Lately: Deliciously Decadent

Things have been very busy and fun lately. I have been working at the hospital and going out and about in the community talking nutrition and healthy eating. I have also been busy in the kitchen cooking up some deliciously decadent meals (not necessarily “healthy” but homemade and eaten with good intentions!).

March is National Nutrition Month and I celebrated this weekend with the Greater New York Dietetic Association talking healthy eating at the Kids Food Festival in Bryant Park. We set up a great display with colorful fruits and vegetables, lean proteins and grain models and had kids make up their own healthy plates with something from each food group. 

We also had a “mystery box” where the kids reached in the box to grab a fruit or vegetable and they had to identify the fruit or vegetable and show where it goes on the plate. Then they could eat it! We had purple, red and yellow carrots, apples, oranges and bananas.

We also had models of “fat,” showing that if you eat too much junk food like soda and fried foods, it will turn into fat in the body. In the photo above on the right, she is holding 5 pounds of fat!

The food models!

And last week at the hospital, my co-worker and I got to shadow the speech language pathologist and observe her conduct a swallowing x-ray test called a modified barium swallow. It is not an invasive test, but the x-ray machines at our facility are located in the operating room, so we had to dress up in sterile attire. Pretty fashionable.

On to the decadence. I made Smitten Kitchen’s raspberry swirl cheesecake and holy cow was it good. The crust is made from Leibniz butter cookies, which I recently discovered after listening to the Mike and Tom Eat Snacks episode :).

The hardest part about making a cheesecake is waiting for it to chill before eating.

Decadent recipe number 2 was Shutterbean’s “Pigs in Blankets.” I used DuFour puff pastry that I bought at Whole Foods on sale during the winter holidays. The insides are brushed with Dijon mustard, and the “pigs” are two types of sausages, one is chicken sausage from Brooklyn Cured, and the other is a pork sausage. Egg wash and poppy seeds to finish.

And last night, after a long work week, my friend and I whipped up Melissa Clark’s spaghetti with garlicky bread crumbs and anchovies, except we used bucatini instead of spaghetti. This was so easy and so decadently good. Garlic, anchovies and red pepper flakes get sautéed in olive oil and tossed with hot pasta, egg yolks, fish sauce, hot sauce and fresh parsley. YUMMMM.

My rule of thumb when it comes to eating healthy? Eat your fruits and vegetables every day, move you body most days of the week, cook your food as much as possible, and indulge yourself on occasion (and quit feeling so guilty for it!).