Fiddlehead fern pizza with feta bombs |
Rediscover Real Food
Eating and shopping that is easy, tastes better, and improves your health, your community, and planet.
Thursday, 5 June 2014
Pizza (with millet !?!)
We make a lot of pizza - without the slightest amount of guilt. Well okay, every once in a while we order pizza and I do perhaps have a little guilt about that. But most of time it's homemade pizza. Interesting vegetables, less cheese, and homemade crust with whole grains. I actually feel good about the amount of pizza we eat!
Tuesday, 18 February 2014
You can ferment that!
Fermenting your own foods to make sauerkraut, pickles, yogurt, or kimchi probably sounds kind of crazy. The type of thing that only a person living in the middle of nowhere or someone who is unemployed would even consider attempting. I can assure you that nothing is easier. It will take you less time to make a jar of your own pickles then it would to select a jar from the wall 'o pickles probably available at your supermarket.
From left to right: Red cabbage sauerkraut, bok choy kimchi, sauerkraut with jalapeno, sauerkraut. |
Thursday, 27 June 2013
Embrace Summer with Pasta Salads
I have been craving pasta salad for the last couple of
weeks. A summery, crisp, and bright
pasta salad of some kind. At the same time I read an NPR blog post that basically
read my mine (http://www.npr.org/2013/06/26/195311156/helping-pasta-salad-dress-for-success).
Think differently about your pasta salad - ditch your jar of mayonnaise and think
of it as a salad or a complete meal (whole grains [e.g,, pasta], vegetables,
protein [e.g. nuts, beans, tofu, shrimp], and fat [e.g., olive oil]) not just a
starchy/fatty side dish. Look around you
at all of the fresh summer tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, chards, asparagus, and
leafy greens for inspiration.
Friday, 15 March 2013
Flip Your Food
Pancakes. Burgers. Eggs Over Easy. Pineapple Upside Down Cake. No wait, sorry, that isn’t what I meant by “flipping”. If you aren’t mad at me now, I’ll continue. When you plan any meal, start with thinking first about what good and nutritious thing you can include. I think we’ve all been trained to think (or shamed into thinking) about what we should eliminate or minimize in our meals. Thinking things like if I make a pizza I should really cut down on the cheese or if I make a traditional egg breakfast I should cut down or cut out the butter and bacon. This type of thinking is exhausting and I think it sort of sets us up for failure. If you are always eliminating, you can never win, there will always be something else that you can think to minimize or eliminate.
So instead, try this. Focus your energy and thoughts on adding good things to your meals.
Stir-fry - Peas, two kinds of peppers, red onion, green onion, garlic, ginger, and tofu. |
Sunday, 10 February 2013
But I don't know what is healthy!
I’ve heard this a
million times and probably said it like 1,000 myself, “but I don’t know what is
healthy”. But think about this, really
think about this, and it’s pretty ridiculous.
We know, and certainly don’t need some scientific study to confirm, that
eating a medium delivery pizza for dinner is not healthy. We know that eating a big bowl of ice cream
at night while watching TV isn’t healthy.
We know that eating ½ pound of bacon for breakfast isn’t healthy. We know this.
We just wish there was a way to get away with it.
Tuesday, 29 January 2013
What we actually eat
I definitely have a few cooking blogs and cooking websites that I love to look at for inspiration (or just to see how crazy some chefs really are). But 6 days a week we aren't making a special recipe that we've planned, shopped, and prepared for. Or maybe 7 days a week! Sure, sure, I've made some stunning meals (if I do say so myself) but 99 percent of the time, we make rice dishes, pizzas, soups, or are grilling. Ninety-nice percent of time, my meal planning begins with "what do we have in the house for dinner?" We do try to cook, mostly. And have pulled off some pretty interesting and delicious meals. We've also eaten rice and steamed carrots 'cause that is all we had. Check out the What We Eat (or Ate) page for some real dinner ideas. Feel free to post a comment if you want any more info on anything posted or have some of your own ideas!
Monday, 17 December 2012
Holiday Food Traditions
There is no other
time of the year where our cultural traditions are more entwined with
food. You just say the word “holidays”
and you’ll get strong responses from people, a far off glance and twinkle in their
eye thinking of cookies and egg nog, a groan and a belt loosening from last
night’s Christmas party, or mouthwatering and talk of roasts, stuffing or
pumpkin pie.
Christmas Cookies (from Wikipedia) |
The holiday
season is the one season where we all still hold strong to our food traditions,
the baked goods your grandmother prepared, the eggnog and tree decorating tradition
in your family, or hosting of a great feast (or series of feasts!) throughout
the season. I can bet that right now you
are all thinking of homemade cookies and not frozen, boxed or canned dinners.
It seems that this is the one season that our busy schedules, love of fast and easy
food, and lack of cooking desire or skill just can’t penetrate. In this holiday season, cooking, baking and
eating survive as a celebration and as a gesture of love and friendship. I bet that at the very least, most of you
will break out an apron and make cookies this month.
Saturday, 1 December 2012
Trimming Food Waste
I read this amazing book, American Wasteland by Jonathan Bloom, last year. The book is
well-researched and completely easy to read.
It looks at our entire food system - from farms and production, to
packaging and shipping, grocery stores, restaurants, and your kitchen - and
points highlights inefficiencies and waste in the system. It’s astounding. Nearly half of all the food produced in the
United States is thrown away. Half! And think about when the waste occurs at the
end of this system, for example, after the food has been grown, picked,
packaged, shipped, stored, purchased, prepared and served in a restaurant or your
home. If you don’t end up eating it then,
the amount of materials (fertilizers, boxes, packaging) and energy (transport,
cooking, refrigeration) that are literally just being thrown away is mind-boggling.
Monday, 26 November 2012
Sometimes we do need (or want) recipes
I've said many times that this isn't a recipe blog. There are already so many talented chefs and cooks posting tons and tons of delicious recipes online. Developing well-tested recipes that will yield repeatable results really isn't my thing. For me, the surprise of seeing how something turns out this time is half the fun of cooking. However, my kitchen is still filled with recipes and cookbooks. I love looking at recipes and use lots of recipes as the foundation or inspiration for most of what I cook (even if I don't exactly follow the directions).
My collection includes some family heirlooms, some gifts, handwritten recipes on index cards copied from friends and family, and binders full of recipes I've collected from online sites and magazines. I've inherited my grandmother's copies of The Original Cook Book of Favorite Slavic Recipes (published by the Holy Spirit Mother's Club in the 1960s) and The Good Housekeeping Cookbook (the 1949 edition). While I might not cook from them very much, they are a lot of fun to read. For example in the "Pointers on Marketing" section of the Good Housekeeing Cookbook it recommends that "you avoid buying more than family will eat for that meal. It saves your time, grocer's and next customer's." It's funny to think that your grocer would be put off by you buying too much! It also includes recipes for things like gruel, mush, luncheon rice molds, rolled celery sandwiches, and jellied tuna sandwiches.
My collection includes some family heirlooms, some gifts, handwritten recipes on index cards copied from friends and family, and binders full of recipes I've collected from online sites and magazines. I've inherited my grandmother's copies of The Original Cook Book of Favorite Slavic Recipes (published by the Holy Spirit Mother's Club in the 1960s) and The Good Housekeeping Cookbook (the 1949 edition). While I might not cook from them very much, they are a lot of fun to read. For example in the "Pointers on Marketing" section of the Good Housekeeing Cookbook it recommends that "you avoid buying more than family will eat for that meal. It saves your time, grocer's and next customer's." It's funny to think that your grocer would be put off by you buying too much! It also includes recipes for things like gruel, mush, luncheon rice molds, rolled celery sandwiches, and jellied tuna sandwiches.
Wednesday, 21 November 2012
Squash Everywhere!
This time of year the grocery stores and markets are literally overflowing with all kinds of winter squash and pumpkins. This is a perfect time to adapt what you buy and what you eat to what is in season. Those crazy looking pumpkins and squash are actually edible (even delicious!) so don't be afraid to buy something and try it!
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