I love snap peas and I love shrimp, so I thought, “Why not combine them?” And with the addition of the water chestnuts and baby corn, this stir fry hinges on the exotic. (Note: you’ll find the water chestnuts in the Asian food section at the grocery store. You might have to search a bit [...]
Adding almonds to chili may seem odd, but their smooth character provides an intriguing contrast to the piquancy of the dish. So does the sesame paste…although you may want to use actual seeds if you’re a big fan of crunchiness. Cinnamon and chiles combine to form a spicy backdrop to the mellow chicken broth base. [...]
Here’s a healthy way to enjoy holiday treats like flavored hot chocolate: make your own! Pre-packaged drink mixes almost always contain artificial flavorings, excessive sugar, and non-dairy creamer. (Which contains mostly hydrogenated oil and corn syrup, neither of which is going to bring you holiday cheer.) Rather than reach for the Swiss Miss, pick up [...]
Dates are one of the many useful products we harvest from palm trees. (Other palm species include coconut palms, sago palms, and açai. Surfers are intimately familiar with palms in the form of the carnauba wax, and crafters may have used raffia or rattan, both of which are derived from various species of palm.) Though [...]
Does anyone else have fond memories of going to the mall as a kid and getting an Orange Julius? That used to be my favorite treat. Twenty years ago, you could find Orange Julius mixes in packets at the grocery store, too. All you had to do was add milk and blend it. Here’s an [...]
Now that the days are turning chilly in Detroit, it’s time for some comfort food! In order to tweak this classic dish, I used a corn tortilla instead of noodles and made my own cheese sauce rather than topping it with canned cream soup. (Doing so not only drastically cuts your intake of carbohydrates and [...]
When I was an exchange student living in Germany, my favorite gelato flavor was maracuja. It had a tangy, sweet-but-tart character that made it refreshing and intriguing at the same time. Imagine my ecstatic happiness when I discovered maracuja juice at the local grocery store! “I’ve got to figure out what this is so that [...]
Here’s a solution for a hearty breakfast or lunch: just top some leftover veggies with freshly-scrambled free-range/organic eggs. In this case, I used yesterday’s broccoli and today’s sliced grape tomatoes to form the base, then scrambled the eggs with a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper to “crown” the dish. Iron-rich broccoli + [...]
This leafy green herb is just as at home in Latin America as it is in Southeast Asia–from salsa and guacamole to dal and curry, cilantro takes center stage. It is, in fact, the world’s most-widely-consumed fresh herb. Many people know cilantro by its other names–Chinese parsley or Mexican parsley–but not many people realize that [...]
Continue reading about Cilantro–Bold, Flavorful, and Versatile
It’s the moment we all dread: we’re starving, we reach for the jar of spaghetti sauce to make a quick pasta dinner…and the top third of the jar is speckled with mold. So much for that idea. Or for the applesauce, yogurt, or anything else that’s stored in a mold-prone container. There’s an easy way [...]
