VEGGIE BURGER

I don't know what I am doing lately. I have been trying to shop mostly at the farmers markets and supplementing a few items from Whole Foods. The problem is, I am completely in a fog and have no idea what I am doing. When I get home, there's a random assortment of vegetables in my bags and a piece of chicken or something. I have been pulling recipes from my you know where. Yesterday I came up with this veggie burger with leftovers that were in the fridge. Since there was nothing in the fridge except some quinoa and black rice, this is a pretty minimal burger.


Veggie Burger
1/2 ish cup of quinoa, cooked
1/2 ish cup of black rice, cooked
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3/4 cup flour (any kind-I used quinoa and rice flour)
1 or 2 eggs
olive oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Sauté the onion and garlic until translucent. While it's cooking, mix the quinoa and black rice in a large bowl. Add the remaining ingredients, including the onion and garlic and form into patties. You may need to add a little more flour as necessary to hold it all together.

Heat a medium frying pan and add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Cook patty until golden, then flip and cook the other side. When both sides are nicely browned, transfer to the oven to finish cooking.

I mixed the cooked quinoa, black rice an egg, some flour, chopped onion and chopped chives. I promise you this is all the food that I had.

Options- You could add shredded carrot, chopped spinach or any other cooked vegetable. You could use substitute any rice or grain for the quinoa and rice in this recipe.

TRUTHINESS

So, the truth is that I may eat a little better than many, but I eat "normal" food too. In fact, I am about to order a pizza. I just cannot look at the chicken that is in my fridge. First of all, I had chicken for lunch and I cannot face it again tonight. Secondly, I am feeling slightly uninspired tonight. Sometimes, I don't feel like setting foot in the kitchen or trying to come up with something interesting to make out of a boneless, skinless chicken breast. So I am choosing to do nothing. I think it is unrealistic to eat well 100% of the time and tonight is one of those times. More often than not I do, but sometimes, I just throw it all out the window.

So here are a few photos of some of the things I have made recently. Merguez sausage which is a Moroccan lamb sausage with carrots and onions, chicken breast with sauteed vegetables, rosemary shortbread and olive oil braised zucchini. The zucchini is going along side of the pizza. The shortbread has nothing to do with anything, except to show you that I am a kick ass baker and I eat sweets from time to time.

Regardless of what I eat, I insist on a lot of vegetables. They are full of vitamins and minerals, fiber, antioxidants. One of my guidelines for eating healthy is to include a lot of vegetables, even with your pizza. Just one serving of salad or one scoop of vegetables might just prevent you from eating one extra slice of pizza and who could argue about that not being a good thing?

LUNCH?

Sometimes, I plan my dishes, other times I just open the fridge, nose around and then put something together and hope it works out. Usually, it does. I knew I had some chicken leftover from one that I roasted last night. I also knew that I had mustard greens that were on their last leg and some asparagus. A closer inspection of the kitchen revealed an open box of orzo, a bag of organic slivered almonds, some vinaigrette from a previous meal and of course the staples-red pepper flakes and garlic. If you haven't figured it out yet, those two along with some good olive oil form the basis of many of my meals.

As I was looking upon all of these, a plan started to come together-toast the almonds, shred the chicken, sauté the greens with the olive oil, garlic and red pepper and toss it all together with the orzo and a splash of dressing. Voilá!

ONE GRAIN, TWO MEALS

Farro is an ancient Tuscan grain. It is a whole grain that packs a bunch of fiber, protein and B vitamins. Over the lat few years, it has become pretty popular, turning up on menus in restaurants and for sale not only in specialty shops but in Whole Foods too. I love farro and use it often. A couple of years ago I went on a farro hoarding spree. Don't ask me why, but I was convinced that I wouldn't be able to find it, so when I did, I bought lots of it. I was down to the last package and no longer fearful of being unable to find it when I prepared these two dishes.

A tip I learned from Heidi Swanson is that you can freeze grains! What a time saving tip. I prepared the whole package, used part of it in a Tuscan inspired mushroom soup, then I froze the rest and a few days later used it as the basis for a pilaf type side dish to go with my Tuscan grilled chicken. Can you tell I have Tuscany on the brain? It's been a year since I first went to Italy and am longing to go back.

For the pilaf, I just sauteed some garlic and red pepper flakes in some olive oil, added some quartered mushrooms and cooked until they were golden, then added some chopped mustard greens and the cooked farro. Sauté until the greens are wilted. Season with salt and pepper and a drizzle of good, fruity olive oil and serve. I topped this with a whole grilled chicken.

Tuscan Mushroom Soup
1 four ounce package dried mushrooms
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, finely diced
1 rib celery, finely diced
1 sprig sage, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup lentils (beluga or green-not red or orange)
1 four quart container chicken stock (or homemade)
1 small bunch kale (chard, spinach, dandelion or any dark green will suffice), chiffonade
olive oil
salt and red pepper flakes
1 1/2-2 cups farro, cooked according to package directions

Put the dried mushrooms in a bowl and cover with boiling water to reconstitute. Set aside for 20 minutes or until soft. Remove mushrooms from water and set the water aside for later. Thinly slice the mushrooms and set aside.

In a large sauce pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot and celery to the pan. Sweat the vegetables until soft, then add the garlic, lentils, sage and red pepper flakes to taste. Add the mushrooms to the pan, then add stock and reserved mushroom liquid. Simmer for about 20 minutes or until lentils are cooked then add farro and kale. Cook until kale is wilted. Adjust seasoning and serve topped with parmesan shavings.

YESTERDAY'S LUNCH

Some women buy shoes, some shop for clothes. Me? I buy food, mostly vegetables, almost obsessively. I have been trying to cut back on other food purchases, especially grains as I refuse to buy any until I completely deplete my pantry stocks. In fact, I am trying to avoid going to the store entirely and rather shop at the farmers market exclusively while emptying out the pantry. It shouldn't be too hard to avoid Whole Foods for a while. What will be a challenge, however, is to use the tiny amounts of random grains, flours, assorted legumes and spices.

Yesterday, I made a salad from the lettuces in my garden and a pasta with some garbanzos, capers, some farmer's market dandelion greens and plenty of the olive oil that I bought at the Saturday farmers market. So many of my peers will tsk at my love for pasta, but I cannot deny it. It is such a good vessel for incorporating more greens into one's diet, at least it is in our house.

Dandelion Greens Pasta

pasta of your choosing
1 bunch dandelion greens, sliced into thin ribbons
1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed
1 tablespoon capers
2 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes, less if you can't take the heat
olive oil
sea salt
pepper
zest of one lemon

Cook the pasta according to package directions. While it is cooking, heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the dandelion greens and garbanzos. Cook until the greens begin to wilt, then add the garlic, red pepper flakes, capers and lemon zest. Season with salt and pepper. Add the cooked pasta to the pan, drizzle with olive oil to taste. Yum.

MY FAVORITE FRITATTA

When I tell you what's in it, many of you will be cursing me as a diet thwarter, but hang on a sec. As you know, the key to good health and good nutrition is eating REAL FOOD. I do not advocate low fat foods, diet meals or snacks, anything prepared or processed and this dish doesn't fall into any of those categories.

On Wednesday, I got some eggs, mustard greens, potatoes and olive oil from the farmers market and on Thursday morning, my dish was created. I should back up a little. I love mashed potatoes, but not the traditional creamy, buttery mashed potatoes, they do nothing for me, really. I love my mashed potatoes with olive oil and a little salt. Oh and greens. First, I boil the potatoes, leaving some of the skin on, then smash with a potato masher and add liberal amounts of olive oil until the consistency is right. Then I add chopped sauteed greens like mustard, spinach or dandelion to the mash. On Wednesday, this was the side dish that went with a roasted chicken (also from the farmers market)-on Thursday morning, I used the leftovers in my fritatta.

Simply, put the potato mixture into a non-stick skillet (the only time I use it is for fritattas), then add 4-6 lightly beaten eggs, swirl around to evenly coat the bottom of the pan and cover the potato mixture, then put the pan in a 350 degree preheated oven for 15 minutes or until the eggs are puffy and set. Voila! (I also added a tiny bit of leftover feta, which gives a nice salty kick).

SKINNY CHICKS DON'T EAT SALADS

As a holistic nutritionist, my primary concern is really health through diet. Now, everyone and their mother has an opinion on what is healthy and what should be included in one's diet. My philosophy is really pretty simple. Eat mainly a plant based diet with good quality protein and healthy fats. Eat mainly plants, which can be translated to eat a lot of vegetables, and everything else in moderation. If you want cookies, and I do, eat them from time to time, but not everyday.

Most of the people I meet are not so interested in health. What they are interested is reaching a certain number on the scale-weight loss. Argh! I say "argh" because I see people do and eat the silliest things in the name of dieting and truthfully, they are not always in the best interest of one's health. So I am going to go through popular diets to see what people are doing to lose the pounds.

I have decided to start a new segment of book reviews where I will tell you about the latest diet book that I have read. First up is "Skinny Chicks Don't Eat Salads" by Christine Avanti.

What a killer title. Avanti's book addresses the salad eating dieters head on. Either they are eating 1500 calorie bombs disguised as salads, or they are eating measly portions of lettuce and other raw vegetables that will leave them starving in a matter of minutes. Her two main points are to eat often, every 4 hours to be precise and to eat protein and carbohydrates together. Both of these concepts make sense. Eating frequently will prevent dips in blood sugar that causes whacked out hormones which can lead to weight gain or prevent weight loss. The concept of eating protein and carbs together is really important too because the protein will slow down the absorption of the carbohydrate. It all goes back to maintaining even levels of blood sugar. This is Avanti's main concept- that irregularities in blood sugar are the barrier to losing weight.

I like this book. Avanti has some really good ideas that are well researched and supported in science. It is not so technical that it will go over your head either. She includes simple recipes and suggestions for eating out which are always helpful for readers.

The only issue that I would caution people to consider with this or any diet book is that these books are written to sell. They are generalized so that they can be applied to everyone. Many people will see success with this plan, but not everyone. I, for one thing, hate to eat every four hours. It seems that when I try to eat several small meals as many books recommend, I am in the kitchen constantly. So this doesn't work for me, but it might work for you. I prefer to eat 3 well balanced meals and maybe have a snack in between if necessary, but it's not usually necessary, again-for me. Another thing is the PC combo (eating protein and carbohydrates together) will not work for everyone. I have a friend who does very poorly when she eats the two together. In her case, she eats carbs alone or with vegetables but experiences significant digestive trouble when eating the two together.


Remember that we are all individuals. What works for one might not work for another. Regardless, the concept of blood sugar regulation in general and specifically as it relates to weight loss is particularly important. While some will certainly see weight loss by eating several small meals frequently and making those meals PC combos, I would urge people to consider the source of the food too. Complex carbs are always better than simple carbs of white bread and candy. Avanti does suggest making wise choices, but that isn't a cornerstone of this book. I am always going to suggest making quality choices over quantity choices when it comes to food. So, even though a fast food hamburger might be a PC combo or might not be that many calories, the quality of the beef is questionable at best and the quality of that meal is way too low for me to even consider. Nevertheless, pick this book up if you are looking to understand more about blood sugar regulation and for some quick and easy recipes.