Queezle_Sister's Reviews
29 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 29Sort by: Title 
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The Very Best Of Recipes for Health: 250 Recipes and More from the Popular Feature on NYTimes.com
By Martha Rose Shulman
Rodale Books - 2010
Artichoke Heart Frittata : page 247
My DH prepared this as an appetizer for cocktails with our neighbors, one of whom is lactose and gluten intolerant. The pecorino cheese was fine, and the can of non-brined artichoke hearts located in an Italian market ($7/can!), were superb. Very delicious, and just the right thing.
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Barley Soup with Mushrooms and Kale : page 86
We found this soup to be only OK. I really love eating barley, and also mushrooms. However, the soup seemed bland, despite the herbs and parm rind used for the broth. To my palate, the kale made the broth somewhat sour. It felt like a healthy thing to eat, and I did have two bowls, but it I'm unlikely to prepare this again.
In the interest of full disclosure, I had no dry porcini mushrooms, and perhaps using those would have given the broth the rich mushroom depth I was looking for. Instead, I used dried shitake.
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Black Bean Chili : page 282
A spicy and hearty chili - and you won't miss the meat. This recipe uses the slow simmered black beans, and turns them into chili by the addition of more onion, more garlic, tomatoes, peppers, and cilantro. I used only one of the two chipotle peppers in adobo, and I seeded it carefully. Despite this, and the addition of an extra 2C of black beans, this is almost too spicy for me.
But I am a bit of a spice wimp.
Regardless of the heat, the flavor is excellent, and not masked by the heat.
Note linked on-line recipe.
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Kale arrived in my CSA this week. I also have a large patch of kale in my garden. I generally just feed it to my chickens (all that calcium is good for their eggs).
I've never tried this approach to cooking kale, so took the opportunity to prepare this recipe. I used all lacinato kale (not curly kale). I only blanched for 3 minutes, then into the ice bath. It was impressive how much water could be squeezed out.
The kale tasted ok - not everyone would eat it, but it was fairly tolerable. But it wasn't good enough for me to freeze awa blanched kale for the winter...
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Buckwheat Pasta with Kale : page 219
Salty and cheesy - this dish was a big surprise. Kale came from my garden, and leeks from the farmers market made this a mostly local dish (but the soba did come from Japan).
Kale is boiled for 4 minutes, and leeks are sauteed in oil, butter, and with slivered sage. Kale and sage are mixed, and some of the soba cooking liquid is added.
I weighted out the cheese and was surprised at how much there was. 2 oz of Parmesan is a big pile! Add another 2 oz of gruyere, and it is really cheesy.
Now I might have preferred half the cheese, my kids and husband loved this - probably because of that luscious cheese. Husband said it was the best kale he had ever had. We'll keep this recipe around - it is basic enough you could easily take it in different directions.
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Chickpeas with Baby Spinach : page 283
An excellent super-fast dinner. Canned chick peas, sautéed onions, spinach, spices, and tomato paste combine to make an excellent topping. We put it on bread, but it also would have been great on rice or another grain.
I substituted Aleppo pepper for the cayenne, but otherwise followed the instructions.
Even the teenagers came back for a seconds.
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Easy Oven-Baked Polenta : page 198
Foolproof? I've been putting this recipe to the test by making foolish mistakes. At a minimum, this is a very forgiving recipe.
The first time I prepared this, I accidentally doubled the water. I cooked it about 30 minutes longer, and it did eventually thicken up. The second time I prepared it, I forgot to adjust the oven temperature and baked it at 425 instead of 350˚F. As you might expect, it cooked faster - about 35 minutes instead of 50.
I'm not a connoisseur of polenta, but the result seemed reasonable creamy. I served it with tomatoes roasted last august and a bit of pecorino. Very satisfying.
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Food Processor Whole Wheat Pizza Dough : page 108
This was a passable pizza dough. I liked the flavor imparted by the whole wheat flour, but its texture was not as good as dough made with all whte flour. My basis for comparison is this Mark Bittman food processor pizza dough. The Bittman recipe has a better texture and a delightful flavor. This whole wheat pizza dough has good flavor but its texture is not as good.
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French Toast with Raspberries : page 6
A lovely flavored french toast - and by serving with fresh raspberries just catapulted it to the top.
I made 1 1/2 batches (3 eggs), and it was perfect for the four of us. I used the optional fresh nutmeg, and the addition of vanilla made this really amazing.
We tried this with whole wheat sandwich bread (see picture 2) and with a whole grain artisan bread. Of course the artisan bread was more attractive, but I liked the whole wheat sandwich bread version more than I expected.
We put a very small amount of maple syrup with the raspberries, but in all honesty, it probably didn't need it. The raspberries were some amazing locals from my CSA.
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Indonesian-Style Chicken Salad : page 326
Crunchy, and with a whole spectrum of flavors. This was a salad to savor and its a recipe I will definitely try again.
The salad includes shredded chicken, red bell pepper, a Serrano pepper, cucumber, scalions, and mung bean sprouts. It took a while for me to find the right sprouts, but boy was it great. The texture was just perfect. And the flavor was elevated by the inclusion of both mint and cilantro.
The dressing was surprisingly good. Its a peanut butter based dressing, seasoned with fish sauce, ginger, lime juice, and buttermilk added some welcome lightness.
A perfect combination. Sorry - no picture - I was too tired. This salad, though, revived me.
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Muesli : page 5
So easy - just rolled oats and almonds, very lightly toasted by baking for 10 minutes.
The key to this, though, is what you add. I've never heard of using grated apple in my museli, but it added the needed moisture and turned this "horse food" into a delightful breakfast.
In addition to the apple, I added dates and raisins. No need for sugar - but a bit of skim milk finished it up perfectly.
This will be worth a repeat.
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Oatmeal Buttermilk Pancakes : page 8
Superb pancakes, these are healthy from the oatmeal and whole wheat. My daughter (14) has a bit of a bad opinion of whole wheat, but she admitted that if she were blindfolded, she would not have known.
Be forewarned, this batter is intended to sit on the counter for an hour before cooking. Ours sat for about 30 - 40 minutes, and cooked up fine. They also performed well in our cast iron pan (no additional oil required).
We didn't add the suggested 1.5C frozen blueberries.
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Olive Oil Vinaigrette : page 34
I have been searching for the perfect vinaigrette, and this recipe comes close. Two vinegars are combined (though the choice is left up to the cook). I used the recommended 2T sherry vinegar and 1T balsamic. And it uses 6T olive oil. The flavor is amped up by Dijon mustard and a garlic clove.
Some of the other vinaigrette dressings I've made recently have been too mustard-y, the 1 tsp mustard called for here was just about right.
The garlic clove is left intact, but is sliced for more surface area. The cook is instructed to leave it in for about a day.
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Pizza with Green Garlic, Potatoes, and Herbs : page 114
Its hard to give a "3" to any pizza recipe, because after all, its pizza, right?
This is another pizza without a sauce - it is fairly simple, rosemary, garlic, potatoes, and some cheese.
I've prepared Jim Lahey's potato pizza, and that is my basis for comparison. In the Jim Lahey recipe, you put slices of raw potato on the pizza, and it takes a little while to bake (20 minutes). This potato pizza, though, you first boil the potatoes. For me, the potatoes were difficult to slice thinly after cooking, and even after 17 minutes in a 500˚F oven, they were somewhat watery. The pizza was still very edible (judging by its 2 hr half-life in our refrigerator), but if you are after a potato pizza, I'd try the Lahey potato pizza, linked above.
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We loved the clever combination of goat cheese and walnuts on this pizza. By mixing the goat cheese with the chopped walnuts, I found it easier to get small pieces, which helped me to spread the goat cheese around. The recipe resulted in a generous amount of mushrooms, and the flavor that came from the thyme which is sprinkled on the crust added a lovely note.
The modest dressing on the arugula helped the pizza overall, but the consensus at my house was that a balsamic reduction would have been even better.
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Provencal Summer Potato and Tomato Gratin : page 157
A lovely and filling dish - with the flavor of summer. I used half yukon gold and half red-skinned new potatoes, unskinned. And I used a combination of different tomato types - some roma, but mostly heirlooms of various kinds.
I followed Zosia's advice and didn't use the rosemary twigs. Instead, I minced fresh rosemary leaves, and sprinkled them over the top of the tomatoes.
The gruyere is such a flavorful cheese, it really set off the dish. I heeded Zosia's advice, and added the cheese only in the last 10 minutes. That got it melty, and then the broiled made it look good.
As Zosia said, relatively little effort for a large amount of tasty food. Four of us ate 1/2 of this dish - but we also had soup and kale.
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Pureed White Bean and Winter Squash Soup : page 81
This wholesome soup will give your kitchen a wonderful aroma. White beans are soaked, and then cooked with sautéed onions and garlic. Water is suggested as the broth, and so I added extra bay leaves and herbs to give it sufficient depth of flavor. When the beans are cooking, you then sautée leeks and more garlic, and then diced butternut squash. The whole lot is then combined, and cooked. I found it took a bit more time than suggested for the beans to become falling-apart soft, but that is likely due to my altitude (salt lake city).
I used my stick blender (my normal blender got broken), and the result was a slightly orange smooth soup. It is a beautiful color.
Garlic croutons are suggested as a garnish, and they were a perfect accompaniment. Crunchy and strongly flavored, a perfect foil for the creamy mild soup was great. To make the croutons, I didn't follow the suggested recipe. Instead, we happened to have Costco roasted garlic bread; I buttered it with a butter-garlic-shallot mixture left from a different project yesterday. I broiled these, and then cut into small cubes.
I love butternut squash, and was a bit disappointed that the sweet flavor seemed to disappear in this soup. The soup was good, but if you want to showcase butternut squash, you might be better off with something else.
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Red Lentil Soup : page 82
This is a good basic soup that could be easily modified for other flavor profiles. The cumin and coriander gave the soup a lovely flavor, and I purposely added only a small amount of curry so it wouldn't compete. I also used less tomato than called for, and like Zosia, pureed with a stick blender at the end. Even my soup-adverse family enjoyed this one.
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Roasted Tomato Soup : page 69
Thick and rich, a bit chunky and with an amazing flavor - this soup could redefine tomato soup.
My kids, who are accustomed to campbell's tomato soup, were not very excited when I told them what was on the menu for today. But one taste, and they were hooked.
The tomatoes (mine were home-growm heirloom varieties) are broiled till the skin turns black, turned over, and broiled some more. Garlic and onion round out the flavors, and the soup is thickened by adding some hearty bread (which disintegrates and just adds body).
2 sprigs of basil were called for - but I probably used 1/4C of chopped (we have a lot of basil in the garden).
Instead of serving with croutons, I served this with whole grain bread, toasted, and with a bit of cheese melted over the top.
This soup came together surprisingly quickly - maybe just over an hour. And the next day - it tasted even better. The pure flavors of summer. This is a soup recipe to save and treasure.
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Sicilian Almond, Basil, and Tomato Sauce : page 26
I liked the idea of this dish more than what I produced. Garlic and basil are ground in the food processor, then almonds added and ground up. Finally, the blanched tomatoes are added and coarsely chopped. Then, with food processor running, you add a bit of olive oil, and then salt to taste.
The recipe called for 3-6 large garlic cloves; I used 4 but wished I had only used 1 or 2. The garlic was a strongly dominant flavor. I also found that when you add the olive oil at the end, it chopped my tomatoes more than I had wanted.
So - do try this - but be careful with the garlic, and add the olive oil before it is the texture you want.
I wanted to rate this 3 1/2, but when down to 3 based on its unattractive color. However, perhaps I should have raised it to 4 because those almonds add so much goodness.
We served this over whole wheat spaghetti.
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The salsa for these tacos is the star of this recipe. A delightful fresh salsa, it is prepared with tomatoes, corn, cilantro, onion, jalapeno, and lime juice - such an amazing fresh taste!
The instructions tell you to prepare poached shredded chicken breasts. I decided to take the easy route, though, and purchased a roasted chicken instead.
We served these on corn torillas with feta cheese.
The biggest surprise here was that both kids complained that it wasn't hot enough! My babies are growing up.
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These soft taco cook up quickly and are very flavorful. Its a simple filling - sautéed onion and mushrooms with a bit of garlic. Chipotle chiles in adobo sauce are called for in the recipe, but I had to skip that ingredient as my last tin was nowhere to be found. I think the chipotle would have really made this outstanding!
I served these on corn tortillas, softened on an open flame of my gas grill (thank you to Rick Bayless for that trick), and with this salsa from the chicken soft tacos.
The simple mushroom filling could easily be changed - e.g. add red bell peppers, its a versatile dish and quick enough for a mid-week dinner.
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Spinach, Tofu, and Sesame Stir-Fry : page 257
Quick and delicious. My only complaint is that the recipe claims the tofu will brown in 3-5 minutes. I drained my tofu for more than a hour, and still it didn't brown after 10 minutes! But if you are OK with white creamy tofu, this comes together quickly, with a nice ginger and sesame flavor (sesame seeds as well as sesame oil). Its an easy mid-week dinner, and it was a perfect 3 servings.
My daughter said she could eat this every day.
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Steel-Cut Oatmeal with Fruit : page 4
Creamy steel-cut oats! I love this grain, but tend to not prepare it because of its fairly long cook time.
In this recipe, you mix milk with water (1:1), and do a long cook (2x15 minutes). After the first 15 minutes, you add some dry fruit and sweetner. I added raisins, but held off on the sweet till the end. Then I added about 1 T maple syrup.
You are also instructed to add fresh fruit - so I added half a peach.
I like creamy hot cereals - and the addition of milk at the beginning made this richer than versions cooked in water.
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Summer Pasta with Tomatoes and Chickpeas : page 210
Quick, easy, and very seasonal.
A raw tomato sauces is prepared first by chopping tomatoes, basil, and garlic, and adding balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and then letting it sit at least 30 minutes. This mixture smelled heavenly. You then add chickpeas (a can is OK, I used freshly prepared).
The recipe specifies fusilli or farfalle pasta. I used what I had on hand - a combination of ziti and elbow macaroni, and it worked fine.
You simply cook the pasta, then toss with the raw "sauce", and add some cheese (Parmesan or feta, we used Parmesan).
With great tomatoes available, this is a good dish to make now (summer). We doubled or tripled the basil, because its exploding in my garden.
Kids didn't care for the chickpeas, but by including them this dish makes for a nutritionally complete dinner. Personally, I just loved them.
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Summer Tomato Sauce : page 19
Too runny!
I started with equal parts roma and heirloom tomatoes (picture shows the beginning of cooking). The recipe recommends cooking for about 18-20 minutes for Romas, longer if your tomatoes are really juicy. I cooked mine for an hour!
I borrowed two food mills to try out with tomatoes. I put the sauce through one mill - but it only extracted juice and left most of the pulp. So 13-daughter and I transferred the pulp to an old-fashioned mill with a big wood roller. 13-daughter got alot more pulp out, and this time the the skin and seeds were dry!
Nevertheless, the sauce was still very thin. I cooked it another 15 minutes, but with two starving teenagers, I had to get it on to the table. Even if this had been soup, it would have been too thin.
BUT - The flavor was amazing.
My recommendation - if you make this, go through the trouble of peeling the tomatoes. You can then have a somewhat chunky sauce.
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Tomato and Avocado Salsa : page 22
Very fresh and bright tasting! This salsa is like a marriage between guacamole and a regular tomato-based salsa, and what a happy marriage it is!
Red onion is soaked in cold water for a bit to mellow it out, minced, added to diced tomatoes (I used four or five different types from my garden), diced peppers (again I used peppers from my garden), avocado, and cilantro. A bit of lime juice and salt, and that is it.
I'm not much of one for chips, and this chunky salsa easily made little mountains on each chip. This was perfect - mostly the well rounded flavors of fresh produce, but with a definite corn crunch.
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Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes : page 7
This recipe yielded thick fluffy pancakes.
The flour was 2/3 whole wheat, 1/3 all purpose - but by using buttermilk, baking soda, and baking powder, they were rather light, and nobody complained. The recipe prepared enough for four light eaters.
The recipe called for blueberries to be added while cooking; we didn't have any and didn't miss 'em.
As usual, 13-daughter ate hers au naturale, but my DH used a generous dose of maple syrup. Both were happy!
One note - I used butter in the pan to cook them, and it imparted a very good buttery flavor (but made them slightly less healthy).
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Nice concept, but the recipe has a couple problems. The salad is pretty simple - a couple types of rice, some lightly steamed asparagus, herbs, walnuts, and a dressing. I prepared as described, except I doubled the asparagus.
The dressing called for 1/2 C of oil, and as I was adding it, I became skeptical. I added ~2/3 of the dressing, and the salad felt quite greasy. I didn't care for the dressing on the day I prepared this, but as leftovers for my lunch, the flavors had melded, and it was better.
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