Lentil Salad with Goat Cheese (and Eat. Live. Be. Week 9)

I have been on my share of diets. Weight Watchers, Atkins, South Beach and several others. I have weighed, measured, and estimated portion size for much of my adult life. Those days are behind me now.

Now, my rules are fairly simple. I load up on as many fruits and veggies as I want and try to eat mostly what's in season. I do not believe in counting portions when it comes to fruits and vegetables. Today I had two apples, an orange, a banana and a cup of grapes. And that was just the fruit. I had about 3 cups of salad and a whole bunch of bell peppers. I just do not believe in counting portions when it comes to fruits and vegetables.

My rules around everything other than fruits and vegetables are also pretty simple. I just eat VERY little of it. Breakfast is a half cup of cereal. An eighth of a chicken plus a half a potato is dinner (plus several portions of salad or veggies). If I want more, or if it isn't meal time, I reach for a fruit. I do my very best to eat nothing but fruit between meals.Overall, after all is said and done, I probably take in about 1000 calories a day. But I don't count or measure!

I've been diet-free for almost a year now and I FEEL GREAT. Great about myself and how I look (yes! I lost 25 pounds since I stopped dieting!) but also great about how I can finally enjoy food without the guilt.

The recipe below is a great main dish salad. It's got quite a bit of bulk from vegetables, and the lentils and salty goat cheese are a near perfect protein. In my humble opinion. I had this with a whole wheat roll for dinner tonight and it was just wonderful. It looked and tasted gourmet. But I promise it was easy! 

French Lentil Salad with Goat Cheese (adapted from the back of a bag of Shiloh French Lentils)

Use vegetable stock if you can, here. It adds a lot of nutrients and flavor. 

Although I haven't tried it, this recipe would probably work well with ordinary lentils too. I like the French lentils because they are small and delicate, and they cook up quickly. You'd probably need to increase the cooking time with regular lentils. (Let me know if you do try it so I can update the recipe!) You can also serve this on a bed of greens or baby spinach if desired. 

1 cup French lentils
2 cups water or stock
5 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped 
1 red pepper, chopped
3 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
about 1/2 cup of crumbled goat cheese
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the lentils in the stock/water until tender but not mushy, for about 40 minutes. Drain and cool. (This step can be done up to a few hours ahead of time. Just let the lentils rest at room temperature till you're ready to proceed.) 

While the lentils are cooling, saute the onion in 2 tablespoons of olive oil for about five minutes. Add the garlic, carrot, and celery, and saute, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes longer, till the vegetables are softening and the garlic is fragrant. 

In a large bowl, combine the cooled lentils with the sauteed vegetables. Add the pepper and parsley. Stir in the remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil, plus the vinegar, salt, and pepper. 

Add cheese and serve. 

Here's a list of other bloggers participating in the Eat. Live. Be. Challenge: Sarah, Cate, Maris, Chris, Faith, Kristen, Emily, Jenna, Joanne, Casey, Patsy, Tri-Fit Mom, Claire, Allison, Jen and Leslie.

Linking this up to Weekend Bloggy Reading!

By Rivki Locker; Total time: 30 min; Published March 3, 2011; Yield 4 servings

Wheat Berry Salad

I just love finding new uses for familiar foods. I use wheat berries frequently, but always in soups and stews. (Wheat berries are simply whole kernels of wheat, similar in appearance to barley, but very different in taste and texture.)

But a new beautiful cookbook, Around my French Table, had a lovely sounding recipe for Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad, so I decided to give it a shot. I changed up the recipe a bit, but stuck with the basic concept of cooking up wheat berries and then marinating them in a dressing.

Wow. This has opened new worlds for me. I can see wheat berries prepared with pretty much any salad dressing in my repertoire, and then mixed with vegetables as a side or main dish. If you've never tried this grain, you should. It takes a bit of advance planning because it needs almost an hour and a half to cook up, but requires very little effort and is a quick, easy and healthy starch.

Wheat Berry Salad, based on a recipe from Around my French Table
This salad lasts beautifully in the fridge for a few days. If you'd like to save some as leftovers, set aside some of the salad before plating it with the greens and eggs. (You can also skip the greens and eggs altogether if you prefer.) You can buy wheat berries at Amazon.com. 

1 cup wheat berries
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
4 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 celery stalks, trimmed and chopped
1/4 of a small onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded and diced
1 medium green apple, cored and diced
2 cups baby spinach or salad greens, rinsed and dried
8 grape tomatoes, halved
2 hard boiled eggs, quartered

First, cook the wheat berries. Simply bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and then cook them, stirring occasionally, until the wheat berries are tender but not mushy, about 1 1/4 hours. Drain and rinse under cold water. (This step can be completed ahead of time. You can refrigerate the wheat berries for a day or so before proceeding with the rest of the recipe.)

Combine, the mustard, vinegar, oil, salt and pepper in a small jar. Shake to blend.

Put the wheat berries in a large bowl and pour the vinaigrette over them. Mix well and allow to stand at room temperature for an hour or two.

Add the celery, onion, peppers, apply, and tomatoes to the wheat berries and mix together.

Put the greens on a large serving platter or onto individual serving plates. Spoon the salad over the greens and top with the eggs. Serve immediately.

Favorite Healthy Snack and Eat. Live. Be Week 8

I have waxed eloquent on this topic several times before. And I will probably do it again. I just have to be sure that you know about this technique, from Mark Bittman's latest cookbook: The Food Matters Cookbook. 


This recipe has changed my life. It makes winter produce wonderfully sweet and candy-like. To date, I have tried it with pineapples, apples, peaches, plums and mango, all with great results. This week, the Eat. Live. Be topic is 'favorite healthy snacks.' This is definitely It. My absolute favorite healthy snack. 

The technique is simple : Heat the oven to 225*. Clean the pineapple and cut it into cubes. Place the fruit on wire racks atop a baking sheet. Leave the fruit in the oven for a few hours. I left mine in for about six hours. The longer you leave them, the more dry they'll get, and the more concentrated the flavors will become.

Let them cool (or not) and either eat them right away or put them away for another time. Mark Bittman says to refrigerate them if they're at all soft, or store them in the pantry if they're completely dried out.


What's your go-to food for healthy snacking? 

Here's a list of other bloggers participating in the Eat. Live. Be. Challenge: Sarah, Cate, Maris, Chris, Faith, Kristen, Emily, Jenna, Joanne, Casey, Patsy, Tri-Fit Mom, Claire, Allison, Jen and Leslie.

Spinach Salad with Beets and Pecans

I know. This is supposed to be an ordinary blog, for ordinary people. But this here Ordinary Blogger went out and bought some extra-special olive oil (at the recommendation of Mara from Kosher on a Budget), and it just didn't seem right to use it in an ordinary salad. 

So I made an extraordinary salad. Shoot me. It involved roasted beets. Baby spinach. Fresh mozzarella. Toasted pecans. And fancy olive oil. 

It also involved a very hungry (but patient) husband and a somewhat frazzled wife. I mean to say, who starts toasting pecans for dinner at 9:00 at night? 

But this salad didn't disappoint. It was everything our taste buds were craving for. (Alright, I'll be honest, by the time I got this salad on the table, we would have eaten peanut butter sandwiches. Hungrily.) It was intensely flavored, a perfect marriage of salty and sweet. 

I don't recommend making it on a harried weeknight. But this is a wonderful special occasion salad. 

Spinach Salad with Beets and Pecans

You can roast the beets a few hours ahead of time. Just let them sit at room temperature till you're ready to toss the salad. You can even drain them on paper towels to get rid of some of the excess oil. 

BEETS 

3 small beets

1 tablespoon canola oil

1/4 teaspoon salt

DRESSING

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon red or white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon good olive oil

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon honey

dash of black pepper

SALAD

3-4 cups baby spinach, cleaned

a handful of pecans, toasted

a hunk of fresh mozzarella cheese, cut in small cubes

First, roast the beets. Preheat the oven to 350*. Scrub the beets with a wire vegetable brush (or a clean piece of soap-less steel wool). Cut each beet in half from pole to pole and then in thick wedges. You should get 8-10 wedges per beet. Pour the oil on a large baking sheet and spread the beets evenly over the sheet. Sprinkle the salt over them and then turn them over so both sides are coated with oil. Roast for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the beets are tender. (Time varies a lot based on the age of the beets.) Remove them from the oven and let them come to room temperature. 

Meanwhile, make the dressing. Just combine the dressing ingredients in a small cup and mix well. 

When the beets are cool, put the spinach, pecans, and cheese in a large bowl and toss with the dressing. Arrange the salad on a platter and surround it with beets. Serve immediately. 

Cookbook Review: The Essential New York Times Cookbook

Last I counted, I owned 69 cookbooks. It's hard to know if that's an accurate count because I've run out of space on the standing bookshelves that I bought several years ago, never dreaming I would need more than six shelves for this hobby. But there you have it. I have outgrown the bookshelves and now the books spill over onto the couch, windowsills, and night table. Last week I found one in the pantry. (True story.) 

I think my love of cookbooks has officially moved from a hobby into an obsession. If I started with the first cookbook on my shelf and worked my way through, one recipe at a time, it would take approximately 26 years to make my way through the lot of them. 

So, I definitely didn't need another cookbook. I definitely didn't need a compendium of recipes, a book that would add 1,400 (four years worth of) recipes to my bookshelves. But this one was just too tempting to resist. None of my other cookbooks have the recipe for Rum Omelets (this one does, on page 808) or for 19th century Rice Pilan (page 309). This cookbook is an absolute treasure trove. 

Favorite Recipes 

I have to confess that I had a hard time selecting recipes to try. There are SO many to choose from, and so many appeal. The Brownies are great, and so is the Fennel and Blood Orange Salad. Those are two keepers for us. I'll keep working my way through. There's no shortage of interesting recipes in this publication. 

What I like about this book

It reads like fiction! Each recipe tells a story of its own. It also feels great to prepare and serve these well-known recipes, exposing my family to slivers of American culinary history.  

What I don't like about it

I don't have much to criticize but I will say that the design could be more engaging. I also would appreciate some photos, even if it was just a smattering of them (I can't imagine including pictures of all 1400 foods!). 

 My ratings

	1	2	3	4
How’s the food?	Yuk.	Nothing to write home about.	Good enough to make again.	Wow. I’d eat it every day.
Are the recipes easy to follow?	Nope.	Pretty much.	Yes, the instructions are clear.	Terrifically written, even for a novice cook.
Is it a good read?	Yuk.	Readable but nothing special.	Sure.	Great reading. I’d keep it on my night table.
How do you like the design of the book?	Yuk.	Alright.	Good.	Flat out fantastic.

Roasted Vegetables, and Eat. Live. Be. Week 7

I know. It's getting tiresome. All this talk about roasted veggies. Roasted Butternut Squash Soup. Roasted Acorn Squash. Roasted Broccoli. Roasted Vegetable Soup. Green Salad with Roasted Vegetables.

What can I say. Winter is upon us. If I can't have fresh New Jersey basil and tomatoes, roasted vegetables are the next best thing. They keep me going till summer comes around. They keep the summer-produce-cravings at bay, and help me make it through these months of snow and drear.

Roasting vegetables makes them sweeter and tastier. You can use any combination, really, but my favorite is carrots, sweet potatoes, and parsnips. (Sometimes I throw in a few potatoes for the potato-lovers in my household.)

Carrots and garlic are SUPERSTARS, according to The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth. Sweet potatoes aren't too shabby either. Which brings me to this week's Eat. Live. Be theme - "straight from the experts." My favorite expert is Jonny Bowden, author of The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth and Healthiest Meals on Earth. I love how he lists the health benefits of loads of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and other foods. And, I love how he identifies the SUPERSTARS - the ones you should make an effort to have most often. My favorite superstars are almonds, avocado, blueberries, broccoli, carrots, coconut, garlic,  mushrooms, onions, pecans, and swiss chard. Amazing that such delicious foods are so good for you!

Do you follow the advice of any food experts?

Simple Roasted Vegetables
Feel free to play around with the vegetables to find a mixture that suits you. I often use butternut squash instead of the sweet potatoes, or turnip instead of parsnip. You can also use slice onion instead of garlic for a different flavor. 

2 parsnips
2 carrots
2 sweet potatoes
1 potato
10 garlic cloves, peeled
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 425*. Peel the parsnips, carrot, and potatoes. Cut them in even cubes (about an inch wide).

Pour the olive oil onto a large aluminum baking sheet. Add the vegetables plus the peeled garlic. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and mix well.

Roast in the oven for about 45 minutes, stirring a few times to be sure the vegetables brown evenly. (Roast them for longer if you like a darker crust.)

Serve immediately.

Here's a list of other bloggers participating in the Eat. Live. Be. Challenge: Sarah, Cate, Maris, Chris, Faith, Kristen, Emily, Jenna, Joanne, Casey, Patsy, Tri-Fit Mom, Claire, Allison, Jen and Leslie.

Linking this up to Weekend Bloggy Reading. 

Easiest, Healthiest, Yummiest Banana Bread

With four children and two very opinionated adults, there aren't too many food preferences we all agree upon. Some like their cookies mushy and some like them crisp. Some like tofu burgers and some like the real beef stuff.  Some like red apples and some like green.

It's a challenge to cook healthy meals when there are so many different opinions. In fact, I consider it a good night if I can get away with just two main courses and two sides. Last night, for example, the kids ate tuna casserole and raw veggies, and I had tofu chili, brown rice, and roasted string beans. (My husband was happy to eat a little bit of everything.)

But there's one food where all those different opinions are actually a blessing. Bananas. I like them with some green striping, about two days away from yellow. My daughter Sarah likes them pure yellow, with neither a hint of green nor brown. Yaakov Yosef and Malkie like them with just a bit of brown speckling. Baby Zipora loves them full of polka dots. And once they get too brown for Zipora, we are all perfectly happy to eat them pureed and baked into muffins and quick breads. Aren't we a loving family?

This is my very favorite thing to do with bananas because it is Super easy, Super Yummy, and quite healthy. Mollie Katzen comes through again! 

Submitting this for Weekend Bloggy Reading. 

Banana Chocolate Chip Protein Bread from Sunlight Cafe

Use whole wheat pastry  flour if you prefer, and substitute walnuts for the chocolate chips  for a purely healthy experience that still feels indulgent. I have simplified the original version just a bit, so you can actually mix everything in one bowl! This is one of the few recipes I make where the oven doesn't even have a chance to get heated up while I'm prepping the batter. How great is that?

4-5 very ripe bananas, peeled

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1-2 tablespoons canola oil or melted butter

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/3-1/2 cup sugar (to taste)

1 cup white flour

1 cup plain soy protein powder

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350*. Place the bananas in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle, and mix on medium speed till well mashed. 

Add the eggs, vanilla, and oil. Mix for a minute or two till combined. 

Add the sugar, salt, and baking powder and mix for another minute or two. 

Add the flours and mix very briefly just till combined. Don't overmix. 

Add the chocolate chips and mix briefly again. 

Transfer the batter to a standard size loaf pan sprayed with cooking spray. Bake in the center of the oven for about 50-55 minutes, until the top is a nice golden brown. Cool for a few minutes before removing from the pan and cooling on a rack. 

Also note that these freeze really well. I slice the bread and wrap it individual bits of saran wrap. This way we can defrost individual slices as we want them.