Sushi Roll Edamame Salad
You guys! I'm going through some SERIOUS Oprah withdrawals. It's really bad. Last week I had a crazy dream where I was trying to find a pair of sunglasses and all of a sudden I was in Walmart and Oprah (who was wearing FLIP FLOPS!) handed me a pair. I woke up before I could hear her sweet voice. Sigh. THEN yesterday while I was driving to work, I pulled up at a stop light and a shiny black suburban passed by. OMG it was Oprah driving the car. Well...not really. It was a woman that looked just like her.
While figuring out what to type in this paragraph, I did a google search for "Oprah Vegan" because I remembered the show where she went vegan for a week with all of her staffers and LOOK! that post was a year ago! WHAT WHAT?! I think this means we're destined to meet. Or if not, maybe someone who knows her really well could get her drunk on Moscow Mules and have her call my voicemail? All I want her to say is TRACY SHUTTERBEAN in her voice. It would seriously make my decade.
I wonder if Oprah would like this salad? I'm pretty sure she would. Besides the base of romaine lettuce, there's a bit of brown rice, avocado chunks, cucumber, nori shreds, edamame, carrots & sesame seeds. It's hearty yet light! I bet she'd ask for more green onion miso dressing. Of course she'd ask for more dressing! That dressing IS SO DANG GOOD.
Without further adieu...
SUSHI ROLL EDAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME SAAAAAAAALAD FOR EVERYONE!
Did I tell you that Cooper can do the Oprah voice now? It's glorious.
White Bean Soup w/ Crispy Prosciutto
Think of soup like your favorite old sweater. It's warm & comforting and with different accessories and separates, you can create several different outfits out of your old standby. For the past two years I've been obsessed with white beans. I've made different variations of this soup with similar flavor profiles. There's the Tuscan Ribollita that uses white beans, bread, kale & pancetta. There's my favorite soup ever, Sausage White Bean Soup and most recently my mom's Pasta Fagioli Soup that also uses sage, pancetta and white beans. Never have I made a soup that purees white beans so they make the base of a soup. This is also the first time I've baked prosciutto in the oven and created shards out of them! I liken these little adjustments to putting your sweater over a hot new dress and sealing the deal with a fabulously fancy red scarf.
When you puree white beans in soup, magic happens. It's as if you added a cup of silky heavy cream...And those crispy Proscuitto shards? Scrumptious! I think most of them bypassed the soup and went directly into our mouths.
Hello White Bean Soup, you're like an awesome new outfit in my repertoire.
Kale Slaw with Red Cabbage & Carrots
I've spent the past 48 hours feeling like I've been rocking back and forth (spending 7 days on a cruise ship can do that to you!). Everything right now is a bit off kilter because in the past week, time zones were crossed, climates changed, calendar days were disregarded, and I did something I never thought was possible- I spent a whole week without using my cellphone (OMG!). Instead of tackling the laundry, emptying suitcases and sorting through the mail when we got home Monday, I immediately went grocery shopping to get provisions for the week. I figured the only way to feel like normal again at home was to get back to work in my kitchen and binge on kale.
When I was eating lifeless romaine salad with extremely unripe yet mushy tomatoes on the boat (not all the food was dreadful!), I daydreamed of crispy kale salads with toasted coconut. Spending a week without kale was absolute torture and when I was standing in my kitchen swaying from side to side chopping kale, I vowed never to let that many days go by without my leafy green security blanket.
The crispy crunchy kale & cabbage shreds tasted amazing with the roasted cashew pieces and hemp seeds. The apple added a nice sweetness too! What you have here is a gigantic plate of HEALTH! I think the slaw could have potentially erased all of those chocolate dipped mickey mouse ice cream bars I ate. Who am I kidding? What I actually need is some serious Mousercise. For reals.
Apricots w/ Basil Goat Cheese & Almonds
A long time ago I told my mom that I'd like to be a caterer and she immediately talked me out of it. I thought that my love for making food in assembly lines, piping things with pastry bags and my passion for all things filo dough & puff pastry would be enough. Then she reminded me of how I'd have to stand on my feet for 8+hours and then someone else told me how much packing up and moving was involved in the life of a caterer. Dang. Maybe I just want to be a catering company's quality assurance tester? Yeah! I'd be really good at it.
This recipe has been on my radar forever. I had a Christmas party to attend and whipped up these beauties in absolutely NO time. They're fun, colorful, bite sized and uber fancy. Don't you just love the sight of little appetizers lined up on a tray? I sure do...
Crispy Fried Brussels Sprouts
I'd like to think that if there was a Youtube video of me frying these Brussels sprouts, it would have great potential of going viral.
Imagine a short clip of me trying to take pictures of this recipe in my kitchen. You'd see me set the camera down and then slowly place Brussels sprouts in the hot bubbling oil. You'd immediately laugh at the look on my face when I realize sprouts are prone to making the oil splatter ALL OVER MY KITCHEN. I shout out a few expletives and then I do some stealthy maneuver into my kitchen island to get the oil splatter shield. Then I run like a maniac into the pantry to grab my apron while slipping on the oily kitchen floor. In the last few seconds of the video, I step back, watch the frying process and laugh at myself for this absolutely ridiculous moment. It's really a shame that this video doesn't exist. It really could have been the next Chocolate Rain.
Say hello to one of the best things that came out of my kitchen in 2011. I know that's kind of a bold claim, but I can't remember the last time I've been so smitten with something I've made. I've ordered fried Brussels sprouts in restaurants several times, but never thought to make them on my own. No longer will I be shelling out $8-10 for a teeny side dish of Brussels sprouts. Nope! The sweet/spicy citrus dressing on this sprouts is TO DIE for! The outside of the sprouts are crunchy while the insides are super tender. If Casey wasn't home when I made them, I could have easily polished off this entire batch. Truth!
Pasta Fagioli Soup
I'd like to introduce you to my mom's famous (to our family) Pasta Fagioli soup. During the winter, my mom makes this soup like it's going out of style. Over the years, she's learned a few things while making this soup: always make a double batch & it's nice to add more pancetta. The double batch thing is important because she can pull some out of the freezer on a whim for my dad or she can be prepared for when my brother comes home from New York and raids her fridge (he inhales this soup, even when it's cold!).
For years I was reluctant to try this soup; I don't know why. I guess have weird issues with hot tomatoes and the thought having beans with pasta kinda weirded me. I dunno!
One day last year I was hanging out at my parents house and my mom convinced me to some. Let me tell you I how dumb I felt for wasting many years of my eating career without this soup. It was AH-MAZING. I am a changed woman.
This is one of those recipes that instantly becomes a staple in your life. You'll go on auto pilot when you're grocery shopping and always buy the ingredients so you're never too far from a batch of this soup. Heck! You might even have some stocked in your freezer for a moment's notice like my mom.
It's hearty, comforting and pleases all the men in my life; I like that in a soup.
Kale Salad w/ Coconut & Sesame Oil
While everyone was reheating their leftover Thanksgiving dinner Friday night, I rushed out to the grocery store (which was nice & empty BTW) to fill up my cart up with vegetables to juice and kale to inhale. It seems that last week I ate like my life depended on it; it's the holidays!
Saturday morning I woke up and juiced, went for a walk, cleaned house, worked in the kitchen, decorated our house for Christmas, drank water like a fish, juiced again and made this amazing kale salad for dinner.
One of the reasons I picked this recipe from the Super Natural Every Day Cookbook was that it looked extremely healthy, yet filling. I also thought it would help get my taste buds in check since they were accepting nothing but pumpkin pie and my mom's stuffing for 24 hours straight. I found myself scarfing down the salad, but it wasn't because I was super hungry. The toasted coconut and the crispy kale coated in olive oil, sesame oil and shoyu created a buttery/salty/ crunchy effect that I like to call instant crack! It's a delightful thing when "health food" becomes addictive, isn't it?
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Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Butternut Squash & Cranberries
Are you a person who cringes when your foods touch? Don't answer that. I don't want to ruin my impression of you because I happen to really like when my foods touch. I like seeing what certain things taste like together because you never know when you'll find a random winning combination. When I was 8 years old I had an epiphany when part of my dinner salad casually slid into my french fry ketchup mound. That day I discovered that ketchup on salad tasted just like 1000 island dressing without the mayo. I spent a good year putting ketchup on my salad while enduring the looks of disgust from my family. Have I lost you?
The other day I decided to eat comfort food in the form of Thanksgiving dinner (for lunch) from Whole Foods. I got home, opened the cardboard to-go box and saw that all of the contents had shifted. Delightful! The Brussels sprouts and roasted butternut squash were saturated with gravy and cranberry sauce and I thought, "We're really onto something here." I decided to give you a recipe that I like to call a happy accident, even though I did it on purpose. I just want your taste buds to thank me for something new and different. In this dish, sweet roasted cubes of butternut squash mix with savory browned Brussels sprouts, bits of apples, onions, smoked curry powder and the surprising tang of cranberries. It's like stuffing but without the bread, a roasted medley that's perfect for all the vegans, vegetarians & gluten-free diners at your Thanksgiving table. You could eat it on a random fall afternoon because you're ridiculously excited about Thanksgiving dinner. It's really up to you.
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