Pink of Perfection

After my usual holiday over-doing it, It feels good to board the healthy eating bandwagon. And while it’s probably not the best habit to bounce from extremes (steak, bourbon, gravy to kale, green tea, soup), it does make me very eager for the change. I was stuffed with cookies and cheese; it felt good to alter course.

And perhaps a little surprisingly, it tasted delicious. After my brother-in-law sent me a link to My New Roots, I started seeing this vibrant Danish blog mentioned everywhere. She designed the recipes below, and they’re wonderful.

One of the recurring questions among my friends is, “Why is it so hard to do what’s good for you?” Cause lord knows it usually is. But there’s also a kind of snowball effect once you get going with decisions that affect your well-being. When you feel good, you want to keep feeling good. You begin to even crave the habits that make you feel bright, content, and fluid.

Here’s an example: I spent this past weekend in the first part of an Anusara yoga immersion. Going in, I was a bit terrified of what six hours of yoga two days in a row would feel like. I should have been more concerned about returning to my desk Monday morning and sitting in a chair for eight hours. Come evening, I’d usually rather watch another rerun of Roseanne than put on yoga pants right before bed. But on Monday evening a few pre-bedtime twists was the right choice for me.

The ultimate challenge, I think, is getting from feeling bad, mired in habits, depressed, whatever the current stuckness may be, to finding a spark that can spur a new kind of decision. Many of us tend to force ourselves out of it, but a friend of mine takes a more gentle approach. A change can start with the smallest choice, she says, and we’ll bring it on when we’re ready. I find that comforting. We don’t need to strong arm ourselves into new habits or new eras; it’s not a matter of force, it’s a matter of ease. And when we’re ready we’ll know it. I read a section in a book last night on receptivity that seems fitting:

Receptivity is a practice many people find difficult, because we live in a culture that says things are accomplished primarily through doing. This attitude creates a bias toward knowing, planning, taking action, a kind of predatory attitude toward life––where we decide what we want, focus on it, and go for it at all costs. But how many of us have done this only to be dissatisfied with what we get?  ––The Practice of Wholeness

Being receptive seems to fit beautifully with back to basics and leaning into the life we have now: being open to ourselves, our thoughts, our sense of whimsy, being open to the world around us and the people and obstacles we meet each day, and being open to every joy, quirk, and marvel in the moment to moment moment of the everyday. “We may experience a sense of magic or serendipity––wherein events happen which fit our needs perfectly. Seemingly remarkable coincidences [...] are the result of our receptivity.”

And so back to feeling good, and specifically these recipes. Please, dear heavens, don’t see these dishes or this post as an admonition. If anything, it’s an invitation to be receptive to where you are, wherever you are, right now. If they recipes appeal to your senses at this moment in time, I promise they’re both really lovely. And no one’s saying you can’t eat a little kale slaw before a nice steak, either.

Continue reading “Detox Recipes That Taste Really Good” »

One January, before I was to move into my first apartment, my mom sat me down in the kitchen and showed me how to plan a week’s worth of meals on a budget. She took an inventory of what I liked to eat (bagels and cream cheese, apparently), and listed on a piece of paper what I needed to keep in the pantry, refrigerator, and freezer. Then the lessons on How to Roast a Chicken and How to Bake a Loaf of Bread commenced. Too bad, I thought, as I started writing this. I wish I still had that paper! I peeked inside the recipe box that rarely gets opened, and there it was, folded right it front. (There are some good things about being a pack rat sentimentalist!)

This lesson in economizing has been on my mind of late. I have fallen into some bad grocery-buying habits: buying too many bottles of local milk, small, expensive containers of Icelandic yogurt, and seductively rare ingredients that are used once before finding a home in the overcrowded condiments graveyard on the refrigerator door. The part of me from a line of frugal Yankee dairy farmers wanted to stop being so mindlessly frivolous at the grocery store. And the time-pressed part of me that has an intense job and a busy schedule wanted to get back to basics. It was time for another home ec lesson with mom.

Continue reading “Weeknight Solution: Pork Chops with Spanish Rice” »

We have not been cooking much lately. In the new age of Choose Two, a home-cooked dinner seems to be getting the short end of the stick. And, as always, I have my plans about how I will overcome: saved online shopping lists, visual inspiration of quick weeknight meals. I’m still feeling my way. But a benefit of the Choose Two era is that I’m learning to let go of any associated guilt.

So with minimal cooking going on, coming back to the same recipe twice in two weeks feels all the more meaningful. This dinner was an out-of-the park triumph.

It’s a recipe that’s familiar in its bolognese-like construction, but with unique ingredient substitutes: lamb for ground beef, kasseri (a Greek sheep’s milk cheese) for Parmesan, cilantro for parsley. (And then there’s cumin and cinnamon, oh my!) The result is heaven: an unexpected, utterly surprising explosion of flavor. On a weeknight!

Is there a weeknight recipe you’ve stumbled upon lately that’s knocked your socks off? I need additions to my inspiration file!

Continue reading “Pasta with Butternut Squash, Ground Lamb, and Kasseri” »

I used to get irritated when the summer lifestyle magazines started showing up in my mailbox. An apartment-dweller with no outdoor space to speak of (save for a rickety fire escape) can go a little batty from so many recipes that use the grill. I could not simply throw a cob of corn and a beautiful piece of fish on the grill and call it dinner. And yet those slick magazine pages continued to sing a refrain about summer cooking being so simple, so effortless; I just didn’t get it. If anything, trying to figure out how to eat something substantial for supper without warming up the entire apartment seemed like it required an advance degree.

And then my wonderful aunts and uncles gave me an indoor two-burner grill pan, and I started to see the light. I hate to say that a piece of specialty equipment can make life easier, but in some cases it’s just the plain truth, (See: food processor.) I get that “summer simplicity” now: I throw something on the grill, make a salad, and dinner is ready in 15 minutes. Moreover, it feels grown-up and relaxed, like a woman with real standards and know-how was in charge of this dinner, instead of just post-work, grouchy me. And this is when I start to wax about the ability of a certain recipe to bring out the best in you, but really, it’s true. A simple, wonderful dinner can be elevating: it can help you shed the bleary-eyed, email-beset, hunched-shoulder workhorse stance, take a deep breath, and feel like a human again. A human who revels in the delights of summer––like juicy, ripe peaches––and throws together easily elegant salads like this one. Creative, seasonal, healthy––you’ll feel like some kind of genius.

This salad even works with peaches that are slightly underripe and still a little firm. Serve with grilled, sliced skirt steak, chicken, or a pile of shrimp. It really can be that easy.

Continue reading “Summer Simplicity: Peach, Basil and Red Onion Salad” »

The night I threw this together, this little blog o’ mine was the farthest thing from my mind. I was in a bad mood, and hungry, and wanted to be eating supper 30 minutes ago. I was not my best self, nor was I living in a state of splendor and gratitude. But, well: that’s life, and those moods need tending to just as much––if not more than––those charmed moments of delight and beauty. I mean, let’s get real.

On my walk home, I was conducting a mental inventory of the fridge. We had some leftover arugula––what super easy thing could I do with that? Wasn’t there half a lemon rolling around on the counter top, a little dried out but, eh, still usable? And wasn’t there an emergency pizza in the freezer? Couldn’t I almost throw together a quick little dinner inspired by the prosciutto and arugula pizza they serve at our cozy little neighborhood Italian restaurant that my best self frequents, wearing liquid eyeliner, a sexy little outfit, and feeling totally relaxed with a glass of wine?

Almost! So I laid a few slices of prosciutto over the top of the pizza (you could use basil, or skip it all together). I tossed the arugula with lemon juice and a little olive oil, dusted it with salt and pepper. And when the pizza came out of the oven, I overturned that bowl of peppery salad right onto the center of the pizza (another upgrade? Shave some parmesan over the greens), and perfectly respectable and really delicious dinner was ready in––I kid you not––15 minutes.

What I also love about this? I’m a big fan of a recipe that features veggies, protein, and carbohydrates all in one go. And while I wouldn’t exactly call this dinner healthy, it’s a hell of a lot better than chowing down on egg rolls and barbecue spareribs. In my book, that’s a total win.

My friend L is always joking that she makes tacos about three times a week. And to admit my own thick-headedness, it was a joke I didn’t quite get: tacos are so fiddly, with so many little pieces, and they always fall apart, and the tortillas never stay warm. I kind of had a lot of complaints when it came to homemade tacos.

But then a couple things happened. In my complete annoyance with this endlessly frustrating and fascinating question, “How do I make dinner at the end of the day when I am tired and hungry?” I pulled out my neglected copy of Everyday Food: Great Food Fast. I thumbed through the summer section; I picked recipes. Meal plan for the week: done. I had a feeling L might be on to something; one of those recipes was these tacos.

Then––and this is really the clincher––I discovered La Tortilla Factory. Their corn tortillas are sort of a corn-flour tortilla hybrid––the rustic flavor of corn, the heft and flexibility of flour––so they don’t fall apart, not ever, not even when you overstuff (which, inevitably, you will).

So I cooked up this recipe one night when tilapia was on sale, and friends, this is a bona fide weeknight solution. This recipe is very, very simple, and has quickly become one of my favorite dinners of the summer. It’s wonderfully fresh and super fast and healthy, to boot, but it also has only three elements that need tending to: the fish, which is grilled so fast, the creamy-kicky cabbage slaw, and the tortillas. The cabbage is so good. It’s tossed with lime juice, Greek yogurt, and jalapeno, but I think next time I’ll try using a bit of adobo from a can of chipotles to give this a deep, smoky flavor.

And by next time, I really do mean the third time in a week. Which is to say, I totally understand now where my friend L is coming from.

Continue reading “Weeknight Solution: Fish Tacos with Cabbage and Lime” »

At first I didn’t think I was going to tell you about this recipe at all. I ate it one evening, on the couch, served alongside a veggie burger, and the whole experience was desperately underwhelming. But then the pot of leftovers sat in the fridge for a day or two, and when I finally rose from bed on Saturday where I busy with a summer read until late in the afternoon, I spooned myself a bowl. It surprised me: the cumin, smoked paprika, and lemon had somehow become both pronounced and mellow, mingling with each other like people at a high school reunion after their second round. As life gets increasingly busy in the summer, it’s nice to have recipes like this on stand-by: the ones that make a lot, and can be popped in the fridge and eaten, bowl by bowl, on warm nights. It’s nice not having to lift a finger.

Continue reading “Quinoa with Grilled Zucchini, Chickpeas and Cumin” »

I think my favorite kind of recipes are ones where a few complimentary ingredients are thrown together in a slightly restrained, elegant way and the result is just lovely. Like mint, fava bean, and parmesan bruschetta or radishes with dill, shallots, and goat cheese. They are such simple gatherings of a few favorite ingredients that it really makes you think that one day you could open up the fridge, look around, and come up with something as inspired yourself.

This recipe falls into that category for me. I love that it spells out a complete meal on one plate; that it’s filling and quick, and that the flavors are rich for the days when your hunger is especially deep. And after trying it out for dinner and finding it such a success, I made it the next day for lunch, skipping the bread and serving the turkey burger over the peppery, tart greens. I’ve heard people say turkey burgers are dry, but that is very much not the case here. Using regular, 93% lean ground turkey, plus the addition of a little extra oil––to say nothing of that slice of Gruyère––helps things along. in short: this is really a perfect weeknight meal.

Continue reading “Open-Faced Turkey Burgers with Gruyère, Mushrooms & Arugula Salad” »