Save Your Fork… There’s Pie

A few years ago while visiting my parents, I was in the garden with my Dad, helping him harvest beets. He grabbed a bunch decisively, pulled a jack-knife out of his pocket and deftly sliced off the greens. And then proceeded, to my shock and horror, to dump the greens in the compost bin! I screeched my dissent, but he simply pointed to a row of Swiss Chard and said, “We like that better!”

Now chard is lovely stuff, but nothing can compare to beet greens. I can take or leave the beet root, to be honest, but beet greens are my dark leafy green of choice. They are a powerhouse of calcium, boasting a hefty 164mg of the stuff per cup of cooked greens – that’s more than kale, spinach or broccoli. If you’re looking for an excellent and tasty source of this essential bone-building material, beet greens are the way to go. Unfortunately they should be eaten in moderation, as beet greens are high in oxalic acid, and may cause kidney or gallbladder problems in people prone to those concerns. The rest of us, however, can easily eat beets and the greens at least once a week.

Beets are native to Greece where they are happiest in the sandy soil near the beach, just above the high-water mark (and who can blame them? I’d be happy on a beach in Greece, too!) They were originally grown exclusively for their greens, and it was in Roman times that the roots were realized to be tasty as well. Their popularity and value grew in the 19th century when Europeans began harvesting the beetroot for its sugar.

When most people think of beets, they come up with either a salad of some sort or borscht, the Eastern European beet soup. Recipes for greens are even harder to come by; the most amusing one I came across was for beet green and chocolate chip cupcakes! I actually like to serve beet greens as a side dish by simply sautéing some garlic and onion in olive oil, then tossing in clean beet greens to let them wilt, and then adding about a tablespoon of cranberry sauce to coat the leaves. It’s great served with veggie meatloaf and mashed sweet potatoes.

For an interesting take on using both beet roots and greens, here is a recipe for roasted beet risotto. It originated in Organic Living Magazine, but I’ve modified the spicing and included the greens for an added calcium boost. It’s a striking dish that is incredibly tasty and very healthy.

Roasted Beet Risotto

2 pounds beets, peeled, quartered and sliced
1 clove garlic, chopped fine
2 - 3 Tbsp olive oil
2 - 3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp dried basil
1 Tbsp dried oregano
salt and pepper

4 cups vegetable stock
1/2 large onion, sliced thin
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
1-1/2 cups arborio rice
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp each of oregano and basil
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups beet greens, washed

Place the beets in a large baking pan. Douse liberally with the olive oil and first amount of balsamic vinegar. Add basil, oregano, plus salt and pepper. Toss well to coat and then roast for 1 – 1-1/2 hours in a 400F oven, stirring about every 15 minutes.

Heat the stock in a saucepot.

In a large pot or dutch oven, sauté the onion and garlic in olive oil. Add the rice and stir to coat all the grains in oil. Stir the rice a few more times to let it toast slightly and then add a half cup of the hot stock. Reduce heat to medium-low. Stir regularly, adding more stock as the rice absorbs the liquid in the pot.

Add the basil and oregano, plus the salt and pepper. Continue to add stock, a half cup at a time until you have added half the stock, then add the roasted beets and any liquid in the roasting pan. Add the balsamic vinegar.

Stir fairly constantly, continuing to add the stock a bit at a time. The rice will become increasingly red. Before you add the last of the stock, check rice for doneness. Add more stock if necessary. Adjust seasonings if necessary. With the last ladle of stock, add the beet greens. Stir well to cover the greens with the rice and beets, so the greens can wilt from the heat of the risotto. Serve with parmesan or soy parmesan as a garnish.

Makes 4 main course servings or 6 side dishes.

Notes:
Yes, you do have to use 2 whole pounds of beets. I know they’re a pain to peel, but they shrink up while roasting and a smaller amount will make your risotto pink instead of a brilliant red.

This recipe will make certain bodily fluids red. Some sources believe this indicates an iron deficiency, while others consider it to be harmless. I like to leave myself a note on the bathroom mirror on evenings when I’ve eaten beets for dinner to remind myself in the morning that I’m not actually dying.

More information on the health benefits and history of beets can be found here.

This post originally appeared on FitFare, part of the Well Fed Network.

Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat: Secrets of My Mother’s Tokyo Kitchen by Naomi Moriyama and William Doyle

There’s an old phrase about the grass being greener on the other side of the fence. For the first time ever, North Americans are applying that philosophy to eating and dieting. After all, we figure, how can those French ladies eat all that wine and cheese and still stay so svelte and stylish? It only stands to reason that eventually our gaze would focus on Japan. Long considered one of the healthiest societies on the planet (Japanese people, particularly women, have the longest life expectancy of any culture, and also have the longest quality of life – that is, they are far less likely to spend their final years in a nursing home or suffering from severe illness), it stands to reason that the Japanese would have some secrets to share that could help us doughy North Americans get slim and healthy, too.

However, like every diet plan out there, there’s a catch, and this one, like the “French Women” diet that is currently all the rage, involves an overall change of philosophy and lifestyle that many North Americans may not be willing to make.

It’s no surprise that many cultures equate good food with a mother’s love. Until the past couple of decades, a mother’s role in every culture has been to take care of the children and prepare the food for the family. In Japan, that role is taken one step further, and Moriyama relates a story about a letter sent home from school when she was a child, indicating that all mothers were expected to provide their children with a “love-packed lunchbox” every day. No pressure, ladies, no pressure.

The love-packed lunchbox is an important point within the book, however, because it demonstrates the difference in the way our respective cultures think about food. In Japan, home-cooked food must be of the freshest quality possible; here, we think nothing of sending kids to school with pre-packaged junk or money to buy cafeteria fries. I won’t wade into any kind of debate about whether that means we, as a society, love our kids any less, but it’s certainly food for thought.

It’s part of the overall philosophical difference towards food that might make the Japanese diet hard for North Americans to adhere to. The way Moriyama’s mother cooks requires a lot of planning, and a lot of work. The food is simple, fresh Japanese fare, but fresh and simple often take far more effort than “frozen from a box”. For anyone interested in Japanese cuisine who also has the time to plan, shop, and prepare, it’s a beautiful manner of cooking and eating that is intensely healthy and spiritually fulfilling.

It might also seem, to those of us not faced with choices of food so fresh it’s not only date-stamped but time-stamped, somewhat austere. If you’re used to heavy dishes full of meat and cheese and pasta, this simple diet based on fish, soy, rice, vegetables and fruit might make you feel somewhat deprived. The smaller portions might take some getting used to as well. In Japanese cuisine, everything must be beautiful not only to the mouth, but to the eye, and a great deal of effort is put into presentation. The diet also depends predominantly on rice instead of heavier carbs, which is far healthier, but may take some getting used to.

The one area of the book that impressed me the most, and which I plan on putting into use in my own diet, is what Moriyama calls “The Japanese Power Breakfast”. Like everywhere else, breakfast in Japan is the most important, and often the biggest, meal of the day. Instead of pancakes, high-fat muffins, gallons of coffee and greasy fry-ups, the Japanese Power Breakfast consists of miso soup, often with scallions and bits of tofu, rice (of course), egg and/or fish, some vegetables, green tea and fruit. Check it out – healthy carbs and fibre from the rice (especially if you use brown rice); a small bit of low-fat protein from the tofu, egg and fish; vegetables for fibre and vitamins; anti-oxidants and the tiniest bit of caffeine in the green tea; and carbs, fibre and natural sugars from the fruit. For a person with reasonable cholesterol levels and no worries about sodium, it’s just about the perfect meal!

Moriyama goes on in further chapters to explain how to set up your own Tokyo kitchen and this is where things get difficult for the average Westerner. Most kitchens, even those without a wok or a rice steamer, can cook a reasonable Japanese meal with western cooking equipment, but the ingredients start to become a problem. Folks in larger cities should have no problem tracking down bonito flakes, mirin and various kinds of sea vegetables, but even here in multi-cultural Toronto, I can have a hard time finding things like fresh daikon or fresh shiso leaves. The internet has made the option of mail-order far more accessible for hard-to-find ingredients, but many people are cautious when cooking food from other cultures, and might not be willing to pay big bucks to have soba noodles shipped to their door when they don’t know how to cook them or even whether they’re going to like them.

I would have liked to seen more recipes in the book, as well. There are a few, scattered throughout the chapters, but Moriyama spends a great deal more time explaining each component of the meal, and the philosophy behind Japanese cooking itself, than she does in actually providing her readers with things to cook. For me, the book is more of an introduction into the world of Japanese cuisine – it’s a fantastic explanation of all the components - but it’s really just a starting point, and wouldn’t be sufficient as your only Japanese cookbook.

The diet itself is not really a secret, either – just basic common sense; eat smaller quantities of fresher, healthier food; get exercise throughout the day by walking; and fulfill the soul as well as the body with beautifully prepared meals. It’s a simple philosophy. Whether the promise of better health and a longer life is enough of a temptation to get North Americans to put down the frozen pizzas, ice cream and hamburgers for rice and fish and fresh vegetables is the real question. Moriyama’s mother’s secrets are only useful if her readers are willing to get up off the couch and put the effort into cooking healthy meals. Her diet might still be a bit too intimidating for many of us to try.

This post originally appeared on FitFare, part of the Well Fed Network.

“Beans, beans the musical fruit…” That’s not exactly how we sang the song when I was a kid, in fact, I believe the song had a phrase about “down yer leg and in yer boot”, but I grew up in Atlantic Canada and we had lots of songs with boots in them. In any case, the song isn’t far off base, as beans do have a tendency to cause flatulence, particularly in people who don’t get a lot of fibre in their diets anyway. I have known people whose main excuse for not becoming vegetarian is that they don’t want to deal with the constant farting that occurs in the initial stages of the diet changeover. I’ll also tell you honestly that, for me at least, and my husband, the flatulence never really completely went away, even after being vegetarian for going on six years now. Beans still mean an after dinner symphony in our house, but they are so tasty and so incredibly healthy that we put up with this small side effect because we know beans are a powerhouse of nutrition; helping to lower cholesterol, combat heart disease, stabilize blood pressure, reduce obesity, reduce cancer risk and relieve hypertension.

Beans are a cheap, easily accessible source of fibre and protein in almost every culture. Currently they are being used in studies on HIV+ children in Botswana and Tanzania where it is theorized they will help improve nutritional and immune status and will improve lean tissue mass, allowing those children the potential for normal growth despite their HIV-related health concerns.

The Beans For Health website offers information on everything you need to know about the health benefits of all types of beans. They have links to studies, articles and even bean-related events around the world.

If Beans For Health can’t convince you that beans really are a true superfood that every person needs more of in their diet, maybe my favourite bean soup recipe can. This is a quick, easy-to-make soup that is perfect for dinner on a chilly night. It freezes well, and with some whole-wheat bread and a piece of fruit, makes a perfect lunch.

Hearty Bean Soup

Yield: 8 servings

4 Tbsp olive oil
2 leeks, washed and sliced
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
2 carrots, peeled and diced
2 sticks of celery, sliced
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 14oz can diced tomatoes
2 12oz cans mixed beans, rinsed and drained well, or about 1 cup dried beans, precooked
1 bay leaf
1 Tbsp dried oregano
1 Tbsp dried basil
salt and pepper to taste
3-1/2 cups vegetable stock
1 cup small pasta such as seashells or macaroni (preferably whole wheat)
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, drained, julienned

In a large pot, sauté onion, garlic and leeks in olive oil until soft. Add the carrots and celery. Add tomato paste and stir well, allowing the paste-coated vegetables to brown slightly, but not burn.

Add the diced tomatoes, beans, oregano, basil, salt and pepper, and bay leaf, along with the stock. Bring to a boil and cover the pan. Allow to simmer for 30 minutes.

When the carrot is soft, add the pasta, along with the sun-dried tomatoes. Allow to simmer for 10 - 15 minutes, or until the pasta is nearly tender. Adjust seasonings if necessary, removing bay leaf.

Garnish with grated parmesan cheese if desired. Serve with crusty whole-wheat or multi-grain bread.

Note: if the soup is left to sit for a few hours the pasta may absorb a lot of the liquid; if you find the soup to be too thick, add about a cup of water to thin it out.

This post originally appeared on FitFare, part of the Well Fed Network.

This is one of my favourite dishes to make. It was originally based on spinach, which can be used if kale is not available, but I find that kale is sturdier and holds up better to the heaviness of the coconut milk. It is a recipe that reflects dishes from many countries in northern Africa including Ethiopia, Libya and Morocco, and takes advantage of a variety of ingredients from across the region.

While some people might balk at the fat found in the peanut butter and the coconut milk, it is an incredibly healthy dish offering not only an excellent source of fibre and protein, but vitamin A, vitamin C and calcium.

Kale Stew

1/2 large onion, diced
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 cup vegetable stock
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup dried currants
1/2 can (about 1 cup) coconut milk
2 Tbsp natural peanut butter
1/2 tsp berebere spice blend
1 bunch kale, washed and drained, with stems removed
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, sauté the onion in about 2 Tbsp olive oil or peanut oil over high heat. When the onion is soft, add the diced sweet potato. Add the vegetable stock and simmer about five minutes.

Add the chickpeas, currants, peanut butter and coconut milk, along with the berebere, plus salt and pepper. Let cook for another five minutes, then add the washed and drained kale leaves, stirring well to coat the leaves with the sauce. When the sweet potato is soft and the kale is wilted, adjust the seasonings as necessary and serve over whole wheat couscous or brown rice.

Ingredient notes: All ingredients can be found at the average supermarket except for the berebere spice mix. If you don’t have access to a store that sells Ethiopian spices, it can be ordered online, or you can easily make your own. The peanut butter should be the natural, “just peanuts” kind, with no added shortening and icing sugar, as that will make the recipe weird in both taste and consistency.

This post originally appeared on FitFare, part of the Well Fed Network.

Can’t you just hear the French schoolchildren taunting one another? Much as we play the “my Dad’s tougher than your Dad” game here in North America, one expects children in the south of France to try to one up each other over bouillabaisse.

Because every family has their own recipe. And every family’s recipe is a closely guarded secret. What I found in my Googling adventure in an attempt to track down a bouillabaisse recipe is that they can vary greatly. The only commonalities are fish, tomato, orange peel and saffron; everything else is up for grabs.

This is very much the same in Atlantic Canada where every family has a chowder recipe, and every kid is certain that their family’s chowder recipe trumps all others. Nobody makes fish chowder like my Dad (well, except for me), and it was an alternative to my Dad’s recipe that got me thinking about bouillabaisse.

Atlantic chowder is almost always dairy-based, and once I got diagnosed with a milk allergy, the best fish chowder in the world was off-limits to me. I’ve done a lot of work replacing regular dairy with soy, and in baked goods, it’s fine. But a soy-based fish chowder sounds disgusting even to me, and I eat tofu in some form almost every day.

Thus, I turned to the French. It’s probably sacrilegious for a classically trained cook to dislike French cuisine, especially when it’s the basis for your education, but I’ve never been a real fan. Too much meat and everything covered in a glommy sauce. Remember that classic French cuisine was designed, in its day, to cover the fact that more often than not, the meat was beginning to go rotten.

I also don’t buy the rather self-congratulatory explanation that all cuisines of the world are based on French cuisine. Tell that to a rural woman in Thailand cooking rice, or an Ethiopian mother grinding teff for injera.

But if I wanted fish stew, it was to France I had to turn. I found a pre-cut package of mixed Mediterranean fish at the supermarket and then I took twenty different recipes found online, listed the common ingredients in all of them, and set to work. Fish (some recipes indicated they must be made to serve 8 people because the recipe called for 8 kinds of fish), onion, garlic, fennel, leeks, potato, tomato, tomato paste, orange peel, saffron, bay leaves, Pernod, celery, fish stock, salt and pepper.

I’ve got no quantities listed, because this recipe still needs perfecting. The flavouring was right, but the fish needs tweaking - more shellfish, fewer things with bones, because you shouldn’t have to worry about fishbones in a soup. And who knows, maybe like my Dad’s Atlantic chowder, I won’t ever share the recipe with anyone, content in the fact that my bouillabaisse is better than your bouillabaisse.

These are known in our house as “the sexy lemon bars”. Everytime I feed these things to someone, their first reaction is a sexy little groan, usually followed by some phrase invoking a higher power, paired with drooping eyelids and a discernable relaxing of muscles throughout their body. I’m not sure what does it, really - they’re just lemon bars, after all, with a couple of secret ingredients that shouldn’t really get anyone hot and bothered. But they seem to do a really great job of making people very, very happy.

The original recipe comes from The Great American Bake Sale by Alison Boteler. My variations are to double the grated lemon peel and the additions of cardamom and coconut.

Sexy Lemon Bars

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour

4 eggs, slightly beaten
2 Tbsp grated lemon peel
5 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup coconut

Preheat oven to 350′F.

Blend butter, salt, powdered sugar and 2 cups flour to make a soft dough. Press evenly into an ungreased 9×13-inch pan. Bake 15 to 20 minutes until golden.

Meanwhile, combine eggs, lemon peel, lemon juice, cardamom, granulated sugar and 1/4 cup flour and blend until smooth. Pour over baked crust. Sprinkle coconut on top. Reduce heat to 325′F and bake 25 minutes until firm. Cool and slice into bars.

Those of you familiar with my other journal will know that I am not a fan of memes. I dislike quizzes, questionnaires, and generally anything that reeks of traipsing after the bandwagon.

However, when the microwave potato chips posts started showing up on all the food blogs I read, I got sucked in. I not only chased the bandwagon, I hopped on and started beating a drum.

Because this… this is just too amazing to believe. Seriously. I know all y’all reading this are thinking, “Yeah, right!” just like I did. But I kid you not… fat-free microwaved potato chips. And they taste a thousand times better than anything out of a bag.

Here’s the deal.

On a non-metallic tray or plate, place a piece of parchment paper and spray ever so lightly with cooking spray.

Now slice a potato into the thinnest possible slices. If you’ve got a mandolin, or a food processor with a super-thin slicing blade, you may find that easier than trying to slice by hand. Whatever method, you want ‘em as thin as possible.

Season the chips with salt, pepper or any other flavourings that turn your crank.

Place in a single layer on the parchment paper,and nuke those puppies for around 5 minutes. (Obviously, since microwaves vary in power, this time frame may range from 3 - 7 minutes.)

Then eat ‘em! Then, make some more, because they’re so good that one plateful isn’t going to be enough.

Flavours, from top left: summer savory, cajun spice, honey mustard.