Beautiful Food – March 2016

I am enjoying unadorned whole foods for snacks and realized that they have a beauty all their own. Walnuts with their convoluted surface. I always put them in a very small container so that I don’t eat more than a serving (1/4 cup).

Blueberries (partially) thawed from the freezer. There glistening purple color is quite a contrast from other foods.

Oranges are a day brightener both because of the beauty of their namesake color and their taste. I like to eat them standing at my kitchen sink watching the birds at the bird bath. I take off the skin before eating the pulp so I can chop the peel up to dry or include as extra peel in a batch of orange marmalade.

The is the time of year I begin to make the transition from foods I enjoy on cold days like soup (butternut squash curry with lots of topping: pumpkinseeds, broccoli flowerets, and a hardboiled egg) and

Breakfast for dinner (pancakes with apples cooked in cinnamon butter on top)

To foods that are best eaten cold – like the colorful spring leaves that have quite a mixture of green, purple and read leaves.

They are all part of the beautiful meals of March!

Beautiful Food – February 2016

So many good things to eat – even in the winter time. We have it so much easier than people did 100 years ago!

I enjoyed stir fry slaw this month. It was a quick meal-in-a-bowl for a winter lunch. I simply stir fried apply, broccoli and frozen cranberries in a skillet…added a heap of savoy cabbage and some sliced smoked turkey…added a bit of General Tso’s Sauce at the end. The red of the cranberries and apple skins adds just the right spark of color.

Hearty soups are also a favorite for winter lunches – another meal-in-a-bowl. This month I made mushroom soup. It is easy to make and beautiful too!

• Cut up fresh mushrooms, sautéed in a little olive oil.
• Put in beef bouillon and water…dried onions…ground up dry roasted soy beans (I just processed them in my small food processor)…soba noodles.
• After it cooks about 4 minutes add almond milk.
• After the soba noodles are cooked (it usually takes a total of 5 minutes, but read the package) – pour into a bowl…drizzled pumpkin seed oil…and scatter some pumpkin seeds.

This is a high protein soup with mushrooms, dry roasted soy beans, and soba noodles.  The drizzle of pumpkin seed oil – dark and rich – and the seeds on top add to its appeal.

Now for a snack: blue corn ships with hummus. I like the color contrast. It is very easy to eat too many so I always prepare the number that I want to eat on a plate – and don’t go back for more!

Egg casseroles are becoming my favorite beautiful food to make, enjoy for one meal…and then several more. I usually make the 4 serving size and include whatever is handy in my refrigerator. The baking dish I use is the perfect size and has a lid so I can easily store the left overs in the refrigerator. Note: I am lactose intolerant so am using non-dairy products, egg casseroles can obviously be made with milk and cheese.

The general recipe for this one:

• Whisk together 4 eggs and a scant cup of almond milk.
• Add broccoli (processed in a food processor), dried parsley, dried onion (and any other seasonings desired). Whisk.
• Cover bottom of baking dish with non-dairy cheese substitute. Pour egg and vegetable mixture over the cheese.
• Sprinkle pumpkin seeds on top.
• Bake for 15 minutes at 425 degrees F and then for 30 minutes at 350 degrees F.

The green and yellow/gold colors are cheerful on a winter’s day – even if it is very gray outdoors!

I really am enjoying the cook that I’ve become... or maybe what I truly enjoy is evolving the way I prepare food to appeal to the taste buds and the eyes! The other requirement is that it be good nutritionally too.

Beautiful Food – January 2016

It’s been cold this past month. That has translated into beautiful foods that are warming. Even my light lunch of stuffed pitas and cucumber slices had a little warmed from the toasted pitas. The stuffing was a hardboiled egg mashed with roasted garlic hummus. It looked and tasted to good I ate one of the pita wedges before I remembered to take a picture!

And there is the standby quick meal of stir fry with eggs. This one had bell peppers, celery and cauliflower. I cooked the veggies first and let the onion flakes and no-salt seasoning sit in the whisked eggs. Then I poured the eggs in and stirred until they were cooked. It is a very quick meal and looks good on green glass.

Soup is one of my favorite foods in the winter. This one included tomatoes from the freezer and sweet potatoes – both from the bounty of last summer’s CSA. I cooked them for 5 minutes in chicken broth (with added seasoning like basil, dried onions, dried garlic, pepper) then added some soba noodles. After another 5 minutes I used my potato masher to turn some of the chunks into broth thickener. I poured it in the bowl and topped it with some pumpkin seeds. I like the brilliant color of tomatoes and sweet potatoes.

Of course there is still the clean-out-the-crisper stir fry. This one has zucchini, red bell pepper, savoy cabbage, onion, and dry roasted peanuts.

And that’s the highlights of the ‘beautiful food’ I ate in January.