An Old Towne Time, and On the Menu

This week will be the first meeting of my neighborhood’s cooking and nutrition class. It’s just an informational type meeting, to introduce myself, see what folks are interested in learning, and go over some basics; but, I am really looking forward to it. A healthy community is a safer, more successful community, and it bleeds out into a healthier society. Which the US desperately needs right now. I’ll let you know how it goes.

In other news, our greens and radishes came in hard and heavy from the greenhouse these last few weeks. so we’ve been enjoying a salad with almost every meal. I love sorrel–if you hadn’t, go find some. It’s worth the search. This ties into the On the Menu segment because you can just assume we at a fresh, crispy salad with every one.

On the Menu

Dinners

Sunday: Jambalaya with cornbread. I wanted to try out a new recipe before I gave it to my clients. I have a perfectly good jambalaya recipe, but this one had a few advantages. It was fabulous. Jambalaya is a great way to stretch seafood, sausage, and/or chicken. I left out the chicken in this case, and it still made a huge amount.

Monday: Stuffed garden stand cannelloni. This tried-and-true recipe is from one of my favorite organic cookbooks. My clients were going to get it this week, and I was going to have a pile of leftover lasagna noodles, so I made a batch for us.

Tuesday: Catfish with couscous and roasted cauliflower. Thadd’s night to cook, and since he’s at the end of his semester, it’s got to be fast. We like catfish, his go-to side is couscous, and roasted cauliflower is a favorite in this house. It works just as well frozen as it does fresh.

Wednesday: Cannellini au Gratin with roasted olives and grapes. I know, it sounds weird. But, it’s a rich mix that even meat lovers seem to fall in love with. The roasted grapes and olive idea wigged even me out when I first ran across it, but it works incredibly well.

Thursday: Grilled flank steak with charred sweet potatoes. We owe the charred sweet potato idea to our friends Dave and MJ, who introduced us to them last year. They’re so creamy and sweet. The grilled flank steak will be marinaded with…well, whatever I throw in. I tend to whip a lot of my marinades up on the fly.

Friday: Thai peanut noodles with tofu. Thadd’s been bothering me about having this dish again, and since we have a plethora of Twin Oak’s tofu in the freezer, I figured I’d go ahead. It’s really easy to make, but I can’t stand crappy tofu; so, it only gets made when I’ve got a supply of the “good stuff.” Which is, incidentally, cheaper than the crappy stuff.

Lunches are, of course, leftovers mostly. We plan it that way. Breakfasts this week will be a variety of: scrambled eggs w/greens & veggies, toast, Greek Yogurt, granola, strawberries, oatmeal.

Related Articles

• On the Menu, Feb. 14th edition (eclecticedibles.wordpress.com)
• Healthy Eating and On the Menu (eclecticedibles.wordpress.com)
• Client Opening and What’s a Frugal Menu? (eclecticedibles.wordpress.com)

Seva Inspired Burritos!

There’s this fantastic vegetarian restaurant in Ann Arbor, MI called Seva. When I was living in that area and was a vegetarian, I ate there as often as my pocketbook would let me. While I loved pretty much everything on their menu, mMy favorite dish was their black bean & yam burritos. When I moved away from my beloved Seva, I missed their food, even though I was no longer vegetarian. I especially missed those burritos, and so decided to experiment and see if I could create something like them.

I need to get pictures of these, but the camera never seems to be around when I’m whipping them up. Last week, I made them with the Buford Middle School cooking club kids, and they adored them (even those who gave me “yuck face” when they first heard what we were making). They ate them all–no leftovers!  These are hearty enough, and flavorful enough, to satisfy even died-in-the-wool meat eaters!

They’re also frugal (especially if you make your own beans from dried), and healthy.  This recipe serves roughly 4, depending on who’s eating. I usually double it when cooking for us, because the leftovers are just as tasty as the first serving.

With Fresh Salsa

SALSA

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cans canned tomatoes with juice
• Canned or fresh jalapeño peppers, chopped
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 lime, juice of
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and diced
• Fresh herbs of your choice (cilantro, basil, oregano, etc.), cleaned and chopped fine
• 1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

Directions: Combine all ingredients in a blender of food processor, and blend to desired consistency.

Black Bean Filling:
Ingredients:

• 3 tbs. Olive Oil
• 1 medium-size red onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 15-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed
• 2 chilies in adobo sauce, diced.
• 1/2 cup water or broth
• Spices to taste: oregano, basil, pepper, cinnamon.

Directions: In large frying pan, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onions, and cook until translucent, stirring occasionally. Lower heat to medium. Add remaining ingredients, and cook for 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Using a fork or potato masher, mash about half the beans.

Yam Filling:

Ingredients

• 2 medium yams, peeled and chopped
• spices to taste: chili powder, garlic, cumin

Directions: In large sauce pan, cover yams with cold water and bring to a boil over high heat. Lower heat to medium-high to prevent boil-over, and cook yams until tender. Drain, and mash well with potato masher. Add spices to taste.

To make burritos you will need:

• Salsa
• Black bean filling
• Yam filling
• tortillas

Directions:In large frying pan, heat tortilla shells over medium heat for 1-3 minutes, until they are easy to roll without cracking. Lay flat, and add 2-3 tbs. each of salsa and fillings. Roll into a burrito, tucking ends in to prevent ingredients from spilling out. Serve immediately, or freeze for later use.

Monday Healthy Eating, Nov. 15th

Get rid of the “diet” food. Study after study shows that people who eat real food are more satisfied and actually eat less than those who are eat highly processed “diet foods.” Why? There are several reasons:

1. Real food is more satisfying, so you can eat less and still feel sated.

2. Many diet foods contain ingredients that actually make you hungrier, thirstier, or change the way your body metabolizes things.

3. People tend to consume larger amounts of diet foods because, psychologically, that seems reasonable because there are (in theory) fewer calories. They often end up eating more calories than if they’d eaten something higher in fat or calories.

This doesn’t mean that opting for the highest-fat foods is a good idea. Drink a lower-fat milk (preferably grass-fed, if you have the option), opt for leaner proteins, and use good oils for cooking (EVOO is excellent, and coconut oil is great for you–just don’t use a ton!). Eat butter instead of margarine, just use less.

They key to being healthy and to maintaining a good weight isn’t diet food. There needs to be portion control, exercise, and healthful fruit, vegetables, and lean protein. Toss out the “low fat” Oreos, and just eat fewer of them less often.

Monday Healthy Eating, Oct. 25, 2010

Today’s healthy eating tip:  Make convenience foods yourself ahead of time, so there’s no excuses!

Right now, I have apple-pomegranate-nut granola bars whipping themselves up in my dehydrator.  They took me a grand total of about 2 minutes to mix up, another 30 seconds to spread on the dehydrator sheet, and now I do nothing with them for the next 4 or so hours when I turn them off to cool down.  They’ve got very little sugar, tons of fiber, protein, and omega fatty acids, and no additional fat or preservatives. And they cost pennies each. Which makes them pretty much the antithesis of store-bought granola bars, which are loaded with empty calories from sugar, unhealthy fats, and things you can’t pronounce.

What’s this got to do with anything? Well, we’re all busy. Most people these days work at least one job (those lucky enough to have jobs in this economy), usually all adults in the house need to work, kids have school and a bazillion activities, and things sometimes get out of hand. This is when you’re likely to stop by McDonalds to get the kids (or yourself) a quick snack, or grab some mac-and-cheese out of a box. If that’s rare treat, then that’s totally okay. If it happens a few times a week, it’s a problem. So, this has to do with avoiding that problem.

One way I stay on track is to take a few minutes to set up conveniences foods when I have the time. The granola bars happened today both because I need them for my clients and because I had 5 minutes to spare. I keep a list of recipes on-hand, and some basic ingredients, and whip up some easy, healthy food for the pantry of freezer whenever I can squeeze it in, and it means I don’t have to resort to fast or processed foods.

You do have the time. Watching TV for an hour tonight? Take 5 minutes before your show or on a commercial to pop up some stove-top popcorn (don’t use microwave–it’s expensive, and it’s awful for you, even the “low-fat” stuff), toss it with some spritzed olive oil and your choice of spices (favorite combo of our are garlic, salt, and smoked paprika) and let it cook while you watch your show (eat some if you like, of course). Toss it into individual serving bags, and you’ve got a crunchy, low-cal, high-fiber snack for the week.  Sitting at the computer playing on Facebook? While you’re waiting for your updates, mix up a healthy meatloaf (black beans, lean ground beef, oats, an egg, spices, red & green pepper, onion, and whatever chopped veggies you want to toss in) and toss it in the oven. If you want, you can divide it up into individual serving sizes in small pyrex dishes to make lunches easier. Some of my favorite conveniences foods to whip up in a jiffy:

-Mini meatloafs

-Mini healthy muffins (there are even some decent mixes out there, and I add fruit and nuts if I use them)

-Mini frittatas

-Seasoned popcorn, pumpkin seeds, or nuts in individual packages

-Boiled eggs

-Dehydrator granola bars

-Cheese cubes (way cheaper to make these yourself than buy the pre-cuts)

-Homemade hot pockets (I use leftovers for filling), with a fat-free, whole wheat dough. You can even buy fairly healthy whole wheat pizza dough at some stores, and use that.

-Soup in the crockpot. There’s nothing faster: just throw in some beans, some broth, and a some veggies. If you want fancy soup, throw in some spices and canned tomatoes. Let it cook for a few hours, and you’ve got something easy for the week, or to throw in individual portions in the freezer for those lunches or dinners you just don’t have time to cook.

There’s more, I’m sure, but these are what I can think of off the top of my head. None of them takes more than a few minutes, and those few minutes save me hundreds of calories (and preservatives) every day.

To get started, just get a piece of paper and write down out what you tend to need convenience foods for: breakfasts, snacks, lunches, etc., and what kinds of things you’d like to have on-hand. Make a list and stick it up somewhere you can see it, and next time you have a couple of minutes, use those to help you make good food choices when it would otherwise be inconvenient.  There are tons of recipes on the internet for fast convenience foods, including some great whole-grain cookies (these are my current obsession)!

Planning is everything in making healthful choices, but you have to start in small steps. You’ve already started meal planning (right?), and this is just an extension of that, really. We’re all busy, and we all want those few extra minutes to do something else; but, it’s about priorities. “Convenience foods,” many of which aren’t food at all, are one of the biggest culprits behind obesity in this country, especially childhood obesity. You’ll feel better eating better food, and it only take a few times making healthy items for later before you have a nice little stash to choose from. Once that happens, you have to take those few minutes less often to replenish it.

 

Related Articles

• Make healthy lunches kids will want to eat (canada.com)
• Healthy back to school snacking (thismamacooks.com)
• The Minimalist: Granola Bars, Unwrapped (nytimes.com)
• Quick Healthy Meals for Busy Families (webmd.com)
• How Food Affects Your Brain 10 Facts We Now Know (losethattyre.co.uk)

Monday Healthy Eating, Oct. 18, 2010

Again, just under the wire. I was gone the latter part of last week and all weekend, and didn’t get to blog.  But, here it is, still on Monday!

Today’s healthy eating tip: Spice It Up. As Shepard Book once said, “A man can eat gooey protein his whole life as long as he has rosemary.” Or something like that. The point is, spice is life. Oh, wait, that’s Dune…

Sci-Fi quotes aside, spices of all kinds are a necessity for my healthy eating plan, and they should be for yours, too. Spices allow you to create new and interesting things from around the world! (Now, before we get started, step away from the salt shaker. Salt is not, and should not be, your primary spice.)

So, what do you do with spices? What kinds of spices should your kitchen have? How do you learn  what spices go with what food? Answers: Put them in everything, all that you can get your hands on, and trial and error.

There are the top spices, the easy ones that add something to many different kinds of dishes, and ones that no kitchen should be without: quality peppercorns, rosemary, basil, sage, nutmeg, cinnamon, oregano, sea salt, onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, paprika, and probably a few others I am missing. You can toss these into almost anything (nothing makes a cream sauce pop like a hint of nutmeg), and they work with a variety of cuisines from Mexican to Italian to Creole. This is where trial and error start. Always start with a little spice and go up, because it’s easier to add more than to figure out how to counteract the overwhelming sweet basil in your tomato sauce.

Now that you have the basics, here are some of my less-well-known (at least among many Americans) spices: fenugreek (Ethiopian food), smoked paprika (Mexican, Ethiopian, Indian, etc.), black smoked sea salt (I put this in everything from eggs to caramel–seriously, this stuff would make cow dung taste good), cardamom seeds (great for scented rices and desserts), and mixed peppercorns (a deeper pepper flavor).

Really, just experiment. Spices help keep food fun, and let you create a whole variety of dishes with rich flavors that don’t have rich calories! Many spices have also been shown to have medicinal properties. Tumeric, for example, can help fight diabetes. Spices can also save you money–making your own BBQ rub, cider mulling packet, or taco seasoning is much cheaper than buying the premixed packets. And, by making your own you can skip the icky additives like MSG. So, swing by the baking isle and pick up something new.

Related Articles

• Skip Expensive Spice Mixes and Make Your Own [Saving Money] (lifehacker.com)
• 4 Spices That Should Be in Every Woman’s Kitchen (self.com)

Monday Healthy Eating–Under the Wire!

Technically, it’s still Monday, so this counts. Thank you  all for your patience as I work through some family medical issues.

Today’s healthy eating is a small step to a larger goal. The ultimate goal is to learn to cook flavorful, healthful meals that you and your family will eat. Seriously, almost anything you cook from scratch will be better for you than something form a fast food place or a box, even if it uses nothing but butter, cream, and lard. Ever looked at the back of one of those fast-food boxes with the nutrition panel? I have, and I am still stumped. I have actually tried to pack that many calories into a hamburger, and failed. To this day I haven’t figured out how they even get the calorie-to-ounces ratio they achieve. It’s like the literally inject straight calories into their buns or something. Anyway, the point here is that it’s hard to do worse than processed food, so cooking from scratch is your biggest help in eating right.

That, however, is a pretty big goal, and it’s easy to get discouraged. So, just learn to cook one new, healthful meal each month. That’s not so bad, right? At the end of the year, you’ll have 12 new, healthy meals. That’s almost 2 whole weeks of dinners, or 1 week of dinners and lunches!

Where to start? The easiest place to start is with an old favorite.  Take a dish you and your family already eat, and see what can be improved upon. Use the internet (Google is your recipe friend) to search for healthy recipes, or even just for a healthy alternative.  Just changing an ingredient or two, or switching from canned vegetables to fresh or frozen, can make a huge difference in calories.

Some examples:

Your favorite: Mom’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

The switch: Lean ground beef instead of fatty (grass fed if you can), rolled oats to add some bulk, dice in some green peppers and onions, and tomato paste instead of ketchup on top. Whip up sweet potatoes with some cream of tartar, and if you need some moisture use a bit of chicken stock or skimmed milk. You’ve saved a boatload of calories, and added a lot of vitamins and fiber!

Your favorite: Spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread.

The switch: Whole wheat noodles instead of white. Or, if you’re really adventurous, baked spaghetti squash (cleaned from it’s shell, it’s like noodles!) A can of diced tomatoes tossed into the blender with some herbs (fresh or dried garlic, oregano, basil, and maybe a splash of red wine) and blended to whatever consistency you like.  Whole wheat bread sprayed with olive oil, sprinkled with garlic powder and a freshly ground sea salt, then under the broiler just until brown.  Serve with a green salad if it’s the right season, or toss some kale, chard, or frozen green beans into the spaghetti.

You get the idea. Switch Greek yogurt for sour cream or cream, blended cottage cheese for ricotta in stuffed shells or lasagna, add a few veggies here or there…this doesn’t have to be complicated.

What if you don’t cook? That’s a different story. That means there’s no “old standby” favorites to start from, and you’ll have to learn from scratch. Don’t worry–in some ways, that’s actually easier, because it means no bad habits to unlearn, right?

So, how do you get started if you don’t already cook? Start simple. Possibly whole wheat pasta tossed with rosemary olive oil and vegetables, or maybe a quick stir fry over brown rice. It can even be something like chicken salad over greens, or you could do a breakfast (I like fermented oats, which I know sound awful, but are dreamy). Don’t go crazy until you’ve got one or two simple, easy, go-to recipes down. Once you feel like you can maybe do more, then absolutely do more!

Related Articles

• Meatless Monday: Here’s How You Can Do It (biggreenpurse.com)
• Menu Plan Monday 9/27 (frugalupstate.com)
• Telling people to eat more vegetables has been a miserable failure (futurepundit.com)
• The October edition of the This Mama Cooks! healthy food and diet posts carnival (thismamacooks.com)
• 5 Recipes, 1 Ingredient: Whole-Wheat Pasta (healthnews.ediets.com)
• Weekend Menu Planning: Try Something New with Eggplant (blogher.com)
• Meg Wolff: A Plant-Based Meal Inspired By Bill Clinton (huffingtonpost.com)
• Creativity in the Kitchen (groupon.co.uk)

Monday Healthy Eating

Plan your lunches.

Step away from the deli, get out of the drive-thru line, and put down that processed frozen lunch entree. Lunches are incredibly easy meals to plan, and doing so will save you calories and money while gaining nutrition and flavor.

Your lunch options will depend on your lunch facilities, so take a minute to think about it: do you have  access to a refrigerator? A microwave? Toaster oven?  Can you use a cooler if no refrigerator is available, or store a hot-bag or thermos? Once you’ve got that figured out, the rest is pretty easy.

Make a list of foods you like that fit those needs. Obviously, if you are completely without the ability to keep items cold at all (and aren’t allowed a cooler), your options are the most limited; but, their are still options. Nut butters sandwiches or wraps, fruit, nuts, baked goods,  and many more foods keep just fine for several hours without refrigeration. If you can’t heat things up and can’t carry a thermos or warm bag, you can still take many things that are great cold.

Some of my favorite lunches, not including leftovers:

• Black bean burger wraps (pictured). I make up bean patties and toss them in the freezer, so I can just pull one out and crumble it into a wrap with whatever toppings I feel like!
• Home made hot pockets, stuffed with everything from fresh fruit to turkey and swiss with fig jam, from meatloaf to mac and cheese! The crust recipe I use is below, adapted from this recipe in Vegetarian Magazine.
• Miso chicken & shitake soup.
• Boiled egg, sliced with heirloom tomatoes.
• Pineapple tuna salad on baby spinach.
• Miso noodles, with shredded chicken (canned works fine) and some veggies.

There are all kinds of things you can use to fill out your lunch, too. Roasted almonds (which release leptin,  the “full” hormone) sliced fruit, a side salad, homemade granola and yogurt…you get the idea. The list is endless, you just need to add a bit of creativity.

Planning your lunches for the week will help keep you on the healthy-eating track, and it’ll make you the envy of the office!

Hot Pocket Crust Recipe

• 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 4 Tbs. cold butter or trans-fat free margarine (or soy margarine)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 Tbs. apple cider or white wine vinegar

Get the mixing directions here, and while you’re at it, you should really try the empanadas. They’re amazing.

It’s Personal!

I love these personal frittatas. Farm fresh eggs, local greens and tomatoes,  fresh milk, and grated Parmesan. They’re also incredibly impressive coming out of the oven, and don’t take much to prepare to perfection. Did I mention they freeze well? What’s not to love?

There’s no set recipe, and I change them up a lot depending on the ingredients I have to hand and the seasons; but, the basics are:

-A small, personal tart pan

-Baking spray

-2 farm fresh eggs

-2-3 tbs. fresh milk, cream, or sour cream.

-Salt, pepper, ground mustard, cayenne. Other spices, like thyme, basil, oregano, etc. can also be added to compliment your fillings.

- Fillings of your choice. Meats should be cooked.

-2 tbs. hard cheese, finely grated (I like Parmesan or Sharp Cheddar)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray pan liberally with baking spray and place pan on cookie sheet,  then spoon in about 4 tbs. filling ingredients. In separate bowl, beat together eggs, cream, and a pinch of each spice with a whisk. Stir in all but 1 tsp. of your cheese, and pour into tart pan. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top of egg mixture, and place tart pan (still on the cookie tray) into oven. Bake for 25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into center. Allow to cool completely in tart pan, then gently run a butter knife around the edge of the frittata and remove from pan.

You’re likely to be seeing more “individual” foods here, as Thadd’s back in school and needs things he can toss into a cooler and I have clients that need something they can carry to work easily. If you’ve got favorite “individual” foods, share with us! Or, if there’s something you’d like to see, just ask and I’ll see what I can do!

Food Photos!

I’d like to think you come here for my wit and food politics, but we all know you’re here for the food. Since I’ve been a bit light on food porn these last weeks, I’m going to throw a bunch at you today to catch up!

Above: You all know we eat from local sources as much as possible, and I just found a new source for amazing chicken: Davis Creek Farms. Their 100% pastured, free-range, better-than-organic chickens are slaughtered on the farm by the family, and they’re delicious. The bird above came trussed just as you see it–ready for roasting. His prices, which was about $3.40/lb for whole birds, are totally worth it for the flavor and the good farming practices. The carcass will, of course, go into stock later this week.  Below: These freshly-dug potatoes and carrots were roasted with Herbs de Provence for a wonderful side dish. Fresh potatoes have a richness that store-bought just can’t match, because store-bought potatoes are stored in warehouses just above freezing. These temperatures change the starches in the potatoes, rendering them less creamy and muting the flavor. The baby carrots tasted like carrots, not like sugar. Yum! The leftovers will be mixed with beets and beet greens in a homemade chicken stock base for a wonderful soup. The carrot tops will be used in pesto (thanks to the farm for this idea!).

Below: Falafel is hard to come by in this area, and we’ve been craving it. I finally had time to whip up a batch a few days ago:

Below: Summer brings cold fare to the table, in part because I tend to lose my appetite in the heat. For lunches, I’ve really gotten into savory smoothies, which are essentially gazpacho every day! They’re healthy, full of vitamins and fiber, and fill me up while cooling me down. I side them with some protein (usually an egg, cheese, and/or nuts), and it’s a light, filling lunch that is also full of what I need to keep up my active lifestyle.

Now that market season is here and our CSA has started, we’re looking forward to a lot of produce and a lot of new recipes. We’ll also be doing, as usual, a lot of preservation via canning, freezing, and drying. All this means lots of new pics, so if you’re just here for the food porn, you’ve got something to look forward to. If you’re here for the politics, don’t worry, that’s coming, too!

Healthy Eating Tip of the Day/Week/Whatever & What I’m Doing

One of my biggest “tricks” to staying healthy is to eat a really diverse diet. Science has proven that people who eat a wide variety of foods are generally much healthier than those who eat a limited diet for a few reasons: 1)  it provides a wider variety of vitamins, minerals, and micro-nutrients,  2) your metabolism is kept off balance, so your body works harder and burns more calories, and 3) your body, especially your tastebuds, feel more satisfied, so you eat less overall.

If you’re having a hard time getting in some diversity because of time, just make some small changes. Take a new fruit for lunch, or toss a different vegetable on the grill tonight.  Add some sharp cheese and red pepper to your salad.  Looking for bigger changes? Consider trying some different cuisines, like Indian, or switch to a vegetarian meal once or twice a week.

I want to add even more diversity to my diet, and get some more raw fruits and veggies in. I do fairly well with my daily veggie intake since I love them, but there are days like today when I’ll be working from 7:30 AM to 7:30 PM, and eating a salad in the car is a recipe for disaster. So, next week (I’ve already been grocery shopping this week), I’ll be adding savory smoothies to the “superfood” smoothies I’m already doing. While the fruity ones keep my sweet tooth at bay, I don’t always want sweet.  I’d love to hear your recipes, and I’ll be sharing mine here as I experiment.

I also think these will work out well for me when it gets really hot out. I tend to not eat in the heat, and a savory smoothie might just be the perfect way for me to get in the foods I need!