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Author: Admin General

An Interview with Karen Sheer, “Good food leads to mindful eating.” -KS

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Karen Sheer is the beauty behind the lifestyle site A Zest for Life. As a professional chef, writer, and caterer, Karen specializes in creating innovative and original recipes that include fresh, local, and organic ingredients. Karen collaborated on my book, Hamptons Entertaining, and I am absolutely thrilled to share our conversation about making the most of summer entertaining. Karen gave me her thoughts on summer cuisine, decadent treats, and the ways in which food can become the centerpiece of all your summer events. I hope you enjoy and find many of these tips useful as you plan your own summer menus!

Q&A

AF: Your site is meant to inspire a zest for life. How does food inspire you?

KS: Good food leads to mindful eating. Beautiful, wholesome food is organically inspiring. I like to inspire my clients and my readers to taste with all their senses. Good food needn’t be complicated; it just takes a “zest for life” and the dedication to cook for yourself and your family. Get going!

AF: What are some of your favorite refreshing summer recipes?

KS: I’m all for cooking outdoors in the summer—who wants to turn on the oven? So my grill works overtime. I like to make frozen treats ahead of time, so dessert is ready to go. Honeydew Granita (Recipe Below) is a refreshing favorite of mine. I add a little spirulina (a natural blue-green algae) for color.  Summertime Panzanella Tomato Salad—You should be eating this right now!

AF: Do you have suggestions for healthful indulgences?

KS: Use quality ingredients and don’t feel guilty about indulging on real, homemade food. With that said, I don’t batter and deep fry much at home—I’ll save that indulgence for dining in a restaurant. Heirloom Tomato and Melon Salad with Goat Cheese and a Date-Balsamic Dressing is a healthy indulgence I love! Letting the natural flavor shine through in their purest form result in the most delicious and gratifying recipes.

AF: What recipes can be made ahead to allow a host more time with guests on party day?

KS: This is such an important topic! When figuring a menu for a party the time line is so important. To enjoy your company, have the first course ready, with only a little tossing or heating up left to do. Make seasonings, sauces, salsas, and dips a day before. I can even sauté fish ahead of time, searing it on both sides just before the guests come, and then popping it in the oven as we eat the first course. Dessert made ahead is a godsend. I love homemade frozen treats—and homemade cookies.

You can’t go wrong with stews as they reheat beautifully. In the summer, maybe the one thing you do is grill as the guests arrive; some like to observe the action and might even participate! 

AF: What’s one versatile recipe that could work equally well for an upscale event and casual gathering?

KS:  Annie, I love your approach to this one—you can’t go wrong with lobster salad! I make miniature eclairs from pâte à choux dough and use them as vessels for lobster salad with some colorful and crunchy radish microgreens on top. And Salmon Brochette Salad with Minted Lime Dressing, Toasted Quinoa, and Pistachios is full of flavors and bright colors.

AF: You have a lovely recipe for carrot sorbet; please share it with us, and some ideas on how to serve it.

KS: My Carrot Sorbet was an experiment. It’s different, hydrating and refreshing. I’ve seen Farm to Table restaurants serve savory ices as a first course with a little chopped salad, so I tested a recipe on that principle. It’s a little unusual for a dinner party, yet I think the host would get rave reviews—for the dish and the chutzpah—when serving it! Simply serve this as an intermezzo: it’s bright color and clean flavor will be a hit. How about with a few pinches of microgreens on top? Or serve it as I have, with my Super Crunch Salad on the side or scooped over the top.

AF: What is the most important thing to keep in mind when shopping for summer groceries?

KS: Buy from the farmer who grows them! I visit a few farmers’ markets a week, and make grocery lists. Part of the fun is creating recipes from the offerings and being flexible. Sugar snap peas have just come to market this week and my mind was tossing around ideas for a sugar snap pea pesto with spring garlic. We’ll see about that one!

Karen’s Honeydew Granita with Spirulina 

Karen adds just a bit of spirulina, a blue-green, nutrient-rich algae in a powdered form, to this refreshing dessert. Though not difficult, this recipe requires chilling and freezing time, so plan ahead.

Serving Size: 2 Pints of Granita

Super Crunch Salad

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Having more time in the kitchen means being adventurous, and creating meals that are tasty, healthful and balance ingredients in a way that feels new and playful.

Karen Sheer created this Super Crunch Salad and suggests topping it with two scoops of her Carrot Sorbet. Refreshing, satisfying and good for you!

Use Karen’s base ingredients to be sure to create a healthful salad, then add what is local, fresh, or simply what you have on hand. I added Florida avocado, roasted Indian-spiced chickpeas, and bell peppers from our garden, plus sesame seeds. Had my guests not eaten all our Carrot Sorbet I would have cubed the leftover pops and piled them right over the avocado! Next time.

Here is Karen Sheer’s original recipe.

Serving Size: 4

Carrot Sorbet

Posted on by Admin General

This week I will be sharing a conversation I had with Karen Sheer, a professional chef, writer, and caterer who specializes in creating innovative and original recipes. She collaborated on my book, Hamptons Entertaining, and shared this Carrot Sorbet recipe with me during our interview. Karen likes to pair this savory sorbet with her Super Crunch Salad, which I will also share. When served this way, it becomes a cooling summer mid-day meal. Perfect for those dog days of summer.

When I tried Karen’s recipe, I was reminded of how I love the surprise of savory sorbets—tomato, celery, and roasted fennel are just some of my favorites. They are so refreshing, and the icy chill wakes you up—your mind is anticipating something sweet, but your tongue registers something wonderfully unexpected. 

I hosted a casual Indian dinner at my home (a family celebration—we are still in pandemic mode) where I tweaked Karen’s recipe a bit, adding a touch of curry powder, and replacing the sugar with a local honey. I served freezer pops rather than the traditional scoop—placed in the center of the table, over ice with fresh mint from the garden. Serving this way meant less to clean up after dinner and made the sorbet that much more enticing. It is bold to serve savory sorbets and granitas, but these pops were a lovely intermezzo between courses, offered after a particularly spicy dish they created the perfect interlude.

Here is Karen’s original recipe.   

Yield: Makes 3 Cups

Freshly Whipped Cream

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Fresh, homemade whipped cream is so easy to make, versatile and infinitely more healthful than store-bought brands that can be full of corn syrup, carrageenan and hydrogenated oils, xanthan and guar gums.

I have fond memories of whipping up this recipe with my sisters, we did it by hand, and would take turns whisking as our arms tired. Our father was a disciplined, healthful eater, and for his birthday he loved nothing better than a big bowl of plump, juicy blueberries, topped with homemade, freshly whipped, unsweetened cream. For my birthday I loved it atop a homemade chocolate pudding pie, and my youngest sister liked hers over ice cream.

You can certainly add your favorite sweetener, confectioner’s sugar, honey or maple syrup; and flavoring options are endless. We have always made ours with a fragrant, high quality vanilla extract, which technically makes it a Crème Chantilly or French Chantilly Cream, and we chilled our mixing bowl and whisk (or beaters) in the freezer for at least 30 minutes before we began.

Yield: Makes 1 Quart

Red Hot Sauce from The Ranch at Malibu

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The Ranch at Live Oak Malibu has been my go-to annual stop for a hard reset. My visit is generally post-season in Palm Beach, after I have imbibed a few too many cocktails and indulged in way too many hors d’oeuvres. The Ranch offers a results-oriented, immersive health and fitness program that is centered on daily hikes, something us Floridians do not have access to without travel, and a big draw for me. The hikes are beautiful, challenging, and intense calorie burners. There is guided exercise, including yoga and two wonderful chefs that serve up a delicious and completely plant-based menu. 

This year my trip was CANCELLED, like so many engagements and forays I look forward to.  I did receive my 30-day pre-itinerary of detoxifying recommendations that include cutting out sugar, alcohol, and caffeine, which I adhered to for about a week. There were just too many temptations in the house, and family requests for my Banana Bread and Orange-Scented Olive Oil Cake.  

When I received my copy of the newly released FOOD FOOD FOOD cookbook I jumped for joy! The first recipe I tried was the Sweet Potato Hash.  It’s a great cookbook featuring more than 100 plant-based recipes, some using The Ranch olive oil (perfect for my olive oil cake) and honey, sourced directly from the retreat’s bees. It is helping me get back on track and is available for purchase on the Ranch’s website.

When I visit the ranch, I practically drink the delicious hot sauces they offer with each meal: Carrot Habanero ‘very’ Hot Sauce, Green Hot Sauce, Orange Hot Sauce, Ranch Sriracha, and my favorite, the Red Hot Sauce. All the recipes are in the FOOD FOOD FOOD cookbook, and the one I’m going to share here is slighting different than what is in print, but it is the recipe Chef handed to me several years ago and I’ve been making it this way ever since. 

This hot sauce is made with chipotle peppers that can vary in heat from pepper to pepper. I learned to monitor the spiciness of this recipe by adding the chipotles one at time and tasting as I go.  Chipotle peppers are jalapenos left on the vine to ripen into a vibrant red pepper before they are smoke-dried, and they can pack a punch. 

Yield: Makes 1 Quart

Milk, Mylk and Homemade Oat Milk

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Is it milk or mylk? For many, it does not seem appropriate to call a non-dairy creamer milk. After all, almonds do not lactate. Mylk, however, elicits a myriad of well-meaning readers to point out the typo.

In fact, “milk” may refer to plant milk, at least in terms of common usage, and includes creamers made from almonds, coconut, oats, hemp, macadamia, and other nuts.  While we can wrangle about semantics, let us stop instead to question if milk alternatives are actually good for you.

I gave up dairy milk quite a while ago and fell in love with macadamia milk—it perfectly balanced the flavors of my Apple-A-Day Cereal, and it is so easy to make. Then, I found almond milk readily available at “trusted” sources like Wholefoods, and that became my go-to milk, until I had a wakeup call. I read the labels more carefully and discovered that most almond milk was only 2% almonds, and included other iffy ingredients. I quickly decided to make my own Almond Milk, and used the precious pulp to make almond meal.

Lately, I have become obsessed with oat milk. At my local coffee shop they use a brand called Oatly , the barista edition—really wonderful in cappuccinos, and macchiatos. When I purchased it to try at home, I had the same success as my local barrister frothing the milk. However, the ingredients are not as pure as Oatly would like you to think. There is rapeseed oil in this milk, a bit of misleading advertising, and so much sugar, it caused one writer to suggest Oatly is the new Coke. 

Bottom line, if you are buying any non-dairy milk, avoid these ingredients:

  • Canola oil – a/k/a rapeseed oil often found in oat milks.
  • Carrageenan – This thickener is a potential carcinogen. 
  • GMOs – One reason, of many, I suggest skipping soymilk.
  • Gums such as guar gum – Suspected of causing and aggravating GI issues.
  • Sugar – Why avoid cow’s milk, which has no added sugar, only to consume something that has 16 grams (4 teaspoons) of added sugar per serving.

If you are purchasing non-dairy milks, here are a few of my favorite brands:

  • Aroy-d Coconut Milk – A BPA-free little box of coconut milk, sold on Amazon. While these are great for making cold or hot soups or to cook with, avoid using coconut milk as your go-to dairy substitute.  According to Dr. Willet and the folks at Harvard it falls into the saturated fat category and therefore should be used sparingly. 
  • Elmhurst – Elmhurst uses more nuts than any other brand. Their almond milk has two ingredients: almonds and water.  It contains 5 grams of protein. I only wish it were organic. Their oat milk is equally pure and delicious. They offer milked cashews, walnuts, and hazelnuts.
  • Malk – An excellent organic option, it contains no soy, gluten, GMOs, carrageenan, or binders.
  • Milkadamia – For purists.  When it comes to taste, devotees rave about it.

It is so easy to make your own non-dairy milk. You can use macadamia nuts,  brazil nuts, (excellent for thyroid and brain health) walnuts (packed with omega 3’s!) or almonds, and it is equally as simple to make oat milk, my family’s new favorite. Great for those with nut allergies and it is said to have heart-healthy properties, just like oatmeal. 

Yield: Makes 1 Quart

Karmakazi Hot Sauce

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If you love eating chili-rich spicy foods, there is evidence that adding a kick to your meals may be linked to longer life. That is a refreshing thought given the amount of hot sauce my family consumes. In our home you will rarely find a saltshaker on the table, instead there’s a jar of homemade hot sauce; and I have been known to carry a small bottle in my bag (I’m in good company, so does Beyoncé!). Store-bought hot sauce can be chock full of additives, cancer-causing dyes and artificial ingredients topped with a heaping amount of sodium, which is why I love finding great hot sauce recipes like this one from Anamaya, a resort in Costa Rica.

Anamaya is Sanskrit for “good health” and at the core of the Anamaya diet is lots of raw food, plenty of protein and healthy fats, minimal processing, lots of fruit, veggies, and whole grains—so much like my own diet, including their commitment to include only a minimal amount dairy and seafood. They do not use white sugar, ever, and are 100% gluten-free.  Those are two items I am still working on at home.

Anamaya grows much of their own produce and when chef Jeffrey Horton is cooking, he loves working with organic and local ingredients, and takes pride in his made-from-scratch meals, no shortcuts. When we visited, chef Jeff put out a squeeze bottle of his Karmakazi Hot Sauce every day on the breakfast and lunch buffets. Guests, our family included, poured it over eggs, added it to stir-fries and tacos, and just about everything else. It is perhaps the most requested recipe at Anamaya!

Yield: Makes 3 Cups

Almond Milk

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Almonds are a precious food that offer a crunchy bite of complete protein, healthful fats, vitamins and minerals, and deliciousness. They have grown in popularity both as a snack and nut butter, and are being used widely to produce nut milks, replacing dairy and outpacing soy. Many are concerned about almond’s intense ecological footprint, as their production uses a lot of water and pesticides, but according to the Food Revolution Network almond’s carbon footprint is 10 times smaller than that of dairy milk. According to Harvard’s School of Nutrition Almonds have been suggested to reduce heart disease risk and to exert anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects.

At home I make almond and oat milks, and alternate between the two. Non-dairy milks are so easy to make and when done at home have no added preservatives or sugar.  You can, of course, add salt, Medjool dates, agave or vanilla extract for flavor and sweetness.

Yield: Makes 3 Cups

Watermelon-Cucumber “Martini”

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As the heat of summer hits, I start dreaming about the delicious fare served at Hamptons gatherings—dishes that are inspired by an abundance of fresh, local produce.  Foods that are nourishing, perfectly ripe and crave-worthy.  Even cocktails are influenced by what is fresh and fragrant in the nearby farms, and when watermelon is in season, it takes center stage in a variety of lemonades and cocktails.  One of my favorites is a crisp, cold Watermelon-Cucumber blend I discovered at Sebonic Golf Club.  It is summer in a glass.

A martini is a pure cocktail that consists of two main ingredients (gin or vodka and vermouth—with the option of two supporting acts, bitters, and your garnish), and there are endless variations on the theme. Sebonic served a Watermelon-Cucumber Martini that honored the classic recipe and included vermouth. It was delicious, but I enjoy simple, super clean cocktails, and I do my best to stay well hydrated in the summer, so I asked the bartender to pass on the vermouth and add more watermelon juice. She indulged me and after a few attempts we created this Martini-inspired drink.  It is fresh, cold, light and so rejuvenating—one of my favorite Saturday night summer sippers. 

When hosting gatherings at my home in the Hamptons this is my welcome drink.  There, I have access to wonderful produce, and gladly purée and strain a fresh watermelon, then chill it before adding to this blend. Any leftover juice goes into my watermelon lemonade for Sunday’s BBQ.  For this cocktail, a store-bought, cold pressed organic watermelon juice is just as delicious. 

Yield: Makes 1 Cocktail

Coffee & Cacao Smoothie (Inspired by The Bee’s Funky Buzz)

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The Island Bee is sorely missed. The vegan café and market that was here on the island of Palm Beach, was an offshoot of The Bee in West Palm, a lifestyle space to support healthy habits. Both locations were creative, fun, and welcoming, with terrific food, nourishing shakes, healthful juices, and healing elixirs. Especially now, during the pandemic, my family and I are craving The Bee’s healthful offerings—there was and is nothing like it for miles. 

Both locations were on my daily route and I looked forward to stopping in. It was a great place to meet friends and family for an organic, vegan breakfast or lunch, and I loved going by in the afternoon for a Funky Buzz—a healthful coffee and cacao pick-me-up.  What made the Funky Buzz so delicious? The cold-brewed coffee. Cold brew tends to be less acidic than hot brewed coffee, and it’s sweeter and milder. If you like coffee, then you will love how flavorful and aromatic a cold brew can be.

When the Island Bee closed, a friend of mine gifted me a beautiful Yama Glass Cold Brew Coffee Maker for Christmas so that I could make the Funky Buzz at home. Made of hand-blown glass and a beautiful wood tower, the Yama has been sitting in my kitchen to be enjoyed more for its artistic presentation than it’s lab-like functionality—which landed it on Forbes Finds’ 2019 list of best cold-brew coffee makers.  

It looks like a complicated apparatus, and for the longest time I could not find a coffee worthy of the effort; after all it is an 8-hour process with the Yama. Recently my husband discovered Chik Monk coffee at Amici Market, and has been making us the most fabulous nut-milk cappuccinos. When he grinds the coffee in the morning everyone in the house is immediately drawn to the kitchen. The aroma inspired me to clean the Yama, learn how to use it (which is not complicated at all!) and start brewing. My daughter, Gigi, who also loved this smoothie helped me create our version of The Bee’s Funky Buzz, and it is as delicious a pick-me-up as we remember.  

The most popular way to make cold-brew coffee without a specialized carafe is the immersion method. This involves pouring coarse grounds in a glass mason jar, filling it with water and letting it sit overnight, either at room temperature or in the refrigerator. After it has infused, you then pour it through a filter to clean out the grounds. According to Food52, the optimal cold brew coffee ratio is 3/4 cup coarsely ground coffee to every four cups of cold water.

Yield: Serves 2

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 2 minutes