This is my grown-up version of that childhood favorite. I make healthy substitutions, using whole wheat pasta instead of regular, turkey sausage instead of pork, and adding a large serving of broccoli rabe to the mix.

I sourced  my spicy turkey sausage from DiPaola Turkey Farm, a local grower. If you can’t find local turkey, a chicken sausage would be a great substitution.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 teaspoon red chili pepper flake
• 1 pound spicy turkey sausage
• 1 cup crushed tomato
• 1 large bunch of broccoli rabe, rinsed and chopped
• 1 pound whole wheat, thick ribbon pasta such as fettuccine or pappardelle
• salt, pepper

Put on a large pot of salted water to boil.

In the meantime, add the olive oil to a large frying pan on medium-high heat. Add the garlic, onion, and red pepper flake to the olive oil, stirring until soft (about 4-5 minutes). To the pan add the sausage, breaking it up as you stir. Once nearly all the sausage is browned, add the crushed tomato and reduce the heat to medium.

Once the water comes to a boil, add the pasta and cook to taste. Add the broccoli rabe to the pan of sausage and stir in cook for 2 minutes and remove from heat. Season with salt and pepper. Combine pasta with the meat sauce, and serve right away.

The rhubarb season is a short one. Fresh rhubarb starts appearing at the market in early May and suddenly disappears just a few weeks later. I wanted to take advantage of this seasonal fruit (which is technically a vegetable!). I’ve made strawberry rhubarb pie in the past, but this year I wanted to try something simple and fast.

Rhubarb is naturally tart and contains pectin, so it is perfect for jams, jellies and compotes. This recipe takes about five minutes of active work and results in a versatile compote- put it on ice cream, mix it into yogurt, spread it on toast, or even serve it warm over roasted chicken or turkey. The key to bringing out the tartness in the rhubarb is adding plenty of cinnamon.

Ingredients

• 2lbs (about 6 cups) rhubarb, rinsed and cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 and 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup water
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Add all ingredients to a large pot. Cook on high until sugar is dissolved( 2-3 minutes). Reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Cool the compote in the fridge (in the pot or an uncovered bowl) for three hours. Serve, store in the fridge (for up to a week) or freeze (for up to 6 months.)

Today I picked up asparagus and rhubarb (for an upcoming recipe post) but I got really lucky when I spotted two lonely pints of strawberries at an organic stand selling mostly greens. Lucky for me, the vendor was just getting set up, and there were more berries to come. Some very excited early birds, including me, snapped up the strawberries as fast as the farmers could unload them.

Recipe for strawberries this good? Wash and eat. If you are getting organic strawberries, (which you should if you can, because strawberries are very heavily sprayed with herbicides) you need to eat them within a day or so.

Marion Nestle will be the keynote speaker-I am also presenting a paper on food waste in NYC and urban environments.

Save the date- more details to come!

”KFC has pledged 50 cents to Komen for every pink bucket ordered by its restaurant operators during the promotion period, with a minimum donation of $1 million and a goal to raise more than $8 million.”

While a million dollars is a generous donation and the Susan G. Komen foundation is a worthy charity, I can’t help but think a bucket of fried chicken does more harm to the people who eat it than 50 cents will do to help breast cancer patients.

The KFC menu is full of unhealthy items. The new Double Down is the most obviously unhealthy item on the menu, composed of two fried chicken breasts, bacon, cheese, and a mayonnaise based sauce. There isn’t a token piece of lettuce or tomato to take the edge of the sandwich loaded with 32 grams of fat.

The Susan G. Komen Foundation is giving consumers an excuse to indulge in food that is bad for them, sold by a company that buys chickens who are raised in an inhumane environment. While you might feel better about buying a bucket because you are contributing to a good cause, most of the money still goes to KFC, and ALL the bad effects of eating fried chicken go to your heart and belly.

“For every fast-food restaurant per 10,000 people, a city’s obesity rate rises three per cent,” a 2007 study of fast food restaurants including KFC concluded. Ironically, obesity raises the risk for breast cancer.

If you want to support the fight against breast cancer, skip the chicken and donate directly to an organization that doesn’t support KFC.

For more information, see http://thinkbeforeyoupink.org/

Ingredients

• 1.5 pounds yellow onions
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon salt

Slice the onions. If you have a mandolin, this will take no time. You can also chop the onions roughly and give them a few spins in the food processor.  Add all ingredients to the crock pot. Cook for 8-10 hours on low or 4 hours on high, stirring occasionally.

The key to this craveable stew is texture. Chop all the vegetable to the same size, and choose a small pasta, like ditalini. The result is a potful of healthy, hearty stew that is remarkably flavorful. I like to serve it with homemade bread and twice as much baby corn as I call for below.

Tiny Stew (adapted from Epicurious)

Ingredients

• 4 cups vegetable bouillon
• 1/2 cup diced carrots
• 1/2 cup diced zucchini
• 1/2 cup diced yellow squash
• 1/2 cup sliced baby corn
• 1/2 cup small peas
• 1/2 cup diced firm tofu
• 1 cup cooked tiny pasta
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• salt to taste

In a large pot, boil the vegetable broth. Add the carrots and reduce heat. Simmer for five minutes.

Add the zucchini, summer squash and corn.  Simmer for another 5
minutes.

Add the rest of the ingredients, including the herbs, and heat through. Serve immediately or freeze in individual portions for the future.

Kombu is a type of seaweed. You can buy it at health food stores or online. It’s inexpensive. I get mine at here.

When you soak your dry beans with kombu, the seaweed helps make the beans easier to digest, thus leaving you less gassy after dinner. Kombu doesn’t taste like much, but if you don’t want to eat it you can remove it from your beans before cooking and still get the benefits.

Don’t let gas get between you and beans.

Here is a recipe for one of my favorite bean-based meals. (Adapted from Vegetarian Times)

Black Bean and Collard Green Tacos

• 2 Tbs. vegetable oil, divided
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 bunch collard greens (3/4 pound), trimmed and chopped
• 3 cups vegetable stock
• 1/2 bag black beans, soaked with kombu and cooked until tender
• 2 tsp.  chili powder
• several 6-inch whole-wheat tortillas
• 1 cup salsa
• 4 Tbs. crumbled cheese or sour cream
• chopped cilantro, to taste

1. In a large pot, saute onions over medium heat in oil for 2 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 2 minutes before stirring in collard greens. Add stock and let simmer covered for about 40 minutes.

2. When greens are finished, drain and add beans and chili powder. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Heat through on low for about five minutes.

3. In a skillet on low, gently heat the tortillas.

4. Scoop the bean mix on to tortillas and add sour cream, cheese, salsa and cilantro as desired.

To the Editor:

We cannot trust the food industry to prepare safe, healthy food for us (“Forget Jenny Craig. Hit the Drive-Thru.” Jan. 27). As Ms. Ellin points out in her article, the fast food meals that are low in calories are also high in sodium and lacking in fiber and other nutrients that give us a feeling of satisfaction, making it very unlikely that anyone could stay on such a diet for the long-term. More distressing, fast-food restaurants have a history of serving meals contaminated with dangerous pathogens. Prepared food comes as a trade off. We save time, but we sacrifice a firsthand knowledge of what is in our food, nutrients, and the potential for satisfaction.