5 Foods On the Naughty List You Need To Eat

Chicken and waffles from OMG Cafe in Richmond.

Maybe it's me, but I am plenty sick and tired of being blasted by yet another article featuring a how to eat healthy during the holiday season diatribe, especially those touting a personal listing of "foods to avoid". It's Christmas/Hanukkah/ Kwanzaa (a.k.a. Festivus) time for god's sake. You're supposed to eat too much, drink too much, and generally not give a crap about your waistline for the next couple of weeks only to pull a 180 on January 2 and hit the gym while starting your new found power smoothie breakfast kick. Once that ends approximately two weeks later, it's back to the french fries and ham biscuits (not necessarily together, but food for thought) so I see no reason to try to bunk the natural course of things as they are meant to be. Save the salad greens and steamed tofu for bathing suit season. That's a far more important time of the year since you can no longer hide your ass under a wool coat.

In the meantime, to help you stay on course, I've assembled a tasty list of some of my favorite high caloric goodies that should help you to pack on at least a fiver by the first of the year.

Pimento Cheese: Frankly, there aren't many foods that offer such a deliciously mayonnaisy combination as this ubiquitous dish. However you like to make it is totally up to you, but the fact is, you're eating spoonfuls of mayo and shredded cheese mixed together all creamy and gloppy. Up the ante of this dish and stuff some pimento cheese into a burger or slather a couple of slices of white bread in butter and make a pimento cheese grilled cheese. Here's my family's recipe, which is a good, basic version to get your started.

Meat: Ladies, nothing tells your man you love him more than a big, fat, marbly steak, and nothing makes me happier than sitting down to a big plateful of juicy meat with him. My personal go-to's are the NY Strip or the Ribeye which offer up plenty of meaty goodness, fatty charred ends and beaucoup forkfuls of tender bites. If it's too cold outside, pan sear your meat in a cast-iron pan and top it with a compound butter like a rosemary, shallot and salted butter mix. Pair it with a big pile of roasted garlic mashed potatoes to seal the deal.

The Big-Ass Breakfast: No evening of overeating is complete without consuming a giant pile of pork products, high cholesterol eggs, caffeine, and ideally a Bloody Mary or two the following morning. Hence, the big-ass breakfast. Whether you want to do it up Southern-style with biscuits, grits and country ham or U.K.-style (pictured above) with bacon rashers, sausages, blood-laden black pudding and perhaps a grilled mushroom or tomato for good measure, I'm a firm believer in eating big, especially in the morning.

Fried Food: I can think of no other way to completely derail any stretch of healthful eating than by sitting down to demolish a platter of fried seafood, buttery bread, fries and mayo-laden tartar sauce, except if you add in a pitcher of Miller High Life to wash it all down. There's something totally irresistible about battered food, any food really, from deep fried Twinkies to the glorious corn dog, so I declare this 2011 holiday season to be the year of the deep fat fryer.

Nitrates: So apparently nitrates, which are found in most forms of processed meats including hot dogs, pepperoni, salami, even that mystery meat in a can known as Spam, apparently aren't so good for you. Sure, there are some studies out there touting that digesting any meat goods with artificial red coloring can lead to cancer, and this may in fact be true, but let me offer you another nugget of non-scientific info, this dude has been sucking down massive quantities of hot dogs for years and he's still with us. Moreover, he has zero percent body fat, so perhaps these so-called "studies" need to be revisited. In the meantime, I suggest making a Chili Slaw Dog for lunch and stop worrying about it.

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Steakhouse Style Bacon and Blue Cheese Wedge Salad

Photo Kendra Bailey Morris

One of my most memorable wedge salad moments was when the hubby and I were dining at one of our favorite steak joints Flemings Steakhouse. While sampling a bottle of Hall Cab (which is utterly outstanding with big, meaty NY Strip, by the way) we dove into crisp, cold chunks of iceberg lettuce, smoky bacon bits smothered in gobs of creamy blue cheese dressing. Perhaps it was the environment (or that second glass of wine) but for a moment, I felt my eyes glaze over as I muttered something along the lines of, "Dear god, that is good."

Naturally, as happens with many of us home cooks, I had to take a stab at recreating this salad at home, beginning with the dressing. Blue cheese dressing is one of those salad accents that can be out of this world (homemade with chunks of quality blue cheese) or fundamentally dull (commercial made with little to no blue cheese and nearly devoid of flavor altogether). I figured if I stuck to my guns and used only the highest quality ingredients I could find, how could I go wrong?

One of the aspects of blue cheese dressing, I love so much is just that hint of garlic, not too much to overwhelm, but just enough to lend a piquant savoriness. I also discovered that a dash or two of Worcestershire sauce really elevates the flavor of the dressing to something truly swoon-worthy. Maybe it's the fact that Worcestershire lends just a bit of fermentation or incites memories of flaming grilled meat. I honestly have no idea, but what I do know, is that it's an essential addition to any homemade blue cheese dressing.

Then, there's the blue cheese, the star of this show, with its naturally salty, cow's milk goodness. Here, quality should not be overlooked. Avoid the pre-crumbled (tasteless) stuff and get yourself a nice wedge of Maytag, Amish Blue, Danish Blue or Roaring Forties and crumble it by hand.

When it comes to your salad, select only the freshest iceberg (check the base of the lettuce, where it has been picked, for signs of browning when looking for the freshest ones). Good quality, thick-cut bacon is a must, as is plenty of freshly ground pepper over your finished product. In true steakhouse fashion, serve your salad as a first course to your meat-laden dinner with a nice big pour of Cabernet, Merlot or even a spicy Zinfandel to play off the freshly ground pepper. For an excellent steak recipe, check out Giuliano and Lael Hazan's uber-tasty Italian-style grilled rib-eye recipe.

Photos Kendra Bailey Morris

Bacon and Blue Cheese Wedge Salad

Serves 4

One head of iceberg lettuce

Blue cheese dressing (see recipe below)One medium-sized tomato, seeded and diced

4 slices bacon, fried and crumbled

1/2 cup blue cheese, for garnish

Freshly ground black pepper

One tablespoon minced chives, optional.

Cut lettuce in 8 wedges and plate two wedges on each plate.  Drizzle each wedge with blue cheese. Then sprinkle with tomato, bacon bits and blue cheese.  Season generously with black pepper and garnish with fresh chives.  Serve any additional dressing on the side.

 

Buttermilk Blue Cheese Dressing

Makes about 4-6 servings

½ cup mayonnaise

½ cup buttermilk*

One heaping tablespoon sour cream

1 cup crumbled blue cheese

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, or to taste

1 small clove garlic, minced

Coarse black pepper, to taste

In a medium-sized bowl, mix together mayo, buttermilk and sour cream. Add rest of ingredients and mix well, incorporating the blue cheese, but leaving a few chunks as well. Season generously with black pepper, cover and refrigerate until ready to use.  Note: this dressing is excellent served with Buffalo wings and celery.

*If dressing is too thick, simply add a little buttermilk until you achieve your desired consistency. Add less buttermilk if you want a chunkier-type dip.

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