Food

Kitchen adventure: my first brisket

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I have so much to say about the state of the world right now, but I’ll save that for another post.

This post is about brisket. I always get it at BBQ places (the side affect of not eating pork and not liking bone-in chicken) but I never considered making it at home, until all this pandemic drama struck.

We’ve been trying to go to the store only every two weeks, and supplementing with some delivery, including food from a local farm and local butcher. In the last order, I (jokingly?) asked my sister to include 2 lbs of brisket… and thus a meal was born!

This fed the five of us for one meal, though we would have loved to have more for breakfast (and luckily my three week old nephew did not insist on his portion). I will definitely be making it again – maybe even before we leave New Jersey!

Crockpot Brisket

  • 2 lbs of brisket
  • 2 onions, cut into big chunks
  • 1 cup broth (I used chicken, most people recommend beef but you could really use anything)
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp mustard
  • 1 tsp salt
  1. Cut the onions into big chunks. Lay in the bottom of a slow cooker. Pour the broth over the top.
  2. Place the meat on top – I lay it fat side down. No need to precut or anything, just put the whole piece in!
  3. Mix together the brown sugar, salt, and mustard in a small bowl, and spoon / spread on the exposed parts of the meat.
  4. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. We cooked for 8 but it could have been removed earlier!

That’s literally it. Save the broth and onions though for more tips below…

To supplement this tastiness, we made a gravy and polenta, and served up some Brussels sprouts and multicolor cauliflower.

For the gravy, slice up mushrooms (we used one small box of baby bellas). Cook them in a nonstick pan (no oil needed) and then spoon in the broth and onions, cooking over medium. Add a teaspoon of corn starch as you go to thicken it up.

And to round it out – we made polenta in the pressure cooker! You simply mix 1 cup polenta with 4 cups water. Bring to a simmer, then close the pressure cooker, bring to pressure, then cook on high for 9 minutes. Manually releases the pressure and add in 1/2 cup of grated cheese – we used parm.

Overall, it was a delicious meal that made our Saturday dinner special, with very little hands-on work. I’ll definitely make this again!

5 things you learn in a month without sugar

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I survived! My month without added sugar is complete – it seemed long at times and then was over in a flash, and I learned a lot in the process. Here are my top five lessons from an optional sugar break:

  1. Just say no. Going into March, I literally didn’t think I could resist having a taste the donuts in the office or the cake at a friend’s house. But midway through the month I found it was getting easier and easier to just say no, just like I would if the treats had walnuts in them (which I’m allergic to). Now I have a sense of how vegetarians can say no to barbecue!
  2. Your taste buds adjust quickly. As promised, I could taste natural sugars better once I cut out the added stuff. And when I did order a butternut squash ravioli at Eataly and it came coated in brown sugar, I felt like I was eating dessert for dinner – where before, that was my baseline. 
  3. Added sugar is everywhere. See above. Sugar is SO hard to avoid (more on this in my last post.) It’s no surprise that our sense of sweet is messed up when you can’t avoid added sugars in your everyday life. It has definitely made me look for ways to find more unprocessed snacks and raw meal options (more balsamic vinegar, less bottled dressing, etc).
  4. Sugar affects people differently. One of the many appealing things about this month was my coworkers’ anecdotes of better sleep, clearer skin, and weight loss. For me: nothing but the taste buds. Maybe that’s because the part of my brain that wanted sugar demanded that I eat more of other food to compensate – maybe it’s just body chemistry. I’m still glad I did it, but it would have been nice to get those other perks too!
  5. Quality over quantity. Now that my sugar free month is over, I am going into the rest of spring with a new focus on eating better sweets / things with added sugar in them. Less junky chocolate and movie theater candy and lame donuts. More treats my friends make or recipes I try myself or treats where the sugar makes it 💯 – and then only a smallish amount. Let’s see how it works!

Have you ever cut added sugar out of your diet? What did you learn?

And the best pitcher is…

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Our annual Oscar party was this weekend, and we pulled out all the shots… I mean, stops!

Champagne, chocolate, a mega-ballot on the wall, and fifteen friends from all parts of our lives made the evening a huge success that even Leo can look at with good memories.

And this year, we took the best picture puns to the next level, constructing our presentations out of cardboard and glue guns and so much nerdiness. We even predicted the shocking best picture!

   
    
    
    
 
What was your favorite part of the show (or the menu)?

Kitchen Adventures: Easy Vegan Banana Muffins

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In this VB6 phase, oatmeal will only take me so far. So I’m always on the lookout for other delicious vegan breakfast options to carry me through the week.

This weekend I dove into a new recipe: vegan banana muffins. And they were a HUGE success. I think they might be the best muffins I’ve ever made, vegan or otherwise!

IMG_3294

Check out the recipe at AllRecipes – my version was modified slightly:

  • I replaced the cup of canola with 1/2 cup olive oil (because I didn’t have canola) and it gave them a great depth of flavor
  • I filled in with the other half cup of oil by just adding more coconut milk
  • I only used lite coconut milk – it’s fatty enough anyway!
  • I used 2.5 bananas (having eaten half on the way home from the gym…) – I don’t think you can have too much banana in a banana muffin!

For next time, I’m going to try to cut down on sugar, which this recipe has a lot of. Overall, this made 24 medium-to-small muffins, which is how I like them – you could easily make one dozen plus a loaf of bread if you wanted.

What’s your go-to breakfast option? Bonus points if it’s vegan and thus can make my mornings brighter!

Vegan-ish

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I love food. Baking. Cooking. Eating. Seeking out the best doughnut and the tastiest quiche.

But starting in November, I’ve been trying something new in my approach to food. After years of dabbling in Weight Watchers or trying just to limit sugar / eat more veggies / cut back on cheese, I’m taking a new perspective and trying Mark Bittman’s Vegan Before 6 (aka VB6) diet / lifestyle.

My coworker Theresa turned me onto the idea, and now my mom and aunt and I have all adopted different versions of it. The basic idea is just as it sounds – eat vegan until dinner each night, and avoid processed food and white sugars / carbs when possible. Eat whatever you want for dinner (which doesn’t mean eating until you’re sick, but it does mean you can have steak and fries if that’s what’s calling your name). The basis is that vegan food is better for lots of bodies and also better for our environment, but eating is also a highly social experience and any lifestyle that doesn’t recognize that and give you soon room to adapt to it is ultimately doomed to fail.

Unlike going totally vegan, this means that you can still just as easily digest milk and meat and whatnot when you do want them – that part of cutting something out of my diet never appealed to me (if I want ice cream, I don’t want it to come with an immediate stomachache). But it also means that for 3/4 of the day, you’re eating vegetables and grains and other whole foods.

The best part: it’s super easy to stick to. Yes, it means more oatmeal. But it also means that if I really love eggs (which I DO), I just eat them for breakfast and look forward to them starring in that meal. Dinner is just as easy – you can make a delicious meal with a side of meat / cheese and then just eat it without that piece for lunch the next day (like James’s delicious black bean soup mom and I made over Thanksgiving!). And because it’s flexible by its very nature and meant to be a sustainable lifestyle rather than a plan, if you decide that brunch is your non-vegan meal of the day or find that you need to make some swaps based on business travel restrictions (see last post), you don’t have to feel guilty, as some other tracking programs would have you do.

Mark Bittman said that when he moved to this model, it changed his perspective on life – he stopped just writing recipes and started writing more about food policy and production. And I can see it. By changing how I look at cooking and eating and dining out, it makes me want to focus on other, more interesting parts of my life – my guitar! Exploring new neighborhoods! Calling my friends who don’t live in Boston when I would otherwise be slaving over the stove!

It’s also opened my eyes up to how hard true vegans and vegetarians have it in mainstream food options. I was at the airport, looking for a healthy snack to take on the plane, and my only options were nuts or bananas. Not even an apple to be seen, or anything that wasn’t yogurt-based or a baked pastry. Or the time that we ordered pho and all the broth was chicken-based, or when wanting no egg in my pad thai meant that I couldn’t have any of the dozen lunch specials. It makes me want to cheer on people who serve almond milk along with the soy, or who offer tofu scrambles as an alternative to other breakfast items.

After doing this for a month, I feel better, lighter, and more free when it comes to what I eat, despite this new restriction. It makes me think – what do I really WANT now? That’s led to me leaving Bloody Marys sitting on the bar when it wasn’t the right thing for me, or spending more money to get two small vegetarian sides as a meal because nothing else was clicking.

Stay tuned for more vegan recipes ahead and other culinary adventures. If you have any awesome suggestions for vegan meals, please send them my way! And if you thought you could never be vegan, just wait until you hear about the muffins I made yesterday!

Kitchen Adventures, Olympic Edition: Pineapple Upside-down Cake

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What better way is there to celebrate the Olympics than by singing to Daft Punk eating the Olympic rings? None.  We adapted a classic pineapple upside-down cake to fit into the Olympic spirit, rainbow rings and all.  Make your own before the games end on February 23, and let me know how it goes!

Olympic Pineapple Upside-Down Cake (adapted from good old Betty Crocker)

  • 2 1/2 tablespoons margarine or butter
  • 2/3 cup packed brown sugar (slightly less for Olympic version)
  • Red, green, and blue food coloring
  • 1 can sliced pineapple, drained (will only use 5 rings for Olympic version) – save the juice, too!
  • 1 1/3 cups flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup shortening
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 egg
  1. Pat dry 5 pineapple rings – they don’t have to be too dry, just enough so that the color won’t run. In 4 separate containers, mix one drop of food color with a splash of pineapple juice, then lay one ring of pineapple in each color (red, blue, green, and one with a tiny bit of each to make black).  Yellow is just the plain pineapple ring.  Don’t flip the rings (since we only want the color on the top), but do move them around the container a bit to get all the dye onto them.
  2. Heat oven to 350 degrees F.  Heat butter in a 10-inch cake pan.
  3. While the butter is melting, combine flour through egg in a mixer, and beat at low speed for 30 seconds, scraping bowl occasionally. Then beat at high speed for 3 minutes, scraping bowl as you go.
  4. Arrange pineapple slices color-side-down in the butter, then sprinkle brown sugar in a thin layer over the remaining butter, so there’s either a pineapple or brown sugar coating the entire base of the pan.
  5. Bake for 45-55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Remove, and immediately invert over a plate, keeping the pan on top for a few minutes.  Remove and reveal your pineapples, then serve warm.

Enjoy with a mug of hot cocoa while cheering on your favorite Olympians.

Kitchen Adventure: Maple roasted pumpkin seeds

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The best part of making this delicious recipe for Thanksgiving was seeing how incredibly easy it is to toast your own pumpkin seeds.  Where has this idea been my whole life??  They’re great for:

  • putting on top of stir-frys
  • adding to salads
  • snacking (dangerous, but good)
  • putting on top of a pumpkin pie

With one bag of pumpkin seeds, you can make at least 3 servings of this – plenty of time to try all the combinations you can dream of!

pumpkin seeds

Maple Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

  • 3/4 cup raw, unsalted pumpkin seeds
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon maple syrup
  • pinch of salt
  • pinch of cayenne pepper
  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, coating the seeds with oil and syrup.  Pour into a foil-lined pan (rimmed cookie sheets work best, but I just used a baking dish).
  3. Cook until toasted – about 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool before enjoying on top of anything and everything you can imagine.

Kitchen Adventure: Easy cheesy frittata

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For those nights when you can’t get enough cheese… when you want to use as few pans as possible… when you want leftovers you can eat for a week – this meal is for those nights!

cheesy goodness

 

Easy Cheesy Frittata 

  • 1 large head of broccoli, cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 large onion, chopped into small pieces
  • 2 whole eggs, beat
  • 8 egg whites
  • 2 cups cheese (I used a 4 cheese “Mediterranean” blend of sharp Provolone, feta, Kasseri, and Romano)
  • 2 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 10 cherry tomatoes, halved, or two large tomatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
  • Olive oil
  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Caramelize the onions in a small frying pan, cooking over medium heat with olive oil until golden.  Remove from pan and set aside in large bowl.
  3. Sauté the broccoli in a pan with water until it’s lightly steamed.  Add chopped garlic and cook until easily cut with a fork.  Add to the bowl with onions.
  4. Beat the eggs and cheese together, add to the bowl with cooked veggies and chopped tomatoes.  Mix together and transfer to large baking dish.
  5. Cook for 25-30 mins or until cheese is melted and eggs are set.  Let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

Great for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and everything in between!

Kitchen Adventures: Simple southern greens with bacon

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There are two things you might not know about me if you haven’t seen me cook:

  1. I am terrible at following directions.  If I have even an inkling something should be done a different way (this would be better minced! Surely they meant that amount of butter was optional! I love sugar – ADD MORE!) I jump in and do it that way.
  2. I have no patience.  None.  Zip. Nada.  So when things need to be done slowly, I tend to crank up the heat just to get it finished with sooner.

I tried to quell both those urges with my recent cooking adventure, and had a 50% success rate.  Even though I didn’t follow the directions, I did cook this much longer than I pretty much ever cook anything, and my patience definitely paid off.  This is one of the most decadent and delicious dishes I’ve ever made and it will definitely become a staple in my cookbook.  I was inspired by this recipe.

southern greens

Southern (Collard) Greens with Bacon

  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 4 slices bacon, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 medium to large onion, chopped
  • 1 bag southern greens from TJ’s
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • 1/2 tsp red pepper (optional)
  • 3 cups chicken broth
  1. Heat oil in a large pot.  Cut up the bacon by stacking the slices and then cutting across the grain into about 10 pieces (or whatever – this isn’t rocket science.  Just make it smaller).  Add bacon to the pot and cook about 3 minutes.
  2. Add the garlic and onion to the bacon and cook 5 minutes, until onions are mostly cooked and bacon is crispy.
  3. Add greens to the pot and cook for about 3 minutes, until wilted/lightly fried.
  4. Add remaining ingredients and stir.  Cook covered for 45 minutes or until greens are done – they might look finished while they’re still crunchy, so go ahead and try them if you’re not sure.  It’s quite hard to overcook this, so don’t worry if your other dishes or your greens need more time beyond the first 45 minutes.
Greens before and after cooking

Greens before and after cooking

And enjoy!  I ate mine with fresh bread and a poached egg – perfection!  Good for breakfast, dinner, guests, or leftovers – they’re just plain good!

Kitchen Adventures: Broccoli, egg white, and basil frittata

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Quiche and I have a solid history – I used to make them for and with my grandma, I made them a ton when I moved to Boston, I buy them for lunch sometimes at this delicious place downtown.  But what do you do when you really don’t need that crust anymore, and would rather save the calories and room in your stomach for something else?

Cue the frittata.

I came up with this recipe, which is the kind of frittata that falls somewhere between “crustless quiche” and “baked eggs”, because I wanted something light for dinner that could also serve as breakfast or lunch, and I wanted it to taste like summer – as fresh as possible.  I ate this for almost a whole week and never got tired of it – so good!

Frittata

Broccoli, Egg White, and Basil Frittata

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups broccoli, chopped and steamed
  • 1 cup onion, chopped and cooked
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 carton egg whites
  • 1 bag of shredded, low-fat Italian cheese mix (about 2 cups)
  • 1/4 cup half-and-half
  • 6 tbsp basil (about 10 leaves, chopped)
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees (F) while you steam the broccoli in bite-sized pieces and cook the onion with a little oil and the garlic in a frying pan.
  2. Whisk together the eggs, egg whites, cheese, and half-and-half in a large bowl.  When blended, add the rest of the ingredients, with the basil last so it doesn’t cook too much in advance.  Pour the entire mixture into two glass pie plates.
  3. Bake for 30-45 minutes, until eggs are set.  Eat hot, and then refrigerate when cool, including freezing some for later!

This recipe and its simple ingredients make two whole pies worth of delicious frittata, for 4 PointsPlus for 1/8 of the total serving.  Since I used similarly sized pie plates, this means I could eat 1/4 of a pie (2 pieces) for less than the value of two pieces of toast with peanut butter.  So good, so simple, so healthy!

What’s your go-to breakfast, for now and later?