Sweet and Salty Bulgur and Cauliflower Salad {Recipe Redux}

This month’s topic for Recipe Redux, a group of registered dietitians who write a blog post about a healthy recipe all on a single theme, is all about whole grains. Exotic grains were encouraged for the recipes, but instead, I chose a common pantry staple—bulgur wheat—and added some out of the ordinary flavors.

Bulgur is traditionally reserved for tabbouleh, the lemony parsley and grain salad recipe that everyone has memorized they’ve made it so often. I love the hearty flavor and chewy texture of bulgur, but wanted to do something completely different with it.

For crunch (and because it is so incredibly beautiful at the farmers’ market this time of year), I added finely chopped raw cauliflower (done in the food processor; quick and easy), for sweetness, I used golden raisins plumped in warm orange juice, and for a bit of salty tang, I threw in a handful of chopped green olives. It all came together to make a salad that has humble ingredients but fantastic flavor.  Scroll to the end of the recipe for links to more healthy grain recipes from my fellow Recipe Reduxers.

Sweet and Salty Bulgur and Cauliflower Salad

Serves 6

2/3 cup water

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup fine grind bulgur wheat

1/4 cup orange juice

1/4 cup golden raisins

1/2 of a small head of cauliflower (about 12 ounces for 1/2 a head), trimmed and cut into chunks

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon honey

3/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

6 large green olives, pitted and chopped

1/3 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

Bring the water and salt to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from the heat and stir in the bulgur. Cover and let stand 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring the orange juice to a simmer in another small saucepan. Remove from the heat and add the raisins. Cover and let stand until cool.

Place the cauliflower in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped (be careful not to over process, you don’t want it pureed).

Whisk together the oil, vinegar, honey, cumin, and pepper in a large bowl. Add the bulgur and the raisin mixture and stir to combine. Stir in the olives and parsley. You can serve the salad at once, or cover and refrigerate it for up to 3 days.

Each serving: 18 g carbohydrate, 123 calories, 5 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 3 g fiber, 2 g protein, 109 mg sodium

Carb Choices: 1; Exchanges: 1 starch, 1 fat

Yellow Bell Pepper Romesco Sauce

I am by nature a plain (read: lazy) cook, which is what makes having sauces like this one so great. I made a big batch of this yesterday and will eat it for days on striped bass fillets (broiled with salt and pepper), roasted vegetables (cut up, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted), roasted chicken (rubbed with olive oil, salt, and pepper and roasted), and with just plain sliced bread.

I used yellow bell peppers because they looked so pretty at the produce market, but you can use red or orange ones instead. To make this even faster, you can even use roasted red peppers from a jar. You’ll need about 1 mounded cup of drained peppers. And if you don’t have pine nuts, you can substitute almonds or walnuts.

Put this low-carb, low-cal sauce on almost anything—it’s good stuff to have around when you don’t feel like cooking.

Yellow Bell Pepper Romesco Sauce

Makes generous 1 cup

1/4 cup pine nuts

2 large yellow or red bell peppers, cut in half lengthwise, stems and seeds removed

2 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon sherry vinegar or white wine vinegar

1 garlic clove, crushed through a press

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Pinch of cayenne pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the pine nuts in a small baking dish and bake, shaking the pan once or twice, until the nuts are lightly toasted, about 8 minutes. Transfer to a plate to cool (don’t keep them in the hot pan or they will continue to toast).

2. Preheat the broiler. Lightly oil a small rimmed baking pan and place the bell pepper halves skin side up on the pan. Broil the peppers, turning the pan as needed, until the skin of the peppers is blackened and blistered, about 10 minutes. Transfer the peppers to a bowl; set a plate over the bowl to hold in the heat. Let stand until the peppers are cool enough to handle, 15-20 minutes. Peel away and discard the skins of the peppers.

3. Combine the pine nuts, peppers, and the remaining ingredients in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. (If your peppers are really large, you might need a little more liquid to get to a “saucy” consistency; you can add a few teaspoons of cold water or chicken broth.) Serve at once, or cover and refrigerate up to 4 days.

Each serving (about 2 tablespoons): 4 g carbohydrate, 73 calories, 6 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 1 g fiber, 1 g protein, 71 mg sodium

Carb Choices: 0; Exchanges: 1 fat

The Summer Casserole

This has got to stop! The produce coming from my CSA and from the weekly trips to the local farmers’ market where eggplant and bouquets of basil are stacked in bountiful piles that I just can’t leave there have me inundated with vegetables.

This week, I made a dish that I make at least a couple of times every summer when I have these feelings of being buried in zucchini. It’s not really a recipe, per se, and the beauty of it is that you can use whatever you hand. There are no set amounts of anything to put in this dish, so if you don’t like eggplant or you you’ve got fresh thyme, but no basil, this will still turn out to be delicious.

Here’s what you do:

Pull out all the vegetables that you need to use. This can be tomatoes, eggplant, yellow squash, zucchini, bell peppers, onions, garlic, and any kind of herb. Cut the vegetables up into slices or chunks, mince the garlic and a handful of whatever herbs you have, and put them in a big bowl. Drizzle the whole thing with olive oil (not much, 2 tablespoons will do for a huge, huge, batch), sprinkle with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper and toss everything together. Put the vegetables in a baking dish, cover, and bake at 350F until the vegetables are tender, about 1 hour. You don’t need to add water or liquid to the dish, the vegetables will give off their own juices. This is not one of those crisp-tender preparations, so don’t expect crunchy vegetables. They all sort of meld together and some of the eggplant and tomatoes will fall apart, but it’s a very good thing.

What to do with it now? Serve the vegetables over pasta (as in the photo above), polenta, or grits; coarsely chop the vegetables and put them in an omelette or a frittata; or just serve them as a side dish, sprinkled with a little Parmesan cheese along with whatever you’re grilling this week. It’s a healthy, easy, delicious, low-carb way to use up whatever you’ve hauled out of your garden or home from your local market.

Summer Lentil Salad

My CSA started up last week and the local Jackson Heights Greenmarket is in full swing. It’s the time of year when there is way more produce in my refrigerator than I will ever find the stomach space to use. Neighbors don’t think you’re too weird if you show up at their door with the gift of a head of Bibb lettuce. They get used to it as the season progresses.

One of the ways I like to use fresh produce is to cook some lentils or dried beans and use those to make a salad with all the produce I have. The lentils or beans are a good source of protein and an excellent source of fiber—and they’re delicious with almost any vegetable you add to them.

The salad I made today uses what I had on hand. This recipe is just a blueprint really, to use whatever is fresh and fabulous at your farmers’ market this time of year. You can add almost anything: diced carrots, radishes, turnips, bell peppers, jicama, kohlrabi, cucumbers, green onions, halved cherry tomatoes, and any herb that you have on hand.

One rule of thumb I will mention is that when you’re making salads with high carb ingredients like these lentils, dried beans, whole grains (like wheat berries or barley), or whole wheat pasta use the same amount of fresh vegetables in the salad as you do of the lentils, beans, grains or pasta. In this recipe, 1 cup of dry lentils will make about 2 cups of cooked lentils, so make sure you add about 2 cups of vegetables to the mix. This not only prevents carb overload, but it insures that you have a flavorful, colorful, and crunchy salad. And if, like me, you are up to your eyeballs in lettuce, serve the lentil salad on top of fresh greens. Ah, the joys of summer!

I will point out my flavor-infusing cooking method for lentils in this recipe. They cook so quickly (in about 15 or 20 minutes) that they need to go into an already flavorful cooking liquid so they can absorb as much flavor as possible. I simply simmer a small halved onion, a stalk of celery, a crushed garlic clove, and a bay leaf in salted water for about 15 minutes before I add the lentils. That way, the lentils are cooking in a vegetable broth that’s really going to give them an additional layer of flavor. Another trick: once they are just done, tender, yet firm to the bite, and still holding their shape, I pour the lentils, liquid, and the onion/garlic/bay leaf mixture into a 13 x 9 baking dish and let the lentils cool in the cooking liquid to absorb even more flavor. Set the dish in front of a fan to cool if you’re in a hurry.

Lentil and Vegetable Salad with Goat Cheese

Makes 6 servings

To cook the lentils

3 cups water

1 small onion, cut in half

1 stalk celery, cut in 3-inch pieces

1 clove garlic, smashed

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 cup French green lentils, picked over and rinsed

To make the salad

3 tablespoons sherry vinegar or white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil (or, if you have it, walnut oil is lovely)

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt (you don’t need much, since the lentils were cooked in salted water)

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 small turnip, peeled and diced

1 carrot, peeled and diced

1 cucumber, peeled and diced

1 green onion, minced

3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

3 ounces crumbled goat cheese (crumble it while it’s cold, so a little bit can go a long way)  

To cook the lentils, combine the water, onion, celery, garlic, bay leaf, and salt in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, and simmer, covered, about 15 minutes. Add the lentils, return to a simmer, and cook just until the lentils are tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Pour the lentil mixture into a large shallow dish and let cool to room temperature. Drain the lentil mixture and discard the onion, celery, garlic, and bay leaf.

To make the salad, whisk together the vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Add the lentils, turnip, carrot, cucumber, green onion, and dill and stir to combine. Serve the salad at once, or store refrigerated for up to 3 days. The salad tastes better at room temperature, so if you do make it ahead, let it sit out of the refrigerator for about 30 minutes before serving. Taste the salad before serving; it may need another splash of vinegar to brighten the flavor. Sprinkle the salad with the goat cheese just before you serve it.

Each serving: 21 g carbohydrate, 177 calories, 7 g fat, 3 g saturated fat, 11 mg cholesterol, 5 g fiber, 10 g protein, 255 mg sodium

Carb Choices: 1 1/2; Exchanges: 1 starch, 1 veg, 1plant-based protein, 1/2 fat

Pile It On: Low Carb Veggies

If you’ve had diabetes for a while, or even if you’ve only been recently diagnosed, you’re probably already tired of your diabetes educator, your doctor, or your dietitian preaching to you about portion control.

Your health care providers are probably so concerned about getting the message across that you should only have a single cookie, a 3-ounce portion of meat or poultry, and high calorie oils and butter in moderation that they didn’t tell you what you can eat all you want of: non-starchy vegetables.

These include all lettuces and leafy greens, cucumbers, radishes, cauliflower, broccoli, beets, summer squash, green beans, and lots, lots more. You can find a full list here.

The American Diabetes Association calls these the non-starchy vegetables and they say that a serving is 1/2 cup of cooked vegetable or 1 cup of the raw vegetable. This serving size has about 5 grams of carbohydrate, so unless you’re loading up on other carbs at the same meal, you can eat two or three servings of these at a time.

Not only are these choices nearly a free ride when it comes to carbs, they are low in calories, high in fiber, and all of them have healthful antioxidants. If you’re out of ideas for preparing vegetables, check out the website FruitsandVeggiesMoreMatters.org. The site has more than 1000 recipes for fruits and vegetables in an easily searchable database.

Go to Eating Well magazine and Cooking Light magazine too and search for vegetable recipes. These two magazines do a fantastic job of creating great tasting recipes that are easy to prepare. I recommend them for people with diabetes also because all their recipes have the nutrition information included, so you’ll know how much of the dish can fit into your diet.

When was the last time someone told you to eat more of anything? Now, get yourself to the farmers’ market and start cooking.  

Roasted Vegetables with Charmoula Sauce



I love it when I find a recipe for a sauce that turns ordinary ingredients into a special meal without a lot of fat or calories. Carrmoula, a simple Moroccan sauce that’s made with fresh parsley and cilantro and ground spices, is just such a recipe. I’ve paired it here with a combination of roasted vegetables (use whatever vegetables you have on hand), but you can serve it with fish or roasted chicken too. It’s best not to make it too far ahead, since the herbs will lose their bright green color after a couple of hours.

Roasted Vegetables with Charmoula Sauce

Makes 6 servings

6 ounces fingerling potatoes or small baby potatoes, scrubbed and cut in half

4 carrots, peeled, cut in half lengthwise, and cut into 2-inch pieces

1 red onion, cut into wedges

1 red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch strips

1 small acorn squash, cut into wedges and seeded

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, divided

1/4 cup fresh Italian parsley leaves

1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves

3 tablespoons reduced-sodium chicken broth or vegetable broth or water

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon paprika

Generous pinch of cayenne pepper

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Combine the potatoes, carrots, onion, bell pepper, and squash in a large bowl. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon of the oil and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt and toss to coat. Arrange the vegetables in a single layer on two large rimmed baking sheets. Bake, turning the vegetables once, until tender and well browned, about 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, to make the sauce, combine the remaining 2 tablespoons oil, the remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, the parsley, cilantro, broth, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, paprika, and cayenne in a blender and process until pureed. (the sauce makes about 1/2 cup)

To serve, arrange the vegetables on a serving platter and drizzle evenly with the sauce. Serve hot or warm.

Each serving: 20 g carbohydrate, 146 calories, 7 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 4 g fiber, 2 g protein, 179 mg sodium

Carb Choices: 1; Exchanges: 1 starch, 1 vegetable

What To Do With Rutabagas

My husband and I belong to a CSA. Let me describe that a little more accurately. We belong to Farm Spot, the Community Supported Agriculture program in our neighborhood of Jackson Heights in Queens, NY. He sometimes picks up the fruit and vegetable deliveries about five blocks from where we live and I eat 99 percent of the produce myself. The vegetables come from Golden Earthworm Farm, an organic farm on the North Fork of Long Island. Fruits come from Briermere Farms located close to Golden Earthworm in Riverhead, NY.

A few weeks ago, he picked up a 30-pound granny cart load of root vegetables, greenhouse grown kale and spinach, and storage apples. Some woman in front of him said she didn’t like rutabagas, or Swedes, as they are sometimes called.

He said, “Oh, I’ll take them, my wife loves them.” Never mind that I have 6 rutabagas in the refrigerator that we—or, more precisely, I—have not eaten since our last CSA delivery 3 weeks ago. Now, we have 18 rutabagas. Here’s the simplest and one of the best ways I’ve prepared them. The lemon gives me hope of spring, the rosemary adds a piney note, and the honey softens the slight bitterness that rutabagas can have.

Note: If you don’t know what a granny cart is, it is a wire frame fold-up cart that elderly ladies and people who buy groceries fifty pounds at a time use in NYC to carry home their haul. It is very uncool to use a granny cart at any age (I use mine almost daily)!

Rosemary-Lemon Glazed Rutabagas   

Makes 4 servings

2 large rutabagas, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces (about 2 pounds)

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary or crumbled dried rosemary

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1 tablespoon honey

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Place the rutabagas in a large rimmed baking pan. Drizzle with the olive oil, sprinkle with the rosemary, salt, and pepper and toss to coat. Arrange the rutabagas in the pan in a single layer.

Bake, stirring once, until tender and well browned, 45 to 50 minutes.

Whisk together the honey, lemon zest, and lemon juice in a serving bowl. Add the hot rutabagas and toss to coat. Serve hot or warm.

Each serving: 20 g carbohydrate, 118 calories, 4 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 5 g fiber, 2 g protein, 179 mg sodium

Carb Choices: 1; Exchanges: 1 starch, 1 fat