Ode to Baked Beans

I've just joined the Rancho Gordo Bean Club, and with that subscription comes the right to participate in the related Facebook group. Every day recipes are shared, cooking methods and vessels debated, and the glories of beans depicted.
A few days ago a woman posted a snapshot of a bean pot she'd found at a yard sale. "Is this okay to cook in,"she asked. It seems that a previous owner had messed with it, gluing felt on the underside of the lid, but otherwise it looked just fine, a large (four pound capacity) pot for baking beans in the oven.
One commenter mentioned that New England baked beans are always made with the lid off, with the cook adding a little water periodically over the hours of baking.
"What?!?," I thought. Whoever heard of that? You use the cover, but as they fit loosely you do need to check and add to the liquid from time to time. My reply to her was more polite than that, of course.
She then cited a cookbook that for her is canonical. I looked up the book and found the author was a journalist, not a cook, which left me with only one reply. "I'm chuckling as I read this. My New England Cookbook was my grandmother, born in 1890 and baking a pot of beans every Saturday for most of her adult life."

Our family bean pot now resides with my nephew Kevin, who from time to time cooks up a pot of beans in the true New England manner. Beans, salt pork (not bacon), onion, Colman's mustard, molasses, and white sugar. Gram usually baked pea (also called navy) beans, but later my Aunt Margaret produced the best results ever - hulking, meaty and sweet - with Maine yellow-eye beans.

I remember women bringing huge pots and cookers of beans to the summer fair at First Parish Church in Duxbury. I always helped my mother at the food table, of course. We would sell the beans by the pint, ladling them into the cardboard containers used for hand-packed ice cream. Margaret's recipe always sold out first. One year the new minister's wife brought her beans, but there was much whispering about the fact that they contained TOMATO. How, growing up on the back side of Beacon Hill, did she not know better!

Since abandoning meat as a dietary essential, I have tried to bake beans that taste good without the salt pork. For a while I was adding a nice big dollop of mango chutney to the pot. This helped some, but also redoubled the sweetness. Now that I am paying attention to the added sugar in my diet, the idea of the many forms of sucrose in the recipe is cloying. So I'm going to set out on an experimental journey, with less molasses and no other sugars, but adding something to boost the umami without obviously making a diversion from the New England route of bean cookery. Three contenders are Worcestershire sauce (I do eat little oily fish), smoked paprika, and tamari. Stay tuned for the reviews.

Ash Wednesday Is Two Weeks Away

And here's a rather nice resource from Meatless Mondays.  They are celebrating February with a heart-healthy recipe collection.
http://www.meatlessmonday.com/images/photos/2014/01/February_MMcookbook.pdf

Some of the recipes, alas, include ingredients that are definitely not seasonal, but there are a couple of wintry pasta recipes - with more veg, less fat and pasta - that look like they'd really be worth trying.

Liturgical traditionalists will, of course, keep Meatless Monday on Wednesday or Friday.

Did You Know it's IYQ?

       

I just tumbled to the fact that it's the International Year of Quinoa.
http://www.fao.org/quinoa-2013/press-room/news/detail/en/

Because of it's nutritional value and adaptability to harsh climates (cold, sere, high altitudes), and because it is a traditional smallholder crop, quinoa is being promoted as a contributor to solving global hunger.  The indigenous people of the Andes are to be thanked for developing and maintaining so many strains of quinoa over the last 7000 years, and now for sharing their traditions with the world's peoples.

Quinoa is not, as some people refer to it, a grain, though it has similar uses.  It is a member of the family Amaranthaceae, genus Chenopodium.   A related common edible weed (lamb's quarters or pigweed) grows around here, and a few other relatives are grown in gardens as hot weather spinach substitutes.

If my culinary Spanish were only a little better, I'd be trying a few items from this traditional Andean cookbook:
http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/aiq2013/res/es/recetarioandino.pdf
Just beautiful!

Which leads me to say, I now know what inspired the incredibly bright colors of chullos (Andean earflap hats).  It's the colors of their local quinoa and potatoes!

And finally, why Mr. Google, do you not have "quinoa" in your spell checker?
I know I saw a recipe for it in your employee dining room cookbook.

food and the written word

Will books survive because of cookbooks?   Possibly, if this New York Times article is any indication:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/dining/cookbooks-echo-with-the-wisdom-of-chefs-past.html

I laughed out loud at some of the annotations reported here - Elizabeth David is so humorous in her outspokenness in her own books, apparently more so in her marginalia -  and I wanted to run and dredge out my old books, and my mother's and grandmother's recipes and commune with them.  

I often think about getting everything in digital form, but there is too much history in the jottings and food smears and stuck together pages.   So relieved I am not alone in this.  

Less sodium, more umami

The Harvard School of Public Health and the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) have joined forces to tackle the excess sodium in our diets and that other epidemic - the one I can relate to - hypertension.

Many of the hints here
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/salt/tasting-success-with-cutting-salt/index.html
are ones you and I already know about it, but these 25 ideas are convincingly presented and recognize that more healthful food without good taste is just not going to fly.

What a breath of fresh air. Good science and good recipes.

It seems to me that these recommendations also underscore the need for more affordable fresh food, and for re-skilling in garden and kitchen, so that we can avoid the great scourge of fast and over-processed foods.

My life with food

Well, the food in New Orleans is tasty - but it's so far from my normal fare that I am just now, four days later, getting back close to normal. Meat-centric, high salt, low fiber - not my thing at all.

Meanwhile, the Sonoma County Food Forum report and more research on GMOs for the Episcopal ad hoc group (members of the Committee on Science, Technology and Faith; the Standing Commission on Health; and whatever the group working on global justice is called) have been keeping me amused when it is too wet to do any gardening. I did bring in some potting mix during a break in the rain today to start my tomato seeds - better late than never - and my windowsill has little signs of life - herb and eggplant and pepper seedlings poking up.

It does seem like the food movement(s?) is so popular these days that one could work full time on the issues. So much information to process, and so many conversations to be a part of.

But just for fun, here's a useful resource on making things at home that people don't normally think to make:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/16/dining/16diy-recipes.html#view=intro
These ideas seem pretty uneven - most basic cookbooks will tell you how to make creme fraiche, but who really wants to make kimchee in an apartment kitchen? Also the quantities range widely and wildly - one jar of jam or 10 lbs of pork belly? And the directions are a little sparse in places. What is a small jar? a cup? a pint? And if there are places where I am not sure of a step, or see a step omitted, what would a novice cook be thinking and doing?

But - it's a place to begin, with lots of bibliography and webliography. DIY food is a good thing.

What season is it anyway?

It seems strange to be surfing the last-rose-of-summer recipes on the web, when it feels like summer has just arrived here. We're just having our second real heat wave, having had none until the last part of August. This brings home the fact that seasons really do vary from one part of the country to another, and the media fix on East Coast temperate seasons just doesn't work for West Coast Mediterranean and mild.

My tomatoes still are not ripening wholesale, though I am getting a few each day (from six assorted plants).

So if I want to waste a little time looking at recipes on the web I am going to peruse this feature on the Los Angeles Times site. I'm a sucker for stories like this - 25 years of top ten recipes.
http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-best-recipe-sg,0,4692361.storygallery

I'm going to buy this book

Yesterday I returned the library's copy of Cool Cuisine by Laura Stec.

I've actually had some email correspondence with Laura thanks to a member of the Environmental Commission in the Diocese of California. So I wanted to read her book on climate change and our food choices.

There is lots of data here, data you can use, data that's sound scientifically, with footnotes, no less. How our food is produced makes a significant contribution to greenhouse gases - which we knew. But here in one place is the ammo for making the case for those who don't want to spend endless hours surfing the web, and wondering about the edginess of some of the sites with data.

Laura is clearly not a strident purist, but a chef who wants people to do something to make a difference, improving their diet and its pleasures, while lessening their foodprint. One example is her comment on using imported spices and condiments - if they we get you eating more fruits and vegetables which are locally sourced, go ahead. What struck me as strange though, was the lapse into macrobiotic mythology (and I'm afraid here I am using that term not correctly, but pejoratively) in the latter chapters of the book. For me, the woo-woo detracted from the sensible tone of the rest of the work.

You'll also find here suggestions for things to do with others. Start a book and cook club and follow the suggestions for documentaries to watch and tastings to explore. And of course there are recipes. Great photos, too.

Cookery Writing These Days

Earlier this week I was having dinner with Jean, pastor at Thanksgiving Lutheran, and she mentioned that all the food magazines seem to be emphasizing comfort foods these days - a sign of troubled times. You know, things like macaroni and cheese and bread pudding. What I have noticed even more is encouragement to reskill, cooking with basic ingredients at home to save money. These trends seem to be eclipsing the usual January barrage of diet advice.

Reading one such article today which advocated using good quality but moderately priced cheeses in cooking led me to this page:
http://www.tillamookcheese.com/Recipes/MacaroniAndCheese/

Good grief! I thought there were three kinds of macaroni and cheese - kraft dinner, Annie's, and the real thing as my mother made it. But here are enough recipes for a different one every week of the year if your arteries can stand it. A foodie global tour!

I have not tested these recipes or vetted them on a sustainability scale. I will say that Tillamook extra sharp is the best value for money in a cheddar-type cheese for cooking, in my opinion, and contains to rBST.

I'm going to get my arteries in training and then try the Caramelized Sweet Potato, Garlic and Rosemary Macaroni and Cheese some rainy winter day when I have someone available to help me eat it!

fall foods

Martha Rose Shulman steals her recipes from the same people as I do.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/health/nutrition/20recipehealth.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

This is a particularly tasty, wholesome and inexpensive one. I've already made it once with squash from my garden. But it's even better, Martha Rose, with a splash of sherry, dollop of sour cream or full fat yogurt, and/or a little grated fresh ginger as garnish.

Now if I could only remember where I stole it from originally...

I love Swiss Chard

as you might have guessed from the photo here. I've been struggling to get some started in my community garden plot, but something keeps chomping it. I will probably have better luck growing it again in the planters in my small backyard - in fact, I think I already am.

There's one chard plant - from the spring's donation of starts - growing in Marilyn and Stan's plot. They don't eat it, so I have been harvesting it - and it's power as a cut and come again vegetable never ceases to amaze me.

What does amaze me is the number of people who don't eat it or don't know what to do with it.

Here among the NY Times healthful recipes for the week are some recipes. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/health/nutrition/06recipehealth.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Most use other seasonal things and things I can source locally. I am hungry just reading these recipes!

Why don't we have more picnics?

I love picnics, but have found it difficult to persuade others to enjoy them with me. Do I have the wrong friends? Would people rather eat in their cars? do fast food? I realize that some people despise picnics. A few of them made rather pungent comments on this week's Minimalist column. But I think we need more of them - picnics, not anti-picnic cranks.

So I've posted a link to the 101 quick picnic recipes, and partly because I want a quick link to them. Many of the recipes are meatless, and most have ingredients that are in season at the same time. All are simple. And I think some of them are the kind of thing it wouldn't be bad to make ahead on a hot morning and leave in the fridge for supper after the evening's weeding and watering at the community garden.

Simply the best study course yet

If you are looking for a study course on food for your congregation let me recommend the Simply in Season Leader's Study Guide.

This is a companion to the Simply in Season cookbook - in fact the texts for the study group are the cookbook and the bible. What could be better than that?

Perhaps the fact that this is a balanced, thoughtful, study - with enough attention to detail that an inexperienced leader could convene and facilitate it, but enough flexibility that someone already knowledgeable about the subject and skilled in adult ed practices could have fun enriching, adapting and varying it.

The basic six sessions will help any group begin to engage more with food as a spiritual issue.

And the supplementary lessons allow for a deeper exploration of biblical background and engagement with specific food system issues.

These books - and a third one in the suite, the Simply in Season Children's Cookbook, are brought to us by the Mennonite Central Committee. Those of us of a certain age remember the More with Less cookbook, with its emphasis on frugality, and living simply that others might simply live in the seventies when more of us in the churches were concerned with world hunger than perhaps are now. That book is still in print, as is its sequel, an international more with less Extending the Table.

For the last year or so it seemed like whenever I looked at cookbooks on Amazon, Simply in Season came up under the you-might-also-like banner. A few friends had recommended it. But it wasn't until I learned about the study guide that I broke down and ordered the package.

Imagine a cookbook arranged seasonally, with real recipes from real people like an old fashioned church or community cookbook, plus thought pieces on food and ethics and peace and spirituality, and with a glossary, helpful tables, and a detailed guide to the 51 seasonal produce items featured in the recipes. Talk about having it all...

And - it's beautiful, and the comb binding allows it to lie flat on the kitchen counter.

Read more about it here:

http://www.worldcommunitycookbook.org/season/about.html

and peruse the fruit and vegetable guide.

And check out the study sessions here:

http://www.worldcommunitycookbook.org/season/studyguide.html

I'm wondering which congregation or group I can persuade to do this study with me.

Saucy Tricks

Finally, a food celebrity who makes pasta the way I do.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/dining/17mini.html?ex=1350446400&en=2ccdd43be77a30b7&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

The minimalist this week recommends making pasta with less pasta and lots more sauce, using more seasonal vegetables. Up the veg to white carb ratio and eat well, tastily, healthfully.

And as long as he is being unorthodox about the one dish pasta meal, let me add another tip. When seasonal vegetables are a bit scarce, you can add the pasta to boiling water and cook for a couple of minutes, then add some frozen shelled edamame or lima beans to the pot and cook until the pasta is al dente - drain and dress with the rest of your saucy vegetables.

Dairy in the news

The New York Times food news feed is filled with dairy related articles this weekend.

The dairy industry will no longer be able to make weight loss claims for a diet containing low fat dairy products. Frankly, the claims did seem really silly to me, but what do I know.

All of this plays into the ongoing difference of opinion between dairy promoters and dairy detractors.

There are lots of things to object to in the American way of dairy. The cramped cows, the subsidized feed, the methane, the hormones. The Meatrix II - the mootrix? Is it really necessary to suggest three servings of dairy per day for everybody as the new food pyramid (which is so much better in other ways than its predecessors) does?

At the same time, adolescents and women of a certain age have been told just how great their calcium need is to grow/maintain healthy bones.

There seems to be a bit of a sea change, though. This year when I saw the nurse practitioner who provides my women's health care, she didn't harp on calcium in my diet, but vitamin D. Sunscreen and aging both reduce the amount of it one makes from sunshine - and that's assuming one gets away from the computer and climate-controlled auto and house interiors and gets some sunshine. Doctors and nutritionist are advocating a lowering of the calcium recommendations (to 600 or 700 mg per day), but vitamin D supplements for older folks. And it is possible, with care, to get the calcium from non-dairy, even non-soy, non-fortified sources.

I probably eat too many dairy products, even though I do not drink milk. No football fan, I'm still a cheese head. Cheese, bread and wine - those three great combos of natural processes and human ingenuity. Why do we bless God for bread and wine and not cheese? My challenge is to limit myself to 1 ounce of good cheese worth eating (not low fat) per day. I've always loved ice cream, but can convince myself that low (not non) fat yogurt and fruit "sundaes" are just as good, maybe better. And sometimes I want a breakfast egg cooked in a little butter. So, not eating meat, dairy is the major source of saturated fat in my diet.

In other dairy news, Stonyfield Farms will be bringing an organic yogurt product to Europe. I have to say that I've been finding good prices on local organic yogurt here lately and really enjoying it. It doesn't have that extra stuff added to make it stiff, and it tastes good.

But I have a reuse problem - the one quart yogurt containers. I follow the rule of thumb of using plastics five times before putting them in the recycling. I reuse pint containers all the time to freeze portions of soups, stews and chilis. When there's no more room left to write the contents on the lid, in the recycling they go. They are usually a little weird by then anyway. But I don't freeze large portions, so the quart containers just accumulate. I've been scratching my head to find a creative use for them, but no luck. Suddenly it dawned on me: it is time to buy another yogurt maker. I've had two in the past - the big simple one burnt out, and the little jars one I gave away - too fussy. So I need to get a new one - a simple one that will make a quart or more at a time, from the good local milk that is available to me.

And then I might make yogurt cheese for my fresh cheese needs. Another article talks of a return to plain foods, and identifies ricotta as one of the best of the lot. I love ricotta - but need to search out a local one that might be fresher or tastier - or make my own, or a reasonable substitute. I've linked the plain food/ricotta article, because I wanted to try every recipe in it. Especially the coeur a la creme with rhubarb sauce.

Field tripping

Yesterday I went on a culinary tour of the gardens at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center. I've known folks related to OAEC for several years, but never had been there, shame on me. It was just the right temperature yesterday to explore the acres of gardens, a beautiful day. I took copious notes, but just want to reflect on a few things here.

First, I guess I need to quell the scientist inside, but I do wonder about some of the preparations natural folks get into. (This hearkens back to a few posts ago when I was trying to distinguish organic wine from wine made with organic grapes.)

But mostly I found the suggestions for uses of common and uncommon herbs, the other parts of some vegetables, and fruits, creative and inspiring. I particularly like the idea of using fruits in savory dishes. So when I got home I harvested the rest of my window box chard (all the cool weather things are bolting) and stir-sauteed it in part oil and part water, tossing in some dried cranberries and a little Meyer lemon rind. It was great!

Yes, I know - cranberries aren't a local crop. They are a food from my birth culture, and I do like tossing the dried ones into things.

Another inspiring observation is that you CAN grow rhubarb around here - though maybe it helps to be that much wetter (as Occidental is compared to Santa Rosa). They had tons of it which had bolted, and some they were still cutting.

Rhubarb is another fruit (which, of course, is a stem, not a fruit) of my childhood. And one which lends itself well to interesting combinations. One of the things I liked about Sweden was that rhubarb was a standard flavor (like cherry or strawberry is here). So, rhubarb soda, rhubarb ice cream, etc. One of the best things I had there was rhubarb pie with a crumb topping served with basil ice cream. Imagine it.

When I began this blog I said, "Don't be surprised if once in a while I lapse into recipes." So here is how I prepared some purchased Oregon rhubarb (inspired by the BBC Good Food site) the other evening:
Cut up enough rhubarb to sit evenly in one layer in a 9 x 13 stainless pan (or glass or an enamel roaster). Cut the stalks in half lengthwise and then in 2 or 3 inch pieces. Pour over one modest glass rose (that's supposed to have an accent aigu, and I don't know where to find it here), tuck in some slivers of orange zest - I used the last blood orange - and sprinkle over 1/3 to 1/2 cup brown sugar. Cover with foil and "roast" in a 400F oven for 20 minutes. Uncover and cook 5-10 minutes longer, or what it takes to reduce the liquid some.
This is good with plain yogurt - and you could sprinkle a little granola or a few nuts over the top.