Summer Salad

Just made one of my favorite summer salads this weekend.

1 can black beans, drained

1 can chickpeas, drained

1/2 red onion, chopped

2 roma tomatoes, chopped

1/4. cup chopped cilantro

1-2 Tbsp olive oil

Add salt & pepper adjust olive oil to taste

What I’m Cooking – Gwyneth Paltrow’s Brownies

I love this recipe, which is very chocolatey, but gives you no sugar high or sugar cravings.  It’s from her cookbook below.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s Fudgy, Chocolaty Brownies

 INGREDIENTS

2 cups white spelt flour (preferably King Arthur)

1 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder

1 cup maple syrup

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup brown rice syrup (or light agave nectar)

1/2 cup strong brewed coffee

1/2 cup soymilk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons oil

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, divided

 

PREPARATION

Heat oven to 350°. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and a pinch of salt into a bowl. Whisk maple syrup, oil, brown rice syrup, coffee, soymilk and vanilla in another bowl. Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients but don’t overmix. Pour half the batter into a greased 9″ x 11″ baking dish; top with half the chips. Pour remaining batter into dish and top with remaining chips. Bake until knife comes out with crumbs adhering to it, 30 minutes. Let cool.

What I’m Eating – Chicken Srirachi Stir Fry

I love srirachi sauce and am always looking for recipes that use it.  I love this one, which is full of power foods as well.

Chicken Srirachi Stir Fry

2 (8 oz) chicken breasts, pounded thin and sliced in thin strips

1 cup (or 1 small can) red kidney beans, drained

2 cups broccoli florets, blanched. 2 cups sweet potatoes, match-stick cut, 1 cup red bell peppers, thinly sliced

2 tbsp grapeseed oil, 2 tbsp sesame oil

Sweet and Spicy Sauce:  1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce2 , tbsp sriracha

2 tbsp fresh garlic, chopped, 2 tbsp fresh ginger, chopped

2 tbsp sesame oil, 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar

1 tbsp agave honey

Directions:  In large non-stick pan on high heat, add oil and begin to sauté chicken strips until golden brown for 4-6 minutes (do not crowd pan or layer chicken). Remove chicken and place on plate to rest.

Add bell peppers, sweet potatoes, broccoli and kidney beans, and quickly sauté for 3-4 mins.  Whisk all sauce ingredients together and add sauce and chicken back to pan (with juices). Toss until coated.

Pour over prepared brown rice and enjoy!

What I’m Reading

This book comes out on October 30, and I have already pre-ordered it:

The book is Crazy Sexy Kitchen by Kris Carr.  

I am eating a much more plant-based diet these days.  I still eat meat but it’s usually every other day and not every meal or every day.  Vegetarian cooking has evolved so much, and I don’t miss meat at all when I have great vegetarian recipes.

Kris Carr became interested in nutrition when she developed cancer, and she believes than changing the way she eats had a lot to do with her recovery.  She is an extreme advocate for good nutrition.  She also loves green smoothies, which I also drink daily.

From Amazon.com:  Crazy Sexy Kitchen is the Veggie Manifesto for plant-empowered gourmands and novices alike, and it’s filled with inspiration, education, cooking tips, and over 150 nourishing, nosh-worthy recipes. Crazy Sexy Kitchen redefines the kitchen as headquarters for America’s wellness revolution. The goodness born in the Crazy Sexy Kitchen will reach deep into the rest of your life—enriching your health, your home, your heart, and the planet.

Crazy Sexy Kitchen gives readers all the tools and know-how needed to adopt a nutrient-dense, plant-happy approach to eating and living that harmonizes your body at the cellular level. It’s a celebratory way of life that’s deeply connected, healthy, awake and engaged.

 

Green Smoothies

I am addicted to this green smoothie.  From Bob Harper’s book The Skinny Rules, it has about 14 grams of fiber and only 340 calories and can be used as a meal replacement or sipped between meals as a snack.

Recipe

2 T protein powder

1 cup fresh kale

1 cup frozen spinach leaves

1/2 cup frozen pineapple

1/2 cup blueberries

1/2 small banana

Blend well and enjoy getting all your fruits & veggies in one sitting.

Appertif: Kir Cocktail

I was at brunch a week or so ago with Tori who ordered a kir cocktail as an appertif.  While I’ve had the Kir Royale – it’s very old world and you don’t see people drink them much anymore – I love the taste and it has a very sophisticated feel.  However, I had never HEARD of the Kir cocktail but have now added it to my repertoire.  Here’s the details:

The Kir became popular in French cafes in the middle of the 19th century and was further popularized by Felix Kir after World War II. The then mayor of Dijon in Burgundy, France, served the drink often to promote his region’s fine products (wine and creme de cassis). The name Kir has been associated with the drink ever since. There are also many variations of this wine cocktail (see below), each unique but carrying on the Kir tradition. The choice of white wine is something of personal taste; dry wines are preferred, Chablis is great.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 oz creme de cassis
• 2 1/4 oz dry white wine

Preparation:

1. Pour the creme de cassis into a wine glass.
2. Slowly add the dry white wine.

Happy Cinco de Mayo

IN SPANISH, margarita means “daisy.” But in North America, I believe the translation is closer to “super fun time.”

Totally fine to think of the cocktail that way, but let’s put down the ready-made, Day-Glo sour mix, step away from the margarita machine and take the drink seriously for just a moment. The margarita may conjure images of spring break in Cancún and fishbowl glasses with cactuses as stems or yardstick-long containers filled with boozy slush. But the cocktail is so much more than that.

It doesn’t take much to elevate the margarita to the top of the drink canon. Despite its unfortunate reputation as the Lindsay Lohan of the drink world, it deserves to rub elbows with the likes of the Manhattan and the martini. A properly made margarita is like Emma Stone—fun-loving but, deep down, classy and smart.

Like any other drink, it is only as good as its worst ingredient. Fortunately, the basic margarita only has three: tequila, triple sec and lime juice. Choose a spirit made of 100% agave, stock your bar with a solid orange-flavored liqueur, squeeze fresh lime juice—think of how strong your forearms will get!—and nail the proportions and you’ll have a wonderfully balanced sweet, tangy, slightly earthy (that’s the 100% agave) drink to sip this Cinco de Mayo and throughout the summer.

“Where’s the strawberry?” you might be asking. “Can I get extra salt on my rim?” Purists scoff at alterations to the margarita—yes, the harshest sticklers say no salt—but the add-ons are part of the drink’s fun factor. “Margaritas are like burgers,” said Bobby Heugel, owner of Anvil Bar & Refuge in Houston, one of Texas’s craft cocktail meccas. “There can be good ones on the high, gourmet level, and good ones at the low, fast-food-like level, too.” At Anvil there are several versions of the margarita, a basic one (1¾ ounces tequila, ¾ ounce Combier, ¾ ounce lime juice, 1 bar spoon agave) and the special Anvil margarita, which is a blend of different agave-based spirits as well as orange bitters. (Mr. Heugel keeps the exact recipe a secret.)

In the margarita experimentation game, as long as you’re using quality ingredients, you’re winning. That means no margarita mixes. Variations can be as subtle as swapping one citrus out for another, choosing an aged tequila over a blanco or, as in Tommy’s margarita from Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco, ditching triple sec in favor of agave syrup. On the more elaborate end of the spectrum, margaritas can be imbued with fruit purées, rimmed with chipotle-spiced salt or incorporate spirits outside of standard margarita territory, such as Campari or green Chartreuse.

But the key ingredient, really, is fun. We’ve gathered some of the best margarita recipes from around the country to help you prepare for the warm months ahead. And if you need an excuse to pull this article out in the fall, Sept. 16 is Mexican Independence Day. So here’s to the margarita…and to super-fun times.

 

The classic Margarita plus five intoxicating electives

1. Siesta

A bright and fresh margarita variation for those who like things a little more tangy. The Campari and grapefruit juice round things out with just the right amount of bitterness.

1½ ounces blanco tequila

¾ ounce fresh lime juice

¾ ounce simple syrup

½ ounce fresh grapefruit juice

¼ ounce Campari

Orange twist

Shake liquid ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist.

2. Joey’s Margarita

It is a little-known fact that green Chartreuse partners well with tequila. The French liqueur adds a beautiful je ne sais quoi to this cocktail while the egg white gives it a sophisticated, airy body. A grown-up’s margarita.

2 ounces blanco tequila

1 ounce fresh lime juice

½ ounce green Chartreuse

¼ ounce agave nectar

½ ounce egg white

Shake ingredients without ice to emulsify egg white. Add ice, shake again and strain into a rocks glass over ice. Salted rim and lime garnish are optional.

3. The Classic Margarita

Ask five bartenders for their classic margarita and you’ll get five slightly different recipes. That’s OK. The margarita aims to please. Consider this recipe a base line. Too sweet? Use ¼ ounce more lime. Too tart? Add agave, ¼ ounce more orange liqueur or both. Too boozy? Delete a ¼ ounce tequila. (We find serving it on the rocks covers up slight imperfections.) A request: When you make a slam-dunk margarita, try it with no ice and no salt. You’ll make the cocktail gods happy.

2 ounces tequila

¾ ounce orange liqueur

¾ ounce fresh lime juice

¼ ounce agave nectar (optional)

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass or over ice into a rocks glass. Salted rim and lime garnish are optional.

4. Tommy’s Margarita

Julio Bermejo, the state of Jalisco, Mexico’s “Ambassador of tequila to the United States” invented this drink 15, 16 or 17 years ago—”Things get blurry over the years,” he said—because he didn’t feel like saccharine triple sec was doing tequila justice. Instead, he swapped it for agave nectar to create a classic in its own right. Once you try this seminal margarita variation, you may never pick up another bottle of triple sec again.

2 ounces 100% agave tequila

1 ounce fresh lime juice

1 ounce agave nectar syrup (1 part agave nectar to 1 part water)

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

5. Sangre de Cenobio

This elegant margarita variation uses dessert wine (a Lacrima or Sauternes is recommended) instead of triple sec to give the drink a surprising, complex sweetness. The black lava salt is a nice theatrical touch and a nod to the volcanic soil where agave plants commonly flourish.

Black lava salt

2 ounces tequila

¾ ounce dessert wine

1 ounce fresh lime juice

½ ounce agave nectar

Lime peel

Rim glass with black lava salt. Shake liquid ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with lime peel.

6. Breakfast Margarita

A ‘rita that’s fresh and light enough to have instead of a bloody mary or a mimosa with breakfast.

1½ ounces blanco tequila

¾ ounce Cointreau

1 ounce mango nectar

1 ounce fresh tangerine juice

¾ ounce fresh lemon juice

¼ ounce ginger juice

Tangerine wedge

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a rocks glass over ice.

What I’m Eating

Update:  This wine dinner was one of the best ones I have been to in Dallas.  We had some killer food and some very good wines.  Very generous servings of both food & wine.  A real value at only $60 per person.

I am going to a wine dinner tonight at La Fiorentina in Dallas.  The restaurant is Lombardi’s Tuscan steakhouse and is located in the trendy Knox Henderson neighborhood … The term Fiorentina is also used to describe the restaurant forte – a 24 ounces Tuscan style Porterhouse brushed with olive oil and herbs and cooked to perfection over aromatic wood.

Lombardi is generally known in Dallas for a slew of successful Italian restaurants, so this is a new venture for him.  We love the food, service, and decor there, so I’m looking forward to it.

Wine Dinner – March 28, 2012 – Menu

1) Reception – chefs selection of crostinis

Wine: Zonin Prosecco

2) English pea soup

Egg yolk ravioli, tarragon oil and pecorino

Wine: Trebbiano Villa Reale

3) Squid ink fettucine with crab and radicchio

Wine: Gavia Principessa 

4) Lobster salad

Baby potatoes, mache lettuce, fava beans, parsley and bacon with a shellfish dressing

Wine:  Guenoc

Victorian Claret

5) Venison and Juniper

Roast loin of venison, creamed spinach, fondant potato and Juniper Jus

Wine:  Barbera d’Alba Ruvei

6) Tropical fruit with limoncello sorbetto

Beverage:  Limoncello

Buying organic – EWG Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce

My boyfriend buys most things organic.  But I shriek when I get to the register and see the bill for organic items.  So, I try to pick and choose what I buy organic.   The Environmental Working Group (EWG) publishes a list every year of the worst offenders as well as the cleanest fruits & veggies.  You can lower your pesticide intake substantially by buying organic for  the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables.  An example – celery tested positive for 57 different pesticides.

These are the Dirty Dozen.  You should consider buying these organic:

• Apples
• Celery
• Strawberries
• Peaches
• Spinach
• Nectarines (imported)
• Grapes – imported
• Sweet bell peppers
• Potatoes
• Blueberries (domestic)
• Lettuce
• Kale/collard greens

These are the Clean 15 and tested lowest in pesticides.
I buy these in the regular grocery section.

• Onions
• Sweet Corn
• Pineapples
• Avocado
• Asparagus
• Sweet peas
• Mangoes
• Eggplant
• Cantaloupe 
- domestic
• Kiwi
• Cabbage
• Watermelon
1
• Sweet potatoes
• Grapefruit
• Mushrooms

Red Bull Creater Died Today

Red Bull Creater Died Today.

Some interesting facts:

• Chaleo rose from a poor childhood to become member #205 on the Forbes list of billionaires.
• He was in his late 80s or 90, and died of natural causes
• Red Bull is now marketed in 164 countries and employs 8,300. The company has a Formula One racing team, and in March 2006, it purchased the New York/New Jersey MetroStars Major League Soccer team and renamed it the New York Red Bulls.
• A news release on the company’s website says that in 2011, the company sold 4.25 billion cans of Red Bull, up 11% from 2010.

Strange to admit but I’ve never had one!