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Posts from the ‘Sides’ Category

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

Mar 28

1 Comment

Bitter get on my horse(radish)

Now where did we leave off again?  Oh damn, are we still on the 4 questions?  This is turning out to be a long Seder!  Better get on my horse and keep this thing moving….

Yesterday I said that the youngest child is kept engaged by being required to recite the four questions but we only really went over the first.  The second question is:

Shebb’khol hallelot anu okh’lin sh’ar y’rakot, vehallayla hazze maror.
Why is it that on all other nights we eat all vegetables, but on this night we eat bitter herbs?

Answer: We eat Maror (a bitter herb) to remind us of the bitterness of slavery.

On Tuesday we talked about the first vegetable consumed of the evening—the Karpas.  While it is traditionally something bitter, like parsley, it is not actually the bitter herb to which this refers.  Confused yet?  Remember the symbolism for the Karpas was the dipping in salt water for remembrance of tears.  The second vegetable on the Seder plate is almost always Horseradish which as anyone who has handled raw horseradish knows, is particularly strong and pungent.  This is referred to as the Maror or bitter herb.  The inspiration for this particular ritual comes from the following lines in Exodus:

“And they embittered their lives with hard labor” – Exodus 1:14

“…and with bitter herbs they shall eat it” – Exodus 12:8

I know.  Who lets a book tell them to eat raw Horseradish just to prove a point?  I never said this thing as supposed to make sense….  And yes raw horseradish rather than prepared from a jar.  Vinegar is used to help soften and mute the astringency of the root.  This doesn’t stop me from using vinegar in my recipe below though.  Hey I only said I had to be inspired by the Seder plate for these recipes!

But Olivia why do you Jews have all these funny rules about eating?  Like the Kosher stuff?  What’s up with that?  And what is that “Pareve” or “Parve” thing you mentioned the other day?

Oy vey.  I always dread explaining the Kosher thing, especially since I clearly don’t keep Kosher most of the year.  I make an effort during the high holy days as part of the experience of celebrating the holiday, but otherwise I let the Kosher thing go.  I mean there are two schools of thought in my experience about the Kashrut (Kosher law): It’s commanded by G-d (Adonai) for some omniscient and unchallengeable reason OR they originated out of health and food safety concerns.  Well I don’t really ascribe to belief in a higher power and modern day science has more or less solved any food safety concerns.  For example we know now how to avoid Trichnella, the parasite present in poorly prepared pork.  But here’s the rough and dirty of Kosher laws that will help you if you do happen to have actively practicing Jewish friends:

  • Pork and Shellfish are off the table.  Always.  Pork is considered “unclean” and shellfish were “bottom feeders” and therefore forbidden.  Pork also had the nasty habit of carrying the aforementioned parasite and shellfish even today when prepared incorrectly can carry a slew of nasty bacteria.  Cholera is a horrifying way to die.  Additionally rodents, insects, reptiles and amphibians are all forbidden.  So just don’t go to Asia.
  • Kosher Meat: this isn’t food that’s just blessed by a rabbi.  It actually has to be slaughtered in a certain way and no blood is to be left on the meat.  The slaughtering process that is considered Kosher is designed to help remove all the blood and also to kill the animal in the most quick and humane way possible.
  • Fat that surrounds organs is forbidden.  The kind of fat that lines your liver is different than other kinds of fatty tissue.  Usually not an issue as most Americans don’t eat organ meat anyway.  (I do though.  It’s delicious)
  • No Meat with Dairy.  This is the big one that can throw people for a loop because it means your Kosher keeping friend can’t have a Cheeseburger.  Ever.  The ruling for this comes from a line about not boiling a Kid in its Mother’s milk and I have to admit, when you put it that way, it does seem kind of sadistic doesn’t it?  Anyway what this means is that no meat (Fish and Eggs don’t count though) can be consumed with Dairy or within a set number of hours of eating diary and vice versa.  Butter is considered dairy so that gets pretty restrictive.   Foods that contain neither meat nor dairy are called “Pareve” or “Parve” and these foods are useful because you can eat them with any meal.  Thus whenever I have a recipe that fulfills these rules I like to point it out.  It helps making meal planning a little easier since as you can imagine, a big banquet dinner gets quite difficult when you have to choose between using meat or dairy that night.
    This also means Jewish Lasagna is always vegetarian and therefore very, very boring.  (Not true!  I proved that with vegan lasagna.  But I concede nothing replaces mozzarella and a good bolognese.)

There are a bunch of other rules and details I could provide but this is enough for now I think.  Onto the recipe!  Tonight I made a Potato Kugel.  Oh boy more words we don’t know Olivia.  Okay so a kugel (coo-gull) is essentially a casserole made with noodles or potato.  Since noodles are obviously out during our matzo-only holiday, a potato kugel it is!  This is a staple of Jewish cuisine and there’s almost always a kugel present for any big to-do.  There’s also more often than not a BIG ego contest about who has the best Kugel.  Fueds have formed at many a Synagogue and between mother/daughter in-laws for decades.  Thankfully I have no one to compete with at the moment—Mom never really made kugel—so I can puff my chest out without fear and say mine is best at home.

9 times out of 10 Kugel is made as a sweet dish but this time around I wanted something savory to feature the Maror.  Horseradish goes so nicely with potato doesn’t it?  It’s got a lot of that traditional baked potato flavor without the bacon or the dairy since I use chicken fat.  This recipe can be altered quite easily to be rendered completely Parve by removing the chicken skins and using olive oil.  Or you could then serve it with some sour cream.  Mmmmmmm talk about potato heaven.  Flexibility makes it a great addition to your Jewish cookbook.  Look I talked about Flexibility and didn’t even mention yoga.  Gotta be a record!

Maror Horseradish Potato Kugel

An Olivia Original Read more

Dec 13

A whole latke trouble

classic latkes (4)I have a serious anxiety problem about getting into trouble.  Not any specific trouble, just basically anxiety about ever doing (or rather getting caught doing) something I’m not supposed to.  Cop car on the road?  I go into a sweat even if I’m not remotely close to speeding.  Manager wants to talk to me?  Oh god I shouldn’t have logged onto Facebook yesterday for those few minutes.  Heck as a child I didn’t even mind the punishment part so much as the “face the music” part and I’d often skip straight to punishing myself when I did something wrong.  Mom would come home and I’d be standing in the corner.

classic latkes (2)Olivia what are you doing?

I put myself in time-out because I did something naughty but I’m sorry and now I’m in time out.

Okay….

 There were times in grade school, you know those days, where most of the class would be acting up because it was a full moon or something and the teacher would chastise everyone.  You’d get a big lecture about behavior and how disappointed he or she was in all of you and so on and so forth.  These lectures often came after a substitute teacher visit too.  Anyway I rarely acted up in class.  I’m not in some sort of rose-colored denial about my behavior; I was a type-A Hermione Granger in school.  “You could have gotten us all killed, or worse, expelled!” I’d sit there during the lecture knowing full well I didn’t really do anything wrong and yet I’d still feel guilty.  There would have been some five second period where maybe inside I delighted gleefully at the anarchy in the room and knowing that it would upset my teacher just ate away at me.  I’ll never forget that one day when a specific teacher of mine, Mrs. Edwards 5th grade block A, actually pulled me aside after one of these lectures.

 Olivia I saw how upset you seemed when I was talking earlier.  Don’t worry I know you didn’t do anything wrong, none of what I said was directed at you.  Just everyone else.

I know but I still feel bad.

Why?

classic latkes (10)

I don’t know what it is.  I mean I realize in life we goof up, we make mistakes and yes sometimes we even do things we know are wrong but that are ultimately victimless crimes.  I know in my head that I shouldn’t feel badly or let these things get to me and yet I do.  I both respect and hate authority.  I hate authority that I don’t feel has earned my respect but when someone has, I want nothing more than to please and make them happy because I want to earn their respect back in kind.  So when I disappoint someone in the latter category it totally makes sense to me but I don’t know why I’ll get all gnawed up inside at the idea of getting in trouble with someone who I don’t respect.  I’m guessing it’s fear based (and we all know how I feel about fear) since usually the people who have this kind of authority also have the ability to inflict fairly harsh, real punishments like prison time or termination of your job.

Applesauce

Applesauce

The funniest thing about this is that the worst things I’ve ever done in my life are things that I’ve never been punished for.  I haven’t killed anyone or done anything I think that’s particularly awful in the grand scheme of things but I have a few dark splotches here or there on the long tab of “Everything I’ve ever done wrong or incorrectly” that I keep in my brain.  Yeah I do pretty much remember anything I’ve ever done that wasn’t kosher.  It’s exhausting to do that actually and I’m trying so hard to stop being embarrassed or upset with myself over things like getting a frownie face sticker for talking during naptime, pinching someone in first grade, shoplifting that one time to see if I could do it when I was 12 or bitchiest of bitch moments: dating my ex’s friend.

Of course you could blame that phenomenon known as “Jewish Guilt” – an amazing ability of any Jewish Ma or Bubbe to make you feel small and indebted for any misdeed or deed undone.  It’s remarkable and seemingly genetic—every XX with a Jewish leaning manages to do it so well whether or not they had a Jewish mother around to teach them the ways of the disappointing sigh and martyrdom that go along with every guilt laden remark.  In my case I definitely had a master teacher in my mom (I love you mom!  I say that with love!) for both the infliction of guilt and how to brew up a fantastic chicken soup.  One classic Jewish recipe that I did not get perfect from my mom though was for latkes.

or sour cream?

or sour cream?

Oh man.  Every year we would make them and they would be undercooked at the beginning and burnt through by the end.  It just never turned out well.  Luckily I have a weird yen for burnt starches and didn’t mind so much—I ate every crispy piece with glee.  I was that weird kid who liked to set her marshmallow on FIRE when making s’mores you see.  Screw waiting for the perfect golden whathaveyou – give me that charred flavor with the bonus of a speedier product.  YUM.  Still as the years wore on I began to appreciate that certain foods (not marshmallows though, I still like those extra carcinogeny) are better when cooked properly.  Latkes are one of those things and so I busied myself to learn the tips and tricks for making the perfect Chanukah classic.  You can make latkes about a million ways using any variety of foods to substitute for the potato with a number of seasonings and additives.  I’m particularly fond of a very NON-kosher addition to mine (guilt guilt guilt) but with Chanukah here, I figured I’d cover the simple, classic and timeless Onion Potato Latke.

Of course there’s also the classic debate over how to EAT your latkes.  Some people like sour cream, some people like applesauce.  I’ve shown you that I eat them both ways above but the truth of the matter, the topping I most prefer…is vinegar.  YUP!  Screw the cream and screw the sweet, I like my potatoes pancakes in true British fashion.  Try it and see.  Any kind of vinegar will do though I found that that this pinot grigio pressed vinegar is particularly delightful.

classic latkes (9)

Try something else: go for the pucker with some vinegar!

Olivia’s Classic Latke Primer Read more

Dec 10

National Lager Day

Lager ClamsYou may have noticed a lack of post on Friday…or not.  I was super burnt out by the end of last week and could not bring myself to even log onto a computer most of this weekend.  Highly unusual for someone who thinks her belly button would function nicely as an usb port and actually a little worrisome.  Basically I need to focus on my apartment hunting with reckless abandon because this commute cannot go on much longer for someone as hyperactive as me.  It just can’t.

Continuing with my “break the chain” mode I’m in at the moment, today’s recipe will NOT be a muffin.

**Gasp** No muffin you say?  What in the world can preempt the most simple to make, fast to bake, idiot proof quick bread around?  No one thing can possibly be that important.  Okay that last bit is a bit much don’t you think?  Anyway regardless it’s not just one thing: it’s National Lager Day and a big batch of clams.  Delicious, lager steamed clams to celebrate America’s favorite beer.  Now it all makes sense doesn’t it?

Lager Clams 2

As I am sure I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m not really a big lager fan.  I prefer ales—specifically ales of the dark and nutty variety.  Still a good lager can have its place on the table or even better yet, in the kitchen, where you actually will have need of the subtler, less yeasty drink. Like say when you are cooking a delicate yet flavorful shellfish that needs to be complemented but not overshadowed.

So here are some quick and dirty facts about Lager.  I should give it a proper once over as part of my beer series but like I said, there’s a reckless abandon with which I’m doing my apartment search that is limiting how much time I have to spend on these posts for the near future.  I’ll do my best to make it up to the brew (and you!) in the future:

  • America’s most popular beers (Miller and Bud) are both lagers and have a high “drinkability” score.  Lager Clams 3Drinkability refers to how easy it is to get a consumer to have more than one beer.  Lagers in general will rank higher on drinkability because their less aggressive flavor, and in the case of cheap lagers “wateriness”, makes them easier on the stomach.   An extreme opposing example would be Guinness—a very dark ale that is extremely filling.  You wouldn’t play beer point with Guinness, or shouldn’t as I learned the hard way back in my college days.  Drinkability is a great way for companies to create a product which they can sell a lot of at a cheaper price hence the great success of Bud and Budlight.
  • Lagers are bottom fermenting beers.  This means that the yeast sits at the bottom of the tank, rather than the top, while it does its business.  Lagers also use a different strain of yeast than ales.  Ales are traditionally brewed with the baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.  Lagers are brewed with Saccharomyces pastorianus.  It’s not hard to remember the name of this yeast when you also know that lager is a bottom fermenter.  Har Har potty humor Har.  This is just the basic though as yeast strains are often toyed with for beer production and in fact, guarded quite closely.  In another post I’ll get into yeast science a bit more for you.
  • Dark lagers do exist, are more like their bitter ale cousins and are a bit more popular in Germany than here.  If you want to sample one of these varieties try picking up a Dunkel or a Schwarzbeir – meaning black beer.
  • Lagers are subtler in their yeast flavor and are fermented at lower temperatures for longer periods of time.  What’s the benefit to this longer, colder fermentation?  An increase in shelf life time which, coupled with Drinkability scores, is what makes Anheuser-Busch(and Inbev) both brilliant and rich!  It’s also why you can get your 36 pack for the house party much cheaper when it’s a mass produced lager than artisanal small ales.

Lager Clams 4The lager I used in my recipe this week is NOT produce by the mega-conglomerate that currently owns the majority of brewhouses in the world.  Since I wanted to go with a New England vibe for the clams I opted for a classic staple lager that you don’t really find in this country outside of states bordering Canada’s eastern seaboard: Moosehead Lager.  *Note you are required to be able to say you are 21 to enter that website*

Moosehead is a beer I distinctly remembered my mother drinking when we lived in Maine oh all those years back when I was a wee lass of 5.  It’s the product of Canada’s oldest independent brewery and still operated by the same family today.  That might have nothing to do really with the quality of the beer but I have to say, drinking something with that kind of family history really lends a pleasant nostalgia experience to your consumption.  At least I think it does.   Dining is quite different from eating and I’ve found that stories that invoke small town, family hearth kind of feelings really add to the enjoyment of the dining experience for a lot of people.  Food is such an intimate thing—after all how often do we describe it as “made with love”—and so providing that element to the experience really does seem to enhance it.  I do think it’s a superior product to the blue can stuff so I ran with it and this was my resulting meal.  If you can’t find Moosehead, don’t despair, any lager will do really.  The whole point is to lend the flavor of beer without making the dish taste like beer.  You really want the clams to sing in this dish.

Moosehead Lager Steamed Clams

An Olivia Original

  • 2lb littleneck clams (preferred but any clam will do)Lager Clams 6
  • 12oz Moosehead lager
  • 1 Tbsp finely minced shallot
  • 4 Tbsp butter
  • 2 Tbsp chopped parsley

Scrub all your clams and be sure to remove any sand, grit and beards left behind.  Nothing worse than biting into a sandy clam.

In a large stock pot add your butter and shallot over medium heat.  Sweat and bring out that translucent delicious color of the shallots—approximately 8 minutes.  Pour in your lager, clams and chopped parsley and bring the liquid to a boil.  Cover the pot with a tight fitting lid and reduce to simmer for about 5-10 minutes.

Clams are small and delicate—they will cook quickly and become like rubber if you don’t watch it.  Once the majority of your clams have opened remove them from the heat.  A few may still be closed…toss them!  Those were dead clams and you do not want to pry them open to eat them.  Dead clams = bad bugs.  I usually find 2 to 5 in every batch.  If you have significantly more than a handful of closed clams, you might not have let them cook long enough.  Add the closed ones back into the pot and give them another 5 minutes.  Not opening still?  Bad luck.  Toss them.

Serve with the remainder of the liquid and some extra chopped parsley for presentation.  Grate some lemon zest on top if you are feeling citrusy today and sop up any extra sauce with a giant slice of Anadama bread to make it a real New England style feast.

See I told you it was worth giving up muffins for.

Lager Clams 5

Nov 2

SciFriday: Tell Tale Heart( Beets)

Mary Shelley is often considered the British mother of science fiction for her gothic horror story Frankenstein – the first published work more or less acknowledged as SF.  A bit more overlooked I’d wager is the gothic American counterpart who began to publish works related to the genre a decade or so later.  Admittedly it would not be fair to give this person much credit for the genre as he is most well-known for straight horror/ghost tales with nothing related to science at all.  You may have heard of him, just a little known author by the name of Edgar Allen Poe.

It was interesting to me when I realized in writing this post just how science fiction has its roots so firmly entrenched in the pre-existing horror genre.  It certainly makes sense that the two are intertwined—I’d guess the earliest impressions from the literary community, historically slow to warming up to the whirs and beeps of progressive science, would be wary at best.  Thus the origins of science fiction are really in anti-science fiction.  Shelley’s classic is a perfect example of this: it highlights the creator abandoning his scientific bastardization of nature to devastating results.  Long standing has been the tradition ever since of authors being the voice of caution, and quite often fantastical in scope and misunderstanding the science they write of, but voices worth listening to all the same. 

Poe is probably best known for his poem The Raven and that masterful piece of suspense, insanity and obsession The Tell Tale Heart.  Oh how that story thrilled me as a child—hands down my favorite.  Not familiar with this short?  Okay let me sum up: it’s about an insane young man who lives with an elderly ward.  I don’t think it’s ever clearly distinguished what their relationship is.  I always imagined an uncle or apprenticeship of some sort.  Anyway.  This young, insane man becomes gripped in the monomaniacal obsession with the elder’s “vulture” eye—and kills him for it. 

“He had the eye of a vulture –a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees –very gradually –I made up my mind to take the life of the old man.”

Poor old man!  Killed for something as simple as a cataract!  So yes the narrator does eventually kill him, after much obseessive dwelling upon it and I know  I’m giving away the ending a bit here but shame on you for having gone this long without reading it!  Anyway the real crux of the tale follows when the man begins to hear the pounding of the dead heart in the floor where the body has been stashed.  It’s beautifully written and permeates popular culture.   I’m fairly certain the Simpsons used this story both in a Treehouse of Terror episode and a Lisa centric episode that is one of my favorites.   She experiences jealousy over meeting a girl smarter than herself for the first time and there’s a whole scene with a diaroma that made me want to build diaromas for a year after that as a child.  I don’t know how many shoeboxes I demolished.  So you see?  POPULAR and shame shame shame if you haven’t read it.  Erm.  Sorry about that.  Cookie?

The narrative of this man who is clearly insane is haunting; he is suffering from intense paranoiawhich he self-diagnoses as hypersensitivity of the senses.  The threepeating, anxious prose in Tell Tale was always read so theatrically by my grandfather.  There are several lines where the madman raves in triplicates “It grew louder –louder –louder!” and so would my grandfather’s voice.  I have very few good memories of my maternal grandfather.  Ever the megalomaniac, he is, in my mind, the root that spawned many a rotten branch on our family tree.  In fact, if I tax myself, I can only think of three positive memories/moments/things in my life to him: 1) encouragement of my creative writing efforts – 2) getting my first computer – 3) introduction to the world of Edgar Allen Poe.  My grandfather’s voice is forever tied to the meter of many poems writ by Poe; Lenore especially has a particularly mesmerizing memory tied to it. 

So what of Poe’s more scientifically driven works?  This is SCIFRIDAY after all.  Sonnet to Science which is the first related work, follows the anti-science fiction footsteps with lines like: Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart/Vulture, whose wings are dull realities.   Poe later wrote a short story, possibly the first story ever of space exploration, titled The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall which highlights a voyage in hot air balloon to the moon.  Jules Verne is said to have been inspired by this for his own similar tale.  Another work The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion relates a story about the end of the world at the hands of a comet smashing us all out of existence in a fiery explosion…. so I’m guessing that he came around to appreciate the imaginative potential inherent in science fusing with literature. 

 To honor the American Science Fiction father I am sharing with you a recipe for some Healthy Heart Beets.  God but I do love a good pun.  Beets seemed especially fitting for this story because of their unique phytonutrient and pigment makeup.  They contain a very rare pigment called betalain which has exceptional anti-oxidant, anti-flammatory properties that support the nervous system and specifically your eyes.  Gotta avoid those cataracts folks—you don’t want to get murdered in your sleep for having a bad case of vulture eye do you?    The anti-inflammatory properties inherent to beets also show great promise in treating several types of heart disease like atherosclerosis.  I designed this recipe to use oils with a reduce saturated fat load to make it a little more “heart” friendly.  Butter calorically stands in the same and would make it taste that much better of course so feel free to substitute if desired.  This recipe utilizes the whole beet too so you’re getting all the inherent benefits not only from the red, heart of the thing but the fiber and nutrient rich, green leaves as well.

 Healthy Heart Beets

An Olivia Original 

Read more

Oct 11

2 Comments

Aporkalypse Now…?

Did you hear the hoopla last week about the impending Aporkalypse?  According to a report from the UK National Pig association, a global shortage of pork is pending due to droughts killing off crops used as food supply.  American scientists are coming back saying that the fear about a global shortage is baloney and that we’ll be just fine.  While I was certainly swept up in the punny fun of the pig panic, I had my suspicions about the validity of the UK group’s claims.  The more I thought about it the more confused I got since we’d see a larger impact of the drought on cow livestock than pig.    Pigs can and do eat anything.  On a traditional farm they are essentially the ultimate garbage disposal unit.  Factory farms even feed them, and get ready to be squicked out here, but they feed them bits of the cows that we don’t want.

Apparently there is less concern about Prion transmission between ruminants and non-ruminant mammals.  I still think it’s gross and wrong and is why I avoid factory raised food like the plague.  Oh and when I say pigs will eat anything I really mean it.  I walked into a wild pig pen and was greeted by Babe and friends chomping down on my knees.   Fuckers.  I have to say that I’m glad I’m only Jewish because I have no qualms about eating these mean little porkers.  They are delicious and not nearly as cute as we think they are.  Just remember they are domesticated wild boars and those things will rip you apart—just ask Robert Baratheon.  Am I right or am I right?

<soapbox post of the week>

The panic has got people thinking again about food, what we eat and how we raise it.  This Forbes op-ed I read (not very good one to be honest) argues that a shortage of pork would be a good thing because it will eliminate the inefficiency of feeding grain we grow to pigs rather than consuming it directly.  Just one problem with that: the grains we grow to feed livestock are NOT edible by humans.  I don’t know if the author of the piece is aware of that; he makes the current agriculture climate sound a little too simple.  We can’t just suddenly infuse our diets with the grain we’d previously been feeding livestock—it’s not actually a variety that humans can consume.  In fact it’s not actually something that our livestock can consume either which is why they get sick and we abuse antibiotics in factory farms.   The super scary E. Coli strain you have to worry about was cultivated by this antibiotic use.

What needs to be talked about is how entrenched we are in this spiraling system.  Stop subsidizing the corn industry which sends something like 80-90%** of the crop they grow, again remember totally inedible by humans, to be processed into sugar/ethanol/livestock feed.  That means almost ALL of the corn we grow is totally useless to us if the electricity suddenly goes off.   Meanwhile it’s producing: cheap sugar for fast food (which makes us fat and gives us diabetes), food stuff for factory farmed meat products (resulting in beef with higher values of saturated fats, loaded up with hormones and abusing antibiotics—also making us fat and sick) and wasteful, inefficient energy conversion to ethanol.    **Figures all taken from my memory of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” which you really should read if you haven’t yet.

Anyway if the shortage fear is just a bunch of hogwash (har har har) and it certainly looks to be the case, it was a smart move on the part of the pork industry.  All this chatter is certainly doing a good job at reviving the waning bacon trend that took over food blogs the last few years.  It had become so “2011” to add bacon to everything but lately I’ve had a few fun, Halloween themed ideas pop into my head that I am just determined to realize.  Plus I made this lentil salad recently with bacon and smoked ham hock…ya know, the sort of thing the big bad wolf dreams about.   It’s kind of looking like cat food in these photos :-( but I promise you it tastes great.  In fact despite the fatty swine, it is very light tasting fare thanks to the crunchy celery, red onion and vinaigrette.

Don’t worry, if we ever do run out of delicious pig parts, it turns out the Chinese love pork just as much as we do.  So much so that their government has a strategic pork reserve to serve as a buffer zone for times of over or under production.  If you find yourself facing total mental and emotional breakdown you can always just dig that hole to China and yourself some fried rice with a side of roast Wilbur.  Still I suspect you’re going to see your beef prices go up before the pork prices do.  Maybe take this as a time to start eating a little less meat in general (us Uh-MARE-icans really do overconsume it) and what you do buy, try to get from local farms raising grass fed beef and wild pork.  Better for you, better for the animals, better for the economy and better for the environment.


</soapbox post of the week>

Green Lentil and Bacon Salad
Bon Appetit May 2001

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Sep 25

Think Thin Tuesday: The Fig is Up!

Staying healthy is a balancing act and anyone who wants to lose weight or even just maintain needs to figure out a way to achieve that perfect balance to their lives.  I’m afraid that I have been pushing it just a wee bit too hard the last week and now the jig is up…I finally caught my first cold in a year.  All things considered I’m pretty proud of myself.  I’ve managed to avoid a serious sinus infection for far longer than I ever have before.  I used to routinely get ill; I mean we’re talking every 6 weeks I’d be back in the doctor’s office for another bout of bronchitis.  I’d had pneumonia three times before even hitting the age of 21.  So if I can manage to stave off this head cold from turning into anything more severe I will count myself lucky, nay, grateful, that my insane schedule this past week didn’t push me further.

It was probably the trip down to southern California that really disabled my immune system to the point of infection.  We don’t exactly eat the healthiest food at this weekend long geek-retreats in Agua Dulce but I did notice that a number of my friends are trying to get healthier.   A handful of them are using an app called “MyFitnessPal” to track their food intake.  It was nice to see folks getting more aware of precisely what is going into their bodies, even if you aren’t always choosing the healthiest options, the first step is awareness.  Awareness is what leads to smarter choices for meals and snacking. 

The second step though is balance.  Finding the time to work, play and stay healthy can be extremely challenging.  This past week I definitely didn’t do my part to stay healthy.  I wasn’t getting enough sleep, ate too much junk food and partied a little too hard on Saturday considering the lack of sleep and good eats.  Truthfully had it not been such a special occasion I probably would have stayed home. 

See part of achieving balance involves knowing when to bow out.  Last week was work heavy and I really should have balanced it out by cutting back on my play.  That’s another hard thing for people to do.  We want to reward working hard by playing harder but that mentality doesn’t work.  The truth is that when you go heavy on one end you need to lighten the other.  Balancing work and play doesn’t mean bulking up on one when the other is heavy—rather you have to put both on one side of the scale and your health on the other.  If work is extra hard that week you need to lighten up the social activities to keep your work/play ratio in line with your health. 

Sometimes this means leaving a party early or not going at all; a challenge to those of us who suffer from FOMO aka the “fear of missing out.”  I used to really suffer from that and so I’ll wind up sacrificing sleep and rest I need in order to make sure that I don’t miss anything when my friends got together.  What I’ve come to discover in my more “mature” years of these mid-twenties is this: it’s okay to say no to your friends.  It’s important to step back, say I need time to rest, to recuperate, to do laundry and to stay home to ensure that I don’t wind up eating like crap, sleeping too little and put myself in a hospital bed from exhaustion.   This was one of those rare, I’m going to make the effort no matter what, situations and I’m glad I did.  But now it is time to regain the balance and find my footing. 

Starting with what I’m eating.  I wanted something green to eat, something sweet, fruity and with just the right amount of salt.  I wanted a salad but I wanted something that would also be good warm and a little melty….Crafting the perfect salad is also about balance.  This is a perfect salad for fall to eat with some sliced roast chicken (not shown).   You can serve up 4 smaller side salads as shown here with chicken and maybe a whole grain OR double the salad servings to make a meal out of your greens and top it with the chicken skipping out on the grains completely.  Just depends on what your diet needs.  For me?  I tend to eat a low carb, though not carb free, diet so I’d probably go the second route.

Swiss Chard & Fig Salad
an Olivia Original  Read more

Sep 21

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Fantasy Friday: Gamgee’s Potato Dumplin’s

It’s going to be a quiet blogging weekend for me as I descend upon southern california to celebrate the birthday of a dear friend of mine.  Kenny, also known as The Geeky Fanboy, will be hosting a party for a number of our guildie karass at his house.  We used to do these movie night get togethers very frequently but I’m afraid that hosting as many as 20 people in your home at a time takes its toll both emotionally (quite draining) and financially (as drunken people break your stairs, doors, tv stands….) and so we put these gatherings on hold for a little while.  I can hardly blame the poor guy and I don’t know that I’d have the ability to calmly have that many people roaming my house ever much less on a semi-regular basis. I’m glad that we’re doing another one though and entirely to celebrate the kind of “God-Father” Kenny is to our group.

I always imagine the gaggle of geeks that gather much like the dwarves who sing that poem from The Hobbit.   You know the one that goes:

Chip the glasses and crack the plates!
    Blunt the knives and bend the forks!
That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates-
  Smash the bottle and burn the corks!

Cut the cloth and tread on the fat!
  Pour the milk on the pantry floor!
Leave the bones on the bedroom mat!
  Splash the wine on every door!

Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl;
  pound them up with a thumping pole;
And when your finished, if any are whole
  Send them down the hall to roll!

That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates!
So, carefully! carefully with the plates!

We get rather boisterous while poor Kenny Baggins is constantly trying to maintain order, keep the kitchen clean and seems to be endlessly supplying us with food and drink.  Poor little hobbitses!  I try to do my part to help but I’ve found that he’s a great deal like me.  When I have company over for dinner and they offer to wash the dishes I always insist that they just leave the plates in the sink. For many this is a social game akin to when a girl reaches for the check but really with the understanding that next the boy will insist upon paying and she will relent.  The guest will try to wash the dishes but the host will insist it’s okay and so on and so forth.  Well with Kenny, and myself as I am much like him in this respect,we really don’t want you to wash our dishes.  Why?  I know how anal this sounds but 9 times out of 10 you’re going to do it wrong.  They won’t be quite right or they’ll get put away in the wrong spot…it inspires anxiety in me even thinking of it.  I often feel useless not helping Kenny clean up more during these events (I’ll do a little like throw away trash and wipe up spills) but I totally understand where he is coming from.

My analogy for our group dynamic is particularly apt because Kenny is a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings.  In fact he does a spectacular cosplay as Frodo, though because of the poem I always kind of think of him as Bilbo.  I’ll never forget the first time I read those books.  I was in fourth grade, so about 9 years old, and when I was doing my best to read the entire fantasy section of our school library.  For some reason the librarian decided to deny me when I first attempted to rent out “The Hobbit” because she thought it was going to be too advanced for me.  My mother set that woman straight in about two seconds–I’d been reading at what passes for an 11th grade level.  The librarian was skeptical but I devoured that book and came back for the rest in short time.  I recall the librarian quizzing me about the book and after I answered each question, delivering an intellectual bitch slap in the process, she never made another squawk about my book selections.

I’m sad I missed the LOTR movie marathon weekend that Kenny hosted over a year ago.  The films were exceptional and to celebrate the group made lembas bread.  I haven’t attempted to make my own lembas bread recipe though that is on my list for a total LOTR themed dinner party someday.  Maybe if I get a whole theme going for dinner I can convince Kenny to do a movie marathon redux for the films.  A recipe I do have in my arsenal I love because it is inspired both by a memorable line from Samwise Gamgee.  There’s that scene where Gollum is eating the raw fish and Sam is bemoaning the lack of potatoes:

What’s taters, precious?

Po-ta-toes? Po-ta-toes!

Boil ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew!

I wondered what Sam might have in mind and realized potato dumplings fit the bill perfectly.  First you boil, then you mash them and then form balls which can be served up in a hearty stew.  Sam is a gardener so I realized his dumplings would also be particularly flavorful with some nice herbs and spices to round them out. Since Kenny Baggins usually cooks up biscuits and gravy for breakfast when I and all my dwarven brethren visit, I decided to slather these delicious hobbit treats in a sawmill gravy rather than a stew.  Exactly the sort of Prancing Pony tavern food a Hobbit would expect to have for elevenses and a fun melding of fantasy and friend inspired food.

Gamgee’s Potato Dumplin’s with Gravy
an Olivia Original inspired by LOTR – makes 20-24 dumplings Read more

Sep 18

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Think Think Tuesday: Tzimmes Down Now!

Oh my gosh! Wrapping things up at work is keeping me so busy. Everyone wants to get in those last minute requests before the transitions fully take place and before I walk out of these halls, making that final walk against the wind tunnel never to return again…. Okay overly dramatic. I’m going to be down the street and half the people I work with have my personal number. It’s not like I’m never going to be around those buildings again and hopefully I’ll still see a lot of these folks in the evenings on occasion. In the meantime there’s a lot to get through and I find myself just needing a chance to “tzimmes down now” especially as this is supposed to be a time of the year for me to reflect and work on changing those pesky flaws of character of mine.

Rosh Hashanah is almost over, for those of you who didn’t know it’s a two-day new year celebration of the Jewish religion. Most reform Jews really only actively observe the first day but it ends at sundown tonight. As such I decided that I would bring you not one but two recipes celebrating this year. No one at home was up for a big brisket and shebang this year, but in the spirit of needing to simma down and get myself steadied this weekend, I’m bringing you this recipe I’ve developed for a delicious tzimmes.

What is Tzimmes? Good question. Tzimmes is a traditional Jewish dish for the new year of sweetened, stewed carrots with honey. The honey again symbolizes the wish for a sweet new year and good blessings. The carrots are usually cut into round circles to mimic the look of gold coins. Hold the Jew Gold jokes please, the coin imagery is about wishing a prosperous year ahead but that doesn’t have to translate entirely literally. Of course a little extra cash wouldn’t hurt right?

Typically this dish is beefed up with additional root vegetables, orange juice and prunes–and the result is usually mushy and sickly sweet. Most recipes I’ve seen call for a great deal of sugar, honey, orange juice and dried fruit. 4 big sources of sugar plus carrots which are a sweeter vegetable. I loved this stuff as a kid and no wonder, but as an adult I started to find most tzimmes a little cloying. Last year I cooked my brisket with it and that helped a bit–the meat added some fat and rich flavors to balance out all the sweet but it really didn’t make the meal any healthier.

This year I balanced out the sweet a bit by using a larger ratio of cranberries to prunes (I love prunes but the cranberries add a tart bite), cutting back on the amount of honey/sugar/orange juice and rounded out the loss of liquid with extra vegetable broth. This is a vegetarian option recipe so you can amp up the flavor a bit by using a chicken or beef broth instead. I also made sure to use as much of a variety of root vegetables as possible, I just love parsnips, and even added in a little rhubarb. Rhubarb typically is spring produce but we have these weird Indian Summers in northern california so I occasionally still find some at the Farmer’s Markets. I debated using some radishes but decided I didn’t want quite that level of peppery bit in the mix. It should still be a sweet dish for the holiday. Finally there’s the matter of whether or not to peel the vegetables.

This is what 1 serving looks like.

The word tzimmes comes from an amalgamation of yiddish words that translates into “for” – “eating” but the word is also synonymous with the idea of “making a fuss” about something. The etymology for this connotation is thought to derive from the fussy nature of preparation for the dish. While cooking it takes very active effort, beforehand you typically would peel and finely chop and dice all the various root veggies. If you want to save yourself some time and get a little bit more in the way of good for you minerals, I say skip this step. For a lot of root vegetables the greatest source of nutrition lies in their outer skins so if you really want to get the best out of your meal for your body this is a great excuse to say buh-bye to tradition and cut 10 minutes off prep time.

What you wind up with using this recipe is a delicious stewed blend of veggies that pair really nicely with some roasted chicken drumettes. That’s how I’m eating dinner tonight to wrap up the holiday. Again this is still a very sweet recipe and I could easily see giving it the thanksgiving treatment and turning it into dessert with just a few marshmallows on top. I bet even the pickiest of vegetable eaters will be happy with this one. As a bonus a single cup serving is about 170 calories which makes it a reasonable side dish or when doubled a great main course.

New Year Resolution Tzimmes

Olivia Original – 6 servings – 170 calories a cup Read more

Sep 6

3 Comments

Do not anger the Yogi-Bear

There is this guy in my yoga class who drives me absolutely nuts during practice.  I know I should be all “peace and light” if I’m calling myself a yogi.  I should show patience and kindness.   I should harness his obnoxiously distracting behavior as little more than an extra challenge to my yoga practice–i.e. it should challenge me to focus harder on myself.  I know I should do all these things but I’m still a type A neurotic at my core.   When this guy feels the need to grunt, groan and flop his body about like speed laced fish out of water whenever he gives up on a posture, I find myself clenching my jaw.  “Just breathe” I will try to remind myself and use the anger I feel when he thuds down to the floor next to me.  Really it’s an audible, almost vibratory thud that functions as a mini-tantrum when he falls out of pose.

I’ve found that anger during class can work for and against me.  Sometimes I am raging inside about an event that day and I burn out quickly.  I’ll do a few really great postures and then lose all my energy completely.  That’s the negative kind of energy you can get from it.  Other times the anger comes from a deeper place.  It’ll be something that actually has a positive effect on me because it is driving me to prove myself or overcome some challenge.  The days I can tap into that I find my yoga practice greatly enhanced and sustained by this kind of low burning, well built flame.  I call those days my blood of the dragon practices.

Last night?  Definitely the former of the two kinds.  When I got home I needed to make something for dinner and I needed to get out my frustration.  I had a mess of potatoes that needed to get eaten up and so roasted, SMASHED potatoes seemed like just the way to go.

Stupid yoga jerk – SMASH.

Boyfriends wasted my time and money and emotional energy – SMASH.  SMASH.  SMASH.

All my friends are 400 miles away – SMASH.

Brother left food out.  Again - SMASH.  SMASH.

Election year and both political parties are making a total mockery of our system as per usual but this year they aren’t even trying to pretend to be even the slightest bit reasonable and I don’t understand how these folks get elected and oh-my-god did that Brooklyn senator really just talk about slavery in New York by the Dutch in 1890 how does she not know anything about her own history why do these people run our country??  – SMASH.  SMASH.  SMASH.  SMASH.  SMASH.

Job not going anywhere – SMASH.

The world is just generally unfair and good people are getting screwed -  SMASH.

Fuck I broke a nail -  SMASH.

Firefly is STILL CANCELLED -  SMASH SMASH SMASH SMASH SMASH SMASH SMASH…………………………………..

Roasted Smashed Potatoes
an Olivia Original Read more

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