Not Your Average Jersey Diner

Americana_Diner

 

Here’s another post I’ve been meaning to write for a while, but never seemed to have the time. Well, with Spring Break here and no new module to work on, now is the time.

A little while back I was invited to join my friend, her mom and sister for a late lunch. They decided to give me my first (and certainly not last) taste of a unique Jersey diner that they had fallen in love with. I know, unique and diner don’t really seem to go together do they? The Americana Diner in East Windsor, NJ however is just that. Most diners are so cookie cutter with their burgers, salads, soups and huge shiny desserts when you walk in the door. Instead of that over the top dessert case, this is what you see when you are waiting to be seated.

 

Americana

Yep, that’s a display case of fresh fruits and vegetables. Not kidding. I all but rubbed my eyes in disbelief. It is the perfect introduction to this amazing eatery. The menu boasts grass-fed beef, free range chicken and locally sourced produce when available. There are so many healthy options to add to your meal that if there wasn’t a sign outside saying it was a diner, you’d never believe it. From roasted beet salad to cauliflower mac and cheese for the kids. I had a the Napa Valley Burger without a bun and a side of Garlic Mushrooms in Truffle Oil. Though I only had water with my meal, there are fresh squeezed juices available. Oh yes, for the non-gluten intolerant, there is a fresh baked loaf of bread and real butter delivered to the table to start the meal. It’s really quite lovely.

The bottom line is that this is definitely a place that I would recommend to my clients as a healthy dining out option. So please, if you are from New Jersey or planning a trip here in the future, make time to enjoy a refreshingly unique meal at The Americana Diner. You won’t regret it.

 

What to do with all of those gorgeous veggies this fall.

I am lucky enough to live near several farms that produce either certified organic, transitioning to organic or sustainably grown produce from May to the end of November. After all, New Jersey is called the Garden State for a reason. We have some of the most lovely farm land in the country. Now that the weather is starting to turn cooler in the mornings and evenings I am happy to get back to one of my favorite ways of cooking all those beautiful tomatoes, onions, garlic, squash, tomatillos, peppers, green beans, eggplants and whatever else shows up in my farm share box each week. Oven roasted vegetables have such an amazing flavor and are so easy to incorporate in to your everyday dishes.

To me the best way to use up the weekly harvest before it goes bad is to make homemade pasta sauce. It’s such a simple way to make sure my family is getting the most nutrition out of something they already love. This week we received our first batch of tomatillos in our share and I was so excited to see them. Most people use them in salsas, but I love the zippy flavor they give to sauces and soups. So I added them to the regular line up of veggies and the results were as expected.

I know most people use some sort of oil when they roast vegetables. I choose to dry roast them except for a bit of water in the bottom of the roasting dish. I feel like I am getting the true, sweet, rich flavors of the vegetables rather than the flavor of the oil this way. Also, it’s really much healthier to drizzle a bit of olive oil on after if you love that flavor, than it is to roast them in the oil. Here’s why.
Tonight’s pasta sauce was made with:

3- large tomatoes

1- large red onion cut in half

3- cloves of garlic

10- tomatillos

This morning while the oven was preheating to 400 degrees, I washed the tomatoes and took the outer leaves off the tomatillos and gave them a good rinse. I put all of the veggies in a large glass baking dish with a half an inch of water in the bottom. I set the timer for 30 minutes and read my little guy a story. When the timer went off, I took the dish out of the oven and let it cool on top of the stove til the afternoon. When I was ready to make the sauce, I put two batches of veggies in to the blender and blended it to a smooth red sauce.

Now I have a large container of delicious pasta sauce that I can season any way I want with fresh or dried herbs and spices.

RoastedSauce

*A helpful hint that I learned from my parents when it comes to making homemade tomato sauce, is to cook a carrot in the sauce to cut down on the acidity level of the tomatoes. I also like to add a tablespoon of butter to my sauce when I’m heating it up to add to pasta. The added oil and fat from the butter helps to absorb more nutrients from the vegetables. Here’s a little article from WebMD on that.