recipe

From The Bog To The Table

scleaver — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:41:41 -0500

It’s Thanksgiving, and that means its cranberry time! What holiday meal isn’t complete without a splash of red cranberry sauce? But, cranberries are more than just colorful, they’re also good for you.

We all know about cranberry’s power when it comes to preventing UTIs. According to OrganicAuthority.com, cranberries are a major source of antioxidants, and phytonutrients that protect against cancer, heart disease, and more. A study from the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, found that compounds in cranberries were toxic to a variety of cancer cells, from breast cancer to leukemia cells.

So, you want to incorporate these prize-fighting fruits into your holiday meal? Make sure your cranberry sauce is chemical free by buying organic cranberries from Cranberry Hill Farm in Massachusetts (or find a local organic cranberry blogger by using the Local Harvest tool on the River Wired Home Page).

Get any and all cranberry recipes from Ocean Spray. Here’s an easy cranberry sauce recipe. Epicurious.com has cranberry recipes for the advanced cook. And, here are cranberry bread recipes to help you use up the cranberries that don’t make it onto your Thanksgiving table.

Photo from VegPod.com.

Mini-Vegetables: A User's Guide

scleaver — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:16:59 -0500

Heading into the Thanksgiving season, mini-vegetables are one way to get some green on the table, while increasing the cute-ness factor. The Detroit News suggests steaming or roasting your mini-veggies (baby squash are especially good sautéed), cutting them up for a vegetable platter, or using them as decoration in your tablescape, a baby-vegetable cornucopia comes to mind.

How do baby veggies come about, you ask?

Well, one example: farmers at Babe Farms produce 100 mini-vegetables, the most successful of which is the baby carrot. Their baby carrots are engineered and designed to grow only so big, which means that they’re sweeter. Many of the other veggies are grown mini by packing them close together, which forces the vegetables to compete for light and water so they don’t grow as big.

Here are some other mini-veggie resources:

Buy mini-vegetable seeds from RainGardens.com.

Make mini-veggie lasagnas with a recipe from Creative Eats. Or, whip up a mini-vegetable stir fry with a recipe from Racheal Ray.

Photo of a baby vegetable basket from Harry and David.

Happy Berry Picking

scleaver — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:27:02 -0400

Berry season is here, with red juicy raspberries, tart blueberries, sweet strawberries, and more. Whether you’re picking your own or collecting overflowing green pints at the farmer’s market, take some berry advice from Donald Kotler, of the Southeast Portland café (from The Oregonian), and a life-long berry eater.

How to eat a berry: Blueberries are for baking. Huckleberries are for breakfast. Strawberries are for dessert, preferably on vanilla ice cream. Raspberries and blackberries are just for eating (personal recommendation, they’re best right off the bush).

How to choose a berry: “You should be able to walk up to a berry stand and smell [it] before you even get to it,” he told the Oregonian. “Your nose should tell you exactly where it is.”

How to buy a berry: Go for quality over quantity. Enjoy a few perfect berries rather than a lot of mediocre ones.

Here are more berry tips and recipes for every berry you could imagine, blackberry, blueberry, cranberry, gooseberry, loganberry, marionberry, and on and on, enough to last you the entire berry season.

Photo from Plantogram.com.

Grill This! Part Two

scleaver — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Grilling season is now in full swing. Who knew the summer barbeque tradition could put off so many toxic fumes?

According to The Daily Green, “grilling can be toxic, even downright polluting.” Burning charcoal produces sooty particles that float through the air and invade lungs, and send off carcinogenic compounds like benzene. All that wafting smoke floats up into the atmosphere to add to smog. And, overchar your meat and you’re likely adding chemicals to the food.

Still, what is summer (or the upcoming Fourth of July) without a good bar-b-que? A good grilled burger or filet can be chemical and pollution free. Here's where to find green grilling tips and recipes:

The Sierra Club recommends using a propane or electric grill that put out less emissions than a charcoal grill, or a solar oven that won’t put out any emissions at all. And, if you must use charcoal, use lump brands from invasive tree species or sustainable forests, and use a chimney starter rather than lighter fluid.

To reduce chemicals in your food, opt for organic meat and trim the fat before you cook it.

Get the low-down on grilling, and tips from readers at The Daily Green.

Here are more green grilling tips from The Sierra Club.

The Wedge Natural Foods Co-Op has tips for the novice griller.

And you’ll find recipes at: My Own BBQ, a site for grill lovers. Epicurious has recipes for grilling tomatoes, fish, and on and on. The Food Network’s Bobby Flay page has grilling tips and recipes.

Photo from Boston Menu Pages blog.

Saving The World One Plate At A Time

scleaver — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Choosing climate-healthy foods at the grocery store, with never-ending aisles of packaged foods, overflowing bins of produce from around the world, and walls of stocked freezer cases, presents an obvious challenge. But, a new study, discussed at WorldChanging.com, approaches this conundrum with one question: which is more important? The food you eat, or where that food is grown?

In short, the food you eat is more important. While local food is always a better choice than food imported from across the country or the globe, the next time you’re planning your meals, the best thing you can do to eat climate-friendly is just say No to beef. Red meat, compared to cereals, chicken, dairy products, produce, and oils, has the largest impact on the climate. (If you want to take it a step farther, cut out dairy, it ranked second in the amount of emissions produced.)

A hopeful finding from the study: small shifts in food choices can have a huge impact on the climate. If we consumers switched 12 percent of our meat and dairy food choices to veggie-based foods, it would have the same impact on the climate as going 100 percent local for all food purchases.

Need help replacing that weekly burger?

Vegetarian Kitchen has information about eating a vegetarian diet.

VegWeb has vegan recipes and shopping tips.

The International Vegetarian Union has vegetarian recipes from around the world.

And, Vegetarian Cooking has even more veggie recipes.

Image from Runner's World article about eating vegetarian for performance.

The Gift of Local Fruit: One Jammin Hobby

scleaver — Fri, 30 May 2008 00:00:00 -0400

When Kristina Shevory needed a present for her dad, a known re-gifter, she opted for a exhaustive homemade gift that’s a far cry from plaster of Paris handprints or marker-decorated cards. She cooked up a batch of strawberry jam. “The recipe sounded daunting,” she wrote in The San Francisco Chronicle, “vats of boiling water, hours over a stove and bubbling, splattering jam. But it was unique and just difficult enough that I thought he would like it – or at least like the effort it took to make it.”

That was eight years ago, now she’s a jam making fanatic. Around the Bay area, jammers make the sweet stuff for friends, to sell online or at specialty stores. And they’re making more than your average strawberry preserve or orange marmalade. Today’s jam makers are mixing up batches of Elephant Heart plum or Fukushu kumquat jam, kiwi lime ginger jelly, or lemon with black pepper preserves.

Interested in tasting a specialty jam?

Try one of the many charismatic flavors from CMB Sweets. Also in the Bay area, We Love Jam takes it back to basics with their signature apricot jam. In Michigan Friske Orchards sells locally made jam and a six-jam gift pack. Apparently, Thimbleberry jam is an Upper Peninsula specialty. Local Harvest includes lists of jam makers across the U.S. (or type in your zip code on our homepage).

Want to make your own instead?

Learn how with recipes from the SF Chronicle article or PickYourOwn.org.

Photo of the classic apricot variety from WeLoveJam.com.

Maple Season Continues

scleaver — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:00:00 -0400

It is still maple season here in Michigan. (To be sure that it’s maple season at all: http://www.riverwired.com/blog/march-maple-season.) I recently visited with my grandmother, a Vermonter who knows maple syrup, and she had an interesting question for me: How do they get the maple sap from the trees to the sap house to be processed in Michigan? Well, I’ve never thought about that. But the Michigan Maple Syrup Association has the answer: once the trees are ready to be “tapped” maple producers work quickly to collect all the sap they can each day. They use plastic tubing to collect the sap, and vacuum pumps to keep it moving and to pull as much sap out of each tree as possible. The sap is then transferred into large storage tanks at the sap house. So, there’s your answer: a combination of plastic tubing and vacuum pumps keep maple syrup flowing in Michigan. (For a video about Michigan maple syrup collection, visit http://www.mi-maplesyrup.com/Information/info_prod.htm.) Finally, in the spirit of the season, here’s a recipe from the Detroit News article, Maple Butter wakes up ordinary breakfast bagel. I remember spreading (store-bought) maple butter on toast as a kid, and it is delicious. Maple ButterAdapted from allrecipes.com.
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
In a medium bowl, mix together the butter, brown sugar, maple syrup and pumpkin pie spice until well blended. Chill in the refrigerator, for about 30 minutes. Form into a roll using waxed paper and store wrapped. It can be frozen for later at this point, if desired. Serves 1
Per serving: 268 calories; 24 g fat (15 g saturated fat; 81 percent calories from fat); 14 g carbohydrates; 66 mg cholesterol; 253 mg sodium; 0.3 g protein; 0 g fiber.Photo taken from The Field Farm in Vermont where you can buy maple butter if you don't want to make your own.

Thin Mints Win Again

scleaver — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:58:30 -0400

This has nothing to do with being green (unless you count the Thin Mints box that you can spot from a mile away during Girl Scout cookie season), but it is delicious news none-the-less.

Today, the Neal Rubin of the Detroit News discussed Girl Scout Cookies in his article Student chefs get a crush on Thin Mints at gala. Last night, Girl Scouts across metro Detroit gathered at the metro Detroit Girl Scout Cookie Gala to sample culinary creations made with their $3 a box goodies. Eight area restaurants were given a cookie to work with, then competed for the best Girl Scout Cookie dessert.

A run down:

Small Plates of Royal Oak drew Sugar Free Chocolate Chips—bummer for them.

Mosaic in Detroit used Samoas (my favorite) to make miniature bundt cakes.

The winner…Fifty-One O One, Henry Ford Community College’s restaurant, and their Cream D’Mint Brownies. Whipped cream ganache and mint butter cream on top of brownies using crushed Thin Mints topped with melted chocolate chips.

Once again, Thin Mints takes the cake.

Here are make-it-yourself Girl Scout Cookie recipes from the competition:

Peanut Butter Blondie with Do-Si-Do Fondue

Cream D'Mint Brownies

White chocolate banana mousse

Banana brulee

Photo from Chew On That Blog’s Thin Mints Rock! Post.

Apple Pie News

scleaver — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500

There’s not often local food news in the dead of winter, so I’m happy to say Congratulations! to Fred Burns who recently won the 3rd Annual Michigan’s Best Apple Pie Contest on Wednesday January 25 (National Pie Day). Burns’ pie was his father’s deep-dish, double-crust version from the early 20th Century made with Michigan Northern Spry apples. Now Burns, one of only three men in the 60-person contest, is moving on to the National Pie Championship in April.

Apples are big in Michigan as they are across the U.S. According to the Michigan Apple Committee, apples are “Michigan’s most valuable fruit crop, with a value of about $100,000,000 annually.” Apples produce $400 to $500 million annually for the state, and small family farmers are the bulk of producers, “99 percent of Michigan orchards had fewer than 100 acres in apples.”

Next time you come across local apples, here’s Burns’ pie recipe (note that Pioneer Sugar and light brown sugar as well as the apples are local Michigan products):

My Father’s Apple Pie (taken from MichiganApples.com)

CRUST:
2 C flour
1/2 T PIONEER SUGAR
1 tsp. salt
1 C shortening
1/4 C cold water
1/2 tsp. vinegar
1 large egg

FILLING:
5 avg. size MICHIGAN NORTHERN SPY APPLES, peeled, sliced about 1/4” thick
1 C PIONEER SUGAR
1/3 C PIONEER GOLDEN LIGHT BROWN SUGAR
dash of salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
2 T tapioca
5 T butter

DIRECTIONS:
Crust – combine flour, PIONEER SUGAR and salt together in mixing bowl. Cut in shortening with pastry blender until coarse. In a separate bowl, combine cold water, vinegar, and egg and whip lightly, then add to flour mixture, stirring lightly with fork until it becomes a sticky dough. Refrigerate finished dough in a small covered container or plastic wrap for 2 hours or overnight.

Filling – combine all ingredients except butter and apples in a bowl. Peel and slice MICHIGAN NORTHERN SPY APPLES. Now stir the apples thoroughly into the dry ingredients to coat all the apple slices. Let mixture set for 15 to 30 minutes to develop a “juice” while you roll out the crust below.

Take about 2/3 of refrigerated dough and roll to about 13-inch in diameter. Adjust to fit the deep dish and trim edges. Combine remaining dough and roll to about 11-inch in diameter. Add filling to dish and place 8 slices of butter on top of the filling. Add upper crust, roll the edges and cut a few “steam” slits in a design of your choice. You can also add some colored sugar sprinkles to the top crust that adds some color to the pie. Create your own art piece. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes and then reduce to 350 degrees for 40 to 50 minutes. I use an aluminum ring over the crust edge to avoid burnt edges. Cool on a wire rack for around 2 hours.

From the Kitchen of Fred Burns of Sparta, MI

Photo Credit: The Detroit Free Press article about his apple pie.

Irresistibly International

scleaver — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:38:11 -0500

It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen in a grocery store—a mini pineapple, not more than six inches tall, with spiky green leaves shooting out the top like an elaborate haircut. With a price tag of $3.99 it wasn’t a bargain, and obviously not local. But it is winter in Michigan, the shelves are void of local produce, so what better time to treat myself to something tropical?

What to do with a mini pineapple? Mini-pineapple upside down cakes weren’t appealing, and seemed too time consuming (I’d have to buy mini pans, etc). Then, I came across a pineapple cookie recipe on AllRecipes.com. At first, I was skeptical, but reading the comments convinced me. They were one baker’s childhood favorite, which is good enough for me.

The recipe called for a cup of shredded pineapple, with the juice. The mini pineapple, cut up, scooped out, and as shredded as possible, was still only ½ cup worth, including the juice. But, then, I didn’t really know if I could eat more than a few pineapple cookies anyway, so I halved the recipe.

In the end, it was no pina colada, and only tasted vaguely of the islands. They were a good, a basic sugar cookie with chunks of pineapple every other bite and a little hint of brown sugar.

Here’s the full recipe, it requires a lot of global ingredients, but it’s worth it, if you come upon a mini-pineapple:

Cream ½ cup softened butter, ½ cup packed brown sugar, and ½ cup white sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in 1 egg and 1 tsp vanilla extract and mix well. Sift together 2 ¼ cups of flour, ½ tsp baking soda, and 1 tsp baking powder together and add to creamed mixture. Stir in 1 cup of crushed pineapple with juice and ½ cup chopped walnuts until well blended. Chill dough for 2 hours. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, drop dough 2 inches apart onto greased cookie sheets. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes.

Image credit: Stephanie Cleaver