July 20, 2008
Untitled
Posted by mwashburn at 04:18 PM | Comments (1)
July 01, 2008
Things You Should Do NOW
Go make a mojito with ginger ale instead of club soda. Do it. Trust me. Do it.
Posted by mwashburn at 08:00 PM | Comments (1)
June 05, 2008
I. Love. Food.
We joined a CSA* this year, after having tried it out for a few weeks last summer, picking up for an out-of-town friend. Yesterday was our first delivery. Planting started late this year because of the terribly cold spring, so it was a light delivery, but every bit was worth it. We got asparagus (SOOOOOOO much different fresh-picked than sitting around the grocery store for who-knows-how-long), radishes (see: asparagus. I mean, I bought radishes at the store a couple of weeks ago that were small, hard, and bitter. These are crisp, sweet, and really tasty), green onions, a parsley plant, and the piece de resistance...
RHUBARB!!!
Strawberry rhubarb pie is one of my favoritest things on the planet. But I've never made it because I always find the rhubarb at the grocery store always just seems... questionable. I was frightened of doing it myself. But I pulled out the handy-dandy Joy of Cooking and made strawberry rhubarb cobbler (pie for lazy people), and it was heavenly. The bug declared "This is SO GOOD in my LIFE!" and cried when we wouldn't give her more.
It's nice when a do-gooder thing is also good for your tummy.
*For those of you who don't know, CSA stands for 'Community Supported Agriculture.' You actually buy a share in the farm, and in return you get a delivery of fresh-picked fruits, veggies (and in some cases, even eggs or meat) from a local independent (sometimes organic) farm. Ours is great; we get a newsletter each week that tells what is going on with the crops, and recipes for items in that week's delivery. If you want to find a CSA (or even a farmer's market) near you, check out:
Posted by mwashburn at 07:32 PM | Comments (1)
February 22, 2008
Food! Glorious Food!
Well, I'm particularly obsessed with food today since I had to fast for a blood test, so finding out about www.foodconnect.com is particularly timely.
I particularly do not need more online networking opportunities (finally free of MySpace, but still addicted to Ravelry, among others). But, this just looks so cool and I am always looking for new recipes and ways to use new ingredients. And I think this might be a convenient idea for keeping organized too. I'm always trying to plan ahead, but still manage to really get in a rut with meal planning (well, kids, beans and rice again!), so having shopping lists pre-made is a nice tool. I'm already captivated by the quiche on the home page.
From their press release:
www.foodconnect.com is the ultimate tool for every foodie.
What makes foodconnect.com so great? These and many other features:
- Free nutritional analysis, for all recipes on the site and every recipe you submit.
- Share your recipes with your friends and other foodies.
- Discuss recipe ideas and techniques.
- Plan your meal and easily print off your shopping list.
- Create the perfect dinner party
All of this and much more and best of all its all free. Get to foodconnecct.com to get started today.
I haven't turned up anything on dairy-free recipes, which is what I do use the internets for a lot, recipe-wise. But, if this site is new, presumably more and more recipes will be added as time goes on. The social aspect is what makes foodconnect a little different from sites like allrecipes, etc., and if you can be friends with someone online because they love purple hand-spun wool as much as you, why not porcini mushrooms?
Bon Appetit!
Posted by mwashburn at 09:57 AM | Comments (0)
January 15, 2008
Mmmmmm.... Food
We had a really lovely weekend, filled with food and drink. Our friends from Urbana, IL came up for a visit on Saturday. They love food and drink as much as we do, so it seems like a pattern for their visits is emerging. They arrive, we cook, eat, and drink for a period of about 24 hours, we all go for a nice walk, then they head home. The menu this time was venison chili, red lentil soup, fresh baked rye bread, and of course assorted beers, wines, crackers, and cheeses while we waited for it all to cook up. I didn't stress on dessert, we just had some Peppermint Jo Jo's from Trader Joe's. If you've never had these things... well, they've inspired everything from blog posts to poetry to desperate searches around the holidays. Imagine an Oreo with no trans fats, no high fructose corn syrup, and peppermint chips in the cream filling. The. Best.
Anyway, after eating and drinking for about six hours straight, we were tired and went to bed. The bug had asked Adam the day before, when he was making up the bed in the guest room, "Are A and J going to sleep next to each other?" "Yes, they're married, like Mommy and Daddy." Bug thought for a minute and then asked, "Are they friends?" She cracks me up.
Sunday morning we got up and had a hearty breakfast of Belgian waffles, fruit, and mimosas (finally used up that bottle of champagne from my birthday party... oy). Then it was time to say goodbye. We always enjoy a weekend of intellectual discussion, politics, atheism, and people who play with the Bug constantly despite professing an aversion to children.
Posted by mwashburn at 07:06 AM | Comments (0)
January 07, 2008
Freaky Monday
It's Monday. It's early January in Northwest Indiana. It's 60 degrees out. We're having a thunder storm.
But I digress. Dinner tonight was delicious venison burgers, accompanied by roasted sweet potatoes with cumin, spinach-feta salad, and Samuel Adams Cranberry Lambic (went *really* well with the venison, I might add). Through some strange twist of fate we ended up getting our bathtub re-caulked last week by the friend-of-a-friend who did the tile install, FOR FREE, and then he invited us over for the evening and gave us a freezer full of venison. He's a hunter, and his wife is fed up with the entire deep freeze full of meat that has been accumulating.
Now, I'm sort of a fair-weather vegetarian. I was a full-fledged vegetarian for at least 7 years, ate no flesh aside from fish for another 5, and have dabbled in meat eating for about the last 5. However, especially after reading the excellent The Omnivore's Dilemma I have been especially fussy about the meat I eat, generally eschewing beef and treading lightly where chicken, pork, and fish are concerned. Recently I even decided that I was going to forego any meat I wouldn't be willing to slaughter myself, which pretty much limited me to fish and fowl.
The irony in my fascination with venison is that it is venison that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back many moons ago. During my formative years, I lived in the country where we had a huge garen and kept chickens and a couple of pigs. These guys were my pets, and my twelve-year-old self was horrified when it came time to chop their heads off. My evil ex-stepfather and my father were/are both hunters, and walking into a garage with a day's kill hanging one evening was just too much for me to take. I didn't touch meat again until I was in college. Now my semi-vegetarianism isn't as much about empathy with the animals as it is health and environmental concerns. Which is why venison is perfect. If you can get past the whole Bambi thing, venison fulfills all my main criteria for meat: it led a happy life, it hasn't been force-fed an unnatural diet, it hasn't been raised in a way that negatively impacts the environment, and all in all it's an extremely healthy meat (low in saturated fat, high in protein and omegas, on and on). I don't have the means or the drive to go out and get a deer myself, so I'll have to rely on friends and acquaintances who do to get my meat. I'm happy to rely on my bartering skills as an amateur farmer/gatherer and go from there.
Does picking up a case of Coors Lite at Costco count as gathering?
Posted by mwashburn at 07:56 PM | Comments (4)
December 16, 2007
Baked Goods
This has been the Weekend of My Baking. I started yesterday with about 12 dozen cookies (German spice cookies and citrus sugar cookies) and a cranberry orange bread. Today was magic cookie bars and cheesecake, and assembling lasagna for us to pop in the oven for dinner tomorrow night. I'm putting together cookie plates for the teachers at the Bug's school, and bringing the bread and cheesecake to a potluck we're attending today. Last night was my boss' Xmas party, and because we could not get a babysitter we had to take the Bug with us. It was fine, in fact we got a lot of compliments on how well-behaved she was. She was very low-key and mostly sat in the living room eating olives. We also got about a foot of snow last night, which is a little unusual. Normally they forecast tons of snow and it all goes to the north and west of us. We're sort of just out of the path of the lake effect storms. I am not a big fan of snow, but it's kinda nice to have it on a weekend night when it doesn't really have a negative impact on my morning. The Bug also had a blast playing outside while we shoveled. So, it's definitely feeling like Xmas to me! Moreso than in recent years. I'm not sure why. I think it's a combination of being settled in our own house and having the Bug be old enough to get excited about it. It's actually a lot of fun planning stuff around kids for the holidays. Cheers!
Posted by mwashburn at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2007
Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You LOSE
Sometimes I buy some of my groceries at Target. Their Archer Farms and Market Pantry items are generally made from good ingredients, and are a good value. So I don't always scrutinize the labels the way I do with more unfamiliar brands. This time, however, I got burned.
Exhibit A:
OK, soy sauce. How hard is that to screw up. But wait, turn the bottle around:
IT'S NOT REALLY SOY SAUCE AT ALL!!! I'm going to take it back for a refund, because to me it's really horrid to think that they sold me a bottle of corn syrup labeled as soy sauce. Yes, there is soy in it, and it is a sauce, but talk about a silk purse out of a sow's ear... Shame on you, Target!
Posted by mwashburn at 07:22 AM | Comments (5)
October 03, 2007
Today's Menu
I think I'm going to milk this dairy allergy thing (no pun intended) as long as possible. Instead of buttered white bread and canned peas at daycare, my toddler has the following in her lunch box:
a.m. snack: grapes and apples (that we picked on Sunday)
lunch: herb-crusted pork tenderloin, homemade mango-ginger applesauce, organic veggie medley
p.m. snack: sesame sticks and organic animal crackers
She'd better appreciate this epicurean toddlerhood someday.
Despite working full-time, I still make it a priority to cook, for all kinds of reasons. I know it's a lot of work, but I like good food too much to jettison that particular responsibility. And now that the Bug is getting old enough, she can "help" in the kitchen, meaning it's not necessarily time away from her. It's so funny watching her in her play kitchen talking through various steps to preparing a meal. It's something I'm really glad I'm passing on to her.
Things that really make meal preparation easier when you work are advance planning, ingredient prep beforehand (and having a food processor), and making extra to freeze of anything that requires time. I do use things like frozen veggies and canned beans, but I don't think I lose points for that. This morning, while I had my first cup of coffee, I threw some onions and red peppers into the food processor for a quick chop and sauteed them, then stirred in some thawed spinach. That is now set aside in the fridge to assemble no-boil lasagna tonight, in three individual pans (one to bake tomorrow, one to freeze, and one mini cheese-free for Lily). It'll take about 1/2 hour to put together, and will be all ready to roll whenever we need it. Some of my quick recipes are totally made up or thrown together last-minute, but others are tried and true recipes. Vegetarian Times, which isn't so good anymore (in my opinion) used to have a lot of good quick meals, which I clipped and saved, and surprisingly Parenting magazine has a lot of good 30 minute meals each month. Despite the fact that her voice gets on my nerves, I find myself wanting to try some of Rachael Ray's recipes too, though she's a little heavier on the meat than we tend to be. Bon Appetit!
Posted by mwashburn at 07:08 AM | Comments (3)
September 13, 2007
More on HFCS
I have been continuing to add items to my list of high-fructose corn syrup free foods. A friend told me the other day that the American Academy of Pediatrics had issued a statement saying that children should have NO HFCS whatsoever. I couldn't find that information on their website (though I did find a previous statement condemning the availability of soft drinks in schools), so if anyone has that link please send it to me. I have also been made aware of a trend by food manufacturers to try and disguise HFCS (since it has gotten so much bad press lately) by using different names for it. I'll try to find out some of these names and post them here too.
What I did find is this blog, which is really interesting and funny and well-written, and has a lot of good info an links on HFCS, including this post listing foods that DO have HFCS (and she notes something that I've found, which is that sometimes one flavor of something will have it, but another will not).
Happy HFCS-free eating!
Posted by mwashburn at 07:28 AM | Comments (3)
August 20, 2007
Fighting High-Fructose Corn Syrup
As I have mentioned before, we have chosen to limit or avoid foods with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as an ingredient. There is still some controversy over this sweetener, how bad it is, what its exact health effects are, and whether it should be avoided. What we do know is that food manufacturers have largely switched from other types of sweeteners due to the fact that HFCS is incredibly cheap. It's made from, as the name suggests, corn, treated with enzymes. Despite the fact that industrial processes are required to make it, it is still an ingredient in many products labeled "all natural." The argument, according to this "fact sheet" (or propaganda piece, as I see it) from the HFCS manufacturers, is that the sugars that make up HFCS are, individually, found in nature. Well, monkeys and sharks are both found in nature but I don't think you could call a monkeyshark "natural."
Some studies have shown that HFCS is processed more like a fat than a sugar, and it's effect on insulin production has shown it to be a possible culprit in the current epidemic of Type-2 diabetes. Others dispute these findings, and research is ongoing. Here are a few links with more information.
While the scientists are trying to make heads or tails of all the research, my opinion is that is certainly can't hurt anything for our family to avoid HFCS as an ingredient. Even without the dire health effects, there is the fact that because HFCS is so much sweeter-tasting than cane sugar, I believe that especially for children it is quite addictive and ruins the taste for more wholesome foods. The problem is that it is in virtually everything. Bread, pasta sauce, snacks, drinks, soups, you name it. Organic is almost always safe, but why spend the big bucks for organic salad dressing? We have managed to find a number of products, major name brands as well as some store brands, that do not contain HFCS. If you read the extended entry, you will find a list of products that are HFCS-free. Permalink this entry if you're interested, as I plan to add to the list as an ongoing project. And, if you find something on your store shelves that is HFCS-free, please email me at nohfcs@studiovirgo.com
BREAD
Aunt Millie's Organic
Miltons (sold at Costco)
In-store bakery items (but check the label)
Archer Farms (sold at Target)
Bagels from Costco (honey-whole wheat ONLY)
Kangaroo brand pita bread
YOGURT
Stonyfield Farms
Cascade Fresh
Breyer's
PASTA SAUCE
Classico
Archer Farms (sold at Target)
SOUP
Progresso
Amy's Organic
CONDIMENTS
Trader Joe's organic ketchup
SNACKS
Snyders of Hanover pretzels
CANNED GOODS
Heinz beans with tomato sauce (also vegetarian!)
CEREALS
Mom's Best (we have had the O's, the frosted shredded wheat, and the raisin bran)
Kashi
Posted by mwashburn at 06:39 AM | Comments (7)
August 12, 2007
More "Accidentally Vegan" Recipes
I was looking at the back of the box of Nabisco graham crackers yesterday. I was not happy that these were in my house, as they have high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in them. But, as I grudginly dunked cracker after cracker in milk and shoved it in my mouth, I marveled at the recipe on the back of the box. "Wholesome Snacking" or somesuch was the header, and what followed was nice in theory, disgusting in execution. It had to do with making a butter-and-graham-cracker-crumb crust, then covering the crust with a mixture of marshmallow fluff, cream cheese, raspberries, and lemon juice. Sickening, but I like the concept. So, today I made up my own cool summer dessert, one that dairy-allergic Bug can enjoy along with us.
VEGAN LEMON-RASPBERRY SORBET BARS
In a small bowl, mix 2 cups graham crumbs, 2 tsp vegetable oil or shortening, and 1 Tbs soymilk. Knead with fingers until it clumps. Press into the bottom of an 8" round or square cake pan.
In another bowl, mix 1 pint lemon sorbet with a large spoon until softened. Stir in 1/2 cup fresh raspberries. Spoon sorbet mixture over the top of the crust in the pan. Top with a few whole berries. Cover with plastic wrap and re-freeze, 1-2 hours. Slice into squares or wedges (depending on the shape of your pan) and enjoy.
Speaking of HFCS-avoidance, in our effort to avoid it and partially-hydrogenated oils, I've discovered a number of products that you don't have to search odd places or the organic section to find. I'm hoping to soon compile a list and post them here, with the thought that I'll keep an active link and add to the list as I discover new things or things are submitted to me.
Posted by mwashburn at 02:38 PM | Comments (0)