Food Fight

#CSAinNYC

2011-03-05T19:33:00.000-05:00

I had the great pleasure of attending Just Food's CSA in NYC conference today in Manhattan. I'll be posting a wrap-up of the event as well as some information on the wealth of opportunities for involvement in urban agriculture in NYC.

In the meantime, check out the Twitter feed from the event, #CSAinNYC.

Overall, it was a really informative, really exciting day. Can't wait to share more!

Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

2010-08-16T22:55:00.001-04:00

This not-so-pretty tomato from our garden became part of an incredibly delicious tomato sauce that accompanied fried green tomatoes.

Organic Soda? Yes, Please!

2010-08-14T16:10:00.000-04:00

Hey all (3 readers? maybe less?) I'm back, after a not-so-brief hiatus.

What am I back with? A lucious libation, Blue Sky Organic Soda.

I spent the better part of my afternoon running around with my little brother, stopping off at a local farmers market to stock up on some blueberries from Hammonton, NJ. This is probably the last week for them, as the harvesting season ended last week.

Then it was off to Mazzeo's, a local gourmet grocer & produce store for some feta cheese (to make watermelon salad for dinner), and of course pressure from my little brother to get him something to drink!

That's when I came across Blue Sky Organic Soda, 89 cents for a can. I figured if my brother didn't like it, I could drink it, but he was quite satisfied. He did let me try a sip; we both agreed it tastes like orange soda, without that syrupy undertone. I've given up drinking soda, but I know for a lot of people that could be really difficult. It's nice to find that there is a really tasty, natural alternative to Coca-Cola & Pepsi.

Of course, if you are feeling really adventurous, you could try to make your own soda. There are hundreds of recipes out there ranging from the miraculously simple to the incredibly complex. For starters, I would recommend mixing your favorite sweet ingredients -- pureed blueberries, fresh strawberries, mint sprigs, etc. -- with carbonated water & perhaps a little simple syrup (I make mine from raw sugar).

Don't Worry It's Not Real...Yet.

2010-07-16T11:30:00.001-04:00

If you've been on the internet recently, you've probably come across the Candwich, a sandwich innovation with "grab-and-go convenience," and one would imagine, the faint taste of a can and preservatives out the wazoo.

It has actually been in the news because investor Travis L. Wright used funds for real estate investments to finance the Candwich instead. Fraudulent investments aside, Mark Kirkland, president of Mark One Foods, hopes to go into production this year.

So it is entirely possible, that sometime this year or next, you will go to your local grocer and find Candwich on an aisle. I suppose next to the tomato sauce & canned peas? I'm not really sure how you would classify a canned sandwich in grocery store terms. I am sure that these are the kind of products we need less of, not more. If you don't have time to make a sandwich, you need to reevaluate your life.

Zucchini Lasagna

2010-07-15T12:10:00.000-04:00

Whipped up a scrumptious zucchini lasagna for the fam a few nights ago. I didn't take any pictures, but here's the rundown:

Ingredients:

2-3 Medium Zucchini, enough for two layers in your baking dish
3-4 cups Tomato Sauce (you can use your fav, the thicker the better)
2 balls no-salt Mozzarella Cheese, cut into 1/4 inch slices
Romano Cheese, shredded (NOTE: don't buy pre-shredded cheese, there are lots of extra ingredients added to prevent drying)
Sweet Italian Sausage, 6-8 links, remove casings
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper
Sage, Basil & Thyme (preferably fresh; sliced or torn)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350° F, and oil a glass baking dish. In a medium saucepan cook sausage, breaking up and stirring frequently. Place cooked sausage in a colander to drain. Cut zucchini into 1/4 inches slices, and line the baking dish. Season with salt, & cover with 1/2 the tomato sauce, 1/2 the sausage, 1/2 the mozzarella slices, and 1/2 the shredded romano. Repeat the layering starting with the zucchini. Top with fresh sage, thyme, and basil. Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes. Raise temperature to 375° F, uncover lasagna, and cook for an additional 15 minutes. Remove from oven, let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

Zucchini (or any squash), makes a great substitute for pasta in lasagna. I'm thinking of using squash substitutes, especially zucchini because we always grow a lot, for other pasta dishes and maybe in place of bread. I'm having so much fun figuring out new ways to use different foods, I barely miss the things I've cut out of my diet!

Red, White, and Food

2010-07-14T11:30:00.001-04:00

Had a quite delicious 5th of July barbecue. On the menu: Grilled zucchini with salt, pepper, basil & oregano; Corn grilled in the husks; Venison sliders & beef sliders, with a homemade burger sauce, on toasted bakery onion or white rolls.

Ground Venison -- lucky me, my dad hunts!

Freshly chopped garlic

Quick & easy sauce, use ingredients to taste:

Finely chopped garlic & onion
Balsamic vinegar
Raw sugar
Cocoa powder
Cayenne pepper
Salt & pepper

Venison burger, ready to grill, with some extra cayenne pepper on top

To top it all off, homemade whipped cream, cherries, and Jersey Fresh blueberries. Very patriotic!

Labels, Labels Everywhere...and Not a Drop to Eat

2010-07-13T11:30:00.003-04:00

Once you start reading labels, you realize why you never did. There is definitely truth in the saying ignorance is bliss. Unfortunately, when it comes to food, ignorance can be blissfully dangerous. I casually grabbed the Worcestershire sauce to add to my venison & beef for burgers, but my new foodie instincts kicked in so I checked the label. Guess what? High fructose corn syrup! It really is in everything. Needless to say, I opted for making my own sauce, using some balsamic vinegar as a base. Still a bit of a bummer, as they add sodium bisulfate to protect the color, but a better alternative at this part in my journey.

Balsamic Vinegar vs. Worcestershire Sauce

Quick Tip: Cook it and they will Eat it

2010-07-12T11:30:00.001-04:00

Being the most fastidious eater in the house, I try to cook dinner for my family when I can so we all eat together. Much to my surprise, I can get away with cooking meals that are 100% to my standards: unprocessed, fresh, healthy, sometimes vegetarian, and of course delicious, and my family devours them just as happily as they would a bucket of store-bought fried chicken. I've even convinced my youngest brother (a full-on fast food fan) to snack on carrots & hummus if I prep it for him.

Lucky for me, I live with my parents, and am not really responsible for anyone's meals but my own; if you are feeding a family just keep in mind that if you cook food that tastes good you can get people to eat pretty much anything.

Homemade Pita Pockets? Totally!

2010-07-11T20:33:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I decided to delve into the floury world of bread-making. I make soda bread all the time, but I figured if I really want to cut processed foods out of my diet I needed to expand my dough domain. An over-abundance of Tribe hummus led me to a pita recipe found on About.com. What made the recipe really easy to follow was the accompanying video, definitely watch it before making your own!

Surprisingly easy homemade pita. (Oh, and tasty too!)

Recipe: (copied from About.com) with my notes

Ingredients:

1 package yeast, or quick rising yeast
1/2 cup warm water
3 cups all purpose flour (unenriched flour is pricey, for this time I settled for just unbleached)
1 1/4 teaspoon salt (I used coarse sea salt)
1 teaspoon granulated sugar (raw sugar worked just fine)
1 cup lukewarm water

Preparation:

Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup of warm water. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Let sit for 10-15 minutes until water is frothy. In the meantime, combine flour and salt in large bowl. Make a small depression in the middle of flour and pour yeast water in depression. Slowly add 1 cup of lukewarm water, and stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until elastic. Place dough on floured surface and knead for 10-15 minutes. When the dough is no longer sticky and is smooth and elastic, it has been successfully kneaded.
Frothy yeast
Coat large bowl with vegetable oil and place dough in bowl. Turn dough upside down so all of the dough is coated. Allow to sit in a warm place for about 3 hours, or until it has doubled in size.
Remove doubled dough, roll out in a rope, pinch off 10-12 small pieces, and roll into balls. Place balls on floured surface. Roll out each ball of dough with a rolling pin into circles. Each should be about 5-6 inches across and 1/4 inch thick. Preheat oven to 500° F and make sure rack is at the very bottom of oven. Preheat a glass baking dish for a few minutes.
Rolled & ready for the oven
Place two circles in the preheated baking dish. Bake each circle for 4 minutes until the bread puffs up. Turn over and bake for 2 minutes. Remove each pita with a spatula from the baking sheet and add additional pitas for baking. Take spatula and gently push down puff. Immediately place in storage bags.

Pita coated in chipotle hummus

Tuna (w/homemade mayo) & lettuce for my bro

The coolest part about making your own pita is the pocket-factor. The high heat & quick cooking causes the water in the dough to turn to steam, which puffs up the middle forming the pocket. When you see it happen though, it pretty much seems like magic. That's really the beauty of moving to unprocessed, homemade foods: it's about rediscovering the wonder of food. There is so much more to food than eating it. (Although, I'm inordinately fond of that part too!)

Quick Tip: Shelf Life Guide

2010-07-06T15:00:00.001-04:00

A big thanks to Jamie for introducing me to Still Tasty: The Ultimate Shelf Life Guide.

It offers the best way to store perishable food items, at the click of a button.

The Finest Ingredients in the U.S.A.

2010-07-05T22:21:00.003-04:00

In the spirit of the Fourth of July, I purchased a bag of the most blatantly patriotic marshmallows in existence at the request of my friends. In addition to loving the U.S. of A., these marshmallows are double the size of regular marshmallows, and offer special s'mores instructions calling for two whole graham crackers & an entire chocolate bar. Perhaps a little too American for me.

Wave that flag as you roast one of your relatives, Marshmallow Man.

If the patriotism & size of the marshmallows isn't enough to entice you, they use some pretty excellent buzz words and standard misleading labeling to convince you that these marshmallows are totally good for your health & well being. Check it out:

"Premium Quality"

Whoa, they are NATURALLY fat AND gluten free!? Since 1917! They must be good for me.

Only the FINEST ingredients, and those ingredients are produced in the U.S.A.

Now you are probably wondering the same thing we were, what exactly are the finest ingredients produced in the U.S.A.? It's quite a bold claim to make, and would be relative to the kinds of ingredients in production in the U.S.A.

Are you ready to find out what they are?

I love me some tetrasodium pyrophosphate...it's only "slightly toxic".

Now you know the finest ingredients produced in the good ol' U.S. of A. They would be sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, water, gelatin, who knows, and tetrasodium pyrophosphate. But remember, they're premium quality, and naturally fat & gluten free. So, totally still eat them. I think perhaps I'll be unpatriotic and try to find some ingredients elsewhere if this is truly the best we can do.

Side Note: We did enjoy a fantastic, and pretty much from scratch dinner that I completely forgot to photograph, and I enjoyed some extra dark chocolate while my comrades roasted the super sized marshmallows.

Quick Tip: A Salad for all 3 Meals

2010-07-04T10:17:00.000-04:00

I don't know about you, but I grew up with the notion that salad was something that sat alongside your dinner plate, and you ate it so you'd be allowed to have dessert. If you are sometimes at a loss for making a salad the main part of a meal, here are 3 quick & easy ways to make a basic, leafy green salad into the main course!

Breakfast: Top a generous portion of salad with one or two over-easy eggs. When you cut the eggs, the yolk will make for a creamy, oozy dressing. Some fresh shredded cheese adds a nice salty flavor, and a bit of dairy. If desired, serve with a side of yogurt or toast.

Lunch: I usually opt for adding a can of tuna (dry), some avocado, and balsamic vinaigrette, to my salad at lunch, but get creative! A lunch-time salad is a great way to use up some leftovers; try topping your salad with last night's chicken or fish, grilled veggies, salsa or guacamole...the possibilities are endless!

Dinner: The best way to make your salad the meal at dinner, is to put your meal on a salad! Take an American staple: Steak & Potatoes, slice the steak 1/4 thick, and make pan fried potatoes with onions & garlic. Add your fresh hot dishes to a big salad, and try out this horseradish dressing from Yankee Magazine.

Happy Fourth of July & happy eating!

CSA!

2010-07-03T16:18:00.000-04:00

A welcome addition to my fresh, whole foods journey was my dad deciding to join a CSA. That would be Community Supported Agriculture, a farm that offers shares to the public. As a shareholder you receive a weekly bounty of farm-fresh veggies, and the farm receives the financial support they need to continue producing crops. You interact directly with the producer, and are able have any questions or concerns answered face-to-face. Additionally, it is a great way to become part of a greater community of conscious buyers/eaters. Another benefit is the crops are organic & pesticide free. There is some risk involved, if you participate during a season that doesn't bode well for the crops, your share would be smaller than in a better season.

Gloria, one of the owners of Red Oak Ranch, our CSA farm, let us know that it is still quite early in the season, so as the weeks progress our shares will be much larger, and include a greater diversity. Even without this knowledge I was quite satisfied with the wealth of veggies, and wonder how I'm going to use them up in a week!

Carrots, Green Beans, Cabbage, Boston Lettuce, Zucchini, Scallions (and hiding Radishes)

Corn & Garlic

Look at all those veggies!

So of course I made a salad, all from the CSA veggies

(and some canned Tuna, it's going to be one of my vices for awhile)

Boston Lettuce, Carrots, Radishes, Scallions, Green Beans, Homemade Balsamic Vinaigrette & Tuna

I wouldn't be exagerating to say it was one of the best salads I've ever eaten. I'm looking forward to learning new & creative ways to prepare veggies. Hopefully I'll find a few that my family loves, and I can keep them eating fresh (at least in part) all summer!

If you want to find out more about CSA's check out Local Harvest, they give you a nice description of the program and help you find farms in your area.

"Ethnic" American Food

2010-07-01T21:55:00.000-04:00

I just stumbled across this gem thanks to @SFoodie, and it seemed like the perfect first post on a blog about eating real food.

I would love to imagine that Simone was being sarcastic, but she is quite serious in her excitement that American cuisine has been represented by absolutely nothing that can in good conscience be considered food. Cuisine in our country is diverse and varied; these processed consumable items represent the lowest common denominator. There are glorious expanses of organic farmland, fabulous chefs and bakers, both at home and professionally, who make dishes that represent classic Americana everyday from fresh, wholesome ingredients. The America represented on this aisle is one of branding, advertising, and consumerism. It has nothing to do with food.