Monthly Archives: July 2012

Why Beets are Great to Eat OUTSIDE the home…but Never Taste Quite as Good

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Seriously, could one vegetable be more challenging to prepare than beets? Have you ever made beets at home? If so, you’ll know how easily they stain and how long they can take to cook. I wish I had taken a picture of my beet-juice splattered self from yesterday to share.

At any rate, if you do make the effort, you will be handsomely rewarded with jewel-colored, scrumptiously-sweet, vitamin-rich treats for your table. They even contain folate, which is super hard to find in other foods, and very, very good for you.  I prepared they beets from yesterday’s CSA pick up with mint after eating them at City Bakery near Union Square. I found an easy recipe for this tasty dish, and again, the toughest part is simply cooking the beets. I was quite unpopular when I turned on the oven for 1 hour 15 min on a 90 degree day. Whoops. And beets usually don’t taste good in salad bars and restaurants because they are from a can. Or overcooked.

The beets were ruby red and absolutely delicious, even prettier than the picture above from Epicurious. The mint complemented the beets both visually and on the palate. My guests  Josh Robertson and Milly Robertson loved them, but hubs still stayed far away. He was scarred as a child from eating canned beets. Friends don’t let friends…

Oh, and I steamed the beet tops separately. This was a first for me. They turned out great. I topped them with a little olive oil and salt, and they tasted similar to collard greens – the kind of thing that makes you feel healthy just because you’re eating them.

My friend Steve at Berkshire Bounty Farm even eats beets raw, but I haven’t been brave enough to try that yet. Maybe next week…

Last Day of June for CSA Pick-up

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A veritable bounty of veggies picked up at Wolfe Spring Farm today. Also had the pleasure of showing our good friend Milly Robertson and her delightful boys around. We checked in on the piggies, chicks, chickens, 2 week old kid goats, and doggies.

I spent the last 3 hours chopping, sauteeing, roasting and prepping it all. Hubs nearly killed me when I turned on the oven since it’s a toasty 90 degree day.Will post later on what I prepared from the bounty below.

Do you…Pin? on Pinterest?

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Just for fun, I started using Pinterest this week. A friend suggested it as a nice add-on to this blog. And, you have to request to join and receive an invite. Clever marketing ploy, I say, but they let me in the club.

I’m still not 100% sure how it works. Perhaps best described as an interactive cork board? In its simplest use, I found a lot of pretty pictures to get lost in. So I “pinned” a bunch of images I liked, and added some of my own. I created a few Boards, as they call it.
Let me know what you think…

Food Idols

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I will have lots more to say on this topic, but I will start by writing a brief post on one of my favorite food personalities – Mark Bittman. He is awesome. He is entertaining, down to earth, and trying to save the planet in his own way. From a tactical perspective, his cookbooks are purpose-built and highly functional.

Few to no foodie glam shots, but easy to follow and accurate recipes of food you want to prepare with ingredients that are accessible. What more could you want? If anyone has been in my kitchen, s/he will know that his “How to Cook Everything” is my Bible. It is dog-eared, spine-ripped and food splattered. It is the updated “Joy of Cooking” that you will actually use. If you like to cook, or want to start cooking, buy this book NOW.

Bittman is a NY Times columnist and wrote an interesting food diary/travelogue on his recent cross country trip in today’s edition. Check it out if you have a moment.

I like this man so much that I almost joined a running club because I heard he was a member. It entailed meeting at 5 AM on weekday mornings. Like I said, I thought about it.

En Papillote: Startlingly Simple, yet Sounds Super Fancy

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It’s ridiculous, I know, that any time a dish has a French name, one assumes it is complicated, contains a heavy sauce and takes ages to prepare. Well, have you ever tried preparing fish en papillote? Or,  al cartoccio? Or in parchment paper, to use layperson’s terms? It is super simple, and I’d also add forgiving.  The most challenging thing might be to remember to purchase a roll of parchment paper suitable for cooking, because you probably don’t have it in your pantry. Oh, and did I mention this is a very light and healthy method, too?

Here’s a basic recipe for cooking en papillote (note I will try to use the French as much as possible):
  • Rip off a square of parchment paper (15X15 for instance)
  • Place 1 fillet of fish (that’s a fresh fillet of fish of your choice, not a Filet o’Fish) on the parchment. Try thin white fish, like sole or snapper, or denser fish, like salmon or halibut
  • Chop up some veggies that you have in the fridge. Julienne carrots, chop up asparagus, small florets of broccoli, etc, and place a handful on top veggies on top of fish fillet
  • Season with salt and pepper, and any other dried or fresh herbs to your liking.
  • Squeeze some lemon juice or lime juice (some sort of acid) and a drizzle of olive oil
  • Pull one side of the parchment paper to the other side and begin folding, eventually tucking the corner under the packet. Repeat for as many people you are serving
  • Bake in 400 degree oven for 15-25 min depending on thickness of fish
The great thing is that this is a FORGIVING method. Even if the fish is cooked a minute or two too long, it will still taste delicious. It will never get dried out because of the steam formed within the sealed packet. The downside of this method is that you can’t check for doneness. You must trust the recipe you’re following.
Apropos, this is what I’m making tonight – a great recipe from Real Simple.  Steamed salmon with asparagus and scallions. The juice from the lemon makes everything taste fresh and citrusy – yum. I skipped the potatoes (which you prepare separately), and added some cauliflower to the fish packets.  Hubs even approves of this dish, but he hasn’t had it with cauliflower before. Stay tuned…

From the news today: Can athletes run better on a vegan diet?

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I will try not to prosthelytize, and if I do, please stop me. I’m not trying to convert anyone to a certain type of diet, nor am I in favor of extremism, but I do think we can eat healthier and still enjoy food.

In today’s NY Times Health section, there was an interesting article about high performance athletes and vegan diets, debating distance runner Scott Jurek’s choice to be a vegan and whether it is the reason behind his success. That’s Scott below.

The author interviewed 3 sports nutrition experts, including D. Enette Larson-Meyer, an associate professor of nutrition at the University of Wyoming. In case you don’t have a chance to read the article, I’ll cut to my favorite quote:

I like to tell people that if we got most Americans to eat one less serving of meat every day, there would be far greater impact from that, in terms of improving overall public health and the health of the planet, than convincing a tiny group of endurance athletes to go full vegan.

Now that’s what I’m talking about. No need to preach, just eat better.

Monday Night Dinner: Quinoa & Bean Salad

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I was feeling like something fresh and light after a long weekend of travel and nonstop snacking. I wanted a combination of veggies and a healthy grain or protein. I settled on quinoa, a newly discovered foodstuff for me.

Oh, quinoa, how do I love thee, let me count the ways?

You are easy to prepare, versatile and oh-so-healthy. Not quite a grain, more like a vegetable, high in protein and the good kind of fiber.  Downsides are that it is messy to clean up when consumed by a toddler, but even the munchkin likes it.
I loosely followed this recipe for Quinoa and Bean Salad, with a few substitutes:
  • Prepare quinoa as instructed on package
  • In a separate pan, saute 1/2 of a chopped red onion
  • Add 12 – 15 stalks of asparagus, cut into 1″ pieces
  • Saute’ for a few minutes and add quinoa once ready
  • Take off heat and mix in 2 cups of arugula, some shredded basil, crumbled ricotta salata and a few tablespoons of vinaigrette
  • Mix well and serve. The arugula should wilt slightly. Add additional salt and pepper as necessary
I used ricotta salata instead of feta in the recipe because I knew hubs would NEVER touch it if he heard it included feta. And I skipped the beans. Would have been another reason for refusal to eat from the audience…
Aftermath
Yummy dinner, maybe a little light as a main dish. Husband asks:

What’s the big deal about quinoa?

What do you do with Garlic Scapes?

Aside

We have picked up garlic scapes from our local CSA for the past few weeks and I know everybody says “use them just like garlic,” but I grew bored of our standard take on spaghetti all’aglio olio with garlic scapes in place of regular garlic. So I searched online and found a recipe for Scape Pesto. What can I say, but delish. Sooo addictive, and much more interesting than regular pesto. Basically, you use scapes in place of garlic, and you can use different types of nuts.

I used pistachios, which was also handy because I had some shelled pistachios on hand that had seen better days. The pesto was a “forgiving” way to use them. Check out the recipe I used on Epicurious. You can also use almonds, as in the recipe linked to in the first paragraph.

What the World Needs Now Is Another Foodie Blog. NOT!

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But, I couldn’t help myself I was inspired to start writing because I love cooking, tasting, and shopping for food, particularly in exotic locations, and also love reading same. So, instead of being merely a consumer of others’ musings, I’m going to start giving back to the global community and share some of my own.

A little about myself: I am a vegetarian who eats fish, aka a pescatarian, but doesn’t that sound pretentious? I mean, the word “pescatarian” doesn’t even pass muster from spell check. I espouse eating local, cooking slow food, and traveling far and wide to eat at foodie hang-outs. I keep lists of restaurants I want to try and places I want to visit on my phone. You may wonder why I have a problem with the word pescatarian sounding pretentious?!

The blog’s title:  references a few themes.  adventures in eating refers to dining with my family, as I consider many meals (whether home-cooked, take away or in a restaurant) to be adventures. What will or won’t my carnivorous husband eat? How much can my omnivorous 2 year old son possibly eat in one sitting? What will wind up on the floor/his chair/my hair/my lap, etc? The phrase “and Everything After” is from the title of a popular 90s band’s debut album. If you have to ask “who”, keep it to yourself so you don’t depress me with your youth.

What you can expect: I’ll share what’s for dinner tonight, the aftermath, how I’m using this week’s CSA pick up, cool places I am visiting, cool places I’d like to visit and general comments on food, eating, cooking and foodie writing.