Light Bite: Chipotle Bean soup

In this chill, who couldn’t use a few more soup recipes for their arsenal? My chipotle bean soup is a lower-fat, meatless version of my father’s recipe, which he cooks with ham hocks, butter and, I think, some beer. If this were an existence without consequence, I’d eat his soup over mine. But, it’s not and we’ve gotta watch those waistlines and my soup will do you just fine.

Feast for good fortune

If you’re the superstitious type or, maybe you just hold tight to traditions, it’s possible you’ll be feasting on one of the following foods this New Year’s Day to up your chance for good fortune in 2011.

• Grapes (Eat 12, one for each stroke of the clock or month of the year)
• Fish (Mostly a lot of ancient political mumbo jumbo here having to do with ease of preservation and the Catholic church’s forbiddance of red meat on holidays. Fish is said to preserve life; some even place a few scales in their pockets)
• Pork (Pigs mark progress, as they are known for gaining steady footing on the ground as they move forward)
• Legumes (Beans swell to a coin-link shape when cooked)
• Cooked greens (Green leaves look like, and are symbolic of, dolla dolla bills ya’ll)
• Cake (Bake it shaped like a ring with a hidden edible treat inside – the finder will have good luck all year.)

I’ve got an easy recipe that combines three foods of good fortune. Although, if you used black-eyed peas, the luckiest legume throughout many cultures, you might just hit the lottery next time you play.

Light Bite: Asian Broccoli Salad

The best part about this recipe, other than it being fairly low in cals, is that you’re using the broccoli stalks, formerly known as trash. Get your money’s worth and slice them into baton-like strips, a.k.a. julienne them,  then toss them with this tangy marinade and you’ve got a simple, great snack or a side dish for any night’s dinner. For this amount of marinade I used about 4 broccoli stalks.

Marinade:

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 tbsp. sesame oil

1 cup water

1/2 tsp. ginger, ground

1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes, crushed

1 tbsp. granulated garlic

1/2 orange, juiced (leave the squeezed-out orange sitting in the marinade)

1 cinnamon stick

*Let the stalks marinate overnight, then remove them from the liquid so they don’t become soggy

ENJOY!