CSA Week 15

This week at the CSA we recieved 2 roma tomatoes, 3 medium tomatoes and 25 cherry tomatoes. I chose one bunch of swiss chard (gorgeous green chard), a bunch of leeks, 16 small potatoes, a small head of lettuce, two great handfuls of green beans, a bunch of beets (Anyone want my beets? They are free if you are willing to pick up!), a seductive bunch of sage and 10 green and slightly underripe peaches. I am planning one last batch of sauce before the tomatoes are all gone, and I am thinking potato leek soup because that sounds amazing and I have some chicken bones leftover to start making my own stocks.
I got home late since I picked up my share tonight and took out a container of my frozen Sunday Sauce for dinner with some whole wheat pasta I picked up at the Farmer's Market over the weekend. I got the pasta on the table on time (Whew!) but Thing 1 only ate a little bit. It was because the peaches were sitting out on the table. He cried and cried for peaches. Good I know, but fruit is dessert in our home. I told him he had to eat so much pasta before he could have peaches. So he cried and complained, and I spoke and explained, and finally after 5-10 minutes, you know what he did? He ate his pasta. Mommy: 1, Thing 1: 0. Well, that was today's score. Had it been a longer time period no doubt the score would have been more like Mommy: 12, Thing 1: 976.
Too bad though that the peach was kind of green tasting and underripe. Oh well. There is a chill in the air, and no doubt apples will soon be pushing peaches out of our weekly share. *Sigh* I am mourning the summer. It will be at least 7 cold months until I will see her again.

Lard, You Might Not Know As Much As You Think You Know

She. Did. Not. Just. Say. That.

Oh I assure you I did.

I have never really eaten Lard in it's most convenient form: tub. I have, of course, eaten bacon, but the rents hated the pork flavor so much that they just tossed the leftover bacon grease. I bought a pre-made pie crust in the days before I had a Table of Promise sitting in my house. Those folks used half shortening and half lard. I was Horrified to discover that gem. The container had two pie crusts and after I discovered what I was eating, I threw the other one away. This is how much we have been pre-programmed to stay away from animal fats like lard and tallow. Those saturated fat laiden items will surely kill us, right?

I have said this before at The Table of Promise, nutritionists aren't specific to their audience when they speak. They address the public as a total, but I have found that two specific groups are listening, the older crowd who are afraid that what they eat will shorten their life span and the younger crowd who are afraid that what they eat will make them fat and unattractive. The problem is that now all our health and food information is about how fat equals a shorter life span and this lumps both the groups together and just adds one more layer to all the misinformation. Lard however, is a different story. Everyone, including me until recently, is pretty well positive that lard is unhealthy, will make you fat faster than other fats and eventually will kill you by clogging your arteries. Does that pretty much sum it up?

I stumbled across lard recently on the Internet. I cannot now remember why. But the article I found was very interesting and peaked my curiosity. It suggested that maybe lard isn't as bad for us as we had all originally thought.

All fats are fat. Yeah, that is right. But some are saturated and some are unsaturated. Some contain traces of water (like butter) that make them actually less calorie dense than their liquid cousins, but that water is just taking up space. Some fats are just fat, and some have trace minerals and vitamins in them. So it is not that cut and dried. I will explain.

I like the website http://www.nutritiondata.self.com/ They have alot of good info, and it is largely unbiased. They just have alot of tables and charts and allow you to draw your own conclusions. I looked up several things on their website in preparation for this post.

First off, Corn and Canola Oil. Both Corn and Canola oil were lumped together because I have to assume they have similar nutritional properties. (Side note:A Tablespoon is a VOLUME measurement, and some of the fats here are DENSER than other, so sometimes one tablespoon is 12 grams and other times a tablespoon is 14 grams. That does make a difference in the final nutrional data in comparison) So first off corn and canola oil have 124 calories in each tablespoon. One tablespoon of corn oil has 14 grams of total fat, 8% of which is saturated, 59% is monounsaturated and 29% is polyunsaturated (yeah-that only adds up to 96%, the website doesn't explain and I can only work with the numbers I am given). The total Omega-3 fatty acids are 813 mg and the Omega-6 fatty acids are 3217 mg (there are no established RDA's for the essential fatty acids....yet). A tablespoon of Corn Oil or Canola Oil also contain 10% of your daily Vitamin E intake and 7% of your daily Vitamin K intake and no phytosterols (more on that later).

A tablespoon of Olive Oil weighs 13g and has 119 calories. One tbsp has 13.5 grams of total fat, 14% of which is saturated, 73% is monounsaturated and 11% is polyunsaturated. The total Omega-3's are 103mg, and the total Omega-6's are 1318mg. One tbsp of Olive oil also contains 10% of your daily vitamin K intake, 10% f your vitamin E intake and 29.8 mg of phytosterols. Phytosterols are compounds found in plant fats that can reduce your cholestorol. Although Wikipedia states that corn oil contains sterols, nutritiondata.sef.com said they did not. I wonder who is true.

Now butter is an animal fat, but it contains some water, so that affects it weight, fat content and calories for the volume measurement of one tablespoon. A tablespoon of butter weighs 14g and has 100 calories. It has 11.4 g of total fat, and of that 63% is saturated fat, 25% is monounsaturated fat and 4% is polyunsaturated fat. Total Omega-3's are 44.1mg and the total Omega-6's are 382mg. One tablespoon of butter also contains 7% of your daily Vitamin A intake, 2% of your daily Vitamin E intake, and 1% of your Vitamin K intake.

Shortening, the hydrogenated vegetable oil that was created to replace lard has been found to be really really bad for us. Even the government recommends that the daily intake for transfat be ZERO. Even though everyone for decades told us margarine was better for us than butter, they were all wrong. We are still wrong about something and we just don't know it yet, I am sure of it. But let's look at the stats, shall we? One tbsp of shortening weighs in at 12 g and has 113 calories. One tbsp also has 13 grams of fat, of which 25% is saturated fat, 42% is monounsaturated fat, 28% is polyunsaturated fat and 13% is trans fat. Total Omega-3's are 240mg and total Omega-6's are 3343mg. One tbsp of shortening will give you 6.8% of your daily Vitamin K intake.

And lastly we have arrived at lard. Take a look at what I found. One tablespoon of lard weighs in at 12g and has 115 calories. One tbsp of lard has 13 grams of total fat, 39% of which is saturated fat, 45% is monounsaturated fat and 11% is polyunsaturated fat. It's total Omega-3's are 128mg and total Omega-6's are 1300mg. One tbsp of lard will also give you 6.3mg of choline, the same compound in egg yolks.

Now I didn't list out all these stats to help you find the ONE item which is the best for you. That would suggest that I think that eating the same thing day after day is good for you! No, a body needs variety, and a body needs different kinds and sources of fats. But I prefer the ones found unprocessed in nature, like butter, basic pressed olive or peanut oil and lard. So what did I take away from all these stats? First-all of these fats have some saturated fat in them. Although modern nutritionism has made saturated fats out to be so bad, even oh-so-holy olive oil does contain some saturated fat. Secondly-lard is made from primarily UNsaturated fats (the good kind). And lastly-lard is lower in saturated fat than butter.

I also like the idea that lard is a natural fat. We began domesticating pigs in around 7000BC. There is no doubt in my mind that we have evolved to eat them and their fat. Humans have been eating it for thousands of years. We have been eating corn oil and shortening for less than one hundred years and they require really aggressive processing. We also know that at least one of those two foods we have managed to really screw up by creating trans fatty acids. So when it comes to fat, I like to keep to a couple rules. First off, I don't fry at home. Deep frying is too difficult and creates alot of (expensive) waste. I am eating less and less of this delicious food group even at restaurants, but here's to my health! Also, I will eat natural fats, but I like to make sure that my food doesn't taste greasy. At least then I know that the amount of fat is within balance and I am probably not eating too much. And lastly, the French would say "je n'est pas faim". Roughly translated it means "I do not have hunger". I try to stop eating when I no longer have hunger, rather than waiting until I am full (it is a really different perspective, no?). These are the ways that I can have my butter and my lard without too much guilt and no pooch hangin' over the skinny jeans.

And now that I have that cleared up, I think I am going to go make a pie crust.

Kirsten Gillibrand Wants to Force Grocery Stores to Post Recall Information

I have been ambivalent towards our junior senator Kirsten Gillibrand ever since Governor Patterson appointed her in 2008. I was, like many other New Yorkers, surprised that out of the pool of eager candidates Patterson would choose such a starry eyed right leaning new comer. I don't mind her flip flopping on gun control issues because her constituency has changed since her days as a local representative for her rural upstate community. Now that she represents communities like the South Bronx, her stand on major issues should change to reflect the needs of those in her jurisdiction.

Yesterday I first heard that Gillibrand was suggesting that grocery stores post information about food recalls so that consumers could be informed. This steams me because once again Gillibrand seems uninformed about what the real problem is. Forcing grocery stores (many of which in NYC's five boroughs are privately owned franchises rather than huge chains with out of state central management) to post recall information is a bit like assigning blame to those businesses. "We sold you tainted meat, so sorry, maybe you should shop somewhere else from now on." And fining them for non compliance is even worse!

The problems with food safety in this country have been created by huge central processors. It is not fair to have the grocery store owners clean up the mess of these irresponsible processors. Besides, this bit of legislation would highlight the fact that the FDA does not have the authority to issue a recall. And that most recalls happen after the bulk of the recall foods have been consumed or have gone bad. Did you know that the eggs of the recent Iowa egg recall were sold in June and July? The peak of illness were recorded by the CDC in late June and early July. The recall was issued August 13th. How many of you have 6 week old eggs in your refrigerator? It took them 6 weeks to issue a recall once they saw that instances of illnesses were declining. I think this is a case of corporate irresponsibility.

Ms. Gillibrand, please do not endorse this bit of legislation. Do not make small business owners do the dirty work for dirty processors. I have no doubt that the food industry will endorse this plan, but don't fall for it!! This will not make us safer, it will only shift the blame!

My Bouillon Conundrum

For the past couple of years I have been using a bouillon paste in all my soups, stews, sauces, gravies, etc, called Better Than Bouillon. Anywhere I would use broth I would throw in a little of this bouillon paste. If I ran out or didn't find any bouillon paste at the store I would have some Knorr bouillon hanging around just in case. I have a million reasons not to make fresh stock, I use my time to focus on cooking other things, I don't have freezer space to store great blocks of frozen stock. Bouillon is cheap and it's convenient.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that my Organic Better Than Bouillon contained Maltodextrin, a highly processed corn based sweetener. I was totally bummed. I don't have time or energy to make stock! Please Lord don't take away my bouillon paste! I decided in my heart this would be one thing, one weird food additive that I could live with. After all the other ingredients were Chicken Meat and Natural Juices, salt, cane sugar, natural flavor, dried onion, potato starch, dried garlic, turmeric and spice extractives. This is a pretty good list of ingredients (despite the starch and the two forms of sugar) considering the time savings. You know me, I am all about cost/ benefit.

I went to the store last weekend looking for more Better Than Bouillon when I saw that they were out of the organic variety. Rats. I checked out the ingredients of the non organic variety, still Chicken was the first ingredient, but there were a lot of iso- and -ates and -iums on the list. Why was it so different than the organic version?! I was kind of irritated. I didn't have a back up product. I looked at the Knorr bouillon cubes and saw what was in them. Shock rolled over me. The first ingredient was salt (no surprise, but I am irritated nonetheless) then the ingredients went south, palm oil, mono sodium glutamate, hydrolyzed corn protein, hydrogenated beef fat (Wait? Wasn't this CHICKEN stock? Why is beef the first animal ingredient?), hydrogenated soybean oil, sugar, cooked chicken meat (OH! There is the chicken. We are at ingredient number 8 in case you weren't counting), yeast extract, corn starch, chicken fat and the list goes really downhill from there. There are 23 ingredients altogether in Knorr's Chicken Bouillon Cubes. I will never buy that willingly again. If I ever buy Knorr bouillon cubes again you better believe that there will be some kind of story attached that includes snow, a house full of stranded out of town family and a couple of closed grocery stores.

I looked around, there weren't a lot of options. I took the container of the non organic Better Than Bouillon in my cart and walked around the grocery store deep in thought. Should I eat this? Did I have any other choice? I checked the organic section and didn't find any other bouillon cubes that contained animal flavors (they were all veggies) so I went back to where the conventional bouillons were. I looked again. At the very top I found a product labeled Demi-Glace. A good sign! I picked up the 16 ounce container-it was 26 dollars!! Holy Mackerel! I have no doubt that it was worth it, but we were having a party that afternoon and I already had 40 bucks worth of cheese in my cart. Not a good week to spend a ton of cash on meat paste. They did have smaller containers, of 1.5 ounces. They cost $4.29, yipes! My 4 ounce Better Than Bouillon cost me $4.49. However the More Than Gourmet Demi Glace has the best ingredient list out there, Chicken Stock, Roasted Chicken Stock, Mirepoix Stock (carrot, celery and onion), Dried Chicken Stock, Salt, Gelatin, Water and white wine. I did buy the 1.5 ounce container.

I used this product recently to make soup for the Things. It added alot of meaty flavor, but not as much salt as I am used to. I added alot more salt to my soup than I usually do which leads me to believe that the broths I have been using until now really are just all salt. But I also had a great idea. I should just make my own demi-glace. I have admitted that I don't have time to make stock every week. I really don't have the freezer space to store stock long term (I am not just making that one up). But when I looked online the recipe is a 25 hour marathon of french reduction cooking (Is anyone even going to look at that link now that I have said that?). So then I thought, perhaps I can simply make some homemade brown stock from roasted bones and veg, and boil it until it is super concentrated. I do have room to store that! In fact, I put in a meat order from the CSA this weekend and I included some beef bones. Hopefully mine will turn out well.

I will still probably buy the Better Than Bouillon organic variety the next time I see it because of the cost and time savings. I am educated enough to know that this makes up a super small amount of processed ingredients compared to the total. (We eat less than a tablespoon of this a week, and the processed ingredients are so minimal in the product itself.) However, when I make some concentrated brown stock, I'll let you know how it turns out. I really really wish that Better Than Bouillon would just eliminate the Maltodextrin and potato starch. Anyone know someone who works there?

Pic of the Week: Homemade Pizza with Ricotta, Baby Onions and White Truffle Oil

Take my homemade whole wheat pizza crust. Top with handmade ricotta, baby onions, Parmesan cheese and finish with a little white truffle oil and cracked black pepper. I can't guarantee that your kids will eat it, but hey, more for you.

Who says that real food has to be rabbit food? And who said that gourmet food has to be complicated?

Mexican Fiesta: Pork Tacos and Mexican Rice

There is a young lady in my office, let's call her WKG. She is a bold young woman. She moved to the city when she was 18 or so (just like me), very independent. She is quite pretty and sassy. She makes up funny words like 'fabulocity' and has fresh nicknames for some of the VPs, which make the rest of us blush, because she somehow gets away with all this brashness. She adds a refreshing air to our office.

She is Mexican and originally from El Paso. We were talking recently about Mexican food because I love it, and she knows how to make it. We have recently been making tacos often at home. But I have been unhappy with it. It requires a lot of effort, dishes and it makes a mess. My gut said it should be easier. WKG agreed. She told me to take some shredded meat-anything beef, chicken or pork and make some salsa and add some radishes (radishes??) and wrap it in a soft corn tortilla. Sounds good to me, and a lot easier than the fixings I usually make which includes putting the rice and beans INSIDE the taco and then it's so full it is spilling out the sides. (My dear friend TQ, who supplied that amazing salsa recipe last week, is clutching her chest right now in horror.)

So what about that rice, I asked WKG. How the heck do you make that unctuous red rice I always get in Mexican restaurants. I have made some crummy versions, but it never turns out right. WKG told me her secrets and it included white rice and canned tomato sauce and bouillon. I said to her-you know? I bet I can make this with all fresh ingredients and brown rice and it would taste just as good. She wasn't so sure-that wasn't the way her mother made it. I told her to give me a shot and - would let her know how it went. So here is what I did.
Mexican Rice
I took one cup of brown rice and sauteed it in a large skillet with a lid in some butter, about 1 and a half tablespoons. When the rice turned golden I threw in 2 medium chopped tomatoes and half of a diced medium sized onion. I would have added some garlic too, but I was out. Instead I added granulated garlic and some salt and pepper. I let that cook for a couple minutes all the while stirring the rice. I added 2 1/2 cups of water and a half a teaspoon of the bouillon paste I always use in place of homemade broth. After it came back to a boil, I put the heat on low and put the lid on and let it cook for about 45 minutes until the rice was fully tender.

Earlier in the day I made the salsa while the kiddies slept. I had a glorious collection of tomatoes, one green heirloom tomato that was ripe and green, not just unripe. I also had yellow as well as orange cherry tomatoes, and I had standard red tomatoes. To make my salsa I chopped all these tomatoes and marinated them with chopped cilantro, lime juice and a little flavorless oil. I used organic sunflower oil. I also added half of a MINCED (and I mean minced) habanero pepper that I roasted off the skin over my stove's burner. I let it all marinate in the fridge for 3-4 hours. It looked like candy all mixed up.

For the tacos I just took some leftover pork from a pork butt that I made in the crock pot earlier in the week. The pieces that were left were super fatty. So I trimmed most of the fat off and threw the chunks into a dry skillet. The fat melted off immediately and crisped up the pork nicely. I did just as WKG recommended. I chopped up some CSA radishes, had my tomato salad/ salsa and some sliced avocado all wrapped up in some sprouted corn tortillas. And the rice? It was wicked. It tasted just like the restaurant versions I have loved, but somehow better. It was saucy instead of dry. It was deliciously salty, a great accompaniment to the tacos. In the picture I have poured some yogurt over the rice. I am no longer buying sour cream. It tastes just like yogurt to me, and yogurt I feel is more nutritious anyway. One less thing to buy.

What an awesome dinner. The kind that you just don't ever want to end. Thanks TQ and WKG for the inspiration and recipes. These are total keepers I think I can finally retire the over stuffed tacos.


And don't forget to Check in over at Food Renegade's Fight Back Fridays!

Grape Jelly

Even though we all enjoyed last week's farmer's market grapes, I bought too many (which I do a lot) and mid week I ended up with a lot of overripe grapes that were in danger of turning. I wasn't about to throw them out, so I decided to make grape jelly. I have never made jelly, so I wasn't sure if I had enough grapes to even make any jelly. I thought I would end up with a couple of tablespoons at most. Oh well, it was worth the shot just for the experience.

I went online and found massive recipes requiring 5 or 6 pounds of grapes. Some requested a mix of overripe grapes and new young grapes because young grapes have more pectin. Almost all the recipes used one cup of sugar to every cup of juice, which means that the resulting jelly would be probably twice as sweet as simple syrup. Scary. Now that we are eating more unsweetened things and less foods that are even naturally sweet other than whole fruits, really sugary items practically hurt my teeth.

I also have an issue with all the jam recipes for every fruit that I find online. They all seem to request three times as much sugar than they need and they call for pectin. That annoys me. It is not like the early Americans walked to the dry goods store to squander their money on sugar, and it is also not likely that the local dry goods store had little packets of pectin for sale. Yet a tradition of preserving fruit flourished all the same.

I say to hell with all the modern conveniences like powdered pectin. There is an easier way. Apples.

Apples are virtually flavorless when added to jams. The flesh disintegrates when over cooked. And they are natural little pectin bombs. Pectin is of course the natural substance that thickens jam and makes jelly, well....gel-y.
I took one quart of grapes and washed them and removed the stems and leaves. I put them into a large dutch oven with a little water (you don't really need the water, but I had so few grapes that they would have evaporated and dried up before they had cooked long enough. If you have 5-6 pounds of grapes, you'll have so much juice that this won't be an issue). And I added one diced apple, skins on and everything. Thing 1 went to town on the fruit with a potato masher and then I let the fruit boil until the grape skins came off and the apples started to fall apart. Then I let it cook maybe 5 minutes more.

I strained the fruit and juice. I lined a strainer with an old thin burp cloth I have that is a little thicker than cheese cloth, but it's pretty close. When you just have the juice, put it back on to boil and you can throw out the skins and pulp. Let the water boil out until it gets thick and viscous and the bubbles get slower and thicker. Then add the sugar. I had only about a cup of juice left after boiling it away. I wanted to include a reduced amount of sugar, so I added a half a cup of. After tasting the finished jelly, the juice was soooooo sweet itself I probably only needed a quarter of a cup, actually I probably didn't need any but I was nervous. I boiled the sugar juice mixture just a little longer and then took it off and poured it into a glass jam jar. Then I held my breath. The whole process took me about 45 minutes.

I put Thing 1 to bed, and the jelly was cool but it wasn't so gelled. I thought all was lost. So I put the jar into the fridge and went to bed thinking, if it doesn't gel up we can always just pour the syrup over ice cream or into seltzer for grape soda, or even make a cocktail from it!

When I woke up the next morning I went to the fridge before any of the kids woke up. And to my surprise, the jelly was wiggly and looked runny, but when I went to spoon some out, it had totally JELLED! Admittedly I needed to have boiled it some more so that it didn't come out runny but it was good. Next time I will boil it more and add less sugar. But this was super easy and required little more than basic kitchen utensils and some know how. No crazy canning equipment, no store bought pectin. Maybe next time I'll try it with honey and no sugar for a super natural treat.