Red and Black Quinoa Tabbouleh

Tabouleh is a simple salad which hails from the part of the Middle East that covers Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.
It’s usually made with bulgur, tomatoes, cucumbers, finely chopped parsley, mint, and onion seasoned with olive oil, lemon juice and salt. There are endless variations to bulgur, the most notorious one is subbing bulgur with couscous. Yotam Ottolenghi describes in his cookbook how during his career he has come across a million bastardised versions of this simple dish. Some of which were way out of line. The most common issue has to do with proportions. In this dish parsley has to be the star of the show alongside with mint (not the grains nor the veggies). Also, herbs need to be chopped very thinly (and with a knife not a food processor) so that they can properly release their flavors and volatile oils.

Running Is Only About You

Last weekend I went for a run in Central Park, something I never do. I prefer to stay downtown, cross the East River on the Williamsburg bridge and go from there.

For this one time, however, I went uptown on the Hudson River Park and entered CP from Columbus Circle @59th st.

“Whoa!” was my reaction as I entered the park and saw that tsunami of runners hitting the pavement. It was tad overwhelming, to be honest.

It was actually so jam-packed that I had to dart between people. A bumper-to-bumper situation, without the bumpers, of course.

As I was making my way through this massive wave of runners I noticed that there was a good amount of beginners. Which is cool, people hitting the road to get healthier. I like that.

However, I saw that most of them spent their time (and energy) twisting their heads looking at other runners instead of concentrating on their own run. As if they were under constant scrutiny by more experienced/faster runners. Which is such a stupid thing to do in the first place.

Being an experienced runner I feel like I need to share this secret: we (i.e., faster/experienced runners) do not give a “fat rat ass” about other runners; all we care about is our pace, heart rate, time and the distance we’re covering. Simple as that.

You run slower? We don’t care. Actually is not that we don’t care, we are just concentrating on our own run and we can’t be bothered to look around. That’s about it. We might get angry if you get in our way (well, really angry), but unless that happens, we’re cool.

Credit: Image courtesy of http://iloveart17.tumblr.com/

Stuffed Focaccia with Arugula, Feta and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Focaccia is an astronomically popular flat oven-baked bread, which can be topped with herbs or other ingredients. It’s very popular in Italy. If you happen to walk during lunchtime in the streets of Milan, Florence, Venice or Rome everybody is munching on focaccia. Well, almost everybody. You guys know that I tend to exaggerate.
It is usually seasoned with olive oil and salt, sometimes herbs, and may be topped with onion, cheese or vegetables.
Or, or, or, or it can be stuffed. Yes, it can be stuffed. The most popular stuffed focaccia has to be the “Focaccia di Recco” a focaccia with cheese that melts into your mouth and just makes your life better.

Indian Style Meatballs with Roasted Garlic Cream

Let's talk about ground beef... 

When buying ground beef, the rule of thumb is to buy the best quality you can afford. Organic and - if you can find it - grass-fed.
If you shop at a butcher (or a grocery store with a real butcher) you should have them grind the beef for you. Pick out a piece of sirloin or chuck (or half chuck - half sirloin) and ask the butcher to put it through their grinder. This is the only way to make sure that the ground meat you’re buying is the meat that went into the grinder.
It can be more expensive than pre-packaged ground meat, but the latter can be a hazard (food poisoning and E. coli cases resulting from bad ground meat are so frequent). On top of that you’ll know that the meat has not been sitting on the shelf for days, which guarantees freshness. Ground meat is subject to the greatest amount of handling, which increases the risk of exposure to contamination. If instead you the process happens right in front of your eyes you’ll know that how many hands have touched it. Right?

Spicy Sweet Potato Burgers with Lemony Greek Yogurt and Avocado

Nothing get on my nerves more than hearing somebody saying “OMG, I’m such a sweet potato person, they’re so yummy and healthy!”.
What does it mean to be sweet potato person?
That if you look at yourself in the mirror you see a sweet potato? That among your peers you’re considered a sweet potato? That you eat only sweet potatoes?
In my humble experience, it usually means that you discovered recently (very recently, maybe yesterday) that sweet potatoes are a healthy food and you just need to speak it to the world. An attempt to assert that you’re a healthy person and that you know a whole lot deal about it. Bah...
For this one time you’re justified though...sweet potatoes are an awesome food so you might as well call yourself a sweet potato person. As long as you promise to really make them one of the staple food of your diet.

Suggested Reading: Salt Sugar Fat (How The Food Giants Hooked Us)

The food industry is a manufacturing business with just one goal in mind, design products to please consumers’ palate.
Don’t picture it in your mind as something similar to a cook, in his kitchen, trying to perfect a recipe. Think of it, instead, as more of a chemist in a laboratory performing experiments and meticulously mixing flavors in an attempt to reach that perfect balance, the “bliss point”. That perfect combination of ingredients that will send taste buds buzzing and that eventually will makes us come back for more.
As you flip through the pages of “Salt Sugar Fat” you’ll learn about how Food Giants maneuver around the boons and drawbacks of sugar, salt, and fat in order to make us consume their products, and consume them a lot. The competition for our grocery dollars affects what's in the food we eat and, as a consequence, affect our waist size and health.
Food industry’s approach is so meticulous and scientific that it has been capable of substantially altering the our desires, perceptions and expectation towards food. Without even noticing it, our taste buds have been reprogrammed to make us crave for more sugar, fat and salt.

Homemade Sourdough Bread

Sourdough is the original "100% guaranteed" truly natural bread. There’s no commercial yeast in it, it's made only with flour, water and natural yeasts from the air.
I’ve tried several times to make sourdough bread in the past but failed on every single occasion.
I gave it a last shot two weeks ago, following Jamie Oliver’s recipe. And this one this time I’ve finally cracked it.
Baking sourdough bread has to be one of the coolest things ever. Witnessing day after day the starter coming to life through the natural fermentation of the flour. When it's baking time, the incredible aroma of bread (real bread) permeating the apt. Yes, I fell love in love with sourdough bread.
The loaf came out beautifully, crunchy on the outside, chewy and moist on the inside, as per Jamie’s words “Sourdough is the ultimate loaf.”
Sourdough bread is packed with precious nutrients. It has nothing to do with mass-produced breads that are grossly degraded in nutrients and choked with sugar, preservatives and additives.
Sourdough bread comes from the natural fermentation of gluten contained in the flour. When gluten is properly fermented it becomes healthy for human consumption. When it is not it’s potentially one of the most highly allergenic foods we eat.
Correctly fermented wheat contain 18 amino acids, complex carbs, B vitamins, iron, zinc, selenium and magnesium, and maltase.
Sourdough bread is the healthiest form of bread you can possibly dig your teeth into. Are you ready for journey?

Eat Food Not Edible Foodlike Substances

This is one of the my favorite quotes from Michael Pollan’s Food Rules.
It focuses on the importance of eating real, whole food over any sort of junk food or food like product.

Heavy processing of food - which improves shelf life and palatability - also removes nutrients, adds chemicals and makes food more readily absorbable, which might be a problem for insulin and fat metabolism.
That’s why you should try to avoid heavily processed foods, labeled by Michael Pollan as “edible foodlike substances.”

"They’re highly processed concoctions designed by food scientists, consisting mostly of ingredients derived from corn and soy that no normal person keeps in the pantry, and they contain chemical additives with which the human body has not been long acquainted. Today much of the challenge of eating well comes down to choosing real food and avoiding these industrial novelties1."

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References

1 Pollan, Michael (2009-11-24). Food Rules: An Eater's Manual. New York

Black-eyed Pea and Sweet Potato Cakes With Greens

I bought a can of black-eyed peas a while ago and every time I would open the kitchen's cupboard I could feel them staring at me; with their judgemental look, as if they were saying “You haven’t got the slightest idea of what to do with us, that’s why we’re still here, covered with a layer of dust.”
I knew that I had to take action asap. No way a bunch of canned peas was going to get at me.

Getting All The Nutrients Without Consuming Too Many Calories

When trying to control calories while balancing the diet, some foods can be especially helpful. Foods that are rich in nutrients relative to their energy content.

It is well established that some foods deliver more nutrients than others do for the same amount of calories, as they have a higher nutrient density.
Those nutrient dense foods give you the "biggest bang for the buck." You get lots of nutrients, and it doesn't cost you much in terms of calories1.
Let’s take for instance ice-cream and fat-free milk. Both supply calcium, but milk is much more calcium dense than ice-cream. The latter having over 300 calories per cup versus 80 calories for a cup of milk2.