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Posts from the ‘Main Course’ 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 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 1

Race and Beans- Sephardic for Passover

morrocanbeefpreservedlemons (4)Two more days!   Then it’s totally time for Pizza and Beer.  The perfect counterbalance to the Passover grain-free agony.  I am retaining so much water too.  I’ve gained something like 2-3 pounds in the last two days alone.  I feel so bloated and disgusting.  Oy.

morrocanbeefpreservedlemons (2)But just like two more days we’ve got two more pieces to our Seder plate to discuss.  Today is a simple one – the Zeroa or lamb shank.  The bone is placed on the plate to represent G-d’s arm as it swept over the land and protected the Jews.  Remember that blood of the lamb was what Jewish homes were marked with so their children were spared the fate of the tenth plague.  Lamb was also traditionally sacrificed each year for the holiday at the Holy Temple…until its destruction.  My understanding is that it is because of the destruction of the Holy Temple that the lamb shank on the seder plate is now ceremonial and no lamb is consumed that night.  To remember that without a temple there was no way to perform the ceremony and sacrifice.  What temple do I speak of?  Once the Jews finally reached the Holy Land they constructed their Holy Temple.  Except this structure was destroyed…twice; first by Babylonians and then later by the Romans.  The Greeks  tried to get in on the action too in between those attempts but the temple was never destroyed and was reclaimed by a group of Jewish fighters—this story actually relates back to the only Hebrew Holiday most Americans know – Hanukkah.  Anyway after the second destruction the Romans banned the Jews from Jerusalem.  Eventually Muslims conquered the holy land and a series of Christian/Muslim holy wars ensued.  A third temple has never been constructed though it is often prayed for and the subject of much debate.  The Temple Mount, which is what remains of the Holy Temple, is a highly contested religious location as you might imagine.

morrocanbeefpreservedlemons (7)Now let’s segue for a minute though this will come back around I promise you.  The holiday is finally starting to wind down and by now you may have caught a Jewish friend scarfing down a burrito bowl out with friends.  “Wait a minute!” You say now armed with the knowledge from my Matzo post “Aren’t beans and rice considered “kitniyot” and also forbidden along with grains”  Your friend might reply with something along the lines of “Ummmm I’m going Sephardic for Passover” and then continue to stuff his or her face with chipotle contraband.  No that wasn’t a sneeze though it is a lame, but incredibly useful, copout many of us will use.

See Judaism is not a race.  Judaism is a culture.  There are many races that comprise the Jewish community.  This repeated destruction of the temple and removal of Jews from their holy land resulted in centuries of diaspora – or the movement away from a homeland.  The Jewish people became a scattered people across the globe.  And it wasn’t just this one time that they were relocated either.  European history is littered with records of countries expelling Jews at various times.  We were a pretty nomadic people for hundreds of years.  Guess the desert was good preparation.

Most traditionally when people think of “Jews” they think of North and Eastern European Jews known as the Ashkenazi.  You know the type.  Big noses, skin that doesn’t tan set against dark hair and the funny looking sideburns.  The thing is that Jews are NOT a race.  They don’t have a set of distinctive and universal features like skin color.  There are African Jews, Asian Jews, Israeli/Middle Eastern and Western European Jews—it’s a global Jew-demic!  Religious practices aren’t consistent either across these various groups as centuries of separation and Talmudic study led to differing practices.  This is partly why you have so many different aspects of the religion (orthodox, reform, conservative) and also is why I consistently say that Judaism transcends religion and race—it’s a culture and it’s a big one.morrocanbeefpreservedlemons

So what are Sephardic Jews?  Sephardic Jews are those who settled in North Africa and Western Europe.  Passover for Sephardic Jews does not entail a ban on things like rice, lentils and other legumes that resemble grains.  Why?  Well think about the cultures they were exposed to.  France, Spain, Portugal and Morocco specifically are all regions where rice, beans, and these other items are largely part of the regional diet.  I don’t think rice was as essential to the Germans.  Assimilation to culture and just a different interpretation of religious text has resulted in a separate custom.  So your more traditionally Ashkenazi friend might decide to “adopt” the Sephardic label for Passover to make eating easier.  It’s not really “kosher” to do so but some years you make concessions I guess.  What I do wonder and don’t know is how this works out in Israel.  I’d love some feedback from Israeli jews.  The second largest population of immigrants to Israel, after Russian Jews (Ashkenazi), were Moroccan Jews.  Yup like Casablanca.  I wonder if the Sephardi who moved to Israel have given up this practice of eating non-grain, grainy like foods….morrocanbeefpreservedlemons (6)

Then of course there’s Quinoa.  Quinoa is for some bizarre reason not considered kitniyot.  It was explained to me by another friend like this “the Rabbis didn’t know it existed so they didn’t know to expressly forbid it.”  Erm.  Okay.  Another loophole.  Whatever if it means I get something starchy to put in my stomach other than this Matzo I’m happy!

Moroccan Lamb Meatballs

an Olivia Original

Meatballsmorrocanbeefpreservedlemons (3)

  • 2 lb ground lamb
  • 1 small preserved lemon, peel, chopped
  • 1 sweet onion, chopped
  • 1 egg
  • 2 Tbsp matzo meal
  • 1 tsp coriander
  • 1 tsp roasted cumin
  • ½ tsp turmeric
  • 1 cup chopped parsley
  • ½ teaspoon pepper
  • ½ tsp cinnamon

Sauce

  • 2 Tbsp grapeseed oil
  • 1-28 oz can crushed tomatoes
  • 2 small preserved lemons, chopped
  • 5 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • ½ tsp cayenne pepper (more adjusted to desired spice)
  • 1 teaspoon turmeric
  • 1 Tbsp honey
  • 1 cup chicken or beef stock
  • 2-3 large sliced bell peppers
  • 1 small onion, diced
  • Salt and Pepper to taste

For the meatballs: blend together the spices and mix into the ground lamb.  In a food processor be sure to mince down the lemon and onion very fine.  Mix this into the ground lamb followed by the egg and matzo meal.  Form small meatballs – about 1 inch in diameter and set aside.  Preserved lemons are very salty so you will not need to add any salt to this mixture.

Sauce: Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a sauce pan over medium high heat.  Add the onion, garlic and the bell peppers and cook for 6-8 minutes until translucent.  Pour in the crushed tomatoes and chicken stock.  Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.  Add the lemons and spices and let this simmer for about 10 minutes until the volume reduces slightly.  Taste and add honey or salt and pepper to desired flavor.

Meanwhile in large wide rimmed pan or tagine add the other 1 Tbsp of oil over high heat.  Add in the meatballs and brown—approximately 6 to 8 minutes on one side, turn and heat another 5.  Remove from the heat until you are ready to add the sauce.  Pour the sauce into the large pan with the meatballs and return to medium heat, cover and cook for an additional 20 minutes.  The meatballs will cook and flavor the sauce as well.

After 20 minutes taste and adjust seasoning as needed.  If the sauce is too thick you can thin it out with a little more broth.  Serve over rice or quinoa.

 

Mar 26

1 Comment

Think Thin Tuesday: Better get the Parsley started

Welcome to the first part of my Virtual Seder!  I hope you learn, I hope you feast and more than anything I hope you are entertained.  I will do my best to be both reverent and irreverent over the course of these posts. Traditionally the story of Passover is told near the beginning of your Passover Seder.  First it is preceded by blessings and the drinking of a cup of wine.  After the wine everyone washes their hands and moves on to the first element of the Seder plate.  Now the Seder plate is a literal plate that has been set with 7 symbolic foods for the telling and remembering of Passover.  These foods are consumed in a specific order.  Tonight we feature the first – the Karpas.  This is the first food eaten of the night after the washing of hands.

The Karpas is a vegetable, usually something bitter like parsley, and it is dipped in salt water before consuming.  This is meant to symbolize the bitterness and tears of slavery for the Jews of Egypt.  This action, dipping of vegetables in salt water, is meant to prompt curiosity of the children and lead them to ask the question: Ma nishtana ha lyla ha zeh mikkol hallaylot?
Why is this night different from all other nights?

SO why do Jews celebrate Passover?  What prompted this holiday in the first place?  Well it’s a line from Exodus in the Old Testament that provides the basis for the entire ritual:  You shall tell your child on that day, saying, ‘It is because of what Adonai did for me when I came out of Egypt.’” (Exodus 13:8)

The Story of Passover – as overly-simplified and wryly told by Olivia.

Once again those people with the funny looking sideburns were the target for some genocidal lunatic.  They ran away, survived and now to remember the fact that we once again managed to avoid extinction spend by spending 8 days eating, drinking and praying.

Haha very funny Olivia.  So what is it…really?

Well the story that most people who are familiar with is the Biblical narrative of Moses.  Many many years ago the Jewish people were enslaved in Egypt.  Some crazy Pharoah decided that all male Hebrew babies should be put to death.  One mother managed to hide her child for a while and eventually, in a desperate attempt to save his life, set him adrift on the nile in a basket to avoid the soldiers that had come to kill him.  The child was discovered by the Pharoah’s daughter and raised as a member of the family.  Many years later the boy, who was named Moses, intervened when an Egyptian was beating a Hebrew slave.  Intervened as in he killed the slaver.  Whoops.  Papa Pharoah not so happy about that so Moses flees, winds up saving some more Jews, marries one and hey look you’re actually one of us.  Who knew? Oh Moses did okay cool.  Anyway.

Eventually after having what some might argue was a pyromania fueled schizophrenic talk with some shrubbery, Moses believes he has the command of G-d to return to Egypt and set his people free.  Moses commands the Pharaoh release the Hebrews and when he doesn’t, 10 plagues descend upon Egypt.  Water to blood, frogs and lice as afflictions of the land followed by flies, diseased livestock, disfiguring boils, hailstorms, locusts and days of darkness all followed as the Pharaoh refused again and again to free the Jews.  Finally the tenth plague was death of all the first born sons of Egypt.  Ah the story has come round from the beginning, clever narrative or a just G-d depending on your personal religious leanings.  The Hebrews marked their homes with the blood of the lamb so that death would know that Jewish people lived in this house and pass over their doors, sparing the Hebrew children.

And that is where the term Passover comes from.  Isn’t the Old Testament so much more fun than the New?  By fun I mean just the kind of radical and violent story we love to read.   It may be a bloody and horrific tale but it’s certainly a captivating one.  There’s a lot of “Blood of Lamb” references to Jesus but the original use of this term to denote the favor of God upon the innocent, his “children”, began with some other Jews in Egypt.  I say other because as Avenue Q loves to remind us “Hey guys, Jesus was Jewish….”

Moving on…seeing children die, including his own son, apparently gets to Pharaoh.  Finally he relents, frees the Jews only he changes his mind.  Actually the exact wording is that G-d hardens his heart…what a dick.  Apparently he set up the Pharoah to fail?  I never understood that bit.  Anyway for whatever reason he changes his mind and sends his soldiers against the fleeing Israelites.  There’s a whole chase scene involving water being parted in the Red Sea thanks to Moses and his big stick.  The Jews hustle through like there’s a sale at Loehmann’s on the other side.  Once safely across the parted ocean waters, the waves collapse back down drowning the pursuing Egyptians.  (Then there’s the whole Ten Comandments and getting lost in the desert thing but that’s a whole other story and holiday for another time.)

Endeth the story.  Onto the Karpas!

I’ve almost always seen Parsley used as the vegetable for the Karpas and it’s probably the only time (other than some out-of-date 90′s restaurant plate styling) that you ever see curly parsley on a table.  Thus I always think of Passover when I see curly parsley at the store.  Typically the Italian Flat-leaf variety beats out this cousin because it’s a little less bitter but with much more flavor due to a higher volume of oils in the leaves.  For my recipe today I used both varieties.  I wanted to really showcase the flavor of the parsley.  The result?  Broiled Tilapia with a parsley-vegetable pistou.  Tilapia is a fantastic fish to use when you want something with a mild flavor so I knew it would be just the thing to let my main star shine through.  It’s so easy to cook if you have a broiler on your oven.  If you need something simple and Kosher for the middle of the week, this is just the ticket.  The whole meal can come together in 30 minutes.  Plus this is a great Think Thin Tuesday post since Pistou is similar to Pesto but lower in fat and calories since it omits cheese and pine nuts.  Traditional pistou is just basil, oil and salt.  Mine has considerably less basil and a lot more vegetables to bulk it up.

Tilapia with Parsley Pistou

An Olivia Original Read more

Mar 8

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SciFriday and the Feminist Mys-Quiche

IMG_2932Today is International Women’s Day and I find myself focusing in on it through the lens of my culture—not the Jewish one but rather the geeky one.  As a woman I often find myself troubled both by the attitudes of the “normies” and the male geeks within the scifi world.  There’s one thing that unifies these two seemingly disparate groups: they remain ever incredulous about the geeks with lovely lady lumps.  Yeah I just wrote that sentence.

In my younger years I digested most of my science fiction in the form of the written word.  I grew up reading both the classics and every bargain bin paperback I could get my hands on.  Heinlein.  Adams.  Asimov.  Scott Card.  Herbert.  Huxley.  Clarke.  Wells.  Bradbury.  Oh…Bradbury.   But what do you notice about all these names?  They’re all male.  Every damn last one.  I have nothing against the male sex mind you and for a long time I didn’t really notice that my bookcase had this imbalance of gender.  I did after all have a few books written by women—Madame L’engle and Lois Lowry for example—but for the most part scifi as a genre was and is largely dominated by men.

For a while I was happy in this little world of spaceships, lasers and dystopian futures.  Then one day I woke up.  I think it coincided with middle school and frankly it kind of shocks me that I don’t remember realizing this sooner.  I had always been a very “girl power” oriented kid.  I was in elementary school during the reign of the platform british diva and definitely spent nights in front of my mirror singing “wannabe” with a hairbrush.  The theme I wrote up for my 10th birthday party?  Girls Rule, Boys Drool—Splash til you Crash Birthday Bash.  It was a pool party—ahem.  Anyway THAT embarrassing tidbit aside the point is suddenly one day I realized all my books were written about or by men. IMG_2929

Thus began my search for scifi written by women and a dark and disturbing realization: there is a great deal of scifi written by women but they changed their names to be accepted.  A number of books I’d read were written by women but I had no way of knowing that, and based on the trend by the more notable authors, I always assumed that names which followed the A. Z. Last Name formatting were men.  That was exactly what the publishing industry wanted me to think—or rather what they wanted little boys to think.  It started as a way for women to publish when it was considered indecent to do so and then carried on as tradition because publishing companies didn’t think boys and men would want to read books written by a woman.

IMG_2936Disgusted, I understood that this belief not only dismissed females as writers—but females as readers.  It completely ignored the girls who were reading, the girls who might choose to read a book because it was authored by someone with whom they share a certain ovarian affinity.  Talk about a total invalidation of my greatest love.  Heck even J.K. Rowling fell trap to that line of thinking as her editors didn’t believe Harry Potter would sell to boys if they knew the author was a woman.  Well that cat got out of the bag and Rowling is still richer than the bloody queen so fuck-that.  Sadly it’s probably somewhat true that boys would turn away more from female written works.  There are certainly a number of men I’ve met who avoid anything that seems remotely “feminist” out of fear that supporting it will suddenly doom them to marry a girl who doesn’t shave her armpits.  Disgraceful.

With the second wave of feminism (aka the 60’s) a number of female scifi authors came out of the woodwork. Notable among them being Ursula K. Le Guin who is usually the first and sadly only name people provide when I mention female scifi writers.  As for me, the first scifi work I encountered in my youth that made me think about this topic was Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale”.  If you aren’t familiar with the work it is about a dystopian future where a fascist and religiously dominant government has suspended the constitution following a terrorist attack.  In this world women have been stripped of any rights and are regulated to various roles in society; racism and homophobia also rampant.  The protagonist of the story is in the ranks of the Handmaids who function as concubines and whose sole purpose is to provide a womb for breeding; women reduced to literally the very thing that define their sex.  Other roles women play are wives, daughters, “Marthas” aka compliant infertile women and the Aunts who train the handmaids.  Infertile or troublesome women get branded as “unwomen.”

While this certainly sounds like a feminist manifesto, it should be noted that the book explores a variety of other oppressions enacted by this government for religious and racial reasons.  Heck even the men are just as regulated as the women; assigned various roles within the military structure of the government but it is only the higher ranking classes that are permitted to breed and obtain a handmaid.  As for the rest?  No sex.  Not even masturbation.  I particularly remember reading the part about underwear designed to prevent nocturnal emissions and thinking that this world is just as criminal to men as it is to women.  Gay men, as another example, are gender traitors and sent to death camps.

IMG_2941

I’d like to think that today we don’t have this problem anymore or that it’s at least diminishing, but well…when I was thinking about this blog I decided to go find a copy of this book.  I popped into a used bookstore on the street after yoga, ran up to the scifi section and discovered no listing for Atwood at all.  With a heavy sigh I trudged up to the “Fiction-Literature” area and sure enough there it was.  I went to check out and this was the exchange that followed:

Me: Glad you had this, I went looking in the scifi section first and couldn’t find it.

Counter: Well that’s because it’s not scifi.

Me: Uhh…well actually it is, I mean it’s soft scifi* but it’s definitely always been in that category from what I know.

Counter: it’s feminist lit.  It can’t be scifi.

And it was a girl behind the counter too.  Apparently feminism and scifi are incompatible.  So much for forward thinking but hardly that surprising.  I still get strange looks from most people who discover my love of the genre.  Strides have been made over the years but aliens and wormholes are still apparently a “boy thing” in the eyes of most.  I personally feel that more strides have been made in film and tv to promote the female empowerment of the geek world and it saddens me that books seem to lag behind which is why I’m so excited when I do find a thoughtful and geeky lady writer.  There is a need, especially in our youth, to identify and learn about ourselves.  That’s part of why people will seek out specific racial, cultural or gender groups and socialize within them.  We want to understand ourselves and while Joss Whedon comes pretty damn close, ultimately I’ll still learn more about being a woman from another woman.  That’s why it’s important to have these talks still and why you can’t ever be completely “color blind” in life.  So I hope more women writers are picking up the call and defying convention and I really hope that they drop the stupid initial-last name convention because while 5 boys might pass over your book, there will be one little girl who might finally pick it up.

IMG_2931

*Some people will claim it’s not scifi or only loosely scifi because it is about a dystopian future.  Funny that I don’t hear people rejecting 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 nearly as often on those grounds.  Now for those of you that would, look we can talk about this another time and I’ll school you on the history of the genre, also known as speculative fiction, and please stop trying to invalidate these books just because you happen to prefer hard-scifi which is a subgenre okay?

Oh right, I still have a recipe to share!  Well as you ponder this topic, why not bake up a lovely quiche for dinner.  Why a Quiche for today’s post?  It’s a largely egg based dish and since I’m thinking about ovaries and baby-mamas I immediately jumped to the ovary connection.  I’m weird.  Accept it.

Scifi Mys-Quiche

An Olivia Original – I made several mini-quiche but this recipe will make one large 9” pie Read more

Feb 12

1 Comment

Think Thin Tuesday: Horny as a Goat Tacos

It’s coming up on Valentine’s Day and that means two things: flowers and chocolate.  Past that it usually means an elaborate meal out with your honey that costs tons of money and usually leaves you full to the point of bursting.  Valentine’s day is the ultimate post-New Year’s diet trap for anyone trying to stay on track, or maybe get back on track, with a diet resolution.  Some of you might be ready to splurge on a nice fancy dinner after working hard the last 6 weeks since turning the corner on the fatty food trilogy that is Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas.  Some of you though, maybe haven’t been keeping it together so well and for you the thought of Valentine’s Day is “oh god here comes another holiday where I ‘m going to stuff my face and there’s going to be chocolate EVERYWHERE for days.”

That’s a big part of the problem with these holidays isn’t it?  If it were simply a single day out of  a month to celebrate that would be one thing.   Instead, in the wake of our consumerist culture and social obligations, these events really seem to stretch on for a week—at least!  There are office parties, friends parties, festivals, special events, shows, shopping deals and last but certainly not the last—the post-holiday clearance sale.   Halloween and Valentine’s Day definitely see weeks of lingering chocolates marked down 50% or more in drugstore bins nationwide and it can be so hard to resist a discount chocolate santa.  Soon enough this single holiday to reward yourself has turned into a smorgasbord that has undone the last month of hellish sacrifice and those five pounds just waddled back with their smiling, adiposian faces.

For someone like say, my mom, it’s always been a struggle.  My step-dad took a few years to learn that she really, truly does NOT want him to buy her chocolates on Valentine ’s Day.  Now what she means by this isn’t so much literally “I don’t want chocolates” but a general “I don’t want to be tempted by sweets or decadent meals, I’m trying to be good and stay on my diet and maintain willpower this year.”  I will always remember the infamous fortune cookie incident that I think finally hit home the request she makes year after year.  See my mom has unfortunately always struggled with her weight.  I have seen her on a perpetual diet since the day I was birthed into the world.  This is in part because she’s always had to work with a long commute and when she was a single mom forget it.  There was no time to exercise.  She also struggles with a metabolism problem that makes it harder for her to maintain a healthy figure and while many people I’ve known use that as an excuse, she legitimately does eat well and gain weight.  Carbs are not her friend even in the best of times.  So my mom routinely asks that for Valentine’s Day we avoid buying her chocolates.  My stepdad interpreted this after several years of buying chocolates anyway by buying my mom a GIGANTIC FORTUNE COOKIE that had been dipped in a candy shell.  We’re talking the size of a human head gigantic.  The rationale?  Well it wasn’t chocolate.  Cue the drama.  Anyway they laugh about it now, at least I hope they do, and in the years since he only buys my mom sugar free chocolates and only when she asks.  Not only does this help her manage her weight, but it demonstrates that he supports her efforts which makes her happy.

So if your honey is trying to stay good this year, but you want to still have a romantic meal, do yourself a favor and stay home.  Cook.  It’s easy and gives you complete control over the nutritional content of your food.  Plus it means so much when a meal is made for you by someone who loves you and men—if you are the one planning the menu get ready to be the talk of the town.  Every lady loves to brag when her man cooks for her and does it well.  So stay home and try this recipe that is high on flavor and low on guilt.  It’s got everything you could want: tortillas, cheese, red meat and pure deliciousness.  Oh and never fear, if you are looking for something completely sinful, I’ll be sharing several of those recipes in the days to come.

Goat meat is extremely lean, to the point that when it’s prepared improperly it can be gamey and unpleasant but when prepared correctly it has a very sweet and tender flavor.  That sweetness will get a boost from the citrus marinade and the meat will be perfectly cooked when you slice it thin and pan sear it just to barely cook.  The best part is that goat’s meat is lower in both fat and cholesterol than beef—in fact it’s lower in fat and cholesterol than chicken.  Meanwhile it’s almost double the iron content so you’re getting all the benefits of eating meat and reducing the bad.  Concerned about growth hormones?  Goat meat isn’t approved for hormone use so you don’t even have to worry about reading the package.  Not only will you steal your honey’s heart, you’ll be protecting it so that you can celebrate this holiday together 50 years down the road and feel just as young as you do today.

Foodies will be happy and delighted by the exotic element of this dish.  If your valentine is red-meating loving American he/she will love it too.  Buy some whole-wheat, low carb and high fiber wraps and you can be happy knowing that you are getting healthsome whole grains.  Finally a dollop of salted crème fraiche will add decadence and tang.  Why are these called horny as a goat tacos?  Well I don’t know about you but there are certain other things I associate with Valentine’s day.  Personally I can’t get very ardent about amorous activity when my stomach is weighing me down.  Plus, yes I’m being a girl here, but I don’t feel sexy after a super fat-laden meal.  Pair these with a nice salad, some strawberries and cinnamon spiced cream and a good Spanish wine and you will have a Latin meal that seduces through the stomach without weighing it down thus leaving room for *ahem* dessert.

Horny Goat Tacos

An Olivia Original Read more

Jan 29

Twofer Tuesday: Duck, Duck…Soup

Introducing Twofer Tuesdays – Two recipes for the price of one!  This week is also a Think Thin post but I’m retiring that title for more general use so you might get think thin thursdays or random healthy recipes as I kickstart back up my own diet.

Something my friends have learned from my instagram and photo streams:  I share photos that will either whet your appetite or turn your stomach.  Case in point—I’ll switch between taking snapshots of doughnuts and cookies to images of post-surgery body parts oozing and gushing.  Yum yum!  I recently had to have another ingrown toenail removed (why am I posting about this on my food blog?) and put up a picture that got an array of disgusted responses.  Don’t worry I won’t be sharing that here now.  Suffice to say it hurt, it still hurts and is in fact in such a bad way that I’m on antibiotics – read between the lines ewwww she’s infected.  Who said pretty girls can’t be gross?  We fart and burp too.  Yup yup yup!  Some hot girls even do it on microphones—I’m looking at you Adrienne Curry.  That woman is insanely hot, insanely geeky and insanely disgusting and I love her for all three.

But on the topic of grossness, I feel awful.  Not sure if it’s because I was in so much pain from my wee toe that I could sleep last night or these antibiotics I’m on—4 times a day!  What?!  I’ve never had antibiotics I had to remember to take so often and I was even on Bactrim years ago which is a huge honkin’ horse pill of a triple-acting antibiotic regimen.  Yuck.  I’m not usually sensitive to medications though I can’t stomach Tamiflu.  Literally can’t stomach it which kind of sucks since it’s the only real anti-viral that exists on the market.  Thankfully I seem to avoid getting the flu year after year in favor of my standing appointment with bronchial infections that have plagued me since childhood.  Or at least I used to.  January has almost come to a close and I have officially made it over a year—a year—without a sinus infection.  Is it a bird, a plane, a miracle?  Nope.  It’s Bikram yoga but I’ll wax and wane poetical about that another day because while I’m grateful to be healthy in a way I’ve never before experienced, I’m in a piss poor mood right now about this stupid toe thing.

I think I’ve been indulging too much as well.  I feel bloated and disgusting and know I’ve gained back a pound or two in the last few weeks.  It’s hard to balance the desire to hunker down in the winter with warm fatty comfort food and efforts to lose or maintain weight loss plans, isn’t it?  We instinctively want to eat more in order to put on that heat insulating blubber that our bodies needed before the modern first world marvel that is the indoor heater.  Part of the problem is that I’ve been on a mad woman quest to develop the PERFECT chocolate chip cookie and as such I have made and eaten way too much cookie dough and finished products.  I’m giving em away as much as I can but really how is a girl to resist warm, gooey cookies fresh from the oven?  I’m happy to say that I’ve finally gotten the recipe tweaked to my liking, as my hips clearly show, and as of today I am officially back on a rigid diet until my weight is back to where I want to maintain it.  But how do you balance that still with cold, overcast weather?

Soup.

Soup is a great meal for dieting in the winter so long as you are making the right choices i.e. avoiding those bacon, cheese, cream and potato laden bowls of deliciousness.  I know baked potato soup is amazing but it’s also NOT a diet friendly option.  Good news though: you don’t have to sacrifice rich, decadent flavorful soups for skinny jeans.  I’ve got a recipe for a Duck broth vegetable soup that will warm you up from the inside out.  The flavors always summon up for me the feeling that I’m in a French countryside cottage with a fire roaring, keeping my toes toasty despite snow on the ground outside.  It’s got all the indulgence of French cuisine without the guilt.  I’ve paired it with a great recipe for some sweet potato biscuits and while the carb load isn’t exactly on diet, if you can constrain yourself to JUST ONE, then you can still have a delicious rustic dinner for under 500 calories—and you never knew that a bit of soup and crust of bread could taste so good.

 Duck Duck Soup

an Olivia Original Read more

Jan 18

SciFriday: Drifter Colony Burritos

Today I want to share with you readers one of the best movies in scifi that you’ve never seen.  It’s got all the hallmarks of a great space adventure: post-apocalyptic, a missing father, a son upon whom all hope for humanity rests, adventure, romance, aliens, space battles, mad scientists and quips galore.  It’s animated and while it may appear to be a children’s movie, it contains humor and quips that will please any adult scifi lover.  It may be a cartoon but it is hardly cartoonish.  The voice lineup includes Matt Damon, Drew Barrymore, Bill Pullman and Nathan Lane.  It also has a paltry score on Rotten Tomatoes and doesn’t get nearly enough love so that’s why I’m sharing it with you today.

In a world where Firefly, Buffy and Avengers reign supreme, Joss Whedon is essentially the King of Comic Con and Nerdom in general.  Occasionally at cons I’ve attended, Whedon gets asked about some of his under-appreciated works—often jokes about Alien: Resurrection get bantered about and some mumbled mentions of Speed or Roseanne are made.  One underrated work though is probably one of my favorite animated films of all time and according to a Reddit “ask me anything” thread, Titan A.E. happens to be one of Joss’ favorite pieces he worked on–his favorite of the mocked and discarded.  I saw Titan A.E. when it first came out in 2000 and loved it instantly.  When I recently realized it was on Netflix instant streaming I rewatched it and was pleased to discover it holds up just as well to my adult viewership as it did when I was 12.

The story isn’t new: aliens have destroyed earth, humanity is scattered to the winds living on drifter colonies and slowly disappearing as a species.  Diaspora.  Cut to our hero, Cale, voiced by Matt Damon; a self-hating human (ha!) working job to job and basically without any aim or goals except to live.  Then Bill Pullman’s character arrives, a swaggering ship’s captain who tells Cale that he was once a friend of Cale’s father and that Cale is humanity’s last great hope.  Cale is incredulous but Korso reveals that the ring left behind by our hero’s missing father is actually a map to a hidden science station—The Titan—which carries some unknown key to the future of the human race.  Unfortunately our captain is trailed by the alien race known as The Drej.  Energy based lifeforms, the Drej are the aliens responsible for eradicating earth and pursued the destruction of the human race with a hatred that is never really explained.  I’ll admit that here the story is a little flat and one sided but it IS still an animated feature, a short one at that, and so some character development had to be sacrificed.

Cale reluctantly joins up with Captain Korso on his ship Valkyrie, but only because he intends upon discovering what secrets the Titan holds that he can sell off.  On board is a crew of three aliens and female human pilot Akima (Drew Barrymore).  Akima doesn’t disappoint on the Whedon “Girls Who Kick Butt” scale.   You can see where this goes of course.  Human boy meets one of the only remaining human girls in the universe…but Akima is not amused by Cale’s apathy to the condition of the human race.  Akima is such a Whedon standard: strong, sassy, vulnerable and outpacing the men around her.  From there the race is on to see who gets to the Titan first: Cale or the Drej.

While the Drej are never really fleshed out, and as beings of pure energy they didn’t have much flesh to go with anyway HA, the characters on the Valkyrie all get their time to shine.  My favorite is the lovable Gune (voiced by John Leguizamo) who is introduced to us holding a simple box with a button….

Gune: [holding up a small device] Does this look familiar? Do you know what it is? Neither do I. I made it last night in my sleep. Apparently I used Gindrogac. Highly unstable.

Preed: Gune…

Gune: I put at button on it. Yes. I wish to press it, but I’m not sure what will happen if I do.

Gune kind of reminds me of Jar Jar Binks but he’s Jar Jar done right.  The film has got a great deal of clever dialogue a children’s movie.  Another great line follows a scene where a security guard doesn’t fall for a scheme by the obnoxious Creed “A smart guard-didn’t see that one coming.”  I also apparently have no taste in music because I find myself still enjoying the late 90’s soundtrack which will most likely seem dated to other viewers.  Okay so soundtrack and villain backstory are where Titan A.E. (after earth) falter but aside from that it really is a GREAT animated flick.  Sometimes in life, things that seem like junk are actually far more valuable than they appear.

Akima: Don’t you get it, Cale? That junk is all that’s left of the place we came from.

Cale: Mm, miss. Like those frozen burritos you were talking about

Akima: At least they don’t jump off your plate.

So if you have a night in and want something to watch on Netflix load this film up.  You won’t be disappointed.  I even have a great recipe for frozen burritos that Akima longs for.  These can be made any time you have a spare moment.  Why buy frozen burritos from the store that either lack flavor or cost $5 a piece when you can make your own at home?  Buy a pack of soft tortillas and load it up with a delicious filling, wrap tightly and freeze.  You can make weeks of easy dinners to store and customize them however you like.  Simple, no-nonsense meal prep that definitely suites a life on the run from killer blue aliens.  Since humanity fled the planet and livestock was likely left behind, these are a vegetarian blend.  I’d like to imagine that there’s something that somewhat resembles cheese though so I included that.  A future without cheese would just be…too depressing.  I also used a cilantro pesto which added both flavor and a space-agey green hue to the food.  Hey it’s a space burrito, it’s gotta look a little weird!

Akima’s Drifter Colony Burritos

An Olivia original

  •  10 medium flour tortilla wraps
  • 1 cup diced bell pepper (blend)
  • 1 diced poblano pepper
  • 2 Tbsp diced jalapeño
  • ½ small onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 Tbsp canola oil
  • 1 can corn kernels
  • 1 can black beans
  • 3 cups sliced baby bella mushrooms
  • 1 Tbsp ground, dried chipotle
  • 1 tsp salt
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • ½ cup cilantro pesto
  • ½ cup grated Monterey jack cheese

Heat the canola oil over medium heat in large sauté pan.  Add in the onions, bell peppers and poblano.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are translucent—approximately 8 minutes.  Add in the black beans, mushrooms, corn, salt, black and chipotle pepper.  Cook for another 10 minutes until the mushrooms are soft but still retain some firmness.   Set aside and let cool fully to room temperature.  Mix in the pesto and cheese.

Cut squares of aluminum foil that leave about an inch around all sides of a flat tortilla.  Use approximately 2 Tbsp of your filling in the center of each tortilla.  You will want to leave space around the sides for wrapping.  The number one flaw in burrito rolling is the tendency to overload them with filling.  You want these to wrap neatly so you can freeze them.

Scoop in your filling, top with extra cheese if you so choose, and fold the bottom of your burrito so that it snugly fits over the filling but you still have an inch left of the top of your circle exposed.  Fold the left and right ends over and roll the burrito so that it closes like a little package.  Wrap tightly several times in aluminum foil.  Then if you want to be extra safe from freezer burn you can further cover these with plastic wrap.  Toss into the freezer.

To reheat you have two options:

Microwave – Fully unwrap the burritos, place on a plate and microwave on HIGH for 5 minutes—stopping to turn the burrito halfway through.

Oven – heat the oven to 425F and unwrap the plastic (if used) but leave the aluminum foil on.  Bake the burrito for about 15 minutes to get the inside nice and melty and the outside just slightly crisp.

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