Rachael Ray's Blog, page 91

Eye Brow Enhancement Through Color

As a colorist there’s no law you must go by when it comes to lightening or darkening your brows. However, there are a few guidelines that should be followed for the best results. Gaby Bowen from our Cutler 57th St. salon is here to share some insight on the topic.

My personal preference is giving the brows a natural shape and softening them. This is a great way to open your eyes and brighten your face and it’s perfect for summer.

If you’re a blonde and you want to go lighter try to avoid going lighter then 1 1/2 shades. Avoid color that has golden tones in it, as it will turn your brows orange. I prefer to stick to ash (cool) tones to lighten even if your hair is gold it will look more believable. For a more natural look keep brows dark (or the same) to not look washed out. A good rule of thumb, eye brow color should match the darkest color in your hair (for example the base or root color). If needed, only ¼-1/2 a level lighter to take the edge off.

Another guide to follow is if you’re a red head or a warm blonde, I advise not to put the same color on your brows that is on your head. They don’t need to be too matchy; only ½-1 level lighter and should never be as golden/warm as your hair. With someone that takes their hair darker then their natural color, your goal is to go a bit lighter than your base to compliment your natural tones.

Of course, there are those out of this world fantasy colors that are amazing and beautiful. Now, if your personality can pull this off, dying your brows a fantasy color is awesome! Turquoise, pink, pale yellow etc., but before you do this you must remember to lift them to a pale blonde. I recommend using facial bleach.

Things to keep in mind before coloring your brows:

· Shape (wax, threat, or tweeze) at least 24hrs prior to coloring, as it could cause irritation to the skin.

· If you have sensitive skin, ask for a barrier or conditioning cream to reduce irritation.

· Coloring your eyebrows can help add depth to overplucked or thinning eyebrows.

· Make sure the eyebrow color applicator is something like a mascara wand so it will penetrate thoroughly.

Moving And Mussels My Way

My family and I are in the middle of packing to move to a new house and chaos doesn’t even begin to describe our state of living right now. It’s OK because I expected moving house with a three and a one year old to be an utter mess and overall we are doing pretty well. We are down to the wire with just under one week left in our old house so it’s do or die time in terms of packing.  Anyone who’s moved before knows there’s this weird moment towards the end when you have to decided what basics you need to take out and what is safe to pack. I’ve packed up most of my cooking equipment save for a few basic pots, plates and cups.

Since most of our life is trapped inside card board boxes, this past month we’ve stuck to simple meals like pasta bolognese and chicken cutlets. Simple meals have been saving my sanity during a very stressful time since I’m so dog tired after packing and running around with the kids that the thought of cooking and cleaning was making me lose my mind. Since we are days away from the day, this past week we’ve been eating a lot of take-out. At first, it was kind of fun because we rarely do it, but after a few days it was starting to wear on us. Even a few days of take-out can make you feel all yucky inside and certainly hits your wallet hard too. On top of that, we exhausted our already limited options for take-out so when it came to figuring out dinner for tonight, I was not in the mood to phone in dinner yet again.

I know in my heart that delicious food can be easy so I mustered up some strength and decided to make the family mussels and serve it with a nice hunk of crusty bread. Mussels are fairly inexpensive and can be made in under 10 minutes and you feel like you are eating like a king. Simple, delicious and best of all—one pot!! Dinner was just perfect and we all felt a little better having something home cooked. It definitely gave us the sustenance we needed to continue our packing marathon but it gave us something else too—each other. Instead of eating food from paper boxes and running around like crazy people, we actually sat down and enjoyed our meals and our family. We sat around the table sopping up the mussel broth remembering the times we had in our current house and talking about the plans we have for our future home. We needed this meal in more ways than one and once again I am reminded that the family meal is more powerful than the sum of it’s ingredients and I’m thankful because regardless of what’s going on in our lives, no moment, past or future is as important as the present and especially when it’s spent with the ones you love.

Mussels My Way

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large leek, finely chopped
1 large shallot finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 plum tomatoes, diced small 2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 cups dry white wine
1 1/2 cups low sodium chicken stock
3 lbs mussels, cleaned

Instructions:

1. In a large stockpot heat butter and olive oil over medium heat. Add in leeks, shallots and garlic and cook until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add in the tomatoes, salt, pepper and white wine. Allow the wine boil for a bit to let some of the alcohol burn off, about 1-2 minutes before adding in the chicken stock. Bring to a boil.

2. Add in the mussels and stir well. Cover the pot and continue cooking over medium heat for 8-10 minutes or until mussels have opened. Serve mussels hot along side crusty bread.

Christina Stanley-Salerno is a mama, recipe developer, food stylist, photographer and blogger atTakeBackYourTable.com. She loves cooking for and with her family. Life is hectic, but Christina is passionate about mealtime because she believes that family meals are the glue that holds everyone together. Creating simple, quick and healthy meals is her specialty and her trick to keeping the family meal a reality, even on busy weeknights.

Follow her on Twitter @TakeBackTables

Confessions of a Salt Whore

Madness. What you see up there is madness. It’s a kind of mania, a shameful paraphilia, a form of hoarding. I am a salt whore. I can’t say no to any form of sodium chloride; my judgment and my self-respect desert me and I claw at every new product that presents itself. What’s worse, I don’t just collect these salts; I use them regularly, and even worse, I actually think of recipes as a pretext for using them.

The reason should be obvious, to anyone who likes to cook or eat meat. Salt is to the palate what cocaine is to the brain - a dangerous white powder that adds unearned excitement to everything it touches. But not all salts are the same, as that bath-salt zombie found out. They have different uses, different sizes, different applications, and different qualities. So I thought, looking at my freakish salt cabinet, that I might use it as a primer for the Mother of All Seasonings.

There are three basic applications for salt: seasoning, crusting, and finishing. Seasoning for cooking; it’s when you just want something to taste saltier, and don’t care about texture. Adding table salt to pasta water is an example of this. Crusting is what you’ve seen chefs sprinkle, usually from a great height and with dramatic flourishes, on meat before they cook it. Finishing is what you do when food is all done and plated, and you want to give it some extra oomph (or get salt on the exposed surface of sliced-up meat for the first time.) I’ll go through my salts, classifying them by their primary use.

Kosher Salt. The big red box, and the round container next to it, are kosher salt. Kosher salt is coarse, but not as coarse as sea salt. It’s perfect crusting salt, but also a great option as a seasoning and finishing salt. My grandmother kept a bowl of this next to the stove, and another dish of it on the table, and that was the only salt she kept in the house. Nobody complained.

Morton table salt. This is the salt we all grew up around, and continue to see in salt shakers. It’s a seasoning salt, and it works. I only use it for salting pasta water. I find it hard to manipulate, and it’s useless for meat.

FalkSalt is a new specialty product, and, as it happens, a sponsor of Meatopia. It’s a very pure Mediterranean sea salt that forms very large, delicate crystals. These are purely finishing salts; you put a tiny pinch on food, and it delivers both texture and also small but concentrated bursts of flavor. It’s so good I put it on pudding and crème brulee. I like the plain version, but there is a red chili version that adds heat as well, and a smoked version too. The plain version is the best. I like this salt so much I eat it as a snack. Isn’t that terrible?

Malden Salt is the most well known of the large crystalline salts. It’s English, and expensive, but incredibly flaky and fine. I always feel like I should be using it more, but when I do, I never like it as much as kosher salt. I can’t figure it out. It’s another pure finishing salt.

Fleur de Sel is a finishing salt of suprassingly pure taste. Most of your high-end steak restaurnts, when they serve steak, serve it with fleur de sel. A little goes a long way, and it has an unmistakable minerality which tastes of the sea. It’s too big to crust with, I think, but some people have tried, especially with fish - seeing as how fish swim in the sea and eveyrthing.

Kalas salt. A great seasoning salt. It tastes as good as fleur de sel, and it’s almost as fine as Morton. (Nothing is as fine, in the technical sense, as Morton salt, which is one of the things I hate so much about it.) Kalas is also one of the cheapest salts I have; I recommend it strongly for both cooking and table use.

Himlayan salt. You’ll see a grinder there; I have Himalayan rock salt in there, which, to be honest, doesn’t taste much like anything. I think people like it for its color more than anything else. The grinder seemed like a way for me to control the texture, but its results are unreliable, with even the coarsest setting producing some fine powder.

Bourbon Smoked Sea Salt. This interesting product was given to me by Sean Brock, and it has a distinctive taste; but it’s big and I can’t quite figure out how to use it. I’ve tried it on roast chickens, but it’s really too big to stick to anything. I may crust a steak with it. Honestly, I wish I liked it more.

Seasonello. This Bolognese product is a standard grilling seasoning used in Italy all the time, but to find it in America you generally have to go specialty importers. It’s worth the trip. It’s accented with rosemary and other herbs, and when you put some good olive oil on a black bass or a pork chop and sprinkle this crusting salt, you are good to go. Every household ought to have one.

Sicilian Smoked salt. I actually have four kinds of smoked salt: the bourbon stuff, the FalkSalt (also good), another one on the far left that you can’t really see, and this Sicilian product, given to me my New York spice guru Mr. Recipe. Recipe tells me that the magical taste of this product is a result of its comparatively light smoking, which is suggestive without being overpowering, and its high magnesium content, which gives it umami power, similar to Mr. Recipe’s porcini powder. I like this one a lot and use it very sparingly both as a crusting and a finishing salt.

Hibiscus salt. I have never used this. I don’t really like it. I don’t even know what hibiscus is, to tell you the truth. A kind of flower? This stuff looks pretty, but give me Diamond kosher salt every time. And a lot of it. Always more. I can never get enough.

Brownie Pie

For the past five years I organized an annual 5K race on Father’s Day, which meant that my husband never really had a Father’s Day. I was working around the clock for the week prior to the event, and then after the event I came home and basically collapsed into a comatose heap, pausing only to eat the pizza he served me. 2011 was the final year of the race so this year we had a real Father’s Day. I made ribs, homemade baked beans, coleslaw, corn on the cob, corn bread, and this brownie pie for dessert. So I was still collapsing into a comatose heap at the end of the evening, but at least we didn’t have pizza.

Brownie Pie (adapted from a recipe by Ina Garten) (click here for printable recipe)

Ingredients

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter

3 cups chocolate chips (divided)

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions

Grease and flour a 9-inch pie pan. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Melt the butter in the microwave. Add 2 cups of the chocolate chips, remove from the heat, and stir until the chocolate melts. Set aside to cool completely.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the eggs, sugar, and vanilla on medium-high speed until light, about 3 minutes. Stir in the cooled chocolate. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and the remaining 1 cup of chocolate chips. Fold the flour mixture into the batter until just combined. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the center is puffed (the top may crack). The inside will still be very soft. Cool to room temperature before serving with ice cream (if desired).

Plan B Mom is a mostly-stay-at-home mom of 3 who works from home but sees her main job as managing her family. When she is not taking care of her 12-year old and 10-year old girls, 8- year old son, two yellow labs, and husband - she is baking, running, carpooling, or helping with homework. She tries to stay organized to keep life running smoothly - or at least catastrophies at bay. Follow her on Twitter at @PlanBMom.

Homemade pickle recipe?

Dear Cooks:

I’m trying to find the recipe for Rachael Ray’s homemade pickles but can’t find it on her website. Could you help?

Thank you -

Angela

Dear Angela -

Rachael has a couldn’t be easier recipe for Sweet and Spicy Pickle Spears.  Please note you have to let them refriergate and pickle for at least 24 hours. You might also be interested in Rach’s recipe for pickled onions, peppers and cukes (a great topping for burgers and dogs). Happy pickling!

Fave Family Movies Part II

School’s out, the temps where we live have soared to record highs, bathing suits are hanging off my porch - summer has arrived. My family has a lot of movie nights in the summer - I loved going to the drive-in as a kid and my husband and I try to hit up the one remaining drive-in (sad) in our city once a summer. A friend of mine has an outdoor movie night every summer and invites families to throw blankets and chairs down in their yard while they feature a family-friendly flick. Target sells an inflatable movie sctreen for about $150 or if you are ambitious you can rig your own.

A few years ago I wrote a blog about some of our favorite family flicks but as the kids have gotten older, so have our movie choices. I periodically bring out some oldies but goodies for my kids, and they have discovered some unlikely choices through friends (Bubble Boy anyone?). Here are some of our favorites (please note - some are inappropriate for younger viewers!). Sadly, not a lot of classics on this list. I am being completely honest as far as what my kids want to watch. If you are interested in a list of family classics, see Martin Scorcese’s list of picks for family films.

Our family movie picks:

School of Rock

Dodge Ball the Movie

any PG Adam Sandler movie - my kids are partial to Bubble Boy (see above) and Bedtime Stories

Cheaper by the Dozen 1 and 2 (Steve Martin remakes)

Up

Despicable Me

Parent Trap

Toy Story - all of them

Bridge to Terabitha

The Muppets (the new movie with Jason Seigel)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

The Princess Diaries

Yours, Mine and Ours (the remake with Dennis Quaid)

Monsters vs. Aliens

Freaky Friday (the remake)

Home Alone

Coraline

Stand by Me

Secretariat

WIlly Wonka and the Chocolate Factory/Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (I like the Gene Wilder version - my kids like Johnny Depp)

E.T. (of course although my 12 year old is still terrified - she won’t watch)

Space Balls

Finding Neverland

The Blind Side

Ace Ventura

Plan B Mom is a mostly-stay-at-home mom of 3 who works from home but sees her main job as managing her family. When she is not taking care of her 12-year old and 10-year old girls, 8- year old son, two yellow labs, and husband - she is baking, running, carpooling, or helping with homework. She tries to stay organized to keep life running smoothly - or at least catastrophies at bay. Follow her on Twitter at @PlanBMom.

Following My Beef Bliss, From Pasture to Plate: Part II

This is the second of two parts describing my visit to Kansas. In part one, I innocuously enthused about the variety of flora to be found on the rolling hills of the Great Plains. In this one, which is not for the faint-hearted, I follow the steers from the prairie to their Temple Grandin-designed terminus, a calm place which nonethless made a strong impression on me.

The Creekstone Processing facility is big, clean, featureless building in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing to indicate what it is from the outside. No endless fetid swamp of the kind decribed in Harper’s, no steers standing around outside, no awful sounds emerging from the inside, as various educational films (and your nightmares) might suggest. You go inside, and put on an elaborate getup to protect the food supply from your own animal nature. There is a big white coat, buttoned up in the front; rubber galoshes; a hair net; and even, in my case, a beard net. I began in the middle, like Milton: on the grading line where the immense hanging carcasses roll by the USDA inspector, who pronounces them Prime, high Choice, low Choice, and so on. They carcasses just keep coming, body after identical body, each one with almost the exact same size and shape and conformation. (Creekstone uses 100% black angus animals, all raised to same specs, and about the same age, so the bodies, lined up one after another, have the athletic uniformity of an Ivy League varsity crew. Once the sides, which hang from one foot and are as long as kayaks, get stamped they make their way to a very large, very busy room where dozens of people using specialized tools break them down into many small parts. I shot a video of it and you’ll see that soon enough, if that’s the sort of thing you enjoy. (I do.)

At another time in my life, I would have quit there. My feeling about animals has always been that I like them too much, in both their living and cooked state, to come at too close quarters to their actual demise. And the room that I visited next, which was earlier in the process. Here the animals were eviscerated prior to hanging. It wasn’t as gross as you might think, but it wasn’t exactly appetizing either. The most eerie thing was to see the animals still with their heads on. A kind of beef samurai wielding two separate blades separates the head, keeping the spine far, far from anywhere near the meat. But just seeing a side of beef with a head was weird. And yet, where did I think beef came from?

I moved farther back the line, and saw what was visually the weirdest part: the animals getting bled and flayed. This isn’t really as disturbing as it sounds, as they are already completely brain dead and utterly inert. But threre’s so much blood! And they look so white, poor things. I was, as you might expect, nervous about going to see them alive - which was about six minutes earlier in terms of the process. What, I asked myself, was protecting me at this point? Was it cognitive dissonnance? Protective callousness? Maybe just the simple, stupid insensitivity of a glutton who can’t look an an animal without seeing it turn into a plate of steaks and chops, like in the cartoons.

I walked into the harvesting floor with deep misgivings, still ready to be freaked out. But I wasn’t. Why? Likely because the animals looked so relaxed themselves. Despite being minutes from meeting their doom, they had no idea of what was in store for them; they seemed to think they were going to go to the movies or something. Creekstone brings in its animals via truck, and keeps them indoors. They are protected from the rain and the heat in what amounts to an indoor cow mall, one cunningly designed to keep them relaxed. Standing on a catwalk high above, I watched the animals absent-mindedly stand around, sit, relax, and stand up again. There are no 90 degree angles, so they aren’t nervous, and the comforting “squeeze box” at the end of the stun line keeps them so relaxed that when the man brains them with the bolt gun, they are simply KO’d, with nary a sound coming out of them. The guy before him doesn’t hear anything, and he’s getting that nice squeeze, so what’s the problem? The whole business is so smooth and calm that it’s altogether easy to lose sight of the fact that the animals, so strong and handsome a few minutes before, are turned into beef carcasses a few minutes later. It made me appreciate meat more, and it made me very glad that my meat sponsor wasn’t one of those processors whose nightmarish abbatoirs are caught on undercover videos.

How appreciative was I? Well, I went up to the boardroom with my hosts and ate a big steak lunch. It occurred to me that this was exactly the sort of behavior vegetarians would expect of me; no doubt, if any are reading me now, they have the proof, if any were needed, of my essential indifference to animal suffering. And yet, precisely because I saw so little suffering on the part of the animals, I was able to enjoy those richly marbled, herbaceous steaks. I only hope I’m as relaxed as those steers when the cosmos hits me with its stun gun. Until then, expect me to stay hip deep in steak, eating it with a clear conscience and a hearty appetite.

A Clash in the Kitchen: What if Newlyweds’ Eating Habits Don’t Match?

My husband James and I just had our one-year anniversary, and I’ve been reflecting on how we’ve influenced each other’s eating habits. James and I come from different sides of the diet spectrum. He is a “normal” American male, with a taste for pizza, pasta, burgers, and ice cream. I, however, am a diehard health foodie. Although these days I eat meat in moderation, at varying times in my life I have been vegan, vegetarian, macrobiotic, raw, and “pescatarian” (a vegetarian who eats fish). Talk about bringing two worlds together. . .

At the start, neither of us knew how devoted the other person was to his or her eating habits. James is a working musician who plays lead guitar in a number of bands, and on our first date on a cold night in February he regaled me with tales of getting in shape for going on tour by eating nothing but raw food for weeks at a time. Based on those stories, I just assumed he didn’t eat fast food or processed sugar. He in turn was delighted to discover that my drink of choice was Maker’s Mark bourbon, straight up. Surely I must be a rock n’ roll eater with that kind of taste, he thought.

Boy, were we both wrong. As we got closer, our true natures began to show. James often started his day with a trip to Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee and a “treat,” while I drank tea and ate quinoa topped with vegetables. Right before my homemade dinners of roasted fish with kale and sweet potatoes, James would fill up on tortilla chips and fig newtons. We reached a crisis point late one night on a drive home from a road trip, when he made me go into a rest-stop McDonald’s and buy him a cookie. I seethed as I waited for the “fresh baked” cookie to rotate through the rotisserie toaster, hating the fluorescent lights and the smell of stale grease.

A turning point came in the late summer, when we had a picnic. I made beet burgers with melted cheddar cheese, and lots of fresh dill. For James, it was a revelation. It was as though he had never tasted dill before, and he couldn’t get over how delicious it was. When we had seconds, he actually chopped up more dill and piled a small mountain of it on his burger. It was the first time I had ever seen him pick up a knife and cut a fresh vegetable.

James was convinced after that about the worthiness of my “hippie” cooking style. Since then, he’s game to try any of my fresh and healthy creations. He even proved an invaluable taster when I was testing recipes for my cookbook, and his “normal” palate was the best predictor of whether or not a dish was too far left on the healthy spectrum to appeal to a broad audience.

These days, we eat kale and brown rice at home, while James indulges his richer tastes when he’s on the road. Our Austin wedding a year ago featured a mix of farm-to-table organic produce, right alongside some first-class Texas barbecue. Our sense of taste is one place where we have both developed the ability to compromise, a necessary skill in any marriage. As blissed-out newlyweds, we are more eager than ever to learn from each other and be inspired. I hope we will always stay this open and willing to try new tastes.

What has your experience of adjusting to your partner’s food tastes been like? Were you surprised at what your sweetheart ate once you were really together? In the kitchen, do you gripe or get along?

Smoky Beet Burgers with Cheddar and Dill

Makes 6-8 burgers

Ingredients

1 yellow onion, diced

3 tablespoons cooking oil

2 cups grated beets (from approximately 1 large beet)

2 portobello mushrooms, diced

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice or millet

1 egg, whisked

1 cup walnuts, coarsely ground

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1/4 lb cheddar cheese, sliced

1 bunch dill, finely chopped

Instructions

1.   Preheat oven to 350° F.

2.   Heat a sauté pan and caramelize the onion in the oil. Stir in the beets, mushrooms, paprika, and cayenne, and cook for about 15 minutes, until the mushrooms are soft and most of the moisture has cooked out. Cool to room temperature and season with salt and pepper.

3.   Mix the vegetables with the rice or millet. Transfer the mixture to a food processor, and pulse until the vegetables are broken down into small bits, about a minute. Transfer to a bowl and mix in the egg and walnuts.

4.   Oil your hands, and form the dough into 6-8 patties.

5.   Place the patties on a greased baking sheet and brush the tops with oil. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the burgers form a light crust. Flip the burgers and cover with the cheese. Bake for another few minutes until the cheese is melted. Serve hot, topped with plenty of dill and your favorite condiments.

Wedding photo credit: David Boyer

Louisa Shafia is a cook with a passion for healthy eating. She recently penned Lucid Food: Cooking for an Eco-Conscious Life, a collection of seasonal recipes and eco-friendly advice on food. To watch her cooking videos, see her recipes, and find out about her cooking classes, go to lucidfood.com.

The many faces of salad – Crispy Okra Salad

There are so many ways to enjoy a salad. The mound of leafy greens, pulled together by balsamic vinaigrette is certainly a place to start, but why stop there? There are an uncountable ways to dress a salad from buttermilk to nut oils; several ways to present a salad from chopped and tossed to deconstructed (The British farmers’ Ploughman’s salad of Scotch egg, pickles, uncut cucumbers and a wedge of cheese) and several ways to manipulate ingredients from cooked to uncooked.

This week, I saw some beautiful okra at the grocery store – so slender and green. While the chunkier varieties are perfect for a gumbo owing to its gelatinous properties, the slimmer equivalent works really well in dry dishes, such as stir fries. If I may confess, I am not a fan of enhancing the gooey traits of okra and since this blog is all about salads, I turned to my friend and well-known chef, Suvir Saran, for his recipe on crispy okra salad.

The salad draws from the Indian tradition of uniting ‘sweet-sour-salty-spicy’ through it’s dressing, yet the use of okra stems from Suvir’s own culinary curiosity. In India, okra is often prepared by sautéing in cubes or whole pods that have been stuffed with dried spices and served as a side dish. Not a salad. Suvir flash fries the okra in long strips and in doing so he addresses that ‘slime’ factor while adding a wonderful crunch, a texture commonly found in Asian salads. The okra is then tossed with lemon juice and chaat masala (Indian spice mix made of about 12 spices and available at your local ethnic food stores), chilies, cilantro and juliennes of tomatoes and onions.

Don’t you feel this pop in your mouth already? I already feel that tang hitting the side of my tongue while my hand reaches out for more. The combinations in this salad feel so organic, as if they were always intended to come together from the perspective of balance of flavor, texture and sheer visual. I often serve this as an appetizer, but its spice and acid works really well with grilled meats too.

Okra Salad

Adapted from American Masala by Suvir Saran

Ingredients

1 lb okra, thinly sliced along the length
1 tbsp. oil
1 small red onion, julienne
1 large tomato, julienne
Handful of cilantro
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt
2 tsp chaat masala*

*available at your local ethnic store

Instructions

Heat oven to 400 degrees F

Toss the okra with salt and 1 tsp. of chaat masala and oil. Lay out the okra on a baking sheet and bake in a single layer until golden brown.

Combine all the salad ingredients and toss well with the okra. Serve immediately to enjoy it fresh and crisp.

Saira Malhotra is a classically trained French chef and graduate from the French Culinary Institute. A British born Punjabi, Saira has grown up around food which started from her family pizza business in a small suburb of London. Having studied in France and Italy and living in the Big Apple for the past 12 years, Saira has brought her European, Asian and American influences together via the palate and communicated through her food blog ‘Passport Pantry’.

Pad Thai made easy

Last night I was somehow inspired to make Pad Thai, no idea why.  I think because I had seafood on my mind and knew I had a bag of frozen jumbo shrimp in my freezer. By the way, what a key ingredient to have on hand for a quick meal.  Yes, you could go to the fish market and get fresher shrimp, but guess what?  I’m pretty certain they were all previously frozen. So if you find a brand you like, the frozen bag is a good short cut to have on hand.

All of the other ingredients were pretty basic, I just needed to pick up rice noodles.  I took Rachael’s recipe and improvised by using grated carrots and scallions as I didn’t have zucchini or peppers around.  After defrosting the shrimp under running water, the rest of the meal was pretty quick and easy!  I used vermicelli rice noodles because it’s what I had but you could also use a more traditional, wide flat rice noodle.  In the end, the shrimp alone were delicious but so was everything else and you can play around with the added veggies and greens.

Pad Thai, based on the recipe by Rachael Ray

Ingredients

2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons crunchy, natural peanut butter
1 teaspoon Asian chili paste, such as sambal oelek or Sriracha
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1/2 cup grated carrots
1 chopped scallion
12 large shrimp, defrosted if frozen, peeled and deveined
1/2 pound rice noodles, vermicelli or wide rice noodles.  Follow instructions for soaking
1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon white vinegar
Chopped Romaine lettuce, for garnish
Chopped peanuts, for garnish

Serves 4

Preparation

In a small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, water, peanut butter, and chili paste until smooth.

Heat a deep pan and add the canola oil. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and ginger and let cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the carrots, scallions and shrimp and stir fry until the shrimp are browned and cooked through, about 2 minutes. Add the noodles and toss to coat.

Add the peanut/spice paste, brown sugar and cider vinegar and toss to distribute. Cook until heated through, about 2 minutes.

Spread the chopped romaine on a platter. Serve the pad Thai on top of lettuce and garnish with chopped peanuts.

Rosemary Maggiore is our Last Minute Lady. A single mom of two kids plus a full time job (she runs this website!) keep her busy and usually pushing things to the last minute. Somehow she manages to keep her cool and her sanity while she enjoys good food, wine, friends and most importantly, family.

For more Ro, see:

Mom Talk

Follow me on Twitter at @lastminutelady