After having a mediocre Cream of Cauliflower soup in a restaurant chain in Utah, I made this better Cream of Cauliflower soup:
Wash and steam 1 head of cauliflower, put through a food processor or blender. Add water, a little olive oil, 1/4 cup barley or wild rice and 1-2 chopped carrots and 1-2 purple/blue/red potatoes. Go with what you can find. Bring to a boil and keep boiling 15-20 minutes. While doing that, dice/shred either: 2 large kale leaves or 1/2 head of broccoli. Prepare 1/4 black beans and 1/4 cup kidney beans. I used canned and washed off that salty syrup. Dice some bell pepper, pick out your seasonings, then reduce your boil to a simmer and add everything in. Simmer 1 hour. Reduce heat to low simmer. Add milk (optional), and some shredded cheddar cheese (optional). The milk will make your soup more smooth in texture, and the cheese improves flavor maybe a little, but can also be added to each bowl individually to keep the thing vegan.
Add any other additions you like. Healthy, mostly delicious and full of character. And I don't get my cauliflower in normally because I don't enjoy eating it.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Cauliflower Soup
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Have you ever seen an ugly orca?
Andrew explains that nutrition does not exist.
When I shop at Costco I am treated to an endless parade of noodle-armed men and hefty women buying "Muscle Milk" protein powder, "Weight Watchers" shakes, and even now, seawood block snacks. I used to take protein powder, when I was a sucker, and a teenager. And I could see drinking a weight control shake, if it were not made entirely of corn products and had less than 1000 ingredients. Or if it worked, but you would think all these people would notice after a bit that their expensive products were not working. As for seaweed, I am quite willing to believe in its healthful properties- for porpoises. If you are a narwhal, then by all means, gobble up seaweed as fast as you can, or if you are Japanese and eating seaweed because your country lacks space for farmland and it is tradition, go nuts. But if you are a puny or a doughy American, then why not eat things you like instead?
Mostly, I have decided nutrition is silly. For one, what do we need all this nutrition for? Olympic athletes should watch every bite, but you can probably keep up with your nonsensical noise of instant unfiltered newsvertising, and your hectic schedule of driving anytime you need to travel more than 70 feet, with a less than optimum diet. The trouble with nutrition is its an industry (what isn't anymore). And you don't move products with proclamations like: "Vitamin C: still good for you. Stay the course!" So I end up with a roomate who has seaweed blocks he will never eat, edamame taking up half our freezer that he does not eat, and 72 large cans of coconut water, which Doctor Oz told him can maintain fluid balance and hydration. How one gets so dehydrated watching TV all day every day, I don't know. I had never even heard of such a thing as Coconut Water. It sounds like a waste product to me. As in, "hey the runoff from our coconut plantation was just re-classified as pollution, so we can't let it drain into the bay anymore without paying a fine- do you think we can sell it to fat Americans with eating disorders?" "Hmm, I don't know... Call the agent to Doctor Oz, and ask how much a 5 minute spot on his show runs for!"
Doctor Oz is hard to interpret. I mean this: Does coconut water show up in stores 1 week after Doctor Oz mentions it because fat women and my roomate have unhealthy crushes on him and would jump off a bridge if he said to without thinking? So stores instantly seek out suppliers to snare their share of the loot? Or does Doctor Oz mention coconut water because the industry paid him to as an in-show advertising spot, which is what savvy firms are doing now (I think) because people don't even notice ads anymore they are so prevalent (its like noticing a leaf in the forest as opposed to leaves)- BUT people still trust the content of shows. That is after all the traditional deal. The station offers you something you want which is (rarely) good, in exchange for making you watch things you don't want which are bad in small doses (ever larger). But there is nothing holy to that. So I don't trust these daytime shows. Any spot they do is probably paid for by the featured product/person. Its hidden advertisement, and the paid ones are still there so no one suspects a thing. When Doctor Oz talks strawberries at the beginning of their "in" season, is this because his programmer planned out the year in a logical order, or because California phoned with their credit card number ready?
As for coconut water and seaweed- well its a wonder, they are so healthful- that the human species scraped along long enough without access to them on North America to invent and perfect intercontinental oceanic shipping that allows us to get our miracle tropical products. My roomie is also a big believer in coconut oil as a replacement for butter when frying foods. I finally put it together why my eggs periodically scorch instantly on bottom long before they are cooked- no I'm not an idiot, which had been my working hypothesis- his coconut oil residue does not come off with one washing, and is not intended, despite what the jar or Doctor Oz say, to be used to fry eggs with. So now I have to wash my pan before and after I cook with it, or I get black eggs. But at least my roomate is getting slightly more nutritious eggs than I am. Just imagine how many more miles I could hike with ease than him than I already can if I would just stop eating all the things he tells me are no good for me. And then I wouldn't get sick for 4 hours per year, as opposed to the 25 days he was sick in a row this winter. All that time we breathed the same air and he coughed and sniffled and moaned seeking sympathy (if you want someone to care you have a fever, get a girlfriend/boyfriend- not a roomate- that's my tip of the week), and not once did he stop looking at me like a fool for eating butter on my toast, or make the connection that he was the sick one and I never caught it. He's just waiting for me to drop dead someday mid-motion while spreading butter with the knife, and thinks I'm a real cow for weighing more than him. Then again, my girlfriend weighs more than him too. Muscle weighs more than fat, and a lot more than hot air, which is what people are mostly composed of.
Another adorable trait I love and discussed with Camila and my friend William jestingly years back is how if you put a proper noun before any food term, it will sell faster, and for twice as much. Madagascan Vanilla. Black Forest Ham. Greek Yogurt. Do you know what makes Greek yogurt Greek? Well in Greece, it is goat milk yogurt, not sweetened. That is about the only difference. In America, where Greek Yogurt, thanks to that demon saint Doctor Oz, is big business now, there is no difference. It is cow milk yogurt sweetened with fruit and sucrose. Yet people have to have it. After all, Doctor Oz says Greek yogurt is healthier (because it is not sweetened as artificially and has less sugar) so it must be.
Variety too is a fraud. I have slowly worked past this chimera, and it is the last one that held me. We are trained we must get different grains, vegetables, and so on. Well, do you know what the nutritional difference between barley and oats is? On a long enough time line, barley is slightly better for you. So over 40 years, say eaten 1 bowl per day, barleymeal would provide you with say an extra pound of muscle and 8 oz less bodyfat. But for that, you would have paid 4 times as much money per bowl. And day to day, there is no difference. None at all. Not one significant anyway. The Irish did quite well on potatoes and milk with ham once a year. The only flaw with their plan is they uniformly decided one sort of potato was best. The Scots did just fine on oats and milk. There were athletes into the 1940s who ate nothing but red meat and beer. My rule of thumb has become: eat 5 things daily. Preferably, foods. As in, not a tube of icing- that does not count on your 5. But spinach is 1, potato, 2, yogurt, 3, and so on. 5 per day is plenty of variety. Forget the 9 grain bread. Getting 2 grams each of 9 grains is not going to make a difference from 9 grams each of 2 grains. With fruits and vegetables, the story changes, and you may want to use more varieties, and variety. Try new colors of potatoes, mix in some radishes, buy an heirloom tomato rather than a Roma. But don't go crazy.
Of course you can't sell any of these ideas. Or you can, but only once. It never ceases to amaze and terrify me that people can actually exist on a level where they are influenced by advertisements and trends. They hear about coconut water, and take it for granted for some reason than a television entertainer is only on television out of the goodness of his heart for their benefit, because he seems so nice. It can't be his fat salary, and he would never say anything just to fill up a show or because he was paid to or the last poll showed he was a little too conventional. But I've never been able to sell anything to anyone about nutrition. All my friends have ever wanted is confirmation. They are nodding as they ask you, "I should do blank, right?" Nodding to let me know what the answer should be, so I don't embarress myself. Its like having a softball lobbed at you when you're a kid.
Here is another rule of thumb: your grandpa probably could have kicked your butt at the same age you are now, or at any age you will ever be- so if he never ate it, you don't need it. Maybe, you should try to be more like your ancestors who were tougher and fitter, and less like weenies who are doing everything right according to a textbook or a scientist, who is also a weenie. As reader Tom reminded me once, many cultures just eat what they feel like. For tradition, or pleasure, or any other reason, other than nutrition. And I think that pleasure can be nutritious. Maybe more than nutrients can. That is, you're probably better off eating lettuce and liking it, than spinach, because it has more Vitamin A, and hating it. You get a chemical response to food and that has to be accounted for in any accurate nutritional system. There remains a lot we cannot measure. Vegetables were dissed in the early 20th century as empty, because they had few calories. That was the rule for a lot of years. Baby formula was going to be better than mother's milk. What audacity it is to say really. I don't know how any person can be religious and think they can outdo "God"/"Nature"- same thing, just one has a face that is more easily marketable, or any woman can be religious and use baby formula under any terms...but that is an opinion. But the fact is, formula is not better. It never will be, I expect. In a microscope, and a bomb calorimeter, it tests and shows that it should be better. In a baby, it isn't. Seaweed might help whales look trim even when 50% of their body mass is blubber, but that doesn't make it better for you than a bag of peanuts if you like peanuts.
And now for a new subject: in my last post, where I suggested you all type the phone book, my friend Maried Marie who is quitting next week (probably) added that you will need to sit in the most uncomfortable chair you can find, and cover your keyboard with grime first, and preferably use one where at least one key sticks and is hard to press down, and also, have someone sneak up behind you and say things every few minutes to simulate all the announcements we get over an intercom, and have a partner screw with the thermostat to make it 80 degrees for 5 minutes and then to kick on the AC to simulate the strange fan system in our building. Then you'll have the idea.
The best story from the book "How Carrots Won the Trojan War" by Rebecca Rupp was one I came across today. A true delight. The tomato is a fruit, botanically, but so are most vegetables- as pointed out by the Supreme Court, when they ruled on the status of tomatoes (vegetables paid a tariff and fruits did not), in 1896. So they decided that vegetables were simply a vernacular term used by the people to signify garden produce eaten with the meal rather than after, as dessert, as fruit was eaten, at that time. The man who had refused to pay a tariff on his tomato shipment, owned up that this was quite well spoken and reasonable and paid. Of course, his other option was to go to jail, so perhaps he still disagreed. Anyway, the tomato is a legal vegetable, and always will be. Not explained is why the United States had a tariff only on vegetables. I would presume it was because some fruits which could not be grown in America were wanted, but that vegetables, which could and can be grown locally, should be. So tomatoes had a tariff on imports, because they grow just fine everywhere and why support Spain's farmers and not our own? And risk bringing bugs in and fungi? Smart people, our ancestors. And they didn't even have a reliable supply of coconut water.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Butternut Squashes and Books
Recipes from Butternut Squash Days.
On March 1 I realized I still had 4 farmer's market butternut squashes. How many did I buy in September you ask? Well, 4. Though I am rounding. I do not really like butternut squashes. But I know I should. And I have had some great soups in organic markets (also bell pepper bisque! Need to try making that soon, when Butternut Squash Days ends soon). So I vowed to learn this winter how to properly prepare these little fruits, and then put off doing it until I ate everything else and became afraid they were going bad.
So, I prepared a decent butternut squash soup and think I have identified my error in 3 straight winters: cloves. I do not like cloves, but they cost so much, I keep using them as a gourmet spice. I have now decided cloves are antagonists to butternut squashes. Next I tried a chili, fearing it even as it smelled delicious and even as I tasted it. And it was...delicious. Very pleased and am making it again this week with my last squash. Also, it may be the only chili I ever make again, and was very filling. Even meat obsessives I know agreed (the kind of people who apologize shamefully when they serve a meal without meat) Another good recipe is curried lentils and butternut squash chunks. Both recipes are included below:
Butternut Squash Chili
Peel your squash and then dice up into large 3/4 inch or so chunks. Boil with some Anasazi beans or any other dried beans you desire for 1 hour or so. Then add: 1 can diced tomatoes (or fresh if available), 1 can pinto beans, 1 can butter beans, 1 can black beans, 1 can kidney beans, 1/2 small can tomato paste, 1/3 bell pepper diced, 1/2 jalapeno diced, 1/2 anaheim pepper diced, ground white pepper, touch of black pepper, 1/8 cup or less brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, black olives, corn kernels (1/8 cup or so), olive oil, touch of red wine vinegar, 1 clove garlic minced, 1/4 cup dry quinoa. Simmer for 45 minutes to 1 more hour, until quinoa has burst open.
Curried Lentils And More
Wash and boil 2 cups lentils with 1 peeled and diced butternut squash about 45 minutes, then add 1 cup blackeyed peas (if frozen; if canned or precooked then add later so they do not dissolve into mash) and go another 45 minutes at a simmer. Add 1/2 cup kidney beans (from can; if using dried, then start with the lentils and squash), and mix in red curry paste to taste. 2 teaspoons may do it. I think I used 4 and it was pretty spicy. Top with cashews when serving. This last touch adds fat to the meal you will want to stay full and also really puts the flavor over the top. If you add while cooking they will get soggy.
As for books, well briefly as promised once in an old post, I will tell you of Samuel Pepys. He eats a lot, and his diary is interesting periodically. For instance where he whines for sympathy about his wrist so sore he can barely write. Why is it sore? Why from beating the chamberboy until the switch broke and his wrist near fell off of course. Not that it did the little hellian any good. Pepys is sure he practically enjoyed his hiding out of sheer malignancy. And also, he has a lot of affairs. And he sometimes needs consolation from friends for beating his wife so bad he fears her looks will suffer for it and other men will think less of him for having an ugly wife.
A better book is the Essays of Montaigne, often simply for their folklore. Girls who play hopscotch too aggressively are in danger of shaking loose their inner boy parts which will fall out of their mmhmmhummhuh, and then they will be boys. Its science. But he is a good man for his age, one of consideration, balance, merit, and intelligence. Always witty and entertaining, he is said to have invented the essay because he did not like any of the more stylized and formal rhetorical forms.
Better still is the exquisite, and adorable "How Carrots Won the Trojan War" a book I have been milking for fear of the day when I finish it, for now several months. The introduction is if not plagarism from Micheal Polin, than clearly influenced by him, but no matter. The meat of the book is fine stuff. While the title story is silly and pretty much just a sentence (and who would call a sentence a story: other than Hemingway's famous and incredible 6 word short story- look it up), but the book mixes science with anecdote, humor, history, and everything else. Learn how peas nearly swung world history in 1775, and how growers produce massive pumpkins, what vegetables Jefferson the president was taunted over by his neighbor, which vegetables were considered aphrodisiacs and fed to French kings by their mistresses (hint: remember that for a long time medicine trusted in similarity as remedy) and get this sort of satirical but also doting quotation: (on a cucumber brine) "According to the Athenians, consumption of it explained the Spartans' legendary bravery in battle; black broth was so awful anyone compelled to eat it was willing to die." and "Whatever one's personal opinion of the potato, almost everyone agreed that it was a good idea to feed them to somebody else." Highly recommended, and with cute illustrations.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Halloween 2: Feburary 10 (approximately)
Because you just can't get enough of a good thing. And some other holidays are just too scary.
The missus and I threw a Halloween 2 party for our and mostly my friends. It was our and mostly my idea, because Valentine's Day is silly, a scam, offensive, fraudulent, and way too pink for a man as butch as I am. So we picked a Friday night because I have to work Saturday nights, invited all the people we thought would come and then some we hoped might. Although we forgot about her cousins- darn. And I made it a pot luck so we and mostly I would not have to cook everything. The day before we whipped up a half order (75 cookies) of gingerbread hippos, dinosaurs, and elephants with my cute cutter shapes, then decorated them with sprinkles and Teresa's fine from-scratch frosting. They were cute. Then we put together a spooky haunted house gingerbread kit I bought on clearance in November and tucked away for a rainy day because you never know when a Halloween might attack you suddenly- just look how many sequels there are by that very name.
For our dinner contribution, I made my famous Chinese slow pork which normally goes on tostadas or fresh-fried tortillas from scratch, but was just a stand alone. Chinese aromatic spices, brown sugar and green diced chiles. It was as usual a big hit and provided left-overs. Goes great in a salad, an omelette, or over pasta or rice. Teresa boiled a box of "Mother In Law's Tongue" pasta I bought at a World Market store- $6.98 a pound- but fun. It was so pricey that I had saved it for 3 years. The best by date was a 2010. Whoops. But it was still fresh. It is dried after all. And a popular hit. Pictured above.
We had 10 total come, and no one else dressed up, but I made them wish they had with my magnificent full-body spandex that only complete confidence can carry off. I told them before changing that I was going to shame them into wishing they were more fun and had worn costumes, despite being so heavily outnumbered. And I did it. Just like I had at work for the 2 day costume contest when I went as hairy, angry, loner with a heart of gold and a high sense of honor, and much baggage of all sorts who has bad dreams, X-Man Wolverine on Day 1 and then a hooded Ninja on day 2 with kitana and the line of my underwear very visible from the tightness of the body suit. And few others dressed up. But I did get a new fake work girlfriend out of it. This one is married with 4 children and has a perfect attitude. She asked me why my friends weren't around much anymore so I said, "well I wasn't going to tell you, and they haven't said anything to me, but they all think we're having an affair and want to be left alone." So she worried for about 5 seconds and then got annoyed for 5 more, then said, "we should egg this on! It'll be fun." With me going on a 2 week vacation we both knew people would really start to talk and wonder so we started inventing stories, and were even finishing one another's sentences: tell everyone I made a pass at you after talking you into carpooling one day...and then I slapped you...yeah!...and you slashed my tires...what a jerk I am!...I know! So you were fired...bummer!...No I'll be the desperate one. I begged you to run away with me...so I used all my vacation time to get away from you and hope it all was better when I came back...that's believable!
Ah good times. She's much better at coping with social attention than my under-aged fake work girlfriend was.
Teresa was a Bandito, though she failed to look menacing with her toy water pistol, tiny guitar that has only one string short enough to pluck and tune (it snapped by the way when she tried to play a one note song), and bright smile. But she pulled off the Guy Fawkes mustache pretty darn sexily, if I dare admit.
Everyone did bring food, good for them. Even if it was mostly all from Walmart. The Twilight Cupcakes were at least in the spirit of the slightly appalled but triumphantly exuberant nature of Halloween 2, which stands boldly in the face of its enemies and such and such. Traditional Halloween 2 decorations can also include a tiny holiday pine tree, preferably fake, and decorated with your favorite ornaments. We put out a big pile of chocolate wrapped in Halloween foil I still had, and still have, and one girl brought a good clam dip and some no bake cookies. Then we watched Looney Tunes mocking Cupids and romance, pitting ducks and bunnies against inferior witches and vampires, and talked pleasantly for 3 hours with a Charlie Chaplin film playing, there when anyone wanted it and in those few moments of awkward silence. The film seemed to confuse most, who did not get that it took place in 1929 so the millionaire was ruined and saved every couple of hours and would change moods accordingly, the flower girl crush was blind and apparently approximately deaf and without any sense of smell, until the final scene, when the whole party stopped and everyone was horrified. Now that is an "anti-Valentine's Halloween 2 movie ending!" I said triumphantly to a few boos and some applause. The other option was "A Brief Encounter" which ends with 2 scenes of the two leads crying after not having an affair because they are already married to good people and have children waiting for them at home. But a silent movie is just more perfectly suited to parties.
Sadly Married Marie from work could not come, as she had to work, along with a lot of my other friends. But a new tradition was started maybe, and it was still better than Valentine's Day.
A Few Belated Dishes
Various recent successes.
I whipped up a quick and delicious salsa with grape tomatoes- which I love, though about 1 in 10 is a bomb when you bite it- sour and gross. So: grape tomatoes left whole, diced jalapenos and chunks of orange bell pepper. Onion powder, a handful of fresh cranberries, cilantro, tomato paste, olive oil, brown sugar. Chunky or thin as you like. Its different, colorful, a mix of flavors, and familiar enough.
Made a good "Rancher's Pie" today. Been craving "Shepard's Pie", which originally was done with mutton, but in America now is more common with pot roast or ground beef. I kept the same principle which is to layer mashed potatoes and shredded melted cheese atop a base of beef stew. Mine was slow cooked stew beef shreds and chunks cooked in red zinfindel wine, tomato paste, and a touch of olive oil and ground white pepper, touch of onion powder, little garlic, then cooked atop a bed of no-boil lasagna noodles (Barilla's are excellent), mixed with green beans, kidney beans, corn, peas, fresh organic cauliflower (which has more flavor and is about the same price), then topped with my Patriot Potatoes (red, purple/blue, and yukon gold spuds with butter and a touch of chives and dill), and then shredded cheddar, baked to perfection at 375 for 35 minutes. Not life-changing, but a deluxe version of an old dish. So I named it Rancher's Pie, as a humble shephard would be outclassed. It could use some coffee bean grounds in the slow cooker with the zinfindel. Just a few. Really. And go with what you have and like on vegetables. In summer, I'd have had golden squash and zuccini in there.
My new favorite seasoning blend on fish is to use cajun butter and McCormick citrus rub. The rub has lemon and orange but needs a little more pep. So I use my trusty flavor injector (a syringe the size of a pistol which is always fun to play with and which I got precisely to make use of this butter marinade, which I bought in a quaint gas station that only had bathrooms open to paying customers a few vacations ago when my girl really really needed one. So I bought this for $8 and hated it- until mixing it with the fruity rub. I have used this blend on salmon and halibut, and someday soon, catfish. Three lucky people heartily approved. Teresa said it smelled good- for fish- which is the first word she's ever had to say about fish other than eeeeewwww, and she even ate a bite. Her opinion then was eewww, but with a lot less emphasis and eeees.
As for that dehydrator: I still enjoy it, though it is really a harvest tool. But with a two week vacation coming, I dried a celery stalk, a carrot disced, 6 potatoes of 4 colors (red, purple, yukon gold, and sweet) into natural unflavored chips, some kiwis, green beans, a bell pepper, and more of my already stated samples. The carrots and kiwi stay gummy, but are very flavorful. The kiwi is so sour it makes me wince and I cannot keep my eyes open- so this is another in the file of preserved trail mix foods that are sugared or dyed to make them more appetizing in stores. However, I love them anyway. Its like a sour candy slice. The potatoes dry very crunchy and with a touch of oil while hot and any seasonings, would be better than potato chips. Sweet potatoes dry more slowly, stay softer, are harder to slice thin anyway, but are my favorite. So delicious. Green beans and bell peppers shrivel to very crisp stalks and are almost unrecognizable with little volume. They are not preferred drying foods, though they do for travel, and the flavor is still there, mostly, though a little altered. I have not tested them for re-hydration yet. Potatoes should be blanced in a rolling boil before drying, for around 5 minutes to preserve color. I left their skins on. All of this will make for welcome variety on a trip of 12-14 days I am going on. Some weather means I will have to cut dirt road driving I intended out, thus I will not be doing a few hikes I was excited about, though I will be in Arizona and doing what I like and getting a nice little rest from work and the rut. I put together a wild trail mix of dried raspberries, blueberries, cherries, blackberries, craisins, coconut, papaya, pineapple chunks, banana chips, pecans, almonds, walnuts, kiwi, and seeds along with the typical 10 mile trail mix blend of mine. Also I have a fine product called "Just Tomatoes", a mix of freeze dried peas, corn, carrots, tomatoes, and peppers (bell in the mild and jalapeno in the hot: I mix the two varieties to create a mildly hot) which is great in soups or by the handful and a good way to get vitamins while hiking. I added celery, green bells to the red peppers, and also have mushrooms (white and brown), the green beans, and of course, more of the apple chips from the wind storm harvest which should last through June I think. Add them to 19 cent ramen noodles or $1.79 Ready Rice, with whatever else you like- freshly caught fish, or dried venison, or protein candy crappo bars labeled "Meal Replacement Energy" and that's good eating. I have no idea why anyone would pay $6.00 or more for a calorically similar dried meal that takes no less work and tastes no better once they knew how simple and cheap this was. Yes there is the cost of the $70 dehydrator to work off, but I should "turn a profit" (if a penny saved is a penny earned) if my dehydrator, the Nesco American Harvest, lasts more than one year. And that is not accounting my alternative meals at $6.00 per serving, which as an avid hiker, I have never paid. I'd rather starve for two days, and I used to just eat cereal and fresh fruit.
I have no reason to think my American Harvest will not last at least a year -except that after letting my friend and roomate know he could make "SOME" banana chips if he liked, the next day 21 pounds of bananas were on our floor. After a disturbing 7 day binge, 21 more pounds of bananas were on the floor with the promise: "I will make these ones last." 10 days later he asked me to dig out my dehydrator which I had hidden to make "a few more" banana chips before I was out of town. He then, after securing the machine, came in with "a few" bananas. I said it looked more like 50 pounds. He said it was actually only 42 pounds. If you are wondering, that is about 100 bananas. Which is close to 2,500 grams of sugar (though he still in the same sentence tells me fruit has no sugar because it is full of fructose and badmouths high FRUCTOSE corn syrup, and also says I should stop eating sugar and sweeten things naturally with honey- which is a liquid form of sugar.) As I will have to pay to replace the machine should it break, I told him I was putting it away. So he called his sister to borrow hers which has a 10 year warranty. Mine comes with a 1 year, and I have no reason to suspect the product of defect, but I also cannot anticipate that the motor will run forever. I am quite happy with it and still give it a glowing recommendation. I will try after this spring to only use it with local vegetables. I stored what I could this fall, and finally had to buy non-local potatoes the first week of February after my stash was exhausted. Kiwis of course are never in-season or local, but I only dried 3 of them. And we all have to eat something. If I had an acre I would only eat what I grew, but until then, if I want to eat 3-5 kiwis per year, I'll allow it.
Monday, November 14, 2011
The Buckle Heard Round the World
AKA The Buckle of the Century.
This is a long overdue post. But what other kind would you expect from me anymore? I closed out Buckle Season, formerly and commonly designated "summer" in some backwoods regions, with a buckle to end all buckles. A peach and 2 berry sweet cornbread buckle. Wowie. That one was good. I did 1 cup corn meal (blue and gold mixed) with 1 cup wheat flour, and threw in 1/8 cup of "Bob's Mill" 8 Grain Cereal Mix (wheatless) too, as I do in much of my baking for some texture. Used the last of the season's peaches- end of October in Utah this year if you believe it, along with raspberries and blackberries. Half stick butter and a mere scant 1/8 cup brown sugar for the whole double buckle recipe. Which makes 2 standard pie trays. I do not personally even notice the absence of sugar, as I keep reducing it in all my baking. I then compensate with vanilla and cinammon. Usually some nutmeg and allspice too. Works in apple crisps, oat bars, you name it. No one else has complained to me either. Buckles turned out to be the only bread/pie I baked all summer. My favorite combos are pear/blueberry, peach/blackberry, and plum/raspberry. But any 2 or three fruits will make for good eating.
I quickly transitioned into fall mode. Stocked up on winter melons as they were once called; spaghetti squash, acorn squash, pumpkins, and butternut squashes. And I whipped up one more apple crisp with honeycrisps and asian pears. I will miss apples, and will probably cheat and buy some "fresh" ones before next summer. Apples and potatoes are just too much a part of our lives. Though I did stock on spuds too. I love fall as well. I spent 2 weeks hiking through the best colors I have ever seen thanks to the late and heavy snowfall, and bought jugs of tangy tart cider, and lamented my lack of a food dehydrator. Would like to make preserves next fall. Really store up for winter like in the old days I never knew existed except in fiction until I was grown up.
Last week I cut into the first of my three huge eating pumpkins: note to the prospective buyer of pumpkin flesh- measure your oven first. I don't know quite how I will manage the last one. I cleaned off the seeds and got them roasting in a toaster oven while I roasted the hollowed out gourd in the big oven, with the rack sagging under the weight. Due to the size and thickness of my pumpkin and my own unusual lack of any economy of movement, I baked the pumpkin empty, then moved it to the top of the range before filling it and using it like a slow cooker. Secured the lid tight and walked away for 2 hours. When I came back the whole was still hot and everything inside was baked and blended. So what did I make? A "turkey" mole (moh-lay- I do not have the spanish tilda on my keyboard to go over the e), which must be put into quotations as my sophisticated palet can assure you that: turkey does not taste like turkey anymore, turkey has an odd spongey texture rather than the rough and dry texture turkey should have, and turkey is mostly flavored with sodium and chicken stock. Also turkeys are raised so fat their own legs break and they are miserable. Probably. But I am going to avoid turkey even more thourougly than I was already after this due to the poor quality of the general turkey flesh. More on flesh later. For now, let us say the turkey mole was good. This mole was seasoned with achiote, chiles, pepper, cocoa, cinammon, and other spices. I poured in 6 cans of butter beans, kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans, and great northern beans, plus diced anaheim peppers, corn, peas, tomatoes, wild rice, and of course, the sides of the pumpkin scraped and shredded. Quite good, spicey and sweet and aromatic, aside from the disappointing calibre of the bird.
Okay, so, I have tested organic chicken, beef, 3 varieties of buffalo meat, milk, and yogurt, and I will now give you the rundown. Organic chicken tastes like chicken. I do not believe I could pick one out from the other blindfolded, despite my honed and attuned taste buds, and the "air chilled difference"- this organic chicken is not stored in vats of shit-filled water that spreads disease and inflates the weight of the poultry so you get less for your money- though I do appreciate the air chilling on principle. Organic beef on the other hand is spectacular. Great smell, taste, obvious flavor difference. You can recognize it too by differences in cooking: the ground patties I formed cooked more quickly and evenly, the fat clung to the pan less as it cooled and was easier to clean. On the whole, I am an organic beef man from here out. No doubt. It still though does not have as much flavor as bison, my meat of choice forever more. I have tried 2 brands of ground buffalo and one of hot dogs. The hot dogs are superior to standard dogs, smell wonderful, but on the whole, are still just ground up testicles and junk meat. High Plains Bison burgers come individually wrapped and pre-formed. I don't like them much. If you are into convenience and don't mind producing a lot of trash, go for them. The flavor though is very pepper and whatever they preserve these with, dulls the taste. Go instead if a connoisseur in hopes, for Great Range Bison, distributed by Rocky Mountain Natural Foods. My very special recipe is included later. Organic milk is magnificent. Shockingly good if you are not a super taster. I remember loving milk once, and now mainly drink it from habit. Its white water, full of protein. But organic is full of sweet, rolling gentle flavor. Teresa made a face and said it tastes like cheese. She was not a fan. But I am won over. You can taste the happy, and the omega 3s animals pick up when their feed is green (as in grass). It is healthier by far and tastier too. Watch for a sale or a clearance as it is about to expire. All of this leads me to believe birds are called "bird-brained" for a reason. They may not be happy, but even happy, how happy is a chicken exactly? You can't notice its misery in the meat. Now cows, they must be a bit clever. I can tell you from a burger if the animal led a good life or not. Pigs, which I do not mention are natural jerks. They would definitely eat you if they had the chance, and they are known to torture smaller live animals by eating them slowly and leaving them half eaten then coming back for more. I do not care if my pork is happy, though I would buy humane pork if I find it. But the guilt is not there. Cows don't hurt anyone, except with methane- and by the way, the next time someone of a Republican nature says to you that global warming is not man made because all the cow farts still account for more greenhouse gases than all our cars put together, counter by saying that the cow is really one of man's first machines; the feral cattle is not an animal that is social, docile, or which could be packed tightly. Steers were territorial brutes. Much tougher and stronger than even modern bulls. They fought like tigers and males did not meet often and both live after. So there would be few cows in the world to fart had they not happened to taste darn good. In fact much of the evil in history has taken place for beef, and wilderness areas are being mauled by livestock rights. Don't believe me? I can send pictures of a herd of cows that surprised the hell out of me by being in the middle of a mountain valley in August, and which nearly felt the need to stampede me. Didn't know they really did that. I can also send you pics of a herd of cows that stampeded for fear of me in another mountain range that is supposed to be "wild" in Utah's desert. Not eating beef would possibly do more good for the world than many hours volunteering for garbage organizations like United Way and Habitat for Humanity, of which I have insider experience and little faith. And to end my soapbox speech for now: giving money to charity is for chumps. Know your neighbors, and your community. Don't send $50 to Georgia, or Malaysia. Find someone who could use it near you. Give it to them. A kid, a mother, whatever. A loan or a present. You do more good in this world by loving a single person well than by getting involved with these giant organizations that get so big they lose sight of what they are doing and just become machines like every other corporation. Big is bad. (And just how do Republicans say big government is evil but shop at Walmart? If you allow big business, you need big government, otherwise the biggest business, is for all intents and purposes, the government. When I see Walmart as a third party, I will worry. Don't give them the idea. They'll get it on their own soon enough.)
Buffalo Burgers:
1 lb ground buffalo
1/4 cup italian seasoned bread crumbs
1/8 cup raisins
ginger, garlic, salt, paprika, (or ideally "Mongolian Ginger Barbecue" seasoning mix sold at World Market Stores and under the brand name "Urban Accents")
Also you could try lamb burgers, another animal that is not eaten in large enough numbers for it to have lost all flavor yet:
1 lb ground lamb
4 dry mint leaves ground
1/8 cup craisins or raspberries
garlic and other desired seasonings
I prefer buffalo by a lot. Lamb just makes me want stew. Lamb owns stew. Although beef stew is pretty good too.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Whiskey-Banana Oatmeal
What's this, you say? Is this Camila, writing a post on the ostensible food blog? What madness! I must surely be hallucinating.
Well, my friend, you may be hallucinating, but not about me. This is indeed happening. I have been roused from my blogging slumber by a brilliant invention. An almost-Andrew level of brilliance. It is simple: take oatmeal, add whiskey.
Well, not quite that simple. You also need bananas, cinnamon and brown sugar. And it doesn't have to be whiskey - rum, brandy, pick yer poison. But that's it, and it's amazing. You could also, incidentally, call this breakfast Bananas Foster Oatmeal, but I think it's crucial that the description have the alcohol in question in the name. Truth in advertising and all that.
Here are two ways of making this really amazing cold-wintry-day breakfast:
1. Slice some bananas and throw them in a saucepan with a bit of butter, some brown sugar and some cinnamon. Look, if you wanted precise quantities, today just isn't your day.
2. Let those get nice and tasty and mushy and sweet and cinnamony. Meanwhile, make some oatmeal - for the love of mercy, don't use instant or quick oats. Real oatmeal takes like two minutes in the microwave. Sheesh.
3. Do the bananas look great? Awesome. Grab a bottle and add a couple good glugs. I used Virginia Gentleman, which I'm kind of in love with because it's really amazingly cheap... and totally not bad. It's even quite good. Also it's bourbon made in Virginia, so, state pride, whoohoo.
4. Sorry, got distracted. Let your bananas get to know your booze for a moment. Here's where you would set them on fire, except you just got up and your feet are cold and the coffee's still brewing and who are you trying to impress, anyway? It's 11 a.m. and you only just woke up, you haven't done anything with your life this weekend, you're not that cool, set down the barbecue lighter and look at your priorities. Who do you think you are, Emeril?
5. Dump the boozlicious bananas on top of your freshly prepared oatmeal, stir it up, sit down with your hot coffee and enjoy. Dang, Emeril can go BAM by himself; you just won at breakfast. Weekend already a success.
or you can be like camila and do this:
1. put frozen bananas in a pot. set the temperature too high. wonder for a moment at how you can manage to burn things that are frozen. admire your mad skills. turn down the burner.
2. stare at the melting bananas and think that they look totally unappetizing. Wish the coffee were ready. Wonder why you didn't clean the kitchen yesterday, or two days ago, or the day before that. Add brown sugar.
3. Cheer up when the kitchen starts to smell like brown sugar and bananas. Add cinnamon. Poke the bananas with a spoon; still frozen. Think, "you know what this needs? Whiskey." In the moment which you would normally spend pausing to check if that was a terrible idea, add some freaking whiskey.
4. Become much, much happier when the kitchen smells like brown sugar and bananas and whiskey. Start to get very, very hungry. Add a cup of water to the bananas.
5. Realize there was probably a better way to do this. Watch the bananas disintegrate and think that this looks incredibly unappetizing again. Break the bananas up with a spoon to amuse yourself.
6. Once the banana-sugar-whiskey-water mess is boiling - wasting all the whiskey, you think sorrowfully, add half a cup of oatmeal. Get distracted by emptying the dishwasher so you can look yourself in the mirror, you slob. Come back five minutes later to find the unappetizing mess turned into beautiful oatmeal with banana all mixed up throughout.
7. Add more whiskey.
8. Sit down, and enjoy winning at breakfast. Hey, at least we all got to the same place.
The craziest thing is that nobody seems to have thought of this before. No, wait. I did some more googling and guess who did? The Scottish. A great country, Scotland. Of course, they appear to eat oatmeal and brandy as a dessert, but everybody knows the Scottish are crazy.
Now, you might be thinking, "Camila, only a crazy person would have whiskey in the morning." I'm not disagreeing. But you just might be a crazy person, and you should probably try - just to find out.
