Cocktails at home -- fun!

This new cocktail guide, published by Food & Wine Magazine, has started me on the road to amateur mixology, aka making terrific, inventive cocktails at home. Chapters include Latin Drinks, Classics, Mixologists' Drinks, and Frozen Drinks (that one written by Adam Seger of Nacional 27 in Chicago, whom we met in November at his bar). There's also a list of the nation's top 100 bars and a "cocktail clinic" that explains all you need to know to try this chez vous.
First up, from the Classics chapter, I made a Sidecar; I used Grand Marnier instead of Cointreau because I had none of the latter on hand--which made for a more potent drink.
For the record, the recipe is 2 ounces cognac, 3/4 ounce Cointreau or other orange liqueur, 3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice and 1/4 ounce simple syrup.
Shake well with ice and strain into a martini glass or over fresh ice.
Sante!

Beans and Polenta -- Healthy Comfort Food

When the days are short, the temperatures cold, and the snow is piling up outside -- as it is in Cincinnati as I write today, try this hearty dish that's filling, comforting and very good for you.
The beans are fiber-packed and full of vitamins and micronutrients, there's lycopene in the tomatoes, and more fiber and vitamins in the other veggies. Polenta gives you the carbs to help you feel full. Sprinkle with a little Parmesan cheese for added calcium and protein.

Recipe: Beans, tomatoes and mixed vegetables over polenta
(Serves 4)
Ingredients:
2 ½ cups diced or chopped aromatic vegetables*
½ cup chopped red pepper
3 T canola or olive oil
1 8-ounce package sliced mushrooms
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, with juices
1 18-ounce can cannellini or other white beans, rinsed and drained
2 T chopped fresh thyme leaves (or 1 tsp dried thyme)
2 cups chopped fresh spinach
Salt and pepper to taste
Dash of cayenne pepper or ground chipotle chili (optional)
¼ cup lightly chopped fresh basil leaves (optional)

* Any combination of onions, leeks, shallots, garlic, carrots and/or celery

Instructions:
Heat oil over medium heat in a large frying pan; add aromatic vegetables and red pepper; cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes.
Add mushrooms and 2-3 T of water, cover and cook 5 minutes. Uncover, stir, cover again and cook for 5 more minutes.
Add beans, tomatoes and thyme, stir well and cook until heated through.
Add spinach and seasonings, stir until spinach is wilted.
For polenta: I use the “log” style of polenta found in the International (or Italian) section of most grocery stores. Slice into rounds about one to one-and-a-half inches thick, then sauté in a nonstick frying pan over medium-high heat. If you want a golden color, sauté in a stainless steel or cast iron pan with a little canola or olive oil.

You can also serve the bean dish over pasta or brown rice.

What you (we) can do to change our food system

Instead of only bemoaning our nation's obesity epidemic and food-safety lapses, here are some actions you/we can take to improve things -- however incrementally.

1. Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages
2. Eat (and cook) at home instead of eating out
3. Go meatless one day a week
4. Support family farms by shopping at farmers' markets, in season (from about April through November, in Cincinnati)

5. Know where your food comes from (read labels), and shop at grocers who label the origin of foods.

These are adapted from the list on the website for the movie, "Food, Inc."

Sunshine on a plate -- a recipe to brighten the winter gloom

Last week while on my gym's treadmill I caught the Food Network's Nigella Lawson making a salad with peak-of-season grapefruit and orange along with another ingredient dear to my heart, fresh fennel (also in season). I rushed home and whipped up my own version, with only a couple of variations on Ms. Lawson's salad. (I added sugar and lime juice to the dressing, for instance, and increased the proportion of grapefruit to orange.)

We had it with grilled salmon and a green vegetable. It also would be nice over lettuce, perhaps sprinkled with a little blue cheese, for lunch.

Recipe: Citrus Salad with Fennel and Walnuts
(Serves 2-3; can be doubled)

Ingredients:
For the salad:
1 large orange, peeled (no white pith remaining) and sectioned
1 large or two small grapefruits, prepared the same as the orange
1/2 fennel bulb, stalks and outer layer discarded, cut into thin slices
1/3 cup toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped

For the dressing:
Juice from the orange and grapefruit (drain off as much as you can from the sections, and squeeze the remaining fruit well after you have sectioned them)
1 bunch fresh basil, chopped coarsely (about 1/4 to 1/3 cup when chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup olive oil, or a mixture of olive and walnut oil
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

Instructions:

1. For the salad: Combine orange, grapefruit and fennel in a bowl. Stir well. Drain off as much juice as possible to add to the dressing. Stir in walnuts and set aside.
2. For the dressing: Put all ingredients except oil(s) in a food processor and pulse until basil is chopped. Add oil slowly with processor running. The dressing will be thin, not creamy.
3. Pour dressing over salad and stir well. Serve!

Recipe: Stuffed Collard Greens

This is a lovely recipe for the new year -- using healthy ingredients that are inexpensive and in season -- from the New York Times. It's rather labor-intensive, but if you make the whole batch, they'll keep either uncooked or cooked for many days--great for leftovers.
If you want to add some protein to the filling, stir in a little cooked ground turkey, chicken pieces or cubed tofu.

Recipe: Stuffed Collard Greens
(Serves six or more; can be cut in half)

Ingredients:

1 large bunch collard greens (about 1 1/2 pounds), stemmed

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 large red or yellow onion, finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, green shoots removed, minced

Salt to taste

1 teaspoon sugar

3/4 cup rice, either medium-grain or basmati, rinsed well in several changes of water

2 tablespoons to 1/4 cup lightly toasted pine nuts (to taste)

1 14-ounce can chopped tomatoes, drained (retain juice)

2 tablespoons to 1/4 cup currants or dark raisins (to taste)

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon freshly ground allspice berries

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 1/4 cups water

2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill

Juice of 1 lemon

1 lemon, sliced thin (optional)

Instructions:

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil while you carefully stem the collard greens, trying to keep the leaves intact. Fill a bowl with ice water. When the water comes to a boil, salt generously and add the collard leaves in batches. Blanch two minutes and transfer to the ice water. Drain, gently squeeze out excess water and set aside.

2. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil over medium heat in a large lidded skillet, and add the onion. Cook, stirring, until tender, about five minutes. Add the garlic, salt and sugar, and cook, stirring, until the garlic is fragrant, about a minute. Add the rice and pine nuts, and stir together until the rice is coated with oil. Stir in the tomatoes, currants, cinnamon, allspice and salt and pepper to taste. Stir together, and add 1 cup water or enough to barely cover the rice. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer until all of the liquid has been absorbed, about 20 minutes. Remove from the heat. Allow to sit for 10 minutes without disturbing. Stir in the mint and dill.

3. Oil a wide, deep, lidded sauté pan or saucepan with olive oil. To fill the leaves, place one on your work surface, vein side up and with the stem end facing you. The leaf may have a big space in the middle where you stemmed it; if so, pull the two sides of the leaf in towards each other and overlap them slightly. Place about 1 level tablespoon of filling on the bottom center of each leaf. Fold the sides over, then roll up tightly, tucking in the sides as you go. Place seam side down in the pan, fitting the stuffed leaves in snug layers. Drizzle on the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil, and pour on the lemon juice. Barely cover with water, and top with a layer of lemon slices.

4. Cover the stuffed leaves with a round of parchment paper, and place a plate over the paper to weight them during cooking. This will keep them from opening. Bring to a simmer, cover and simmer over low heat for 45 minutes to an hour until the leaves are tender. Remove from the heat, and carefully remove the dolmades from the water with a slotted spoon or tongs. Allow to drain on a rack set over a sheet pan. Serve warm or cold.

To resolve, or not to resolve?

How often do you make new year's resolutions? Every year, sometimes, never?

I'm pretty much in the "never" response category, but not because I can't find anything to improve about myself. Au contraire! Resolving to do better about something is almost literally a daily occurrence, with dropping a couple of pounds being rather high on the list.

In the spirit of renewal--not only a new year, but also a new decade--what would our resolutions for 2010 be? I mean on top of any personal goals of self-improvement, such as really getting to a healthy and comfortable weight. What contributions can we make to the world around us?

My first thought is to help find ways to do something positive about our nation's obesity epidemic. While Americans' health has improved since 2000 on some measures, such as lower death rates for cancer and heart disease, on other measures we have fallen back. As the costs for our health care continue to rise, far outpacing inflation, we have gotten heavier, we still smoke too much, and diseases such as diabetes have taken on epidemic proportions here.

Here's an interesting article from the federal agency, Occupational Health and Safety Administration, called "The decade [2000-2009] in health and safety."

As healthy foodies, we should be in the forefront of demanding that our food industry clean up its act and stop contributing to our nation's declining health profile. (See the movie "Food, Inc." on DVD if you want to learn more about our country's industrial food system.) As individuals, we can demand that the restaurants and grocery stores we patronize make healthier food choices easier for individuals to make. Also see the Food, Inc." movie's website for its list of "10 simple things you can do to change our food system."

Congress and our state legislatures need to get into the fray and (for instance) give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) much broader enforcement powers. The U.S. House has passed the Food Safety Enhancement Act; we should encourage the Senate to move forward and enact this legislation.

These are just a few ideas for the New Year.

If you have others, please share them!

To your health -- pasta with broccoli and cherry tomatoes

Here's a simple recipe for New Year's weekend--colorful, flavorful and with ingredients your body will thank you for. From the broccoli, you get antioxidants, fiber, Vitamin A; tomatoes add lycopene and Vitamin C; olive oil provides mono-unsaturated fats (the best kind); and whole-grain pasta adds more fiber and other important vitamins and nutrients. A little cheese brings calcium and protein--not to mention a delicious salty flavor!

Recipe: Roasted broccoli and grape tomatoes with rotini pasta

(Serves 3-4)

Feel free to add cooked shrimp or chicken to this recipe if you want extra protein. Or go the other direction--skip the cheese to make the dish vegan.

Ingredients:

5 cups broccoli florets and stems, cut into bite-size pieces

2 cups grape tomatoes

1 large shallot, minced

5 cloves garlic, chopped

2 T olive oil, plus more for greasing cookie sheet

2 T black olives, sliced

2 T capers, rinsed and drained

Juice of ½ lemon

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

2 cups uncooked rotini or other pasta, preferably whole-grain

Grated or shredded parmesan cheese, to taste (optional)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly oil rimmed baking sheet.

2. Toss first five ingredients (broccoli through olive oil) in a large mixing bowl until vegetables are evenly coated with oil. Add salt and pepper.

3. Spread mixture evenly onto prepared baking sheet and roast in preheated oven for 12 minutes, stirring once midway through cooking.

4. Meanwhile, cook pasta in salted, boiling water until al dente. Drain pasta, reserving one-half cup of cooking liquid.

5. Toss pasta with roasted vegetables and cooking liquid. Add capers, olives and lemon juice, mixing well.

6. Pass grated cheese at the table, if desired.