Published on July 4th, 2008
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Oh say can can you see beyond the jammed big box checkout aisles as Americans rev up for the Fourth of picnic parade this weekend? Let us all remember that the most patriotic food on the party menu won’t be processed, shipped 1,700 miles or stuffed in multiple 100-calorie packs. But that doesn’t mean deprivation. On my menu this weekend you’ll find what I consider the three most patriotic foods: Local beer, fresh greens and a brat from beef cattle raised on grass in a pasture.
Guess I’ve always been an unconventional American patriot. No red, white and blue holiday t-shirts for yours truly. I haven’t seen a parade in years. But I do put a lot of thought into the picnic menu. The Fourth of July reminds me to remember and rekindle Thomas Jefferson’s vision of our democracy as citizens’ everyday participation in the political system – in my case, through conscious food choices.
Make a democratic statement with your food choices this weekend. Here are the criteria that resulted in my patriotic choices: Read the rest of this entry »
Published on July 2nd, 2008
Posted in
Eat.Drink.Better,
Farmers Market Fare,
Uncategorized,
agriculture,
business,
food crisis,
local food,
nutrition and health,
organics,
recipes,
vegetarian
Landi Simone the ‘Bee Lady’ of Gooserock Farm in Montville, New Jersey goes all out every year to help raise awareness about honey bees and their importance to our agriculture and eco-systems.
Landi, pictured here in her ‘bee bikini’, got together with fellow, bee buddy, Joe Treimel to show off their live bee apparel and accessories. Joe sported a bee beard. This all took place last weekend at the Essex County Environmental Center.
Read more about Landi and what is happening to honey bees in one of my earlier posts. Here’s a crazy story I saw yesterday morning on CNN.com about 12 MILLION honey bees that swarmed a Canadian highway after a truck carrying them flipped over!
My favorite honey & herb sauce . . . Read the rest of this entry »
Published on July 1st, 2008
© Kuleczka | Dreamstime.com
We’ve got some sweet posts for the week ahead. This week is Honey Week at Eat. Drink. Better. in tribute to bees and all they do for us, including that delicious honey. To kick it off, I want to share a cool bee fact and a recipe.
Did you know?
- California’s almond orchards are the location of the largest pollination event annually. Nearly one million hives (about 50 percent) of the US honey bees are brought to the almond orchards each spring.
- The apple crop in just New York requires about 30,000 hives.
- 50,000 hives each year are needed for Maine’s blueberry crop.
- According to the USDA, one-third of our diets rely on insect-pollinated plants. 80 percent of this pollination is done by bees.
Recipe for Honey Curried Cauliflower follows the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 30th, 2008
Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes designed to showcase produce gathered from local farms or grown in my own garden.
We’re in full swing with the growing season in the mid-Atlantic region. I certainly enjoy all the fresh produce spilling out of my garden, but none tickle my taste buds quite so much as Swiss chard and sorrel. For those of you not familiar with these delightful greens, here’s a little primer that should get you well on your way to enjoying both!
Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 26th, 2008
I chose this stock image of an odd-shaped pizza among the thousands available for 3 reasons, 1) I didn’t have my act together to take a digital photo of my own; 2) the actual title of this one is Organic Rustic Pizza; 3) I love that it is an odd shape, which represents just how creative you can get with homemade pizza!
While we cook almost everything on the grill during the summer months (and quite often the rest of the year), we have a few rainy-day summer meals we like to fall back on. It was an extremely stormy Sunday this past weekend, so we had a pizza night, which is why you are getting the pizza post.
You don’t have to have all the home pizza making bells and whistles, but they do help. We have a wonderful wooden pizza ‘peel’, which is the giant wooden spatula thing that helps get the pizza in and out of the oven. We also have a pizza stone, which is a great cooking element that you put in the oven rather than putting the pizza directly on the rack. Pizza peels and stones aren’t very expensive.
Easy Crust
Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 26th, 2008
This week, I made a decision to incorporate more raw foods into my diet. My new goal is to eat at least one raw meal a day, and to transform my kitchen into an entirely raw one. I’ll be documenting the steps I’m talking, and go further into the reasons why in my next several posts.
My first step though is getting rid of all of the wonderful food I’ve got stored up, but will now be eating less of, like grains, beans, and soy products. I can’t think of a more delicious way to clean house than this red lentil recipe I created last night.
I’m still stuck on what to name this dish. My husband called it “Mediterr-Indian” because of the spices that borrow from both cultures. It’s pretty low on fat, and good for people with food allergies, as it’s nut, soy, and wheat free, and of course, vegan. The recipe for the lentils, and the roasted cauliflower after the jump: Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 26th, 2008
Opah! The Greek God of Spanakopita smiled down favorably this week here in Wisconsin, providing tender green spin
ach along with the first of our dill — which means it’s spinach pie time. The Greeks sure know how to pack in the healthy, iron punch with an abundance of greens alongside poignant feta cheese. And while spinach pie can be made just fine with frozen spinach, you just can’t beat the tender flavor of fresh.
Like other mainstay international dishes, this Greek dish has various versions — and spellings: “Spanakopita” for “spinach pie” and “spanakotyropita” for the more detailed “spinach and cheese pie.” But the short gist is an abundant bowl of cooked spinach and herbs mixed with feta and eggs, nestled in between buttered layers of phyllo. By accident once, we bought puff pastry sheets instead of phylo dough which worked surprisingly well. Combinations of spinach and Swiss chard work equally well.
Harvest those local greens and enjoy!
Recipe after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 23rd, 2008
Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes designed to showcase produce gathered from local farms or grown in my own garden.
“Hot. So very hot.” These words, or some variation of them, echo through my head at least a dozen times a day now that summer is officially here. Interspersed among them are a sundry of other fleeting thoughts, most prevalent among them being, “Is it lunchtime yet?” You see, laboring as I do outside so much of the day in my horticulture work, I tend to quickly get a little parched and hungry. Concocting refreshing icy beverages has become a priority.
This desperation for refreshment brings us to a truly revitalizing Lavender Lemon Soda that is the ideal remedy for a sweaty brow. It is downright cleansing with its effervescent flavors. I have been intrigued by herbal sodas since last summer when I had one at a local café, but I surprised even myself with how tasty this particular combination turned out to be.
Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 20th, 2008
What is your favorite summer kale recipe?
Here’s one of mine . . .
Kale is not one of my favorite veggies, but somehow Green Diva Jen, (AKA Jenifer O’Neill) has been slowly converting me. She contributed this recipe as well as the actual dish for our wonderful staff picnic last year (photo was taken on my back deck!). She seems to find great ways to get more kale into the mix!
Ingredients
1/2 head kale (any variety)
1/2 head green cabbage
1/2 head red cabbage
4 large carrots
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar or umeboshi plum vinegar
1 cup your favorite mayonnaise
1 tablespoon honey
Freshly ground pepper
Splash of water
Instructions
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Published on June 19th, 2008
My husband recently turned 30, and to celebrate the momentous occasion, we treated ourselves to a dinner at our favorite restaurant, Millennium. The all upscale San Francisco eatery frequently wins awards for best vegan restaurant, wooing a largely non-vegan clientele who don’t miss the meat. They use organic, local foods when possible, and recycle and compost.
The dishes have such complex flavors, in combinations I’d have never thought up. One of my favorites was a lemon basil sorbet we had for dessert that was outstanding. They sell several cookbooks, but I’ve always shied away from it, as I’ve heard (and would have to imagine) that the recipes would be too complicated.
Instead during our meal this weekend, I tried to guess how some of the dishes were made and see if I could emulate them myself. This recipe is based on an appetizer we had, but I paired it with a side salad as a full meal. Read the rest of this entry »
