Category: food

Family Medicine Notes

On the Medscape Technology & Medicine Home Page, there’s a list of medical weblogs (scroll to the bottom of the page) .. hmm … are weblogs useful and/or interesting to physicians? Hard to know. I’ve been getting more (mostly positive)feedback about this weblog lately

Or what to do with 12 lbs of green tomatoes? My answer is make chutney. never done it before, but here’s what’s currently simmering on the stove:

4 lbs of green tomates, chopped
1 lb granny smith apples, cored and chopped
2 large onions, peeled and chopped
1/2 pint cider vinegar

Cook that about 30 minutes at a strong boil til everything is soft, then add:

1/2 tsp allspice
1 tbsp ground coriander
1-2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 – 1 tsp cayenne
1/2 lb raisins

This is as far as I’ve gotten so far

cook an hour more and add:

1 lb brown sugar
1/2 pint cider vinegar
2 tsp salt (optional)

put in sterilized jars and let mature 4-6 weeks.

<addendum> This made about 7 1/2 pounds of chutney. I used 2 lb peanut butter jars I had saved for some canning project I knew would evolve, and it took three of them to hold it all. It looks and smells wonderful, but it’s a tad raw-flavored: a little maturing at the back of a cabinet won’t do it any harm.

The Seattle Times: Pacific Northwest Magazine

But the great books are about more than mere recipes. Just as a great pop song forces you to get up and dance or play air guitar, a great cookbook is one that forces you into the kitchen.

That or a craving for something, whether or not you’ve made it lately or ever.

I share the author’s love of cooking, food, and the tools that enable them, though I’m well shy of 200 cookbooks.

I use the Joy of Cooking as a reference book, more than a recipe guide, just as I use every recipe as an outline, rather than the rigid series of steps some would decree. Trouble is, it like so many encyclopedic resources, has a lot of pages on meat which as a vegetarian is just so much baggage. I cooked meat for years, liked cooking and eating it, then stopped, and don’t miss it. (I realized most of what I ate it for was the spices it came with: barbecue, sausages, chilis, etc.)

I dip into others as well — the Moosewood books, all vegetarian, are quite good — but sometimes the mainstream references are essential. I have come to regard meatless cooking as I do filmmaking during the reign of the Hays Office’s Production Code of 1930: you can make your statement, but it might take some imagination, and there are many films of that period that defined the art for many years. Just as the filmmakers of the 30s were unable to show full-frontal nudity, I’m unlikely to dish up a rare filet mignon, but my chilis, tacos, and pasties pass muster just fine.

Another thing I share with the author is a love of Asian and Italian foods,for the practical reason they are often or can be made meatless, and as a matter of taste. And that is actually where I see a big hole in my collection, so perhaps I’ll hit the Friends of Library sale myself.

McVitie’s Milk Chocolate Ginger Nuts – Review

Another interesting attempt from the team at McVitie’s – their current game plan appears to be “take any flavour of biscuit and see if sticking a layer of chocolate on the top makes it better”. It must be said that chocolate and ginger is not a combination which springs readily to mind – however, let’s see how they got on, shall we?

I thought it was just me wondering why McVities seems to do just that: add chocolate to any product. In some cases, it doesn’t work (Hob Nobs, for example, need no improvement), but these do. The mixture of ginger and chocolate seems to create an orange aroma and flavor, ever so subtle, but noticeable. But that by no means detracts from these jewels: they’re very good.

Food Network: Recipes – Pear and Raspberry Crostada

You get the idea: I’m using peaches and blackberries, all Washington grown, and a simple pastry recipe from the Joy of Cooking. Storebought pastry sheets are fine also: it’s too hot to do too much work.

Luzianne Smoothies

according to their nutritional panel, these things have 18 g of sugar in a 2 Tbsp serving. I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt: after all, fruit has sugar and perhaps it’s all from the fruit they use.

Alas, I read further down, and it’s not so good:

Sugar, Fructose, Soy protein, Banana powder, Citric acid, Natural flavors, Coconut oil, Calcium Silicate (prevents caking), Corn syrup solids, Strawberry solids, natural gums (Guar gum, Xanthan Gum, Maltodextrin, Carrageenan), Strawberry seeds, sodium Caseinate (a milk derivative), Mono&Diglycerides, Dipotassium Phosphate, Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), red 40, Sodium silicialuminate (prevents caking), Blue 1.

Sugar, fructose, maltodextrin, corn syrup solids: all added sugars. There’s already some banana and strawberry in there: why do you need the rest of that junk?

via John

Smoothies are a nice thing to have at hand, and I keep thinking my kids will like them, but no such luck. They even think so, ’cause they ask for them, but then never drink them.

How easy are they to make? This easy:

• 1 cup yogurt (or one container, any flavor you like)
  
• 1 ripe banana
  
• 1/4 cup orange juice
  
• 1 cup frozen berries (strawberries and blueberries work better than seedy berries like black- or raspberries).
  
• options include a couple tablespoons wheat germ and/or honey (I find this needs a little sweetening).
  

Blend the ingredients in your machine of choice, Cuisinart or blender, until smooth. Enjoy.

Went to the South47 U-Pick, an organic suburban farm on the Sammamish Plateau and got 2+ pounds of ripe red raspberries, not counting those we ate.

It occurs to me that this phrase “Open Food” sums up what I have been thinking about for a while. Just as Open Source means you have access to all the information inherent in a piece of software, meaning you can alter it, improve it, whatever you like, I would like to see the same transparency applied to the food we eat. I’d like to know what’s in it and why. Why is there TSP in Cheerios? (You can look it up). Why are milk solids in so many things? Is it to meet some dietary guidelines, like protein content? Or is it just better living through chemistry?

I think if people really knew where their food came from, it might change their eating habits or at least understand the choices they’re making more than all the diet books ever written. The Openness I refer is that of information and understanding the impact of their decisions. If you take some cow slices off the shelf at QFC, what do you know about them? What did that cow eat? How old was it? How was the product you see prepared? You can find out that kind of thing when you buy fish and seafood: cows and chickens don’t merit that kind of curiousity?

We no longer have any insight into or relationship with food production: we don’t know what the local farmer we buy from feeds his animals or how he controls pests on his crops. I think we should know that.

There’s a lot to be said about food and our relationship with it. We don’t value it as a medium for relationship building (unless we’re dating). Preparation is seen as a chore than an opportunity to create or express our feelings about the ingredients or the lucky diners.

I like to eat and I like to cook. I make my own pasta, my own breads, cook pasta sauces from scratch (OK, from canned tomatoes but nothing cooked), bake pies, cookies, cakes, tarts, etc. It’s not for everyone, but what if more of us did and had higher expectations of the food producers? What if we expected them to produce information about the food so we can better choose whose to buy: the farmer who sprays pesticides indiscriminately or the one who favors a more natural approach? Do we choose the biggest vegetables or the tastiest? Genetically-enhanced or heirloom?

Perhaps this is more involvement with food than most people want: but how many times do you eat in a day? It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that people spend more energy choosing toilet paper (once a day) or their grade of gas (once a week) than they do on food. That seems wrong.

TIME Magazine: Veggie Tales

In a survey of 11,000 individuals, 37% of those who responded “Yes, I am a vegetarian” also reported that in the previous 24 hours they had eaten red meat; 60% had eaten meat, poultry or seafood. Perhaps those surveyed thought a vegetarian is someone who, from time to time, eats vegetables as a side dish—say, alongside a prime rib. If more than one-third of people in a large sample don’t know the broadest definition of vegetarian, one wonders how they can be trusted with something much more difficult: the full-time care and picky-picky feeding of their bodies, whatever their dietary preferences.

This says a lot more about food and diet issues than I could: I don’t think people actually know what they eat. Regardless of your opinion of the food pyramid, how much of what you ate today meets or exceeds those recommended amounts?

It’s hard to address this issue in anything but generalities, but I think people just eat what they have always eaten, meaning what their parents served them, and never stopped to think of its effects. Is this too much? Is this the right thing for me to eat now that I’m 30 or 40 or 50? Are my parents and siblings healthy? if not, is it attributed to diet or lifestyle and can I make any changes?

Of course, asking these questions makes me some kind of evangelist or zealot, sad as that is.