Jan D'Atri

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Recipe

Pumpkin Spiced Caramel Apples

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I’m not sure when pumpkin spice became such a national addiction, but these days you’ll find that flavor in everything— and I mean everything from frappucino’s to pumpkin spiced sunflower seeds. The minute October rolls around, pumpkin spice season is in full swing. You can bet that with just about anything pumpkin spiced, it’s going to have some calories. I am sharing an exception with you this week! I created a healthy, low calorie dessert for the clients at Red Mountain Weight Loss who are trying to find delicious things to eat while shedding the pounds. This recipe for Pumpkin Spiced Caramel Apples is the perfect tasty treat for anyone who doesn’t want to give up dessert while losing weight. The best part is, the only calories in the entire recipe come from one crisp apple! The ingredient used for sweetening the apple is Swerve Sweetener Brown Sugar Replacement. The caramel drizzle is from Walden Farms, a company known for its zero calorie, zero carb and fat free product line. The recipe calls for just a small amount of pumpkin spice, but it’s just enough to flavor the apple and yet give you the fabulous taste of fall. Finally, you’ll notice that I’ve opted for a crisp organic apple for this recipe. That’s because, in doing some research about which apples are the crispiest, I stumbled upon some disturbing information about apples. EWG (Environmental Working Group) is a non-profit organization that focuses on researching and rating a wide range of consumer products from sunscreens, cosmetics to food items in order to promote healthier consumer choices. Guess what always turns up on EWG’s Dirty Dozen List? Apples. EWG’s List describes food additives and pesticides that on certain products that may have a health risk to consumers. Non organic apples consistently land on the list, year after year. So, I say opt for organic apples when you can, and enjoy this delightful dessert that may end up being a new fall favorite!

Watch my How To Video for Pumpkin Spiced Caramel Apples here!

Crockpot Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Apple Bacon Slaw

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Thank you Irving Naxon, for inventing the Crock Pot. Your cooking wonder found a place in our kitchens in 1940 when you won the patent for it, and we’ve never given it up. In fact, slow cooking is as popular as ever, especially when it produces such delicious meals like the Crockpot Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Apple Bacon Slaw. (Perfect for next day pork sandwiches!) Also, if you ever wanted to know a bit about the iconic Crock Pot, here’s an excerpt from a Huffington Post article:


“Naxon called his devise the Naxon Beanery. He said his mother, Tamara Nachumsohn, inspired him. She had told him stories about a bean-based stew she used to make in her village bakery at home in Lithuania. The stew, known as cholent, is a traditional Jewish dish that cooks all day. It’s rooted in the Jewish Sabbath, the day of rest in which observant Jews aren’t supposed to work. The stew goes on the heat before sundown Friday night, when the Sabbath begins, and cook all the way until the end of Saturday services the next day. As the ovens were turned off for the Sabbath, the pot of cholent would be put in the oven, and that slow residual heat over the course of the 24 hours would be enough to cook the cholent.”


Naxon sold his design to Rival Manufacturing the 70’s, which rebranded his Beanery as the Crock Pot. It was marketed toward working mothers with the slogan, “Cooks all day while the cook’s away,”

Check out my How To Video for the Crockpot Glazed Pork Tenderloin here!

Pan-Seared Pork Chop Casserole

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It’s the universal law of food. Everything always tastes better at someone else’s house. I don’t know why that is. It just is. So when we were visiting long-time family friends in
Nayarit, Mexico a few years ago, we spent the first part of the meal gobbling up a scrumptious Pan-Seared Pork Chop Casserole and the remainder of the time sitting at a tiny wooden table writing down every detail of every delicious morsel. The pork chop casserole has been a regular weeknight meal in the Montez Family for decades and makes for a deliciously flavorful fall dish. Unfortunately, it went the way of many recipes scribbled down in the “gotta-have-this-recipe-right-now” moment. It got forgotten about and lost in life’s shuffle. That is, until this weekend when un-cluttering and re-organizing the kitchen cabinets were on the agenda. Wahoo! Long lost and now loved again. You’ll be lickin’ your chops over this one!

Brown Sugar Nut Bars

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Let’s see. My obsession with collecting heritage recipes and cookbooks began in earnest in 2000, when I opened my first restaurant and featured my own family’s dishes. Since that time, I have cooked from and collected hundreds of cookbooks, ranging from family heirloom recipe collections and church fundraising cookbooks to publications produced by food manufacturers hoping to give the home cook suggestions on how to use their products. Some cookbooks go into unbelievable detail about a family’s genealogy or a church or civic organization’s fundraising activities. Then, there are the books that say nothing on the cover and nothing on the inside pages. They are simply hand-written and bound recipes. It was one of these non-descript cookbooks in which found this scrumptious recipe for Brown Sugar Nut Bars. The cookbook simply said “VAVS Volunteer Cookbook.” (I’m assuming VAVS is the acronym for Veterans Administration Volunteer Services, or Veteran’s Affairs Voluntary Services.) In any case I have no one to thank for pages and pages of delightful recipes like this one. The Brown Sugar Nut Bars have a light and delicate shortbread base, and you can use any nut you like, although this recipe suggests slivered almonds. It’s a terrific treat to make ahead and freeze, and it can easily be transported to a party or pot luck without worrying about it falling apart. If you’ve got some leftover walnuts, pecans or almonds, just mix them together and blend them in the bath of butter, brown sugar and pure vanilla. The sweet and salty result is the perfect paring for the shortbread base below!

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

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The kids are finally back in the classroom, and when they come home from school or sports they are generally ravenous, right? It’s a pretty good bet that if given a choice between chicken nuggets and anything else, my guess is it’s going to be the nuggets. So, why not make them delicious and perhaps healthier than the fast food version? Plus, kids love to cook these days, and if your young ones are old enough to be safe around the cook top and oven, this might be a great meal that they can make themselves! (Studies show that when kids take the initiative to cook a meal, they enjoy not only eating the food, but are more apt to want to learn how to prepare meals more often.) I discovered that on a field trip a few years ago to a Boys & Girls Club where I was teaching a cooking class. About fifty kids huddled around as I taught a hands-on cooking demonstration. They were mesmerized. Many shared their at-home cooking experiences with Mom and Dad. I was, quite frankly, stunned at their interested in every aspect of cooking, whether chopping and dicing, sautéing and of course, sharing what they had prepared. Back to the chicken nuggets. This recipe is fairly simple and super delicious, and it’s the kind of recipe that may flesh out whether you have a budding Jacques Pepin or Julia Child just waiting to cook up something fun for the family!

Salmon Wellies

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It was always the elegant “signature dish” reserved for special occasions like weddings or a New Year’s Eve celebration. Beef or Salmon Wellington with its beautiful puff pastry encasement was truly the fine dining darling of the 1960’s.
But take away the fête factor, and you have a fabulous weeknight or Sunday supper that turns a fresh piece of salmon into something really wonderful–especially if you give it a quick grill before enrobing it with dough. This recipe also included the ingredients for a classic Duxelles–that magical blend of butter, garlic, shallot and finely chopped mushrooms. That’s the second layer of deliciousness. The third is a layer of fresh, tender baby spinach. Slice through the layers of delicate puff pastry and enjoy the show!

Watch my How to Video here!