We all love roasted vegetables. They taste delicious and they’re easy. But for the holidays or entertaining, it’s nice to add a little something extra to basic roasted vegetables. How about grapes?? Trust me on this one. They’re not quite expected, but they’re like sweet little juicy nuggets that enhance bitter vegetables like Brussels sprouts. I am on a mission to get people to love vegetables and eat more of them. And this recipe is a winner!Continue reading
I made this cake once to bring a friend’s house for dinner and people were stealing each other’s crumbs. I served it to my family and my son spit it out. Just being honest. It would be really awesome to say that my family loves everything I make, that my 10-year-old scarfs down whole grain cakes with rosemary and dark chocolate and never, ever, ever asks for Flaming Hot Cheetos. But alas, I live in the real world with at least one child, as well as one adult, whose palates are rather, shall we say, simple.
But if I catered to the lowest common denominator in my house all the time, we’d never get to know the deliciousness that is this nutty, earthy, lightly sweet cake with a savory infusion of rosemary. And dark chocolate! Maybe it sounds like a weird combo to you. I actually wasn’t sure myself when I first whisked these ingredients together, but the scent emanating from my oven was enough to convince me that this is a very tasty cake.
I love rustic desserts. The flavors are deep and I don’t have to worry about anything looking too perfect. And I think anything rustic lends itself better to whole grain flours. I found this recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, Good to the Grain, by Kim Boyce. She uses refined flours and refined white sugar, but I actually think the cake tastes better and more interesting with whole spelt and whole wheat pastry flour, and sweetened with maple syrup. I also don’t find myself in a sugar coma after eating a piece of this.
I mentioned that I have made this cake for after dinner, but I think it would also be lovely for a brunch. Sweet and savory all in one easy-to-bake cake. Maybe with a dollop of Greek yogurt. Love it. No thanks, Mr. Picky? No problem. More for me!
Everyone thinks it’s so funny when I whine that I don’t get invited much to peoples’ houses for dinner. There is an assumption that I’m an accomplished chef and I must have such high standards for eating therefore it’s too intimidating to have me over for dinner. Ha! Nothing could be farther from the truth. I’m a home cook who never went to culinary school and I don’t ever make recipes with three sauces. I could never work in a restaurant or hotel or be on one of those shows where you have to figure out what to do with octopus and cornflakes in 20 minutes. Just for the record, I love simple food. I don’t need anything fancy or chef-y. I am very easy to please as long as it’s fresh and natural. And I’ll bet that you are as good a cook, if not better than I am. Anyone can have a food blog, friends!
What I do love is sharing recipes that work for me, because I think we’re a lot alike. And it makes me happy if more people are cooking at home, even if I’m not invited. Wink, wink. These roasted smashed potatoes are my favorite kind of recipe — uncomplicated, tasty, easy and healthful. They go with whatever I’m serving and every single person in my family loves them. If you’ve never made smashed potatoes, you are totally missing out. They’re both fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside and if you add enough salt, damn delicious. I could just eat a half dozen of these and some scrambled eggs and call it a night. If you invited me over for dinner and made these potatoes with scrambled eggs, I would be in heaven. Yep, that’s all it takes.
The other night at our dinner table, there were several ways to eat these. My husband makes up for my dairy abstinence by melting cheese on everything, including these potatoes. Mr. Picky dipped his in mustard and Daughter #2 topped hers with guacamole, salsa and sour cream. Daughter #1 and I ate these plain and simple. I’m going to start teaching the little miss how to make easy recipes like this because she’ll be off to college before I know it. Sigh. Wait, what am I talking about? Yippee!
These are divine out of the oven, but I don’t love potatoes reheated. To do some of the work ahead of time, boil the potatoes and refrigerate them. Then, smash them and roast them to crispy perfection. What is great is that you’ll use the whole potato, since most of the nutrients are in the skin or just underneath the skin. And if you follow the Body Ecology Diet, red new potatoes are the only potatoes permitted since they have the fewest sugars of any potato. Just an FYI. Of course, most of you are not on the Body Ecology Diet, so use whatever baby potatoes you can get your hands on, like Yukon Golds.
When I taught in France last year, I did some roasted potatoes in duck fat, which I know doesn’t sound healthful, but to be honest, I think animal fats can be good to cook with at high temperatures, unless you’re a vegetarian. Unsaturated fats (vegetable oils) can oxidize at high temperatures (above 350 degrees) which create free radicals. Yuck! Those are pro-inflammatory compounds that will age you from the inside out. Saturated fats don’t do that. Listen, I use olive oil at higher temperatures sometimes if it’s the only fat that works, but you’re better off with coconut oil, ghee or duck fat, in this case. Do what you’re comfortable with because you’ll love these no matter what!
Do your kids ask you for things at the last possible second even though they have known about whatever it is they need for weeks? My husband does this, too. “If you knew last Friday that you would need to bring a wrapped gift for your party, why are you telling me as we’re getting into the car on the WAY to the party??” It really messes up the walk I talk about being organized.
One of my daughters was going to a girl scout meeting which started at 6:00 pm, and guess what? She announced at 5:25 that she needed to bring an hors d’oeuvre. That 10 pre-teens would actually want to eat. And “not like something so totally healthy either, Mom.” Like cool! Like let’s pretend we’re on an episode of Chopped! But seriously, even though I like the idea of being able to whip something yummy together with stuff from my pantry in 20 minutes, it’s a little stressful.
Normally, my go-to would have been hummus, which I can make in 10 seconds and I know my daughter and her friends like it. But of course, on this day I had no cooked chickpeas. So you know what they say about necessity being the mother of invention. I found some canned white beans in the pantry and added them to the food processor with a few other staples that generally taste good with white beans and we had ourselves a winner dip. My daughter even said she liked it better than hummus. At the time, I made it with a raw garlic clove and it was terrific, but another day when I wasn’t under the gun I tried it with a whole head of roasted garlic and looooooved it more.
I just made the bean dip again recently to bring to a birthday dinner with some health-conscious ladies and served it with some crudites as shown in the picture. I stole the idea from Martha Stewart of putting the cut veggies in modern drinking glasses. It always makes for a pretty presentation. I also included a small bowl of balsamic vinegar and olive oil with a pinch of sea salt — another stolen idea, this time from an Italian restaurant. We have also used the dip as a sandwich spread with grilled vegetables. Fabulous with eggplant, sweet bell peppers and zucchini!
Sure I could have gone to the market on the way to the meeting and picked up a tub of salsa and a bag of chips, but thankfully I didn’t because then there would of been two of the same hors d’oeuvre at the meeting that night. (At least it’s not just my kid.)
It’s not my husband’s fault he can’t find his way around the kitchen. He grew up with a mother who is a very willing and capable cook. She made hot breakfasts every morning and power lunches for school. Each night she lovingly prepared a fresh, well-balanced dinner. Then I came along. I met my husband in college when I was 18 and I already loved cooking for people. I remember sophomore year my husband and his roommates fasted for Yom Kippur, as in they didn’t eat for 24 hours. Who doesn’t love cooking for people who are ravenous?? We dated and I cooked. We married and I cooked. We had kids and I cooked a lot, and I was happy to do it.
I had two unusual days in a row last week where I had to work past dinner time. I verbally clued my husband in to all the dinner possibilities using staples from the pantry and the fridge. There was pesto, poached chicken meat, enough leftover soup for two, cooked brown rice, washed salad greens and vinaigrette in a jar. With pasta and a can of beans in the pantry, I was sure he could come up with something. Or so I thought.
I came home from a long day last Monday night and there it was on the kitchen counter — the take-out pizza box. Sigh. I don’t know what I was thinking that I could expect the poor guy to throw something together after a hard day of work that he and the three kiddos would want to eat. I’m sure no one suffered eating pizza that night, but what would he do the next day?? I knew I needed to plan for an easy dinner that everyone would like and that my husband could handle — orange and rosemary-glazed chicken. This is one of the simplest things you can make and so delicious. This chicken has saved my life on busy weeknights and has delighted dinner guests alike. Just marinate the chicken in a few ingredients ahead of time and pour everything into a casserole dish and bake.
I use all-fruit orange or kumquat preserves in the marinade, but I have used apricot, too. Just make sure it’s all fruit without the addition of any sugar. The preserves will be sweet enough. I love rosemary with orange and with chicken, and I happen to have an out-of-control rosemary bush on my front lawn so I never have enough uses for it. If you don’t have rosemary, thyme works well here, too. The best part of this dish is the yummy, glaze-y sauce which we spoon over the chicken on the plate, but doesn’t get wasted if you serve this with something like rice or millet to sop it up. With some steamed or roasted asparagus or sauteed spinach, someone looks like he knows a little something about something. My hero.
View this post on Instagram
I used to struggle coming up with an hors d’oeuvre that was tasty, fresh and didn’t contain tons of dairy. Have you ever noticed the popular hors d’oeuvres that show up at every cocktail or dinner party – there’s the baked wedge of brie, the spinach and artichoke dip bubbling over with three cheeses AND sour cream, the cheese platter, the mini grilled cheeses and of course, the most sophisticated of all, The Caprese Skewer. Believe me, I’ve made more than my share of boconcini, basil and grape tomatoes on a toothpick, but people, it is no longer 1999! We have got to move on!
So I began thinking about why the Caprese Skewer is so ubiquitous. The Caprese salad is simple and delicious when showcasing perfect tomatoes, aromatic basil and fresh, creamy mozzarella. What could be better than having each of those flavors in one delightful bite? So why not extend the salad-as-skewer idea? What about a Greek Salad Skewer? Grape tomato, spinach or mint-wrapped feta, cucumber, and a pitted kalamata olive sprinkled with dried oregano and drizzled with lemon juice and olive oil. Hmmmm, I like it, but very summery.
It’s Fall, so I roasted butternut squash and apples with rosemary and skewered them together with red beets. Needs a little green. Take a piece of arugula or spinach and turn it around a piece of feta so that the feta doesn’t crumble when you skewer it. Then drizzle it all with a little balsamic and oil. Who wouldn’t want to eat that?? Don’t answer that.
I will forewarn you, there is a bit of prep involved. There’s chopping and roasting and skewering. Ah, I am seeing the lure of the ease of the old standby skewer, but these are so worth it. The colors alone will make your hors d’oeuvre stand out in a sea of cream and you will be a star!
