Boxty on the griddle,
Boxty in the pan,
If you can’t make boxty,
You’ll never get a man.
– Traditional Irish poem – Anonymous
Is the recession over?
YES! (7/25/09)
NO – The recent upswing is due to the stimulus package (1/6/10)
YES – But we won’t see job growth for a few months (1/30/10)
NO – No new jobs, low GDP growth (2/1/10)
NO – Find a comfortable seat; this is going to take a while (2/17/10)
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my short life, it’s not to trust the media. Here we have a sampling of well-respected journals and supposedly learned individuals saying wildly contradictory things. Which, by the way, doesn’t just happen with finance. It happens with nutrition too. Have you noticed?
In my recent search for recession-friendly cuisine, I came upon a simple and dirt-cheap recipe from the Irish Midlands. It’s called Boxty (or bacstaí). Ironically, the Irish were denied the main ingredient for many years during the Potato Famine. Any tubers they produced were shipped over to their oppressors in England. Way, way worse than the recession. And sort of ironic, since most of us think of a potato as a lowly, humble, and really inexpensive staple. Cultures all over the world incorporate potato in their “peasant” cooking – which to my mind ends up being the most satisfying stuff to eat.
Back to boxty. It’s pretty much just a potato pancake, but the recipe contains enough satisfying protein to keep you going. And you can top it with more protein if you desire. It can be prepared gluten free, and I like getting my carbs from non-grain sources, so this dish works well for me. A word of caution: some people don’t do great with potatoes as they can be inflammatory. Pay attention to how you feel after eating it.
Anyway, here’s the recipe, courtesy of Christine Gallary for Chowhound.
- Heat the oven to 200°F.
- Chop half of the potatoes into large dice, place in a medium saucepan, salt generously, and cover with cold water by 1 inch. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat to low, and simmer potatoes uncovered until fork tender, about 8 minutes. Drain, return potatoes to the pot, add 1/4 cup of the milk, and mash until the potatoes are smooth; set aside.
- Meanwhile, grate the remaining potatoes on the large holes of a box grater. Toss with 1/4 teaspoon of the salt and place in a fine mesh strainer over a medium bowl until the mashed potatoes are ready.
- With a plastic spatula, press the grated potatoes against the sides and bottom of the strainer to remove any liquid. Add the grated potatoes to the mashed potatoes (no need to stir though).
- Place egg, remaining 1/2 cup milk, flour, pepper, and remaining 1 teaspoon salt in a large bowl and whisk until smooth, about 10 seconds. Add potatoes and stir until evenly incorporated.
- Heat a large nonstick frying pan or griddle over medium heat. Test to see if the pan is hot enough by sprinkling a couple of drops of cold water in it: If the water bounces and sputters, the pan is ready to use; if it evaporates instantly, the pan is too hot.
- Once the pan is ready, add enough butter to lightly coat the bottom when melted. Drop 3 dollops (about 1/4 cup each) of the batter into the pan and spread each to about 1/4 inch thick. Cook until the pancake bottoms are golden brown, about 4 to 5 minutes. Flip and cook the other side until golden brown, about 4 to 5 minutes more. Place on a baking sheet and set in the oven to keep warm. Repeat with remaining butter and batter. Serve warm.
During WWII, domestically-grown foods were needed to feed hungry armies. In response to the dwindling food supplies, the US Office of Price Administration introduced rationing in 1942, while the UK began rationing in 1941. This ensured equitable distribution.
Here are one person’s sample food rations for one week:
4 oz bacon or ham
8 oz sugar
2 oz tea
2 oz jam spread
1 oz cheese
1 shilling’s worth of meat
8 oz fats of which only 2 oz could be butter
Obviously, this isn’t much food. 4 oz of meat, for example, is considered only one serving by today’s standards.
And here’s a ration book. Each person had one. You can imagine the frustration when one got lost!
In order to supplement their diets, people kept their own chickens and “Victory Gardens”. They also poached rabbits and hares. The government strongly encouraged traditional food preservation methods such as canning, calling them “patriotic”. In 1945 the government introduced the National School Lunch Act in order to provide schoolchildren with a reasonably healthy midday meal (how times have changed).
Ever wonder how some of the “convenience” foods came about? After the war, many new foods borne of military research were introduced to the American public. These included instant coffee and cake mixes.
With the way the foodscape looks today, anyone with a bit of land or even room on their windowsill should consider growing some produce. High-quality food is becoming more and more expensive as oil prices, and therefore transportation costs, steadily climb.
Perhaps you’re wondering what bacon is doing on a weight loss site.
Well, as I’ve said many times before, eating fat doesn’t make you fat. Refined carbs and sugar make you fat. Eating “foodlike substances” such as soda, candy, pop tarts and fast food make you fat. Eating too much makes you fat. Too much estrogen and poor liver function make you fat. Skipping meals makes you fat. Stress, insomnia, and lack of exercise make you fat.
Good-quality bacon makes you full. It also makes your mouth do a little dance because it just tastes so good.
Oh, and it’s got B vitamins too 
This dish has several advantages:
1. It’s protein-dense. Why are people so obsessed with protein for weight loss? There are a number of reasons. A couple of the most important: it keeps your blood sugar stable, and it’s thermogenic. That means that just by digesting the protein you’ll burn 30% of its calories.
2. It’s a great way to sneak in greens. Lettuce is a no-brainer, but sometimes people aren’t overly excited about the bitter greens like kale, mustard greens, and collard greens. These babies are drenched in onion/black bean/bacon juice and they’ll go down easy.
3. It’s filling. With plenty of delicious fat, it will keep you satisfied for hours.
4. It’s well-rounded. You’ve got each macronutrient represented: protein, fat, and carb. And it goes without saying that it wouldn’t be on this site if it weren’t nutritious. Nothing refined or synthetic about any of these ingredients.
(please note that I have nothing against hamburgers…just fast food burgers)
INGREDIENTS
1 onion
1 bunch greens (collard and mustard work best)
4 slices bacon
1 can black beans
salt and pepper
water
As always, all ingredients should be as organic / local as possible.
1. Chop up onion and bacon and fry them in a pot. You won’t need any oil because of the bacon fat.
2. Wash and chop your bunch of greens and add them to the pot along with about 1 cup of water.
3. Simmer for 20-30 minutes.
4. Add black beans, and salt and pepper to taste.
5. Simmer for 5 minutes.
6. Feast.
Nuts, glorious nuts…Chock full of satisfying fat, protein, and minerals, these inexpensive snacks are crucial to keep around the house. Buy them in bulk: it’s cheaper.
Here’s a little story I actually told a client yesterday. It’s a personal tale. I call it “The Evolution of Nut Consciousness”.
For many years I avoided nuts. This is because I heard they had a lot of fat in them. I believed that eating fat would make me fat.
Then I started to get interested in nutrition. I learned that nuts had “good fat” in them, aka unsaturated fat. I started to buy some nice honey roasted Planter’s in a can, and feeling virtuous, snacked on those occasionally.
Then I enrolled in holistic nutrition school. I learned the following:
1. The only “bad” fat is “trans” fat (saturated fat is crucial). And nuts in a can are sometimes covered with trans fats to preserve them for longer.
2. Roasting nuts impacts their micronutrients. It’s best to eat them raw.
3. Eating fat doesn’t make you fat.
So I began my raw organic nut crusade. I tried Brazil nuts for the first time and couldn’t get enough (perhaps I was deficient in a mineral they had in abundance). I made cookies using a blend of ground oats and nuts. I ate lots of them. Then I made more and ate more.
Then I decided to use my nut cookie recipe as a snack demo at holistic nutrition school. This involved a nutrition analysis of the cookie recipe. Well…one cookie turned out to be about 350 calories.
Whoops.
Let me point out that this is a common scenario. Person has a pattern of bingeing. Person learns about nutrition. Person gets excited. Person thinks “as long as it’s healthy, I can eat as much as I want”. That’s not quite true. While I’m not an advocate of counting calories, anyone can see that eating four nut cookies at 350 calories apiece is…well…not the greatest idea. It is, of course, preferable to eating four Hostess Snowballs. Which I used to do.
So I’ve reined in my nut obsession. I still keep a box of almond milk in the fridge, as I’m not great with dairy. And I always have some kind of raw, organic nut in my cupboard. It truly is an ideal snack to tide you over between meals. Just a handful will sufiice. I like to mix up the kinds I get, as eating the same thing over and over can create an allergy. Besides, eating a wider bandwidth of foods means you’re getting a wider bandwidth of nutrients. I still make the nut cookies sometimes, but I limit myself to one. Ok, maybe two. And I eat some of the batter. You know, to make sure it tastes ok.
Coconut milk itself may not fall under “recession cuisine”. One can of organic, full-fat coco milk equals nearly $2. But I will tell you that a little splash of it goes a looooong way towards filling you up with delicious fats. And that’s what recession cuisine is about: stretching your dollar while maximizing your nutrient intake.
“COCONUT?!” you may be saying. “Isn’t this a WEIGHT LOSS SITE?” Well, yes. The fact is, we’ve been fed some really skewed information about fats. Saturated fats in particular. We NEED them! And coconut milk’s a wonderful source. Ironically, studies have found that eating enough saturated fat actually supports the weight loss process.
Here are just a few of coconut milk’s benefits:
- It’s been shown to aid weight loss by speeding up the metabolism.
- The lauric acid in coconut milk is anti-viral, anti-fungal, and anti-microbial, so it helps boost the immune system, which is your body’s defense against illness.
- It contains potassium, calcium, chloride, Vitamin A and Vitamin E, so it’s great for your skin and hair.
Do I have you convinced yet?
Now, I KNOW you like the sound of coconut milk shake. How could you not? What if I told you that drinking about 12 oz of this shake kept me full for six hours? Everyone’s body is different, so I can’t guarantee the same results for you. But if you’d like to experiment, try blending up the following:
- splash of coconut milk
- splash of any other “milk” (dairy, almond, rice, hemp)
- organic frozen berries (another recession cuisine idea, as they are cheaper than fresh. I like to use cranberries, blackberries and blueberries)
- spoonful of almond butter
- Stevia to taste (just a few drops should do it)
- optional: raw egg (I don’t recommend eating them at ALL if you’re getting feedlot, non-organic, gross factory farmed eggs, but I get them from a good source and like adding them to my diet every so often)
- optional: raw cacao nibs (I happened to have some on hand and they add a nice chocolaty crunch)
It’s free. It comes out of our faucets. It comprises about 75% of both the Earth and our bodies. You can get it distilled or filtered or bubbly. You can add lemon or lime or ice cubes. But water?? That’s not a food.
No, it’s not. And I’m not suggesting you substitute your meals with water. But it’s a commonly overlooked and crucial substance. It’s particularly key for weight loss because it helps the liver metabolize fat. It helps flush toxins out of your body. It improves muscle tone (hydrated muscles contract more easily). And most of us don’t drink nearly enough of it.
The recession part? It’s free. At least for now. The cuisine part? Sometimes when you’re hungry, sleepy, headachy, or craving sugar, you actually need water instead. A few weeks ago I was at the tail end of a nasty bug, fever and GI symptoms included. I’d hardly had anything to drink…because…well…I couldn’t really keep anything down. And I developed a monster of a headache. As in, every time I shifted position, my head felt like a gong that had been smacked soundly by a sumo wrestler. I was concerned. What was going on? My brilliant boyfriend, who also happens to be a naturopathic doctor, suggested the obvious: dehydration. Sure enough, after sipping some water over a period of a few hours, it dissipated. You’d expect me to come up with this answer on my own, being a nutritionist and all, but it can be easy to forget about the basics.
Having trouble fitting the clear magical liquid into your life? Feeling confused about filtered vs distilled, flat vs bubbly? Here are a few of my top tips for effective H2O consumption. They’re good. Read ‘em all.
1. It’s great to aim for 8 glasses per day, but don’t drink them all at once – the body can’t absorb it. Instead, drink smaller amounts throughout the day.
2. If you have difficulty getting excited about drinking water, try purchasing a really fun cup or Sigg, and have it near you at all times. You can add flavorings like the aforementioned citrus, auditory stimulation like clinking ice cubes, or even a dash of tea or a FEW drops of juice to make it more palatable. Also try envisioning one pound melting off for each day you drink 8 glasses. It doesn’t quite work that directly but it can be good motivation.
3. The body absorbs flat better than bubbly. But bubbly’s far better than none at all.
4. It’s a good idea to filter your water. You can buy a home filtration machine or a Brita filter. Distilled refers to the process of removing minerals from the water – you don’t want that.
5. Please try to refrain from buying water in plastic bottles! They’re horrible for the environment. Get something you can use and re-use, like a glass bottle or a Sigg. Also, if you do happen to have your water (or any other drink) in a plastic bottle, make sure it doesn’t get hot. Heat causes the toxins from the plastic to leach into the fluid. Yum!
6. Caffeine does not equal water. If you’re drinking black tea or green tea or decaf coffee, that’s not water. Caffeine is, in fact, dehydrating. However, herbal tea is like water with herbal benefits. I know many people think “gross” when I say “herbal tea”. I used to. Try experimenting with flavors. Go to your local health food store and ask them what they would recommend for people who think most herbal tea is gross. I like rooibos myself.
7. Remember that we’re all interconnected. This web that links us all is particularly evident in the water supply. Reducing your use of toxic chemicals can help lighten the load on the earth. Installing a water-saving shower head contributes to conservation of this precious material. Try to tread lightly!
We all know how cheap eggs are. You might as well pay the extra buck for organic. It hardly breaks the bank, and you’re getting far better nutrition. Eggs are an awesome source of protein, and don’t listen to the naysayers who preach against saturated fat: we NEED saturated fat!
Everyone’s used to eggs in the morning, right? Scrambled. Fried. In an omelet. They’re a great way to sneak veggies in to your morning meal: I like to add mushrooms or spinach or zucchini. However, for the purposes of recession cuisine – expanding our minds about how to create the cheapest, healthiest and tastiest meals possible – I like to add them to an evening meal every so often. Here are a couple of creative ways I’ve used eggs for my dinner protein.
THAI INSPIRED EGG AND RICE
brown rice
Stevia
coconut milk
coconut oil
water
1-2 eggs
veggies of your choice – try bamboo shoots, green and red peppers, onions…
fish sauce
lime juice
1. Boil rice in equal parts coconut milk and water. Add a few drops of Stevia to make it sweet.
2. Saute veggies in coconut oil.
3. Fry egg(s) in coconut oil.
4. Combine, and drizzle with fish sauce and lime juice to taste.
5. Enjoy!
ITALIAN INSPIRED EGG AND PASTA
gluten free pasta
salt
pepper
garlic
olive oil
lemon juice
greens of your choice: I like beet greens or spinach with this dish
1 egg
1. Boil pasta
2. Saute greens in olive oil and garlic.
3. Fry egg in olive oil.
4. Combine. Drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice. Add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Devour!
And we’re back with recession cuisine Tuesdays. I know it’s been a minute. But I’m sure our collective post-holiday bank accounts have many of us scraping the backs of the cupboards to make tuna-carrot-millet surprise. Oh, that’s just me? I tend to get too personal in these blogs sometimes.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. One of the best ways to save money is to cook your own food. It’s also one of the best ways to eat nutritiously and lose weight. Sounds like a win-win situation, right? Well…the problem is that so many of us live such busy lives that a healthy dinner is often a pizza with vegetables on it! Yes, I know that trick, telling yourself it’s good for you because you ordered it with onions and peppers. Well, it’s better than nothing, of course.
But here’s what I tell my clients. Our culture is sorely lacking in tradition. Can you decide to start a new tradition? On Sundays – and this is particularly nice in the winter – cook up a bubbling vat of stew. It’ll perfume the house with the scents of caring, love, garlic. It’ll make you feel all homey and cosy. You’ll have something to eat off of for a couple days. And you’ll feel virtuous, because you saved money.
Here’s your first recipe for Sunday Stew Day. There are more under ‘recession cuisine’. Sobaheg is Wampanoag (one of the Native American tribes in Massachusetts) for ’stew’. How appropriate! Now remember, people traditionally did not use recipes. They threw whatever was handy into a pot. So in that sense, the tuna-carrot-millet surprise is actually a pretty traditional way of cooking. This sobaheg recipe draws on ingredients that would have been local to this tribe. The method of cooking was recorded by English settlers in the late 1600s, and the recipe itself appears on the website for Plimoth Plantation - a fantastic recreation of the colonists’ original community in what is now Plymouth, MA.
Sobaheg
½ pound dry beans (white, red, brown, or spotted kidney-shaped beans)
½ pound yellow samp or coarse grits
1 pound turkey meat (legs or breast, with bone and skin)
3 quarts cold water
¼ pound green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths
½ pound winter squash, trimmed and cubed
½ cup raw sunflower seed meats, pounded to a coarse flour
Combine dried beans, corn, turkey, and water in a large pot. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, turn down to a very low simmer, and cook for about 2 ½ hours. Stir occasionally to be certain that the bottom is not sticking.
When dried beans are tender, but not mushy, break up turkey meat, removing skin and bones. Add green beans and squash, and simmer very gently until they are tender.
Add sunflower flour, stirring until thoroughly blended.
A client emailed me a few days ago to ask what she should eat for dinner.
I wasn’t sure how to respond initially…and then I realized I have an entire philosophy as to how meals can be structured. I wrote her a novel-length description of her various options, and with some editing, I share it with you today. Let me know your thoughts.
*
When you think of how to create your meal, begin with what I call the “Holy Trinity” (no offense to any Catholics): protein, starch and vegetable. Now, this needs to be modified for everyone depending upon what works for their body, and this is the kind of thing you consult about with a nutritionist. Also, generally, you don’t need starch at EVERY meal, though some people get really hungry if they don’t have it often. And we don’t tend to eat vegetable at breakfast, although there’s no reason why we can’t have some eggs over sauteed greens.
So there are a few ways to conceptualize the Holy Trinity at dinner. Here are some ideas:
1. A “one pot” route with the base being a vegetable starch. This would fall under stews. Chop up a yam or potato, boil it up with some broth, blend it, and then simmer with some assorted vegetables and meats such as chicken or beef. You can also use cabbage, carrot, or squash as a base. Often times sausage is nice to add to these peasant type soups. You might need to add a bit of grain i.e. sprouted bread on the side, or a bit of extra fat, i.e. cream or coconut oil or olive oil in the soup, in order to feel full. You might not. Play with it and see what works for you.
2. “One pot” with grain. This would be a “grain salad” using quinoa, buckwheat, brown rice, brown rice pasta…boil up your grain with broth and add vegetables and proteins. You can go Mexican style by starting with brown rice, adding avocado, shredded beef or chicken, lettuce, tomato, cheese, etc. You can go Thai by using coconut milk when you boil the rice, and adding baby corn, bamboo shoots, sauteed carrots and bok choy, fish…or Mediterranean style with sun-dried tomatoes, olives, feta or parmesan, smoked oysters, a sauteed green such as spinach, chard, or beet greens, good quality deli meats…that kind of thing.
3. The “1950s” route where you just have each element on a plate in its own area. This is where you would mix and match your favorite protein, starch and vegetable. The benefit of going this way is that they don’t actually need to harmonize all that well. You can use that can of tuna that’s been in your cupboard for months, add some lettuce, and have a side of leftover squash soup…
4. The last way I can think of is using a non-starchy raw vegetable as the base, i.e. salad, and omitting the grain. I personally can eat this way at lunch but not dinner – I get hungry in the middle of the night if I have no starch in the evening. So you have to play with it and see how you feel. This would generally look like a salad and as you know salad has infinite possibilities. The other issue with salad is that we are entering colder weather, and eating uncooked vegetables at this time of year can make people cold. As always, it comes down to checking in with yourself to see how each food makes you feel.
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day!
photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography
When I say Irish cuisine, you tend to say “potato”, but tubers are in fact native to South America and made their way across the Atlantic with the conquistadors in the 15th century. In contrast, pigs are native to the Eurasian land mass. Irish nobility could afford cattle and partook of corned beef and cabbage, but the commonfolk dined on swine. There’s some debate about the exact origins of cabbage, but it’s pretty clear that Europe is its home territory.
If you’re looking for a tasty, inexpensive, simple and stick-to-the-ribs dinner that offers all four macronutients (fiber, fat, protein and carbs) in abundance, bacon and cabbage does the job. Don’t let cabbage’s wan-looking leaves fool you: this plant has a great deal of nutritional value. One cup provides 90% of the RDA of Vitamin K, and 50% of the RDA of Vitamin C. However, cooking denatures vitamins, so please steam your cabbage briefly rather than boiling it to death. Five minutes should do the trick. Its vitamins are of course most accessible in raw form, but please do not eat raw cabbage if you have problems with your thyroid: cabbage contains goitrogens, which inhibit thyroid function.
Bacon offers protein and fat. In fact, the Vitamin K present in cabbage is fat-soluble, meaning it requires fat in order to be absorbed in the body. So by combining cabbage with bacon you are optimizing your Vitamin K intake. Don’t be scared of animal fat if it’s from a nice, clean, ideally organic source. Bacon is also high in B vitamins.
Dia dhuit, cead mille failte, and erin go bragh.
1 lb cabbage
2 oz bacon
1 onion, chopped
2 tbsp oil
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper
1. Heat oil. Fry onion and bacon together in frying pan for 5 min.
2. Add garlic and cook for 2 more min.
3. Stir in cabbage. Keep stirring as it wilts.
4. Place lid on pan and cook for about 10 min.
5. Season with S&P.
6. Feast.
We live in a stressful society at a stressful time on the planet. And stress, whether physical or emotional, takes its toll. Exhaustion. Adrenal burnout. Insomnia. Anxiety. Tight shoulders and backs. Wrinkles.
Stress depletes the system of minerals, and mineral depletion in turn exacerbates every one of these conditions, particularly wrinkles. Alkalizing minerals, otherwise known as electrolytes, are truly crucial to maintaining immune health. An over-acid body is the precursor to all kinds of disease. And the standard American diet, with its emphasis on meats and grains and scarcity of vegetables and fruit, is incredibly acid forming.
Stew is the most ancient form of cooking. It is also arguably the simplest and the most comforting. Who doesn’t love the scent of simmering herbs, spices, and onions wafting through their refuge on a Sunday afternoon? The traditional devotion to slow-cooking has waned as our lives have become busier and we’ve traded a pot of bubbling Bolognese for microwaved taquitos. But let’s not forget that although stew takes some time to prepare, most of it just involves throwing everything into your cauldron and letting the heat do its thing. Think of it as an opportunity to perfume your house with the hearty and peaceful scent of a well-cooked meal.
The great thing about stew (well, there are a lot of great things, but here’s one) is that you can use the opportunity to scrape the backs of your refridgerator and cupboards. This is truly recession cuisine. You toss in odds and ends of things that are getting old and forgotten and allow them to be useful. Food wants to feed us. Got a few handfuls of grain, not enough for a serving? In it goes. Some chard stems that you don’t feel like juicing? Chop them up and add them to the broth. A couple bites of ground turkey chili left over from a few nights ago? Yay, protein.
Pick an afternoon or evening when you’ll be home doing chores, working, or relaxing with a book or movie. Plan to prepare your stew right when you get home so it’s got a couple of hours to simmer. Most of the work is just the up-front chopping. And then you’ll have enough dinner for 4-5 people, or healthy lunches to bring into work the rest of the week. You can freeze a couple of batches too; thawed, they’ll be no worse for the wear. Here’s a super-basic stew recipe that you can’t go wrong with, even if you’ve never made stew in your life.
Nutritionally, please note that when you boil something, the minerals leach out into the surrounding fluid. This is why boiling a vegetable, throwing out the water, and eating only the vegetable is not a good call. So in a stew, the vegetables themselves end up existing mostly for the fiber, which is still very important, but the broth is going to be what’s chock-full of minerals…hence broth’s reputation as a powerful healer.
1 1/2 lb stew meat. I have tried elk and bison and both are lovely. I choose them because both tend to be grass fed. If you are choosing beef please ask your butcher for organic or grass fed specifically. In a pinch “all natural” is ok.
1 onion
1 bay leaf
1 qt water
1 tbsp oil. PLEASE DO NOT USE MARGARINE OR ONE OF THOSE BUTTER SUBSTITUTES. Ew. Butter, olive oil, coconut oil, lard, or suet are all fine. You can also fry a piece of bacon and use its fat.
vegetables. Choose 2 or 3 of the following: 3 small potatoes, 3 carrots, 3 ribs of celery, 1/2 head of cauliflower, 2 parsnips, 1/2 head of cabbage, 1 1/2 cups peas
salt, pepper, and seasonings. Good seasonings for this dish include the Simon and Garfunkel quad of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. You can also use a pre-made Italian blend or Herbes de Provence (my favorite)
1. Brown the stew meat in the oil,
2. In a pot, add the meat, chopped onion, bay leaf, 1 tsp salt, and the water.
3. Simmer, covered, on very low heat for about an hour and 30 minutes.
4. Add your veggies, herbs, a dash more salt, pepper, and herbs.
5. Simmer for another half hour.
6. Taste and adjust seasonings. If it’s bland start with more salt.
7. Feast in the old school way!!!!
Think because you’re poor you must be deprived of seafood? Think because you can’t buy those fancy supplements you’re doomed to Omega-3 deficiency? Think again. Although you may not be able to afford the slick lemon flavored fish oil from Norway, canned seafood is always an option. Yes, I said canned seafood. It’s not gross. It’s good, and it’s cheap. Try it.
This recipe calls for canned salmon which will run you a mere couple of bucks. Purchase wild as opposed to farmed, water-packed as opposed to oil-packed. Per 3 oz serving, salmon offers 1.1–1.9 grams of Omega-3s. The only fish comparable in Omega-3 content are tuna and herring. Before you start freaking out about mercury, note that salmon’s mean mercury level in parts per million is only 0.01. Even tuna, which has been so slandered, is only 0.12.
The recipe also makes use of smoked oysters. If you’ve never tried these, keep an open mind and pick them up next time you’re at your local grocery. You’re in for a treat. Now, please be careful when purchasing these. Often they are packed in soybean or cottonseed oil which tend to be partially hydrogenated (shorthand: “bad”). Choose olive oil instead. These little nuggets of the sea are incredibly high in Vitamin A, B12, and D, and chock full of minerals, particularly zinc, copper, and selenium. And best of all they taste great.
photo credit: Matt Callow
What’s more evocative of an American autumn than squash? Butternuts, kabochas, spaghettis…In October and November, visions of turkeys, horns of plenty, succotash and pumpkins bring to mind the abundant harvest we reap each year. Native to the Americas, squash were one of the crops so key to the indigenous food system and subsequently to the survival of the Pilgrims. An old colonial recipe for “stewed pompion” calls for a hollowed out pumpkin filled with milk, honey and spices, and baked in the ashes of a dying fire.
The unique, curvaceous shapes and vivid hues of squash stimulate both the eyes and the palate. It’s been proven that we digest better when we like to look at what we’re eating! Their often bright orange color signifies that they are rich in beta-carotene, which is converted to Vitamin A via many complicated enzymatic reactions in the body. They’re low-cal – 1 cup of pumpkin, for example, is only 49 calories. And yes, because they contain seeds, they are a fruit, not a vegetable.
The following recipe can yield up to five servings of an incredibly satiating and delicious stew, and even if you use all organic ingredients, it couldn’t be cheaper to make. I’ve indicated pumpkin, just cause it’s my favorite, but you can experiment with any squash, and a few of the roots too, for that matter! Try it on a Sunday afternoon when the cold wintry wind is howling outside. Try it any time, actually. This might become your favorite soup. It’s definitely mine.
SWEET SQUASH SOUP
1 pumpkin
1 can coconut milk
vegetable or chicken broth
seasonings: salt for sure. If you want sweet, try cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. If you want savory, try sage and rosemary.
1. Cut out the top of the pumpkin as if you were making a jack o’lantern, and scoop out the guts and seeds with your hands (this is my favorite part). Set aside.
2. Chop the pumpkin into quarters.
3. Peel the tough outer layer of skin from the pumpkin.
4. Chop the pumpkin again into smaller chunks.
5. Place the pumpkin chunks into a pot. Add coconut milk. The chunks will still not be entirely submerged in fluid, so to make up the difference, add the broth until it barely covers the top of the chunks.
6. Add salt and seasonings.
7. Simmer for 20-30 min until chunks are tender. Then remove from stove and allow to cool for ten minutes or so.
8. Pour your concoction into a blender and puree. You’ll probably have to do this in batches. It’s best to taste the result after blending but before pouring out, so that if you need to adjust the seasoning, you can just add it right there and re-blend.
9. Eat, remembering to chew. I know it’s soupy already, but chewing stimulates the digestive process.
Now for the seeds. I am going to share with you my favorite recipe for sweet, sour, spicy and salty pumpkin seeds. The more dimensions of flavor a dish has, the more satisfying the experience. This one should satisfy you.
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Wash your seeds off and boil them in a pan for about 10 minutes. Then remove, drain, and cool.
3. Grease a baking sheet with butter, coconut oil, or olive oil.
4. In a bowl, mix: sesame oil, stevia or agave, and cayenne pepper. Taste and adjust seasonings. Toss the seeds in it.
5. Spread the seeds evenly on the baking sheet and sprinkle with dulse flakes (dulse is a seaweed – possibly the most mineral-rich food in existence).
6. Bake for 10-15 minutes. At halfway, open the oven door and try to move the seeds around slightly to prevent burning and encourage even toasting.
7. Let cool and enjoy.
photo credit: conskeptical
“That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood.” – Barack Obama, earlier today
Sure, Barack is talking about the dismal state of world affairs, but he’s also referencing the economic challenges plaguing Americans. In tough times, it’s best to pull inward, hunker down, and get to some serious grounding. And what’s more grounding than a hearty home-cooked meal? Food’s one of the easiest areas in which to scale back spending, with the added benefit that the simplest meals are often the most satiating (maybe that’s why, when you eat at that Noveau Japanese-Cajun-Antarctican fusion joint you always leave hungry…). Every week, on Recession Cuisine Tuesday, we’ll be exploring an inexpensive recipe that’s packed with nutritional power. Learn to stretch your dollar while fueling your body with the most micronutrients possible.
Today we are going to look at the ancient technique of sprouting, developed by the Chinese several thousand years ago. You know those organic broccoli sprouts you used to drop $7 per bag for at the Berkeley farmer’s market? The ones that turned brown in your vegetable drawer about two days after you got them home? Well, when you make your own, they’re far cheaper. And since seeds bulk up as they sprout, multiplying 8 to 15 times their weight, they’re a very economical choice. Rich with proteins, enzymes, vitamins and minerals, sprouts are one of the most nutritionally complete foods in existence. They’re a live food, which means they keep growing until the moment you bite into them – compare this with other vegetables, whose nutrients begin to oxidize (break down) the minute they’re harvested.
Sprouting is incredibly easy. All you need is a dark, cool place, a glass jar, a piece of cheesecloth with a rubber band, and the beans (mungs are a nice one to start with – be sure to get organic!). Put a ratio of 1 part beans to 3 parts water in the jar, cover with cheesecloth, secure with rubber band, and place in said dark cool place. After about 24 hours, drain off the water and add some fresh water to the jar, swirling or stirring a bit to rinse the beans. Then drain that off, still keeping the beans slightly damp. Re-cover, return to the dark cool place, and repeat the process every 12 hours. You’ll see the beans start to grow little tails. It’s your choice when to eat them – tails can be short, medium, or long.
The recipe below is by my friend and colleague Kelly Walker, a holistic nutritionist in San Francisco. It was my introduction to sprouting and it’s so delicious that if it’s your introduction, you too will become a sprouting groupie. Sprouts contains so much life force that you may feel bionic after consuming this salad.
MUNG SPROUT SALAD
2-3 cups mung sprouts
2 avocados, sliced
1 cucumber, diced
OPTIONAL: protein i.e. tuna, chicken, salmon, shellfish…
DRESSING: (to taste) salt, pepper, olive oil, cumin, paprika, either Balsamic Vinegar OR Apple Cider Vinegar OR lemon juice
Add everything together, stir, and eat. It’s fine to chill for an hour or so but will be soggy by the next day, so if you are stretching this out for a few meals, keep the dressing on the side…
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