The theme of this month’s Recipe Redux is “Chocolate Love Is In The Air.” In honor of Valentine’s Day, yummy, indulgent chocolate recipes are in high demand this month. The challenge this month was to complement chocolate with some other good-for-you foods to make a delicious and healthy treat. “We’re creating recipes that will make the heart grow fonder – and stronger.” 

When I read this month’s theme, I started to think of some of my favorite chocolate and fruit combos – chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate covered bananas, chocolate covered cherries. Cherries. I just so happened to recently buy a bag of frozen dark sweet cherries that I was going to use for smoothie making. Smoothies. Chocolate. Cherries. Now the wheels were turning…

Enter, the Chocolate Cherry Frosty. First step was making my own homemade chocolate sauce. I followed this recipe but used 1.5 cups sugar instead of 2 cups. 

Chocolate Cherry Frosty

1.5c frozen dark sweet cherries

1c coconut milk

1/4c plain Greek yogurt (I used Chobani)

1 tbsp chocolate syrup

1/2 banana

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Optional: Eat with a spoon to get the full frosty effect.

Peace, love, and food,

Kara

Looking to further satisfy that sweet tooth? Check out all the other healthy chocolate recipes featured this month by fellow Reduxers!

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Kindles. iPads. Nooks. 

I can’t seem to conform to the e-reader technology that’s sweeping the nation. I totally get the allure of it. It’s convenient, sleek and at your fingertips. 

You can call me old-fashioned but I love the sensation of physically turning the page of a paperback. I love the frayed edges of a book that’s been overused. I love the indentations of the corners of pages that were folded as a placeholder. 

With my cookbooks, it gets even better. You can tell which recipes I’ve tried and which I’ve tried over, and over, and over again. The usage is evidenced by how many grease spots lie on the pages. Hey, I never said I was a neat cook! 

The same high I get from curling up with a paperback (currently The Help), I get from paging through a cookbook to see what will be my next culinary adventure. 

One cookbook I’ve been paging through recently is Super Natural Every Day by Heidi Swanson, author of one of my favorite blogs, 101 Cookbooks. Her blogs and books reflect a cooking style which uses ONLY whole foods and ingredients in their purest forms. You may remember Heidi’s name from a post a while back about her first cookbook, Super Natural Cooking. 

The first page I got stuck on (and got a little dirty) was the recipe for Baked Oatmeal. I love oatmeal in the morning, especially during the winter months but my oatmeal is usually cooked on the stove-top, not in the oven. Baked oatmeal is heavenly, especially this recipe which calls for oats, huckleberries (I used blueberries), banana, walnuts, and maple syrup for sweetener. I served this with a dollop of Chobani on top! Greek yogurt on top of oatmeal is pretty amazing if you’ve never tried it!

One of the greatest things about baked oatmeal is you can prep the night before and just bake in the AM! Or, you can do what I did and while the oatmeal is baking in the oven for 40 minutes, you get yourself ready for the day!

I am a huge advocate of not skimping on breakfast. No, I don’t have the time every morning to make baked oatmeal, but I DO make the time to fuel my body each and every morning! Even if that means grabbing a handful of nuts and a piece of fruit. Starting your day off right with breakfast will be sure to help your body run efficiently throughout the day!

Peace, love and food,

Kara

What’s your favorite baked oatmeal variation? What cookbook are you paging through right now?

It’s no secret breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. It’s also no secret that if I don’t have my favorite meal, you better stay far, far away. It’s not a pretty sight. Lucky for me, my favorite meal of the day also happens to be the most important meal of the day. That’s right breakfast is the best way to jumpstart your metabolism for the day and fuel you body for it to run efficiently.For all these reasons, I was psyched when I read the Recipe Redux theme for January: Fresh Starts: healthy breakfast makeovers.

My breakfast makeover was inspired by your typical egg scramble complete with ham & cheese, home fries and white toast.

Roasted Vegetable Scramble & Sweet Potato Home Fries 

Ingredients:

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped in 1/2 cubes

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1/2 yellow onion, diced

1 turnip, chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp rosemary

1/2 tsp thyme

6 eggs

1/4 cup milk

2 tsp butter

1/2 tsp cane sugar

1/4 cup shredded asiago cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Prep all vegetables. Combine all vegetables (saving 1 sweet potato for later) in a large baking dish. Toss with 1 tbsp olive oil, rosemary & thyme. Bake in pre-heated oven at 425 degrees for about 25 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Meanwhile, heat butter in a frying pan over low heat. Whisk eggs and milk in a bowl and add to pan. Move the egg mixture around the pan with a spatula as it cooks so that the wet mixture is exposed to the heat. Remove eggs from heat once they look close to being cooked. As the eggs are cooking, add 1 tbsp olive oil to a pan over medium heat. Add the sweet potato cubes and let cook on one side for at least 6 minutes. Sprinkle with sugar, salt and pepper. Then flip potatoes over to cook on the other side. Sweet potatoes should be crispy and browned. Once the vegetables are roasted, combine with eggs. Add cheese, salt and pepper. Serve with whole-wheat bakery bread.

Peace, love, and food,

Kara

Click on the frog link below to read all the other great Recipe Redux breakfast makeovers! 

V-8 Fusion smoothies boast a full serving of vegetables PLUS a full serving of fruit per 8oz serving. So, for the folks that don’t eat many fruits or vegetables, this sounds like a win-win. It’s the same deal with Naked and Odwalla smoothies, claiming they contain 9 strawberries, 12 blueberries, 1/2 banana, and so on…Sweet, right?!

Let’s look a little closer and check out the ingredient list. The first ingredient listed on the label of V8 V-Fusion Smoothies is reconstituted vegetable juice blend which is concentrated juice. Let’s remember that all these smoothie drinks are really just 100% juice & fruit puree, nothing more. The bottom line: eating your fruits and vegetables gives you a whole lot more bang for your buck than drinking these fortified smoothies. When you eat fruits and vegetables, you get a ton of fiber and absorb more vitamins and minerals.

However, like juice, these smoothies have a place to be consumed in moderation. It’s okay to have about 4-6oz of juice diluted with water daily. It’s certainly a better choice than soda or other sports drinks which are loaded with added sugar. These smoothie drinks have no added sugar which is a plus. They taste great too; Steve was a big fan of the V-Fusion smoothies.

V8 was kind enough to send me all 3 new flavors to try – Strawberry Banana, Wild Berry and Mango which all tasted delicious. They also sent me a super cute pink bottle that I’ve been carrying water around in.

So to reiterate my friends, drinking a bit of juice or smoothie once in a while is fine but don’t count on it to fulfill your daily dose of fruits and veggies. If you’re looking to satisfy your smoothie craving, take a few minutes and make your own!

Peace, love, and food,

Kara 

V8 provided me with a tote bag and water bottle but these opinions stated are my own.

I’m all about homemade pizzas. It’s actually a staple at our place now. TJs is kind enough to provide the easy to bake (and cheap!) pizza dough – whole wheat for me and italian herb for Steve. Steve’s become quite the pro at creating veggie pizzas – marinating vegetables beforehand and what not. I’m not trying to honk our own horns here, but if you wanted you could call us a gourmet pizza shop. A pizza shop that also makes the not-so-ordinary hummus pizza.

No, hummus pizza is not Steve’s specialty. I actually tried hummus pizza for the first time last summer after reading a post by Eat Well With Janel. It’s super easy and tastes so yummy, especially if you’re a big hummus fan like myself. My latest hummus pizza creation was the result of me rummaging through my almost bare fridge saying to myself, what could I possibly throw together right now?

Enter, Edamame Hummus Pizza. I was skeptical about using edamame hummus because previously I’ve used garlic hummus which is a safe bet. Edamame hummus though? I took the risk considering how much I adore edamame hummus. It’s ALWAYS in my fridge. I kid you not. I even made it for a Recipe Redux a few months back.

Edamame Hummus Pizza

Ingredients:

whole-wheat pizza dough

2 portabello mushrooms, sliced

1/2 container edamame hummus

1/4 cup parmesean cheese

freshly ground pepper

dried oregeno

Preheat oven to 350. Roll out pizza dough and spread hummus onto dough. Top with portobello mushrooms, cheese, and sprinkle pepper and oregano to taste. Bake for about 10 minutes or until crust is crispy. 

Not too shabby for a last-minute thrown together meal, eh? In order to enjoy this meal, you must come to terms with the fact that you’re eating a green pizza. Just sayin.

Looking for some other ways to healthify your pizza? Look no further! 

Bon appétit!

Peace, love, and food,

Kara

For Christmas this year, I was grateful to receive a handful of lovely foodie gifts. A new spice rack, hand-painted measuring cups & spoons and a sugar bowl from Anthropologie. Even my Secret Santa present from Steve’s family was a gift fit for a foodie (they know me so well ). Two bags of fresh pasta and a beautiful hand-painted pasta bowl.

Last week I put my Secret Santa gift to good use and cooked a bag of lemon parsley mafaldine that was from Flour City Pasta in Rochester, NY. Mafaldine is a ribbon-shaped flat, wide pasta. This particular mafaldine was green in color from the parsley and I have to say the green color turned Steve off a bit to the pasta. He quickly got over that after his first bite.

To accompany the pasta, I made the sauce recommended by Flour City – plum tomatoes, feta, olive oil, lemon juice, pasta water, salt and pepper. Not only was the pasta lemon flavored, but the sauce had a whole lotta lemon love to it as well. The lemon didn’t overpower the dish but definitely made a statement. I thought this would be a perfect spring or summer pasta dish because it was so light and refreshing. You can find the recipe for the pasta sauce here.

I sautéed some baby spinach with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper for a mean green side dish.

Special thanks to my Secret Santa for making this dinner possible.

My next bag of pasta is a Red pepper basil…what sauce would you recommend to go with?

Peace, love, and food,

Kara

I feel like it was just yesterday I was sitting on my couch in my pjs writing a post on my 2010 and here I am once again to do the same. 2011 brought me more wonder and excitement than I could’ve imagined.

Scratched my itch to travel with trips to Orlando, D.C., Boulder, NYC, Charleston, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Portland, Martha’s Vineyard and Charlotte. Decided I would move to Boulder in a heartbeat, especially if I could eat at Salt every week. Got my eat on at foodie festivals like Harvest on the Harbor and Parked, the very first Food Truck festival. Productions of HAIR, the American Tribal Love-Rock musical, and All’s Well That Ends Well at the Common brought me back to my thespian roots. I had a few foodie firsts including sunflower, oysters and pomegranate. I learned a few foodie lessons including wheat berries gone wrong, raspberry jam turned rock candy and poached eggs practice makes perfect. Showed my farm love berry picking at Tangerinis. Got inspired by my little sister’s high school graduation, sunset runs at JP pond and by my cousin’s wedding in an apple orchard. Gave out a whole lot of inspiration to many patients. Amazing coworkers became good friends. Discovered a true love for four-day work weeks and Friday trips to Back Bay Yoga and Saus. Had my first big public speaking gig and rocked it. Started a new and exciting yogurt journey with Chobani. Discovered a unanticipated love for solo road trips as long as I’m belting out tunes. Instagram is my new favorite pastime. Picked out our very own first Christmas tree from Allendale Farms and first time at the Boston Common tree lighting. Oh yes, and I closed out the year finally getting upside down in a yoga class.

Here’s a look at 2011…

2011, you were awesome but I have a feeling 2012 is going to to rock my socks off.

Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays!

Peace, love, and food,

Kara

I picked up apples, pomegranate, and dinosaur kale! Dinosaur kale, also known as Tuscan Kale, has blue-green  narrow leaves with an embossed texture. It has a slightly sweeter taste than curly kale. Now I’m no stranger to kale. I love crunching into kale chips and scooping it up in a quinoa salad. 

For dinner that night, I tossed together a quick, easy and cheap meal using our kale from Allendale.

Local Kale and White Bean Pasta

Ingredients:

1/2 lb whole-wheat penne

2 bunches of local Dinosaur kale (any type of kale will do), stems removed and cut leaves in half

1 medium sweet onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup pasta water

1 15-oz can white kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1/4 cup grated Parmesean

Olive oil, salt and pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to directions on package. Save 1/2 cup pasta water. In a large saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add diced onion and cook for a few minutes, until soft. Add garlic and let cook for 1 minute. Add kale and 1/2 cup pasta water. Toss to combine and cover and cook for a 5 minutes or until kale is wilted. Add beans and cooked pasta. Toss to combine. Add more olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Top with Parmesean cheese. 

We even ate on our Christmas plates and placemats. Fitting for a night of Christmas tree hunting.

I can’t wait to use the apples and dig into that pomegranate next! Stay tuned…

Peace, love, and food,

Kara

Have you tried Dinosaur Kale? Have you snagged any good farm fresh produce recently?