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Posts from the ‘Cooking’ Category

May 24

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SciFriday: So long and thanks for all the fish….

Tomorrow is International Towel Day!  For all you geeky folks I need explain no further but to any readers who aren’t officials on their British SciFi—Towel day was started in 2001 to commemorate the passing of author Douglas Adams.  Adams wrote perhaps one of the keystones in geek lit—“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”—which has failed for the most part in making a popular film adaptation and so most folks still haven’t heard of it.  That’s not to knock the film made a few years back; it just hardly reached the same level of non-geek audiences that say Avengers did last summer.

Hitchhiker’s Guide begins with the demolition of earth for the construction of an interstellar highway—galactic eminent domain.  Unfortunately humanity failed to notice the memo (hey it WAS posted) and gets subsequently wiped out.  All humans that is except for Arthur Dent who discovers in his local pub that his good friend Ford of many years is in fact, an alien, and is whisked away just moments before earth goes all kablooey.  Thus begins their travels hitchhiking across the universe.  Along the way they travel with the President of the Galaxy (who has kidnapped himself), a stolen ship operating by Improbability Drive, the last remaining human female in the galaxy (I see where this is going), and a depressed robot named Marvin.  You find out a certain species of whiskered four legged animal is smarter than humans and very, very evil?  Can you guess which animal this is—hint it’s NOT cats.  The second smartest species being Dolphins (humans are third you see) also escape the demolition of earth after thanking humans for all the fish we fed them over the years.

Oh and the earth was actually just a giant supercomputer designed to determine what the ultimate question is after a super computer determined the answer to the ultimate question regarding life, the universe and everything is….42.  It’s pure, delightful space nonsense.    Yet it manages to also pack some really great punches that are surprisingly on point, make you think and will be quotable even in non-geeky circles.

“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Tomorrow will also be “Geek Pride Day” which I just always kind of lump into Towel Day.  I mean what could be more geek pride-yer than running around singing So Long and Thanks for All The Fish?  If you planted a geek flag it would be a towel, with the words “Don’t Panic!” waving proud and high for all passing spaceships to see.  Why a towel?  Ah I see you haven’t read the book.  Well did you know that a  towel is the most important thing for a space traveler to carry?

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

Hitchhiker’s Guide is pretty pervasive in our culture even though you might not have noticed it.  I know of a chemistry professor for example that made sure that he always had a question whose answer was 42 out of homage to the book.  Most of the kids in the class didn’t get it….  It’s somewhat sad to me that so few people still seem to have heard of this book—at least in America—when it’s such an international phenomenon.  Originally written in the 70’s, Hitchhiker’s Guide has been made into several radio shows, stage adaptations, lp compilations, films, tv series, comic books….  I’d argue it’s the British culture equivalent to Star Trek except they also have Doctor Who so I’m not sure which one wins out there for most popular, British geeky space epic.  I wonder if they have the animosity competing Star Wars and Star Trek fans do….

If you are looking for something to do to celebrate the holiday tomorrow there are numerous events going on globally if you check the official holiday website.  Me?  What will I be doing?  What do I ever do when I have a day or even to commemorate?  I cook of course!  Since the book is oh so british, and Arthur Dent is always on a quest for that good English Cuppa, and since the dolphin song is so infectious, I offer to you the official dinner of Towel Day: Tea Steamed Mackerel.  Mmmmmmm.  Tea because duh, British and Mackerel because it’s not only one of the fish that Dolphins in captivity are fed, but because they are one of the more sustainable options at your seafood counter.  I love it when all my passions collide on a plate.  While a good solid English Breakfast tea is great, I really wanted something that would stand up to the strong salty flavor of mackerel.  After sniffing my way through the loose leaf tea section at Whole Foods, I discovered this smoked variety: Lapsang souchong.  It is remarkable with the fish.  Really, truly remarkable.  As it turns out this variety of tea was Winston Churchill’s favorite so I officially consider it British enough.  The best part is that this recipe is simple and fast, so you can easily make it with only a few minutes to spare before the demolition of your planet.

Hitchhiker’s Tea Steamed Mackerel

An Olivia Original Read more

May 14

Think Thin Tuesday: Sweet and Sour Patch Soup

Oh the Fad diet.  Most people have tried at least one.  Fasting, juicing, celery sticks, eating only foods of a certain color or only having sugar on days that end in Y…most Americans have been there.  They almost never ever work and when they do, you end up gaining back all the weight you lost and then some.  That’s because most of the time what you lose is primarily water and muscle.  Yet we continuously cycle back to them as a culture because we want to get skinny and we want it NOW –just like everything else.

One fad diet I distinctly remember from being a kid growing up in the 80s was the cabbage soup diet.  You know, 7 days of a stinky, flatulence inducing bland soup promising to help you drop 10 pounds!  Miracle of miracles.  Except it didn’t work because people go bored, people got gassy and people were basically just filling up on nutritionally empty soups loaded with fiber.  I don’t remember if my mom ever tried this diet because we ate cabbage soup as a Ukrainian/Russian Jewish thing and our cabbage soups were far from boring and bland.

Cabbage itself is actually really quite good for you when eaten raw or steamed.  It has amazing cancer fighting properties—specifically colon, bladder and prostate cancer.  It contains the chemical sinigrin—present in pretty much all the incredibly bitter and offputting vegetables we love to hate as kids.  Brussel sprouts, broccoli and horseradish are all high in the stuff but Savoy Cabbage especially is loaded with it.  Makes you wonder if Russians and Germans have a lower incidence of these really nasty cancers—all that sauerkraut does a colon good?  Red cabbage is also a particularly potent anti-inflammatory agent.

As such you really are better off eating cabbage for health either raw or steamed…but sometimes we just want a really tasty, low calorie, warm and filling recipe for those freak cold nights before summer.  At least I know I do.  The cabbage soup recipe that comes from centuries of Jewish cooking also manages to round out some of the lacking nutrition through the addition of tons of vegetables and tomatoes.  Thus it’s got a nice dosing of vitamin C so I don’t feel like I’m just filling up on fiber and water.   Plus we spice it up with some caraway seeds—which are also great chemical powerhouses of cancer fighting agents.  So even though this recipe is more diet fadly than diet friendly…it’s something that you can eat once a week to reduce your over-all caloric load and still feel like you’re doing the body some good.

Sweet and Sour Cabbage Soup

Just like Nana used to make…with a few Olivia Modifications Read more

May 8

3 Comments

Only fools Russian….

I’m going to be 25 this June.  I’m still single with no prospects and no dependents.  I’m renting a room in an overpriced Bay Area apartment.  My mom and stepdad are within “I’m crying on the phone because there’s a spider in my bathtub” range.  My mother was 25 years old when she had me.  My mother was married; my mother owned a house and she lived further than 45 minutes away from her parents.  I’d be lying if I didn’t say that part of me gets overwhelmed when I think about how far behind I feel in relation to this.  When I was half my age I would have told you I planned to be having my first child by now too.  At 20 I would have told you I should be getting married at least around now with plans to have a child in two years or so.  Now standing here at the precipice of being halfway through my twenties I feel like marriage, kids, the picket fence…they are years away—if ever.

Despite the fact that the only thing I know I can plan is for life to upset my plans, I still have all these guidelines for the love and marriage thing.  The underlying strategy to these guidelines follows that old idiom “only fools rush in.”  Marriage would follow years of dating—children should be held off until the marriage is at least two years tested.  A home should only be bought in a neighborhood that’s been thoroughly vetted for these theoretical children’s future education from K through 12.  Definitely can’t have a kid until I’m ready to simultaneously start saving for their college fund!  All these well intentioned plans that are meant to keep me safe and secure and probably will ensure I never do any of the above.

At what point does this need for security become an excuse to not do any of it?   Is the truth really that I’m just bloody effing terrified of these very permanent life changes?  Will I ever be as brave as my mother was at my age?

I mean I say I’m focusing on my career.  It’s true but if I really wanted to, if I really wanted to I could set aside the money and raise a kid.  I could do it.  I’m physically at the right stage.  I’ve got a real job with real future prospects.  I’m just too damn selfish, too damn scared and well I would ideally like to have a life partner to raise a child with so I’m not really equipped but still…I could do it on my own.  Is there an opposite phrase for “Only Fools Rush In” something like “and even bigger fools need to be pulled in kicking and screaming?”  I know plenty of people who do…well the opposite of what I think should be done and they do it quite well.

Am I just making excuses hidden under the guise of wisdom?  What do you think?  Do you have similar “rules” for planning your future?  Oddly enough this all popped into my head because sometimes when I go for a run at work I find reruns of Roseanne on and I’ll watch them.  As far as sitcoms go this show really was something special.  It was actually clever, had continuity and managed to be thought provoking at times.  It wasn’t just some crass weekly potato about blue collar, white trash in Middle America.  The opening is always the family seated around a dinner table, interacting and loving each other.  I do have a craving for that in my life.

But until I’m ready to give up these selfish ways of my single youth, I can only supply the family meal and not the family.  That’s where this dish comes in—nothing screams Sunday night family dinner more than a classic from my cultural heritage: Beef Stroganoff.  The Jewish side of my family comes from the Ukraine/Russia Ashkenazi tribe and despite having never been to the “mother country” I seem to have retained some sort of cultural tastebuds.  My passion for fermented vegetable juices, cabbage soups, beets…not exactly American.  This main course will appeal to non-Russian Jews though as it’s really just a big pot of pasta, meat and creamy mushroom sauce.  In fact it should appeal to everyone BUT jews since as we all know mixing dairy and meat is decidedly not-kosher.  Oops.  Well like I said…I’m Jewish.   I don’t keep Kosher year round…and I’m fairly certain Nana would approve of this meal.  “If it’s clean, it’s Kosher”

The flavor is OFF THE CHARTS out of this world amazing.  I know it’s far from the healthy food I eat most of the time, but this is exactly the sort of thing I crave when I really want to indulge once in a while.  It’s warm and filling in your stomach.  A more “Russian” approach might be to spike the sauce with vodka instead of red wine, but I guess the one thing I didn’t inherit in my cultural genetics was a love for that fermented potato juice.  It’s just…gross.  I think the red wine adds more body to the sauce–some cognac would be nice too.  Play with it if you like but just remember this: it’s not stroganoff without the mushrooms. Yes mushrooms.  It’s just not stroganoff without them.

“Rush-in” Beef Stroganoff

An Olivia Original – to serve 4 Read more

Apr 30

Think Think Tuesday: Raising the Steaks

What if I told you that it is possible for you to lose anywhere from 3.5 to 7 pounds in a year without changing a single meal in your typical week and without adding exercise to your daily routine?  If I told you that you can eat just as many pounds of beef in a year and lose weight simply by changing how that beef is farmed?  Do I have your attention now?  It’s a common misconception that beef is bad for you.  Beef is not bad for you.  Beef is in fact quite good for you.  It’s the kind of beef you eat that matters.  I posted last week a little bit about the corn industry and why I have serious issues with factory farmed beef.  Today I just wanted to share some interesting facts with you about the quality of corn raised beef versus grass fed beef through the simple lens of weight loss.  Just looking at our waistbands (ignoring ecology, biology and economic factors) the case for grass fed beef is far from lean.

Commercial beef has on average 8.5 grams of fat per 3 oz serving, commercial chicken has 2.5g when you average the white and dark meat.  How many grams of fat, on average, do you think grass feed beef has per 3 oz serving:

  1. 8.5 grams
  2. 5 grams
  3. 4 grams
  4. 2.5 grams

If you answered D you would be correct.  Grass fed beef, according to a 2002 study by the Journal of Animal Science, has as much fat as a commercially farmed chicken.  White meat will be a little less, dark meat actually much more, but on the whole that chicken has as much fat as your grass fed cow.  Okay great but what does this mean really in your diet?  Pardon me while we do some quick and dirty math to explain what these fat grams really mean.

A single hamburger patty from your typical McDonalds – according to their website – is 3.5 ounces and contains 9g of fat.  Okay my math says that should really round up to 10g but let’s go with 9.  At a ratio of approximately 3:1 that same burger, if made with grass fed beef, would contain only 3 grams of fat.  Sweet!  But…what does that really mean?

A single gram of fat is 9 calories.  That means you are getting 81 calories from fat in that McDonalds patty.  If you replaced that beef with grass fed, you would be getting only 27 calories from fat.  That’s a difference of 54 calories in the one burger.  Assuming you eat a single hamburger patty once a week…that’s 2800 calories in a year.  A single pound of fat is 3500 calories.  With the assumption that you eat only a single hamburger fast food patty a week, that’s almost a pound you could lose in year from simply switching from corn fed to grass fed beef.  And that’s a low estimate.

The reality?

On average ¼ of Americans consume at least one fast food/meal out in a week.  Various reports show that of those meals the average fast food consumer will eat 4 hamburgers in a week.  Doing that math it breaks down to 3.5 pounds you could lose in a year without changing the content of your diet—just by changing the quality of the beef you are eating and again that’s assuming your burger is a simple ¼lb patty.  Are you eating half pound burger?  Now that’s 7 pounds in a year.  That’s ignoring any other beef products you may be consuming.

This shit adds up.

And those fats you do get?  A 1998 study in the Journal of Animal Feed Science and Technology showed that the “good fats” needed in our diets versus saturated, make you big fats, are much higher in pastured animals than feedlot animals.  How much?  Try as many as 10 times more omega-3s in pastured, true free-range hen eggs versus factory farm, crammed in cages hens.  10 times more.  This applies to beef too.  In fact grass fed beef contains the ideal ratio of the heart-healthy omega fatty acids.  It’s perfectly balanced for our bodies.

But wait…there’s more!  Grass-fed beef is higher in cancer fighting fatty acids, in vitamins B and E as well as various minerals including calcium.  The milk from grass-fed beef can be as much as 4 times richer in vitamin E and this is because the grass that they eat, versus the corn, is that much more nutritious for the animals and therefore, for us.

So to sum up by switching to grass fed beef you could do all the of following without changing a single thing you actually eat:

  • Lose 3 to 7 pounds in a year (on average, for many this number would go up)
  • Increase your omega fatty acids – good for your heart
  • Increase additional healthy fats shown to reduce cancer risk
  • Increase your intake of calcium
  • Increase your intake of vitamin e

Now I know, I know.  Grass fed beef is expensive right?  Fine.  Here’s a recipe using grass fed flat-iron steak.  I was able to buy 8 ounces (2 servings) at whole foods for under 8 dollars.  Flat Iron is a really great cut of meat for a simple steak salad.  It’s no Filet Mignon or New York strip but when you slice it and pan sear it with the right seasonings it’s just as delicious.  It’s superior to ribeye that’s for sure.  Pair it with some greens and a perfect steak horseradish dressing?  You never knew getting skinny tasted soooooooo good.

Skinny Steak Salad with Horseradish Dressing

an Olivia Original Read more

Apr 26

Heads will Casserole

Okay Olivia so far for this “vegan” thing you shared a muffin, a cake and some vegetable broth–not exactly convincing that you are getting substantive fare on a vegan diet.  What about an actual meal?  Alright first of all I’m not necessarily advocating a full vegan lifestyle—remember the word I discovered is “flexitarian” but in being a flexitarian I do need a good vegan main course menu item or two.  Going Vegan for a main course doesn’t mean you have to rely on those expensive and often bland tasting “meat substitutes” they sell at your local grocery store.  Actually I kind of love the veggie dogs but that does not a meal make.  Organic, local vegetables can get expensive too—a meal at Wendy’s is much cheaper than a salad at Whole Foods.  So how do you work with this to make a budget friendly, vegetable heavy and still tasty vegan dish?

Let’s start by eliminating the idea that your only option for protein replacement is going to be tofu.  I love tofu.  It’s delicious when prepared correctly but it’s also soy based and just like corn, we have way too much soy in our diets.  Where corn fills the gap for producing cheap sugars, soy stands in many of your pre-packaged products because it is the cheapest form of complete protein to grow.  It’s cheaper even than the “beef” produced by the corn chomping factory farmed cows Ronald McDonald loves to use.  If you breakdown what goes into the modern American diet…it’s 50% corn and soy.  That’s nuts!  Again from an economic and agriculture standpoint, the high level of soyfarming we do is horrible.  It’s bad for the environment.  One place that loves to factory farm soy is Brazil—in land that used to be rainforest.  There’s also the not so awesome fact that most soy is GMO.  I don’t have a problem with GMO foods themselves; so far there hasn’t been anything to indicate that GM soy is inherently dangerous.  Remember I’ve got a biotech degree.  That being said, the way it’s been manipulated is so that the soy can withstand large quantities of herbicide to kill of weeds.  This means your factory farm can spray much higher levels of chemicals on your food—run off in the water and the seeping of those chemicals into the soy?  Not so good.  All the corn is GM too but depending on the modification we’re discussing I have less of a problem with it.  That’s a post for another day.  Back to the main point: more chemicals sprayed on my food is not something I’m eager to embrace.

There are also the health concerns.  Over-exposure to anything is going to be bad for you and soy is no exception.  Soyeans are high in phytoestrogens which are perfectly fine for you in small doses.  A wide array of our produce contains these chemicals which are plant based—legumes, cereal grains, fruits, vegetables and flax seeds all have phytoestrogens.  Too many?  Well…higher incidence of breast cancer, thyroid cancer and a lowering of testosterone levels which can be bad in men.  Soy also contains phytic acid which inhibits uptake of minerals that we need and some protease inhibitors which actually make it harder for us to digest protein.  Oh and overexposure?  That’s thought to be the cause of the seemingly increased number of allergy sufferers now.

Don’t lose your head and go running to the doctor just yet. Don’t think you have to stop eating soy completely.  Vitamin C can make you sick if you eat enough.  We just need to stop mono-dieting and make sure that our bodies are fed as wide a variety of foods as possible.  Since soy isolates are in over 70% of what’s on a typical supermarket shelf, I’m going to share a main course recipe that doesn’t have any soy products but is still high in protein.

Really my main point is this: if you want to get healthy, get away from processed foods.  When you do eat them, read the labels and know what’s in them.  I minimize my intake of what comes out of a box so I don’t worry about it as much if I want to have delicious tofu in wasabi cream sauce once a week or two.

I know most vegan food people think looks like dog food.  I guess this one kind of does too but don’t go running away.  I know it looks like health food but one bite of this casserole and you will be transported to Italy.  It’s the sun-dried tomatoes that do it.  Those little nuggets of tomato goodness can make anything taste amazing.  In fact I haven’t made my sundried tomato basil bread in ages.  I need to do that soon.  The original recipe came from Vegan with a Vengeance but it was very simple and un-seasoned.  Since I largely know people who wouldn’t eat broccoli if it were pureed and hidden in a chocolate bar, I decided I needed to jazz the recipe up a bit.  I was craving pizza and this is what came out.  It’s delicious and trust me one bite…your head will roll.  Plus garbanzo beans contain all of the essential amino acids needed to make it a complete protein for an adult.  Bear in mind that histidine, which is the 9th “essential” amino acid to create a whole protein, is typically produced by an adult body in sufficient quantities so long as the other essentials are present.  In children however this is not the case so if you have a little one to feed be sure to add some whole grains to this meal OR mix it up and use some cauliflower or mushrooms in the recipe.  These veggies contain histidine too.

Broccoli Tomato Garbanzo Casserole

Adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance Read more

Apr 24

3 Comments

Vegan Stocks – A farmer’s market

Bad Olivia.  Bad.  I totally missed my post yesterday and I had a great recipe to share but alas my job has been ramping up and sore throats have been passing around…so I’ll keep the subject of yesterday’s post in my pocket for another time.  Today I really wanted to get into a cornerstone recipe that really anyone should have, but that will be especially useful in building vegan recipes: a beefy vegetable stock.  This is a great recipe to have because it’s full of flavor without any meat products and even the most carnivorous fiend could find uses for this.  I fully attribute the beef-like flavor to my trick, and not so secret, ingredient which I’ll reveal below. But before the recipe a little detour and there might even be a trivia question along the way.

What is this secret beefy flavoring?

I was researching the idea of being a social vegan and discovered a new breed of eater: the flexivore.  It turns out that there are other omnivores like myself who have looked around and decided to continue to eat meat, but make a conscious effort to reduce their consumption overall out of objection to how the meat industry is currently run.  I suspect this aligns a great deal with the publishing of Michael Pollan’s “Omnivore’s Dilemma” which managed to really open my eyes to a variety of issues in the world of food—both exposing new problems and flushing out ones I was already familiar with.  I’ve read a lot on the topic of food (shocker!) but this is still one of my favorite books to hand off to friends because I think it manages to be both entertaining and compelling while being highly informative.  Plus it profiles my favorite farmer in the whole wide world.  No not McDonald – a libertarian hippie out of Virginia by the name of Joel Salatin.  (l)ibertarian hippies are the best and I’m probably just saying that because I am one *wink* Therefore I openly admit a little bit of a political bias to my love of this book.

But even with that in mind you can’t fight the facts.  My number one reason for eating vegan when I eat out is summed up in one, surprising word: Corn.  As it turns out that one word—corn—is synonymous with another word in our diets—Oil.  No not the kind you cook with.  The kind we drive and have land wars over.  Let me explain.  No there is too much.  Let me sum up.  **Name that movie for a prize!!** I know my readers have short attention spans so I’m not going to give you a detailed book report because really it would take pages so let me just explain my issue with meat and how it relates to corn and oil.

Why the scientist, nutritionist and health conscious me objects to the modern meat industry:

  • Stock base

    Agribusiness raises our meat on a diet of corn because corn is cheap and cows get nice and fat off it.  Fat means lots of saturated fats which taste good to the consumer and cheap corn feed for the cows means high profits.
  • Cows can’t digest corn properly.  It makes them sick.  So sick that we pump them full of antibiotics—not to cure the disease mind you because it’s not bacterial.  No we use the antibiotics to cure the symptoms of their gastrointestinal distress.  The antibiotics also make the cows bigger and fatter.  Win for agribusiness! 
  • But wait…doesn’t misuse of antibiotics mean resistant bugs?  You are a winner.  Yes it does.  And there’s more…see the antibiotics actually change the chemistry of a cow’s stomach.  A cow’s stomach is distinct from a human’s and should not normally incubate bacteria that can make us sick.  The antibiotics change that.  Now the cows harbor germs that can make us ill, and are breeding resistant version of them.  All this while they are kept in highly unsanitary conditions…like standing in 6 inches of cow poop all day instead of grazing.
  • Agriculture accounts for 60-70% of our antibiotics in this country and largely for these unwarranted applications.

But wait there’s more….why the economist, libertarian and peace loving hippie me object:

  • Corn is cheap to produce, the bulk of what we grow is inedible to humans as well as cows and gets sold at a loss to these big farms yet we grow more each year.  Why?
  • It all started with a post-world war 2 surplus of U.S. government owned ammonium nitrate for making bombs.  Ammonium also makes good fertilizer.  Since the government was out of the war business it went into the fertilizer making business instead.
  • Corn became King, or as Pollan puts it Queen (as in the Welfare Queen) since it was cheap to grow and could be converted to a number of things like high fructose corn sugar, ethanol and utilized as food for chickens and pigs who can digest it.  Excess fertilizer on the market meant cheap fertilizer and the advent of monoculture.  (Simplified definition: Monoculture refers to the practice of farming where fertilizer is used to replenish soil deprived of nutrients from over farming of a single crop)
  • Corn flooded the market because it was such a good seller…at first.  Then we had too much and prices went down.  Farmers started growing more to try to sell more to make up for previous year losses. 

  • Today the cost of producing corn is subsidized by 50%–that’s taxpayer money and translates to 6 billion a year.  And the cost keeps going down.  We’re investing in a loss year after year.  Why?  Because big agribusiness and Uncle Ronald McDonald depends on the stuff. 
  • ¼ of the goods you buy in a supermarket contain corn products.  A chicken nugget which is comprised of 38 ingredients is almost a third corn and no that doesn’t mean it’s good for you.  Sorry Dad.
  • Oh and by the way, the fertilizer to make that corn each year?  It requires oil.  That stuff we get from the middle east.  Conservative estimates show that 1 bushel of corn = ¼ gallon of oil.  How much corn do we produce in a year?  Well in 2007 we grew over 13 billion bushels.  The number has come down to closer to 12.5 in recent trends.  That’s still well over 3 billion gallons of oil in a year…to grow a crop we have too much of and lose money on.  And that doesn’t even account for the other hidden oil costs—like how much we need to run the plants that process that corn into things like corn syrup; the cost of the machines to farm it; the cost of healthcare as consumers eat excessive amounts of cheap sugars and get fat and sickly.
  • Don’t get me started on how this impacts our healthcare system.  I’m already at two pages.  But while the corn investment cost might not be much (6 billion is nothing compared to our military budget) if you consider the impact of cheap sugar/fat foods on health and our health care costs this becomes all the more shocking. 

And I’m still not getting into it all.  Now admittedly going vegan doesn’t really mean you stop supporting this overuse of oil for fertilizer since the other two gas guzzling crops are wheat and soy—a staple in most vegan diets.  It is however a start.  I also avoid soy as much as possible for other reasons I’ll explore on another day.  Tomorrow I’ll hopefully get into a little bit more of the environmental impact of factory farming, the meat industry and the corn connection but for now I’ll move onto this soup stock—something which is definitely worth investing a little thyme into.  Soup stock is essential not just for soups but as a way of adding a boost of flavor to an assortment of dishes.  It provides the backbone for a number of sauces and gravies.  A good stock is central to any kitchen pantry…or in my case a freezer.  You can make a huge batch of this stuff and then freeze it in various quantities. 

My favorite trick?  Ice cubes.  Pour this into an ice cube tray and then store into baggies once frozen.  This creates perfect 1-2 tbsp allotments that you can use in a pinch without having to thaw a huge batch or keep fresh stuff on hand all the time.  This is the only stock tip I’ve ever taken from Martha Stewart.  My ultimate vegan vegetable stock uses dried mushrooms–and don’t skimp on the porcini! No it doesn’t taste like mushroom soup thanks to the plethora of other vegetables but what the mushrooms do is impart an undeniable beef-y flavor quality which will leave your guests asking many questions.  Questions like “Who made this amazing soup/gravy?” and “You mean this is VEGAN?!” but never will you hear “where’s the beef?!”  Do not fear the fungi.  It’s your best friend in this recipe so even if you don’t normally like to eat mushrooms, try this out.  It might start to turn you….

Olivia’s Beefed up Vegan Broth

An Olivia Original – Makes about 8 to 10 cups Read more

Apr 16

Think Thin Tuesday: Getting Moussed on the Elkohol!

Girls like pretty things.  Guys stop asking me why girls like silly, pretty things.  Sometimes a rose is just a rose – and seeing something innocent, simple and beautiful can incredibly life affirming.  There are things girls love to think about and do purely because of the beauty of it.  I know you guys understand these fantasies more than you want to let on.  Barney Stinson and the popularity of Mad Men have proven that to me.  True your desires are a bit…smarmier than ours but regardless you are romanticizing those fantasies.  Why else would two of the most iconic womanizers of the decade be brandy swirling, suit wearing debonair dudes?  Admit it you kind of like getting dressed up once in a while too.

With summer finally starting to peek its head around the corner it’s time to start thinking about planning those wonderful summer cocktail parties.  Or at least in my imaginative world where I’m a Manhatten socialite I’m planning those parties.  You know the kind.  Music.  Women in summer dresses.  Men in linen suits.  China twinkling.  The sort of Audrey Hepburn fairytale life that a lot of silly girls like to daydream about.  I swear I never was one to imagine the details of my wedding but boy did I ever day dream about my ideal apartment and social gatherings in some upper-east side version of paradise.

I’d really love to have a place to host some sort of garden top party this summer.  It would just feel like the ultimate bucket list item.  OF course the problem is that I need money.  I need friends.  I need a life.  All of these things are kind of essential to this desire of mine.  I think if I were planning on for LA it would be easier since I know more people there who might enjoy an exercise in dressing up and getting all pretty just for the hell of it.

Only problem is that I don’t live in LA and I certainly wouldn’t be able to cater the affair which is half the fun of it for me.  Making appetizers and hors d’oeuvres is a lot of fun.  I love recipes like this one.  They are dainty, delicious and unfortunately oftentimes quite fattening too.  That’s why you have such little portions.  Hey we’ve gotta be able to fit in those fancy clothes we wear!  If the buttons are popping off and clothes exploding open it quickly becomes a different kind of party no?  And those little bites are pretty easy to start gulping down as the evening goes on…especially if you get the “drunchies” aka the drunken munchies. Since we all know the best garden party is a champagne fueled brunch at 11AM on a sunny Sunday…drunchies are sure to abound.

So if you are thinking of hosting any sort of party this summer—a wedding, a brunch for friends, a fundraiser with all your wealthy single bachelors for puppies (and hey invite me would you?) this is a great light recipe to whisk around on those serving platters or serve up as a dessert after a lavish dinner party.  Go ahead and “gazelle” it down because this recipe is deliciously, drunkenly de-lite-ful.  I have made this mousse several times over the last few summers and I don’t even really like melon all that much.  It’s sweet, it’s light and refreshing and hands down one of my FAVORITE drunken recipes.  The mousse itself is totally gluten free as well so if you have any celiac intolerant folks in the group you can just serve it in cups instead of pastry shells.  They will LOVE this…and then they’ll eat enough that they will “like oh my god you guys, you are the most awesome people ever and I really, really fucking love you.  Okay?  Let’s make this moment last forever okay?”  You know what I’m talking about.

Musk Melon Mousse Bites

Adapted from “The Boozy Baker”

  • ½ cup Muscat Wine
  • 3 envelopes unflavored gelatin
  • 1 honeydew melon, sliced into chunks
  • ½ cup sugar, divided
  • ¼ cup lemon juice, divided
  • 2/3 cup fat free plain yogurt
  • 24 phyllo pastry shells
  • Sliced strawberries for topping

Pour the Muscat Sec into a small saucepan and sprinkle the gelatin on top.  Let it soften for about 2 minutes and then cook over low heat, stirring constantly until the gelatin is dissolved.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

In a blend puree half the melon with ¼ cup of the sugar and 2 Tbsp of lemon juice.  With the blender running, slowly pour in half of the Muscat mixture.  Transfer the melon mixture to a large metal bowl set in a pan of ice water.  Repeat with the remaining melon, sugar, lemon juice and Muscat mixture and then add the second half of the melon mixture to the metal bowl.

Stir the melon mixture for 3 to 5 minutes, or until it begins to thicken slightly (its texture should be similar to that of maple syrup or raw egg whites.)  Remove the bowl from the ice water and stir in the yogurt.

Pour the mousse into a large glass bowl and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.  Serve scoop spoonfuls into your pastry shells and top with some sliced strawberries.

Nutrition info per pastry shell: 66 calories | 14g carbohydrates (9g sugar) | 1 g fat | 2g protein

1 serving of 3 shells is still less than 200 calories.  Not a bad dessert.

Apr 9

Think Thin Tuesday: Avoiding Vegetative S(t)ouper

My number one piece of advice to someone looking to force themselves to get more active, and also save a little money, is this: cut the cable.  Do it. It’s scary I know and if you are a sports fan…well I can’t help you there as much but if you aren’t addicted to ESPN cut the damn cord.  Cable is expensive and with the myriad of online subscription options expanding every day you don’t need it.  Add them up and they are still cheaper than your hundred dollar plus Comcast bill.  Do you own a tablet of some sort that streams video?  Even more reason to get unhooked to the actual idiot box.  Not being stuck in front of the tv all night after work will get you moving and doing other things.  The advantage to streaming is that you can watch when you want—catch up on a day when you are genuinely immobile or commuting on the metro.  Take it with you on the plane.  When you don’t have a choice about being immobile, that’s a good time to watch.

But Olivia I don’t want to fall behind on my shows. In fact I like watching them LIVE when I can.  Fine you whiner I already thought of the solution to that AND it gets you moving.  Ready? Now here’s what you do with that money you saved: buy a gym membership.  There are a lot of cheap deals out there for 30-40 bucks a month.  Spend the money on online subscriptions and gym membership.  How does a gym membership help? Well with the exception of certain premium stations like HBO, big gyms with cheap fees like 24 hour fitness have cable subscriptions.  If you want to watch oh say, Glee on Thursday night at is actual broadcast time—go to the gym and use their television.  Hop on a treadmill and walk a light pace; you don’t have to break a sweat if you don’t want to.  3 miles an hour is fine—hell 2 if you’re really lazy and an annoying as fuck slow walker….  The point is you save money and instead of sitting on the couch eating, i.e. gaining weight while actively doing nothing; you can get a little bit of electrical activity in your legs and watch the show.  This way you aren’t munching away an entire bag of potato chips.  I mean we’ve all done it.  Instead you burn maybe 100 calories that hour, keep your metabolism awake and get to watch your favorite tv show for half the cost.

Genius no?

I think it is so shut up.  This plan works really well for people who just abhor cardio with a passion.  If you just can’t find the enjoyment in going for a run, cycling classes, aerobics or swimming and you need to distract your mind to get your body moving this is the perfect fix.  It’s not going to get you Spartan abs ala 300 and it won’t result in significant weight loss in the long run, but it will help you lose a few pounds or just avoid the late night vegetative stupor that comes with primetime tv.  If you hate gyms and can afford it then just buy a damn treadmill/bike/stair climber…whatever you prefer and put it in front of the tv but you better use it. Typically I see people buy equipment with this intent and get lured in by the seductive nature of their couches.  Just can’t resist those alluring fibers and springs….  I like the gym membership because it really forces you to go get moving.  You can’t sit on a couch and use the gym tv.  And for those channels that air our favorite shows but aren’t carried by the gym’s cable?  Well that’s where your PC tablet comes in handy.  I’m not going to tell you how to get ahold of Game of Thrones without a cable subscription but I know some of you have it so…get walking.

And for those nights when it’s cold, windy, and rainy and you just feel crummy and need to curl up on the couch…well how about a nice vegetable skinny soup?  It’ll fill your tummy without all the excess sodium and empty calories the bag of lays has AND it might be one of the few things that help you to avoid becoming what you eat.  Indulge in a sourdough roll with it since the soup is so light on calories and fat OR you can bulk it up a little more with rice or whole wheat pasta.  The choices are endless.

Italian Vegetable Soup

An Olivia Original Read more

Apr 3

You’d think I’d have anticipa-ncaked this….

It’s pass-OVER.  Bring on the Chametz folks because the holiday is done and I can finally eat a giant pizza topped with yeasted donuts and a mug of frosty beer.  Mmmmmm.  Homer food.

Actually sadly my desire to celebrate fell through since most of my friends had other plans/obligations for the end of Pesach and I had already loaded up my schedule with yet another class.  Whoops!  Passover ended actually in conjunction with day 30 of my yoga studio’s sponsored 30 day challenge so not only did I have bread to look forward to, but I just did another 30 days of Bikram yoga in a row.  I felt I totally deserved my celebratory pizza.  But instead I ate a bran muffin running from day 30 to my brand spanking new improv class at the Berkeley Repository Theater.  I am home so late but I don’t care because this class was fantastic.  I never thought I could have so much fun with a room full of strangers for 3 hours.

Then of course I realized upon getting home that I hadn’t really thought about what to blog once Passover was well, over.  I mean I had such a convenient topic for posts and now pbbbbbblt total brain fart.  So you’re getting just a random emotional download today.  Sorry guys.  There’s just nothing clever going on up here after work, yoga, taking care of my dog, improv class and studying for my clinical trial certification….  I feel like the most boring busy person in the world.  But I love every second of it.  I know it’s sick and twisted in a masochistic way but I’m just naturally happier when I’m juggling.  Stillness outside the yoga room drives me up the wall.  I’ve been wondering why.

Is it just that I’m a highly active, okay past active to the point of mildly manic, person?  Or is there another reason—something a little less flattering to admit?  Could it be that at least part of the reason I hate stillness because it gives me time to think?

Heaven forbid you THINK Olivia.

No what I mean is…well when I stop to think I have to spend time with myself and really, really look at myself.  Whenever I do that, no matter how much I’ve accomplished, I have to admit I’m never satisfied.  So this stillness only means that I’ve got time to reflect upon things I’m unhappy about.  I have to wonder if part of the reason I’m running is because I’m running from dealing with things I don’t like about my life.  You’d think I’d be over the moon with it and I did just right a post the other week saying that I’m making all these great strides and improvements but sometimes….

Sometimes when I stop and realize I’m almost 25 and look where I am, I can’t help but feel like young-me would be disappointed.  I haven’t conquered the world yet—not even a little island with a technologically backward tribe.  I have more lofty dreams and ambitions than fingers to count them on and yet I feel like I’m miles away from getting to any of them, if I ever do.  If you asked me at 13 where I should be by now it would be married with plans to start having kids in two years, working both as an actress and scientist, at least one book published, at least 3 or 4 more stamps in my passport and an elegant apartment in SF or NYC.  I’m nowhere close to…any of those things.   So I stay busy, I keep running, because if I stop to think I start to get really down on myself.  Stopping to celebrate things even drives me nuts because I start to wonder “is this really anything special at all?  No.  You really haven’t done enough yet…”

Then again it could just be manic personality thing.  Who knows?

Either way if you’re going to keep running you need FUEL.  So it’s time to carbo-load.  I made these pancakes for a brunch with some friends a month or so ago.   Forget blueberries or chocolate chips—my favorite pancakes are CRANBERRY.  I love the tart little bursts of the ruby red fruit.  They pair well with maple syrup but if you want a real culinary delight pick up some ginger syrup instead and pour that on top.  It’s delicious.  I could eat about a dozen or so of these and still want more despite the protest from my stomach’s fire marshal about capacity limits.

Omnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnom

Ultimate Cranberry Pancakes

an Olivia Originalnomnonomnom Read more

Apr 2

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Think Thin Tuesday: Angelicized Eggs

And so our Virtual Seder comes to a close on this last day of Pesach.  I hope you’ve learned a lot.  We talked about the 4 questions traditionally asked to guide each seder—after the last question there is an additional blessing of the matzah, the eating of the bitter herbs and then finally the move to the meal itself.  But wait…there’s one last item on the Seder plate before the meal!  I think this is officially the LONGEST seder I’ve ever attended and even with all this I still haven’t really explained all the proper procedures.  I didn’t realize how involved this holiday was until I started writing all this out for non-Jews.  No wonder you must get so confused about it.  Anyway on to the final piece of the traditional* seder plate: The final piece of the plate is….a hard-boiled egg – also known as the Beitzah.

Yup.  It’s not just an easter thing though I’m guessing some of you have leftover pastel colored eggs that you’ve got to use up dontcha?  Well let’s talk a wee bit about the significance of the egg in Judaism and then I’ll share with you a great skinny recipe for deviled eggs—half the calories!—that embraces all the delicious flavors of a good Jewish Deli.

After the story of Passover is told, hands are washed again, the Matzo is blessed, the Maror is eaten dipped in salt water and then in the Charoset only to finally be placed between two pieces of Matzo and eaten as a sandwich.  Then the hard-boiled egg is eaten and the meal can begin.  So what’s the significance of the Beitzah?  The egg in Judaism is a symbol of mourning—served at funerals.  I think this is because the egg is kind of the symbol of the opposite of death—new life and new beginning.  It is a reminder to be resilient and that life continues even in the face of the inevitable cold grasp of mortality.  Judaism is a very life affirming religion.  You might be familiar with “L’Chaim!” as the traditional toast offered up by your Hebrew friends.  This translates literally as “To Life!”  Life, and the protection of it, is the most sacred thing in Judaism—even if to defend it means to defy G-d.  That’s how important it is.

For Passover the egg as symbol of mourning ties back to the grief of loss of the Holy Temple.  The egg is also dipped in the salt water to mimic tears.  Such a happy holiday.  Anyway with this last piece we move onto the actual meal which is concluded with additional prayers, two more glasses of wine and the eating of the Afikomen—that last piece of Matza that gets hidden for the kidlets to find.  Between

the Matzo hunt, the paschal lamb and the eggs the holiday isn’t too far off from Easter after all is it?

My last piece to offer up is that the traditional seder plate contains all the items we discussed here but in recent years reform Jews have added a last element to the plate: an orange.    The orange symbolizes women, as well as homosexuals, in the Jewish faith and their fruitfulness.   Some families choose to incorporate this addition.  Others don’t—either because they are more Orthodox or just more traditional about their practices.  I’m not going to judge either way…at least not publicly.  Though I may have an orange Passover friendly recipe to toss up here this week just to be fair—almond cupcakes with orange cream cheese frosting anyone?  Just depends on how much time I have and if I figure out something to do for SciFriday this week.  But enough public pontificating.  Mazel Tov!  You made it through our Virtual Seder.  Now use up those hardboiled eggs and join me for some pizza and beer when the sun goes down because DAMN I could use a beer.

Now onto the Deviled, or maybe in this case I should call them Heavenly Eggs because with a little thought and effort I managed to reduce the typical caloric content of one single serving by half.  I don’t know about you but I can never eat just ONE deviled egg and after four or five you’ve basically consumed an entire meal.  Not really the best nutrition option for something that’s traditionally an appetizer or Hors d’oeuvre right?

Pesach Heavenly Eggs

An Olivia Original

Makes 24 deviled egg halves from 1 dozen eggs Read more

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