Chew on This

So in lieu of cooking a lot lately (it's too darn hot right now for that), I've been reading about food. Here are two of the latest books to grace my shelves:

Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson. At first glance, this seemed like a scaled-down version of Schlosser's 2001 expose, Fast Food Nation. However, this book is more than just an attempt to cash in on the success of the previous title. Several chapters in Chew on This deal with how the fast food industry has affected young people in particular. A twelve-year-old girl in Alaska starts a Stop the Pop" campaign at her school. A teenager in Quebec helps successfully unionize a McDonald's, only to have the restaurant shut its doors soon after. And a young man in Chicago who is morbidly obese must decide whether or not to have gastric bypass surgery. I'm happy to say that our library system's copies have several holds on them (and they're not all from staff members). If you want more info about the book, check out Houghton Mifflin's press release.

I'm just finishing Jane Goodall's Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating. Goodall's tone throughout the book is conversational and she includes many personal anecdotes, which sometimes seems detremental to the book's effectiveness (Her parenthetical asides in particular are distracting - just like this!). However, the chapter on genetically modified organisms is not to be missed. Goodall rails against the misconception perpetuated by large corporations like Monsanto that genetically engineered seeds are the answer to world hunger. Here's an excerpt:

"Even if world hunger could be solved with more food, we haven't seen any solid evidence that genetic engineering is restoring the world's depleted farmlands or increasing food production. Given the speed with which Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, and other multinational corporations are buying up the world's seed supply, some suspect that the main incentive for genetic engineering is financial greed, an attempt by corporations to secure, through patents, control of the world's food supply" (p. 52). Go Jane!

Okay, must go and grill veggie burgers and asparagus at Hager Park with some friends.

They're Alive!

Since Mary asked about my worms, I thought I would give everyone an update on my vermicomposting efforts. Having left them alone for almost two weeks, I ventured down into the basement a few days ago with a small bucket of kitchen scraps (mostly banana peels and coffee grounds, but also asparagus, potato skins, and a few other tasty things) and a feeling of trepidation. Had I managed to kill my worms through neglect, as I am wont to do with the occasional houseplant?

But no! Not only were my worms wiggling away, but the food at the bottom of the bin was black and looked like it was slowly being eaten away. A quick check earlier today, and there's still no noticable smell coming from the bin. However, I did see worm mites at the top of the bin, which means the worms aren't eating quite fast enough (I think). I'm going to try cutting back on how much food I'm adding, and turning what I do put in the bin into compost soup beforehand (this can be accomplished by giving it a quick whirl in the blender).

Bonus: I don't think we've had to put our garbage out for three weeks!

Hungry

Whenever I work from noon until 8:oo, I end up eating really early in the evening, usually around 4:00. It's not quite lunch, and too early for dinner, I've decided to call this meal linner. Whatever you call it, the result is the same: by the time I get home I'm ready for another meal. But I'm not willing to put much effort into whatever I make, which usually means I end up eating tofu dogs. Tonight, however, having run out of tofu dogs, I took stock of what I had in the fridge - one very small and sad-looking zucchini ("Eat me before I putrify!"), the remainer of a can of vegetarian refried beans, some leftover onion from Sunday, tortillas, and potatoes. Bingo! 15 minutes later I had myself a tasty vegetable quesadilla.

Potato and Zucchini Quesadilla

1 very small potato
1 small zucchini or summer squash
1/2 red onion
2 6-inch flour tortillas
olive oil
chili powder
salt and pepper

Cut potato, zucchini and onion into 1/8-inch slices. In a medium saucepan, heat 1 to 2 tablespoon of olive oil. Cook the potatoes over medium heat until they begin to look a little translucent. Add the zucchini and onion. Season to taste with chili powder, salt, and pepper. Cook until vegetables are almost soft. Place veggies in a bowl.

Now spread a layer of refried beans on one of your tortillas. Place it (beans side up, obviously) back in your saucepan. Spread veggies on top of the beans and cover with the other tortilla. Cook until light brown on both sides. Serve with salsa.

Terribly simply to eat well, isn't it? You only need one pan for this recipe, and cooking the tortillas after the veggies means that some of your spices end up on the outside of your quesadilla, which actually looks quite nice. I'll make this again when I finally buy a camera and post pictures.

To Market

It's a happy time for those of us living in West Michigan, since the Fulton Street Farmers Market opened last week. I decided to stop by on Saturday afternoon, and although there isn't much produce yet, I found a bunch of lovely rhubarb for $1.25.

Now I'd never cooked rhubarb before, even though it grows in my parents' garden. So I decided to make the easiest thing I could think of - rhubarb crisp. Let's face it, you can make a crisp out of almost any fruit (I thought bananas might be an exception, but there are several recipes out there for that as well). Five ingredients (rhubarb, oats, honey, magarine, and cinnamon) and 30 minutes later, my brother and dug in to our still-warm dessert. Mmm!

I live where I do (and deal with my goofy landlord) partly because I'm so near the Farmers Market. Walking or biking to a place where you can buy fresh, local ingredients and even talk to the people who grew them, well, it changes how you think about food. Americans are used to cheap, abundant food, but we don't seem to put much emphasis on quality, or even think about how many miles our food may have traveled before it ends up on our plates. Perhaps rising gas prices will change how we view food and help us put the emphasis back on eating locally and seasonally.

Asparagus de Mayo

What Lovely Presentation!

These fajitas are a staple in our house, and since May is asparagus season, what better dish to bring to my friend Melissa's Cinco de Mayo party? We started making this from a recipe in Kitty Morse's now out-of-print 365 Ways to Cook Vegetarian, but our fajita recipe has undergone a few revisions and is spicier and tastier than the original.

Asparagus Fajitas

Filling:

1 pound asparagus
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1 red onion
1 serrano or jalapeno pepper

Marinade

1 packet taco seasoning*
2 to 3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup vegetable oil
Juice of 1/2 to 1 lime

Cut asparagus into 1-inch pieces. Slice bell peppers and onion into 1/4-inch strips. Chop up hot pepper (deseed and depith the pepper if you don't like things too hot). Place the vegetables in a large bowl.

Mix the marinade ingredients together. You may need to add more oil or lime juice if the marinade is too thick. Pour over vegetables, stir, and set aside to marinate for 30 to 60 minutes.

Cook over medium heat in a large frying pan or wok for 6 to 8 minutes. I like my asparagus to be just a little on the crunchy side - yum! Serve in warm flour tortillas.

*Note: If you want to make these vegan, be careful which brand of taco seasoning you choose, as many contain whey solids (Since I like to serve these with cheese, I'm usually not picky about it). According to PETAKiDS accidentally vegan page, Old El Paso makes a vegan taco seasoning mix.

If you're looking for asparagus facts, recipes, and cooking tips, or maybe an answer to the age-old asparagus pee question, check out the Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board (yes, there really is such an institution).

Food for Thought

In the interest of reducing my ecological footprint, I'm finally getting around to making my very own vermicomposter. What does this have to do with food, you ask? Well, according to the EPA, food waste accounts for almost 12 percent of the garbage generated annually. Add lawn clippings to that, and we're up to one-quarter of the municipal solid waste stream.

So, I bought two 35-quart bins and tonight I'll drill holes in the bottom and sides of one, and set it inside the other. Hopefully this will keep the compost from becoming a soupy mess. Oh, yes, and I have to buy worms - red wiggers (eisenia fetida) to be precise. In six months I should have beautiful organic fertilizer for my houseplants.

If you're curious about how to set up a vermicomposting system, a Kalamazoo woman named Mary Appelhof has written "the bible" on the subject: Worms Eat My Garbage.

So-good Chocolate Cake

I have made this cake several times and am never disappointed. Its texture is rich and fudgy, sort of like a brownie, and it is sweet without being too-sweet.



This recipe was originally published in the March 2005 issue of Cooking Light magazine, but I've made a few changes to it.

Chocolate-Walnut-Cranberry-Cake

1 2/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups natural sugar (I use Florida Crystals)
3/4 cup Dutch process cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup applesauce
1/2 cup soy milk (I've used chocolate, vanilla, and plain)
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup sweetened dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
powdered sugar (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil two 9-inch cake pans.

2. Spoon flour into measuring cups, level with a knife. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Mix together applesauce, oil, and soy milk; add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Stir in cranberries and walnuts. Spread into cake pans.

3. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes, or until a fork comes out clean. Cool. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Eat.

Note: The recipe says this cake can be frozen up to one month. Maybe, but why not eat it while you've got it?

I'm working on a Flickr tutorial for this recipe. I'll let everyone know as soon as I've got it worked out.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday dinner

Like many of my veggie friends, I watch Food Network despite the fact that the hosts often make food I cannot eat (my friend Jacob describes Giada DeLaurentis' recipes as "a brick of cheese with pancetta wrapped around it, served with sauce"). Flipping through the channels recently, I watched in amazement as Rachael Ray crowned a turkey and pork meatloaf with a layer of bacon. Am I the only one who finds this excessive? To out-Rachael Ms. Ray, who made a loaf with three meats, this Sunday I made three loaves with no meat.

We invited a half a dozen friends over for some loaf and mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy. The curried lentil loaf (from The Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook) was a bit runny, but spicy and delicious. The recipe called for 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, so I doubled the amount. The tvp loaf from Howard Lyman's No More Bull most closely approximated the texture and consistency of the "real thing." The bean loaf was dry and flavorless (Mary suggested using broth instead of water when preparing the couscous), and was the only loaf that was left at the end of the night.

Now some of you may be asking how on earth I managed to cook three loaves and mashed potatoes at the same time. First I cleared off our kitchen table and established a rough mise en place for each recipe, not bothering to measure out every single thing, but at least having all my ingredients within easy reach. Then I assembled each loaf one by one, and put them all in the oven at once. I also had to periodically call out into the living for my husband to come peel this or that. My friend Andrea made the gravy and took these lovely photos.

We love loaves!

Mad Cowboys and Cannibal Cows

"We're running toward the edge of a cliff at 200 miles an hour," says Howard Lyman. "What we're doing; it's not sustainable." The former cattle rancher turned vegan activist should know. He took his family's farm from a small, organic operation to a $5-million-a-year agribusiness with seven thousand head of cattle. Having been schooled in "better living through chemistry," Howard made sure his cattle got fatter faster by confining them to a factory feedlot, feeding them grain instead of grass, and pumping them full of growth hormones and antibiotics. He used liberal doses of herbicides, pesticides, and insecticides on his crops.

Then, in 1979, he was paralyzed from the waist down by a tumor on his spinal cord. "I promised myself that, whatever the outcome of the surgery, I would dedicate the rest of my life to doing what I believed to be right -- no matter what changes that necessitated," said the Mad Cowboy. You may remember Howard's appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show back in 1996, when he announced that downer cows were being rendered and fed to other cows. Howard and Oprah were later sued by a group of Texas cattlemen for making disparaging comments about beef. Read the transcript of his interview.

Howard was in town for Grand Rapids' first ever Vegetarian Awakening Conference (which I regrettably was not able to attend), and graciously agreed to speak before a showing of Peaceable Kingdom, a documentary about Farm Sanctuary in upstate New York. If you have not seen this film, I highly recommend it. The film is alternately touching and disturbing, and scenes with former farmboy Harold Brown are a highlight.

After the film, Howard answered questions from the audience and reminded people not to be discouraged if change happens slowly. "Most Americans go through life nose to tail," he said. "And if you do that, you know what you're always looking at." Our job, he says, is not to change everyone, just to reach those people that are teachable.

Now I have a signed copy of Howard's latest book, No More Bull, which has over 100 vegan recipes in it. Huzzah! Many thanks to the sponsors of this event: Uniting for Justice, GRIID (Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy), Grand Rapids Community College’s Animal Advocacy and Interest Movement and Calvin College’s Students for Compassionate Living. They even had vegan desserts and fair trade coffee on hand!

Mon petit choufleur

Cauliflower is a vegetable that deserves more respect. Having recently returned from the librarian karaoke challenge (I was actually at a three-day conference, of which the karaoke was a small but entertaining part), yesterday I made myself a lovely Indian meal of yellow rice, flatbread, and cauliflower pakoras. Apparently, true pakoras are vegetable fritters made with chickpea flour, but my recipe - from Robin Robertson's truly useful Vegan Planet - called for all-purpose flour. The trick is to thinly slice the cauliflower so that it cooks all the way through during its short bath in the hot oil. The result? Melt-in-your-mouth veggie goodness underneath a crispy, spicy exterior. Mmm... the flatbread and rice weren't bad, either.

Vegan Sushi Challenge

I struggled with whether to make something safe for my first cooking post, or to go all-out and try something a little more difficult, maybe even daunting. I had happened upon some recipes for yummy-looking maki rolls over at the Post Punk Kitchen, and decided that this was exactly what I needed. Since I had never attempted to make sushi before, off I went to purchase a long list of ingredients. Several dollars and a few elephant rolls later, I'd like to share with you some discoveries I made:

1) If the instructions on the back of the box of your sushi rice seem to demand a geisha-like preparation ritual, follow it anyway. My first batch of rice (the one I rinsed and drained) was doing well until I burned it a bit. So I skipped those steps on my second try, and although the rice did eventually turn out, it was far wetter and didn't cook nearly as fast.

2) Nori paper stinks. No, really, it does.

Brian and Ali were happy to be my guinea pigs. The consenus? The sushi was good, but not very filling. So afterward, we made a homemade pizza with lots of garlic.

Happy Meatout Day!

Since I don't have any pictures for my inaugural post (owing to the fact that I don't as yet own a digital camera), I'll just wish everyone a happy Great American Meatout day. Later this week, expect some awesome vegan food pictures as well an explanation of what I'm trying to accomplish with this blog. Right now I'm going to reheat some asparagus fajitas.