Grilled Campfire Vegetables Tweetcipe

Recently I had the pleasure of talking with a river guide as we hiked through a slot canyon in the Big Bend Ranch State Park. As is my habit, I asked Erica about the food that is served on the overnight rafting trips, particularly the trips that are packaged with a gourmet chef and wine tastings. She described a wonderful array of food that is prepared raw, on the grill and in the cast iron dutch oven. She also mentioned that sometimes the vegetables get short shrift, almost as if they were an afterthought, giving way to the wine, cheese, bread, meat and dessert. Just for fun I put the following grill-friendly vegetable recipes together for her, in case they’d like to jazz up the vegetables, too.

Carrots and Asparagus

Carrots (cut on the bias) and asparagus spears are great travel-friendly vegetables and lend themselves to quick and easy campfire recipes. Here are a few ideas (all ingredient amounts should be to your personal taste):

Wrap cleaned asparagus and/or carrots in foil with butter, salt, pepper, and the zest of an organic lemon. Set the foil packet over the fire to roast – about 15 minutes for asparagus and 25 minutes for carrots. Alternative: Substitute a little brown sugar for the lemon zest.

Asparagus only: Using either of the above recipes, set the packet over the fire just until the butter has melted – about 2 minutes. Turn the packet upside down with tongs to spread the butter over the asparagus. Now open the packet carefully (reserve the butter mixture in the packet) and grill the spears about 90 seconds. Turn the asparagus and grill for another 90 seconds. Place the asparagus spears back in the packet, seal it, set aside and the asparagus will finish cooking. If the spears are thick, then set the packet over indirect heat for 6-8 minutes.

Asparagus appetizer or side dish:

Wrap a single spear (for appetizer) or several spears (for a side dish) in a thin slice of prosciutto. Sprinkle with pepper and a favorite herb (fresh thyme, herbs de provence, smoked paprika) and seal them in a foil packet. Set the foil packet over the fire to roast for about 15 minutes.

Optional garlic dipping sauce that can be made in advance and kept cool:

2 cups mayonnaise
1 1/3 cup plain yogurt
6 cloves garlic, pressed
4 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 T fresh dill, minced

Grilled Radicchio & Scallions

Cut a head of radicchio into quarters, keeping core intact. Drizzle olive oil on radicchio and whole scallions. Grill radicchio for 2 minutes on each cut side. Grill whole scallions until marked. Slice radicchio into thick shreds, cut scallions into large pieces and mix. Sprinkle salad with balsamic vinegar, more good quality olive oil, salt and pepper.

Brussels Sprouts with Pork Belly and Blue Cheese Tweetcipe

It’s officially Fall and after the brutal summer in Austin, I’m relieved to feel the cooler weather. Local garden vegetables didn’t produce in the heat and drought of the summer, but now the cooler nights and days are encouraging what are traditionally summer plants to finally put on tomatoes, okra, and squash. Along with these I am seeing the fall vegetables such as Brussels sprouts and lettuces in my CSA basket and at the grocery store.

I chose Brussels sprouts as the focus of this month’s tweetcipe. They look like baby cabbages and are a good source of Vitamins A and C, folic acid, fiber, potassium and iron. They are not a popular green vegetable, at least not in Texas, but if you try my recipe, you may want to eat them more often!

Brussels Sprouts with Pork Belly and Blue Cheese

Serves 4

1 lb of small Brussels sprouts (the smaller they are, the sweeter they are)
1 T olive oil
salt/pepper
1/3 lb pork belly, bacon or pancetta, diced small
4 oz blue cheese, crumbled

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bring salted water to a boil in a large saucepan. Trim the sprouts by cutting off the browned stem end and then cut the sprouts in half. Add sprouts to the water, turn down heat to gently boil for 3 minutes. Pour olive oil in an oven proof dish. Using a slotted spoon, drop the sprouts in the dish with the olive oil then salt and pepper to taste. Stir well and place in oven for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, sauté pork belly, bacon or pancetta on the oven until brown and crispy. I like to use pork belly and add smoked salt and pepper. Drain pork. Check the doneness of the sprouts by poking a fork in the stem end. Don’t over cook! Place hot sprouts in a bowl with the cooked pork and blue cheese and gently stir. Serve warm.

Butter vs. Margarine - The Great Debate

There is a lot of debate about butter and margarine. I think butter tastes better and is often a better cooking ingredient than margarine, which can become watery when heated, but what I’ve discovered is that either choice is bad if it’s used too much. As with most things in life, the key is moderation.

In poking around on the Internet, it’s easy to see why people get confused about whether or not they should use butter or margarine. There are some studies that say margarine is better because it is lower in saturated fat and some that say butter is better because it is a naturally made substance with easily absorbable nutrients and not chemically created like margarine. Personally, I use butter, because it is the least processed (the shortest ingredient list), it tastes better and it makes a better cooking ingredient than margarine.

Overall, margarine is lower in fat and cholesterol. According to the Mayo Clinic, margarine is the healthier choice – as long as you are choosing the right margarine. Margarine has the advantage because it has no cholesterol and is higher in polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats – the kind that help increase “good” cholesterol and reduce “bad” cholesterol. Ironically, margarine also has trans fat. Even the healthiest of margarines still has some quantity of trans fat, and trans fat is the worst kind of fat you can have, because it both lowers good cholesterol and increases bad cholesterol. Confusing, isn’t it?

The added flavorings of some margarines has improved enough to have a richer, more buttery taste. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter does not use hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil – the process that creates trans fat – so it can be a good alternative when baking. The Mayo Clinic recommends Benecol and Promise Activ, which have been fortified with plant stanols and sterols, which can help reduce LDL cholesterol levels.

What concerns me is that, thanks mostly to marketing efforts on the part of the margarine industry, we might start thinking margarine is a healthy food, and feel more comfortable using it liberally. Even when the label says it is trans fat free (which manufacturers are allowed to claim if there is less than half a gram of trans fat per serving), there is still a trace of trans fat in margarines that have hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil. To be fair, butter has a trace of trans fat too, but it is naturally occurring. In the end, neither choice is ideal if you’re trying to lower your cholesterol, and whether you choose butter or margarine, both should be used sparingly. Most cooking should be done with healthier oils like grapeseed and safflower.

Until next time, eat well!

Corn Salad Tweetcipe

I was browsing a culinary newsletter today and read an article about charter yacht chef Victoria Allman and her new cookbook. It brought back great memories of living and sailing in the British Virgin Islands and I found myself musing the all too popular “what if I could go back and do it differently…” I was a massage therapist and day spa owner back then, but a few years ago I changed careers and am now pursuing another fun vocation – personal chef.

The fresh corn on the cob that we’re getting right now prompts me to share Chef Allman’s recipe for Fresh Corn Salad. To make this a main dish just add 4 or 5 large poached shrimp per person.

Fresh Corn Salad

Yield: 4 servings

Adapted from "SEAsoned" by Victoria Allman

Salt
4 ears sweet corn
12 cherry tomatoes, quartered
4 to 6 fresh basil leaves, chopped fine
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup finely diced red onion
Freshly ground black pepper
1 head Boston leaf lettuce

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook corn for 3 minutes, then plunge the ears into ice water. When cool, cut the kernels from the cobs.

Mix corn kernels, tomatoes, basil, vinegar, oil, onion, 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper to taste. Taste; add more vinegar or oil if needed.

Place a lettuce leaf in the center of each of 4 plates; fill with corn salad.

Variation: To serve as a main dish, top with poached shrimp.

Easy Food Switches You Can Make for Your Health

In January, most of us start out with resolutions to eat better, make healthier choices, or simply to add more fruits and veggies to our diets. It doesn’t take very long for life to get in the way of our best intentions, does it?

Between vacations that tempt us to eat (and drink) too much to summer barbecues and get-togethers that tempt us with potato chips and fried chicken, it can be more difficult than ever to make healthy changes to our diets.

There are some quick and easy switch ups you can make to your meals and snacks to make them healthier, and because this time of year makes it easy to find a variety of fresh fruits and veggies, you can let your imagination run wild. Try switching from potato chips or Cheetos to carrots or celery with peanut butter. You can buy baby carrots and already-prepared celery sticks to make it as easy as opening the fridge.

Do you love starting your morning with something sweet to accompany your coffee? Apples with peanut (or almond) butter, a dash of cinnamon and a drizzle of honey is a lot healthier – and more satisfying – than your average toaster pastry. Because it will keep you full longer, you may even find that mid-morning donut a little less tempting! The occasional handful of chips or donut isn’t bad. The key is balance.

One of the easiest switches you can make for healthier eating is from canned vegetables to frozen ones. I’m talking about the plain, unadorned frozen vegetables – not the kind with a butter or cheese sauce that bumps up the calorie count! Fruits and vegetables start to slowly deteriorate after they are picked. Frozen fruits, vegetables, and even fish are frozen almost immediately after being caught, cut or picked. This process suspends the depletion of all the nutrition contained within the food, preserving those essential vitamins and minerals. The deterioration doesn’t stop in fruits and vegetables that are canned, and the nutrients are filtered out even further when the canned food is processed with high doses of salt and water. Plus, through the canning process, salt and water changes the taste and texture, which is much less noticeable in the frozen variety. While there is always an exception, most vegetables can freeze just fine and retain their nutritional value.

Don’t get me wrong — I prefer fresh produce over frozen any day, but I like to eat seasonally fresh foods. For instance, I don’t purchase fresh corn on the cob in January, because who knows where it was shipped from and how long it has been stored? If a recipe calls for a vegetable or fruit that is out of season, I like to use the frozen organic option.

Most folks seek quick, easy meals that, whether they know it or not, often run high in calories and low in nutrition. With moderation and some easy switches that won’t take up any more time to prepare, you can eat better for your health.

Until next time, eat well!

Grilled Cheese Stuffed Jalapenos Tweetcipe

Jalapenos are often used to flavor other dishes such as salsa, cornbread and nachos. I’d like to show some respect to this rather unappreciated vegetable with a recipe that features the spicy green pepper. You may have tried a variation of this appetizer that sometimes goes by the name of Jalapenos Kisses, but homemade and grilled can’t be beat! Warning: these warm little appetizers are not for the tender-mouthed!

GRILLED CHEESE STUFFED JALAPENOS

Makes 40 stuffed jalapenos

20 large mild jalapenos, cut in half lengthwise and seeded (use gloves to protect your fingers)
1 – 8 oz package cream cheese
1 t milk
Pinch of salt
1 t powdered chipotle or chili powder
20 pieces of bacon, thin sliced and cut in half

Place 40 toothpicks in water to soak. Mix cream cheese, milk, salt and spice in a medium bowl until smooth.

Fill each jalapeno with some of the cream cheese mixture. Wrap each in a piece of bacon and secure with a toothpick.

Place jalapenos on a grill plate (a metal plate with holes in it) and grill over medium heat until peppers are roasted and bacon is cooked. Do not flip or turn. If the peppers are burning or the bacon fat is causing flare-ups, place a sheet of foil on the grill and move the jalapenos onto the foil until done. Serve immediately.

Eat the Rainbow

When you’re busy and on the run it’s tough to eat healthy, isn’t it? Trying to remember how many servings of this or that makes me feel like reaching for a bag of potato chips and calling it a day. But, eating healthy is something I do try to do, and one way to make it a little easier is to eat the rainbow – and sorry, I am not referring to Skittles!

“Eating the rainbow” is all about adding more color to your diet. The idea is that as long as those colors are fresh fruits and veggies, you’ll be able to eat healthier without putting a lot of thought or effort into worrying about servings per day. Filling in the rainbow might not be an easy task, but I try to get as close as possible every day (while avoiding those tempting rainbow Twizzlers).

To fulfill your “red” requirements, go for tomatoes and beets. Cooked tomatoes especially provide excellent nutritional value. Foods like carrots fulfill the orange requirement, as do, well, oranges. There are some food items that come in more than one color such as squash, which can be either yellow or orange. As far as I know there are no real differences in the nutritional value in the varied colors of the same vegetable, with the exception of red bell peppers. Setting aside the outrageous cost of red bell peppers for the moment, they contain as much as four times the Vitamins A and C than their green counterparts.

Green might not get special emphasis when you’re looking for a pot of gold, but it’s obviously the most important section of the food rainbow and one of the healthiest colors to add to your plate. You can’t go wrong with a half-green plate at dinner. I cook some sort of green leafy vegetable almost every day and all that I have noticed is that each green takes a different amount of cooking time. For most palettes, cooked greens just need a little water or vegetable broth added along with a dash of salt and pepper. But to vary your green experience I suggest adding ingredients like sliced pieces of garlic or shiitake mushroom for additional flavor.

When thinking about eating the rainbow, don’t limit yourself to the basics. There are a ton of tasty choices that will give you the balanced diet you are looking for and help improve your health. This list is only a start to the many options that are available to you in helping you achieve that balanced diet:

• Red: tomatoes, grapefruit, watermelon, guava, red bell pepper
• Green: spinach, collards, kale, broccoli, Swiss Chard, avocado, asparagus
• Orange: sweet potatoes, mangos, carrots, apricots, papaya
• Yellow: pineapple, yellow bell pepper, banana, squash
• Blue/Purple: blueberries, plums, eggplant, blackberries

While white isn’t technically a color in the rainbow, it’s a good idea to include garlic, chives, onions, scallions, and leeks, both for flavor and for the health benefits they offer.

It’s ok to mix things up and experiment with the different varieties of food that are out there. Do not limit yourself or your cooking to the items that first come to mind. Spinach and other low fat, nutrient-rich produce get a bad rap from the Tastebud Police, but there are many healthy foods out there that, with the right flavoring or recipe (like my Gazpacho Soup), can make your list of favorites.

Until next time, eat well!

Easy Gazpacho Soup Tweetcipe

It’s time to make the most of the summer’s fresh vegetables! What I love about this recipe is that it is really simple to put together, requires no cooking, and I can clean out my refrigerator’s vegetable drawer. All of the vegetables just need to be roughly chopped.

Easy Gazpacho Soup

1 cup chopped red onions
1 cup chopped green bell pepper
1 cup chopped English cucumber, or use a regular cucumber, seeded
1 cup chopped and peeled tomatoes, or use store-bought diced tomatoes
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3 cups tomato juice, or use low-sodium V8
Sprig of thyme
Balsamic Glaze (optional)

Mix all the ingredients except the balsamic glaze together in a large bowl, cover, and let sit in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day, remove the thyme sprig and blend all the ingredients with a stick blender or in a food processor until the gazpacho is smooth. This amount will serve 6. For a smoother texture, strain the soup, and this amount will serve 4. Refrigerate the gazpacho until ready to serve.

To complete: Ladle the cold soup into bowls and squeeze dots of balsamic glaze over the top.

Getting Adventurous with Cooking Oils

For many home cooks, vegetable oil is normally the go-to cooking oil, but there are many different alternatives that I like to incorporate in my cooking that not only taste better, but are better for you. Cooking oils vary so it’s helpful to know some specific things about them. Because different kinds of oil have different smoking points, each will start losing some of their nutritional value and flavor at certain contrasting temperatures.

The smoke point is the temperature at which the oil begins to burn, but worse than that, it’s also the temperature where the oil begins to degenerate and throw off unhealthy free radicals. Although cooking above the smoke point doesn’t necessarily mean your food will burn, it is the point at which you should probably ditch the food and oil that is in the pan and start over.

Safflower oil and grapeseed oil are good to use because they have higher smoke points (great when you need to cook at a higher temperature) and they do not emit any particular flavor that will affect your recipe. When shopping for cooking oils, be sure to look for the refined versions as they will have higher smoke points than their unrefined siblings.

Lately I have been experimenting with coconut oil. While safflower oil and grapeseed oil are interchangeable, unrefined coconut oil adds a bit of flavor. You want to make sure you are thinking about the flavor the oil will add to avoid a weird mixture of tastes. While unrefined coconut oil might taste great in a fruity sautéed chicken salad, your chicken parmesan might take on a tropical flavor that you did not intend. Cooking with refined coconut oil not only gives you a higher smoke point, but the light coconut flavor is no longer discernable. You can fry with any of these three oils to have some flexibility in the kitchen. I do not cook with extra virgin olive oil because of its low smoke point. Instead, I reserve extra virgin olive oil to finish a dish (for instance, drizzling over a cooked homemade pizza) or to add to salad dressings and dips.

I always try to cook with the healthiest ingredients, and oil is no exception. Stick to the basics: naturally occurring fats in oils are processed much more easily by your body than the unnatural trans fatty acids (made by the hydrogenation process) that are mostly stored in the arteries. Doctors will tell you the healthiest oils contain mostly unsaturated fats, but do not let that scare you away from expanding your cooking techniques. Cooking in moderation with, say, coconut oil or butter, which are higher in saturated fat, can improve your dish’s flavor. I’m the first one to admit fat equals flavor! While I try to maintain a healthy diet, the key is moderation. Avoid ingredients that contain trans fatty acids, but the occasional indulgence in coconut oil or butter with their saturated fat is ok in my opinion. Get adventurous in the kitchen and try something other than vegetable oil. There are many healthier alternatives that are full of flavor.

Until next time, eat well!

Bring on the Tomatoes!

It is spring! As I organize and re-plant my garden, I bid adieu to the last of my winter carrots and onions. I’ve already planted my bell pepper plants, the strawberries are in full bloom, and the peas are growing so fast I can almost watch those delicate tendrils grab on and vine up. However, it is the optimistic and fragrant tomato that actually calls me by name.

It can be tricky to plant tomatoes and fragile herbs like cilantro in the early spring – In many parts of the country, frost threatens tender, young buds well into May. However, protecting the plants by dutifully covering them at night with row cover and uncovering them in the morning is well worth the effort when that first heirloom tomato hits the taste buds. I can already taste the marinara sauce in my summer menus…

This year, I’m experimenting with potted plants, upside down baskets as well as a new square foot garden. It is fun to watch the tomato and strawberry plants grow upside down, hanging on my porch, and they are beautiful to see out the windows. This is such a wonderful gardening option for city, apartment, and condo dwellers. We can now enjoy the fresh taste of produce wherever we live.

Fruits and vegetables from the garden (or hanging basket) taste better - there is no doubt about it. Especially when they are served just moments after they are plucked from the plant. The produce is allowed to ripen perfectly on the vine or bush, rather than being picked green and allowed to ripen in warehouses or on trucks en route to the grocery store.

I learned this lesson when I joined a CSA. When I was younger I never particularly liked greens, but I ate them because I knew they were such a good source of iron, antioxidants, vitamins A, K, and D, and calcium. Then I tasted the local, and later, the homegrown versions and discovered flavors I never knew existed. My palate was alive with spinach, kale, Swiss chard, mustard greens, and those potent, tender little Brussels sprouts. And the best news: many of the vitamins in leafy greens are fat-soluble, so a little oil or butter (or the occasional bit of tasty bacon grease, oh my!) is necessary for proper absorption of the vitamins.

Want to be healthier and eat more vegetables because you actually enjoy the taste? Want to teach your children how good, nutritional food is grown? Want to eat locally? It doesn’t get any more local than your backyard garden!