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In Season: Cardoons

Camilla Salem — Mon, 14 May 2012 05:34:04 PDT

I grew up eating cardoons, or cardoni, every Spring; my grandmother would braise them, and I was always so fond of their artichokelike flavor. Because of this, I'm always surprised when people aren't familiar with the classically Italian vegetable. If you've ever come across them at the market and walked on by because you weren't sure what to do with them, think again: when cooked properly, cardoons are tender, earthy, and satisfying.

A cardoon, which is essentially a giant thistle, looks like a bunch of oversized, beat-up celery stalks. The stalks happen to be a naturally occurring form from the same species as the globe artichoke. Cardoons are typically more of a Winter vegetable, but they also grow well through May, June, and July. The Mediterranean vegetable is hard to find in grocery stores, but can be located at farmers markets.

If you're new to cooking cardoons, know that they require a bit of special care to prepare for cooking. Long fibers run down the stalks that must be removed, which can be done with a vegetable peeler. Like artichokes, cardoons turn brown when exposed to air, so you must dunk them in lemon water while you wait to cook them.

Growing up, I typically enjoyed them braised as a side dish, and they can also be cooked and pureed into a spread, breaded and fried, or even baked with béchamel sauce. Have you ever tried cardoons?

Healthy Dose Link Time

FitSugar — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 11:30:23 PDT

Mangia, mangia! Italian recipes minus the guilt, and all under 400 calories - Shape
21 marathons that will have you running into Fall - Active.com
Black rice: the super food of kings and queens - DailySpark
Easy ways to avoid wrist pain in your yoga practice - lululemon
You give us four weeks, and we'll give you a fab set of gams - Health
Straight from the mouths of doctors: forget BMI - Lemondrop

Julia Roberts on Eating Her Way Through Eat Pray Love

FitSugar — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:15:56 PDT

With the highly anticipated Eat Pray Love opening just weeks away, Julia Roberts is everywhere. And this is not a bad thing, BTW. BuzzSugar was lucky enough to catch up with the actress recently, and amongst other things, Julia talked about all the pasta and pizza she had to eat during filming. She told Buzz that she must have gained something like 11 pounds while filming in Italy, but "loved every pound." Julia is also on the cover of this week's Entertainment Weekly, where she talks more about food, but also about exercising and training for a half-marathon. Julia ran in the Santa to the Sea half-marathon last December with a time of 2:29:47.

Here are the EW interview highlights:

On gaining weight while filming: "Pizza was what I ate all day. By the time we left Rome, I was seven to 10 pounds heavier. I could've used a bigger pair of jeans when I went off to India!"
On training for a half-marathon while in India: "I trained a lot while I was doing the movie and it was so hot there. I think it was to my advantage that I had trained under such dire circumstances."
On exercising: "I must admit, I don't love exercise, but I do love how I feel afterward: accomplishment, clarity, energy, strength, joy. These are all things I give myself through working out, and I can feel it in everything I do."

Move Over Bethenny, There's a New "Skinny" Housewife in Town

FitSugar — Tue, 18 May 2010 08:00:05 PDT

Bethenny Frankel isn't the only housewife with a penchant for healthy entertaining. Real Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice spent the weekend signing copies of her book, Skinny Italian ($12), at a bookstore in, of all places, New Jersey. Teresa, who's better known for flipping tables at dinner than serving it, shares all the classics - pesto and puttanesca sauces, veal piccata, and fettucine alfredo - but with a healthy twist.

I love Italian-American food but it's often carb-heavy with lots of cheese, butter, and beef. Teresa's recipes cut down on the fat but not flavor - there's less cheese, leaner meats, and a reduction of fats. Instead, flavors are boosted with herbs, garlic, olive oil, and peppers. Besides the recipes, Teresa offers lessons on making fresh pizza, canning your own tomatoes, and general cooking tips. Her mantra? "Eat spaghetti and still fit into your skinny jeans."

So, which "skinny" housewife's team are you on - Team Bethenny or Team Teresa?

Diet Dilemma: Dining Out and Ordering Healthy

FitSugar — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 05:50:43 PDT

San Francisco certainly seems like foodie central, and sometimes dining out seems like a competitive sport here in the Bay Area. But restaurant dining doesn't need to be fraught with difficulty if you're watching calories, fat, cholesterol, and sodium. Here are some simple tips from The Mayo Clinic Diet to follow next time you find yourself searching a menu for healthy fare. Knowing what to look for and what to avoid will help you "savor the exotic" without worrying about your waistline or heart health.

Italian Food Break Down: Numbers to Know Before You Mangia!

FitSugar — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 11:00:00 PST

Who doesn't love a slice of cheese pizza, Lasagna or Anitpasto? And those Italian desserts like gelato or a cannoli - they're just so delicious, it's hard to hold back.

Each of these are based on a regular restaurant portion:

Antipasto Salad: 136 cals, 8g fat, 13g carbs
Bruschetta (1 piece with tomato and basil): 102 cals, 3g fat, 17g carbs
Chicken Cacciatore: 370 cals, 22g fat, 4g carbs
Capresse Salad: 154 cals, 11.8g fat, 4.2g carbs
Eggplant Parmigiana: 670 cals, 32g fat, 75g carbs
Fettuccine Alfredo: 780 cals, 55g fat, 53g carbs
Parmesan Garlic Bread: 259 cals, 13.4g fat, 29.2g carbs
Lasagna (meat): 400 cals, 17g fat, 36 cals
Lasagna (vegetable): 250 cals, 13g fat, 21g carbs
Manicotti (cheese and tomato): 230 cals, 14g fat, 18g carbs
Minestrone Soup: 260 cals, 6g fat, 28g carbs
Spinach and Mushroom Risotto: 219 cals, 5g fat, 37g carbs
Pizza (1 slice cheese): 222 cals, 5g fat, 35g carbs
Pizza (1 slice pepperoni): 249 cals, 7.5g fat, 35g carbs

Want to see the rest? Then

Ravioli: 300 cals, 12g fat, 30 carbs
Spaghetti with tomato sauce: 540 cals, 13g fat, 105g carbs
Spaghetti with meatsauce: 650 cals, 16g fat, 90g carbs
Cheese Tortellini: 530 cals, 20g fat, 74g carbs
Veal Parmigiana: 350 cals, 20g fat, 5g carbs

Dessserts:

Cannoli: 142 cals, 7.1g fat, 14.2g carbs
Almond Biscotto: 110 cals, 2.5g fat, 21g carbs
Chocolate Hazelnut Gelato: 241 cals, 16g fat, 24 carbs
Raspberry Napoleon: 243 cals, 4g fat, 34g carbs
Pasticiotti: 305 cals, 12.4g fat, 42.5g carbs
Tiramisu: 310 cals, 15g fat, 39 carbs

Link Time: Make Cambodian-Style Spring Rolls

Susannah Chen — Thu, 24 May 2012 09:49:10 PDT

Must make: Cambodian-style Spring rolls - Food52
Chefs' takes on photography in their restaurants - Eater
The five most incendiary comments ever made by chefs - The Braiser
A judge rules POM Wonderful's health claims are misleading - Delish
Chicago's five best Italian restaurants - Zagat
14 foods that do double duty as cleaning products - Kitchen Daily
Best rib recipes for the grill - MyRecipes

How Not to Destroy Your Marriage

The Good Men Project — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:30:42 PDT

We're happy to present this story from one of our favorite sites, The Good Men Project. Today, Mark Tyrrell offers eight relationship tools to make your marriage work.

"All marriages are happy. It's the living together afterward that causes all the trouble." - Raymond Hull

So how do you make your marriage work? Or do you just blindly hope it'll take care of itself?

Think of a hot, successful date with someone you’re attracted to. You have fun, great conversation and more sexual chemistry than a warehouse full of pheromones. You don’t have to “work at” the date because it’s self sustaining. It runs as smoothly as the gliding hand of a classical guitar maestro and you can’t wait for another rendition.

Teenage Dating in a Twilight-Hunger Games World

But marriage, or any long term relationship; well that’s a whole other caboodle.

If we’re not careful, marriage can deteriorate into little more than a torturous assault course; littered with routine boredoms, frustrations and resentments. Couple all that with external pressures and sometimes marriage feels not worth the effort. But there are major benefits to being hitched or committed, other than just a beneficial tax regime.

Healthy marriage; healthy people.

Being happily married bestows heaps of health benefits. You might be forgiven for thinking that if you’re married you don’t live longer it just seems like it but, no, a good marriage really can help you clock up more years (1) and married people are happier (2) even though they don’t always look it from the outside.

But when marriage doesn’t work it can feel being manacled to a maniac, marooned with a misogynist or nailed to a nag. And I don’t care what the studies say, that’s not healthy. You may hear couples say stuff like: “We are making our marriage work!” but how do we do this?

Making it work.

We pay lip service to “working on the marriage” but what is the work we need to do? Marriage vows such as “to love and to cherish” and “forsaking all others, for better or for worse” don’t really tell us how to make it work, although they give us a clue.

Fortunately a ton of research has been done on what to do and not do to make your marriage, or any intimate relationship work. Follow the guidelines here to become “good at marriage."

Tip one: Be romantic but keep it real.

We are all (force?) fed romance in movies and novels. The handsome man gets the beautiful woman. But what I wonder is what happens after our romantic couple ride off into the sunset together? What do they do exactly? Bicker? Moan at one another? Start to ignore each other?

After all that romance, our beautiful couple is bound to have massive expectations of their life together. But when rose tinted expectations clash with day to reality, watch out!

Romance is vital in any relationship. Always seeing the best in your partner helps to keep things intimate and love should be expressed. But if you have been raised on Mills and Boon Romance novels or feel-good movies, then your own romantic expectations can work against the sustainability of your long term relationship.

When day to day life fails to live up to the giddy, heady lust-filled days of the pre-settled down romance people can become angry, even blame one another: “This wasn’t what I signed up for." They find it hard to take the rough with the smooth because they never really figured there would be any rough.

Expectations not diluted with at least a dash of realism can be a royal road to relationship ruin. Your partner may be an angel, but they have feet of clay. You must learn to love those feet or at least accept them a bit!

Get the rest after the jump!

My Green Heaven, Continued: Fried Green Tomato Parmesan

OnSugar Blog — Tue, 15 May 2012 06:14:08 PDT

We never would've thought of fried green tomato parmesan (that credit goes to Food Orleans), but now that the idea's entered our minds, there's only one real way to resolve our craving.

Because I love them so, I've written a couple of love letters to fried green tomatoes over the years: the fried green tomato caprese "salad" I made without remorse, and fried green tomato BLTs, a longtime favorite. Green tomatoes are so good when fried, I think a lot of folks never try them other ways, like in a salsa or gazpacho. I really, really want to use them in recipes like that. I really do! But when I think of them fried, I just can't resist.

It just so happens that fried green tomatoes work extremely well in a "parmesan" or a casserole of breaded, fried something (usually eggplant or chicken) layered with tomato sauce, mozzarella, and parmesan cheese. The tomatoes are a little tangy, so they add a lot of character to the dish, but they're also a lot easier to fry than eggplant, which always soaks up so much oil. The tomatoes stand up to frying and still soften without a lot of oil, so you actually end up with something quite a bit lighter here than eggplant parmesan. Which is a total lagniappe, if you ask me.

The recipe, and step-by-step photos, when you keep reading.

Ham, Egg, and Cheese Sandwich, Reinvented

OnSugar Blog — Tue, 08 May 2012 06:08:15 PDT

Not-quite-soft-boiled, not-quite-hard-boiled eggs get the special treatment in this otherworldly sandwich creation from OnSugar blog Between the Bread.

My houseboy has been on a soft-boiled egg kick lately - or maybe you'd call them gently boiled eggs, because the whites have the firmness of a hard-boiled egg, but the yolk is not quite firm, not quite runny. On sandwiches, they are a revelation.

After a recent egg-boiling session, we put together this twist on a ham, egg, and cheese sandwich. The trio of crisped prosciutto, manchego cheese, and gooey egg provided a fascinating flavor and texture combination - salty, creamy, and reminiscent of some of the best parts of French and Italian sandwich concepts.

Like a good club sandwich, the balance of firm ingredients (toast, hard cheese) with moist (egg, mustard) made it all too easy to eat. This reinvention will most definitely be repeated.

Want more? Start following Between the Bread, then get to work on your own food blog. Your gastronomic adventures could wind up featured here.