By Kathy Nida

One of the things you learn after years of watching what you eat is that there is no point in denying yourself what you love. Bacon is a good example of this, because it is oh so delicious and oh so bad for you…in quantity. Because that’s the key to eating healthy: eat in moderation and don’t try to remove anything you love completely from your diet, because that diet will not last.

That said, you don’t have to eat the whole pound of bacon in one go, now do you? I used to open the pound and pull off a few slices for a treat for breakfast or to cut up into a Cobb salad, but then I’d never eat the rest of the package and it would go off. It was such a waste of a tasty meat that doesn’t need to be used in a large quantity to add significant flavor, because you can just crumble up one cooked slice into an omelet, on a salad, or on half a baked potato, and it adds plenty of taste.

So nowadays, I go crazy and cook up the whole pound when I need it for a recipe, but then I put a few slices wrapped up tight in plastic in the fridge, where they’ll last for 3-4 days. Then I plan the next few days’ meals to include a slice or two.

Occasionally, about once a year, I have a BLT, usually right before or after a long hike, because I love the taste…actually, add the avocado to make a BLTA, because that fat is good for you, but you’ll need to burn those calories somehow. It gives me a good excuse to get out and count the calories. Today’s hiking apps will tell me exactly when I have burned off the entire sandwich, and then I add a mile for good measure.

Then I make sure I freeze the rest of the pound of bacon, again airtight in plastic wrap, because it keeps for at least 3 months in the freezer. That’s one pound of bacon for a quarter of the year. Well, that’s assuming you don’t have to share with anyone. The dog always looks hurt when she sees me pack the rest of the bacon away in the freezer.

Interestingly, no one ever taught me any particularly efficient methods for cooking bacon, either on the stove or in the microwave. The natural foods diet and cookbook 30 Pounds/4 Months describes an amazingly easy way to conquer the grease and use your microwave to cook 5 slices at a time. Or if you prefer stovetop cooking, it clearly explains that process as well.

There’s also a tasty recipe for savory oatmeal that would be great with a few slices of bacon from your stash, and a delicious Beef Burgundy that uses a few more slices for later in the week. And if figs rock your boat, there’s a recipe for Tasty Fig Morsels that includes a slice of that salty meat wrapped around a delicious fig. I’m telling you, this is something that belongs in your freezer.

Order the Kindle version from Amazon, or if you prefer a print copy for your kitchen, and leave a message.

Images: DepositPhoto
Plate of bacon: © Madllen
BLT with chicken & avocado: © Nalga

Got tomatoes? If you have a garden full of them and are looking for ways to eat t hem before the birds scarf them down, consider a new possibility:

Tomatoes are delicious for dessert.

Yep! Check this out.

Tomatoes & Cream

You Need:

• Real, vine-ripened tomatoes that are fully ripe
• A container of real, heavy cream (not the spray-on foam stuff)
• Turbinado sugar

Garden-fresh tomatoes (the ones grown in someone’s yard, not what some supermarket calls “vine-ripened”) can have so much sweet, brilliant flavor that you can eat them as a dessert. This recipe is shocking, but it’s a lot less bad for you than most of the things we think of as sweets.

Slice the tomatoes or cut them into bite-sized chunks. Place in small dessert bowls. Sprinkle them with a small amount of sugar—vast quantities are neither necessary nor desirable.

Let this sit for a few minutes. Then douse generously with heavy cream. Enjoy.

YOU CAN GET THIS AND 100 OTHER RECIPES ON SALE THIS WEEK AT AMAZON! Don’t miss the Dollar Sale on the diet book for people who LOVE to eat, until July 28 only!

by Kathy Nida

I was at a friend’s house and he was complaining about the delicious smells wafting from a neighbor’s window. “I just don’t like curry,” he said. Wait, what? You don’t like what?

Curry…mmmm…that complicated smell and flavor that so enhances meat, vegetables, and rice. Honestly, anything tastes better with curry in it. I’m about to knock on the neighbor’s door and ask for a sample.

I had my first curry meal in Wales, living abroad, missing Mexican food like any good California girl. It wasn’t even anything fancy, just a cheap Indian takeaway late at night, but I was hooked. First of all, that complicated taste with a distinct hint of cumin was the closest I could get to the tacos and enchiladas back home. But as I continued to sample better Indian food as I traveled, I realized curry in general was very different from the Mexican food I was used to eating.

When I moved back home, I had the harder task of trying to reconstruct Indian meals and spices with the very few options available back then. There were no local Indian restaurants, so I had to wait for trips back to the UK for really good curry. I’m lucky now to live near a few authentic Indian restaurants, but even more important, I can buy naan bread and a variety of curry spices just down the street. So I can simmer any meat in a curry sauce with some vegetables, toss it over hot rice, and have a simple but delicious meal ready in a short time.

My local Indian market carries a variety of curry spices from all over, including garam masala, its close cousin. There’s that chili spice, sometimes a 4 and sometimes a 10 on the spice-o-meter. I didn’t know until I had tasted many different versions of the spice that curry wasn’t just like cinnamon or pepper, but that it contained many spices, most notably coriander, turmeric, and cumin. Different regions focus on the spices available there, and local tastes determine what you will get for dinner.

But let’s say you’re on a deserted island and you forgot your spice stash. Or you’re tired of paying top market for spices. Make your own curry powder mix!

You Need:

• 3 tsp turmerics
• 3 tsp coriander seeds or 3 or 4 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp whole cardamom seeds, hulled (i.e., get the ones that are not inside the papery pods, which are a nuisance)
• 2 to 4 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp ground fenugreek
• 1/4 tsp whole cloves
• 1/2 stick cinnamon
• 1 tsp dry, ground ginger
• 1/3 tsp yellow or black mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp whole white peppercorns (black would probably do)
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

Measure the ingredients into a blender jar. When everything is loaded into the blender, turn the machine to high and pulverize the bedoodles out of the stuff. It should be reduced to a fine, fragrant powder, with no chips of seeds left.

I’ve bought many of these spices at Penzey’s, an upscale gourmet store, because I didn’t want to drive all over the city. However, if you have some time on your hands, many of the ingredients can be found much more cheaply at Asian or Mexican ethnic markets. Many, too, are packaged by American companies and retailed at ordinary supermarkets. So, by way of stocking up frugally, take a few days and seek out these goodies at decent prices. Try to get whole seeds, which make a much more fragrant, vibrantly flavored product.

Cumin is the dominant flavor of curry. I used four teaspoons because I happen to like it quite a lot. However, if it’s not your favorite flavor or you’d like to accent one or more of the other flavors, you could cut it back to two teaspoons.

Many U.S. recipes ask for white peppercorns. However, the peppercorns and the red pepper are there only to give the curry a little “hot” kick, for which ordinary black pepper will do just fine. Regulate the amount you put in according to your taste for heat.

Same for the mustard seeds, which also add zing.

Turmeric is what gives curry its classic yellow color. It stains—don’t wear white clothing when you’re working with it, and be aware that it can stain tile grout. If this is a concern, cover the work counter with wax paper before beginning.

Use your product in any recipe that calls for curry powder. Curry powder per se is not especially authentic but is an artifact of the British Empire. That notwithstanding, it’s delicious in just about any kind of food you choose.

The natural foods diet and cookbook 30 Pounds/4 Months has some hints for finding spices. Once you’ve made your own curry powder, you can find a recipe in 30 Pounds/4 Months for Curried Quinoa Pilaf or Impromptu Shrimp Curry. There’s also a mouth-watering recipe for Curry Puffs, one where you might have to make a double batch to make up for the ones you were taste-testing as you cooked.

Order the Kindle version from Amazon, or if you prefer a print copy for your kitchen, and leave a message.

Images: DepositPhotos
Curry spices, © jag_cz
Pumpkin curry, © sarsmis

Here’s something I tossed together this morning, by way of fixing something good to eat that will last through several future meals. It has Caribbean roots — a friend who ran a charter boat there for several years brought the recipe back to Arizona. The idea is to stuff a winter squash (such as an acorn squash, a pumpkin, a banana squash) with a mixture of hamburger and the squash’s cooked meat plus a variety of tasty additions.

What gives this savory dish an exotic touch is that you sweeten it with a liberal dose of honey. It’s extremely simple to make, feeds a lot of people cheaply, and can be extended with any number of additions to provide future “leftovers” meals.

Normally you would bake a squash, then scoop out the golden flesh and add it to the hamburger slumgullion. Today I happened to have a bag of frozen squash in the freezer, and since I wasn’t entertaining anyone, I used that instead. This makes for even simpler preparation.

You need:

• hamburger (1/2 to 1 pound)
• chopped onion (1/2 to 1 onion, depending on taste
• celery, chopped (1 stalk will do)
• 1 clove garlic, chopped pretty finely
• ground cinnamon to taste (about 1/4 to 1/2 tsp)
• ground clove (pinch)
• a handful nuts (pecans, walnuts, pistachios — whatever you have)
• about 1/2 apple, chopped (optional)
• honey (to taste; I used about 1/4 cup)
• olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Sauté the onions and celery until softened; when they’re almost done, add the garlic. When the vegetables are softened and barely beginning to brown, remove them from the pan and set them aside.

Put the hamburger in the pan over medium high heat. Stir to break it up and cook evenly. Add the chopped apple, if desired, while the meat is cooking. Add cinnamon and clove. When the hamburger is about halfway cooked, add the frozen squash.

When the hamburger is cooked through so it’s no longer pink and the squash is defrosted and hot through, add the honey and nuts. Turn down the heat to medium or medium low; stir to combine ingredients and flavors well.

Et voilà! An easy one-dish meal. It’s great with some crusty French bread, or it can be served over rice or pasta.

This catch-as-catch-can dinner is related to the “Slumgullion” whose recipe appears in 30 Pounds/4 Months, except that slumgullion is flavored with tomato sauce or canned tomatoes rather than honey and sweet spices, and it usually contains macaroni. The beauty of either is that you can add any number of vegetables — think peas, chard, spinach, carrots, kale — and also extend it with ingredients such as macaroni or rice. You also can use ground lamb, ground turkey, or ground pork, alone or in combination with hamburger.

Served inside cooked squash shells, this Caribbean version amuses children and makes guests think you’ve gone to a great deal more trouble than you really have. 😉

 

 

The other day M’hijito, the King of Millennial Chefs, invited me over to his house for an impromptu spread. He served up some awesome filets broiled with a lemon-roquefort sauce, pretty darned nice. As he was chatting and throwing himself around the kitchen, he handed me a couple of beautiful red peppers, fresh from Costco.

Says he, here’s a great way to cook them on the grill:

Cut out the green top, so you have a hole into the center of the pepper. Don’t slice off the whole top: just carve out the green part. Shake out the seeds or pull them out with your fingers, taking care not to poke a hole in the pepper’s side. Then pour in a little vinaigrette, bottled or your own. Slosh it around in there and then, as you’re cooking the rest of a dinner on the grill, lay the vinaigrette-filled pepper over the fire, too. Roll it around, turn it so it cooks nicely on all sides.

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? I’m going to try it on those two peppers below, this very evening.

What’s vinaigrette? Classic French dressing: one part something tart (vinegar, lemon juice, lime juice) to three parts oil (olive oil, vegetable oil, or a combination thereof). Add a little salt and pepper. Add some chopped garlic if you like. Add some fresh or dried herbs (basil, marjoram, thyme, tarragon, fines herbes, herbes de provence, whatever you have around). Whip with a fork or, if you had the foresight to mix the ingredients in a lidded jar, tighten the lid and shake to blend.

You can find this recipe among a range of easy-to-make salad dressings and sauces in 30 Pounds/4 Months, the natural foods diet and cookbook par excellence. Order the Kindle version from Amazon, or if you prefer a print copy for your kitchen, and leave a message.

How to grill a red pepper image, Shutterstock: © 2016 Paladin12

Feeling in the mood for a one-dish meal? Don’t wanna go to the grocery store or out to a restaurant? If you have some rice in the house, here’s an easy way to toss together a tasty, satisfying dinner.

It takes about a half-hour, all told, depending on how fast you can chop an onion. 😉

Here’s what you need for one person w/ some leftovers, or for two not excessively hearty eaters:

• A cup of converted rice (sometimes branded “Uncle Ben’s original”); other types will work
• 2½ cups liquid (can be chicken or beef broth, consomme, water, or a combination of the above; you can add sherry or white wine if desired.
half a yellow or white onion
• A carrot or two (or whatever you have around: celery? bell pepper? other?)
one or two cloves of garlic
• Some frozen veggies, such as peas, corn, cut-up broccoli or asparagus, mixed vegetables, whatever… I used some frozen broccoli rabi, the baby broccoli that tastes really good. You could  use frozen mushrooms, too. Or spinach. Or all of the above. This is a kitchen-sink dish, so use what you have on hand and be imaginative.
• Vegetable or olive oil
• A little sesame oil, if you have it on hand (optional, probably)
• Some leftover cooked meat, cut up in small dice — anything will work

To feed more than a couple of people, just increase the amount of the ingredients proportionately to the expected appetites: multiply by 1.5 or 2 or whatever amount you need.

Peel and coarsely chop half of an onion. Cut the carrot into fairly small dice. Same if you’re using celery. Pour a little oil in the bottom of a deep frying pan with a cover. Turn the heat to medium or medium high and add the onion plus carrot or whatever. Stir gently now and again while these cook to a soft stage and the onion is just beginning to caramelize a little. Add a cup of converted or white rice.

When the rice is beginning to brown, add the liquid (I happened to have some duck broth from last Thanksgiving — don’t be shy about using what you have on hand). Place the lid on the pan, turn the heat down to medium-low, and set the time for about 15 minutes (if you’re using brown rice, figure more like a half-hour or so).

When the rice is almost cooked but a little liquid remains in the pan, add the leftover meat. Don’t stir it in (stirring rice while it cooks can make it mushy). Just let it sit on the top to warm with as the rice finishes steaming.

Set the timer for another five or ten minutes. Next time it chimes, dinner will be ready!

While our diet/cookbook, 30 Pounds in 4 Months, doesn’t recommend piling rice on your plate every day, the whole idea behind it is that healthy food should be easy to fix, be good to eat, and never break the bank.

Available at Amazon in Kindle format, or in a countertop-friendly print edition from Plain & Simple Press.

Large images: Shutterstock. © 2016 vm2002
Small images: Victoria Hay