dredged the chicken in flour first before browning it.  The flour does help to the thicken the sauce a bit, but we can avoid the dredging altogether by adding the mustard to the sauce, which gives great flavor, as well as some body.  Be sure to read my latest post on the secret to great-tasting chicken and you can decide if you want to salt the pieces or soak them in a wet brine.  Both ways are very easy and definitely worth doing.  Please note in that post that kosher chicken should not be salted or brined since it has already gone through a salting process.  To make this recipe with boneless, skinless pieces, check out my recipe for Lemon-Thyme Chicken and follow those steps.

For a winner spring holiday lunch or dinner, pair this chicken with this asparagus salad or minted sugar snap peas, and some roasted new potatoes.  I have a seriously fabulous vegan and gluten-free coconut tart coming your way soon!


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Baked Chicken with Artichokes and Capers
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Serves: 4-6
 
Ingredients
  • Brine: (do not brine kosher chicken)
  • 1 cup hot water
  • ¼ cup kosher salt
  • 1 cup ice water
  • 3 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces
  • 2 Tablespoons unrefined olive oil or coconut oil
  • 1 medium onion, diced or sliced (as you prefer)
  • 3 cloves garlic cloves, sliced
  • a big pinch of sea salt (or more if using unsalted stock)
  • Freshly ground black pepper to taste
  • ⅓ cup dry white wine
  • 2 bay leaves (don’t worry if you don’t have them)
  • 12 ounce bag frozen artichoke hearts or packed in water
  • 2 Tablespoons capers
  • 2 Tablespoons whole grain or stone ground mustard
  • ¾ cup chicken stock, preferably homemade
  • Chopped fresh parsley for garnish (optional)
Instructions
  1. In a large bowl, dissolve salt in hot water. Add ice water and check to make sure brine is cool. Add chicken to brine and allow to soak for 45 minutes, and up to an hour and a half. OR sprinkle ½ Tablespoon of kosher salt on the chicken when you get home from the market. Rewrap it and refrigerate it until ready to cook. (Do not brine kosher chicken.)
  2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Remove chicken from brine and pat dry with paper towels.
  3. In an ovenproof skillet or braising pan, over medium heat, add the oil. Brown chicken on both sides. Transfer to a plate and reserve.
  4. Add onions to skillet and cook until tender, about 8 minutes. Add garlic, salt and pepper and sauté another minute or two. Carefully add wine to pan, and deglaze by scraping any brown bits on the bottom.
  5. Add chicken, bay leaves, artichoke hearts, capers, mustard and stock to pan and bring to a boil. Place in oven for 30-35 minutes, until chicken is cooked through, basting after 15 minutes. Garnish with fresh chopped parsley, if available.

 

 

The secret to great-tasting chicken

If you choose to eat animal protein, chances are you prepare chicken more than any other kind.  Chicken’s popularity is not surprising– it is very versatile to cook with, neutral in flavor, low in fat and more budget-friendly than beef or fish.  But I think chicken can sometimes be TOO neutral in flavor, i.e. tasteless.  And it can be TOO low in fat, such as with the breast meat and thus can end up getting dried out easily, especially when we’re being careful about cooking chicken all the way through.  After making mediocre chicken for many years, my life was changed once I learned a few simple tricks to making chicken taste a whole lot better.  Delicious, juicy chicken is in your future!

Quality:      I have done side-by-side taste comparisons with lots of different kinds of chickens and the best tasting bird I ever cooked was an organic, locally-raised pastured chicken by Healthy Family Farms.  There’s definitely a more pure, chicken-y flavor from birds that have been raised out in the open versus in cramped quarters.  And if it’s in your budget, I urge you to only buy organic meats.  Click here for a more in-depth comparison of the different options you may have for chicken.  Most people don’t have access to Kosher, organic, free-range chicken, but if you do, go for it and you can forgo all the pre-seasoning I’m about to recommend since kosher chicken has already been brined.

Salt:  The best thing you can do is to pre-season chicken with salt, especially a whole bird or thick bone-in, skin-on pieces.  Just sprinkling a little salt on top of your chicken right before cooking it will only season the surface.  But seasoning the chicken with salt well ahead of time or brining it in a salt-water solution will draw salt deep into the meat, resulting in a very tasty piece of chicken.  But also, and just as important, the salt changes the cells in the chicken meat so that they will draw and hold more moisture than the chicken had before.  So not only will the chicken be tastier, but it will be much juicier, too.  You kill two birds with one stone!  I did not just say that.  See below for instructions on how to dry brine and wet brine.

Timing:  Well-seasoned chicken needs some advance planning.  I sprinkle or dry rub kosher salt on chicken as soon as I get home from the market, rewrap it and put it in the refrigerator until I’m ready to cook it.  You can do this as much as two days ahead, but less than 2-4 hours ahead doesn’t produce quite the effect you’re looking for.  If you are pressed for time, (e.g. you get home from the market at 4:30 pm and you want to start cooking right away), then a wet brine is the perfect option since you can season bone-in pieces efficiently in 45 minutes.  Whole birds take longer.

Basic Wet Brine:  For 3 pounds of chicken pieces, in a large bowl dissolve 1/4 cup additive-free kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal) in 1 cup hot water.  Whisk to dissolve.   Add 1 cup ice water and make sure the water is cool.  If not, add a few pieces of ice.  Place the chicken pieces in the brine and allow to soak for 45-90 minutes.  If you’re cooking the chicken right away, you can do this on the countertop.  Drain the chicken and pat dry with paper towels before cooking.  For a whole bird, use 1 cup kosher salt and 4 cups water.  Brine for 2-3 hours in the refrigerator.  I don’t normally brine cutlets, but many people do.  You only need to soak boneless, skinless cutlets for about 30 minutes.

 

Basic Dry Brine:  Sprinkle 3 pounds of bone-in chicken pieces with 1/2 Tablespoon additive-free kosher salt or sea salt or a heaping Tablespoon for a whole chicken.  Wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.  Do not rinse.

You can apply these tips to any chicken recipe you have (such as one of my favorites, Orange and Rosemary Glazed Chicken pictured above), but you may want to cut back on the salt in your recipe slightly since the chicken will already be salted.  Look out for a fabulous recipe next week for Baked Chicken with Artichokes and Capers.  So delicious and perfect for Easter or Passover!

Spring Green Minestrone

Spring Green Minestrone | Pamela Salzman

Spring Green Minestrone | Pamela Salzman

I had the best day on Saturday.  Where did I go?  Nowhere!  What did I do?  Nothing!  When was the last time you said you had the best time doing nothing?  I know!  Sometimes I feel like my life is like a runaway train. And although I enjoy its active pace, I wish I took more time to sloooooow down.  This past Saturday was going to be more of the same — squeezing in a workout, a big farmer’s market shop for my classes, watching Mr. Picky’s soccer and baseball games, and chauffeurring the girls here and there.  But the universe gave me a big gift in the form of a torrential rain storm and everything was canceled.  Thank you, thank you!

Mr. Picky stayed in his pajamas until 1:00 in the afternoon.  I read more of the newspaper than just the front page.  Daughter #1 and her adorable friend who spent the night would have normally met friends in town for breakfast, but hung around with us instead.  They played as much One Direction music as we could take, baked a cake, and photographed every move for their 2,000 Facebook “friends” to enjoy.  One thing for sure, I knew I would be making soup.  I had an extra bunch of asparagus from Friday’s class, white beans and peas in the freezer, and a small bag of spinach.  I had the makings of one of my favorites, Spring Green Minestrone.  This is the soup I make whenever Spring rolls around.  As much as I love hearty, chunky soups and stews, I like to leave those to the winter.  Lighter, fresher soups appeal to me now, but ones which still have the ability to warm me up.  And the combination of white beans and peas amounts to a complete protein, so I feel satisfied enough to eat this as a meal.  But it’s all that GREEN that really makes me feel nourished.

The ingredients in this soup look like they couldn’t amount to anything special — there’s no secret ingredient, no flavor boosters.  I’m even surprised when it turns out delicious.  And the recipe is so dead simple, you have no excuse NOT to make your vegetable stock from scratch.  This soup was one of the first cooked vegetable dishes that Mr. Picky actually ate a normal portion of.  Saturday was no different.   He dropped a piece of sourdough toast in his soup and ate every last pea.  My husband poured the usual Pecorino in his.  As for me, I embraced my bowl of springtime au naturel — perfect in its simplicity and which I ate really slooowly.  I needed to make this special day last.  Because although I heard it would rain again on Sunday, I knew that the chances of that happening were about as good as my kids getting a Coke with their lunch.  And sure enough, Sunday’s sunshine came with places to be and things to do, but I got back on the train rejuvenated and restored and ready for it all.

Spring Green Minestrone | Pamela Salzman

 

 
 
 
 
 
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Spring Green Minestrone
Author: 
Serves: 6
 
Ingredients
  • 2 Tablespoons unrefined, cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 leeks, washed well, white and light green parts sliced thinly
  • 4 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
  • 1 pound asparagus, trimmed and sliced on the diagonal into 1-inch pieces
  • 1 ½ cups fresh or frozen green peas
  • 2 Tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
  • 6 cups vegetable stock or light chicken stock, preferably homemade
  • 1 ½ cups cooked white beans, such as Cannellini or Great Northern, or 1 15-ounce can, drained and rinsed
  • 2 teaspoons sea salt (more if your stock is unsalted)
  • 4 ounces baby spinach leaves
Instructions
  1. In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the leeks and sauté until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté another 2 minutes.
  2. Add the asparagus, peas and parsley and toss to coat with the oil, leeks and garlic. Pour in the stock, white beans, and sea salt. Bring to a boil and lower the heat to a simmer. Cook uncovered until the asparagus is just tender, about 5 minutes.
  3. Stir in the spinach leaves and taste for seasoning. Don't be disappointed, but that's all you have to do!
Notes
If you make your own stock, use the tops of your leeks and the woody ends from the asparagus that you might be inclined to compost or throw away.

 

 

Spinach Risotto Healthy Recipe

Spinach Risotto Recipe

I had a bad day recently and what I really wanted to do was inhale a pan of brownies, but I had just published a post about how I beat a sugar addiction and I didn’t want to be a healthy hypocrite.  Instead I set out to make a pot of spinach risotto, my culinary equivalent to a big hug.   If you’re not a spinach fan, I’m not going to be much fun for you this week and next.  We are on the verge of spring, Nature’s new year.  I really feel the resurgence of energy and life that comes back in spring and I get so motivated to start fresh, clean a closet, reorganize a drawer, set some healthful resolutions.  Nutritionally speaking, Nature wants us to start fresh, too, so she gives us lots of dark leafy greens like spinach.  If winter added a few pounds or you have a build-up of mucus or stagnant energy, leafy greens can help.  You already know that greens are super nutrient-dense, but it’s all that chlorophyll that helps the liver to detoxify.  Now if you’re in a habit of eating seasonally, you don’t even need to know this since you would make it happen naturally.

Spinach

As I mentioned in my Spinach and Avocado Smoothie recipe, you have a fantastic window of opportunity with St. Patrick’s Day coming up to make green food.  So I thought today would be a great time to post this spinach risotto recipe.  Please don’t get put off by the word “risotto.”  It doesn’t imply something hard to make, easy to screw up or super labor intensive.  In fact, risotto is something I make when I don’t have a lot of time or I need to make do with bits of this or that in the fridge.  This time around I was overzealous  with my purchase of spinach and wanted to find a good place for it.

Most people think making risotto requires a permanent spot in front of the stove and non-stop stirring.  Not so.  You do have to add a bit of broth to the pot every five minutes and give a quick stir, but you can be accomplishing other things at the same time, such as testing someone on his spelling words, prepping some vegetables, or breaking up an argument between two teenage girls over borrowing clothes.  If you don’t have the patience to be in the presence of teenage girls in the kitchen for too long to stir traditional risotto every five minutes, check out my very easy Artichoke and Spinach Barley Risotto — saute, dump and bake.  Otherwise, timing is the only tricky part since you want to serve risotto as soon as it’s done.  My first round of photos didn’t turn out all that great, so I reshot the plate about 15 minutes later and the risotto had already lost its lovely soupiness and thickened up.  Not the end of the world, of course, but I prefer risotto a little more “pourable.”

Risotto is often served as a first course for dinner, but we’re not in a habit of eating dinner in courses at our house, are you?  So I serve it as a side with other dishes that are a little lighter.  The night I photographed this, I served it with roasted shrimp and a green salad.  I very often serve fish with risotto, such as spice-rubbed or poached salmon with a fresh tomato salsa.  Steamed asparagus, roasted carrots or a grated carrot salad would also complement nicely.  If you do think you will serve this as part of a St. Patrick’s Day dinner, why not give everybody a jump start on spring cleaning and serve everything green?  Enjoy!

Spinach Risotto Recipe

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Spinach Risotto
Author: 
Serves: 6 as a side dish
 
Ingredients
  • 12 ounces spinach leaves, washed
  • 3 ½ - 4 cups chicken or vegetable stock, preferably homemade
  • 2 Tablespoons unrefined, cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil or unsalted butter
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 1 ½ cups Arborio rice, do NOT rinse
  • ½ cup dry white wine
  • 1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • ⅓ cup grated Parmesan or Pecorino-Romano cheese
Instructions
  1. In a wide saucepan you will use for the risotto, bring ½ an inch of water to a boil. Add the spinach leaves and cover. Steam for one minute. Stir the spinach and continue to steam until just wilted.
  2. Transfer the spinach to a blender (I pull the spinach out with tongs) and discard the cooking liquid. Puree the spinach and set aside.
  3. In a medium saucepan, bring all the stock to a boil and turn off the heat. In the same saucepan that the spinach was cooked in, warm the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté gently until tender and translucent, about 3-4 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté for another minute or two.
  4. Add the rice to the onions and stir to coat with the oil. Set your timer for 20 minutes. Sauté rice for 2 minutes. Pour the wine into the saucepan and stir occasionally until it has been absorbed.
  5. Add the salt, zest, and 1 cup of the warmed stock and bring to a lively simmer. The pot should be simmering with active, not furious bubbles. Once the stock has almost been fully absorbed, add another ladleful or about ½ cup and stir occasionally.
  6. After 20 minutes, taste the rice for doneness. Ideally, it is still al dente.
  7. Stir in the cheese and spinach puree. Give the risotto a nice, brisk stir. Turn off the heat and allow to sit for 5 minutes. It should be loose and almost soupy. Serve immediately.

Spinach and avocado smoothie recipe (aka “Leprechaun Juice”)

Are you having trouble getting your kids or significant other to eat green food?  If so, your big chance is coming up and I don’t want you to miss out. Instead of looking at St. Patrick’s Day as a day of corned beef and cabbage, artificially-dyed green bagels and Irish soda bread, it’s actually a huge opportunity to bust out the healthful greens.  Why?  Because this holiday is all about green and it would be festive to serve green food.  I’m not talking green-sprinkled sugar cookies, but Leprechaun Juice of course!

Leprechaun Juice is what I first called this delicious spinach and avocado smoothie years ago and my kids thought I was a really awesome mom.  For all I know, they probably thought I put food coloring in the blender to turn everything this vibrant green or that I picked it up at the 7-Eleven because St. Patrick’s Day is a holiday and I can be fun that way.  Well, you and I know each other pretty well by now to know that there ain’t no food coloring in my smoothies let alone my arts and crafts basket (if I actually had one.)

In fact, raw baby spinach gives give this drink its vibrant color as well as more nutrition than almost any food out there (think folate, antioxidants, Vitamins C and K, iron, magnesium and chlorophyll.)  Spinach blends really well in smoothies because it’s tender and it doesn’t taste like spinach, especially when you toss some extra sweet bananas and dates in there.  Dates and ripe bananas are my secret weapons when I want to use a natural sweetener.  In fact, I buy several bunches of bananas at a time which I allow to ripen until they’re super sweet.  I peel them and then keep them in the freezer for great smoothies, acai bowls and to dip in chocolate.  You might be thinking the most unusual suspect here is probably the avocado.  But its richness makes this smoothie as thick and creamy as a milkshake with absolutely no weird flavor. I am truly the president of the avocado fan club.  They are full of fresh, high-quality fat, loads of Vitamin E and fiber.  And it’s that fat that helps us absorb the fat soluble vitamins and antioxidants, especially the carotenoids in spinach.

Mr. Picky has a cutie-pie friend that walks with us to school every Thursday morning.  According to his mom, he rivals my son in pickiness.  I don’t think she could have ever predicted that her son would be the one operating our juicer every Thursday morning and the first one to gulp down kale, apple and celery juice.  She was really tickled when I sent her a photo of the two “picky boys” slurping their green shakes.  One of the best things you can do is not to assume your kids or significant other won’t like something.  Worst case scenario here is that if you have no takers for Leprechaun Juice, there will be more for you!

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Spinach and Avocado Smoothie
Author: 
Serves: makes 2 medium drinks
 
Ingredients
  • 1 cup unsweetened almond milk or milk of choice
  • 4 pitted dates or sweetener of choice to taste, such as raw honey or pure maple syrup
  • 4 cups spinach leaves
  • ½ ripe avocado, pitted and peeled
  • 2 frozen bananas, cut into chunks
Instructions
  1. If you have a high-powered blender, such as a Vita-Mix, place all the ingredients in the blender and process until smooth.
  2. If you do not have a high-powered blender, the dates may not get blended completely and may leave tiny little bits of date in the smoothie. If that bothers you, blend the almond milk and dates together and then strain the mixture. Add the remaining ingredients to the blender with the strained almond milk and blend until smooth. Or just use honey or maple syrup to sweeten instead of dates.

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