Cherimoya

North America may have the world’s crunchiest apples and crispiest pears — not to mention the sole market for tapping maples and selling their syrup — but there are some amazing fruits south of the border that we just don’t have up here. At least, we don’t commonly have access to them. More and more exotic fruits are hitting our shelves nowadays, though, so once in a while it’s possible to find a completely unrecognizable fruit. (Rambutans are still my favorite from an aesthetic standpoint. How can you not be intrigued by a hairy-looking fruit ball? If Cousin It were a fruit, he’d be a rambutan.)

One of my favorite categories of exotic fruits is the custard family: custard apples, cherimoyas, sweetsops, soursops, and white sapotes. They have outsides that look faintly scaled/textured but are smooth to the touch and insides that are velvet-smooth to the tongue. Cut open a custard apple, and you’ll find silky, creamy innards. In other words, 100% fruit custard. Just remove the large seeds and happily slurp away at the creamy sweetness.

Since these fruits are supposed to be soft when ripe, don’t choose a hard fruit, or if you do, be prepared to let it sit on your counter for a few days to soften. On the flip side, you don’t want fruit so soft that you can poke through the skin with a slight tap. Look for fruit that’s unbruised, undented, and doesn’t show any signs of mold on the stem (or anywhere else, for that matter). A perfectly ripe custard apple should feel heavy and be rather fragrant.

As with other super-sweet tropical fruits (papaya, mango, pineapple), custard apples befit from a squirt or two of lemon juice — the fresh tartness of the lemon is a pleasant contrast to the rich sweetness of the custard apple. I like to simply eat it by itself as a snack or breakfast, but you could certainly include its flesh in smoothies, sorbets, and ice creams. Really, though, it has such a unique flavor and texture that I would rather savor it just as it is. And you can easily prolong the enjoyment, because you can cut a custard apple in half, wrap it well, and refrigerate the cut half for a day or two without it browning or loss of texture. (One custard apple is plenty big enough for two servings.)

So the next time you’re in the market and you think, “What a weird-looking fruit!”, stop and see if it’s a custard apple. Or a rambutan. Oh, what the heck…give the weird fruit a whirl no matter what it is. Think of it as a stamp in your Fruits of the World passport.

Enjoy!

Breakfast Bites

Sometimes a little advance effort has a big pay-off. That’s most certainly the case with breakfast — the last thing most of us want to do first thing in the morning is spend a lot of time preparing/scrounging for something to eat. Specifically, something that will taste good, be healthy, and be satisfying enough to last until lunch. All three of those conditions are impossible to fulfill — although those with a sweet tooth would probably argue that the “tastes good” criteria would be met — with what you’ll find in the cereal aisle or the reduced-fat dairy section in most supermarkets. (Also known as the Aisle of Sugar and the Section of Sugar departments.)

If you’re willing to spend a little time making these breakfast bites while you listen to your favorite podcast, though, you won’t face a first-thing-in-the-morning crisis. With three kinds of whole grains, two seeds, eggs, extra-virgin olive oil, and natural sweeteners in the form of raisins and dates, these little guys taste great, are healthy, and won’t leave you hungry by 10 a.m. Plus, they’re bite-size and highly portable. How convenient is that?

Breakfast Bites
Makes approximately 60 bites.

1/4 cup sunflower seeds, coarsely ground in a food processor
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds, coarsely ground in a food processor
1/4 cup teff flour*
3/4 cup sorghum flour*
3/4 cup brown rice flour*
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 cup date sugar
1/2 cup raisins
3 eggs, separated
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Powdered sucanat for rolling (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F and cover 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk together seeds, flours, cinnamon, baking powder, and date sugar. Stir in raisins, separating them by hand if they’re clumping together.

Crack the egg whites into a large bowl and put the yolks in another large bowl. Whip the whites with the cream of tartar — since the cream of tartar is acidic, it helps set the whites faster — until you have almost-stiff peaks (the kind that very slowly and gently starts to fall over after you’ve lifted up the beater).

Using the same beater, whip the yolks with the vanilla and oil until the mixture is frothy and thick. Stir the dry ingredients into the yolks. The dough will be dry, but that’s okay — you still have to fold in the whites. After you’ve folded them in with a spatula, start rolling the dough into 1″ balls and placing them on the baking sheets. I find that the easiest way to do that is pinch the dough together, use your fingertips to form it into a rough ball, and then give it a little finishing “polish” roll in the palm of your hand.

Bake for 12 minutes until bottoms are golden brown. If you like, roll the hot-out-of-the-oven balls in powdered sucanat to give them a little more sweetness. I do like to roll them, so I bake the bites in 2 batches — that way, I can get the first batch sucanat-ed while they’re still hot. Let bites cool completely before storing them in an airtight container.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d rather make a wheat-based version, use an equivalent of kamut, spelt, and/or whole-wheat flour.

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!

More and more city dwellers are getting interested in finding out where their food comes from, especially their animal products. In this class, we’ll talk about real farm products — raw dairy, laid-that-morning eggs, grass-fed meats –  and how to handle and enjoy them. We’ll also cover exactly what is expected in a customer/farmer relationship and talk about how both of you benefit. (You may be a consumer in a faceless supermarket, but when you are lucky enough to have a personal relationship with an honest-to-goodness farmer, you’re a customer! And you’re also supporting your community.) Been wanting to get out of the grocery store and into a cowshare/farmshare? Come find out how!

Note: this class is a REQUIREMENT for all customers (cowshare holders) of Hicks Dairy Farm. Class size is limited, so cowshare holders get priority. The public is welcome to attend if any seats are still available.

Please call the Authentic Living Center at (248) 822-9253 to register for this class. The fee is $15.

Scrambled Eggs with Wild Shrimp

One of the many wonderful things about the world of food — perhaps the most wonderful — is that the stuff that tastes the best is also the stuff that’s the best quality and the most sustainable. I’m talking grass-fed beef, eggs from pastured hens, well- managed wild seafood, etc. People who think about the needs of the animals they raise and the land they farm make the effort (and either have or develop the know-how) to produce damned tasty ingredients to put on your plate.

Take wild shrimp, for example. Wild-caught shrimp from Oregon and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico are rated “Best Choice” and “Good Alternative” respectively by the Monterey Bay Aquarium folks. Imported shrimp farmed in open systems are ranked “Avoid” since open farming contaminates ocean environments (and also doesn’t taste nearly as good). In short, what’s best for you is also best for your neighbors. And if you have one of the Aquarium’s handy Pocket Guides with you when you shop for seafood, it’s pretty easy to spot the yummy stuff. Just be sure to read the country of origin and method of production (wild/farmed; sometimes wild is best, sometimes farmed is best) to make sure you’re getting the tastiest seafood.

To make this quick breakfast, I just scrambled some eggs and with some shrimp I had already cooked and enjoyed for dinner the night before. If you don’t have already-cooked shrimp, it’s easy enough to whip some up in three minutes flat.

Scrambled Eggs with Wild Shrimp

Wild shrimp, peeled and deveined
Italian herbs (optional, but nice)
Eggs, preferably from pastured hens

Heat a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil or a dab of butter in a skillet and add shrimp and herbs. Sautée for 3 minutes over medium heat, turning the shrimp halfway through the cooking time to make sure they cook evenly on both sides. They’ll curl and turn pink when cooked. Remove from skillet and cut into smaller pieces.

Add eggs and another drizzle of oil to the skillet and cook over medium heat for 3 minutes or until eggs have cooked to your satisfaction, stirring often to evenly cook the eggs. (I like mine quite soft.) Stir in shrimp and serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Whole grains are tastier, healthier, and offer a bigger nutritional bang for your buck…and they’re just as easy to prepare as their refined counterparts. Help your taste buds and your health (goodbye, diabetes!) by joining us and learning how to tweak favorite meals such as Baked Macaroni & Cheese, Stuffed Peppers, and Breaded Chicken Fingers with Mustard Dipping Sauce. We’ll also explore unconventional grains with dishes like Black Bean, Corn & Quinoa Salad and Sweet Millet Cakes with Cinnamon & Honey.

Please call the Birmingham Community House at (248) 644-5832 to register for this class.  Class fee is $32.

Mashed Potato Cake with a Poached Egg

We’ve all been there: you made too much of a side dish and wound up with more than you could chew. Literally. So you stick it in the fridge and figure that you’ll get around to eating it eventually…but then you don’t, and you wind up pitching your grocery dollars instead of eating them. It happens to the best of us.

That nearly happened to me when I had a pot of mashed redskins in my fridge. Luckily, though, when I was pondering what to have for breakfast one night (yes, I think it about it the night before in order to facilitate the whole getting-ready-in-the-morning process), I remembered those potatoes and decided they’d make a great base for a poached egg. Moreover, I decided they’d make great mashed potato cakes upon which to perch the egg. And the best part? The cakes only take 10 minutes total, so if you time the poaching right, you’ll have piping-hot potatoes and eggs to enjoy first thing in the morning.

Mashed Potato Cake with a Poached Egg

Mashed potatoes*
Egg(s)

Shape the potatoes into hamburger-sized patties no more than 1″ thick. Heat a dab of butter over medium heat until butter is melted, then gently lay on the potato patties. Cook for 5 minutes before very carefully and very gently flipping over the patties. Add another dab of butter if the pan is dry. Cook for another 5 minutes, reducing the heat by a notch or two since now the pan will be very hot and the cooking will be in full swing. Patties should be golden brown on both sides.

While the potato cakes are cooking, bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Crack in an egg (or two) and reduce heat to medium. Stir the egg gently to make sure it isn’t sticking to the bottom of the pan. Simmer it for 3 minutes. Eggs tend to foam over as they poach, so you want to stand right by that pot and keep an eye on it for those 3 minutes. The goal is a gently simmer the egg, not boil it — you may need to reduce the heat to medium-low or even low. Skim any rising foam off the top and discard it so that it doesn’t splash onto the stove and make a hard-to-clean mess.

Remove poached egg from water with a slotted spoon and place on top of the potato cake. Garnish with herbs and/or cracked black pepper if desired.

Enjoy!

* To mash potatoes, cut potatoes — in this case, redskins — into 1″ cubes and simmer them for 10 minutes. Drain well and mash with whatever extras you’d like: a pat of butter, a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil, a soft cheese such as ricotta or goat, some snipped chives, a dash of dried herbs, etc. I mashed mine with some sauteéd garlic and chopped parsley.

More and more city dwellers are getting interested in finding out where their food comes from, especially their animal products. In this class, we’ll talk about real farm products — raw dairy, laid-that-morning eggs, grass-fed meats –  and how to handle and enjoy them. We’ll also cover exactly what is expected in a customer/farmer relationship and talk about how both of you benefit. (You may be a consumer in a faceless supermarket, but when you are lucky enough to have a personal relationship with an honest-to-goodness farmer, you’re a customer! And you’re also supporting your community.) Been wanting to get out of the grocery store and into a cowshare/farmshare? Come find out how!

Note: this class is a REQUIREMENT for all customers (cowshare holders) of Hicks Dairy Farm. Class size is limited, so cowshare holders get priority. The public is welcome to attend if any seats are still available.

Please call the Authentic Living Center at (248) 822-9253 to register for this class. The fee is $15.

Coconut & Maple Macaroons

Macaroons are the hottest thing in high-end pastry and chocolate shops right now … but when you think “macaroon,” you’re probably thinking of something different. Although classic French macaroons consist of chocolate cream sandwiched between two disks of almond meringue, when the concept was translated to the American dessert lexicon, the recipe changed. Drastically.

Each kind of macaroon has its own charm, and both are irrefutably delightful. The French ganache-and-meringue version is crunchy and creamy at the same time; the American version is based on coconut and is charmingly chewy. Odds are that each will strike your fancy at a different time. When you want to make a quick and easy dessert, for example, you’ll probably have a hankering for the American macaroon. It requires zero heating of any kind and can be made in about two minutes. The French version is considerably more involved. While “project”-style desserts are ideal if you have some time on your hands and curiosity in your nature, sometimes a make-it-in-fewer-than-five-minutes dessert is exactly what you’re looking for.

Coconut & Maple Macaroons
Makes 12 macaroons. Recipe can easily be doubled or tripled.

1/2 cup + 1 T. unsweetened coconut flakes
3 T. unsweetened cocoa powder, plus extra for dusting
2 T. maple syrup
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Sprinkle some cocoa powder on a large plate and have another empty clean plate nearby. Combine all ingredients in a small bowl, mixing well. Use your fingertips to roughly pinch the mixture into 12 equal balls, then roll each ball into a smooth ball on the dry, clean palms of your hands. (Your fingertips will be sticky from having mixed everything together.) Place the macaroons on the clean plate as you go. Wash and dry your hands thoroughly — the idea is to ensure that the macaroons stick to themselves rather than your hands — and then roll each macaroon in the cocoa powder to finish. Alternatively, roll in almond flour or finely ground pistachios or any other finely ground nut.

Macaroons can be refrigerated for up to a week. They’ll dry out slightly and actually improve in texture upon standing. (Although I like them freshly made, too.)

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.

Egg & Spinach Breakfast Tacos

Breakfast tacos are a beautiful thing when you make them yourself: you can use whatever filling you’d like, you can use whatever toppings you like, and you can make your tacos as hearty or as light as you’d like. And the best part? These tacos only take about five minutes to make, ten if you make your salsa right there on the spot. (I had made salsa the previous day to accompany a different dish, so I was able to skip those five extra minutes.)

Seeing as these were breakfast tacos, I opted for an egg and spinach filling, but you could just as easily use leftover cooked meat or seafood if you’d like … or you could do an all-veggie taco. Tasty toppings would include everything from cheese to plain whole-milk Greek yogurt (which is even smoother and creamier-tasting than sour cream) to chopped avocados. The only requirement is to have fun creating your Mexican-themed morning meal!

Egg & Spinach Breakfast Tacos
This is sized for a single portion, but feel free to double, triple, or even quadruple it.

For the salsa (which you can make well ahead of time and serve with a variety of other dishes):
Black beans, drained (my favorite brand of canned beans is Eden since they use BPA-free cans and sea salt)
Chopped red bell pepper
Cooked corn kernels (I used thawed organic frozen corn)
Chopped fresh cilantro
Squirt of lemon or lime juice
Dash of sea salt

For the tacos:
3 small or 1 large 100% corn tortilla
Handful of spinach
2 eggs, lightly scrambled in a bowl

See second paragraph for optional toppings suggestions.

To make the salsa, simply combine ingredients in a bowl and toss well. Salsa will keep in the fridge for up to 4 days.

To make the tacos, place the tortillas in a large skillet over medium heat to warm them. The tortillas will probably curl with the heat, so you may have to turn them occasionally and press down on them slightly to try and flatten them out a bit.

While your tortillas are warming, heat a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil or a pat of butter in small skillet over medium heat for 1 minute. Add the spinach. Cook, stirring often, for 2 minutes or until spinach has shrunk considerably. Add eggs and continue to cook, stirring often, for another 3 minutes or until eggs are softly cooked through.

Spoon eggs into heated tortillas and top with salsa and any other toppings you may wish to add.

¡Disfruta!