As quintessential American fare, especially for African-Americans and Southerners, how can I have a food blog and not cover macaroni and cheese? While the thick, creamy richness of mac and cheese doesn’t quite fit in with my attempts to eat, cook, and write about nutritious and nourishing food, I have a hard time banishing this dish out of my kitchen forever!

Yes, change can be good, but macaroni and cheese taps into that soft spot in my heart for tradition and nostalgia. Mac and cheese is like a cornerstone of family gatherings, church functions and potluck dinners with friends. I can’t deny its delicious place in my culture or culinary history.

Now does that mean I’m going to eat it every day? No, but on occasion, I will indulge in this comfort food favorite, preferably with a light side dish of green vegetables or a salad rather than a full spread of other heavy foods. I have no problem breaking from that tradition.

So the question has come up repeatedly among my friends of how to make a good macaroni and cheese. I’ve discovered from friends, family and various cookbooks that there are many approaches to mac and cheese. Of course all the basics are included every time – pasta and cheese, butter and usually milk, but there’s lots of variety out there to achieve various consistencies and levels of cheesiness.

Some people like their mac and cheese ultra creamy and ultra cheesy with an almost liquid-like consistency. Others like their mac and cheese firm, but not dry. Some recipes call for canned cheddar cheese soup, others cheese wiz (processed goo, yuck!), or my family’s old reliable – evaporated milk. But then, there’s the original approach to macaroni and cheese, which is to make a roux turning it into a white sauce (béchamel) as the thickening agent for the dish.

Since I’m interested in going back to the basics with a lot of my cooking and discovering some of those classic approaches to recipes, the roux/white sauce approach is the one I’ve been working on. Although it diverges from how most folks in my family make their mac and cheese, I still stick to the portions and guidance of my mom’s recipe, with the exception of my addition of buttered panko breadcrumbs to the top, which my clan normally doesn’t do.

If you haven’t tried the roux/white sauce approach before, give my recipe a try. It has a loose, but still somewhat firm consistency. Also, I’d love to know your macaroni and cheese traditions. What’s your secret or preference for the best mac and cheese?

Macaroni and Cheese

8 oz. small macaroni pasta
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
6 oz. sharp cheddar cheese, grated (1-1/2 four oz. packages)
1/2 cup paprika white sauce (see recipe below)
1 large egg
1/4 cup organic milk
3 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Bring a large pot of water with 1 tablespoon kosher salt to a boil. Add macaroni and boil for about 7 minutes until al dente. Drain and set aside in a large bowl. Lightly butter an 8” x 8” baking dish and set aside. In a small sauté pan, melt 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat. Add panko breadcrumbs and toss to coat for about 2 – 3 minutes. Set aside.

Add half the grated cheese to the bowl of cooked macaroni. In another small bowl, mix together the white sauce, milk, water and egg. Add the mixture to macaroni and cheese and mix well. Add salt and pepper and stir well. Pour macaroni and cheese mixture into the buttered baking dish. Sprinkle remaining cheese over top, then sprinkle buttered breadcrumbs over the dish. Place dish on the center rack in the middle of the oven and bake for 25 minutes.

Paprika White Sauce

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup organic milk
1/8 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 pinch salt

Melt butter in a small sauce pan over medium-low heat. Stir in the flour until a smooth paste forms, about one minute. Add milk and stir continuously for about 10 minutes. Sauce will thicken. The sauce is done when it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Stir in paprika and salt. Use sauce in cooking or store remaining sauce in an air tight container in the refrigerator for up to three days.

After seven months of weekend-long intensives, weekly classes, teaching practicums, readings, personal practice and study; the nine ladies of the Shakti Mind Body Studio 2009 – 2010 yoga teacher training class have been initiated into the transformative practice of yoga as teachers and life-long students.

As a member of this class, I’m grateful for the experience of the program and I thoroughly enjoyed it. My interest in food and nutrition goes hand in hand with my study of healing movement through yoga and dance, as they all have the power to heal and foster well-being – body, mind and spirit.

During our graduation celebration this past Sunday, we all brought a vegetarian dish just as we had for our lunches throughout the teacher training program. The spread was delicious and beautiful from roasted vegetables to an Asian noodle stir-fry to chocolate dipped strawberries.

Wanting to make sure I contributed an especially delicious entrée for our special occasion, I looked to the flavor of Indian cuisine with its myriad of spices that always leave my mouth bursting with a party of flavors in every bite. I’m a big fan of Indian food, and thanks to my study of Indian cookbooks and several Indian cooking classes, the chole curry with pulao that I brought to the party turned out very well.

The chole (a.k.a. chickpeas or garbanzo beans) curry included the seasoning of mustard seeds, cumin seeds, curry powder, garam masala, cinnamon, bay leaves, parsley and fire-roasted crushed tomatoes. With a slow simmer these spices meld together to create a very tasty curry to go over the pulao. I highly recommend finding yourself a good Indian market to get your spices. Their spices tend to be less expensive than what you find in a regular grocery store.

Pulao, basmati rice pilaf, is a very fragrant dish in Indian cuisine. It can be made a variety of ways, but I used spices recommended by Chef Sudhir Seth of Passage to India, which I learned from him during a cooking class.

In addition to using the spices of cinnamon, black peppercorns, cardamom, cumin seeds and cloves, the key to this lovely pulao is washing or rinsing the basmati rice 3 to 4 times to remove excess starch and then letting the rice soak briefly while you cook the spices and boil your water. With the rice left to simmer on low for only 15 minutes and then removed from the heat and left to sit for 5 minutes, you’ll have fluffy rice every time. Enjoy and Namaste!

Chole Curry (Chickpea/Garbanzo Bean Curry)
Serves many (10 – 15)

4 tablespoons oil (extra-virgin olive oil, or ghee, or other)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 small yellow onion, diced
2 - 3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
3 cans (15-oz.) of garbanzo beans (chickpeas), rinsed and drained
1 can (15-oz.) crushed tomatoes (fire-roasted if you can find it)
2-1/2 cups vegetable broth (plus more if needed during cooking)
2 teaspoons kosher salt (plus more to taste)
1-1/2 tablespoons curry powder
1 tablespoon garam masala
3 bay leaves
1 cinnamon stick (optional)
1/4 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary (optional)
2 teaspoons dried parsley flakes (or 1-1/2 tbs fresh chopped parsley)
Fresh cracked black pepper
1 Squeeze of fresh lemon (about 1 teaspoon)

Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add mustard seeds and cover pot with lid to retain any popping seeds. Cook seeds for about 1 minute (until you hear them begin to sizzle and pop a little). Uncover pot and add cumin seeds, onion and garlic; and sauté about 5 – 8 minutes (until onions begin to become translucent). Note: As always, do not burn the garlic – otherwise start over.

Add the rinsed and drained beans to the pot along with the crushed tomatoes (juice included). Stir and next add the broth, curry powder, garam masala powder, salt, bay leaves, cinnamon stick and rosemary.

Stir contents well, cover pot and increase heat to medium high. Once the contents of the pot reach a hard simmer or low boil, reduce the heat to medium low, cover pot and simmer stirring occasionally. Add additional broth if curry becomes too thick. It should neither be too soupy nor pasty.

After simmering for 20 minutes or so, add parsley, black pepper and lemon juice. Stir and taste for flavor. Add additional salt or curry powder if desired. Simmer on low for an additional 10 - 15 minutes. Serve over rice or with flat bread and enjoy!

Note: You can use dried garbanzo beans as well, just soak them over night and simmer longer (more broth or water needed) until the beans are tender. Canned beans are acceptable; just use a quality natural foods brand that doesn’t include preservatives. I used Whole Food’s 365 Organic Garbanzo Beans.

Pulao (Fragrant Basmati Rice)
Serves 5 (Recipe can be easily doubled)
Adapted from a mutter pulao recipe by Sudhir Seth of Passage to India

1 cup basmati rice
2 tablespoons oil (canola, ghee, or other)
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
5 cloves
6 green cardamom pods
10 whole black peppercorns
1 cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
1-1/5 cups water (plus more for rinsing and soaking)
1 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, rinse and drain (wash) rice 3 – 4 times with lukewarm water, then in the same bowl, cover rice in lukewarm water and set aside. Heat oil over medium heat in a medium sauce pan and add cumin seeds. After about 15 – 30 seconds, seeds will begin to sizzle. Immediately add other spices and sauté for about 1 minute.

Add 1-1/2 cups water to pot and raise heat to bring water to a boil. Drain soaking rice and add rice to the boiling water. Allow water to come back to a boil, stir once, then cover pot. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove covered pot from heat and set aside for 5 minutes. Fluff rice and serve.  

Note: The pre-washing the rice removes excess starch and results in separated, fluffy rice.

 

Well, I didn’t get a spot on the 3rd season of the Food Network’s Grill It With Bobby Flay, but no worries because I still have my recipe for chermoula marinated grilled fish with a savory, yet fruity couscous to share with you. I made some tweaks to my Moroccan chermoula sauce and used it this time to marinade halibut instead of mahi mahi, and I like the dish even better now.

Since I made the first version of this fragrant and earthy sauce used widely in Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian cooking, I attended a cooking demo with Moroccan native, Chef Samir Labriny of Moroccan Cuisine Academy. At the demo I learned even more about Moroccan cooking, including more about chermoula sauce.

Some chermoula sauces are more herb-based (parsley or cilantro) as mine is and some are more tomato-based. In my original chermoula recipe I didn’t include tomatoes, but I did in this most recent version. The tomatoes add a nice balance to the flavor, cutting down on some of the grassiness of the parsley and cilantro.

At the cooking demo I also learned about making couscous using any regular couscous rather than a quick-cooking variety that I normally use. I basically think using either is fine, but the boxed quick-cooking variety sometimes tastes a little like the cardboard box it comes in and didn’t seem to cook as fluffy as the brand I used this time. So, from now on, I think I’ll use Chef Labriny’s approach for couscous, which is to place the semolina pasta-like granules in a large bowl and cover the couscous with boiling water or broth, cover the bowl and allow it to sit for about 30 – 40 minutes before tossing in any remaining ingredients. It works perfectly.

As for the type of fish I used in this dish, both the mahi mahi (what I used in my Food Network audition video) and Alaskan halibut are good grilling choices. They’re meaty, but not overly so, and they have a mild flavor that allows the chermoula sauce to be featured. Also, this time I grilled the fish using my new Staub cast iron grill pan (love it!) rather than an outdoor grill. The fish seemed to take a little longer on my grill pan, but it still worked fine and almost just as well as the outdoor gas grill.

Overall, I was very pleased with this meal, and it really didn’t take that long to make, so it’s a good week night choice. You can also make chermoula sauce in advance and keep it refrigerated for several days to have it ready to use. The sauce works well for seasoning chicken or vegetables in addition to fish, so try it out and enjoy!

Moroccan Chermoula Sauce Over Grilled Fish
Serves 4 – 6

Six 4 – 6 oz. pieces of U.S. mahi-mahi fillets (about 3” in width, 4” in length), skin on (Halibut can be used as well)
1 cup of chermoula sauce
Vegetable oil for drizzling/brushing
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

While heating a gas grill on medium heat, rinse and pat dry the fish fillets, then place them on a baking sheet for holding. Brush the skin side of each fillet with a little oil. This will help prevent the fish from sticking to the grill. Then with skin side down on the baking sheet, sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper.

Using a spatula, place 1 – 2 tablespoons of the chermoula sauce on each fillet and thickly spread the sauce over the fish. Lightly cover the sheet of fish with plastic wrap and place sheet in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, but up to two hours.

After marinating the fish, remove it from the refrigerator and place on the heated grill with skin side down. (Be sure to oil the grill grate with a paper towel saturated with vegetable oil to prevent sticking.) Note: If using a stove top grill pan, heat the pan on medium to medium-high before adding fish.

Grill fish directly over medium heat. If your grill tends to be cooler on one side than the other, use the cooler side. After about 15 minutes, carefully flip the fillets and grill on the other side for an additional five minutes. Fish should have light browning and flake easily with a fork when done. Remove fillets from grill and serve over couscous.

Chermoula Sauce
Makes about 1 cup of marinade

2 cups of roughly chopped cilantro
1-1/2 cups of roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 green onion (scallion) sliced, using both green and white parts
4 large garlic cloves, peeled
2 medium sized, ripe tomatoes – peeled and seeded
2 teaspoons grated ginger
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
Juice of a half lemon
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

In the small bowl (4-cup) of a food processor, add all of the ingredients except for the olive oil. Process the ingredients as you slowly add in the olive oil through the oil drain (top) of the food processor until the marinade comes together to form a thick, pasty sauce. Add in the olive oil a little at a time. You may not need all of it. Sauce should be thick, not liquid-like. Taste the sauce for flavor and add additional salt or pepper if needed. Transfer sauce to a small bowl, cover and set aside until ready to use.

Couscous with Golden Raisins and Dried Apricots
Serves 4

1 cup couscous
2 cups water or chicken broth
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 plump garlic clove, minced
1/3 cup diced dried apricots
1/4 cup golden raisins or dried currants
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt

Place couscous in a large glass or stainless steel bowl. Add the water or broth to a medium sauce pan along with the minced garlic and dried fruit and bring to a boil. Add the boiling water or broth with the garlic, raisins and apricots to the bowl of couscous. Use just enough of the liquid to just cover the couscous. This may be a little less than 2 cups.

Cover the bowl immediately with plastic wrap and set aside. After 30 – 40 minutes, uncover couscous and add parsley, olive oil, lemon juice and salt. Stir and fluff couscous gently to mix in ingredients, and serve with chermoula marinated fish.

Hopefully, where ever you are the weather has been as beautiful and uplifting as the gorgeous spring weather we’ve been experiencing here in the D.C. area. The breakthrough of sunny skies, gentle winds and comfortable warmth has been a refreshing detour from the harsh winter we experienced this year. Now with all the snow melted and days warm enough to leave the jacket at home and breakout the sandals, it’s time to ease up on soups and stews, and move on to lighter and refreshing dishes.

The first touch of spring and lighter fare in my kitchen comes from this nutritious whole wheat pasta salad. Working well as a light side dish for lunch or an afternoon snack, a tasty pasta salad is also a good thing to have in your collection of dishes for your first cook out or BBQ of the season.

Made with whole grain pasta, my spring fresh and summer ready pasta salad includes a variety of flavorful, fresh ingredients like diced tomatoes, green onions, tangy black olives, and a homemade vinaigrette of extra-virgin olive oil, white whine vinegar and Dijon mustard. Easy to make in all of about 30 minutes, you can eat it warm, but it gets that cool and refreshing taste of a salad once you refrigerate it or allow it to come to room temperature. Enjoy!

Spring Fresh, Summer Ready Pasta Salad
Serves 8

3 cups whole wheat corkscrew (rotelle) pasta
1/2 tablespoon salt
2 small ripe tomatoes seeded, peeled and diced
2 scallions (green onions) thinly sliced (green parts only)
1/4 cup sliced black olives
1/4 cup diced red onions
1 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)
Salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Dressing
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup quality white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons honey
1/8 teaspoon dried thyme
Pinch of salt

Fill a large pot with water, add 1/2 tablespoon salt, and bring to a boil. Add pasta and cook uncovered until pasta is tender. Drain pasta and set aside in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, add white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey and dried thyme. Then slowly drizzle in the extra-virgin olive oil while quickly whisking all dressing ingredients together. Season dressing with a pinch of salt and taste to adjust flavor as needed.

Add olives, green onions, red onions and tomatoes to your bowl of pasta and add in dressing (you may not need to use all of it). Stir all together and mix well. Season pasta salad with salt, pepper and lemon zest to taste. Set aside or refrigerate to cool completely before serving.

Familiar foods, recipes and approaches to cooking are a real comfort to most of us. They remind us of home, childhood, and good times with loved-ones. They’re guaranteed to satisfy our taste buds and “hit the spot.” However, I’ve realized through my passion for adventure and exploration, that flavors and cuisines from other countries can add a new enjoyment to our meals and even provide a window into understanding other people of the world and their cultures.

The recent disaster in Haiti has me thinking about their foodways and dishes, which you don’t usually hear much about. Despite this, I’ve discovered that this tiny Island country has a diverse, yet simple, flavorful cuisine that reflects the country’s Caribbean heritage and historic ties to Africa, France and Spain.

If you look at the names of dishes from cookbooks like A Taste of Haiti by Mirta Yurnet-Thomas and Fine Haitian Cuisine by Mona Cassion Ménager, you’ll see chili pepper spiced dishes, quiches, plantains, sweet potatoes, breadfruit, salt cod, and other seafood listed. Fowl, pork and beef, and a variety of rice and beans dishes are also major contributors to Haitian cuisine.

I found a simple Haitian red beans and rice recipe online that I made in thinking about the people of Haiti, their cuisine, and those in the country who currently don’t have the food and resources to fully nourish themselves or enjoy their familiar homeland’s dishes.

Although I already made a donation for Haiti’s recovery a while back, I plan to give more. As we all know, the need for aid continues. This Sunday, February 21st, food bloggers in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and L.A. are uniting to sponsor Stir It! 28, an evening of good food and cocktails where foodies contribute their best dishes to raise funds for Haiti. All of the proceeds will be donated to Yele Haiti and Share Our Strength.

While, I can’t be in attendance at what I’m sure will be deliciously entertaining events, I encourage anyone who’s in New York, Atlanta, Chiciago or L.A. to purchase a ticket and join in the efforts. If you too can’t attend, consider giving or giving again to organizations working for Haiti’s recovery (see below). And when you’re back home in your own kitchen, try out a Haitian recipe to remember the people and connect with their culture in a different way.

Haitian Recipe Resources

A Taste of Haiti (Book)
CaribbeanChoice.com – Haitian Recipes
Fine Haitian Cuisine (Book)
IslandFlave.com – Haitian Recipes

Organizations Acception Donations for Haitian Earthquake Recovery

American Red Cross
Salvation Army
Share Our Strength
Yele Haiti
Many others

Over the holidays I hosted a get-together for a few high school friends when I went home for Christmas. My menu consisted of chicken saté with peanut sauce, water crackers topped with thin slices of smoked salmon and parsley cream cheese, spiced roasted nuts, herb-seasoned olives, an assortment of holiday cookies, St. Germain cocktails (my favorite drink right about now) and this orange-pecan wild and long-grain rice.

Given that I was rushing around trying to put together this impromptu gathering to reconnect with old friends, while still enjoying some of my much needed vacation downtime, I definitely looked for delicious, yet quick short-cuts in preparing my entertaining menu. That’s when I thought about this wonderful rice I recently tasted from The District Chop House in D.C., which was flavored with a light hint of orange and toasty pecans throughout a bed of fluffy wild and long-grain rice.

Looking to recreate this dish without a lot of ingredients and in a short amount of time, I reached for a box of wild and long-grain seasoned rice mix from one of the few boxed rice brands that I like – Near East. I like Near East’s products because they tend to have the least amount of additives and preservatives (if any) when I compare ingredients lists.  In fact Near East marks all of their boxed mixes as 100% natural.

The texture and flavor of the rice with this mix from Near East is delicious and the addition of the orange zest contributes an interesting and unexpected flavor that you might not have considered putting in rice before. I hadn’t before tasting the combination from The District Chop House.  And of course if you’re a nut lover, the crunch of toasted pecans adds both flavor and texture.

Using the short-cut of a high-quality seasoned rice mix with natural ingredients and adding just a few other fresh flavors can allow you to have a delicious side dish on your table quickly!

Orange-Pecan Wild & Long-Grain Rice … Quickly!
Serves 2 – 4

One 6oz. box of Near East brand wild and long-grain rice blend (original)
1-3/4 cup water
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil plus more to drizzle
1-1/2 teaspoons orange zest (preferably in thin strips)
1/4 to 1/2 cup toasted pecans

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare the wild and long-grain rice blend as directed according to the package. While the rice is cooking, spread pecans in a single layer over a baking sheet and toast in the oven for about 5 – 6 minutes or until pecans become fragrant and turn a rich, toasted brown color. (Don’t burn them! Let your nose be your guide.)

Once the rice is cooked, fluff and gently stir in orange zest and pecans. Drizzle rice with a little additional olive oil if desired and serve! It’s that simple.

Last week I served this tasty pulled chicken sandwich along side my bowl of butternut squash soup. With the weather getting cooler and cooler these days, hot soup and warm sandwiches are ideal for weeknight meals and leftovers to take for lunch. So what makes this sandwich or any sandwich for that matter tasty and more than just the standard luncheon meat on bagged sliced bread like the kind I grew up on (think bologna or ham and cheese)? The answer’s very simple … the bread and the extras.

I’ve found that simply making your sandwich with fresh baked bread from a bakery can add a new dimension of flavor to your sandwiches if you’re used to making sandwiches at home with your regular packaged bread. My favorite bakery breads to use for sandwiches include wheatberry, rosemary Italian or foccaccia, sunflower or multi-seed boule (like the one I used for the photos here), or ciabatta. Also, I like to buy the bread whole rather than have it sliced at the bakery. I read the tip somewhere that slicing the bread as you need it allows it to keep longer than if you have it pre-sliced, and I’ve discovered that to be true.

The extras that I speak of, another key to good homemade sandwiches include breaking out of the jar of your simple mayo spread. Instead, add a little extra flavor by using pesto or avocado as a spread on your sandwiches or mixing in seasonings to your mayo. For this pulled chicken sandwich, I added one minced clove of garlic with fresh ground black pepper to my mayonnaise and those additions alone elevated the “deliciousness” of my sandwich. You can also try dried herbs, a splash of lemon juice, or a diced sun-dried tomato. Be creative, and enjoy!

Pulled-Chicken Sandwich with Garlic Mayo

1 loaf fresh baked bread of your choice
2 – 3 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
Pulled chicken from one roasted or rotisserie chicken
Green leaf lettuce
Vine-ripened tomato, sliced
Thin-sliced red onions (optional)
Garlic mayo (see recipe below)

Drizzle olive oil over one side of two slices of the fresh bread and lightly toast in the oven under the broiler, remove from oven and set aside. On the untoasted sides of the bread, spread a thin layer of garlic mayonnaise and top one slice with pulled chicken. Then sprinkle chicken with a little pepper. Add lettuce and a few tomato and red onion slices. Top with the other slice of toasted bread and cut sandwich on a diagonal. Serve with hot soup.

Garlic Mayonnaise

1/4 cup quality mayonnaise
1 clove garlic, finely minced (almost to a paste)
2 dashes of fresh ground black pepper

Mix the finely minced garlic and pepper well into the mayo and use on bread for sandwiches or as a dip for fresh vegetables or (eek!) … fries.

I’m back! Every now and then you just have to take a break. That was the case for me last week. After pushing hard in August to maintain my blogging schedule of posting twice a week and working to win the 2009 Black Weblog Awards for best food blog (which I did – thank you!), I had to slow down for a moment to regroup. Also, I had to make an adjustment to a new endeavor added to my schedule – yoga teacher training.

I’ve written about my interest in dance and yoga before, which both go hand in hand with my passion around food, nutrition and good eating. All of these things are about nurturing your health and well-being. I study dance and movement regularly (multiple classes a week) and have been practicing yoga on some level since 2000. So wanting to deepen my own yoga practice and prepare myself for teaching others about using movement for feeding mind, body and spirit, I’m now working on my 200-hour-level certification with Shakti Mind Body Studio.

This has inspired me to share the recipe for this post – a quinoa-millet hot breakfast cereal, which I first came across during a recent yoga retreat I attended. Definitely uncommon and associated with health food stores, you might be wondering, ‘what in the world is quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) or millet?’

Quinoa is a grain-like seed native to South America and high in protein and various minerals. It’s fluffy when cooked and has a nutty flavor. It can be eaten like oatmeal as in my recipe or like rice or cous cous. Millet is a grain that’s also a substitute for rice or cous cous and can be used in baked goods such as breads and muffins.

Cooked together in water, similar to how you might make oatmeal; this combination makes a great hot breakfast cereal that adds some variety to your mornings – variety in taste and in the nutrients provided. I’m from the south, so I love grits for breakfast (savory preferred – butter and salt), but I also enjoy oatmeal topped with chopped nuts, brown sugar and dried fruit. That’s exactly the same approach I use when making quinoa-millet cereal. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Quinoa-Millet Hot Cereal
Makes about 4 servings

1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup millet, rinsed and drained
2-1/2 cups water
Chopped nuts
Currants, raisins or cranberries
Dried apricots, diced
Maple syrup, agave nectar, or brown sugar

Bring water and a pinch of salt to a boil in small sauce pan. Add quinoa and millet, stir, cover, reduce heat, and simmer for about 30 minutes. Add a little hot water if it cooks too quickly. The cereal should be neither too watery nor dry (more like porridge).

Serve in a bowl with chopped nuts, dried fruit such as raisins, currants and apricots, along with one to two tablespoons of maple syrup or agave nectar. You can also use brown sugar instead.

Lucky me! After getting up at the crack of dawn this past Sunday to work eight hours in the hot August sun at the farmers’ market, helping to bring fresh, locally grown produce to Washingtonians, I was greatly rewarded. One of the gracious farmers gave me a box full of beautiful, organic heirloom tomatoes!

This gift was right on time. I had just finished thinking about how I wanted to take advantage of the season’s tomatoes by either canning some tomatoes, or making and canning tomato sauce. That way, I could have peak tomato flavor even after the summer ended.

Every good cook and cookbook I’ve come across that talk about tomatoes always say that if  you’re going to make fresh sauce, do it with vine-ripened, freshly picked tomatoes. Otherwise, go for store-bought canned tomatoes, which are canned at peak season (if you can’t can your own, which is time consuming I know).

So I used six pounds of my tomatoes (the ones that were of a plum variety) to try my hand at marinara sauce. It turned out pretty well – absolutely delicious in fact! As I tasted my final product, I thought, “Man, where has fresh, homemade tomato sauce been all my life?!”

Cooking the basil and thyme seasoned sauce took a little longer than I expected. I thought I could get away with just simmering it for an hour, and I could have, but I wanted a thicker sauce that was more like the consistency I’m used to. Still noticing a little wateriness, I continued to simmer the colorful mixture, which had my place smelling wonderfully from beginning to end, for about an hour and 45 minutes.

I wasn’t quite ready to attempt the canning process yet. Thankfully, I still have half a box of tomatoes left from which I’m going to make more sauce to can and hopefully have my own little stash of marinara sauce to use when the weather’s cold, but my taste buds want to be reminded of summer.

Do any of you have experience with canning? Also, the color of my sauce wasn’t as red as I expected (it turned kind of orange). I’m still researching why that was the case. If you have any info on this, please share!

Summer Fresh Marinara Sauce

6 pounds ripe plum or Romano tomatoes
1 /4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 celery stalk, minced
4 cloves garlic minced
8 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves striped and chopped (discard stems)
1 handful fresh basil leaves
2-1/2 teaspoons salt
Fresh cracked black pepper

Fill a large non-reactive stockpot or Dutch oven with water and bring to a boil. Add tomatoes. After 15 seconds, immediately transfer tomatoes to a large bowl of cold water. Now you should be able to easily pull the skins right off the tomatoes.

Seed the peeled tomatoes by cutting off one end and squeezing the seeds out or cutting tomatoes into quarters and removing the seeds with your hands. Roughly chop tomatoes and set aside.

Wipe pot clean and add olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and cook for about eight minutes. Then add celery and garlic, and cook for another 2 – 4 minutes. Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and stir.

Add chopped, seeded tomatoes, a pinch of sugar and stir. Stir in the thyme and remaining salt. Take half of your handful of basil and chop it, then add to pot. Stir the pot, slightly reduce heat and simmer uncovered.

After 30 minutes, chop and add remaining basil. Continue to simmer for 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours stirring occasionally. The longer the sauce cooks, the more the water cooks out of it and the thicker the sauce, so cook to your desired consistency. Finally, lightly puree the sauce with an immersion blender or pour the sauce in a regular blender in batches. Taste for additional salt, pepper and sugar if needed.

Serve over pasta or vegetables. Sauce can be kept refrigerated for up to four days.

This past weekend I experimented with whole grain baking thanks to inspiration I received from the cookbook Super Natural Cooking by blogger Heidi Swanson. I picked up the book during a recent weekend excursion to New York’s Hudson Valley. Driving about 1 1/2 hours outside of NYC with my foodie friend, Norah Burton, we visited the quaint towns of Hyde Park (home to the Culinary Institute of America), Rhinebeck and Red Hook among a few others.

In addition to taking a self-guided tour of CIA, looking for area farmers’ markets and interesting shops, and stumbling upon a couple of great restaurants, we visited Greig Farm in Red Hook. This small farm was full of ripe, u-pick blueberries.

Although the weather made it a bit too hot for us to pick that afternoon, we went out into the fields to taste a few berries and take photos before driving a short distance down the road to the farm’s store, Gigi Market. That’s where I stumbled upon Heidi’s book, which is all about cooking with whole, natural ingredients, including a wide variety of whole grains.

Wanting to share a recipe with you not from the book, but inspired by the cookbook and my trip to Greig Farm, I came up with my version of blueberry muffins that are delicious and provide you with the good nutrition that whole grains offer.

Often times, people think whole grains mean a dry and flavorless baked good, but with techniques that often include blending different types of flours or adding certain ingredients such as yogurt, whole grain baking can result in tasty textures and flavors that are higher in protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals than regular all-purpose flour.

My blueberry muffins recipe calls for whole-wheat pastry flour, which is milled from soft wheat. It helps give muffins and quick breads a more tender texture than you would get from using regular whole-wheat flour. Some recipes call for part whole-wheat pastry flour and part all-purpose flour, but I decided to go all the way and use all whole grain flour. The yogurt helps to make the muffins moist and tender.

If you never or rarely bake with whole grain flour, give this recipe a try. It just may entice you to experiment a little more with whole grain baking. Thanks to Heidi Swanson’s cookbook, I’m already looking forward to working more with whole grains in my kitchen.

Whole Grain Blueberry Muffins
Makes 14 muffins

2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup of natural cane sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup whole, plain yogurt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1-1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 tablespoons whole milk
1-1/2 cups blueberries

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a large bowl, fully whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and sugar. In another bowl, fully mix together melted butter, yogurt and almond extract. Then, add eggs and briskly stir to combine.

Create a well in the flour mixture and add the butter, yogurt and egg mixture stirring together briskly with a rubber spatula. Be sure to incorporate all of the flour until just combined (do not over mix). Then fold the whole milk and blueberries into the batter.

Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper muffin liners and fill them to the top with the batter. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes. When muffins are done, they will begin to brown on top.

Remove muffins from oven and allow them to cool in the pan for a few minutes before transferring them to a baking rack to cool a few minutes more. Serve muffins warm (tastiest) or at room temperature.