Disgusted

There's an interesting - I guess that's one word for it - article in the New York Times this morning that relates to what can go in mass-produced hamburger, including that used by a number of fast food chains - let's say it didn't make me want to run out and buy a burger.

Cabbage With Apples and a Heavy Book

While I was getting ingredients (broccoli and stems, red cabbage, carrot, onion and garlic to be chopped later) ready for this evening's stir fry, I took the other half of the red cabbage, and a couple of Granny Smith apples, and made up the cabbage with apples dish from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. The dish is wonderfully sweet and sour, and is also a beautiful color:

My main Christmas present this year was a copy of Alan Davidson's The Oxford Companion to Food (Second Edition, Tom Jaine, ed.). This is one massive book - 867 pages not including extras, and running the gamut from aardvark (truly!) to zuppa inglese. No recipes, and no illustrations other than some drawings. Enormously informative and addictive! It covers all sorts of food ingredients, prepared foods and dishes, cookbooks and their people, culinary terms and techniques, culture, diet, foodways and religion, national and regional cuisines and scientific matters, and is particularly focussed on covering the foods of the world. Highly recommended and a lot of fun!

Beautiful Beans

This morning, I started making some cooked chickpeas from scratch for a recipe I'm making tomorrow. The remainder will be used in a salad or for humus. Although we do keep some canned beans of several varieties around for use when time is short, I prefer to make beans from scratch. It's easy and very satisfying. We also have access to really fresh dried beans in a number of varieties from Whole Foods. I've also had good luck ordering heirloom eating beans from Seed Savers Exchange - they have some wonderful varieties to try.

As a vegetarian with a very physically active life, I find that eating beans - at least once and often several times a day - keeps my energy level going and makes me feel full. I also love beans in all their permutations.

When I make beans, I usually do the quick soak method. I put the beans (after careful rinsing and picking through to remove dirt and rocks and any beans that don't look good) in a generous amount of unsalted water, and bring to a boil. After 2 minutes at a slow boil, I turn off the heat and cover the pot. After the beans have sat for 2 hours, I drain the water and cook the beans in fresh water. When I cook the beans, I don't add salt or anything acid until the beans are almost done; otherwise they tend to not cook properly. We use lots of different things in our bean cooking. The chickpeas today will be cooked plain, as they are being used for other things later. I often cook beans with a whole peeled onion studded with a few cloves, a few black peppercorns, a couple of peeled garlic cloves, often parsley, some carrots and/or celery and some spices or herbs - sometimes thyme, sometimes sage, sometimes sweet or hot Spanish pimenton (not always easy to find but well worth searching out). Sometimes we use vegetable broth or hot pepper flakes.

Usually when the beans are done, if I'm not using them in some other recipe I'll often saute some onions, garlic and perhaps some carrot or celery and then add the beans and some fresh spices or herbs.

I've succeeding in making myself hungry!

Christmas Cookies

I have several family Christmas cookie recipes that I try to make every year - there's nothing healthy about them due to the amount of butter, but they're a special treat.

I made all of these one morning this week - they're all easy and quick - you can use a stand mixer if you have one or make them by hand.

The first one is Min Blatchley's Shortbread - the Blatchleys were neighbors of my parents when I was a small child:

Preheat oven to 375 degreees.

Beat until soft 1 cup of butter, and gradually add 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar until creamed.

Add 1 tsp. vanilla, and mix in.

Combine and work into dough with hands:

2 cups flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. baking powder

Then either roll dough between two sheets of wax paper until 1/3 inch think and cut into squares and place on a greased cookie sheet, or pat dough down into a 9x9" greased pan. I usually take a fork and make a pattern of marks on the top. Bake at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes. If cooked in a pan, after cooled, cut into squares.

The second recipe is Marion Thomas's Date Bars. The Thomases were our next door neighbors when I was a baby.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cut into quarters pitted dates until have 1 1/2 cups. Sprinkle over the dates 1 1/2 Tb. lemon juice, set aside. Coarsely chop walnuts until have 1 cup, set aside.

Beat until soft 3/4 cup butter. Add and beat until creamy 1 cup sugar. Beat in one at a time 2 eggs. Add 1 tsp. vanilla and blend.

Combine 1 cup bread flour, 1 1/4 tsp. baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt. Add to butter mixture alternately with 2 Tb. milk. Beat until smooth and add reserved dates and nuts. Bake in greased 8x12" pan at 325 degrees for about 40 minutes or until knife comes out clean.

The third recipe is Butter Balls (my mother's recipe):

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cream 1/2 lb. butter with 2/3 cup sugar until smooth. Beat in 2 egg yolks, one at a time, until smooth.

Sift 2 cups flour with 1/4 tsp. salt. Gradually add to butter mixture, beat and add 1 Tb. vanilla.

Scoop out 1/2 tsp. dough at a time and roll between hands into a ball, put on greased or non-stick cookie sheet, about 1 inch apart. Use finger to make a depression on the top and fill with tart jelly - I use currant - and bake in 325 degree oven only until sand colored, about 12-13 minutes. Move to wire rack to cool.

Enjoy! If you have favorite Christmas cookie recipes, please feel free to tell us about them.

New Cookbook - Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking

I just got a new cookbook to add to the already extensive collection - Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking by Julie Sahni. It looks to be an interesting book, with lots of variety and good, clear recipes. My experience cooking Indian food is limited, but I do like it - my family less so as they mostly don't like anything that is spicy. I shall have to try out the non-spicy recipes on them, and the rest when they're not around - I do love spicy food and am already a great fan of Indian cooking.

Missing the Point on E. Coli

I read something in the New York Times a few days ago that continues to disturb me. It was this article, which is about tests of a new vaccine for cattle against one of the most dangerous strains of E. coli. The article went on at length about the potential benefits of this vaccine to the food supply, and how the costs were likely to be shared. But the article, which was of what I call the "technology will save us" school of thought, completely missed the point - the vaccine is only necessary because something is seriously wrong with the way food is produced, and the vaccine only treats the symptoms, not the causes.

E. coli in meat has become more widespread, and more dangerous strains are now becoming more common, for several reasons. Most cattle are fed antibiotics as a matter of course - the crowding and stress, and their diet, in the feedlot can predispose cattle to become ill. Confined feeding operations cannot work as well (profit-wise) without antibiotics. This routine administration of antibiotics can lead to the development or spread of new strains of disease. The digestive system of cattle is not well-suited to the diet they are fed in feedlots - cattle were not designed to be fed corn, not to mention the other things that are in their feed (some of which are so disgusting as to not bear thinking about). Cattle in feed lots shed much more E. coli in their feces than cattle which are grass-fed. And finally there's slaughter operations - the high-speed industrial processing inevitably leads to frequent contamination of the meat with waste materials.

Dangerous strains of E. coli exist in the food supply for one reason - our industrial, factory approach to food production, which is neither good for the animals subjected to it, or for our health - a vaccine is merely a band-aid and really solves nothing. Just my opinion!

A Different Food Pyramid

The new USDA food pyramid, while a big improvement on the old one in terms of nutrition and health, still leaves a lot to be desired. USDA, due to its mission statement, has an irresolvable conflict of interest - it is supposed to regulate food production and advise on health while also promoting the food and agricultural industry. As a result, the USDA food pyramid was heavily influenced by the lobbies for big agribusiness, and particularly the meat and dairy industries, and the food pyramid reflects that. Dairy is heavily promoted and meat and poultry are featured.

My husband brought home a different food pyramid a few days ago. His cardiologist, Stephen Devries, M.D., the author of the book What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Cholesterol, is very interested in preventative cardiology, including nutrition and the effects of metabolic disorder on cardiovascular disease, and publishes and lectures on those topics. (If you or anyone in your family has heart disease, you should read this book, in fact you should read it anyway.) Our medical system is designed to treat cardiovascular disease after it has already progressed to the point of being symptomatic. Instead, wouldn't it be preferable if cardiovascular disease were nipped in the bud? Dr. Devries has produced a different food pyramid, derived from but different than the food pyramid of Andrew Weil, M.D. Here is Dr. Devries's food pyramid:

My photo is a bit hard to see, but the main differences are that dairy, meat and poultry are just a part of the 1-2 times a week "other protein" block, whole soy foods, whole grains and beans and legumes are much more heavily emphasized and vegetables and fruits are the big base. My husband and I eat pretty much this diet every day, and in fact eat vegetarian so we eat no meat, seafood or poultry and minimal dairy and eggs. We've found this style of eating very satisfying, fun and healthy - we feel better and have no trouble maintaining a healthy weight, without any dieting.

Favorite (Mostly) Herbal Teas

I like a nice cup of regular loose leaf tea as much as the next person - I'm particularly fond of Ceylon and Darjeeling - but I have a selection of favorite herbal teas as well. My current favorites include:

Yogi Organic Raspberry Leaf Tea - I discovered this tea because I've been giving one of my horses raspberry leaves as a supplement for "marishness". It's supposedly a good tea for women of all ages. I like the flavor - it's almost like a nice black tea.

Rishi Organic Pure Rooibos Tea - I like red bush tea, but I prefer an unflavored one, and this is my favorite brand.

Good Earth Caffeine Free Original Sweet & Spicy Herbal Tea - this comes in a caffeinated version as well - it has rooibos and a number of spicy flavorings with a dominant citrus/cinnamon flavor. Contains artificial flavor, which I don't like.

Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer - I don't like pure chamomile - too grassy - but this is a nice evening mix of chamomile, eleuthero (a Chinese herb), peppermint and lemon. Very pleasant and soothing, although I don't like that it also contains artificial flavor, made from who knows what.

And one (slightly) caffeinated tea: Eden Organic Hojicha Roasted Green Tea - I don't like the flavor of most green teas, but I do like this Japanese one.

Interesting, isn't it, that the two teas which aren't organic, and which are produced by companies which are part of larger corporate organizations, contain artificial flavors? Many artificial flavors are produced by agribusiness giants - and may even be produced from petroleum products, and many "natural" flavorings are produced from corn. I may have to rethink my purchases a bit - reading labels closely can do that to you!

Cookbook Review: Love Soup

I just bought Love Soup by Anna Thomas, who is the author of The Vegetarian Epicure. I've cooked a good deal from her prior book, but this one looks even better. There's almost no recipe in here that isn't tempting. Most of the recipes are straightforward, and she usually gives ways to make the recipe vegan if it isn't already. In addition to chapters on spring and summer soups, there are separate chapters on late summer/fall soups, green soups, winter squash soups and bean soups, as well as breads, spreads and extras, and a few salads and sweets. The emphasis is on fresh, seasonal ingredients. Looks good - now to do some more cooking!