Corned Pork Meatballs

“Corned” meatballs might sound odd, but I’m hearkening back to the original meaning of “corned” here, back when corns referred to any small grains.  Often, those grains were coarse grains of salt used in brines and pickling solutions.  That’s where we get corned beef from — it doesn’t have anything to do with the kind of corn that grows on long stalks, but it does have a lot to do with salty brines.

Rolling these meatballs in coarse, grainy cornmeal makes them corny in both the traditional and modern sense of the word.  The cornmeal also provides a nice crunch and is a healthy swap for commercial breadcrumbs.  (Breadcrumbs are a snap to make yourself, though: just buzz some staling slices of bread through a food processor, pour the fresh crumbs into a screw-top glass jar, and stick the jar in the freezer.  You’ll have breadcrumbs any time you need them!  Fresh crumbs can also be briefly toasted to deepen their flavor before adding them to recipes.)

When shopping for cornmeal, be on the lookout for the coarsely milled variety.  The finer meal is nicer for baked goods — if you mill the cornmeal finely enough, it becomes corn flour — but the coarsely milled cornmeal works better as a breadcrumb stand-in.  It also imparts a more pronounced crunch and flavor to savory cooked dishes.

Corned Pork Meatballs with Basil & Mint

1 pound ground pork, preferably from pastured hogs
1 medium onion, minced
1/4 cup or so of fresh basil leaves, chopped
1/4 cup or so of fresh mint leaves, chopped
1 egg
Pinch sea salt
Cornmeal

To make the meatballs, place pork, onion, herbs, egg, and salt in a large glass mixing bowl. Use your hands to thoroughly combine them. The mixture will be very wet, so add enough cornmeal to make a mixture dry enough to roll into balls. (It’s best to add the cornmeal a bit at a time, mixing the meat each time, until you’ve reached a nice consistency. If you dump in a large amount of cornmeal at once, you might wind up with a too-dry mixture that will be crumbly. Add a little water if this happens.) Stack the balls on a plate as you roll them.

Scatter some cornmeal on another plate and roll the balls in the cornmeal one by one until each is completely covered. In a large saucepan, heat about 1 T. of extra-virgin olive oil over medium heat for about 1 minute. Add meatballs — working in batches if your pan isn’t big enough to hold them all — and cook them for about 5 minutes or until they’re golden-brown on all sides. You’ll have to shift them around with a spatula (or gently shake the pan) to make sure you cook them evenly.

The meatballs make tasty appetizers, or you can include them with your favorite pasta dish. They’re also great with eggs in the morning. If you have leftover meatballs, you can quickly re-fry them on the stovetop to bring back the cornmeal crunch, or you can serve them cold. I actually preferred their flavor when I sampled them cold the next day — their overnight stint in the refrigerator made the basil and mint flavors stand out more.

Enjoy!

Apricot, Date & Coconut Smoothie

Dates are fabulously useful!  Just don’t confuse them with figs, which are also lovely but which don’t have the staying power or sweetness of dates.  (And don’t confuse fresh figs with the gritty stuff inside Fig Newtons — an actual fig tastes much lighter and fruitier, plus it beautifully shades from pink to cream to tan and back again.)  Dates are a hardy lot, prized throughout the world for their lush sticky sweetness and their ability to hold things together.  Lärabars, for example, are bar-shaped thanks to mashed dried dates.  Many cakes and breads of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern origin are both shaped and sweetened by dates.

Because dates contain such a high percentage of natural sugar, dried dates preserve themselves quite nicely.  (Sugar is a preservative.)  In fact, once they’ve lost enough moisture, dried dates can be ground into date “sugar.”  It doesn’t dissolve as readily as cane sugar does, but date sugar is pleasantly sweet and retains a mild, mellow date flavor that pairs perfectly with less-sweet fruits like apricots and strawberries.

One of my favorite ways to use date sugar is in smoothies.  I came up with this smoothie because my apricots were a bit on the tart side — adding date sugar was the perfect solution.  You can find date sugar nestled alongside the other natural sugars in health-food/whole-food stores.  (If you spot a bag of sucanat, pick that up, too!)

Apricot, Date & Coconut Smoothie

To make a single-serving smoothie, blend together 1 apricot (pit removed, but skin left on), 1/2 cup whole coconut milk, 1/4 cup cold water, and 1 T. date sugar.  If you’d like your smoothie to be extra-thick, use less water and more milk; if you’d like it to be thinner, reverse the equation.  You could also use dairy milk, but I think the tropical palm + palm combination (i.e., coconut + date) is a tasty one.  If you’d like your smoothie to be sweeter, simply add more date sugar.

Enjoy!

Rhubarb-Strawberry Compote with Cocoa Crepes

Even though the simmering action of making a compote might make you think of winter, what goes into a berry compote is all summer: strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, cherries, even rhubarb.  All you need is some fruit, some liquid — wine or water works best — some sweetener, and some spices.  You’ll have a refreshing fruit dessert in just 20 minutes.

I like to leave my compotes chunky and then use them as fillings or eat them plain as fruit soup, but you could also purée your compote to make an elegant sauce for drizzling over ice cream or pie.  And actually, you can keep the berry compotes coming in the winter time, too, seeing as that’s prime cranberry season.

Summer Berry Compote

1 pint berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, etc.)
2 stalks rhubarb, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup maple syrup, preferably Grade B
1/4 cup water
6 whole cloves*
2 whole cardamom pods*
1 stick cinnamon*
2 T. balsamic vinegar
2 T. pomegranate molasses or tamarind paste (if you don’t have either one of these, use 1 T. light molasses and 1 T. lemon juice)
1 tsp. tapioca flour or cornstarch (optional)

Place all ingredients except tapioca flour/cornstarch in a medium-sized saucepan and stir well. Bring to a boil, then immediately reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, for 20 to 30 minutes. Remove from heat and remove spices. If you’d like a thicker compote, whisk in the tapioca flour/cornstarch while the compote is still piping hot. Let sit for 5 minutes to thicken.

Serve compote immediately or let it cool, depending on what you’re going to do with it. A cool fruit compote served with a dollop of Greek yogurt makes a wonderful summer dessert soup, for example, or you can fill crepes with the compote and then top with the yogurt as I did for the pictured dish. Since the compote will keep for a week in the fridge, you can serve it over waffles, pancakes, or cereals. Or you can blend it with fresh fruit to make a richly-flavored smoothie…or serve it with ice cream or frozen yogurt. The possibilities are endless.

Enjoy!

* In order to be able to fish out the spices more easily, place them in a reusable muslin tea bag or tie them into a square of cheesecloth.

Poached Egg Atop Mixed Veggies

Egg poaching is generally a three-step process: first, you boil water; next, you crack an egg into the boiling water, reduce the heat to medium-low, cover the pot, and simmer the egg for 3 minutes, occasionally skimming a slotted spoon around the edges of the pot to make sure the egg isn’t sticking; finally, you use the slotted spoon to remove the egg so that you can perch it atop toast.

Assuming you don’t skip that all-important step of reducing the boil to a simmer, poaching an egg is pretty easy — you’ll feel like a pro after you’ve done it two or three times.  But last week, I came up with a way to condense those three steps to one AND replace bland toast with a round of leftover veggies.  Now I like my poached-egg breakfasts even better!

Poached Eggs Atop Sautéed Vegetables

Assorted vegetables of your choice, precooked as necessary (while you can eat raw broccoli and green beans, I think they taste better after having been briefly cooked for 5 minutes in simmering water)

Eggs, preferably from pastured hens

Sea salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste

Select a frying pan that will suit the quantity of veggies and eggs you’re preparing.  (You want the veggies to form a solid layer from one side of the pan to the other, so don’t choose an over-large pan.)  I used a 6″ crepe pan for my individual serving of veggies + 1 egg.  The pan you choose needs to have a matching lid.

Drizzle enough extra-virgin olive oil into the pan to lightly coat the bottom of it and set the pan over medium-low heat.  After about a minute — the oil should be fairly hot — add the veggies.  Sautée them for 3 to 5 minutes or until they’ve browned/softened to your satisfaction.  I sautéed drained canned beans, chopped tomatoes, and precooked broccoli for about 3 minutes for the pictured dish.

Crack an egg (or eggs) on top of the sautéed veggies, cover the pan with the lid, and cook for 3 minutes.  Do not lift off the lid during those 3 minutes!  The egg needs the trapped steam to poach since you aren’t fully immersing it in liquid.

Remove the lid promptly after 3 minutes.  Use a heat-proof spatula to carefully slide the veggies and egg out of the pan and onto a plate.  (The proteins in the egg white will have set and should hold the veggies together like a pancake if handled gently.)  Salt and pepper to taste.

Break the yolk and enjoy!

Southwestern Fried Egg Salad

I love eggs, especially the eggs with the bright orange yolks that I get from my farmer every week.  (Thanks to the proliferation of farmer’s markets and community-supported farms, even urban dwellers can get honest-to-goodness eggs laid by hens who spend their days scratching in the dirt for tasty bugs…as opposed to eggs from factory-fed hens who eke out a miserable existence based on corn and soy.  Check sites like www.localharvest.org to find nearby markets and farmers.)  But although I’m a big fan of quality eggs — talk about the ultimate sustainable and nutritious food! — I’m decidedly not a fan of traditional egg salads, which seem to be more about mayonnaise than eggs.  Why mask the flavor of a wonderful egg?

Recently, though, I decided to make a completely modern version of egg “salad” by lightly frying a scrambled egg (thus making a thin pancake of sorts), cutting it into pieces, and tossing the egg with some veggies.  This quick and easy egg salad was much more flavorful and satisfying than the sopping-with-mayo variety, plus of course you could use this idea with whatever veggies strike your fancy.

Southwestern Fried Egg Salad
One egg serves one person, so simply multiply amounts as needed.

1-2 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 egg, lightly scrambled with a fork
1/4 cup canned black beans, drained
1 tomatillo, papery husk removed, flesh chopped
1 Roma tomato or a handful of cherry tomatoes, chopped

Heat oil in a small frying pan over medium-low heat (I use mark 3 out of 10) for about a minute, then add egg, swirling the egg so that it coats the pan. Note that a larger pan will require more oil and will result in a thinner eggy “pancake”; a smaller pan will require less oil but a bit more time to cook, plus the egg will be thicker. Use whichever pan you prefer.

Let egg cook for 1-2 minutes or until surface begins to become opaque. Use a spatula to peek at the underside. If it’s lightly browning, carefully flip the egg over and continue to cook. Check again after another minute. If you’re making a 3- or 4-egg batch, the eggs will obviously require a larger pan and will take longer to cook. Just be sure to fight the urge to turn up the heat, because if you do, you’ll probably overcook the eggs and make them rubbery.

When the egg is done, use a pan-safe spatula to gently cut it into pieces. Slide out of pan and into bowl, then toss with beans, tomatillo, and tomato. Add more oil if desired; salt and pepper to taste. You may also want to sprinkle a little chili powder over the top and/or add chopped fresh cilantro. If you’re making this dish for lunch or dinner, you could always serve it alongside salsa, guacamole, and/or sour cream or Greek yogurt.

Enjoy!

Peach & Ginger Crepes

When I get on a kick, I get on a kick — I can happily eat the same thing for several days in a row if I like it.  It’s even better when the dish/ingredient being eaten is multipurpose-able.  After all, leftovers are the ultimate convenience food!

Crepes are my most recent food fixation: first the savory fish tacos, now sweet fruit rolls.  Seeing as the typical crepe recipe makes 10 to 12 normal-sized crepes (six inches across as opposed to the gargantuan twelve-inchers you find in Europe), I thought I’d make some non-tacos with the second half of the batch.  These fruit-laden crepes can be served as breakfast, dessert, or snacks, and as usual, you can customize them to fit your fancy.

Sweet Fruit Crepes

Chopped fruit of your choice +

Creamy ingredient of your choice (yogurt, cream cheese, whipped cream, coconut cream/whole coconut milk, etc.) +

Spice of your choice +

Sweetener of your choice +

Crepes (see “Mastering Crepes the Easy Way” for a basic crepe recipe)

Bonus ingredient: chopped, toasted nuts

The pictured crepe holds chopped peaches, coconut cream, ginger, and a drizzle of honey.

Line the center of a crepe with your chosen combination of ingredients, gently roll up crepe, and enjoy!  If you’re serving a crowd and would like to create a crepe buffet, set out a variety of cut-up fruits and spices and allow the guests to choose their own fillings.  How’s that for a creative party pleaser?

Blueberry-Almond Soup

It’s summertime, and the blueberries are calling.  (So are the strawberries and the blackberries and the rest of the berry bunch.)  Time to celebrate with some fruit soup!  It’s ridiculously easy to make — which is probably one of the chief reasons fruit soup is on every cruise ship’s menu — and can be made as thick or as thin as you like, with whatever sweet spices you like, and with or without dairy products.  Truth be told, fruit soup is really just a low-liquid smoothie.  You probably already have plenty of soupy ideas!

Blueberry-Almond Soup

In a blender, combine equal parts of blueberries* and slivered almonds.  Sprinkle on a few dashes of cinnamon or ginger, drizzle in a tablespoon or less of maple syrup or honey, and pour in enough whole milk or coconut milk until the blueberries and almonds are barely covered.  (You could also use half milk and half Greek yogurt, or replace all of the milk with kefir.)

Blend briefly — just until ingredients have begun to mix and thicken — and dip in a spoon to check the sweetness level.  Add more sweetener and/or spices if you’d like.  Blend the mixture for another few seconds, until you have a thick, soupy consistency.

Pour into a pretty glass, garnishing with additional blueberries.  Serve as breakfast, dessert, or a cool and refreshing snack.

* You can substitute any berry of your choice for the blueberries.

Macadamia Mango Mousse

Upfront disclosure to the mousse die-hards out there: this is not a true mousse.  True mousses are made with eggs — they’re the key ingredient, in fact — whereas this one is made with macadamia nut butter.  Still, the nutty richness of the macadamia butter is very reminiscent of an eggy richness, and both the nut butter and fresh mango lend this faux-mousse an incredible smoothness.  The chai tea gives it all an exotic, spicy flavor.  (The macadamia nut butter is worth seeking out for this recipe because it’s so creamy and yet easily blends into the background; peanut butter would be far, far too strong and would override the delicate chai.  I think it would also clash with the mango.  Cashew butter is your next-best bet if you can’t find macadamia nut butter.)

Macadamia Mango Mousse (which happens to be egg- and dairy-free)
This is enough for a single serving of mousse. Double or triple (or more) as necessary.

1 ripe mango, peeled and chopped (you can use frozen mango chunks, but the mousse won’t have the lightness you’re looking for)
1 T. macadamia nut butter
1/2 cup strongly-steeped chai tea (I used the leftover pot of chai I’d made the night before)

Place all ingredients in blender and blend just until smooth. (Since you’re starting out with soft ingredients, blending shouldn’t take more than 10 seconds.) If you’d like the consistency to be a bit thicker, add another tablespoon of macadamia nut butter. If you’d prefer to have a smoothie rather than a mousse, add another 1/2 cup of chai tea.

Spoon/pour into pretty glass and serve.

Enjoy!

Cinnamon Peanut Chocolate Maple Cake

What started out as a basic chocolate cake became much more fragrant and flavorful with the simple switcheroo of unrefined peanut oil for butter.   Using maple syrup instead of sugar intensifies both the chocolate and the peanut, and you can add your choice of spice to provide a different dimension of flavor.  In the end, this cake is versatile enough to be either a satisfying breakfast or a sweet dessert — serve the former as is and the latter with fruit, jam/preserves, icing/frosting, or a drizzle of maple syrup.

Cinnamon Peanut Chocolate Maple Cake
both gluten-free and wheat versions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  For a shallow cake, grease an 11×7 pan with butter or peanut oil (the resulting pieces are more stackable if you want to frost between them); for a thicker cake, grease an 8×8 pan.

Using a whisk, combine all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl:

1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup almond flour*
1/2 cup sorghum flour*
1/2 cup brown rice flour*
1 T. cinnamon (or 1 T. of a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and/or ginger)
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

In a smaller bowl, use the same whisk to combine the liquid ingredients:

2/3 cup maple syrup, preferably Grade B
2 medium eggs or 1 extra-large egg
1/4 cup whole milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup unrefined peanut oil (this oil retains its flavor and nutrients when heated up to 395 degrees F)

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ones and mix with a wooden spoon, then quickly pour batter into pan. Bake for about 20 minutes, then do a toothpick test to see if the cake is done. If not, bake an additional 5 minutes and test again. (The 8×8 cake may require more baking time than the 11×7.)

*If you would rather make this with wheat, simply use a total of 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour (or white whole wheat flour — it’s another type of wheat, not a refined flour) rather than the sorghum, brown rice, and almond flours.

Enjoy!

Rice Browns

I got the “rice browns” idea when I was flipping through a Spanish cookbook and reminiscing about the glorious tortilla españolas I’d had at the tapas bars in Spain.  Unlike the Mexican corn-based flat tortillas, the Spanish version is a thick omelette consisting of eggs and fried potatoes.  It’s deceptively and simply glorious.  (And it’s perfectly portable, too, which means you can easily wander through the barrios while nibbling away.)

Since I didn’t have potatoes, I used rice, and the result was pretty darned tasty.  (Any leftover cooked grain would work — millet, buckwheat/kasha, quinoa, oats, wheatberries, etc.)  For a deeper flavor, you can fry the grain first and then add the eggs and fry again, or you can opt for the quicker-but-slightly-less-savory version of mixing the egg(s) and grain first and then cooking the whole thing the way you would a pancake.

Rice Browns

Stir one egg with about 1/2 cup of cooked grains (enough to make a thick “batter,” but not so much grain that the mixture is dry) and a pinch of sea salt.  Melt butter or ghee in a small frying pan and cook the grain-and-egg batter over medium heat for about three minutes or until surface is golden brown.  Flip over and continue cooking until the second side is also golden brown (another two to three minutes).  Serve as a savory side — you could top with cheese, veggies, or fresh herbs — or make it a sweet beginning/ending by drizzling on maple syrup and/or topping with fresh fruit.  Naturally-sweetened jam (i.e., no added sugar) and Greek yogurt would also make a tasty topping.

Variation:  fry rice for a few minutes first in the butter, turning heat to medium and letting rice sit in order for it to scorch a bit and get crunchy.  Fold into egg and proceed with recipe as it’s written above.

Enjoy!

Cranberry-Orange Relish

When I was a kid, I thought cranberries were sweet — after all, cranberry juice sure was!  But then I finally tasted an honest-to-goodness whole cranberry and realized that good ol’ Ocean Spray had added a fair amount of sweeteners to make the juice palatable for the American tongue.  Now that I’ve veered off the Sweet Track and onto the Street of Deeper Flavors (my current chocolate preference is 90% cocoa, and I finally made the switch from Riesling to Rioja), I rather enjoy the extreme tartness that a cranberry offers.

When making a dessert relish/sauce (or a raw breakfast compote), though, unadulterated cranberries are even a bit much for me, which is why I thought I’d recreate the wintertime Cranberry-Orange Relish classic in a way that would still be a little bit sweet but that wouldn’t require cup after cup of refined white sugar.

The solution?  Simple:  just use honey instead.  And seeing as orange juice is pretty sweet on its own (so are cocktail grapefruits), you can also squeeze an extra orange and add more fresh juice to counterbalance the acidity of the cranberries.

Here’s a quick formula to get you started:  1 cup whole cranberries (frozen or fresh) + juice of 1 juice orange (or cocktail grapefruit) + 2 T. honey. Just place all in a blender and whirr until you have the desired consistency.  (You can also add a teaspoon of spice — cinnamon is a good choice, or you can blend it with nutmeg, ginger, cloves, or allspice so that you wind up with a total of 1 teaspoon.)  Taste to see if the tartness is to your liking and add more honey if it’s still too sour.  Blend and repeat until your tongue is happily tingling.  Bear in mind that you might want to taste the relish when it’s still rather coarsely-ground in case you do have to keep repeating the blending step (which will make the berries smaller and smaller each time); also, bear in mind that the relish will sweeten slightly upon standing and that you can always stir in more honey right before serving.

Enjoy!

Lärabar & Pear Mix

Normally, I don’t ballyhoo specific brands, but when there’s one company doing something right (out of hundreds that aren’t), they deserve special mention, and perhaps even a recipe or two developed just to suit their product…especially when that recipe makes an incredibly satisfying and fresh breakfast in one minute flat.

Enter Lärabar:  the only snack bar I’ve found that doesn’t have any refined sweeteners, cheap fillers, or a mouthful of unpronounceable chemicals.  Lärabars are simply dates, nuts, dried fruit, and the occasional spice or (unsweetened!) coconut flakes or (unsweetened!) cocoa.  Not surprisingly, they list their ingredients right up front on each bar rather than hiding them underneath the folded flap on the back the way most snack/granola bar manufacturers do.  When I first found them — and Lärabars are in virtually every grocery store, by the way — I almost cried in happiness because I’d finally found a company that makes a top-notch “convenience” food.  (I’d given up thinking such a thing was possible.)

Lärabars make a fantastic breakfast or snack — I just got back from a two-week trip traveling through Spain, and I took about 24 Lärabars with me.  Only three made it back home, among them the Pecan Pie (dates, pecans, almonds) that I incorporated into my breakfast the morning I woke up in my own bed again.

To make fruit-and-nut breakfast (or dessert or snack), simply cut up a Lärabar — any flavor will do — and a crisp fruit like an apple or a pear.  Drizzle with a bit of honey if you like, sprinkle with a bit of cinnamon if you like, and dig in!  This particular blend of Pecan Pie and pear tasted like…well…a pecan pie with pears on top.  Quick and delicious!

Individual Crustless Pumpkin Pie

There’s a time for crusts and ends and corners, but that time isn’t all the time.  Sometimes you just want what’s in the middle without having to bother with anything else.  If you’re a big pumpkin fan like I am, you might prefer no-holds-barred, maximum pumpkin, especially at this time of the year when it’s okay to see how many ways you can serve it.  (Seeing as pumpkin pie doesn’t go over too well in the sweltering heat of August…) 

Enter, then, the crustless individual pumpkin pie, served in ramekins, crocks, or custard cups.  They’re practical and cute!

Crustless Maple Pumpkin Pies

1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
3 eggs, divided into yolks and whites
1/2 cup maple syrup, preferably Grade B
1/2 cup whole milk, preferably organic/local (if you’d like to make this dairy-free, use whole coconut milk)
1/2 tsp. sea salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
15-oz. can of pumpkin, preferably organic
Chopped pecans for garnish

Dissolve the gelatin in the water in a small saucepan over low heat OR microwave water and gelatin in a small microwave-safe bowl for 30 seconds, then stir. Microwave for another 30 seconds and stir again, repeating once more if necessary. Set aside.

Separate yolks from whites, placing the yolks in a medium saucepan and the whites in a large mixing bowl. Set whites aside.

Stir the yolks with a whisk. Blend in maple syrup, milk, salt, cinnamon, and pumpkin. Heat mixture over low heat, stirring constantly, until it’s thick and smooth. (This will take about 6 minutes.) Add the dissolved gelatin, stir thoroughly, and remove from heat. Let cool.

Beat the egg whites for about 3 minutes or until they’re tall and white and form stiff peaks. Using a spatula, carefully fold the whites into the pumpkin mixture, then carefully spoon pumpkin into individual ramekins, crocks, custard cups, or even small bowls. Garnish with pecans and a drizzling of maple syrup.

These pies can be served fresh or can be kept in the refrigerator for about 4 days. (They make good breakfasts, too!)

Enjoy!

Bananas with Coconut Cream & Ginger

There are plenty of non-dairy creamers out there:  hazelnut, French vanilla, Irish creme, extra-rich…the list goes on and on.  (Literally.  Take a look at the ingredients sometime.)  All of those flavors do, however, have something in common  — they’re usually accompanied by hydrogenated oil and high-fructose corn syrup, two of the worst substances you can eat.

Here’s a better idea:  instead of a manufactured non-dairy cream, why not use a natural one? Left on its own, whole coconut milk naturally separates into a thick, creamy layer and a more-watery one.  You can either stir the two back together or scoop some cream off the top to use in soups, smoothies, puddings, drinks (hot chocolate with coconut, anyone?), ice creams, curries, mashed into potatoes, served atop desserts, etc.  You just can’t go wrong with coconut.  (Unsweetened natural coconut, by the way, does not taste anything like the horrifically sweet flakes I remember as a kid.  Natural coconut is smooth and rich and blends with anything I’ve tried blending it with.)  And you can have your cream and your milk, too — after you’ve finished stealing some cream, stir whatever remains back into the milk.  You’ll still have beautifully thick milk.

For this dessert — okay, I’ll admit that it was actually my breakfast — I topped a sliced banana with coconut cream and a sprinkling of ginger.  It tasted exotic and tropical and was ready in 30 seconds.  Since then, I’ve used more of that can of coconut milk in a pea-curry soup, in smoothies, and as a toppping for pumpkin-cranberry muffins.  Later today, I’ll probably make chai-coconut tea.  The possibilities are endless…

Enjoy!

Pancakes Drizzled with Maple Syrup & Walnut Oil

Olive oil is a wonderful oil to have on hand for dressing salads, drizzling on breads, tossing with pasta, finishing fish, etc.  So is walnut oil and hazelnut oil and sesame oil and peanut oil and lots of other oils that we tend to overlook.  (Pistachio oil, macadamia nut oil, pumpkinseed oil…okay, I’ll stop now.)  Point is, if you’re shopping somewhere that offers lots of different oils, you may want to try out new flavors on various dishes.  In this case, I topped off my pancakes with walnut oil instead of butter — the rich, nutty oil blends beautifully with the maple.  Walnut oil also tastes great on deeply-flavored salads (think baby spinach leaves with dried cherries and goat cheese) and on medium-fleshed fish garnished with fruit (try rainbow trout with orange slices).

If you’re going to add butter or olive oil to a dish, it’s fun to take a literal step back, look at your ingredients, consider the dish’s origins — pinenut or avocado oil would be a great addition to a Mexican salad, for example — and then choose your oil accordingly.  Just remember two things:  cold-pressed, unrefined oils have maximum flavor and canNOT handle high heat, so use the oil to finish the dish rather than cook it (i.e., swirl a few drops of sesame oil into your Asian soup after you’ve ladled it into individual bowls); and once you’ve gotten your new oil home, be sure to store it properly.  This is all the more crucial if you enjoy using a variety of oils — it’ll take you several months to use them all and you want them to be as fresh as possible.

The best way to determine how to store your oils is to look at the fat breakdown on the back of the label.  If the predominant type of fat is polyunsaturated, store that oil in the refrigerator (take a look at flaxseed, sesame, and/or walnut to see what I mean).  If the predominant type of fat is monounsaturated (like olive oil), store it in the refrigerator if you don’t think you’ll use it within 6 months.  Refrigeration can only help, not hurt, but be aware that monounsaturated oils will be semi-hard in the refrigerator.  (I keep my olive oil in a dark, cool cupboard for ease of use and because I know that I’ll blow through a bottle in a month or two.)  If the oil is predominantly saturated (coconut oil, ghee, palm), you can leave it out or refrigerate it — saturated fats are very stable and will last a long time either way.  Refrigeration will turn saturated fats rock-hard, so again, it’s up to you and how you like to use your oils.  See “Properties of Oils” for more information on the health impact of oils and fats.

Happy cooking!