LOVE Yourself, LOVE Your Vegetables!

As nutrition and food experts have been telling us for some time, if we want to build healthy eating habits, we need to work more fruits and vegetables into our diets.   Easy to say--hard to do--if you didn’t grow up eating a lot of vegetables, you don’t know how to cook vegetables, or you don’t think you even LIKE vegetables.  Food Snob is convinced that the reason so many of us don’t like vegetables is that we don’t know how to prepare them so that they taste good. Let’s face it, no one is going to crave vegetables that are overcooked, mushy, and flavorless, but if you learn to cook them properly, vegetables can play a central and enjoyable role at your dinner table. 

For the past few years, Food Snob has served three vegetables at dinner; usually with some type of meat, poultry, or fish and a small amount of starch (potato, rice, pasta), if any.  Sometimes one of the vegetables is a salad; almost always, the vegetables are each a different color.  Eating a rainbow of colors regularly helps give your body the nutrients it needs.  “In addition to fiber, vitamins, and minerals, naturally-colored foods contain what are known as phytochemicals. These powerful nutrients are the disease-fighting substances that also give fruits and vegetables their array of colors,” says Jane Harrison, Registered Dietician, University Medical Center of Princeton. 

You may not be ready to eat three vegetables with your dinner, but you can add an additional vegetable to your meal - starting today.  It helps if you can get the vegetables on the table quickly, and if you can do something else while they are cooking.  Food Snob has the answer for you:  learn to roast your vegetables.  Roasting brings out the natural sweetness in vegetables and intensifies their natural flavors.  Unlike steamed vegetables, which are just cooked, roasted vegetables brown, caramelize, and crisp.  They are also easy to prepare, since you season them before you put them in the oven and they are ready to serve when you take them out.  They are also delicious served at room temperature.

This past winter, Food Snob has tried roasting just about every vegetable she can think of, and hasn’t found one that hasn’t stood up well to roasting.  Two weeks ago, she started roasting green beans—what a fantastic result!  The beans were tender crisp, slightly blistered and charred on the outside, and full of sweet flavor.  Food Snob is not sure she is ever going to steam green beans again.

For most small vegetables, like asparagus or green beans, Food Snob likes to roast at 500 degrees.  Food Snob has used both her oven and her toaster oven for this purpose.  Small toaster or convection ovens work well in the summer when you don’t want to heat up your kitchen.

Roasted vegetables require only three ingredients in addition to the vegetable you plan to roast, and you have three of them in your house right now: a small amount of olive oil, kosher salt, and fresh ground pepper.  EVERY vegetable Food Snob has roasted has come to life with just these simple ingredients.

A word about frozen vegetables:  frozen vegetables don’t roast well.  Now that markets offer a wide variety of fresh produce all year, look for good-quality vegetables on sale.  Green beans were on sale in the market this past week – in preparation for Easter.  If you have some, try this simple recipe; or file it away for summertime, when the green beans are everywhere at the farmers markets.

Roasted Green Beans – makes 4 generous servings – about 58 calories each

Ingredients

1 pound fresh green beans (look for small diameter, tender pods), stemmed,    washed and dried thoroughly

2 teaspoons olive oil

Kosher salt

Fresh ground pepper

Preparation

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.  Line a large jelly roll pan (11 x 15 or larger,) with foil and lightly coat with cooking spray.

Make sure the beans are THOROUGHLY DRY – vegetables will not brown if they are wet.  Place green beans in the prepared pan in one layer – don’t worry about arranging them.

Drizzle the beans with the olive oil.  Sprinkle the beans lightly with Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.  If you aren’t sure how much salt to use, start with less and taste after roasting; you can always add more if needed.

With clean hands, work the oil, salt, and pepper over the beans so that every bean is lightly coated.  Distribute the beans so that they are not stacked, but all in one layer.

Roast uncovered in preheated oven for 8 to 10 minutes.  Roasting time will vary depending on the size and freshness of the beans.  Check after 8 minutes – beans should be tender-crisp, slightly blistered and a little bit browned.  This past week, Food Snob’s green beans took 10 minutes.  Taste for seasoning; add more salt if necessary.  Serve hot or at room temperature.

Next week, Food Snob welcomes spring with massaged Kale Salad.  Kale, a vegetable high in Vitamin K and antioxidants, is often touted as the "healthiest vegetable on the planet."  Eaten raw, it makes a delicious and quick-to-fix salad. Trust me . . . . 

Spice-Rubbed Salmon Minimizes Salt and Maximizes Flavor!

This past week, Harvard University released new research providing insight on the negative effects of sodium on our health.  The study linked excessive salt consumption to nearly 2.3 million cardiovascular deaths worldwide in 2012.  One in 10 Americans dies from eating too much salt!  One in three deaths linked to sodium were people under 70 years old!

It turns out that most of us eat about two times the sodium we should be eating every day.  The culprit:  fast food, prepared food, processed food, and eating out.  American’s eat out an average of five times per week, and food eaten in restaurants – especially chains and fast food restaurants – is loaded with salt.  

One news report this past week laid it out bluntly – if we want to solve our salt problem and the impact sodium has on our health, we have to eat real food and we need to prepare it ourselves:  in other words, we need to learn to cook. 

Cooking takes time, care, and love – but with a few tricks, it IS possible to get healthy food, made from scratch, on the table in very little time.  This week, Food Snob’s presents her fourth and final entry in her fish series:  Brown Sugar and Spice-Rubbed Salmon.  It is Food Snob’s fastest fish dish – it CAN be on the table in 15 minutes!  Food Snob adjusted this recipe several years ago, reducing the salt by half.  This is a trick YOU can do.  Try using the about half the salt asked for in a recipe and taste – you can always add more.  Most of the time, you can reduce salt by about 25 percent without ever knowing what you are missing. This salmon recipe originally called for 1 and 1/2  teaspoons of salt; Food Snob reduced it to 3/4 teaspoon, and on occasion, she has used as little as 1/2 teaspoon.  This past week, Food Snob served the salmon with a Massaged Kale Salad (yes, you read that correctly:  MASSAGED Kale Salad – watch for it in a future blog posting – delicious!) but this salmon works well with just about any vegetable. 

Here are a few reminders about cooking salmon:

(1)     Start with wild caught fish – fresh or flash-frozen, thawed right before cooking in cold water in your sink.  As Harold McGee says in his book “Keys to Good Cooking:  A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes,” sometimes flash-frozen fish is better quality than fresh fish that has been sitting too long in transport or the grocer’s cooler.  Right now, Food Snob has been buying flash-frozen, wild-caught Copper River Salmon, available at Costco.  Very lean, and delicious!

(2)     Start with fully thawed fish and do not overcook.  Salmon tastes best when still moist, cooked medium rare to medium, between 130 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit.  Check with a thermometer – but based on Food Snob’s experience, the correct temperature is reached by cooking the fish about 3 to 4 minutes per side; or 6 to 8 minutes total.

(3)     Cook over medium to medium-high heat – so fish browns nicely, but does not burn.

(4)     If you have to hold your fish while you are waiting for other parts of your dinner to finish cooking, keep it warm in a 170-degree oven, uncovered.  Do not stack the fish pieces and try to leave some space between each piece.

Food Snob’s recipe for Brown-Sugar and Spice-Rubbed Salmon, which follows, requires just a few ingredients and is a great dish to serve you, your family, or your  dinner guests.  Food Snob likes this salmon dish best with mashed sweet potatoes and roasted asparagus.  To make mashed sweet potatoes for four, pierce a large sweet potato (yam) in several places, place in a covered casserole with a little water, and microwave for 8 to 10 minutes until fork tender.  Douse sweet potato with cold water and peel off skin.  Mash with a hand masher; add some curry powder, a little butter or olive oil, a tablespoon or two of orange or apple juice, and a little Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.  Reheat in the microwave if necessary and serve with the salmon.  Here's the recipe:

Brown-Sugar and Spice-Rubbed Salmon – makes 4 servings

Ingredient List

Spice Rub

2 Tablespoons brown sugar, packed

¾ teaspoon Kosher salt

½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper

½ teaspoon ground cumin

¼ teaspoon ground mustard

Salmon

4 four- to six-ounce fillets of wild-caught salmon, rinsed and patted dry

1 to 2 teaspoon olive oil

Preparation:

Heat a large, heavy-bottom, non-stick skillet over medium heat.  Be sure heat is not too hot or the brown sugar in the spice rub will burn.  Coat the skillet with cooking spray; add the olive oil.

While the skillet is heating, mix the spice rub ingredients together in a small bowl.  When the skillet is hot, carefully divide the spice rub between the four salmon fillets, pressing the rub firmly onto the surface.  If your salmon has skin, press the spice rub onto the side without the skin.

Immediately invert the salmon pieces into the skillet, SPICE-RUB SIDE DOWN.  Do not allow the spice rub to sit on the salmon for a long time before putting it into the skillet or the rub will begin to dissolve and the salmon will not caramelize.

Allow the salmon to cook for 3 to 4 minutes; the spice rub will dissolve and brown onto the salmon.  Turn salmon over carefully; allow the salmon to cook another 3 to 4 minutes until medium rare to medium.  Carefully flip the salmon back over and serve, scraping any of the caramelized sauce onto the salmon. Here's the salmon served with the kale salad:

Recently, Food Snob has been having fun roasting vegetables.  She has roasted just about every vegetable she can think of and is loving the result.  This past week, she discovered roasted green beans – see the easy recipe next week! 

Barbecued Salmon and an Engagement Celebration!

Spring is in the air – and it is a great time to fire up the grill and try one of Food Snob’s all-time favorite salmon recipes.  The third recipe in Food Snob’s “fish series,” Barbecued Salmon with Rosemary-Smashed Potatoes and Corn, is very user friendly and a wonderful recipe to try on family members who “aren’t sure” they like fish.  It really is hard not to like this simple and delicious dish!

But first, I digress.  Since spring is in the air, romance is also in the air, and lo and behold, Food Snob’s daughter became engaged this weekend to an amazing young man that she met four years ago at Eagle Lake Camp where they worked together as excursion camp counselors.  Food Snob could not resist sharing the photo of daughter Amelie and fiancé Jon right after they became engaged this morning – while hiking at Red Rocks amphitheater!  

We celebrated at noon with a home-cooked meal – what else would you expect from Food Snob?  She served buffalo pot-roast with spicy carrot puree, roasted beets, and asparagus.  Watch for the recipe in a few weeks – adapted from a recipe provided by favorite chef John Broening. 

Now back to the fish.  Food Snob first had this dish at Deluxe on South Broadway, a tiny little restaurant with some very wonderful food.  (If you go, try the oyster shooters!)  It was served in the summer with fresh corn cut off of the cob.  Fresh corn is not in season right now, so keep this recipe in mind when August rolls around.  Food Snob successfully substitutes good quality frozen baby corn kernels when fresh corn is not in season. 

The salmon is delicious on its own, but when Food Snob had it at Deluxe, it was served with fresh corn in a light cream sauce on the bottom of the plate, topped with mashed potatoes, and with the barbecued salmon resting on top.  Food Snob has always made the recipe this way, occasionally substituting mashed sweet potatoes, and it is delicious either way.  She has served it many times for dinner guests and it is always an elegant, company-worthy meal.

A word about the salmon – Food Snob has used Atlantic salmon and sockeye salmon in this recipe, but most recently she has used wild-caught Copper River salmon, which she found flash frozen and individually wrapped at Costco.  Some types of salmon are leaner than others, but all work well in this recipe.  Fresh or flash-frozen—and wild-caught—are important considerations in any fish recipe.

This recipe comes together quickly.  It works well on an outdoor grill, and indoor grill pan (see photo below), or in a heavy-bottom skillet.  You never turn the salmon; once the grill or pan is hot, it cooks for about 8 minutes and it is done!

To serve the corn, potatoes, and salmon together, start with the Rosemary-Smashed Potatoes.  See the recipe on Food Snob’s February 10th posting. While the potatoes are steaming, make the barbecue sauce, heat up the grill or skillet, and get the salmon ready to go.  Mash the potatoes and keep them warm.  Then put the salmon on the grill and while the salmon cooks, heat the corn. 

Since this dish is heavy on the starch side (potatoes and corn), be sure to add a green vegetable. Either roasted asparagus or a green salad would make great accompaniments.

One final word about temperature.   Do you have one of these?  

This thermometer is a lifesaver.  Food Snob bought hers at Macy’s but you can find something similar just about anywhere.  Put the probe in the thickest part of the meat, poultry, or fish, set the monitor for the desired temperature, and the thermometer will beep when the meat or fish has reached the correct temperature.  No more over-cooked fish, pork, chicken, or steak!  For salmon, the desired temperature for medium rare to medium is between 130 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Barbecued Salmon with Rosemary-Smashed Potatoes and Corn – makes four servings

Ingredient List

Barbecue Sauce:

½ cup purchased barbecue sauce (I use Kansas City original, any brand)

½ teaspoon dried mustard

½ teaspoon ground red chile (NOT chili powder)

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

¼ teaspoon Kosher salt

2 teaspoons honey

Salmon:

4 four- to six-ounce pieces wild-caught salmon

2 teaspoons olive oil

Kosher salt and fresh-ground pepper

Corn:

2 cups fresh corn, cut from the cob (about 3 ears), or 2 cups frozen corn kernels, thawed

1 teaspoon olive oil, butter, or heart-healthy spread suitable for cooking

3 scallions (green onions), sliced

¼ cup half and half

½ teaspoon sugar

Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

One Recipe Rosemary-Smashed Potatoes, doubled (see February 10th posting.)

Preparation:

1.     Prepare recipe for rosemary-garlic smashed potatoes and keep warm.  While potatoes are steaming, mix all barbecue sauce ingredients together.

2.     Wash and dry salmon, drizzle with olive oil and use fingers to coat each salmon piece thoroughly.  Sprinkle salmon lightly with salt and pepper.

3.     Brush grill, grill pan, or heavy-bottomed skillet lightly with olive oil or spray with cooking spray.  Preheat to medium high. 

4.     If using fresh corn, cut corn kernels off of cob and set aside.

5.     Once potatoes are ready and the grill is hot, carefully spoon the barbecue sauce on top of each salmon piece, reserving about half of the sauce to top the salmon once cooking is finished.  If salmon pieces have skin, put the barbecue sauce on the side of the salmon without the skin.  Carefully place the salmon on the grill, grill pan, or skillet – keep pieces from touching.  If your grill has a lid, put the lid down for quicker cooking.  If using a grill pan or skillet, partially cover with a lid – do not cover tightly – you need to let the steam escape. 

6.     Grill salmon about 7 to 8 minutes without turning – to about 135 degrees.  Use a thermometer if necessary.  When done, remove to a warm dish and top each piece of salmon with remaining barbecue sauce.

7.     While salmon is cooking, heat a small saucepan over medium heat.  Add olive oil or butter.  Once oil is warm or butter has melted, add scallions and sauté for about 2 minutes.  Add corn, sugar, salt, and pepper.  Allow corn to heat through (corn cooks quickly, so you just want it to get hot – no need to boil). 

8.     As soon as the corn is hot, stir in the half-and-half, allow the mixture to warm through, and taste for seasoning.

To serve on plates, layer the corn with the cream sauce, top with Rosemary-Smashed Potatoes, and top with the barbecued salmon.

Congratulations, Amelie and Jon! 

Next week’s final entry in Food Snob’s fish series features Brown Sugar- and Spice- Rubbed Salmon – this fantastic dish can be on the table in 15 minutes!

Two Dinners in Under 30 Minutes Each - You Can Do It!

Lack of time is the enemy of healthy eating.  When it is late in the day, when we have too much to do, when cooking dinner feels like yet another chore, that’s when we give into the mac and cheese, the hotdogs, the frozen dinner, or the fast food line. 

When life seems impossible, you need an arsenal of recipes that you can cook in very little time – before your energy left from the day is completely gone!  This week, Food Snob has the answer for you:  TWO recipes that can be made in 30 minutes or less.  Both have leftovers that reheat well for lunch or dinner on another night.  Both are foolproof.

The first recipe is one by J. M. Hirsch, the Food Editor for the Associated Press, which Food Snob found in the Denver Post Food Section a few weeks ago.  J. M. Hirsch says about himself:  “I’m just a dorky dad trying to feed my son a great dinner and pack him a lunch he’ll eat and I’ll feel good about . . . ” J. M. Hirsch captures the sentiments of most of us walking in the door at 6 p.m. on a weeknight – we’ve got hungry mouths to feed, even if it is only ours!  Food Snob has made J. M. Hirsch’s chicken curry several times during the past few weeks – and served it to others to great reviews – it’s a great dish to add to your weeknight repertoire.

Food Snob created the second recipe on a snowy winter evening when she craved clam chowder but didn’t have any clams in the house.  (Actually, Food Snob NEVER has clams in the house, but she craved clam chowder anyway!) Simple Fish Chowder is almost as delicious as clam chowder and tastes wonderful when freshly made and is even better the next day.  It is a wonderful “entry level” recipe for anyone who isn’t confident in his or her fish-cooking skills – TRUST me, you CAN’T ruin this recipe.  Food Snob made the chowder again Friday night as the temperatures were dropping and the snow was starting to fall – it was delicious and there was plenty left for lunch this week! 

Enjoy these recipes – and skip the fast food PLEASE!!!

Speedy and Light Chicken Curry – makes 6 to 8 servings

Recipe by J. M Hirsch, Associated Press – adapted by Food Snob

Preparation Notes:  Food Snob made this recipe once with organic chicken thighs purchased from Vitamin Cottage and once with natural chicken thighs purchased from King Soopers.  There was no comparison – the dish made with the organic chicken was much better - there is no substitute for quality ingredients!  She also made the dish once with fresh lemon grass and once with grated lemon rind.  The dish was better with the fresh lemon grass, but still very good when lemon rind was substituted.  Finally, Food Snob prepared the thighs by browning them first before adding the other ingredients.  Browning the thighs takes a little more time, but Food Snob preferred the flavor.  If you are in a hurry, skip the browning.  (J. M. Hirsch’s recipe omits the browning step.)  Better to get something on the table that is fresh and delicious!  Food Snob served the chicken curry over brown rice – when she doesn’t have time to cook brown rice from scratch, she “cheats” and uses “Success” brand brown rice, which is available at your supermarket and can be prepared in minutes while the chicken is cooking.  She served the chicken curry with steamed broccoli.

Ingredients

12 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (organic preferred)

Kosher salt to taste

One 12-ounce jar roasted red peppers, drained

1 small onion, coarsely chopped

1 cup low sodium chicken broth

½ cup light coconut milk

2 to 3 teaspoons curry powder (use less if you want a milder curry)

Three 3-inch lengths fresh lemon grass (essential ingredient – if you can’t find it, substitute grated rind from one lemon and about 1 tablespoon lemon juice

One 15-ounce can chickpeas, drained (no salt preferred)

1 cup grated carrots

Directions:

1.  Heat two large skillets over medium high heat; spray lightly with cooking spray or brush with canola oil. 

2.  Meanwhile, wash and dry the chicken thighs thoroughly.  Sprinkle chicken thighs lightly with kosher salt.  Once the skillets are hot, add chicken; keep pieces from touching.  Turn chicken when golden brown; allow chicken to brown on both sides, about 10 minutes.

3.  While chicken is cooking, place roasted red pepper, onion, chicken broth, coconut milk, and curry powder in a blender or a food processor and process or puree until smooth.  Transfer to a large, heavy-bottom pot or sauté pan.  Bring mixture to a simmer over medium high heat. 

4.  Crush the lemon grass with a meat mallet or rolling pin; add to sauce.  Stir in chickpeas and grated carrots.  Add the browned chicken and nestle into the sauce.  Alternatively, if you are in a hurry, skip steps 1 and 2 and nestle the raw chicken thighs into the sauce.  Be sure the chicken thighs are immersed.

5.  Set heat to maintain a simmer and cook, uncovered, for 20 minutes.  Taste for seasoning; add kosher salt as needed.  Discard the lemon grass before serving.  Serve the chicken over brown rice, if desired, with the vegetables and the sauce spooned over the top. 

Simple Fish Chowder – makes 8 servings

Preparation Notes:  Food Snob used wild-caught cod fillets for this recipe. The fillets were individually wrapped and flash frozen.  She thawed them in cold water right before cooking - only enough to get a knife through them – it is much easier to cube the fish if the pieces are still partially frozen.  If you have a gluten allergy, substitute cornstarch for the flour.  To add richness to the soup, Food Snob used one tablespoon of butter and 3 tablespoons of cream.  These ingredients add a small amount of fat but greatly improve the consistency and flavor.

Ingredients

2 slices lean turkey bacon, chopped (optional)

1 Tablespoon butter

1 onion, chopped

3 stalks celery, diced

2 carrots, grated

4 medium potatoes, peeled and diced in ½-inch pieces

Four 4- to 6-ounce pieces of wild-caught cod fillets, diced in ½ inch pieces

3 Tablespoons flour (use cornstarch if you want to make chowder gluten free)

4 cups skim milk

2 chicken bouillon cubes

¼ teaspoon smoked paprika (substitute regular paprika if you don’t have smoked)

Dash of cayenne pepper

1 bay leaf

1 cup reserved potato water (see instructions)

3 Tablespoons heavy whipping cream

1 Tablespoon cognac (do not omit this  essential ingredient!)

Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Directions:

1.  Heat a large, heavy-bottom soup or stockpot over medium high heat.  Add bacon pieces and sauté until brown and crisp.  Remove bacon pieces and drain on paper towel.

2.  Melt butter in bottom of pot; add onion, celery, and carrots.  Cut parchment paper to fit the circumference of the pot; nestle parchment paper over the vegetables and “sweat” them until soft, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.  The parchment paper lets out just the right amount of steam without allowing the vegetables to dry out. 

3.  Meanwhile, place potatoes in a separate pot and cover with water, add a little kosher salt.  Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer, cook covered until potatoes are tender, about 5 minutes.  Check with a knife.

4.  When vegetables in the soup pot have softened, stir in the browned bacon pieces and the diced cod and cook for one to two minutes.  Stir in the 3 tablespoons of flour and mix well.  Immediately add the skim milk, chicken bouillon cubes, smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, and bay leaf.  Allow mixture to come to a boil; mixture will thicken slightly.  Reduce heat to simmer. Stir occasionally.

5.  Drain potatoes; reserve one cup of potato water.  Add potato water and diced potatoes to soup.

6.  Add the whipping cream and the cognac; season with fresh ground pepper.  Taste for seasoning and add more kosher salt if needed.  Ladle into bowls and serve with crusty bread or oyster crackers. 

Food Snob tried chef John Broening’s "Short Ribs with Smoked Ham and Horseradish Gremolata" for dinner Saturday night – substituting lean bison pot roast.  It was incredible and well worth the time in the oven.  Find the recipe at: http://www.denverpost.com/food/ci_22716668/nbsp-short-ribs-smoked-ham-and-horseradish-gremolata.

Next week Food Snob continues her fish series and features “Barbecued Salmon with Smashed Rosemary Garlic Potatoes and Corn.” This recipe is Food Snob’s attempt to emulate a dish featured at Deluxe on South Broadway – one of Food Snob’s favorite restaurants.