Simply Recipes: Low Carb

Sautéed Kale with Tahini Sauce

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Nov 102011

Oh my, this is a good one. I never would have thought to pair kale with tahini (thank you to my friend Peg for the suggestion), but it's great. Sort of reminiscent of a popular Japanese dish with spinach and sesame gomasio. The slightly bitter green kale does a happy dance with the acidic lemon and salty richness of the tahini sauce. Very easy to pull together. Would make an excellent addition to a Thanksgiving or holiday spread. Enjoy. (And as my dad says, eat your greens!)

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Beef Kebabs

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Jul 212011

How is it that two people can remember things so differently? If you ask my mother she'll say she's only made beef kebabs a couple times in her life. If you ask me, one of my favorite childhood memories is my mother's kebabs, cooked over the little cast iron hibachi grill my parents had on the back porch. My most vivid memory of them was the time I was recovering from pneumonia, hadn't eaten anything for 3 weeks, and was allowed for the first time to sip some broth. And sip I did while the rest of the family ate beautiful, smoky, meaty, hearty, beefy kebabs. It. Was. So. Unfair. I can still smell them now. There was nothing I wanted more in the world at that moment than those kebabs. Sigh.

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Spicy Garlic Cashew Chicken

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Jul 112011

Updated, from the recipe archive. First posted July 2007.

My father first found this recipe in the New York Times in 2007. We thought the combination of cashews, garlic, cilantro and jalapenos intriguing and worth a try. When my 9-year old visiting nephew proclaimed, "Hey, this chicken is good!," we knew we had a keeper. I've since made this recipe several times, with great results. Note the reader comments. People have subbed almonds and walnuts for the cashews, and parsley for the cilantro. Great for a summer cookout!

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Poached Chicken

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Jun 072011

As fond as one may be of bacon and butter, sometimes the body just wants something light. What do you make when you want a light meal? I've taken to poaching chicken, using a pretty cool method taught to me by Hank Shaw. The method reminds me of sous-vide, but you don't need any fancy equipment, just plastic wrap and a big pot of hot water. You take a strip of boneless, skinless chicken breast, season it, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, and then drop it in hot water. That's it. So easy. The result is tender, moist, perfectly cooked chicken, with no added fat.

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Grilled Tri-Tip Steak with Bell Pepper Salsa

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May 292011

Grilled Tri-Tip Steak with Bell Pepper Salsa

From the recipe archive, just in time for Memorial Day weekend. Originally posted 2007. See our archives for more grilling recipes! ~Elise

Tri-tip roasts are popular here in California; it's a flavorful cut, perfect for barbecuing and grilling. Triangular in shape, it is also called sirloin tip, culotte steak, triangle steak, and Santa Maria-style. The tri-tip cut is rather lean and can get tough if over-cooked. So, don't trim the fat before cooking (it will be needed to keep the steak tender), and use a meat thermometer and stop the cooking at 130°F. This cut can be hard to find outside of California, though I understand that both Costco and Sam's Club carry it. You can also use this recipe with a flank steak.

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Egg Nests

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May 202011

It all started with a book. A whimsically illustrated French children's book about cooking, called La cuisine est un jeu d'enfants, or "Cooking is Child's Play". First published in French in 1963, a version that included both the original French and the English translation was published by Random House in 1965. I first stumbled upon this book a few years ago and have been buying up used copies wherever I can find them, as gifts for my young friends who like to cook.

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Shrimp Scampi

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Apr 032011

Do you have a favorite meal for those need-something-quick-and-don't-want-to-have-to-plan-or-work-too-hard days? I like keeping a bag of shrimp in the freezer just for those times. I'll put some frozen shrimp in a bowl of ice water, and if I'm serving them with pasta, by the time the pasta water has come to a boil the shrimp are defrosted enough to cook. Shrimp scampi has to be one of the easiest ways to quickly prepare shrimp. We simply sauté the shrimp with garlic in butter and olive oil, splash it with white wine, let the wine reduce while the shrimp cooks, and then toss it with fresh parsley, lemon juice and black pepper.

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Swiss Chard with Olives

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Mar 302011

I've been on a chard kick this season, getting one or two bunches a week for the last several months. It cooks down to something more substantial than spinach, and is more tender and therefore cooks faster than kale or collard greens. A few weeks ago I had some leftover olive tapenade from another cooking experiment and decided to toss it in with the sautéing chard. Wow! What a combo. We're used to cooking up our greens with bacon, the bacon countering the bitterness of the greens. Well, oddly the olives and capers seem to do the same thing here, providing an earthy richness and a perky saltiness to balance the bitter of the green. The olive mixture would work well with other greens as well, such as rabe or dandelion greens.

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Chicken Paprikash

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Mar 262011

Chicken, onions, butter, stock, paprika, salt, sour cream. That's about it, and all you need for one of the best dishes on the planet, chicken paprikash. Uncomplicated. Unpretentious. So good you'll be drinking the sauce. Cooks up quickly too. Serve it with noodles or dumplings (shown with spaetzle).

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Mom’s Pan-fried London Broil Steak

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Feb 282011

Our favorite way to eat steak, updated, from the recipe archive. Originally posted in 2006. Enjoy! ~Elise

"London Broil" used to be a way of describing a method for cooking lean beef cuts such as flank or top round, which originally was to pan-fry it quickly on medium high to high heat, cook it only to medium rare, and then slice it thinly on the diagonal. The term has since evolved to a method of marinating, and then either grilling or broiling the steak. Furthermore butchers now sell a cut of beef that is called a London Broil which is typically a couple inches thick and is top round.

My mother has a method for pan-frying her steak which she calls London Broil, which does not involve marinating. The steaks we use are usually an inch thick.

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Sautéed Swiss Chard with Mustard Seeds

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Feb 232011

Mustard seeds. Do you cook with them often? I discovered how wonderful they were years ago when my Indian friend Sanjay would come over and make dal for us, peppered with mustard seeds. They're so tiny, but boy do they pack a flavor punch. They are especially good toasted, spicy and nutty at the same time. In this recipe, mustard seeds help bring a kick to sautéed Swiss chard. A simple combination, that just works. If you like chard as much as we do, I encourage you to try it. We top it off at the end with some rice vinegar, but the chard is fine with just the mustard seeds too.

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Roast Quail with Balsamic Reduction

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Feb 112011

This was supposed to be a Valentine's Day meal. Dainty roast quail, so small that a serving is two birds each. Precious. Adorable. Perfect for Valentines.

Perfect, yes, as long as your notion of a romantic meal includes eating with your hands and gnawing on bones as if you were in King Henry VIII's court. Unless you are as skillful with dinner knife as a surgeon is with a scalpel, the easiest way to eat a small bird such as a quail is with your fingers. It is a messy affair, unless you can get your quail already "tunnel boned" in which the main body bones have already been removed. A bird prepared like this you can easily stuff and then just use a fork and knife to cut and eat. Alas, although I was able to find quail (frozen) at each of the three stores we checked, they were all still fully bone-in. Which means fingers, and little bones, and messy, and primal. Hmm, primal. Wait, maybe that's not so bad after all for a romantic meal?

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Chicken Cutlets with Caper Sauce

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Jan 302011

Sometimes, especially after the holidays, all you want is a light, good meal. "Light" as in you're trying to cut back, and "good" as in, can we make it taste good even though it's light? This chicken cutlet recipe, with a caper shallot sauce, is just that, flavorful, filling, and won't weigh you down. The idea for it came from my friend Peg Poswall, who is simply brilliant in the kitchen. It's sort of like a chicken piccata, but without the breading, and it is served with fresh arugula, thinly sliced fennel, and shaved Parmesan. Great for lunch or a simple dinner.

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Pork Chops with Dijon Sauce

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Jan 132011

We eat a lot of pork in this family, even given my father's Germanic background. Pork chops are the most convenient, which is probably why I remember my mother serving them so often growing up. The chops were thinner, and almost always bone-in (there were a lot of kids gnawing on bones at our table). These days we get thicker chops and although we prefer bone-in, it just depends on what's available at the market that day. Given that we eat pork chops so often, dad is always on the look out for a good recipe. This recipe we pulled from the New York Times Sunday Magazine years ago and have made it several times since. It's easy peasy, and tastes so good! The Dijon cream sauce is just lovely with the pork. Great served with new potatoes.

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Mom’s Turkey Soup

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Nov 252010

From the recipe archive. Happy Thanksgiving! ~Elise

Every Thanksgiving my mother takes what's left of the turkey carcass and makes a delicious turkey soup that we enjoy for days.

The first step is to make the stock, which you can get started on right after dinner.

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Baked Shrimp with Tomatillos

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Sep 092010

Some things taste so much better than they look. This is an odd looking dish with the orangey pink shrimp and the light yellow-y green tomatillos, speckled here and there with white Cotija cheese and green cilantro. And you might be thinking, what kind of combination is that? But hear me out. This odd assortment of ingredients is just a Southwestern riff off a shrimp saganaki, which is typically made with feta and tomato sauce. One of the best received recipes on this site is for baked shrimp in tomato feta sauce. It just works. The onions and the shrimp provide the sweetness, the tomatillos or tomatoes the acidity, the Cotija queso seco or feta the saltiness, and the cilantro or parsley the bitter. Wrap some in a flour tortilla and you practically have a shrimp quesadilla with salsa verde.

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Grilled Branzino with Rosemary Vinaigrette

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Sep 042010

Grilled Branzino with Rosemary Vinaigrette

Please welcome Hank Shaw as he takes us through the steps of grilling a whole fish, using sustainably farmed branzino. ~Elise

Branzino. Sounds kinda like a the name of a 1940s prizefighter. If it’s ringing a bell, that’s because this fish is popping up in American supermarkets for the first time. Also known as European seabass, the fish – now farmed throughout the Mediterranean – has been a prized item on European menus since the days of ancient Rome. The farmed variety began appearing on American restaurant menus a little less than a decade ago, when the European farming operations ramped up production.

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Spinach with Sesame and Garlic

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Jun 272010

Updated, from the recipe archive. First posted November, 2005

I never get tired of eating spinach. Good thing it's so good for you! This is a fun take on spinach, a Korean version, with the spinach wilted in sesame oil with garlic, and sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds. I found the recipe years ago in Mark Bittman's The Best Recipes in the World. In typical Bittman style, the spinach is quick, easy, and good.

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