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!

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!

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!

Moroccan Salsa

From ras-el-hanout to harissa to preserved lemons, Moroccan cuisine features some of the most stunning flavors on the planet. Sadly, there’s no Moroccan restaurant in my neck of the woods, but it’s easy to include some signature North African inspiration when you’re in your own kitchen. To make this batch of salsa, I blended sautéed peppers and onions with harissa, sweet paprika, and cilantro to make a chunky tomato-based salsa that’s a fusion of Mexican and Moroccan ingredients.

Since I am an unabashed wimp when it comes to hot sauces, I only added a tiny spoonful of harissa to my salsa. If you embrace all things hot and spicy, by all means add however much harissa suits your taste buds. (Harissa is a fiery-hot paste made of hot chiles complemented by a hint of garlic, coriander, and various spices.) You can find harissa in the “ethnic foods section” at well-stocked mainstream grocery stores or in stores specializing in North African goods. Or you can use your favorite hot-chili sauce in its place.

Once you’ve whipped up your as-hot-as-you-want-it salsa, you can serve it with chips or veggies for dipping, you can use it to season soup and chili, or you can use it as a marinade for chicken, beef, or seafood. I like to ladle some of the salsa over sheep’s-milk feta cheese and eat it straight out of the bowl. It also makes a darned refreshing (and somewhat zingy) chilled gazpacho. Or toss it with cooked pasta for an easy last-minute meal.

Moroccan Salsa

1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
28 oz. canned diced tomatoes (or the equivalent of fresh chopped tomatoes)
1 heaping tsp. sweet paprika
Dab (or more) of harissa OR your favorite chili sauce
Bunch of fresh cilantro, rinsed well, damaged leaves removed, stems chopped off at the base

Sautée onions and pepper in a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil over medium heat for 5 minutes or until onion is soft and nearly translucent. Stir in garlic, reduce heat to medium-low, and continue to cook for another 3 minutes or until garlic is just starting to turn golden brown. Add the tomatoes, paprika, and harissa and stir well. Simmer over low heat for about 10 minutes to allow the flavors to marry.

Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes. Pour into food processor and add cilantro. Blend until you have a chunky-but-still-well-blended salsa. If you like, add a few dashes of sea salt to taste. You can also add more harissa if you want more tingle on the tongue. Leftover salsa can be refrigerated for up to 5 days.

Enjoy!

Cinnamon-Maple Yogurt with Blueberries & Cooca Nibs

Plenty of “convenience” foods are far more convenient to make yourself — while the commercial versions tend to have unpronounceable ingredient lists and a mind-boggling amount of sugars/sweeteners, you can whip up a homemade version with a few simple healthy ingredients…and in less than a minute. Sixty seconds spent preparing AND at least 30 minutes saved by not going to the store? Now, that’s convenience! And using ingredients you already have vs. spending more money on an inferior product = thrifty (and smart) convenience.

Flavored yogurts fall into the “Prime Candidates for DIY Convenient Foods” category. If you keep a container of full-fat plain Greek yogurt in your fridge, you can enjoy the same yogurt innumerable ways by simply stirring in a few extra ingredients. Plus, when you have plain yogurt, you can even go sweet or savory without having to spend extra money. Use it as a basis for creamy salad dressings (use the yogurt in place of oil), as a way to enrich curries and soups (remove the pan or pot from the heat and stir in the yogurt at the last minute to keep it from curdling), or as a substitute for sour cream (to me, full-fat plain Greek yogurt tastes richer and fresher than sour cream does). And remember that fresh herbs make a wonderful companion to yogurt.

To go the sweet route, you can stir everything from spices to jam into your yogurt. For this batch, I opted to go with cinnamon, maple syrup, fresh blueberries, and a sprinkling of cocoa nibs. Any fruit would work, though, and you can use any sweetener you like, from honey to palm sugar to date sugar. Let your imagination run (conveniently) wild!

Cinnamon-Maple Yogurt with Blueberries & Cocoa Nibs

Plain full-fat Greek yogurt
Drizzle of maple syrup
Sprinkling of cinnamon
Fresh blueberries (or any other fruit)
Cocoa nibs (optional, but adds an appealing chocolate crunch)

Use a fork or a small whisk to stir the maple syrup and cinnamon into the yogurt. Gently stir in blueberries and top with nibs. Note that any fruit would be lovely — just be sure to cut the fruit into bite-sized pieces before stirring it in. Or you could dip larger-sized fruit slices into the yogurt.

Enjoy!

Roasted Cauliflower & Caramelized Onions with Balsamic Vinegar

Some recipes don’t take long to make; others will require a slot in your schedule. When it comes to the time-hungry recipes, though, there are those that require hands-on attention and those that can pretty much fend for themselves while you do something else nearby: relax with a book, check your email, get caught up on your phone calls. This savory and simple dish of long-cooked veggies (one roasted, the other caramelized) falls into the “not-much-tending” needed category.

Cauliflower is a great candidate for roasting: it’s easy to prep, it’s inexpensive to buy, and it takes on an entirely new nutty flavor when left in a 375F oven for about 30 minutes. I like to toss mine with unrefined peanut oil since peanut oil adds to the overall nuttiness and also handles up to 395F. You’ll get a more even browning effect with an oil that can handle the level of heat you’re subjecting it to. (Extra-virgin olive oil goes up to about 325F.) Other good candidates for roasting veggies at 375F would be coconut oil, melted butter, and/or melted ghee.

Roasted Cauliflower & Caramelized Onions with Balsamic Vinegar
Serves 2 as a main course or 4 as a side, especially if you serve a wedge of cheese along with it. Aged, flavorful cheeses like Parmesan and Asiago would be perfect partners for the sweet/nutty flavor of this dish.

1 sweet onion, sliced thinly
1 T. butter, preferably from grass-fed cows
1 head cauliflower, cut into florets
1 T. unrefined peanut oil
Salt & pepper
3-4 campari tomatoes, chopped, OR a handful of grape/cherry tomatoes, halved
Drizzle of balsamic vinegar & extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 375F.

Cook the onion in the butter in large nonstick skillet over medium-low heat for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. (It’s better to use a nonstick skillet for this since the onions will stick to the skillet’s surface as they brown, and it’s easier to scrape a nonstick skillet to bring up these concentrated flavors.)

While the onions are cooking, toss the cauliflower with the oil in a large bowl and season it with salt and pepper. Spread out the florets on two baking sheets that you either don’t mind cleaning thoroughly afterward or have covered with parchment paper. Roast for 30 minutes or until florets are browning.

In a large bowl, toss the caramelized onions and roasted cauliflower with the tomatoes. Season with a drizzle of vinegar and olive oil and toss again. I like to use a 2:1 ratio of vinegar to oil, but you may wish to use a 1:1 ratio. Leftovers will last for 4 days in the fridge.

Enjoy!

Sesame-Soy Dip with Seaweed Chips

For a while, kale chips were all the rage, but now it seems like seaweed chips have taken center stage. I love both! Especially if you make them yourself. Not only are they much less expensive that way, you can go with a dunking approach for the seaweed chips. It’s simple and fun, plus you won’t run the risk of over-roasting them by trying to season them and then re-roast them. (When you buy sheets of nori, they’ve already been roasted. Kale, on the other hand, is always available raw, so you don’t run the risk of over-roasting by re-roasting.)

Once the province of Japanese grocers, nori is getting pretty easy to find in mainstream stores — even the bigger chains now have ethnic sections scattered throughout their aisles. Just look for the Asian section to find the square-shaped, slimly-packaged sheets of nori. They’re usually sold in quantities of ten to a pack. Their primary purpose is to make sushi rolls, but they’re also ideal to use as chips. Or you can crumble them up and toss them into salads, onto scrambled eggs, or include them with fish and other seafood dishes.

Once you’ve opened a package of nori, it will start to dry out and become brittle, so if you want to use it for sushi, use it promptly! If you want to break it into chips or crumble it, you can do so long after having opened the package. Making chips out of brittle nori is a great way to use up any leftover nori you might have from having made sushi to begin with.

Sesame-Soy Dip with Seaweed Chips

Pour a drizzle of tamari or soy sauce into a small bowl. (Be sure to get wheat-free tamari if you want gluten-/wheat-free chips!) Add a drizzle of toasted sesame oil. Unrefined and untoasted sesame oil works, too, but the toasted version is more nutty and sesame-tasting. You could also stir in a bit of ground ginger if you’re in a gingery mood.

Tear up some nori into bite-sized pieces and serve them with the dip. It really is that simple.

Enjoy!

Buckwheat Crepes with Chocolate Yogurt

One of the many beauties of crepes is that you can fill them with whatever you like, whether that’s sweet or savory or something in between. And by varying the kind of flour you use to make the crepes themselves, you can tweak their base flavor to suit your mood. Want a nutty, rich-tasting crepe? Use teff, buckwheat, or chestnut flour. How about a mild crepe that would work with any filling? Try brown rice, sorghum, millet, or corn flour. For a decidedly savory crepe, go with chickpea or potato flour. In a chocolate kind of mood? Use unsweetened cocoa powder as one of your flours…and maybe throw in some coconut, too. Mesquite flour lends crepes a caramel flair; plantain has a hint of the tropics. Your options are endless.

Although I often make savory crepes intended for lunch wraps and chutney roll-ups, I made these for breakfast and filled them with chocolate yogurt and some blackberry jam. The whole-grain-ness of the crepe + the protein-rich whole-milk yogurt makes for a deliciously satisfying breakfast…and you can make both elements ahead of time and simply roll them at the last minute. Quick breakfasts can be classy and easy!

Buckwheat Crepes with Chocolate Yogurt
This crepe recipe makes about 12 crepes; the yogurt is enough for 2 servings. Feel free to downsize the crepe portions or upsize the yogurt portions as desired. I like to make a full batch of the crepes so that I have some leftovers to enjoy however I like.

For the crepes:
1/2 cup brown rice flour*
1/2 cup buckwheat flour*
1 1/2 cups whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
Dash of sea salt
Butter or ghee for cooking the crepes, preferably from grass-fed cows

For the chocolate yogurt:
1/2 cup whole-milk plain Greek yogurt (Fage is my favorite)
2 T. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 T. maple syrup

To make the crepes, whisk all of the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Get out a (or two or three) 7″ nonstick crepe pan and place a dab of butter in the pan. Heat over medium heat — I go with mark 4 out of 10 on my electric burners — until butter has melted and is sizzling. Pour in 1/4 cup of the crepe batter and cook for 2-3 minutes or until crepe is set on top and browned on the bottom. Use a heatproof spatula to flip over the crepe and cook the second side for another minute or two or until equally browned. If you’re adventurous, by all means go ahead and flip that sucker up into the air to turn it over. Just don’t do that directly over the burner! It’s much easier to rescue a misdirected crepe from a cool element than a hot burner.

Place the cooked crepe on a wire rack. (If you put it on a plate, it’ll collect condensation and get soggy.) Make a second crepe in the same pan using the same technique. I find that I have to put a fresh dab of butter into my crepe pan every other crepe to keep them from sticking. Leftover crepes can be stacked in a sealed container and refrigerated for a week.

To make the yogurt, use a fork to thoroughly mix the ingredients in a bowl. Leftover yogurt can be kept up until the “expires by” date on the original package.

When you’re ready to assemble your chocolate-filled crepe, just spoon some yogurt onto the center of the crepe, roll up, and enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d prefer to make wheat-based crepes, substitute 1 total cup of spelt, kamut, and/or whole-wheat flours for the brown rice and buckwheat.

Smoked Salmon Dip

If you visit my e-kitchen on a regular basis, you know that when I like an ingredient, I tend to use it a lot. The only thing better than having plenty of [insert favorite ingredient here] on hand is getting creative with it! Recasting a favorite is also a delicious way to love your leftovers and not waste a single scrap.

In this case, I had some extra smoked wild salmon on hand after I’d used half of it to make my egg-and-salmon breakfast. I briefly tossed around the idea of making crepes and then stuffing them with the salmon, but in the end I decided to go a completely different route and blend the salmon with some Greek yogurt to make a quick dip. Once you’ve got your dip, you can put it on crackers, serve it with raw veggies, or even spread some on a sandwich (or a crepe). The lovely hue — and flavor! — of the wild salmon shines through even when you dilute it with the yogurt, so you don’t need much salmon to make a good-sized batch of dip.

Smoked Salmon Dip
This makes enough for a nice appetizer for two, but seeing as smoked wild salmon is often sold in 4 oz. packages, you may wish to double the recipe.

2 oz. wild smoked salmon
1/2 cup whole-milk Greek yogurt (Fage is a great choice)
1 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
A few grinds of peppercorns
Whole-grain crackers/breads and raw veggies for serving

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. Taste and see if you’d like it to be a little brighter in flavor. If you do, add another teaspoon of lemon juice. (Smoked salmon can be quite salty sometimes, so you may want to counter that with extra lemon.)

Dip can be enjoyed immediately or refrigerated for up to 5 days.

Enjoy!

Savory Artichoke Custard

If you’re in the mood for an unadorned artichoke, nothing beats a freshly steamed one, but if you want to make a dish featuring artichokes as the main ingredient, the canned route suddenly gets a whole lot more appealing. To make this savory baked custard — which is fantastic for either breakfast or lunch — all you need to do is blend some drained canned artichoke hearts in a food processor with the other four ingredients, pop it in the oven, and wait 25 minutes.

If you’d rather make a soft artichoke dip to accompany crackers or raw sliced veggies, omit the eggs and the baking and simply serve the blended artichokes, cheese, Greek yogurt, and garlic. Talk about an easy appetizer!

Savory Artichoke Custard (or Dip)

5 cloves garlic, chopped
14 oz. can of artichoke hearts, drained
1/2 cup plain whole-milk Greek yogurt
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens*
3 oz. aged hard cheese such as Parmesan, preferably from grass-fed cows, grated (I used Sartori’s basil & olive oil asiago cheese; Sartori is a fantastic American cheesemaker with an impressive array of traditional-Italian-relocated-to-modern-day-Wisconsin selections)

Preheat oven to 400F. Sautée the garlic in a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil over medium-low heat for 3 minutes or until garlic is just beginning to turn golden brown. Immediately transfer to food processor and add remaining ingredients. Process in spurts until well-blended, using a spatula to occasionally scrape down the sides of the bowl.

* Note: if you’d rather make a dip than a custard, omit the eggs, skip the oven preheating, and stop here. Serve dip in a pretty bowl.

Scoop the mixture into a 9″ glass pie pan and bake for 25 minutes or until custard is set and the edges are turning brown. Let cool for at least 5 minutes before serving. Leftover custard can be refrigerated for 5 days…and makes a very satisfying instant breakfast!

Enjoy!

Baked Potato "Cake"

If you have a bit of spare time and a sacrificial kitchen towel*, making a baked potato cake — which can be turned into the world’s tastiest hash browns if you have leftovers! — is a fun way to prepare potatoes. All you need is butter, salt and pepper, and baking/starchy potatoes. (As opposed to waxy potatoes, which aren’t quite starchy enough to do the job here, especially since we’re leaving the skins on.) It’s also quite helpful to have a oven-safe wire rack and a plate that will fit over the top of a 9″ skillet. You can bake the cake directly on a covered baking sheet rather than on a wire rack, but going the rack route will make for a crispier cake.

The flipping part is a little bit tricky, but just remember this: you can’t go wrong with potatoes and butter. Even if you wind up with a smashed cake rather than a flipped one, it’ll still taste delicious.

* I say “sacrificial” because the pigments/antioxidants in the potato will turn the towel black. It’s a fascinating process to watch, actually — when you first squeeze the grated potato in the towel, the towel acquires a brownish hue, but as the pigments oxidize, the brown becomes dark brown and finally almost black. Washing out the towel in running water will turn it grey. Potato-scented grey. So be sure to use a towel you don’t care about…or use one you’ve been wanting to make a potato-scented grey. I’ve designated my sacrificial towel as a potato-twisting towel and plan to re-use it accordingly.

Baked Potato “Cake”

Butter, preferably from grass-fed cows
1 baking potato (the Idaho variety generally works out to be 3/4 to 1 lb. per potato), scrubbed but not peeled
1 sacrificial kitchen towel
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 425F. Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil and top with a wire rack. If you’re going to put the cake directly on the sheet, cover it with parchment paper. Melt about 1 T. butter in a 9″ nonstick skillet over low heat.

Grate the potato with a cheese grater, piling the potato onto the sacrificial towel as you go. Wrap the grated potato securely into the center of the towel, then hold it above the sink and twist it as hard as you can. You should see plenty of juice trickle out. Scrape the grated potato into a large mixing bowl. Stir in melted butter and a generous helping of salt and pepper.

Melt another tablespoon of butter in the 9″ skillet. Add the potato, pressing down gently but firmly with a heat-proof spatula to smooth out your cake. Increase heat to medium-high and cook for 3 minutes or until the underside looks brown when you use the spatula to gently pull up a side so that you can peek underneath.

Take the skillet over to the counter and put a large plate on top of it. Invert the skillet quickly — but securely! — so that the cake drops onto the plate. Slide the cake back into the skillet, return to heat, and cook for another 3 minutes.

Slide the cake onto the wire rack/sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove and let cool for at least 5 minutes before shifting/cutting the cake. (The cake will harden into place as it cools.) If you used a rack, place a clean large plate over the cake and flip it over. If the cake sticks to the rack, use your fingers to gently press the cake down and away from the rack, poking your fingers into the space between the bars and gradually working the cake free from the rack. (Starch sticks; that’s why the cake sticks together to begin with.)

Serve immediately, either plain or topped. Yummy pairings include smoked salmon and whole-milk Greek yogurt with a dill garnish (a Russian approach) as well as black beans, corn, and Cheddar cheese (a Mexican approach). Leftover “slices” can be kept for up to 4 days in the fridge. Just sauté them in butter for a few minutes over medium heat, and you’ll have the most amazing hash browns you’ve ever tasted. Even die-hard fast food lovers would have to admit that your potatoes beat the heck outta those McDonald’s fries that people say they like so much.

Incidentally, ever looked at the ingredient list on those fries? Here it is, direct from the McD’s website: “Potatoes, vegetable oil (canola oil, hydrogenated soybean oil, natural beef flavor [wheat and milk derivatives]*, citric acid [preservative]), dextrose, sodium acid pyrophosphate (maintain color), salt. Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent.” Note the hydrogenated oil (a.k.a. trans fat) and wheat and milk derivatives.

All your potatoes have is potatoes (with skins!), butter, salt, and pepper.

Enjoy!

Mexican Red Bean Dip

Sometimes recipes develop out of necessity. This dip, for example, happened because I was out of chickpeas. (Not sure if there’s been a massive chickpea crop failure or Metro Detroit is in a chickpea feeding frenzy right now, but lately I’ve had a heckuva time finding my favorite brand of canned chickpeas!) I was out of every variety of beans, actually, except for one lone can of small red beans and two of black beans. I opted for red since I figured they’d be milder and creamier than the black beans and would create a smoothly spiceable dip — my original intent had been to make hummus.

Seeing as hummus consists of chickpeas, garlic, lemon, tahini (sesame paste), and sometimes cumin, I opted to include garlic and cumin in my red bean dip. I skipped the tahini, though — I went with a Mexican rather than Middle Eastern spice palette — and used the liquid in the can to make the dip smooth and creamy. Eden sells their beans in BPA-free cans and sticks to a simple formula of beans + sea salt + pinch of seaweed, so there’s no need to drain the beans and ditch the juice. Another way to add a creamy dimension to the dip would be to blend in half a peeled avocado, but my avocado inventory was the same as my chickpea inventory: zero. Nor did I have any whole-milk yogurt on hand. (Yes, I went shopping the  next day and restocked my pantry and fridge.)

Mexican Red Bean Dip

1 small onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
15 oz. small red beans, preferably Eden brand, liquid reserved
1 T. or more chili powder (my favorite is Spice Hunter’s blend)
1/2 tsp. or more cumin
1 tsp. sea salt
Whole-grain crackers or bread for dipping (pictured: Mary’s Gone Crackers, which are whole-grain and gluten-free and quite delicious)

Drizzle a splash of extra-virgin olive oil in a medium skillet and sautée onions over medium heat for 5 minutes or until onions are translucent and just beginning to brown. Stir in garlic and reduce heat to medium-low. Continue to cook for another 3 minutes or until garlic is soft and fragrant.

Add beans and cooked onions and garlic to a food processor. Blend for about 30 seconds. Add spices and salt and briefly blend again. Scrape down the sides of the processor bowl and trickle in a tablespoon or two of the reserved bean liquid. Blend dip until smooth, trickling in a little more liquid if you’d like the dip to be creamier. (Or you could add half a peeled avocado or a dollop or two of whole-milk Greek yogurt if you have either of those on hand.) Taste and add more spice/salt as necessary, blending again every time you add seasonings.

Dip can be eaten right away or refrigerated for a week.

Enjoy!