Devising a dessert 7-layer dip is no easy feat. Earlier this week in the midst of all the chicken wing and pulled pork sandwich recipes, I wondered out loud on…
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There’s nothing quite like a good Cubano sandwich. Layer on layer of pork – roasted loin, ham and salami with Swiss cheese, pickles and a schmear of mustard, pressed like a panini until the cheese is melty. On the West Coast, unless you’re at a Cuban restaurant, it’s not a sandwich you see all that often. There are exceptions – the last one I had was actually a couple of years ago at Matt’s in the Market here in Seattle. We also have a Caribbean place called Paseo that’s supposed to have a great Cubano-like sandwich. But really, there's no reason you can't make a pretty good Cubano, or perhaps more accurately here, a medianoche sandwich at home. (The main difference is the bread).
The mojo(ish)-marinated pork started as tacos for Saturday night’s dinner, but as I thought about the leftovers, Cubano-inspired pulled pork sliders seemed like the perfect lunch for us and a great idea for the Super Bowl next weekend.24
Anything shaped in a patty has a homey feel to it, doesn’t it? A hamburger, Salisbury steak, mashed potato cakes, they’re either home food, or diner fare. And for the most part, they’re fast. Mix this and that together, form a disk and fry it up in a hot pan. But the thing is, you don’t have to limit your notion of a patty to meat. You can sit down to a delicious dinner in 20-25 minutes if you’ve got a can of beans (and a reasonably stocked pantry).
This recipe germinated in my mind as a chicken meatball, but my pantry dictated. “Beans," it said. “It will be Great Northern beans.” It'll do that on a Wednesday when you don't have time to go the market. And so, Spinach and White Bean Burgers.
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You're surviving on Pinterest, aren't you? These first few weeks of January are hard. You're back to eating the way you should, getting more exercise, but you're eyeballing that lasagne with the stretchy cheese, living vicariously through images of pizza dip and cream cheese brownies. I see it in your pins! You know what, I'm right there with you. Yesterday, I wanted a bag of Doritos like nobody's business. And after dinner, I've been finding myself wanting a little something sweet. Not a full blown dessert, just a little something. These little spice cookies fit the January agenda -- sweetened mostly with dates and applesauce, spiced with a little cinnamon (and high in fiber!).
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Sliding in to the second week of January, it’s so-far-so-good on getting more exercise, eating more vegetables and whole grains and less meat and butter. Of course, while the new year always feels like a good time for a fresh start, I had the “benefit” of a blood test in late November that reminded me I needed to get moving and pay more attention to my cholesterol. So yeah, even if you feel like you're doing (most) of the right things, you really should have it checked every five years. Everything is documented in a food diary, and I’ll tell you, soup has been a savior as a vehicle for extra veg, beans and grains, whether its vegetarian chili, chicken tortilla, or this minestrone.
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Ever get the feeling we’re all making the same 100 recipes in slightly different ways? I make a black bean salad periodically that’s just a thrown together mix of black beans, corn, red onion, tomato, sometimes cucumber and avocado with lime, cumin and olive oil, and a little salt and pepper. A few states over, it’s got black-eyed peas, jalapeno and cilantro and they call it Cowboy Caviar. Call it what you want, this salad doubles as a rustic salsa, and it’s spot on for those of us getting our vegetable on, for those watching football and for general New Year’s good luck.30
After one last sip of champagne, we’re collectively about to lay down the cheesy appetizers and cookies that sustained us through December and trade them in for big bowls of salad, platefuls of roasted vegetables and after work trips to the gym. If that transition seems tough, there’s hardly a book better than Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi’s Jerusalem 
to inspire you. Currently ranked #57 on Amazon’s bestseller list, it’s clearly a book a lot of us got for Christmas and Hanukkah.
Everything, and I mean everything, in this book looks fantastic. Even vegetables I don’t usually care much for, like eggplant and okra, are enticingly photographed. Not knowing where exactly to start, I took Emmy’s (of Emmy Cooks) advice and started with the roasted butternut squash and red onion with tahini and za’atar. Spoiler alert: It’s DELICIOUS.12