Comunidad Health Foods

 

I don’t make soup all that often, but I do make chili. I’ve even made it in the dead-heat of summer in an un-air-conditioned beach house, so it’s not uncommon for me to bring this well-loved dish into the warmer months. To me, it’s one of the perfect comfort foods, and unlike lasagna, macaroni-and-cheese, fried chicken and cream of ____ soup, it doesn’t have to kill your good dietary intentions – that means it earns double points in my book. I can only indulge in heavy, cheesy casseroles so often before I feel like my stomach is a bag of bricks – mushy, cheesy bricks.

Now that we’ve established that image, let’s get back to the task at hand – this turkey chili adapted from Rachael Ray. It’s simple, though not the kind of simple I was talking about on Tuesday. It’s got some heat behind it, enough to make me smile but not enough to make my mom push her bowl away politely. It was also really fast and easy to make, and keeps the dirty dishes to a minimum (a must if you’ve ever witnessed the aftermath of my cooking endeavors). The only change I would make would be to get rid of some (or all) of the turkey and swap in some crumbled tofu and beans. I’m not-so-slowly moving towards total veggie-dom, so lately I’ve been treating meat as a side dish. In this meal, it’s definitely the main ingredient, and I know some people will like that. It does keep it low-carb, if that interests you. Plus, I think ground turkey breast is some of the leanest meat out there (the original called for ground pork), so if you’re up for omnivorism, it’s still a pretty healthy choice. We can’t all be veggie-vores, right?

I made a healthy cornbread for dunking/topping/side-ing, after Rachael’s recipe instructed me to make corn cakes via a box mix. Right. So I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to try one of the several cornbread recipes I have saved, and figured starting off with a healthy one would be good. The recipe comes from Food Stories, and it has several perks – it’s vegan (not that that matters if you’re pairing it with a turkey chili like I did – though it does mean my dad, who doesn’t mix meat and dairy, could enjoy it), easy to make, and does taste like cornbread. However, there is no mistaking this for its full-fat, full-sugar, down-home-cookin’ original. It tastes healthy, so I’m still on a hunt for a spot-on recipe. But this is good to keep in your back pocket. All I did to change the recipe was to add chives (as Rachael asked me to – or, well, she asked me to add scallions and I said absolutely not, I don’t have any, but I do have chives) and reduce the baking time to 15 minutes (all it needed). It finished baking just as I was finishing up with the chili, so dinner was ready in one fell swoop.

 

I also want to say that I had the honor of being one of Lauren (of NutriSavvy)’s 15 nominees for the Versatile Blogging Award! There’s a whole bunch of fun questions and pay-it-forward type nominations that I’m supposed to do, but I didn’t do a Thirty Minute Thursday post last week so I wanted to at least get today’s entry in. I will spend the next day or so thinking about all of the amazing food bloggers I watch (some from afar, admittedly), and be back. I just wanted to make sure I thanked Lauren before too many days went by! And if you haven’t checked out her blog, you should!

I think I might be on a sugar high from all of these desserts I’ve been telling you about lately! 13 dozen cookies, the most outrageous layer cake I’ve ever made, Nutella FroYo – is it just me, or can you feel your pancreas begging you to give it and its poor insulin-generating cells a bit of a break? What do you mean, your pancreas doesn’t talk to you? Oh, nevermind…

To hush my internal organs and prevent them from staging an uprising, and to hopefully do the same for any of you with equally unruly body parts, I have something that is not at all a dessert. In fact, it can even be low-carb if you want it to be (as in, if you don’t decide that serving it with a side of warm, crusty Italian bread isn’t an absolutely fantastic idea), so we’re really pulling a 180 here.  You’re welcome.

I’m kidding.

No but really, these pizza portobellos are fabulous and the perfect remedy for a prolonged period of culinary indulgences. As it stands, it’s not vegetarian, but don’t let that dampen your spirits too much, all of my veggie-vore readers. Take out the turkey entirely or swap it with a crumbled veggie burger instead – I’ll bet most people will hardly know the difference. I used a turkey burger because that’s what I had. In fact, I described this dish in my notes as meaty, and I wasn’t even talking about the burger – I was talking about the mushroom. This dish is also kind of warm and comforting, so maybe wait until this heat wave rolls on by (come to think of it, a clean, crisp salad would have made a more seasonally appropriate blog detox than this, but alas, I’m doing the best with the busy hand I’ve been dealt) before hunkering down in your kitchen to make this. The good news is that if you’re not cooking for a crowd, you could totally make this on the stovetop and bake it in the toaster oven, no full oven heat required….which means no excuses. Unless you don’t own a toaster oven. In which case I need to ask why…no, no, that soapbox should be saved for another day.

 

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. 

 

It’s hard to believe that in just 10 days I’ll have graduated college. I’m going to move back home, start a dietetic internship to become a Registered Dietitian – it’s not nearly as frightening as actually stepping out into the workforce (stay tuned in about 1 year when I reach that point), but it is definitely new for me. All of the habits I’ve gotten into living on my own, cooking for myself – these are all about to be challenged as I learn to adjust once again to the rules of living under my parents’ roof.

One food habit that I picked up while in college was eating more ground turkey breast. It’s relatively inexpensive, pretty darn healthy, and much easier to track down than grass-fed beef (at least around these parts). My family eats it occasionally, sure, but I think I might actually miss my turkey burgers and casseroles that may not be weekly staples, but are definitely on the menu a few times a month.

Of course, I don’t just pack down the turkey meat from the package into patties and cook them just like that, so I’m always on the lookout for tasty ways to flavor the turkey to make a truly interesting burger. I think I got really lucky with these turkey Bolognese burgers, because they’re by far some of the best I’ve had. A lot of times, it’s the burger toppings that enthrall me, and they distract me from the essence of the burger – the turkey. And although the sauce poured over these burgers is truly fantastic and I’m equally looking forward to the tofu-avocado sauce I’m going to pour over them again tonight, the burger itself is also cooked to absolute perfection. No dry meat here, folks! I’ve never broiled a turkey burger before but after the success of this recipe, I think I’ll be testing it out with other recipes, too.

Overall, this dish is a keeper: the arugula lends its quintessential bite, the sauce had just a little bit of a spicy kick to it, and the burgers were melt-in-your mouth delicious and full of savory flavor from the mushrooms. I also made it lactose free by using nutritional yeast instead of parmesan cheese and forgoing the cheese on top, and I still found them to be delicious. Cheese certainly can make anything taste better, but when it’s this good on its own – that’s the mark of a truly exceptional recipe. So come on, go make this for you and your family. Maybe swap spinach in for the arugula for the kiddos if they’re not a fan of arugula’s distinct flavor. 

  

With Spring finally here – beautiful weather and all – I find myself drawn more to clean, fresh flavors. Don’t get me wrong, I still love a burst of flavor or a robust sauce every now and then – I am still me, after all – but when Spring first arrives it just feels natural to me to scale back on the complexity of my meals and a eat a little more simply.

This recipe for fresh herbed turkey burgers was just the kind of meal I was craving: a modest serving of very lean meat, thinned out with a healthy quinoa filler and an array of fresh herbs. Unfortunately, I left my box of quinoa at my parent’s house the weekend before, and with it being Passover, my hands were tied in terms of being able to swap in any other grains. So, this was just a straight-up turkey burger with a combination of fresh and dried herbs. I did really like it, but I’m still curious as to how the quinoa would have changed it. I feel like it would have been just a little lighter, a little bit less carnivorous. However, the flavors were excellent so if you find yourself in a similar bind, don’t fret! In fact, because I can’t officially vouch for how it would/will turn out with the quinoa, I haven’t included it in the recipe below. If you’re interested in adding it back in, the recipe simply called for 1 cup, cooked according to the package instructions, mixed into the burger along with all of the other ingredients.

I rested my burger on top of a plate of arugula and topped it with a swirl of whipped feta, and called it a meal. The flavor of the feta paired so well with the herbs in the burger! However, feel free to leave that out if you’d like – I also don’t have the recipe for the whipped feta (it was part of a Passover potluck from the weekend before), but I’m sure you could find a recipe online or simply sprinkle a few plain feta crumbles over top the burger in the end. It would also, of course, make a nice sandwich, though I chose to eat it without the bun.

You know, people really should warn you about the turkey neck. I knew about the gizzards, that little pouch of squishy organs that are best handled by not thinking too much about what, exactly, you’re removing from the body cavity. Everyone talks about them, so you know that when you buy a full turkey, you’re going to have to deal with them at some point. But no one ever talks about the neck. Why is that? I was fine with the gizzards. I pulled them out like a champ. But last Friday, home alone, just me, my puppy, and a fourteen pound bird, I was in for a rude awakening when the instructions on the turkey package instructed me to, ahem, “remove the neck from the body cavity.” Perplexed, I wondered many things – how will I know it’s the neck? Is it still attached? Should I get my kitchen shears? What if I remove the wrong thing? With no one or thing to consult, I figured the best solution was simply to reach in and see what I found. And so I did, and I caught hold of something and decided to pull. And out came what was probably just shy of a foot of actual, honest to goodness turkey neck. (I mean really, I don’t know what else I was expecting, but I was unpleasantly surprised nonetheless.) Well let me tell you, I just about fell smack on the floor and converted to vegetarianism right then and there.

Luckily, I persevered. I took a few deep breaths, choked back my silly tears, and neatly placed that awful, awful esophageal catastrophe to the side. I refocused on the task at hand, and six hours – yes, six! I’m apparently horrifically inefficient at carving a turkey – I had an aluminum foil container of turkey slices ready to go for the Thanksgiving Social my fellow Student Dietetic Association officers were throwing for our members. Phew. 

I have to say, I don’t really like turkey. I’ve actually decided to not really eat it – in its roasted, whole-bird form, anyway. In my constant wishy-washy dilemma between omnivorism and vegetarianism, I decided to cut out all superfluous sources of meat – the stuff I eat because it’s there and not because I particularly enjoy it. In this way, I can become more of a plant-based eater without denying my body the gustatory and nutritional benefits of the occasional portion of meat. Roasted turkey falls into the category of foods I can live without. In fact, most traditional Thanksgiving dishes don’t do a whole lot to excite me: I love sweet potatoes, just not sweet potato casserole; I like green beans, but not combined with canned soup and French’s crispy onions; I like real, homemade, tart-not-overly-sweet cranberry sauce but certainly not that jiggly stuff from a can; and, ok, I like pumpkin pie without just about any way you slice (and bake) it. There is always an exception to the rule.

Secretly, I want to have a Thanksgiving with stuffed acorn squash, roasted Brussels sprouts, ginger-and-orange infused cranberry sauce, and a good fall soup. I want to have so many pumpkin dishes I almost –almost! – get sick of the ingredient by the end of it – cornbread, cheesecake, ice cream, whoopee pies, rolls. Turkey? Eh. I found out that my family is going to a restaurant for Thanksgiving (that’s a whole other story – and yes, I’m still a bit grumpy about it), and if nothing else, I was satisfied to go over the menu and realize that I could have a pretty complete autumn dinner without a single bite of the bird.

But I know that isn’t the case for most people. I know there are people who look forward to next year’s Thanksgiving feast before their leftovers from that year are gone. And for those people, I have a very nice turkey recipe for you. It’s easy to make, very classic in its herbs and seasonings but not at all boring, and will pair well with pretty much any other side you choose to have. So, if you have your bird but are still searching for a good recipe, consider this one! Even I had to admit that it was pretty good.

 One Year Ago: Chicken Chutney One Pot

 

While watching t.v. on vacation last week, I saw an advertisement for this meatloaf rack that’s meant to save your meatloaves from soggy doom. I get a kick out of all of the different gadgets shown on infomercials these days – do we really need this much stuff? And are our meatloaves really in grave danger of being ruined by being cooked in a regular pan? I’m no meatloaf connoisseur – I never really ate it as a kid and don’t find the occasion to cook it now – but surely we can make due with the tools we have.

The one fruitful thing that came out of seeing that infomercial (aside from briefly amusing me) was a reminder of this meatloaf I did make for myself last semester. I used ground turkey and played with the flavors and ingredients, turning it into an incredible, low-carb version of an American classic. This is not your mother’s meatloaf, to be sure. It’s zesty and full of flavor from the curry powder, and the vegetable topping (as opposed to essentially pureeing them into the meatloaf as more traditional recipes instruct) gives it a really nice edge. Without a side dish or salad, this isn’t the most filling dish and I wound up eating double what I had intended when I started out making it, so I would recommend either a side dish or turning this into a sandwich (meatloaf burgers, anyone?), something like that to up the calories to a more filling level. I used cheese as a topping but thing that a yogurt sauce would be an even healthier, delicious way to balance out the mild spice that you get from the seasonings and veggies.

There’s something about Greek food that feels so natural in the summer. Maybe it’s my own subconscious connection with Greece to warmer weather to begin with, or maybe it’s just that the food always tastes so light and fresh. I’m not one of those people who finds that my appetite is diminished in the heat, but I’m also not so crazy that I don’t still crave lighter fare most of the time. So, although it requires striking up your stove top (or, perhaps, your grill, though I recently explained how that is not at all my area of expertise), this Greek Cucumber-Feta Grain Salad with Light Turkey Meatballs is worth it.

I say “grain salad” because I used quinoa, but imagine that something like couscous or farro might be a more ethnically appropriate grain to use. The original doesn’t even call for a grain, but I found the addition of the quinoa to be excellent in soaking up some of the intense dressing flavor while making for a slightly more filling dinner than just meatballs and cucumber on their own. All in all, I will definitely be making this again, and encourage you to try it out sometime this summer, too.

I am, perhaps, the world champion of sucking the fun out of things. I’ve mentioned this before, and recently at that: my brain just functions best when I take an activity and turn it into a challenge. Everything is goal-oriented and checklist-driven in my world, and often I have to remind myself that, yes, I do enjoy the task at hand – once all of the pressure of deadlines and silly, self-imposed guidelines are removed. Of course, Thirty Minute Thursdays have already turned into a compulsion to churn out recipes each week from Rachael Ray’s cookbook, come hell or high water, and I’ve only done 2 posts on the topic. It really is incredible that I learn anything, based on how stubbornly I cling to habits like this one.

Last night I planned to make one of these recipes for this week’s 30 Minute post. Being indecisive, I opened the cookbook at random last week and chose the first meal that sounded enjoyable for myself as well as my meat-and-potatoes family. However, I chose a baked turkey cutlet with stuffing…a decidedly inappropriate dish for a heat wave dinner, considering it would require broiling, baking, and 2 stovetops heated more or less simultaneously. Plus, all day I had been in a funk where I essentially pouted about having too much to do. I don’t know about you, but I seriously value my veg-out time. I like to feel productive but every so often, the idea of sprawling out on the couch, eating easy-to-assemble or even freezer meals all day, and turning on a Seinfeld or Say Yes to the Dress marathon sounds like pure heaven. Lately, I haven’t had the opportunity to do anything remotely close to that, which has added to my unnecessarily high stress levels.

I almost caved and let my parents take me out to dinner that night instead of cooking. In all honesty, I would see no shame in it if I had; sometimes you just need a time out, and if the worst case scenario is that I need to skip one week of Thirty Minute Thursdays, I’d like to think that you would all forgive me. Besides, I even have a meal from last week that I haven’t had a chance to tell you about yet. However, I do like to cook and I have been looking forward to this meal, so I’ve made some concessions – I switched the turkey prep method to grilling and asked Mama Floptimism to handle that while I stayed inside with the now-only-mildly-heat-producing stuffing. This way, I’d have to juggle fewer things and wouldn’t turn my kitchen into Dante’s third circle of hell in the process.  

The dinner turned out surprisingly well. The stuffing tasted like authentic Thanksigiving stuffing, with some extra veggies and a little bit less bread to make it healthier and even more flavorful. Grilling the turkey was a perfect idea, though if you don’t have a gracious helper like my mom, you might find juggling the outdoor turkey grilling and indoor stuffing sautéing to be a bit much. I also paired it with a simple Snap Pea dish consisting of a pinch of sugar, a tiny pat of butter, and some fresh chives sprinkled over top. All in all, it tasted fantastic, and was even good today reheated for lunch. It’s certainly not the most weather- or even season-appropriate dish I’ve made and shared with you, but it is tasty, so I definitely recommend either enjoying it now (if the temperatures don’t have you too bogged down) or dog-earing it for a cooler day.

This past week, I had follow up lab work for my pitifully low Vitamin D levels and high cholesterol levels. A few months back, during routine lab work I found out that I had slightly elevated total and LDL cholesterol, as well as triglycerides, which can often come as a result of either excess carbohydrate in the diet or excess calories in general. I decided that I would make a few small changes to my diet, and see if it had any effect when I went in for my follow up. So, for 6 months I focused on eating at least 4 low- or no-carb meals per week,* and either not eating dessert or choosing a healthful option (ie fruit, cinnamon whole grain toast, yogurt, etc.) at least 3 times a week. I kept up my regular exercise routine and otherwise, my lifestyle stayed the same. I guess it was enough, because my cholesterol levels are officially well within the normal ranges!

Moving forward, I plan to continue with sporadic low-carb meals and smart dessert choices, though I’m going to be much less strict about tallying every single meal each week that I eat under these categories.  After 6 months, it’s safe to say that these behaviors have been pretty well incorporated into my lifestyle, and I feel as though I can confidently continue with these goals without paying such close attention. I’ll also continue to stick to no more than 1 alcoholic drink per week (not exactly a hardship for me) and 2 full eggs. These aren’t steadfast rules for anyone with elevated triglycerides or cholesterol levels – you have to find what works for you, and until I pass my RD exam 2 years down the road, I can’t offer official dietary advice – but the changes I made were all evidence-based, reputable dietary factors that have been shown to lower triglyceride and cholesterol levels in the past. So, if you find yourself in a similar situation, definitely speak to your doctor, but feel free to try incorporating some of these tactics into your everyday life.

Although the 5 Spice Turkey Lettuce Wrap recipe I’m sharing with you today isn’t officially low-carb because it incorporates rice, making lettuce wraps in general is a fantastic way to by-pass carbohydrates in a meal now and then. I haven’t mastered the art of eating them yet, though, and wind up making a huge mess, but I have a feeling that mishap is on my end and to no fault of the recipe. Plus, these are so good that I don’t mind making a mess eating them! I did change the recipe, using cinnamon instead of 5 spice because I couldn’t find it and a green pepper instead of a red one, which made it less vibrant but no less delicious. It was also a perfect amount of food, which is always a good thing.

One Year Ago: Raspberry-Banana & Nutella Sandwich

Lettuce Wraps au passé: Buffalo Turkey Lettuce Wraps

5-Or-More-Like-1 Spice Turkey Lettuce Wraps, adapted from Eating Well