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Mama J's "stay-full-til-lunch" granola

One whole bag of gluten free granola, (I use Red Mill)
1/3 cup organic olive oil - not a drop less or it won't be crunchy enlighten
1/2 cup maple syrup
Large pinch of salt
Half cups of any 3 nuts you like: almonds, pecans, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds (raw)
Half cup of dried cranberries

Oven at 350. Spray the bottom of roasting pan or cookie sheet with organic high heat oil (optional). Right onto the cookie sheet goes: oats, syrup, oil, nuts and salt. Set aside cranberries and sesame seeds -- toss them together in a bowl and set aside for later. Bake the oats/nuts for 15 minutes, toss. Second bake is 10 minutes, toss. Third bake is 10 minutes, toss and keep burying the nuts so they don't burn. Add the cranberries/seeds for the fourth bake for 10 minutes more. Let cool and enjoy!

We like to serve it as overnight oats: soak overnight in skim milk (with or without banana) and top with 2% milk in the morning before eating. Or soak overnight in vanilla almond milk!

Delicious Zucchini Basil soup via Ina Garten

The Barefoot Contessa's Zucchini Basil Soup!



Today I made Ina Garten's Zucchini Basil soup from her new book, Make it Ahead. I actually dragged 4 friends to see Ina speak last week in Cupertino, and she was very inspirational, but for $100 we wanted to EAT some food, not just listen to her talk about food.  So I decided to break in the book with this recipe for a cozy Sunday night with Michael. He loved it, although he asked me politely if he could add siracha.  So here is the recipe, courtesy of The Barefoot Contessa:

Ingredients:
1/4 cup olive oil or less
1 large onion, chopped
2 T minced garlic (about 6 cloves)
3 pounds unpealed zucchini (about 4 large), chopped in 3/4 inch chunks
1/2 t ground nutmeg
1/8 t crushed red pepper flakes
t salt
t freshly ground black pepper
1 cup white wine
4 cups chicken stock (I use Better Than Boullion)
1 cup fresh basil, chopped
1/2 cup greek yogurt (non-fat or regular, but make sure its plain)
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Directions:
Heat the oil in a large pot and add onions. Stir for a few minutes until they are translucent but not brown, then stir in the garlic for one minute. Add the zucchini, nutmeg, red pepper flakes, salt & pepper, and stir for another 10 minutes until the zucchini becomes soft around the edges. Add the wine, stock, basil, and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Ina then suggests you churn the soup through a food mill, but I don't have one, so I used the pulse-puree setting on my blender for about 10 seconds, blending the soup in sections, ensuring the balance of liquid and solid in each batch.  I like soup a little chunky, but you can puree it as much or as little as you'd like. This would make an excellent meal for babies in a very blended form, too! Once you have the right consistency, but all the soup back in your pot (simmer again if it has cooled a lot, but then turn it off), stir in the greek yogurt and most of the parmesan cheese.  Serve with more freshly ground black pepper and fresh parmesan cheese in each bowl, and siracha if thats what your man loves :)

Embracing the California Coast: how to shuck an oyster

Pulled Chicken Chili - Loaded with Veggies

This recipe is modeled after Jamie Oliver's recipe for Chili con Turkey, which is delicious too! Here's what you need:

The Veggies:
1 red pepper, chopped
1 yellow pepper, chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, chopped finely
1 habanero pepper, chopped finely
1 leek, cleaned and chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
1 red onion, chopped

Roasted Chicken:
1 large roasted chicken - I buy one from Whole Foods, pull it apart while its freshly roasted, and reserve the carcass to make chicken stock for later use. If you buy ahead of time, pull it apart while hot and save all the meat in a bowl in the fridge. If you stick a whole roasted chicken in the fridge it will be very difficult to pull a part later.

The spices:
1 bunch of cilantro - stalks chopped, leaves reserved for garnish later
1.5 teaspoons smoked paprika
1.5 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon (or more, to taste) Slap Yo Mama hot seasoning, or cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon runny honey
few splashes white wine vinegar

The BEANS & sauce:
1 can no salt Garbanzo beans
1 can no salt black beans
1 can no salt kidney beans
2 cans diced tomatoes - large San Marzano are best, although WFM brand are good too



Method:
Combine all veggies in a large pot with a few tablespoons of olive oil and cook on low, stirring, for about 10 minutes. Add all the spices and stir; cook for another 20 minutes until blended and soft. Add  the small chicken pieces (you can chop up the pulled meat if you want smaller pieces, which I always do) and all the beans & chopped tomatoes.  Stir, taste, and cover on low heat for about an hour



Serve with cilantro leaves, shredded pepper jack cheese, plain greek yogurt (or sour cream), tortilla chips, avocado slices, lime wedges and chopped fresh onions. I also love to serve this with garlic bread or corn bread! Enjoy my loves!

Tarragon Chicken salad in Endive boats

Recently I made appetizers for my dear friend, Erica's party at her beautiful boutique spa on Sacramento Street, Tre Balm.  (side note, for the next month, she's offering 40% off treatments, so y'all might want to get on that...)

The menu was:

Tarragon Chicken Salad in Endive Boats

Prosciutto-Cantelope Sticks

Caprese Sticks

Garlic Shrimp

Lots of Champagne, and lots of Vodka. 

So, my chicken salad: the basics are pretty much the same across the board for most of my salads -- cut the mayo in half and use greek yogurt (or maybe 1/4 mayo, 3/4 greek yogurt).  Honestly, you just need a little bit of that mayo flavor and then the greek yogurt will add lots of light fluffiness without adding to the fat content. Its important to use plain, non fat, bc any other flavor of yogurt would taste super weird. If you don't want to use mayo at all, use greek yogurt and lemon juice. Its really amazing.

For these endive boats, I tried to replicate a rather expensive, heavy chicken salad from Whole Foods: the tarragon chicken salad.  To make enough boats for 20-30 people, here's what you need:

-- 5 or 6 endive bulbs

-- One roasted chicken, pulled apart (save the carcass to make a broth if you want, or use some of the chicken for dinner if you don't need a lot of salad) OR load up a whole foods salad container with the roasted chicken in the salad bar -- maybe about 3/4 lb or 1 lb.. that way its already roasted and cold. Chop it into small pieces on a cutting board, and put into a big bowl.

At $8/lb at the salad bar vs. $14/lb of the prepared chicken salad, you're looking pretty good on costs so far. It would have been about $150 to buy as much chicken salad as I needed, but all the ingredients combined cost about $50. 

Combine: 

-- 3 TB white wine vinegar

-- 2 TB dried tarragon (or fresh if you can find it... I actually found some that was dehydrated instead of dried, so that the vinegar sort of "brought it back to life")

-- 1/4 cup dijon mustard

-- 1/4 cup mayonnaise

-- 1/5 cup non fat plain greek yogurt

-- salt & pepper

-- 4 stalks of celery, sliced long and thin, then chopped 

-- 4 scallions, trimmed and finely chopped

-- 1-2 teaspoon agave or honey

You might need more of the above, depending on how much chicken you have, but this roughly the right quantitates/ratios. If it doesn't feel moist enough when you're stirring it all together, start by adding a little more greek yogurt, or maybe some lemon juice. 

Take the outer leaves off the endives and arrange them on a big platter, and carefully spoon the chicken salad into each.  I also served a platter of chicken salad on pop chips in case people didn't like the slightly bitter taste of endive, but the pop chips got soggy... so you could do regular Cape Cod potato chips which hold up better, or crackers, etc... This salad is also really great ON an arugula or other salad. 

Healthy Taco Salads

Tonight, Michael and I collaborated on dinner. He grilled the chicken and I compiled the salads.

I used:
Romain lettuce, chopped
Red cabbage, shredded
Avocado
Roasted onions, red pepper and zucchini (roasted at 400 for 20 minutes while I prepped the rest)
Jalapeños, minced
Parmesan and pepperjack cheese
Fresh tomatoes
Cilantro and basil