Think Outside the (Lunch)Box

Do you ever find yourself stuck in a lunch rut, getting tired of eating the same cold cut sandwiches, canned soups or pb&j's everyday? Start the new year off right and get those creative juices flowing by stepping outside the traditional lunch box for some newer, healthier, and spunkier recipes! Unlike most people who view making or packing lunch a tedious chore, I view this task as a time to get creative and pack in my veggies into one easy dish that's ready to go. Usually I take leftovers from dinner the night before for lunch, but with a little planning over the weekend or on a slow weeknight, you can also make one of these three types of all-in-one cold salads that are perfect for a delicious and nutritious lunch, no-heat necessary. And as always with my non-specific recipes, feel free to use what you have on hand and adjust the recipe to your liking!

Fiesta Corn Pasta Salad

Directions: Cook 1lb bag of corn pasta (found it at trader joes), rinse with cool water and put in large bowl. Add 1 can of rinsed black beans, 2 bell peppers (diced), 1/2 small onion (chopped), 1 clove of garlic (minced), 2 avocados (chopped), 2 tblsp of olive oil, and the juice of 2-3 limes. Mix all ingredients together and spice it up with salt, pepper, cumin, chili pepper, cilantro and hot sauce of your choice!! 

Cranberry, Feta and Almond Brown Rice Salad

Directions: Cook about 2 cups of dry brown rice (or any type of brown or wild rice blend), rinse with cold water and place into a large bowl. Add about 1 cup each of dried cranberries, slivered almonds, and feta cheese crumbles. You can also add some raw broccoli pieces (I used a bag of broccoli slaw mix from trader joes) for an extra crunch and added nutrients. Drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar over mixture, season with salt and pepper, and combine well.

Crunchy Apple, Fennel, Cabbage Slaw

 Directions: Combine one chopped fennel bulb, 1/4 head purple cabbage (chopped), 2 apples (diced) and a handful each of chopped or slivered almonds and dried cranberries. In a separate small bowl, whisk together 1 tblsp dijon mustard, 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 1 tblsp olive oil, and small drizzle of honey. Pour over slaw, mix well and season with salt and pepper to taste! 

Have a "BERRY" fun Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day! I hope everyone has been enjoying this beautiful, long weekend and kick-off to summer! I know I sure have. I finished up my graduate classes (last classes ever?!?) on the 19th and have had some time off before taking my comprehensive exam this Thursday and then starting my dietetic internship on June 6th. Gosh, it's been so nice to have some real free time this past week to catch up with life! I'm looking forward to a change of pace and getting hands-on experience with my internship, though I can't say that I'm really excited about 40hr work weeks, plus extra assignments, non-stop until January... intense! But the program will be over before I know it and then I can start actually thinking about my wedding, getting a real job, and just starting my new life! Lots of changes, but I always look forward to new challenges and experiences. 


Enough about me.. let's talk food! One great thing about being done with classes is having more time to cook and experiment with new foods. And what better time than right now when the seasons are changing and copious amounts of gorgeous, fresh fruits and vegetables are available at the farmers' markets?! Strawberries, in particular, are booming right now and I couldn't be happier! Not only are strawberries so sweet and succulent (who doesn't LOVE strawberries??), but they are also packed with tons of health-promoting nutrients. Buy them from your local farmers' market while they are still in season to taste the deliciousness of freshly picked, local berries. Yum! Below are two very season-appropriate recipes using strawberries that I think you'll love! 


RED WINE SANGRIA WITH STRAWBERRIES, APPLES, AND ORANGES

What better way to celebrate Memorial Day than to make a fresh batch of sangria to cool you down after a hot day or to wash down all those grill foods? Sangria is one of my favorite drinks, especially during this time of year, and I love how forgiving, flexible and delicious this recipe is. Just use what you have and adjust the tastes to your liking! I personally don't like my sangria too sweet (most recipes call for some kind of fruit juice or sprite), so I just use a splash of triple sec to sweeten it up and add club soda for that extra spritz. You can also make it a few hours ahead of time and keep it chilled to let all the fruit soak into the wine for even more flavor.


Ingredients:
Red or white wine
Few splashes of brandy
Few splashes of triple sec
Club soda to make it spritzy
Chopped fruit: Apples, oranges, and strawberries!


Directions:
1. Mix all ingredients in a large punch bowl or pitcher.
2. Pour over a glass of ice and enjoy! Eating the wine-soaked fruit out of the glass is my favorite part!

STRAWBERRY RHUBARB APPLESAUCE

This is another one of my favorite recipes to make once strawberries and rhubarb hit the farmers' market. The strawberries add great sweetness and flavor to the applesauce, while the rhubarb adds just a bit of tartness.. it's a really yummy combination. Rhubarb is a really fun, unique plant that grows in stalks and almost looks like pink celery. It's traditionally used in pies and other sweet desserts because of it's great tangy and tart flavor.  You just chop it the stalks into thin pieces and add it to the pot.

You can refer to my recipe for plain applesauce here. This one is pretty much the same but with strawberries and rhubarb added. Again, the proportions are totally up to you; you really can't go wrong with making applesauce.. it's all just about how you like it! Just chop up all the ingredients, throw them in a pot with some citrus (lemon or orange juice), cook until soft and mushy, then blend. I like to leave the skins on the apples for extra texture and nutrients, but you can choose to peel the apples beforehand if you'd like. And depending on how chunky you like you applesauce, you can decide how much to blend. Also feel free to experiment with adding spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, etc), different kinds of citrus (lemon, orange, etc), and different kinds of sweetners (agave, honey, maple, etc). The possibilities are endless!

Throw everything in a pot and cook for about 20-30 min stirring every few minutes until it look something like this...

Then use an immersion blender or processor to blend the applesauce to your desired consistency.

Serve warm or refrigerate and serve cold. Great snack by itself or with yogurt. Enjoy! 

Cinnamon Apple Chips

Happy Meatless Monday everyone! I know I haven't been quite on top of posting a new meat-free recipe every Monday, but I hope you are still trying and challenging yourself to go one entire day each week without meat.  Anyone have any comments on their own experience trying Meatless Mondays? I'd love to hear about it!

While procrastinating doing biostatistics homework, I thought I would go ahead and post an easy and delicious recipe for apple chips that I made this weekend (Okay so it's not that exciting of a hearty Meatless Monday recipe, but it's still a tasty snack that will keep you going through a meat-free day!). I eat a lot of apples during this time of year and I'm always looking for creative ways to use them (kind of like my last cabbage post.. ), especially with apples that are starting to go bad or have a few bruises here or there. Applesauce (click here for my recipe) is usually my go-to way to prepare apples if I have a ton that I need to use up, but this weekend I tried making oven-baked apple chips with a few extra apples I had laying around... and I fell in love.   I sliced them up real thin (the thinner the slice, the crispier the chip), sprinkled with some cinnamon and popped them in the oven on really low heat until they got nice and crispy and golden brown. They are great to snack on and to take on-the-go for a super healthy munchie (wayyyyy better than greasy, fatty potato chips.. yuk!). These are soooo good, you will probably want to make more than you think you will want...

CINNAMON APPLE CHIPS 

Ingredients:

(makes about 4-5 cups worth)

3-5 apples, any type

cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 225 degrees. 

2. Cut the apples into chunks around the core (or use an apple corer, if you have one), and slice very thinly. A mandolin is the best option for getting thin, even slices for crispy chips. 

3. Spread out the slices in a single layer on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper (or tin foil, but use a cooking spray first). Sprinkle side facing up with cinnamon.

4. Bake for about 20min or so on the first side, until the slices start shrinking and shriveling up, turning slightly golden brown.  Then flip over the slices, sprinkle the other side with cinnamon and put back into the oven for another 15-20 minutes until this side is golden brown and crispy. You may have to work in batches depending on how many cookie sheets you have and can fit into your oven at once. I had to do two shifts of two cookie sheets. 

ENJOY!

APPLESAUCE!

Yummmm.. who doesn't love applesauce? It's one of those simple foods that brings back warm, childhood memories and that I still enjoy eating as an adult. That being said, store bought applesauce doesn't even come close to a homemade batch of the real deal. The store bought stuff usually has tons of added sugar (1 cup of Mott's original applesauce has 22g of sugar- that's almost 6 teaspoons of sugar!) and other unnecessary chemicals and preservatives.  Making REAL applesauce is so easy and delicious, and you get to control what goes into it.  Also- here's a BIG money-saving tip... you can buy a huge bag of apple "seconds" (the picked over apples with a few bruises here or there that you can just cut off) from the farmers market for a whopping $1.  That's right, one dollar for a large bag (see below) of a good variety of apples that no one else wanted will make two enormous pots of applesauce. You just can't beat that!

There is no real recipe to making applesauce- it turns out differently every time I make it depending on the types of apples I get in the bag and the types of spices I have on hand to throw in until I'm happy with the taste. The only real effort in making applesauce is cutting off any bruises and chopping up all the apples in chunks (skin on or off depending on your preference- I love keeping the skin on for some extra texture). 

After that, you just throw the apples in a pot with some liquid (I used the juice of one lemon and a splash of brandy) and cook them down until they are nice and mushy, stirring occasionally (about 30min or so). I also added one cinnamon stick, some freshly grate ginger, a dash of nutmeg and a small drizzle of local, raw honey for a hint of sweetness. You can leave it chunky or use an immersion blender or regular blender to get it to a finer consistency, if you wish.  And that's it! The finished applesauce will keep for a few days, probably up to a week, in the fridge, or you can easily freeze the leftovers for later use. ENJOY!

*** After sending this out to my friends and family, I received an email back from my Nana that I would like to share with everyone:

"Allison:  Remember, Uncle Fritz’s nickname for you was “Applesauce”!!  My Mother, Nanny, made her own applesauce and when the apples were cooked, she put them in a screen cone shaped colander, and mashed them with a pointed wooden mallet, turning it around until all were mashed to her liking.  I have made applesauce myself many times at Piney.  It was really neat to use...  I like your recipe."

Thanks for your note, Nana :-) It's always fascinating for me hearing stories about how food was prepared years ago, before the extreme technological innovations and the development of our industrialized food system.  The beautiful art of cooking fresh, homemade meals has been lost by too many people of our generation, and it's a damn shame.  Let's work to regain and preserve this lost art by continuing to spread the joy of cooking! 

Apple, Beet and Fennel Salad

This recipe is up there as one of my favorite fall dishes of all time.  I know many of you may be hesitant or weirded out by beets or fennel, let alone the thought of eating them together. But just bear with me and trust me that if you keep an open mind and are willing to try new flavor combinations, you will be pleasantly surprised. This is a delicious, simple, healthy, seasonal, fresh and extremely scrumptious recipe that will wow your palate and feed your soul.

Many people have been scared by beets after being forced to eat pickled beets as a child, but in my experience, after people try freshly boiled or roasted beets for the first time, they genuinely enjoy them. These colorful root vegetables in season nowadays are sweet and satisfying, not to mention packed with powerful phytonutrients that help protect against heart disease and cancers. I know you've heard to eat a variety of colors everyday; well, beets are a great place to start. And by the way, the greens are absolutely edible- just cook them up with some olive oil, onions and garlic, and you have a great side dish on the table in no time. Check these babies out:

Now to the fennel. Fennel is a fantastically flavorful vegetable with a white bulb and green feathery stalks, all of which are edible and fresh from the autumn through spring.  Fennel is so unique with its subtle licorice flavor, slight sweetness and superior crunchiness. It's also loaded with vitamin C, potassium and folate, while being extremely low in calories and high in fiber. It pairs really well with beets, apples and oranges, as you'll see with this dish. Seriously, you HAVE to try it!

APPLE, BEET AND FENNEL SALAD

Ingredients

3-4 medium beets

1 large fennel bulb

1 apple

1/4cup orange juice (fresh is best, but whatever you have)

1 tsp olive oil

2-3 tblsp fennel frawns, chopped (dill would also be good)

salt/pepper to taste

optional- goat cheese would be fantastic with this salad!

Directions

1. Wash the beets well and boil for about 30min or until soft enough to fork

2. Meanwhile, peel the outer layer off of the fennel bulb, cut in half and chop into thin slices.

3. Wash the apple and chop into small pieces and add to the fennel slices.

4. Once beets are cooked, let them cool and then rub the skins off. Chop into bite-size pieces.

5. Combine with the fennel and apple, add orange juice, fennel frawns, salt and pepper to taste.

Yes, once combined, the beets will turn the entire salad pink.. how fun! 

This picture doesn't even do justice to how beautiful and festive this dish is... I'm not much of a photographer and my iPhone camera, though great, doesn't really have the same effect as a regular camera. And quite frankly, I would rather eat the food than take pictures of it, so I do apologize if my pictures don't make you drool over the food like most food pictures in magazines or online. I'll work on it!

Apple-Kohlrabi Slaw

For my first recipe post, I thought I'd go with something a little bit crazy and a little bit out there just because it's fun to keep people on their toes! Now I know most of you are probably wondering.. what the heck is kohlrabi?!? I know that I definitely wondered the same thing several months ago before I took a leap of faith and tried this funky vegetable when I saw it at the farmers' market.  I know most people are intimidated at farmers' markets and are afraid of trying new vegetables, but it sure doesn't scare me; in fact, I embrace odd-looking and unfamiliar vegetables and have so much fun trying new recipes. So that should take the fear-factor out of the equation for all of you because I've already done the scary part and tried and tasted all these vegetables for you.  I promise they aren't going to kill you... and you might even be pleasantly surprised! 

So back to kohlrabi. This funky-looking alien-like vegetable is in the same family as cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower, and as you can see in the picture below, it is a green bulb-like vegetable that has large leafy, greens that shoot out of it (I already cut the greens off and cooked them up earlier this week). It is a deliciously crunchy and mild vegetable with an apple-like flesh and it tastes like a mix between broccoli and cabbage in my opinion. It can be eaten raw or cooked- all you have to do is peel off the skin and chop it up! It's loaded with potassium, vitamins A, C & B6, dietary fiber, and tons of phytochemicals and minerals. It's a nutritional powerhouse like its other family members and better yet, its extremely low in calories! Kohlrabi is a cool-weather vegetable, so you should be able to find it at your local farmers' market fairly easily during this time of you. I dare you to try it!

Since I had a few apples laying around (which are also in season right now) and wanted to use up my kohlrabi, I decided to make an apple-kohlrabi coleslaw, which turned out to be deliciously crisp and refreshing. And it's only got 5 ingredients- so easy, so cheap, so seasonal and so yummy!

APPLE- KOHLRABI COLESLAW

2 heads of kohlrabi

2 apples (any kind will work)

2 tblsp dijon mustard

1 tblsp honey or agave syrup

3/4-1 cup apple cider vinegar

salt/pepper to taste

1. Peel the skin off the kohlrabi and chop thinly into matchstick-like pieces. (You can also use a grater) 

2. Wash off the apples and chop or shred into similar-sized pieces. Mix apples and kohlrabi in a large bowl.

3. In a smaller bowl, combine the last 3 ingredients with a fork until smooth. 

4. Pour the dressing over the apples and kohlrabi and mix together until everything is well-coated.

Et Voila! SO easy right?? I promise you will enjoy it- my roommates all approved! I'm am definitely taking this as part of my lunch tomorrow!