Category — Food

Summer, to me, means fruit salad. I look forward to melons, cherries, plums and other lovely things.

This summer has been the summer of the “Berry Bowl.”

Of all my friends, Mr. Dave McCall (aka “McCool”) best understands my eating.  Every time I hang with his awesome family, I learn something new about what I’m eating, and about how it could be better (that’s a compliment – really!).

McCool gave me the base formula for the Berry Bowl.  Last time I saw him, he saved me from the sugar.  While everyone else was having brownies, he made me my first Berry Bowl.  Here’s what’s in the version I’m eating lately:

• Oats – just raw oats – the kind you’d use to slow cook oatmeal

• Watermelon – cube it up and toss it in

• Strawberries – that’s my least favorite part, but if you like ’em, use ’em

• Blueberries – I prefer frozen, and you can get a great deal on some lovely organic ones at New Seasons

• Cinnamon – get the good stuff in bulk (bulk spices rock!)

• Nuts – sliced almonds or chopped walnuts are great

• Agave/honey – McCool uses honey.  I prefer light agave.

• Milk/yogurt – I use soy milk.   If I’m eating it for breakfast, I’ll substitute vanilla yogurt.

Use a big bowl and stir it up.  I didn’t think the watermelon and milk would go at all, but they’re excellent together.  The watermelon is the perfect crunch.  I love the way the soy milk freezes between the blueberries, and makes the oats soft.

Some days I’ll have a Bowl for breakfast and one for dessert after dinner.  I’ll fill up a Tupperware (R) and pack it to work.  It’s a powerful thing to start your day slurping and crunching.  I find it makes my little office a happy place – a sticky place, but a happy place.

Enjoy!

About a year and a half ago I gave up refined sugar (for the most part).

On the way home from a bridal shower where I’d come alive from an anti-social stupor after snarfing a large piece of the shower cake, Leigh said to me, “maybe we should give up the refined sugar for a while.”

Like the addict I was I lost it.  “You can’t do that!  There’s sugar in everything!  It’s just not possible.”

After about 5 minutes of rationalizing, I heard myself and realized I had a problem.  The two of us laughed hard and decided maybe we should give up the sugar for a while.  (By the way, refined sugar isn’t in EVERYTHING.)

Being the pastry freak that I am, this was a challenge.  The hardest part was dessert after dinner.  As my grandfather always says, “you must have a little gliko (Greek for ‘sweet’) after every meal!”  So, I set to work researching the best, most natural, least processed sugar-substitute that I could use in baking, and started searching the internet for recipes.  I settled on agave and found a great peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe that I modified to use agave instead of a fruit-sweetener.

These cookies keep me sane. I make them practically all the time so that there have been very few days in the last year when these cookies haven’t been in the house.  When I bring them to work, arguments can break out if I don’t bring one for everyone.  I know at least one other person who is nearly as fanatical as I am about making these cookies.  She uses these to control her diabetes.   Don’t worry though, even with the whole-wheat flower and nut butter, there’s nothing medicinal about how these cookies taste.  The might be the best thing ever.  I’m just saying.

I consider them open-source, so let me know if you make improvements on the recipe.

Enjoy!

No-Sugar Peanut Butter Chocolate-Chip Cookies:
– 1 cup natural style nut butter. I use unsalted peanut but you could use salted if you like better (you can also use almond)

– put 2 tablespoons of water in a 2/3 cup measure. Add agave syrup to fill the 2/3 measure (I prefer dark, but light works too)
– 1 generous tsp vanilla

– 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (For wheat-free, sub barley flower, or oat.  For gluten-free sub quinoa flour.)
– 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
– 1/2 tsp salt

– About 3/4 cup grain sweetened chocolate chips – or dark chocolate chips if you can’t find grain sweetened

Oven to 350 degrees, parchment paper on two cookie sheets (or butter them, or use nothing at all). Mix wet ingredients in mixer, add dry ingredients, beat until combined. Stir in chocolate chips. Make balls with heaping Tbsp of dough, then squish with a wet fork to get the traditional pattern. I use all the dough to make 12 cookies. I bake Exactly 10 minutes if I want them chewy. (These are easy to overcook due to their color – so watch closely, and take out when they are just barely browning on top.  Maybe start with 8 mins and check the underside of one cookie, just to be safe.  For barley, oat or quinoa, you might want to bake longer.)

Enjoy!

I love food.  I come by it honestly.

When my family gets together, our day will tytpcally go something like this:

“Good morning! Come sit down and eat!  You want cereal?  You want toast?  You want pannetone and jumbalone and turchaneals?  How about rhubarb sauce?  Apple sauce?  Rhubarb sauce in your cereal?  Dunk that in your coffee.   Pass one to me so I can dunk it in my coffee.  I’ll go put more in the toaster.  Where should we go to lunch?”

What’s great is my family is a bunch of really good cooks and bakers.  From Greek and Italian pastries to low-fat masterpieces that came from a need to control my dad’s cholesterol, I grew up eating some amazing home-cooked food.

Over the last couple of years I’ve moved from pasta and bottled sauce to some pretty amazing pasta dishes, salads and my signature agave-sweetened peanut-butter chocolate-chip cookies.

I enjoy cooking and baking, but the best part for me is sharing.  Check back for news and updates on recipes and creations.  I’ll start with that cookie recipe.  I’ve been told it could change the world.  Well, if anyhting can, why not a cookie?

On the train from Florence to Castelnuovo, we met a very nice man.  He was a banker around the age of 35, impeccably dressed, and speaking perfect English (of course).

My dad, who makes friends with everyone struck up a conversation with him.  When he learned that we were Americans, the very first thing he said was,

“You are very thin for Americans.”

Awesome.

This wasn’t the only time I heard this, but it was the first.  He went on to share with my dad his theory of why it is Americans are overweight.  “I think you eat too many sauces.”

Fair point.  However, when I stopped into a gelato shop in Portland today, I developed another theory.  In Italy, one scoop of gelato is the size of a walnut.  In Portland, one scoop is the size of my fist.  This was not what I expected when I ordered two flavors.

Here’s a tip:  If the ice cream comes in smaller portions, you can try more flavors without giving yourself diabetes.

I’m thinking it’s not the sauces.

Portland is a great food town.  It’s a foodie paradise.  The best part of this, to me, is where the awesome food spills over into the streets.

Portland is a great food-cart town.

I eat at the Bombay Chaat House probably 3-4 times a week (each meal lasts two days).  I think it’s the best Indian food in town.  For the past six months or so, my Sunday ritual has included a trip to the two waffle cart locations in North Portland known as FLAVOUR spot.

This morning’s trip was with my ex-gf/roommate/best friend (don’t you love lesbians) Leigh, and my dog Libby.

These waffles are so powerful that the promise of a “maple pecan” waffle can rouse me from a dead sleep to fully dressed and hair done in about 5 minutes.

This morning there was no line, and we picked out a primo picnic table in the converted parking lot that houses the cart on Missisisppi Ave.

I’ve tried to capture the gooey, delicious nature of the waffle here for those who have never experienced it.

That’s maple butter and pecans folded lovingly into a fresh waffle.  Today’s special waffle was fresh strawberries, whipped cream and nutella.  Woah.

You come to Portland, you go to Flavour Spot.  Ya dig?