Beautiful Food - September 2015

I decided to do a monthly post on ‘beautiful food’ and am finding that it easy to select foods that are luscious looking and tasting to me. I thrive on variety! Our CSA prompts some of the variety; in September the tomatoes were still abundant and we had sweet potato leaves one week. Somehow eggs were prevalent in my diet than usual this month. So here’s the top 4 ‘beautiful foods’ for September:

This month I enjoyed toasted pita wedges with homemade orange/lemon marmalade (recipe here),

Egg salad (hard boiled eggs and hummus in a food processor until ‘spreadable’) wrapped in sweet potato leaves (only available for a short time, just before the sweet potatoes are harvested at our CSA),

The jewels of small tomatoes,

And eggs in a nest (recipe here). I went a little overboard on the ‘nest’ so this was a hearty dinner!

Beautiful Food to Savor

It is easier to eat well when food looks appetizing…looks beautiful either on its own or in the way it is presented. Over the past 5 years or so as I’ve gone from overweight down to ‘normal’ weight, I’ve become more thoughtful about making food that is beautiful and tastes good at the same time. It is easier to savor food and be satisfied these days. Here are some ways I have done that for myself:

Beautiful dishes. Even something as simple as hummus with pita bread wedges can look beautiful served in my Blue Tulip glassware!

Prepped to eat. Cutting up the pita into wedges as part of the preparation makes it easier to enjoy the act of eating. I cut of salad into smaller pieces that the regular bagged salads for the same reason; I dislike having salad dressing dribble off a too-large piece of greens.

Make it colorful. Spinach - strawberry - carrot - almond salad…beautiful in a clear glass bowl. The vibrant colors and melding of flavors made this one of my favorite salads in June. In July the ‘red’ veggie can be tomatoes. In the fall, the ‘red’ is apples with the skin left on.  I almost always add carrots or sweet potato for ‘orange’. When the leafy greens are scarce in the hottest weather - I use mint or basil or rosemary to contrast with the white cucumbers (if their skin it too tough to provide the green). Stir fries can be colorful in the same way.

Eat with a view. My favorite way to enjoy an orange for morning snack is to look out the window over my kitchen sink at the deck garden while I am eating. I cut it into wedges and then just observe the birds at the bird feeder and bath…the insects at the flower…the breeze moving the trees in the background.

Fresh is best. Now that I’m on the second year of belonging to a Community Supported Agriculture, I am a believer in the beauty and taste of just harvested produce. I love to eat seasonally.

Homemade Zucchini Hummus and Orange Marmalade

I have discovered two recipes recently that are so easy to make at home that I won’t be buying the equivalent in the grocery store any time soon.  Both recipes are the ones I will make again and again this summer - the 'condiments' of Summer 2015!

Zucchini Hummus

(This recipe uses zucchini rather than chickpeas. A version of it was included in a newsletter from the Gorman Farms CSA on the first week zucchini was included in the share. I modified it slightly - part of joy of cooking as far as I'm concerned.)

1 cup diced raw zucchini

1/3 cup tahini butter

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

2 cloves garlic minced

2 teaspoon cumin

Salt to taste

Put everything in a food processor and process until smooth. Refrigerate and use as dip or salad dressing!

Some variations I am going to try:

• Add fresh basil or mint or both (since I have them growing in deck pots)
• Season with no-salt seasoning blends
• Add lemon or orange zest
• Add a little extra tahini or some olive oil for better salad dress consistency
• Add 1 tablespoon flaxseed meal for thicker consistency

Orange Marmalade

Cut the ends off an orange. Cut into wedges, removing seeds. (Option: If you have the skin and pulp of a lemon after making zucchini hummus, cut it up and add to the orange to make orange/lemon marmalade!). Process in a food processor until skin and pulp are reduced to small bits.

Place process citrus in a small saucepan. Add 1/2 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Set timer for 15 minutes and bring to boil on high heat then the lower the heat to simmer.

Cool. Place in a glass jar with a tight lid (I use a wide mouthed jar that salsa came in). Refrigerate.

I enjoy marmalade in warmed pitas (small) or on toast. It is a wonderful salad dressing either alone or combined with olive oil. Use as a component of dressing for carrot/raisin or celery/apple/raisin or spinach/strawberry salad.