Fresh Tart

I don't bake or make desserts on a regular basis, but I do like to make treats for dinner parties and family birthdays.  I'm always trying to lighten them a bit, trimming sugar and fat where I think it won't compromise a recipe.  Or leaving the frosting off a cake and serving it with berries instead.  Or forgoing the cake altogether and serving berries with a small dollop of real whipped cream.  But in this case, I didn't mess around with perfection.  Luscious, honestly nutritious, and kid-friendly to boot, you can't beat good old-fashioned chocolate pudding.  This version is creamy and uber-chocolatey, yet deceivingly light (spooned into 6-oz. ramekins, around 150 calories per serving, about 4 grams each of protein and fat).  We're splurging on it tonight to celebrate John's (last Saturday) birthday - tonight's the first night we'll finally have everyone together plus Stacey and Cooper.

Another bonus - it comes together in about 20 minutes (with an additional 4 hours to chill, the perfect do-ahead dessert).  The combination of cocoa and bittersweet chocolate gives the flavor a seriously chocolatey oomph, a must-have combination for a John Birthday.  Cornstarch (no eggs) and evaporated skim milk cleverly make it creamy and smooooooth without sending the richness completely over-the-top. (Press plastic wrap over the tops while they cool.)

I predict spoon licking.  Recipe, from Cooking Light, is here.

I mentioned below the delicious grilled artichokes we had in Santa Barbara - well, as often happens, the dish triggered a bit of a hankering and I decided to make them tonight.  I googled "balsamic" and "grilled artichokes," because I could tell the version we had was seasoned with balsamic vinegar, and I found this recipe on artichokes.org, check it out.

I tried another recipe tonight too, from Cuisine at Home magazine, for Orange-Glazed Salmon.  I lucked into a delicious piece of salmon (previously-frozen Coho, in surprisingly good shape) and loved the spicy-slightly sweet preparation.  Snip, snap, and John had devoured it.  Simple too, I recommend it highly.

Back from lovely California - hey, where'd the sun go?  John and I had a whirlwind birthday weekend, flying into L.A. and driving to Santa Barbara on Thursday.  After stopping in Malibu for a quick road-side, fish-shack lunch (fish tacos!), we drove on to Bacara, a lovely resort just north of the city of Santa Barbara.  Rushing to unpack and enjoy as much of the afternoon as possible, I realized that...I forgot my camera battery!  Noooooo!  I had taken it out to charge, didn't put it back, uuuuuugh.  I luckily had my point-n-shoot stashed in my purse, but it barely had any battery power.  I was only able to snap a couple of hurried pics the whole trip (you're looking at 'em).  Disaster.

I shook it off and we set out for downtown Santa Barbara, hoping to stumble again upon this cool little place we stumbled upon two years ago on a previous day-trip from L.A. (couldn't remember the name or exact location).  We didn't find it so stopped instead at a sweet little hotel, where we had...the worst meal I've had in a long time.  Nice wine, but a very un-fresh shrimp cocktail, followed by a salad of lovely greens drenched in a weird, thick, flavorless dressing.  And for a main course, a seriously smelly piece of salmon - with lovely sauteed baby artichokes alongside.  The manager comped the whole thing (very, very nice guy, felt terrible) and we walked out giggling at how bad it was.  To ward off a completely inauspicious start to our trip, we bopped over to the Four Seasons Biltmore, sat in the gorgeous bar, had a tasty snack and glass of wine, and called it a night.

Friday, much better food experiences!  First of all, we found the little spot we'd been looking for!  Turns out it's called Elements, and is still every bit as charming as we'd remembered.  It was a perfect sunny 75 degrees outside (love California!), so we sat on the patio and nibbled tasty salads and sipped a delicious, cool glass of local white wine.  We spent the afternoon driving around (checking out the waterfront, gorgeous neighborhoods, and impossible views - with ocean on one side, mountains on the other, definitely does not suck), hiking through the Botanic Garden (at left), and strolling through the beautiful Santa Barbara County Courthouse (pictured above).

We zipped home to freshen up, then back to meet our friends David & Dana Cremin, who drove up from L.A. to have dinner with us.  The four of us settled in on the patio at the magical Stonehouse at San Ysidro Ranch, just in time for the sun to set in the mountains.  Sigh.  Lovely spot, thank you David & Dana for setting it up.  We split glossy, salty, grilled artichokes to start, halved and pressed hard into the fire, crusty black at the edges and brushed with balsamic vinegar to finish.  Rustic deliciousness, they stole the show.  For my entree I had silky-crisp roasted halibut with baby vegetables.  David & Dana brought fabulous wine, we all sampled John's birthday dessert, and well after dark we went our separate ways, hoping to get together again at some point this summer.

Saturday morning we packed up and hit the road, north to Carmel, to visit my aunt Jean & uncle Del in their new home in the mountains just west of the village.  It was way too quick of a visit, but totally worth it to celebrate John's birthday dinner with them and spend even a brief time at their lovely hacienda/ranch.  Jean made a beautiful breakfast yesterday morning, then we set out for the San Jose airport.  Yes indeed, we packed a lot of California into four short days!

Happy Birthday John!!!

Pretty laid back holiday eating 'round these parts.  I haven't busted out any of my favorite Kosher for Passover recipes for my stepdaughter yet this year, maybe I will on Wednesday (popovers, brownies, matzo ball soup, or latkes?).  Saturday night we just had K for P pasta, with marinara, and a pan full of sauteed vegetables.  Easy.  Nice.

Yesterday Stacey and Cooper joined us to celebrate Easter with a relatively new tradition - breaking my son's third-annual Lenten pizza fast.  The last couple of years we were in a hotel on Easter Sunday, scoring room-service pizza-for-breakfast before heading for the airport.  It was nice to be home this year and make something homemade (and more wholesome!).

I made a simple and delicious whole wheat crust (pulled the recipe from here; recommend it highly - it makes three baking-sheet-sized very thin crust pizzas, just the way we like 'em).  Pizzas are a nice do-ahead meal - I made the dough and par-baked the crusts earlier in the day, as well as simmered a simple tomato sauce (garlic, red pepper flakes, oregano), caramelized onions (thyme), and sauteed mushrooms (sage).  Nathan and Cooper take their pizza with pepperoni and green olives, but I made a veggier/lighter version for us grown ups (fontina, onion, mushroom, pine nuts).

To keep things on the lighter side, we just had veggies for appetizers - guacamole with jicama and red bell pepper, and a steamed artichoke with a simple dip (mayo whisked with a bit of Dijon mustard and fresh lemon juice).  With a big salad (topped with a little crispy prosciutto and Parm), and berries for dessert, a tasty if unconventional Easter dinner.

It's still chilly and colorless here in Minnesota, but the sun is shining, the robins are nesting, the trees are budding - let's just call it and say that spring has sprung!  Yes, April in Minnesota is pretty horrible (other than the birthdays of my son and husband), but that's OK.  Despite the cold, wet, and lingering threat of snow, there is enough sunshine and birdsong to warm even the most cynical hearts (including mine).  It feels good to be outside.  It feels good to be eating lighter salads, soups, and vegetable dishes.  Everything just feels lighter and I'm glad.

In that vein, I read about a new website called This Is Why You're Thin!, a motivational site created in response to another site called This is Why You're Fat!.  The Fat version features truly nasty pics of fast food, junk food, and all-round unhealthy fare with the supposed effect of...making people hungry?!  I guess people who check out the site, hoping to be repulsed, end up with serious cravings for junk they wouldn't have thought about eating before!  Enter Jennifer McCann, who heard about that response and thought, hey, if people are responding so strongly to those visual food cues, wouldn't it be cool to put together a mirror site full of healthy, beautiful, fresh foods and hopefully inspire lighter eating?  She's done just that, check it out.

A few other of my go-to resources for fresh, healthy inspiration:

Cooking Light
FitSugar
New York Times Recipes for Health
Clean Eating
Prevention
Vegetarian Times

If you, like I, are stuck with the above (photo taken minutes ago), may I suggest the below for contrast.  As you might have noticed, I turn to comfort-y foods to warm my soul when cold weather strikes, but this time - no.  No because I've had enough soup (albeit delicious soup - lentil from Suz, matzo ball from Crossroads Deli, tomato from Bacio) in the last week to float a ship.  No because I am literally craving color - and long-cooked foods, while deliciously aromatic and flavorful, do not pop off the plate.  No because it's April and I'm tired of cozy.  No.

Evan Sun for the New York Times

This recipe, for Maya Citrus Salsa (Xec, pronounced 'shek') with Red Snapper, is delightfully featured on the New York Times website today, in the Style/Dining & Wine section.  Fresh, juicy, colorful, zesty.  So not cozy.  Yes!  And don't worry, all the salsa ingredients are in the store right now, no rock-hard mangoes or papayas to worry about.  (I'm not sure what I'm going to substitute for cilantro, since as I've mentioned before, I'm one of those who appears to be genetically programmed to hate the taste of cilantro - I love the idea of it, and certainly love the descriptions of what others taste in it, but it tastes like metallic rotting flesh to me.  No good.  I usually just skip it, or add Italian parsley or scallions in its stead.)

As Mark Bittman (recipe author) points out, this dish is not about the fish, it's about the salsa, which would be delicious on other types of fish as well as pork or chicken.  I think avocado could somehow work with it as well.  Play around, see what you think.

Article here.  Recipe here.  Short, fun video of Mark Bittman preparing the dish here.

After a week of being too sick to cook or eat much, I'm finally able to taste food again.  Yes!  I'm not interested in anything complicated or rich, but am definitely ready to venture beyond soup.  I settled on sauteed shrimps, this version, which I modified last summer from a delicious appetizer that Stu The Wine Genius made for 4th of July - shrimp saltimbocca (sauteed with pancetta and sage; for Stu's version, pictured below, the shrimps and sage are wrapped in thin slices of pancetta and grilled, mmm...).  Delicious with a simple, crisp salad.  Add grilled bread or pasta or rice to serve a group.