Category: Food

Carnivorous protein lust!

The broccoli in my local grocery store today was beautiful, and cheap. I had it for supper, steamed, with a buttermilk dipping sauce. It was delicious and just seemed so substantial. It made me wonder if broccoli doesn’t have a significant amount of protein.

After supper, I checked. Indeed it does, about 15 grams per pound, close to a quarter of what you get with hamburger, per pound. So let’s do the math. If you need 60 grams of protein and 2,000 calories to get through your day (a good ration for those not doing heavy lifting), then four pounds of broccoli a day would supply you with all the protein you need. However, that would give you less than 600 calories. An astonishing 45 percent of the calories in broccoli is in protein, a very high protein-to-calorie ratio. You’d need almost two dozen oranges to make up the calories. The protein in the oranges would bring you to well over 75 grams. So, on twenty-two oranges and four pounds of broccoli a day, you could live for a very, very long time, with nice muscles.

About five hundred years, would be my guess. Substitute two glasses of red wine for three of the oranges, and you’d be looking at 800 high-quality years.

Too much broccoli for you? Then try about a pound of hamburger, a pound of broccoli, 18 oranges, and two glasses of red wine.

I’m sure that everyone realizes that this is just a tongue-in-cheek thought experiment in nutrition and not a diet recommendation.

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

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.

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.

A galette, traditional in Perpignan during L’Épiphanie.

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

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.

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.