Summery Strawberries with Feta & Mint

Our lawns are lush, our gardens are already going gangbusters, and we’ve been topping 80 degrees for over a week. (I just got back from Spain, where it was even hotter — it was more like 95 in Córdoba. Thank goodness for refreshingly cool Moorish  courtyards! The ones with flowers and fountains give new meaning to the word “oasis.”) It’s safe to say it’s summer…

…and nothing says summer like strawberries. This throw-together salad also features fresh mint (another hot-weather favorite) and some salty sheep’s-milk feta to provide contrast and make those berries all the more sweet. I opted to drizzle on a bit of unrefined walnut oil to add a nutty dimension, but you could go with a splash of extra-virgin olive oil instead. Or any of several unrefined nut or seed oils: hazelnut, almond, pistachio, pumpkin seed, sesame seed, etc. The only one I wouldn’t use is peanut — peanut oil is so incredibly peanutty that it would override the strawberries.

If you don’t happen to have strawberries on hand, blueberries or any kind of melon would work just as well. Or mix and match — the more colors, the merrier!

Summery Strawberries with Feta & Mint
Serves as many as you want — see proportioning notes in the body of the recipe.

Organic strawberries, sliced (seeing as strawberries are one of the most sprayed crops in the US and you’re eating the entire fruit, it’s worth it to opt for organic strawberries)
Sheep’s- or goat’s-milk feta, chopped/crumbled (this is typically far more flavorful than domestic cow’s-milk feta)
Fresh mint, cut into thin ribbons
Drizzle of balsamic vinegar
Drizzle of unrefined walnut oil OR extra-virgin olive oil OR any unrefined nut or seed oil except peanut
Freshly cracked black pepper

Toss all ingredients together in a bowl. If you’re a huge feta fan — I am! — be generous with the feta; if you’re not so keen on it, opt for a slight garnishing of feta. In terms of proportioning the dressing, go with twice as much nut oil as balsamic. You won’t need much of either since both are so flavorful, so start with a quick drizzle of balsamic and two quick drizzles of oil and taste before adding any more. A little mint goes a long way, too, so toss and taste before adding more than 3 or 4 leaves.

Enjoy!

Cheesy Scrambled Eggs & Purple Hash

Let’s not kid ourselves — the best part of the omelet is the cheese. Assuming, that is, the cheese isn’t Velveeta or anything else that calls itself “a pasteurized process cheese food.” Yep, “cheese food,” not cheese. I don’t make this stuff up, folks. Just comes down to reading the labels…

But anyway, back to the good stuff. I opted to scramble an egg with some grated Kerrygold Dubliner white Cheddar, which is a lush and savory cheese made with milk from grass-fed cows. I am a huge fan of Kerrygold cheeses and butters, and as I had suspected, that Cheddar made an incredibly savory omelet. The purple potatoes were the perfect classic-with-a-twist accompaniment. Since they’re such small potatoes to begin with, it’s a snap to cut them into a few pieces and them simmer them briefly before frying them. You could use any kind of potatoes for your hash, of course — leftover, already-cooked potatoes are the quickest to use — but I’d say the purple variety has the most visual panache. The only thing cooler than “Green Eggs & Ham” would have been “Purple Eggs & Ham.”

Cheesy Scrambled Eggs & Purple Hash

Purple potatoes
Eggs, preferably from pastured hens
Grated sharp cheese (Cheddar, Parmesan, Gruyere, any of the aged French Basque cheeses), preferably from pastured animals

Get a pot of water boiling while you cut the potatoes into bite-sized pieces. The little purple ones are so small that often all you have to do is cut them in half. Simmer potatoes for 10 minutes and drain well. Drizzle a little extra-virgin olive oil into a nonstick skillet and cook potatoes over medium heat for about 10 minutes or until they’re crispy and turning golden brown through their purpleness. Stir often to make sure they don’t stick to the pan.

While the potatoes are cooking, heat a drizzle of the oil over medium-low heat in another skillet. Add eggs and sprinkle cheese on top. Cook, stirring often, until eggs are softly scrambled and cheese is melted. That should only take about 3 minutes, particularly if you have fresh pastured eggs. If you want the potatoes and eggs to come out at precisely the same time, don’t start cooking the eggs until the potatoes are halfway done. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Sunflower & Sesame Kale Chips

Kale chips seem to be the Hot Food Thing right now…and they’ve also been on my personal Obsessed with These Yummies list for the last two years. I’m always on the lookout for an ever-tastier chip. Last weekend, I found inspiration for my quest in the form of a side order of onion rings at The Raw Cafe in Detroit. Whatever blend of nuts and spices those crispy puppies were dredged in was culinary nirvana!

I decided to make a batch of kale chips using what I thought was on the onions: sesame, sunflower, nutritional yeast, tamari, and dried herbs. I think I’ve hit the nail at least somewhat on the head here. Or leaf, as it may be. If you happen to try those onion rings and figure out a way to reverse engineer them, by all means please let me know! Together, we’ll crack the code.

Sunflower & Sesame Kale Chips

The amount of seasoning will depend on how much kale you have, so it’s best to keep these general proportions in mind and tailor them to your needs. First, preheat the oven to 325F and cover 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Rinse kale, whack dry against the edge of the sink (water pretty much bounces off those crinkly leaves), and rip tough ribs away from each leaf. Tear the leaves into small pieces and place in a large bowl.

To make the seasoning, grind equal parts sunflower seeds and sesame seeds (either seed/both seeds can be raw or toasted) with a hearty dash of dried Italian herbs. Add a heaping spoonful of nutritional yeast — it should be about half the amount of the seeds. For example, if you use 2 T. each of the seeds, use 1 T. of the yeast (along with a big dash of herbs). Drizzle kale lightly with tamari*/soy sauce and mix well with the ground seeds. The goal is to have just enough tamari to make the leaves a little bit wet so that the seeds will stick. Too wet, and leaves will never get crispy in the oven.

Spread chips out on baking sheets so that none overlap and bake for 25 minutes or until chips are crispy and starting to turn brown. Eat immediately. You’ll probably wish you had more.

Enjoy!

* Be sure to use wheat-free tamari if you’re making gluten-free chips.

Mushroom & Tomato Tapenade

Traditional tapenade includes the holy trinity of salty garnishing ingredients: olives, anchovies, and capers. It’s an intense blend of flavors and a perfect example of the “a little goes a long way” school of thought. For this batch, though, I’ve decided to go alter the main ingredients and go with the holy trinity of umami, or savoriness: olives, mushrooms, and tomatoes. While both the olives and canned tomatoes are salty, the mushrooms gentle their saltiness and provide a smooth, rich base.

Throw in the herbs and aromatics, and you’ve got yourself a versatile purée that you can use alone as a dip, thinned with more tomatoes as a sauce, or as a flavoring to add to other dips and sauces. If you blended it with a dash of extra-virgin olive oil, you’d have a great dressing for a bean- or lettuce-based salad. I opted to enjoy my tapenade as a spread for an impromptu giant cracker — namely, a corn tortilla I pulled out of the freezer and pan-toasted for a few minutes over medium heat.

Mushroom & Tomato Tapenade

8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
1 small onions, chopped
6 cloves garlic, chopped
At least 20 pitted black olives (or green, if you prefer)
15 oz. canned diced tomatoes
1 T. Italian herbs

In a large skillet, sautée mushrooms and onions with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil over medium heat for 8 minutes. Stir in garlic and olives and continue to cook for another 3 minutes. Add tomatoes and herbs and let simmer for at least 10 minutes, reducing heat to medium-low if the tapenade is bubbling too furiously. You want to reduce the mixture slightly, but not to the point of cooking away the tomatoes.

Purée the finished tapenade in a food processor until mostly smooth. (You can leave it chunkier if you’d prefer.) Not only is the tapenade ideal for dips, sauces, dressings, etc. — see intro paragraphs for more ideas — you can freeze it in ice cube trays for easy access in case you’d like to have it on hand as instant soup seasoning.

Enjoy!

Cinnamon & Honey Millet Cakes

I recently prepared these millet cakes for a cooking class, and reactions ranged from “This would make a good breakfast!” to “It kind of reminds me of rice pudding…except crispy.” My thoughts exactly! I also think these cakes would make a great dessert if you topped them with ice cream and/or fresh fruit and an additional drizzle of honey. Or a dollop of whole-milk Greek yogurt with some honey and cinnamon stirred into it.

You could make grain cakes with whatever grain you have on hand: whole-grain rice (brown, red, black, purple), millet, quinoa, amaranth, even wild rice. The key is to overcook your grain of choice just a little so that it becomes stickier and can better hold its shape when formed into a patty. Using two egg whites instead of one whole egg helps the cakes stick together, too — since most of the egg’s protein is in the white, that’s the part that helps things stick together when cooked. (Then again, all of the vitamins and most of the other nutrients are found in the yolk, so it’s better to use the whole egg from a health standpoint.)

Be sure to save your yolks and use them to make ice cream, custard, or even extra-rich scrambled eggs. Fresh yolks can be refrigerated for up to 3 days if you cover them completely with cold water before stashing them on a shelf where they’ll be in prominent, unforgettable, “don’t-forget-about-me!” view.

Cinnamon & Honey Millet Cakes
Makes enough to serve 4. Recipe can be easily doubled or tripled.

2 cups cooked millet (¾ cup will yield about 2 cups cooked)
2 egg whites, preferably from pastured hens
2 T. honey
½ tsp. to 1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. vanilla
Dash sea salt

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Heat a dab of butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until butter is melted and add millet to the pan 1/4 cup at a time, pressing the millet into the cup with your fingers and then tapping the compressed millet gently into the skillet. Press down lightly on the millet patty with a spatula to flatten it (aim for a 3” patty).

Cook for 5 minutes or until golden brown, then very carefully and gently flip over the patties. Cook another 3 minutes or until both sides are golden brown. Leftover patties keep quite deliciously in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Enjoy!

Chive & Spinach Pesto

It’s not just the grass and tulips that are in full bloom: the chives are growing like gangbusters, too. Seeing all of those tall-but-still-tender chives put me in a pesto kind of mood. (Green + herb = pesto in my mind.) It’s still a bit too chilly for basil, though, so I opted to use chives and spinach instead. Not only is spinach another early-growing tasty edible, its fresh, sweet flavor offsets the garlicky nature of the chives.

If you’d like to make a raw, spicy version of this pesto, use baby spinach and simply toss everything in a food processor. I prefer a more mellow taste, so I opted to steam the spinach and then wring it out before adding it. (You don’t want watery pesto!) I also adore the nutty, warm flavor of sautéed garlic. Either way, you’ll have a plateful of spring flavors.

Chive & Spinach Pesto
Serves 2. Recipe can easily be doubled or tripled.

2 servings whole-grain pasta of your choice (I used Tinkyada’s brown rice fettucini; be sure to get gluten-free pasta if you’re making a gluten-free dish!)
8 oz. baby or curly spinach (use baby if you’re making an all-raw pesto)
Garlic (optional)
Chives (if your chives are fresh and strong-flavored, start by only using about three individual chives; taste your pesto before adding more so as not to over-chive it)
Handful of pine nuts OR sliced almonds

Prepare pasta according to package directions. If you’re making raw pesto, toss remaining ingredients in a food processor — perhaps skipping the garlic altogether since chives are potent all on their own — and blend until smooth, drizzling in a bit of extra-virgin olive oil and a shake of sea salt before doing the final blending.

If you’re making a more mellow pesto, steam the spinach for 3 minutes or until wilted. Drain well, pressing the spinach into the side of the colander with the back of a large spoon to really get the water out. While the spinach is draining, chop the garlic and sautée it in a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil over medium-low heat for 3 minutes or until just starting to turn golden brown.

Scoop the garlic into a food processor, add drained spinach and chives, and blend. Add pine nuts and blend again, scraping down the sides of the processor. Drizzle in a little more oil if you’d like a richer taste and smoother consistency. Salt to taste. (If you’re serving the pesto with cheese or something salty, you might want to skip salting the pesto.) Serve with cooked noodles, veggies, sautéed chicken, or as a dip for crudites or bread, garnishing with additional pine nuts if you like.

Since this pesto is made with chives and spinach rather than basil, it will keep longer in the fridge (basil oxidizes and turns black very quickly; chives and spinach do not). Leftover pesto can be kept for 4 days and is great for everything from flavoring soups — just stir in a spoonful! — to garnishing roasted veggies.

Enjoy!

African Millet, Kale & Sweet Potato Toss

While attending the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) annual conference in NYC earlier this month, I had the pleasure  of taking a cooking class from one of my favorite cookbook authors. Not only is Pierre Thiam an innovative cook, he’s an incredibly genuine and enthusiastic gentleman. He hails from Senegal, a country on the west coast of African known for its abundance of seafood and cosmopolitan cuisine and influences. (Many Senegalese grow up speaking French and Portuguese along with their native language of Wolof.) Since Senegal is a coastal country, it has long been a hub of trading activity. Lots of trading = a glorious influx of ingredients, techniques, and recipes!

One of the dishes Pierre showed us how to cook involved a grain I’d never seen before: fonio. It’s tough to find here, but since fonio is a tiny variant of millet, I’ll be using millet until I manage to find a bag of fonio. (Yay! A new culinary quest! Now that I have not one but two bottles of Moroccan argan oil in my fridge — argan oil was my previous quest — I’ve been itching to embark upon a new hunt.) Americans tend to think of millet as bird food, but millet is actually quite delicious, easy to cook, and versatile. Why should birds be the only ones benefiting from this inexpensive staple? Here’s a case when saying “that’s for the birds” ought to encourage us to check out what we’ve been missing! Millet is also soft enough to grind into flour in a food processor, or you can buy pre-ground flour.

Along with millet, I also included some other favorite ingredients from Senegalese cuisine: sweet potatoes, dark leafy greens in the form of kale, black-eyed peas, and peanuts in the form of peanut butter. I added a touch of red palm oil, too. Since palms are prevalent in many parts of Africa, richly nutritious red palm oil is the preferred cooking fat and seasoning in many African dishes. (It also pops up in Brazilian cuisine since the majority of slaves trafficked out of Africa were brought to Brazil. They brought their culinary traditions with them — and many of their ingredients and plants, too — and nowadays you’ll find plenty of dishes containing dende when you’re dining somewhere on the east coast of Brazil. Dende is the Brazilian term for red palm oil.) If you don’t have red palm oil, you’ll miss out on the uniquely earthy flavor it provides, but you can mimic its red color by including paprika.

African Millet, Kale & Sweet Potato Toss
Serves 4 generously. Since this keeps so well in the fridge and is also good at room temp or even chilled, you’ll enjoy having leftovers. Or perhaps you’d like to emulate Senegalese hospitality by inviting a few more guests to join you!

1 1/2 cups millet
1 large sweet potato, cut into 1″ cubes
Red palm oil OR unrefined peanut oil* OR extra-virgin olive oil*
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 T. natural peanut butter
Dash of crushed red pepper flakes OR cayenne pepper
Several handfuls chopped kale
15 oz. can of black-eyed peas (I prefer Eden’s line of canned beans because they’re sealed into BPA-free cans), drained
Dash of sea salt

Simmer millet in 4 1/2 cups water for 20 minutes or until the grains are al dente. (I like mine a bit chewy.) Note that the water-to-millet ratio is 4:1; if you’d rather use less millet, just reduce the water accordingly. Drain millet in a fine-meshed colander. In another pot, simmer the sweet potato for 10 minutes. Drain well and place in a large bowl along with the millet.

In a large skillet, sautée the onions in a drizzle of oil for about 5 minutes over medium heat or until they’re soft and starting to turn golden brown. Add garlic and continue to cook over medium-low for another 3 minutes, stirring often, or until garlic is fragrant. Stir in peanut butter, pepper, and kale and increase heat back up to medium. Cook for 3 more minutes, stirring often, or until kale is wilted and soft. Add to the bowl with the sweet potato and millet.

Stir in beans and salt to taste. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 5 days.

Enjoy!

* Add a dash of paprika if you’d like to add the reddish tint the red palm oil would have provided.

Strawberry-Oat Smoothie

It’s true: oatmeal makes a great breakfast. But not the flavored, sugared, powdery instant oats that are more chemicals and sweeteners than they are oats. Plain, old-fashioned rolled oats are a much better choice…and you can flavor them any way you want! You could even cook a giant batch once or twice a week and then enjoy “instant” oatmeal whenever the mood strikes you. (Or cook a big batch of steel-cut oats or even oat groats, which is the whole un-steel-cut grain.)

For my breakfast earlier in the week, I had some strawberries that needed to be eaten and a handy bag of rolled oats. I could have opted for sliced berries stirred into cooked oats, of course, but I thought it would be interesting to see what a shake made with oats would be like. The answer? With their thickening power, oats make the ideal shake. And it’s easy enough to make the shake dairy-free if you’d like: just simmer the oats in water rather than milk. So simple! This is a surprisingly hearty and satisfying smoothie to enjoy first thing in the morning or even on the way to work.

Strawberry-Oat Smoothie

Blend cooked plain rolled oats with a handful of organic strawberries* in a blender. (To make a single serving, I cooked 1/4 cup raw oats and tossed in about 9 strawberries.) Add 1 T. maple syrup and a dash of vanilla extract and blend again. If the smoothie is too thick and is refusing to blend to a smooth consistency, trickle in cold water and keep blending until you have a milkshake-like smoothie. Note that this idea of cooked oats + fruit would work with any fruit that’s soft enough to blend. Banana-oat, blueberry-oat, peach-oat…the possibilities are endless!

* Seeing as strawberries are one of the most-sprayed crops on the U.S. market and we eat the whole fruit, they’re worth buying organic.

Enjoy!

Blueberry Kefir Cream

Ah, cultured dairy… The brilliance of it (how else would pre-refrigeration-technology peoples have stored their valuable milk?), the taste of it (there’s even a beer inoculated with the same lactobacillus you’ll find in yogurt — ever tried a bottle of lovely Flemish red ale?), the versatility of it (cakes are lovely when made with sour cream; so are potatoes). If you’ve read this blog very often, you know I’m a fan.

This time I opted to make the most of the glory that is kefir (which, according to a Russian woman who has attended a few of my talks, is pronounced “kah-FEER”) by blending it with wild blueberries, an egg, and a touch of maple syrup to make a sublimely delicious and probiotic ice cream. Even though the kefir tastes slightly sour on its own as a result of its culturedness, when combined with fruit, it doesn’t need much sweetener to make dessert. Or breakfast, really, considering that this ice cream packs a lot more nutrition than your typical bowl of cereal.

Blueberry Kefir Cream

1 cup kefir, preferably made with milk from grass-fed cows (this would be a major component of its nutritious aspect)
1 cup wild blueberries, fresh or frozen
1 egg, preferably from pastured hens (you’ll be eating this egg raw, so if you don’t have a good source for eggs, skip the egg; a good egg does, however, add creaminess and nutritional value galore)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup maple syrup (I prefer Grade B for its richer flavor)

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions. It truly is that simple.

Enjoy!

Orange Segments Topped with Crème Fraîche & Cocoa Nibs

Having just returned from a fascinating — and tasty! — culinary conference in NYC, real food has been very much on my mind. (Although, to be honest, real food is always on my mind. Chalk it up to one of the occupational hazards of being a recipe developer/food writer. In terms of “hazards,” it’s got to be one of the most pleasant.) By “real food,” I’m talking minimally processed foods: grains that are whole, oils that are unrefined, sweeteners that still retain their nutrients, animal products from pastured animals…you get the idea.

Speaking of the pastured animal foods, one of my current favorite dairy products is crème fraîche. It’s still unpopular and un-mainstream enough to be produced by real farms with animals freely grazing. The animals’ state of good health = dairy, egg, and meat products for us that taste damned good and also happen to be the most nutritious. (In case you’re curious about the numbers, pastured animal products have about half the fat of conventional animal products. Pastured also offers higher amounts of anti-inflammatory omega 3 fats and far more vitamins and other micronutrients than conventional products do.)

Along with being produced by great dairyists like Vermont Creamery, crème fraîche is also a cultured dairy product, which means it offers an intriguing tang along with its rich creaminess. It pairs beautifully with everything from fruit to potatoes! The nibs in this recipe add a nice crunch to the juicy orange and creamy/tangy crème fraîche.

Orange Segments Topped with Crème Fraîche & Cocoa Nibs

Peel oranges and gently pull apart into segments. Arrange in a bowl or on a plate and top with a dollop of crème fraîche. Sprinkle with cocoa nibs or broken-up chunks of dark chocolate. (When I say “dark,” I mean at least 75%. The sweetness of the orange is all the sweeter when paired with not-so-sweet chocolate.) Serve immediately for breakfast, dessert, or a snack. If you’d like to experiment with other fruit + crème fraîche combinations, try making Strawberries & Crème.

Enjoy!

Triple Allium Pasta

You might not know what an allium is, but you’ve already enjoyed eating one. Or three or four. The allium family includes two of the world’s most popular ingredients: garlic and onions. Plenty of other beloved veggies are members of the allium family: leeks, green onions (often called scallions), chives, shallots, and ramps (i.e., wild leeks).  And of course just saying “garlic” and “onion” doesn’t really do those alliums justice, because eaters enjoy everything from sharply piquant wild garlic with its tiny cloves to mellow, oversized elephant garlic with its giant cloves … and likewise, everything from pungent red onions to sweet Vidalias.

In the spirit of welcoming an early spring with an early round of alliums — they’re one of the first veggies to come up as soon as the weather gentles — I made a triple-allium pasta dish with three of my favorites: leeks, onions, and garlic. In my case, I deepened the flavor by sautéeing them in schmaltz (the drippings off a recent roast chicken that I had collected and kept in a glass jar in the fridge), but a rich-tasting pastured butter like Kerrygold would work, too. Or rendered bacon fat should you have any on hand. I often do since I always save the drippings from bacon whenever I make it. Pastured bacon is much, much more lean than conventional bacon — not to mention FAR more delicious! — but a few strips will still provide a spoonful or two of rendered fat to keep on hand to enrich just about any dish you can think of.

Triple-Allium Pasta
Makes enough for 2 good-sized servings. Feel free to double or triple as needed.

Schmaltz, rendered bacon fat, OR pastured butter or ghee such as Kerrygold or Purity Farms
4 leeks, cleaned* and chopped
2 medium yellow or white onions, chopped (if you want a really sweet dish, choose a large sweet onion)
8 to 10 cloves garlic, chopped
2 servings whole-grain pasta of your choice (be sure to use gluten-free pasta if you want a gluten-free dish)

Place a dollop of schmaltz in a large nonstick skillet and melt over medium heat. Add the leeks and onions and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Add the garlic, reduce heat by a notch or two, and continue to cook for another 10 minutes, adding more schmaltz if the pan starts to get too dry and the veggies start to stick to it.

While the alliums are sautéeing, prepare the pasta according to package directions. I usually simmer my pasta for 8 minutes, so I like to start the pasta during the second phase of the allium cooking so that everything is done at the same time. If your pasta takes more than 10 minutes to cook, you might want to start off the recipe by cooking the pasta.

Drain pasta well and toss with the sautéed alliums. Feel free to serve this dish with a full-flavored aged cheese like Parmesan or even a blue like Stilton. Perhaps you might want to go the sweet route and pair your alliums with bell peppers or tomatoes. Maybe you’d even like to do both. Alliums are so versatile — especially when cooked — that you really can’t go wrong with them.

Enjoy!

* To clean a leek, peel off and discard the outermost layer. Cut off the tough dark green lower portion of the leek and discard. Hold up the leek by the root end and use a large sharp knife to poke through the leek about an inch away from the root end. Pull the knife straight down, cutting the leek in half but keeping it connected at the root end. Turn 90 degrees and repeat. You should have a quartered (but still held together) leek. Fan out under running cool water and hand-scrub the layers gently to wash away any dirt that might be trapped between the layers. Shake dry and chop, discarding the root end.

Shrimp-Crab Cakes with Avocado, Lemon & Dill

Just about everyone agrees that crab cakes are sublime. Just about everyone likes shrimp, too. So why not make shrimp-crab cakes? The tiny and amazingly cute wild rock shrimp that come in cans are ideal for making cakes since they’re already so small, plus they can hang out in your pantry right next to the canned crab until you want to whip up a quick seafood dinner. I like the wild-caught tiny shrimp from Trader Joe’s, but you can use whatever kind of shrimp you’d like. If you have some normal-sized shrimp on hand, you can simply measure out about 3 ounces of freshly cooked shrimp and mince it to approximate the size and texture of the tiny shrimp.

I’ve used almond flour in these crab cakes since 1. the mild nut flavor pairs well with seafood (creates a much richer flavor than standard breadcrumbs), 2. it’s gluten-free, and 3. sliced almonds are a pantry staple shoo-in (they’re a snap to grind into flour with a spice/coffee grinder). If you’d prefer to use whole-grain breadcrumbs, that works, too.

Shrimp-Crab Cakes with Avocado, Lemon & Dill
Makes 6 cakes (figure on 2 cakes for a lunch serving and 3 for a heartier meal). Recipe can easily be doubled or tripled.

6 oz. canned crab
4 oz. canned tiny wild shrimp OR 3 oz. chopped fresh-cooked shrimp of any size
1 egg, preferably from pastured hens
1 T. prepared mustard (my favorites are stone-ground Dijon or German-style mustard)
1 tsp. dried dill
Freshly cracked black pepper
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup almond flour OR whole-grain breadcrumbs (I like to grind sliced almonds in a coffee/spice grinder for about 10 seconds to make fresh flour)
Lemon wedges for garnish
Chopped avocado for garnish

Squeeze the liquid out of the crab and shrimp, then place the meat in a medium bowl. Discard the liquid. Whisk the egg, mustard, dill, and pepper into the crab and shrimp. Stir in enough almond flour to make the mixture dry enough to handle and shape but not so dry that it falls apart. (Hence starting with 1/4 cup and working your way up.) Divide the mixture into 6 portions and shape each one into a patty about the size of a small hamburger.

Heat a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil or a pat of pastured butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat for 1 minute. Add 3 cakes and cook for 3 minutes undisturbed or until the bottoms are golden brown. Carefully flip over and keep cooking for another 2 minutes or until both sides are golden brown. Remove to a plate and cook the remaining 3 patties, adding more oil/butter if the pan is dry.

Serve patties with a spritz of fresh lemon juice, some chopped avocado, and a dash or two of additional dill sprinkled over the top.

Enjoy!

Medium-Boiled Eggs on Paprika-Dusted Brown Rice

Pastured eggs are my favorite ingredient for several reasons: they’re an integral part of sweet and savory dishes, they’re ideal to enjoy any time of day, and they provide essential structure for everything from baked goods to velvety sauces. You just can’t beat an egg when it comes to artistry AND functionality! The fact that they can be prepared in such a variety of ways — nearly all of which take less than 10 minutes — makes them all the more appealing.

But although poached eggs get my #1 vote, their glaring disadvantage is that they’re one of those make-it-and-eat-it-NOW dishes. Specifically, with a fork, a plate, and an unfolded napkin at the ready. Soft-boiled eggs have a similar constraint since they also tend to have runny yolks. (Which to me is the best part! If you have the space and the resources, messy is fun.) The [lack of] Messy Factor makes hard-boiled eggs the most convenient egg option when you want to make enough eggs to have leftovers or have some to take them along with you as a traveling snack.

Lately, I’ve been playing with the length of the boiling time — I want to see how soft I can get the yolks to be without them being messy. The ideal time seems to be 8 minutes. With 8 minutes of boiling, I get yolks that are verging on runny and are decidedly soft and still dark-orange/dark-yellow in color (as opposed to the much more pale yellow of a fully hard-boiled egg) but don’t try to sneak out of their whites when you cut them in half. If you have a napkin handy and are planning on eating your eggs promptly, though, you can boil them for an even briefer 5 minutes and have soft-boiled eggs.

Medium-Boiled Eggs on Paprika-Dusted Brown Rice
You can make as many servings of this as you like. One egg and 1/2 cup cooked rice would typically be one serving.

Eggs, preferably from pastured hens
Cooked brown rice, either long- or short-grain (I tend to cook my brown rice for 15 minutes fewer than the package instructions indicate since I like my rice on the chewy side)
Sweet paprika

Place your eggs in a pot and cover with water and a lid. Bring water to a boil while paying close attention to the pot. As soon as you hit a boil, reduce heat to medium, set the timer for 8 minutes, and tilt the lid slightly. Lower heat another notch if the eggs are bumping around violently inside the pot. (The smaller the pot, the more they’ll be tossed around in there.)

While the eggs are cooking, place the cooked brown rice on a plate (or on plates) and sprinkle with sweet paprika.

As soon as the 8 minutes are up, place pot under the tap and run cold water into the pot, tilting it to allow the hot water to spill out and be replaced with the cold water. Crack the shells of the eggs you’re going to use right away and peel them, then cut in half and place on top of the rice. Leftover eggs should be left in the pot to cool — with their shells still on — until they’re completely chilled. You can refrigerate them for up to 5 days.

Season your not-so-hard-boiled eggs with a little sea salt and freshly cracked pepper and serve as a breakfast, lunch, or snack.

Enjoy!

Almond Butter & Banana Smoothie

With its focus on nuts and fresh fruit (and coconuts and fresh herbs), I’ve long been a fan of raw food. Every raw dish I’ve ever had has been delicious and innovative. Vegan dishes are tasty, too, but unfortunately vegans seem to rely overmuch on soy and wheat products. I’m not a big fan of soy for a variety of reasons — ranging from health issues to environmental ones — and I avoid gluten, so lots of otherwise-interesting vegan dishes are out for me. Raw food, on the other hand, doesn’t use soy or wheat or anything processed…which means it’s always innovative, always fresh, and always scrumptious.

I’ve been wanting to make more raw dishes at home (especially raw desserts, which are unbelievably good!), but I don’t have a Vitamix and probably won’t any time soon. My trusty Cuisinart food processor just isn’t powerful enough to rip through damned near anything the way a Vitamix can.  (I seriously think you could powder diamonds with one of those.) Chopping nuts and grinding them into coarse meal works in some settings, but raw dishes often call for silky-smooth nuts as a main ingredient.

About a week ago, I finally had a “duh!” moment and hit upon a solution to my sans-Vitamix-but-want-raw-food dilemma: use raw nut butter! Nowadays, you can find everything from almond butter to walnut butter to cashew butter. If you’re lucky, you might even stumble upon jars of macadamia butter sitting next to jars of pecan butter. They all have different flavors, of course, but what they all have in common is that their textures all fall somewhere between velvet and satin. I might still splurge on a Vitamix someday, but in the meantime, I’m going to enjoy experimenting with already-made-smooth nut butters. They make anything taste incredibly creamy and rich.

Almond Butter & Banana (or any other fruit) Smoothie

Note: since nut butters are highly perishable, store them in the refrigerator as soon as you get them home. If you are fortunate enough to have a Vitamix or other warp-speed blender/processor, you can make your own nut butters by grinding shelled nuts until they’re smooth. You may wish to add a matching unrefined oil to give the butter a little more creaminess. (Use unrefined almond oil with almonds, unrefined walnut oil with walnuts, etc.)

Place a heaping tablespoon of almond butter and either 1 full-sized banana or 2 small ones (I prefer the little guys) in a blender. If you use a large banana, break it into three or four pieces before adding it. Add 1 tsp. maple syrup and 1/2 tsp. vanilla. Pour in enough cool water to barely cover everything and blend on high until smooth. You can add a few ice cubes if you’d like more froth and coolness.

Enjoy!

Ricotta Poppyseed Muffin

Ricotta cheese is like a reversible coat: it has two distinct sides and both are equally appealing. Ricotta salata (or “salted ricotta”) is a hard, aged cheese that is lovely for grating and garnishing; it reminds me a lot of Parmesan. Fresh ricotta, on the other hand, is creamy and sweet and tastes like summer. Its texture reminds me a little bit of whipped cream cheese, except that ricotta made with fresh milk is incredibly lush and has none of the vaguely plastic flavor/texture of commercial cream cheese.

Seeing as fresh ricotta manages to be delightfully dense-textured and airy at the same time, I figured a heaping dollop of it would make baked goods more moist and fluffy. (Not to mention more nutritious and tasty.) I’m happy to report that my hunch was right — these muffins had a nice golden crust on the outside but were tongue-pleasingly delicate on the inside. The poppyseeds added a nice contrasting crunch.

Should you happen to get your hands on a nice tub of fresh ricotta and already have baked goods on hand, you can use the ricotta as a spread, too, just as you would butter or cream cheese. You could even slather a knifeful of ricotta onto a savory sandwich to add a whole new kind of creaminess.

Ricotta Poppyseed Muffins
Makes a baker’s dozen.

1 cup sorghum flour*
1 cup millet OR brown rice flour*
1 T. baking powder
Pinch sea salt
1/4 to 1/2 cup poppyseeds (OR chia seeds OR chopped nuts OR chopped sunflower/pumpkin seeds; the idea here is to include a crunchy accent)
1 cup fresh ricotta cheese (if you can’t find this, use full-fat cottage cheese that you’ve run through a processor/blender)
4 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup almond oil OR extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 375F and line a muffin tray with paper cups. I find that the parchment-style cups made by If You Care work BY FAR the best.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, seeds, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the ricotta, eggs, honey, oil, and vanilla. Scoop the liquid ingredients into the dry ones and whisk well to combine. If you’re using wheat flour, stir with a spoon until barely blended.

Pour into the waiting tins and bake for 18 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Top baked muffins with additional ricotta and honey if you’d like.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d prefer to make wheat-based muffins, use a total of 2 cups of spelt, kamut, and/or whole-wheat flour.