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Is it possible to be a dedicated food lover and still eat healthily? Mother and daughter Barbara and Tamar Haspel, expert home cooks and dedicated gourmands, doubted it -- until a heart attack in the family prompted them to create healthy meals that would keep them eating in the style to which they were accustomed. They share their strategies and recipes in a newsletter called Dreaded Broccoli, and now they've collected their favorite dishes and their best advice in an entertaining new book, THE DREADED BROCCOLI COOKBOOK. The Haspels share excellent time-saving tips, including how to minimize veggie prep, how to stretch leftovers into whole meals, and how to stock a pantry of basic healthy ingredients that will let you put a meal together in minutes. Let them help you get over your fear of eating well!
A Word from Barbara and Tamar Haspel About The Dreaded Broccoli Cookbook
A whole book about broccoli? No. The "broccoli" of our title is virtual -- a symbol of the foods we all know we should eat more of. As for the "dread," that's what we hope our book will dispel.
We're a mother-and-daughter team of home cooks -- not professionals -- and we're writing for people, who, like us, enjoy food and cooking but also have other things going on in their lives. Most of us, when we come home from a busy day and start thinking about dinner, don't open a cookbook. We open the refrigerator and the cabinets and see what we have to work with. Most dinners don't start with a recipe and work forward -- they start with the ingredients available and work backward.
Not that there aren't recipes in this book. There are about 100, but they're meant as examples to guide you, not as rigid formulas. We developed them in our tiny New York kitchens and intend them to describe something that worked for us and seems to be reproducible. We want our readers to get comfortable with the mainstays of healthful eating: grains, legumes, seafood, low-fat meats -- and especially vegetables.
But we intend THE DREADED BROCCOLI COOKBOOK to be more than just a kitchen resource. We hope it'll be as much at home on your bedside table as on the counter next to the stove. It's full of personal anecdotes and irreverent commentary. It's a book about us, our family and friends, and the foods we love. We hope you enjoy this recipe from our cookbook!
Monkfish and Pepper Salad
Makes about 4 servings
1-1/2 pounds monkfish
Juice of 1 lime
3 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2 ripe medium tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup rice vinegar
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1. Trim the monkfish, removing the translucent membrane and any dark purple sections. Cut it into medallions about 3/4 inch thick. Combine the monkfish with the lime juice and 2 teaspoons of the ginger. Let it marinate in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.
2. Remove the monkfish from the marinade and steam it until it's opaque in the center, about 10 minutes. Combine the monkfish, remaining 1 teaspoon of ginger, the bell peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, vinegar, and pepper in a large bowl. Chill.
Note: This salad can be made using any firm white fish. Just shorten the cooking time (monkfish takes longer to cook than most fish). Precooked, leftover fish also makes a good salad. Instead of marinating the fish, use the lime (combined with a little olive oil) for dressing. Reduce the ginger to 1 teaspoon.
160 calories, 3 grams fat, 0 grams saturated fat per serving.
