Simple Soup with Quinoa

Today is the definition of exasperation. Well, a nearly two year old is actually the definition of exasperation, but today she is a little bit sick and my patience is a little extra thin and so, augh. As she "naps" and goodness bars are in the oven for a post-nap treat, I wanted to write about the soup I have been making lately, and my quinoa realization.

Simple Soup, with quinoa
Cook chopped onion, carrots and celery in bit of olive oil on large soup pot.
Add frozen peas, corn, and can worth of rinsed garbanzo beans.
Stir over heat a moment then fill the pot up with stock - veggie or chicken, boxed or homemade, whatever you have.
Add about 1/4 cup of well-rinsed Quinoa.
Bring to boil, reduce to simmer.
About 10 minutes before serving time add some wide egg noodles. Or, if using homemade fresh noodles, a real treat, add only minutes before serving.

Quinoa: apparently all sorts of healthy. Not a grain but related to beets? Though I have had this in my cupboard and used it in some recipes before, I have just realized how great it is in pretty much any soup. Particularly the brothy variety. Just a little something special. So, quinoa is now on my "toss into stuff" list along with flax and wheat germ for baking.

can i trust the organic market?

I haven't seen it yet. Everyone is talking about it. I haven't read the books either. But Im on board.

Food Inc. is making some waves. I have heard more than one interview with the movie's creator and I am really excited that everyone is talking about food, and that more people are growing their own this year than ever. Our garden doubled in size and I am learning more each year. I still never pretend to know what I am doing. We certainly do not grow enough to take us off the agribusiness grid. We buy plenty of groceries and I focus not perfectly but solidly on organic produce. But the movie and the buzz about it gives me a great reminder - a kick in my too often forgetful or lazy or cheap butt - to be even more mindful of what I eat, what I buy, and what I feed my daughter. I buy a lot of "nature's promise" - Giant grocery's organic store label. But the truth is that I do not trust the label. i do not have time to research the food labels that i buy. if the milk i put in my cart says "organic" i want to know that that means xyz.

turns out i have good reason to be skeptical. i do not have time to research this intently, so look into it further if you are interested, but i have done a little searching (org consumer association is a nice site to start) and there is concern that the organic milk market is not well regulated and is becoming dominated by a few large producers that supply places like costco, safeway, giant, and other stores with their affordable organic milks but do not uphold organic standards. there is a lawsuit pending. I found a great comparison rating for milk and cheese producers - have to give a shout out to HyVee, the midwest grocery that i know from nebraska, for scoring better than stonyfield! (though both are in the excellent category)

how do we - the families in this country that live in neighborhoods like mine - "vote three times a day" for a sustainable safe and humane food industry do so if, at the very least, we cannot trust the labels on the food we buy? I cannot pretend to expect my neighbors to do all their shopping at farmer's markets. the only grocery or market in walking distance is Aldi. We need to fix regulations and agribusiness political power so that there is an answer to the problem at our regular neighborhood grocery stores. meanwhile, because i can and because i feel passionately about it, i am going to be more committed than i have been and work on shopping more consistently at the many farmer's markets in b'more, not only for special veggies or treats but for the regular fridge stockers like eggs and milk. we try to be conscious omnivores, but will cut back on meat even more, to only a couple times a week and only that purchased from farmers at markets.

oh yum

i just found a really yummy food blog that i am excited to try recipes from! i am going to start with this one: carmelized tofu. ill report how it goes.

Eat the View! A White House Garden Petition

This is so fantastic. Sign this petition to encourage President Obama (yay!) to turn part of the White House lawn into an organic vegetable garden for the White House kitchen and DC food pantries. It would not be the first time there was a garden on the premises. Speaking of olden days conservationism, check out this WWII era movie made by the UK Ministry of Education for the Ministry of Food about how to cook cabbage (spoiler: with little water and with the lid on, otherwise it will be "soggy and nasty"). Modern update: boys can cook cabbage too. And another thing about cabbage: its a very efficient water consumer, especially compared to lettuce which is the most water-intensive crop grown, and holds many more nutrients and antioxidants to boot. Just one of the things im learning from The Ethical Gourmet.

slow cooking summer, #2

the slow cooker experiment is going well and i have a second recipe suggestion. Lentil Tacos!

Lentil Tacos
1 chopped onion
1 minced garlic clove
1 tsp olive oil (actually i forgot to add this, and we didnt miss it)
1 cup dry lentils, rinsed
1 tbl chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp oregano
2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup salsa

throw it all in the crockpot and cook on low for about 5 hours
warm up some corn tortillas on the stove flame, add shredded cheese, chopped tomatoes, baby spinach or whatever, dollop of sour cream, yum yum.

turning down the kitchen heat

Im on a new kick: slow cooker summer cooking. Dont heat up the house! Use less energy! Make yummy food!
We have a nice big crockpot that has not been used much - aren't crock pots only for roasts and chili? So I thought. But I was wrong! Im excited to have realized that the crock pot/slow cooker is a way to cook most anything in the summer without turning on the oven. For instance, I love making lasagna, which in my house is basically a way to use any and all vegetables I happen to have around. But I never wanted to make it in the summer when we basically abandon the oven and pretty much move all cooking out to the grill. But, right now I am making lasagna in the slow cooker! (note: I have a largish oval shaped one) Ill let you know how it goes, but assuming it works this will be great for using garden bounty: spinach, carrots, eggplant, zucchini, you name it. Yesterday I made macaroni and cheese and it turned out great. Later this week I am actually going to attempt baking bread. totally. Ill keep you updated on the progress. Meanwhile, here is how I made the macncheese:

crockpot macaroni and cheese
combine 1/4cup corn starch (or flour), 1tsp salt, 1/4tsp pepper, 1/2tsp paprika and 3 cups milk in a saucepan
heat and whisk until no lumps and it thickens to a nice sauce
add a heap (2ish cups) of sharp cheddar
i also added some chopped onion and red pepper + garlic
add 2 cups macaroni (i used mostly elbow and some penne)
pour into slow cooker,
sprinkle bread crumbs and Parmesan
cover, cook 2 hours on low

winter baking, with summer bounty

We keep our house pretty cool in the winter, pretty hot in the summer. As people should. Wear a sweater! right? Of course that means that in the summer we eat mostly what can be cooked on the grill and avoid turning on the oven, but when the weather turns I really love getting back in the kitchen and, especially, baking. We had one of those great summer zucchini crops. Gave some away, made various varieties of zucc-tomato-onion-cheesy dishes, and also shredded up a bunch for the freezer to await turning into zucchini bread and maybe even cookies. So now I am ready for some delicious whole wheat dark chocolate chip zucchini bread - and check out the super cool paper baking pans on greenstylemom's blog! (there is also a little giveaway contest to take part in) I am thinking star-shaped banana, or zucchini, bread on the holiday table will be the greatest thing since homemade bread. When I make some Ill post a picture. Meanwhile, here is the zucchini bread recipe, in case you also have some summer bounty stored away in your freezer:

Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread with Dark Chocolate Chips

3 eggs

3/4 c. vegetable oil

1 1/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 tsp. vanilla

2 c. grated zucchini

2 1/2 c. flour (whole wheat)

3/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ginger

1 tsp. soda,

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 dark chocolate chips

Beat eggs; add oil and sugar. Beat well. Add zucchini adn vanilla; mix well. Mix dry ingredients together and add to wet mixture. Add chocolate chips. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour in small loaf pans. Cool in pan until bread removes easily. Cool on wire racks.

rain rain soak on in. and cookies I love.

It is still raining in Baltimore, which is good I suppose as we were very dry. It has been several days, and the pumpkin carved like a cat on our porch had to be tossed to the compost as it molded in less than a week. ah rain. guess well have to carve another before halloween.
Its a nice light rain. In fact Ive just been out in the garden cutting bunches of greens and lettuce for a big salad and I didnt get very wet, though the greens needed extra washing for all the dirt that has splashed about for the last several days.
Im about to bake pumpking cookies, a family tradition and Im tempted to keep the recipe a secret, but sharing recipes is better than hording them especially when I cant share the tasty results online. We are taking our salad and cookies to a pot luck dinner that may involve board games - which seems to be the week's theme. Its a nice one.

note to the following recipe: it calls for shortening. this poses a small dilemma, I think this is the only thing I make for which I buy shortening, and though there is "transfat free" version of vegtable shortening, even though it says "0 transfat" the ingredients say "partially hydrogenated oils," which sneakilly means it isnt really perfecty transfat free. For these cookies I just look at the 0 transfat part and ignore the ingredient list, which is generally against my grain...let me know if you have any better ideas...

Very delicious pumpkin cookies:
2cups veg.shortning
2 cups sugar
1 can pumpkin (15 or 16 oz)
2 eggs
2tsp vanilla
4 cups flour (i use 2 all purpose white and 2 whole wheat)
2 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp ground nutmeg
.5tsp salt
2tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp baking soda
dark chocolate chips
cream shortening and sugar + pumpkin, eggs and beat well
stir flour and all dry ingredients seperate from pumpkin mix, then add together
stir in chips (optional, but a great option)
350 degrees, I make big cookies (not quit full ice cream scoop), with this size they need about 17 minutes and makes about 4 dozen.

Easter rolls on by

yesterday we had an easter sushi rolling dinner party. quite impromptu and quite fun. it was our first ever and i highly recommend it. although, here is a tip: sushi grade fish is not just fancy expensive fish, but more safe for eating raw. this we did not know. deciding to host a sushi rolling party 3 hours before the guests are to arrive, on easter sunday, can cause a problem. we started at whole foods thinking that even if they do not have "sushi grade" they certainly have good-enough-for-us grade. but the friendly wholefoods lady explained that we were being dumb (in a nice way). sushi-grade fish doesnt touch any other fish and has less bacteria blah blah, so its safer. hm, very interesting...now what do we do? we go to wegmans of course. wegmans is this quite fantastic phenomenon of a grocery store. its sort of heavenly. growing up in nebraska i had never seen such phenomenons as whole foods and wegmans before moving to this land of more pretentious foodies (which, i guess, i am, since i love it). omaha does have a whole foods now, but wegmans is something else. man. and it provided us with sushi-grade tuna and salmon from sustainable wild fishing areas. go wegmans, we love you.

so, although i admittedly am not even really into sushi, the rolls are really fun - its art! and its food! and somehow it seems a great easter thing to do. though, i do certainly enjoy the more traditional deviled eggs and carrot cake. but not a hardboiled egg did i see yesterday, and thats ok too. didnt really feel too much like easter with the cold blast. but spring will come back, it always does. thats the real message of easter i think. the flowers always come back eventually, and rebirth is a happy certitude.