Comunidad Health Foods

My breakfast trifecta is almost always made of whole grains, low fat dairy, and fresh fruit. A little high carb (I'm workin' on it), perhaps, but it proves itself to be otherwise healthy, versatile, and flat out tasty. However, at least once a week, I break out of my robotic routine and make myself not a breakfast trifecta, but a breakfast duo: eggs and veggies. This is nearly as quick and versatile, and perhaps even healthier. One of my favorite combinations I've thrown together so far is what I like to call a Mexican Fiesta Omelet. Now, this is, of course, "Mexican" in what I would imagine is the most American of terms, and while I hope that it's somewhat authentic, I'm not claiming to know how to cook Mexican food as Mexicans actually eat it. Regardless, it's delicious, and Mexican Fiesta Omelet has a fun ring to it, si?

The funny thing about this omelet is that it actually takes on a pinkish hue as a result of actually mixing the salsa into the egg "batter," rather than simply topping it. However, taking this extra steps gives it an extra one-two punch of flavor, and since salsa tends to be one of the "smartest" condiment choices on the market, it keeps the calorie and fat count down, too. It's also adaptable - I didn't add any corn, guacamole, cilantro, or spicy peppers, but think that any or all of those would be excellent. Wrapping it up in a tortilla would also be nice, but again, I really think that it's wonderful on its own. It's light but filling as it stands, which is always a welcome description in the morning.

Mexican Fiesta Omelet
Yield: 1 serving

1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons egg whites, or 2 eggs
1 tablespoon low-sodium salsa
1/4 teaspoon cumin
2 tablespoons diced green bell pepper, from approximately 1 segment
2 tablespoons finely diced onion
1/4 cup black beans
2 tablespoons chopped tomato
1 1/2 tablespoons shredded cheddar cheese (I used provolone, but only because it was all I had)
1-2 teaspoons olive oil, for sauteeing

Notes: *I'm not expert on omelet flipping. If your pan is greasy enough, you can loosen it and then use your wrist to flick it mostly around, guiding it with your spatula; but my pan is never greasy enough, and egg whites seem to be much more prone to falling apart than whole eggs, so I typically accept more of an egg scramble as my finished product (hence why my picture looks particularly well put together and appetizing). I'll work on the technique and get back to you, though. Promise.

The east coast has been hit yet again, but this time with a soft, powdery blanket that makes a snow day all that much more enjoyable. The ordeal of shoveling diminishes into a minor chunk of work taken out of an otherwise peaceful day, where schools are closed and families are home, but we are not all completely stranded by blizzard-level accumulation. As much as I dislike the cold, I love a snowy winter, and what's more, I love the food that it evokes. I haven't had hot chocolate yet and I did just eat a salad for lunch instead of a body-warming soup, but the dish that I have for you today is the epitome of snow day suppers: chicken 'n dumpling pie.

As with most casserole or classic meals that I make, this one is loosely based off of the recommendations of several online recipes I found. I didn't really go out and shop for ingredients, except for the chicken which I didn't have on hand; mostly, I used what was in my kitchen, and I think that's what makes this dish so perfect. It's malleable and forgiving, but no matter what you throw into it, it's a comfort to eat it. There's just something about a snow storm that makes me want to gather around a table with a group of people and eat something tried-and-true, a classic American specialty.

With all of this being said, I'm not a die-hard fan of pot pies. Nowadays, I can't go around eating most of them because of the pie crust ingredients, but even back when I didn't give a hoot about nutrition and what type of fat was in my food, I just didn't go crazy over this meal. I find the filling to be lackluster or, if it does have a flavor, overly salted - neither one of which flies in the Floptimism kitchen. I won't say that this dumpling pie is a complete revolution to this stigma I've attached to chicken pot pie and its relatives; it is not robustly flavorful in the way that an Asian stir-fry or Indian chutney is, but it is richer than most pot pies and chicken casseroles I've encountered. I enjoyed it; it warmed me up and comforted me, and left me very satisfied. And I have to admit, the warm-and-fuzzy emotions the are created by eating this with loved ones on a cold and potentially stormy night trumps complex spices and zesty flavor any day.

The Method

I have a confession to make: I used a boxed mix. These are not my cookies; they are Trader Joe's. Maybe that makes this a product review more than a typical recipe post from me, but I don't mind. You see, I all-but swore off gingerbread after my last foray with the notoriously unruly dough when my aunt let me in on her gingerbread secret, the secret that I am about to share with you. This secret is that if you go to Trader Joe's and buy their Deep, Dark Gingerbread Cake & Baking Mix, you don't have to deal with any stubborn, sticky, tantrum-inducing dough, and you wind up with some of the best darn cookies you've ever had. Seriously. Now, they apparently only sell this mix around Thanksgiving, but my aunt had an extra box and encouraged me to try making it - after all, she reasoned, L does love gingerbread cookies a whole lot. So, willing to try anything once, and being very interested in this un-taxing method for cookie preparation, I set to work on what would be our indulgent snack over this past weekend's skiing trip.

This dough comes together in one bowl - that's right, and not even the bowl of a stand mixer. Just a regular, glass mixing bowl. I mixed it with a wooden spoon instead of nervously watching the thick dough as it threatens to break even the dough hook of my house's beloved KitchenAid. I rolled it out without an extra pound of flour to remedy the sticking, cut out the shapes with ease, and watched as they baked and actually retained their shape. Well, most of them, anyway. They made the entire house smell like when autumn meets winter, and they tasted even better. There's a strong ginger taste, but they're soft - even though they're thin. Be careful, though, because this makes them really addicting, too.

I'll let you in on another secret: ice them. I don't mean flood them with icing, completely coating them, but decorate them with just a little bit. I initially decided to do this because my only resolution in 2011 is to conquer the Decorated Sugar Cookie, including botch finding a recipe and mastering the art of icing embellishment (as you see from the photos, I still have a long way to go). However, upon tasting them both plain and iced, I have to advocate for the iced ones. That extra sweetness gives the cookie a 1-2 punch that can't be beaten. My icing was sketchy at best, as I didn't have enough confectioner's sugar for the recipe and accidentally added too much milk. I spent a good 15 minutes trying to change it from a goopy, gloppy liquid into a firmer, more controllable substance, but there's only so much flour, cinnamon, and brown sugar you can add to an icing before you compromise its taste (though the cinnamon and brown sugar were nice additions, if I do say so myself, and might even suggest that you try doctoring your own icing recipe to include these two ingredients for this particular cookie - just be careful that you get rid of the chunks of brown sugar, which can back up your pastry bag and wreak goopy icing havoc).

Melt the butter in a medium-large, microwavable mixing bowl. Add the remaining two ingredients and mix well.

Form the dough into a ball and chill for at least one hour. When ready to start working with the dough, preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Roll out to approximately 1/8" thickness, cut desired shapes, and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. These cookies do not spread very much, but still leave at least a 1/2-inch space between them. Bake in the preheated oven for 6-8 minutes (I baked mine for 8, and only a few particularly thin ones were on the overdone side), then remove from the oven and allow to cool on the sheet for 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack and finish cooling.


Now, these will not be my go-to gingerbread cookies. As dirt easy and delicious as these gingerbread characters are, I'm still determined to find a successful from-scratch version. The fact that they came out of a cake mix has got me thinking that My Future Gingerbread Recipe will come from a marriage between cookie and cake, rather than pure-bred cookie. But until I find that cookie, these are fabulous, and every bit worth it. Oh, and L loved them!

Recently, upon observing me eating a fairly healthy lunch, my grandmother turned to me and asked, essentially, "do you actually like that stuff?" I find myself answering that question more often than I ever expected to, and even more often than that I'm in need of a swift and poignant defense against the all-too-common criticism that I don't eat enough junk food (clearly, these people do not read my blog too diligently, or else they would know better). The answer to that first question, by the way, is yes - I thoroughly enjoy the food that I eat. Food is too important to me to waste my time with meals that I don't enjoy - no matter how healthy a food is, if it makes me cringe, it ain't goin in my mouth. Luckily, I find most healthy foods preferable to the more common American fare, so this is not often an issue.

Which brings me to my next point. With the new year finally here and resolutions being made (and broken) at record speed, many people are targeting the way they eat. Although I don't make resolutions, gravitating instead toward year-round goals that I think up along the way, I know that many people do, and many people wake up on January 1st with a groan and a moan as they think of the terrible, inedible foods their new goals will demand. It doesn't have to be that way, though. Following a healthy diet can taste good, and it's very rare that a person would need to jump to the extreme of never again eating the fatty, sugary junk foods that they love. This recipe is proof of the former. Yes, some salads taste like rabbit food and chicken breast is much less enticing than a perfectly cooked cut of beef, but there are also countless recipes that both taste good and are good for you.

Quinoa on its own is a little bland. Most grains are. However, as chicken breast often operates, quinoa beautifully embodies the flavors you add to it. Roasted butternut squash and cranberries are in a sweet-and-sour civil war, crunchy pecans offset the soft and fluffy quinoa, and the small addition of spices reminds you that there's a whole other level to this dish. This dish is one to be eaten slowly, appreciating how different a bite of onion and squash can be from one with cranberries and pecans. The last fork-full of this cranberry and butternut squash quinoa salad is at least as delicious as the first, if you let it.

I did make a few changes: halving the recipe for 2 but quartering the amount of quinoa because I ran out; adding in dried basil instead of parsley. I would certainly try the parsley some time, but the ratio of quinoa to squash and cranberries was, to me, ideal. I ate this alone as a lighter dinner, but could imagine it making a nice bed for fish or chicken. Adding some beans could make it a little fuller while keeping it vegetarian. Really, though, the recipe flowed well - it didn't just come together quickly. It was easy to make and easy to like, and I needed to share it with you before cranberry and squash season was really, really over. Plus, I had to prove that something good for you doesn't have to taste like cardboard.

As much as my fingers are itching to type novels about all of the more savory dishes I've been enjoying over the past several months, and as sick as many of you probably are of sweets (c'est possible??), I promised you brownies, and brownies you shall get. So to speak, that is - The Goods will remain in my freezer, waiting patiently for the perfect night to arrive for their date with vanilla ice cream. I even marched down to my freezer, pulled a few out and had a photo shoot session with them on my kitchen table when I realized this morning I had, once again, forgotten to snap their beautiful little mugs before devouring the majority of them - that is how determined I was to give all of you your just desserts: chocolately, gratifying squares of decadence, just shy of sheer perfection.

You see, I'm very particular about my brownies. Brownies and chocolate cake need to be done very well. It isn't that I find no pleasure in even the sorriest of brownies and other chocolate confections because, let's be real, I am female; however, chocolate makes me weak in the knees, and so I refuse to stop until the God of Brownie Recipes is unearthed. This recipe, it's no Lord Almighty, but it's still good. Satisfying. Rich and delicate, with an extremely subtle and downplayed sweetness cutting into it in perfect harmony with the occasional crunch from a lingering chocolate chip. Really, this recipe is spot-on...if you like cakey brownies, that is. Which, as I mentioned before about the whole loving all things chocolate, I do, but they're not what really does it for me. What really does it for me is the dense, fudgey, barely-uses-any-flour-at-all recipe that, when eaten chilled, is more akin to a softer form of pure chocolate than to the baked goods family. You see, I know what I want in a brownie, and while these may be the be-all-and-end-all for someone else - and many, many people who tried these could not stop raving - I will continue on in my search for The One.

All of that being said, there happens to be vanilla ice cream in my freezer right now and dinner is the only thing standing between me and an a la mode dessert that is enough to make a girl very, very happy.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees fahrenheit. Grease a 9x9 inch square pan; in 1.5x the recipe, I used one 9x9 and one 8x8 and am pretty happy with the results.

Combine the flour, cocoa, and baking soda in a medium bowl and set aside. In another medium bowl, stir together the oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla; set this aside, too. Meanwhile, in a medium sauce pan over medium-low heat, gently melt 2/3 of the chocolate chips (1 cup) into the evaporated milk. Once all of the chips have melted, remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool.

Once cool, whisk in first the sugar mixture, then the flour mixture, until just incorporated. Fold in the remaining 1/2 cup chocolate as well as the nuts, if using. Pour the batter into the prepared pans, place in the oven, and bake for approximately 30 minutes. In contrast to how you would test a cake for doneness, a toothpick inserted into these brownies after 30 minutes will, apparently, not come out clean. After reading this, I didn't bother wasting a toothpick, and just trusted my oven, the recipe, and the notion that slightly undercooked desserts are not nearly as disasterous as slightly overcooked ones. I mean, that batter is the best part anyway, right? So, pull them out at 30 minutes with all the faith in the world, cool them for at least 10 minutes, and then slice 'em into squares and serve them warm, cool, or - if you're completely normal like me - just a tad bit frozen (okay, maybe save that for the fudgier ones). Vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and hot fudge are totally optional, but highly recommended.

Notes:
*One day, I will make desserts with nuts in them, but it makes it much more complicated for sharing. Although, being forced to eat a couple of extra brownies or a slightly larger piece of cake is not the biggest grievance I've had to undertake.

Enjoy!

I apologize right from the start, but those brownies that I mentioned last time are just going to have to wait. They have been shoved from the lime light by these little gems - these gorgeous, delicious, adorable little muffins filled with juicy pear and topped with sweet and crunchy oat streusel. This, my last minute procrastination recipe for New Year's Eve, could not have been a better decision. Although these pear muffins are far from traditional celebration fare, they worked beautifully with the early dinner I had with L's family (and as my light lunch to hold me over to said early dinner, ahem...).


It should come as no surprise that I found these over at the Smitten Kitchen, since these days I find almost all of my rave-worthy recipes there. I was planning last week to make a pear crisp for Christmas, but logistically couldn't figure out how to make it in advance so that it could travel to its destination. So I ditched that idea, replaced it with the fudge and some mysterious chocolatey caramel surprises (soon to be revealed, I promise), and have four pears sitting on my counter threatening to rot there before too long. So, I did what any frugal baker would do - I used it as an excuse to bake something! I delved into my pot of recipes and pulled out one for a pear bread, told myself it would be excellent in mini-muffin form, found an oat streusel topping to sprinkle over it, and got to work. What came out of my kitchen yesterday is nothing short of saintly (coming from the baker in me, not the nutritionist, mind you). No, I exaggerate. These are not the worst muffins, either - in fact, I would even file them away in the "muffin" category, while some of my so-called muffin recipes-to-make are kept very judiciously in the "cupcake" folder.


Yes, I really am that particular. But that is neither here nor there, as this recipe is too good to dilly-dally. I very barely changed it from Deb's recommendations, aside from to halve it (and I still got 4 dozen minis), adjust the baking time, add the topping and play with the amount of pear - again, minimally. One discovery I did make, however, was that if you zest a juicy pear, you get pear sauce. You know, like apple sauce, but from a pear. Therefore, I have every intention of swapping out some of the oil for some pear sauce next time. just for kicks. I might also tone down the brown sugar in the streusel and make a bit more of it for topping in general. If I really want to go crazy with the healthification of these muffins (and I'm not so sure I do, since they really are fantastic as they are), I might tinker with the sugar in the muffins, too. But for right now, this recipe is a knock out, and I don't know why you're still reading this instead of skipping to the good stuff and heading into your kitchen faster than the speed of light.