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March 28, 2007
Avocado Ahi Towers
We had a dinner party last night at Casa Eades for a group of Mike's golfing buddies and their wives/girlfriends. I knew some of the group, had casually met others, and didn't know a couple of them before last night's gathering, which can make for a bit of a challenge when devising a menu in this day and age of nutrition Nazis and food freaks who can't eat this, don't eat that.
Nowadays, a dinner host has to navigate a veritable labyrinth of food proclivities to try to please all comers. What ever happened to the rule my mother taught me as a child when presented with something I didn't especially like or had never seen before: Take a bite to be polite?
Actually, I'm the first to try to accommodate food preferences for guests I invite to my home for a meal, if I know in advance of their requirements. And usually, I ask ahead of time: Anything anybody can't or won't eat? Obviously the last thing I'd want to do is feed something to someone with a true allergy, unless of course I planned to keep my medical bag close by to pop them with a dose of subQ epinephrine when they took a bite and began to gasp for air.
We've entertained folks who couldn't or wouldn't eat everything from wheat (usually not a problem in our house), dairy, seafood, and beef to onions, certain dye colors, and red wine. We've entertained vegetarians. We aim to please.
Last night's menu started with an Asian flare: Thai Tomato Ginger Soup, then an Avocado Ahi Tower with Microgreens. We then moved to cattle country, with a Marinated Grilled Flank Steak served on a bed of Mashed Fauxtatoes with Roasted Asparagus garnished with strips of Roasted Red Pepper. Dessert was one of my favorites: Wine Poached Fragrant Pears with a Cabernet Reduction Sauce.
As the group assembled, we slurped on a big batch of Guiltless Margaritas and some Spicy Low Carb Tortilla crisps and Salsa Roja. (The South of the Border part of our culinary world tour.)
(The Fauxtato, Pear, Margarita, and Tortilla crisp recipes are available on our PBS tv show's website and appear in the show's companion cookbook, Low Carb CookwoRx Cookbook
After a suitable interval of convivial gabbing, Mike and I ladled up the soup and invited all the guests to the dining room to begin.
After one bite of the soup, one of the guests asked "Do I taste pepper in this soup?"
"Yes, you do," I replied. "There's a bit of fresh Serrano pepper in there."
His dining companion laid down her soup spoon.
"I can't eat peppers," said she. "They make my tongue swell and tingle."
Needless to say, I was horrified. Thankfully, she hadn't eaten any of the soup, so I didn't have to rush for the bag or call 911.
"I'm so sorry," I said, "can I get you something else?"
She graciously demurred and I assured her that there were no hot chile peppers in any of the coming courses.
We cleared the soup and brought in the Avocado Ahi Towers, which were absolutely beautiful, if I do say so myself, not to mention delicious. (The recipe for how to do it follows below.)
I had to leave in the middle of the fish course to tend to the grilling flank steak and when I returned to finish my ahi, I was pleased to see that every single bit of food was gone from every plate. That's always a gratifying sight for the cook
It wasn't until all the guests had departed and Mike and I were cleaning up afterward that he spilled the beans to me. The Pepper Lady apparently wasn't into sashimi, either, because while I was out of the room tending to the beef, she'd given her entire fish portion to her dinner table neighbor, who accepted it, happily, and consumed every bite.
Which explains why the Pepper Lady had asked for more of the cauliflower puree (Mashed Fauxtatoes). Poor thing was probably starving half to death.
The moral of this tale is this:
People with food allergies or strict requirements should ALWAYS notify their hosts in advance!
For those of you, who, like us, love ahi sashimi, here's the recipe:
Avocado Ahi Towers with Microgreens
Serves 4
Ingredients
For the dressing/marinade
Juice of a lime
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 inch Wasabi paste (or 1/4 teaspoon Wasabi powder)
2 Tablespoons Ponzu Sauce
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 pinch Celtic Sea Salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated black pepper
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 green onions, diced, both green and white parts
1 pound fresh sashimi grade ahi (tuna), diced into 1/2" cubes
1 ripe Haas avocado, diced into 1/2" cubes (doused with the lime juice)
Juice of 1/2 lime
2 cups fresh microgreens
1/4 cup pickled ginger*, if desired for edible garnish
1.) Prepare four 4-ounce ramekins or custard cups by lining each one with a square of plastic wrap. (You'll need about a 10" length for each cup, center the wrap over the middle of the cup, press it down all around and leave the edges lapping over the sides.)
2.) In a small bowl, whisk together all dressing ingredients, except the oil and set aside for 10 to 15 minutes to allow flavors to combine and salt to melt. Then whisk in the olive oil in a slow stream.
3.) Reserve about 2 tablespoons of the dressing/marinade for use in dressing the microgreens just before serving.
4.) Place the diced ahi and green onions in a bowl, pour on half the remaining dressing/marinade and toss to coat completely.
5.) Pour the remaining dressing over the cubed avocado and toss gently with your fingers to completely coat.
6.) Place one-quarter of the ahi into each ramekin, top with one-quarter of the avocado, and then bring the 'tails' of the plastic wrap up and over to cover. Press slightly down to make the layers firm.
7.) Stack the ramekins one atop the other (the weight helps to solidify the 'tower's' body) and refrigerate until ready to serve. (You can do this up to 3 or 4 hours in advance, but much longer and the avocado will begin to break down and get mushy.)
8.) When ready to serve, dress microgreens lightly with the reserved dressing/marinade. Gently tug on the ends of the plastic wrap to pull the 'towers' out of the ramekins, open the bottom of the wrap, and invert the tower on a chilled salad plate. Place one-quarter of the dressed microgreens beside the tower. Garnish with a few coins of pickled ginger, if desired.
*(Note: Pickled ginger is available in little plastic bags, usually in the Asian or International Foods aisles of most grocery stores.)
Posted by mdeades at 2:07 PM | Comments (1)
March 19, 2007
I'll Be Singing in Rome; Come along if you dare!
Those of you who have been long-term readers of my darling husband's blog will no doubt recall that he posted a few blogs (click here and here) from Vienna, Prague, and Budapest in the summer of 2005 when we were touring over there with the Santa Barbara Choral Society, the chorus I sing with.
It was such a treat for me, as it would be for any singer or lover of music and song, to sing (or hear) Mozart's compositions performed in the city where he lived and composed them, and not only that, to be able to sing in St. Stephen's Cathedral, the church in his neighborhood, his church. Unforgettable.
We're touring and performing again this summer, going to Rome, Florence, Vicenza and then across the Alps into Bavaria. We've just learned that the choir will sing mass at St. Peter's in Rome on July 13 at 5 pm. What an incredible treat that will be to hear one's own voice (or in the case of Mike, the voice of your dearly beloved) echoing off Michelangelo's great dome!
Besides seeing lots of sights along the way, the chorus will also perform Haydn's Thereseinmasse and Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna with the internationally acclaimed Nova Amadeus Orchestra in Rome and Florence and then we've been invited by the Uberburgermeister (that's mayor to you and me) of Ehingen, Germany, to perform that repertoire in the finale concert at the Ehingen Musiksommer Festival there.
And, as if that weren't enough, we're also performing a concert of short pieces by (mainly) American composers, a capella or with piano accompaniment, in several other venues.
The choir reserved a limited number of seats for non-singers and there are still a few of these available, if anyone wants to go along. The tour departs the US on July 10 from LA and returns to the US on July 23 from Frankfurt. The deadline is April 14, 2007 to reserve these seats. For more information about how to do that, write to info@sbchoral.org or visit the Choral Society's website.
Warning! This is not a Protein Power tour; the tour is only about music, not about diet. There will be no talks on diet or nutrition by anyone, us included, except perhaps to comment on how delicious this or that food we just ate was! This is Italy we're talking about, where the food is fabulous; Mike and I will be on vacation...both in the relaxation/we're-not-working sense and very likely in the culinary/nutritional/dietary sense as well. If you would like to come along, do so with the understanding that it will be purely in the spirit of camaraderie; while we won't mind casually answering a few general questions, please understand that we cannot and will not be able to advise anyone about medical or nutritional issues in this setting.
Posted by mdeades at 12:59 PM | Comments (2)
March 17, 2007
Over the Top on Organic
While pushing our way up one aisle and down the next through the milling throng at the recent Natural Foods EXPO West, sampling this and that, I had to do a double take at one stall that read "Certified Organic Cotton Candy".
Huh?
But, there, indeed, beneath the sign was the classic stainless steel centrifuge in a glass enclosure that I recalled from my youth, filled with whirling pink fluff. And beside it, a stand full of the classic white paper cones bearing smallish portions of the stuff.
Bernod's Spun City, the company hawking the product, is based...where else? California, of course! Face it, would certified organic cotton candy even be thought of elsewhere?
They, like all the vendors at Expo West, were handing out samples and literature about their product.
Here's the 'one sheet' that I picked up:
When I stopped to pick up the sheet, the jolly salesmen handed me a sample cone. I demurred. They pressed. Just a tiny taste, said I. This is a tiny taste, said they, handing me the whole cone with about 2 cups of fluff on it. And I supposed compared to the 8 cups of fluff that comes on the real full-sized McCoy, it would qualify as just a tidbit. So I took it (and the literature about it) and strolled away, laughing and shaking my head.
I haven't eaten cotton candy in probably twenty-five years and as I tore off an inch or so of it and stuffed it in my mouth, instantly, the years fell away and it was as though I were wandering through the midway of the State Fair. I could almost hear the noises: the shrieks of the people riding the giant ferris wheel, the popping of balloons, the bells dinging from the shooting gallery, the barkers luring people into the side shows. Funny how tastes and smells can so strongly evoke memories.
One bite was all it took, however, to make me shudder and toss the remainder in the first trash can I spotted the next aisle over. That's not to say that it wasn't tasty; it was. But it was too sweet, overpoweringly, almost sickeningly sweet. And why wouldn't it be, considering it's nothing but pure spun sugar...albeit, pure organic sugar with no artificial color or flavor. Not to mention trans fat and cholesterol free, to boot!
Somehow the purity of its ingredients didn't help my reeling taste buds much, shocked as they were by such intensity of sweetness after so many years spent eschewing such concentrated fare. Ah, but there was a day, long years ago in my misbegotten youth, when I could have dispatched not just the sample, but the entire full-sized puff, such was my sweet tooth.
And at what a metabolic cost? I cringe to think.
As for 'almost guilt-free indulgence' nowadays, give me a chunk of high- quality extra dark chocolate, from Vosges Haut Chocolates or Fauchon. And a tipple of Poire William and a cup of good hot espresso.
That's a combination to make your taste buds stand up and cheer.
Posted by mdeades at 10:58 AM | Comments (5)
March 14, 2007
Foiled Again: Packet Cooking Convenience
A recent article by Jim Romanoff that got picked up from the AP in our local paper took me back. It was titled "Cooking in packets is healthy, flavorful and mess-free fare" and it instantly transported me back about 20 years to when our sons were young and I was cooking dinner nightly for a family of five.
Back in the day, with both of us working long shifts in our clinics, getting a hot supper to the table every night required learning a few tricks. And packet cooking was one of them. The boys called them "Hobo Suppers" and I called them lifesavers.
Often, I would assemble the packets the night before, stick them in the refrigerator, and the next day call home to ask one of the boys (usually our middle son, Dan) to turn on the oven at the appropriate hour, let it pre-heat, and stick the packets in. That way the main course would be ready when Mike and I got home and all I would have to do it toss together a salad, slice up some fresh tomatoes, or, depending on whether there were veggies cooking in the packet, maybe saute some zucchini, green beans, or broccoli and voila...dinner was served. (Tip: If you choose to follow this method, let the packets warm up slightly by taking them out of the refrigerator while the oven is heating up.)
Packet dishes can be simple, as in our family's Hobo Pork Tenders or elevated and tres French, as in Salmon en papillote*, but the technique is the same: Take a piece of foil or parchment paper, put in some bite-sized portions of meat, fish, or fowl, add a few veggies, some source of oil, herbs, spices, and liquid, seal it all up, throw it in the oven, open, eat, and throw away the wrapper.
(* The recipe given here is pretty carb friendly, except for the cous cous, which I'd just omit, personally.)
In his article, Mr. Romanoff presented an Asian inspired version in his Stir-Fry Chicken packets, using slices of boneless, skinless chicken, green onions, bell peppers, canned baby corn, garlic, and snow peas, dressed with soy sauce, rice vinegar, Asian red chili sauce and toasted sesame oil.
Save the little ears of baby corn (which I cannot even lay my eyes on without thinking of Tom Hanks in Big) everything in his packet meal is pretty low carb friendly and I wouldn't miss the baby corn if I just left it out. If you wanted the yellow color, you could simply use one yellow bell pepper along with the red one. Sounds easy and yummy. I think I'll try it.
Meantime, here's the aforementioned family's long time favorite hobo special. See what you think.
Hobo Pork Tenders
Serves 4
Ingredients
4 teaspoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, finely minced
8-12 1/2-inch slices fresh natural pork tenderloin
8 Cremini mushrooms or white button mushrooms, sliced
4 ribs of celery, diced
8 tablespoons premium coconut milk
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves (or 1 teaspoon dried)
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
salt and pepper to taste
4 12"-14" pieces of aluminum foil or parchment paper
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lay the 4 pieces of foil or parchment on the counter; lightly brush the surfaces with the olive oil and evenly divide the minced garlic among them.
2. Sprinkle both sides of the pork tenderloin slices with salt and pepper and lay 2 or 3 slices in the center of each piece of foil or paper. (Note: adding more than 2 or 3 tenderloin slices to one packet will overload it and crowd the meat. Bigger appetites should simply eat two packets.)
3. Top each portion with one-quarter of the mushroom slices and diced celery.
4. Spoon 2 tablespoons of coconut milk onto each portion, sprinkle on the onion powder, thyme leaves, and a bit more salt and pepper.
5. Bring the 4 corners of the foil together at the center and crimp (or fold) the edges tightly together to make a pyramid-shaped packet.
6. Place the packets on a baking sheet into a 400 degree oven and cook for 30 minutes.
7. Allow packets to cool for about 10 minutes, open carefully to avoid the steam that escapes, and serve.
Protein per serving = 19 grams (based on 3 slices of meat per packet)
Effective carb per serving = 2.8 grams
Easy, delicious, and no clean up to speak of. My kind of weeknight meal. If your life is hectic, probably your kind, too.
Enjoy!
Posted by mdeades at 12:16 PM | Comments (3)
March 11, 2007
My Oh My Oh Meyer Lemons on a Pizza?
Our local paper picked up a piece a week or two ago by Amy Culbertson titled "Infusing winter meals with exotic appeal" touting the glories of Meyer lemons and offering two delicious-sounding recipes for using them.
Unlike their true lemony yellow cousins, Meyer lemons are a hybrid lemon-orange cross and their skins betray their heritage. In fact, it was the bright, almost sunburnt yellow-orange color of a big, beautiful bowl of them in the accompanying photo that first drew my eye to the article.
We're lucky that among our small cluster of fruit trees at our place in Santa Barbara stands a good-sized old Meyer lemon tree that works hard to keep us well supplied with tasty, mild Meyer lemons when we're there. Sometimes, it works harder than we can keep up with, thus my interest in recipes for what to do with an occasional excess of Meyer lemons.
Blending their juice with lime juice springs to mind, but a girl can only drink so many margaritas.
Fortunately, Ms. Culbertson came to my rescue. Of the two recipes included with her article in our paper, the first--a Meyer Lemon and Onion Relish--weighs in at just 2 grams of carb per 2 tablespoon serving. No real problem there for the low carb dieter. The second--a Meyer Lemon, Gorgonzola, and Arugula Pizza--requires minimal modification to render it low carb friendly.
And it sounds divine.
The way it's written, the nutritional breakdown provided claims a whopping 125 grams of carb in a serving (half a 10-inch pizza) which seems sort of implausible, when you consider what's in it, or rather on it: olive oil, a half cup of the Meyer Lemon and Onion Relish, Gorgonzola cheese, some pine nuts, fresh thyme leaves, and arugula leaves. I ran the ingredients through my handy-dandy nutritional calculator and discovered that the aforementioned toppings only contain 11.7 grams of effective carbohydrate in both servings--i.e., ringing up just south of 6 grams per person.
So where's the massive carb load? In the pizza crust, obviously, but since the toppings only add between 5 and 6 grams, to hit that 125 gram carb total claimed per serving that means there's got to be 120 grams of carb in the dough for each half of her 10-incher. If so, that's one thick crust she's topping.
No matter; it's simple enough to reduce the carb tab and keep all the flavors by either substituting a large low-carb flour tortilla for the crust (at a cost of around 5 grams a person) or for those who want something a little thicker to chew on, by putting the delicious toppings on a low-carb homemade waffle, for about the same cost.
Either way, as soon as we get back to our Meyer Lemon tree, I intend to make enough relish to keep me in Meyer Lemon, Gorgonzola, and Arugula pizzas for a good while.
Low-carb adapted, of course.
Posted by mdeades at 9:55 PM | Comments (4)
March 5, 2007
I Never Met a Tomato Soup I Didn't Like
For Christmas this year, our son and his family gave us two tickets to Cirque du Soleil. The catch was that we had to travel to Dallas to collect our present, which we did early in February, when the 'Corteo' show happened to be there the same weekend as our younger grandson's 5th birthday party.
The performance was awesome in the true sense the word had before it got co-opted and devalued by teenspeak. If you've never seen a Cirque performance, and, like me, love to be amazed by the apparent effortlessness of acrobatic superhuman abilities, you owe it to yourself to see one.
The other half of our present was dinner before the show at The Grape, a venerable Dallas bistro.
From start to finish the food was quite good, but the service was so slow and monochronic that we were forced to make a mad dash across Dallas to make it to our seats at Corteo before they shut the doors, or rather the tent flaps, in our faces! The highlight of the meal, for me at any rate, wasn't the succulent meat or even the wine, both of which were delicious. It was the tomato soup. I would have gladly traded in my entree for another bowl of soup.
I've never met a tomato soup I didn't like; I'm a total sucker for it on a restaurant menu. But this one had an unusual flair, a little something in there to make your tastebuds sit up and wonder "Hmmm. What is that flavor? " I didn't ask, but my palate speculated that it was made with some coconut milk and a touch of fresh ginger and maybe a bit of something even a little hotter. Although fresh ginger's got a little heat of its own, the hotness said 'chile' to me, so maybe a little fresh serrano or a dash of Tabasco. Whatever was in it, it was divine. If I could have done so without making a spectacle of myself, I'd have licked the bowl.
So I came home to experiment and here's the (very tasty, if I do say so myself) result:
Thai Tomato-Ginger Soup
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons minced fresh basil
½ Serrano pepper, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon grated (peeled) fresh ginger
½ teaspoon coarse salt (preferable unrefined sea salt)
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 can (14-ounce) premium coconut milk
1 can (15-ounce) tomato sauce
2 cups vegetable stock
1. In a large saucepan, heat olive oil gently over medium heat; sauté garlic, ginger, basil, Serrano pepper, salt and black pepper to wilt herbs and infuse oil with all flavors. Do not brown.
2. Add tomato sauce, coconut milk and whisk to combine thoroughly.
3. Stir in the vegetable stock, bring to a boil, and then simmer gently for 20 to 30 minutes.
4. Serve hot, garnished with a couple of fresh basil leaves.
Protein per serving: 4.3 grams
Effective carb per serving: 11.3 grams
Enjoy!
Posted by mdeades at 11:39 AM | Comments (2)
March 1, 2007
The Perils of (grand)Parenthood
As faithful readers of my blog will no doubt have already learned, I think that being a grandparent is the best and most rewarding job ever created. It may also be the most hazardous.
All of you who have them already know that grandkids share more than their hugs and kisses and joy with you when you visit them or vice versa; they also unwittingly share their snot on their precious little hands and faces, potentially containing every virus they've encountered recently at school. Since the arrival of our three exceptionally wonderful grandchildren, Mike and I have experienced that peril first hand: every cold the grandkids get, they share. When we're with them, especially this time of year, I begin to feel like Lady Macbeth, washing, washing, washing my hands and muttering about 'all the Purell in Arabi.'
Back when we ran our general medical clinic (at the beginning of our careers in medicine for ten years or so) we developed the iron-clad immunity that most doctors do from exposure day after day to a large and varied, germ-bearing, patient population. Since leaving day-to-day practice six years ago and with our children long grown and gone, we haven't had that chronic every day exposure to infection and consequently our immunity has waned a bit, leaving us much more susceptible to viruses we haven't encountered in a good long while.
To wit: over Thanksgiving, while visiting in Dallas, we got one grandson's cold; over Christmas we got the other grandson's cold. This past week, our granddaughter, who was visiting us, came down with a cold and that sent us running for the supplement cabinet.
Our routine over the past ten or so years, when we felt we'd either been exposed to someone with a cold, flu or other contagion or felt like we were coming down with something of that nature, has been to begin a supplement regimen designed to provide our immune systems with the raw materials necessary to step up to the plate and knock out the invader. The regimen is not a cure; it's simply good nutritional support to help our own natural immunity.
The regimen includes, among other things, extra vitamin C, extra zinc, some lactoferrin and/or lactalbumin to sequester iron and keep it away from the invading hordes, and various other immune supportive nutrients, such as colostrum (a source of immune globulins found in the first milk produced by mammals) and olive leaf and 1,3 beta-glucan (which are potent natural antimicrobial agents). It's got a lot of vitamin C and a whopping slug of zinc in it, which has been clinically shown to reduce the duration of a cold, but which if taken in this amount chronically could cause deficiencies of other important minerals, such as copper. So we don't take it every day, but at the first sign of potential trouble, we take the combo 2 or 3 times a day for 5 days or so.
Just a glance at that list and you immediately realize one thing: you have to dole out capsules from about a half dozen different bottles, which is a pain in the neck at home and nigh onto impossible on the road.
But a few months back, when we began reformulating our Drs. Eades' Daily Regimen vitamin/mineral supplement, we got a bright idea.
Why not ask the manufacturer to put all these disparate immune support supplements into the same kind of cello-pak we had used for the Regimen for the sake of economy and convenience?
And so we did.
The product, called Cold Pack, is the second in our line of Drs. Eades' Signature Nutrients and it's now available on our website...and just in time for our grandkids' next visit!
Posted by mdeades at 1:18 PM | Comments (1)