Comunidad Health Foods

Happy Pi Day, everyone! Ever since I started cooking for myself, I've loved the idea of coordinating meals with holidays and fun events/occasions. It just makes eating more enjoyable, especially for me, right now, as I've been feeling a little bored by the meals I've been making (have you noticed the monopoly chicken breasts have on this blog??). Even though this pie does, indeed, contain chicken breasts, it's a fun (and phenomenal!) meal to serve on March 14th in honor of that wonderful, never ending number, Pi (3.14.....and so on).

I thought of the filling myself, using what I envisioned would be a light, refreshing blend of ingredients in a still heart-warming pie form, perhaps making the food bridge between winter and the ever-slowly approaching spring. I used lemon-baked chicken, a handful of vegetables, a light vinaigrette dressing and a touch of parmesan to create a refreshingly savory alternative to the usual pie fillings. For the crust, I used this opportunity to try out a recipe I have been dying to test out - an oil crust, without the fuss or saturated fat of butter or (dare I say it?) shortening. No cutting, no chilling - and, as I realized too late, no rolling. Originally, I had intended these to be hand pies, but when I realized that the dough was meant to be pressed into the pie plate and not rolled, I just made them into regular pies.

My only complaint is that I really should have let it be a one-crust pie, or maybe open-faced is the better term. Basically, I should have made it into two servings - I certainly had enough filling - when I only made one. My pie is a little crust-heavy, which makes it borderline dry when you get a bite of the edges without much filling. However, when you get to that filling and mix it with the warm, hearty-yet-crumbly crust? Heaven. Absolute heaven. The recipe below reflects the changes that I would make.

If all of that talk the other day of honey-flavored treats for your pooch got you feeling a little jealous, here is an even more enticing (and infinitely more human-oriented) recipe to cheer you up! It's a little surprising that it has taken me so long to share this recipe for Honey-Lemon-Ginger Chicken with you, since I more or less thought that I was in heaven the moment I took my first bite. It really is sweet and tangy at its best, with flavor out the wa-zoo to make every drop of simple, refined sugars it dumps into your blood stream well worth it. I even like to think the mouthful of a title is appropriately reminiscent of how jam-packed it is with flavor - one succinct title could never adequately encompass the full taste experience that is this dish.

Of course, I had to add some veggies to it, because in my mind, every savory meal could benefit from a healthy serving of extra vegetables. The original also calls for skin-on thighs, and I used my tried-and-true boneless, skinless (flavorless? ergh) breast meat. If you like to rationalize your food decisions (which the budding counselor in me vehemently discourages, but the human being in me does oh, I don't know, a half dozen times a day...), just say these additional vegetables, switch to white meat, and, perhaps, a side of whole grain pasta or brown rice in place of their refined counterparts completely counteract the downsides of the sugary marinade.

Or, you know, just eat it and enjoy it, because it's ridiculously good.

Also, feel free to make this with precooked chicken - I'm almost positive that's what I did all those months ago, in which case you would just skip the initial step meant to sear the chicken. All of my changes that I made led to a less photogenic dish - as in, the "sauce" wasn't as glistening and "sticky" looking as the original - but the flavors are all still spot-on.

Puppy Floptimism, more commonly known as Yogi (or Yogi Bear, Yogurt, The Yogster - really anything), turned 2 years old today! Last year, for his first birthday, we threw a party. It was more an excuse for me to cook dinner and make a cake and invite people over to eat all of the wonderful food, but it was fun and festive nonetheless. This year, I chose to avoid the people-pleasing food and make Yogi some treats of his own, that he could have all to himself. The inspiration for making him his own treats came when Pet Foodie, a blogger on Foodbuzz, "friended" me, or whatever the Foodbuzz-equivalent of that is called. Although I haven't actually interacted with her much, I do eye the dog treats she shares on her blog pretty often. They're always so creative and interesting, and if I were a dog offered one of her treats, I would never want those generic milkbones again.

I chose a simple recipe to start out with, one whose ingredients I knew I would have on hand: peanut butter & honey biscuits. They came together in a flash, just a bowl and spoon required, and baked up pretty well, too. I even tried one, despite having used the Forbidden Jar of Jiff that my family keeps in stock, and I can't complain too much. They taste pretty much exactly how you would imagine a homemade peanut butter and honey dog biscuit would taste: sturdy, a little dry, and not very sweet - but not at all offensive, either. The real taste test came when The Birthday Boy tried one this afternoon: he took it whole in his mouth and held it for a minute, clearly taking time to appreciate the complexity of flavors as his salivary enzymes got to work and making me wonder if he had actually just swallowed it whole, then chewed it up and spent the next minute scavaging the floor for any remnant crumbs. Needless to say, these are Yogi Approved (although, using the taste preferences of a dog who used to eat rocks may not be the best point of reference in these matters).

I wanted to do a cost analysis comparing these treats to store bought ones, but I couldn't find an actual biscuit count on the boxes of treats - just the net weight. However, if you're interested, a full batch of these (yielding 3-4 dozen, I made a half batch of about 1 3/4 dozen) would cost a whopping $3.18. 24oz. of Milkbone biscuits are listed online for anywhere between $4.50 and $6.50, depending on stores and sale prices. Maybe someone reading this would know more about how many bones come in one of those boxes (if so, please share!), but it makes sense to me that there would be about 4 dozen biscuits in that size box, making the homemade much cheaper. Plus, I took a look at the ingredients in the store bought ones, and let's just say it's not as simple as the list I'm about to show you. Check it out:

Peanut Butter & Honey Dog Treats, courtesy of Doggy Dessert Chef

Notes:
*Like I said, I used non-natural peanut butter, but the original blogger seems to be pretty health-conscious in terms of ingredients chosen, so I would imagine natural is fine. I would definitely have tried it if we had any on hand, but I recently finished up my container and haven't gotten to the store to replace it yet. **I rerolled my dough about 3 times, and took the scraps from the third time (when it started to get difficult to roll out) and just baked them as scraps instead of shapes. I'm thinking that baking for dogs is the way to go - it doesn't matter if you increase the gluten strands or don't make each cookie a fun shape. Trust me, they will be eaten just as quickly either way!

I will be the first one to admit that this morning, I celebrated National Breakfast Day in pomp and prestige with a, drumroll please, carton of greek yogurt and an apple. However, as soon as I found out that today was, indeed, National Breakfast Day, I knew I needed to sneak in an extra little post in honor of it, even if my own breakfast was fairly lackluster. We can pretend that this omelet is what I ate this morning, right? Excellent.

Normally, I wouldn't post about a recipe like this one. Don't get me wrong, it was fantastic, but it's just so simple that I feel a little silly talking about it, especially when I have such an enormous list of backlogged recipes waiting for their turn in the Floptimism Blog Spotlight. But alas, I posted quite a lengthy account of sugar cookies yesterday and would otherwise have given you a day's break from little ole me, so I think an understated post about an understated recipe is just the kind of simplicity called for in this situation.

I didn't do much to change the recipe, aside from use the Kraft "Parmesan" Cheese over fresh, infinitely tastier Parmigiano Reggiano, and I served mine over a bed of spinach as opposed to a piece of toast (yay low carb meals!). The recipe below is how I made it, so feel free to head over to the original post if you're curious how it looks with the bread and fancier cheese (or just sub those things in on your own).

Even though I just wrote about my first sugar cookie decorating experience, the truth is that occurred just shy of a month and a half ago. Last week, I felt a sudden twinge of Resolution Guilt for not having tried my hand at the whole fiasco a second time yet, and Mardi Gras paired with a trip to visit L (and his 4 male roommates) seemed like a perfect excuse. So, I dove into the vast pool of sugar cookie recipes I have saved, pulled out one from the ever-impressive Annie over at Annie's Eats, and resolved to make L and his roommates a batch of Fat Tuesday worthy treats.

I ran into a few obstacles, namely a set of beautiful yet tragically dark-colored Wilton cookie sheets that inevitably turned the bottoms of my cookies a matching dark color. I also burned a good many of the cookies in the beginning before learning that this recipe needs to be rolled out fairly thickly, not like the paper thin Christmas cookies my Grandmother used to make (which would be what I'm used to). I also, perhaps, sent my handmixer into early retirement while beating the royal icing for 7 minutes straight (as per the recipe's instructions, I swear!), but that didn't effect the cookies themselves, so we won't go too much into that disappointment.

Speaking of disappointment, I think that's the most accurate description of these cookies. They come together easily, roll out without much fuss, bake without an inch of spreading - and then shatter your high hopes by being fairly dry, confusingly bland and overly sweet at the same time, and not as sturdy as I was led to believe initially. Once I slathered royal icing on them, they were thoroughly enjoyable, and I think it goes without saying that the boys in L's room devoured them promptly (and between appreciative compliments). But these will not, alas, be my Ultimate Decorated Sugar Cookie recipe, at least not without some tweaking. I don't mean to bash them, either; as I said, everyone really liked them. However, I do ask people to be brutally honest with my recipes as I'm on a hunt for perfection on a plate, and these did not go without nit-picky, critical comments.

The only changes I made were to scale up the vanilla extract to 1 1/2 teaspoons and swap in the 1 1/2 teaspoons of almond extract for 1 teaspoon of rum extract, as I realized too late that among the many half-used extracts I have lying around, almond is not one of them. I thought the rum would either go unnoticed or add a nice Bourbon-Street Flair to the cookies, as they were meant to be styled a la Mardi Gras, anyway. It turns out the former was the case, but if you like the latter idea, go ahead and try some real rum for flavoring or change the rum:vanilla ratio. I don't know what will happen, but I'm one to throw caution to the wind in the kitchen. Just go for it!

As for decorating, well, the fact that I included pictures of the finished product means that I am infinitely happier with the result than my first attempt. The icing came together better, I think I'm getting a better idea of how thin it needs to be to flood and how thick to pipe, and I even attempted to color a bit of it this time around. My back didn't turn into knots and my shoulder wasn't burning from being held in a weird position. Some of my crowns looked like blobs and my designs lack a finesse that I hope to develop over the next year, but this was certainly a step in the right direction! Two lessons learned, though: I need to invest in some squeeze bottles for easier flooding, and if you get too anal about the colors of your icings and add too much gel, the final icing will not harden as well as it should.

Decorated Sugar Cookies, courtesy of Annie's Eats

For the royal icing recipe and tutorial I used for this recipe, you can visit Annie's Eats post on decorating with Royal Icing.

A while ago, I found myself with a jar of apricot preserves and a jar of sunbutter in place of my usual berry jam and peanut butter. I didn't even hesitate in reaching for them when I needed a quick, transportable lunchtime meal for one of my busier days. I was expecting a pretty innocuous sandwich, with maybe a tangier note from the apricot and more sunflower-y note from the sunbutter - but what I got was a combination of flavors that melded in my mouth and left a vague sense of deja vu, in the best kind of way. I had tasted these two flavors together before, and I found myself making this sandwich on a regular basis to try to place it.

I was tasting Kung Pao Chicken.

Well, sort of.

Clearly, Kung Pao Chicken is not made with sunbutter and apricot preserves. Therefore, I will warn you right now that this recipe I am about to share with you is not actually, really, traditionally Kung Pao Chicken. But, if I'm not absolutely bananas, it has a flavor very reminiscent of the Chinese dish, and what it lacks in conventionality, it makes up for in downright awesomeness. You see, I took the flavors from the sandwich and turned them into a chicken and rice dish, and am very happy with the result. I have in my notes that it may be more akin to "Kung Pad Chicken," or some Chinese-Thai food hybrid of creamy, nutty marinades, sweet citrus glazes, and the chicken, vegetables and rice to serve as a delectable vehicle for it all.

I include this as part of National Nutrition Month with a disclaimer. There is nothing really unhealthy about this dish, aside from, perhaps, the sugar in the preserves. However, despite its healthy ingredients, I would imagine that this is fairly high calorie - I mean, anytime you take chicken, rice, and vegetables and saute them in a nut butter, you're going to get calories. Good calories, good fat, but calories and fat nonetheless. When I eat a high-fat meal like something containing a nut butter, I generally just keep an eye on the oil and fat eaten the rest of the day (ie I don't munch on almonds in the afternoon if I already ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, and I certainly wouldn't eat this chicken dish in the same day as said peanut butter and jelly sandwich). You could also just go easy on the marinade or portion sizes if it works out to be higher calorie than you'd like to consume in one sitting. Just don't let the unsaturated fat scare you away from trying this, because modest amounts of the stuff are fantastic for the body, and generous amounts of this dish are fantastic for your taste buds.*

Notes:
*Because I was a little hesitant about the nutrition information about this dish, I ran it through a program I have and came out with this set of data, assuming that you get an average of 5 servings out of this and used the high end of each ingredient range I gave. These facts do not include rice, as portion sizes and types of rice used can change the analysis considerably. I was surprised by how modest it really turned out to be; up the fiber even more and counterbalance the higher glycemic sugar from the preserves by choosing brown rice instead of white:

**I actually added some water to help this process along, so feel free to try that.

It's March, and you know what that means! No, not winter coming to an end, the other thing! Okay, no, not Mardi Gras AND St. Patty's Day fast approaching, the other other thing! No? You mean you haven't heard? Why, it's National Nutrition Month!

It seems as though it's always some National Month, but I think you can understand my going all gung-ho with excitement about this one. It even has an annual theme, and this year's is eating lots of colors or having a colorful plate. So, although I don't know that I can promise a 100% nutritious blogging month (I have some dessert recipes that I'm so tempted to share with you immediately), I did want to start it off well and, more specifically, with a dish that embodies the theme specifically.

I wasn't originally going to tell you about this gorgeous skillet meal because it was, to be perfectly honest, something I threw together on a whim a couple of weeks ago. I didn't even write down measurements or instructions, so I can tell you right now when we get to the recipe part of this post, it'll be interesting. But the pictures I took of it are so darn colorful, and it was so delicious that I wound up making it two days in a row for lunch, so I'm going to try my absolute best to tell you what magical ingredients went into making such a healthy and flavor packed meal. Did I mention it's low carb?

Notes: *Feel free to let the marinade soak into the chicken if you have the patience. However, I did call this a quick chicken and vegetable skillet, and I certainly didn't wait around for any sparks to fly between my chicken and sauce, so go ahead and dump it into the pan. **I like to grab a handful of spinach, rinse it in the sink, squeeze it out juuussttt a bit, and add it to the skillet still damp. I like to think the water aids in the wilting process as well as some non-fat anti-stick action in the last few minutes of cooking - I could be way off, but it never does my food any harm, either.

And there you have it! A very quick, very colorful, and very delicious meal. of course you can serve this with rice, but I found it perfectly satisfying on its own. It's light, it's got tons of veggies, and I think you'll be happy with the results if you give it a shot.

What I really encourage you to do, though, is get involved with National Nutrition Month! I'm not saying give up sweets for the whole month or kill yourself at the gym - but choose that apple over that cookie for a mid-day snack, walk to the post office around the corner instead of driving there (what's left of the o-zone layer will thank you for that one too, so double bonus!), try a meatless meal, anything! It could be your chance to try out something new. You never know when you'll discover something absolutely unforgettable when you step out of your comfort zone, even for a day.