Comunidad Health Foods

 

The weather gets warmer. The sun shines brighter. And I start to think to myself, “It’s almost time for rhubarb.” I start to keep a lookout in the grocery, my eyes sharp with anticipation. I eagerly frequent farmer’s markets. And then one day, sitting in what must surely be a spotlight from heaven, there it is – those long, pink-red stalks. I think I hear a chorus of angels in the background as I select a sampling to bring home with me. I’ve got it! It feels like I’ve won the lottery. Finally, after months and months of rhubarb withdrawal, I have it, in my hands, the possibilities for using it endless.

I honestly don’t even think I love rhubarb. Sure, I like it, but it’s not my favorite. Yet, I can’t help but get giddy when it comes around, simply because it doesn’t happen all the time. As much as I love bananas and apples, they aren’t special. I know people who hoard rhubarb. No one hoards bananas.

I wish more fresh produce were like rhubarb. I wish we could only buy strawberries when they were in season, bright red in the center and juicy instead of stark white and mealy in texture. There are certain things I’m grateful to have – I don’t know what my day would be like without a banana in it, and I love exotic fruits like kiwi and pineapple. We’re very lucky. But I do try to only buy frozen berries unless they’re in season, frozen corn until the husks at the markets are truly at their best. But it’s challenging when we aren’t forced into that sort of seasonal shopping, as we are with rhubarb. It’s a challenge I’d like to take head on in the near future, because I love the exhilaration I get when I spot that first rhubarb stalk of the year. Yes, I said it – exhilaration. If only we could all be so lucky to get so thrilled over our produce bin, right?

This rhubarb spread is a fantastic recipe to make with the rhubarb that’s still peeking out from the corner of the local farmer’s markets. The only thing I changed was to substitute ½ teaspoon vanilla extract for the rosewater, as I didn’t have any and read online that it was an acceptable swap. It’s easy, makes a ton, and is versatile so you don’t have to feel tied down to any one rhubarb dish. Mix it into yogurt – lemon, plain, or strawberry would all be wonderful – spread it on a warm scone or muffin for an afternoon treat, turn it into a milkshake or ice cream sundae.  I stirred it into yogurt (Chocolate Chunk Chobani Champions – say that 3 times fast! – was one of my favorites), spread it on fresh baked challah bread, and dolloped it over a lemon chia pudding. The recipe I have below is for a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Parfait, my personal favorite way that I incorporated the spread. I was sad to see it go yesterday, and think that next year I, too, may need to learn how to properly hoard store rhubarb in my freezer to get even more uses out of it.

 

I have a secret to tell you, but before I do, you have to promise that you won’t point, laugh, and shun me for it. I can’t handle having to sport a branded letter on my arm, signifying to the world the truth. You see, I have this thing. With red meat. No, not making sure it’s grass fed. I mean, yes, there’s that, but that almost sounds normal compared with this other thing. This thing that’s totally bizarre-o and so not appropriate for a gourmand foodie such as myself (don’t laugh). Here goes…

If you sit me down at a table and place 2 plates in front of me, one showcasing a $35 perfectly cooked steak dinner and the other featuring a big, juicy, $5 homecooked burger…I will turn a cold shoulder to that steak before you can even say, “and how would you like your steak cooked, madam?” I actually don’t like steak, and trust me, I have had some really top notch cuts in my life. It makes only eating grass-fed beef much more affordable and manageable, since I can watch people eating steaks left and right and not get jealous, and I don’t burn a hole in my wallet trying to ethically satisfy some red meat craving all the time.

The fact that I don’t really like steak very much means something else: I basically never cook it. I barely know how. I’ve handled raw red meat I think twice in my life, and one of them was just last week. I’m a total amateur, but that’s ok. Because if I can conquer the red-meated beast, so can you. And I even went first, so you get to learn from all of my silly mistakes.

Mistake #1: Believing that you can at a whim stop by your local Whole Foods market and find the exact cut of beef that you need…in grass-fed form. Result: what was originally intended to be a Memorial Day cook out was postponed until Whole Foods’ next shipment came in…2 days later.

Mistake #2: Believing the recipe when it tells you that after 5 brief minutes per side, your full steak will not be an absolute bloody mess when you cut into it. Put that thing back on the grill, seriously! (As a side note, I know people who actually would’ve loved how rare – virtually uncooked – the meat was at this time interval, so if you’re one of those people, ignore this. If you like your meat more towards medium-rare, maybe 7 minutes per side. And if you like it well-done…just slice the darn thing and cook it that way. You’ll save yourself a ton of grief.)

Ok, so really, that’s not so bad, right? I also made a few really fantastic judgment calls when making these sandwiches. First, I decreased the amount of meat called for in general – ½ pound per person is just ridiculous, especially for a sandwich. I went with 1.5lb for 4 people and even then had leftovers – I think this sandwich is intended to be piled high with meat, and that’s just not my (or my family’s) style. Ok, it’s a little bit my family’s style, but they were following my lead and I made my sandwich first. Ha!

Overall, this is a good sandwich. I don’t know if it’s phenomenal enough to warrant Rachael Ray’s title, “Tony Soprano’s Steak Sandwich.” I mean, those are big shoes for a sandwich to fill. Still, it was tasty; I think it just needed one more element to really put it over the top. I also secretly think that turning it into burger form would make it even better, but shh! The Red Meat Snobs are going to bludgeon me for such blasphemy, so let’s keep that little recommendation between us.

You could buy jarred giardiniera for the relish, as the recipe states, but then why would you, when 100 pages later in the exact same cookbook she teaches you how to make your own? Just don’t make the whole thing – the recipe said it made 1 quart, and the sandwiches called for 1 quart – but one of those two yields was way off because I’ve basically been eating leftover giardiniera for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a week straight and still have about a cup left. The recipe below makes the full batch, but I’m pretty sure you could halve it and still have enough to pile 4 sandwiches to the sky with it. I found the recipe to be a little bit too sweet, but I’ve left the sugar content alone because I don’t know how much you could reduce it without affecting the pickling ability of the solution. And it’s really only too sweet when you eat big spoonfuls on its own (really, I wasn’t kidding, I made way too much…); on the sandwich it adds a nice balance to the savory steak.

So maybe this isn’t Tony Soprano’s steak sandwich, but I liked it, my dad liked it (ok my dad had his without any veggies and with ketchup, but he’s a Philadelphian, can you blame him?), L liked it, my mom liked it. It may not be mob-approved, but it’s certainly us-approved, and as I said before…I don’t even like steak! I mean…what?

 

I made a vow to myself that I would stop blogging about unperfected recipes. Gone are the days of trying a recipe, getting it almost right, and telling you about it with little disclaimers here or there. That was ok when I was blown away by having 5 followers. Now that more people are sitting up and taking notice of Floptimism (it’s still a small following, but each and every one of you make my day by sticking around, seriously!), I feel as though I owe it to you to really only give you the recipes that I can say 100% work – ones that have already been tweaked and tested. I’ve started remaking things two or three times to get them right, and I can honestly say that I’ve even enjoyed the fine-tuning aspect of this whole process. It really seemed like the days of close-but-no-cigar recipes were over – no more “well the flavor was right, but the consistency…” or “I totally burned it but I think you can do better so here it is…”

That is, until I met this frozen yogurt. I debated this one for quite some time. I really shouldn’t tell you about it. This should not be happening right now. But it is, it has to, because after I took one bite, and then a second, and then a third, and then suddenly I looked back on the past 3 days in a row to discover that I ate a bowl of it for dessert each of those three nights…well, I can’t let National Frozen Yogurt Day go by and not tell you about this flavor and recipe. I don’t care if the consistency is borderline atrocious, one of the downright worst textures I’ve made to date you’ll feel the same.

This is frozen yogurt at its almost purest state, and it’s not for everyone. If you like that tang of plain yogurt, particularly Greek, you’ll enjoy this. The Nutella just barely sweetens it, giving it a deep chocolate flavor without masking the beautiful flavor of plain, unadulterated yogurt. You could add more Nutella – the original called for equal parts but warned that it was cloyingly sweet that way – to subdue the yogurt and bring out the Nutella a little bit more. This would also fix the problem I ran into with the consistency – Nutella is oily enough to supposedly prevent the ice cream from getting too solid in the freezer, when used in greater amounts. However, the amount that I used wasn’t nearly enough, and I wound up with a brick after freezing it, and a stubborn brick at that. It does not soften quickly on the counter. Last night it took me 2 hours of refrigerator time to get it to a point where I could scoop it, and even then it probably could have used a little bit more patience on my part. A few nights before that I microwaved it and wound up with more of a sauce (which I poured over a different flavor of frozen yogurt – so not a bad thing!) than froyo. Suffice it to say, this recipe has its kinks. But it’s sheer perfection when it comes straight out of the machine (so if you want to serve/eat it immediately, all of these textural issues go out the window), and the flavor is so heavenly enjoyable that you can look past the glitches. This is the kind of froyo that makes me never want to buy the processed, overly sweetened cartons at the grocery store. This is the queen of all Froyo, and true to her title, the queen can get away with any offense – including being hard and stubborn as a rock.

By the way, don’t feel boxed in by this recipe. My brain is already in overdrive thinking of the possibilities for this as the foundation of many other flavors: stir in thawed bananas or make a banana split, top with strawberries, add peanut butter and honey (it’s seriously one of the most delicious sandwiches I’ve ever had – I can’t believe as a teenager I actually ate that calorie & sugar bomb for lunch on a regular basis), or reinvent my raspberry-banana Nutella sandwich in froyo form. Just think of all of the incredible ways that you like to eat Nutella, and find a way to make it work as a frozen yogurt flavor.

What’s your favorite way to eat Nutella? (Yes, “with a spoon” is a perfectly legitimate answer.)

Tomorrow is National Egg Day. I repeat: tomorrow is National Egg Day.  Finally, I have an excuse to gush on and on to you about the wonder of eggs and egg dishes. Ok, really, I won’t gush on and on – but I do have an egg-centric recipe to tell you about, and I thought leading into tomorrow’s “holiday” was a perfect time.

How many of you buy fresh broccoli? How many of you chop off those annoying stalks and toss them in the trash?

Yeah, I thought so. It’s tempting, right? I mean, what the heck are you supposed to do with those fibrous, tough sticks that hold up the “good part” of the veggie, anyway?

The answer to that question is simple: plenty! I was buying a fair share of broccoli and kept throwing the stalks in the freezer, convinced that there had to be another use for them. I hate throwing food away. I finally did some research when my bag of stalks was ready to burst, and found that if you just peel off the extra tough outer edge, broccoli stalks are actually pretty neat ingredients, and not just for boring soups. That would’ve been a good tip for before I froze them, but I’ve since learned my lesson.

And thus, this broccoli stalk omelet was born. It tastes like garlicky broccoli and eggs, not some concoction of weird, foreign ingredients you’ve never had before. You may not have ever eaten the stalk before, but if you’re a broccoli lover, then this dish shouldn’t take much convincing. The key is to just patiently give the chopped stalks a sufficient amount of time in the pan to become tender. When you mix those with slightly browned bread crumbs and a very healthy dose of garlic, you get an appreciable depth of flavor that isn’t always expected from the humble little omelet.

So the next time you find yourself with some leftover broccoli stalks, give this a try!

Savory Baked Eggs with Vegetables (LC) 

Apparently it’s been just about a month since I posted a recipe with meat in it.  For all of you meat lovers out there, I apologize. I am weaning myself off of meat to some extent – L is terrified that I’m on my way to becoming a bona fide vegetarian and he’ll never eat homecooked meat again in his life – but I really don’t have any plans to cross over into official veggie-dom. I don’t really like labeling myself by how I eat, particularly since I’ve struggled in the past with overly stringent “rules” about “good” versus “bad” foods. When I feel like eating meat, I eat meat. When I feel like I’ve maybe had enough meat for the time being, I stop for a little bit until I get a hankering again. It’s working for me so far.

My developing flexibility (I’m working on it!) is also making my family’s life a little easier. It was easy during college to cook my own food and eliminate meat as I see fit, but my family isn’t like that. If they have a meatless dinner meal, it pretty much is guaranteed to be lasagna or something like soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. They haven’t really, truly embraced beans and they certainly aren’t up to tofu yet, so my moving back home for my internship is definitely going to involve adjusting on everyone’s parts.

My compromise is that when I cook for them, the majority of the time it will involve meat in some way (not always! We’re going to stretch their comfort zones with food, just gently). One benefit of this is that most of the Rachael Ray meals left in her cookbook involve meat, so it helps to have other people around me to help go through those remaining meals. It’s a good thing too, because a lot of them wind up tasting hands-down delicious, and it’d be a shame if I missed out on them simply because I couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm to cook a big hunk of meat for little ole’ me.

This recipe today is not-so-loosely based on one of the meat-centric recipes in her book. Originally titled Honey Mustard BBQ Chicken, I’ve tweaked it to use turkey tenderloins and a few other more convenient ingredients in the context of what my kitchen was stocked with, and I think a more appropriate new title would be Grilled Honey Mustard Turkey. I know, I know, I just turned the world upside down with that change, right?

This is a solid recipe. It claims that it serves 4, but I’d argue that it largely depends on the type of eater you are. My mom and I split half of a tenderloin, so if you’re more like us, this recipe will serve 8; my dad and L on the other hand each had their own tenderloin half, so a family more like that would only get 4 servings out of it. But this meal, it’s not really about the meat. The sauce, which makes enough to very, very generously douse each and every piece – and I mean douse – is where all of the magic happens. The sweetness from the brown sugar comes through, but it’s cut and kept in check by the cider vinegar. It worked surprisingly well in the warmth of these Spring months, but because of the ingredients used I can see it fitting just as well into an autumn menu. 

I paired the turkey with a corn and tomato scramble (pictured above) from Epicurious, making that according to the original only substituting olive oil for the butter and dill for the scallions. It was flavorful and simple, a truly classy dish. I also made a side of roasted green beans, which were equally simple and a great “guideline” recipe that I found at Mother Rimmy’s Cooking Light Done Right – a good how-to to keep in your back pocket. Plus, the beans only roast for 5-8 minutes, so it doesn’t make your kitchen a furnace – a great compromise for all of you roasted veggie lovers who don’t want to absolutely melt in your kitchens this summer. 

 

Alright class, did you do your homework? You know what I mean – did you make your chipotle sweet potato dip like I told you to on Monday?

…No?

Well then how are you supposed to make your chipotle sweet potato oats for tomorrow morning?!

As promised, I have for you a recipe that clearly, I am very excited about. I’ve been a fan of overnight oats for about a year now. When I first started making them, I was toying with the idea of adopting a partially raw diet, which is why I gave them a shot in the first place. What I discovered, though, was that by soaking the oats and eating them chilled, you get a natural sweetness that is lacking from conventionally prepared hot oatmeal. Plus, it’s a ridiculously easy grab-and-go breakfast option that can usually be prepped in full the night before. Even though I haven’t started “eating raw,” I’ve still kept this dish as a staple in my diet. In fact, I’m such a fan of overnight oats that the sad emotions I might otherwise feel when I reach the bottom of a peanut butter jar are completely overpowered by the excitement I now associate with empty peanut butter containers –they make delicious vessels for overnight oats. I’ve heard that if you heat the oats and then pour them into the container, it releases the peanut butter from the sides of the container, but I do just fine with my spoon and will-power, scraping down those container walls like I’m getting paid to do it.

 

Because there is peanut butter in the dip, I thought empty-peanut-butter-container-overnight-oats would be fabulous. It turns out, I was very right this time. My first attempt was a little bit bland – it was enjoyable in that clean, barely-spiced kind of way, but it was certainly not worthy of the name “ChipotleSweet Potato Overnight Oats. For my next attempt, I amped up the chipotle, used my updated (and, I think, perfected) dip recipe, and crossed my fingers for the best. The next morning, I woke up, bounced out of bed, and happily tried out my recipe – perfection! It was hot in a smoky, back-of-your-throat kind of way, cool and refreshing. The consistency was spot on, thick and substantial but not gloppy or unappealing. It was exactly what I was going for. I’m smiling now just thinking about it. Seriously, this recipe is a game changer, a winner, a keeper, a slam dunk straight out of the park home run touch down goal hole in one gold medalist in the breakfast food Olympics.

If you think I’m kidding, you haven’t tried the recipe out yet for yourself. My friends, I assure you, this is no laughing matter.

It may be the end of May, over 80 degrees outside with a humidity percent well into the 70’s, and the kind of weather for cold potato salads and chips, but for the past month and a half I have had just one food on my mind: piping hot sweet potatoes. My brain must secretly reside on the other side of the equator where this kind of craving is more seasonally appropriate. So you’ll have to forgive me and my weird-o brain, because I need to talk to you about sweet potatoes, and I need to do it not once, but twice this week. I think by the end of the week you’ll understand, and perhaps I’ll scandalously get you to buy out-of-season for these recipes, too.

What I’m really dying to tell you about is the chipotle sweet potato overnight oats that I made, because that breakfast was just about the most fantastic combination of flavors to ever grace my humble little taste buds. But I can’t tell you about that right now, because that would be getting ahead of myself. You see, the overnight oats uses a chipotle sweet potato dip, so first things first, we have to talk about this dip.

The first time I made it, I followed the recipe darn close to a T. I used unsweetened and unflavored almond milk instead of vanilla coconut milk, because I’m really not into the whole coconut craze and the store was plum out of vanilla almond milk. I meant to add a little drop of vanilla extract, but as things tend to go in my kitchen, that just didn’t happen. I also used two small sweet potatoes (I’m talking just about the tiniest little yams – oh, that’s another thing, sweet potatoes apparently don’t exist where I’m from – I’ve ever seen) instead of 1 sweet potato. In the end, the dip was good. The chipotle powder was a little demure and the honey gave it a sweetness that I didn’t think it needed when you’re already dealing with a sweetpotatoyam. I also wasn’t satisfied with the “1 sweet potato” measurement in the original recipe. I don’t know about you, but at my grocery stores, sweet potatoes can range in size from modest potato length to absolute colossal monstrosities. I genuinely cannot tell you what an “average” sweet potato would look like. So, because I like you guys and want you to have consistent and out-of-this-world results, I forcedmyself to make this recipe again, only this time, I put the Floptimism spin on things.

Below is the recipe that I came up with, and I have to tell you, it’s truly wonderful. It’s sweet and creamy with a nice kick that will make you blink twice but won’t knock you flat off your feet. It’s easy and fast to make once you take care of cooking the sweet potato, which I baked while something else was in the oven about 2 days before I made the dip itself. This batch stretched for about 3 healthy servings for me, though you may be able to eek out a few more at a party. I’ve used it as a regular dip with apple slices and homemade cinnamon tortilla chips (brush a tortilla with oil, sprinkle with cinnamon, cut into wedges and toast until crisp; if you use a generous serving of oil they’re to die for but shh!); you could use it as a sandwich/wrap spread, mix it with yogurt or almond milk and top with oats or your favorite cereal, you name it. You could also swap out the milk for some yogurt for a thicker, potentially more condiment-like product. You guys, this is so much more than a dip. 

 

So now that you know how to make this dip, I expect each and every one of you to have a batch of it ready by Wednesday, when I’ll be back with the best overnight oats recipe ever – using a healthy dose of this dip as its base! Oh, and please also find time between now and then to enjoy a wonderful, sunny Memorial Day!