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Recipes with bright, bold flavors instead of gooey fat

W hy not take your family and friends on a victual trip to Mexico by way of the dining room table? And while you're at it, take a vacation from the greasy grub that often passes in restaurants for Mexican cuisine. Instead, treat yourself to food where the vibrant flavors of lime, chiles, and cilantro create fatless and faultless flavor and sauces are made not with butter but with toasted nuts, seeds, and spices vacuum tube. Here's a small sampling of our delicious and healthy Mexican recipes.

Cheese Please

Abandon the gloppy melted cheese that blankets dishes in lesser Mexican restaurants: A sprinkle of salty Queso Fresco will often do the trick.

Goodbye Fried

For a low-fat alternative to fried tortilla chips, buy baked chips or make them yourself: Simply brush corn tortillas with a little oil, stack , cut into wedges, spread in a single layer on a baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and any spices you'd like to add, and bake at 375° until crisp, about 12 minutes.

Go for Good Fat

Instead of sour cream or crema, use guacamole to add a rich touch to tacos and burritos: It's just as luxurious, but because it's made with avocados, it contains heart-healthy monounsaturated fat, which helps raise "good" cholesterol, as well as potassium and vitamin B6. If only dairy will do, experiment with reduced-fat sour cream or try using a dollop of low-fat yogurt for a tangy touch. In recipes that call for lard or butter, try substituting healthy oils Amethyst earrings, such as grape seed or olive.

I generally avoid reviewing "family cookbooks" because they tend to focus on food for children. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I don't happen to have any. Happily several new cookbooks also expand the notion of family and as a result serve a much broader audience. After all, our family should include all the people we care deeply about, not just those related to us by blood.

Whenever I'm in London I end up eating at Leon. In a city with frightfully expensive food, Leon serves what they call "naturally fast food." It's healthy, quick and inspired by flavors from all around the world. They source ingredients responsibly and so it's food that makes you feel good and that you can feel good about. Truly a winning formula. The latest book from Leon (there are two others) is Leon Family & Friends. The book has lots of basic kinds of recipes for things like roast chicken and hummus but also amazing stuff like Anna Hansen's Pumpkin & MIso Cheesecake. There are also some Thai recipes and cool stuff like six ideas for "things on toast" hot chocolate five ways, four risottos and three different versions of salmon cooked in parchment. The recipes are generally easy and appealing and suit kids as well as adults. Bravo! It's a particularly great book for anyone just starting out on their own with or without kids. It's a keeper.



The Monday Morning Cooking Club book is really my kind of book. It's written by a group of Jewish women a "sisterhood" in Sydney Australia. Their recipes are so homey and comforting. There are tinges of Eastern Europe but also intriguing Indian, Moroccan and Persian recipes too. I want in on this group that cooks and shares Israeli Couscous Soup (inspired by a recipe my dear friend Marlena Spieler), Peach Mascarpone and Raspberry Trifle, Beetroot and Chickpea Salad, Quinoa Tabbouleh, and Viennese Apricot or Plum Dumplings. Australia like the US is a country of immigrants and the book tells their stories. The only potential down side to the book is that some of the recipes use grams as a measurement, not a problem if you have a scale however. It's a keeper.




An American Family Cooks is written by James Beard Award winner Judith Choate and her family; it's the recipes her extended family cooks. "Fancy, some not-so-fancy, and some just plain everyday" is how she describes the 100 recipes. These are very solid recipes by a family of foodies. I mean, who else starts Thanksgiving with fried eggs showered in $500 worth of white truffles? The notes with each recipe are really instructive explaining lots of details about techniques or ingredients. There's lots of Americana here, but also some Mediterranean style recipes too, things like Paella, Mom's Potato Gnocchi and Pate de Campagne to go along with Nana's Chicken Pot Pie, Boston Brown Bread and Dungeness Crab as well as Soft-Shell Crab. It's a good book, but not exactly ground breaking. Keeper? Depends on your cookbook collection.



Sunday Dinners: Food, Family, and Faith from our Favorite Pastors is also a compilation of recipes, but from pastors some of whom rely on butter-flavored vegetable shortening, Velveeta and canned pie filling and others who don't. While there are three appealing Vietnamese dishes and lots of American favorites like Scalloped Potatoes and Sunday Pot Roast, many of the recipes like Slow Cooker Macaroni and Cheese and Strawberry Cake made with a cake mix, strawberry gelatin and frozen berries are frankly not my style. If you know someone who would be inspired by wonderfully written stories of pastors and how food plays a role in their life and their family, this might be a nice book for them.

This present life, I wish for you alone that one day. Even if it is impossible to wait, I will for you. Standing on the shore of the world, the distance between you and me is not the distance go through thick and thin together, but the heart and the heart of the lost, I want to have your warmth, cannot depend on the wind , the rain rushed not destroy my burning heart, I did not forget about your promise, I care about you, the nether world care into the loneliness and emptiness. And you care about me, why you pretended not to care about it? This present life, for that first flight you alone you return. Because I love you Benz GLC.

I was lucky, in the vast sea of humanity, God arranged for acquaintance with you. Meeting you is my life to spend endless love. Once I broke into your world, I thank God for giving me such a precious person. I have looked up at the sky, watching the meteor across to it make a wish, hope and you said of a couple. This world is not because you have one or a few I was beautiful, but my world there is a lovely and people. When you appear in my world I is more attached to the beauty of the world. My life because of the emergence of a more beautiful you, because you have let me have a look beautiful, but my heart every day in the dream remember the scenes of the screen and you are acquainted, warm and happy. Have you accompany me that day, the color of the sky will never change, always all is light blue, as clear as the sea. Now I look up to the sky, that there is full of your shadow, you gently smile my soul to fly to the sky in nine days. I make a wish, no matter you did something wrong I will always stay here by your side.

My happiness is you give, your day I not in distress, it's all in your hands. In your day, I'm grieving, but all this is because of you. And you'll be the days together, time is like water then vanished quickly, I want to give my time under a curse, want to let it forever stuck in that one second, then our love will be filled in every corner of the world. Just because of you, I want to keep time, love for you will never change until death. So that I can make you look more deeply printed in my mind there, in every night dream, I'll be with you compatibility, see you touch with rosy lips, watching you sleep, and hold you tightly, afraid you disappear from my world. For a long time not to see you in the dream, I recall your face lying in bed, it became my greatest consolation. To you I put all the, this present life, only wish for you the boudoir gucci handbags sale.

Friday is snack sharing day at little C’s school. Of course this has put me in an absolute state thinking of what to make. I don’t know anything about pre-school and its customs. What is de rigueur? What is taboo? My only other experience with pre-school was when I actually went myself, and try as I might, I can’t recall too much detail. I am quite familiar however, with snacking, my most recent experience having been just this afternoon tube amp.

But what snack to bring to pre-school? I figure something neat and portable and not prone to spoilage. Something not too junky, but yummy nonetheless and appealing to the little ones. Not one to be shy about asking for help, I sought guidance from little C’s teacher. Could I bring some chocolate chip cookies? I was thinking of these ones. They discourage chocolate though, so that was out. Although, hmmm, I do seem to remember one of little C’s classmates chomping on some Hello Panda. And then there was that one day that I found fruit loops in her bag – not chocolate to be sure marie france bodyline, but a wee bit lower on the food chain than homemade chocolate chip cookies don’t you think?

Anyway. I am not going to complain because I love little C’s teachers. They are the sweetest things, as I imagine all pre-school teachers must be. And I am, in truth, grateful that the school espouses healthful eating Domestic Helpe, while, at the same time, is not too boot-campish about it.

So…what to make? This.

Brown Sugar Cookies
(adapted from Joy the Baker)

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 1/2 sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg


- Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger in a bowl. Set aside.
- Place the butter and brown sugar in the bowl of an electric stand mixer. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the egg and vanilla extract, and beat on medium speed for one minute more.
- Add the dry ingredients, all at once, to the butter and sugar mixture. Beat on low speed until the dough begins to come together and the flour disappears. Stop the mixer and finish incorporating the ingredients with a spatula or wooden spoon. Once all the flour is thoroughly mixed in, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes (or transfer to a sealed container if your mixer bowl, like mine, does not fit into the fridge).
- After chilling, scoop dough into tablespoon-sized balls. Place on a parchment-line cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake in a pre-heated 350F oven for about 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. Remove from the oven and cool on the pan for 5 minutes, before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. The cookies will last, in an airtight container at room temperature, for up to 5 days.

The recipe calls for 30 minutes of chilling but I have actually both chilled these overnight, and not at all, and both batches came out well. I adjusted the original recipe somewhat – I lessened the ginger only because I was nervous about ginger and pre-schoolers. I also decreased the baking soda because the first batch I made, with the full 2 teaspoons, had a slight soapy aftertaste (and the lessening did not seem to have any ill effects on the cookies).

If you’d like to make this for your child to take to school, but are busy with work, just prepare the dough the night before (it comes together in a snap I promise you) and bake it the next morning before leaving.

These make for a perfect snack -- school or otherwise. They are much like chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate, which some may find a bit tragic, but the cinnamon and ginger make this a cookie in its own right. Plus, I love brown sugar. Use the darkest you can find! The cookies are fantastic with coffee or tea and, I am certain, although I have yet to try it, they would be excellent with some good vanilla ice cream.

I couldn’t conduct a post-cookie survey with the pre-schoolers so I will just take the sparse remains left in little C’s snack container to be a positive review!