CrazyVeggieLady

On Eating Mindfully

2010-11-27T03:36:00.000-08:00

This blog has been dormant for a long time, but from time to time I may post here about things related to food, cooking and eating that occur to me.

I read an interesting short book recently - Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything, by Geneen Roth. Despite the hyperbolic title, this book has an interesting premise. Her idea is that most disorders of eating - including over-eating and under-eating, and making poor food choices - has to do with our lack of awareness of our own bodies and our "emotionalizing" our eating. The solution is mindfulness - this will come as no surprise to those who've employed mindfulness practices in their lives. Her program involves learning to be aware of our own body and its sensations - so we may know when we're hungry and when we're not, to be mindful in our eating practices (more on that in a minute) and to decouple our emotions from our eating.

Her belief is that many of our dysfunctional eating habits arise from how we related to food in our past, and the role food has played in our emotional life and relationships with other people. Her wish is for people to stop replaying old, cold emotional loops and just focus on here and now. The technique to do this is to practice being aware of the emotional loops as they start up, and that awareness, where we observe and experience the emotion, but are separate from it, may be the first step to breaking its hold on our eating patterns.

Being aware of our own bodies and their sensations is a road out of the control/permission cycle experienced by those who diet and those who have eating disorders. She recommends being friends with your body and being kind to it, as opposed to wanting it to be something else. And listening to our bodies well enough to know when we (our bodies and not our emotions) are hungry, and what food will meet that need, and when our bodies have eaten enough, leads right to eating in a healthy manner, which she says will lead you to your proper weight. This makes very good sense to me, and it seems that being aware, and being able to observe rather than just "be" your emotions, could also have useful applications to other addictive or compulsive behaviors.

This book is also not really rules-based, but there are "guidelines", which make very good sense. Here they are - numbers 2 and 3 have particular importance, I think:

Eat when you are hungry.
Eat sitting down in a calm environment. This does not include the car.
Eat without distractions. Distractions include radio, television, newspapers, books, intense or anxiety-producing conversations or music. [I would add computers, the telephone and texting to this list.]
Eat what your body wants.
Eat until you are satisfied.
Eat (with the intention of being) in full view of others.
Eat with enjoyment, gusto and pleasure.

Not a bad prescription, in my opinion.

I Love Celeriac

2010-04-06T10:18:00.000-07:00

Today I'm making a simple lentil soup - some sauteed chopped onion, garlic, carrot and celeriac, with some thyme, a bay leaf, the lentils and some vegetable stock. I made some tabouli yesterday with a lot of parsley, lemon, good olive oil and chopped scallion, and will have that as a side salad, and there's fresh pineapple for dessert.

I've only recently discovered celeriac, thanks to our weekly vegetable box from the organic farm. Although it's sometimes difficult to find, I've decided I like it much better than the usual stalk celery for any cooked dish - it's easy to dice, has a wonderful subtle celery flavor, and there are none of those blasted strings! It just goes to prove that sometimes very good things come in ugly packages!

Snap Peas, Lemonade and a Dinner Plate

2010-04-02T17:29:00.000-07:00

This morning I planted my first set of Sugar Snap Peas! - they're about my favorite vegetable and the season is short. I'll be looking every day to see if they've sprouted. I'll plant some more seed in about a week to 10 days.

Tonight's dinner turned out well - it was simple and easy which suits me fine. I baked a couple of sweet potatoes this morning, and then this evening I reheated them in slices with some maple syrup, steamed some beautiful red kale (the steaming water turns the most amazing bluish-purple) and topped it with vinaigrette, and made a simple bean salad with canned cannellini beans, chopped shallot and Kalamata olives, some pinches of dried oregano and thyme, a heaping spoonful of Dijon mustard and some oil and vinegar dressing. It turned out to be very tasty and satisfying:

I eat some form of legumes - beans, peas, lentils - almost every day, sometimes several times a day. My lifestyle is very active, and those fill me up and keep me full of energy.

And I made some wonderful homemade lemonade - I had an excess of lemons. I combined three cups of water with one cup of lemon juice - it took a lot of lemons - and then added sugar syrup (one cup water and one cup sugar warmed gently until the sugar dissolved) to taste. I have some leftover sugar syrup and unsweetened lemon water in the refrigerator - I'll bet they don't last long!

Colorful Stir-Fry and First Harvest and Seeds

2010-03-30T10:51:00.000-07:00

Last night, my daughter and I made stir-fry for dinner. When I'm cooking, I love the ingredients, and how they look, and working with them, almost more than the cooking itself or the ultimate meal. Last night's stir fry was especially colorful, and therefore delightful. I separately blanched some collard greens, to add at the end - I always like to include something "cabbagey". Then the broccoli, including pieces of peeled stem, and carrots went into the pan:

Next came the softer vegetables: red and yellow sweet peppers, and a zucchini I found in the back of the refrigerator:

Finally some onions and garlic; then everything went back into the pan with a little toasted sesame oil and some soy sauce. Instead of serving it over rice, we used soba noodles - I'm getting very fond of their nutty buckwheat taste:

We ended up with a pretty delicious meal, with some fresh strawberries for desert:

* * * * *

Today I had my first small harvest from my garden - some chives to use in stuffed baked potatoes that will be for dinner. I also planted my first seeds - although there was frost on the ground this morning we're supposed to have much warmer temperatures by the end of the week. So far I've planted some radishes - Plum Purple; a row of Arugula; some leeks next to a row that has overwintered and is now greening up - Blue Solaize - I've never direct seeded leeks before and we'll see how they do; chard - Five Color Silverbeet; and 6 varieties of lettuce - Green Oakleaf, Sanguine Ameliore, Bronze Arrowhead, Forellenschuss, Grandpa Admire's and Merveille des Quatres Saisons. All of these seeds (Seed Savers Exchange, one of my favorite sources of open-pollinated and heirloom seeds) are from last year, so we'll have to see how they do germinating. I'll keep reseeding a number of these through April for a staggered harvest. Although it was chilly, it felt great to be out working in the garden!

The Starbucks Diet

2010-03-25T12:11:00.000-07:00

I've recently fallen into the habit of visiting a local Starbucks on a frequent basis to have a drink and a pastry. Although I enjoy having a tasty treat, I also have been noticing that I've been feeling pretty draggy and tired lately, and my clothes seem a tad tighter than they used to be. Hmm. I suspected a combination of excessive caffeine, together with blood sugar highs and lows brought on by a sugary snack, together with just plain too many calories. So I checked out the Starbucks site for some nutrition information. Here's what I found - I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was.

A 12-oz (tall) mocha without whipped cream and using 2% milk - the way I usually have it - has 200 calories, 6 grams of fat of which 3.5 grams are saturated fat, and 31 grams of carbohydrate, of which 24 grams are sugars, and 95 milligrams of caffeine. A tall (12 oz) cappuccino with 2% milk, which I also like, has only 90 calories, 3.5 grams of fat (2 grams saturated) and 9 grams of carbohydrates (8 grams of which are sugars), as well as 75 milligrams of caffeine. I usually add one packet of sugar (4 grams) to a cappuccino, which ups the carbohydrates to 13 grams and the sugars to 12 grams. That's a lot better than the mocha.

Now for the interesting part - I always knew scones were "pricey" from a dietary point of view, but I had no idea of how expensive they were. My favorite scone, the cranberry orange one, has 470 calories, 17 grams of fat (9 saturated), 69 grams of carbohydrates (27 grams of sugars), and also has 460 milligrams of sodium. That's 26% of the % daily values for a 2,000-calorie diet for fats, 45% of the daily values for saturated fat, and 24% of the daily values for carbohydrates as well as 20% of the daily values for sodium - all in one scone. The blueberry scone is even higher in fat, although slightly lower in carbohydrates.

No wonder my clothes were starting to get tight! If I had a mocha and a cranberry orange scone, that would be 670 calories (33.5% of a 2,000-calorie diet), 23 grams of fat (35%), including 12.5 grams of saturated fat (63%), 100 grams of carbohydrate (35%) including 51 grams of sugars (the equivalent of almost 13 teaspoons of sugar) and 24% of a daily maximum for sodium. Not the best building blocks for a healthy diet!

I think I'll try to go out for coffee less often - I don't need that much caffeine on top of my daily morning coffees at home and tea in the afternoon - and when I do I'll stick to the cappuccino and give the mocha and scone a pass, except on a rare occasion as a treat.

Starting the Gardening Year

2010-03-24T11:48:00.000-07:00

I went to my community garden plot this morning - it's about 12' x 24' - and did a little preparation for the year. My chives are making new shoots, some over-wintered leeks are greening up and the garlic is also sprouting. I do almost no tilling - just dump several inches of compost on top of the beds each fall and spring and let the earthworms do the tilling for me - so there were only a few weeds to remove. I need to order some more weed barrier to lay down on the pathways.

I've decided not to grow tomatoes, eggplants, peppers or potatoes in my plot this year - we had a bad attack of late blight everywhere in our area last year and the soil is undoubtedly contaminated. I think I'll get some of these growing bags from Gardener's Supply and grow tomatoes, eggplants and peppers on my back patio instead. I'm going to skip the potatoes this year. I still have some plant and seed ordering to do - I'm mostly going to use seeds from last year and just see how they do. One advantage of moving some of the plants to my house is that there's more room for beans - I'd like to grow some additional varieties this year and they take a lot of space. I'm also planning to plant some lettuce, arugula and radish seeds soon, as it seems spring is finally on the way!

First Sock!

2010-03-23T07:15:00.000-07:00

I finished my first sock yesterday, in a wonderful self-striping yarn (the lovely purple yarn in the upper left corner of the first photo is for one of my next sock projects - who could resist that color?):

The second sock is well on the way, so soon I can wear them around!

Knitting Socks

2010-03-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

Since this blog is supposed to also (occasionally) be about more than food and cooking, and to cover other "life crafts", as I call them, a word about knitting. I took up knitting a couple of years ago - it always intrigued me as I love knitted things and working with my hands and intense, beautiful colors. I like the "worry-bead" aspect of knitting, and the fact that you can (usually, unless the pattern's more complex) can talk to people while you do it. I have a number of knitting projects going - a sweater, a long-sleeved dressy top, an afghan (I took a year-long afghan project class and almost finished) - but I've always wanted to learn to knit socks.

Our local, wonderful, knitting and crochet store offered a 4-session beginning sock knitting class, and I signed up. Tonight's the last session, and I hope to have a photo of a finished sock soon - it's in a beautiful self-striping yarn. The second sock is well on its way, and I'm planning to pick out a new pattern tonight. I've already got my eye on a lovely purple multi-toned yarn for my next pair!

Orange Pan-Glazed Tempeh

2010-03-10T17:02:00.000-08:00

I made a wonderful meal recently, using a recipe from one of my favorite cooking blogs, 101 Cookbooks - Orange Pan-glazed Tempeh. It's a quick and simple recipe, and a great way to incorporate tempeh into your diet - it's a great introduction to tempeh for those who haven't eaten it before. It uses freshly squeezed orange juice, ginger, mirin (I substituted brown sugar since I couldn't find a mirin that wasn't based on high fructose corn syrup), maple syrup and ground coriander to make a delicious sauce. We had sliced green pepper as a side, and the dish was garnished with lime and cilantro:

I served it over kamut - a wonderful variety of wheat that cooks up nutty and slightly crunchy - the only downside to kamut is that it takes a very long time to cook - our batch took about an hour and a quarter of simmering to get done - here it is before cooking - it's very pretty stuff:

The way the tempeh is prepared really adds to the appeal - it's sauteed in olive oil until brown on both sides before the sauce is added and reduced - I can see this browned tempeh as the base for lots of recipes using different sauces:

Very pretty, and delicious - and it made a great left-over:

I Love Broccoli Rabe

2010-03-06T14:32:00.000-08:00

I haven't done too much cooking lately, but my husband's using one of my favorite ingredients tonight - broccoli rabe. I love the texture - the stems are just as good as the leaves and flower heads, and it has such a wonderful, slightly bitter flavor. I just love the way it looks, too - there's nothing not to like about it!

Last night, we had it as part of a bulgar with garlicy greens dish, and tonight it'll be simply sauteed, perhaps with a squeeze of lemon.

Another Mac Plate

2010-02-07T08:02:00.000-08:00

We often have variations of the traditional macrobiotic plate - beans/rice/sea vegetable/squash. Yesterday was some cannellini beans cooked with sage and some other herbs, steamed red kale with lemon juice, sweet potato and quinoa. I'm very fond of quinoa - it's quick and easy to cook and has a wonderful flavor. In the summer I grow red kale - I'm partial to the variety Red Russian - and like it best of all the kales. One thing I really like about this plate is all the beautiful colors. This meal also makes a great leftover.

Neeps and Tatties Soup

2010-02-05T03:36:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful soup yesterday - another success from Love Soup by Anna Thomas. This was Neeps and Tatties Soup - those of you from Scotland will get the reference - it stands for turnips and potatoes. This is a leek/potato/turnip soup. We did the "rustic" version, that isn't pureed and doesn't have cream, but adds chopped parsley and dill, dill seed, crumbled feta cheese and some olive oil. It was outstanding - fresh and light but satisfying. The combination of flavors made all the difference. It was great on a cold winter day!

Fermentation: Gulden Draak Beer and Yoghurt

2010-02-04T07:04:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I had a wonderful Gulden Draak beer, from Belgium. We're fortunate to have a great pub nearby that has an ever-changing selection of draft beers from around the world - often beers that are only available seasonally or for a short period of time. Gulden Draak (which means golden dragon) is a dark triple "live" beer - not pasteurized. It was really outstanding - I've since read that it's won a number of awards.

This got me to thinking about fermented foods. There's a long human history of using fermentation processes to change and preserve foods, and there's apparently increasing evidence of the health benefits of naturally fermented foods - sourdough bread, yoghurt, kafir, tempeh, miso and also wine and beer. I didn't know much about how beer is produced - we've never gone in for home-brewing - so I looked it up. It's a fairly complex process - here's a good article. One thing I didn't know (among many) was that different species of yeast are used to produce different types of beer.

This reminded me that I needed to make some yoghurt. I like making my own yoghurt - it's easy and I know exactly what I want to be in it. I also like really tart European-style yoghurt, which isn't that easy to find. I use my handy Yogourmet yoghurt maker. The process is simple - you heat the milk slowly, stirring frequently, to just over 180 degrees (F) to kill off other bacteria, cool the milk to just under 100F, then add the starter culture (I need to order more, as mine is a bit old - it still works), and put the milk into the inner container of the yoghurt maker, which is surrounded by a water bath. I use 1% milk - the higher the fat content the firmer the yoghurt - it's a bit runny but it works for me. On goes the lid and it's plugged in and left alone for 24 hours. Then there's yoghurt, which keeps for a long time in the refrigerator. I love it on cereal, particularly on muesli.

Mung Beans and Rice With Spicy Tomatoes

2010-02-03T11:17:00.000-08:00

We just had a wonderful lunch of Mung Beans and Rice with Spicy Tomatoes from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. This recipe took some time - there was some chopping, some pasting of spices/ginger/galic/cilantro and a quick saute of tomatoes with jalapeno pepper and spices at the end for a garnish. I used canola oil, rather than ghee, as canola oil is a variety of the mustard oil that was an alternate suggestion. This was my experiment with mung beans - these were the whole ones, tiny and green. They cook quickly and would make a good substitute in any recipe calling for lentils, I think. This was an Indian-spiced recipe with garam masala, onion, cumin and an ingredient I don't associate with Indian cooking - dill seed. I started out trying to make my own garam masala, but the seeding of the cardamon pods defeated me - the pods are small and tough and the seeds are smaller - tiny black things arranged in two rows on either side of a papery septum. I'll follow up on that later, but for this recipe I used a garam masala mix. The outcome was excellent, and I'd make it again although it was some trouble.

Soba Noodles With Chard and Garlic

2010-02-02T03:11:00.000-08:00

Last night we had a wonderful new dish - continuing the theme of Adventure - Soba Noodles With Chard and Garlic from Jack Bishop's A Year In a Vegetarian Kitchen. This dish uses soba noodles for a southern Italian preparation of chard leaves and stems with garlic, red pepper flakes, raisins and green olives, garnished with toasted pine nuts. It was outstanding, and will make a good leftover for lunch!

The Problem With Eating Out

2010-02-01T09:10:00.000-08:00

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to eat out, and it's not just because I'm a vegetarian, although that can present its own challenges. The problem I have is the contrast between the quality of the ingredients and the quality of recipes and preparation that we have at home - which is pretty high, although we do have our share of recipe failures - and the generally mediocre to poor quality of ingredients and preparation that we find in most sit-down restaurants.

An example - yesterday we went for a drive in the countryside and ended up in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. We had lunch at a randomly selected restaurant in the tourist area - it wasn't a chain restaurant. I had a grilled cheese sandwich. It wasn't even mediocre, it was lousy. The cheese clearly wasn't real cheese - it was gooey "processed cheese food" - and had no flavor to speak of. The tomato on the sandwich was tasteless (it is winter so I can excuse that) - the only spark of interest was the red onion on the sandwich. My husband's fries had clearly gone straight from the factory where they were pre-cut to the freezer to the deep fryer. The ice tea was clearly made from a mix.

I'd say that this was an aberration, but it really isn't. We increasingly find most sit-down restaurant food close to inedible - and that's without even considering the fast food places. Our best bets are ethnic restaurants, although that's not always a guarantee - there are plenty of appallingly bad Chinese restaurants - Middle Eastern, Indian, Thai and Japanese can do the trick. The more cooking at home we do with quality ingredients, the less acceptable most restaurant food has become. We've decided that from now on when we take a day trip, that we're going to pack a lunch or stop at a supermarket that has a salad bar and some decent fresh fruit.

Apple-Pomegranate Muffins

2010-01-28T08:50:00.000-08:00

In my continuing experiments with new foods, today was the day for pomegranate. I remember eating the seeds as a child, with a spoon, right out of the halved fruit. Since then, I don't think I've had one except in the ubiquitous form of Pom juice - and my fresh pomegranate had the Pom label!

One of my sources recommended removing the seeds in a bowl of water, to eliminate mess and to allow any bad seeds or bits of pulp to rise to the surface - the seeds sink. I did that, and it worked pretty well, although it was still a fussy exercise and there were remaining bits of pulp to remove.

Pomegranate can apparently be substituted for berries of various sorts in recipes, so I used them in a recipe that was originally designed for cranberries. The recipe was Apple-Cranberry Muffins, from Once Upon a Tart . . . : Soups, Salads, Muffins and More, by Frank Mentesana and Jerome Audureau. The recipe calls for 6 large muffins, and I was making 12 smaller muffins, so I reduced the cooking time from 40-45 minutes at 400F to 20-22 minutes. The outcome was excellent - very pretty and tasty and the pomegranate seeds provided a nice crunch.

Pomegranates are also used in savory sauces, and I may have to try that next. I also have some dried mung beans on hand - that's the next experiment!

Thai Butternut Squash Soup

2010-01-27T11:52:00.000-08:00

For lunch today, I had a lovely Thai Butternut Squash Soup - the recipe is from Allotment 2 Kitchen. The only change I made in the recipe was to just roughly chop the peeled butternut squash and roast it at 350 degrees for about an hour and a quarter - I figured since I was going to puree it the size of the pieces didn't matter too much. It was lovely, spicy and aromatic, and I served it over white Bashmati rice. What could be better - a nice bowl using butternut squash, broth, coconut milk, Thai spices and some tofu (pan-fried with spices) and spinach, garnished with coriander - the colors were beautiful too!

Beet Salad and Stir Fry

2010-01-21T17:07:00.000-08:00

Lunch and dinner today were both improvisations. Lunch used up some leftover mixed greens, and some roasted beets. I peeled and sliced the beets, and topped them with some crumbled blue cheese, some chopped Kalamata olives and some walnut pieces, and squeezed some lemon juice over them, then topped everything with some oil and vinegar dressing. The sweetness of the beets works very well with the lemon and blue cheese, and the saltiness of the olives. I sometimes use feta cheese for this and it works very well. If you've only had pickled beets, I'd recommend roasting your own for a real change - you just take off the greens and the root end, rinse the beet without peeling, and wrap in aluminum foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for as long as it takes - tiny beets may take an hour, big ones and hour and a half or even more - you want them to be easily pierced by a fork. When you're ready to use them, just peel.

Dinner was the ever-versatile stir fry. I like to try to achieve a mix of textures and colors - some hard vegetables (broccoli and carrot here, sometimes celeriac or kohlrabi), some cabbagy things (here cabbage, sometimes bok choy or kale or another green) and some onion and garlic. This one had some sliced sweet red pepper, which adds nice color and flavor. At the very end, I add some soy sauce and a drizzle of sesame oil. Served over bashmati or other rice, it's excellent. If you prep some of the vegetables ahead of time (I always leave the onions and garlic to the last minute), the whole thing takes no more than a half hour.

Rustic Cabbage Soup

2010-01-19T16:40:00.000-08:00

For dinner this evening we had a modified version of Rustic Cabbage Soup from 101 Cookbooks. The recipe is pretty simple - one pot, with potatoes, garlic and onion, stock, white beans (pre-cooked or canned - I used canned cannellini beans) and cabbage, with a garnish or olive oil and grated Parmesan cheese. I changed things by adding some leftover canned crushed tomatoes, and to balance the sweetness of the tomatoes, the juice of half a lemon. It was delicious and pretty too - we had it with a nice green salad - good for a chilly winter night:

Ribollita and Mac Plate

2010-01-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

We recently made the Ribollita recipe from 101 Cookbooks. This is a delicious, substantial vegetable stew, with celery, carrots, garlic, red onion, tomatoes, kale, white beans and a touch of red pepper flakes and lemon, and thickened with bread. The garnish was chopped black Kalamata olives. It was very good, and just as good left over - the name of the recipe is "reboiled" which refers to how good it is left over! We served it the first night with a mixed green salad including arugula and the second night with some wonderful sourdough rolls.

And tonight, we had what we call a Mac Plate (McDonald's is nowhere involved in this), which is loosely based on a macrobiotic plate we have enjoyed at a local vegetarian restaurant, Blind Faith. This dinner had baked sweet potato, brown rice, small white beans cooked with garlic and sage, braised bok choi and a special addition - fried up slices of bitter melon (mentioned in this post). First, here's the bitter melon as I got it ready to fry up in oil - I peeled off the roughest bits on the outside, cut it in half lengthwise and scooped out the seeds and pulp, then sliced the halves. This is a photo of when I had completed one half and was starting the next:

Then I tossed it with some salt and left it to drain in a sieve. When we were about to eat, I rinsed off the salt and fried it up quickly in some vegetable oil. And here's the complete dinner plate:

It was an outstanding Mac Plate - the bitter melon added a wonderful touch, particularly when you took a bit of that with something blander, like rice or beans; the flavor of bitter melon is a bit like fried okra, but more definite. It was a great addition to one of our favorite meals.

Some Questions

2010-01-16T03:59:00.000-08:00

RuckusButt asked two good questions in the comments on a recent post. I mentioned fennel as a vegetable that I've learned to love after disliking it. She asked how I poach it - I use vegetable broth or stock, although white wine or even water would work. I cut the fronds off, and cleave the bulbs lengthwise. I put them in a pan and mostly cover them with stock and simmer until tender. If you don't like the strong licorice flavor of raw fennel, the poaching also calms that down. Then, when we're ready to eat, I shave parmesan cheese over them and run them under the broiler until the cheese is bubbling. Yum!

She also asked about community supported agriculture. This refers to a financial arrangement where people in the community buy a "share" of produce (or in some cases meat or other farm goods) from a farmer, and pay in advance for a year's, or season's produce. Sometimes payment in installments is allowed. In our case, our neighboring organic farm has a CSA (they also sell at farmers' markets and to restaurants), where we subscribe at the beginning of the year for a full year's produce. This arrangement allows us to eat wonderful, local, organic produce, and allows the farmer to have the financing to buy seeds and other supplies for the farm year in advance. We've been very satisfied with it, and it's fun because we have to learn to cook whatever shows up in the box - the farmer selects it and so it's a surprise every week. Our farmer also provides a cheese and several different meat shares from other local farms, and there is also a fruit share that we participate in. It's really improved our eating, and it's a great way to support local farmers.

Trying New Things

2010-01-15T14:44:00.001-08:00

Today, at the market, I decided to buy one vegetable and one fruit, and also pick up one grain or bean, that I was unfamiliar with. This is part of my attempt to expand my cooking to add a little bit of Adventure and Creativity/Self-Expression to my life. So today I got a pomegranate, a bitter melon, some mung beans and also some Thai red curry paste - not to use all at once!

Mung beans are small and green, and are widely used in Chinese and Indian cooking. They are also the most common bean used for sprouts. I'd like to try a dal with these, and possibly also some sprouts - I've been meaning to learn how to do this and it's a good opportunity. The mung beans I got are whole and unhulled - the hulled, split ones are yellow.

I've eaten pomegranate before, but not for a long time. One book I consulted had a good method to get the seeds/fruit out without too much mess - do the task in water - the good bits sink and any bad seeds float to the surface. Pomegranate can be substituted for other fruits and berries - I'm thinking of making some muffins, and eating the rest out of hand.

The bitter melon is new to me - it's a member of the squash family, related to the cucumber and zucchini. Many food cultures, including Indian, highly value bitter flavors. It is possible to salt the melon to remove the bitterness, but I think I'll try it in its full glory the first time. It's suggested to fry chips or use it in a recipe that involves sweet vegetables, like a sweet winter squash. I'm still figuring out what to do with this one.

I found some vegetarian Thai red curry paste - many of these include fish as an ingredient. I'm intrigued by Thai curries after my eating out experience next week. I need to plan out some to try.

I'm fortunate that my husband is very willing to try new things, although he freely admits he may not eat all of them. But he doesn't mind if I do, so some fun is coming up!

Farfalle With Gorgonzola, Arugula and Cherry Tomatoes

2010-01-12T17:07:00.000-08:00

For dinner I made Farfalle With Gorgonzola, Arugula and Cherry Tomatoes, from Mark Bittman's blog. It was very easy - the whole thing, from the time you turn on the pasta water to when you sit down at the table is about 30 minutes at most. It takes some milk or half-and-half, some blue cheese and mixes those with drained pasta and arugula and cherry tomatoes - toss, add some ground black pepper and perhaps some grated Parmesan cheese, and you're done. It was very good, and substantial - perfect for a cold January night!

How To Eat, How To Cook

2010-01-12T02:58:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking about how I live my life, in all its aspects. As my husband and I become empty nesters, I feel it's a good time to reexamine how we live our lives and begin to make some decisions about where to focus our time and energy going forward. If you're interested in more of my preliminary thinking about this, see this post.

After mentioning Michael Pollan's Food Rules a few days ago, I thought I'd put down my own thoughts on the subject, starting with where we are today - this basic framework is good, but I want to make some adjustments, which I'll talk about towards the end of this post. These aren't really rules, they're more guidelines. I used to be a pretty unhealthy eater, but over time I've learned to eat differently, and I now weigh about the same as I did at 20 and I feel better than I have in years. I've been eating this way for years, and it's doable, although there is some effort involved. I don't count calories or follow a diet plan, I just eat, and live, in a way that I think promotes health, including a healthy weight - but that doesn't mean that I'm skinny nor do I aspire to be, and I don't even own a scale.

To me, eating food, good food, means that I think of food as a pleasure, a necessary pleasure, and not as a source of nutrients or calories. By eating a wide variety of foods, I ensure that I meet all nutritional requirements. My first rule is very similar to Pollan's main theme in his rules - I don't eat anything that comes in a package, with very few exceptions. I do eat frozen vegetables and fruit - if there are no other ingredients added, canned tomatoes in different forms and canned beans - again with no added ingredients and no processed spaghetti sauces. I also use both low-fat milk and low-fat plain yoghurt (unsweetened) and unsweetened plain soy milk, and I do use several of the Cascadian Farms cereals with minimal added sugars. There are many packaged organic and "natural" foods, but I don't buy any of them with those few exceptions - they're still packaged.

This rule alone cuts out almost all of the stuff that is an issue, including packaged sweets, sodas, and snack foods. No pre-made salad dressings - they're very easy to make at home. If I don't buy it, it isn't in my house and I don't eat it. If I want something sweet or special, I make it myself. I'm fortunate that I really don't care all that much for sweets - my husband isn't so fortunate.

I buy and eat many types of fruits and vegetables. When my CSA (community sponsored agriculture) share from our local organic farm is available - from May until mid-December, that is my first source for real vegetables and fruits, then there are our local farmers' markets, and then there are supermarkets - Whole Foods (which is about a 30 minute drive away) has the best selection, followed by my local supermarkets. One interesting thing about the CSA share is that it has taught me to use and enjoy a number of vegetables that were new to me - fennel, tat soi, celeriac and others - it took some experimenting to find the best ways to use these but they're now all favorites (I love poached fennel bulbs that are then sliced and run under a broiler with parmesan cheese on top, tat soi as the basis of a salad made with a soy/toasted sesame seed dressing, and celeriac in a stir fry or soup). To me the priorities are fresh, in season if possible, local if possible and organic if possible, in about that order.

In order to eat healthy, there is nothing more important in my opinion that to make your own food, using real ingredients. You determine the amount of sugar and salt added, and there are only real foods as ingredients. But you might say - where can I find the time to cook? There are ways - many dishes only require a limited amount of time - a simple pasta sauce, a simple soup, a stir fry, a main dish salad, an omelette with a green salad, and many other dishes, require only a short time to prepare. Even bean dishes from scratch and home-made bread or pizza dough can be done in stages if the timing is planned correctly. With a chest freezer - not very expensive to buy or operate - when I have more time I can prepare larger dishes to divide and freeze.

You will notice that there is nothing in this set of rules about diets, or dieting, or counting calories, or feeling deprived. I don't eat between meals, except for a piece of fruit, and I don't eat large portions, so I'm hungry by the time I eat my next meal, but that feeling is a good one - it makes eating the next meal more pleasurable.

I haven't mentioned meat, because I'm a vegetarian. If I did eat meat, I would look for locally raised meat and poultry rather than the factory-farmed meat and poultry that is mostly all that is available in the supermarket (and "natural" means nothing). Factory farming, to me, is a contradiction in terms - animals, even those designed for consumption, should never be treated (often inhumanely) as items in a factory or fed the things they are fed (including foods they were not designed to consume, and antibiotics and hormones).

Learning to eat well, and enjoy food, as a vegetarian, has been an evolving challenge. It takes more planning, I think, to eat a healthy and sustaining vegetarian diet - at the beginning we fell into the trap of packaged convenience foods and excessive fatty foods (I called this our "cheesatarian" stage) - partly driven by the fact that we were also feeding children who were hard to please (although vegetarian themselves by choice - they did it first). We had to learn to use more beans and legumes and whole grains - my lifestyle is very active and without that I just wasn't eating well or feeling satisfied. We're still learning to use tofu and tempeh, but more experiments are in order. We do not use packaged meat substitutes - no fake bacon, sausage or meat - these are heavily processed foods and if I wanted to be eating meat that's what I should be eating.

I'm pretty satisfied with what and how we eat, but there are some changes I'm exploring making as a result of my new themes of Adventure and Creativity/Self-Expression. My husband and I tend to be fairly repetitive in our cooking and eating - same recipes, same restaurants, and even ordering the same dish every time at the restaurant. I made a conscious decision when we ate out at lunch yesterday at a Thai restaurant to choose a dish I was unfamiliar with and not sure I would like - a green curry made with coconut milk. It was very good, so I was rewarded this time - I won't like everything I try but I bet I'll like a lot of it.

In our home cooking, I have always been primarily ingredient-driven - I love to see the vegetables and fruits and cook based on what I see. I'll continue to to that, but try to consciously select new things to try, and do some experimentation with different styles of cooking and different cuisines. I love spicy food, and my husband will tolerate it, so we'll be trying some of that too. My goal is to try new foods, new recipes and dishes and just have fun experimenting, understanding that there may be some disasters in cooking along the way. I'd also like to spend more time experimenting with the beauty of food - the mixes of colors and the way the food is presented. More variety, more taste, more beauty - this will be fun!

Hearty Brown Lentil Soup and Some Dals

2010-01-11T16:55:00.000-08:00

Last night and again today, we had the Hearty Brown Lentil Soup out of Love Soup by Anna Thomas. My husband commented while he was cooking it that "she knows what she's doing" - by which he meant that the recipe was clear, well-ordered and written, and the techniques, ingredients and proportions were just right to make everything work. So far this book has been a great success for us - everything we've tried out of it has been delicious.

The recipe uses lentils, a variety of vegetables, garlic, cumin, cilantro and parsley - it's somewhat spicy - a wonderful warm feeling. She's good on garnishes to "pop out" the flavors - she suggested good olive oil or a nice salsa - swirl in a bit. My husband did the olive oil and I did the salsa and we were both very happy with the results.

* * * * * *

My husband commented that "this is just like a dal". And he was right, it was somewhat like a soupy dal, and dals can be soupy. Mark Bittman had a nice set of dal recipes in the New York Times a few days ago - here they are - but what is it with him and coconut (an ingredient that I'm only learning how to like)?

Garlicky Swiss Chard on Bulgar

2010-01-08T16:56:00.000-08:00

Tonight we had Garlicky Swiss Chard Saute on Bulgar, from Main-Course Vegetarian Pleasures by Jeanne Lemlin. This is one of those wonderful winter recipes, filling, warm and slightly spicy, but you can make it from beginning to end in about 30 minutes, if you use canned beans. It involves bulgar wheat cooked in vegetable stock, and sauteed garlic, red pepper flakes and Swiss chard. It couldn't be easier, and we had it with some nice bread:

Article on Food and Farming

2010-01-08T10:01:00.000-08:00

Here is a an interesting article by Russ Parsons in the Los Angeles Times, on food and farming - thought-provoding and well worth reading.

Review: Food Rules

2010-01-06T12:03:00.000-08:00

I just finished Michael Pollan's Food Rules: An Eater's Manual. It didn't take long - the book is the size of a 5"x8" index card and has only a few more than 130 pages, and there's a lot of white space on many pages. Even though it's slight, it's not inconsequential, and is sometimes pretty funny as well.

In the book, he expands on his own formula from In Defense of Food - "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." The book takes each of those sentences and gives a number of food rules under each category. If you're interested in healthy eating, it's worth reading this book - even if you don't buy it and read it in a bookstore. He makes the good point that our diet-obsessed nation now has among the world's most unhealthy eating habits and highest rates of obesity and obesity-related diseases. Healthy eating isn't about nutrients, or "magic" ingredients, or "good" and "bad" foods, it's about real foods, eaten with enjoyment.

The first category - eat food - simply boils down to: don't eat foods (or as he refers to them - "edible food-like substances") - that come in a package and were made in a factory. This includes foods served by fast-food and many chain restaurants - much of this looks like real food but in fact is highly processed and full of ingredients you might not choose to eat if you knew they were there. Eat real things - real meat, poultry and fish (if you eat those), real fruit, real vegetables. There are a lot of sub-rules in this category, but they all boil down to the same thing - don't eat processed food, or "enhanced" food that makes health claims, or foods that are sweetened. He makes the good point that "lite" and low- or no-fat foods are often a fraud - they often contain extra sugars to make up for the lower fat and often are just as high-calorie. The one exception I would make on this point is low- and no-fat milk - although low-fat milk products like yoghurt often contain extra sweeteners.

The second category - not too much - is just as important. Portion control is the critical issue there, and there are lots of ways to learn good habits - only eat meals, no day-long grazing (which not only often leads to more calories but also may predispose us to insulin resistance since the body is always in eating mode), eat only when you are hungry and stop before you're full, don't have seconds, and if you snack, eat real foods and not something out of a package.

The third part addresses what foods to eat. His advice isn't about deprivation - it's about enjoyment of a wide variety of foods. Again, avoiding or limiting processed foods - including such things as white flour, sodas - whether sweetened or artificially sweetened (there's evidence that shows that drinking no-cal sodas can actually increase total calorie intake) - is the critical thing. Shifting diet towards more fruits and vegetables - particularly leafy vegetables - and whole grains, is desirable.

A couple of my favorite rules:

No. 20 - It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car.

No. 39 - Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself. This makes something fried, or a pie or sweet, something special and something you're unlikely to make every day - and it will contain only real ingredients. These days, it's too easy just to open a package, which makes these foods ordinary instead of special.

No. 52 - Buy smaller plates and glasses. This is about appropriate portion size.

No. 57 - Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does.

No. 64 - Break the rules once and a while. And don't feel guilty if you do!

The great thing about his approach is that it isn't about dieting, it's about eating well.

Some Recipes For the New Year

2010-01-06T03:00:00.000-08:00

101 Cookbooks has just posted this list of some of her favorite recipes, with an emphasis on lots of vegetables and fresh, bright flavors. I've made the Miso Soup before, and I'll certainly check out the others - this blog is one of the best out there for excellent recipes. Check it out!

Split Pea Soup and Food Rules

2010-01-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

Last night it was very cold (again) and we had a wonderful split pea soup with some hot bread - perfect for a cold evening. In my experience, split pea soup can often be dull, heavy or glutinous - this soup was bright, fresh-tasting and delightful. The recipe was Old-Fashioned Split Pea Soup from Love Soup by Anna Thomas - this cookbook is rapidly becoming a new favorite of ours. In addition to split peas, carrots, celery, onion and thyme, this soup also includes regular peas and hot paprika - we use hot pimenton - which I think helps to explain the brighter flavor. Here's dinner (perhaps someday I'll learn how to properly photograph food!):

Tonight it's a Red Onion Frittata with Parmesan and Thyme from Jack Bishop's The Complete Italian Vegetarian and roasted potatoes. I'm fond of frittatas - they're quick and easy and can be served at any temperature, which makes them ideal for busy afternoons.

This afternoon, I need to go to the library to pick my copy of Michael Pollan's Food Rules, which I've been eagerly awaiting.

Hoppin' John and Cornbread for New Year's Day

2010-01-01T16:38:00.000-08:00

We had a fun New Year's Day dinner, somewhat of a traditional one - a variation on hoppin' John, a traditional New Year's dish of black-eyed peas and rice, and cornbread. The recipes I used were Hip Hoppin' John from Low-Fat Soul by Jonell Nash, which is a fun book for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians, with lots of good, spicy, soul food without all the fat, and Fresh Corn and Cheddar Cheese Cornbread from Love Soup by Anna Thomas.

The hoppin' John recipe is black-eyed peas, cooked from scratch, rice, chopped green pepper, black pepper, red pepper flakes, sauteed onion and garlic, bay leaf and thyme. We've had it before and it's delicious - I reduce the black and red peppers a bit as some in my family are not so fond of very spicy food - I just add more at the table!

The cornbread includes both pureed and whole frozen corn kernels, buttermilk, eggs, and the usual flour and cornmeal with a bit of melted butter, but also some grated cheddar cheese, chopped green onions and fresh thyme. A little bit different and a little bit nice!

All in all, a great start to the year!

Disgusted

2009-12-31T07:51:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-28T12:30:00.001-08:00

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

2009-12-21T07:59:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-20T15:45:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-16T16:55:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-06T03:48:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-05T17:39:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-05T06:38:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-04T13:51:00.000-08:00

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!

Simple Dinner

2009-11-30T16:38:00.000-08:00

Tonight we had a very simple dinner - some kidney beans cooked with onions, garlic and a few peppercorns, with some kombu added for the last 15 minutes - I removed the additions when the beans were done - some steamed and mashed sweet potatoes, some sauteed chard with a squeeze of lemon juice and some brown rice done using the pasta method of cooking. Beautiful colors!

Book Review: Eating Animals

2009-11-27T17:21:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. I've always thought of Foer as a fiction writer - an excellent one (his prior novels are Everything is Illuminated, which I read and enjoyed immensely, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which I want to read). I can now say that he is also an excellent, and thoughtful, writer of non-fiction. The book is a detailed, nuanced examination of our human propensity to eat animals and arguments for and against the practice. In contrast to The Face On Your Plate, which I would describe as a polemic that emphasizes sentiment over fact, Eating Animals is grounded in facts, most of which were obtained from industry or government sources to be more "conservative". Much of the book asks questions about the place of food in our homes and our society and examines the radical changes that have occurred in how meat, and fish, are produced for consumption.

I would describe this book as devastating in its portrayal of the betrayal of our humanity by the practices of industrial meat production. Despite our agrarian images of happy cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys, the vast majority of the meat in the supermarket comes from animals that are factory farmed. Factory farming is just what it sounds like - animals are cogs in an industrial process the sole purpose of which is to maximize profit for its owners. Animal welfare is the last concern of the owners of these facilities, whatever the marketing image they project. Factory farms are the cause of daily, routine, inhumane treatment of animals, and that's before they reach the slaughterhouse, where abusive treatment is not the exception but the norm. He goes into explicit detail about the practices in poultry and pig farming. There's a reason factory farms and slaughterhouses don't allow visitors - if there walls were transparent their practices wouldn't be able to continue. It's easy to ignore how the meat in the supermarket is produced when it's neatly wrapped in plastic. Foer presents damning evidence of not only the abuse of the animals in these operations, but the brutalization of mostly minimum wage workers that occurs when working in these high-pressure environments, which leads directly to more animal abuse. The voices of some of the people he speaks to are haunting.

And then there's the huge and increasing environmental costs of factory farming, both in terms of contamination of water sources and streams and rivers with sewage, and in terms of production of greenhouse gases - animal agriculture produces more greenhouse gases than all means of transport - cars, trucks, busses, airplanes, etc. - put together. And the bulk of our production of grain now goes to feed animals in factory farming situations, not to human consumption. And how about the systematic misuse of antibiotics in factory farming - which leads directly to the development of antibiotic-resistant bugs?

He also goes into detail about the depredations of the commercial fishing industry - the waste and environmental devastation, both of fish stocks and the marine environment, is truly amazing in its scope. But is aquaculture any improvement? Sadly, the answer is no. Aquaculture as practiced worldwide is factory farming under water, with all the environmental costs and treatment of animals as things rather than living beings.

And how about organic? It is better in some ways, but in many ways organic meat is largely raised and slaughtered under the same factory conditions as regular meat. Organic is no guarantee of animal treatment or environmental protection.

His conclusion is that he is now a confirmed vegetarian, because he cannot be a participant in the systematic abuse of animals and environmental damage caused by factory farming. He has great sympathy for the traditional husbandry practices being attempted by a number of small farmers, but even they, due to the continuing consolidation in the slaughterhouse business, rarely have control over how their animals are treated when slaughtered. This keeps Foer from being able to support them to the extent of consuming their meat.

This book is a must-read for anyone who eats meat, or anyone who doesn't. It is thoughtful, nuanced and acknowledges the complexity of the issue as well as the differing viewpoints of the participants. The one point which is clearest is that the practices of factory farming of animals are without question inhumane, and in many cases clearly abusive of animals. Read this book - it may open your eyes.

Thanksgiving Dinner

2009-11-27T12:41:00.000-08:00

The vegetarian Thanksgiving was a smashing success - even the usual meat-eaters had to agree! There were many tasty things to eat, including home-made cranberry sauce - take whole cranberries, add about a cup of water and sugar to taste - I used 1/2 plus 1/3 cup sugar for a small package of cranberries - and cook until cooked down.

There was Cabbage with Tomatoes and Sour Cream from How To Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman - this uses onion, garlic, cabbage, chopped tomatoes, caraway or cumin seeds and sour cream. There were roasted vegetables - this time a mix of parsnips, carrots, sweet potatoes and onions (I often add potatoes but we were having potatoes separately), tossed with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and some sprigs of thyme - other herbs work as well - and roasted at 400 degrees until carmelized, turning and mixing the vegetables every 10 to 15 minutes:

There were mashed potatoes, some mashed with olive oil and some with butter and milk, topped with a splendid Thyme and Mushroom Gravy from New Vegetarian by Celia Brooks Brown. This is a fabulous and easy-to-make recipe which includes sliced onions, thyme and bay leaf, chopped mushrooms, a little flour, some port or other fortified wine, vegetable stock and a bit of soy sauce. Some had this with vegetarian sausages, some without.

For desert, later, there was Sweet Potato Buttermilk Pie from Smitten Kitchen - the pie crust did not come out as well as the rest as I prebaked it too far in advance:

A feast indeed! Hope yours was good as well!

Book Review: The Face on Your Plate

2009-11-25T13:56:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading The Face on Your Plate by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson. It is an impassioned polemic against eating animals as well as animal products such as dairy and eggs - he's a vegan. I agree with the basic premise of the book - that animals are sentient beings and that our use of them for food, and to produce food, causes them suffering. But I also thought he over-argued - he seems to think that for this argument to be effective, it must be buttressed with arguments about the emotional equivalence of animals to humans. I find the basic argument sufficient - if we cause animals to suffer in order for us to eat, and we have other (in fact more healthy) ways to eat, then that suffering is wrong. I'm not a vegan (yet) but did find his arguments about what happens to dairy cows and egg-laying hens very persuasive.

There were also a couple of additional things I liked about the book. I found his descriptions of the devastation wrought by over-fishing, and the additional environmental and health disasters in the making from fish farming very informative and telling. I also agreed with his assessment that, although animals suffer less on a non-industrial farm practicing more animal-friendly husbandry methods, they still suffer and that is sufficient for the treatment of the animals still to be unacceptable. He also makes a strong argument that meat-eating requires continuous denial of the reality of animal suffering, and often requires the premise that humans are superior to other sentient beings and therefore entitled to use them even if suffering occurs (a premise with which I disagree).

I found the chapter on his diet a bit of a throw-away and not particularly useful for someone contemplating a change to vegetarianism or being a vegan. I am a bit more skeptical about processed foods than he is.

So, all in all, a bit of mixed bag.

Thanksgiving Preparations and Hermit Soup

2009-11-25T11:02:00.000-08:00

This morning, I spent some hours doing work to get ready for Thanksgiving. I peeled, chopped and steamed the sweet potatoes for the Sweet Potato Buttermilk Pie - I'll make the pie crust later on today so it can chill in the refrigerator overnight. I prepared the parsnips, carrots, rutabaga and a few extra sweet potatoes for Roasted Vegetables - I'll add the onion and thyme, and mix with some olive oil, just before I roast them tomorrow. I shredded the savoy cabbage and drained, seeded and chopped the canned tomatoes for the Cabbage With Tomatoes and Sour Cream. I chopped the mushrooms for the Mushroom-Thyme Gravy that will accompany the mashed potatoes. And finally, I made cranberry sauce using fresh cranberries, sugar and some water - it's fun to hear the cranberries pop as they cook. Tomorrow will now be much easier!

Then, for lunch, I had leftover Hermit Soup from Twelve Months of Monastery Soups by Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette. It's a simple soup involving potato, turnip or rutabaga, carrot and onion with a pinch of thyme. The recipe uses water, but we used vegetable stock for added flavor. His cookbooks are easy to use and many of the recipes are quite good - they tend to be on the less spicy side and make large quantities - we cut many of the recipes down. I also made a side salad out of left-over chickpeas, sliced cherry tomatoes, some extra sliced mushrooms, a chopped shallot and some oil and vinegar. And there was a nice glass of the tomato juice that drained from the canned tomatoes. A nice lunch for a chilly, drizzly day:

Pancakes and Vegetable Pie

2009-11-23T16:00:00.000-08:00

This morning there was some leftover pancake batter, so I had beautiful pancakes for breakfast, topped with excellent Grade B (the best, I think) maple syrup. The recipe we used is Mixed Grain Pancakes from Simple Vegetarian Pleasures by Jeanne Lemlin.

Dinner was from another Jeanne Lemlin cookbook - Main-Course Vegetarian Pleasures. It was a Broccoli and Red Bell Pepper Pie, which uses bread crumbs (I used Panko crumbs) in a buttered pie dish to make the "crust" - it's very effective - you get a nice browned thin crust and don't have to make a pie crust with all the associated fat and calories. This recipe also included some Parmesan and Muenster cheese, eggs and some chickpeas. I love her cookbooks, but have found them badly edited - the chickpeas were listed in the ingredients but showed up nowhere in the instructions - I just added them at an obvious place in the recipe - this sort of error is pretty common in her cookbooks.

Here are some of the ingredients - I liked the reflection of the onions in the cleaver:

A close-up of the gorgeous broccoli head, with its beads of water from washing:

Here are the vegetables sauteing:

Here's the finished pie:

And - my seed catalog from Seed Savers Exchange came! Now I can dream about next year's gardening, and make up endless lists of vegetable and flower seeds. I'm a big fan of Seed Savers - most of the seeds in their catalog are open-pollinated and many are heirlooms from many different countries. I rarely have to buy seeds from any other source.

Dreaming of spring!

Thinking About Thanksgiving, and Review of Beyond the Great Wall

2009-11-22T08:25:00.000-08:00

We'll be having a vegetarian Thanksgiving this Thursday, so no turkey for us. I'm just starting to put together my list of what we'll be having - there are some old favorites, as well as a couple of new things to try.

So far, it looks like there will be:

Mashed potatoes - I love mashing these with olive oil - it makes them very silky and delicious.

Mushroom/thyme gravy - this is a rich, tasty gravy that I do every year.

My daughters insist on peas and corn (usually separately), which they like with butter.

Some vegetables roasted with olive oil and herbs until carmelized - probably onions, carrots, parsnips, and perhaps some potatoes as well.

A Russian cabbage dish that involves tomatoes and sour cream - very decadent!

Some homemade cranberry sauce.

And I'm thinking a buttermilk/sweet potato pie - this is a new recipe for me so we'll see.

Just writing it down makes me hungry! Now for the shopping list. I'll post the recipes as we go on.

I just finished reading a fascinating and beautiful cookbook - but more than a cookbook - called Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China, by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. These same authors also wrote Hot Sour Salty Sweet, which is also very interesting.

Beyond the Great Wall is about the peoples who live in China who are not the majority Han Chinese, and about their cooking and lives. There is a lot of information about the authors' many trips to all parts of China, and a lot of information about the various ethnic groups and their history and culture, together with stunning photography.

There were also many recipes. Many of the recipes involve meat and some involve fish, and looked interesting for those who do eat it. There were a number of vegetarian recipes I intend to try, including some salsas and vegetable salads, a Tibetan ratatouille, some noodle dishes, many interesting breads and a Tibetan barley staple called tsampa, which uses whole-grain barley berries to start. I learned from the book that barley is the only grain crop which will reliably grow at high elevations or where the growing season is very short. This book is certainly worth a look, even if you don't cook from it. I got mine from the library, as it is an expensive book.

Parsnip Soup For Lunch

2009-11-20T11:59:00.000-08:00

I often make my main meal for lunch - I'm a morning person so it's easy for me, and it also leaves more time in the afternoon for other things, such as riding my horses. Today I made a parsnip soup - I love the sweet nuttiness of parsnips, and also like them as part of a roasted vegetable medley.

This recipe is adapted from the Parsnip-Soffritto Soup found in The Victory Garden Cookbook by Marian Morash.

Parsnip Soup

1 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped finely
2 Tb olive oil
1 28-oz can whole peeled tomatoes, drained, seeded and chopped (save the juice for drinking later if you like), or use fresh tomatoes - about 2 cups after chopping
Salt
1 lb parsnips, peeled and very thinly sliced
2 carrots, peeled and very thinly sliced
6 cups vegetable stock or broth
freshly ground pepper
chopped parsley for garnish if you wish

Heat oil in a medium soup pot, heat at medium until oil is hot and add onion and cook until wilted but not browned - about 5 minutes.

Add garlic and tomatoes, sprinkle with salt and cook until liquid has evaporated and mixture has thickened - about 15 minutes depending on how juicy the tomatoes are.

Add broth and parsnips and carrots, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook until vegetables are tender - about 10-15 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper to taste and garnish with parsley if you like.

Here's today's lunch, include a small green salad with some shaved Parmesan cheese and an oil and vinegar dressing:

Planting Garlic

2009-11-20T07:13:00.000-08:00

I've been neglecting my community garden plot - I still need to finish cleaning it up and getting it ready for the winter. This morning I went over and planted my garlic - it's getting late to do this but our weather's still not too cold, so I'm hopeful. I planted two varieties - Siberian, which is a white garlic, and Shvelisi-Chesnok Red, both obtained from Seed Savers Exchange. Garlic from Russia should love our winters! I was delighted last year when I discovered how easy garlic is to grow - just break apart the heads, plant the cloves, cover and wait - they're ready around the 4th of July. We're still using the garlic I harvested last summer - I've been storing it in my garage.

Red Lentil Soup For Lunch

2009-11-17T11:12:00.000-08:00

Today, I got around to making the Red Lentil Soup recipe from 101 Cookbooks. It was a perfect day for it - blustery and cloudy out - comfort food beckoned. I love the color of the lentils - I expect you could substitute regular brown lentils, but the final color wouldn't be as nice and the consistency of the soup would be different - which might work out fine.

I made some changes to the recipe - I substituted a leek for the shallots, added a squeeze of lemon juice in the bowl to brighten the flavor, and left out the chopped toasted almonds in the garnish. With a side salad simply dressed with good olive oil and red wine vinegar, the soup made a delicious, easy meal:

I would definitely recommend the recipe, even if you can't find red lentils.

The End of Overeating by David Kessler

2009-07-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

I've always been interested in food and cooking - I read cookbooks for fun - and also in food policy and how growing and producing food interacts with human health and environmental issues.

This book, "The End of Overeating", is by David Kessler, who is a doctor and former head of the FDA. I've seen this book around in bookstores, but for some reason never picked it up until now. It was fascinating and I've found a number of things in it that have application to everyday eating and living. It isn't a diet book, it isn't a food policy book, it's about the interaction of changes in our culture and food production with human biology and psychology. Although it deals with a number of scientific subjects, it's not a hard book to read - in fact I found it compelling.

As many people know, big changes have occurred in America in food production and eating habits from the 50's and 60's into the 70's and 80's and on into the present. The percentage of overweight and obese Americans has greatly increased. This has coincided with increasing numbers of meals outside the home - fewer home-cooked meals - and the proliferation of processed and convenience foods and an increasing obsession with diets and dieting.

Obtaining and eating food is a goal-directed activity necessary for survival. There is a biological process for this, which involves chemicals in the brain and feedback loops from our bodies. The premise of the book is that the way many people eat now interacts with our basic biology in a way that leads to habitual, and in some cases compulsive, overeating.

As I understand it, the basic mechanism works as follows. A goal (say eating a cookie that is on the table) is identified. Anticipation of the satisfaction that will be felt when the cookie is eaten causes dopamine to be produced in the brain. Dopamine is the chemical that allows us to undertake action. The action is undertaken, the cookie is eaten, and the digestive system signals the brain, which then produces opioid chemicals - the feeling of satisfaction. In situations of food scarcity, the ability to pursue and eat food is a necessity for survival, so this process is very strongly innate in people. In an environment with structured mealtimes (and more about the content of those meals below), there is an interval between satisfaction and the goal-directed activity of eating the next meal. It's all a matter of expectation - if you don't expect to be eating for a while, you don't think about food or start the process again until it's time. Where food is constantly available, however . . .

A number of things have changed in the American way of eating:

Fewer home cooked meals - more meals out - often meals largely composed of processed foods and sugars and fats - the book has amazing information about the food served at sit- down chain restaurants that may change the way you think about these places

More processed foods - often foods that are high in sugars and fats - as part of the home diet

All the time eating - constant snacking is socially acceptable - often on foods that are processed and high in sugar and fat

Food is often eaten mindlessly - in front of the TV, in the car or on the run

Larger and larger portion sizes - Europeans often comment on this when they visit the U.S.

An obsession with food and dieting

These changes are important in a number of ways. The lack of structured mealtimes and the ability to eat constantly undermines the natural appropriate hunger/satisfaction cycle - people may have forgotten what it feels like to feel satisfied and then hungry enough to need to eat again. When we graze all day, it's easy to overeat. Processed foods are easier to chew and digest than unprocessed meats, vegetables and fruit, and our bodies have trouble recognizing that they are full when we eat them - so we eat more, and more quickly. Larger portion sizes lead us to expect to eat large amounts of food and therefore we aren't satisfied until we do.

And that "French paradox"? - the French drink more wine than Americans and eat higher fat foods, like real butter but are not as overweight as Americans - it isn't really about the chemicals in wine - it's about eating only at mealtimes, drinking wine with meals and eating real - not processed - foods in smaller portion sizes. Of course things are changing now around the world as others adopt American processed foods and eating habits.

The processed food industry, as well as the chain restaurant industry, while they may not understand the details of the science, sure understand the way to create products that play right into our natural tendencies - sugar and fat get human attention better than anything else. Due to the demands for earnings growth from the financial markets - rates of growth that are higher than the growth rate of the population - processed food companies are highly motivated to get us to consume more calories more easily.

So overeating has become widespread. And some people not only overeat, they compulsively overeat. Overeating can become a habit. A goal-directed activity becomes a habit when there is a lack of awareness of triggers and repetitive behavior - whole sequences of behavior become coded as performance units triggered by context. For example, if you respond to stress by eating, before you know it, you're eating. That's a habit, just like a smoker lighting up after a meal. A quote from the book:

Conditioned hypereating works the same way as other "stimulus-response" disorders in which reward is involved, such as compulsive gambling and substance abuse. Such disorders are characterized by a high degree of sensitivity to sensory stimuli, and they typically lead to a perceived loss of control, an inability to feel satisfied, and obsessive thinking.

If you try to suppress a habit it intensifies the power of the cue - giving in resolves the anxiety, momentarily, but reinforces the power of the cue. This is why dieting is so ineffective. Priming - having "just one" - increases desire - it stimulates the dopamine system (motivation/reward-seeking system) a little bit - enough to get it going to make you want even more. Using food as a reward ("I'll have one when I've done x", or "I deserve a reward, I'll go eat [name food]") intensifies the desire and just reinforces the eating pattern.

The most common triggers for overeating, in addition to eating mindlessly, are stress, anxiety and changes of state - times of day when things change (coming home from work, for example) or moving from one activity to another. Although suppressing the impulse to eat is doomed to failure since ultimately it just increases the desire, diversion of the goal-seeking behavior to another activity can interrupt the process.

It's also important to establish new habits - this takes time and planning. The best way to avoid automatic, habitual activity you want to change is to have a plan in place. When the urge arises, know what you will do instead. And have the new habits you wish to establish firmly in mind - rules, like no seconds, or no snacking between meals, can be helpful. Structured mealtimes, and paying attention to what you are eating, can help, as can eating real foods - real, not processed, meats, vegetables, grains and fruits that require chewing - that have substance and fiber - can slow things down and allow the body to know it has eaten. They also take longer to digest, which means you feel satisfied longer.

Now that's interesting - there is no diet plan, no calorie counting and no forbidden foods. Just an understanding, grounded in science, of human behavior and of ways to not let it lead us down the easy path of overeating. The analysis has application to other habits, such as alcoholism and compulsive gambling, and gives insight into the inability to start or complete tasks (which in many respects is the other side of compulsion).