The Spice Is Right – Gourmet seasonings help healthy dishes win over skeptics.

Making the move toward eating right means resigning yourself to a parade of bland and tasteless foods, right? Not necessarily, says chef Anne Milneck, owner of Red Stick Spice Company in Baton Rouge. Helping home cooks break out of the boring is Milneck’s specialty.

“Healthy eating can often become repetitive eating,” she admits. But with just a few well-sprinkled seasonings, “these dishes can transform from night to night. A chicken breast can be transformed to Indian, Thai or Mediterranean with the addition of spices.”

Milneck shares two of her favorites.

Watch Milneck cook this pork tenderloin in the video below!
“Lean, convenient, quick-cooking … pork tenderloin wins on many points,” says Milneck, who notes that the meat’s mild flavor is a perfect pairing for the complexity of her Coffee BBQ Rub. It’s easy to substitute another spice blend, but whatever flavor you choose, this cooking method guarantees a juicy, delicious result. “We love this served with baked or quick-mashed sweet potatoes,” adds Milneck. “The sweet tubers complement the rich, savory pork tenderloin perfectly.”

1 (2-pound) pork tenderloin, trimmed of excess fat
1 clove garlic, finely minced
2 T Red Stick Spice Company Arbequina extra virgin olive oil, divided
3 T Red Stick Spice Company Coffee BBQ Rub

Make several small cuts into pork tenderloin, and stuff with minced garlic, evenly distributing. Rub tenderloin with 1 T olive oil and Coffee BBQ Rub. If time allows, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 375. Heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add remaining 1 T olive oil to pan, and sear tenderloin on all sides until it is golden brown. If sauté pan is oven-safe, move pan to oven to finish cooking. Or transfer tenderloin from sauté pan to a baking dish and move to oven. Cook tenderloin until it registers 145 on a meat thermometer, about 20 minutes.

Note: In 2011, the USDA lowered pork’s safe cooking temperature from 160 degrees to 145 degrees.

Milneck taught sixth-grade food and culture for a brief time, and when she planned a lesson on quinoa, she expected the middle-schoolers to moan in despair. The opposite happened—it was, by far, her most popular lesson.

“Quinoa is a super-tasty grain-like seed that packs lots of nutrition and complete protein into one dish,” she says. “This version is especially nice because it can be personalized with other ingredients.” Ideas for optional add-ins include olives, capers and pimentos. The dish is tasty hot or cold.

3 T Red Stick Spice Company garlic extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 T Red Stick Spice Company Mediterranean Spice Blend
1 cup quinoa, rinsed
2 cups low (or no-) sodium chicken or vegetable stock, heated to simmering
1 can quartered artichoke hearts, rinsed
1 cup canned garbanzo beans, rinsed
1/2 cup finely sliced sun-dried tomatoes
1/2 cup finely sliced red onion
Salt and pepper to taste

In a pot with a tight-fitting lid, heat 1 T olive oil. Add Mediterranean Spice Blend, and sauté to soften seasonings and release their fragrance. Add rinsed quinoa and combine; heat through. Sauté quinoa until you can see that seasonings are evenly distributed and oil has coated grains. Add simmering stock to pot with quinoa. Bring to a full rolling boil. Lower heat and cover with lid. Cook for 10 minutes for slightly al dente quinoa, or increase cooking time to 15 minutes for softer quinoa. Remove from heat and fluff with a fork. If any liquid remains, you can continue cooking quinoa with lid off until liquid is absorbed, or strain in a colander.

In a sauté pan, heat remaining 2 T oil. Add artichoke hearts, garbanzo beans, sun-dried tomatoes and sliced red onions just to heat through. Add warm quinoa to vegetable mixture and gently combine. Taste and adjust with salt and pepper.

Don’t let the simplicity of this dish fool you—with notes of sweet, salty and creamy, it pushes all the right buttons to satisfy. “The subtle sweetness from the juice of the pears co-mingles with the butter, brown sugar and vanilla to make a butterscotch-like sauce,” Milneck says. “The ground vanilla beans lend an amazing burst of vanilla flavor…” The chef recommends serving the pears in dessert bowls with a dollop of lightly sweetened Greek yogurt or gelato and a little of the sauce on top. “Heavenly,” she proclaims.

4 pears
Juice of 1 lemon
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons brown sugar
Pinch Fleur de Sel sea salt
1 teaspoon ground vanilla beans

Preheat oven to 350. Halve each pear and use a spoon or melon baller to scoop out seed. Use a knife to cut a shallow valley from seed to stem, in order to remove tougher flesh along center of pear. Leave stem intact at tip of fruit for aesthetics. Place pears cut side up in a baking dish. Sprinkle each with lemon juice. Place 1/2 tablespoon butter and 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar in the cored-out section of each pear half. Sprinkle just a pinch of Fleur de Sel over pears. Dust pears with ground vanilla beans. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until knife easily pierces pears. Serve warm with a sweetened Greek yogurt or gelato.

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