It was a rare lazy Sunday when I didn’t have to work at the B&B, so we had a leisurely brunch and drank some delicious faux-mosas…really they’re just fresh-squeezed orange juice in fancy vintage glasses adopted from my grandma’s collection. :-)

I’m so happy I was able to make some crêpes that stayed in one piece when I flipped them over, and when I rolled them up around the fillings. I’ve experimented with whole wheat and sprouted flour with no luck—I wanted a healthier crêpe, but the texture just did NOT work with those chunkier flours—but I discovered this King Arthur “white whole wheat” flour that actually worked amazingly well. I don’t know how they make it, but I assume unicorn farts and angel tears factor into the process. :-)

These are filled with smoked salmon, cream cheese, and a few capers…I enjoy sweet crêpes, but I really love this savory combination more than anything else I’ve had. We did follow this up with a dessert one filled with chocolate almond spread afterwards, but they didn’t last long enough for a picture!

05/15/2012

(Really I just wanted to showcase my Star Trek the Experience mug here! Sadly, I haven’t been there, but my uncle went and I got this awesome mug out of it.)

Egg-in-a-basket (with sprouted bread & pastured egg), plain greek yogurt with a splash of dark maple syrup, fresh grapefruit juice…I just bought a juice squeezer, hence all the juices here lately…and of course, the coffee.

I’m off work today so I took the time for a leisurely breakfast…usually I’m terrible about eating anything at all! I know the first meal of the day is important, but since I work at a B&B I’m usually able to scrounge some free coffee and toast or a muffin after all the guests have breakfast. It’s usually just carbs & caffeine, but I consider that my one little indulgence of the day.

Serving all these international people on a daily basis really makes me take notice of the way different cultures eat and view their food. One huge thing I’ve noticed is that when there are lots of European guests, I have to refill the butter dish halfway through breakfast…but if it’s all Americans, they will not even touch butter. My cultural roots (well, several generations back) lie mostly in France and Norway, so I think devouring butter on a daily basis is just written in my genetic code. I mean, there was a hilarious news story about how the country of Norway RAN OUT of butter last year! I think people rioted in the streets. I sure would have. :-)

So my (full-fat, barely sweetened!) yogurt this morning reminded me of a lady the other day who said she “watches what she eats”. Personally I like to keep my eyes closed…especially if it’s escargot, baby octopus, or mussels…haha. SO anyway, she turned down a zucchini muffin—homemade, whole grain, garden-grown zucchini bits in it—because it would be “too much sugar”, as well as parmesan scrambled eggs, which I can only chalk up to fat/cholesterol phobia. She then proceeded to eat fat-free yogurt with 11 grams (that’s about 2 tsps, in a tiny single serving container) of sugar, aspartame & red 40 for that yogurt-like taste and color, and some modified food starch & gelatin for texture (because skim milk yogurt HAS none…gross!). This was washed down with two bowls of granola (hello simple carbs & sugar) and a banana for dessert. Honestly, at least the banana had some nutritional value.

But you can’t tell people they’re wrong—especially paying guests—so I kept everything to myself. When I see people nomming that much sugar in one sitting while claiming they’re being healthy I sometimes try to picture Diabeetus Cat to amuse and distract myself.

There, isn’t that all better?

People still have such funny ideas about food. I know that it’s all been passed down over the years starting with the anti-fat craze in the 1950s. But we are unhealthier than ever, so obviously following these same old rules is not doing us any favors. I sincerely hope that this “new school” of nutritional knowledge I’m always on about will catch on with the general population. This way of eating should sell itself…healthy food TASTES GOOD! I think to some people that will really be a revelation. I mean, what more could you want? Have some full-fat yogurt with a dollop of dark buckwheat honey and some organic berries, and tell me that doesn’t blow your skim-milk-gelatin-starch-dye-peach puree smoothie right out of the H₂O.

And no worries about that poor rejected zucchini muffin. I ate it with a nice shmear of real butter and it was heavenly. :-)

05/10/2012

OK, I was starving, how could you tell? This is a bit carb-heavier than usual but I’m working at a bed & breakfast now, which basically entails about 35 hours a week of light-to-medium workouts. Up & down stairs carrying heavy baskets of sheets, scrubbing & scouring, MILLIONS of dishes, all in all it’s a lot of calories to make up for. Delicious, delicious calories!

This little panini of sorts is sprouted wheat bread with cream cheese, prosciutto, capers, and parsley, cooked in pasture butter. Pita chips & homemade hummus, lots o’ fruit, fresh-squeezed orange juice (it really is that orange!), and organic whole milk. I don’t usually drink glasses of plain milk, either, but I was just craving it…maybe my sore muscles need the extra calcium these days?

05/08/12

It’s only been two and a half months since I posted about the environmentally friendly activities and products I’ve added to my daily life, but I have already accomplished several more things that were on the to-do list. I want to keep myself motivated so this is just a little kick in the magical pants. I am always looking for new things to add to the list, as well.

• Bought cloth handkerchiefs and started carrying one with me every time I leave the house. Bonus is that they don’t seem to be nearly as drying as paper tissue.
• Have been much more diligent with unplugging appliances and electronics (especially the stupid phone charger!) when they’re not in use.
• Checked out the tags of the thrift store clothes I bought and stuck with (mostly) natural fibers. There may have been a polyester blend sundress that I could not resist. At least it wasn’t bought new, right? :-)
• Planted a pretty extensive herb and lettuce container garden. 
• Started buying pastured eggs and butter; have been trying to incorporate more raw milk cheeses than pasteurized into our diet as well. Still on the lookout for a source of raw milk, but I can get Organic Valley in a cardboard carton for now.
• Ditto with organic produce. Of course this is easier with more stuff being in season as well. Looking forward to some farmers market shopping starting in another month!

And a few stragglers that were not in the original plans…

• Bought a pack of 12 Environmental Toothbrushes (made from wood and bamboo-based cellulose, and packaged in cardboard) to replace our decrepit old plastic ones. They do have to ship from Australia, but who knows where the ones at local stores shipped from, right? Anyway it will be years before we go through them all, and I feel so much better knowing that’s one less little piece of trashed plastic shit that I will be personally responsible for creating.
• Also bought an old-school stainless steel ice cube tray to replace our plastic ones. Summer’s almost here and I want to make fresh-squeezed rosewater lemonade and iced tea!

I have some other eco-purchases planned for the next few months, but I am budgeting myself. I plan on getting a sexy vintage-look metal safety razor to replace my plastic one…no more plastic cartridges to throw away! I also want to get these PlanetBox metal lunch boxes, but they are pretty pricey so I’m going to wait until we’re planning a camping trip or something. They will basically last forever, so I consider it a worthwhile investment.

And that’s all she wrote! (Today…)

04/17/2012

So I finally got around to buying one of the pasture-raised whole chickens I keep seeing at Whole Foods. It was actually way more affordable than I was expecting, because it’s sold by the pound and apparently chickens raised without artificial hormones and grain-heavy feed are a lot smaller and slimmer than their poor factory-farmed sisters.

I used the meat to make some awesome chicken salad with homemade mayo. I added celery, muscat grapes, almonds (soaked and dried), dried cranberries, and tarragon for that sort of sweet, Southern-style chicken salad that I just absolutely crave once in a while. Also appearing: steamed kale with sesame & lemon, and fresh sourdough baguette with pasture butter. All the produce is organic, down to the strawberry garnish on top. Nom!

I CANNOT adequately express my new obsession with this pasture butter. I keep saying it tastes like what fake butter flavoring is modeled after, only SO much better. I think that fake butter flavor only tastes fake because we have been duped into buying lame-o factory farmed, tasteless butter for so long! If you see pasture butter in the store (mine is from Organic Valley) do not be put off by the price tag, just try it. It’s so amazing.

RE: the chicken. I am becoming an avid follower of the rule that if you are consuming animals, you should try to use the whole thing so that you aren’t killing wastefully. I no longer purchase chicken parts, i.e. only the breasts or legs, but rather a whole chicken. I still haven’t brought myself to eat organ meats…I can’t get past the idea that livers and kidneys are used to filter waste from the body, and it sounds unhealthy to me…but I have started making some really amazing chicken and beef stock from roasted bones. My process for the chicken is super-duper easy.

I put it in a deep baking dish, drizzle olive oil over it and sprinkle with salt & pepper, and roast it at 350° until the internal temperature is at 160°. Then I just carve off all the meat and put the bones in my crock pot with some vegetable scraps (I save the ugly ends of celery and onion, and some garlic peels in the freezer for stock), cover it with filtered water, and set on low for a day or two. It’s done when the bones crumble when pinched…and it’s so awesome. I use it to cook rice or beans, and it’s in nearly every soup I make at home. Homemade stock really adds a restaurant-quality sort of flavor that I couldn’t get with store-bought chicken broth. Plus it’s good for my joints…instead of taking a glucosamine/chondroitin pill, I just eat some soup!

04/12/2012

or, the day I turned this:

into this:

I will admit that I had a little help from the grocery store. But anyway, I was walking home the other day and realized just how many dandelion greens have been shooting up out of the ground in the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having in Chicago. Organic dandelion greens at Whole Foods are usually $2.50 for a rather small bunch, and I suddenly asked myself, why pay so much for food that most people rip out and throw away as an annoying weed? It probably sounds scary to just pluck something out of the alley and throw it into a salad, but my rationale is that most people’s yards are full of toxic lawn chemicals and doggie doodie around here, so the greens growing out of the cracks against an unnoticed alley wall sounded like a healthier bet. And of course, I washed them extremely well.

This is a recent discovery for me, but dandelions are apparently one of the healthiest greens you can add to your diet. They have one of the highest levels of beta carotene of any plant food, along with about a million other vitamins and nutrients which I will not list here. They have a bit of a bitter taste (like anything with lots of vitamins), so I like to tone them down with some other lettuces. For this salad I threw in some radicchio, romaine, and spinach in about equal parts, along with some jicama (my newest veggie obsession…try it!), avocado, and cucumber slices. I’m not too much of a dressing person, so I just used a drizzle of cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt.

Some flatbread pizza and wine went along with this very nicely for a fairly quick weeknight dinner. I’ve used pita bread in the past, but I saw some garlic naan at the grocery store and thought it would make a good crust. I topped it with basil-almond pesto, roasted red pepper, crimini mushrooms, black olives, spinach, and muenster & feta cheeses. I would usually use mozzarella, but we already had the muenster in the fridge and I figured it would work well as it’s similarly mild and creamy, and it melts very easily. I tried to take a picture of the pizza right out of the oven, which sadly didn’t turn out…and it did NOT last long once we took our first bites!

(And to a certain faithful reader, I’m sorry it took me a month to post this! Hard work pays off later, but procrastination always pays off now…or something like that.)

03/28/2012

I just realized I totally never finished up my week of around-the-world eating last Friday! I’m so easily distracted by other thoughts and projects. I made these little sourdough dumplings called pelmeni that are originally from Siberia. The dough was made from just flour, egg yolks, whey—which I had leftover from making paneer last week—and a little sea salt. I let it sit at room temperature, covered, for two days, each day punching down the dough and adding a little more flour. Then on Friday it was time to assemble the pelmeni, making an amazingly huge mess in the process.

My first thought was that these little dumplings were way easier than I had expected! They look kind of like giant tortellini. You can use pretty much any meat/vegetable filling; mine are filled with minced onions and leftover chicken, and to cook them I just simmered them in some homemade beef stock until they floated. Served with plenty of sour cream and a sprinkle of fresh dill & paprika. On the side we had garlic-butter mushrooms, heavy on the garlic. Everything tasted amazing, a nice stick-to-your-ribs meal for a cold, dreary Siberian (or Chicagoan) winter night.

02/23/2012

It’s probably not the first thing most people think of as French cuisine, but a simple quiche is one of my favorite quick & easy dinners to throw together. It’s good for breakfast the next day, as well! There are plenty of times where I’ll just have some slices of warm, crispy baguette with butter, brie or camembert or another soft French cheese, olives, and some fruit for dinner with a glass of wine. That, to me, is a very French experience as well, because I basically lived on bread, butter, fruit, and wine when I visited the country.

So anyway, here’s how to make a delicious quiche. Buy or make a pie crust. (I bought a frozen spelt-based crust, as pastry making is still a skill that eludes me.) Throw a mixture of meat, veg, and/or cheese into the crust. Mine contains onions, spinach, fresh herbs, mushrooms, and a little cheddar cheese. Beat up about 6 eggs with a good splash of cream, and some salt & pepper, and pour over the filling until the crust is filled up. Bake at 350 F until it’s solid and a little golden on top. Serve warm, with a salad or fruit salad on the side. That’s all!

02/16/12

Last night my kitchen was filled with the scents of Indian cooking…ginger, garlic, onions, garam masala, and homemade paneer. Palak paneer (humbly titled “spinach with cheese”, in English) has been a favorite Indian dish of mine since I first tasted it years ago. The paneer is a homemade fresh cheese, needing only milk, lemon juice, and cheesecloth to work its magic. I followed this tutorial on Show Me the Curry, which is an awesome resource for all kinds of Indian dishes. They post lots of videos—very helpful if you’re a visual person like I am!

I’ve attempted this cheese once before, and while it was tasty, it crumbled apart when I added it to the spinach-and-masala mixture in the pan. Apparently the secret is patience. I started the cheese in the afternoon, and pressed it under a heavy bowl in the cheesecloth for a good hour to help it form into a block. I also lightly stir-fried the cheese in a tiny bit of olive oil to give it some nice crispy edges before adding it to the rest of the dish. The cool thing about paneer is that it doesn’t melt. I don’t quite understand how that works, but I went googling and there’s something about the proteins being so densely packed together that it inhibits melting. When you age a cheese, the protein structure changes, but paneer is always used fresh like this. I think it’s magic, personally. As was the taste of the finished product; sweet, spicy, salty, and creamy…the human tastebud evolved for dishes just like this one.

I had something strange happen while I was cooking the mixture of pureed onions, garlic, and ginger that is the basis for lots of Indian cooking. It turned a weird shade of blue-green that was not present in any of the ingredients before cooking. I remembered that last time I made pickles, the garlic in the jar also had turned blue-green and I decided to look it up. Apparently garlic that hasn’t matured or been dried properly can change color when in the presence of something acidic. I’ve cooked with a lot—and I mean A LOT—of garlic in my life, and never had this happen! It still tasted awesome, but for a while it was looking like I dropped some blue food coloring into my masala. The more you know…

02/15/12

I meant to post this last night, but I was distracted by important things like drinking a bunch of wine and watching So I Married an Axe Murderer. So anyway, last night we traveled to the exotic lands of the midwestern United States and had good ol’ baked potatoes and salad with homemade ranch dressing for dinner. Think of the cheddar as a symbol of the great melting pot of America (or something). It’s topped with sour cream and fresh dill, with some sauteed onions on the side. I can almost never finish a whole baked potato, but this one was worth it. Sometimes you just need a little comfort food, right?

Sorry for the quality of my photos, I just have a cheap digital camera and it’s pretty awful when there isn’t any sunlight to be had. I wish a nicer one was in my budget! Now I’m off to make paneer and get a new batch of yogurt started. Oh, cultured dairy products, how I love thee.

02/14/12

Wow, it’s been a while! I’m such a procrastinator. But anyway…today is the first day of a week of multicultural morsels I’m going to be making. I started in Japan with onigiri (doesn’t that sound more exotic than just “rice balls”?) filled with a mixture of tinned fish, grated fresh ginger, soy sauce, and sesame oil. I made some spicy Sriracha mayo from scratch for dipping, and a little side of sprouts and jicama. The veggies are obviously not a traditional Japanese food, but it’s what we had around the house. :-)

02/13/12

This picture isn’t very exciting to the outside observer, but it’s my first attempted batch of homemade yogurt and it actually turned out! I used this recipe, but I actually skipped the double-boiler and heating pad and just heated the milk slowly in a regular pan, and set the mixture next to the furnace in the basement to keep it warm. I wasn’t sure how things would go, but it turned out SO well. I just drizzled it with a little honey, but it really doesn’t need anything fancy. It has a natural sweetness that you don’t usually get with store-bought yogurt. I also love knowing exactly what went into it…Organic Valley whole milk, a few tablespoons of Fage full-fat unflavored yogurt, and lots of love. The best part is that I can make more yogurt using a few spoonfuls of my own yogurt next time. It’s like recycling, but with food! OK, that sounds gross, but I assure you, it’s delicious.

02/03/2012

Taco time! Refried black beans, red wild rice, avocado, onion & cilantro, salsa verde, and sour cream. I made the tortillas, beans, and salsa from scratch…so good!

02/02/2012