The “Must Eat” Dinner Menu for a Long and Healthy Life!
Recently I read an article on Bernando LaPallo, a man who is 114 years old and looks great! He says that he eats 5 things daily for his good health, and those things are garlic, olive oil, honey, cinnamon, and chocolate.
Well, who wouldn’t want to eat those 5 items daily?
What a great “must eat” list. Often when asked their secrets to a long life centenarians say things like marry well, go to church regularly, devote your life to service, the kinds of things that don’t come naturally to me. I lean more towards the ones who say they have a glass of bourbon, bacon every day, or ice cream for dessert.
But these 5 items are easy to incorporate, I pretty much already have garlic and olive oil daily. Honey, cinnamon, and chocolate I have frequently, so I guess I need to up my consumption of those lovely ingredients.
This inspired me to create a dinner menu featuring all 5 ingredients. Not only does it include his suggested foods, it’s also loaded with vegetables and whole grains. It’s not complicated, dinner was ready in under an hour and I had a great lunch the next day with the leftovers.
Roasted Asparagus and Fried Halloumi with Garlic Studded Tomato Confit
The tomato confit was inspired by my neighbors bumper crop of yellow cherry tomatoes. It can be made ahead and used on lots of things, as a sauce for pasta or on toasted bread for bruschetta. I like to serve this dish with thick slices of Acme Walnut Levain to sop up the oils.
Farro with Leeks, Mushrooms, and Dinosaur Kale
Farro is one of my favorite grains because it has a nutty flavor and satisfying texture and is high in protein. A cup of farro has 24g protein vs. a cup of rice which has 4.3 grams. You can use any vegetables you want, I like the combination of leeks, mushrooms and dino kale, but really anything works.
Honey Cinnamon Chocolate Cake
This cake tastes like the holidays. It’s a deep dark chocolate cake with cinnamon and a touch of cloves. I used buckwheat flour for part of the flour in the cake because I like how buckwheats “dark” flavor enhances chocolate. But it does give the cake a dry texture, so you can omit it and use an equal measure of all purpose flour instead. The cake is topped with a honey cinnamon ganache frosting.
I made mine in a 9.5″ tart shell, just for the heck of it, but an 8″ or 9″ springform works just as well.
