A Practical Guide To Healthy Living

Cabbage is in season!  Cabbage is sturdy, abundant, inexpensive, plus it’s tasty, and a nutritional powerhouse.  Do you like cabbage?  Have you ever eaten cabbage in anything but cole slaw?  If you’re ambivalent about it, I urge you to give cabbage another shot. 

There are three main types of cabbage: green, red and Savoy. Both green and red cabbage have smooth-textured leaves. Savoy cabbage leaves are more ruffled and yellowish-green (that’s it in the photo above).  Red and green cabbage have a more defined taste and a crunchy texture, whereas Savoy’s is more delicate.  Savoy is my favorite.

What should you look for in a cabbage?  Choose cabbage that’s firm and dense with shiny, crisp, colorful leaves without cracks, bruises and blemishes.  There should be only a few outer loose leaves attached to the stem. You should also know that pre-cut cabbage, either halved or shredded, loses its valuable vitamin C content.

When you get home, keep your cabbage cold:  this helps keep it fresh and retain its nutrients.  Put the whole head in a plastic bag in the crisper of your fridge.  Red and green cabbage will keep this way for about 2 weeks, Savoy will keep for about 1 week.

Here are three of my favorite ways to prepare cabbage – two involve curry powder, but each has a completely different taste.  Each of these recipes was originally intended as a side dish, but I eat each of them as a main course often.  Give them a try, and feel free to post your own in the comments.

 Curried Cabbage

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the curry powder and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.  Stir in the onion and cook until it’s translucent, about 3-5 minutes.  Add the cabbage and cook, stirring frequently, until the cabbage is wilted and soft to the bite, about 7 minutes.  Remove from the heat and stir in the lime juice and yogurt.  Salt to taste.

Serves 4.  Chickpeas are a great addition for added protein and fiber, as are chunks of well-pressed extra-firm tofu.  If adding tofu, I’d saute that in the oil/curry powder mixture ’til it’s crispy, then remove it from the pan before adding the onions, etc.  You might need a touch more oil in this case because the tofu will sop up your initial oil.  Adapted from Eating Well Magazine.

Curried Red Cabbage Slaw

Combine the cabbage, bell pepper and onion in bowl and toss to mix.  In a small pan, combine the vinegar and sugar and heat to dissolve the sugar;  pour over the vegetables and leave to cool slightly.  Combine yogurt and curry powder and mix this into the cabbage mixture.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Mix in raisins.  Chill.  Just before serving, pour off any accumulated liquid and briefly stir the slaw again.

Serves 4.  Adapted from The Half Hour Cook by Jenni Fleetwood.

Sauteed Savoy Cabbage With Walnuts

Heat the olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat.  Add the cabbage and saute, stirring frequently, until soft to the bite.  If the cabbage starts to brown and/or the pan starts to get too dry, lower the heat and add approximately 1-2 T. of chicken broth.  Remove from heat, stir in walnuts and salt and pepper to taste.  Serves 2 but is easily doubled.  Adapted from a recipe by Ina Garten.

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“Insanely good super cheap porky goodness.”

How could you not try out a restaurant that served a dish described like this??  We’d been to the bakery portion of Great Taste before – they have dan tat that make my daughter swoon.  Their cream buns are better, in my opinion, than Eldo’s.  They have mini butterfly cookies that are super crispy and sugary and tasty.  The baked char siu bao are very good.  Their bubble teas and smoothie drinks are supposed to be superb.  But we’d never tried the restaurant side, which serves primarly Cantonese food, ’til tonight.  And people, it was fantastic!

It took some serious selling to get L. to be OK with not going to Vinh Sun for BBQ pork.  Great Taste is kitty-corner across Beach Street from Vinh Sun, and when she realized we were trying something new, L. kicked up a fuss.  We prevailed upon her to branch out, and even she wasn’t disappointed.

We got there at 5, so unfortunately we missed dim sum, which is served ’til 4.  They serve their dim sum off the menu, and there were lots of good choices on that menu.  Next time we’ll time it better.

We’d read that the scallion pancakes were good at Great Taste, and since D. is a scallion pancake fanatic, we had to try those.  They were indeed great – nicely fried so they were crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, with good scallion flavor.  The dipping sauce was very tasty – I hinted a little kick – not the usual.  Maybe more ginger than usual?  All in all, a good call.

For L., we ordered Dry Fried Pork Udon, and out came thick chewy udon noodles, slathered with just enough of some savory brown sauce and nice tender pieces of pork.  She was in porkitarian-carbo heaven. 

D. and I ordered, of course, the Spicy Salted Sparerib With Rice.  Six large, meaty ribs arrived.  They were battered, crispy-fried and sprinkled with fried garlic, dried red and fresh green chilis, and perched atop a generous mound of white rice, also sprinkled with chilis and remnant bits of fried crispiness, along with some greens, which were super garlicky and consequently, super delicious.  I can assure you that this dish lives up to its billing on Chowhound.  I could only manage two ribs – this is rich stuff, but man, with all its crunchy, salty spiciness - it didn’t leave me wanting.

But wait!  There was more!  We decided to try something from the Casserole Specials section of the menu, so I chose the Deep Fried Fish Fillets with Bean Curd.  Out came a piping hot casserole dish full of deliciously seasoned (this dish is not spicy, but is full of flavor) boneless fish fillets and fried tofu, along with lots of ginger, scallions, mushrooms and bits of pork.  Fan-freakin’-tastic.

We are definitely headed back for more.  The service was super friendly and helpful (they were more than OK with our usual off-menu mishigas – some plain pork bits for L. mixed with some white rice) and although the place lacks atmosphere, it’s clean and bright. 

And of course, afterwards we stepped through to the bakery next door and ordered up some dan tat to go . . . . stretcher, please!

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It’s getting chilly more often here in Massachusetts, and my tastes are transitioning from cool crisp salads to warm comfort foods.  That pasta I posted  a couple weeks ago is great, but you can’t eat rich foods like that all the time – you need to balance those out with some lighter selections.

This is a recipe adapted from one in Eating Well Magazine.  Eating Well is great – if you haven’t seen it, you might want to try to snag yourself a copy to check it out.  Their emphasis is on whole foods and seasonal ingredients, but also on relatively quick preparations (most are ready in 45-minutes or fewer).  Nutrition information is included for each recipe.  A subscription is a great way to keep yourself from getting into a rut with your cooking and might encourage you to try new combinations and ingredients.  There’s also an iPhone app, available for $2.99, which looks great for meal ideas on the fly.

This “salad” really isn’t “salady” at all, but rather a warm mixup of sausage, arugula and red potatoes.  Despite the ingredients, it cooks up quickly into a healthy, hearty weeknight dinner, perfect for these cool autumn days.  Enjoy!

Warm Chicken & Potato Salad

Bring 2-inches of water to a boil in a large saucepan.  Place potatoes in a steamer basket and steam, covered, until just cooked through, about 15 minutes.  Transfer to a large bowl and add arugula, tent with foil to keep warm.

Meanwhile, spray a medium skillet with cooking spray and place over medium heat.  Add the sausage and cook until browned and heated through, about 5 minutes.  Add this to the potato/arugula mixture and re-cover.  Save the pan!

Using the same skillet in which you just cooked the sausage, add vinegar, maple syrup and the mustard, and scrape up any browned bits.  Gradually whisk in the oil.  Pour the dressing over the salad and toss until the arugula is wilted.  Season with pepper.

Serves 4.  Great with some crusty bread – I often get a bake-at-home loaf or French rolls (better portion control with these!) from the freezer at Whole Foods.

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I bet you never thought you could get fresh, high-quality, authentic Chinese food in the ‘burbs, did you?  And I bet you never thought you’d find it at a little restaurant, tucked into an unassuming strip mall, and located next to a laundromat called “The Lost Sock,” right?  Guess again, peeps!

Saturday night D. and I were up in Burlington doing errands and shopping – I know, just the kind of exciting stuff you do when you have a sitter.  Well, even if you’re not bordering on the desperately lame like us, Billerica should be on your list of destinations for some of the most fantastic Sichuan cuisine around Boston.

Sichuan Gourmet has been around for a while – there are two locations, one in Framingham and one in Billerica.  We’ve only ever gone to the Billerica outpost, but the Framingham site gets great reviews too.  The Billerica restaurant is small, very casual and is consistently packed with larger parties comprised of multi-generational Chinese families.  It’s warm, and smells so, so good when you enter.  But the highlight, friends, is the food – oh!  It is so spicy, so tasty, so irresistible.  Every time we go, we ask ourselves, “why don’t we come here more often?”

So first off – make sure you understand that food from the Sichuan province of China is known for its heat.  And while they will tone down the spiciness for you, if you want the full-frontal experience of Sichuanese food, you’ve gotta crave the heat.  And then there are those famous Sichuan peppercorns – they produce a numbing sensation on your tongue after you eat them . . . really hard to describe, but addicting.

Highlights for us from the menu are: 

• Sichuan Wonton with Spicy Chili Sauce:  warm, delicate pork-filled wontons floating in a spicy chili sauce.  Slurp them up and fight over who gets the last one!
• Fresh Bamboo Shoots with Spicy Wonder Sauce:  fresh bamboo shoots bear absolutely no comparison to the ones you’ve had from the can.  The fresh ones are tender and super-tasty and not fibrous like their canned cousins.  These are drizzled with “wonder sauce” (who can resist that name?) which definitely contains chili oil, and then sprinkled with a few sesame seeds.  This is a cold dish.
• Dan Dan Noodles:  is a classic Sichuan dish, but if you’ve had it in Americanized Chinese restaurants and tasted peanut butter or sesame paste, those are not authentic.  The real  dan dan noodles are paired with a spicy sauce with preserved vegetables, chili oil, Sichuan peppers, pork, and scallions, and they are damn good.
• Dried Chicken with Chili Sauce:  small crispy-fried cubes of chicken with fresh green chilies and dried red chilies – literally a sea of chilies – and yes, there are people who eat the entire plate (we can only handle the chicken and some of the green chilies).  I had the rest of this for breakfast on Sunday morning!
• MaPo Tofu with Minced Pork:  this is another a popular Sichuan dish. Large cubes of soft tofu are set in a spicy chili- and bean-based sauce, then topped with minced pork.  Again, this is not the dumbed-down version you might have had elsewhere – true Mapo Doufu is super spicy with both conventional “heat” spiciness and the characteristic “mala” (numbing spiciness) flavor of Sichuan cuisine.  

You should know that most of the waitstaff does not speak a ton of English – but the woman who does the seating does, and she’s super friendly and ever-eager to answer questions.  Don’t shy away from hailing her and asking questions about the menu – you will learn a lot and you may discover dishes you’ll dream about the next day. 

And while Sichuan Gourmet does serve more Americanized Chinese food, we’ve never tried it, so I can’t vouch for its taste.  L. has snarfed down their lo mein, and for the truly faint of heart, there is always boiled white rice.  But if you crave spicy, flavorful food and want to experience authentic preparations of traditional Sichuan dishes, this is a place you’ll want to find.  Enjoy!

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Last week I posted about cell phone radiation, and one of you asked – “should I be worried about electromagnetic fields in general?” In short, yes. But this, my friends, falls into the category of things I think we might need to live with and watch, because short of moving to the boonies and disconnecting ourselves from much of the technology on which we’ve come to rely, there isn’t any great way of completely avoiding EMFs. Read on and decide how hypochondriacal and OCD you’re willing to get over this one . . . .  [Read more →]

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This is another super quick recipe. I found the inspiration for this from a thread on Chowhound, which, if you don’t use it already, is a GREAT resource for home-cooking ideas (also for area-specific dining ideas).

Mexican Quinoa

Cook quinoa according to the package directions, using the broth (not water).

Meanwhile, heat the kidney beans with the salsa.   Add the spices above, or tweak to taste.  Add the heated salsa mixture to the cooked quinoa and stir in the green onion and spinach until the spinach is wilted.

Serves 4.

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This is a staple at our house.  If you use prepared ingredients, it’ll take you approximately 20 minutes to get this from counter to table!  That’s less time than ordering take-out, and this is a low-cal, high-fiber one-dish meal that’s fresh and flavorful.  You can’t say that about anything at your local pizza house, can you?

Chicken With Broccoli & Bulgur

Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces and set aside.  Spray a large skillet with cooking spray and heat over medium-high heat.  Add the chicken and the garlic and cook until chicken is almost cooked through, approximately 2-3 minutes.  Stir in broth, bulgur and lemon peel.  Arrange the broccoli florets on top.  Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat, cover the pan, and simmer for 7-10 minutes until the chicken, broccoli and bulgur are tender.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Makes 4 1.5-cup servings.

Adapted from the American Heart Association Quick and Easy Cookbook.

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Not everyone reading this blog wants to follow my current low-cal craze, so if you’ve got the urge to splurge, especially since the temps have dropped here in the Northeast, here’s a recipe for you to cook up this weekend.

My husband’s birthday was last week, and because it was chilly and rainy on Saturday, I indulged D’s love for my baked pasta.  My master recipe is below, but know that this is an easy one to riff off of if you want to.  Does your crew like mushrooms?  Quarter some nice buttons and throw them in.  Other veggies?  Zucchini perhaps?  Would be great in here.  Love a particular type of cheese?  Add more of that, please!   This is the basic version, which is what I usually make.  We have a nice spinach salad with Dijon vinaigrette on the side, and of course, crusty bread from Iggy’s.  Bon appetit!

Sarah’s Pasta Bake

Preheat oven to 350.

Remove the sausages from their casings and add them to a large skillet that’s been lightly coated with a little olive oil.  Start breaking the sausage apart to brown it, and once it’s gotten going, add the onion and garlic.  Cook this until the sausage is cooked through and the onions are translucent.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta until it’s a little less than al dente – it should taste slightly under-done.  It’ll cook up more in the oven with the sauce, and you don’t want soggy pasta, do you?  As a certain 6-year-old would say, “eeeeeeew!”  Drain this and return it to the pan.

Add the sausage/onion/garlic mixture to the pasta along with all your sauce and mix the whole mess together gently in the pot. 

Spray a 9X13 casserole dish with cooking spray.  Put a couple of spoonfuls of the pasta mixture into the pan, then scatter some of your cheeses over the top.  Add more pasta mixture, more cheese, etc. until you use up both – it really doesn’t matter if you have cheese on top or not.

Cover this with foil and throw it in the oven for approximately 30 minutes, or until it seems to be getting warmed through.  Uncover and bake for another 20 minutes or so, or until the top gets browned and crusty.

Remove from oven and eat it up!  This’ll serve approximately 6 people as an entree, depending on the appetites of those you’re feeding.

A couple of notes:  You can assemble this ahead of time, cover it, and put it in the fridge for up to 24 hours.  Remove it about 1 hour before you want to bake it and let the casserole come to room temperature.  Follow the baking directions above . . . this is great for get-togethers where you actually want to visit with your guests.  

I have two favorite sources for sausage.  Either DePasquale’s in Newton, or the garlic rosemary sausages from Formaggio in Cambridge.  Both of these are intensely flavorful sausages – you get a lot of bang for your buck with these.  Both are housemade and therefore super fresh.  But use whatever’s your favorite in here, and if you want to make your life even easier, buy bulk so you don’t have to peel off the casings.

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