Author Archives: Cherylanne Skolnicki

Simple Tuscan White Bean Soup

By the time college football season starts and the afternoons are crisp, I’m ready for soup! I think on most weekends there is a pot of something on my stove on Saturday afternoon. I love the coziness of that bubbling pot against the backdrop of a game on TV and I love that there are often leftovers for lunch during the week!

This soup, however, doesn’t need to simmer all day. In fact, you can bang the whole thing out in about 40 minutes start to finish and it can even be made vegetarian by omitting the pancetta. Buy good broth/stock for this – it makes a difference!

 

Simple Tuscan White Bean Soup

makes 4-6 servings

Ingredients:

1 – 1 oz. slice of pancetta, cut into 1-inch cubes (optional, but this does enhance the flavor)

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil (increase to 2 if omitting the pancetta)

1 small onion, medium diced

3 medium garlic cloves, minced

4 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

3 1/2 cups good quality low-sodium chicken broth

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

1 sprig fresh rosemary

Directions:

1. Cook the pancetta in a large stockpot over medium heat until just golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Set aside the pancetta and add the oil to the pot along with the rendered pancetta fat.

2. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 to 6 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

3. Add the beans, salt, and chicken broth. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring to a simmer. Submerge the rosemary in the liquid, cover the pot, and let stand off the heat for 20 minutes.

4. Discard the rosemary and season to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle the soup into bowls and drizzle with olive oil if desired. You can even top it with the bit of pancetta you started with if you’d like.

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Wheat Berry and Apple Salad

Have you tried wheat berries yet? They’re not actually berries…they’re kernels of wheat (all except for the hull)! These little nutrition powerhouses pack a ton of health benefits – namely fiber, folic acid, protein, B vitamins, vitamins E & C and minerals. That’s a hard working salad if you ask me.

Consider this a healthy riff on a Waldorf Salad…great sweetness and crunch…but no mayo.  And apples! Aren’t you ready for apples to be in season again? I know I am! I was so excited to see the first Honeycrisps at the grocery store this week – fall can happen now.

Wheat Berry and Apple Salad

makes 6-8 servings

Ingredients:

1 cup uncooked wheat berries

1 1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

grated zest of 1 lemon

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

3/4 cup diced tart apples (such as Granny Smith)

3/4 cup halved red grapes

1/2 cup toasted walnut pieces

1/4 cup finely diced red onion

1/4 cup finely diced celery

1 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

Directions:

1. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the wheat berries, reduce the heat to maintain a simmer and cook until tender, about 45 minutes. Drain the wheat berries in a colander and then spread them out on a rimmed baking sheet to allow them to cool to room temperature. You can refrigerate the cooked wheat berries to speed up this process.

2. Whisk the lemon zest and vinegar together in a small bowl. Slowly add the oil, whisking constantly, until the dressing is emulsified. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

3. In a large bowl combine the cooled wheat berries, apples, grapes, walnuts, onion, celery, and basil. Pour the dressing over the salad and gently toss to combine.

4. Best if allowed to sit for an hour or so. The salad can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.

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Your Scale is Not an Instant Read Thermometer

That brownie you ate last night is not what caused the extra two pounds on the scale this morning. I promise you that the brownie did not actually WEIGH two pounds, nor did it transform its calorie load into two pounds of fat in some sort of marathon fat-creating session overnight. Nope. Those two pounds could have come from a whole host of things, but the brownie was not one of them.

If I had a dollar for every client who said to me, “Well, I was up a pound this morning but if I hadn’t had that candy bar last night I’m sure I would be fine,” I’d be a wealthy, wealthy woman. For some reason, our girl brains want to create a direct cause and effect between what we ate an hour ago and what the scale says right now. But it just doesn’t work that way.

Gaining a pound of fat requires you to consume 3500 calories more than you’ve burned. That’s about ten brownies, for perspective. I generally tell people to weigh themselves no more than once a week…and to look for trends in their body weight. A very normal week to week fluctuation might be +1, -2, +2, -1. Note this pattern actually maintains your weight over the course of the month. Conversely, if you start to see plus signs on your chart for too many weeks in a row, it’s time to examine what you are eating and make some changes. What the scale says the morning after an indulgence is far less important that the pattern you observe over time.

So please, don’t jump on the scale each morning looking for your reward or punishment for yesterday’s food choices – you won’t really see the effects show up for about 3 days when those calories have either been burned or converted into stored fat. It’s a scale, not an instant-read thermometer. And remember that what scales like most of all is balance…so look for yours!

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