Share the Health! Popchips Holiday Giveaway

Think of a chip…that hasn’t been fried. Okay, got it? Now, think of a chip…that hasn’t been baked either. Can you think of any?

Enter…Popchips! A healthier, more delicious alternative to chips, and snacking as a whole! The process starts with potatoes, just plain potatoes, which are then added to a little heat and pressure…this makes each potato slice, well, “Pop!” There is no fake anything, this product is all-natural, and tasty to boot!

Popchips have no trans fat, no saturated fat, fewer calories and more chips per serving than other products on the market. And, believe it or not, they are even improving the product as we speak! By August 2012, Popchips will have an average of 30% less sodium than they have now (280mg). I love a company that is constantly improving upon a good thing, to make it even better for their consumers! These chips are even kosher and vegan-friendly!

That’s why I think this is a perfect time of year to talk to you about them! Now is the time of year when we go to parties, and host parties, and snack on all sorts of delicious treats made by friends and co-workers…but, to what end? We only realize after the holidays are over that there are a few extra pounds we now have to shed at the gym. But, what if there was a snack that you could bring to a party, that was delicious, and fun…but also, guilt-free?! No one has to KNOW they are guilt-free, because they don’t taste it, but you’ll feel better about snacking at a party with these on the table. Choose between Original, BBQ, Sour Cream & Onion, Cheddar, Sea Salt & Vinegar, Salt & Pepper, Parmesan & Garlic, Jalapeno and Chili Lime. Yum!

Thankfully, I’ve made a few friends over at Popchips and they’ve offered to host a giveaway to one of my lucky readers, for a case of Popchips, in the flavor of their choice! All you have to do is comment on this post, telling us where you’ll be bringing Popchips this holiday season. Once I’ve chosen a winner (at random), I will post that here, and also send an email to the winner to get their full name and shipping address. (Unfortunately, this contest is limited to residents of the United States. Apologies to all of my international readers…I’ll organize something for you guys as soon as possible!)

There can only be one winner of this giveaway, but I am working hard to bring more and more contests to the site, and I’m really excited to get them going. So, leave your comment, and let us all know how you’ll use your case of Popchips this holiday season! One lucky reader will be enjoying them clear through to the new year! And the rest of you, you can all get them at your local grocery store chains. For specific locations, check here.

Pick up your Popchips, and … SHARE THE HEALTH!!!

My Favorite Way to Eat Cucumbers

During recent weeks, I've been all about eating simply and easliy due to the hot summer weather. Tonight is no exception, as we returned from a weekend in Vermont visiting our dear friends Matt and Sarah, and their adorable daughter, Finn. We stopped at Whole Foods to get some grilling necessities, but I knew I had some cucumbers at home, and wanted to incorporate them into the meal. My favorite way to eat cucumbers is an Asian-inspired dish, and it is simple, yet extremely flavorful and refreshing.

I picked up a red onion to complete the list of things that I needed for this dish...it's really just cucumbers, red onions, rice vinegar and some salt and pepper.

I used a mandoline slicer to get an even slice (and a thinner slice, at that) on the pieces of cucumber and red onion. It's a fast, easy way to slice a large amount of something in a very quick, effective manner. Once the cucumbers and red onion are sliced, toss them in a bowl with a healthy pour of rice vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Allow the mixture to sit until the rest of your meal is ready...the more it sits, the more the flavor will incorporate into the cucumbers and onions so don't be afraid to make it the day before you want to use it if you want a really flavorful salad!

Mmmm! Crisp, refreshing and flavorful! It goes great with fish, meat, noodles, rice...you name it, it pairs nicely, and did you see how simple that was!?

Panzanella

As promised, I'm going to tell you all about making panzanella salad today. Panzanella is a traditional Florentine salad, based on two ingredients: tomatoes and bread. "Bread!?" you say! I know, bread in a salad is a pretty foreign concept, but trust me on this one. This makes for a lovely summer salad, and is pretty simple to prepare for a BBQ or gathering. I know it's not summer yet (trust me, I know!) but I needed something refreshing and cool to complement the ribollita that I wrote about yesterday.

For Jamie Oliver's version of panzanella, I needed to roast 4 red and yellow peppers. So, the first thing I did was preheat the broiler and place the peppers in to blacken the skin. You want to keep an eye on them and turn them a few times so they get blackened equally on all sides.



While the peppers were roasting, I gathered the rest of my ingredients for my mise en place. Aside from the peppers, I needed some cubed bread, a nice amount of tomatoes (cut to about the same size as your cubes of bread), capers, sliced red onion, celery, and some basil. I also got some red wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic and salt and pepper out for the dressing. The recipe also calls for anchovies, but I couldn't find them at the grocery store this time around, so I just put some anchovy paste into the dressing to mimic the flavor...I didn't really want to eat anchovy fillets anyway.



Once you've cut up the tomatoes, place them in a colander, resting over another bowl. Pour a nice amount of sea salt over the tomatoes and toss. Don't be stingy. The salt is going to draw the liquid out of the tomatoes and it will start to drip through into the bowl underneath pretty quickly. Let the tomatoes sit for about 20 minutes so you can be sure to get the most amount of juice out of it. These juices will be used for the dressing later! You'll see! :)



Meanwhile, cube your bread, slice your celery, thinly slice your red onions (giant pieces of raw red onion is not something anybody wants to pop in their mouth), and tear up those basil leaves. Toss this all together.



The peppers are probably done now...so here's what you do next. Take those peppers out of the oven and place them in a heat-resistant bowl and cover it with saran wrap. While the peppers steam, the skin pulls away from the meat of the pepper and you'll be able to just peel the skin right off!



Once you've peeled the peppers (please be careful, they are HOT, and they stay hot for awhile!) you can kind of just rip the meat in to ribbons. You can add the ribbons of roasted pepper to the mixture we've already got going on, and then turn your attention back to those salted tomatoes. In the bowl that's collecting the liquid, we're going to add the capers, some anchovy paste (since I opted not to use anchovy fillets), red wine vinegar, a couple healthy glugs of olive oil and a crushed clove of garlic. Taste the mixture before you season - anchovy paste and capers are both rather salty so you might not need more. I definitely added some pepper though.



Pour the tomatoes in to the salad, and then the dressing. Toss for a minute but don't overtoss because the bread is going to start getting soft. You should let the salad sit for about 10 minutes before serving so that the bread starts to soak up the dressing. However, if you are going to bring this to someone's house, keep the tomatoes and dressing separate until you get to your serving location. Otherwise, you'll have a soggy salad by the time people go to eat it.



Cool, refreshing and delicious!

And on another note : I have to make a plug for my yoga teacher/friend, Victoria! She's in a competition to be featured in an episode of Yoga Journal, and I promised her I would use every means possible to get her votes! Yoga means so much to her, and you can read her story on her page at Yoga Journal! Give her a rating to vote for her and help her win her dreams! Vote for Victoria here!

Worth the Wait

I started cooking dinner around noon today! But don't be fooled by the amount of time it took to make this meal - it's totally simple, I promise! It's actually an extremely hands-off recipe, which makes for a great lazy Sunday in a house that smells too good to eat! :)

Chef Jamie Oliver describes this dish, Peposo (The Famous Hunter's Peppery Beef Stew) as a "powerful old Tuscan dish." This stew can be cooked overnight in a 275 degree oven - for up to 8 hours (like many Italians do) - or, like I did, it can be cooked for 6 hours in a 300 degree oven. My dish actually took more like 4 1/2 since I didn't have as much meat...which was lucky for me because I don't think I could have taken it a second longer. Seriously, the house smelled SO good!

First, let's take a look at my mise en place.



The only prep work for this was cutting the meat off the bone. The recipe calls for 5 1/2 pounds of beef shin (or shank) but the meat is going to get so flaky and succulent over the next 6 hours that its just easier to cut it off the bone now. There's quite a bit of fat on these pieces but I didn't remove all of it - just the large chunks. The fat flavors the juice that the beef cooks in so you don't want to get rid of all of it. Also, check out the marrow in the middle of the bones - you totally want that in there, too. The marrow holds so much flavor and will fall out of the bones as they cook, adding to the delicious juices as well. When you purchase the beef shin (shank), they will look like this:



Because the recipe calls for 5 1/2 pounds, I had to buy a few of these packages. I actually think I purchased more like 4 - 4 1/2 pounds since it really is only for the two of us...plus some leftovers. I figured having the exact amount of meat wasn't necessary - the recipe says it serves 10! Aside from the meat, I had 2 bottles worth of Chianti (I just bought a large bottle that is the equivalent of 2 regular bottles), 20 cloves of garlic, 5 rosemary sprigs, 2 bay leaves and loads of salt and pepper.

So, once I had my mise en place in place, I got out a large dish that would just hold all of my ingredients.  You don't want to have a lot of empty space in the pot so make sure you choose wisely. I placed a layer of the pieces of beef in the bottom of the pot and topped it with some of the garlic cloves, a couple of rosemary sprigs, a nice sprinkling of salt, and a bunch of freshly ground pepper (like, a lot of pepper - it IS pepper stew after all). Continue layering like this until you've used up the pieces of beef.

Second layer

Once all the beef was used up, and I had thrown in all 20 garlic cloves, along with rest of the rosemary, I poured the Chianti into the pot, to the brim. You want everything to be covered in liquid. I didn't end up using the entire amount, but if you do run out of wine, you can finish filling the pot with water. Add the bones and the bay leaves for flavor and bring it to a boil on the stove.



Once it came to a boil, I covered the pot with a double layer of aluminum foil and put it in my preheated oven. You want to keep all the moisture inside the pot. And then...you find something to do for the next 6 hours! :) I baked a loaf of bread, did some laundry, watched a Law and Order: SVU marathon, cleaned the kitchen, and changed the sheets. All in all, a pretty successful day, I'd say.

With an hour and a half left on the timer, I checked my pot to see how the meat was coming along, and was happy to find that it was pretty much done. I left it in for a little longer while I made my sides. I decided to saute some potatoes and kale to go with this stew, so I sliced up the potatoes and threw them in a cast iron pan with a little butter, salt and pepper. When the potatoes were browned and almost cooked through, I threw the kale on top and tossed until the greens had wilted.



Once the potatoes and kale were ready, then I turned off the oven and pulled my stew out. The flavors had melded together so well and the marrow had fallen out of the bones. I pulled the bones and bay leaves out of the liquid, along with the rosemary sprig branches.



And finally, it was time to plate this hearty meal. I broke the meat apart with a fork quickly, and smooshed the garlic cloves up a little bit, and voila, a lovely hearty Italian meal for us and lots of leftovers for the week! I drizzled some of the juices on top just before serving.



This meal was very comforting and homey. I love enjoying a meal that has made my house smell so good all day because it's like finally eating something for which you've had a craving for a long time. It can also be served as an energizing brunch, scooped over a hearty slice of hot, toasted bruschetta, like it was traditionally given to hunters after a morning spent in the woods. Don't be put off by all the pepper because while I used quite a bit, it wasn't extremely potent after the 4 1/2 hours in the oven. I think I would probably use MORE pepper next time, but you can definitely manage the amount of spice that you'd like in your stew! Happy Sunday!

Simple and Quick

Here I am, spending some quality time in Vermont with my dear friends Sarah and Matt, and their adorable daughter Finn. At the same time, I didn't want to leave you guys for two whole days with no posts, so I thought I would leave you with something very simple and quick. A meal that can feed one...or two...or six! And it's even great for a last minute entertaining option! It's tasty, it's healthy, and the best part, it only calls for six ingredients! Crazy, right!?

From Flickr - by helloimwes

So, take a chicken breast. You want to pound that chicken breast out until it's about 1/4 inch in thickness. If you don't have a meat tenderizer at home, that's okay. You can also use the bottom of a heavy pan, or a rolling pin to do the job. Make sure that the chicken breast is evenly tenderized though...otherwise it won't cook evenly.

Once it's pounded down to a 1/4 inch thick, it's going to take up a good amount of space, so I usually cook one at a time. Season both sides of the flattened chicken breast with generous sprinkles of salt and pepper. Heat a little olive oil in a large skillet and add one chicken breast. Cook them for about 4 minutes on either side...you will most likely not need any longer than that since the meat is fairly thin and will cook through quite quickly.

From Flickr - by nataliecreates

While the chicken is cooking, start assembling your plates. Place generous handfuls of arugula (a peppery type of lettuce) on each plate and sprinkle the leaves with lemon juice. Place a chicken breast on top of each plate of arugula and sprinkle with a bit more lemon juice. Voila - a healthy, beautifully-plated meal that is perfectly acceptable for company. Serve your friends a lovely glass of white wine to accompany this delicious meal!