This flavorful mix of peppers, olives, and onions defines the muffaletta sandwich—you can choose a mix of your favorite meats and cheeses, like capicola, prosciutto, salami, mozzarella, and provolone, but don’t leave off the olive salad! A batch will stay fresh in the fridge for about a week.
Ingredients
1 small red onion, peeled and quartered
1 cup pitted kalamata olives
1 cup pitted Castelvetrano olives
2 cups frozen artichoke hearts, thawed
8 Italian hot peppers
1 large red bell pepper, roasted and seeded (see “Quick Kitchen Nugget” in weekly newsletter)
6 tablespoons capers, drained
4 anchovy fillets or 1 tablespoon anchovy paste
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup best-quality red wine vinegar
Directions
Step 1
To the bowl of a large food processor add the onions, olives, and artichokes and pulse until coarsely chopped. Add in the hot peppers, bell pepper, capers, anchovies, oregano, and red pepper flakes and pulse again until finely chopped (don’t let the mixture turn into a paste).
Step 2
Transfer to a large bowl and fold in the olive oil and vinegar. Let sit for 30 minutes so that the flavors can meld before using or refrigerating.
Whole Roasted Cauliflower with Pea Pesto Recipe, Spotlight on Cauliflower, Time-restricted Eating and Exercise, plus Exercise to Fight Mental Fatigue
Perfect for spring, this week’s recipe brings together the goodness of superfood cauliflower and the freshness of pea pesto. It’s a side dish satisfying enough for a main course. Next, I’m sharing two studies with the value of exercise at their core—why exercise is a smart adjunct to time-restricted eating and how it can help you feel less mentally exhausted by challenging tasks.
This dish gets a double dose of flavor from the cheesy crust on the cauliflower and the pesto sauce.
Ingredients
For the cauliflower:
1 head cauliflower, about 2 pounds
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided use, plus more for drizzling
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup finely minced fresh herbs or 1 teaspoon dried herb mix
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1/3 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
For the pea pesto:
10 fresh basil leaves
4 ounces shelled green peas
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1-1/2 ounces shelled walnuts
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup cold water
Coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Directions
Step 1
Preheat your oven to 400°F. Drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil in a Dutch oven or baking dish large enough to hold the cauliflower; set aside.
Step 2
Peel off the outer leaves of the cauliflower and trim the core just enough for the cauliflower to sit flat.
Step 3
Place the remaining olive oil in a small bowl and use a microplane grater to grate the garlic cloves into it. Add the herbs, salt, and pepper and whisk well. Brush the mixture over the cauliflower, then press on the cheese. Cover the Dutch oven or baking dish and roast for 40 minutes. Carefully uncover and roast for another 15 minutes to lightly brown the crust.
Step 4
While the cauliflower is roasting,make the pea pesto: Place the basil, peas, garlic, cheese, and walnuts in a food processor and pulse until very finely minced. With the machine running, add the olive oil and process until smooth. Add the water and pulse a few times. Season to taste with salt and pepper if needed.
Step 5
To serve, cut the cauliflower into wedges, plate, and drizzle with the pea pesto and a few drops of olive oil.
Yields 4 servings as a main, 6 as a side dish
Healthy Ingredient Spotlight
The Cauliflower Rainbow
As delicious and nutritious as regular cauliflower is, with high marks for vitamins C and K, the brightly hued versions available at farmer’s markets and even some grocery stores offer even more.
Surprisingly, cauliflower, an ancient vegetable, was originally naturally pigmented, according to
the Iowa State University Extension. Over time, white cauliflower evolved thanks to selective breeding and became the norm. (White cauliflower stays creamy white if not exposed to direct sunlight.) So the return to cauliflower of different hues, while again a result of selective breeding, is actually cauliflower getting back to its roots.
With a difference in color comes a (slight) difference in nutrients. Purple cauliflower gets its shade from anthocyanin, the naturally occurring phytochemical that also gives bright red, blue, or purple fruits and vegetables their rich colors. By contrast, orange cauliflower gets its hue from the same carotenoids that are in orange and yellow fruits and vegetables. Green cauliflower, a hybrid of broccoli and cauliflower, has beta carotene, though not as much as pure broccoli.
All shades of cauliflower can be eaten raw or cooked.
Quick Kitchen Nugget
Cauliflower Prep
This vegetable needs only minimal prep. Roasting a whole head just involves removing the outer leaves and trimming the core flush with the base of the head. It can be drizzled with any marinade you like and then sliced into wedges or steaks after cooking.
You can cut a raw head into steaks if your prep calls for it, but keep the core intact for slicing, then use a sharp paring knife to cut out the core from each steak—you’ll lose fewer florets this way.
If you want to make florets for a dish, turn the cauliflower on its head and use a paring knife to cut pieces away from the stem, rotating the head as you go. Halve or quarter any large florets as needed.
For Your Best Health
Time-restricted Eating and Exercise
Time-restricted eating—eating within a set number of hours—is an approach that many use to try to lose weight. One concern when dieting is how to lose fat while protecting muscle. A study from the University of Mississippi, published in the International Journal of Obesity, showed that when healthy adults paired an eight-hour eating window with regular exercise for at least four weeks, they lost more fat without sacrificing lean muscle compared to exercise alone. That lean mass preservation is key, Said Nadeeja Wijayatunga, MD, PhD, RDN, assistant professor of nutrition and hospitality management.
Dr. Wijayatunga and tactical dietitian Michael Hays, PhD, RD, CSCS, began their study after seeing the dramatic rise in time-restricted eating. Together, they conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 15 studies on time-restricted eating with exercise from the past decade. “People like time-restricted eating because they feel it’s easier to adhere to…they don’t have to think too much,” said Dr. Wijayatunga. “It’s all about time, not calorie-counting or watching out for certain foods.”
According to the 2023 International Food and Health Survey, 12% of Americans have tried time-restricted eating, but the science surrounding it is still developing, Dr. Hays said. “For some people, this may be a good technique to help with body composition goals. It’s just another tool, but more studies need to come out to really understand how this works in humans.”
While the difference between those who exercised while following a time-restricted diet and those who used exercise alone was slight, the individuals in the two groups in the studies were very healthy. “They were already physically fit and already had exercise routines. When you already have athletic, lean people and you decrease their body fat percentage, that’s significant,” explained Dr. Hays.
Time-restricted eating has been criticized for possibly leading to a loss of lean mass—all the muscles, organs, and other tissues that make up the human body. “We need healthy muscles,” Dr. Wijayatunga said. “Muscles are really important for the body and for your metabolism. If we lose muscle, it may impact our metabolic systems, and it just decreases mobility overall.”
“That’s why you want to couple diet with exercise,” Dr. Hays adds. “When you’re losing weight, you never want to lose lean tissue. You want to lose fat.”
While the results are promising, Dr. Wijayatunga warned that more research is needed to confirm the findings and to learn how this would impact people who are not in shape and/or not exercising regularly. “What I’d recommend is implementing healthy habits in a way that you, as an individual, can maintain with guidance from a healthcare professional.”
Fitness Flash
Exercise to Fight Mental Fatigue
Ever feel mentally fatigued after a challenging task? It can happen later in life, even if you’re retired. Researchers from the University of Birmingham in the UK and the University of Extremadura in Spain have found that older people who exercise regularly are more able to fight the impacts of mental fatigue. Their study, published in the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, looked at whether age increased and regular exercise decreased the impact of mental fatigue on a series of cognitive and physical performance tests.
In the first study, sedentary men ages 65 to 79 performed worse in tests than those 52 to 64, and these impairments were greater when they were tested in a state of mental fatigue. A second study with retired men and women ages 66 to 72 found that performance when mentally rested or fatigued was better in the physically active older adults than in their sedentary peers.
Chris Ring, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Birmingham and corresponding author of the study, said, “This study shows how important physical activity is for adults as they get older and in general for avoiding the worst impacts of mental fatigue on cognitive and physical performance. This research from our ongoing international collaborative venture confirms that regular physical activity has a host of benefits, with increased physical fitness associated with improved cognition, increased exercise capacity, and greater mental fatigue resilience. For older adults in particular, regular exercise represents a simple but effective means to stave off the effects of age in a host of areas, including avoiding the negative effects of feeling mental fatigued after a particularly taxing task.”
Dr. Ring suggested that the following three active steps can be taken by older adults wishing to perform better in demanding situations:
First, increase your level of regular physical activity.
Second, warm up using a combination of cognitive and physical tasks to better prepare for an upcoming physical performance, especially when feeling mentally fatigued.
Third, train using a combination of cognitive and physical tasks, a method called Brain Endurance Training, or BET, to improve mental fatigue resilience and enhance physical performance.
This dish gets a double dose of flavor from the cheesy crust on the cauliflower and the pesto sauce.
Ingredients
For the cauliflower:
1 head cauliflower, about 2 pounds
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided use, plus more for drizzling
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup finely minced fresh herbs or 1 teaspoon dried herb mix
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1/3 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
For the pea pesto:
10 fresh basil leaves
4 ounces shelled green peas
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1-1/2 ounces shelled walnuts
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup cold water
Coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Directions
Step 1
Preheat your oven to 400°F. Drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil in a Dutch oven or baking dish large enough to hold the cauliflower; set aside.
Step 2
Peel off the outer leaves of the cauliflower and trim the core just enough for the cauliflower to sit flat.
Step 3
Place the remaining olive oil in a small bowl and use a microplane grater to grate the garlic cloves into it. Add the herbs, salt, and pepper and whisk well. Brush the mixture over the cauliflower, then press on the cheese. Cover the Dutch oven or baking dish and roast for 40 minutes. Carefully uncover and roast for another 15 minutes to lightly brown the crust.
Step 4
While the cauliflower is roasting,make the pea pesto: Place the basil, peas, garlic, cheese, and walnuts in a food processor and pulse until very finely minced. With the machine running, add the olive oil and process until smooth. Add the water and pulse a few times. Season to taste with salt and pepper if needed.
Step 5
To serve, cut the cauliflower into wedges, plate, and drizzle with the pea pesto and a few drops of olive oil.
Poached Salmon with Leek Sauce Recipe, Spotlight on Poaching Liquid and Skinning Fish, A New Way to Look at Fiber, Plus “Weekend Warrior” Benefits
As summer approaches, our tastebuds favor lighter dishes that are still big on flavor. Poaching is a minimalist cooking technique that’s fast and virtually foolproof! Perfect for salmon, it’s also great for chicken, especially when making chicken salad. The health news in this edition touches on two interesting topics: how scientists are working to classify various types of dietary fiber in different foods so that we can better gain fiber benefits and how being a weekend warrior when it comes to exercise will still help you get the fitness benefits of daily workouts.
This recipe is perfect for spring—a light cooking technique and vibrant flavors. Leeks are the unsung heroes of the allium family, delivering a sweet, oniony taste. Just be sure to triple-wash them to remove all the sand before cooking.
Ingredients
For the poached salmon:
2-pound salmon fillet
4 fresh dill sprigs
1 large onion, sliced
6 black peppercorns
2 cups white wine
For the leek sauce:
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small garlic clove, minced
2 large leeks, trimmed, cleaned, and cut into coins or half moons
1 teaspoon fine sea salt, more to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, more to taste
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Directions
Step 1
To poach the salmon, place it in a skillet large enough to hold it (you can cut a whole side into pieces to make it fit). Add the rest of the ingredients and enough cold water to cover the fish. Bring the liquid to a boil, lower the heat to a simmer, and cover. Cook for about 10 minutes, until the fish is opaque. Turn off the heat and let sit for 5 minutes.
Step 2
While the salmon is cooking, make the leek sauce: Heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat. When hot, add the olive oil and garlic. Once the garlic has softened, add the leeks, salt, and pepper. Sauté the leeks over medium-low heat until tender, about 8 minutes. Add the butter and stir to melt it into the sauce.
Step 3
Cut the fish into four portions (if not already cut up). Plate the fish and top with the sautéed leeks. Drizzle with olive oil.
Yields 4 servings
Healthy Ingredient Spotlight
Poaching Liquid
Poaching is a simple cooking technique. The food is submerged in liquid and cooked at a low simmer. Though most of the liquid is water, enhancing it with other ingredients will impart great flavor. Choose aromatics such as vegetables (carrots, onions, and celery, for example), fresh herbs, and/or lemon slices. You can also use a cup or two of wine or broth.
Quick Kitchen Nugget
Skinning Fish
If you have excellent knife skills, you might find it easy to skin fish when raw. But leaving the skin on for cooking adds to the taste of the finished dish, plus it’s easy to simply peel off the skin after the fish is cooked and still warm. Invert your fillet onto a flat plate or cutting board and use your hand to gently pull off and discard the skin.
For Your Best Health
A New Way to Look at Fiber
Australian food scientists have reclassified dietary fiber beyond just soluble and insoluble to better guide nutritional decisions and drive targeted health food products. Dietary fiber in fruit, vegetables, beans and other legumes, and whole grains is one of the most important food components for human health. It helps digestion, weight management, blood sugar control, heart health, cancer prevention, and more. However, according to food scientist and professor Raj Eri, PhD, of RMIT University in Bundoora West, Australia, consumer advice on how best to use it for these various benefits is sorely lacking.
“Quite like how different medicines target different conditions, so too do different types of fiber,” he said. “For example, apples and bananas are both rich in dietary fiber, but the fiber in each works very differently. Our research is helping to understand which type of fiber we should eat to help address certain ailments.”
In their study, published in Food Research International, the RMIT University team proposed a more nuanced fiber classification based on five key features: backbone structure, water-holding capacity, structural charge, fiber matrix, and fermentation rate. Study lead author and RMIT PhD candidate Christo Opperman said that by starting with the key active features of fiber, this “bottom-up approach” more accurately described each fiber’s health impacts.
“For example, suppose you want to promote colonic health. In that case, you identify a fiber’s properties as defined by the bottom-up approach, which align with your desired outcome—in this case, fermentation rate,” Opperman said. “Applying this framework can assure consumers, dietitians, clinicians, and food technologists that they are receiving their desired health effect, which previously was a vague guessing game.”
Opperman said the RMIT team has now taken 20 different types of fiber and studied how they interact specifically with the gut’s microbiome. “Until now, these types of specific interactions have been understudied, but with this framework as a beginning, we are on the verge of a much more helpful and detailed understanding,” he said.
Dr. Eri said there was already strong interest among both practitioners and consumers on how to better integrate fiber into diets. “In the countries surveyed, including Europe and the US, every single population had a deficiency of fiber,” he noted. “Considering fiber is one of the most important nutrients, this is extremely worrying.” While recommended dietary fiber intake is 28 to 42 grams per day, Americans on average get only 12 to 14 grams per day and Europeans only 18 to 24 grams per day.
The current classification of dietary fiber has it grouped into soluble and insoluble fiber, which is based on whether it dissolves in water. Insoluble fiber is seldom fermented in the large intestine and helps keep us regular. Soluble fiber is more readily fermented and can reduce cholesterol, glucose absorption, and food cravings. But it’s not always so straightforward. For example, insoluble fiber can often also rapidly ferment and reduce glucose absorption.
“Despite our evolving understanding of how central different types of fiber are to nurturing a healthy gut biome, our dietary fiber classifications remain simplistic between broad categories of soluble and insoluble types,” Dr. Eri said. “This binary classification insufficiently captures the diverse structures and complex mechanisms through which dietary fiber influences human physiology. Our framework is an essential step in addressing this gap.” The researchers are now planning to investigate how a specific type of fiber (based on their new classification) modulates the microbiota and how to utilize such knowledge for specific health applications.
Fitness Flash
“Weekend Warrior” Benefits
Being physically active for one to two days a week is often called being a “weekend warrior” because workouts are done on Saturdays and Sundays. This approach may provide comparable health and life-prolonging benefits to smaller doses of daily physical activity if the physical effort is moderate to vigorous and totals 150 minutes a week, in line with recommended guidelines for weekly physical activity, according to new research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. To achieve health benefits, both the World Health Organization and the American Heart Association recommend that throughout each week adults engage in 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity, 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, or an equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity activity.
“You don’t need to exercise every day to stay healthy. As long as you get 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week—whether packed into one to two days or spread out—you can significantly reduce your risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, cancer, or other causes,” said study corresponding author Zhi-Hao Li, PhD, an epidemiologist in the School of Public Health at Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China.
“This message is encouraging news for busy people who struggle to fit in daily workouts but can manage a concentrated burst of activity on weekends or over a couple of days,” Dr. Li said. “The research provides reassuring evidence that even sporadic physical activity can have lasting health benefits, making it easier for people to prioritize their well-being amid busy schedules.”
The research examined health and physical activity data for more than 93,000 people in a large biomedical database in the UK to explore how different physical activity patterns may affect the risk of dying from all causes and specifically cardiovascular disease and cancer. The team reviewed physical activity data collected from wrist accelerometers, devices that measure movement and are likely more accurate than surveys that ask participants about their activity.
The study categorized the data into three groups: “active weekend warrior,” or people who completed most of their exercise in one or two days, “active regular,” or those who spread their activity throughout the week, and “inactive,” or those who didn’t complete the recommended minimum of 150 minutes of weekly physical activity.
Compared to the inactive group, the weekend warrior and active regular groups had significantly lower risks of death from all causes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer if they completed 150 minutes of physical activity a week.
The analysis also found:
No significant differences in the risk of death surfaced between the weekend warrior and active regular groups.
For weekend warriors, the risk of death from all causes was 32% lower, the risk of death from cardiovascular disease was 31% lower, and the risk of death from cancer was 21% lower.
Among participants in the active regular group, the risk of death from all causes was 26% lower, the risk of death from cardiovascular disease was 24% lower, and the risk of death from cancer was 13% lower.
While the new research aligns with previous studies, it is the first to analyze the relationship between physical activity patterns measured by accelerometers and the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Some of the findings surprised the research team, who initially expected that spreading activity throughout the week would be more beneficial. They did not anticipate that weekend warriors’ condensed physical activity would reduce the risk of death from disease.
“This reinforces the idea that meeting the 150 minutes of physical activity per week guideline is key to longevity, regardless of the activity pattern,” Dr. Li said. “Any activity, whether structured exercise such as jogging or daily tasks such as gardening, can be included if the intensity is moderate to vigorous.”
American Heart Association expert volunteer Keith Diaz, PhD, said the findings emphasize that the total volume of physical activity is the crucial factor for health benefits, rather than how it is distributed across a week. Dr. Diaz, the Florence Irving Associate Professor of Behavioral Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York and a member of the association’s Physical Activity Science Committee, was not involved in this research.
“Many people struggle to fit in daily exercise during the workweek. However, this research shows that even if you can only be active on the weekends, you can still gain meaningful health benefits,” he said. “One important caveat to remember is that trying to fit 150 minutes of exercise into just one or two days can be a lot on your body. Some research suggests that weekend warriors have a slightly higher risk of musculoskeletal injuries compared to those who exercise more regularly. However, the benefits of exercising just on the weekend far outweigh the potential risks. If you are going to be a weekend warrior, make sure you do proper warm-ups and build up and progress to higher volumes of activity over time. This will help reduce your risk of injuries.”
The researchers said future studies should be conducted to confirm these results in more diverse groups of people throughout the world and with more consideration for contradictory factors such as genetic predisposition or environmental exposures that may influence physical activity and the outcomes.
