GIRLS LOVE THE TASTE AND THE LOW CALORIES

Lately we’ve been hosting Brazilian girls and not Japanese girls. Naturally, like any  other 20-something female, the Brazilian Beauties are interested in not gaining weight while they are in the States. I tell them not to worry: I am famous at NESE for being the host mother who cooks the healthiest food and the girls who stay with me actually lose weight.

In addition to being sweet, smart and having that attractive, lilting accent, the Brazilians are truly head turners. My daughter, who went to a large American city high school in Cambridge, where the student population speaks 28 languages ( other than English) backs up my statement about Brazilian Beauty.  She said when a group of  Brazilians ( boys and girls) entered the cafeteria at lunch time the clatter stopped, all went silent, and everyone’s heads turned to look.

Here is my recipe for a Low Calorie, tasty salad dressing that the Brazilian girls like.  Ironically, the largest ethnic population in Brazil is the Japanese. I adapted this salad dressing from the recipe my favorite local Japanese restaurant, THE BLUE FIN at Porter Exchange, uses on their fresh greens.

LOW-CALORIE JAPANESE RESTAURANT SALAD DRESSING

• I  large carrot grated
• 1/2  medium red onion, or 1 small red onion grated or finely chopped ( I use food processor)
• 1 t ginger juice, squeezed from grated ginger
• 1T white miso
• 2T vegetable oil ( use soy OR grape seed oil Or vegetable oil , not a strong tasting oil)
• juice of one tangerine or orange, about 2 T
• 1 t ketchup
• 1 t mayonnaise
• 1T water

10 servings 40  (24 gram or about 2 T)  calories each

ON GRATERS:  I use several graters to make this.  First,  a porcelain grater made in Japan: it’s dessert- plate sized, and has bumps in the middle. ( see photo at end of paragraph).  You could use a cheese grater, I suppose, or a fine blade in a food processor.  Second, to grate the ginger, I use a metal ginger grater called oroshi-gane, also purchased at a Japanese store. You grate the ginger, scoop up a pile of the grated ginger pulp and squeeze it to get the juice. Third,to grate the onion, I use the food processor.

MY GREAT JAPANESE GRATER

HOW TO MIX : Grate the carrot well, by hand on the Japanese porcelain grater. Chop the onion and put in a food processor. Process until onion is finely chopped and that will do for grating.  Add the grated carrot to the finely chopped onion.  Squeeze the ginger juice into the onion-carrot mix. Add the miso, oil and juice of one freshly squeezed orange or tangerine. (You can supplement with addition OJ, if you like more watery dressing). Pulse everything in the food processor.  Add the ketchup,  mayo, and water. Pulse.

Store in glass jar. Keeps 5-7 days.

BLUEFIN RESTAURANT, CAMBRIDGE, MA http://www.bluefin-cambridge.com/

where to buy:

Round Porcelain grater with rubber bottom

• http://www.simply-natural.biz/Porc-Grater-Round.php
• http://www.naturalimport.com/inc/sdetail/7922
• http://www.kushistore.com/Round-Porcelain-Grater-6-KW006.htm

Place to buy oroshi-gane  http://www.fine-tools.com/kitchen.htm ( also via Amazon)

PEAR NOT PUMPKIN!!Matt, Mariana, Pumpkin, and Me

We had a special and very lovely Brazilian staying with us through October and she was so excited when I made anything really American, like pumpkin pie. I can only imagine how happy she would be to taste this very simple Pear Torte made with fresh organic pears from our farm share.

•  2 eggs
• 1/4 cup milk, or soy milk
• 1 T  honey
• pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 2 pounds pears

9” layer cake pan buttered and sprinkled on bottom and sides with breadcrumbs.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Peel the pears, cut them in half, and scoop out the seeds in the center with a melon baller or spoon.  Cut the pears thinly.

In a bowl mix the eggs, the milk & honey, and pinch of salt.  Add the flour. Stir until everything is moist. Stir in the pears and mix gently until  each pear slice is coated with the cake batter.

Arrange pears in the prepared cake pan. You’ll have to press the pears down with the back of a big spoon.

Bake on the top rack of the oven for 45 minutes.

Let cool and flip the cake onto a plate so the breadcrumbs are the top. Serve warm.

8 servings  179 calories a serving

cabbage pieces penetrate the rigatoni

Cabbage pieces penetrate the rigatoni interior

Every fall my family prepared “bagna calda,” a luscious Italian communal vegetable dip meal. We dipped slices of fall vegetables  in a hot concotion of olive oil, butter, lots and lots of garlic and anchovies. Joke was none of the family teens could go out on a date after a “bagna calda” meal because their breath would haunt all non-Italians, particularly a non-Italian who hadn’t also eaten “Bagna Calda” for dinner.

My favorite vegetable to dip into the bagna calda pot was cabbage. The fecund earthiness of the cabbage and its crisp round watery snap, the heaviness of oil, salty anchovies, and pungent , stinky garlic.  Just perfect.

So. Finding several newly harvested cabbage heads in my refrigerator, garlic, anchovies and gallon tank of high quality olive oil in my pantry, I thought: hmmm– bagna calda pasta. Why hadn’t I thought to make it years ago?

Here it is in all its glory. Totally delicious, garlicky and incestuously restrictive in its kissing aftereffects. Meaning: you’ll want to stay home and kiss who ever ate dinner with you. In my case, my husband.

• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 T butter or ghee
• 4 cloves garlic diced
• 1 tin flat anchovies
• 1/2 large head of cabbage chopped into small squares
• 5 basil leaves ripped into small pieces
• 15 peppercorns crushed
• 1 lb. rigatoni

In a your largest skillet saute the garlic for a few minutes in the oil and ghee before adding the anchovies. Put lid over the skillet after adding the anchovies so you won’t have to clean your stove top.  The anchovies cause splatter.

Add the cabbage. The reason it’s chopped into small squares is so that some of the cabbage will slip inside the rigatoni holes. If the cabbage is cut too large, or too long, this merging of cabbage with rigatoni interior space won’t happen.

Fold  the oil over the cabbage and saute for a few minutes. The put the lid over the skillet. turn off the heat and let the cabbage cook for about 3-4 minutes. Check it.  Cabbage should be soft but still crisp, green but not raw. Add the ripped pieces of basil.  Then take the lid off the skillet or else the cabbage will continue to cook and be soggy and limp. NOt what we want.

When the rigatoni is cooked, reserve a half cup of the cooking water. Add the rigatoni to the cabbage/garlic/anchovy mix.  Fold the vegetables from the bottom of the skillet to the top. Don’t be too aggressive. Add the hot water from the pasta pot, crush the pepper cornsand add to the skillet. Fold a bit more.

Serve. ( NO cheese!!)

It is so good!

RISO, PATATE E COZZE  ( RICE, POTATO AND MUSSELS) was the absolutely best food I prepared in 2010: no one seated around the dining room table could stop eating.  We were in a collective taste trance, sated nonetheless, but unable to stop eating.

Please note: I will wonder for days and months why I did not discover this taste combination sooner so I could savor it more days of my life.

Here it is.  My “Pugliese” daughter Raffaella, will be proud of me, I hope, that I shared this recipe from her part of the world. I have modified a bit, using a combo of brown rice and Arborio rice.

Assemble the ingredients in bowls, so that you can put the dish together, like an artist,  with loving emotion and the anticipation of the delight of the  end result.

RISO PATATE E COZZE

• 3/4 cup  short grain brown rice, rinsed and soaked for 4 plus hours. Then par-boil the rice in a pot with a lid.  Let the rice sit while you are slicing the onions and potatoes.
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and left for 4 hours in 5 Tablespoons olive oil
• 3/4 cup Arborio (or Canaroli or Vialone nano) rice rinsed and soaked for 4 hours
• A bag of mussels ( about 3-4 lbs) Rinsed. Remove any “beard” from the shell–though in these days of mussel farming we rarely see beard.Discard mussels with open or broken shells.
• 2 medium red onions sliced very thin
• 4 waxy yellow potatoes sliced very thin
• I can ( 14.5 oz) diced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley, seasoned with sea salt and pepper
• 3/4 cup grated pecorino cheese
• 4 T extra virgin olive oil

Once everything is assembled, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cook mussels in a bit of boiling water to open them. Get rid of any mussels that do not open. Reserve the liquid, straining ti through a fine sieve to get rid of any sand or shell pieces. Set aside.  ( If you are using straight from the sea mussels you can open them as if they are oysters and do not bother to boil them.)

Drain the rice, reserving the rice liquid.  Mix the brown and white rices together.  Mix the rice soaking water with the mussel water.

So you have assembled bowls containing: 1) tomato, 2) potato, 3) onion, 4) cheese, 5) wet rice, 6) seasoned parsley, 7) rice soaking water combined with mussel cooking liquid, olive oil tinged with garlic, 9) olive oil, 10) mussels ( on the counter, no need for a bowl).

Put 2T of olive oil into a large ovenproof casserole. I use my Le Crueset 4.5 quart Dutch Oven.  A  clay pot works nicely. You need a heavy pan that you can both put on the stove top and bake. Arrange a thin layer of onion covered by a thin layer of potato over the bottom of the casserole dish. Place 6-10 pieces of diced tomato on top. Sprinkle with seasoned parsley.  Arrange a few mussels in their half shell ( or whole shell, if you want to save time), followed by a handful of wet rice and a sprinkling of pecorino.  Drizzle some of the garlic seasoned olive oil on top.  Continue to build up the layers finishing with potato, tomato and pecorino.

Drizzle on remaining 2 T olive oil.  Carefully pour the rice/mussel water down the sides of the prepared dish until the liquid reaches up to the potato layer. (Push the contents down to see the water level.) Put the oven proof dish, with a lid or without a lid ( I use a lid),  on a heat diffuser on top of the stove, and heat until the water comes to a boil.  Remove from top of stove and put the casserole in the oven.  Bake for 40 minutes.  Check after 30 minutes to make sure it is not too dry, which might be the case if you do not have a lid for your ovenproof casserole.

Remove from oven after 40 minutes and let sit for at least an hour before serving.

What to serve with RISO PATATE E COZZE?  Today I have steamed bok choy with a garlic and tahini sauce ( I used the leftover garlic cloves from above recipe); a sweet and sour steamed zucchini side dish; sliced turnip pickled in tarmari.  For dessert: I baked apples to take advantage of the oven being hot.

thumbs up: 'espaguete' with anchovies

Vinicius, a young man from Sao Paola Brazil who had never seen snow stayed with us for a month in January. Vinicius is not a typical name anywhere, not even in Brazil.  It means “vine,” mostly likely referring to a grape vine and wine, and victory. A sunny name. A warm name.  A long name;  I asked if I could call him Vinny.  He laughed “Vinny?” he repeated, obviously not to happy to hear my request. It wasn’t a nickname he wanted, and I later found out that absolutely no one called him Vinny.  His mother called him V. “Just V,” he told me. “Is the short name  I prefer.” I  called him Vinicius.

His mother was of Italian descent . He ‘skyped’ her every day. According to the Italian government Brazil is home to the largest number of Italians outside of Italy itself–25 million. Unlike here in the States, the Italians merged and mingled seamlessly into Brazilian society, a country characterized by lack of xenophobia and a warm, spontaneous and sensual population.

“Oh my god!” were the first English words Vinicius said to us when he stepped into our entry hall. His shoulders were heavily dusted with an inch of snow.  He had had to drag his suitcase from the street up  our unshoveled sidewalk.  There there was nothing gentile about the blizzard that accompanied his arrival.

But , I though, how odd!  Vinicius was wearing serious  snow boots, a down jacket , a flap-ear knit cap and insulated gloves. Did he buy all that gear in Sao Paolo, where the average mean temperature is 75 degrees?  ( I found out days later that his mother had a brother in Chicago who had sent the clothing in a box to Brazil: so he could be prepared.)

In January, it snowed and snowed again. Vinicius was a handsome boy who wore expensive rimless glasses. He had small ears and his left eye was slightly larger than his right.  Each morning he piled on layers of insulated outer garments and trudged like a stuffed animal out the door.  At first the white stuff mesmerized him, but he soon got tired of being cold. In Brazil he liked to surf and play volleyball on the beach. Wear t-shirts. Visit old people in their home and perform skits to make them happy. A nice boy for sure.

Since he was good at surfing, we figured he’d like snowboarding and one Sunday sent him off with a group of young people to a mountain in Maine. He returned without his knit cap and his arm in a sling.

“Oh, no.” I said.

After dusting snow from his coat, he proceeded to peel off his gloves, boots, coat, and kept going. Removing his sweater, t-shirt, stripping down to his bare cream-with coffee colored skin skin to stand next to the brightest light in the living room and show us how us how his shoulder blade had separated from his arm.

Bare skin. Vulnerability. Trust. This boy felt safe in our home.  We put together an ice bag, fed him and and gave him OTC pain pills.  The next morning I dropped him at the emergency room so he could get an x-ray.

The evening before he left ( going to Chicago to be even more cold than he was in Boston;  to visit the uncle who had sent him the coat), we made Vinicius a special farewell dinner, a simple and tasty pasta, which is also one of my husband’s favorite pasta.

SPAGHETTINI WITH ANCHOVIES

• 1 lb. spaghettini (spaghetti or linguine will also work)
• 1/2 cup extra virgin oil
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1  cup fresh bread crumbs
• 4 anchovy fillets in oil or brine, drained
• Salt and pepper
• 1 T finely chopped parsley

1. Bring a large pan of water to boil.  Add salt and the spaghettini and cook until al dente.
2. Meanwhile. heat the oil in a large frying pan. Add the garlic; cook a few minutes.  Add the anchovies; cook and mash.  Add the breadcrumbs and stir until the breadcrumbs start to change color.
3. Drain the spaghettini and add to the pan with a little of the cooking water.
4. Toss over high heat for a few minutes.  Check for salt. In most cases you will not need to add salt. Add fresh ground pepper to taste.
5. Transfer to a warmed serving platter–unless your frying pan is a good looking one like mine.  Sprinkle with parsley and serve immediately, very hot.

Serves 4

host mom, dyana & tour guide at Forest Institute in Dehradun

Dyana, the beautiful and very smart Indian woman who lived with me 2006-2007 while she was at Harvard School of Education and who I traveled with on a goodwill mission in India adored this pie. So I made it for her today; she is arriving in Boston after a long flight from Delhi which had many mishaps and delays.

As you know from past post, Dyana loves sweets. The sweet in this pie  is supplied by the fruit and a bit of raisin, maple syrup and a dribble of cognac. It’s easy to make. As you can see from the photo, just fold the crust over into the fruit without pinching the rim.

I am famous in Cambridge for hosting international students who lose weight rather than gain weight while in the USA.  And they eat a lot while losing weight. This was true with Dyana.
Preheat the oven to 350

• Prepared crust
• 4 cortland or macintosh apples
• 1/4 cup apple cider, apple juice, orange juice, or pomegranate juice (whatever juice you have but….please, never V8 or tomato juice)
• 1 1/2 T flour
• 1/3 t cinnamon
• 1T Grand marnier, cognac, whiskey, or grappa. If you don’t have or believe in liquor, add an additional T of juice or water.
• 1 T raisins
• 1 T maple syrup (optional)
• 1/4 cup water

Place the crust into 9-inch pie plate.Wash apples and slice into thin wedges. I cut right through the middle of the apple and carve out around the seeds after slicing.  It’s less work & waste than coring first. Put apples in a bowl with juice, flour, cinnamon, raisins, maple syrup.  Mix well.

Arrange apple slices inside the pie plate. Gently fold crust in towards the fruit. Place  a loose foil “lid” over top of pie.

Bake  at350 for one hour, turn down heat to 300 and bake another hour. Depending on the water content of the apples ( fresh fall apples have a lot of water, Jan-February apples have less water) you may add an additional 1/4 cup water to the pie after an hour. Check after the first hour.

I sometimes glaze the pie for gloss.  Here’s how: Melt 1 t jelly and 1 t water in the microwave for 33 seconds.  Brush it on the top of the pie. If you don’t have a food brush you can use the back of a teaspoon.

Kiki in Indonesia

HANDBOOK 2010

Health:
1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
4. Live with the 3 E’s — Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy
5. Make time to pray
6. Play more games
7. Read more books than you did in 2009
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day
9. Sleep for 7 hours.
10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk daily. And while you walk, smile.

Personality:
11. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

12. Don’t have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don’t over do. Keep your limits.
14. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake.
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
18. Forget issues of the past. Don’t remind your partner with His/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don’t hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree…

Society:
25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything.
28. Spend time w/ people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

Life:
32. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. GOD heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change..
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37. The best is yet to come..
38. When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for it.
39. Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy.

Last but not the least:
40. Please Forward this to everyone you care about, I just did.

Me & Dyana in Jaipur

Years back we were blessed with a beautiful Indian homestay student, who lived with us during her year as a Ford Fellow at Harvard. Dyana and I developed a strong friendship that holds on tight to this day. In 2007, we travelled through India together, visited holy and tourist sites and drove deep into the Himalayas on an educational/humanitarian jaunt to give away writing supplies to children who didn’t have any.

Today, while I was making cookie dough for Christmas, I thought about Dyana. Being raised Hindu, Dyana anticipated celebrating Christmas for the first time–with Christians– and particularly looked forward to the sweets that were coming. My mother-in-law Betty was also coming. Dyana seriously expected I was a nervous wreck. “Do you want me to help you clean the house?” she asked. “You have to have everything perfect for the mother-in-law.”

An American mother-in-law is but a whisper compared to the powerful tsunami of an Indian mother-in-law; she blows especially hard in the household of her eldest son. Indian TV is ripe with soap operas & prime time shows featuring wicked mother-in-laws who bestow beatings, food deprivation and forced floor scrubbing on their beautiful daughter-in-laws. One well-educated woman I met in Delhi–a Sanskrit scholar and a friend of Dyana’s– was beaten regularly by not only her mother-in-law, but also her husband and father-in-law for producing three daughters. They wanted boys.

By choice, Dyana managed to skip the marriage and with it the mother-in-law stuff. This news surprises everybody who knows anything about Hindu culture. I think she slipped through the cracks not only because she’s very smart  and well-educated but mostly because when she was a child she tumbled down a flight of stairs at a shrine and landed on Shiva’s sword. The fall resulted in blood loss, unconsciousness, a big cut across her forehead, but not death. She had been chosen to do something important… not make cookies!  But I taught her how to make these biscotti anyway. It’s a family recipe, handed down to me from my grandmother.

Nonna’s Biscotti

Mix & cream together:

• 1/2 pound butter
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 eggs

Sift together dry ingredients and add to butter & eggs:

• 7 cups flour, or more
• 1 t sea salt
• 6 t baking powder

Mix together and add at the end:

• 1/2 cup whisky
• 2 t vanilla
• *1 oz anise extract OR 1/3 t anise oil * never use old extract, it has no life, no taste.

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour baking sheets.  Divide dough into 4 equal pieces.  I weigh the pieces to be sure they are even.  Shape into loaves that are 1” high and 2 1/2 “ wide.

Bake 30-35 minutes.  Cool slightly.  Cut diagonally into biscotti.  Put slices back onto the tray for a second bake.  Bake an additional 15 minutes.

NET FIVE INSTALLMENTS ON AMERICAN HOST MOTHER ARE ABOUT DYANA, OUR INDIAN STUDENT

Our Homestay students, who are not Asian, have a choice but they usually opt to learn how to use the chopsticks. Dani, a Mexican was dumfounded. “I never thought a person could pick up a bean with a chopstick!” she said.

I have to remind the students that not all American families use chopsticks or serve rice and seaweed. They sure are glad I do: after a couple of weeks in the States all their classmates gain weight because they are eating the typical American fare of pizza, burghers and macaroni and cheese.  My girls stay slim! (recipe follows)

For the past ten years, I have kept a “mostly” macrobiotic household–eating whole grains and lots of vegetables. Macrobiotic food stems from a Japanese philosophy of yin and yang. Without too much explanation, I provide a simple explanation: peasant foods, noting exotic or highly spiced , oiled or sweetened.

I prepare arame and make quickly pickled salads. The seaweed keeps metabolism up to snuff and the enzymes in the pressed salad (like pickles) aid digestion. What better foods could you ask for if you want to remain slim and trim like the lovely Japanese girls who have graced my life?

Seaweed and pickles: secrets to slimness

ARAME WITH SUNFLOWER SEEDS

2 handfuls of arame, wash to remove any shells that might still be attached ( I never find any) and soak for a few minutes.

3/4 cup apple juice

1 cup sunflower seeds, washed and toasted in a cast iron skillet; you will put half of the sunflowers in a suribachi (and grind by hand. If you do not have a suribachi you can use a food processor but do not grind seeds to total smoothness)

1 teaspoon shoyu

1 teaspoon wasabi

1/2 cup chopped chives, or scallions if chives are out of season

Drain soaked arame and place in saucepan with apple juice. Simmer 15 minutes. When cooking liquid is gone, add the shoyu, wasabi and chives. Stir. Add the sunflower seed paste and the sunflowers. Garnish with parsley sprig.

Serve as a side dish.

PRESSED SALAD

1/2 cup sliced cucumbers

1/2 cup sliced Chinese cabbage

1/2 cup sliced radish

1/4 cup sliced celery

1/4 up red onion

1 teaspoon sea salt

Mix all chopped vegetables in a large bowl. Add salt and gently massage the salad until they begin to sweat, turn shiny and release liquid.  Place a weight on the vegetables: I use a dinner plate that fits inside the bowl, then I put a few rocks or canned goods on top of the plate so that pressure is exerted on the vegetables. Allow the salad to sit under pressure for 45 minutes to 3-4 hours.  A significant amount of water will be released.  Discard the pressing water. Rinse off the vegetables so that they do not taste salty.  Squeeze out extra water.

Serve plain, or sprinkle with lemon juice, rice vinegar, or a simple dressing made with sesame oil, a tiny bit of shoyu and rice vinegar. Of course,you can use bottled dressing but just a little so as not to override the healthy developed enzymes with fat.