BYO Lunch

And by lunch I mean things I'll be snacking on all day. I am bringing:

2 carrots
1 apple
a bag of pecans
a snack thing of dried, salted seaweed
a sandwich kit consisting of:

A small plastic bowl with a lid, containing sandwich greens, onion slices and chopped mushrooms soaked in balsamic vinegar and coated lightly in olive oil and pepper, along with two slices of cracked wheat bread in a sandwich bag. The sandwich components will be assembled at school.

and a Thermos full of soup containing beans, quinoa, and kale, among other things

I am going to be so full.

All of these things are prepared and waiting either in my bag already or in the door of the fridge. There's a note on the front door telling me not to leave without all my snacks.

Now, it's all about the sleep.

Quitting Tofu

Finally watched Food Inc. It's not as if I didn't know this, but I really, really... really have to stop eating tofu.

For real.

I know that over 90% of American soybeans are Monsanto soybeans. Why do I act as if I don't know it? Do I feel better if I buy something that says "non-GMO" on the package? Then I'm just as dumb as the sanctimonious liberal who buys the cow that says "grass fed." Do I really think I'm smart enough to find that less than 10% of soybeans that are real beans? Really?

Watching a farmer who didn't choose to grow Monsanto beans talk about watching his legal costs grow because his neighbors' soybeans contaminate his crop and once that happens, Monsanto owns the patent to his crops. Monsanto sending goons - thugs in big black cars - out to his farm at 4:30 in the morning to spook him. Watching him say, "How can they do this?" And then he gives advice to a young farmer: "Just try to get out of this thing with your skin intact. Roll over. You can't fight it." How can they do this? Just like that. If everyone stood up, they couldn't do it. That's why organizing - on any level but theirs - is their enemy.

Damn it.

And a lot of organic soybeans come from China. Great. There's something I feel safe about. Eating crap from China.

Fortunately, I have my protein-rich and versatile quinoa and of course, my good old-fashioned pinto beans and kidney beans. And, as I learned recently, I can buy local kale in a blizzard if I don't mind the cold! In most of the recipes I did use tofu in, I've already replaced it with mushrooms, which act very similar and taste better.

So, what the hell. Let's quit tofu.

Season's Last Local Peach, and What I Did With It

You've read here about Quinoa Soup, and about NASA's consideration of quinoa.

Here are two more things you can do with quinoa.

One of them tastes like pizza. The other is crumbly, peachy, and sweet, like cobbler.

Mark made the first one this afternoon.

You know how to cook rice, right? Two parts water, one part rice, a dash of salt, bring to a boil on the stovetop, reduce heat and simmer until it's done. To cook quinoa, do the same thing and simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Before cooking, rinse the quinoa grains with cool water and drain.

For the above quinoa pilaf, add to the quinoa and water on the stove some diced onion, chopped broccoli, and mushroom. Add the vegetables at the beginning, bring them to a boil right along with the grain, simmer everything together.

When it's done, the quinoa is soft and translucent and you can see the white curl of the germ along the outside of the grain. The water should all be absorbed. If there is excess and you don't want it, it can be drained.

While the dish is hot, add diced tomatoes and stir them in. The hot pilaf will heat them and give them the taste of stewed tomatoes.

Season with oregano, basil would be great (we don't have any), salt, and some raw chopped onions, sprinkle with oil and vinegar. With the hot tomatoes, onion and oregano, the finished, seasoned dish has a taste similar to pizza or spaghetti. (Damn, basil would be perfect!) Could serve with garlic toast.

I had a little of that this afternoon, but I was full from a plate of potatoes, okra & tomatoes, and green beans, and just had a taste of the pilaf so I could report on it. Thanks to Mark for being patient while I photographed his food before he ate it. I'm looking forward to trying this one myself.

Now, here's something I did with quinoa later in the evening. It was so dreamy I can't believe I made it myself at my house.

I started by cooking some quinoa for cereal, planning to have it with molasses and brown sugar (which I finally bought). Two parts water, one part quinoa, bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer for 10-15 minutes or until grain is translucent and soft and you can see the germ along the outside.

Remove from heat and mix in about a tablespoon of molasses (10% of your "recommended" daily calcium, iron, and vitamin A). Add cinnamon and stir it in.

Then I had an idea.

I diced the last peach of the season. Left over from last Saturday, and the peach lady said then that that was the last week they would be bringing peaches. I ate several slivers of it raw and heated the rest in oil. Poured it over the hot quinoa cereal and sprinkled with flax seed and brown sugar.




This dish tastes like peach cobbler. I didn't stir in the brown sugar, just sprinkled it on top and left it in clumps of crystals along with the flax seed, much like a crumbly cobbler topping.

There may be frozen peaches or peaches from a grocery store later, but this is likely the last local peach of the season.

That's the way to do it.

Two Seasons: Quinoa soup and Garden wraps

The colors at the farmers' market are getting brighter, richer, and more diverse as we move into fall. Root vegetables and ten different kinds of squash, purples and yellows and oranges and blues are everywhere. But today, the air in West Philly feels unseasonably warm, soft, and freshly-scrubbed. It feels like springtime outside.

So let's have a a look at a festive, summery food, and then I have a nice soup for you. First, and I know you may be getting tired of pastry wraps but I'm not out of them yet (told you, that $1.39 is stretchy) so, here' s one more thing you can do with them.

A garden wrap.

This one has green lettuce, tomatoes, portabella mushrooms, cauliflower, and onion, and it's seasoned with olive oil, salt, and lemon pepper. It would be great to have some spinach, kale, turnip greens, or other interesting greens.

You don't have to heat or cook the filling, just cut everything up like a salad, only finer. Spoon it onto the wraps, fold, and fry in olive oil. Here are some finished ones cooling while I'm prepping some more to go into the oil. What you see in the background on the plate are blue potatoes.

A closer look at the veggie mix that goes inside the pastries:


If I looked at the mix and didn't know what was in it, I would think I was seeing chicken or tofu or some "meat substitute," but what that actually is is the portabella mushrooms. We usually buy two giant caps at the market on Saturday, and they last us throughout the week, just slicing pieces off for stir-fries and things like this.

Now. Want something good for lunch, that will keep you full throughout the afternoon and rush hour? Something good and cozy for fall? Something to help you fight colds and the flu and the cold-weather blahs?

Quinoa soup.

Quinoa is incredibly rich in protein, fiber, and iron. Because of its high protein content, NASA thinks it would be a good choice for its Controlled Ecological Life Support Systems for long space flights. And that's kind of our situation here on Earth. We're here for a long time, and we don't have enough space to feed all of us the way some of us currently eat. Quinoa could help.

Now, Mark made this soup/stew (I'm not sure which it is), so it has a lot of ingredients. It contains: quinoa, carrots, cauliflower, corn, mushroom, black beans, Great Northern beans, and onion, and was made with our homemade vegetable stock and seasoned with garlic, salt, lemon pepper, and a Season All mix.

Two kinds of beans, plus quinoa, will fill you up. This soup is a nutrient-fest and tastes like it cures what ails you. I brought it for lunch two days this week. You don't need to bring much.

I like to have this soup with a slice of rye toast with strawberry jam. Any type of heavy food makes me feel like I need a nice piece of toast and jam to lighten it up. I'm a little childish about heavy foods. I feel like I've accomplished something when I eat something heavy, and I want a treat for that. Fortunately, the same woman who grows our spices also makes jellies and jams.

Happy fall, happy Friday, and I hope it's as lovely where you are as it is here.

Celebration Weekend Continues: Puff Pastries

That went better than expected.

Remember the puff pastry sheets we bought at Fu-Wah for $1.39? Those are going to go a long way. I can't wait to put more things in them and crisp them up.

Here's what I did with them tonight.

Remember the Gimme Lean soy sausage I bought at Trader Joe's the other day? It was for this purpose. I fried up the soy sausage in olive oil with onion and portabella mushrooms, and the sweet little fennel seeds.

After sprinkling some flour on a plate, I laid out the puff pastry sheets and filled them with the mixture. Notice how thin each sheet is, compared to the whole block of pastry sheets. There are a ton of these things. $1.39 is going to go a long way, and that's how you afford things like brownies and really good olive oil and fresh-baked bread.

















Heat about a quarter inch of olive oil over a high gas flame, if you have one (high electric heat, I suppose, if you don't.) Or a campfire!

Drizzle all around the edges of the pastry sheets with olive oil, fold the sheet over into a triangle and press the oil-coated edges of the sheets together.

Sizzle in the oil for about 5 seconds per side.



The batch of filling shown above filled five pastry sheets. Arrange them on a plate and mix up a dipping sauce of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and ground rosemary.


These were delicious. We won't always have soy sausage, but you can also stuff them with yellow squash or patty pan squash, which cost about $1 a lb. and are pretty light on the scale.

Squash would be good with fennel, mushroom, onion, you could throw in some beans if you wanted it to be heartier.

You could do corn and tomatoes and dip it in black bean dip.

We have that quinoa.

I'm having racing thoughts about potatoes and the blender.

And then sweets. I have apples and peaches. You could also do pear. Berries. Oh my god. But nobody's had any berries for a long time, I guess they're out of season. Peaches, apples, pears are here now.

Oh, puff pastries for $1.39 from Fu-Wah. This is a good investment.

Molasses, quinoa, calcium, outer space

Just had a bedtime snack, an English muffin, toasted, with molasses, and some grapes (only fruit in the house, it's almost shopping day). The label says molasses has 20% of your recommended daily value, whatever that means, of iron. Twenty percent of your recommended daily vitamin A, and 20% of your calcium. Hmm.

Made a rare trip to the grocery store after work. Bought something expensive I'd been thinking about all day. Quinoa is $3.99 for a 16 oz. package. We searched it online, it only goes up from there. Does anyone know where to get this cheaper? (She said, as though people were already hanging out here reading.) But I want to try it. You prepare it like white rice, but it's heartier than rice. Got cheap balsamic, $2.29 for a glass bottle that will last us a couple of months. The English muffins, splurged on some soy sausage, got soap for the shower, flax seed meal, I feel like I'm forgetting something. Spent around $15 altogether. I usually go to the grocery store about once a month for oat bran, flax seed, and tea. Coffee comes in cans from Fu-Wah. Yesterday at Fu-Wah we picked up a package of pastry wraps and that's why we couldn't resist the soy sausage. Oh, we're gonna stuff something and cook it.

Quinoa is a wonderful food:

Quinoa was of great nutritional importance in pre-Columbian Andean civilizations, being secondary only to the potato, and was followed in importance by maize. In contemporary times, this crop has become highly appreciated for its nutritional value, as its protein content is very high (12%–18%), making it a healthful choice for vegetarians and vegans. Unlike wheat or rice (which are low in lysine), quinoa contains a balanced set of essential amino acids for humans, making it an unusually complete protein source.[4] It is a good source of dietary fiber and phosphorus and is high in magnesium and iron. Quinoa is gluten-free and considered easy to digest. Because of all these characteristics, quinoa is being considered a possible crop in NASA's Controlled Ecological Life Support System for long-duration manned spaceflights.[4]

I would like for it to be cheaper. But I can already eat on $80/month if need be. Depending on the outcome of this weekend's festivities, quinoa might get its own line item. We have a birthday in the family this weekend, and a cat adoptiversary, and a new Michael Moore movie (Capitalism: A Love Story). Cool weather and cooking. And blogging.