Eat Your Veggies: Spiced Spinach

 “Tomorrow, I’m going to eat more vegetables.”

“Eat Your Veggies” is a pseudo-weekly series featuring seasonal, delicious vegetable recipes.

Winter is upon us, which means I have to cheat a little with the “seasonal” aspect of eat your veggies.  In the Pacific Northwest, very little grows over winter. Our farmers markets close up, the CSAs either stop or switch to imported produce, and the little “Washington Grown” tags are scarce in the produce department. Our choices are to either spend the winter subsisting on local potatoes and apples, or switch to imported foods.  

Onions and garlic last all winter!

A few solutions:

• Eat things you’d buy imported anyway, like tropical fruits.
• Citrus and avocado are actually better in winter, and in the PNW, they’re always imported anyway.
• What’s on sale at the supermarket? If its on sale, it is likely in season somewhere relatively nearby.  In the PNW, “relatively nearby” means California.
• Things that are still relatively in season: cabbage, kale, root vegetables.
• Buy frozen produce.  It’s usually packaged in season, when there’s a surplus.
• Freeze or can your own local produce during the spring, summer and fall.  Most things can be frozen with the right preparation. This is the most desirable solution, but requires forethought.

I’ll try to focus on recipes that highlight some of these strategies in the future.  For this week, I bought some spinach that was on sale.  It had a code on the package that allowed me to use HarvestMark.com to see that it was grown in either Southern California or Arizona, and was harvested about 7 days prior to when I purchased it. Not too shabby, for winter!

I ate this with hot sauce and an egg fried in a tortilla.

Spiced Spinach

2 tablespoons Extra Virgin Coconut Oil
1 very small onion, finely chopped (about ⅓ cup chopped)
2 fat cloves of garlic, minced
⅛ tsp ground cumin
⅛ tsp powdered mustard
⅛ tsp red pepper flakes
3 cups loosely packed baby spinach

Melt coconut oil over medium heat in a saute pan.  Add onion and spices and saute for 3-5 minutes, or until onion is soft.  Add garlic, saute 1 minute more.  
Add spinach to pan.  Stir and cook for about 30 seconds, then cover the pan, remove from heat, and allow spinach to steam for about 3-4 minutes or until wilted.

Recipe Source: Inspired by the flavors in this recipe by Heidi at 101cookbooks.com

Party Like its 1799: Hot Buttered Rum

“Tomorrow, I’m going to celebrate the holidays like an American Colonist.”

The tradition of drinking sweet hot alcoholic beverages in winter is very old.  Colonists in what would become the US started drinking them with the alcohol popular in the new world: rum. 

Most traditional recipes for Hot Buttered Rum involve hot water, rum, and spices, with a pat of butter floated on top.  

Imagine its the dead of a winter, in pre-revolutionary times, before the electric light.  Its cold and dark, and you’re probably sick with any number of awful diseases.  Watered down rum is probably the closest thing you’re going to get to cough syrup, so I get that.  Spices?  Delicious and festive.  But I don’t really understand why someone decided to add a pat of butter to all of that.  Apparently it was a common practice, as people also added it to beer.

At some point in the 20th century, someone decided to add ice cream.  And why not? Ice cream makes everything great.  For my recipe, I used less sugar than many recipes and froze the batter in a silicon muffin tin for pre-portioned servings.  If you don’t drink alcohol, try just adding boiling water (I drank watered down batter every year as a kid and kind of prefer it now). Alternately, I’m told that it is a delicious addition to coffee.

Waiting for boiling water.

Hot Buttered Rum Batter
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
1 cup softened vanilla ice cream
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Combine ingredients in medium bowl with a hand mixer. The butter will harden up upon contact with the cold ice cream, and that's alright. As long as the lumps are small and emulsified in the mixture, everything will be fine. 

Portion 1/4 cup servings into a silicon muffin tin.  Freeze at least 6 hours or overnight. 

To serve: Combine with desired amount of dark rum (completely depends on how much you like rum, but start with about 1 oz) and 8 oz boiling water. Stir until melted.
OR, combine with hot strong coffee and stir until melted.

Do yourself a favor and use good tasting rum,
the hot water seems to enhance the flavor.

Recipe Source: Loosely based on this recipe, from Allrecipes.

Info on Hot Toddies, Hot Buttered Rum, and more:

Guerreri, Matthew. "Fuzzy Math: The Hot Toddy (a history)" Wonderlandkitchen.com. Jan 30, 2012.
Therlot, Lars. "Hot Buttered Rum."  12bottlebar.com. Dec 10, 2010.
Hesser, Amanda. The New York Times Cookbook.

Supersets and Work out of the Day

“Tomorrow, I’m going to throw some supersets into my routine to get my heart rate up.”

I am all for doing a million reps of something, but not with light weights and not with uber long rest breaks. Unless you are injured, pregnant or elderly please don’t skimp on your workload. Also resting forever between doing a set of one exercise to the next is not beneficial to you, it allows your Heart Rate to drop amongst many other things (a post about this will come later).

That being said today we are going to look at supersets (combining two or more exercises back to back) and on a way to incorporate this using your own body weight. For our purposes today we’re going to look at linking three exercises together with zero rest between movements completing 3-5 sets back to back (your aim is to do it in as little time as you are able). This superset will be repeated 3-5 times depending on your capabilities and current health status. Linking these exercises will also get your heart rate up and constitute as metabolic conditioning (metcon).

Now on to the Metcon for the day!

Complete 3-5 sets for time of the following:

• 10 burpees
• 20 squats (unweighted)
• Run 200 meters

Here’s a few links to give you an idea for what each movement should look like:
burpees - http://runfitkin.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Burpees_Kate.jpg
squats -
1) http://www.myfitclinic.com/wp-content/uploads/proper-squat-child2.jpg
2)https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn_Tto7wabZz_-OLcApQPNNj4swh4b2rweauWhGI6EHGALpFV0IP8WZUP8-1z6D5OvVN0eWb9v5-n-VlKAuP4vHZQecDrPnb1LfPzmd16tPVJKZ_lutPVpKWzMZPmNR0x90-kdPtGU1A4/s1600/SQUAT.jpg

If any of these exercises are too much for you, please know there are modifications. You could pause and touch the floor with your whole body during the burpee. You could jog instead of run or walk and jog instead of just jog. There are so many options that will make each movement possible for you wherever you are at in your fitness journey.

Slow things down if you must to ensure you always have proper form so as to prevent injury.



Disclaimer: Before starting this workout please consult your doctor to confirm you are okay to start an exercise program.

A Taste of Summer: Roasted Tomatoes

“Tomorrow, I’m going improve the flavor of these winter tomatoes.”

I love tomatoes.  I generally eat seasonally, but I love tomatoes all year round, even when they aren’t in season.  Someday, I want to be the type of person who buys tons of tomatoes from the farmers market in the summer, processes and cans them, and has local tomatoes to use all year round.

I wrote that, and then realized that I am the type of person who would do that, I just haven’t gotten around to including it in my summer routine yet.

For now, my winter tomato consumption consists of store bought canned tomatoes and fresh tomatoes from Mexico.  But something about their journey from the tropics seems to diminish their flavor, making fresh tomatoes in winter a mere shadow of their summer selves. My boyfriend calls them “water-berries.”

Water berries, about to be magically transformed.

A decent solution to this problem is to roast them.  It concentrates the tomato flavor just enough, leaving you with yummy cooked tomatoes ready to use in recipes. I like the roasted tomatoes better than canned because they lack the metallic aftertaste of canned tomatoes.  Am I the only person who notices that? It cooks away after a bit in soups and sauces, but I’m fairly certain it isn’t a figment of my imagination.

This recipe is really a building block for other meals.  I combined these tomatoes with olives and capers and served them on pan fried chicken.  Additionally, they would be great on toasted bread, on sandwiches, or mixed with pasta or vegetables. Use them anywhere you would use raw tomatoes in summertime. Enjoy!

Roasted Tomatoes

1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
4 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
olive oil
salt

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Toss tomatoes and garlic with enough olive oil so that they shine, and a big pinch of salt.  Spread out mixture on baking sheet or shallow baking dish.
Bake for 30-45 minutes, or until tomatoes are very soft. Cool slightly and remove garlic from peels.
Use immediately or store in the fridge in a jar, covered with additional olive oil.

Recipe Source: Directly inspired by “Slow Roasted Tomatoes” from Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan

Musings: Non-Traditional Christmas Cookies

“Tomorrow, I’m going to make Christmas Cookies that people want to eat.”

Since medieval times, cookies have been a Christmas tradition. Far from being an everyday food, cookies were a special part of festival seasons.  During the industrial revolution, cookies became less about eating a sweet treat and more about decorating. Manufactured cookie cutters, molds and decorating tools became available to everyone.  

Today, when I think Christmas Cookies, I think of sugar cookies cut in many marvelous shapes, topped with bright icing. My family always made those.  If your family has other traditions, I’d love to hear about them.

Personally, I don’t like frosted sugar cookies at all.  I think they have no flavor other than cloying sweetness.  I hate how the frosting gets hard as a rock after a day or so.  Judging by how they seem to stick around, I don’t think I’m alone.  I love decorating them, but when they’re done, I pawn them off on other people.

This year, I said no more. This year, I made some cookies that I actually want to eat. I made Chocolate Spice Quickies, from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.  They are simple slice and bake cookies, made with cocoa and ground almonds, flavored with zippy allspice and a swirl of melted chocolate.  

My humble cookies, small but mighty.

They might not win any beauty contests, but they are a crumbly, buttery delight.  They’re a manageable size so I don’t have to feel guilty for having just one.  They won’t linger around until Christmas.  They’ll be gone and I can make more cookies!

Someday, I’ll make a sugar cookie recipe that feels the same way.  With icing that doesn’t taste like a sweet fossil. Someday.

I encourage everyone to dress up their favorite cookies for Christmas.  There’s no reason that we have to stick to the sugar cookie cutout formula.  Its a Christmas revolution!

And if you absolutely love sugar cookies, I’d be glad to give you some! Maybe we can make a registry of sugar cookie donors and receivers.

Christmas Cookie History Source: The Food Timeline