Chill Out With Icy Watermelon Gazpacho

Watermelon Gazpacho is my soup of the day today. I eat soup nearly every day. When it is blazing hot, this is one I crave. Whirling it up takes ten minutes. You need a mere four ingredients, one of them a very ripe, preferably New Jersey tomato. And depending on the heat in the salsa verde you use, you control the kick in this refreshing, tart-sweet soup.

Green grapes traditionally garnish the creamy white gazpacho made with almonds. Here, red grapes are perfect paired with cilantro, red onion, and a sprinkling of aromatic lime zest. Together, they bring a sparkling tapestry of flavors while giving Watermelon Gazpacho’s health benefits a boost.

I care about healthy eating and I dare you to do better than Watermelon Gazpacho. Watermelon and tomatoes both get their red color from lycopene, an antioxidant and proven helper in preventing cancers, along with other benefits. Watermelon also contains citrulline, an amino acid good for your vascular system. And no fruit beats watermelon for keeping you hydrated. So this gazpacho, sippable from into a wide-mouth water bottle, makes an ideal post-workout pick-up as well as a spoonable soup.

For a fun fact –lycopene is edible sunscreen. You still need to slather on the external kind, but eating this gazpacho, plus tomato sauce and paste, dark leafy greens, and other carotenoid-rich foods, actually adds UV protection. Sensibly, this helps reduce the risk of skin cancer. Vainly and deliciously, by helping to reduce sun damage and adding hydration, eating Watermelon Gazpacho also helps you look good! So eat it today – August 4th is National Watermelon Day – and as long as icy watermelon and flavorful local tomatoes are in season.

Watermelon Gazpacho (Makes 4 servings)

3 cups cubed watermelon

2 1/2 cups ripe tomato, seeded and chopped

1/3 cup salsa verde

3 tablespoons fresh lime juice

Salt and pepper

For garnish

1/4 cup cilantro, finely chopped

2 tablespoons red onion, finely chopped

2 teaspoons grated lime zest

1. In a blender, whirl the watermelon and tomato until they are pulply, about 20 seconds. Add the salsa, lime juice, and whirl just to combine. Season the soup to taste with salt and pepper. Chill it for 4 to 24 hours.

2. To serve, divide the gazpacho among four deep bowls. Garnish with the cilantro, onoin, and lime zest. The soup keeps for 3 days in the refrigerator. If it separates, shake well before servi

Go Decadent With Chocolate and Peanuts

Recently, I had a craving for chocolate and peanuts. That is a good craving since they both provide well-substantiated health benefits. But the calories from the fat in them and sugar in the chocolate add up quickly, bringing up that challenging work “moderation.”

Moderation means having one ounce of chocolate – about one third of a good quality dark chocolate bar, and two tablespoons of peanut butter, what nutrition experts consider one serving. So I decided to make the most of them in the most enjoyable way. I was delighted when help appeared, in the form of peanut powder, a fluffy “essence of peanut” in powder form.

To satisfy my craving, I ended up combining the powder with intense, dark natural cocoa powder, coconut milk and coconut sugar, making a chocolate and peanut ganache. Spread on toast, it was bliss. With fresh strawberries, used as a dip it was downright decadent.

Melanie Landsman

Peanut powder is actually roasted whole peanuts with 85 percent of their oil removed, and the nuts then turned into a seemingly weightless powder. Containing the same amounts of protein and fiber found in two tablespoons of peanut butter, it has just two grams of fat instead of the 18 grams found in peanut butter.

Yes, the fat in peanuts is the good kind, but many other foods we eat in the course of a day, like extra virgin olive oil, can provide good fat. And they do not have the flavor of roasted peanuts. Getting this flavor in a pleasantly creamy way for just 70 calories instead of the 200 calories in a serving of peanut butter feels like serendipity, if not downright magic.

Recently, at Stop & Shop in Brooklyn, N.Y., I found Jif Peanut Powder and one from Peanut Butter & Co. I did not see them at supermarkets near me so I checked the Internet, where I found peanut powder at iHerb.com. But you have to buy at least one pound, a lot of this very light-weight powder, and wait (impatiently) for delivery.

Naming this fudgy blend Peanutella felt brilliant. Out of curiosity, I did a Google search,  hoping that I was being original. Of course not! Giving credit where it is due, Deb Perelman used it in Smitten Kitchen, her mega-blog, a few years back as the second name for her Chocolate-Peanut Spread. Our food attitudes are quite different; so are our versions of Peanutella. Deb’s, favoring over-the-top indulgence, requires roasting and grinding whole peanuts adding added peanut oil, and confectioners’ sugar. My recipe, a quick mix-up, offers fast, sigh-inducing gratification with a fraction of the calories.

If you do not have strawberries, whirling Peanutella with a banana, and any milk you like makes a killer smoothie. On blustery days, stirred into a cup of warmed milk, it adds enough protein to make a nutty, chocoholic-pleasing snack in a cup.

“Peanutella” (Makes 1/2 cup)

3 Tbsp. unsweetened natural cocoa powder

3 Tbsp. peanut powder

2 Tbsp. coconut sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened canned coconut milk, or 1/4 up reduced fat

1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

In a small bowl, whisk together the cocoa, peanut powder, and sugar. Add the coconut milk and vanilla, and whisk until the mixture is blended and smooth.

Let Ginger Give You A Hand

As soon as the days get shorter and the nights turn frosty, I set a pot on the stove, add slices of golden ginger and filtered water, and simmer them to make ginger tea. Sipping this zingy infusion through the winter months helps to ward off colds and flu. I also call it my portable heater because it wards off the chill in my apartment by keeping me cozy from the inside. FYI, my landlord does not keep me frigid. He actually sends up too much stifling, brain-smothering heat. To stay clear-headed and keep my skin from drying like a prune, I turn it off, preferring to wear Ugg’s, a shawl around my shoulders, and to wrap my hands around a mug of steaming ginger tea.

 Ginger may be the single most healing food there is. In Ayervedic medicine, it is called the universal remedy because it does so much, from stimulating circulation—as my warm hands demonstrate—and soothing indigestion, reducing fever, relieving nausea from pregnancy, motion sickness, and even chemotherapy, to possibly reducing arthritis pain. You get pickled ginger alongside sushi because it fights bad microbes and parasites—which is mostly unnecessary now but was something the Japanese used to good advantage before refrigeration existed.

 Ginger grows in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even New York State, where a farmer brings it to my local Greenmarket. The best-tasting fresh ginger is golden and comes from Hawaii. Jamaica produces the best dried ginger—think of ginger beer. Australian ginger is usually preserved in sugar. Dipped in chocolate, it is over the top good.

 Ginger is not a root, but rather an underground stem, what botanists call a rhizome.  A cluster, with its forking branches, is called a hand, and the branched segments are called fingers.

For ginger tea, place two ½-inch slices of ginger and a cup of filtered water in a small pot. Bring just to a boil, cover, and set aside to steep for 10 minutes. Serve sweetened, if you wish, with honey, agave, or stevia.

Nibbling on this Ginger Shortbread while sipping honeyed ginger tea adds to the pleasure.

Ginger Shortbread (Makes 8 pieces)

¾ cup unbleached all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon salt

¼ cup superfine sugar

1/3 cup finely chopped preserved ginger

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F.

2. In a small bowl, combine the flour, ground ginger, and salt.

3. Place the sugar in the bowl of a food processor. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture looks like pebbles. Add the flour mixture and pulse until it forms a coarse, loosely granular dough.

4. Turn the dough into an ungreased 8" round cake pan. Sprinkle on the chopped ginger. With your fingers, quickly work the ginger and any powdery bits into the dough, then press the dough into an even layer in the pan.

5. Bake for 15 minutes. Make a border by pressing the bottom of the tines of a fork around the edge of the dough in a circle. Using the tips of the tines, prick the dough all over. With a sharp knife, score the dough into 8 wedges.

6. Return the shortbread to the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden. Do not let it brown.

7. Set the pan on a rack to cool for 10 minutes. Rescore the wedges and run a knife around the edge of the shortbread to loosen it. Invert the pan and gently unmold the shortbread. When it has cooled, break the shortbread into wedges. Ginger Shortbread keeps in an airtight container for 5 days.

Adapted from The Essential Best Foods Cookbook, by Dana Jacobi,