In Erika's Kitchen

Superfoods Month: Veggie cilantro mint quinoa pilaf from Yumkid

2012-01-25T22:28:00.000-08:00

Today's Superfood: Quinoa Protein, iron, manganese, magnesium, folate, phosphorus Erika says: I can't wait to make this delicious quinoa pilaf from Rashmi Nigam. Rashmi started Yumkid.com to chronicle her experiences feeding her children healthy, flavorful meals. "How are you doing on rice? How often are you eating it now?” are questions my doctor always asks. After hearing my response she

Superfoods Month: Smoky roasted kale chip-tomato quinoa salad from Cooking on the Weekends

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Superfood: Kale Vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, manganese, fiber Erika says: Say hi to a lovely guest post and recipe from certified chef and food writer Valentina Kenney Wein. Valentina spends her weekends in her "kitchen retreat," creating delicious, hearty, comforting food to nourish her family and share with her readers. Her blog is named, appropriately enough, Cooking on the

Superfoods Month: Paula Deen and creamy kale soup

2012-01-22T10:34:00.000-08:00

Today's Superfood: Kale Vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, manganese, fiber There's been a lot of talk about Paula Deen's announcement that she's had type II diabetes for three years. Three years during which she's peddled butter, cream, cheese, sugar, fried foods and other health-conscious no-no's to the American public in shocking amounts and with remarkable consistency. Why did she do it?

Superfoods Month: Spinach fried rice with furikake by Emery

2012-01-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Superfood: Spinach Vitamin K, vitamin A, manganese, folate, magnesium, iron, vitamin C, vitamin B2, calcium, potassium Erika says: Today's guest post comes from a wonderful cook whom I adore - my 13-year-old son Emery. Furikake is a dry Asian condiment containing seaweed, sugar, salt and sesame seeds, meant to be sprinkled on rice. So it all started one day when I was reading The

Superfoods Month: Raw cabbage salad with lemon

2012-01-19T21:11:00.000-08:00

Today's Superfood: Cabbage Vitamin K, vitamin C, folate, fiber When I want a salad, more often than not this cabbage salad with lemon is the one I'm craving. You need three ingredients (okay, five including salt and pepper), a sharp knife, and a half-hour. That's it. I use plain green cabbage for this salad, but Napa or Savoy cabbage would work too. I tried it once with red cabbage and was

What do Oregon truffles smell like?

2012-01-17T09:30:00.000-08:00

Olive oil, a pinch of salt and grated Oregon black truffles: Your bread will never be happier We interrupt Superfoods Month to bring you some exciting news: It's Oregon truffle season again. As you can imagine, this truffle-obsessed blogger is quite happy when she rides her bike to the Santa Monica farmers market and spots the telltale picnic coolers on the wild mushroom guy's table. Inside

Superfoods Month: Spanakorizo (spinach rice) from Life in Greek

2012-01-14T09:52:00.000-08:00

Today's Superfood: Spinach Vitamin A, vitamin K, vitamin C, magnesium, manganese, folate, iron, calcium, potassium [Erika says: This guest post comes from Dimitra Kessenides, who writes Life in Greek (not strictly a food blog, by the way). Dimitra and I worked together 20 years ago in New York on the editorial staff of a legal magazine. That was long before the world got a glimpse of Greek

Superfoods Month: Smoothie with beets

2012-01-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Superfood: Beets Betalains (a phytonutrient), folate, manganese, fiber, potassium, vitamin C At the urging of my enthusiastic health coach Rachael Pontillo of Holistically Haute Wellness, I'm continuing to bond with my ultra-powerful Vitamix and explore the world of colorful smoothies. I haven't found a combination I like as much as french fries or mint chocolate chip ice cream, but

Superfoods Month: Napa cabbage slaw by Adventures with Nancy Rose

2012-01-09T06:30:00.000-08:00

This guest post comes from Nancy Eisman. We call Nancy "the produce fairy" because at every meeting of Food Bloggers Los Angeles she shows up with exotic fruits and vegetables from her employer Melissa's Produce. A 25-year vegetarian, Nancy started her blog Adventures with Nancy Rose to spread the message about plant-based diets. Today's Superfood: Napa cabbage Antioxidants, fiber, folates,

Superfoods Month: Simple kale salad

2012-01-08T10:30:00.000-08:00

Today's Superfood: Kale Vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, calcium, iron, potassium It took me a while to get used to raw kale. I like greens just fine, but I've always preferred them cooked. I thought raw kale would be bitter and tough. Then I tasted Sippity Sup's kale "Caesar" salad at a Food Bloggers Los Angeles potluck. Tuscan "dinosaur" kale finely shredded, bright and lemony, dressed

Superfoods Month: Simple lentil soup from Shockingly Delicious

2012-01-05T06:00:00.000-08:00

Happy Superfoods Month! This delicious Superfood recipe comes via veteran food writer Dorothy Reinhold. Dorothy writes the recipe blog ShockinglyDelicious, where she specializes in scrumptious, tried-and-true, scary-good recipes that you might need a 12-step program to wean yourself from. Dorothy and I have known each other for years - our kids went to preschool together - but now we've bonded

Superfoods Month: Spiced sweet potato coins

2012-01-03T06:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Superfood: Sweet potatoes Carotenoids, Vitamin A, vitamin C, potassium I served these sweet potato "coins" on New Year's Eve, hoping they would bring us good luck and prosperity for 2012. Sliced into rounds and roasted with chili powder, lime juice, garlic and olive oil, these sweet potatoes taste great hot or cold. Make extra to stock your lunchbox the next day. Click here

January is Superfoods Month in my kitchen

2012-01-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

It's January 1, the first day of 2012, and it's time to make New Year's resolutions. Every year I vow to lose weight, exercise more, yell less, stop using the treadmill as a closet, keep my desk neat. Most years I make progress, then backslide, then drop the whole thing in frustration. I know I'm not alone. This year I'm trying to think about things differently. I want to get healthier. I

Spaetzle with truffle butter

2011-12-30T14:00:00.000-08:00

Spaetzle with truffle butter (photo: Lynne Hemer) I put fresh spaetzle on my Trufflepalooza 2011 menu last summer with some reservations. Truffles pair well with pasta, but I'd already done spaghetti with truffles (2009) and truffled mac and cheese (2010). Spaetzle, a simple pasta-like egg dumpling, seemed like a good next step. My Hungarian mother-in-law makes spaetzle often and my husband

Cheesy rice casserole

2011-12-27T06:30:00.000-08:00

I do not like to see food go to waste. If there's a scrap of cheese, a cup of dried-out rice, a wilting vegetable, I'll find a way to turn it into dinner. Some people call me the Queen of Leftovers. That's how this cheesy rice casserole was born. There's nothing magical about it. It's a simple formula. Look in your refrigerator for stragglers in these categories: Grain (e.g. rice, pasta,

Postcard from Santa Monica: Supplies at The Gourmandise School

2011-12-23T17:33:00.001-08:00

Freezer - mostly butter, puff pastry and nuts Refrigerator - look at all those eggs! I thought you'd enjoy this peek inside the refrigerator and freezer at The Gourmandise School of Sweets and Savories in Santa Monica, California. Co-owner Clemence Gossett says the school goes through four cases of eggs (that's 60 dozen) and 60 to 90 pounds of butter each week. And no wonder - the

Quiche with chanterelles

2011-12-20T06:30:00.000-08:00

In the fall and winter, you'll find huge golden chanterelle mushrooms at farmers' markets throughout southern California. Cantharellus californicus, a variety all our own. It grows happily at the base of California oak trees. The more rain we get, the bigger the chanterelles grow. I've seen golden chanterelles as big as dinner plates, I kid you not. The last time my mother came to visit

Buddha's Hand infused vodka

2011-12-17T15:03:00.000-08:00

Vodka infused with Buddha's Hand citron I love giving hand-made gifts. I knit hats and scarves and lace table runners. I bake bread or cookies or cake. I make chocolate truffles or fruit-studded bark. I put them in boxes, wrap them with colorful tissue paper, tie them with ribbons. Not this year. I do all those things when I'm organized and plan ahead and leave myself enough time.

Chilaquiles with steak

2011-12-14T06:30:00.000-08:00

My Saturday morning routine includes a trip to the Virginia Park farmers market. The famous Santa Monica farmers market is on Wednesday mornings, but my office is in the opposite direction, so I rarely get there. The Virginia Park market is smaller but feeds our family for the week just as nicely. Most of the time Emery, my nearly teenage son, comes to the market with me. His reward

Parmesan smoked paprika crackers

2011-12-11T12:18:00.001-08:00

When I decided to host the Food Bloggers Los Angeles holiday cookie and cookbook swap, I forgot one key thing: I don't like baking cookies. In fact, if you look at my recipe index, you'll notice that in three years I've posted only a dozen cookie recipes. Which left me in a bind the night before the event. I couldn't get in the mood for sweets. Luckily, I remembered the fabulously simple

Pink mashed potatoes with beets and beet greens

2011-12-09T06:35:00.000-08:00

I am drawn to color. My shirts are lipstick red, royal blue, lime green. My laptop case is magenta. The winter coat I bought last year when I got a job that required me to travel to Minneapolis in January is bright purple. If you ever see me wearing a beige anything, either I inherited it from my mother or I got it as a gift from someone who didn't know me very well. The house in which we've

Orange chocolate chip muffins

2011-12-07T06:35:00.000-08:00

I'm always looking for new muffin recipes. I keep muffins in zip-top bags in the freezer and often stick them into the kids' lunchboxes (or mine). By midday they're defrosted and ready to go. Please don't tell me that muffins are actually cake. If I thought I was giving my kids cake for lunch every day I'd feel guilty. Not cake. Muffins. Totally different. Because...because...just because.

Watermelon radish chips

2011-12-05T06:35:00.000-08:00

I was telling a new friend the other night that even after 15 years in California, I'm still thrilled and amazed that food grows so easily on trees in people's backyards. California produce amazes me in general, actually. An hour at my local farmers' market is a religious experience. The colors, the shapes, the anticipation of something wonderful and healthy on my dinner plate - I'm brought

Quiche with kale and bacon

2011-12-04T20:07:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure that when my health coach Rachael Pontillo of Holistically Haute told me to try to eat more greens, she wasn't thinking about quiche. Especially not quiche with bacon. That's okay. I didn't actually make this for myself. I live in a house with three real men. And they eat quiche. With gusto. I first started making quiche using Mollie Katzen's recipe from The Moosewood

Beef stew with beans

2011-11-30T06:30:00.000-08:00

One thing I always have in my pantry is a bag of Hurst's 15-bean soup mix. I throw away the packet of fake ham seasoning. Then I chop up some onions, carrots and celery and get to work. Normally I start the pot with a little bacon, but this time I used beef stew meat. Because I didn't have any bacon and I was too lazy to go out to the store again. How did it happen that I didn't have bacon