Live it up with spicy ancho shrimp salad

Spice up your good health

I like to post on Tuesdays but this Tuesday I had nothing… nothing except a wonderful spice rub I put together on the weekend. It smokes! But I promise you, it doesn’t burn.

Adela’s Norwegian meatballs, WHO style

Traditional cooking, with a healthier outlook

The WHO’s stand on meat

The World Health Organization (WHO) has just sent shock waves through the earth’s stratosphere. What they said was something that anybody who has been following nutrition news in the past few years already knew.

WHO news:  Processed meats cause cancer. And red meats probably cause cancer.

But unless you are genetically predisposed to the disease, the increased risk according to most experts is relatively low. Nevertheless, it’s real.

Tommy Tucker’s brown bread… cheesy and barbecued

Little Tommy Tucker sings for his supper, What shall we give him? Brown bread and butter. How shall he cut it without a knife? How shall he marry without a wife?

Isla was entertaining us for the 17th time one morning with her latest ditty, as I took my sharp, serrated blade from the rack and a round, seedy loaf of whole-grain bread from the cupboard. She stopped and raised her shoulders, palms out.  “Hey, Vinny, why doesn’t Tommy have a knife?”

“I suspect the poor kid was on the streets,” I answered. “The poem was written… like 200 years ago. If you didn’t have a family to look after you then and you

The main attraction: Ancho sauce and caramelized onions adorn Spanish pork loin

Pork with Sardinian fennel and mushroom risotto on the side

Now that you’re nicely warmed up with a pleasant cocktail and a savory appetizer, we’ll move right along to the star of the meal. Vinny rubs a large, lean pork tenderloin with a blend of dried ancho chili pepper and other spices.

Hungry enough to eat an ox?

Most times we settled for a turkey… but not always!

I owe my on-line existence to a mining engineer. Without Bill’s passion for food as well as rare minerals, I wouldn’t be blogging today. It was Bill who took his daughter Sharon, my alter-ego,  under his formidable wing and taught her to cook.

Sundays would see Bill in his tiny, lemon-hued 1950s kitchen pouring over one of his many fish-splattered and chocolate-speckled cook books. Sharon was there, too, in her pleated skirt with her blouse hanging out, helping him find the canned pineapple bits, the dented

Talkin’ turkey with a light bean chili

Use left overs from your holiday turkey for this recipe. Ground turkey works as well.

The ingredients

Turkey gets a little attitude in this dish, with black beans and lots of chili powder, garlic, onions and peppers. The spices give your metabolism a kick. That gets you burning calories faster.

Turkey offers lots of protein coupled with just a little fat. It’s an inexpensive source of iron, zinc, phosphorus, potassium and B vitamins. Turkey chili makes a perfect recipe for those on the 17-day diet.

Life-Ever-Lasting Sherpa’s Pie with Yak or Pork

Recipe for eternal youth – Sherpa’s pie

In my last post I told you the tale of how a girl named Yackity came to live on a yak farm in Canada. Although she was far from her home in Tibet, it was a fine life. Yackity learned how to grow many kinds of food and make delicious and healthy meals. But there was one dish that her mother had made for her, which was always her favorite… Sherpa’s pie.

We can imagine the life-ever-lasting Tibetans of the mythical Shangri-La baking Yackity’s one-dish dinner for their pampered guests. Its healthful ingredients likely held the key to their long lives.

Yackity’s Yaks

Let me tell you the strange tale of how a Sherpa girl called Yackity ended up on a ranch far from home and got to the meat of the matter.

Escargots and chocolate milk

Bon Appétit !

Escargot, if you don’t already know this, boys and girls, is French for snail. Many of the best restaurants offer escargots on their menus. They’re delicious!

I know one little girl who ordered escargots whenever she had a chance, which was most often when we were traveling in Quebec or France. She liked her snails with lots of garlic butter, washed down with chocolate milk. Servers shook their heads in wonder when she placed her order.

Little lambs eat ivy! But kids’ll eat goat cheese strata

What little lambs eat may not be so good for kids of the human variety. But one kind of ivy is a plant people have been eating for nearly ever.

“Eat more leaves,” says Pollan

Reviewing Michael Pollan’s book “In Defense of Food”

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Michael Pollan has distilled much of the research  into the Western diet over recent years into this simple formula. It’s that easy to eat well for better health.

Mood foods… What’s yours?

Roast turkey cheers us up for the holidays!

Which foods do you turn to when you need cheering up? Donuts, maybe? Better think again.