Dancing Spoon

Greens & Homemade Croutons

Tips Tasty

by Anna Tourkakis

The wholegrain mustard is the mustard of choice in this recipe. It is a bit milder than other types and works better with the red wine vinegar. 

Salad Greens with Homemade Croutons and Bacon

Ingredients
Serves 4
4 slices bread, whole-wheat
1 garlic clove, cut in half
3 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil, separated
2 scallions, chopped
3 slices turkey bacon, cut into short strips
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
3 teaspoons wholegrain mustard
8 oz mesculin salad mix
4 eggs, poached or soft-cooked eggs 
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
1. Rub the bread with the garlic. Brush each side of bread slices with a bit of  oil. Toast the bread. Cool and cut into ½ inch crouton size bite.
2. Heat a skillet over medium heat with remaining oil. Add scallions and turkey bacon,  regular pork bacon can be substituted. Cook for 2 minutes. Add the vinegar and mustard and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and pour over salad leaves; toss to wilt a little. Arrange on serving platter.
3. Poach the eggs by placing 3 cups of water in a shallow pan with 1 tablespoon of vinegar and bring to a simmer. Crack each egg in a small bowl and gently slide in simmering water. Adjust the heat to keep the water at a simmer. Poach for 3 minutes or until yolk is cooked as desired. Lift out with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Place on salad and sprinkle with the croutons. Serve immediately. 
Note: Simmer is when liquid is just about to boil but not boiling. The water temperature is held at about 200 degrees.

---

Anna's new cookbook Delicious Simplicity is now available. It's packed with quick-and-easy recipes, Delicious Simplicity is your go-to cookbook for scrumptious meals. Save time and money while preparing delectable recipes that make nutritious eating in your busy life practical.

Buy Delicious Simplicity.

---

Foodie's Emporium is an Amazon Pro Merchant!

---

(Cucumber) Relish Your Meal

Tips Tasty

by Anna Tourkakis

Relish Your Meals
Cooking is definitely simpler and easier during summer. Temperatures are warm, fruits and vegetables are plentiful and meals can be easily put together.

For quick cooking, grilling is a frequent go-to method. Adding a relish to these meals produces a surprising delightful lunch or dinner. Typically, a relish consists of raw vegetables, pickles and spices. This cucumber relish replaces the pickles with jalapeño and uses a combination of summer favorite ingredients that are colorful and flavorful accompaniment to grilled meats resulting in a satisfying, healthy and delicious meal.

Cucumber Relish

Ingredients
1 cup seedless cucumber with skin, diced
1 cup tomato, seeded and diced
½ cup red onion, diced
1 teaspoon jalapeno, minced
4 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
Fresh ground black pepper to taste

Directions
1. Toss all ingredients together.
2. Taste for seasoning.
3. Serve as a relish.
TIP If you get excess liquid, drain the relish and use it as part of a salad dressing. Toss with mixed greens.

---

Anna's new cookbook Delicious Simplicity is now available. It's packed with quick-and-easy recipes, Delicious Simplicity is your go-to cookbook for scrumptious meals. Save time and money while preparing delectable recipes that make nutritious eating in your busy life practical.

Buy Delicious Simplicity.

---

Foodie's Emporium is an Amazon Pro Merchant!

---

"Delicious Simplicity" Published

Tips Tasty

by J. Michael Wheeler

Delicious Simplicity
Dancing Spoon's contributors include its fair share of cookbook authors and we're pleased to let you know Anna Tourkakis, Tasty Tips, has just joined that impressive group.

Anna's new cookbook Delicious Simplicity is now available. It's packed with quick-and-easy recipes, Delicious Simplicity is your go-to cookbook for scrumptious meals. Save time and money while preparing delectable recipes that make nutritious eating in your busy life practical.

Inspired by the healthy ingredients of European cuisine, Anna brings old-world flavors to weeknight meals. She’ll help you create mouthwatering dishes with a Mediterranean flair to intensify flavors and aromas. The luscious, guilt-free desserts take the same approach. This is nutritious cooking at its best. Take pleasure in serving good-for-you food that nourishes your family’s health and bonds built at the family table.

Buy Delicious Simplicity.

---

Foodie's Emporium is an Amazon Pro Merchant!

---

Warm Pasta Eggplant Salad

Tips Tasty

by Anna Tourkakis
The Wonder of Eggplants
Check out the menu in just about any Italian, Greek, or Middle Eastern restaurant and an eggplant dish is sure to be on it. Eggplants are an Old World vegetable and belong to the nightshade family. Its characteristic purple colored skin is rich in the antioxidant anthocyanin. It is low in calories, just 20 calories per cup, making it ideal for today’s lighter way of cooking. Given its spongy interior when fried, however, it quickly becomes soaked with oil and negates its low calorie virtues. Salting the slices of eggplants helps reduce the absorption of oil by collapsing the air pockets that give eggplants their spongy quality. Traditionally, salting has been done to draw out some of the bitterness that this vegetable may have. Another way to limit the absorption of oil is to cook it slightly in the microwave before frying.     

Another virtue of eggplants is that they can retain their shape when baked, as in the baked casseroles of eggplant parmigiana and  Moussaka. They also provide a creamy basis as in the baba ghanoush dip. They are ideal to use in spreads, warm salads, grilled or roasted by themselves. Available year round eggplants are at their peak in late summer.

Warm Pasta Salad Tossed with Eggplant, Tomatoes and Feta Cheese 
Ingredients
Serves 4

½ lb penne pasta (rotini, rigatoni)
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups eggplant, peeled and diced, in ½ inch cubes
3 small zucchini, diced in ½ inch cubes, about 3 cups
10 basil leaves, chopped
2 sprigs fresh oregano, minced or ¼ tsp dry
½ cup feta, crumbled
1 garlic clove
1- 14 oz can tomatoes, diced
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Heat 2 tablespoons oil, in a nonstick pan over medium heat. Add eggplant
and zucchini cover and cook for 15 minutes, or until tender, stirring frequently. Transfer cooked eggplant and zucchini to a large bowl and season with 1-tablespoon oil, basil, oregano, salt & pepper. Set aside.
2. Cook Cook pasta al dente, drain. Combine pasta and vegetables. Add feta cheese and mix gently.
3. Heat Heat remaining tablespoon of oil in the nonstick pan over medium heat and brown garlic; add canned tomatoes and sauté on high heat for 5 minutes, season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour over pasta and vegetables. Toss gently.

Serve warm or cold with a little Parmesan cheese if desired.
TIP The eggplant and zucchini can be prepared up to 1day ahead. The tomato sauce can also be prepared ahead and just reheat when needed.

---

Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations. Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations.

---

Foodie's Emporium is an Amazon Pro Merchant!

---

Eat Your (Winter) Salad

Tips Tasty

by Anna Tourkakis
Eat Your (Winter) Salad
As temperatures remain in the chill zone for several more weeks, salads may not be on the menu. Instead soups, casseroles, and long braised stews are cooking. These typical winter comforts can be high in ‘energy density’ better known as calories. Unless you shovel all the snow in your street, that energy may be stored as fat on your body that will have to be ‘run off’ in the spring. One way to prevent storage of those sticky calories is to add a tasty light salad to a meal.

Salads can vary from just leafy greens to complete meals.

A green salad contains only green leafy vegetables (lettuce, spinach, arugula, mesculin, etc.). Simple salads have one main ingredient, raw or boiled, such as a tomato salad or a potato salad. When salads include grilled or roasted ingredients, they are referred to as warm salads. A complete meal salad offers elements typically expected in an entrée, such as a protein and a starch.

Lettuce is often the foundation of salads and you can usually find several varieties at your store. Here’s a Lettuce Rundown:

• Iceberg lettuce stays crispy after being cut or prepared.
• Bibb lettuce, also known as Boston lettuce, has pliable tender leaves with a velvety texture.
• Romaine lettuce has a strong green flavor and coarse deep green straight leaves.
• Leaf lettuce, red or green color is mild in flavor with crisp fluffy leaf edges.
• Mesculin is a mixture of baby greens.
• Arugula has a strong peppery taste and strong flavor, best used as an addition.

 A drizzle of dressing made with good quality oil and vinegar, herbs and spices embellishes salads’ unique flavors, textures and goodness. So, balance those wintry comfort foods with a light and refreshing salad.

For a great winter-time salad check out my Field of Greens with Black Grapes and Farmers Cheese!

---

Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations. Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations.

---

Foodie's Emporium is an Amazon Pro Merchant!

---

---

Field of Greens Salad

Tips Tasty

by Anna Tourkakis
Field of Greens with Black Grapes and Farmers Cheese
This super quick and simple salad is an interesting and tasteful combination of a few ingredients. Simple and great tasting – what creative cooking should be about!

Field of Greens with Black Grapes and Farmers Cheese
Ingredients
Serves 4

Salad
6 cups mixed salad greens
2/3-cup (6 oz) Farmers Cheese, cubed, or cottage cheese, large curd
½ cup black grapes, seedless cut in half

Dressing
2 tablespoon raspberry vinegar or red wine vinegar
4-tablespoon olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt   
Fresh ground black pepper to taste

Directions

Salad
1. Wash and tear lettuces. (Precut mixed salad greens are available at the supermarket but I prefer to mix my own. I mix green and red leaf lettuce, baby spinach and a bit of arugula or whatever is at hand. I find tender leaf greens work best.)

2. Layer greens on serving bowl. Add grapes and cheese. 

Dressing
3. Whisk together oil, raspberry vinegar, salt and pepper.
4. Pour over salad and Toss at the table.

Tip: Raspberry vinegar gives this salad a real kick; I find red wine vinegar makes a very good substitute.

---

Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations. Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations.

---

Foodie's Emporium is an Amazon Pro Merchant!

---

---

How to Choose the Right Pasta

Tips Tasty

by Anna Tourkakis
How to Choose the Right Pasta
Even though all shapes and cuts of pasta are made from the same ingredients, flour, water and sometimes eggs the shape is key to the dish. The pasta’s role is to carry the sauce.  There are no set rules for pasta and sauce pairing but some combinations work better than others.

Sauces can be divided into six different types: meat sauce (ragu), seafood, vegetable, cream, garlic-oil, and uncooked. Pasta shapes have various names but they can be divided into four categories: long pasta (ribbons), short cuts, short tubes, and small types.

Long pasta such as spaghetti, linguine, fettuccine and angel hair are best with smooth sauces. Tomato and oil based sauces work well for these types of pasta. Marinara sauce is one that comes to mind. Fettuccine are especially suited for the Alfredo or cream sauce and angel hair pasta is perfect for a simple oil and garlic sauce (aglio-olio).

Short cuts of pasta shapes such as bow ties, spirals, and shells, are best suited for butter, cheese, tomato, meat, and vegetable based sauces; they hold every drop of these thicker sauces. Large shells are usually stuffed with a ricotta cheese mixture.

Short tubes types such as penne, rigatoni, and ziti tend to be sturdier and are perfect for meat, vegetable, and chunky tomato sauces. Manicotti shape is also an ideal shape for stuffing with a ricotta cheese mixture.

Small types, like pastina, ditalini, orzo are perfect for soups.

Whole-wheat pasta products follow the same general guidelines for pasta and sauce pairing.  

For practical purposes which pasta and sauce to combine depends largely on personal preference but adhering to this basic guide may result in a tastier and satisfying dish. 

---

Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations. Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations.

---

Foodie's Emporium is an Amazon Pro Merchant!

---

---

Keep Veggies Colorful

Tips Tasty

by Anna Tourkakis
How to Keep Color, Texture, and Nutrients in Cooked Vegetables
Fresh vegetables are the foundation of both nutrition and exceptional meals. They provide our bodies with valuable vitamins and minerals and add color and texture to our meals. Bright beautiful greens, reds, oranges, purples, and yellows are a taste-treat for the eyes and their crunchy texture adds interest to every bite. The basic guidelines for cooking vegetables are: quick cooking, minimum water, and use of a lid. These simple guides will help retain color, texture, and nutrients.

The common methods for cooking vegetables, boiling, steaming, stir-frying and sautéing are all suitable for quick cooking. When boiling vegetables the first questions are always, “how much water to use,” and “should I cover the pot?” Vegetables are added to just enough boiling water to cover them. Cook them to fork-tender. The use of a lid depends on the flavor of the vegetables. Mild flavored vegetables such as carrots, corn, winter squash and potatoes should be cooked with the lid on. Stronger flavored vegetables such as green beans, broccoli and zucchini are best cooked without a lid which allows volatile compounds to escape. These last veggies should be cooked in water one-half to one inch above the vegetables. This dilutes the volatile compounds and prevents discoloration. 

In steaming, stir-frying and sautéing methods, vegetables should be cut to a uniform small size for quick, even cooking. Typically, stir-fry vegetables are cut into thin strips. Sautéing is suitable for tender or thinly sliced vegetables. Steaming is best for retaining water soluble vitamins regardless of a longer cooking time. 

These basic procedures ensure bright colored and crunchy textured vegetables with its many nutrients retained.

---

Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations. Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations.

---

 

---

About Mustard

Tips Tasty

by Anna Tourkakis
More Than Ballpark Yellow
When we think of must-have ingredients, mustard is not usually one that comes to mind, even though most of us have a jar of it in the refrigerator. The only time we might give mustard some thought is when it’s devotedly paired with a hot dog. We don’t often consider the various uses and types of mustards with their unique blend of flavors and textures.

Prepared mustard is a mixture of crushed mustard seeds, vinegar or wine, and salt or spices. Some common flavorings include honey, horseradish, cranberries, onions, wine and peppers. Mustard can be a smooth paste or coarse depending on how finely the seeds are grounded. Mustard gets its pungent flavor from an essential oil that forms when the seeds are crushed and mixed with water. Yellow, Dijon, Dijon style, whole grain, and brown mustard are the more common types. Additionally, there is mustard powder or flour, which is used in making very hot English mustard and Chinese mustard.

Yellow mustard also known as American or “ballpark” mustard is mild and vinegary. Dijon mustard, named after the city in the Burgundy region of France, is made with wine, and so it is a smooth mustard, with a rich complex flavor. Dijon style is similar to Dijon but not made in Burgundy. Whole grain mustard can have whole, coarse or fine seeds. Brown mustard is better known as spicy brown mustard.  Mustard is used as a condiment for meat or deli meats or as a flavoring ingredient in sauces, stews, marinades and salad dressings.

Mustard also acts as an emulsifier resulting in a creamy mixture especially useful in salad dressings. Given that each type imparts a unique flavor and texture careful consideration can yield a more rewarding recipe.

---

Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations. Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA is a nutritional counselor. She teaches nutrition to food service professionals at North Shore Community College and does cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations.

---

 

---

Anna Tourkakis

Contributors Our

Anna Tourkakis, DTR, MPA/H
Anna's column on Dancng Spoon, Tasty Tips, combines nutrition, cooking tips, and great, healthy recipes. Anna is a Nutrition Counselor, a teacher and an international expert in healthy eating habits. She has been teaching healthy eating and nutrition for over 20 years. Her rapidly expanding program “Eating From Within” provides ideas on meal planning, food choices and physical activity, habits and satiety. She details these ideas in her presentation “Pieces to a Healthy Weight—Solving the Puzzle” which is part of her workplace wellness program.    

Anna teaches nutrition to foodservice professionals at North Shore Community College in Danvers, MA, and gives cooking demonstrations and healthy eating related presentations. She prepares quick, easy, healthy, and delicious meals that are versatile and family friendly. Her passion for healthy nutrition and great food is highlighted in her recipes.

Anna offers personal and corporate nutrition consulting services, including presentations on “Pieces to a Healthy Weight,” “Modifying Recipes,” “Food and Fitness,” and “Women’s Wellness” among others.

Anna is a Diet Technician Registered, member of the American Dietetic Association, and the Massachusetts Dietetic Association. She holds a Master Degree in Public Administration, concentration in Health.

Anna is available for cooking demonstrations and individual and group nutrition counseling.

Anna's new cookbook Delicious Simplicity is now available. It's packed with quick-and-easy recipes, Delicious Simplicity is your go-to cookbook for scrumptious meals. Save time and money while preparing delectable recipes that make nutritious eating in your busy life practical. Buy Delicious Simplicity.

Anna Q. Tourkakis, DTR, MPA
Nutrition Consultant
Questions or comments?

---

 

---