RSSCategory: Food & Recipes
Why You Should Be Drinking Kefir
January 4, 2010
I don’t for a moment buy into the marketing concept that younger is better, or that aging is bad. I most definitely do line up with the belief that healthier is better. Not the same thing. I think this is something we should be doing, with a big long-term health payoff.
Read moreRosalie’s Chicken Soup
December 7, 2009
It is simple and fabulous. In a month of heavy, complicated, demanding, salty, expensive, calorie-burdened food, this is a blessing of a different kind.
Read moreInsanely Healthy Pumpkin Bread
November 5, 2009
Yellow vegetables take a little more work to figure into every day. My favorite thing is this bread.
Love it with soup. Love it with honey.
Love it with ED Smith More Fruit Cherry Blueberry Jam, which I can no longer buy because I have a little problem with it.
Beyond Bean Salad
September 24, 2009
I’m not looking for mere survival here. I want supreme and excellent health. This is anti-aging from the inside. Anti-oxidant, anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, you name it. This is escape velocity in a bowl.
Read moreThe Salsa Hit of the Summer
August 25, 2009
It was so pretty, like a mound of shining colored stones. People began putting it on their little lime tortilla scoops. Next thing you know, the chips have been dispensed with. Men are shoveling it into their mouth with spoons.
Read moreThe Soup Hit Of The Summer
August 21, 2009
My brother-in-law is a chef. He can prepare 5-Star menus that seem more art than food. Xavier made this gazpacho in 12 minutes in a cottage. It was on the table in a huge plastic bowl. I had 6 cups and I kept sneaking looks back at the bowl to see if I could get the last cup without being piggy.
Read moreBook Review : The Omnivore’s Dilemma
June 1, 2009
What was the last non-fiction book that I could call un-put-down-able? That’s easy. There has never been another one.
I was speechless and spellbound.
Among its numerous awards, Michael Pollan’s book was named by the NYT Book Review as One of the 10 Best of 2006. I would say One Of The 10 Best, period.
You can read the first chapter and read what others have said on the book’s web page.
If you eat, if you talk about food, if you buy or prepare food, if you think you know what you’re getting or you think you know where it comes from, you’re about to be politely but definitely awakened. You might wish you could continue living in your old world of un-knowing.
The book is divided into thirds. The first section takes us through the depressing and horrifying labyrinth of corn production and usage.
The farm ain’t what it used to be and is only barely where food begins. A netherworld has grown between farm and food store, a dense and solid wall of chemistry and creative marketing. After all, there’s a limit to how much food we can consume. Or is there? The food bureaucracies keep finding new ways of making us pack away more and filling their pockets while they watch.
Meanwhile, the farmer is caught in a game that he can only lose. I wish he’s talked more about the psychology of the farmer. A more stubborn and independent group you will never find. They cannot come to an agreement about anything. Their collective character is part of the problem.
Section 2 takes us to an “organic” farm, though he explains that the “organic” label is so disputed as to be rendered almost meaningless. Salatin’s farm is what we want to believe we’re getting if we buy organic. Before anyone spouts another opinion about the Farmer’s Market, before you resist when your teenagers announce that they’re going vegan, before you decide if your organic strawberries are worth the cost, arm yourself with some facts.
I think most people who buy organic (I don’t, by the way) realize that it’s not what we hope for. Just as in buying Green cleaning products and non-animal-tested cosmetics (and I do), we are all trying to cast a vote for chemical-free cruelty-free world and saying we’ll pay more for it.
In the description of this farm is a prayer for our future that will never be answered. I felt almost overjoyed to read about Joel Salatin’s farm. This farmer’s understanding of natural process and his methods of miniaturizing them to suit his 500 acres are astounding. The workings of this incredible place in Virginia are so beautifully orchestrated to achieve cycles within cycles that it seems to be the only and obvious answer to the industrial mess that corn has become.
Except for one problem – it utilizes, even exploits, the inherent randomness of nature. The industrial revolution came about when business realized it was cheaper to product 1000 identical units than 10 different ones. They went on to notice that the numbers worked the same way for the productivity of human beings, meaning that 1000 people doing the same thing were cheaper to pay and easier to control than 10 people doing different things.
I wish he’d outlined the finances of Salatin’s farm better. Does his wife work? Yes, he has no inputs or loss to disease, but he needs buildings and machines. What does he clear in a year? The size of his animal and plant harvest are given and they are impressive but I’d have loved to see a balance sheet. For Salatin, it probably doesn’t matter because he’s living a life he loves and believes in and there’s no dollar sign on that. For farmers interested in trying to transition from industrial corn and soybean production to a model that allows them to truly be the stewards of the land that they pride themselves in being, more dollar talk would have been interesting.
The final example is an illustration of what a complete thinker Pollan is as he looks at a topic from every angle. We accompany him on a mission to prepare a meal that he has gathered and prepared at every stage. He forages for mushrooms and fruit. He decides that if he’s going to eat meat, he needs to experience the act of killing to defend his action of eating it.
Every spring, as I prepare to make the annual Tabbouleh, I look at the oregano and mint in my garden, and think “how sure are you?” I feel surging trepidation as I wonder if it’s mutated somehow. I worry that we’ll all have awful cramps later on. Who discovered that it was the rhubarb stems you could eat? and if it took awhile for the leaves to kill you, how did they trace it back? Pollan recreates for us the entire history of humans learning through trial and serious error what is safe for them to eat.
This section contains some of the most fascinating discussions in the book and raises some disturbing points. For instance, we might deplore hunting but eat meat. Regardless of how we feel about the moral decency of taking life or enjoying killing, our position may be untenable since the wild animal has had an overall better life and death than the farmed animal, most especially the factory-farmed animal.
If McDonalds’s has a failure rate of 5% at the abattoir, does this mean it’s acceptable if only 5 cows per 100 are skinned alive? Jesus. And apparently the situation at the slaughterhouse improved when McDonald’s came along and set some standards. As the WalMart of the food industry, McDonalds, and indeed the whole fast food machine, has to appear beyond reproach at every level, but even 1 in 100 seems to me too many. Fast food walks a fine line, as does the cigarette industry, because they are selling us something that may be bad for us. We don’t have to choose to buy, but the argument is not that different. The less public inquisition, the better for them.
Maybe the level of complexity that we’ve allowed to overtake the food industry has been a way of protecting ourselves from the debasing ,ugly, cruel reality and allows us to blame someone else for the destruction.
You’ll also find the most intelligent discussion of vegetarianism in these pages. No single outcome is revealed to be the right one and no opinion is criticized or accused. Pollan doesn’t propose the right path or a new path. His goal seems to be to force us to question at the deepest level our feelings about food and recognize the level of complexity and near-impossibility of finding the solution.
I wish he’d contrasted European and Canadian farm policies with those in the US but I expect that’s the topic of another book and some distance from Pollan’s real interests. Canada doesn’t deserve to have farmers. The bureaucracy forces them to compete on a global playing field with a huge handicap. Perhaps cynical of me, but until we know what it means to line up for 5 hours to get bread or what empty shelves look like in the supermarket, nothing will change. Europeans know all too well what that looks like and treat their farmers more carefully.
For me, cooking is just another chore, a job that I can never cross off. Through his eyes and experience, I see that preparation, sharing, even the saying of a grace is the human tradition of gratitude for the sacrifice that an animal, plant, and place must make to feed us.
My brother-in-law, Xavier, is the only bred-in-the-bone forager I know. It always seems so odd to me that he thinks about food so much. I now understand that he is not perpetually hungry but simply showing the deepest respect for the true source of food. The skill of foraging, that most of us have long lost, takes enormous time as Pollan learned.
Once we sit at his table, sharing the final meal, we have covered a lot of territory.
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What was the last non-fiction book that I could call un-put-down-able? That’s easy. There has never been another one.
I was speechless and spellbound.
Among its numerous awards, Michael Pollan’s book was named by the NYT Book Review as One of the 10 Best of 2006. I would say One Of The 10 Best, period.
Greek Salad – Fast and Healthy
January 30, 2009
A child can assemble this if you do the slicing.
I make everything in huge amounts, but you can adjust accordingly. We seem to eat more than other families.
Ingredients
- 2 heads Romaine lettuce, torn – place in bottom of large bowl
- 4 tomatoes, cut in chunks – plop on the lettuce
- 2 English cucumbers (or field cucumbers in summer when they’re good) – on the tomatoes
- 1 500g tub Feta cheese ( this is one place where I don’t use low fat, it seems tasteless and waxy) – crumbled on the cukes
- 1 red onion, thin slices – on the cheese
- black olives – what, about 1 c., on the top, if you like them.
Dressing
- juice of 2 lemons
- 1/4 c. olive oil
- 1 package fresh oregano – soak the leaves in water, squeeze the clump of leaves out like a rag to get rid of most of the water, give a child a bowl and some kitchen shears and have them start snipping
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- salt, pepper to taste
Usually, I make the Romaine bed ahead of time. I have the dressing ready in a glass jar. I add the rest of the ingredients at the last minute and pour the dressing on then. I don’t even toss it before serving. Perfect for the buffet table.
Did you know that our Greek Salad is far from the authentic Greek Village Salad? As Lina and Susie explain, in the original, there is no lemon, garlic, or lettuce. So that leaves tomato, cucumber, feta cheese, onion, olives, and oil.
You’re using fresh oregano everywhere, right? Oregano has higher antioxidant activity than blueberries! than garlic!
Fresh herbs are cheap as chips and easy to work with. Dump tons of them in pasta sauces (kids will not detect basil or oregano in spaghetti sauce), lasagna, stir fries, stews.
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This Greek salad comes together in less than 15 minutes. You wash, get one child to assemble the salad, another to make the dressing, and you’re out the door.
Read moreSuper Healthy Banana Bread Most Kids Will Eat
December 5, 2008
The world already has too many Banana Bread recipes. This one is as healthy and low fat as it gets. So many foods have become nutritional and weight control booby traps. The assumptions we make about bran muffins, fruit smoothies, yogurt, or oatmeal cookies might be far off the mark in terms of their healthiness. Too often, they’re just diet ambushes waiting to strike.
Eat This, Not That
Have you seen the articles and features from the book Eat This, Not That ?The book is by David Zinczenko, editor-in-chief of Men’s Health magazine. The 3 books are about learning to make simple, leaner, healthier food substitutions at home and in restaurants. Weight loss foods, best drinks and restaurants for kids, supermarket selections … specific foods and menu items are identified. It’s not only about calories. I like this question that asks “Is this the worst drink on the planet?”
This banner is linked to the book site (not certain how long this offer is valid, and remember there is a third book on Supermarket Survival),
Avoiding prepared foods works better than anything. If I can make my own soups, salad dressings, and baked goods, I can control what’s in them. You can experiment by changing any recipe to contain less fat, less sugar, more fiber. Almost always, it still tastes fine.
The original version of this recipe appeared in Bonnie Sterns’ More Heartsmart Cooking but it’s been altered.
Stern’s simply fabulous Simply HeartSmart Cooking has the honor of being the cookbook from which I’ve made the most recipes, just about all of them in fact.
Only the die-hard junk-food-and-candy gang won’t eat this banana bread. Or those extremely suspicious and selective little souls out there, who will eat peanut butter, prawns, and not much else. I know two of these and love them dearly, but they wouldn’t find anything they could eat in my house. It would be stress city.
You can always mix in chocolate chips, nuts, or put honey, icing sugar, or jam on it. Let them choose a special jam (it would be Strawberry from the grocery store chez nous) and make sure this is the only thawed bread in the house they could put their special jam on. This is the bare bones recipe. In my house, if I add anything, I start registering complaints. If I try to make them eat the polluted version, I can expect notes like this.
Between my friend, Jan, and I, we’ve devised the lowest fat, lowest sugar, highest fiber, best tasting Banana Bread out there. Nutrition-packed. Takes 15 minutes to make if you try to go as slowly as possible. This is a great place to begin family food and lifestyle changes without rocking the boat so much that people fall out on the first trip.
Ingredients
- 3 bananas, mashed
- ½ c. buttermilk or plain yogurt
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 2 Tbsp. oil ( I use a canola/olive blend)
- 1/2 c. dark brown sugar
- 1 ½ c. whole wheat flour (I use organic Spelt flour from the Bulk Barn for any baking that calls for whole wheat, and much that doesn’t)
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- ¼ c. freshly ground flax seed (buzz it in your coffee grinder ; you can see it at The Healthiest Smoothie )
- ¼ c. wheat germ
- ¼ c. wheat bran
Technique
Same as every recipe on this site, I believe : Fling it all in one bowl in approximately the order above. Mix it all up.
Pour it into loaf pans. I line the loaf pans with wax paper because it’s fastest.
Jan adds a delicious texture bonus. She greases the loaf pans (instead of using wax paper) and sprinkles the inside with whole flax seeds. That way, the crust of the bread is a little crunchy. It’s very good and the flax seeds are invisible against the color of the crust, in case the skeptical souls are looking for something to distrust.
Bake it for 50 min – 1 hour at 350 degrees.
Stock your freezer. The loaves are great to take to the beach or on family trips, and can be thawed quickly if people come over to visit. Got a houseful of kids? Slice a loaf, put it out on a plate so they can help themselves. Add a few slices of apple so it looks pretty. You’ll be cleaning crumbs. Even the white-bread disciples will eat it.
Banana Pumpkin Bread
I found this great recipe at allrecipes.com . I’m always looking for ways to get yellow vegetables into everyone. I made it just as it says, dumped in about 1/4 c. of wheat germ and wheat bran, and called it Pumpkin Pie Cake. Went over big. It looks like this:
Firecracker Cornbread
This recipe for cornbread comes from 101 Cookbooks. It is outstanding. The next time I make it, I’ll double the red pepper flakes so it has a real snap.
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The world already has too many Banana Bread recipes. This one is as healthy and low fat as it gets. So many foods have become nutritional and weight control booby traps. The assumptions we make about bran muffins, fruit smoothies, yogurt, or oatmeal cookies might be far off the mark in terms of their healthiness. Too often, they’re just be diet ambushes waiting to strike.
Read moreListen To The Renegade Lunch Lady. Please.
October 25, 2008
Meet Chef Ann Cooper. She’s changing the way we feed children.
I LOVE THIS WOMAN.
Chef Ann Cooper
I love her message.
I love her topic.
I love her passion. She has a fire in her blood that sparks out her brown eyes.
I love her devotion to children that are not even hers.
If I got a closer look at her boots, I think I’d love them too.
Chef Ann takes on the lunch bureaucracy at TED.
This is the right woman for this job.
Who’s the grownup here?
Don’t explain to kids why they need to eat green food. You don’t negotiate toothbrushing, do you? Give them the choice of this green food or that green food, but one of them is going in. This is what “freedom of choice” looks like, and not “Do you want green food today?”.
You don’t ask your kids what lane of traffic to choose or how to spend investment money because they are incapable of knowing. You wouldn’t take a 15 year old’s advice, much less a 6 year old’s. Giving choices to those who cannot make them is just plain dangerous.
You are the grownup. You, and only you, have a responsibility to decide which foods are right. When you became a parent, it was in the job description. You also took on the role of teacher. You are teaching them to make the right choices for themselves for the rest of their lives, about everything. Food just happens to be the most important one.
I know it’s a daily fight. I know if you make a deal out of it, life escalates into a stress feast for everyone. But if there are chips, cookies, and ice cream in your house, none of your efforts will work. They can hold out longer than you because they’re the ones with the energy.
Does your dog play the food game?
I meet many folks who tell me their dog can choose what food its body needs. Hogwash. Does your body tell you what foods it needs? The last time you were stressed, did you reach for lentil casserole or that bag of Dill Pickle chips?
Dogs are as equipped to make decisions about nutrition as kids are, and they will make the same mistakes.
Don’t agonize over whether it’s fair or right or respectful of their rights, or if it’s natural. Dogs quickly learn to play the game of needing a new taste sensation every 4 days if you enlist in that program. Masters of extortion, they learn that if they don’t eat supper for a day or two, the selection only gets better. Small breed dogs, especially the white ones, drop into this world having mastered this beyond any level you can hope to achieve. Don’t bother engaging because you will lose.
Dogs and kids do what works. Stop letting it work and they’ll stop doing it almost immediately. They may move on to something new to annoy you, but look at each situation and think about what you’re doing to let it work. With children, as with dogs, food is entirely a control issue. It is not a taste issue.
Why your dog ate your couch
Kids and dogs also do what they’re used to. Being destabilized causes them anxiety so they’ll expend energy to keep the status quo. If, for some unfathomable reason, you want a dog (or a kid) that needs a new kind of food every three days, then start feeding him that way. If you want a dog that needs constant acknowledgment and reassurance all her life, then start off by paying her constant attention, especially when she demands it.
Then, you’ll doom yourself to dreaming up fancy dog food options, when you’re not cleaning up the couch the dog chewed because it loses its mind if it’s being ignored. Once you’re done cleaning, you’ll need to run to the vet to pick up the dog who had the couch buttons cut out of its stomach yesterday. Have you any idea how many people choose to do this?
If you have a few other things to do that sound more fun, let the dog learn that the food stays the same and they can learn to be ignored without harm. The decision lies entirely with you. Start them off the way you want them to end up.
Good Habits are hard to break too
Once they’re in their teens, children get ideas that they’re suddenly controlling us. The underlying psychology of Grade 8 seems to me to be that they have the adult world where they want it. If I remember myself correctly, that belief remains in place till one’s early 20s.
That’s why you have to start ASAP, so good choices aren’t choices at all, just habits. I think they like having a solid sense of “how things are in our family”. They can feel that they stand for something.
Think of how we would look if we’d started wearing sunscreen when we were 2!! The skin on our face would look like the skin on our other cheeks. And to think that that is a very real option that was squandered. Let’s at least give it to our children.
Now that mine are over 12, I encounter more resistance about everything, but I persevere. They’re just making the point that I can’t control them and I am not the boss of them. They’ll avoid anything they perceive as parental guidance.
They care more about how they look. I’ve talked to them a lot about long term investment and the payoffs at the other end. We talk to them about smoking. They see the long term effect. We teach them to respect their bodies. They see women who are capable and strong. We teach them about savings and investment. They see restraint in the present for reward in the future.
Can every one of us be our kids’ food advocate, like Chef Ann Cooper? Or are we, as parents, just too damn tired to fight with kids and with a destructive bureaucracy all the time?
Should we bypass the grownups entirely and teach the kids? Is this generation smarter about sex, seat belts, driving drunk, and smoking? Sadly, I don’t think they are. Our species is hell-bent on destroying itself. Then we turn 40 and finally think …
Chef Ann’s other books
Within 10 seconds of landing on a new website, I’m at the About page. The snaking path that throws choices our way reassures me that everyone’s life can be varied and rich. You don’t have to be stuck at the same desk for 30 years. Chef Ann’s About page is a great one. Don’t miss the books she’s written, at the bottom of the About page.
Lunch Lessons by Ann Cooper and Lisa M. Holmes
Have a look at some of the recipes this cookbook contains.
Do you agree that Mother’s Kitchen (shown below) looks beautiful as well? Don’t we all remember the foods our mothers, grandmothers, and aunts were renowned for, that we loved (or dreaded)? Cooking with a child nourishes their body as well as their spirit, teaches them pride in their contribution to the family, creates memories that last their lifetime, and forges traditions that they will teach their own children.
Kids LOVE learning and they LOVE knowing that you want to spend time showing them what you know. More than that, they NEED it to survive.
In Mother's Kitchen by Ann Cooper and Lisa M. Holmes
Meet Chef Ann Cooper.
I LOVE THIS WOMAN.
I love her message.
I love her topic.
I love her passion. She has a fire in her blood that sparks out her brown eyes.
I love her devotion to children that are not even hers.
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A Greener Tea
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