Pantry Project: Great Cold Side Salad

In looking for a barley recipe (to use some of the multiple bags of grains in our overstuffed pantry as part of our pantry-reduction project), we stumbled into a great cold side salad recipe from cooking.com. It is one of those sides you could serve anytime, and it uses the sorts of ingredients that most people typically have around the pantry.

Our only problem was that our barley canister was short by a quarter cup. We quickly realized that this salad recipe's barley could be replaced by just about any grain or rice. We remembered that we had an overabundance of black rice, also called forbidden rice.

The consistency of black rice is about the same as cooked barley. You just have to make sure that you rinse it well so that the reddish-black cooking liquid doesn't color everything else in the recipe.

(We cold have substituted quinoa or faro or any of a number of other grains. But the black rice was crunchy and colorful.)

This salad would be particularly good in the summer, but it worked well in the cold depths of January as well.

Ingredients

2 cups cooked rice, barley or other grain
2 cups frozen corn, thawed
1 red pepper diced, or 1/2 red pepper and 1/2 green pepper, diced
3 scallions, sliced or chopped
2 Tablespoons chopped cilantro or parsley

Dressing
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/8 teaspoon ground pepper

Recipe
Cook the rice, barley, faro or other grain. A good rule of thumb is to cook the grain in twice as much water or stock, with a little salt, and simmer for about 40 minutes. Toward the end you might have to add a bit more liquid or drain off any excess. Just taste for doneness with a bit of crunchiness.

In a bowl, mix the first five ingredients.

In a small container with a tight lid, mix the dressing ingredients and shake well. Pour dressing over the salad and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

Eat-Well Eating During the Holidays

The holidays are a time that we mostly think about eating well in a context that we don't typically mean it here at Eat Well, Eat Cheap. With all of the celebrations and parties and plates of treats, we all tend to eat well around the holidays. Maybe a little too well.

Like us, you probably have a love-hate relationship with holiday food. It's mostly love, of course. We have a great excuse: We're celebrating — and it's only once a year. Well, only one season, but it goes on from Thanksgiving to New Year's.

The hate part is that we all know we're eating things we shouldn't. And so we pledge in our New Year's resolutions that we'll clean up our act just as soon as the  champagne and chocolates are finished.

Because of our pantry-emptying project (post to come), we'd been thinking a lot about what we've been eating — with more than a little horror. So we decided to try to put together a healthy Christmas dinner that was in keeping with our year-round philosophy here at Eat Well, Eat Cheap.

We had a wonderful meal, which we did not intend to be vegan, but in a healthy, happy coincidence, it  turned out that way, much to everyone's surprise and astonishment. Here's what was on the table:

We roasted brussel sprouts: trimmed, cut in half, and cooked in a 400-degree oven with a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper for about 20 minutes. When they were hot out of the oven, we doused them with a  little balsamic vinaigrette. Nutty and delicious.

We boiled potatoes and mashed them with about 1/3 cup of soy milk and two tablespoons of Earth Balance butter substitute. We know that these butter-substitute things can range from awful to OK, but Earth Balance rarely lets us down when we use it in cooking.

We made a mushroom gravy that got lots of raves at the table. We'll follow this up with the recipe, along with some variations, depending on what you're having with this essential sauce. For the extreme skeptics at the table, who didn't believe that gravy could be good without meat, it was a revelation.

For a bit of relief from the warm, traditional servings, we served Laurie's Cranberry Conserve, which we'd made the day before.

But what about the main dish? you're wondering. We bought something from the Field Roast company called a Cranberry-Hazelnut Roast En Croute. It's sort of a paté or meat-like loaf in a pastry crust. It's only available at holiday time—we found ours in the freezer case at Whole Foods—but it is available online.

The roast will surprise you, as it did us. (Some skeptics will never buy it. But just tell them it's full of meaty goodness and they'll love it.) When we took stock of the meal with our guests, we all agreed it was one of the best, and certainly the healthiest, Christmas meals we'd had in a long time. And then we realized there wasn't even any dairy in it. A vegan Christmas. Who would have guessed?

But it really was delicious and satisfying.

What Will Food Be Like in 100 Years?

Michael Pollan, who has written three of the most important food books of the recent past — Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Rules, and In Defense of Food — answered readers' questions in a New York Times Magazine special on Food and Drink.

One of the questions, and his answer, intrigued us enough to post it here. Good food for thought, as they say.

Q: What will our food system be like in 100 years?

A: My best guess is that the food system will look very different in 100 years, for  the simple reason that the present one is — in the precise sense of the word — unsustainable. It depends on fossil fuels that we can't depend on and exacts a steeper price in human and environmental health than we can afford. So it will change, whether we want it to or not.

We certainly won't be eating nine ounces of meat per person per day, as Americans do now — there won't be enough feed grain, worldwide, to continue that feast, and presumably we will have faced up to meat-eating's disastrous toll on the environment. If we haven't, we'll have much bigger problems on our plate than what to have for dinner.

What do you think? Crystal ball or ignorant negativism?

Mashed (Sweet) Potatoes with Garlic

Few foods are better for you than sweet potatoes. Yet many people  associate the yellow spuds only with maple syrup and marshmallows at holiday meals.

We think that there are lots of ways to better appreciate the flavor and healthy goodness of sweet potatoes than the overly sweet, often gloppy Thanksgiving dish.

We came across an old Vegetarian Times sweet potato recipe for garlicky mashed sweet potatoes the other day in a VT eNewsletter. We had four of the tubers in our pantry and needed a side for dinner, so we, ahem, whipped some up. They tasted very good and were a great accompaniment to savory piece of protein.

With four peeled and diced sweets, along with two peeled and diced apples, and teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and two teaspoons of salt, you're almost ready to go.

First you cut the top off a head of garlic, drizzle it with olive oil and rosemary, and then roast it in the oven for an hour.

Meanwhile, put the diced sweet potatoes, apples and salt in a dutch oven, and bring it to a boil on top of the stove. Lower the heat to medium and simmer until the potatoes are soft. About 10 minutes.

Drain the spuds, saving a cup of liquid. Squeeze the garlic out of its peel into the potatoes, add the teaspoon of balsamic and whip or mash the mixture. Add some cooking liquid if it is not creamy enough. Add some ground pepper and serve hot.

Here's the recipe on the VT website.

Broccoli "Rice" Side Dish

Broccoli has its detractors, but we've always liked this year-round vegetable. The worst we could say — and we often did — was that it is BOH-ring.

Broccoli crowns were ridiculously cheap the other day at our local market, so we loaded up with a couple, and then checked our ever-growing shelf of cookbooks for a different way to love its green goodness. We ran across something called Broccoli "Rice," which wasn't rice at all.

The broccoli is minced into small pieces the size of a grain of rice, and the preparation gives broccoli a very fresh taste and creative presentation. It makes this winter vegetable into a summer surprise. And who would have ever thought of putting mint in a broccoli side dish? Brilliant.

The recipe is the brainchild of Eric Gower, author of "The Breakaway Cook." Serve this side next to any meat or protein, or under it as we did last night, as shown in the photo above.

Broccoli "Rice"

1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, minced
Kosher salt and fresh-ground black pepper
1 medium head of broccoli, minced to rice size

Dressing
2 Tablespoons Greek or plain yogurt
1 Tablespoon citrus juice (we used lime)
2 Tablespoons minced fresh mint

Melt the butter and olive oil in a large pan or wok over medium heat.
Add the onion and salt and pepper liberally.
Cook, stirring once in a while, until softened but not browned.
Add the broccoli and continue to cook for about 10 minutes, until the vegetable is cooked through.
While it's cooking, blend the dressing ingredients, and add to the broccoli when it is done. Cook for another couple of minutes to blend flavors. Test for seasoning.

Serve under meat, fish or tofu and with a fresh, crisp white such as sauvignon blanc, viognier, or light chardonnay.

We served it with scallion-coated tofu and grilled spring onions from the CSA box.

Broccoli Pesto: Low-Fat, Vegan, Extremely Tasty

We love pesto. On pasta, or on pizza. However, there are two potential problems with it. 1. Basil is not available most of the year. 2. If you're watching your cholesterol, the wonderful parmesan edge in traditional pesto is no-no if consumed too often.

We came across this broccoli pesto recipe in a Vegetarian Times eLetter the other day and altered it just a bit. We expected blah pesto and were more than pleasantly surprised by how good it was. The bonus is that it's also vegan, meaning no dairy, and low-fat — without tasting like it's food penance.

Broccoli Pesto on Pasta
3/4 cup toasted walnuts (toast them in a hot skillet, flipping almost constantly so they don't burn). Save a few for garnish.
(The VegTimes recipe calls for blanched hazelnuts, but we didn't have any on hand.)
2 cups broccoli florets (1 small bunch was about right)
1-1/2 cup loosely packed parsley leaves (we chopped the stems off a supermarket bunch)
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup mint leaves (fresh from our yard because you can't kill this plant)
4 tsp lemon juice (1 juicy lemon or 1-1/2 regular lemons)
1-1/2 tsp grated lemon zest (about 1 lemon's worth)
1-1/2 tsp capers (VT says rinsed and drained and optional, but we threw them in from the jar)
3 large garlic cloves (VT said 5, but 3 was about right for us; 5 for real garlic LOVERS)
1 tsp salt
1 lb bowtie or ziti or other pasta (VT called for 12 oz. but we found 1 lb just right)

1. Toast the nuts 3-5 miutes in a skillet or until golden brown. Chop very coarsely and set aside.
2. Boil a large pot of water. Blanch/cook broccoli in boiling water until tender, maybe 3 minutes. Remove with slotted spoon, rinse with cold water, set aside.
3. In a food processor, pulse nuts, broccoli, parsley, oil, mint, lemon juice, lemon zest, capers, garlic and salt. Use a little cooking water if too thick. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. Cook pasta. Reserve cooking water.
5. Toss pasta with pesto. Add small amounts (1/4 cup at a time) of cooking water if too thick. (It should be thick, but it should coat the pasta.) Garnish with a few nuts. Drizzle with a little olive oil.

6. Open a bottle of crisp, rich white wine or a red Zinfandel — something that can stand up to garlicky, rich, strong green sauce — and enjoy as a main dish or as a filling side.

Food Label Lies

Here at Eat Well, Eat Cheap we're all about eating healthy, so we're always on the lookout for helpful tips that make it easy to buy, cook and eat healthy food.

Bicycling magazine writes a lot about healthy eating. The advice is usually very good because avid bicyclists need a fair amount of food, but they try to eat well. Imagine going on a 100-mile bicycle ride after you've eaten a Quarter-Pounder, large fries and a Big Gulp. It's not pretty.

Bicycling suggests reading food labels to help with healthy eating. Today, it gives a quick overview of what to believe and what nine labels should be relegated to the Bullsheet.

Here's the Bullsheet:
 
BE WARY WHEN YOU SEE THE FOLLOWING WORDS ON FOOD LABELS—THEY HAVE EITHER NO LEGAL DEFINITION OR NO THIRD-PARTY VERIFICATION SYSTEM:

NATURAL
FREE-RANGE
CAGE-FREE
ANTIBIOTIC-FREE
CHEMICAL-FREE 
HORMONE-FREE
RBGH-FREE
ECO-SAFE
ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY AND 
GREEN.


Here is a link to the article about the five labels you can trust.

Road Food: Visit Farmers' Markets to Avoid Junky Restaurants

We've written quite a bit about eating on the road—basically, how to avoid junky fast food. This past week we've
been traveling around Boulder, Colorado, and the city's splendid
farmer's market has allowed us to eat particularly well.

Boulder's residents love both food and the environment, so the local market features almost exclusively organic produce and baked goods. We loaded up on tomatoes, peaches, bread, and cheese, confident that we would have some great picnics.

For the next few days we ate lunch in local parks, tearing apart our crusty bread to make impromptu sandwiches as we gawked at the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. The September air was clear and crisp, and the peaches were the juiciest we have ever eaten; afterward, we had to douse ourselves with bottled water to keep the yellow jackets at bay.

Our lunches here have ranked among our best lunches ever  . . . and proved yet again that road food can be delicious and life-affirming, especially when it's eaten outdoors. If you find yourself traveling through a city with a farmer's market and have time to stop and shop, you're guaranteed of getting a better lunch than any fast-food or chain restaurant can provide. (The Local Harvest website will tell you if there's a market in the area you'll be visiting.)

Find Your Local Farmers' Market

When we moved from Connecticut to Virginia, we looked forward to a longer growing season and more local produce. But we were sad to leave our CSA farm and our town's farmers' market. Though small, the Saturday morning market always offered choice organic produce as well as bread and pastries, cut flowers, potted plants, soap, and sometimes a pen of friendly goats for the kids to pet. From Memorial Day through the fall, we shopped there regularly.

We feared that the hardcore suburban culture we were moving to wouldn't be able to match our old farmers' market for charm or quality. But we were very wrong. In Fairfax County, where we live, there are farmers' markets nearly all week long, in one city or another. As we discovered on Saturday when we visited the market in Reston, this overdeveloped metropolitan area is surrounded by communities where people not only grow beautiful produce but make wonderful cheeses, honey, and baked goods. The Reston market features locally raised meat as well as crafts, clothing, and jewelry. On Saturday there was a bluegrass band and a magic show for the children.

Naturally, we emptied our wallets, coming home with bags of produce, bread, and, as an experiment, bee pollen (we'll let you know if it changes our life as advertised). It felt good knowing that our money was supporting local growers, and we had fun just walking around in the Saturday morning crowd, scarfing free samples and taking in the scene.

Chances are, there's a farmers' market near you: just plug your zip code into the search function on  the Local Harvest Web site. Even if you don't have a market close by, it's worth making a special trip to find one.

Is Your Veggie Burger Poisoning You?

We don't know how many of you eat veggie burgers, but you probably all know somebody who eats them, as Ruth does from time to time.

It turns out that there are good veggie burgers and bad veggie burgers. A study by the Cornucopia Institute says that non-organic veggie burgers often contains the neurotoxin hexane, a petroleum byproduct that is bad for those who work with it and can cause explosions in wastewater and is an air pollutant.

The bottom line is that you should "look for Boca Burgers "Made with organic soy"; Helen's Kitchen; Morningstar "Made with organic"; Superburgers by Turtle Island; Tofurky and Wildwood."

Here's a report from Change.org's Sustainable Food blog. Thanks to Ramin Ganeshram and Jean Paul Vellotti.

With so many recalls of tainted meat it's tempting to think of food safety issues as another reason to eat a vegetarian diet. But sadly, recent news from the Cornucopia Instituterains on that parade as well. Its new report, "Behind the Bean: The Heroes and Charlatans of the Natural and Organic Soy Foods Industry," reveals that many top-name brands of veggie burgers contain the neurotoxin hexane, a petroleum byproduct listed by the EPA as a hazardous air pollutant.

So what's it doing in our food?
Writing for Mother Jones, Kiera Butler explains that soybeans are submerged in hexane in order to separate the oil from the protein — a trick processors have been using in order to reduce the fat content of the food. There's good and bad news here. The good news is that all products certified as USDA organic are not allowed to contain hexane bathed ingredients. The bad news is that if it's not organic it most likely has hexane-extracted ingredients in it. The report states, "The soy protein ingredients in most nonorganic foods such as vegetarian burgers and nutrition bars are processed with the use of hexane."

In Butler's story, she quotes Cornucopia Institute senior researcher Charlotte Vallaeys who explains that the ingredients to look out for on non-organic foods are soy protein isolate, soy protein concentrate, or texturized vegetable protein. Not only are you getting a dose of it when you eat these foods, but the industry is contributing significantly to air pollution. The report states that two-thirds of hexane emissions in the U.S. are from grain processors and the single largest emitter was an Archer Daniels Midland plant in Illinois. Solae, a major supplier of soy protein ingredients, is not far behind, with one of its plants coming in 7th on the list of top emitters.

Hexane can also cause explosions when released in wastewater and is documented to be hazardous to workers' health, too.

Unfortunately, for those of us eating soy products the EPA doesn't have a requirement for food manufacturers to test for hexane residue and little research has been done on the effects of consuming it. The Cornucopia Institute's report names these products as having hexane-extracted ingredients: Amy's Kitchen; Boca Burger, conventional; Franklin Farms; Garden Burger; It's All Good; Lightlife; Morningstar Farms; President's Choice; Soy Boy; Taste Above; Trader Joe's; and Yves Veggie Cuisine.For hexane free food, instead look for Boca Burgers "Made with organic soy"; Helen's Kitchen; Morningstar "Made with organic"; Superburgers by Turtle Island; Tofurky and Wildwood.

You can read more about hexane in the Cornucopia Institute's report.

Confused About Fats and Oils?

If you are, it's no wonder. Between unsaturated, monosaturated, polyunsaturated, saturated, and the late unlamented trans-fats, it's hard to keep track of what will help you and what will kill you. Maoshing Ni has an excellent breakdown of this complex subject on Huffington Post today.

There's Good Fast Food at the Supermarket

Moving to Virginia has meant longer car trips to visit family and friends. Although we like to think of ourselves as the kind of people who are so well organized that we leave the driveway fully armed with delicious, healthy meals and snacks to sustain us in the hours ahead, we're really the kind of people who are always rushing around, and we tend to hit the road with little more than a bottle of water and a couple of cups of coffee.

This means finding food on the road, and as we've written, we try to avoid fast-food restaurants. But on a recent trip back from Upstate New York, we were starving, and pulled off the interstate into the usual neighboring sprawl of Wendy McBurgers, resigned to the usual fries and soda. But as we approached McDonald's we saw that there was a supermarket right next door. We could escape the fast-food rut!

In less time than it would have taken to order and receive our greasy fast-food bag, and for approximately the same amount of money, we grabbed baby carrots, hummus, and a bottle of water. If we'd been a little hungrier, we would have gotten pita bread, olives, and fruit to round out the meal. But the cold, crunchy carrots and tart hummus were incredibly satisfying, and we happily ate them with the knowledge that the next time we found ourselves road-bound and starving, we would have a delicious alternative.