Green Juice

Hope everyone's 2018 is off to a good start! With the long weekend, I had a little time to catch up on some things I'd had on my list to do forever, including getting back into juicing. I used to use my juicer regularly, and then totally fell away from it the last few years. 

I had a lot of greens in the fridge this weekend, though, and thought it would be a good opportunity to try out making a green juice. Green juice just instantly makes me feel healthy. A mason jar of this in my bag tomorrow seems like a good way to transition back to work after a three-day weekend with a little extra energy, right? 

Green Juice 

Adapted from a couple of recipes in The Juicing Bible, second edition

Four servings

3 apples, cored
6 stalks celery
8 sprigs parsley*
3-4 handfuls of spinach
1 bunch of kale (about 6-8 stalks)

Turn on juicer before adding any ingredients. Once juicer is running, add in all ingredients.

Juice can be stored in a container (mason jars work well) for several days in the refrigerator. Add in still or sparking water for a less intense flavor.

* Please note that parsley should be avoided during pregnancy or in causes of kidney inflammation

Roasted Delicata Squash Kale Salad with Maple Tahini Dressing

It's been a difficult couple of weeks news-wise, and for me, often a carefully-planned and satisfying meal is the best comfort. This week, I made a salad with roasted delicata squash, and it really hit the balance between rich comfort food and being healthy. 

Have you tried delicata squash? I first tried it a few years ago, and now it's the epitome of autumn to me. It's super easy to cook -- you cook it with the skin on, and it's delicious roasted -- and has a great squash flavor.

What's also great about this recipe is that the different components are super versatile and could easily be used in other dishes -- the maple tahini dressing has a really interesting, nutty flavor, and the roasted squash is great on it's own. 

Also, a podcast to try out while you cook. I thought the "Anna in Somalia" episode was really moving, and made me re-realize I still need to read Anna Karenina. 

Roasted Delicata Squash Kale Salad with Maple Tahini Dressing

Makes 3-4 large servings

1 medium delicata squash
1 T olive oil
1-2 T honey
salt and pepper
dash of chili powder
dash of garlic powder
dash of paprika
1/3 C goat cheese, crumbled
About 3 cups baby kale or chopped regular kale (no ribs or stems)
1/4 C dried cranberries
1/2 C chopped walnuts

Dressing

1 small clove garlic, peeled and grated
½ cup olive oil 
¼ cup tahini (sesame paste)
3 tablespoons white vinegar
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
1 tablespoon molasses
dash of paprika  
3/4 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper or white pepper

1. Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees F. Slice squash in half and clean out seeds with spoon. Slice each half into C-shaped pieces by slicing horizontally. Place on baking sheet or 9 x 13 pan. Drizzle 1 T olive oil over squash, along with 1-2 T of honey, and then season to taste with salt and pepper, chili powder, garlic powder, and paprika. Squash pieces should be lightly coated with oil, honey, and spices.

2. Bake squash for about 15 minutes on each side (about 30 minutes total); leave in oven until golden brown. 

3. Prepare dressing by mixing all dressing ingredients; a mason jar with a lid works well for shaking to mix ingredients. 

4. Assemble salads: on a bed of the kale, add roasted squash, goat cheese, dried cranberries, chopped walnuts, and drizzle dressing over it all. 

Enjoy! Happy fall! 

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Stovetop-Baked Eggs over Vegetable Stew

 

I have been running a lot recently, since I'm training for a half marathon in mid March. Even though I've been jogging since high school as a workout, this is really the first time that I've worked on increasing my mileage and the first period I've ever regularly run more than four or five miles at one time. So I've been hungry. I'm running with a training organization, Team in Training, and we have our long training runs early on Saturday mornings, so I've gotten into a pretty regular routine of coming home and making a huge brunch on Saturdays.

 

I thought it could be an interesting tangent to add running recipes to the blog- the longer I do this the harder of a time I have of coming up with new ideas, so I thought this could be a good new topic! So watch for similar posts in the future.

I was curious, first, to do a little research on what a good post-running meal should include. None of it is super surprising, but I found some good reminders.

 

Cooking After a Long Run

 

Post-running recipes should have a couple of main components:

Carbohydrates

Protien

Antioxidants

Says Discovery Health, "A run that lasts an hour or more taxes your body in such a way that you need to give it carbohydrates and protein in a particular proportion -- ideally, a 4-to-1 ratio of carbs to protein -- that will maximize immune function while restoring energy and rebuilding your muscles better than before."

So, protein and carbs are obviously both very important. I thought it could be a good challenge to come up with a vegetarian protein-rich recipe, since a vegetarian protein is typically more environmentally-friendly than a meat protein.

The resulting recipe was a modification of something I'd read about on another cooking blog and had been wanting to try. It's heavy in eggs and vegetables, which is good:

Eggs: From Runner's World: One egg fulfills about 10 percent of your daily protein needs. Egg protein is the most complete food protein short of human breast milk, which means the protein in eggs contains all the crucial amino acids your hard-working muscles need to promote recovery. Eat just one of these nutritional powerhouses and you'll also get about 30 percent of the Daily Value (DV) for vitamin K, which is vital for healthy bones.

Vegetables: Research shows that eating a combination of antioxidants [found in vegetables including bell peppers and onions], such as beta-carotene and vitamin C, may lessen muscle soreness after hard interval workouts by reducing the inflammation caused by free-radical damage (from Runner's World).

 

The recipe is pretty simple once you have everything chopped up, and an added bonus is that it makes a LOT. Which is nice when you're using it as a post-running meal, since you can eat a lot and still have leftovers. I ate it with a sliced wheat baguette, since I felt like it needed something to sop up some of the liquid and balance out the flavor. I was really happy with it in the end- basically a nice way to eat a lot of different types of vegetables at once, and good flavor from the stewing. I think you could really do some creative, things, though, and use any vegetables or cheeses you have around.

 

 

Stovetop-Baked Eggs over Vegetable Stew
adapted from katechristensen.wordpress.com

1 onion
1 red bell pepper
1 8-ounce package of baby Portobello mushrooms
4-5 cloves of garlic, chopped and mashed
2 medium zucchini, chopped
1 T hot red peper flakes
4 eggs
1.5 C shredded parmesean cheese
about 6 C chopped baby arugula
"jot" of half and half (a few tablespoons)
sprinkle of paprika
salt and pepper
1-2 T olive oil

1. Chop the onion, mushrooms, and red peper. Saute these with the chopped garlic in a large oven-proof skillet with the olive oil until vegetables have softened but are not fully cooked.
2. Add the chopped baby arugula and let it cook until it wilts down to almost nothing. Season with the paprika, red hot pepper flakes, and salt and pepper to taste.
3. Stir and let simmer uncovered for five to seven minutes, until the vegetables are tender, and then sprinke parmesan cheese over it in a layer.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
5. Crack four eggs one by one onto the surface of the vegetables and pour a jot of half-and-half over each egg yolk.
6. Remove the skillet from heat and put in the oven. Cover and let bake until the egg whites are just barely set and the yolk is still runny.

Serves approximately six.

**I ate this with some baguette, which worked really well. This soaked up some of the liquid from the dish and balanced out the flavor and richness of the eggs and cheese.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Orange and Feta - end of winter Sunday night dinner, part 2

Although I write this with the windows open and after spending most of the weekend outside in the summer-like weather, I'm returning to my "end of winter" Sunday dinner theme, so that I can finally get to part II of the last post. This dish would actually work for almost any season, since it's so fresh tasting, so don't let the "winter" in the title scare you off.

To accompany the apple chicken curry, I roasted Brussels sprouts with balsamic vinegar, orange juice and zest, and melted in feta cheese at the end. Delicious. This is an incredibly simple dish, and I really like the roasting method, because it creates crispy leaves on the Brussels sprouts.

I think I used the adjective "earthy" at least once in the last post, but really, it's the best word for the combination of this dish with the apple chicken curry (and yogurt sauce if you make it). The citrus flavors in this dish work really well with the savoriness of the curry, and the whole thing is faintly fruity.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Orange and Feta

2 lbs Brussels sprouts
4 T olive oil
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1 T fresh orange zest
1 T plus 1 t balsamic vinegar
2 T orange juice
1/2 c crumbled feta cheese (could be omitted for vegan version)

1. Rinse Brussels sprouts and cut in half length-wise. Pre-heat over to 400 degrees F.
2. Mix Brussels sprouts with all other ingredients, except feta cheese, in medium bowl. Pour all into 9x13 baking pan.
3. Roast Brussels sprouts for 30-35 minutes, or until leaves of Brussels sprouts start to get brown and crispy.
4. Remove from oven and add feta cheese while still warm. Mix all together.

Orange, Walnut & Feta Beet Salad

I've been moving over the past week, which has meant that my kitchen has been in upheaval, and I haven't been able to really cook. And after several nights of take-out or eating whatever is easy to find in the boxes, and feeling generally a little under-the-weather, I feel a little off. Which is how I knew: it was time for beets.



Because beets are what you need when you have that hard-to-put-your-finger-on-it feeling that you're not getting quite what you need food-wise. When fruits and vegetables start to seem even more delicious because you haven't had enough of them lately, or when you feel like you're losing touch with the more natural and earthy foods.

The fact that this salad mixes oranges in with the beets makes the salad taste even fresher, and the roasted walnuts add a great nutty flavor.

I'm also including the method I've been using to cook beets of late, which I think works really well. It involves cooking them with the skin on, and then removing it after you've roasted them, when it's much easier to remove.




Orange, Walnut & Feta Beet Salad

3 medium/large beets
2 T shallots, chopped
3 T olive oil
1.5 T apple cider vinegar
1 T fresh orange zest
1 orange, peeled and sections sliced
1/2 chopped walnuts
1/2 crumbled feta cheese
salt and pepper

1. Roast beets according to the following method:

Cut stems off of beets, and slice each in half. Lay sliced side down in baking pan. Add about 1/4-inch of water to bottom of pan, and cover with tightly with tin foil. Cook at 400F for about 50 minutes, or until beets are tender. (Watch out for steam escaping from the foil when checking on beets.) Let beets cool, and then run under running water while peeling/pushing skin off. It should slide off fairly easily.

2. When beets are almost done, put walnuts in a small baking dish with a bit of olive oil. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 400F, until toasted.

3. Make salad dressing: in small bowl, mix together chopped shallots, orange zest, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste.

4. Once walnuts are done, let cool for a few minutes. Let beets cool, and then slice into medium-sized chunks. Mix beets, dressing, walnuts, and chopped orange in bowl. Before serving, add feta cheese.

Brined and Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

In honor of Halloween this weekend, an easy, salty and kind of sassy (thanks to Worcestershire sauce) recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds:



I tried something new with this recipe in that I first brined the seeds (boiled them in salty water) before roasting them in the oven, which I'd seen in a couple of recipes.





And after trying them, I think I'm into the brining. It seems it makes them a bit crispier because it kind of puffs them up before you bake them.

It's unfortunate that more seeds don't come in one pumpkin, because it's pretty easy to eat the whole batch yourself.

Brined and Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

seeds from 1 medium-sized pumpkin
1 T olive oil
1.5 T Worcestershire sauce
2 T salt
(amounts may chance depending on quantity of seeds in your pumpkin)

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Cut pumpkin open and scoop out the insides. Separate the seeds from the stringy parts, and rinse the seeds.

2. Measure the quantity of seeds that you have, and add 2 cups of water for every half-cup of seeds, and half a teaspoon of salt for every cup of water, to a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 10 minutes. Drain seeds.

3. Spread the seeds in a roasting pan. Add 1 T of olive oil and 1 T of Worcestershire sauce for every 1 cup of seeds. Mix all together, and spread seeds in pan so that seeds are in one layer.

4. Bake seeds for 20 minutes, until the seeds begin to brown. Watch carefully as they burn easily. Let cool.