I love smoothies. In summers past I used to make smoothies every morning to get my day started right (before my blenders kept braking – I seriously have terrible luck with blender lifespans). Not only can smoothies be an incredibly healthy way to start your day – but they can feel like dessert!

5 tips for healthy smoothies

• Don’t use apple or pineapple juice they’re loaded with sugar and doesn’t add enough to the taste of your smoothie. Substitute soy milk, nut milks, grapefruit juice (for a punch of citrus) or even veggie juices (carrot and beet juice are 2 of my favorites)
• Add fresh herbs – mint or basil will add a sophisticated twist to routine smoothies
• A banana will make your smoothie filling and last you til lunch. All berry smoothies don’t seem to stick to the ribs enough and I’ll have a sugar crash too early in the day.
• Add flax seeds, wheat germ, or even whole oats. Seem to go against the whole dessert feeling? Not so. Sometimes I add oats to the smoothie from the video instead of chocolate and it makes an oatmeal cookie shake!
• Keep looking for inspiration. Don’t let a smoothie become boring – there’s way too much fun to be had! I love checking out menus from smoothie/juice shops for inspirations, but also from fruit salads and desserts on menus. There’s a whole world of flavor to explore, have fun doing it.

So maybe this video isn’t my healthiest smoothie – but when you think about replacing chocolate milkshakes in your life – this recipe gives you a lot of bang for the buck!

My friend’s sister was visiting New York from Texas and shared with me her technique for making nachos. A steady go-to dish of my own, I was amazed to hear her explain how she lays out chips in rows and places identical proportions of ingredients on each chip one at a time. One jalapeno slice per chip. One black olive per chip. One scoop of diced onion per chip. Each chip is a perfect bite of nacho she explained to me. The perfect bite of nacho… hm.

That’s a whole lot of dedication in pursuit of a perfect, I thought. I don’t even really believe there is such a thing as the perfect nacho. This idea has the same feeling I get when I observe the rituals of a superstitious sports fan.

Nachos are the casseroles of fast food to me. Big and messy, gooey with cheese and piled high with goodies. Much like my feelings on pasta – I think the of toppings are clearly the best part. I had joined Weight Watchers a few years ago and invented this nacho recipe once I realized that the chips, beans, avocado and cheese were my only points (I’ve since started adding olives but they’re optional). I just started adding on every freebie veggie that sounded like it would be awesome on nachos and the pile grew sky high! This style of nacho is filling enough to be dinner and is definitely still man-food, in fact even with 3 friends helping I couldn’t finish the recipe in the video.

Nachos for dinner?!? Dinner for a crowd in the time it takes to melt cheese? I mean I’m sold. Just in case you’re not – I made a little video to sell you on the idea. ;)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Healthy Nachos

• layer chips on a cookie sheet or casserole dish
• top with any/all veggies that sound awesome to you: red onion, bell peppers, tomatoes, canned green chilies, jalapenos (pickled or fresh), fresh corn (has points), etc.
• can of black beans (rinsed)
• cheese enough to cover (it needs to be enough to hold it all together and this recipe feeds 5+ so don’t be too stingy with the good stuff)

Bake on Broil until cheese is melted, then

• Top with fresh herbs: cilantro, green onions, etc
• Top with salsa (try 2 – salsa verde is awesome on this too)
• Top with avocado (no I don’t think this is optional)

Enjoy!

I guess I like dense cakes. This one definitely competes with my dark chocolate and rosemary olive oil cake – they both have a wonderful everyday feel to them. There’s nothing fancy and frosted about them, just dense and satisfying with enough sweetness to brighten your day and enough weight to make for a good breakfast if you manage to have leftovers.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Lemon Polenta Cake

The Method

• 2 cups almond flour
• 3/4 cup fine polenta/cornmeal
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder (gluten-free if required)
• 1 3/4 sticks soft butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• Zest and juice of 2 lemons

The Madness

Preheat your oven to 350. Then line the base of a springform cake pan with parchment paper and grease its sides lightly.

In one bowl beat the butter and sugar till pale. In another bowl mix the almond flour, polenta and baking powder. Beat1/3 of  your dry ingredients into the butter-sugar mixture, followed by 1 egg, then alternating dry ingredients and eggs, until everything is incorporated.

Zest and juice your lemons into the batter and give it one final mix. Spoon everything into your prepared pan (you can sprinkle an little sugar on top for a bit of crispness) and bake for about 50 minutes. Remove from the oven to a wire cooling rack, but leave in its pan.

This cake can be baked up to 3 days ahead and stored in airtight container in a cool place. Will keep for 5 to 6 days if you can actually go that long without eating it all.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mustard Crusted Salmon

The Method

• 2 filets of salmon
• 2 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 heaping tablespoon whole grain mustard
• a bit of white wine
• olive oil
• salt & pepper

The Madness

Turn your broiler on high and let your frying pan heat to medium high with a little bit of olive oil.

Mix your mustards with the wine and about a teaspoon more olive oil (a teaspoon of honey is nice also at this point if you like that). Salt and pepper your filets, then put them skin side down in the pan. Shake the pan a little to make sure they don’t stick and just let them have a minute to get that crispy side. Top them with your mustard mixture and put the whole pan in the oven to broil until the crust looks golden and tasty.

Pull it out and serve! It’s really that fast and easy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I hope you enjoy!

You can find more of my recipes in my NEW Cookbook! Check it out!

Maple Bacon Brussels Sprouts

The Method

• 4-5 strips thick-cut bacon
• 1 pound Brussels sprouts, halved
• drizzle of maple syrup
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

The Madness
Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat until crispy. Add Brussels Sprouts and cook, stirring occasionally, until sprouts are golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. If you find your bacon didn’t render enough fat then add a teaspoon or 2 of butter, just don’t let anything stick to the pan. Drizzle your maple syrup over the pan of sprouts. Let that steam finish cooking the sprouts. (if you like you brussels a little less sweet use half the maple syrup and add a 1/4 cup of white balsamic vinegar) Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Serve immediately.

It all started last summer. I felt overwhelmed. I had moved to NYC to start a new life for myself and, after a year and a half, I felt exhausted and not that much closer to my goals than when I arrived. All I could see was the projects I so desperately wanted to see through and no money or resources to pull them off. If I kept up the back-breaking pace I was working I might be able to save enough in another 2 years.

2 years – I could have cried when I figured out that that was how long it would take me. Something had to change. Well – something did change. Last summer I hosted a kickstarter project to get the funding I needed to change my life. I spent every free hour I had of that beautiful summer inside, at my desk, writing support emails. In 28 days I raised my goal of $5,000. It was the start of everything.

People came from all parts of my life to support me. In small ways and in big – but the one reward I thought was too big for anyone to reach was, if you really gave me a huge support pledge, I would make you a cookbook of my recipes. Well people did. Several people did (they were also my very best friends and brother – but these people made me cry when they proved that they believed in me that much).

By August I was in a new state of overwhelmed. People believed in me and really thought that if I was given the resources to change my life I would make it. So my workaholic side continued.

I had promised a cookbook – it just seemed like a clever reward at the time, and I did have this huge backlog of photos I’ve never gotten to use… and I did have my recipes written out already… maybe I could make something that was actually beautiful. 8 months and countless hours later – on top of all my work and other projects – the strange bonus of my kickstarter is this:

I have finished my very first cookbook. Writing a book is something I’ve always wanted to do and never thought I’d finish. It is beautiful, and I am proud of it. I feel like I can do anything now.

I am self-publishing Balsamic Reductions the cookbook, and it is available for sale online beginning in April.

This book and my funded projects took over my life for a while, but now I see how much this blog grounds me – how much each of you reading this balances me. So I have made my New Year’s resolutions (hey – it’s never too late): I will not forget where I’ve come from and make more room in my life away from my desk to cook, eat, and live – and share it with you all here and hope to continue to inspire you to make something everyday turn life-changing for yourself.

My life is not a pie as much as a rustic tart, a little bit messy and definitely not put together around the edges. I’ve been self-employed for a decade as a creative professional. It has not been an easy path, but my dreams have always been worth craving. So I’d probably put all kinds of things in there that might not seem at first like they would work in a pie – fresh herbs, blue cheese, pistachios, nutmeg… I always have faith that even if a recipe gets really out of hand there is still a creative way to bring it back together.

My family has gone through a lot of hard times over the years and, to be honest, my life is more savory than sweet. In the past two years I’ve moved to a new city and had to keep two jobs at times just to keep my head above water, but hard times don’t sour life, they build us up, they make us stronger, and in the end they bring the zest and spice to the story we live. Even when there are moments of tartness there is something always sweet to smile about.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that, every bite should be different than the last. Life was never meant to be boring. There are definitely some nuts in there.

I’ve been pursuing the life I’ve always dreamed of. This past year hasn’t always been pretty, but it’s been flavorful, satisfying and at the end of things it’s definitely been worth repeating.

My Savory Apple Tart

The Method

Dough for a single butter pie crust

1/2 cup pistachios (chopped)

1/2 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese

1+ tablespoon fresh thyme

1 1/2 Tbsp honey

2 large granny smith apples (peeled and chopped)

1 teaspoon of lemon juice

1 teaspoon lemon zest

freshly grated nutmeg

¼ tsp each salt + pepper

The Madness

Toss together everything but the pastry dough in a medium sized bowl. Cover the mixture with plastic wrap while you prepare the crust.

Roll out your dough in a circle and place it on a rimmed baking sheet (in case the whole thing leaks during baking). Mound the filling in the middle of your crust and start spreading it out evenly to 1 ½ “ from the edge. Fold the edges of the dough over the filling.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour until the crust is nicely browned. If it looks like the pistachios are getting too toasted you can put foil over the center.

Remove from over and let cool at least 10 minutes before serving. Finish with a balsamic reduction drizzled over each piece.

Santana: Breakfast confuses you.

Brittany: Sometimes it’s sweet, sometime it’s salty. What if I have eggs for dinner? What is that?

What if you have pancakes for dinner?!?! It’s not just my favorite Glee quote, it’s true – it is confusing. Binner? Breakner? Brinner? …whatever it is – it’s clearly not as catchy as brunch and it doesn’t get nearly enough creative attention. I may be of the school of thought that says the best time for breakfast foods is anytime except breakfast (when I generally only want to eat plain fruit). Either way I have to say I love breakfast for dinner.

It’s actually some what of a tradition in my family to have pancakes for dinner. In Holland (where my father is from) pancake houses don’t even open for breakfast. Pannekoek, or “Papa’s pancakes” as we called them, are Dutch pancakes as large as your plate and thin as crepes, and we filled them with apple sauce and rolled them up. We could eat dozens of them and if you had a family as large as mine it makes sense that pancakes are too much work for a breakfast time meal. They are so delicious though. (Honestly I’m getting homesick and hungry just writing about them…)

My mom is American and she makes traditional bisquick pancakes. She can bust out a griddle and make a million pancakes at a moment’s notice, but she’s still known to throw them together for an easy dinner. Who doesn’t love pancakes? Well the simple answer is no one. No one doesn’t like pancakes. Pancakes, crepes, potato cakes – whatever your fancy if you fry up a flat cake it’s gonna be loved. So when I first ran across a recipe for fresh corn cakes in Sunset magazine I was pretty sure they would be amazing.

They were beautiful little appetizers and I remember thinking I would make them again someday but I never did.  Most new recipes, even the ones I find inspirationally good, never actually make it to the list of my routine of recipes. My mental rolodex of recipes should be huge by now, but if I am making a repeat meal I still make the same couple things over and over. I find that an incredibly disappointing fact in my life. When I got my September issue of Sunset I was surprised to see what appeared to be the same recipe. I pulled out my original, recipe from 2007 and compared notes. This was a different recipe, and though the original was thought of as a mere appetizer or side dish, this one was boldly named a vegetarian entree.

I wasn’t really sure they were going to turn out all that different, but I decided it was time to try them again. The first recipe really was an appetizer. Like corn latkes, I would put sour cream on them and call it a day. This new recipe turned out to be much more of an actual fresh corn pancake.

This corn pancake recipe was definitely going to be interesting. In fact it may turn out to be the recipe for corn pancake that can fit the largest possible amount of veggie bits in the batter ever. I normally love adding “chunks” to things (I have stated my theories on this previously in my post “Chunky is Good. Chunky is Very Good”) except, ironically, traditional pancakes which are perfect plain and do not need chocolate chips or bananas or whatever other crazy thing people put in them. My inventive side won me over and I ended up pushing the limits on how chunky a batter I could make. Well I had to add poblanos. I had them in the house, what else was I going to do with them? Besides nearly any dish with jalepenos can be made even happier adding their smoky complex flavored cousins to the mix.

Honestly I was worried I’d pushed the batter too far on the chunky side. Would they hold together? But with fresh corn, cilantro, poblano… pancakes on the verge of discovery, what could I do? Adding a little more salt and some cayenne pepper, these puppies started blowing me away as soon as they hit the hot pan. The batter puffed up around all the corn and peppers as irresistible little cakes started to form. They’re a little hard to flip if you care about keeping them looking photo ready, but I’ve never been a very accomplished pancake flipper myself so I had let go of any expectations of pretty a long time ago.

Savory, fresh with juicy bits of corn that pop in your mouth, I think I’ve just taken the breakfast dinner to a new stratosphere. I’ve even fit green vegetables into the mix! I could still serve these with a side of bacon, eggs, even hash brown potatoes, but top it with guacamole and salsa mixed with sour cream. If you can stop yourself from eating too many of them straight from the pan you might even have room for a berry and maple syrup covered kind of dessert.

The Method

1 large egg

1 cup milk

3/4 cup yellow corn meal

1/2 cup flour

1 tsp sea salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 cup fresh cilantro

1/4 cup chopped green onion

1 jalepeno, chopped and seeded

1/2 poblano, chopped and seeded

2 cups fresh corn kernels

vegetable oil for frying (you can also use butter but the pancakes end up prettier with oil)

The Madness

Beat your egg and milk together then throw in your dry ingredients. Mix until you have a batter then add your veggies. Fry them up like normal pancakes, except using a decent amount of oil in the pan to keep them from sticking.

A number of toppings come to mind for these, guacamole being top among my choices, but a sour cream/salsa blend might also be amazing. Don’t even get me started on bringing cheese into this party. Though that could be the road to heaven these pancakes don’t need anything on top to be amazing.

So by popular demand (aka one roommate’s insistence on having this recipe) I have picked an old favorite to finish ranting about beans with. Black beans: the little black dress for any pantry. For many of my friends who never thought about cooking beans at home this has been their introductory bean of choice. These tasty treats will win you over. Flexible and approachable, you can rinse them straight from the can and pour them over a salad or nachos and be done. You can put them in chili, substitute them in almost and bean recipe, even eat them for breakfast and they will miraculously seem to fit in like the cool friend you can bring to any party. My pantry feels naked without at least one can of them in there.

Though I’ll put them on salads with abandon during my healthy eating phases (not actually going through one of those right now to be completely honest), my favorite reason for keeping black beans in the house at all times is because they are the shining star of homemade re-fried beans.

I learned to make my own re-fried beans in college from one of my domestic-goddess type mentors who ate freakishly healthy vegetarian foods all the time. While this seemed like her most indulgent recipes, it’s about 1,000xs healthier than getting your re-fried beans from a can. It has great show-off factor too. It seems so elaborate to make your own re-fried beans. How fancy! Yet it’s just one of those incredibly simple things to make that we forgot about during the 1950′s canned good revolution.

Measurements are not important (my favorite way to cook so already you can see why I love this), it’s more of a feel out how much flavor you like kind of dish. Beans, like potatoes, are starchy and can stand up to a lot of seasoning so don’t go half-way. You start with a small onion, bunch of garlic and a simple can of beans. Rinsed and ready to go, you can actually have this rock star on the table within 10 minutes. I eat it as a dinner with chips and salsa and don’t even feel guilty about it, and once you start making your own you’ll never go back for a can of re-fried beans again.

The Method

• 1 can of black beans
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (+/-)
• 1 small onion (diced)
• garlic (I like lots, you don’t have to though)
• (optional) a jalapeno is fun if you have on on hand
• a kick of cayenne pepper
• garlic powder (it’s about layering flavor)
• salt + pepper

The Madness

Heat your oil in a medium frying pan and saute your onion until just starting to turn golden. Add your chopped garlic (I’m not kidding I can use as much as 4-5 cloves when I’m feeling crazy) and jalapeno if you choose to put one in. Give the garlic a minute of two to start sweating and dump in your rinsed beans. Fry for the first time until the beans are heated through. Season with your spices and start to taste. Careful you don’t over-salt them as they still need to fry again.

When you’re pretty happy with the flavors you’ve got going on, start smashing your beans with the back of your spoon. Add a half can of water to the pan and stir. Let that fry for the second time as a mash and BAM it’s been re-fried. Done. It will still be a bit thin still when it needs to come off the heat (the starches will continue to thicken the dish as it cools). Just finish salting to taste and enjoy!

Yeah – it’s really that easy.

“I want to see recipes posted! I need ideas…” She calls to me as I head to the bus with a grocery bag laden with tomatoes, eggplants and peppers still warm from the sun. She even sent containers of homemade fresh tomato paste and an oven dried tomato paste.

Problem is – I had to run down and back  for a wedding in a day because I have so much work right now I can’t afford to even take a reasonable length trip. So I’m back home with a bounty that is not of normal proportions for my urban kitchen, yet have no time to make anything. And there’s still that pressure that recipes need to end up here to show my mom what I did… She is, after all, my best blog commenter still.

I’d love to tell you Ma that I made simple tomato salads, highlighting their lush home grown flavor, ate them on my fire escape in the sunshine, all while drinking a lovely herb-infused, icy cocktail, but that’s definitely not what happened. What did happen was I finally had a day off a full week later and the tomatoes were defiant that they be used today or else! They were still so beautiful, the glowing yellow tomatoes especially. They still smelled of sunshine and warm earth. They just had spots that were going to grow mold if I didn’t make something right now (obviously I didn’t take pictures of those ones).

Yellow tomatoes feel so grown-up and special. I love layering them into a tomato salad for color. You can’t just put them into a tomato sauce and call it a day. They need to be shown off. I remember seeing something about yellow tomatoes from one of my favorite (and most socially prolific) food blogs, Food in Jars. Well, Food in Jars definitely came to the rescue!

Besides the sheer encyclopedia level of information contained in Marisa’s blog, she has a search option (love it!). I just put in yellow tomatoes and her tomato jam recipe came right up. This is exactly what I was looking for – something I could make relatively quickly but also something I can store for another day when I have time to cook and eat it properly. I am also excited because this will be my very first proper food in a jar. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I store almost everything in my pantry in jars, and I’ve used jars as storage containers in many ways – but I had yet to actually boil jars and set something properly to put on a shelf and keep for a year. Marisa had inspired me so many times to make this leap, but today I finally did.

Aren’t they beautiful? Still glowing like the tomatoes did, it’s more of a sauce for a cheese plate or to baste chicken in before you cook it. Hey if you like it on toast more power to you. It’s sweet and tart and definitely plays on the fruit side of the tomato, but I’m excited to experiment with it another time. When I finally have time… someday.

Check out Marisa’s recipe on her blog, Food in Jars along with her many other tips for jarring and canning all types of preserves and jams. If you like food blogs and are new to reading them – then I’d “like” her blog on facebook too as she’s always pointing out other cool sites and recipes.

Personally I may have over done it with the sugar a little bit (I didn’t weigh my tomatoes but I was making about a half recipe) and I also added a dash of white balsamic vinegar (of course), but I’m hardly an expert when it comes to preserving things – so I need to research more before giving you guys altered recipes. Enjoy!