Poached Egg and Purple Rice in a Collard Green Cup

Do you remember Fatty Crab in its hey day? Now Zak Pelaccio is cooking in Hudson, NY at Fish + Game (been there too, but very different), but back in the day, man that food was good.

nasi lemak at Fatty Crab (photo by travelchictv)

At Fatty Crab he had this insane nasi lemak -- coconut rice, chicken curry, slow poached egg, spicy pickles, deep-fried shallots, dried anchovies, various sambals. It remains one of the best restaurant dishes I've ever tasted. So much texture and funk and heat. Salty, sour, sweet, smooth, spiky. It was all there, a riot of bright, alpha flavors somehow sharing the stage in this dish. 

This is a bit of my homage... a petite chamber orchestra compared to Pelaccio's carnival. The depth comes from caramelized shallots, tucked in the sticky and sweet purple rice. Add a poached egg and a dash of salt, and you have a slippery savory little bite. Could it use some pickles, sambals, dried fish, fried garlic slices, etc? Yes, indeed. This is just a start.

RECIPE: 

Caramelize shallots by sautéing with olive oil and salt on low for 30 minutes (I had them from another recipe so it wasn't so bad). Make sticky purple rice according to instructions (The one I used was about 75% white rice that the purple rice stained. Best to stick with your rice's instructions since rice ratios may change).

Lay collard green leaves in the bottom of a poach pod. Mix shallots with rice and add to the bottom of the pod. Crack an egg into a shallow bowl, then add to top of poach pod. Gently place poach pod into a small pot of boiling water, making sure that water doesn't reach the top of the poach pod. If your poach pod is slanted because of uneven weight distribution, prop it up with a random kitchen utensil. I used a spoon. Cover the pot and cook for 5 minutes. Remove pouch from poach pod, sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve. 

Lemon Blueberry Cornmeal Muffins and Madeleines

I couldn't live without them. One thing -- two ways. 

The blush/lip stain. The work-to-cocktail cami. The primer-color-top coat (actually, not sure this exists?). The more things you can put into one thing, the better. 

It's true, things will get lost in translation. When I was a kid, I thought I could make my own Pert Plus, and mixed shampoo and conditioner. Why not? 

Well, it doesn't always work that way. You'll have to adapt a little. Add some bronzer along with the cheek stain. A blazer with the cami. 

And so it was with this lemon-blueberry-cornmeal batter. I made the madeleines first -- cakey and plush, something not-too-sweet to have as a snack. The muffins have more of a golden crackle to them.

Or think of it this way: the muffins are like a bread's crust and the madeleines are the fluffy inside. Both the same thing, and conveniently, pleasingly different.

RECIPE: (adapted from this Epicurious recipe)

Note: I used whole wheat flour and very coarse cornmeal for this recipe. If you want something less of-the-Earth, you can use all-purpose flour and a finer-grained cornmeal. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Melt 1/2 stick butter and cool. In a large bowl, mix 3/4 cup whole wheat flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 cup coarse yellow cornmeal, 1/2 cup of sugar, and 1 tablespoon of lemon zest. 

In another bowl, mix melted butter, 1/2 cup almond milk, and 2 large eggs. Add to flour mixture and whisk until well blended. With a rubber spatula, gently add 3/4 cups of fresh or frozen blueberries.

For madeleines: Butter and flour your pan and bake for 20 minutes, or until the tops are just slightly golden on the top. 

For muffins: Increase oven temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Spoon batter into muffin tin and sprinkle top with turbinado sugar. Bake for 20 minutes (for small muffins... larger ones will need more time).

Hoisin Beurre Blanc String Beans

It was the 5pm question. What do I have in the fridge -- and how do I want to make it? My target was a 2-lb bag of haricots verts from Costco (yes, I am a New Yorker with a Costco membership. I am blessed).

Typically I'd do a Chinese stir-fry. You know the one: blistered yet still green, its divots filled with pockets of reduced hoisin. 

But then -- these are French beans. Haricots verts. They seemed to call for a Gallic interpretation: a green beans almondine, butter. 

But that's really not me and so I compromised with this hoisin beurre blanc. A beurre blanc is basically a warm vinaigrette, made with butter instead of oil. Here, I used rice vinegar rather than the classic white wine vinegar, which is softer than its more piercing cousin.

The result? Well, there's a reason that restaurants add butter to everything. The butter flavor was imperceptible, and yet you knew something was there. A body, a base. I made one pound of haricots verts this way, and you better believe that I'm doing the same with the rest of that bag. 

RECIPE: 

Wash and trim 1 lb of haricots verts. String beans (or Chinese long beans) are fine in this case). Add to wok with 1/2 cup of chicken broth and steam, semi-covered, for 5 minutes until broth has evaporated. Add 2 1/2 tablespoons of hoisin sauce, 1 1/2 tablespoons butter, and 1 tablespoon of rice vinegar. Sautee until sauce is reduced and string beans are tender, about 5 minutes. Top with toasted sesame seeds.

Mushroom Thyme Jerky

Oh, beef jerky. You are delicious and nutritious. Sometimes soft, sometimes chewy. Sometimes spicy, sometimes sweet. 

Mushroom jerky? Don't worry about it. It's a different sort of beast... chewy and savory, sure. Meaty, yes. But different. 

Here I roasted and dried four types of mushrooms in a two-step process. There are shiitake, oyster, clam shell, and shimeji. You're basically sucking out the moisture so all you're left with is the mushroom's essence: the earthy, umami-ed soul of the thing. 

What's great about using a variety of mushrooms is that you can get a range of textures. The shiitake get thin and leathery. You'll have to yank at it with your teeth. The oyster mushrooms are still pillowy, but not until your teeth snap through the surface. And the clam shell and shimeji are somewhere in between: chewy on the bottom, tender on top. 

It's not beef jerky, but it's just as good.

RECIPE:

Preheat oven to 35o degrees Fahrenheit. Toss your mushrooms in olive oil, salt and pepper. Sprinkle thyme on top. De-leaf them if you want the thyme to stick. Keep them whole if you want a lighter touch. Roast for 50 minutes then turn off the oven and leave there for two or more hours to dehydrate.

Jackfruit Boats with Chia Seed Pudding and Coconut Flakes

There are only so many foodstuffs that can be boats. Endive boats. Gravy boats. A banana boat is a thing, but not edible. 

So when I come across a potential boat, I pounce on it. Jackfruit is not easy to find in American grocery stores, but pretty easy to find in Asian ones. Jackfruits can be huge -- up to 80 lbs -- but you can buy them in pieces. 

Word to the wise: there's another large, prickly fruit in Asian grocery stores, but you do NOT want to get it by mistake. Durian -- the notorious, banned-on-public-transportation fruit -- looks very similar. A fresh durian will smell like dirty feet so you're probably not in danger of buying it by accident. But a chilled or old durian will have a mellower or non-existent smell. Jackfruit: this. Durian: that. Got it? 

Moving on... Jackfruit flesh comes out in little pouches that can be split into boats. The inside is filled with large seeds (which, by the way, can be boiled and eaten like boiled nuts), while the pouches themselves are encased in a matrix of fibers. It's rather tedious to prep, but at least you can snack while you work (as opposed to say, peeling garlic). 

The taste of jackfruit is basically a cross between a mango, pineapple and banana. It has a mango's tropical brightness to it, along with banana's tropical mustiness. (Also like a mango, it can cause some irritation in your throat). Add coconut, and you basically have a piña colada. 

RECIPE: There's really nothing to this besides making the chia pudding. Soak 1/3 cup of chia seeds with 1 1/2 cups of milk. I used almond milk, but this would be extra-amazing with a coconut-almond milk blend. I don't sweeten the pudding because I think the jackfruit is plenty sweet, but this is a matter of taste. 

Once the seeds are plump (about 4 hours), spoon into your halved jackfruit boats and sprinkle with unsweetened coconut flakes. 

Avocado Toast with Turmeric Eggs and Sumac

Let's talk about texture and the Instagram friend that follows us all: avocado toast. 

Growing up, the only time we ate avocado was for dessert. My Madagascar-born mom made avocado mashed with coarse raw sugar and dark rum. It was pasty yet grainy, like a boozy, moisturizing exfoliant for the tongue. 

You can pretty much put anything on avocado toast: something crunchy, something sweet, something fishy, something herby, something pickled. 

But my favorite is plush-on-plush, smooth-on-smooth. Egg on avocado has an echoing sensation on your teeth. And if you're looking for more avocado (and a different texture), then you know what to make for dessert. 

RECIPE:
Turmeric-Stained Egg: Fill a 1/2-quart saucepan with water and place the egg inside. When the water has reached a boil, turn off heat and let the egg sit for 10 minutes. Remove the egg and peel it. Stir 2 heaping tablespoons of turmeric to the water (be careful --- it will stain your counter, your hands, your cutting board You can get it out, but it's a bit of a pain). Add the egg back to the saucepan and let sit for 3 minutes. 

I won't insult you with the assembly. Mash, slice, place, sprinkle (sumac and salt). Done! 

More of my avocado recipes here.

Charred Cruciferous Veggies

One of the easiest ways to annoy D is to use a describe a body part with a medical word rather than the colloquial (and crasser word). For instance, once I said “pubic mound” with a totally straight face and he just lost it.

Cruciferous isn’t very colloquial and might sound a bit antiseptic. But I like it because it's inclusive and illuminating, like learning that Ira Glass is cousins with Philip Glass... or Amy Bloom is cousins with Harold Bloom. All of sudden, you have a deeper understanding.

What's a cruciferous vegetable? You have the sexy superstars: kale and brussels sprouts. The hall-of-famers: broccoli and cauliflower. The up-and-comers: collard greens and kohlrabi. And the uncoolest of the bunch: cabbage.

But knowing that they’re all part of the same family helps you realize that wallflower cabbage is not that different from its movie star siblings.

As Mark Twain wrote in Pudd’nhead Wilson, “cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with a college education”.

RECIPE: This is really nothing special... just a super-hot pan, safflower oil (or some other high-smoke-point oil) and cabbage. You can choose to simply halve the cabbage and cook it in butter like this Bon Appetit recipe. I added feta for two reasons. 1) A nod to iceberg and bleu cheese dressing, and 2) sulfurous is mellowed by creaminess... like hollandaise on eggs. 

Other cruciferous vegetable recipes: 

• Cauliflower Steak from Superba (Tasting Table)
• Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Fish Sauce Vinaigrette from Momofuku (Food52) 
• Ale Braised Collard Greens with Smoked Ham Hock (NYT Cooking)

Pistachio Mint Radish Guacamole (or avocado toast without the toast)

If you see me during the day you'll know that I hardly wear the same outfit twice. (I'm talking weekdays. Weekends are a whole other story.) The thing is, I'm obsessed with newness. There are good parts to this. I'm always experimenting. I'm almost never in a rut. When it comes to outfits, I've been told that I look like a different person every time you see me, which I take as a compliment. (Some may say that I lack a stable sense of self... but whatever.) 

But there are downsides, too. I don't have a favorite movie because I almost never rewatch them. I will reluctantly tell you my favorite book and restaurant because that's what people tend to ask me. But truth be told, I've still only read my "favorite" book and visited my "favorite" restaurant three or so times. 

I do, however, have a very small collection of "go-to" dishes, things I'll make if we get home late and I don't feel like thinking, much less "innovating". I'll make these if there's little room for error: a dinner party or a potluck. 

So here's part one of a series. I can actually only think of three go-to dishes off the top of my head, so perhaps this'll be a very short series. But here goes. 

---

This was inspired by Alex Stupak's guacamole at Empellon. I love guacamole, but it can feel kind of dull after awhile, especially if you're using lackluster ingredients. Enter the most underrated nut: pistachio. 

There are also classic ingredients: lime, jalapeño. I add some chunkiness with some sliced red onions and sliced radish (not minced... more chunkiness this way). But I think the thing that really sets this apart, and perhaps brings it more into the realm of avocado toast than guacamole, is mint. It's so fresh, so unexpected. I love it. 

RECIPE: Mandolin 1/4 red onion and soak in ice water to take out the harshness. Mash two avocados in a bowl with a fork. Don't overdo it, because you'll be adding other ingredients later and you don't want to overmix it (unless you prefer pasty guac over chunky guac). Add the onions, 1 small chopped jalapeño, 5 mandolined radishes, juice of 1/2 a lime, and about 3 tablespoons of loosely packed mint. Salt to taste. When ready to serve top with 3 tablespoons of toasted pistachios. (Note: I used to add olive oil to my guac, until one time I forgot and realized that you can do without.) 

Endive & Orange Salad

At The Bazaar by José Andrés, you can get all sorts of food somersaults. I love me some culinary acrobatics, but for home, I prefer something a little more down-to-earth.

This came in an endive boat, but if you don't want to feel like you're at a cocktail party, just chop up the endives. It's sweet, bitter, creamy and a little piquant, depending on how many scallions you use. 

RECIPE: Slice four endives into 1/2 inch rings and place in large mixing bowl. Separate leaves. Supreme two oranges (or tangerines for a punchier fragrance) and toss with endives. Chop 1-2 scallions and add to bowl. Make a vinaigrette with olive oil, rice vinegar, the excess juice from the oranges' core and peel, and a dash of mustard. Toss with salad then add toasted sliced almonds and feta cheese, to taste. 

Brûléed Peeps

Today I lived my fantasy of brûléeing Peeps. Now I want to brûlée everything that's sugar-coated. 

The appeal is obvious -- it's crème brûlée meets s'more. Unlike a creme brûlée, the sugar on a Peep is very fine, resulting in a very thin sugar crust. Think: a film of frost rather than a hard chunk of ice. 

At first, I was a little scared to use the blow torch. It's not some frou-frou Williams-Sonoma thing -- it's the real deal to solder pipes and repair cars. I assembled a kit and was kinda scared I was gonna blow up. 

But I guess my pyro tendencies took over and I got the hang of it. FIRE! 

Asian Chicken Slaw

I always want things like this, but they're frustratingly hard to find. What is "this"?

"This" is a great post-workout meal -- Fresh and crunchy and satisfying. "Hearty" salads tend to have cream or cheese, which slam the gut. The key is enough protein (here, chicken breast), the body of an aromatic oil (sesame oil in this case), and some support from some nuts (almonds and black sesame seeds, above). See, no sluggishness!

"This" is not a flimsy salad --I'll take slaw over salad any day. A great salad is a revelation -- gossamer lettuce as silken as rose petals, dressing of elegance and subtlety, toppings that play nice while still adding textural, visual, and flavor contrast.  But salads are hard to balance because the leaves are so delicate. Slaws are easy. Make it with cabbage, kohlrabi, broccoli, carrots -- anything with bite. They'll withstand anything you throw its way.

"This" is nostalgic -- Remember the "Oriental Chicken Salad"? Oh, it was a confusing piece of work -- canned mandarin oranges, fried chow mein noodles, and a honey mustard mayo-based dressing made "Asian" with rice vinegar and sesame oil. I loved this salad, but it could bear to be less gross.

RECIPE: Slice Napa cabbage and salt generously. Saute chicken in olive oil and let rest once done. Dice carrots, red bell pepper, and scallions and add to cabbage. Add chicken, then soy sauce, rice vinegar, and sesame oil. Before serving, toss with sliced almonds and sesame seeds.

Zucchini Meatballs with Sumac Yogurt

When I worked in Bushwick, everyday I passed a mysterious wholesale furniture business that sold things like wooden eagles with ten foot wingspans and golden camels with marble hooves. I never saw a customer go in or out, only workers sitting outside smoking and grilling, no matter the season.

I usually stayed on the other side of the street or sheepishly rushed past them. I think they were Turkish, and their rumbling chatter echoed through the warehouse-lined streets.

I left that job two years ago this month. I must have been carrying a lot of stuff back, or maybe I had a sentimental look in my eye. But on the last day, the guys outside the shop gave me an oblong-shaped meatball right off the grill. It was so flavorful, still hot enough that the juices played close to the edge, prone to drip at just the slightest pinch.

I know you're not supposed to take food from strangers. But sometimes, those bites are the best.

RECIPE: adapted (and lightened) from Jerusalem by Yotam Ottololenghi & Sami Tamimi

Finely julienne or mandoline/slice 2 zucchinis. Chop your pick of herbs -- mint, parsley, cilantro. Combine 1 lb ground turkey, 1 minced onion, zucchini, 1 whisked egg, 2 cloves of crushed garlic, 1 teaspoon of ground cumin, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper, 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne. Shape into patties or balls or footballs. Fry for 4 minutes each side, or bake for 40 minutes.

Mix one cup Greek yogurt with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 tablespoon sumac, 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Serve with meatballs.

Rainbow Fruit Salad

I take potlucks very personally.

Whether it's warranted or not, I put a lot of pressure on myself to "win". Maybe not in the potluck's spirit of sharing, but whatever.

What makes a good potluck dish? This is my internal calculus on the matter, told through the lens of our recent office Thanksgiving potluck.

1. Tastiness - Obvious. But not the be-all-end-all. (rookie mistake)

2. Table Appeal - This rainbow fruit salad was for 70 or so people. Your dish has to stand out on a crowded table. Some ways your dish can pop: color, height, an "action" (like flambé or a table-side activation like tossing or assembling).

3. Personality - Do potlucks normally have labels? I don't think so. Likely not in the spirit of sharing and collaboration? Anyway, to win the potluck the dish should be unequivocally you. If you eat healthy and clean, you should prepare something healthy and clean. If you wear dark colors, you should make something dark. Part of the fun of a potluck is guessing who made what, and this gives your dish something to remember and latch onto.

4. Comparison & Past History - What is everyone else bringing? Survey the field and know what you're getting into. I gambled that people who would be sick of pies, so made a refreshing fruit salad to counterbalance. I also knew last year's most popular Thanksgiving dishes were on the lighter side: kale salad, roasted cauliflower with buttered bread crumbs, green bean casserole.

So, did I win Thanksgiving potluck? Not sure. I got really worked up about before and after the dinner. But during? I just enjoyed myself.

Shown above: Kiwi, pear, orange, papaya, grapefruit, pomegranate in a light ginger lime syrup.

Flax Fish Sticks with Special Sauce

It started with a baseball game -- hot dogs, popcorn, soft serve, peanuts, fries. The whole works.

This time I had a taste of tater tots. The last time I had tater tots was in elementary school, when fried potatoes were still considered your daily vegetable.

They weren't really tasty. Or well-executed. They were definitely from a an institutional food services company. And yet they were so good. Perfect, really. A perfect snapshot of me 20+ years ago, buying a $1 red-and-white paper boat of tater tots with money I saved up just for the occasion.

And so this dish came from another long-ago memory. The Big Mac and its Special Sauce. Special sauce is probably a model recipe, a perfect representation of the salty-fatty-sweet trifecta. Even if I never eat a Big Mac again, I'm sure it's engineered to stay in my memory until I die.

My sauce breaks down the McDonald's recipe and translates the ingredients into something cleaner. The fish sticks are covered in flax seed meal, which give it a texture and nuttiness not unlike fried breading

Would you ever eat Flax Fish Sticks with "Special Sauce" at a baseball stadium or fast food restaurant? Never. But for a moment, you can be transported there, guilt trip not included.

RECIPE: 

Cut one salmon filet into dunkable pieces. Air dry on a plate, so the surface will toast rather than steam. Preheat toaster oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Meanwhile, in a blender mix 1 cup cottage cheese, 2 tablespoons ketchup, 1 teaspoon paprika, 1 slug of vinegar, and a pinch of onion powder. Add salt to taste. Remove the sauce from the blender and add 1 heaping tablespoon of sweet relish. Set aside.

Sprinkle flax seed meal on the fish plate and coat pieces thoroughly. Cook in toaster oven. Your time will depend on the thickness of your fish. I made them thin and cooked them for about 7 minutes.

Blackened Summer Salad

Summer in NYC is not normal, both in the "regular" and "consistent" sense of the word, and in also in the "standard" and "expected" sense of the word.

You might spend a day sunning dreamily in Prospect Park, then in a disturbingly balmy and fragrant subway platform. You might spend two days on the beach, then five days in a freezing office.

Many New Yorkers leave the city on the weekends, true. And sometimes the city can feel pleasantly sparse. Until you hit all the summer tourists.

This dish's ingredients say summer -- corn, basil, tomatoes. But the preparation says something else -- it's deep and charred and moody. It's NYC in the summer.

RECIPE: Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Mandolin one red onion. Slice kernels from one ear of corn. Drop in two handfuls of grape tomatoes. Toss with olive oil and salt. Roast for 40 minutes, until tomatoes burst and the veggies char. I use this stoneware tray that retains heat.

Take out of the oven and put in bowl. Add pesto and chopped parsley. Serves 1 as the main attraction, 2 as a side.

Chorizo Scallop Cabbage Pouches

Anything that requires wrapping is not an everyday food. Growing up, we only made "shambosh", a curry-beef samosa, on holidays. Grandma's yearly zongzi-making is reason enough to visit. From dumplings to spring rolls, tamales to tortellini, wrapped things are the stuff of special occasions.

But wrapped foods are a warm, loving gesture. Dim sum, after all, means "touches the heart." But with the right recipe, you can get the same effect ...without taking an entire day to get there.

This dish is simple, savory, and clean. Stuffed cabbage is another homey Grandma thing, but here the inside is simplified and purified.

I think in some cases, it's noble and grand to sacrifice your time and labor to feed someone. And in other cases, I think it's better to take it easy on the cooking so you can spend that time with that someone.

RECIPE: Separate 10 leaves from a small cabbage. The cabbage must be small because the leaves are more supple and the leaves fit the scallops better. Simmer them in a pot with 1/2 cup of chicken broth. Cook until they're translucent and pliant, like a swath of thick cloth.

Chop chorizo and add to one cabbage leaf, along with scallop. Fold the sides first, then the top, then bottom part, where the leaf met the base. Lay into a pan. When you've wrapped all your scallops, add the broth you used for the scallops. Cover and simmer for 5-8 minutes.

Season with sea salt and paprika.

Mushroom Shirataki Alfredo

When did you stop eating alfredo sauce? Maybe when you stopped eating mayo. Or started gutting your bagel before putting on your cream cheese.

Alfredo sauce seems like a vestige of a white bread, white sauce time. The last time I had pasta with alfredo sauce was at the Rainforest Cafe some 20 years ago. It came out over-sauced and semi-congealed, and since then alfredo has never been a must-order for me.

But somehow the memory has stuck. I eat shirataki noodles, but they're quite literally nothing. They have no calories, no nutritional value. All sensation and no sustenance.

Enter Alfredo. The sauce here is laughably dietetic compared to what alfredo sauce really is. But I think you'll find it's plenty creamy. The shirataki noodles just need to be caressed, not clobbered.

So the sauce is -- and I'm bracing myself for some alfredo purist backlash -- a blend of cream cheese and fat-free cream cheese. I mean, it's good. Slightly tangy, lusciously thick, and mercifully light in calories.

Mix it with some sauteed mushrooms and you have a dish that's an umami powerhouse. Enough to make you an alfredo eater again.

Strawberry Snack Mix

Necessity is the mother of invention. Or annoyance. Or disappointment.

FreshDirect, as you may know, makes a trail mix they call Rainbow Delight. It's raisins, peanuts, sunflower seeds, cashews, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and of course -- the source of the rainbow -- M&M-like candy.

Due to a shortage of some sort, there was a period of time when some bags, packed in some factory, replaced the rainbow candies with plain chocolate chips.

Oh. No.

So while we wrote to customer service and waited out the great rainbow drought of 2013 (the M&Ms have since been re-instituted), I made my own snack mix.

It doesn't have a name yet, but it's red. It's sweet and salty and -- something relatively new to the snack mix game -- a little squishy.

So what's in it? It's a mix of unsalted cashews, chocolate-covered raisins (I also tried blueberries, but raisins are more than sufficient), dried cranberries, salted peanuts, and freeze-dried strawberries.

It's a summery snack mix and sort of sexy, too.

I know this is true because recently in Paris I found that Pierre Hermé had his own version, based on his famous Ispahan rose-raspberry-litchi macaron.

His version is a little more refined, but that's not always what you want in your pre-meeting food grab.

Chia Kale Cappuccino

It's times like these that I really feel like a parody of myself.

But you know, I do like green smoothies. And I like chia. And I like kombucha and excellent latte art.

And yet, there's a part of me that rebels against that $12/bottle mentality. Or the imbalance of juicing for 5 days and gorging for 15.

I made the Chia Kale Cappuccino because I wanted something a little more substantial than a juice. But more vibrant than coffee. This is a Sunday-morning-after-a-workout sort of drink, the type of thing that you can sip virtuously, ponderously, tranquilly.

The chia seeds are the energy-bestowing base. The kale is the cleansing head. I never attempted latte art, but maybe I'll give it a shot with a kefir foam or something.

RECIPE: Beforehand, add 1/4 cup of chia seeds to 2 cups of the milk of your choice. I like unsweetened almond milk. Let the chia seeds inflate overnight. You'll have lots leftover for your other chia milk needs.

Next morning, make the kale smoothie to your liking. I put in some combination of apple, pear, orange, grapefruit, mango, pineapple, cucumber, bananas, and mint. If you're gonna go green, stay away from beets, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, etc.

Add chia seed milk to bottom of glass and gently pour kale smoothie on top. When you're making the smoothie, make sure it's less dense than the chia milk.

Note to chia neophytes: Should you wipe your counter of chia seeds, you will later find them sprouting in your sponge! Pretty gross, I know.

Broccoli Eggs Benedict with Tofu Hollandaise

Roasted cruciferous doesn't need much. Perhaps some tahini a la Maoz. Or with bacon a la every restaurant. Anchovies are also welcome.

But after an especially satisfying dinner of roasted cauliflower, I craved a reprise. Here the broccoli gets a breakfast treatment with a soft poached egg, a sourdough English muffin, and a vegan hollandaise.

I roasted the broccoli while I heated the water for the eggs. Then I whizzed up the hollandaise, a mix of silken tofu, turmeric, olive oil, cayenne, and liquid aminos (for the umami oomph). Then the English muffin went into the toaster while I poached the eggs. When it comes to breakfast, I seek a compactness of movement.

The slippery egg and hollandaise slips into the dry and deliciously burnt florets. It's a lascivious way to cook the otherwise staid broccoli. But really, it had it coming.