kaleandcrisco

[kaleandcrisco]

Whole Wheat Rigatoni with Cone Cabbage, Sage, and a Béchamel Sauce Hi guys! It's been awhile... A dear friend of mine has been subscribing to Blue Apron - weekly meal kits delivered to your home for a flat fee. Meals come with picture-step by step instructions, and perfectly portioned ingredients for meals serving two people - eliminating the risk of wasting food. I gotta say...the recipes are really GOOD. Inventive, approachable and a steal for the price. For anyone wanting to cook more at home this is really worth a try - the grocery shopping and recipe developing is done for you - which is usually the biggest obstacle for people approaching mastering their kitchen. This dish easily could have fed 3-4 people, so an extra bang for your buck if you want to invite your neighbors over for an easy and impressive fall dinner. https://www.blueapron.com/recipes/baked-whole-wheat-rigatoni-with-cone-cabbage-sage

[kaleandcrisco]

Breakfast Tacos 1/2 can black beans - heated 1 t cumin, paprika 1/2 cup salsa 1/2 cup guacamole 4 eggs, scrambled 2 T cotija or cheese of your choice (I chopped vegan jalapeno cheese) 3 tortillas - stove "grilled" Mix beans and spices. Simmer or low heat until they bubble. Scramble beaten eggs of low heat until desired consistency. Throw one tortilla at a time over stove burners until slightly charred. If you do not have a gas stove, heat them individually in a dry, hot pan. Spoon beans, eggs, guac, salsa onto tortilla. Sprinkle cheese, cilantro, or hot sauce.

[kaleandcrisco]

Don’t Be Afraid of Canned Fish

I’ve been eating the occasional tinned sardines since I can remember. When my mother wasn’t in the mood to cook, she’d warm up some crusty bread or a sleeve of saltines and set down some good butter, lemon wedges, and a can or two of olive oil packed sardines. Dinner. And I never complained because it was delicious.

A few months ago I was reintroduced to the vast and exciting world of tinned seafood at a bar in the LES called Maiden Lane. Buttery cod liver, sardines in various types of dressings, smoked oysters, mussels, crab etc…All from cans. I tried nearly everything on their menu. Mostly out of greed and gluttony, but also because when it involves no wait and no prep work, just a quick pop of a can, how enticing is it to just point and say “I’ll try that one”?

In America’s food culture the word “canned” is not associated with being appetizing or nutrient rich. It is associated with Chef Boyardee and Vienna Sausages. “Campbell's™ Cream of ________”. Soft fruit swimming in questionably sweet juices.

From childhood, anchovies are associated with an overly salty, strong fishy taste. Most of us are initially introduced to it as a destroyer of pizza. Instead, anchovies should be seen as a powerful fortifier of flavor to be used incognito in dressings, sauces or as toppings in the right way. Why are some of our most popular salad dressings so damn good? Anchovies. But I’d be willing to bet that if a server were to ask 100 patrons who order caesar salads if they’d like them with or without anchovies, the vast majority of people would turn their noses up and opt out. It seems like the obvious answer. And I bet if you were to ask them about their feelings towards sardines, the two fish would (as with all canned fish) get lumped together when in actuality they are worlds apart in flavor and use.

Recently, my client has made a shift in his diet after reading The New Health Rules by Frank Lipman M.D., and Danielle Claro. If I had written a book on diet, it would be similar to this one. It takes less than an hour to read, cover to cover. The syntax is simple yet extremely sincere. It is a very approachable guide to making easy changes in an effort toward leading a healthier lifestyle. No need to invest in stupid equipment or magic supplements or a $400 juicing plan. So now, instead of a diet that excludes a lot of important fats and focuses mostly on what to avoid eating, his diet is coming around to include more, restrict less, promote balance and sustainability. Sure, the book still warns against dietary no-go-zones. Sugar is labeled bluntly as poison, dairy is suggested to be consumed raw and minimized, and the authors shed light on issues with soy, wheat and mercury.

While reading this guide, I recognized that the healthiest people in my life live this way. They don’t diet or work out for hours every day. They eat things that are high in calories but also high in nutrition. They eat a little butter as long as it is from grass-fed cows. They think egg-whites-only is a counter-productive option. They learned how to make root vegetables taste good without much doctoring.They know when their stomach is full. They coincide physical exercise with socializing and fun, not browbeating discipline and self hatred. They don’t waste their time reading the labels of processed foods because they simply don’t buy processed foods nor many foods that come with labels. They eat things organically grown on trees and found in oceans and dug up from the dirt and their bodies, skin, and mental clarity reflect that. In fear of getting too preachy the bottom line is: you can eat really satisfyingly and feel really good as long as you commit to consuming whole ingredients as provided by our Earth…[needless to say] as was intended. And restrictive dieting is (for most) a stupid and a short term solution. How did this come about via sardines? Because when I made him this dish, his first bite prompted these words: Am I allowed to eat this?

Satisfying words to hear because I know that that means that what I have just made tastes so good that he doesn’t trust that it is good for his body. But of course it is. Full of omega-3s, the nutritional value in this dish benefit, amongst other things, your skin (your biggest organ), your brain (your most fragile organ) which is fueled by fat, your hair, your joints, your eyes, your heart, your blood etc. But at the same time these are as equally saddening words to hear because his brain is so trained to think that eating deliciously means compromising nutrition, and to keep his body on track he must be extreme in his restrictiveness when that is simply not the case nor the solution.

If you don’t have time to find the book and read it then ask yourself this: in terms of diet — does less really yield more?

RECIPE: Flax crackers (flaxseed, bragg’s amino acids, lemon) – OR, crackers, bread, endive lettuce cups

Sardines popped out of a can (you way want to separate the filets and remove the crunch little spine or just be a big kid and enjoy the added texture)

½ avocado - smashed

Pickled vegetables (carrot, onion, sliced radish; boil apple cider vinegar, garlic cloves, fennel seeds, add vegetable to boiling liquid for 1 minute, then dump everything into a mason jar and let it sit for an hour to a year)

Green juice: juice 1 bunch cilantro, 1 bunch parsley, 4 garlic cloves, 1 celery stock, 1 peeled lemon, 1 peeled lime, 1 chunk of fennel. Add 3 T of apple cider vinegar. This yields nearly 1.5 cups. Use as dressing on salad, on fish, or drink as is. It’s addictively good. It’s also a good idea to reserve a few leaves for garnish.

Add small dollop of avocado onto your cracker, ½ sardine fillet (may want to break them up into smaller pieces), a pickled radish slice or onion or carrot or whatever your heart desires, sprinkle a few cilantro and parsley leaves around and drop spoonfuls of green-juice onto fish.

#health #healthy #healthyeating #food #vegan #vegetarian #organic #nongmo #healthfood

[kaleandcrisco]

Bison Burger •seasoned in secret magic •caramelized purple onion •homemade pickled jalapeños •feta •kale, tomato •truffle oil seared portobello "buns"

[kaleandcrisco]

Thai Green Curry

Making curry, of any sort, always intimidated me. If it’s pre-packaged and sold in the “International” aisles of grocery stores [101 year old Polynesian Curry Master Grandma not included], it’s because it isn’t easy to make at home, right? A dish with such depth of fragrant flavors and vibrant green color must take years to master and hours of laborious work, right? Wrong and wrong. When I saw Jamie Oliver’s post on the green liquid gold, I suddenly had a shift in confidence towards creating the dish from scratch rather than lazily ordering it on Seamless for my own instant(ly guilty) gratification.

If a 40 year old Englishman (albeit internationally celebrated chef) can do it, so can I. And of course, staying true to my rebellious nature (lol) I strayed away from the recipe and changed a few variables for my own taste; I skipped chicken and cube stock for seared yellow tail collars and made prawn stock.

For prawn stock, I completely free-balled it, bringing prawn shells and heads 4 smashed garlic cloves ½ bunch each of cilantro, basil, chives 1 stalk of chopped lemon grass ½ lime’s juice 1 T soy sauce 1 T fish sauce 1 chopped serrano chili pepper to a boil before simmering for a few hours until I had a brown, stinky pot of delicious stock. Rule of thumb: if it stinks it’s got flavor.

INGREDIENTS:

1 filet of fish/ 1 hamachi collar per person Oil for frying 1.5 C shiitake mushrooms, cleaned & chopped 2 cans of light coconut milk 1 organic chicken stock cube/ 2 cups of prawn stock 6 lime leaves / 1 t lime zest 1.5 cups snow peas 1.5 cups okra, chopped 1 japanese eggplant, halved & thickly sliced ½ a bunch fresh Thai basil 2 limes

Steamed rice if desired.

For the curry paste: 4 cloves of garlic 2 shallots 1 thumb-sized piece of peeled ginger 2 lemongrass stalks 4 green chillies 1 t ground cumin ½ bunch of fresh cilantro 2 tablespoons fish sauce

METHOD:

For rice, follow package directions.

To make the curry paste, peel, roughly chop and place the garlic, shallots and ginger into a food processor. Trim the lemongrass, remove the tough outer leaves, then finely chop and add to the processor. Trim and add the chillies along with the cumin and half the cilantro (stalks and all). Blitz until finely chopped, add the fish sauce and blitz again.

In a deep sauce pan, add the paste over medium heat for 4-5 minutes and stir occasionally. While that happens…

Place another pan on medium heat, drizzle oil and add the mushrooms and sauté for 4 to 5 minutes, or until golden. Transfer to a plate using a slotted spoon.

Pour coconut milk and 2 cups of boiling water, crumble in the stock cube/ add your liquid stock to the curry paste and add the lime leaves. Turn the heat up and bring gently to the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes, or until reduced slightly.

While your curry simmers, add okra and eggplant to your fry pan and sauté until slightly browned.

Stir in the mushrooms, okra, and eggplant (and chicken if using) before reducing the heat to low and cook for a further 5 minutes, adding the snow peas for the final 2 minutes.

While your vegetables simmer in the curry, pan sear your fish. Salt and pepper your fish, heat your fry pan to high heat, add oil and sear each side of fish for 3 minutes or until cooked through.

Season curry carefully to taste with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Pick, roughly chop and stir through the basil leaves and remaining cilantro leaves. Plate your fish with curry, serve with lime wedges and steamed rice.

#curry #jamie oliver #easyrecipes #easycooking #easydinner #vegetairan #healthy food #healthy eating #delicious #modeldiet #diet #glutenfreemeals #gluten free

[kaleandcrisco]

When you eat something so surprisingly good you start doing your research at the restaurant before going home to make it yourself...cashew yogurt inspired by @paramountcoffee. I love yogurt more than is normal, so for me to back this recipe is a pretty serious endorsement. Would use as a frosting substitute too. Trying to cut dairy? Eatttt disssss. Recipe: •Soak 1 C raw cashews in 1 C water w dash of vanilla extract for 1 hour •Drain nuts, reserve 2 - 3 T of water •+ nuts to blender w some water, blend •+ probiotics (if desired) & agave/honey •+squeeze of lemon juice •+ water until desired consistency Top with fruit, honey, granola etc.

[kaleandcrisco]

Disssss is two pan roasted quails. They were marinated for 36 hours in a vietnamese inspired concotion (soy sauce, rice vinegar, fish sauce, shallot, ginger, garlic, chili, kumquats, green onion, and brown sugar) and then thrown in a skillet for 4 minutes. Yielded some damn good results.

[kaleandcrisco]

Whole foods in Downtown LA has set up this super smart poké stand where the produce meets the seafood department and it is my favorite $10 dinner at the moment. I made me own version at home with tuna and salmon sashimi as well as king crab (pictured here). Instead of traditional rice I made cauliflower "rice" and kind of freestyled the rest. There is no right or wrong recipe for this, add or remove things to your own taste (masago, onion, ceviche, lime) Ingredients: Shrimp, crab, or raw sashimi grade fish Rice or cauliflower, cooked w a dash of rice vinegar Chunks of avocado (1/2 cup) Chunks of mango (1/2 cup) 1/2 Black radish, thinly sliced Crunchy seaweed snax For seaweed salad: Wakame, hydrated Cucumbed, chopped into chunks Sesame oil, 1/2 T Rice vinegar, 1 T Soy Sauce, 1/2 T Sesame seeds, 1 t Wasabi, 1 t Grated ginger, 1 t Grated garlic, 1 t (OR JUST BUY PREMADE SEAWEED SALAD AT GROCERY SUSHI COUNTER) 1/4 jalapeños, finely chopped 1 green scallion, finely chopped 1 garlic clove, grated Grated ginger, 2 t Bunch of torn cilantro Make a rice base, disperse avocado, mango, seaweed salad, radish, seaweed snax, and fish (centered). Sprinkle with garlic, ginger, jalapeño, and herbs. Use a big spoon and incorporate some of everything into each bite.

#poké #bowl #sushi #wakame #glutenfree #healthyeating #easyrecipes #cooking #health #fitspo #thinspo #vegetarian #model #diet

[kaleandcrisco]

I've just arrived to LA and already sussed out the nearest Asian market. Picked up a pound of gorgeous live prawns and carried them home while they fidgeted to the death so that I could make a ceviche. Their meat is so supple and succulent and sweet (damn should I write romance novels?) that cooking them and losing out on their delicious natural flavor and texture seemed wrong. So instead I simply enhanced their juicy freshness with more juicy ingredients: 1 pound of fresh prawns (spotted or tiger), cleaned and shelled and chopped into large chunks 1/4 chili pepper, finely chopped 1/2 cucumber, diced into small cubes 1 green onion, finely chopped (green part only) 1 tangerine, cleanly sliced sans pith 1/2 ripe avocado, pureed until smooth 1/4 red onion, finely finely chopped 1 green tomatillo, finely diced A few sprigs of cilantro Large unbroken corn tortilla chips (optional) 2 T of bottled yuzu sauce or lime juice Cleaning prawns is easy - simply grip the body near head with one hand and twist head off with other. Then peel back the shell and remove legs, and let the shrimp sit in ice water (don't use tap water - chlorine) while you prep. Toss shrimp in yuzu or lime juice, add cucumber, chili, green onion, tangerine in a large bowl. While mixture marinates, add tomatillo to smashed avocado and smear a teaspoon of avo-tomatillo mixture onto each chips. Spoon on your ceviche, and top with cilantro leaves and red onion. OR enjoy ceviche sans chips, mix avocado chunks un-smashed.

[kaleandcrisco]

1 medium fennel bulb 6 tablespoons olive oil, divided 2 celery stalks, chopped 2 small leeks, white and pale-green parts only, chopped 3 garlic cloves, crushed 1 bay leaf Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper 1 pound shell-on large shrimp Pinch of saffron (optional) 1 T Bonito flakes (optional) 1/2 cup dry white wine 2 cans whole peeled tomatoes 1 teaspoon fennel seeds 2 small whitefish fillet (cod, snapper, halibut) 4-6 large sea scallops, side muscle removed ¼ pound squid, mix of tentacles and bodies ½ pound cockles or littleneck clams, scrubbed ½ pound mussels, scrubbed, debearded ½ crusty baguette, sliced, toasted Unsalted butter, room temperature (for serving) Thinly slice half of fennel bulb; set aside. Coarsely chop other half. Heat 2 Tbsp. oil in a medium heavy pot over medium-low. Add chopped fennel, celery, leek, garlic, and bay leaf. Season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are soft but have not taken on any color, 10–12 minutes. 
 Meanwhile, remove shells from shrimp (keep shells and heads for making broth). Once vegetables are soft, increase heat to medium and add shrimp shells and saffron and/or bonito (if using). Cook, stirring occasionally, until shells are bright pink, about 4 minutes. Add wine and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until reduced by half, about 3 minutes. Using thongs, remove shrimp shells. Add 1 can of tomatoes and 4 cups water or seafood broth if you prefer. Add a few drops of hot sauce if you're feeling it. Bring to a strong simmer, then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until reduced by about one-third and flavors have melded, 60–70 minutes. Remove from heat and purée mixture with an immersion blender until smooth (or let cool slightly and purée in batches in a blender). Strain broth through a fine-mesh sieve into a large measuring glass or bowl (you should have about 3½ cups). Wipe out pot and heat 2 Tbsp. oil over medium. Add fennel seeds, reserved sliced fennel, and remaining tomatoes and their juice, crushing them with your hands. Season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until fennel is softened and seeds are toasted, about 5 minutes. Add broth and bring to a simmer. Slice squid bodies into ¼"-thick rings. Add cockles and mussels to pot with broth. Cook until they just start to open, then reduce heat to medium-low and add squid and all prawns, making sure they’re submerged in the liquid. Simmer until cockles and mussels are opened and prawns and squid are just cooked through, about 3 minutes (discard any cockles and mussels that do not open).
 Meanwhile, heat remaining 2 Tbsp. oil in a small skillet over medium-high. Season fish, tentacles and scallops with salt and pepper. Cook fish skin side down, pressing gently with the back of a spatula to ensure contact with pan, until skin is brown and crisp, about 4 minutes. Turn fish and cook until cooked through, about 1 minute more. Cook scallops and tentacles in same skillet (no need to wipe out) until golden brown and just cooked through, about 3 minutes per side; transfer to plate with snapper and until tentacles are curled. 
Transfer to a plate.
 Spoon a healthy portion of mussels, cockles, squid and shrimp into a bowl, add broth and tomatoes, top with fish and scallops and serve with warm crusty bread.

[kaleandcrisco]

Sometimes simple is most satisfying. I use a George Foreman grill and I'm not afraid to admit it! Grill chicken breast with simply salt and pepper for about 5 minutes on medium-high, or sauté in a pan for about 4 minutes on each side (add a dash of water halfway through to retain moisture.) Coarsely chop 1 endive and a small handful of sundried tomatoes and toss with 1 T olive oil, 1 T lemon juice, and 1/2 t of grated garlic. Toss well and serve with chicken.

[kaleandcrisco]

Grilled octopus brushed with lemon juice, chili oil, and balsamic. White beans with bursted heirloom tomatoes, grilled green bell peppers, olives, parsley and blood orange. Lunch.

[kaleandcrisco]

Simple butternut squash, sunchoke, and truffle soup for fall. Cover squash and sunchoke in vegetable broth with 3 garlic cloves and a shallot until soft and half of the liquid evaporates. Using a hand mixer, blend all ingredients until smooth, transfer to a bowl and drizzle truffle oil, add parm or heavy cream if desired.

[kaleandcrisco]

Grilled octopus brushed with lemon juice, chili oil, and balsamic. White beans with bursted heirloom tomatoes, grilled green bell peppers, olives, parsley and blood orange. Lunch.

[kaleandcrisco]

Spontaneous summer dinner of grilled white nectarines, heirloom tomatoes, brown butter corn, ricotta, prosciutto and basil.

[kaleandcrisco]

Can't stop won't stop. Tiger figs, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, mint, ricotta, and honey.

[kaleandcrisco]

I think it's best to let summer ingredients speak for themselves. Cherry tomatoes, mexican cucumbers (mini watermelons!), whipped feta, baby basil leaves, misted with olive oil, balsamic reduction, a pinch of sea salt and black pepper. Yup 🙌🏼