Wednesday, Jun 9, 2010 5:01 PM UTC

An awesome sauce to ease dietary repenting

Need to start eating your veggies after a pizza binge? This sesame-garlic-almond number will make it all OK

By Deena Prichep

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Sloppy Sauce works its wonders

I once left my dog alone at a friend’s, and returned to find that he had eaten all of the dog food in the house. All of it. When he came to greet us at the door, he was noticeably larger. We rushed our barrel-shaped pup to the veterinarian, and an amusing x-ray and a heft bill later, we were given my absolute Favorite Diagnosis Ever: dietary indiscretion. Seriously. Dietary Indiscretion. It’s sort of like diagnosis: bad decision-making. I suffer from that all the time.

For the most part, my diet is fairly healthy, full of fresh produce and whole grains and all that good stuff. But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes the ice cream sundae calls to me. Or I’m catching up with friends over happy hour, and after a few drinks a few orders of fries suddenly seems like a phenomenally brilliant idea. Or I am eating something so addictively delicious, say these little cheese-filled puff pastry palmiers at my friend Sarah’s house, and I just cannot stop. Dietary Indiscretion.

After such poor choices, we’ve come up with a recovery meal known around our household as Hippie Dinner. It’s the best way to sop up booze, grease, and bad decisions, and set you on the path to dietary righteousness. There are three elements: brown rice or quinoa; tofu or lean fish; and a huge pile of vegetables. But wait: Hippie Dinner isn’t really like penance, because the whole plate is topped off with Sloppy Sauce.

Sloppy sauce, inspired by a friend who needed to recover from a nearly all-pizza diet, is a great way to make a huge pile of steamed kale much more exciting. It starts off like a traditional Middle Eastern tahini sauce, mixing sesame paste with lemon juice and garlic. But it’s given a bit of savory heft (and arguable health benefit) from a scoop of miso, and delicious nuttiness from almond butter. I like to further play up the East meets Middle East dimension by stirring in a bit of grated ginger, or a handful of scallions or chopped cilantro if you’ve got. And sometimes I emphasize the resemblance to Thai peanut sauce by using lime juice instead of lemon. As suggested by its name, sloppy sauce is a pretty informal affair, and can be easily adapted to your taste. And it can be enjoyed any time, whether you’re recovering from a dietary indiscretion or not.

Sloppy Sauce (Tahini with Almond Butter and Miso)

Makes about 1/2 cup

Ingredients

1 Tbsp miso (any type)
2 Tbsp tahini
2 Tbsp almond butter
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2″ piece of ginger, peeled and grated
juice of 1 lemon
water, as needed
handful minced scallions and/or cilantro (optional)

Directions

Mix together the miso, tahini, and almond butter until well combined. Stir in the garlic and ginger, then the lemon juice.
Add water, a little at a time, until it reaches a thick-but-pourable consistency (~1/4+ cup). Stir in the scallions and/or cilantro, if using.
Taste, and adjust seasonings as needed.
Pour over whatever hippie concoction you desire. The sauce will thicken upon standing, so just stir in a little additional water or lemon juice to loosen leftovers.

More Deena Prichep.

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The week in 10 pics

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Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
Credit: AP/LM Otero
Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
Credit: AP/Matt Rourke
A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
Credit: AP/Molly Riley
Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite
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Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster
O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
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Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield
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An awesome sauce to ease dietary repenting

Need to start eating your veggies after a pizza binge? This sesame-garlic-almond number will make it all OK