Winter Slaw

Disclaimer: We are going to pretend I didn’t go MIA yet again last week okay?...I don’t want to talk about it.

Well that went fast. It’s March already? How the hell did that happen? Winter is, dare I say, almost over?

I'm not winter's biggest fan or anything, and yet I’m vaguely sad about it. I’m not sure if it’s just time passing by so quickly that makes me feel wistful or if it’s genuinely the fact that another season has just ticked by. I was really getting in the swing of things for winter cooking. Baking all the squash, eating all the kale salads, living off pears, apples, and citrus. Braising, roasting, soup-making.

The thought of winter cooking terrified me when I was sitting upon heaps and heaps of summer produce (with scarcely an idea of what to do with ALLLLL of it.) I realize now, the abundance of summer produce can be downright overwhelming.

Where as, and I’ve said this before, the limited variety of winter produce has me figuring out how to use the same vegetable in several different, more creative ways. I also look back on past winters when I was always so disappointed with the general lousiness of vegetables. Mealy pink tomatoes, rubbery peppers, miniscule zucchinis, nevermind the tasteless strawberries and costly raspberries -- then seasonal eating went and slapped me upside the head. Um, hello! It ALL makes sense now. Eating locally and seasonally has changed my entire life, and I can say definitively for the better.

So since winter is just about done (although currently in NYC there looks to be no end in sight, i.e. snowing the rest of the week) I’m sharing with you today a Winter Slaw. I lived off this slaw for about a week and it only got better with time. And then I made it again, because it was that good. And before winter yields to spring in a few weeks, I want to make another batch, to toast to the cabbage, and kale, and carrots, and apples. Because even among the grey, dreariness of the season, they made everything a little brighter.

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Winter Slaw

Ingredients:

¼ cup white balsamic vinegar or apple cider vinegar

¼ cup olive oil

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

salt and pepper to taste

1 head red cabbage, shredded thinly

½ bunch kale, chiffonaded

4 carrots, shredded or julienned

1 granny smith apple, shredded or julienned

½ cup golden raisins

Directions:

In a small bowl, mix all dressing ingredients and whisk together until well combined. Set aside.

To assemble slaw, add all prepped vegetables to a large salad bowl and toss together until well mixed.

Pour dressing over vegetables and toss again to coat.

The slaw only gets better with time, taste wise and it turns a very pretty magenta after a day or two in the fridge.

Yield: 10 to 12 servings

Spinach Salad with Grapes & Olives

So this one time I made this chicken and then had a ridiculous amount of grapes and olives left over. After the chicken was long gone, I still had to come up with some sort of lunch for work, you know, all adult-like. I stole some baby spinach from the boyfriend and a salad was born. Paired it with some hard boiled eggs for the protein factor and voila! Lunch! I wish it was always that easy.

We’ve got punchy, salty, fermenty olives, sweet black grapes, spicy pepperoncinis, more salty but creamy feta, crunchy toasted sunflower seeds, and a hefty squeeze of puckery lemon.

You couldn’t have more flavors and textures going on at once, and it is damn pleasing.

Being both a supertaster and a recovering sectional eater, I never would have thought that a salad such as this would ever grace my plate.

Supertaster? Huh? Yea, it totally exists and helped to explain much of my life prior to learning about it. Over the years, I’ve been able to train my palate to be more accepting of overpowering flavors --- anything fermented, vinegar, red onion, any and all things anise flavored, bitter, sour, sweet, salty --- everything is just more intense. I’m better with textures than I used to be, but I didn’t eat avocado for the better part of two decades because I couldn’t get over the weird butteriness of it. And until I was about 21, nothing . could . touch . I was a big fan of things “on the side.”

While I am still able to find that ONE piece of stray arugula that snuck it’s way into my salad bar romaine, LOATHE, I’ve gotten better! I could drink my homemade vinegar based dressings, I pickled red onions this summer, and I’ve come a long way in the mixing and matching of meals. You can look for no further proof than this salad.

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Spinach Salad with Grapes & Olives

Ingredients:

8 ounces spinach

1 cup mixed pitted olives, halved

1 cup red or black seedless grapes, halved

¼ cup crumbled feta

¼ cup sunflower seeds

2 to 3 pepperoncini peppers, sliced

juice of half a lemon

good drizzle of olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Assemble spinach, olives, grapes, feta, sunflower seeds, and pepperoncinis in a large serving bowl.

Squeeze the half of the lemon over the top of the salad (or like, be responsible, and do this in separate bowl to avoid rogue seeds), give a good drizzle of olive oil over top, and then do salt and pepper to taste. Go light on the salt at first due to the feta and olives, don’t want it to get too salty.

Toss all ingredients until well combined.

Serves 6 as a starter or side

Shredded Brussels Sprouts Salad

Now that we are firmly in resolution territory….brussels sprouts and kale for everybody!

Amirite? Or amirite? Great!

As already discussed, I am one of those suckers that looks forward to January 1st for that giant, metaphorical reset button. In life, in health, in food.

I mentally press it with all my might the second I pop out of bed New Year’s Day and get excited to start eating super cleanly again, as though I needed permission to do so.

This salad is decidedly virtuous. I get a straight up health high knowing how good it probably is for me. Between the sprouts, the ever true health beacon that is kale, and the endless pops of anti-oxidants as I chew down on those pomegranate seeds. Oh MAN! I am so good at being healthy!

Please don’t hate me when I post so many salads over the next coming weeks. I’ll come to my senses eventually and balance all this clean eating shit out with some sort of sinful something.

I promise. <3

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Shredded Brussels Sprout Salad

Ingredients:

Dressing:

3 tablespoons of olive oil

1 tablespoon of sherry vinegar

2 teaspoons of maple syrup

squirt of mustard

salt and pepper to taste

Salad:

1 pound brussels sprouts

½ bunch of kale

½ cup of toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped

seeds of 1 pomegranate

¼ cup of shredded parmesan

Directions:

Whisk olive oil, vinegar, syrup, mustard, salt and pepper together until combined. Set aside.

Thinly shred brussels sprouts (the easiest way is to use a mandoline) and chiffonade the kale leaves by destemming them, layering them on top of one another and then rolling them up into a long tube. Cut across tube to create thin strips of kale.

To assemble salad --- toss brussels sprouts and kale with hazelnuts, pomegranate seeds and parmesan. Drizzle dressing on top and then gently toss again to coat evenly in dressing.

Serves 6 as a side.

Winter Fruit Salad

It’s a shame that fruit salads pretty much go by the wayside the moment it gets colder than 60 degrees outside. I guess it’s just one of those lovely, light, refreshing type things that makes hot summer days that much more bearable. Summer is fruit salad’s time to shine.

However, some of my favorite fruits come into season once the mercury drops below 50 up here. I’ve always had an affinity for tart and puckering fruits and citrus. I was shocked to learn that the majority of people I’ve met in my adult life did not know what a grapefruit spoon was. I was even more floored and slightly disgusted by the people who did know what a grapefruit spoon was but admitted to sprinkling the fruit with sugar first. One might say it defeats the purpose?

After Thanksgiving sins, I really felt like a fresh clean slate and all the newly seasonal fruits were calling my name, this is how this salad was born. Lightly sweet, but at times tart, totally refreshing, and the pomegranate seeds give a nice crunch. The acid from the dressing and the grapefruit also soften the apple slices as the salad sits. I think that the salad looks really pretty with all the slices and segments, but to make for an easier spoonful, giving the apples and grapefruit a cut down in size might make things more bite friendly.

If you wanna be “that person” at the holiday party, by all means, this is perfect. It’s so darn pretty and it would be a nice break from the general heaviness of holiday party eats, if, of course, someone decides to take the chance. You know what I mean by “that” person, right? The person who brings fruit salad to what is essentially a calorie-carb free for all. Those events are usually a “give me all the cookies, cream sauce, and butter you have” type of situation. I can’t guarantee that this beautiful thing won’t be largely ignored among the other goodies on the dessert table. Call it a palate cleanser if you will. Regardless, it’s even better the next day, so it’s a great make ahead dish. Oh! And wouldn’t this be a nice combo in a winter sangria?  

I do plan on bringing this to a holiday shindig this weekend! So I will be that person (I’ll let ya know how it goes!) But by that person, I mean that I will also be bringing a cake that has nearly two sticks of butter and enough sugar in it to kill a small pony. It’s all about balance people.

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Winter Fruit Salad

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon honey

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

4 clementines, peeled and segmented

1 grapefruit, peeled and segmented (Video on segmenting citrus! So helpful!)

1 apple, cored and thinly sliced

1 pomegranate’s worth seeds

In a small bowl whisk together lemon juice and honey.

Add all fruit to a large bowl and pour the lemon-honey dressing over the fruit. Gently mix to combine, careful not to break up the fragile grapefruit segments. Serve cold and if there is time, let it sit before serving to meld and get juicy!

**Note on this since I've made it a few more times since originally posting: there's no real need for the dressing. It does add a layer of flavor for sure, but let's just say you're out of lemons or don't have honey or are watching for added sweeteners -- just leave it out. The grapefruit provides a nice base layer of juice. Also I've been subbing in orange segments for the clementines and I haven't looked back. ---M

Squash Pudding

Thanksgiving is hands down my favorite holiday.

I think we were about 14 years old when my best friend Deborah and I were invited to eat at the “grownup” table. We were beside our selves, what with the pretty china and crystal glasses we’d get to eat and drink from, likely with our pinkies up.

It started off all well and good. But without getting into all the details, we were not invited back the next year.

At 26, we sometimes still eat at the children’s table.
 

It’s more fun there anyways.

Mama’s fall classics make their first appearance of the holiday season on Thanksgiving, another reason for it being my favorite. Things like her fresh cranberry relish, corn casserole, cranberry upside down cake, and her squash pudding.

The general atmosphere is one of love and thanks and lovely smells from the oven permeate the cozy air.

I took my mama’s squash pudding and put a slight spin on it. Instead of regular old oats, I switched them out for some Bob’s Mill gluten free ones. And in the spirit of avoiding refined sugars, I traded brown sugar for coconut palm sugar and white sugar for honey. 

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

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Squash Pudding

Ingredients:

Topping:

½ cup crushed pecans

½ cup gluten free oats

⅓ cup coconut palm sugar

pinch of salt

4 tablespoons grassfed butter, melted

Pudding:

1 large butternut squash, cooked, scooped out of skin, and mashed (approx. 2 cups of mashed squash)

½ cup of coconut palm sugar

¼ cup of honey

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

¼ cup of grassfed heavy cream or whole milk

4 tablespoons grassfed butter, melted

2 eggs, beaten

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, combine the pecans, gluten free oats, coconut palm sugar and pinch of salt. (Do not add melted butter yet! ) Set topping aside.

In the same large ovenproof casserole dish you will be using to bake the pudding in, make sure your squash is thoroughly mashed and no large chunks remain. Add the sugars, ginger, vanilla, cream, butter, and eggs to the squash and whisk to combine well.

Spread the topping evenly across the top of the pudding. Lastly, pour remaining melted butter evenly over topping mix, so that most of the topping has absorbed the butter.

Bake in the oven for approximately 40-50 minutes or until the topping is a nice crisp golden brown.

Cauliflower Falafel

This truly needs no introduction.

No better way to end this Mediterranean week.

Cauliflower really wins the prize here. It does the job. I was super surprised at how well this actually turned out. And man, did it hit that falafel craving spot.

The end.

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Cauliflower Falafel

guided by this recipe and this one

Ingredients:

2 cups cauliflower, riced to the size of couscous

1 small onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

¼ cup parsley, finely chopped

1 ½ tablespoons almond flour

2 teaspoons cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste

2 eggs, beaten

oil, for frying

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix cauliflower, onion, garlic, parsley, almond flour, spices, and eggs together until well combined.

Cover and refrigerate for approximately 30 minutes. (Don’t skip this step, it helps to keep them together.)

Once the falafel mix has chilled long enough, heat up a small saucepan with approximately 2 inches of oil.

The cauliflower falafel mix will have let out a lot of liquid. Don’t worry.

When the oil is ready, scoop a couple tablespoons worth of falafel mix into your hand and shape it to about the size of a golf ball. While you are shaping it, squeeze as much liquid as you can out of the ball you are forming.

A few at a time, place the falafels in the hot oil.

Gently turn them over once they have begun to turn a deep brown color on one side. Remove them once both sides are a deep golden brown. Lay them to drain on a paper towel covered plate.

Yield: about 10 golf ball sized falafels

Serve with Spicy Delicata Hummus (if you’d like!)

Spicy Delicata Hummus

I promised you hummus yesterday.

I give you hummus.

Late. But better late than never.

How convenient that during my mediterranean craving craze I stumble across a recipe for squash hummus on my ever-favorite website: Food52.

I had stumbled across other chickpea-less recipes a long time ago, but I remember them calling for zucchini and that just always seemed to me a possibly very watery alternative.

Using hard squash though, I could see how that would work!

It did not disappoint. I switched up a few things here and there to my tastes, but it’s a pretty PERFECT alternative to traditional hummus. Depending on the flavoring, people won’t even know the difference. (Tested on real live co-workers!)

a revelation

Can we just talk for a moment about roasted garlic. I mean, how have I not been doing this...forever. I've heard about it, and I may have actually encountered it that one time when I lived with a chef...but I've decided that it now needs to be something I do on a weekly basis.

Goodness, would you look at that?

Tomorrow, I’ll give you something to schmear it on.

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Spicy Delicata Hummus

adapted slightly from this recipe at Food52

Ingredients:

2 pounds delicata squash (2 to 4 squash depending on the size)

1 head garlic (intact)

¼ olive oil plus more for roasting squash and garlic

overflowing ¼ cup tahini

1 chipotle pepper (and a dash of the sauce in the can if so desired)

squeeze of half a lemon

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees

Slice your squash in half and scrape out the seeds. Drizzle the insides of the squash with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Place the squash cut side down on a sheet pan and place oven. Roast for approximately one hour or until squash is soft when pierced with a fork.

At the same time you are roasting the squash, slice off about the top ¼ inch of a head of garlic. Grab a piece of aluminum foil and place your head of garlic in the middle. Drizzle the exposed garlic cloves with a bit of olive oil and then wrap up the head in the foil and place in the oven to roast until soft when pierced with a fork. The cloves should look caramelized. This will also take approximately one hour.

Once you’ve removed the squash and garlic from the oven, allow them to sit until they’re cool enough to handle.

Using a blender or food processor, scoop the roasted squash out of it’s skin directly into the blender cup or processor vessel (I used my nutribullet to great success.) Next, squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins as well and into the vessel. You should be able to just pinch the bottom and they’ll sort of ooze out.

Add the remaining ingredients, and then blitz until everything is fully combined. Scrape out into a bowl. Taste for seasoning and adjust as necessary. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least three hours before serving.

Serve with whatever you please! I snuck some warmed pita, and also schmeared it all over cauliflower falafels.

Makes about 2 cups

Cauliflower Tabbouleh

And so I declare this Mediterranean week here in the sizzle & sass kitchen!

It hit me like a ton of bricks about three weeks ago. I could think of nothing else but warm pita, falafels, tabbouleh, and hummus for straight up days. Conveniently this craving struck during the high holidays, meaning, that the Mediterranean place near my job was closed in observance several times.

It got me thinking though as I was finally inhaling still hot from the fryer falafels one day that hmm, I wonder if I could paleo-fy these? Oh and maybe hummus!….AND MAYBE TABBOULEH!

Can we just straight talk for a second? I just want to say that I use paleo as a framework for how I eat day to day. I am not so strict about eating that way 100% of the time. One of the best parts for me has been expanding how I think about food and the way it can be used. It helps me get creative! I'm actually working on re-writing my about me to reflect these thoughts. The "buzzwords" in there have always killed me a little bit. So, anyways, while I am pretty positive some chickpeas once in a while ain’t gonna kill me, having the revelation (which I’m sure is not so original) that cauliflower riced to couscous size could work as chickpeas. I mean come on! I had to try it.

So for the people that do follow strict paleo for whatever reasons and are missing dearly those crunchy, herby, lovely balls of chickpeas, and smooth yummy hummus and refreshingly delicious tabbouleh…I did my best to find applicable substitutions, and I have filed these recipes under SUCCESS.

Today I give you tabbouleh! Hummus and falafels will be posted later this week.

One note about this tabbouleh. Mine looks a teensy bit on the brown side.

You see, what had happened was…

Listen, I don’t think you will have half as many things going on in your oven as I did the day I made this. So you probably won’t be switching pans around to different places in oven and you probably won’t stupidly place your roasting riced cauliflower on the very bottom of the oven and then shut the door and then discover it about five minutes too late when you go to switch things around again.

You will roast this until it's just perfectly tender and just a smidgen toasty on the edges.

Got it? Great.

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Cauliflower Tabbouleh

2 cups of cauliflower, riced in a food processor (about the size of couscous)

1 cup of diced tomatoes

½ cup of parsley, finely chopped

½ cup of mint, finely chopped

approximately ¼ cup of olive oil

juice of 1 lemon

salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 350 degrees

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and spread your riced cauliflower on the pan.

Roast in oven until tender and slightly toasty on the edges, approximately 15 to 20 minutes.

Place in bowl and let cool to room temperature.

Once cooled, add the tomatoes and herbs to the bowl and then dress with olive oil and lemon juice and add seasoning, stir to combine all ingredients. Adjust seasoning as needed.

Tabbouleh is one of the those feel it out type of salads. My mother’s ratio is more bulgar wheat to herbs and then she sorta continues to taste it and add in the oil, lemon, and salt and pepper until it tastes right. This is essentially her recipe with the bulgar switched out for cauliflower.