Adventures of a healthy-ish pseudo-foodie

In retrospect I should have put eyes and a mouth on this oblong pile of dal. For someone who grew up thinking I hated All Things Lentil, I've become quite the fan of dal in adulthood. In fact, I haven't met a dal that I didn't like. This one is the sweetest that I've made (thanks for the mango), which is a nice change of pace. Speaking of the mango, I must spend a moment raving about one of my favorite kitchen gadgets. I usually adhere to Alton Brown's rule against single-purpose kitchen tools, but my mango slicer has more than earned a spot in my kitchen drawer. I used to be like the "before" shots in infomercials, trying pathetically to cut mango effectively away from the pit. The mango splitter easily glides down and separates the pit from two fleshy halves. It does leave a tiny bit of mango stuck to the ends of the pit, but I certainly don't mind snacking on that part. Overall it's saved me a lot of grief. If you're a mango lover

The key to Jess's heart. If I ask Jess what he wants for dinner, this is what he requests. It's his favorite birthday dinner, anniversary dinner, weekend dinner, weekday dinner, and on the rare occasion that there's been leftovers, it's his favorite breakfast or lunch the next day.  Our host mother in Japan prepared super-salty salmon with breakfast every day. I think it was probably belly salmon (our mediocre communication skills did not let us learn what part of the salmon it was), and she either broiled it or cooked it in a very hot pan on the stove. When we got back home, I set out to make something similar. I ended up working from  this recipe , which I've modified only slightly over time. This recipe is definitely salty, which we like, and it also overcooks the salmon a bit. It's like 1/50th the way toward salmon jerky. If you like your salmon moist and and subtly seasoned, this is not your dish.  There should be a visible amount of sa

Looks like a brownie, right? At the moment, I'm categorizing this one as an interesting experiment. Interesting enough to make again in its current form? No. Interesting enough to tinker with? Yes. Perhaps I'll update this post later with an improved version. I had leftover  anko  (red bean paste) from making  steamed red bean buns , and so I decided to try  this recipe  for super healthy brownies. I've tried black bean brownies before that they were good, and red beans are even sweeter, so it seemed like it would work. I do love that this recipe only has healthy ingredients. No artificial sweeteners, no butter/oil, and in fact no dairy OR flour, for anyone avoiding either of those things. Everything except the oats. Super easy. Baked! Looking PRETTY much like brownies... In the end, it tastes too healthy. The consistency is like... um... like a couple of bananas, some bean paste, and oats baked together. In other words, not fluffy, and not rich,

Imagine your favorite shape of noodle and choice of veggies and protein. It's the sauce that matters. I'm a big fan of Ellie Krieger's recipes, and I think  her recipe for peanut noodles  may have been at the root of my initial fandom. The sauce is a little lighter than a lot of peanut sauces, and I haven't met a pasta, rice, stir-fry, or spring roll that wasn't made better with its addition. Make ahead. Put on all things Asian-ish until it's gone. On this particular day, I wanted something easy to put it on. So I got short pasta and spinach (which could just be thrown in raw), and took just a few minutes to pan-fry some tofu.  Fried: Jess's tofu cooking method of choice. The Recipe: 1/2 c peanut butter 1/4 c soy sauce 1/4 c water 2 tb rice vinegar 2 tb lime juice 1 scallion, cut into pieces 3/4 inch fresh ginger, grated 2 tb brown sugar 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes Optional: chopped peanuts or scallion for topping

Success. For some time, I've been wanting to try my hand at Chinese steamed buns. I love them, and I haven't found a reliable source for them in Eugene besides the frozen ones at the Asian market. And so, a winter break project was formed. Sticky dough! I triple-checked the recipe to make sure I didn't miss some flour. After rising and kneading with a bit more flour, it became a respectable dough consistency. The red bean paste that I used as filling, anko, can be purchased at Asian markets. But it was so easy to make, and I was able to control the amount of sugar.  Here's how I made the anko . You could also fill these with pork, or vegetables, or shoelaces and cat fur, and it would be delicious. I didn't research the right way to form the buns with the anko, so maybe there's a better way. What I did was form the dough into a small disk, put a spoonful of anko in the center, pull the dough up to seal it, and then place it with the sea

Sweet beany goodness. A major facet of my love affair with adzuki beans is the red bean paste in steamed buns (and ice cream). I decided it was time to learn how to make it. This particular batch of anko would be destined for steamed buns, and just in case there was any left over, I also armed myself with an adzuki brownie recipe.  Note that you could either blend it for a smooth consistency or leave it lightly mashed, which is what I did. I like the variation in texture. Looking pretty beany before mashing. The Recipe: 1 c adzuki beans 1 c sugar 1 tsp salt Soak beans in water overnight Place beans and their soaking water in a pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer 10 minutes. Drain in a colander, then put the beans back in the pot and add 4 cups of new water. Bring to a boil again, then simmer 1 hour. Drain the liquid from the pot. Add sugar and salt. Stir and mash the mixture over low heat until it reaches the desired consistency. The Verdict

You could play the "what does it look like" game with these if there are no clouds in the sky. For seafood recipes, I generally turn to either Emeril or Ina Garten. Ina wins this one. I use  her recipe for crab cakes  with very few changes: yogurt instead of mayonnaise, panko instead of bread crumbs, and I bake them instead of frying. What I love most about this recipe is that it's about 50% vegetables. Combine that with baking them, and I'd dare say they're healthy. Ina's recipes often specify that your ingredients should be good... like "1/2 cup good mayonnnaise." On that topic, this recipe is definitely best with good, fresh crab. But it also works with canned. If you do get canned, try to find a brand that has lumps. Trader Joe's has good, lumpy, canned crab. And on the topic of lumpiness, there's a spectrum in crab-cake-making regarding how small you chop the vegetables. One one end is very lumpy, with all of the ingredients

Is it poor form to scoop off all of the pomegranate seeds for myself? With the exception of some of the vegetable components, this is exactly taken from  this recipe  by Aida Mollenkamp. Pomegranate gremolata is the magic here. Its name is pretentious and it takes a little more time to prepare than your average salad, but it's worth it. I might start putting it in everything I eat. Ready to go on a salad... or salmon... or a grilled cheese sandwich... or... The gremolata is just pomegranate seeds, parsley, shallots, and orange zest. Mix them together, season, and it's done. Put it on your salad, or anything else, for instant fancy deliciousness and texture. I really liked the dressing on this salad, too. If you don't have pomegranate molasses (and don't feel like reducing pomegranate juice to make it), it's also good without it. You could maybe substitute a little more honey and some kind of fruit juice for a similar effect. The Recipe:

Oh my. If I can find a good way to sneak just a little more protein into this recipe, I might declare it the perfect food and eat it for every meal. It's amazing. I worked from  this recipe , adding cheddar and spinach and deleting the spices, which really, it doesn't need. Butternut squash is magic in mac and cheese. It fills out the sauce into this really rich, creamy abundance of deliciousness, and it's good for you. I won't call this recipe 100% health food, but it's as close as I've ever gotten to health food with mac and cheese. Frozen, pre-pureed squash works like a charm here. No need to do anything more difficult. I also used frozen spinach, though that would be easy enough to do from fresh. The sauce. I literally raised my eyebrows in surprise at how good it was when I tasted it. Out of the oven, causing some serious salivating in our household. Without further ado, here's the recipe that capped off a week of snow day

Scroll down to learn more about that empty pan on the right side. I don't bake much, because it requires patience. But baking on snow days is a requirement, and I've learned that I can bake pretty good things without the hassle of measuring. Not necessarily good enough for company, but good enough for me and the hungry husband. The recipe below does contain measurements, based on  this recipe  from Eating Well. Mine's pretty close to it, I think. My only changes, other than estimating all of the quantities, were replacing the oil with yogurt, omitting the raisins and allspice because I didn't have any, and adding ground flax seeds. I do include raisins in the recipe below because as I was eating it, I was thinking "this would be amazing with raisins." Now, before sharing the recipe, here's what happened when, in my hunger, I took one of the pans straight from the oven and tried to dump out the loaf immediately without waiting for it to cool

Maybe one day I'll buy a gravy boat. This stuff is pure gold. I think I found this recipe the very first time I prepared Thanksgiving dinner, in college. It's the only Thanksgiving recipe I've kept from year to year. Everyone who's tried it has loved it (or at least pretended to), and many have asked for the recipe and/or asked me to make it again. Seriously, if you have any interest whatsoever in mushroom gravy, look no further. This is your recipe. I usually use a combination of white and cremini mushrooms. The original recipe suggests using a mixture of exotic mushrooms. I've tried various sorts over the years and they're good, but it's also so good with your standard (cheap) mushrooms that I don't think it's necessary to splurge on the mushrooms. The only kind I haven't liked in it were shiitakes. They were too tough and stayed chewy in the final product.  Not quite doubled, but these quantities are slightly more generous tha

Happy Hanukkah! A few years ago, I tried baking latkes instead of frying them. They're healthier, easier, less messy, and the house didn't smell like fried onions and potatoes for 3 weeks. I remember asking my mom what I thought was a rhetorical question, "Why does anyone ever fry these things?" She reminded me of the symbolism of the oil that we're supposed to be honoring on Hanukkah. Oops. But since I care more about health/ease/neatness/smell than I do about symbolism, my method of choice is still baking. Note that this recipe is adapted from Rachael Ray's recipe (yes, again with the non-tradition) and her instructions say to fry them, so you can totally do that with this recipe if you really want to scent your home with eau de latke. This is what your ingredients will look like when you multiply the recipe by 5. Rinse the potatoes after shredding! Otherwise they'll turn black. Thank you, food processor. Two bowls worth of s

Can you smell the spices just LOOKING at this? I can.  Part two of the two-part series of favorite south Indian brunch foods brings us another traditional goodie: upma. This is one of my go-to dishes when people come over for brunch. They always look at it with skepticism and end up loving it (or at least they tell me they do, and they usually have seconds). It's just semolina, cooked and seasoned into a mush of spicy complexity that works for any meal of the day. A good day in the garden. In the middle of winter, this dish works pretty well with frozen peas and carrots. But on this day, I had collected tomatoes, zucchini, potatoes, a chili pepper, garlic, and shallots from the garden. So that's what went into the upma. And oh my, it was delicious. I've made upma many times without the urad dal. In that case, it looks and feels more like couscous when it's done. The urad dal causes it to be more creamy and risotto-like, not to mention healthie

Toooooasted cooooooconut. For the first in a two-part series of my favorite southern Indian brunch foods, I present dhokla. It's sort of like a heavier version of cornbread, made with a mixture of chickpea and rice flours, with Indian spices and optional vegetables to make it savory and delicious. I can eat this for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It'll look fancier with the topping. I make my Indian brunch foods from the mixes that they sell at Asian markets, because that's how I learned. However, it sounds pretty easy to do this totally from scratch if you are so inclined. The magic is in the topping. While the whole recipe is pretty flexible, I am going to insist that you top it with toasted coconut flakes and mustard seeds. Think of this as the ketchup to your burger. There is no compromise here. The Recipe: 1 box khaman dhokla mix 1 tb plain yogurt, plus more for serving Vegetables of your choice (I used 1 cup chopped spinach and 1

Best cracker topping ever. Also good with a fresh blackberry on the cheese. Like my post about  making mozzarella and ricotta cheeses , I'm not going to go into much detail about methods here. I used a kit from Ricki's, and whatever kit you buy will have instructions. But I guarantee you those instructions will be easy and well worth your time. Goat cheese is made by the same process as ricotta cheese. Heat milk, dump in a tablet of cultures, and strain over cheesecloth for a little while. It's incredibly easy. And it tastes SO much better than store-bought goat cheese. Fresh, creamy, crumbly. Amazing. I bought the goat milk at Trader Joe's (pasteurized is fine, just not "ultra-pasteurized"). In the end, the homemade goat cheese was marginally cheaper than buying Trader Joe's goat cheese, which is already pretty cheap. My next goal is to locate a farm where I can get cheaper goat milk to make this really cost-effective. Highly reco

Are you refreshed just LOOKING at this? It all began with a heat wave, mint taking over the yard, half a bottle of sake in the fridge, and a fateful Facebook post by a friend who had just enjoyed some Watermelon Sake Mint Yogurt Soup at  Soup Nation . The next day, I rushed out to purchase a watermelon. And on day 3, this soup was recreated to the best of my abilities. Obviously, this was going to turn out well. I searched the internet and didn't find a recipe specifically for this concoction, but I found some watermelon gaspacho recipes that included lemon juice, so I decided to include lemon. Sea salt also seemed like a good idea. Beyond that, I just threw the title ingredients in the food processor in unmeasured amounts and it was fabulous. And I think it would be fabulous even with wildly different proportions of each ingredient, too. Blending in batches requires patience. I made a mess instead. I topped with a dollup of yogurt (SO good for variety of