Turkey Meatloaf with Mom

In the snowdrift that is Long Island and taking some time off from private clients this week and next, I decided to cook some turkey meatloaf for my mother in a way she’s never had it before.

In my life and times studying and eating food, I have always loved meatloaf. However, I can’t put meatloaf and healthy in the same sentence. Usually, because the “meat” used for a traditional meatloaf was the cheapest and fattiest cut ground up with whatever leftover vegetables there were and shaped into a loaf. It was gourmet even back when it surfaced in the 1950’s kitchen, but it was cheap and easy to make.

So I bring you a slightly healthier, slightly more elegant version of my mother’s meatloaf, made with her by my side, doing what she always does – direct and nag me that I’ve dropped onions and peppers on the floor. She doesn’t care that Julia Child did as well. I could only imagine how mothers have influenced the great chefs. I wonder if Bobby Flay had the same relationship with his mother when he was inventing things as a kid in her kitchen. Love, take it any way you can!

So, here’s the recipe. I bet your mouth is watering and your heart full, the way you should always approach cooking.

An elegant Turkey Meatloaf

Ingredients:

1 small onion, diced small

1 shallot, chopped small

3 cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped fine

2 carrots, peeled and diced small

1 tablespoon of olive oil

2 lbs 97% lean ground turkey

1 28 ounce can of crushed san marino tomatoes (imported from Italy – organic is best)

2 eggs (organic, cage free are best)

1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs

Herbs de Provence (2 teaspoons)

Fresh rosemary chopped (2 teaspoons)

1 teaspoon paprika (ground)

pepper to taste (there’s enough salt in the tomatoes)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix turkey, tomatoes, bread crumbs, eggs, and chopped rosemary in a large mixing bowl with a wooden spoon (your hands are better – make sure to clean them thoroughly first!) and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a 12 inch frying pan with high sides and add onion, shallot, garlic, carrots, herbs de Provence and paprika once oil is hot. Saute 10 minutes until carrots are soft.

Add vegetables to the meat mixture. Stir to combine.

Place mixture in 13X9 baking pan and bake at 350 1 hour. Check at 1 hour for doneness with toothpick to see if comes out clean and top is set.

If you like, mom adds ketchup and breadcrumbs on top to form a crust. I would never do this, but sometimes, mom’s way is best and traditional! And traditions are important. I might also add reserve some of the tomatoes and add to the top with additional fresh chopped herbs for the same effect, but mom won this time

Enjoy the snow!

Happy Thanksgiving!

So, somehow it got to be November and the middle of November at that. I am three quarters of the way through my third semester of my second masters (and hopefully the start of my PhD!) and I have a few new cooking clients. I feel blessed, challenged and that everything in my life is coming together. It has been a ton of work, but I’m finally starting to see the blossoms of all the bulbs I planted long ago.

Where are you in your life?

Every year when thanksgiving comes around, I get a ton of questions, concerns, anxiety, tears and rants from my clients and my community. People ask me what should I make? How do I change this recipe to make it healthier? How do I avoid this person at the holiday table? How do I get through dinner sober? Yes, I am sure that many of us have these same concerns.

Being a foodie, chef and nutritionist, I will answer the food questions first, because they are my favorites! The best way to enjoy Thankgiving is to not go into dinner hungry! Eat breakfast. Be it, two eggs soft boiled with a slice of whole grain toast, steelcut oatmeal with berries, a berry/greens smoothie and sprouts (what I had this morning, but I know, not for all of you!) or something a bit more decadent? A muffin and coffee, your favorite cereal and milk with coffee…just have breakfast, whatever it is. If you can make a healthier choice, its better, but no breakfast is better than none at all. Same goes for lunch. Usually Thanksgiving dinner doesn’t start until 4pm, many of us don’t sit down at the table until after 6pm. That’s a long day to not eat. Eat lunch. You don’t have to have a large lunch, but have something simple: a salad, a piece of quiche, a hard boiled egg if you didn’t have one for breakfast, salmon, gefilte fish (I’m Jewish, its my go to snack or lunch on a day when I know I am having a big meal – might not be yours – but seriously its pretty good – 5 grams of fat, a little carb from the matzo meal, lots of protein – perfectly balanced – and have with a bit of green salad and lemon and you are good to go) or something like that. Again, lunch is better than no lunch and a healthier choice is better than an unhealthy one…but whatever you do…eat breakfast and lunch.

Now we get to dinner, if you are cooking – use butter, just use 1/4 of what the recipe calls for. Use sugar, but use 1/2 of what the recipe calls for or do what I do – use agave nectar, brown rice syrup or another natural sweetener. This whole year I have been learning about Splenda. So far what I have learned is there is no evidence that Splenda causes cancer, birth defects, neurotoxicity etc…but the reason there is no evidence is that there have been no studies! Splenda has simply not been on the market long enough. So as a good scientist I cannot advise against Splenda, as a concientious and cautious skeptic, I’m not advising or myself using a lot of splenda. Like with everything, use a little.

I saw fresh cranberries at the farmers market this weekend. Try using them in your cranberry sauce or try using unsweetened canned cranberries and sweeten them yourself using 1/2 the amount of sugar the recipe calls for or use honey, agave or brown rice syrup in 1/2 the amount. I use whole grain pie crusts in my sweet potato pie or I forgo the pie crust altogether…especially if I know I want one slice of pie for dessert.

The best way to make turkey is to brine it. There are many recipes out there. But this one is a favorite of mine. I might go with slightly less salt and ignore what they say about kosher salt (don’t use more). I’d say 1/4 cup heaving is enough salt. I’d use a fleur del sel or a celtic sea salt (or a natural sea salt gathered from maine or anywhere else in the northeast if you are in the northeast or somewhere local to you if there’s oceans nearby!) Any healthfood store or whole foods will carry it. Many farmers markets sell local sea salt too. Bake that Turkey in a bag with some vegetables (carrots, onions, apples, oranges) at 500 degrees F (260 C – Thanks Eitan!) for about 2 hours or until a meat thermometer in the thigh reads 170 degrees F (sorry celsius folks – but the formula is Tc = (5/9)*(Tf-32)).

As for side dishes, let’s have some green vegetables! and lots of them, because our plates should be 1/2 vegetables, 1/4 starch and 1/4 protein. And eat enough to fill one plate. The best thing I do at Thanksgiving is fill my plate only halfway so I can go back for seconds! I try a bit of this and a bit of that – keeping to the proportions above. I make the vegetables at my Thanksgiving feast – so I know what’s in them and I know there’s something for me to feast on and then I can try the other things. I suggest you do this too. Also if you are asked to bring an appetizer – bring a tasty tray of vegetables with a homeade dip. Here’s a great recipe for a homemade tahini based tip that is delicious and not super high fat or high calorie!

As for dessert, don’t skip it! Just don’t eat dessert Today, Tuesday or tomorrow, Wednesday and certainly not on Friday. Feel free to have dessert again on Saturday!!!! On Thursday, have 3 small slices or portions of dessert that would equate to one full slice. Imagine that dessert will be 500 calories and that you have that budget. Dinner is about 750 and you had about 750 calories between breakfast and lunch. If you want to proportion it differently do so, but still aim for about 2000 for the day. Get up, move around, help in the kitchen, enjoy Cousin Susie’s new baby and have an amazing time! Just remember Thanksgiving is about family, friends, love and joy! Food is secondary, but you should feel free to celebrate as well! Just don’t overdo it. Also, get a walk in there, either before or after dinner! With the wonderful mild weather we’ve been having, I’d plan a long one either before or after dinner – especially if there’s family you haven’t seen in a while, its a great way to catch up! Wishing you a wonderful holiday! Thanks for reading.

biking, cheffing, and fall vegetables

Fall is one of my favorite seasons – the yellows, the oranges, the deep reds…yes, it describes the changing leaves, but also the wonderful vegetables available at the farmers market. I’ve been biking around new york every weekend (and some weekdays), looking at trees, life, its just heaven and its a wonderful way to burn off all the great recipes I’ve been testing and tasting lately.

Just this week, I made a fabulous roasted acorn squash. These vegetables (fruit really, they have seeds!) are so delicious and sweet all you need to do is split them open, scoop out the seeds and sprinkle with a touch of cinammon. Want a little extra richness you could spritz on some olive oil or melted butter in a water mister or you could just use a spoon. Roast them for 45 minutes and the skin will get soft enough you can just cut into pieces and pop the whole thing in your mouth. The skin is still a bit too hard for you? Just eat around it.

Also at the end of summer, beginning of fall, we’ve got pumpkins, butternut squash and tons of green vegetables still around. I tend to focus more on autumn soups like butternut squash and bean soups such as creamy black bean and white bean. A touch of white truffle oil and its heaven in a bowl.

So get out there on your bike, your feet and walk, run or bike around to see all fall has to offer. You’ll be surprised with its splendor!

Like these recipes? Contact me for a cooking class in your home or to learn more about my professional personal chef programs available to you in New York City. My website is www.sobelwellness.com. I can also do long distance consultations about what to cook and buy at farmers markets as well as general chatting about your health.

Butchering a chicken and remembering back to the first time I butchered chickens

After September 11th, I volunteered to cook meals for the relief effort at the World Trade Center. My mother and I went to what was the new Bouley space (next to the Bouley Bakery – before he opened his very impressive emporium to food downtown!) prepared to help out. I had always loved cooking and I had spent the past two years working two nights a week at Tocqueville restaurant in union square, doing whatever was asked of me to learn all there was to learn about cooking professionally. I took the meat out of lobsters, I butchered all kinds of animals, I washed all kinds of vegetables, cut things up, peeled things, smelled, tasted, felt and got yelled at…a lot! It was something that just came naturally to me and yet something I wasn’t quite ready to leave my very stable boring technology job for. September 11th had a tremendous effect on me personally. I was planning to attend Culinary school that month and I never went.

I had a good job which I sort of fell into although it was never my passion. I had a part time cooking gig which fulfilled every passion I had and more. I was also a writer. Writing was more of a hobby than anything else until I transferred from technology to news at Bloomberg. But in September of 2001, my book was put on hold. I stopped writing and I stopped cooking. A lot of the book had to do with a proposed peace between Israel and the Palestinians.  For a little while, I stopped writing completely not thinking there was a peace. Two years later I started writing again. The book is finished now and sits in the hand of one literary agent. I recently met a man, from Pakistan, a cab driver actually who made me believe there was a peace, if the people doing the fighting have a leader, from their own country who can represent them. This is what I am writing about and his belief is central to the characters in my novel.

Anyway, back to the chicken. There was a lot going on in all of our lives and they were all changed forever that day. Its funny, when I started this post I was planning to blog on chicken, but I find myself looking inward and its always more than chicken, isn’t it.

Although I had been accepted to the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park, New York, I never enrolled in September of 2001 as I had planned. Shortly before September 11th, I was mugged in the restaurant I was working in. It was my birthday a few weeks before and I was taking my mom to eat at the restaurant where I was working. I had some leftover birthday money and the money I was planning to spend on dinner in my wallet which I stowed under a bucket in the bathroom like always since I didn’t have a locker at the restaurant. I usually put my clothes on top of it and hung the rest on a hanging rack in the staff bathroom. Maybe I had $100 in my wallet. I was working in this restaurant 12 hours a week for free after I had put in 10 hour days in finance. I did decently financially during my day job, but not great. I was still young and building that career as well.  But, the money was a target. It wasn’t about the money, it never is. But I didn’t feel safe in the restaurant or in that world in general. Culinary school just didn’t seem to be the right choice at the time. I continued working and built my career. I moved to another town outside New York and became a professional news writer.  One step closer to my passions fulfilled. I learned a great deal about the pharmaceutical industry and biotechnology and though that it was the single greatest thing available to us as humans.

I spent several years studying biotechnology as a journalist, an economist, a student of business and also of public health. I spent two years in and out of research laboratories something aside from cooking, I dreamed my whole life of doing, at leading medical technology firms. I was in my dream career, studying my dream subject, life couldn’t be more perfect.  I was convinced stents and coils were the answer…then I started to investigate biotechnology’s role in food.  Nearly 6 years later, I am astonished at what “science” has done to our food system. There are those that call me a maniacal hippie for eating the way I do and I respect them the same. There are others who see me as a visionary. I appreciate their admiration. I just see myself as a girl who loves food and the taste of whole, fresh, untouched, unaltered, non-scientific food. And I enjoy cooking it even more.

Back to the chicken, on that day in November of 2001, I cooked meals for the firemen with my mom, at Bouley, under the supervision of Bouley chefs. How cool is that. If you are at all like me and food is not only something you like, but something you equate with breathing, you could imagine the experience. So my mom was upstairs chopping vegetables and making vegetable dishes and I was downstairs in the basement with a team of about 8 people. And before us, in the middle of the steel table lay, nearly 800 chickens. We were each given a set of boning knives and 10 minutes of instruction. In 30 seconds, a chicken can be boned, given the separation at the appropriate joints and attention to detail. I was not certain, I’d be able to do it in 30 seconds, but after about 800, I think I got it down to a minute, maybe 45 seconds. I wasn’t really keeping track.

More than 8 years later, I can still butcher a chicken. I can do a lot of things. I hang around chefs, I continue to take classes in culinary schools and I hope one day I’ll win a James Beard scholarship to attend culinary school in 4-6 months. I love cooking. I love cooking for others and myself.

One of my female friends said she’d never cook for anyone who didn’t have a penis and that included herself. I respect her choices, but I could never understand it. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else to relax. Also, I want to feel closer to the food I prepare and understand what goes into it.

I’ve been watching a series of movies on food production, processing and the origin of our foods. I haven’t shopped in supermarkets since 1999 when I moved 2 blocks from the Union Square farmers market. Granted grocery shopping for me is a little bit of an obsession and I’d never expect people to go through the lengths I go…but I have started buying pastured chicken and butchering it myself. Today, I got a whole bird. They removed the feathers and the head as well as the innards (like intestine and heart – I’m not quite ready to work with that yet – but I imagine I could make something interesting eventually), but pretty much everything else is there: neck, gizzard, liver, feet…yes feet! I did a post eariler on feet, go look for it…they make an excellent soup. This chicken ate nothing but grass, bugs, dirt and other things chicken are supposed to eat. The chicken’s skin is white, not yellow. Its flesh paler than the flesh I’ve seen on supermarket chicken, its fat, white and slightly yellow tinged. It has no smell.

Half of it now is simmering in wine, the other half in water making a stock. The last time I roasted it whole, but this time, I wanted to butcher it myself and make coq a vin. I was inspired by the Julia Child movie. Though, I’m no stranger to “Mastering the art of French Cooking”. My copy, in the mother’s house, is well worn, wine, butter and flour stained and you can still smell the years of dishes cooked from it on its pages. I first cracked that book open when I was 11. I’m surprised my mother let me use the stove unsupervised let alone cook what I did.

I operate a private chef business now, cooking in people’s homes: organic farm fresh meals for the week. I have all kinds of programs that are based on nourishing the body, feeding the soul and balancing the system. It is my belief that through fresh, whole food we will reach our comfortable natural weight. I don’t believe in dieting, but eating a certain way, forever. That is not to say that I don’t eat out on occassion and eat sweets on occasion. I do, but I miss my food when I do.

I just finished a sampling of the coq a vin complete with multi-colored organic carrots and potatoes: deep red, white, gold, orange and even purple – each with its own unique taste and lusciousness. The dish as a whole was as delicious as I had anticipated, if not better. The sauce complete with the bacon drippings from flying pig farm (pigs that have seen the outdoors and whose white fat is also as pure as its diet. The bird deliciously moist and tasting like the purity of its diet. I put the rest away to marinate for the evening. I look forward to my next taste tomorrow.

Healthy food affordability: a top ten list

So I have been reading all about how healthy food is expensive and I feel that this couldn’t be further from the truth. In one of my classes a professor presented that for $1 per person a meal for four people had to be incredibly nutrient deficient…having run a restauarnt for three months on zero capital, I learned to make healthful food for very little money. I’m going to share just a few of my thoughts in the form of a top ten list.

1. Lentils (green, brown, red, black – each has a different taste and different protein content!) – I like brown the best. They are high fiber and high protein. Good easy to digest low glycemic carbohydrates. Plenty of magnesium to relieve stress.

2. Millet: a great whole grain. Less than $1 a pound, even in whole foods.

3. Kale: I’ve seen it in every supermarket in America. Sometimes it sits all by itself. Sure, organic is better, but the conventional stuff at Pathmark on 125th Street was less than $1  a bunch. I bought 10 the last time I was there.

4. Chicken legs: They aren’t always organic, but I’ve seen organic ones at Fairway for $3 for 6 chicken legs, that 50 cents a leg. I’ve also seen turkey legs for cheap as well, even organic. The legs actually have more iron and the same protein as the breast. If the chicken has been fed well, the fat isn’t so horrible as long as you make veggies the centerpiece of your meal.

5. Peaches in season. Today I saw peaches for $1.29 a pound from New Jersey. They were ripe, delicious, local and cheap! Organic ones were a little bit more, but they are in season now, so take advantage! I’ve seen them for 99 cents a lb too. Buy as you need in smaller quantities – you’ll spend less.

6. Chicken feet: I know it sounds weird, but I was at the farmers market the other day and they actually gave me the feet, get this, FOR FREE! No one wanted them! So I made a to die for soup with the feet and although there wasn’t any meat to speak of – the bones made a delicious healthy soup. I added carrots (10 for $1), celery (not much more) and an onion (28 cents), along with some dill ($1.99 – the most expensive part of the soup – for $4 I could get it all in one package with the dill).

7. Zucchini and summer squash – in season now, very cheap at farmers markets or grocery stores. Pays to buy things in season. I got 3 for $1 over the weekend

8.  Strawberries – 2 for $5, you don’t have to buy 2, I bought one pint…it last me the whole week. I had three strawberries a day in oatmeal, smoothies, on their own. I cut them in half. It pays to portion control!

9. Grass fed beef – ground. It was only about $8 a lb compared to $24.99 for steaks. I know it was good quality because I talked with the farmers on how they raise the animals.

10. Small or large size free range eggs – I got 6 free range eggs for $1.75. They were small sized. They have less cholesterol and overall fat because they are smaller. 2 eggs still made a great fluffy omelet in an 8 inch pan. Wonderful protein and fats. I had with some tat soi from the farmers market. Overall balanced meal.

See, its not that hard to do. I’ll give you some pointers on some budget menus of how to use these and other in season, wallet friendly foods in the next post. Happy healthy affordable eating to you!

Weekly cooking thoughts and recipes – notes from a private chef

I am a private chef. This means I cook meals for people with their input in their homes using groceries they have purchased. I tend to think of it as an iron chef competition but that everything is the secret ingredient. I suppose its more like an episode of chopped but without the puff pastry and gummy bears. I have unlimited amounts of time, instead of a half hour, although I do make one soup, two main dishes, three side dishes and one or two desserts in about 3.5 hours, so in a way, I do have some time constraints, plus that last hour is usually spent cleaning. I have never cleaned so well in my life as I do in my clients’ kitchens except when I operated my restaurant in the Atmananda yoga center on Lafayette street earlier this year. I was one with the mop.

This week, I made a cream of brocolli soup with red potaoes, a casserole of halibut and bay scallops, meatloaf with 90% grass fed beef from a small farm (Simply Grazin) in Skillman, NJ and an orange pepper from the farmers market along with vine ripened tomatoes from the market as well as local cippolini oniones, beet greens and spinach sauteed in a bit of olive oil, peas and mushrooms with those great cippolini onions and for dessert, my first ever successful tapioca coconut pudding with a pear crisp (two desserts). I need to start taking some photographs of my dishes.

My inspiration comes from several sources: the food network, eating out, dreaming, and simply going to the store, the market, the recesses of my mind and seeing what looks/feels good. I feel somewhat like Mozart writing a symphony and hearing the parts of each and every instrument and how they all fit together. I feel I do this in my head with flavors: lemon, mint, butter, sundried tomatoes…soy, ginger, onion and shallot, balsalmic vinegar, oil, shallot etc. I have ideas that sometimes work and sometimes don’t, but I experiment. I don’t ever cook with recipes because I can’t follow them. I’m too creative and passionate that I miss things and recreate while I am creating. I’ve tried to follow recipes and I miss steps, add things in different proportions. I’ve always found baking a challenge for that reason.

I need to start writing down my recipes, but I never know the correct proportions. I hardly ever use measuring cups or spoons. I use my hands a lot – pinching, sprinkling, dashing, mixing…I always infuse love into my food.

I’ll give you the recipe for the coconut milk vanilla pudding because it was easy and came out right:

Naturally sweetened coconut tapioca pudding

Ingredients:

3 cups coconut milk (I used lite)

1/4 cup tapioca

2 tablespoons turbinado sugar

2 tablespoons agave nectar

2 tablespoons vanilla extract (pure – from madagasgar or tahiti best) – a vanilla bean with bean specs removed would be better

Directions:

Heat tapioca in coconut milk until simmering. Turn heat to low and continue simmering 12-15 minutes, stirring often. When tapioca is really transparent, turn off heat, stir in sugar, agave and vanilla. Pour into dessert dishes and refrigerate at least 4 hours. To avoid skin, put a piece of saran wrap directly on surface.

Variation:

melt 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips in a double boiler and add liquid chocolate at the same time as vanilla or instead of vanilla for a chocolate pudding.

Garnish with fresh mint!

Julia Child’s Legacy and Chocolate torte – healthy in small doses

Hi my loyal readers!

I’ve been away for sometime, mostly because I’ve been writing for another blog on examiner.com.  http://www.examiner.com/x-10896-Manhattan-Healthy-Food-Examiner Inspired by the movie Julie and Julia I wanted to revive this blog and have something out in cyberspace that was purely my own. I’m cross posting my reaction to the movie and one of my favorite torte recipes.

Every day is a food experiment for me and I always test my recipes for changes in my energy and passion levels! In this post is an original recipe altered and changed many times from a recipe I learned while at the Institute for Culinary education. Like Julia I never finished cooking school, but I learned many wonderful things and have developed my own unique style. Julia has always been a great inspiration to me – from about the age of 11 when I watched Julia on PBS with my Aunt Ida and tried to make chicken breasts in butter and cream sauce on my own. How my mother let me do such things I will never know. By age 12 I was stir frying shrimp and by high school I was coming home for lunch with my friends and preparing “gourmet” meals for them. It all started with Julia.

Now of course, my interests have shifted toward the health value of food. But I will never sacrifice taste for health value. I believe they can be linked! Healthy food is always thought of as boring, plain and lacking butter. Perhaps, but what if it was just small amounts of truly delicious food with natural sugars and enough butter to fill you up. The truly two bite dessert. Jeff Goldblum apparently orders desserts, savors one truly decadent bite and sends it back. Not all of us have this kind of self control, but I was inspired enough by Julia Child to write this post. But first, I want to talk about the inspiration.

I am not a woman who cries often. Since Saturday night I have cried twice…from movies no less. The first: the time traveler’s wife. A story of love that overcame the test of time…literally and tonight from Julie and Julia, a story of love, sex, food and writing…and of course, success, money and everything else! But first came, the love, the sex…and of course the food…and the writing! Two stories that are ever so vivid, real, whole and round. Stories that rip through you to the very core and remind you why we live. Ah, to think, the power of a boeuf bourgonuine to transform the senses and the miracle of tricking your own husband who had just gotten a vasectomy into getting you pregnant by cheating with a younger version of your time traveling husband before he got the procedure done.
I am dreaming of cassoulet, duck steak and tarte tatin. The first time I had duck steak, which is some part of the duck (I’m going to go with the breast) without a drop of fat on it – just the meat – its simply seared and its nearly raw inside – but its so delicious I can’t even explain it! When I was at the Institute for Culinary education and also again at Tocqueville I concentrated on pastry, which was so strange considering I am by all means a food chef. I did excel at pastry and I do enjoy making desserts. I’ve made a few tarte tatins in my lifetime and even bought a special pot to make it in because you need to be able to make the apples on the stove, cover it with the pastry and then pop the thing in the oven. You need a pan that has an oven safe handle, which is hard to find these days. An ex-boyfriend once made eggs in the pan without using butter and to this day despite several cleanings and soakings there are still scrapes of egg in the pan. The pan lasted longer than that relationship! Damn though, I was very much in love with the pan. Will have to butter it up but good the next time I want to make a tart.
But the piece de resistance in my culinary abilities and one of my all time favorite desserts is a dark chocolate torte I learned to make in a French cooking class at ICE. The cake is made with grand Marnier and two sticks of butter. Julia would be proud. Somewhere I have the original recipe, but I’ve altered it over the years to make it completely my own.
Ingredients:
10 ounces of the darkest chocolate I can find (my favorite is Valhrona 85%)
4 eggs
2 tablespoons grand mariner
1/3 cup of agave nectar
Waxed parchment paper
8 inch round cake pan

Cut a round in parchment to line bottom and sides of cake pan. Set aside with a weight. Preheat oven to 350.
Whisk eggs together with grand mariner in a large bowl. Don’t beat, just whisk them with the liquer until it is combined and the eggs turn yellow. Chop chocolate into chunks on an angle with a chef’s knife. Gently melt it in a double boiler with a little bit of agave nectar (maybe 1/3 of a cup). When the chocolate has just melted, remove from heat and stir to make creamy. Add two sticks of butter. Cover and let the butter melt completely. When melted, remove cover and stir. While whisking, add the chocolate mixture in a stream (almost like you’d add oil to egg yolks to make mayonnaise) to the egg mixture and continue whisking lightly just until all the chocolate combines.
Remove weight from pan and pour in batter. Place cake pan in a larger pan filled with two inches of water so cake pan floats in other pan (bain maire).
Cook 40 minutes until top has set. Cool for 10 min or so and pop in refrigerator at least 12 hours. This piece is crucial!!! The next day, turn cake over onto a plate and unmold by removing parchment. Decorate cake with either powdered sugar or my favorite – sifted raw cacao powder (not Dutch processed cocoa, please!) and raspberries. Serve slices with real whipped cream that has not been ultra pasteurized (just regular pasteurized is fine, it whips better, usually comes in a glass bottle) if you can find it.

Sobel Wellness featured in world bride magazine

Read about some winter motivations and see some great recipes in world bride magazine. Read more about it here:

http://www.worldbridemagazine.com/health_and_welness/Health.htm

Some great inspirational stories, recipes and good stuff await.

quinoa and lentils

I love Indian Dal. I don’t have patience to make it. I want to share a recipe I made up last night which is my variation on Dal complete with greens to even out the meal:

1 cup (1/3 cup red, 1/3 cup green and 1/3 cup french) lentils (soaked 12 hours will reduce gas factor)

3/4 cup of Quinoa (not neccesary to soak)

2-3 handfuls mesculun salad greens or dark leafy greens of choice (braising greens best) in bite size pieces

1/3 cup of chicken or vegetable broth

2 cap fulls of yellow curry powder (roughly two tablespoons)

a few shakes of garam masala

1/2 inch slice of butter (omit if  not consuming dairy)

1/4 teaspoon of sesame oil

Boil 2.5 cups of water. when boiling add lentils and cook 15 min on medium. Add quinoa and cook 10 minutes more until quinoa puffs up. In last 2 minutes of quinoa cooking add curry powder, greens and chicken broth. Stir a few times to incorporate flavors. Cover pot and let steam cook greens. After 2 minutes, stir again, add butter and/or sesame oil, remaining spices, salt and pepper to your taste and melt in butter. Simmer on low until all liquid absorbed or moist. Add more broth if starting to dry out.  Serve immediately with lemon and chopped parsley or cilantro.

makes 2-3 servings

this week’s greenmarket finds – blue potatoes

I’ve never before seen a blue potato. A few weeks back I saw them at the union square greenmarket. I fell in love with them. First of all they taste nothing like a potato. Not a white potato or a sweet potato. They are unique in flavor, like nothing I can describe. They are also blue. Incredibly blue. I guess I’ve seen blue potato chips, so they can’t be a complete mystery to me, but these potatoes – small in size and decadent to nibble are quite different than even the chips I’ve sampled so many years ago.

In my love affair with color I got some yellow and orange carrots (I was hoping for purple ones, but alas could not find any), burdock root – which is wonderfully cleansing for the liver, salsify (which is black, but white on the inside), celeraic and some chicken pieces. On my stove now simmers: the roots, chicken pieces, some lamb stock from a previous night’s dinner, dried figs and a melange of spices. I can’t wait for it to be done. I’m sure its going to be delish.

Your mouth watering yet? A recipe you demand?

Here’s the best I can do:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 white onion – local if possible, chopped

1 large orange carrot, chopped

2 stalks of local celery (hard to find in these rough NY winters – can skip), chopped

about 1 pound of chicken parts (I used breast and thigh meat, just a personal preference)

1 cup stock (chicken, beef, lamb, whatever tickles your fancy – I used half chicken (boxed) and half lamb – homemade)

1 yellow carrot

2 blue potatoes (small, the size of fingerlings, each quartered)

1 white turnip (quartered)

6-8 Brussels Sprouts, halved – little stem chopped off

2-3 tablespoons of fresh dill

black pepper

curry powder about 1 tsp

lots of love

Directions:

Heat olive oil in a cast iron stock pot. When smoking add mire poix (carrots, onion and celery) and stir 5 minutes until softened. Add chicken and sear on both sides until slightly browned (2-3 minutes). Add stock, root veggies, spices and other ingredients. Cover and cook 45 minutes to one hour until cooked through, roots are soft and your kitchen smells unbelievable. You will just know. I don’t cook with salt, but if you like salt, you can add some when you add the pepper. If you need a bit more spice – add some more curry powder. The dill and the black pepper and the taste of fresh vegetables in the stocks usually do it for me. I also added just a touch of butter when I put the vegetables in before I set the simmer.

Enjoy with someone you love!

visit www.sobelwellness.com to learn how you too could have meals prepared like these in your kitchen!