A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Dr's Kitchen Monday: Blackberry Parfait and simple Salads

In the quest for better eating habits I'm experimenting a lot these days.  I'm still eating my home-made granola for breakfast but I'm playing around with ways to dress it up and add more fruit in: parfaits for a fun change.

What made this particularly interesting was that I had not one drop of milk-milk in the house, only soy milk. But you know what? It worked.  Well.  I kicked up the nuttiness of the soy flavor by adding a little almond flavoring along with the vanilla in the custard sauce which complimented the walnuts and almonds in the granola. The blackberries then cut the richness of the custard to make the whole thing very well-rounded lovely start the morning.  (Gene ate his for dessert last night and loved it.)

(Recipe at the end of the post.)

FYI to anyone here in Springfield:  Price Cutter has the packages of blackberries that normally come in at $3.99 on sale for $1.00 a carton right now and they're very good.

I'm also experimenting with salads for every meal and finding new options for flavored beverages that aren't loaded with sugar and don't come in my favorite red can.

Presto Pasta Nights #45: Split Pea/Alphabet Pasta Soup

For the lovely Ruth at Once Upon a Feast's weekly Presto Past Nights blogging event, I made soup. Again. But really, can you ever eat enough soup?  It's filling. It's good for you. It's comforting.  That's a win-win.  This time it's a little difficult to see my pasta so I'll show another pic. 

Not only does this soup have split peas and alphabet pasta in it, it also has yellow and brown lentils, wild rice, and barley. Then, when I made it I added onion, carrot, green and red pepper, and celery which makes it vegetarian.  I haven't decided to go exactly back to strict vegetaranism but I have decided to make most of my meals non-meat. I have to have a little wiggle room for seafood and the occasional steak.  It's like any diet. Once I say "absolutely no more of that food will ever be consumed by me again" is the exact moment when I can think of nothing else and would walk on a bed of nails on my knees to get that, so knowing myself, I'm saying that I will eat much less meat than ever before.

Just FYI,  I didn't put all of those peas, lentils, rice, pasta, etc., together but I was glad when I saw it at the Amish Store in Branson and will be buying more.  They have several dried bean/pea soup mixes that are just wonderful. With the veggies I can saute at home and herbs I can add myself, it's a full but quick meal to put together.

The mixes can also be ordered directly online from The Amish Country Store.  Most of the products are made by Missouri Amish families.

Doctor's Kitchen Monday: Veggie Patty-licious

This is the story of how these ingredients:

became dinner:

It all started with the book "Skinny Bitch" by  Kim Barnouin and Rory Freedman, a "diet" book with colorful language that cracked me up and inspired me.  The book basically advocates vegan eating.  I'll be honest. The book itself didn't give me any new info.  I've heard this all before. I read Eric Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation and I lived in Eureka Springs, which is the Taos of the Ozarks. I've heard the whole cruelty to animals speech and I do not dispute it. I just freely admit that it never before kept me away from a tall glass of milk or a medium rare filet. 

Until Skinny Bitch. For some reason, the presentation whether it's simply the confrontational attitude or the multitudinous amount of swear words (which I loved, by the way) made me pay attention this time. Still, to be completely honest, it's not even the PETA speech that gets me, it's just that I suddenly thought "I've never really liked eating meat...so why am I doing it?"  I could get up on a big moral high horse and tell you that I've been enlighted and that the poor fish hurt from being hooked but that really isn't me or how I think.  We're people; they're animals. We're the top of the food chain.  I'm middle America all the way and I know it. I grew up in a family of hunters in a community of hunters.  My dad and his friends took vacation time to go out in the deer field every year.  My siblings and I all knew how to cast a fishing line practically before we could walk.  BUT, unlike a former acquaintance whose father goes to Africa twice a year to shoot big game just so he can hang heads and skins on his den walls, my family ate what dad brought down. We grew up poor and I admit my dad poached deer like crazy to put meat on our table. I still have no problem with that at all, nor do I have a problem with people who do eat meat.  On the flip side, I've known for a long time that as long as I eat a varied vegetarian diet I'll get plenty of protein and I'm very well aware that factory farms are not the same thing as hunting a deer or two out in their natural habitat for my family's personal use and to keep the deer populations from starving themselves out.  One is conservation; the other is a really poor process that's mostly about dollars not purity of food or compassion for animals. Of course, I don't like the idea of factory farming animals in cruel ways although I stop short at the argument that if we didn't eat cows the ozone  layer would be safe from cow farts. 

I know I'm simplifying but I'm doing it to keep things light not because I take these things lightly.

My point is, in a nutshell, I don't want to pretend to be something I'm not.  For me, this is all about how nice it would be to get off the protein guilt merry-go-round and not worry about it all the time. I can't tell you how many years I've spent preferring to eat a quinoa salad or a vegetable salad with a thick piece of whole-grained peasant bread but denying myself thinking I had to eat a hunk of meat. Well, no more. I'm not completely locking myself in because, quite frankly, I don't do well with ever telling myself "no" to anything without a rebellious back door to escape thorugh when I feel the need, but over the last few weeks the only animal flesh I've had is teeny amount of chicken in soup, part of a crab cake, and two bites of Gene's birthday steak.  I just don't crave meat so I'm getting off the guilt ride, South Beach and Atkins be damned.

Earlier in the year, I went on a 3 month diet with coworkers and lost 20 lbs.  Since then I've gained back 8 lbs followed by losing 4 lbs the first week I stopped eating meat, followed by I'm-not-sure-what-but-it-can't-be-good (I refuse to get on the scale) since this horrible past week where I've been ravenous at night and the voices in my head won't shut up until I feed them popcorn covered in butter and melted marshmallow at 2am.  Being inside my own head is like living out a Stephen King novel behind my eyes at times.

Weekend Herb Blogging Celebrates Two Years: Rice and Beans with Zucchini and Annatto

Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen is celebrating the two year anniversary of everybody's favorite food event: Weekend Herb Blogging.  Congratulations, Kalyn! Check with Kalyn's site from Monday on to see the round-up of all the wonderful herby and veggie dishes from around the world.

Her celebration coincided with my personal celebration of 1) having friends in from St. Louis and Woonsocket, RI that I haven't seen in --forever!--and 2) my one day shopping spree.  I've really been working on my spending habits this year, as in, trying to reign my spending habits in and I've been pretty successful so far.  It feels good to feel more in control of the whole instant gratification thing, if you know what I mean. But I did allow myself one day at one store with my friends to go a little nuts. That one store was The Amish Country Store in Branson where they have my all time favorite aisles of spices. The Amish Country Store is a family owned business that stocks furniture and food products produced by local Missouri Amish families, along with a variety of about 150 fresh spices brought in weekly in bulk and repackaged into smaller containers. Usually I stock up on fresh home-bottled (canned in glass jars) goods and Mrs. Miller's noodles but on this trip I concentrated on refilling my spice cabinet.  Here's my haul:

From top left to right: ground annatto, dried celery flakes, dried red and green bell pepper (I like having those on hand for when I need seasoning but the crisper is bare), red popcorn and coconut oil (I was weak), dried lavender, dried chamomile flowers, star anise, Hungarian paprika, cardamom, lentil and pasta soup mix, and  Tupelo honey.  You'll be seeing a lot of these things in the coming weeks.

My featured spice for today is: Annatto

Doctor's Kitchen Monday: From Julia Child to Arkansas

THIS is one of my favorite recipes in the whole world. I first ate it at Dairy Hollow House in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, in the 80's.  It's the same country inn I worked for owned by cookbook author Crescent Dragonwagon. This was a fairly common and very beloved appetizer served at the Inn's six course Prix Fixe dinner.  It's called a crepe torte and is designate by how you build it, be it "garden", "Italian", or "Mediterranean" in Crescent's The Dairy Hollow House cookbook, available from DragonZ books. 

Now, I have a bit of a funny story to tell.  I had no idea until Sher of What Did You Eat?  and I were talking about it and she mentioned that it sounded familiar, that this recipe was originally created by Julia Child. With a little research into her Julia cookbooks, Sher found the recipe as Julia created it, after enlisting the help of her assistants, including a young Sara Moulton. The dish was specifically to be vegetarian and Julia was always very generous with giving her assistants credit with its creation. 

Now, how to phrase this correctly?  I'm not saying Crescent didn't give credit where credit was due most times, but I had a good laugh over this one. Not once do I remember it being mentioned the whole time I worked at DHH that this recipe came from Julia Child.  AND, no where in the DHH cookbook is it mentioned that this came from Julia Child, even though the recipe, down to the layers of carrots, mushrooms, and okay, green pea/zucchini instead of Julia's broccoli, are the same.  Unlike Julia, Crescent made hers in a cast iron skillet. That's the one difference I can find. 

It's not a huge thing, but it amuses me. I always thought that Crescent made this up all by her little lonesome.  Hmmm...come to find out the inspiration for this recipe was remarkably well put together...and by someone much more famous than Crescent.  Maybe I should be embarrassed that I don't know every one of Julia's recipes by heart but c'est la vie.  I admit it bothers me a bit that this was not openly acknowledged to be a Julia Child recipe when Julia herself very openly gave credit to her assistants for helping her creat it.  But hey, just one more disappointment in life to find out one of my heroes was made of clay.  The story of my life. :-)

On with the show.

The recipe, whether from Julia or Crescent is fabulous. Fab-oh-lust!  This recipe is sooo good that when I took it into work, one of the gals looked at it and thought it was pretty. Then I told her it was all vegetables and her comment was that she hates most vegetables. Then she tasted it. She loved it.  I happened to have a few extra servings because I'd wanted to share with a couple of foodies at work and she ended up eating one of them. A whole serving. I was so proud of her. That's a big compliment for someone who normally doesn't eat/like many vegetarian or vegetable dishes.  Personally, I think I could eat it every day and never get tired of it, for the taste, the prettiness, and because there are so many fresh vegetables in it that it's got to be good for you, vitamin-wise, even if there is quite a bit of cheese (meaning fat) in it.

I've made this three times in the last week. The first time was basically (as much as I can follow a recipe without my inner Glenna tweaking) Crescent's Italian version. That was wonderful and the version I took to work to share. The second version was an experiment lumping all the veggies and binding cream together inside a top and bottom crust made of egg roll wrappers just to see if it would work. It was okay, but just barely average. I'll never make it that way again. The third time was the winner.  I still used mostly Julia/Crescent's layers and the idea of how the whole thing together, but I left out a good part of the cheese, subbing light tofu, and subbed skim milk for the whole milk or cream of Crescent's version. The results were very good.  The final nutrition counts are a little higher in protein and a lot lower in fat. The protein is important to me, being chronically anemic. I know I've mentioned it before but not being a huge meat eater it's something I constantly must keep on top of so I don't have to go back on the icky iron pills.

Replete with basil, oregano, parsley, and garlic, this is my week's entry in Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen's Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Kate of Thyme for Cooking.  Check in next weekend for her roundup of herbed cooking!

Good Things Sometimes Come in a Glass: Cucumber Lime Water

Especially as we're heading into spring and summer, what could be more refreshing than Cucumber Lime Water?  No fuss, no muss, no sweetener, simply chilled fresh filtered water with a light aroma and taste and a few ice cubes and cucumber spears to crunch on.  A pitcher of this water makes it easy to get those 8-10 daily recommended glasses in without seeming like a chore.

My entry for Cate of Sweetnick's ARF/5-a-day Antioxidant Rich Foods, eating the cucumbers and the lime juice you squeeze into the water give you the same Vitamin C as drinking orange juice, only without the sugar added to commerical drinks.  Cucumbers are a good source for Vitamin A, calcium, and potassium.  Set a pitcher in the fridge and enjoy all day long. See Cate's round up for other healthy foods this week.

To make, simply toss peeled cucumber spears, the juice of one lime, and slices of another into a pitcher of water, along with as much ice as you'd like.  Chill.

Woohoo! No longer a Sushi virgin!

Remember when I posted the photo of my dining room set for sushi and I said the only things missing were friends and a platter of sushi?  Half of that is no longer true as of last night.  The husband was out of town for a while tonight so I had the kitchen to myself with no one expecting anything to come out of it at any certain time so I took this opportunity to break out all those sushi toys Aunt Miranda set me up with and leisurely play. 

I took tons of pics which is a lot harder than it seems when you've got one hand holding on to the bamboo mat and the other hand sliding around the camera trying to get a decent shot.  I had fun.  I think most people who've rolled/formed their own sushi would probably agree with me that it's not hard, exactly, just a little tricky, as in, takes a little practice to get the muscle memory and coordination to get the rolling down for uniformity, an eye for the right amount of rice and middle ingredients, and then a sharp thin-bladed knife and a deft hand.

My entry for Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen's Weekend Herb Blogging, my focus wasn't on a specific herb, but the plant Porphyra, known to us by its Japanese name "nori", the seaweed wraps encasing or wound up into our sushi rolls. It is also the "seaweed" you find small strips of in your miso, or other soup at a Japanese restaurant.  Nori is an edible species of red sea algae that is dried and formed into wraps the size of egg roll wraps in a process very much like papermaking.  Nutritionally, nori is a good source of magnesium, potassium, and iodine, and an even better source for thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, iron, copper, and manganese.
       Kalyn will be posting a round up later tonight at Kalyn's Kitchen with entries from all over.  Check her out!  (That sounds naughty.)

Doctor's Kitchen Monday: Carrot, Chickpea, and Barley Soup with Tofu

I found this soup recipe in Shape Magazine this month and it really intrigued me. I've never thought of carrot or chickpea soup, let alone putting them together.  Along with the barley, just reading the recipe made me feel healthier and in the need of going to the gym to complete the day. So I did, right after I made the soup for mine and Gene's lunch.  It was excellent, deceptively hearty with tons of flavor. I confess, though, I did monkey, or monkAy as Jeff at C for Cooking says, around with the recipe a bit.  After my initial tasting, I decided I really needed a better bottom note to round out the flavor and got what I was looking for by adding a tsp of curry to the mix.  I also needed a little more protein since I'm chronically anemic and am constantly being reminded by my primary care doc to "eat more meat". Yeah, whatever.  Tofu works for me in this case.  As a side note, if you substituted vegetable stock for the chicken stock and left off the parmesan garnish, the recipe would be vegan.

  This is also my entry for Alanna of A Veggie Venture's "Soup, Glorious Soup" blogging event for the month of February, celebrating the warmth and nourishing qualities of soup. I heartily agree!  Nothing takes the chill off winter like a good bowl of soup. Check in with Alanna throughout the month to see the updated menu of soups being celebrated.

Doctor's Kitchen Monday: Alicia Silverstone's Tofu/Stuffing Casserole

I don't mind telling you I really thought this was going to be one of those posts where I got to make big fun of a recipe. I just knew I would hate this recipe.  I mean, come on. For one, it has tofu in it. That's a staight line waiting to happen right there.  For another, it's endorsed by a celebrity. Again, hello? Straight line. Come to mama.  Oh how I wanted to prepare this dish and then let it rip about how Alicia couldn't possibly REALLY serve this in the real world because it tastes disgusting.  It didn't.  Da**it.  Maaaaaaan, I just hate it when my fun is spoiled, especially when my moon is prepared to rise in saracasm. 

To be perfectly honest, there isn't a big "oh my gawd, I'm suddenly in love with tofu" flavor.  The flavor is all from the stuffing but if you make a decent stuffing and like eating stuffing, then you've got a win-win in this because all the tofu does is add some silky kind of cottage cheese-y like texture. That worked fine for me.  Then when you look at the calorie counts (following the recipe on the next page) it's a worthy dish to me to add to my repertoire.  I get flavor, I get a few yummy carbs in a world where carbs have suddenly become the evil protagonist, and I get protein. This is a good thing to a girl who isn't a big meat eater.  Not to mention I get easy.  I used to be into long compicated meals. I still am, but since going back to work I'm finding that I don't have the time I used to have to cook so I also need some faster recipes.  Let's see...a bag of good commercial dry stuffing mix from the pantry, a couple of veggies from the fridge crisper,  a box of tofu from the cheese drawer, and 10 minutes time from saute' to oven so that I can work on my novel during the baking time.  That really works for me.

And listen, I don't mean to have a bad attitude about tofu, I've just never found anything I really liked it in, as in recipes I've made. And I've made several recipes from the net and cookbooks, all promising to make tofu takes like steak but either those food writers are damn liars or they have no tastebuds because it still always tastes like tofu which tastes like, not much of anything or anything good, quite frankly, to me.  I love everything Morningstar Farms produces so it's not that I'm anti-vegetarian, I just haven't found any recipes that makes Mori-Nu real high on my "keep these things stocked in the house" list.  Every few months I go all tofu guilty and pick up a box while I'm the grocery store and promise myself that THIS TIME I'll find a recipe that makes me suddenly fall in love with the stuff. We all know it's good for us but it's like eating brussel sprouts. I'm all behind them in theory and I think they look kinda pretty but I just hate eating them. I try. I really try but I just can't figure out what's so tasty about them no matter how I boil, braise, saute, bake, or bury them in ice cream. Tofu's like that.

So along those lines I have a story to tell. It's not my story. It's Aunt Miranda's story and she can feel free to correct my mistakes in telling it in the comment section because I've lost her original email telling this story or I'd just copy/paste that so you could hear it in her own words.  Aunt Miranda works for a dairy co-op and part of her job years ago had her trekking in and out of the food lab.  The guys often handed her spoonfuls of new ice creams and yogurts to try, fed her new cheeses and milk mixes, and what I like to call "Dorito dust", the cheese flavorings Frito-Lay buys from them to flavor all your favorite chips and cheese doodles and what not.  So one day Aunt Miranda walked in the lab and was handed a spoon with some white stuff on it which she promptly put in her mouth, thinking it's a new ice cream or yogurt or soft cheese or whatever, and then she's so grossed out, she doesn't quite know what to do with it. Didn't want to swallow it and didn't want to not look like a lady by spitting it onto the floor with a gag.  You know, like a guy would do.  Finally, she either swallowed it or asked around it "What is this?" And one of the lab guys told her "They call it tofu but the nearest we can figure out it's the white part of chicken sh** "

See? It's not just me that isn't in love with tofu but I'm still trying to give it a chance and I've finally found ONE recipe I like it in.  We need to have a party to celebrate this moment.  This is it, the first.  Give it a try.  I'll be making this again.

This is also my entry for this week's ARF Tuesday, Antioxidant Rich Foods, brought to us every week by Cate, at Sweetnicks.  Besides the non-artery clogging tofu for protein, the stuffing has walnuts in it which are loaded with great Omega fatty acids, manganese, copper, and tryptophan which is the amino acid in turkey that acts as a relaxant I usually blame for my holiday afternoon napping.  I promise there aren't enough walnuts, nor that particular amino acid in the recipe to send you dropping to the couch, or if you do nap, don't blame the walnuts.  Be sure to check out Cate's round up of all the delicious and healthy dishes prepared this week.

Carrianne's Goat Cheese & Caramelized Onion Bruschetta

Are these gorgeous, or what?  My friend, Carrianne, brought these to the last girls' night party. She came in a little later so I didn't get a pic of them with the rest of the food but, hey, at least I remembered to get a photo and asked how she made them. They were delicious.  A huge hit of the party.

Also, notice the fresh parsley on top.  These are a perfect combination of the bite of goat cheese, the sweet from the caramelized onions, and the fresh swipe across the palate of the parsley.  Rounding all of that taste off is the crunchy texture of the toasted baquette with the smoothness of the toppings.  Yum. We were all saying "Thanks, Carrianne!"

I know we take parsley for granted sometimes since, like kale, it's been so overused as a forgettable garnish by the food industry, but parsley is one of my favorite herbs, next to my beloved thyme.  Parsley's versatility is remarkable when you think about it, being able to go from one end of the spectrum as a simple breath freshener to the opposite end and hold its own as chimichurri sauce.

Carrianne's bruschetta is my entry this week in Kalyn's weekly Weekend Herb Blogging tour, hosted this week by Kalyn at Kalyn's Kitchen who has some great photography tips up this week to check out.