Egg Salad

I recently got my hands on a copy of River Cottage Every Day by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

It’s a beautiful cookbook; just about every other page boasts some jealousy-inducing photo with a mouthwatering recipe to accompany it.  For some reason, it took me a few days to decide to make something from it.  It could be the beginning of the school semester and the mountain of work that is slowly piling on.  This will be my first time with a clinical placement in a hospital where I will be working with real, live patients.  I’m excited but have the novice nurse jitters about it.

Another thing that kept me away from this cookbook at first was the fact that most of the recipes seem extremely rich.  I’ve been craving somewhat light, healthy fare this week and, while you can certainly find that in this book, it is not the focus.  As I flipped through it this morning, the egg tartare recipe caught my eye and I noticed that I had almost all the ingredients on hand.  It sounded like it might be a good, protein-filled lunch to keep me satisfied during a 4-hour computer training I have tomorrow afternoon.

Of course I am incapable of actually following a recipe to the letter.  I made some substitutions based on what was in my herb garden and also because I don’t like mayonnaise.  You could definitely substitute the oil, sour cream, and yogurt for 1-2 Tbs of mayonnaise if you wanted to.

Egg Salad
serves 3-4

Ingredients:
- 6 hardboiled eggs, peeled and roughly chopped (click here for my favorite HB egg instructions)
- 1 Tbs fresh chives, finely chopped
- 1 Tbs fresh parsley, finely chopped
- 2 Tbs fresh dill, finely chopped
- 3 sweet baby pickles, finely chopped
- 1 Tbs capers, rinsed
- 2 Tbs sour cream
- 2 Tbs plain greek yogurt
- 1 Tbs olive oil
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Mix together all ingredients except the eggs until well combined.

2. Add eggs and stir until evenly coated.

3. Serve on bread for a sandwich or as a topping for your favorite salad greens.

I surprised myself by actually enjoying the taste of the sweet pickles in this recipe.  I have always had something against sweet pickles since I was a kid, when I chomped on a bread and butter pickle that I had assumed was a dill.  I thought it was disgusting at the time, but I decided to give these another chance since I seem to have also gotten over my hatred of olives this year.

Do you have any foods that you wouldn’t eat as a child but have recently begun to enjoy?

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

These are not healthy.  When I was contemplating making cookies, I thought about how I should substitute applesauce for some of the butter.  Then I started baking and it completely slipped my mind.  So despite the inclusion of ingredients like whole wheat pastry flour and brown rice syrup, please do not think I’m trying to pass these off as a health food.   They are just delicious.

I used to use whole wheat flour for all my baking, including treats like these.  It’s hard for me to reconcile my desire to be healthy with using refined carbohydrates in any of my recipes.  The problem with this was that I could always taste the whole wheat even when I didn’t necessarily want to.  I’m not sure how this drama in my kitchen is going to end, but for now I’m going with the tactic of using about half whole wheat flour and half all-purpose flour in this kind of recipe.  As a trade-off, I’m going to try to eat fewer of the cookies.  Wish me luck with that.

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

makes 2 dozen cookies

based on Angela’s recipe from Oh She Glows

Ingredients:
- 1 stick butter (8 Tbs), softened
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/4 cup brown rice syrup
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup rolled oats
- 1/2 cup roughly chopped walnuts
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate chunks

1. Preheat the oven to 350F and lightly grease 2 cookie sheets.
2. Cream butter and brown sugar.  Mix in egg, brown rice syrup, and vanilla.
3. Mix together dry ingredients except walnuts and chocolate chunks.  Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix until well-incorporated.  Fold in walnuts and chocolate chunks.
4. Drop by the spoonful onto the baking sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Roasted Squash Seeds

Fall is definitely here and I already miss the warm, sunny days.  I’ve been consoling myself by staying busy in the kitchen.  While I don’t like what I’m seeing outside my windows, the warmth from my oven and fall’s earthy flavors provide an unmatched sense of coziness.

As the weather cools off, I find that I’m much more interested in more warming and concentrated foods.  Watermelon is out and root vegetables, nuts, and seeds are in.  One of the easiest way to satisfy these cravings is by roasting your own squash and/or pumpkin seeds.  I’ve done this often in the past but made the mistake of not keeping them in the oven long enough.  If the seeds don’t reach a nice golden-brown color, they’ll probably be more chewy and less crispy than you want.  These came out well and I devoured all of them after taking the picture.

Roasted Squash Seeds

- seeds from one squash (I used butternut)
- a few teaspoons of walnut or olive oil
- sea salt

1. Remove the gunk from the seeds and rinse well.  Pat dry or spread out in your pan and leave to dry overnight.
2. Preheat the oven to 350F.
3. Toss seeds with oil to coat and sprinkle with sea salt.
4. Bake for about 15 minutes, stirring halfway through.

As I was eating all the squash seeds I made, I began wondering if I could make them healthier by eliminating the oil and dry roasting.  I think I might try to find a good method for this next time.

Have you ever dry roasted squash or pumpkin seeds?  Any tips?

Snack Smoothie

I love smoothies.  They are the nutrition powerhouse of my day and a great way to get more fruits and vegetables into my diet.  (Actually, I’ve never had trouble eating healthy amounts of fruit.  I could eat peaches all day.  It’s the vegetables that give me trouble.)  On any given morning, you can find me drinking a green monster which might include yogurt, nut butter, coconut milk, protein supplement, or any combination of the above.  I usually aim to make a smoothie that will satisfy me for several hours.  But sometimes I just need a little something to tide me over until the boyfriend wakes up and is ready to go to brunch as we planned.  I might also need something to fortify me against the unhealthy option I know I will encounter at the aforementioned brunch.  This is when “snack smoothie” comes to the rescue.

Sorry for the grainy iPod pic, we’re hunting for the camera battery charger.

Snack smoothie doesn’t cut it as a meal for me, but it’s a great option for taking the edge off hunger.  Which is especially useful if, like me, you become cranky and an awful person if you get too hungry.

Snack Smoothie
serves 1

- 1 small banana
- 1/2 cup red grapes
- 2 handfuls spinach
- just enough water to let the blender do its work

1. Say “snack smoothie” 10 times fast.
2. Blend ingredients until smooth.

 

What’s your favorite healthy snack?  Do you have any tips for warding off the hunger crankiness?

 

Fall Minestrone

A few days ago when it was chilly and rainy outside and I could smell Fall in the air, I decided that I should welcome the new season with a warming soup.  I settled on minestrone and gathered the ingredients at the grocery store.  Today, I finally had time to chop and simmer…and it was was 83 degrees outside and sunny.  I waited for the apartment to cool off from the afternoon sun and then reheated it with my stove.  Yeah, the timing could have been a little better but I’m not about to complain about the wonderful bowl of soup in front of me.

Since I am going for a “waste not, want not” kind of policy in my kitchen (living on student loans is a great motivator for frugality!) I’m saving the peelings from my butternut squash along with what remains of the leeks to make veggie stock.  I’m also saving the squash seeds to toast once my kitchen cools off.

Fall Minestrone
Makes a big pot of soup

Ingredients:
- 2 Tbs butter or oil
- 3 leeks, white and light green parts thinly sliced then roughly chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 small butternut squash, peeled and cut into bite-sized chunks
- 1 can (15 oz) italian style tomatoes
- 1 can (15 oz) white beans, drained and rinsed
- 3 large kale leaves, chopped into small pieces
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 1 rosemary sprig
- salt and pepper, to taste

1. Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat.  Add leeks and garlic and cook until tender, 5 minutes.
2. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and allow to simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Season with salt and pepper.

Note: After I took the photos, I remembered that I had some aged manchego in the refrigerator and shaved some onto the top of my pile of soup.  I strongly believe that fancy cheese should not go to waste.  Parmesan would also be a good choice!

Tiny Garden

Every time I move (which is more often than I would like) I think to myself, “This is the place where I will start a garden.”  Aside from planting some seeds once which I never watered and which, surprisingly, never grew into plants, I haven’t once succeeded in this endeavor.  But now might be the time.  My boyfriend and I moved into an apartment together in May

and after seeing our wonderful sun-filled patio, I turned to him and said, “This is the place where I will start a garden.”  Months passed and he finally decided that he was going to have to take the first steps for me.  He bought a planter box, soil, a sweet watering can, and some random plants.

Not the random plants you see above, though.  After promising to water and love my new garden forever, I quickly let the contents shrivel and die.

Take 2: My parent came to visit at the beginning of this month and my mom is a master gardener!  (I’m not exactly sure of what that means…I think she took a class or something and knows a lot more than me.)  I decided that they’re vacation would not be complete without some light yard work so we went to the nursery to pick out some new herbs and seeds, pulled out the old dead stuff, and re-vamped the garden.  I’m proud to say that it’s still looking pretty good, although the basil plant doesn’t seem to be much longer for this world.  The most exciting part of my new garden is the salad mix seeds planted in the middle section.  It only took 3-4 days for them to germinate (yeah, I learned what that means) so I had pretty quick gratification.  They’re still tiny plants but I love going out and seeing their progress.  And nibbling on a few.  That’s how I thin them out so the survivors have enough room to grow.

Gratitude

Today is World Gratitude Day and a good time to reflect on all that I have to be thankful for.  I think it would be impossible for me to make a complete “gratitude list” since I have so many wonderful things in my life.  That being said, in day-to-day life it can be all too easy to focus on the negative and forget all the wonderful blessings I enjoy daily.  So here it is, my first attempt at a list of things to be grateful for:

1. The amazing people in my life, including but not limited to my boyfriend, my family, my friends, and my dog.

2. My apartment.  I love it.

3. My neighborhood.  It’s a hip, happenin’ place but easy to live in at the same time.  And we have cool neighbors!

4. My city.  I know I like to complain about Portland but it’s actually a pretty great place to live.  Aside from the weather.  But I’m not going to let that get me down this winter, especially since I’ll probably be moving in a year or so.

5. My body.  It works, it’s healthy, and it takes me places.

6. Food. ‘Nuff said.

7. The nursing career I’m training for.  My nursing program is A LOT of work, but I’m so glad that I’m going to a well-regarded school to begin a career that will be so fulfilling!

8. Freedom from want.  It’s hard to remember this sometimes, but I have everything I need.  Money might be tight and I might joke about being a “poor student” but I have a great place to live, plenty of good quality food, and a little left-over for fun.  Sure, I might be clipping coupons and deciding that last year’s clothes are good enough for this year but are those really such hardships?  Nope, they just make me enjoy the little luxuries even more.

So that’s my (incomplete) list.  I’m sure I’ll be thinking of things I should have added for the rest of the day!

Hännah