Garlic Rosemary Fries, Amped-Up Pasta, Greek Griddle Feast, and more!

Also a glorious breakfast sandwich, salad boats, and mango sorbet!

Hello!

You might expect that on a month with a theme of “health,” we would be making quinoa burgers and avocado mousse, right? Nope! We’ll probably make foods like that eventually, but this week our focus is on making food that you might normally buy in the form of “edible foodlike substances.” (See yesterday’s post.) These recipes are a bit more time-intensive than our usual meal inspiration emails, but they’re worth the effort and they’ll be a delight to your tummy.

Breakfast: Bacon, Egg, Brie, and Jam Sandwich
Lunch: Garlic Rosemary Oven-Baked Fries
Dinners: Amped-Up Pasta, Greek Griddle Feast, and Salad Boats
Treat: Mango Sorbet

Breakfast

Bacon, Egg, Brie, and Jam Sandwich

Do you have access to a good bakery? Pick up some English muffins or bread that was made by humans. Get some eggs and bacon that were grown in farms, not factories. And get some good cheese that is labeled “cheese,” not “cheese product.” (Muenster and Brie melt gloriously.) Throw in some good farmer’s market strawberry or raspberry jam, and this might be the very best breakfast sandwich you’ve had, and you can easily make it ahead in batches 😎

Here’s my process for making these, usually six at a time: sauté bacon in a pan. Remove the bacon to a plate and drain most of the fat, but leave some of the fat in the pan for the next step. Fry or scramble eggs, adding a little salt or pepper. Add those to the plate. Now it’s time to assemble! (I like to hold the jam until it’s ready to eat.) If you’re making these ahead, wrap them in aluminum foil and keep them in your fridge or freezer.

When ready to eat, microwave your sandwich or throw it in the toaster oven until everything is heated up and the cheese melts. Add jam and enjoy this amazing sandwich.

Lunch

Garlic Rosemary Oven-Baked Fries

French fries are seen as a junk food, but that doesn’t need to be the case. If you make them with real potatoes and control how much oil you use (and what kind of oil), they deserve a regular spot on your menu!

Preheat your oven to 450, then scrub some potatoes and slice them. (If you need a good chef’s knife or paring knife, I’m blown away by the Swiss army knife brand Victorinox.) Put the sliced potatoes in a bowl filled with cold water to help remove the starch and make them more crispy.

In a separate bowl, combine olive oil and the spices of your choice. I used the Alchemy Spice Co All-American Blend, which has garlic, paprika, black peppercorns, sea salt, smoked paprika, cayenne, onion, thyme, and oregano. Drain your potatoes, rub them around in the oily spices, and start cooking them! It always takes longer than I hope, so plan for at least about 30 minutes.

In a separate pan, maybe sauté a little bit of bacon and garlic, and stir those (along with the bacon fat) into the potatoes about halfway through their baking. At the end, toss the potatoes with chopped rosemary and, um, wow, you’ll love it and it’

Dinner

Amped Up Spaghetti (two ways)

Spaghetti also gets a bad reputation for being too carb-heavy for a healthy diet. (That’s not what Italy’s high life expectancy suggests; check out the Sardinia episode of Zac Efron’s Netflix series Down to Earth.) But spaghetti works great as a carrier for other foods!

Above is an example of a nutritious spaghetti dish I made with a friend to feed 14 people: while the noodles cooked in salted water, we sautéed Italian sausage from the farmer’s market. Once a decent amount of fat was rendered, we stirred in broccoli and plenty of sliced garlic. We then drained the noodles and added them to the wok and tossed them with butter and fresh lemon juice for awhile. We topped them with some pecorino cheese and fresh oregano, and it was a delicious meal.

Here’s another variation, using whole wheat pasta and no vegetables but lots of grapes 😉 We were clearing out our pantry and found a cheap bottle of wine that we didn’t want to drink, so we boiled the noodles in the wine (with an additional cup of water) then tossed them with some balsamic rosemary marinated steak bites, garlic, white beans, freshly shredded cheese, and parsley! Luxurious, delicious, and overall—given how many people it fed—still much cheaper and healthier than eating out.

Greek Griddle Feast

This feast is made in one pan (a stovetop griddle) and it was delightful. It takes a lot of attention, but it’s a quick, great meal for a crowd!

First, cook a few slices of bacon while chopping some potatoes so you can use the rendered fat (and flavor.) Then start sauteeing those potatoes along with some green beans. (I almost always use frozen green beans because it’s easier and just as healthy.) Chop up plenty of garlic to add to the green beans and a can or two of drained Great Northern beans.

Lemon juice and thyme go very well with the potatoes, herbed pepper is great with the green beans, and rosemary and garlic do wonders with white beans. Salt and pepper to taste, too, of course.

And there you have it! We served this right from the pan to two adults and a crowd of eight children, and there were no leftovers.

Salad Boats

Ok, this one is blatantly healthy and not exactly a comfort food, but we had to throw it in for those of you who actually like salads 😉 Thanks to dear reader Michele C. for sending this one in!

Simply use lettuce as the serving vessel for items such as tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, etc! That adds some fun to a not-fun classic. (No offense if you love salad 😛)

Treat

Mango Sorbet

Mangos are a delightfully creamy, sweet fruit. If your blender or food processor can handle it, blend some frozen mangos with a little orange juice. (If your blender can’t, use fresh or thawed mangos, then freeze for a little while after you blend them.)

And there ya have it! A delicious frozen treat with simple, nutritious ingredients that are most definitely food. If you think you’ll be making “nice cream” like this more often, you might want to invest in a Yonanas machine. You just put the frozen [peeled] bananas or mangos in there with whatever other toppings you want—cherries! cookies! chocolate chips!—and it extrudes out a glorious ice cream.

Exercise: Strawberry Moon Stroll

Normally we link to exercise videos, but we are talking about sustainable, long-term health choices here, so let me ask: is there a way you can incorporate regular walks into your schedule?

One fun way to make a monthly family walk happen is to plan your walks around whenever there’s a full moon! Next Tuesday, June 14th, is a full moon, and apparently a strawberry moon? Wouldn’t it create an awesome memory if you let your kids stay up past their normal bedtime and do a family stroll somewhere? Admire the moon and all the light it gives, enjoy the fireflies and sounds of night.

This email was longer than usual, but hopefully you enjoyed it! I would love to hear what you try!

Warmly,

Hope from Family Scripts