Alert The Press: Miraculous Okra

I have an important announcement to make: This weekend, I was successful in getting my husband, Doni, to eat okra!



Are you as excited as I am? You may remember that last August, I declared my love for okra. I'll take it steamed, fried, roasted, stir fried, and especially pickled any day of the week. I'm a big fan of the flavor and texture, and I don't mind the slime at all. Doni, on the other hand, was less than enthused and wanted nothing to do with the slime.

This weekend, I tried a new technique: The fake fry. And a new ingredient: Panko bread crumbs. Check out the easy step-by-step recipe at Baked from the Heart's Baked Blog! Do you have a favorite okra recipe or a tasty strategy to trick your loved ones into eating their veggies? Share it below!

Midnight Snack: Sloppy Kettle Corn Treats & Hot Cocoa

I always get the munchies at midnight. Tonight, I couldn't decide between kettle corn and a sloppy krispy rice treat (with marshmallow fluff and the famous cereal) to go with my fat free hot cocoa. So I decided to go a little nuts and combine the two. The verdict? Delish!

Do try this at home: Combine 1 bag of 100 calorie kettle corn microwave popcorn, popped and 2 T fluffy stuff. I put the fluff in a baggy and piped it out over the bowl, while stirring with one hand. If you want to go nuts, add 1/4 cup of melted chocolate chips, using the same method.

Now this makes so much to eat that I really think it's two servings. (Just in case that gave you the wrong idea--I totally devoured the entire thing myself!) With that in mind, I think that the calorie count is 70 calories per serving. You could bump it up to 100 or 120 calories with some added chocolate.

As for the hot cocoa, it's exactly what it looks like. 1 packet of store brand, fat-free hot cocoa mix, hot water, whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. Sweet dreams!

Low Cal Lunches: Veggie Chicken Sammy

Because I'm always throwing something together for a quick, healthy--and usually very late--lunch, I decided today to create a new post series on just that. Low Cal Lunches will be short and sweet and always diet friendly.

On today's menu? A veggie chicken patty sandwich! I prefer mine to be all Morningstar Farms all the way. Today, I spread some light mayo and mustard on my new favorite thing: a 100 calorie "everything" flagel, microwaved (I was just too hungry to commit to waiting for the toaster oven!) the patty and put it all together with a quartered orange on the side.

Total Calories: about 250 (higher if you add more condiments) + 64 for the orange.

Okay, so I took the photo with my cell phone and it's not so clear. We'll call it arty.

Variations on this recipe? You can use any other fake chicken (or real if that's your sort of thing!) and bread varieties out there. I think some fake bacon, a sprinkle of cheddar cheese, some romaine lettuce or spinach, even pickles would all be delicious on this sandwich. Go nuts!

Breakfast of Champions: Asian Pear Cream o'Wheat

Last night was New York City's first real snow. When I woke up this morning, our street was lightly dusted with the white stuff and I was desperately craving a warm, healthy breakfast. Trying hard to shed the cold that I (and the rest of my family) caught from my adorable baby niece over Thanksgiving, I finally felt strong enough to return to my trusty kitchen and give myself the nutrition that I needed. After rummaging through the fridge and pantry, I found an asian pear and a nice big box of semolina (Cream of Wheat) and I knew that was all I needed to feel better.


Asian Pear Cream O' Wheat

3 T Semolina
2/3 cup, 2T water separated
1 asian pear
1/4 cup milk, if desired
1.5 t butter (I use Smart Balance)
1/4 t cinnamon
dash freshly grated nutmeg
1 t stevia
1/4 t vanilla or almond extracts

In a small bowl, mix together the semolina and 2/3 cup water and microwave for 1 minute. Meanwhile, chop the asian pear into small chunks, cover with 2T water in a small bowl and microwave for 1 minute. Toss the fruit, spices, butter and milk (if desired) into the creamed wheat and stir until just combined. If the mixture is too thick, add in a T or two of water or milk. If it is too thin, microwave for an additional 30 seconds. Microwave cooking times vary.

Enjoy!

Planning Ahead: A Veggie Thanksgiving

I was perusing the New York Times food section this morning and stumbled upon a fantastic post about veggie thanksgiving recipes! I felt a little giddy at first, amazed at all of these fantastic recipes and pretty excited about starting to plan Thanksgiving with my mom. Then I realized that this is actually a collage of recipes from an array of amazing articles on various food sensitivities, restrictions and diets. My favorite recipes out of the bunch?

Harvest-Stuffed Portabello Mushrooms

Gordon Maybury's
Baked Kataifi-Wraped Goat Cheese

Chloe Coscarelli’s
Maple-Roasted Brussels Sprouts With Toasted Hazelnuts

Silvana Nardone’s
Gluten-Free Apple-Pecan Cornbread Stuffing

Garden Vegetable Gratin

Skillet Macaroni and Broccoli and Mushrooms and Cheese

All of these photographs are property of The New York Times.

If you like the above recipes, check out these articles as well: Vegetarian Comfort Food at Thanksgiving, Joan Nathan's Jewish-French Thanksgiving, A Gluten Free Thanksgiving, Dr. Weil’s Simple Roasted Root Vegetables, A Vegan Chef Dishes Up Thanksgiving, Food Festival Cuisine for Thanksgiving, and Giving Thanks for Vegetables, Not Turkey,

Happy Eating!

Family Dinners Past: Nacho Night & Pizza/Soup

Because I've been busy the past few weeks and only now really given the chance to catch up on all of my posts and organize photos, I thought it would be a good time to bring up some photos of family dinners past.

A couple weeks ago I was watching tv on a saturday night and someone had the gall to say the word "nachos"! Just like my 3 year old nephew, J, at the slight mention of the words "cookie" or "treat", my ears perked up, my pupils widened and I knew that I simply must have nachos--and soon! It was just my luck that our pantry was running low on Mexican meal ingredients, so I made a quick run to the store and came up with this delicious treat:

I scoured the market for the lowest calorie tortilla chips available (by weight, of course) and eventually chose a bag of the scoop variety. I added some Amy's Refried Black Beans, my absolute favorite, sliced black olives, a blend of shredded "Mexican" cheeses from Shop Rite, a dash of chipotle seasoning, some jarred, spicy tortilla sauce and last, but definitely not least a huge pour of chilie powder (those little black and red speckles you see in the photos add so much delicious flavor without overwhelming the palate with too much spice--highly recommended!). I microwaved the dish for 1.5 minutes. My craving was satiated and I was a very happy camper.

One night that same week, I didn't know what to serve for dinner and hadn't really thought much about it until 6 or 7pm when Doni came home from work. We had some leftover apple/potato soup from the previous shabbat dinner, though the flavor was getting a little too mild. So I chopped up some honeycrisp apples for sweetness, tart and texture and put a handful in my and D's soup bowls. I topped off the soup with some veggie bacon bits and chopped chives and suddenly the too-mild soup was teeming with flavor:


Because few things make me happier than pizza, I grabbed some small pitas from the fridge, turned them into a slight garlic bread with olive oil, garlic and spices, added cheddar cheese (what we happened to have in the fridge) and some veggie pepperoni. I baked the pizzas at 375 degrees for about 8 minutes--just wait until the cheese is bubbly. I really thought that the pitas would dry out, but I was pleasantly surprised. This really easy recipe might be one of my favorite pizzas out there. Who knew?

Tip: The key to working with veggie pepperoni is brushing the tops of each one with a touch of olive oil, or spraying them with nonstick cooking spray. If you skip this key step, the pepperoni dries out a bit and doesn't have it's full potential of flavor.

Two very easy & delicious (semi?) homemade dinners that would make our new governor's girlfriend very proud. Bon appetit!

Family Dinner: Southern-Inspired Goodness

Because I just returned from a fantastic trip to California (link to Baked from the Heart blog post TK) I found myself sitting on the couch tonight around dinnertime in a bit of a jet-lagged haze. Famished, I knew that I needed some serious food nourishment and fast. Proud of myself for actually losing weight in CA thanks to a hotel gym and a serious art therapist dancing session, I wasn't in the mood for take out. So I turned to one of my favorite comfort food meals: a veggie adaptation of KFC's bowl o' favorites.

I remember when I first saw a commercial for this brilliant dish. I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped in the same way that it did when I was 12 and my friends and I first opened a Tiger Beat magazine. Mashed potatoes with chicken, corn and cheese? Brilliant! Since then, I've made several veggie versions, all of which pretty much depend on the random ingredients we have in the pantry and freezer. Sometimes I add cheese on top, often I'll use breaded veggie chicken, and many times I actually serve this in a bowl. For tonight's recipe of sorts, as always, I just winged it:

Southern-Inspired Goodness

1 can of corn
1 block of frozen green beans
3 servings of flaked mashed potatoes (follow directions on box)
1 recipe of Bisquick Heart Smart biscuits
4 Morningstar Farms fake bacon strips
Morningstar Farms veggie chicken strips or nuggets

Prepare the corn, mashed potatoes, biscuits, fake bacon and veggie chicken as per individual directions. Defrost green beans (I prefer french cut for the thin texture) and prepare as desired. I added in some soy sauce, a light touch of honey, garlic powder and salt and pepper. Pile together in a bowl or on a plate. Enjoy!

Tonight's substitution: I realized halfway through making dinner that I was out of milk and I needed it for the mashed potatoes and biscuits. To sub, I used sour cream with a couple tablespoons of water. It worked and neither Doni nor I noticed the difference!

Low Calorie Tricks & Treats: Protein Water!

I know that Crystal Light has been around for what seems like forever, but I just had to share my latest obsession: Crystal Light Hunger Satisfaction! It's 30 calories a packet--which can be mixed into a bottle of water (or a liter, which is what I prefer) and filled with fiber and protein. I like to drink it first thing in the morning or before a high calorie meal to keep myself on track. At first, I was concerned that the strawberry banana flavor would taste like medicine, but I lucked out: if anything, it tastes just like my favorite smoothie. Try it out!

Family Dinner: Okra Stir Fry

You may remember from a previous post that I am a huge fan of okra. Maybe that's because I'm originally from Texas (where it's pickled, fried and stewed all the time), but it just as likely may be the flavor (yum!) and it's overall healthfulness.

According to the Good Eats episode currently paused on my DVR, okra is a fantastic source of dietary fiber--one cup has a whopping 4 grams--Vitamins A, C and Folate. So if you are expecting (just passing on the info, people) okra is an excellent veggie to add into your weekly menu. Additionally, the slimy goop that many kids and husbands, like Doni, are turned off by is actually pectin. According to Alton Brown, you can't make a gumbo without okra as a helpful thickening agent.

Tonight I reached for the okra because I just happened to have a bunch of it hiding away in my freezer. D is working late so I made myself this simple and hearty peanut sauce stir fry. This is a very versatile recipe--feel free to replace the broccoli with your favorite veggies or the tofu with actual meat. I also think that some baby corn would be a great addition.

Stir Fry with Peanut Sauce
Parve and Vegan
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 bag of frozen okra
1 box of tofu or meat substitute
1 bag of frozen broccoli1/2 Tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup water
salt and pepper, as desired

For the sauce:
2 Tablespoons peanut buutter (I used chunky)
2 Tablespoons Hoisen Sauce (or soy sauce to taste)
2 Tablespoons water
Cayenne pepper (or red pepper flakes) as desired

Directions. Coat the bottom of a wok or large pan with olive oil and toss in the garlic over medium heat. Let cook for 2 minutes. Add in the okra and broccoli, cooking for about 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated and completely defrosted. Toss in the tofu and sprinkle with salt and pepper. If the stir fry begins to stick, add some water and scrape the bottom of the pan with a spoon to loosen up all the overcooked goodness. Let the stir fry sit on medium heat until the water is completely cooked out and the ingredients are cooked to your liking. (I like it on the charred side.) Meanwhile, whisk together the peanut sauce ingredients and microwave for 45 seconds. Serve the stir fry with rice or couscous and top with the sauce. Enjoy!

Shabbat This Week: Picnic Zucchini

This week, three close friends of ours--A, J, and adorable little N--are moving away into the great beyond: New Jersey. To celebrate their awesome new house and stifle our tears, a bunch of us had a lovely pot-luck Shabbat lunch picnic in Central Park this afternoon in their honor. As the resident vegetarian, it was my job to bring a vegetable and I chose summer squash.

Zucchini and yellow squash looked amazing at the farmer's market and I was craving something on the juicy side. I also happened to purchase some purslane, a mild, sweet and almost citrusy leafy green veggie that is high in omega 3. I thought it would work nicely as a herb with the squash. In my opinion, the trickiest part of working with summer squash is that they can end up on the soggy side and I wasn't in the mood for an accidental soup. I remembered how my friend Tracy once made some excellent roasted tomatoes with garlic and breadcrumbs and I decided to use the same model with the zucchini.

The recipe worked very well--the zucchini held up in texture and only the few slices at the bottom were soggy. The garlic was nice and mild, while the purslane was sweet and simple. The best part of this dish is that is works well both warm and cool. I served it lukewarm at the picnic, which I think was just perfect. All in all, this is an excellent picnic dish and it serves a lot of hungry adults and children.


Picnic Zucchini
Parve & Vegan

7 large zucchini and/or yellow squash, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp margarine
salt and black pepper, as desired
Purslane, as a garnish

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Pour the olive oil, minced garlic, salt and black pepper in the bottom of a large baking dish. Add in the squash and toss to coat. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs over the top and dot with margarine. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the squash is tender and the breadcrumbs are golden. Sprinkle with purslane and enjoy with 10 of your closest friends!

Kosher note: Check your breadcrumbs! I usually use Panko Italian, but it turned out that they were dairy. I toasted bread to make my own crumbs, but they ended up soggier than expected after reheating. After I returned home from the picnic, I transferred the dish from a parve tin to our dairy corningware and re-baked it with the panko crumbs. Store bought bread crumbs made all the difference! Maybe I'll revisit the breadcrumb issue in the near future and experiment on how I might make them better myself.

Family Dinner: Veggie Chili with Roasted Okra and Polenta

I met up with my close friend, Tracy, today for some computer help--thanks, T! We ended up using free wifi at one of the Starbuckses (Starbucksi?) bordering Union Square. Because Wednesdays are one of the four days a week that Greenmarket hits the square, I thought it'd be a shame to head home without some fresh produce--and maybe a cookie or two.

After my initial walk-through, one thing was clear: this week is all about okra. Now, I haven't been to Greenmarket in a few weeks, so maybe last week and the one before that were all about okra too. All I knew was that I had to bring some home to play with. After my subway ride home, I Googled "okra" to get some recipe ideas. I love it fried--who doesn't--but I just didn't want the calories or cholesterol. I also love it pickled, but I needed some okra in my belly tonight, so we'll have to revisit that idea later. The biggest challenge most cooks have with okra is its natural slime. Doni loves excellent texture as much as I love a good flavor and slime just won't make for a good family dinner.

I searched online to find a less gooey recipe ("okra without goo" doesn't show up any results, in case you were wondering). I found a post on All Recipes that had 1,291 excellent reviews. The method? Roasting! Roasting is actually my favorite way to eat veggies (asparagus, broccoli, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, brussels sprouts, edamame, you name it, I've roasted it), so I knew I had a winner. Because the farmer's market also had some incredible fresh garlic, I thinly sliced two cloves and added them to the mix.


The results? I think that it could have been roasted a bit longer. The okra took a while to brown--about 25 minutes--and even then, it wasn't quite enough. On the bright side: no slime at all--but Doni still wasn't so enthused and I ended up inhaling the whole bowl myself. (What? I like okra.) I think we'll have to try again soon with pickled okra and see if I can bring D around.


Roasted Okra with Garlic
Parve & Vegan

1/2 lb fresh okra
2 cloves garlic
salt & pepper, as desired
olive oil

Directions. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cut okra into 1/2 inch slices. Thinly slice garlic and mix with okra. Drizzle or spray olive oil to lightly coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 20 minutes, or until golden and cooked through. Serves 2.

Because you can't eat a whole meal of okra (unless it's pickled! mmmm...), I put up an easy veggie chili, loosely based on Jessica Seinfeld's awesome book, Deceptively Delicious. I recently picked one up for $5 at Kohls as part of Kohls Cares for Kids (score!) and you'll definitely be reading a lot more about it on this blog in the future. Her recipe centers around ground turkey. I used ground seitan. She uses chicken broth and I'm all about the vegetable broth. I also added a wide array of beans: black, cannelli, pinto, soy, some bacon bits for a bit of smoke, and because I like to use what I already have accessible: a whole brick of pureed, frozen winter squash. I also thinly sliced up some pre-made polenta (the stuff in a tube) and roasted it along with the okra to use in place of tortilla chips. I made a large portion so that I can freeze half of it for another family dinner in the future.


Four Bean Veggie Chili
Parve & Vegan

3 cloves garlic, minced
4 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 can black beans, rinsed
1 can pinto beans, rinsed
1 can white beans, rinsed
1 can of corn
1 8oz can tomato sauce
12 oz pureed winter squash
8 oz vegetable broth
1 cup shelled edamame
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 tsp chipotle powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili pepper
salt, as desired
black pepper, as desired
1 Tbsp olive oil
8 oz ground seitan
1/4 c bacon bits

Directions. Put a large pot on medium heat. When warm, add olive oil, celery, onion, and red pepper. Stir occasionally. When onions are transluscent, add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add seitan and bacon bits. Cook for 2 -3 minutes. Add spices and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning. Add beans, corn and edamame, stirring to combine. Pour in the vegetable broth and stir with a wooden or silicon spoon, scraping the bottom of the pot. Mix in the tomato sauce and squash puree until smooth and well-incorporated. Bring the chili to a boil on high heat. Serve with tortilla chips or polenta. Serves 8 - 10.

Dairy options: Garnish with cheddar cheese or sour cream and chives, if desired.


The resulting chili is great--smokey, spicy and "meat"y. Very very hearty. My only edit for the future is pre-cooking some of the firmer ingredients like edamame. It just didn't melt into the chili as nicely as we would have liked. The best part of it all was the salted polenta chips. D and I have a tendency to stuff ourselves with delicious food like there's no tomorrow. The polenta chips provided a nice stopping point for us. "No more polenta? Well I am a little full now that you mention it..." So 1 tube is just perfect for 2 people. It also had a fun, hors d'oevre kind of look that could work well for a party. Next time I might use my mandoline (not the musical instrument, people!) to make the slices even thinner and crisper.

Overall, I'd say the Greenmarket trip was well worth my while, even if I did eat up all the okra myself. I stayed strong and magically avoided their cookies, so it looks like this little chef gets an extra big snow cone tonight. More on that later...

Low Cal Cheesy Popcorn

If you love to eat as much as I do, you probably--like me--want to eat as much as possible without gaining weight. Because of this, I'll readily admit that I loosely count calories. What does that mean? I have a vague understanding of how many calories I should eat in order to stay the same size and a rough idea of which foods offer the best bang for my caloric buck. Just like with money, a good deal is a high volume of delicious foods for fewer calories. This doesn't mean that I'm on a diet--not even close. I'm just on a loose budget.


More than anything else, this affects snack time. I LOVE my snacks, so I try to be smart about them. One of my absolute favorites is popcorn. If you buy the 100-calorie bags like I do (I prefer Orville Redenbacher) you know that you can eat a lot of popcorn for 100 calories. Today, I thought it would be fun to spruce it up a bit. Thanks to my trusty kitchen scale, I added 1/4oz of shredded Parmesan (a lot more than it sounds) and a sprinkle of garlic powder to my hot, popped butter-flavored corn. Just like this morning's coffee, I was pleasantly surprised. For 125(ish) calories, I had a really hearty, delicious snack. Now, I've tried this before with the more powdery Parm and been less enthused, so I think that it's the real stuff that made all the difference. Try it out and let me know what you think.

Happy Noshing!

Part of a Complete Breakfast

When I woke up this (late) morning, I was looking at the world through blurry eyes. I don't have coffee every day, but some mornings I crave it. It's not that I love the taste of coffee, but I love the idea of it. Steamy and black, aromatic and nostalgic--when I think about a cup of coffee, I imagine all the generations before me of avid coffee drinkers. I think of myself as a little kid sitting around my grandparents breakfast table with Ritz crackers and cream cheese (my late grandfather, Sol's, favorite 10am snack), smelling the aroma and breathing in the magic of morning. Sometimes I imagine 50s housewives, like Lucy and Ethel, spending the morning gossiping and scheming.


Now, I won't deny that there's all sorts of evil out there in coffee industry, but that's not something I'm dwelling on this morning--or is it actually afternoon by now? A couple years ago, for Hanukkah, Doni and I gave my parents a new, fancy coffee maker as a gift. It's one of those cup-at-a-time wonders with fancy single servings of various flavors. My dad, Evan, loves playing with it and even began to create his own flavor: plain coffee with a light sprinkle of cinnamon and a scant dash of vanilla extract.


I've never tried his creation--mostly because he likes very weak coffee and I like it on the stronger side--but I woke up this morning nostalgic for the smell of roasting coffee and intrigued by his recipe. I'll be honest here--I assumed it would be terrible! I planned to call this post "Don't Try This at Home". But just as your parents prove to be right more often the older you get, my dad knows what he's doing. It's delicious! Who knew? I always need sugar/stevia in my coffee and this morning I have no desire to tinker with the taste. It's just great the way it is and wonderful combined with my breakfast of the day: toast with fat free cream cheese, a sprinkle of cinnamon-sugar, and fresh blueberries. Try it out for yourself!