Oregano and Other Fresh Ingredients

You don’t have to be a wonderful cook to have great smells emanating from your kitchen.

Sure, masterful techniques are always a plus when it comes to making scrumptious dishes, but sometimes, your time is better spent in other ways, such as slowly browsing the aisles, making wise choices. Because cooking a great meal is like building a solid house: If you neglect the foundation, the result will be unexceptional.

The foundation of any dish is, of course, its ingredients. It’s tempting to buy two packs of cherry tomatoes for $1, but there’s a reason why produce costs you less than a pack of gum: Like with cars, its value depreciates over time. Thinking beyond your wallet can save you from the temptation of buying old ingredients and making mediocre food.

Fresh ingredients are easy to find: You can spot them at your local grocer or maybe your favorite gourmet shop.

Or, if you’re lucky and your mother comes visiting from abroad, bringing you all kinds of goodies, there might be a secret ingredient in the bag. OK, I confess: Today, I’m not here to talk about how to find fresh ingredients but to share an important lesson I learned about fresh ingredients. Last month, my mother came to visit me from Greece. The trip went well, but one of the highlights was what she left behind: Fresh handpicked oregano. I forgot about it for a few weeks, and it stayed safely tucked away in its glass bottle in the back of my cabinet. And then, one hungry night this week, as I scrambled to make dinner out of whatever was floating around in the fridge — which was not much, thanks to a busy workweek — I remembered the oregano.

So I chopped up and tossed all my findings together in a plate — tomatoes, onions, corn, carrots, feta, two tablespoons of ready made marinara — and to top it all off, a sprinkling of oregano. I placed the concoction in the microwave for a minute, and soon the kitchen began to smell as if there was a delicious Italian casserole in the oven. I still remember the oregano’s intoxicating aroma greeting me as I opened the microwave door.

Needless to say, the food was gone within five minutes. The meal tasted perfect and was made in minutes. And thanks to the oregano, just a simple spice, adding so much to the simple creation, my appetite was satisfied and I felt accomplished.

That’s the thing about fresh ingredients: No matter what the recipe, freshness tricks the senses — along with the self-esteem — into thinking that with just a bit of experience, we’ve perfected the skill of cooking. Of course, later when I came back to my senses, I realized that there’s much, much more to learn. Yet at the same time, I knew that I have one culinary principle down, and only an unknown number to go.

Because this realization, I believe, is truly a turning point in cooking careers: Fresh ingredients are always worth the money.

So here’s to salary raises.

Balancing Binges: Salsa-yogurt Tortilla Chips

Craving a carb-filled snack? A fatty burger? Or just a big plate of dripping, 3,000-calorie nachos?

We all have those days.

A balanced diet, though, is more than just consuming the right amount of vitamins and minimizing your intake of fats. Keeping the balance means finding an equilibrium of self-denial and some of the most inhumane cravings. Because true balance should take into account physical, emotional, and psychological needs. Sure an apple tastes great after a productive day and a fierce workout, but try your tummy with that same apple on a rainy day after a disappointing performance at work or a hot-blooded argument with a friend and then see what happens. Most likely, tummy will get upset and put up defenses, sending you rushing to the toilet faster than you can say “I’m sorry.”

To avoid such calamities and keep the peace, it’s wise to plan ahead for setbacks — or what we know as binges.

My own back-step came yesterday. After a long, stressful day on the job and a later trying of the self-esteem with dreadful thoughts of wearing a bikini on vacation, I got home deflated. The gym wasn’t going to cut it tonight and neither were any friend’s soothing words. Instead, I opened the fridge in search of a boost. Even the previous night’s delicious couscous didn’t make me blink.

But the bottle of spicy salsa did. Not only did I blink, but my eyes opened wide, and before I could change my mind, my fingers were wrapping around the cold bottle. And thanks to some half-eaten bag of tortilla chips in the cupboard, I found my consolation: Chips and salsa combined with reruns of Seinfeld.

Feet up on the coffee table and bag in hand, I started munching thoroughly. My roommate opened his door and walked towards the kitchen. At my crunching, he paused midway. “Is that your dinner?” he asked. I looked down at the crumbs on my shirt. “Yes,” I answered apathetically as I stuffed another chip in my mouth. Befuddled by the change of my behavior, he nodded in surprise and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving me alone with my less-than-cheerful thoughts.

And suddenly, I couldn’t take the emptiness I felt anymore. “What are you doing, Nat?” I questioned. As many chips as I tried to cover up my dissatisfaction with, something was still missing.

“Ah!” it suddenly dawned on me. “The sour cream!” After all, chips don’t come to life with JUST salsa.

And as if I had just had a million-dollar idea, I shot up and reached back into the fridge for sour cream.

Sour cream, which I dislike because most of its calories are fat calories that come from saturated fat. BUT, when you’re craving something, you’re craving it. And eating something else won’t change the fact that tummy wants what it wants, and neither will denying yourself everything altogether. But tricking your system with something similar to what it craves DOES work.

This is where my balance came in that night: Foreseeing such circumstances, I never buy fatty sour cream. So as I reached into the fridge, I grabbed the yogurt, did a double take, then shrugged, sat back down and opened the container. And from then on, it was easy. How easy? This much:

Salsa-yogurt Tortilla Chips
1. Grab a chip.
2. Dip in salsa and scoop.
3. Dip in yogurt, careful not to splatter the salsa, and scoop.
4. Eat.
5. Repeat.

Never in my life have I binged on so much calcium. By the end of my dinner, I realized that even old episodes of Seinfeld can be re-watched for the millionth time when delicious “unhealthy” snacks are transformed into beneficial treats and enjoyed guiltlessly in your own living room. Who would have thought that salsa and yogurt would do tortilla chips such justice?!

You see, food is not just about eating vitamins and minerals; it’s about keeping the mindset light, the ideas flowing. It’s about putting your heart into a simple idea, so that it, too, can return the favor and mollify your palate — and your mood.

And after all, tomorrow is another day for apples.

The Couscous Challenge

I love my job. Partly because I enjoy nitpicking the English language and partly because going through numbers of recipes and health-related articles every week fills me with bits of nutritional wisdom — and the desire to discover more.

Of course, being a copy editor doesn’t also make you a great cook. But with time, patience, and a healthy appetite, we all can learn.

The first step to a blooming learning process is curiosity. It was this nagging state of affairs that led me to wander down the pasta aisle of my local grocery store the other day, lingering between grains, waiting for heavenly inspiration to hit me with a stupendous dinner idea. And then I caught a glimpse of the calamitous crop that blighted my teenage years: couscous.

Growing up in a Mediterranean family comes with a mother who’s an excellent cook and obsesses with nutrition, and in the name of health, often feeds you the most odious concoctions. As fate had it, couscous, along with fish soup and bean soup — all nefarious substances to simple-minded youth — were a weekly given.

Though I slowly acquired a taste for all the rest, couscous remained a challenge. Even so, week after week, as I sat at the table for hours poking around my plate of smelly couscous, I certainly digested the fact that couscous is necessary. And yes, there’s no way around it, couscous is good for you. Packed with vitamins, minerals, calcium, and other nutrients, this grain guards digestive health and protects against disease.

So today, as I stared back at my childhood foe, I already smelled a new challenge: Buy it, squeeze the nutrients out of it — and find a way to enjoy it.

Images of food programs, cookbook illustrations, and even the creations of my college culinary-school-bound friend Martin popped into my head. Top chef, Saveur, wild rice — it was the latter that made me pause. Yes, I remembered that wild rice. It was a Wednesday, and Martin had found yet another way to make me change my mind and date him: creating magic with skinless chicken breasts and wild rice in the dorm kitchen. The taste had been good, but not great, in the end — and I, admittedly, may have left him to do the dishes. But what was now relevant to my situation was the color of that wild rice…white, with specks of brown. What was that brown?

Thanks to a Crunchy Breakfast recipe I had edited a week before, suddenly, I remembered a brown ingredient: flaxseed. These omega-3 fatty acid superstars, which contain countless of disease-fighting benefits, would enhance the benefits of couscous AND complement the look of the dish. So I grabbed a pack of flaxseed and headed out the store as soon as possible.

A few hours later, the familiar whiff arose in my kitchen. But it was a different smell this time. By then I had gotten more creative and added garlic and tomatoes into the pot. And it had all only taken me about 15 minutes. Now without further ado, I will share with you the how-to:

Ingredients
4 cups water
1/2 cup couscous
1/2 medium-sized onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 whole tomato, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
flaxseed

Directions
1. Boil water, then add couscous, oil, chopped garlic and seasonings.

2. Cook for several minutes, then add the onion and tomatoes.

3. After a few more minutes, add the flaxseed.

4. Let cook for no more than 7 minutes, then take out and carefully drain excess water.

The total cooking time was about 15 minutes. The flaxseed added a crunch to the couscous, while the tomatoes contributed a sweet, full taste — adding more superstar health points.

Yet in the end, I still wasn’t taken aback by the taste of couscous. Sitting at my kitchen counter, tasting the bits again, I felt like I had lost the challenge and was now stuck with a three-day supply of dreadful couscous. Something was missing.

Defeated, I wrapped up the food, and walked to my room. Yet it ate at me, and I couldn’t let it go. I logged on to this blog and wondered what I should write. And after aimless, misguided paragraphs, I decided to start from the beginning, retrace my steps, and understand the essential nature of what I had made.

And slowly, the idea hit me: I had cooked the couscous, and even though the pot had included other tasty things, the flavors had melded into one mild taste. And then came the solution: All the dish needed was a kick. A kick of fresh vegetables, a bit of spice, and maybe an added component for a full meal. Thank goodness for that bell pepper I had bought for a salad that had gone unmade what with couscous stealing the show that afternoon. And holy smokes, what luck that I still had another full tomato, the other half of the onion, AND — the secret ingredient — spicy jalapeños. And were those two chicken legs I spotted in the fridge?

You can guess the results, or you can look at the picture. And because both are equally good, I will continue the how-to, and share the success with you here:

Additions
1 whole tomato
6 (depending on taste) jalapeños
1/2 onion
2 chicken legs, baked, shredded

Just two things to keep in mind: Chop the tomato, jalapeños, and onion coarsely to keep the kick of the taste. Add the chicken legs and drizzle with olive oil — and a bit of lemon for more kicker points. By now, though, we’re so far ahead, that even without the lemon, we’ve won the challenge. Which, as it turns out, is not at all about winning or losing, or even mom’s dreadful recipe.

It’s about understanding the nature of what you’re cooking — and what you want to accomplish.

Baked Potato: Just as Good as Mom’s

The perfect baked potato is a subjective matter.

Some argue that the best potato can only be found at the top New York City restaurants — while others call those people fools, confident in their own knowledge of the true perfect baked potato: their mother’s own.

No matter what the reality, it’s true that mama’s food was always comforting. Which makes you wonder: What was it that always made it taste so good? Did she just know the perfect moment to make the perfect grub, or could she just know to create concoctions that maximized consolation in each specific situation? Most likely neither. Because most likely, our association is just that: an identification of our mothers with perfection, not just when it comes to oven-baked potatoes but to any kind of comfort food that pulls us out of the mire.

Freud might have bagan to speculate on the meaning of these associations here, but before he reaches some perverse conclusion in his grave, let’s stop him short. We know the secret ingredient. It’s not science, it’s fact: The oven time that mother cooked the potato is the time that she showered us with most-needed attention. Exactly one hour, after which, she sealed the deal by offering us that perfect potato.

The attention was, and still is, priceless. Yet time now is money — or so claims our boss, who happens to distribute to us that biweekly salary — and as warm and fuzzy the combination of potatoes and mother’s kisses makes you, sometimes, you just can’t bother. Between work, drinks, shopping, bills, and sleep, you just don’t have time to cook.

Relax. Now there IS time to relax, because there is a secret to achieving equal baked potato success twelve times faster than mom managed to in the past. It’s all thanks of an appliance that, just like the computer, may still be a technological advancement to her. And that, of course, is the microwave.

And since times have now changed, the microwave — using less than half the energy that an oven does — is now the knight in shining armor of our eco-conscious era. That’s why this novel baking method works best: Not only do you save time, but also energy — and money on your bills. Read on:

Ingredients
1 midsized potato
salt and pepper to taste
sour cream (optional)

The How-to
1. Wash potato well, without peeling it.
2. With sharp knife, make 15 incisions in potato. (Caution: Stab gently; do not take out work-related stress or misdirected anger on potato, lest you cut off a digit.)
3. Place in microwave; bake for five minutes.
4. Slice potato in middle; add salt, pepper, sour cream, butter, bacon bits or whatever is desired. Let cool.

Some things never change. While your mother’s attitude toward you may have changed as the years have passed and you have weened yourself off (hopefully!), the baked potato can still taste the same. So multitask freely and bake away. And most of all — no matter what your mother calls to complain about this time — enjoy.

Hearty and Healthy Fava Beans

It’s no secret that beans give you gas.

Yet aside from this noxious side effect, beans and legumes offer other benefits relating to health, taste, and — with more frequent inclusion in the diet — less gas.

The tastiest kind? Fava beans. Enjoyed by Egyptians 5,000 years ago, this type of bean is acclaimed as the most meaty-tasting and is a great source of protein — a good resource even for vegetarians. One serving, which is usually one-third of a cup, contains only about 80 calories, zero cholesterol, and little fat. It’s a good source of B vitamins, fiber, and potassium, too, thus promoting digestive health, preventing colon cancer, and reducing  cholesterol. And if you’re constipated, there’s no cure more natural than the fava bean.

How do you pick them out? Favas are sold fresh, dried, and canned. Fresh favas should be crisp-looking and stay fresh if stored in the refrigerator for no longer than a week. Dried, on the other hand, can stay fresh for up to a year in airtight glass containers.

So what do you do after you pick up your fava beans? For quick and easy cooking, you might find the following recipe useful. It’s a simple one, learned from my mother, who is a wonderful Mediterranean cook. When I was a little girl, in my home country, fava beans cooked in tomato sauce and olive oil were popular not only in Greek taverns by the beach, but also at lunchtime at home. Here’s how to make them:

Ingredients
1 cup fava beans
2 tbsp olive oil
1 can tomato sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
1. Bring saucepan with six cups of water to high heat, until the water boils.
2. Drop fava beans in water. Boil for fifteen minutes.
3. Lower heat to medium, and leave beans until soft.
4. Pour tomato sauce and olive oil over beans.
5. Add salt and pepper, and keep checking beans until they reach desired tenderness.

When done, add the cooked fava beans as a side dish to a main course, or have them as a main course themselves. Either way, you’ll be getting the nutrients you need while enjoying a delicous meal.

Who knew scrumptious and healthy could be found in one — and be so easy to make!?