Good Grub For the NFL Season Opener! Tacos & Chip Dips
On September 11th, when Americans collectively remember and pay tribute to the 19th anniversary of America’s devastating loss of lives, we can also celebrate two of our favorite past times, food and football. You could say it’s a bittersweet All-American day.
I’ve developed many recipes over the years. These are two of my favorite easy, delicious and nutritious that I believe are perfect for special sports events, family gathering and prayers.
Quick & Easy Soft-or Fried-Tacos with Cheese, Fresh Tomatoes, Onions & Jalepeño Peppers
It’s Peach Season! 6 Peach Recipes Your Family Will Love
I’ll never forget my first trip to Italy. I was 19 and touring solo through Europe by train with the Eurail Pass. Despite the Italian men giving me a scare – pinching, grabbing, kissing and chasing (I think it goes without saying… with no encouragement from me – oy!) – Rome was so stunning, my wildest dreams couldn’t have conjured up such a place.
One of my fondest memories was of the peaches sold by fruit vendors in the Piazza Campo De’ Fiori. I’d never eaten a peach that was so sweet, tender and juicy that its nectar drizzled down my arms. Truly a revelation! I became so excited about peaches that when I got home, I rushed to the grocery store for some. But after one bite, my heart sank. I realized that I’d never have such an extraordinary peach again.
That is… until locally sourced Farmers Markets came to be.
The advantage of Farmers Markets is that the fruits and vegetables are grown nearby so they can be picked at peak ripeness. And that’s when they are the most delicious and nutritious. Since peaches are in season now, I’m eating several each day. Peaches can be featured in desserts, salads, meat or other savory dishes. Here are some of my favorite peach recipes, to keep you excited about peaches!
Summer Peach and Fresh Kale Salad with Toasted Almonds and a Balsamic Vinaigrette
Summertime Peach Crisp with Roasted Nuts, Dried Fruit & Ginger
Layered Fresh Peach & Cheesecake Parfait
Honey & Brown Sugar Roasted Peaches
Honey & Brown Sugar Roasted Peaches
Lisa Yockelson’s Honey and Brown Sugar-Roasted Peaches
Excerpted from Diet Simple by Katherine Tallmadge
6 Servings
The juice-ripe peaches are sweetened with a mixture of brown sugar and honey, enriched with a little melted butter, and mellowed with vanilla extract and peach nectar. Enjoy the peaches as is, or with a dollop of vanilla yogurt or ice cream.
Unsalted butter, for the baking dish
6 firm but ripe medium peaches, halved and pits removed
2 Tablespoons firmly packed light brown sugar
2 Tablespoons mild honey, such as clover
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup peach nectar (or 2 Tablespoons more, as necessary)*
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Adjust the oven rack to the lower third level slot. Lightly butter the bottom of a 12 to 14-inch non-reactive ovenproof baking dish.
Place the peaches rounded-side down (cut side up) in the dish. Combine the sugar, honey, melted butter, vanilla, and peach nectar in a small mixing bowl. Spoon the mixture over and about the peaches.
Roast the fruit for 20 minutes, or until gently softened (but not mushy), and the juices have lightly condensed. Begin checking on the fruit at 15 minutes; if the peaches are not juice enough on their own, they may not give off enough juice, so you may need to add 2 tablespoons more peach nectar at this time. Roast an additional 5 minutes, as necessary. You can also glaze the fruit under a broiler for a few seconds until the tops glisten. Serve the fruit warm.
*If you cannot find peach nectar or peach juice, apricot nectar can be used.
The recipe for this essence-of-summer fruit dessert comes from Lisa Yockelson, baking journalist and author of the award-winning BAKING BY FLAVOR (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2002).
Katherine’s Virtual “No-Cook” Cooking 01 Class: Spring into Action!
Would you like to create some fun and amazing recipes that take only three or four ingredients, less than 15 minutes – and don’t even require cooking? No-Cook Cooking 01 will teach you how to cut and prepare onions, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, celery and fresh herbs, resulting in Fresh Salsa, Guacamole, and a Creamy Yogurt Dip, crowd favorites! On top of that accomplishment, these basics will be a foundation for creating hundreds of treasured recipes your family and friends will love. After learning these simple skills, you will discover some of those recipes in my No-Cook Cooking 02 class.
My No-Cook Cooking 01″ Class is for you if you sometimes:
- feel overwhelmed in the grocery store wondering what on earth you need or should buy,
- feel nervous about cooking,
- feel insecure about using knives and kitchen gadgets.
When you’ve registered, I will email you a list of the ingredients and tools you will need for the class. You can also participate by simply watching. If you’d like, repeat the class any time until you feel confident to move on.
To talk to Katherine about the class and/or to sign up, email Katherine at: Katherine@PersonalizedNutrition.com
Swedish New Potatoes with Fresh Dill
Potatoes are delicious boiled, the simplest and fastest preparation. In Sweden, they are customarily eaten on the same fork as gravlax (cured salmon) and mustard sauce. The combination is delectable. Potatoes are a traditional Swedish dish and served with just about every meal. Historically, Sweden’s fruit and vegetable choices were limited because it lies so far north. Potatoes were an important source of essential vitamins and minerals, preventing lethal deficiencies. Today that legacy continues.
Ingredients:
2 lbs. small thin-skinned “new” potatoes**
1 dill stalk
½ tsp salt
¼ stick butter (2 Tbsp)
2 Tbsp rock salt or Kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
Two to four Tbsp fresh clipped dill, to taste
Instructions:
1. Wash the potatoes. Just scrub them if you’d like to keep the skin on. Or scrape off the skins if you wish. Rinse the potatoes.
2. Place the larger potatoes over the base of a saucepan and pop the smaller ones on top. Pour in enough boiling water to not quite cover them, add some salt and the stalk of dill.
3. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and simmer gently for between 10 and 20 minutes. The cooking time depends on the variety and size. Test them with a skewer as they must be tender but still firm—overcooking really does spoil them.
4. Drain the potatoes and add the butter, the chopped fresh dill and a little pepper to the pan and then return the potatoes to the pan. Put the lid back on the pan and swirl the pan around to get each potato thoroughly coated.
5. Remove the lid, savor the delicious aroma and then sprinkle with a little rock or Kosher salt before serving them.
** “New” potatoes are freshly harvested young, or small, potatoes. They are the same varieties as their larger counterparts, but are harvested earlier in the season when they are sweet than their older counterparts. Also, because these potatoes are harvested young, their skins are very tender and flaky.
6 Savory Toppings for Crunchy Swedish Hard Bread
Variations for Open-Faced Swedish Hard Bread Sandwiches
Sweden’s Midsummer Festival is the celebration of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, when the sun never sets.
At the Midsummer feast, it’s always traditional in Sweden to eat seafood, like herring, salmon and shrimp. Gravlax (cured salmon) is a favorite and prominent food in Sweden. Important vegetables and fruits from summer’s first harvest, like radishes, onions, potatoes and strawberries are featured, too. Dill is the herb used in abundance.
With regard to Swedish hard bread toppings, think of what might be in American sandwiches and the options are endless. As well as the typical seafood and vegetables, cheese, cured venison and ham are regular additions. There are even modern versions with out-of-season vegetables using avocado, tomatoes, carrots and beets, you name it!.
Besides the flavor and crunch of Swedish hard bread, the nutrition and low calorie content are added bonuses! In the U.S., WASA bread is the most common brand of Swedish hard bread.
Pickled Herring, Fresh Dill and Sliced Red Onion on 100% Rye Coarse Hard Swedish Bread
Herring, fished locally, is omnipresent on the Swedish table. It is delicious pickled, smoked and grilled. It is a fragile fish – as are sardines and anchovies, its cousins – so it is mostly cured where it can’t be caught right out of the sea.
Since we in the U.S. are unlikely to find fresh herring (recipe below), it can be served with a store-bought version of pickled herring. It is easily found in the refrigerator section of virtually all grocery stores. The most authentic jarred pickled herring is found at IKEA.
Ingredients:
Pickled Herring, from a jar or home-made
Thinly Sliced Red Onion
Chopped Green Onions, optional for color
Thinly Sliced Potatoes, optional for smooth texture
Thinly Sliced Radishes, optional
Dollops of Swedish Mustard, optional
Directions:
Top the hard Swedish bread with thinly sliced boiled potatoes and smother with the pickled herring. Top with sliced red onion and dill.
Home-made Pickled Herring
From SwedishFood.com
Herring spoils fast, so it is almost always cured. Pickled and smoked herring are especially prolific and popular in northern Europe.
7 oz salted herring fillets
(6 fl oz) water*
(4 fl oz) granulated sugar
2 fl oz vinegar, 12% if available
1/2 sliced red onion
6 white pepper corns
2 allspice berries, optional
1 pice of peeled horseradish
1 small piece of ginger (optional)
2 bay leaves (optional)
1. Soak rinsed filets in water while preparing the pickling liquid.
2. Place the water, vinegar and granulated sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Leave to cool.
3. Drain the herring fillet, dab them dry with kitchen towel and cut them into ¾ inch wide pieces. Layer with all the remaining ingredients in a glass jar.
4. Pour the cold pickling solution over the herring and transfer to a fridge and keep for at least 24 hours before serving.
5. If the pickling solution becomes a little cloudy, pour it off and make a new solution, but allow it to cool before pouring it on to the herring.
My Favorite Asparagus Recipes
Asparagus, dating back to 3,000 BC, is considered a nutrition superstar because it is loaded with hundreds of vitamins, minerals and newly discovered nutrients called “phytochemicals” (“phyto” is Greek for plant) that impart impressive health benefits. Asparagus (family Liliaceae) possesses a variety of biological properties, such as antioxidant, immune-stimulant, anti-inflammatory, anti-hepatotoxic (helps the liver), and antibacterial.
Asparagus is an excellent source of *essential vitamins like B1 (Thiamine), B2 (Riboflavin), and B9 (Folate), and Vitamin C, E and K. It contains some Vitamin A, B5 (Pantothenic Acid), B6 and Choline. It’s a good source of the essential minerals Iron, and contains some Calcium, Magnesium, Manganese, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.
*Vitamins and minerals are considered “essential” when a deficiency would ultimately cause death.
Here are some of my favorite asparagus recipes from my book, “Diet Simple Farm to Table Recipes: 50 New Reasons to Cook In Season!,” along with many other seasonal recipes
Chilled Asparagus in a Creamy Tarragon, Shallot and Roasted Walnut Vinaigrette
Salad of New Potatoes and Asparagus with Lemony Garlic Herb Mayonnaise
Pasta with Pesto, Roasted Asparagus and Cherry Tomatoes
Asparagus Salad in a Vietnamese-Style Dressing
Katherine’s Silver Lining Approach: Your Mediterranean Diet Pantry & Featured Recipe
What science has discovered as the ideal diet hasn’t changed for more than half a century. What we’ve learned since then, though, are why and how the diet is so perfect. It’s worth making the switch, for many reasons! For one, it boosts your body’s immune system dramatically, thus, its ability to fight diseases from colds to flu, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, even today’s scourge: COVID.
The Mediterranean Diet is a complex diet containing many foods that contribute to its health benefits. It’s plant-based, high in vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, fish, low-to-moderate in high fat dairy and red meat (very low in saturated – animal – fat) and the occasional glass of wine. Olive oil is the diet’s principal source of fat.
It was first observed in the 1950s by nutrition scientist, Ancel Keys, that people in Greece, southern Italy, southern France and other countries bordering on the Mediterranean, eating their local food, experienced few nutritional problems and rarely suffered from heart disease. Since then, many studies have confirmed that this mixture of foods we now call the Mediterranean diet has significant properties which may help prevent not only heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, dementia, arthritis, many of the diseases of aging, and even weight gain.
While every element in the Mediterranean diet is important, eating fresh, extra-virgin olive oil may trump everything. The type of fat you eat is critical to your health. This is because fat ends up in all of your body’s cells. It acts as a cell lubricant, improves flexibility and communication between cells, and is important for cell metabolism and gene expression. If the fat you eat is saturated – solid at room temperature – as in butter or animal fat – this decreases cellular flexibility and functioning. So, following the Mediterranean diet, but eating the wrong kind of fat, could reduce your health benefits.
Olive oil, the staple of the Mediterranean diet, is unique in many ways. First, it’s made from a fruit which is exposed to the elements. This exposure forces olives to synthesize antioxidants and anti-inflammatory nutrients to protect themselves and concentrates the valuable nutrients in the oil, which is high in compounds called polyphenols, Vitamin E and carotenoids, like beta-carotene. New research shows high polyphenol olive oil turns OFF genes that cause the metabolic syndrome, the constellation of high blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol.
Polyphenols are also found in wine, tea and cocoa and are known for protecting the heart in many ways – reducing blood clotting, lowering bad (LDL) cholesterol, raising good (HDL) cholesterol and lowering blood pressure. Vitamin E is a well-known antioxidant which helps prevent oxidation and cellular aging and may help prevent diseases such as cancer. Caretenoids are plant compounds giving the olive its color. They’re important for your immune system, your skin, your vision, bones, reproduction, and may reduce cancer risk. Olive oil is also high in heart-healthy monounsaturated fatty acid called Oleic acid.
Eating the Mediterranean diet is the most economical way to eat. In fact, it is a diet borne of poverty. The original Mediterraneans, who ate the purest form of the diet in the 1950s and 60s, ate mostly fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, fish, and olives, all of which were local. This is all they could afford and it happened to be the healthiest diet on the planet. They were also quite thin and naturally very active in their regular routines. All of these factors contribute to its health benefits
Olive oil’s beneficial health properties, its polyphenol content and acidic pH, degrade over time, as days, weeks, and months go by after harvest. Other factors play a role, too: the harvesting method, the age of the trees, the ripeness of the olives, the processing, and the storage. Since time, heat, and light affect polyphenol content, choose olive oil that:
- Is no more than one year old (look for the harvest date – not a sell-by date – on the label),
- Is in an air-tight, dark glass, or tin container,
- Is stored in a cool environment, and
- Smells and tastes like olives, which could be fruity, grassy, or peppery.
The Mediterranean Diet pantry
This is the perfect way of eating during our collective isolation. It’s inexpensive and most foods can be dry, frozen or canned, when fresh aren’t available, which is the case this time of year. Some examples:
- Canned chopped tomatoes, or any frozen fruits and vegetables
- Dry or canned beans, peas, whole grains such as bulgur, barley, oats, canellini beans, black beans, lentils, chick peas,
- Nuts and seeds
- Fresh lemons, and citrus fruit or vinegar, and olive oil for salad dressings, canola oil for cooking with high heat,
- Fresh onions, garlic, and root vegetables when available,
- Canned wild Alaskan Salmon, herring, anchovies, sardines,
- Whole wheat breads, pasta, crackers and cereals
- Dry or fresh herbs and spices such as basil, rosemary, marjoram, thyme, oregano,
- Yogurt, enough to eat daily for its natural probiotic benefits,
- Cheeses such as Mozzarella, Ricotta, with small amounts of Parmesan and Reggiano.
- Eggs
Katherine’s White Beans with Garlic and Basil
Excerpted from Diet Simple by Katherine Tallmadge, MA, RDN, LD
This is the perfect Mediterranean recipe. My friends love these beans. I love these beans. They’re always a hit. Every time I serve them, I’m asked (begged) for the recipe. They taste deceptively rich and are easy to make. The abundance of fresh basil added at the end fills the house with irresistible aromas. This is a warm and satisfying dish which can be eaten in many ways. My friend David uses them as a dip (what can I say, he`s a shrink and a priest!). My (very healthy) friend Alan loves them so much he eats them for breakfast! I bring them to potlucks.
I love to fill a large plastic container with them in the frig, ladle a heap into a microwave-safe bowl, and heat them up for lunch along with a slice of hearty whole grain bread topped with smoked turkey, salmon, light cheese (or all of the above) – and some crunchy lettuce. One of our favorite ways to eat these beans is with spicy chicken sausage. Just slice a spicy chicken sausage of your choice into a microwave-safe bowl, smother with the beans and pop in the microwave. Together with a greens salad and a tart dressing, you’ve got a winning combination.
I usually double the recipe so I have plenty of servings during the week. Without any meat, it’ll last more than a week in the frig.
4 servings
Ingredients:
1/2 pound dried small white (cannellini) beans, or 24 oz. canned rinsed bean
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1-1/2 Onion, Chopped
4 Garlic Cloves (more or less to taste)
1 Quart defatted Chicken or Vegetable Stock (only 2 Cups if using canned beans)
Salt and pepper to taste
12 Oz. (3 medium) fresh or canned Tomatoes, drained, peeled and chopped
1 Large Handful of Fresh Basil
Juice from 2 to 4 Lemon (1/4 to ½ cup)
Freshly Ground Pepper, to taste
Directions:
If you’re using dried white beans:
Soak the beans in one quart of water overnight or up to 24 hours. Drain and rinse. Add one quart Chicken Stock (or more if you like the dish more soupy) to the beans along with one clove of garlic and 1/2 onion. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer 1-1/2 hours or until the beans are almost tender. Add more water or stock to keep moist. Add salt to taste and finish cooking until beans are tender.
Continue with your cooked dried beans or start here if you’re using canned white beans:
Heat the oil in a large, heavy soup pot or casserole and sauté the remaining one onion and garlic over low to medium heat for 10 or 15 minutes or until soft and caramelized. Add the tomatoes, and more salt to taste and bring to a simmer. Simmer about ten minutes then add the beans with their cooking liquid and simmer 15 – 20 minutes. If you used canned beans, use enough stock to keep the beans moist while cooking. At the end of the cooking time, add the fresh basil (it will get bitter if overcooked), fresh lemon juice, and freshly ground pepper. Mix together.
You can also add greens to this dish for more authentic Mediterranean flavors and nutrition.