A long holiday weekend either means several days packed with travel and exciting activities, or an opportunity to stay around the house and catch up on much needed rest. This 4th of July weekend, I chose the later. Intentionally staying at home (which takes a lot of intention for me) and chilling out in front of the TV and with a good book also gave me the chance to work on some recipes I had swirling around in my mind.

First up, blueberry scones made with whole-grain pastry flour. Last summer, I shared a recipe for whole-grain blueberry muffins using seasonal, locally grown blueberries. Well, it’s blueberry season again, so take advantage!

Blueberries are packed with good nutrition – anti-oxidants (vitamin A and vitamin C), fiber, and only 84 calories per cup. I mostly prefer to eat blueberries straight from the container rather than cooking with them because, like most fruit, they taste delicious all on their own and it’s healthier to eat them raw. However, every now and then, I do like them in a breakfast or tea-time pastry such as muffins or scones.

My recipe is adapted from a recipe for cranberry-walnut scones that I got from the little recipe booklet that came with my KitchenAid food processor. By the way, if you don’t have a food processor, get one! Every kitchen should have one, as it makes many culinary tasks so much easier and quicker — sifting flour, grating and slicing vegetables, even kneading dough.

So with this recipe, it calls for a food processor, but you can still make these scones even if you don’t have one by using a hand-held pastry blender or two knives to cut the butter into the flour. Enjoy!

Blueberry Scones
Adapted from a recipe for Cranberry-Walnut Scones by Kitchen Aid

NOTE: If you don’t have a food processor, then you can cut the butter into the flour with two knifes or a hand-held pastry blender. Everything else you can do by hand with a fork or rubber spatula.

1-1/4 cup organic whole grain pastry flour
3/4 cup organic unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons organic cane sugar
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground cinnamon
1/3 cup organic unsalted butter, cut in to small cubes
(Keep in refrigerator until ready to use)
1 egg yolk or 1 flax seed egg replacer
(Combine 1-1/2 tsp flax meal +3 tsp water and let sit for 2 minutes)
2/3 cup organic whipping cream
1 cup fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In large bowl food processor, combine flours, baking powder, salt, sugar and cinnamon and pulse about 5 times to combine.  Add the cold cubed butter to the bowl of the food processor, cover and pulse about 5 times for 2 seconds each to obtain a fine crumbly mixture.

In a small bowl, combine the whipping cream and flax mixture or egg yolk and stir well. Drizzle the cream mixture over the ingredients in the food processor, cover and process for about 5 seconds to obtain a chunky crumbly mixture.

Transfer the scone dough into a large bowl and gently incorporate the blueberries into the dough with your hands, being sure not to mash the blueberries (or at least not very many).

Lightly flour a large cutting board or flat surface and turn the dough out onto the board. With your hands, flatten and pat the dough into a 1″ think circle about 7″ wide. Then with a floured knife, make four long diagonal cuts across the flattened dough to create 8 wedges. Place the wedges spaced out on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 18 – 20 minutes and serve warm or at room temperature.

I’m sure the parents of the 3rd and 4th graders from two D.C. area public charter schools would be amazed by their children’s enjoyment of asparagus and cherry tomatoes, sautéed spinach, and fresh mint tea. Being that I only started enjoying asparagus last year, I was definitely impressed, but that just goes to show the power of fresh picked vegetables straight from the garden.

Last week and the week before, I had the pleasure of giving a cooking demo to students in the Washington Youth Garden’s Garden Science program. Located in the beautiful National Arboretum, the Washington Youth Garden provides environmental science and food education programs for D.C. youth and their families. These programs include teaching gardening and how food gets from farm to plate, how to start a school garden, how to be good stewards of the environment, and how to prepare fresh nutritious food.

All of the kids were very eager and happy to help me cut up asparagus, tomatoes, lemons and herbs. Some of them helped harvest the vegetables and herbs from the garden, while others helped to gather the scraps for the compost pile. In addition to the beauty of the garden and superior taste of freshly picked vegetables, the gratification that comes from eating something you helped to prepare was another big factor that likely contributed to the students liking the lightly cooked vegetables and even asking for seconds!

With the increased attention school gardens, childhood nutrition, home gardening, and local foods are receiving nationally from First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign and White House Garden, opportunities are increasingly becoming available for everyone to join in the efforts to improve our own and our children’s eating habits, food choices and awareness of how and what we eat.  Among national and local efforts to improve school lunches, establish community and school gardens, and advocate for better food policies, there are plenty of opportunities for you to get involved where ever you live.

Here are some resources to help you find such an opportunity, as well as a recipe for fresh mint tea, which the Washington Youth Garden kids definitely enjoyed!

American Community Garden Association
Let’s Move Campaign
Slow Food USA (Chapters nation-wide)
Time for Lunch Program (Slow Food USA)
DC Field to Fork Network
Google.com (Just do a search for your city and “community garden” or “school gardens”)

Fresh Mint Tea

4 quarts water
5 -6 single serving bags of black tea
1 bunch of fresh mint (about 1 to 1-1/2 cups packed), leaves removed (discard stems)
1 cup evaporated cane juice sugar, plus more to taste

Bring the water to a boil in a large pot. Once boiling, turn off heat and add tea bags and loose mint leaves. Let steep for about 5 – 10 minutes. Strain the tea into a heat-proof pitcher and stir in sugar. Serve warm or allow tea to cool and serve over ice.

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.

 

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.

Staring in my cabinet at two cans of pumpkin puree that were left over from my holiday baking, I asked myself, “what can I do with this besides wait until next holiday season to bake with it, or cheat on my New Year’s resolution to cut back on sweets with an attempt at pumpkin cheesecake?” The answer: a warming and slightly spicy pumpkin soup.

Leaning on my love of coconut, cilantro and fragrant curry powder, I looked to those ingredients to add full-bodied flavor to this vegetarian and vegan friendly soup. A sauté of diced onions and garlic in coconut oil provide the foundation for the soup followed by the pumpkin puree, which is then made rich and smooth with coconut milk and vegetable broth. When creating this recipe I used full fat coconut milk that includes the thick cream, but light coconut milk will work perfectly fine as well.

I shared this pot of soup for lunch with my fellow classmates in my yoga teacher training program and it was a big hit! Not to mention, just what we needed on a cold January afternoon. I hope you enjoy it too!

Note: There’s a debate among health and nutrition circles as to whether or not coconut oil should be a part of a healthy diet. I tend to lean toward arguments for coconut oil’s health benefits, but here are some helpful links – one of which discusses the arguments against coconut oil – so that you can inform yourself.

• MSN Health & Fitness on Coconut Oil
• A New Look at Coconut Oil

Coconut Curry Pumpkin Soup
Serves 8

3 teaspoons coconut oil or extra-virgin olive oil
1 small yellow onion, diced
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon curry powder (mild or hot)
2 15-oz. cans pumpkin puree
1 14-oz. can coconut milk
1 quart (4 cups) vegetable broth
4 cups water
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
Squeeze of  juice from 1/2 lime
3 teaspoons salt plus more to taste
Fresh cracked black pepper to taste

In a large pot, heat coconut oil over medium heat, then add onions, garlic and curry powder and sauté stirring occasionally until onions are soft (about 8 minutes or so). Next, add pumpkin puree, then stir in coconut milk, vegetable broth and water followed by salt and pepper. Bring soup to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and add cilantro. Allow soup to simmer for about 25 minutes. Add lime juice and taste for additional seasoning. Serve and enjoy!

What’s a Thanksgiving without sweet potato or pumpkin pie? Pies and tarts are actually quite similar so you can feel good about using this tart recipe as a substitute on your table if you want to add a slight change to your Thanksgiving dessert routine.

The filling for this pumpkin tart is pretty much interchangeable with a pumpkin or sweet potato pie filling. I love the look of tart shells and I especially love graham cracker crusts, so I combined the two for this easy-to-make recipe that I hope you will enjoy.

I’m keeping the writing as short as possible today because I have cooking and baking of my own to do before tomorrow’s day of giving thanks. As always, I’m thankful to all of my readers for your support and comments, and I hope you all have a wonderful and delicious Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin Tart with a Graham Cracker Crust

Graham Cracker Crust
2 cups graham cracker crumbs (see note below)
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted (1 stick)

Note: Using about 12 – 13 graham crackers, finely crumble them up in a food processor or place them in a closed zipper plastic bag and smash the bag with a rolling pin to break up the crackers into fine crumbs.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, add all ingredients for the crust and stir well to combine. You should have a wet crumb mixture that looks like wet sand. Evenly sprinkle the crumb mixture into a lightly greased two-piece tart pan.

Using the bottom of a flat-bottom measuring cup or glass, press the crumbs into the tart pan (including up the sides of the pan) to make a tart shell that’s about 1/4″ thick. Bake for 10 minutes and then set aside to cool.

Pumpkin Filling
1 15-oz can of pumpkin puree
2 large eggs
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2-1/4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (see below to make your own)
1/4 teaspoon salt

Pumpkin Pie Spice
1-1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
Dash nutmeg

Increase the oven temperature to 375 degrees F. In a large bowl using a handheld electric mixer or just your own strength and a spatula, mix together the pumpkin puree, condensed milk, eggs and sugar along with the spices and salt. Incorporate all ingredients fully.

Pour the filling into the graham cracker crust tart shell and fill to the top (but not overflowing). Set the filled tart pan on a cookie sheet and place it in the oven to bake for 40 – 45 minutes. The tart will be done when it starts to brown lightly around the edges of the filling. Allow tart to cool completely and remove tart pan ring before serving.

Note: The tart will have a slightly glazed  look when you pull it out of the oven, but that will set further and diminish later once the tart has cooled. This is a great recipe to make the night before you intend to serve it.

As soon as you walk into any supermarket right now, you’re sure to be met with a bold, colorful and varied display of winter squash. Acorn squash, banana squash, spaghetti squash, buttercup squash, butternut squash, and pumpkins. Have you ever wondered, “What in the world do people do with all this stuff?” I used to.

I can’t really recall anybody from my family cooking with winter squash. If that’s the case for you too, know that these colorful round and odd shaped vegetables can offer wonderful variety to your autumn meals. They’re great for roasting and mashing, and using in baked goods and soup.

I’ve only begun to learn different ways to prepare winter squash, but warm, herb seasoned soup is one of my favorite uses for it, particularly using butternut squash. Butternut squash has a deliciously mild sweet flavor that kind of reminds me of sweet potatoes and it’s one of the winter squash varieties that’s easier to peel than others.

Butternut squash soup can be prepared various ways to give it flavor. It may include chicken broth or vegetable broth, cream or milk, or sprinkles of parmesan cheese, and the choice of spices to use are endless. I’ve seen two recipes that feature curry in the soup. I’m really looking forward to trying the recipe Dr. Sunyatta Amen, one of my dance instructors, recently featured for a tasty looking butternut squash soup that includes Thai curry and coconut milk.

My recipe uses vegetable broth, apples, sage and thyme. The apples add another mild layer of sweetness to the soup that contribute to its seasonal taste. Also, I especially love seasoning butternut squash soup with sage. Just like winter squash, sage reminds me of fall due to the herb often being used in roasted turkeys and dressing (stuffing). Using vegetable broth gives the soup a light flavor, but you can easily interchange it for chicken broth, which will add more body to the soup. Either way, it will be delicious!

Do you have any other way you like to prepare winter squash or butternut squash soup?

Butternut Squash Soup
Serves 4 – 5

Adapted from Deborah Madison’s recipe in
Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

2.5 – 3 pound butternut squash
6 cloves garlic, unpeeled
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more to drizzle
1 small onion, diced (about 1/2 cup)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage leaves
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 medium apple, peeled, cored and cut into cubes
1 quart vegetable broth (4 cups)
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
Fresh ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Slice off the small top end of the squash, then with the squash standing upright, carefully cut it in half with a large chef’s knife (be careful). Scoop out the seeds of both halves of the squash and discard.

Drizzle and rub a little olive oil on the flesh side of both halves of squash including inside the cavities. Then, placing three cloves of garlic in each cavity, place the halves skin side down on a baking sheet and roast uncovered in the oven for about 30 – 40 minutes or until squash gives to pressure when touched.

Remove roasted squash from oven and allow to cool for about 10 – 15 minutes. Heat three tablespoons of olive oil over medium high heat in a large Dutch oven or saucepan, and add onions, sage and thyme and cook stirring occasionally for about 5 – 8 minutes.

Scoop the flesh from the cooked squash into the pan (discard skin) and squeeze out the roasted garlic from their peels into the pan as well (discard peels). Stir together, add vegetable broth and apple cubes and bring to a boil briefly before lowering the heat to a simmer. Simmer soup for 20 minutes before pureeing in batches in a blender or with an immersion blender. Taste for additional seasoning and serve.

If you look around in teashops, coffee shops and even the tea and spice aisles of supermarkets, you’ll notice an increasing presence of the word chai – chai tea, chai tea latte, or chai spice. Although this post isn’t completely on the beverage itself, let me clear up the misnomer of chai tea right away.

In Hindi and various other languages, the word chai itself means tea. So to say chai tea is basically saying tea tea. When Americans say chai or chai tea, what we’re really talking about is masala chai – masala meaning a spice blend, hence spiced tea. To keep it simple, I’ll refer to this drink as chai, but be warned. If you go into an Indian restaurant and order chai, know that you might get spiced tea or it might just be plain black tea with milk (that has happened to me before).

Masala chai is an Indian way of preparing tea that also is common in other parts of the world with an Indian presence. It has only recently become increasingly popular in the U.S., and rightly so. The beverage made with black tea, milk, sugar and various spices such as cinnamon, star anise, fennel, cardamom, black pepper or ginger (spices used varies) is absolutely delicious! I think this is due to the party of flavors that dance across your tongue with each warm sip.

The flavor from chai is also increasingly being used to add a new dimension of flavor to various foods such as chocolate, biscotti, cupcakes and cookies. Teaism is a small local chain in D.C. that serves the best chai I’ve had in a tea/coffee shop. They also sell these delicious shortbread cookies that go wonderfully with an afternoon cup of tea. One of their cookies in particular is decorated with little sprinkles of black tea leaves, which I think add an interesting touch.

This recipe below is my take on chai spice shortbread cookies that incorporate the exciting flavor combination of cinnamon, cardamom, star anise and cloves, along with a sprinkling of black tea leaves. These cookies are easy to make and involve no rolling out of dough. Since they require refrigeration before slicing and baking, they’re great for making ahead of time when you have to entertain. Enjoy!

Chai Spice Cookies

1-1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground chai spices (see recipe below)
1 pinch kosher salt
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons black tea
1 tablespoon loose black tea leaves

Chai Spice Blend

1 whole star anise
3/4 teaspoon cardamom seeds
1/2 + 1/8 (5/8) teaspoon ground cinnamon
10 cloves

Ground star anise, cardamom and cloves in a spice grinder, then add ground cinnamon and stir to blend. You can sometimes find a chai spice blend in teashops or specialty food stores.

In a medium size bowl, whisk together the flour, spice blend and salt. In another large bowl cream together the butter and sugar with a mixer. Stir the vanilla extract into the creamed butter, then add the flour mixture slowly, stirring it in as you add it to form cookie dough. When just combined, add the black tea to further bring the dough together.

Turn the dough out onto a square piece of plastic wrap and shape into the form of a rectangular log about 6 – 8 inches long. Wrap the dough log in the plastic wrap and twist the ends closed (tie with a twisty to keep wrap closed). Refrigerate overnight or freeze for about 30 minutes or until firm.

When ready to bake cookies, preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Remove the dough from the refrigerator/freezer and unwrap. Cut the dough with a flat blade knife into 1/4 inch thick slices. Place slices on a silpat or parchment lined cookie sheet and bake.

After 10 – 15 minutes, pull out cookies on rack (don’t remove from oven, just pull the rack out partially) and sprinkle cookies with the black tea leaves pressing very gently on the leaves so they stick. Put the cookies back in the oven and bake for another five minutes.

Cookies should be lightly brown around the edges when done.  Remove cookies from oven and allow to cool completely before serving.

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

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.

Roasted French green beans with cherry tomatoes; this is truly a seasonal dish. These tender, yet crisp green beans, also known as haricots verts or French filet beans, are thin and slender and as a result, cook quickly. That should be some solace over the fact that they can be a little hard to find.

I bought these beans at the farmers’ market this past Sunday along with some bright red cherry tomatoes that were very tiny, but full of flavor. In fact, I’ve never tasted a cherry tomato that tastes so good.

I know that I’ve made some similar comments in several of my posts over the summer, but believe me, it’s the honest to goodness truth. I guess that’s just a testament to how much there is to discover about food that’s fresh picked and in season.

Inspired by a recipe for roasted vegetables by Ina Garten in her latest cookbook, I simply tossed these beans and cherry tomatoes with a little extra-virgin olive oil and kosher salt, and then roasted them at 425 degrees F for 10 minutes. They came out of the oven cooked, but still a little crispy with the warm tomatoes bursting their tart, yet sweet flavor onto the pan.

If you aren’t a big fan of crisp green beans, you can boil the beans first for about five minutes before roasting them with the tomatoes.  I wouldn’t roast them for more than 10 minutes because then they tend to wilt and overcook.

Also, if you can’t find French green beans, the next best thing are young, small green beans. Since these beans aren’t always readily available in supermarkets, so don’t plan to make this recipe and then shop. Go shopping first, and if you come across some beautiful haricots verts or small green beans that catch your eye, come back to this reference on how to enjoy them.

French Green Beans and Cherry Tomatoes
Adapted from Ina Garten’s Oven-Roasted Vegetables

1 pound of French green beans
1/2 pint cherry tomatoes
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
Fresh cracked black pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Rinse and drain vegetables and spread them out in one layer on a baking sheet. Drizzle olive oil over the beans and tomatoes and sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt. Toss the vegetables to coats, and then sprinkle with the other half teaspoon salt. Place the pan in the oven and roast for 10 minutes. Remove pan from oven, add a little fresh cracked black pepper and serve.