Food – Page 50 – Into the Woods

Canned salmon?

Salmon cake bound with egg and brewer’s yeast and fried in coconut oil, mashed sweet potatoes, cauliflower, onion. It’s all anti-inflammatory.

I used to feel guilty about liking, and buying, canned salmon, for fear that the canning process degraded it. But now, I think, not anymore. Canned salmon actually is on the “Eco-best” list of the Environmental Defense Fund. Canned salmon is relatively cheap, stores extremely well, ships without refrigeration, etc.

Plus, salmon is good for your lipid profile, and therefore helps you diminish inflammation. I have mentioned anti-inflammation theory before in this blog. New research is bearing out the connection between inflammation and all sorts of chronic diseases, not to mention the problems that tend to go with aging. The inflammation angle may be the factor that makes the Mediterranean diet so beneficial.

This New York Times article is a good place to start your research on anti-inflammation theory.

Sustainability festival

The local Hare Krishna community has taken a strong leadership role in sustainable and alternative living. Today they had an all-day “Local Sustainability Festival” at their temple near Sandy Ridge, about eight miles from my place. There were speakers on gardening, rainwater harvesting, farming with draft animals, and seed-saving techniques. Stokes County’s Hare Krishna community has been here since, I think, the 1980s. Most of them have settled in a beautiful little valley well away from the main roads.

Livestock

One of the sessions on sustainable farming

What they're eating in the south of France #4

Turnips, onions, parsnips, celery

I had asked my friend in Perpignan if she would be so kind as to take her camera next time she went to an outdoor market. Anivid is an excellent photographer and really knows how to tell a story with a camera, though she was never, like me, a journalist. Here are her photos from a Catalan market. Why, Anivid wondered, is this so interesting to me? Because, I replied, the south of France, with its Mediterranean diet, is one of the places that sets a standard for the rest of the world. Also, because I aspire to be a farmer, I like to see what sort of fresh, local produce is available at any given time of year, anywhere.

Pumpkin

Lettuces

Cauliflower and artichokes

Cakes

Escargot

Shrimp and rice paella and potatoes

Shrimp and rice paella

Stew

Wine

How about some microwave cake?

A week or so ago, a friend forwarded me one of those Internet emails that everyone forwards all over the place. It was a recipe for a chocolate microwave cake, with very appealing photographs. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I had never heard of making cake in a microwave, but the recipe seemed highly reasonable. I improvised my own version. This is a chocolate cranberry cake.

My favorite cake is a chocolate applesauce cake in which applesauce is the only liquid ingredient. It’s a moist, substantial cake, the kind of cake I like, not an airy cake. I just happened to have some fresh cranberries in the fridge, so I thought, why not. As a confident cook, and because improvising is half the fun, I almost never use recipes. I brought the cranberries to a boil in a tiny amount of water, and stirred in some coconut oil, sugar, and cocoa. I tasted the batter at this point to adjust the sugar. I added a beaten egg, then whole wheat flour sifted with a bit of baking powder. I baked it in the microwave in a mixing bowl. The cake rose nicely and didn’t fall. It came out of the bowl clean. It tasted just as I hoped it would taste — tart, moist, and chocolatey. This is probably about as healthy as a cake can get.

Fritters again

These experimental fritters were a part of two separate quests — the quest for a hearty breakfast low in simple carbs, and the quest for traditional comfort foods that use sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes. Potato salad using sweet potatoes was totally agreeable. This morning I made fried potato cakes with sweet potatoes. As with the potato salad, make them exactly as you would make them with white potatoes. These have some chopped onion, egg for binder, and flaxseed meal as a stiffener.

What they're eating in the south of France #3

A galette, traditional in Perpignan during L’Épiphanie.

What they're eating in the south of France #2

From my friend in Perpignan, here’s another installment in the series “What they’re eating in the south of France.” Above: a breakfast/lunch baguette with cheese and salad, with coffee.

Basmati rice with lentils, corn, and scallops

Tiramisu ice cream

Yum… Fritters…

I think I found a use for those dry hummus mixes. They’re healthy, and they store well, and they make good earthquake or ice storm food for the cupboard, but they’re terrible hummus. Only fresh hummus is worthwhile. However, these mixes make a good binding for vegetable fritters. The fritter above is chopped broccoli, chopped cauliflower (both cooked until just tender) and chopped onions. The vegetables are bound with the instant hummus, and I added egg to make the fritters set from the heat of the frying pan. Fritters are real nice to have when you’ve just got to have something a bit crunchy and fried. These fritters are low carb, low glycemic, and cruciferous to boot. It shouldn’t be hard to make a vegan version if you can find a suitable substitute for the egg.

This just in…

Continuing in the category of who’s eating what where, here’s another shot of what they’re eating on Maui, with another cat as bonus. This is Phatboi, who I suspect got fat off of something other than pineapples and limes.

Send me your who’s-eating-what-and-where photos! But please, mind the quality of your photography. Whatever your subject is, get up as close to it as possible and frame it nicely. Attend to your foreground and background. There’s a world of difference between a photograph and a snapshot. One is art. The other is, well, practice until you learn to make art with your camera.

Homemade sauerkraut — the first tasting

The sauerkraut was put into the crocks on Oct. 29, and the first tasting was yesterday, Dec. 3, when my mother and brother were here for lunch. At that point the sauerkraut was a little less than five weeks old. I would say that it is good sauerkraut, but not the best I’ve ever tasted. The flavor was a bit too mild, and the cabbage is a bit too tender.

As for the mildness of the flavor, I believe that will take care of itself. The fermentation process will continue, and the flavor should get stronger as the winter progresses. Also, the basement of my unfinished house, where the crocks are, has been pretty cold, so the kraut is probably fermenting fairly slowly.

As for the texture, I need to do more research on this. But at least one sauerkraut article on the Web says that this has to do with the amount of salt used. Salt may inhibit the enzyme that tenderizes the sauerkraut, so there may be a tradeoff between saltiness and crunchiness. If that’s the case, next time I make kraut I will raise the salt content by .001 percent or so and try to see if there’s a just-right balance between not-too-salty and not-too-soft.

Then again, making sauerkraut at home, like making wine, is not a repeatable process. Every vintage will be different. Maybe someday I will say that the sauerkraut of ’08 was delicate and modest, reminiscent of boiled cabbage, with hints of turnip and an aftertaste of applesauce. Whereas the sauerkraut of ’09 was sassy and crisp, with the faintest aroma of wild onion and rutabaga.

Odd, isn’t it, how winemaking and sauerkraut-making are, as domestic arts, close cousins. And yet society sees one as refined and the other as coarse. But who cares what society thinks. One needs to preserve the summer’s harvest and eat and drink during the winter. Let the record also show that both arts — winemaking and sauerkraut-making — were practiced on the family farm on which my mother grew up in Yadkin County. The Yadkin Valley is now a viticultural region, so, with wine, my mother’s family was ahead of its time. As for the sauerkraut, we’ll keep plugging away.