Sick Days

Growing up, my favorite meal when I was sick and home from school was vegetarian vegetable soup and a cucumber and sour cream sandwich.   The soup was canned and easy for my mother to heat up.  Cucumbers and sour cream, a vestige of my family’s eastern European heritage, delivered in a surprisingly neat sandwich made with soft bread was pure comfort food.  It was cool and kind to a tender throat.  Sometimes, there was homemade chicken soup from my great aunts instead of canned soup.  Stocked with thin egg noodles in a full flavor broth, if you had to be sick, this was some consolation. 

Soup still remains the top choice for most when a cold hits and energy reserves are low.  Parents try to tempt their children with foods that will keep dehydration at bay and provide some nourishment along the way to recovery.  After a few days, some new ideas suited to improving appetites are in order.  These are good for adults or children. 

Some soothing and easy breakfasts can include smoothies, cottage cheese or yogurt, scrambled eggs and bananas slathered with peanut butter.  Pancakes and hot cereal can both be served with fresh or canned fruit.  Next time you make pancakes, put some extra in the freezer between sheets of wax paper in reserve for sick days. 

For lunch, try some mild fish, baked or broiled with a dab of butter or olive oil and lemon.  Cooked vegetables can be served hot or room temperature.  Try lightly steamed carrots with a dip made from yogurt mixed with a little honey. Tuna and chicken salad sandwiches are another way to pack in a little protein before heading back to bed. 

Dinners can include simple pasta meals made with light sauces.  Tortellini, steamed shrimp and peas doused with a little olive oil and lemon or angel hair pasta tossed with cream cheese thinned with milk and garnished with grated Parmesan cheese are easy and appealing.  Potato lovers will enjoy them mashed and covering a Shepard’s pie made with layers of cooked ground meat and diced vegetables.  A simple cheese omelet is both welcome and easy to put together for lunch or dinner and is appealing with a freshly tossed side salad. 

There is nothing wrong with providing sweets like frozen fruit pops and pudding as snacks but consider sick days as a good bridge to better eating and keep things in moderation.  Make snacks work double-duty by providing extra doses of fruit and calcium.  Bananas make great emergency fruit pops after a few hours in the freezer.  Chunks of orange, melon or pineapple on a skewer or served in a bowl with a toothpick make fruit an easy pick for languid eaters.  Canned fruit like pears, peaches and apricots packed in juice are soft and easy on the throat and tummy.  If you can only find fruit packed in syrup, rinse it off to reduce the extra sugar.  The fruit’s sweetness will come through loud and clear.  

Pudding, flan, tapioca, and my dad’s favorite when he is under the weather—junket—are pleasant sources of calcium to try as appetites revive.  Use caution with flavored yogurts that include lots of sugar.  Enjoy some plain with maple syrup or jam.  Try it as a fruit dip to start and you’ll soon build up to bowls of it.  Or go back to the soup concept and blend up a fruit soup.  In a blender, mix the patient’s favorite frozen fruits like cherries, strawberries and blueberries and add some orange juice and honey.   Garnish with or mix in some plain yogurt.  Sprinkle on some cinnamon and indulge. 

With a few extra ideas for sick days, everyone will be feeling better soon. 

Wordless Wednesday Roasted Red Peppers

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter Pantry Arroz con Pollo

I’m using Three King’s Day (January 6) as an excuse to persuade you to make Arroz con Pollo this week.  In fact you probably have the ingredients needed on hand right now.  Arroz con Pollo is a simple chicken and rice one-pot meal that is satisfying to sophisticated palettes without turning off aspiring ones.  Here’s the basic recipe and some variations including a technique for baking this dish in the oven.

Winter Pantry Arroz con Pollo
Serves 6

6-8 portions chicken-- thighs, breasts, wings or drumsticks (skinless or not)
1-2 tablespoons flour (optional)1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 onion, peeled and chopped
1 garlic clove, peel and left whole
1 & 1/2 cups rice
4 oz water or dry white wine
1 14-oz can low-sodium chicken broth
1 14 oz can low–sodium canned tomatoes with juice
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 cup black olives, sliced (about 8 olives)
1/2 6 oz jar roasted red peppers, sliced in bite-sized pieces
1/2 cup frozen peas

For this recipe, use a skillet that has a cover since the dish will cook covered once the rice is added. 

Heat the olive oil in the skillet over medium heat. Combine a dash of paprika, salt and black pepper with flour.  Lightly flour the chicken pieces (skinless or not) and brown the chicken on one side.  Let the chicken get well browned by leaving it alone for a good 5 minutes.  Remove the chicken to a plate.  (Remember that the chicken is not cooked at this point so treat it accordingly.)

Reduce heat to medium low and add chopped onion.  Cook onion a few minutes until starting to soften, then add rice and garlic clove.  Stir rice to coat with pan juices (add a little extra olive oil if needed).  Keep cooking and occasionally stirring rice until most of it becomes opaque.  Now add wine if using and allow to bubble and cook down.  Next add chicken broth, tomatoes with their juice (and water if using) with oregano, paprika, salt and pepper. 

Arrange chicken pieces on top of rice, browned side up.  Cover with a tight-fitting lid and simmer rice-chicken mixture on low 30 minutes.  Add olives, red peppers and frozen peas.  Move chicken around to allow vegetables to sink into rice and liquid.  Cook another 15 minutes or until rice has fully absorbed liquid and chicken is cooked through (internal temperature of 165˚F).  Remove from heat, uncover and let stand 10 minutes before serving.  If you’d like, fish the whole pieces of garlic out of the rice before serving. (It’s fine to leave it in but it is also good smeared on some warm bread if it is still fairly whole and softened.)

Now that you know how simple the basic recipe is, step it up and make it Three Kings worthy by adding shrimp and cubed pork for a triple protein.  Or make a triple vegetarian version using artichokes, asparagus and green beans.  (Replace the chicken broth with vegetable broth or salted water).  You may want to experiment by adding additional herbs and spices like thyme, smoked paprika or pinch of saffron however, the pared down flavor profile with only oregano and paprika can really deliver and demonstrate to your tongue that a little can go a long way.  That’s pure cooking.

Try this baked:Preheat oven to 375˚F.Place the rice, onion, oregano, paprika, salt, red peppers slices, sliced olives and frozen peas in a lightly oiled casserole with high sides.  Stir in broth, tomatoes with juice and wine/water.  (Since the wine does not cook off at a high temperature as in the skillet version, you may prefer less wine or all water.)  Lightly flour chicken pieces and lay on top of rice mixture.  Chicken will sink in a bit.  Cut garlic clove in half and immerse halves where you can find them and remove them easily later.  (As above, it’s fine to leave the garlic in the dish, especially if served to a garlic lover in the house.  Crown the ones who find for the night.) Cover casserole with foil and bake 1 hour on the middle rack of the oven.  After 1 hour, remove the foil.  The liquid should not have been fully absorbed by the rice at this stage.  Remove casserole and check the internal temperature of the chicken pieces.  Chicken should be around 150-160˚ at this point.  Sprinkle a bit of paprika on the chicken. Increase the oven temperature to 400˚F and return casserole to the oven  (you do not need to wait for oven to come up to 400˚ fully). Bake chicken uncovered an additional 15-20 minutes, until chicken has browned slightly and at an internal temperature of 165˚, rice is tender and liquid is diminished.  Remove casserole and allow to sit about 10 minutes before serving.

What for dessert? 
A traditional dessert is the Rosca de Reyes or Three King’s Cake and not dissimilar to ones baked all over New Orleans for Mardi Gras but usually without the colored sugar.  If you can’t get our hands on one, here’s a quick cinnamon ring that can be prepped up to a day ahead and put in the oven when the main course is finished.  It will be ready in time for dessert.

Cinnamon Ring
Dry Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Wet Ingredients
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup apple butter
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup apple cider
1/3 cup nonfat plain yogurt
3 tbsp. vegetable oil

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl, from flour through cinnamon. In a pint measuring cup, measure out and mix remainder of ingredients.  At this stage, ingredients may be set aside while dinner is put together. If prepared a day ahead, store wet ingredients covered in the refrigerator and dry ingredients can be covered and set aside or placed into a re-sealable plastic bag until needed.  Take the wet ingredients out about 1/2 hour before using.

Preheat oven to 400˚F (or leave oven on once chicken and rice is removed from oven).  Butter and sugar a coffee ring pan, Bundt pan or 24 muffin cups. 

I recommend using cinnamon sugar for this step, 4 parts sugar to one part cinnamon. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry, mixing until just combined.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan, filling the cavity about halfway up. 

Bake 12-15 minutes for muffin-cakes, 20-25 for minutes for a ring.  Turn the cake onto a rack to cool before sampling. The buttered-sugared pan makes it easy for the cake to slide out.

!Que te diviertas! Have fun!

¡Stop That! List and Love Your Food Again

Truly delicious food is chosen with care, prepared with love, if not actual expertise, and deserves to be consumed with gratitude and joy. Junk food is chosen quickly, prepared mindlessly and deserves far less, if any, of your attention.

Here are five things that you can change this year that will achieve long lasting change to your health and your lifestyle.  Just one will make an appreciable difference in the way you approach food and will remind you how delicious real food can be.  Start with just one and soon you may find yourself ready to tackle the others too.

Guilt
This year stop feeling guilt about food and learn to savor and enjoy it.  Nothing is more depressing at a meal with friends than hearing someone bemoan their choice and look for back-handed support. Do your friends a favor, don’t feed the fire of group support and if you are the offender don’t ask for anyone’s blessing to make you feel better.  Pick something real and don’t fuss. Do your part to bring joy back to the table.

Soda, Diet Soda
When I was growing up, soda was served like champagne.  That is, only on very special occasions like birthdays, Christmas, and the 4^th of July. In it’s flat state a few ounces were served to assuage the symptoms of an upset stomach. (Perhaps stemming from the days when ginger ale was made from ginger and colas were made from, well, you know.) Now we have all but replaced milk and water in our diets with soda. More seriously the diets of our children include soda on a regular basis.  It's not the inclusion of soda so much its displacement of more nutrient-dense beverages that may be causing the real harm for children.

This year we learned that diet sodas may contribute to our bodies misinterpreting hunger signals. Is soda really bad for you? Perhaps not. Should it be consumed in the quantities to which we have accustomed ourselves? Also, perhaps not. To those women who tell me that they only have one diet soda per day, but they must have that, I encourage you to rethink this food’s hold on you. Author and journalist Michael Pollan, shared some recent findings about the health of vitamin takers in his book What to Eat. It may not be the taking of vitamins that does us good but being the kind of person who takes vitamins since those people are found to have other healthy habits. Conversely, being the kind of person who needs to drink soda may not the person you want to be next year.

Sugared cereals
What do single-gram servings of sugar look like in the overall day of a child?  There are just over four grams of sugar per teaspoon. The World Health Organization recommends 12 grams of added sugar per day for adults who consume 2,000 calories daily. (The FDA has proposed 10 grams). That’s just about a tablespoon of added sugar per day. Those are adult levels. A single serving of a typical children's cereal is in the double digits. Making a change here will be significant. There are cereals out there that are low in sugar but they can be hard to find. This year, sample some new cereals and add your own sugar to taste. Chances are you will sprinkle on less than you were consuming before and you can make minor cutbacks over time to re-adjust your taste buds to a less sugary potion.

If you like hot cereals like oatmeal, farina or grits switch to plain versions and garnish with your own dried and fresh fruits plus honey or maple syrup.  Maple syrup has fewer than 3 grams of sugar per teaspoon and honey has 3.8 grams per teaspoon. Beware of individually prepackaged hot cereals with sugars and flavors added.   Make your own “instant” by briefly running the grain through a food processor.  Measure out individual portions in re-sealable (and reusable) plastic bags and use them just like the pre-packaged type.  You can even add a teaspoon of sugar and dried fruit.  Include your children in the creation of a house-brand of oatmeal and they will reward you by eating it.

Look-Alike Dairy Foods
I love low-fat dairy products and am glad to see choices like skim milk, low-fat cream cheese and low fat cheddars available at every supermarket.  However the oxymoronic fat-free half ‘n half and textured skim milks give me pause.  It is frankly alarming to select what one hopes is a healthier alternative only to read the ingredients in tiny letters on the back of the package and discover that many low fat, low sugar foods replace texture or flavor with artificial ingredients.  Give yourself time to accustom yourself to actual skim milk and you can skip the additives.  Enjoy the real thing in moderate portions and discover what feeling satisfied is like again.  A shot of real cream once a week will not kill you.  A daily shot of fillers and extenders may not be as kind to your system.

Flavored Yogurts
Although in the dairy category, yogurt gets its own special “stop that” section.  Yogurt is a wonder food that we have adulterated beyond recognition but somehow still believe is a healthy for us.  This year, stop eating flavored, sugared yogurts with extra additives and get to know the real thing.  Low-fat, no-fat and whole milk varieties can still be found though they are being elbowed out by “creamy” versions, enhanced and tarted up beyond the danger point.  Plain yogurt is a base food in many cultures from Greek yogurt dips like tzatzkiki made with cucumbers and garlic to Indian marinades like the one used to make tandoori chicken with lemon, coriander, cumin and other spices. Yogurt dips and plain yogurt take the edge off the heat of curries and other spicy dishes and are a great way to get your dairy and pro-biotic needs covered.

As a teenager in France I enjoyed plain yogurt for gouter (afternoon snack) with a sprinkling of sugar that provided a wonderful crunchy contrast to the fresh yogurt base.  Don’t be afraid of adding some sweetening to unflavored yogurts.   Maple syrup and dried blueberries are a great combination.  Also try mixing in an all-fruit jam.  And if you want pudding, have pudding.  Sugared yogurts that sound like desserts have too many “extras” and you might as well go ahead and enjoy a bowl of real chocolate pudding.  Same amount of sugar and the benefits of milk. Real yogurt, without gelatin and thickeners has a texture that is uniquely its own.  Light on the tongue and slightly tart, it is that quality that makes it such a good blend with so many flavors both sweet and savory. Last, stop spending your hard in cash on enhanced yogurt products—the real thing already has plenty of good digestive bacterial cultures already.

To wean yourself off “dessert yogurts” and back to the pleasures of real yogurt, try a Greek-style yogurt which are strained and have the whey removed.  Greek yogurts remind me of sour cream.  While I still prefer the taste and texture of plain unstrained yogurt, I love Greek-style on baked potatoes or anywhere sour cream goes.  Not bad with a touch of honey either.

Years ago a friend introduced me to a very different way to make New Year’s resolutions.  Instead of a no list, she had a yes list with things to try doing differently, try for the first time and try again.  (Martinis showed up on her list for several years.)  While the ¡stop that! list may at first appear to be a no list, look at it as a yes list too.  This year, try other beverages over soda, try a new hot cereal with some gorgeous fruit, try using real cream in something indulgent, try to make a curry with a yogurt dip on the side and above all try to enjoy yourself, your family and your friends around the table.

The post's photo was taken at Love Park in Philadelphia and shows Robert Indiana's iconic sculpture.