Category: Uncategorized

Brookline Farmer’s Market

It’s August already!  The summer is flying by, but it’s peak season for some of my favorite vegetables.  And they’re especially great when grown locally.  I’ve been hitting farmer’s markets here and there this summer, including my visit to Allandale Farm.  Last week I made a special trip to the Brookline Farmer’s Market, accompanied by my friends Sarah and Vanessa.  The market is on Thursday afternoons right in Coolidge Corner.

Just look at all the fresh produce, like the familiar Swiss chard, corn, and lettuce:

 

 

And some (new to me) items, like purple peppers, white currants, and two toned squash:

 

 

Farmer’s markets are often a great chance to try new produce.  (Remember the watermelon radish from the winter market?) We decided we had to try these guys, lemon cucumbers:

My friend Marsha was working at the market, and told us they they had a light taste, with just a hint of lemon.  She was right, and here’s what they look like on the inside.

It was tough to decide what to buy – I wanted it all.  I ended up taking home lettuce, carrots, Swiss chard, lemon cucumbers, zucchini, and beets.  They have a wide variety of items at this market including turkey, beef, bread, goat cheese, fresh pasta, and ice cream.  Next time I will come to the market with some cold packs, and I am not leaving without trying the ice cream. 

My first order of business that night was a fresh and local salad, topped with my favorite Honey Mustard dressing. 

Every day this week, I’ll feature a dish I made with my local produce.  It may already be August, but there’s still plenty of time to scope our your local farmer’s market and load up on fresh fruits and vegetables.  Thanks to Sarah and Vanessa for prompting this trip, I had a great time!

 

#FitBoston Recap and Thank You to Pretzel Crisps!

Last Saturday, I was fortunate to attend #FitBoston, which was a local meetup for Fitbloggin’ people organized by some great folks at Me You Health. It was a fun day at Healthworks, and included workshops using the FitTrampoline, hula hoops, and pilates. Lisa Johnson had some great tips about blogging, and Kurt Eng offered some WordPress wisdom.

My favorite part of the day was meeting so many new bloggers, but of course I was also interested in the food! Boloco provided burritos, Whole Foods had a booth where you could massage kale, and Pretzel Crips had plenty of samples and a giveaway.

I was really excited when I learned that I won a raffle prize from Pretzel Crisps which was a generous gift card to Whole Foods. And Pretzel Crisps threw in a bunch of coupons for free pretzels. If you invite me to your summer BBQ, I promise to bring a bag. (This is the part when you flood my email with party invites….)

Pretzel crisps are crunchy flat pretzels, the kind that you can eat out of the bag or use to scoop up your favorite dip, like hummus.

But the thing I really like about Pretzel Crisps is that they only have 4 ingredients, and you can pronounce them all.
Ingredients: Wheat Flour, Sugar, Salt, Malt Syrup.

I’ll do a full product review once I’ve had a chance to test out a few different flavors, but a big thank you to everyone who worked so hard to create #FitBoston, and to Pretzel Crisps for this prize.

Preparing for the Fourth

I am super excited to have an extra long holiday weekend this year, starting right this very minute. I am spending it away with my family and looking forward to enjoying the beach. As usual, there are plenty of cooking projects planned. We’ve having salads and kabobs and pizzas and pancakes, and even some ice cream!

Last year, the hit of the weekend was this Zucchini Galette.

The year before that, the hit of the weekend were these Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwiches.

You never know which recipe will be the hit of this year, but I’ll be back next week to let you know. Have a happy Fourth of July weekend!

Kale and Chickpea Salad

I try to be really honest about all my kitchen adventures, because you have to try (and sometimes fail!) in order to appreciate the times when you really succeed. I set out on Sunday to make three new recipes, and two of them were for a BBQ I was attending that evening. New recipes for a party? Is she serious? Why yes, I am. Overly ambitious perhaps, but serious.

The first recipe was Cosmic Kale and Chickpeas, which I intended to serve over brown rice. The first step is to make a cashew sauce with soaked cashews, water, garlic, and bouillon. I loaded the ingredients into my food processor, and pressed the button. Oops, my food processor does not have a watertight seal like a blender. Cashew sauce flew everywhere. I took out some of the water and tried again. More cashew sauce spilled. At this point I realized the chopped onion was burning in the frying pan. There was such a mess in my kitchen I wanted to cry.
But I regrouped. I turned down the heat on the onions, and added in the chopped kale and chickpeas. Then I mixed up a new sauce with 1/4 c. peanut butter, 1/4 c. water, a dash of soy sauce, and a dash of red pepper for just a little heat. When the kale was cooked, I stirred in the peanut sauce and about 2 cups of cooked brown rice. A few minutes later, I declared the dish done, and then calmly cleaned just about every surface in my kitchen.

I did get at least one compliment from someone who really liked the peanut sauce, and there was no salad left when I took the bowl home. Whether you make the recipe as it was originally written, or use the “peanut butter shortcut”, you will never know what you can do until you try.

Allandale Farm

Summer is officially here, and I decided to celebrate with a trip to Allandale Farm. It was a short trip, since the farm is located right in Brookline, MA. The farm store is open everyday, which is incredibly convenient. I was lucky enough to get a personal tour from Jess, a friend from grad school and fellow RD-to-be.

The farm store had a decent selection of seasonal produce, as well as other local products including bread, baked goods, maple syrup, and honey.

I was tempted by many things, but in the end I purchased a container of sugar snap peas, a bunch of dinosaur kale, and a bunch of Swiss chard. You’ll see what I did with the kale and chard tomorrow, but the sugar snap peas I ate straight from the container. All day long. See, that’s the effect of having freshly picked produce around!

Allandale Farm is now on my radar as a place to hit up for locally grown produce, and I am sure I’ll be back!

Memorial Day Weekend

I am really excited for Memorial Day weekend! The weather is (finally) supposed to be sunny and warm, and I’ll be hanging with my family. And cooking of course.

Last year, I made them an Indian feast of Chicken Saagwala, Chana Masala, and Indian Spiced Vegetables. This year, I am trying a vegetarian Pad Thai, with marinated grilled shrimp on the side.

Speaking of grills, if you’re looking for some good recipes for this holiday weekend, I’d like to suggest grilled chopped salad, pizzas on the grill, and anything with homemade BBQ sauce. Or if you’re looking for a classic, try my Mom’s potato salad.

It just might be an extra long weekend, but I’ll be back by Wednesday at the latest. Enjoy!

Fitbloggin: Education, Networking, Friendship, and Fun

The tag line for Fitbloggin is two days of education, networking, friendship, and fun. Those words are a great way to summarize the event.

Education
I learned how to take better pictures, or actually, how to ‘see’ things differently in order to take better pictures. I learned about blog design, hosting solutions, and social media. All of this will help me to bring you a better blog.

Networking
I met other Registered Dietitians and RD-to-be, and they were all happy to share their experiences. I met a lot of other bloggers who write about diverse topics and learned something from each of them. And I met several representatives for fitness products and food.

Friendship
One of my initial observations was that everyone seemed to know each other already. That wasn’t entirely true of course, but all of the participants were so warm and welcoming that you felt like you became friends very quickly.

Fun
I decorated my name tag with stickers and jumped on a trampoline, and that was all in the first hour. There was an incredible comedy show on Friday night, and plenty of laughs throughout the conference.

Those four words cover a lot, but there’s one really important word missing, food!

Between the meals served, the product samples in our registration bags, and the never ending supply of PopChips, there was plenty of great food at this conference. I’ll be doing individual product reviews over the next several weeks for everything I received, but you already know how I feel about Uncle Sam’s Cereal and Dr. Praeger’s Veggie Burgers, both of whom were sponsors.

Special thanks to Roni for organizing the whole event. I am such a fan of her work that I was a bit starstruck when I met her in person! Thanks also to my mom and sister who traveled with me to Baltimore. They were great company, and helped me get all those great samples back home. And thanks to anyone who is reading for stopping by.

Now I need to get back in the kitchen and start working on some new recipes, because that’s what it’s all about.

Gone Fitbloggin’

Today I am in Baltimore at the Fitbloggin conference. Right now, I might be watching a kettlebell demo, jumping on a trampoline, or learning about branding and self-hosting. I need to learn everything I can so I can do a blog overhaul this summer! This blog will always be focused primarily on food and nutrition, but there are a lot of great bloggers who talk about food and fitness and I hope to learn from their experiences.

I’ll be back next week with a full report. In the meantime, you can keep up with me on Twitter @KerryCooks, or by using this link.

See you next week!

Sargent Choice Granola

Look here to see my post on the Sargent Choice blog! It’s all about the awesome granola they serve on the Boston University campus, and how you can make it in your kitchen. Plus, you’ll want to check out the other great recipes on the site. They will make you wish you could eat in a college dorm again. No really, campus dining has changed so much!

I know I haven’t been very chatty lately on the blog, so let’s try a question for today. What is your most memorable campus dining experience?

My answer: Eggplant Parmesan made with slices 2-3″ thick with the skin. Ugh! That was NOT my idea of Eggplant Parmesan.