Great Way Weekly

We just returned from a delightful holiday in Holland. The picture below was taken on a cold morning in Amsterdam. The weather was cold and mostly dry, though we did get a bit of snow.

While in Amsterdam, we rented a small apartment so that we could experience the city more as a resident and (a little) less like a tourist. We shopped at the local Albert Heijn market and cooked many of our own meals. I know many people like to get away and leave the kitchen and the dirty dishes behind, but we find it oppressive and expensive to eat out 3 meals a day, every day of our vacation. The apartment helped us avoid this–breakfast at “home” before we set out for the day’s adventures, lunch at a restaurant, and dinner back at “home,” when we just couldn’t walk around any more.

I love visiting grocery stores when I travel to other countries. I love seeing what different types of foods are available and how they’re packaged. Judging by our local Albert Heijn, the Dutch eat a lot of potatoes! They sold bags of partially-cooked, peeled potatoes in a wide variety of different shapes and sizes. The also sold large bags of chopped kale, or “boerenkool.” I was extremely excited to see that kale!

The bags of boerenkool were sold to use for the Dutch comfort food, Stamppot. It’s basically like Irish Colcannon–mashed potatoes with kale (or cabbage) and various seasonings. The Dutch serve it with boiled (!) sausage on the side. It is simple and hearty, a perfect antidote to the cold, damp weather they have in Holland. Oh yeah, and here in Boston, too. Cold, damp–does that sound familiar to anyone?

There are a variety of recipes out there, and it seems like you can really make it any way you like. I think it would be fantastic with some roasted garlic mashed in. It’s a great way to get more kale into your diet.

Here’s one of the recipes that I found on the internet. The original recipe includes sausage, but I’ve removed that. When we made it, we served it with an English lentil roast (a recipe that I will post later).

Stamppot

3 lbs potatoes
2 onions
1 bay leaf
1 lb kale
1 pinch salt
1 pinch ground pepper
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter

1. Peel and dice potatoes and onions.
2. Clean, trim and slice kale.
3. Add the potatoes, onion, kale, a bay leaf, a pinch of salt and just enough water to cover all in a 3 qrt pan.
4. Cover and boil gently for about 25 minutes.
5. Remove the bay leaf, drain the vegetables, and mash them.
6. Add milk and butter. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Every August my husband and I celebrate our anniversary with a long camping trip. This year we camped in Vermont at Grand Isle State Park on the Lake Champlain Islands. It was divine!

We brought our bikes and spent our days cycling and swimming in the lake.

There are some excellent maps with suggested bike routes here and here. The island routes were primarily on empty country roads with little traffic and quaint farms and lake views throughout.

Our routes also took us past apple orchards and farms selling eggs and other assorted produce. Most things were sold on the honor system–a sign announced what was available, and a jar or box was available for you to leave your money in.

After an active day of biking and cooling off in the lake, we like to prepare simple, tasty meals to replenish and set us up for another day of biking. But what can you cook when you are camping? Our camp stove is sort of like a little jet engine, and the only thing it really does is boil things at a high temperature. In our early days of camping we did a lot of mix-type things. You know, boil some stuff and dump in some seasoning. Those mixes didn’t make us feel very good, though because they were basically boxes full of chemicals.

We realized that we could make healthier, tastier food with just a little more work than dumping a box of stuff in water. Since we’re only car camping (not backpacking–we’re too old for that!), we can bring heavy canned foods, some fresh produce and most importantly a cutting board. Now when we camp we eat variations on this recipe–a can of tomatoes with some sort of seasoning and some protein. This version has eggs, but it works well with a can of black beans, too. We buy a roll of prepared polenta, use 1/2 of it for one meal, and keep it fresh in our cooler to use the next day.

Camp Cuisine Poached Eggs Diablo on Polenta

Serves 2

1/2 roll of prepared polenta
1 onion, chopped
2-4 cloves garlic, chopped
Olive oil
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
1-2 tsp. cumin powder
Salt to taste
1 can Muir Glen Adobo tomatoes or Ro-Tel tomatoes (something spicy)
4 eggs

Saute onion, garlic and dash of salt in olive oil for about 5 minutes. Add bell pepper and continue sauteing until everything is soft and the onions are starting to brown. Add cumin powder and saute for just a few seconds, then add entire can of tomatoes. Bring mixture to a boil, then turn fire down to simmer for about 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt.
Make 4 indentations in tomato mixture and crack eggs into the pot. Bring back to a boil and poach eggs for about 3-4 minutes (or longer if you don’t like runny yolks).
Cut polenta into at least 4 slices and divide them between 2 bowls. Top each with 2 eggs and 1/2 of the sauce.
Enjoy!

This tasted amazing on our trip, sitting in front of the fire ring under the stars, listening to the crickets and cicadas. If your surroundings are less divine, you might need to up the flavors–maybe some oregano? Maybe some tabasco?

During my week in New Orleans, I went to classes at 2 different yoga studios in New Orleans. Swan River Yoga Shala on Magazine St. in the Garden District, and Wild Lotus Yoga on Perrier St. Uptown. Both studios had really great atmosphere. I was in the third-floor Castle studio at Swan River, which had great views of the surrounding rooftops. Wild Lotus and stenciled gold lotus flowers here and there on their floors, which were delightful to use as drishtis (points to focus on to help with balance). Both classes were ashtang/vinyasa style yoga, though Swan River offers classes in other styles.

In Michelle Baker’s class at Swan River, we spent the first 30 minutes of the 75 minute class chanting and listening to Michelle give a dharma talk. The chanting was nice, but I personally could have done with less talking and more yoga. Cecelia at Wild Lotus did no chanting and led us through a solid 90 minute class of ashtanga.

Taking yoga classes in other cities is really a great thing to do on vacation. I like to travel my Yogatoes non-slip yoga towel/mat with me as it packs up pretty small, and then I just use one of the studio’s mats underneath. It’s fun to check in with other yoga communities–I always learn something new!

I just spend the week in New Orleans, and though our beloved Casamento’s Restaurant was closed for the summer, we ate very well and gluten-free all week. Crawfish were in season, so we (happily) ate boiled crawfish probably every other day, and lots of oysters. The oysters were not as good as they were on our Christmas trip, though. But, that didn’t seem to affect the grilled oysters we ate at Quarterview Restaurant in Metairie and Deanie’s in the French quarter. They were proof that using ample butter, garlic and cheese makes anything taste delicious!

Aside from boiled crawfish (and shrimp), our best meals were at Bennachin, a tiny West African restaurant at 1212 Royal St. in the French Quarter. They don’t have a website, and I’ve been unable to find their menu online to post here. We happily dined on Jama Jama ni Makondo, a plate of tasty sauteed spinach, coconut rice and sweet fried plantains. We also had the Kone ni Makondo, a tomato-based black eyed pea stew, also served with coconut rice and plantains. For desert, we had more fried plantains topped with a rich yogurt-based sauce (I think it was vanilla yogurt with some sour cream mixed in) that really knocked us out! It was delicious! If you are avoiding gluten, just make sure you tell them not to put bread on your plate (actually a good thing to do anywhere you dine in New Orleans).

Our annual holiday trip to New Orleans to visit my family is always a big food-fest. Like anyone visiting New Orleans, we do our best to eat as much of the wonderful local cuisine as we can. I should point out that though this is a health blog, I would not call New Orleans cuisine “healthy” It’s full of butter and cream and lots of fried things. So, occasional indulgence is o.k., but we always have to “detox” with lots of fresh veg and brown rice when we come back to Boston!

We had a fantastic meal of raw oysters and perfectly fried seafood at Casamento’s on Magazine St. in the Garden District. This is definitely an old-school, family-run restaurant. They aren’t open every day, and don’t serve both lunch and dinner every day. If you go, you should plan to wait at least 30-45 minutes for a table as the place is tiny and no one (employees or customers) is in a hurry. We found the wait worth it–the oysters were amazing and came with a set up to make your own cocktail sauce with Ketchup, horseradish, tabasco and a lemon wedge. My husband and I shared a fried seafood platter that had fried shrimp, oysters, catfish, and crab claws. It was probably some of the best fried food I’ve ever eaten–it was completely grease-less, and almost seemed light!
For those of you avoiding gluten in your diet, please check Casamento’s out! Their fried seafood is gluten-free, though you should be sure to ask them to leave the bread off of the plate.

We also ate at Deanie’s seafood in the French Quarter and had grilled oysters and blackened redfish (both also gluten-free).

Sadly, crawfish were not in season when we visited, but we made sure to eat as many boiled shrimp as we could on this trip. In New Orleans, we boil our seafood whole (that’s with the head and tail intact), and we like it spicy. If you’re lucky, you can also get some potatoes, onions or maybe corn on the cob that’s been boiled in the “crab boil,” as we call any spicy boiling mixture. Boiled seafood is another good option for people with food sensitivities as it does not contain gluten, soy or egg (or corn, unless the restaurant boils corn cobs–just ask).