I love sauces that are simple to make yet complex in flavor, and Spanish-style salsa verde fits the bill. The capers and anchovies meld with the lemon and parsley to make the sauce zesty and salty at the same time. The extra virgin olive oil adds another level of flavor and gives this green sauce a rich mouthfeel. Leftover sauce makes a great veggie dip or a wonderful condiment for almost any sandwich. Enjoy!
2 medium cloves garlic, minced (about 2 teaspoons)
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
For the steak:
One 2-pound flank steak
More kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Step 1
Make the salsa verde: Place the parsley, olive oil, capers, anchovies, vinegar, lemon juice and zest, and garlic in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Pulse until the parsley is well chopped, stopping to scrape down sides as necessary. Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to a small bowl and set aside.
Step 2
Set up your grill for indirect grilling and heat to medium-high. Generously season the steak on both sides with salt and pepper. Grill the flank steak for about 3 minutes per side or until done to your liking. Let it rest for 2 minutes before carving thinly against the grain on a sharp diagonal. Serve with the salsa verde.
I love sauces that are simple to make yet complex in flavor, and Spanish-style salsa verde fits the bill. The capers and anchovies meld with the lemon and parsley to make the sauce zesty and salty at the same time. The extra virgin olive oil adds another level of flavor and gives this green sauce a rich mouthfeel. Leftover sauce makes a great veggie dip or a wonderful condiment for almost any sandwich. Enjoy!
2 medium cloves garlic, minced (about 2 teaspoons)
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
For the steak:
One 2-pound flank steak
More kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Step 1
Make the salsa verde: Place the parsley, olive oil, capers, anchovies, vinegar, lemon juice and zest, and garlic in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Pulse until the parsley is well chopped, stopping to scrape down sides as necessary. Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to a small bowl and set aside.
Step 2
Set up your grill for indirect grilling and heat to medium-high. Generously season the steak on both sides with salt and pepper. Grill the flank steak for about 3 minutes per side or until done to your liking. Let it rest for 2 minutes before carving thinly against the grain on a sharp diagonal. Serve with the salsa verde.
Yields 4 to 6 servings.
Healthy Ingredient Spotlight
Parsley: More than a decoration
You might be so used to seeing a piece of parsley adorning your dinner plate at restaurants that you forget it’s a lot more than a decoration. Parsley not only has great flavor (many people do prefer the Italian flat-leaf variety to its curly cousin), it’s also chockfull of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. Topping that list are vitamins C and A, followed by volatile oil components (sounds scary but they are actually good for you), and flavonoids with antioxidant properties that help protect cells. Parsley is the star ingredient in a South American favorite, chimichurri sauce, as well as in salsa verde. You can use parsley with (or instead of) basil for a milder pesto and as an enhancement in tomato-based dishes. And that bit of old folklore still holds true: Chew on a sprig of parsley to freshen your breath. Parsley is easy to grow in the garden and usually comes back on its own year after year.
Healthy Kitchen Nugget
Olive Oil and Herb Cubes
Whether you want to preserve herbs you grew yourself or make the most of a bunch you bought at the store or farmers’ market, a terrific option (and future timesaver) is to freeze cubes of olive oil and herbs. You can use a single herb or a mix, depending on the recipes in your repertoire. My quick technique is to rinse, chop, and pat the herbs dry, then process them with just enough olive oil to make a thick purée. Pour the purée into the sections of an ice cube tray, freeze, and transfer the cubes from the tray to a freezer bag. Then label the bag and put it back in the freezer. For a cold sauce, let the cubes defrost for about an hour before using. For a hot dish, pop them right in your pan—you might need to add an extra minute or two to the cooking time.
For Your Best Health
Importance of Sleep
A good reason to get enough sleep: British researchers tracked thousands of people at 50 years of age and found that getting six hours or less of sleep a night was associated with an increased risk for developing dementia later in life, specifically in their late 70s. They didn’t find an exact cause-and-effect relationship, so other factors might be in play, but getting enough sleep (usually considered seven to nine hours a night) is a preventive step everyone can take. The New York Times did a great analysis of the study’s limitations and positive findings if you want to know more.
Not sure how to improve sleep time and sleep quality (which helps you feel more refreshed when you wake up)? Try this advice from the CDC:
Go to sleep at the same time each night and get up at the same time each morning, weekends included.
Keep your bedroom quiet, dark, relaxing, and at a comfortable temperature—on the cool side is best.
Move all electronic devices—yes, the TV and your cellphone—out of the bedroom.
Stop caffeine and alcohol a few hours before bed.
Exercise during the day to help fall asleep more easily at night—and boost overall health.
Fitness Flash
The Four Cs of Fitness
Having a hard time keeping your head in the game when it comes to participating in sports or simply getting in daily exercise? Try these techniques—“the four Cs”—from the American College of Sports Medicine used by athletes to stay mentally tough:
Cope. Find ways to beat stress. That means learning coping mechanisms to handle stress rather than acting like it doesn’t exist. General stress can keep you from focusing on exercise (or any activity), while stressing specifically over how well you’ll do at a competitive event can weaken your game day performance.
Confidence. Believe in yourself. Most of us focus on our shortcomings or failures, or how far we still have to go. Instead, why not spend all that energy on positive thinking? Use imagery—seeing a picture of yourself succeeding in your mind—to help you gain self-confidence. It works whether you want to run a 2K or just get through a set of weightlifting reps.
Commitment. Devote time to getting better. Yes, when exercise feels hard, it’s so easy to just throw in the towel and devote energy to aspects of your life that are already going well. But exercise is so tied to well-being that it’s important to commit to getting fitter. Make it a priority to go to the gym or walk every day, or to practice a sport to get better at it (imagery can help here, too). And when you’re engaged in fitness activities, don’t let yourself be distracted by other thoughts—give it your all for however long you do it.
Challenge. Embrace the difficult. Elite athletes welcome challenges and see them as opportunities to grow. They thrive on completing difficult fitness routines and defeating formidable opponents. The rewards go deeper than momentary satisfaction: Challenges force you to exert more effort and determination, and that leads to better performance.
As we finally get the OK to get back to normal, a fun first step is a backyard get-together—great food, great friends, great fun! It’s one of the things I’ve missed the most. When I’m menu planning, I love to include one of my favorite sides, boldly flavored Asian slaw, easy to prepare but so intensely delicious. It also goes with everything, from burgers to pulled pork. And you can make it a few hours in advance—that’s enough time for the flavors to meld, while the slaw still remains crisp. Enjoy!
Ingredients
For the dressing:
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
2 teaspoons fresh lime zest
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons peeled and finely minced fresh ginger
1 large clove garlic, finely minced
1/2 to 1 red jalapeño, stemmed, seeded, and finely minced
For the slaw:
1 medium head Napa or Savoy cabbage, cored and shredded
2 carrots, peeled, trimmed, and cut into matchsticks
3 scallions, trimmed; white and green parts thinly sliced on a sharp diagonal
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
1/2 cup roasted peanuts, roughly chopped (optional)
Directions
Step 1
For the dressing, whisk together the rice wine vinegar, lime juice and zest, brown sugar, and soy sauce in a small mixing bowl. Whisk in the olive oil and sesame oil. Stir in the ginger, garlic, and jalapeño—half of it for mild heat, all of it for more heat.
Step 2
To assemble the slaw, toss the cabbage, carrots, and scallions in a large bowl. Add the dressing, and toss to lightly coat. Top with the cilantro leaves and peanuts if you’re using them.
Yields 4 to 6 servings.
Healthy Ingredient Spotlight
Cabbage
I love the light crunch of Napa, or Chinese, cabbage. Oblong rather than round like traditional green and red cabbage, it’s so easy to shred by making half-inch crossways slices as though you were slicing a loaf of bread. It seems to turn into ribbons for slaw just like that, but you can also cut each tranche into smaller sections for a finer slaw. Napa cabbage is also ideal for a stir-fry because it cooks quickly. And it’s the main ingredient in kimchi, the fermented condiment that, like kefir and kombucha, can boost gut health.
Savoy cabbage looks like a frilly and deeper-green version of traditional cabbage, but like Napa cabbage, it has a lighter taste. If you’ve never had it before, Asian slaw is a great way to try it. Both these cabbage varieties are good sources of vitamins A and C plus fiber.
Healthy Kitchen Nugget
Ginger
Ginger is an essential in many Asian cuisines. Its knobby appearance can leave you wondering how to choose a good piece and then how to cut into it! Fortunately, the answers to both dilemmas are surprisingly simple. Overall, the peel should be smooth, not wrinkled, and there shouldn’t be any mold growth—two signs that it’s past its prime. Ginger will keep in the fridge, wrapped in a paper towel and placed in an open plastic bag, for a few weeks, so don’t worry about hunting through a ginger display for a small piece. If a knob does develop mold or becomes shriveled, just cut off and discard that part.
Chances are you’ll need a two-inch knob for most recipes. Use the edge of a spoon to shave the peel from the section you want to use. Mincing ginger by hand can be slow going, so I prefer to run the exposed knob of ginger over a microplane grater. Do the grating over a bowl to catch the ginger “juice” as well as the flesh. The microplane also does a great job of separating out the unwanted fibrous threads. Best of all, this method helps you distribute ginger flavor throughout a dish rather than in bits and pieces that can taste overly pungent if you bite into one.
For Your Best Health
How to Ease Symptoms of Insomnia
We all know how important fruits and vegetables are for health, thanks to their plant-based phytonutrients. Now a team from the University of Michigan School of Public Health has found that fruits and vegetables can help ease symptoms of insomnia. Their study involved adults between the ages of 21 and 30 who reported eating fewer than five servings of fruits and vegetables per day—over a third also said they had trouble falling or staying sleep at least three times a week for three months or more. The study found that participants who increased daily fruit and vegetable intake by at least three servings over a three-month period had some improvements in the time it took to fall asleep and in insomnia symptoms, with women getting the most benefits. “What is unique about our study is that we were able to see that as fruit and vegetable intake changed, insomnia-related sleep characteristics also changed,” said lead author Erica Jansen, research assistant professor of nutritional sciences. The researchers hope the findings will become part of other sleep hygiene principles, like maintaining a consistent bedtime and wake time; turning off screens an hour or more before going to sleep; sleeping in a dark, cool environment; and not drinking alcohol or ingesting caffeine before bed.
Fitness Flash
Moving to Combat Arthritis
It sounds counterintuitive, but the way to combat the pain and stiffness of arthritis is to move. According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), skipping physical activity will make you weaker and stiffer and make joint pain worse. But how should you get started when moving is the last thing your joints say they want? You don’t have to run a marathon—just focus on sitting less and moving more, even if it’s standing up once an hour and walking to another room and back. Then build from there.
A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that people with knee osteoarthritis responded well to a web-based exercise program, and many health organizations have videos of exercises online you can follow. But it makes sense to talk to your doctor about the best exercises for you and possibly about setting up a program with a physical therapist. A PT can also show you how to move in ways that won’t cause pain. It also helps to engage in activities that you really like so that they won’t feel like work and to partner with an exercise buddy—you’ll keep each other on track. Get more ideas from ACSM here.
As we finally get the OK to get back to normal, a fun first step is a backyard get-together—great food, great friends, great fun! It’s one of the things I’ve missed the most. When I’m menu planning, I love to include one of my favorite sides, boldly flavored Asian slaw, easy to prepare but so intensely delicious. It also goes with everything, from burgers to pulled pork. And you can make it a few hours in advance—that’s enough time for the flavors to meld, while the slaw still remains crisp. Enjoy!
Ingredients
For the dressing:
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
2 teaspoons fresh lime zest
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons peeled and finely minced fresh ginger
1 large clove garlic, finely minced
1/2 to 1 red jalapeño, stemmed, seeded, and finely minced
For the slaw:
1 medium head Napa or Savoy cabbage, cored and shredded
2 carrots, peeled, trimmed, and cut into matchsticks
3 scallions, trimmed; white and green parts thinly sliced on a sharp diagonal
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
1/2 cup roasted peanuts, roughly chopped (optional)
Directions
Step 1
For the dressing, whisk together the rice wine vinegar, lime juice and zest, brown sugar, and soy sauce in a small mixing bowl. Whisk in the olive oil and sesame oil. Stir in the ginger, garlic, and jalapeño—half of it for mild heat, all of it for more heat.
Step 2
To assemble the slaw, toss the cabbage, carrots, and scallions in a large bowl. Add the dressing, and toss to lightly coat. Top with the cilantro leaves and peanuts if you’re using them.
