Culinary
Secrets with The Hills
Earth-friendly, Healthy &
Easy Recipes
By Maralyn Hill and Brenda Hill ‘The Tandem Tasters’
Crimson Sunset Cocktail
Tomatoes and Olive Oil
Cumin Dusted Salmon
Orange Lime Cheesecake
Crimson
Sunset Cocktail
For some reason, the
Hill Team cannot get enough of pomegranate cocktails. They not only look
and taste terrific, but are also healthy. Here is a new favorite, a
result of mix and match, trial and tasting. Love the research (after
work) of course!
Ingredients:
2 cups of your
favorite vodka (a good spot for an inexpensive brand); we prefer Organic
Nation from Oregon.
1 cup of POMMA Pomegranate juice
1/2 cup of orange liqueur (more or less to taste)
1/4 cup of freshly squeezed lime juice
Directions:
Mix all of the above
in a glass pitcher.
Fill a highball glass with cracked ice.
Add the cocktail mix and garnish with a lime wedge or wheel.
Should serve 4, but seems to only serve 2 or 3, since it is difficult to
drink only one. Be careful as they do sneak up on you.
Alternatives:
The fun of this drink
is that you can be innovative. For a Mexican sunset, substitute tequila.
We love the new entry on the market, Senior Rio. For a Caribbean Sunset,
use any rum, (spiced rum is delicious) and an orange or pineapple
garnish - even a paper umbrella. You can make up your own name and
change the citrus for your own signature cocktail.
Tomatoes
and Olive Oil
One of our easy and
healthy spring recipes was given to us by our good friend, French Master
Chef Hervé Laurent, who was trained in the French tradition at various
institutes in France and Switzerland. He was our instructor at Le Cordon
Bleu in London and then went on to the Paul Bocuse Culinary Institute in
Lyon, France. Hervé is our inspiration when it comes to cooking and
tasting delicious light cuisine, from the ocean, farm to our fork and
into our willing mouths.
We three recently
returned from a week of learning and decadence at Lyon's Bocuse d'Or. We
ate like royalty, yet our happiest moments were tasting healthy foods
prepared simply. Now Hervé has his own cooking School of Culinary Arts,
C.A.
His delightfully easy
recipe for tomatoes with olive oil is one we use often, especially in
the spring when we can buy fresh, red, ripe tomatoes from the farmer's
market.
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Ingredients:
Tomatoes, firm, red, and ripe (any kind, we like cherry or
grape tomatoes)
Extra virgin olive oil (EVO)
Kosher or sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
Fresh basil, chopped
Directions:
Slice tomatoes to
better soak up the EVO.
Drizzle with good olive oil, a few pinches of kosher or sea salt and
freshly ground pepper.
Add a little fresh basil to enhance.
We serve this dish
cold, or room temperature, as a side, or on a picnic. This creation is
good for lunch or a snack with a piece of fresh bread. We also put the
above ingredients in a baking dish and heat until hot (almost bubbling,
skins about to burst), then add the basil, salt and pepper and serve.
It’s good enough to have every day in every way and fantastic with mac
and cheese, any grilled meat or fish.
Hervé writes about the health benefits of olive oil in a book we
published together called, “Cooking Secrets, The Why and How…” EVO is
rich in mono-saturated fats and antioxidants, helps lower overall
cholesterol levels, and reduces the risk of heart disease. There you
have it from the Master, easy, healthy, colorful and tasty.
Cumin Dusted Salmon
Servings – 4
We will all be heading to Virginia with the IFWTWA group in the fall. We
will be staying, dining and writing about the famous Jefferson Inn in
Richmond, after visiting Charlottesville. We all fondly remember our
days at The Williamsburg Inn and its delicious cuisine. This recipe from
our first book, “Our Love Affairs with Food and Travel,” is a
heart-healthy gem. Maralyn discovered this taste sensation from the
award winning chef, Calvin Belknap, in the year 2000.
Ingredients:
4 6-ounce salmon
fillets
2 limes, juiced
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
¼ onion, fine minced or pureed
2 teaspoons fine chopped cilantro
¼ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
Salt to taste
½ tablespoon ground cumin or ¾ tablespoon cumin seeds, toasted and
ground
Directions:
Check fillets for
bones and remove if present.
Combine marinade ingredients (lime juice, vinegar, honey, onion,
cilantro, salt and pepper) in shallow non-reactive dish and whisk to
combine thoroughly.
Place fillets in marinade and marinate 15 minutes. Flip fish over and
marinate another 15 minutes.
Remove from marinade.
Generously salt and pepper fillets and sprinkle cumin equally over
fillets.
Grill over very hot grill beginning skinned side up. Grill to desired
doneness.
Alternatively, the fillets can be seared in a smoking hot pan that has
been wiped with peanut oil and then finished in a 350 degree oven for
9-10 minutes.
Salmon has omega-3 and is recommended at least once a week.
Orange
Lime Cheesecake, Serves: 10
Now, it is time to
move south to Mexico. Can you imagine the most exhilarating moment
Brenda spent during the past year? Surprisingly, it wasn't in France or
sipping champagne. No, it was bending down in over six acres of lush
green gardens, after a long hike before dawn in rural Mexico. She dug in
the damp earth and plucked a fresh clove of garlic in her mouth. It was
tangy, sweet, savory, crunchy and the most scrumptious breakfast she
ever had. This all took place at Rancho La Puerto, in Baja California,
her very favorite place on planet Earth.
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When Maralyn told Brenda that our column was about earth friendly food,
her thoughts went immediately to Rancho La Puerto. The gardeners and
chefs have been living and teaching over 70 years of "green living,"
when the word green was only a color. We would not publish our first
book, “Our Love affairs with Food and Travel,” without one of the
Ranch’s delectable desserts. Our friend, Chef Bill Wavrin, was the chef
when Brenda first discovered the perfect balance of the Ranch and spa.
Then she tasted the "no guilt" Orange Lime Cheesecake. This recipe is
only a sample of the simple abundance found at the Ranch's 60 plus
organic vegetables in over six acres of freshly grown fruits and herbs.
This healthy treat is still popular today. Here it is, tasty without the
guilt.
Ingredients:
Crumb Crust:
1 1/3 cups fine graham cracker crumbs (about 11 whole graham crackers)
¼ cup unsweetened unfiltered apple juice
Filling:
1/3 cup apple juice
1 tablespoon (1 envelope) unflavored gelatin
1 ½ cups plain nonfat yogurt
½ cup nonfat ricotta cheese
¼ cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
2 tablespoons fresh line juice
2 tablespoons grated lime zest
1 tablespoon grated orange zest
Garnish:
1 orange peeled, cut
into 1/8-inch slices
10 sprigs fresh mint
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350
degrees F.
Lightly spray a 9-inch pie pan with vegetable oil spray.
To make crust, put crumbs in small bowl, add apple juice and stir with
fork until crumbs are moist but not sticky. Press the crumb mixture onto
the pie pan, forming up sides and over bottom.
Bake about 15 minutes, taking care not to let it burn (cracks in crust
are normal).
Set on wire rack to cool completely.
To make the filling, in a small saucepan bring apple juice to a simmer
over medium heat.
Turn off heat but leave the saucepan on burner. Sprinkle gelatin over
the juice and stir to dissolve.
In food processor or blender, combine yogurt, ricotta, brown sugar,
juices, zests, and gelatin mixture and process until smooth.
Taste and adjust sweetness with brown sugar.
Pour into cooled crust.
Smooth with spatula.
Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
Garnish with orange slice and mint sprig.
By the way, there are
many more things to do than hike before sunrise to the farm called Tres
Estrelles (Three Stars). You can meditate, dance, practice Yoga, go to
the library, take about 30 classes for the mind, body and spirit, learn
to cook even better from a master chef, get a facial or body scrub, make
your own jewelry, swim, lie naked in the sun or just relax in a hammock
and do nothing. Sometimes Brenda walks to the charming town of Tecate,
Mexico, website: www.rancholapuerto.com.
Remember, your questions and comments are always welcome. Cheers until
next month!
