Friday, November 4, 2011 at 07:10 AM
Poor November! It’s the “forgotten month” these days. It seems like everyone moves right from Halloween to “The Holidays.” And let’s face it. When they say, “The Holidays,” you know which one they’re talking about, ho, ho, ho. All the talk is already about Christmas shopping and Christmas lists and Christmas travel. Aaaaaaaagh! Don’t get me wrong. I am all for planning ahead and getting a head-start on all that stuff that needs to get done for the craziness of December, but I also love to savor the last days of autumn.
How do I celebrate November? So many ways.
- Decorate. I put up all my
tacky festive Thanksgiving decorations. They’re coming out this weekend! Bye bye Halloween. Hello Pilgrims!
- Wear brown. And orange and plum and all the great fall colors. My favorite brown suede boots.
- Look at the leaves. Really – take time to look at the beautiful, colorful leaves. They’ll be gone before you know it.
- Go for outdoor runs and crunch those fall leaves. Love that sound and smell! And before you know it, the streets will have snow banks.
- Make my November playlist for my Pilates students. There are a lot of songs about November! Just check Itunes.
- Get in the kitchen and make autumn vegetables, like this acorn squash.
Acorn squash gets an awesome NuVal score of 99! My husband picked this up while grocery shopping and it became part of our October decorating scheme.
But now it’s time to eat it! When I was little, my mom would halve an acorn squash and then cut it into quarters, and scoop out the seeds. She would place all 4 quarters on a pie plate. Then she would place a little bit of margarine in each quarter and sprinke each quarter with a teaspoon of brown sugar. Then, she would microwave them for about 5 minutes or until they were tender. We still make our acorn squash this way. It’s so quick and easy.
Stay tuned this November for more on autumn vegetables because it’s my goal to keep bringing a new one home each week from the grocery store.
Happy Weekend everybody!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Incredible Vegetables
Tags: acorn squash
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 07:27 AM
Welcome to Trade-Up Tuesday! Every Tuesday, I host a giveaway here on A Better Bag of Groceries. Typically, the giveaway is made up of food – high-scoring food that I’ve found along the way since learning about NuVal scores. Today, however, I’ve spiced things up a little and I’m giving away a piece of cookware.
Tracey Cullen, of King Kullen supermarkets on Long Island, is a huge fan of asparagus – just like me! She and I have talked at length about cooking methods. I even wrote a blog post for her on how I manage to steam my asparagus without it getting all mushy. That’s when Tracey told me about the wonderful asparagus steamer she received as a wedding gift. She said that the best thing about it is that it even gets the ends of the asparagus to cook just right.
So, this past weekend, when I was out doing my usual grocery shopping, I spied these asparagus steamers on sale for half off! I bought two of them: one for me to keep and one for me to give away on A Better Bag of Groceries.
This asparagus steamer is awesome!
It has a clear lid so that you can monitor cooking…
and it has a basket inside so you can easily lift your asparagus out.
Asparagus gets a NuVal score of 100, so you just can’t get enough, right?
I am very excited to try out my new asparagus steamer. While my own steaming method worked OK, it was pretty time-consuming and I never could get the ends quite right. And I am excited to share this steamer with one lucky ABBG reader too!
Today’s Giveaway
One lucky asparagus-loving commenter will win today’s giveaway. Just leave a comment below telling me how old you were when you started liking asparagus. (I’m curious because so far, my 6 and 7-year-olds aren’t eating it). I’ll choose one winner at random at 8 am on Wednesday, so don’t delay. Good Luck!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Incredible Vegetables, Trade-Up Tuesday
Tags: asparagus
Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 07:07 AM
Nothing says spring like asparagus. Did you know that asparagus is actually a member of the Lily family? You can learn more amazingly interesting facts about asparagus at the Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board website.
Asparagus is one of my top five favorite veggies, if not my absolute fav. Most of the time, we roast it at high temps in the oven, or grill it with a little olive oil, and then add some lemon juice and a pinch of Kosher salt. However, in the Spring, and especially for Easter dinner, steamed asparagus seems to be in order. Recently, I asked ABBG readers what foods were they afraid to make (while confessing my own scallop-phobia), and reader Tracey from Connecticut said that her steamed asparagus always came out limp. So, I went to work in the ABBG Kitchen this past weekend, carefully noting and photographing for all of you how I manage to make non-limp, not-mushy steamed asparagus. So, here you go!
Non-Limp, Not-Mushy Steamed Asparagus
First of all, let’s talk about purchasing and storage for a moment. You need to sniff your asparagus while in the store. That’s right, sniff it. If it smells fishy, put it back. The tips should be nice and firm, not at all mushy.
When you get your asparagus home, give the ends a fresh cut – just as you would with a bunch of flowers.
Then place the asparagus in an inch or two of water in the fridge. Try to use your asparagus within 2-3 days.
When you are ready to use your asparagus, you want to give it a really good rinse. Did you know that asparagus grows in sand? And there’s nothing like a little sand in your teeth to ruin your asparagus-eating experience. So, I soak my asparagus in a cold water bath to really rinse out any sand residue.
Check the tips again. If any are mushy, just break them off.
Now, just place your asparagus in a skillet with about a 1/2 inch of water.
And have a good pair of tongs on hand. These tongs are one of your secret weapons against mushiness.
As the asparagus on the bottom of your skillet turns bright green, bring it to the top. So, rotate the greenness.
In the meantime, get your 2nd secret weapon ready: a big bowl of cold water with ice cubes in it.
The asparagus is done when you can pierce it with a fork. It looks like this.
Remove the asparagus spears from the skillet and submerge them into the cold water bath.
This is important because without the cold water bath, the asparagus would continue to cook itself, even away from the heat source.
Just let the asparagus cool down enough to stop the cooking process (it doesn’t have to be freezing – too much time in the bath can cause mushiness). Five minutes should do it.
Then, remove the asparagus from the bath and let it dry.
You will need to help it along – or guess what, you will get mush. So, pat it dry with some paper towels.
And when it’s nice and dry, put it on a microwave-safe, yet pretty, plate.
Now you have lovely, tender but not-mushy, not-limp asparagus. It is also cold. So, right before serving, you zap it in the microwave. It is still lovely and tender and not mushy and not limp. But now it is also warm. You can serve it plain, or with a little fresh lemon or with a traditional Bearnaise sauce on the side. Your choice.
So, if all you’ve got is a skillet and a large bowl, try my steaming/cold bath method. Alternatively, you could invest in one of these:
This All-Clad Stainless Steel Pot from Williams-Sonoma ($59.95) promises to cook your asparagus evenly because it holds the stalks upright.
Either way, you win because asparagus is an Incredible Vegetable and it scores a perfect 100 on the NuVal scale!
Question of the Day
What is your favorite vegetable?
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Dinner Recipes, Incredible Vegetables
Tags: asparagus, Easter
Monday, November 8, 2010 at 07:01 AM
We’ve all heard of oven-baked sweet potato fries, right? But butternut squash fries? Yes, I made these up in my very own kitchen and I highly, highly recommend them! Not only are they scrumptious in taste, but they will make your whole house smell wonderful!
I’ll be honest – these Butternut Squash Fries were not planned!
My daughter and I were having a Girls’ Only Dinner – reheated homemade turkey meatballs with Dreamfields spaghetti – while the “boys” were out at a Cub Scout meeting. We were having such a lovely time – talking about dance class, Kindergarten, lots of girl stuff – when I went to get something in the refrigerator and I noticed that I had one of those peeled, cored and seeded butternut squashes in the refrigerator – and it was about to go bad. Oh horrors! In fact, it was going bad – on just one edge – but something had to be done – and quick!!! Good thing my daughter loves to cook, so we could weave Save the Squash into our little Girls’ Night!
So first, I checked to make sure the squash was safe. It had a small mold spot on one edge. I went to the US Food Safety and Inspection website to check and I found that as long as I cut a 1-inch piece around the mold spot, I was all set. By the way, this US Food Safety and Inspection website is awesome!!! It tells you – right there on this Molds on Foods Page – everything you need to know about your food safety questions. It is now one of my favorites.
Moldy spot gone and knife cleaned, I decided that I just didn’t feel like boiling and mashing this squash. I wanted to get back to Girl Talk! My daughter was showing me all her new dance moves from her ballet, tap and modern classes. I wanted to get this squash cooking – and quickly. Then I remembered something that my friend Miss Conduct once said: All vegetables taste good when roasted at a high temperature with a little olive oil and Kosher salt. So true!
So, I sliced the squash quite thin and then cut it in half.
Together with my 5-year-old daughter, we laid it out on parchment paper…
and sprayed it with olive oil (NuVal score of 11) using my Pampered Chef Kitchen Spritzer) and sprinkled it with Kosher salt and ground black pepper.
Then we put it in the oven at 435 degrees for 25 minutes.
Then, we took them out and flipped them and put them back in for another 15 minutes.
When they came out of the oven – just as my husband and my son were walking through the door from Cub Scouts – they were just perfect. Crisp on the outside, warm and mealy on the inside. The perfect “fry” We liked them plain – the kids liked them dipped in ketchup. Yum – we have a new fall treat. And I’ve found a new way to get a new vegetable into my kids!
Butternut Squash, by the way, gets a NuVal score of 100, so I’m going to file this recipe under Incredible Vegetables. Enjoy!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Cooking with Kids, Incredible Vegetables
Tags: Butternut Squash, Cooking with Kids, food safety, fries, Incredible Vegetables, mold
Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 07:30 AM
Good Morning Blog Friends! As I mentioned a few posts back, I recently began working full time again after about four years of working part time. Getting back into the 9-t0-5-plus groove has been a bit of an adjustment for me and my family – to say the least! I’ve been taking care to stay super-organized, very planful, and now that we’re moved into our new house, I’ve been getting some of my life-saving systems back into place (like Dream Dinners and twice a month housecleaning).
While I don’t mind outsourcing the scrubbing of tubs and toilets to someone else while I’m busy working, I will not compromise when it comes to feeding my family. So while the effort might seem Herculean at times, I try to do what it takes to get a healthy meal on the table most nights. Working full-time (to me) is not a license to order take out. But it is OK to take some short-cuts from time to time.
On my recent trip to Big Y, I was reminded of one of the best short-cuts of all – frozen veggies! What a convenience! No cleaning, trimming, chopping or cooking involved. Just microwave or heat on the stove. Easy – peasy!
Frozen vegetables, without additives, get the same Incredible NuVal Scores as their fresh counterparts. So, here is a great example – Big Y Frozen Spinach with a NuVal Score of 100!
Or Birds Eye Steamfresh Frozen Whole Green Beans with a NuVal Score of 100.
Or this Birds Eye Steamfresh Frozen Asparagus with Corn and Carrots, NuVal Score of 100. I like that one because there’s something for everyone in it!
And I love this Winter Squash with a NuVal Score of 99. Yum! I could eat a whole box by myself! Interestingly, I craved Butternut Squash when I was pregnant with my son – and I did just that – all the time!
Also interesting is to see what happens to frozen vegetables when you do add some additives (as we like to call them at NuVal).
So, take plain ‘ole frozen broccoli…
and then add some cheese. Wow! It brings the score down from a 100 to a 32. Don’t be fooled by those claims of “lightly sauced”.
Add some rice and the score goes down even more – to a 27!
Ouch! So, shop the frozen vegetable aisle – but do so with caution. Either read the labels and make sure you are getting just the vegetables (nothing else added) or better yet, find a store with NuVal scores on the shelf and just look for those Incredible scores!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Frozen Vegetables, Incredible Vegetables
Tags: Frozen Vegetables, Incredible Vegetables
