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healthy recipes

Recipes

Caprese Salad

August 9, 2017
Caprese salad: Tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, spinach, olive oil

These days it seems everything is in season.  Cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, the list goes on.  This week, my cherry tomato plant is exploding!  So, I’ve decided to make a simple yet refreshingly delicious summertime salad: Caprese salad.  This salad consists of tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh mozzarella, olive oil, salt, and pepper.  It can be made in a pinch.  The prep work is what takes longest.  It can be served as side or as the main dish.  Some like it sliced but I like mine all jumbled up together.  To add some nutritional value and greenery, I also had a bit of spinach.

Enjoy!

Caprese Salad

2 cups sliced cherry tomatoes

1 cup mozzarella cheese, diced

1 cup fresh basil, roughly chopped

1 cup fresh spinach, roughly chopped

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

salt-and-pepper to taste

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients and loosely toss
  2. Season to taste.

Voila, a simple, quick, and healthy weekday meal!  “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.

Recipes

Ratatouillle

July 26, 2017
Ratatouille. Loving summer veg!

The farmer’s market is a beautiful place during high summer.  You can find all the ingredients to make one of my favorite summer dishes: ratatouille.  This is literally French home cooking at its best.  Fresh veg, fresh herbs, olive oil, a little heat, and most important of all… lot’s of patience!

If you don’t have all the ingredients, that’s okay.  The only essential ingredients are the eggplant, onions, garlic, and olive oil.

Ratatouille

1/4 pint of olive oil (and possibly more, be generous)

2 eggplants, diced

1 red pepper, sliced

1 green pepper, sliced

2 medium-sized zucchinis, sliced

1 large onion, finely sliced

4 cloves of garlic

3 tomatoes, peeled and diced

2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, minced

4 springs of lemon thyme, or more to your tasting, minced

Pinch of red chili flakes (not technically French but I like the taste)

Salt and pepper

Instructions

  1. Heat half the olive oil in a large cast iron pan.  Add the eggplant and sprinkle with salt.  Gently fry until tender and lightly caramelized.  The secret to an amazing ratatouille is time and generous amounts of olive oil.  Transfer the eggplant to a large bowl carefully leaving the drippings and left over olive oil in the pan.
  2. Add a little more olive oil and add both the red and green peppers.  Also add a pinch of red chili flakes.  Fry gently until the peppers are soft and lightly caramelized.  Transfer to the bowl containing the eggplant.
  3. Add a little more olive oil to the cast iron pan.  See the pattern?  This time gently fry the zucchini until soft and lightly gilded.  Transfer to the eggplant.
  4. Now gently fry the onions and garlic until lightly caramelized.  Transfer to the eggplant.
  5. Finally, fry the tomatoes until soft and collapsed.  This time transfer the eggplant, peppers, zucchini, onion, and garlic to the cast iron pan with the tomatoes.
  6. Add the minced thyme and rosemary, and season with salt and pepper.
  7. Gently cook, bubble, for about 5 minutes.
  8. Serve at room temperature.

Ratatouille is excellent served warm, room temperature, and even cold.  You can eat it straight or you can even use it to stuff a tart, as a topping for pasta, or to dress a pizza.  One of my favorite ways to eat it is at room temperature topped with a fried egg and served with a slice of sour dough bread.  It’s versatile and highly nutritious.

Enjoy!  Please leave your comments below.  How do you like your ratatouille?

Recipes

Pistou Soup

February 15, 2017

Last Thursday, I came back from work with 8 inches of snow on my driveway.  Waiting for me, taunting me.  Fortunately this year was the year I decided to ditch the shovel and invest in a snow blower.  About an hour later, I finally finished clearing the driveway.  As I was sitting in the living room, trying to nurse my hands from a Raynaud’s flare, I thought about what to make for dinner.  I wanted something warm, I didn’t want to work too much, and I wanted to be reminded of summer.  Basil!  Fresh sweet basil.  Pistou soup was the answer.

Pistou soup or “soupe Pistou”, is a traditional French soup from the region of Provence.  It’s loaded with vegetables, it’s very versatile, and it’s delicious.  It’s bit like minestrone but French and much less heavy on the tomatoes.  Just before serving, the soup is infused with a sort of pesto called a “pommade”.  This infuses the soup with a burst of fresh basil.

Enjoy!

2 tomatoes, cubed

2 zucchini, cubed

2 carrots, cubed

1 onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, crushed, a finely sliced

2 handfuls of fresh white beans

2 handfuls green beans

2 handfuls of dried macaroni

Pommade

1 cup packed fresh basil

1 egg yolk

olive oil

Parmesan

Salt and pepper

  1. Cut all the vegetables into cubes.
  2. In a large enameled cast iron dutch oven, heat the olive oil, onion, tomatoes, and garlic over medium heat until soft.
  3. Add the carrots, zucchini, and the beans.
  4. Cover with water.  The water should be about 2 cm above the vegetables.  Salt as desired.  Remember, more salt is on the way so don’t add to much.
  5. Bring to a boil and cover.  Bring to a simmer.  Cook for about 45 minutes.  Add the pasta about 15 minutes before the end.
  6. In the meantime, prepare the pesto.  Also called “la pommade”.  It isn’t really a pesto in the strict sense.  In a food processor, grind the basil with the egg yolk.  If you really want to do it old-school, use a mortar.
  7. Add some grated Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper.  No need to be precise.
  8. Then add the olive oil and emulsify.  Continue adding olive oil until you get a thick-ish paste.  It should not be too runny.
  9. Go back to your soup and remove it from the heat.  Season with salt and pepper.
  10. Ladle into a bowl, then add 2 tablespoons of “pommade”.  If you want more, knock yourself out!
  11. Serve with Parmesan cheese and sourdough bread.

Serves 6 – 8

Note:

If you want a little bit more protein in your soup, add a lamb shank or any other type of meat.  I personally like to add a pork neck bone.  Simply add the meat at step #3 and remove the bone before serving.  You can also return the meat in bite-sized pieces.

Gluten-free?  Skip the pasta.