Be Good To The Earth And Yourself

April is Earth month, four weeks where we not only celebrate Spring, Easter and Passover but the Earth herself. It's a time when beaches are cleaned and, carbon foot prints are reduced as we all become a bit more  eco-conscious. What can you contribute? Change the way you eat. Make it good for you and our planet.

That's what New York Times Science section contributor, Jane Brody urged today in her Personal Health column. She writes that for more than a century Americans have been living high off the hog -literally. In 1900 most of the American diet was plant based. Eighty -five years later two thirds of the country were eating more protein, namely in the form of  beef. The cattle that gives us the steaks and filets we crave is also contributing to the destruction of the planet we live on. It takes eight pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat. Then there's the problem of cows releasing tons of greenhouses gases a year. An editorial in Britain's top medical periodical, The Lancet proclaimed "that intensive meat production is on an unstoppable trajectory comprising the single greatest contributor to climate change." This is scary. Not only are we going to suffer the consequences of our greedy eating habits but our planet is  suffering too. The Lancet suggests  that we don't go vegan or vegetarian, just cut down on our bad eating habits.

What do we do? Limit our amount of red meat such as beef and lamb. Have it every two weeks. Eat more chicken , pork and fish. Ms. Brody , who has written several books on nutrition suggests going one step further. Have a diet that is mostly , if not all plant based, It's easy to do these days. She gives us her recipe  of roasting two cups of butternut squash and one cup of coarsely chopped onion with a tablespoon of olive oil. It's then popped into a 450 degree F oven for twenty minutes.This is an easy cook and can be altered to include other veggies such as peppers  and yams. Ms. Brody suggests adding a can of drained chickpeas. also roasted covered with curry powder and salt. The limit also applies to dairy too. This is then the time to explore dairy alternatives.  Think about switching to either soy, rice, oat or almond milks and their byproducts. Soy Delicious has  so many different products such as ice cream and coffee creamer. The trade off is a good one. You get to still have tasty treats such a soy cheese pizza or a fudgy soy ice cream bar while saving the planet. Also baking  and cooking with soy or almond milk is no different than cooking with milk or cream. I have made vegan cakes with almond milk and have used it in icings. The last turns out perfectly creamy frostings that hold up and don't run off the cake.

Be good to your planet and self by changing your diet. Eat more plant based foods. It's a plus for your health and our planet Earth.

Marie Kondo Your Fridge

By now every one has heard of Marie Kondo, the cute perky queen of organizing. Due to her Netflix show, hundreds of Americans are reorganizing their closets and thanking the items of apparel for sparking joy. Any home chef can do this with their fridge as well. This one did.
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To be honest nothing I threw out sparked joy, especially the ones with thick layers of mold. (I know,  I know) I had more science experiments in my refrigerator than a biology lab and enough penicillin to cure half the East Coast. Not good. As anyone will know , it's so easy to buy stuff and then forget about it , thanks to the busy lives we all lead. To prevent this buy small. If you need sour cream for a recipe and you don't normally eat it, buy the smallest cup. All of it will usually get eaten. Even a medium sized tub can wind up be forgotten.You can buy bigger sizes of ketchup and mustard. One, these are used , and two an opened bottle of ketchup can last up to two years while an opened jar of  mustard can still be eaten after two to three years. Honey is another foodstuff that tends to get put at the back of the shelf. It can last six to eight months after its' jar is opened. Remember that it's not just for sweetening drinks, but can also be used to neutralize the acidity in tomato sauce and chili.

Another part of fridge clutter is leftover something. Too many times, we're guilty of even putting a mouthful of soup in the fridge, not wanting to waste a drop. Yet days pass, there are better leftovers to eat, that container gets forgotten. Next thing you know it's a month later and there's a layer of green gook on top of it. If you know you're not going to eat it after two or three days, then toss. Certain leftovers can be repurposed. Leftover chili can be slathered on hot dogs and burgers. Leftover rice can be refried with veggies for a main or side dish. If you've made egg noodles or spaetzle, then have what's left with just butter the next day. It makes for a filling  yet light lunch or dinner. The remainder of that Sunday roast can easily be refigured into not just sandwiches but also salads.Nothing beats a tomato and roast beef salad or a roast chicken laced Caesar one.Leftover ham and its' bones can be easily added to homemade pea soup.Any uneaten mashed potatoes lying around? If there's enough , then dip in beaten egg, dredge in breadcrumbs and fry for a tasty snack or meal.Just keep reminding yourself that leftovers need to be thrown out after a few days. Don't leave a bowl of something in the fridge for weeks. You'll never  eat it.

Konmari your fridge. Getting rid of all those uneaten or never eaten foods will make you feel better. They may not spark joy, but dumping them will give you some satisfaction.

The Vegan Lamb Part Two Iced

After baking the vegan lamb and letting it sit  for a day, it was time to ice it. I used the same  Wilton recipe as before however I used Stop & Shop's confectioner's sugar instead of Domino's

It' starts out with vegetable shortening and a stick of Country Crock spread. This was whipped for a few minutes with an electric beater. Vanilla, sea salt and almond milk were added along with five cups of sugar.

                     There was a heart shape in the middle of the bowl.

                      More of a heart shape in the beater blades.Maybe my Mom is looking out for me and this is her way of letting me know she's around , watching.

                I used the bags of confectioners sugar which weighs  two pounds. I recommend  buying this amount  for any big baking project, especially if  there's a lot of icing to do. Also the bag is easier to handle than the box.

 I don't know if it was that or adding a little too much almonds milk (half a cup instead of a quarter) but the icing was runny, looser than what it was the last time around.

   I also mixed  cocoa powder into a small blob of icing  for the mouth, nose and eyes,
 There were also candy eyes from Betty Crocker that I picked up in Stop &Shop's bake aisle.They
 kind of gives the lamb a Raggedy Ann kind of look. I think I'll stick with the blue icing for the eyes
 instead.

 

Unfortunately a vegan scratch cake is not as strong as a Dream Whip/cake mix  cake  The

head fell off thanks to the frosting's heaviness. The next time the vegan lamb will just have a dusting of powdered sugar with buttercream features. I realize it's just too fragile for

 a butter and shortening rich icing. The cake was good on it's own, very delicate tasting

 thanks to the almond extract. 

Now I know what to do when Easter comes around and I have to bake a flock of lambs. It's a lot of trial and error but worth the work. It's always good to bake and ice a tester cake. There won't be any bad surprises or tears.

The Vegan Lamb Part One

Today I tried the vegan lamb cake recipe taken from the blog ,Vegan Cooking In Colorado (which was taken from  Issa Chandra Moskowicz's great book,Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World). It was kind of scary because I kept thinking the cake wouldn't bake or rise. Yet, this animal friendly pound cake did.

Baking a scratch cake is always a leap of faith.It could go wrong even though leavening has been added. Of course it starts with a greased and floured pan.

It's the same as with the regular (non-vegan?) cake, generously grease with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and then a generous coating of flour.

These are the liquid ingredients. The  1/2 cup vanilla soy yogurt and 2/3rd cups canola oil make up for the lack of eggs.The recipe calls for soy milk but I've had good luck with the almond kind so I went with Almond Breeze's.It just takes 1 and 1/3 cup.

I also had to add vanilla and almond extracts too. It's 2 tsps vanilla and 4 tsps almond . It'll give the cake a lovely almond aroma and flavor.

These are the wet ingredients mixed with 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar

This is the almond meal. It looks like polenta and taste like what else - ground almonds. Use 2/3 cup of it. The dry ingredients are the meal, two cups plus 4 tablespoons of flour, 3 tsps baking powder, 1 tsp salt (I used the coarser, grittier Celine's gray  sea salt) and 2 tblspns cornstarch which lends more cohesion to the batter.

 This is the batter thoroughly mixed. You can see why I was nervous. It  looks really thin, doesn't it?

It was easily poured into the mold and all the batter went into it so no extra cupcakes like the other recipe. The mold was tied together with twine. I was so ansty about the recipe that I forgot to put the five toothpicks in the neck area. (the recipe didn't stress adding the toothpicks so maybe it'll be all right and the lamb's head won't fall off 😲😲)

Bake in a 350 degree F oven for 50 to 60 minutes. I took it out at 55 minutes and let cool. You can see it's a pound cake because of the splits in the surface.

It's paler than the first box mix one , probably because there's no artificial colors used. I plan on checking out the cupcake recipes and other ones in Ms. Moskowicz's recipe book. This is definitely the recipe for vegan birthdays and for inclusive holiday sweets. 

Tomorrow is the icing - with some interesting twists. Stay tuned.

The Dark Side of Catering

Any part of the food industry has a dark side.Restaurants are notorious for it.Now, without any surprise the seaminess of catering is coming through. It's not what  people imagine of just putting food in front of people. It's a lot of quick thinking and even quicker cooking.

Kim Severson wrote about this world in yesterday's New York Times Food section. Most of the inside scoops comes from the Lee Brothers, Ted and Matt who usually write cookbooks and at one time had a food of the month club. This new foray is entitled Hotbox: Inside Catering, the Food World's Riskiest Business (Henry Holt and Company 2019). It is full of revelations, turning out to be a cut throat world that crosses into the A list world of celebrities and billionaires. The industry didn't start out this way. Back in the early 1960's catering was simple. It started with Jean Claude Nedelec who developed the most important invention of cooking - the hot box system. Those are those towers on wheels that hold those many trays of many dinners. It changed the industry completely. Catering expanded in the Seventies and fit the glamourous and gluttonous lifestyles of the Eighties. Any place , from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to The Battery could be turned into an eatery. Institutions like the Metropolitan Opera realized it could make more money renting itself out for catering events.Caterers then grew into event planners.

It wasn't and not as fun as it sounds. The Nineties brought fussier customers wanting better food and celebrity chefs cooking it. Chefs like Daniel Boulud jumped in which didn't work. Cooking for a crowd and cooking for a few are two different worlds. Bobby Flay, had often said that his catering time was the worst time of his life. Now in this Instagram age , food has to not only taste good but look as photogenic as possible. Meringues now float under balloons while waiters pedal around raw bars in bicycle baskets.Caterers have to one up each other in this crazy creativity. Then there is the headache of customized events such as weddings. Couples have very definitive idea of what they want and hand their caterers elaborate lists of foods. Then there is the problem of allergies. There are so many that can put a damper on a caterer's ideas. There are too many special requests which can ruin the assembly line nature of catering. Waiters are barraged with all sorts of questions from is there dairy with the vegan option or is there soy or nuts in the dish.At least some caterers are well prepared for this, coming with soy free dressings and sides, along with other options for the allergy inflicted.

Catering is a hard job. It is fascinating though, with its' stories of survival and triumph. Read the Lee's take on the industry and be taken in by it.

The Air Fryer Controversy

For some the air fryer is a blessing. It's a handy way of cooking certain foodstuffs without having to rely on the oven. It's small, and compact. There's no preheating and cleaning it is a snap. So what's wrong with it?

According to the New York Times and it's subsidiary Wirecutter, this genius machine has a lot of flaws. Melissa Clark wrote an article about it in today's New York Times Food section. There are also recipes too which highlight the air fryer's good points. To be honest, I don't see why there are any complaints.I was skeptical at receiving it at first but that quickly dissolved with the first use. For me, it's better than using the stove. No annoying preheating time. Just set the temp and the minutes and cook. Since it's  a convection oven ,every part of the food being cooked is perfectly "fried" to golden perfection. Hot air is circulated around by high speed fans in the machine's upper part.The food is placed in a perforated basket and the grease drips down into the basket beneath.It's a simple clean up - another plus. Yet Wirecutter claimed that it was over hyped and overpriced. (Mine was a gift bought during a pre- Christmas sale at Target. $60 dollars marked down from $100)

The machine was first introduced in Europe in 2010 and since it's introduction to the States, nearly ten million were sold. Sales increased 69 % in 2018 alone. Those are numbers not to be sneezed at

. As for the recipes, I feel Ms. Clark gets too elaborate with them, especially the fries.She bakes them twice , first at 350 degrees F for ten minutes and then 400 degrees F for another ten minutes

 . There's a cooling period in between that I think is unnecessary (but that's just me). I would probably go for 360 F for ten minutes then, turn, then cook again. There's also a Brussels sprout one, with them being baked with garlic. The sprouts  sound good and something I would try, but without the balsamic soy sauce. As for the chicken wings, again they sound tasty but , again, Ms Clark puts a lot of work into a simple dish. She coats them with baking powder, salt and pepper, then refrigerated for anywhere from an hour to overnight (really?) Then the pieces are placed along the edges

 of the basket and air fried for 400 degrees F for twenty minutes. One, I don't think it has to have all that overnight waiting and two, placing the wings on the basket's edges is too much. They can be placed on the basket's floor and flipped after ten minutes of cooking.

Are air fryers worth it?  YES! I would urge to get one if you don't have one already. They are definitely worth the money and the counter space. Buy one. You won't regret it.

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Spaetzles For Spring

One of the joys of Spring cooking is that it means lighter meals.One dish on the light side is the classic Swabian German dish  spaetzles. This versatile noodle can be the side or supporter of different meats and vegetables.It can also be bought or homemade - all are delicious.

Spaetzle originates in the southern German state of Swabia and means "little sparrows.It also goes by the name knopfle which means small buttons. The area was good for raising spelt -a hulled wheat that can thrive in poor soil. The noodles can be made with only water which was good in times of hardship. It has been part of the southern German diet for over three hundred years and is now considered a "specialty" food, only eaten on feast days. You can make them at home.It's a simple recipe which consists of flour , usually four eggs for body and nutmeg for taste. Milk or water is  added as well.(you can even use soy, rice or almond milk).The dough is then beaten until air bubbles arise.You can then roll a slab of dough on a pastry board  and then cut off long noodles using a pastry cutter, letting them drop into boiling water. You can also splurge and buy an expensive one for sixty dollars from Amazon bu they also have cheaper ones between ten and fifteen dollars. Mine was only twelve dollars.I have yet to use it. I discovered Aldi's Deutsche Kuche Egg Spaetzle. It cooks up like any other pasta and has a lovely tender texture.

What I like about spaetzle is that it can go with any thing.I grew up with it, my maternal grandfather was Swabische-American and he brought some amazing recipes  to the family table.It can mellow out tart sauerkraut  - which was and still is not my favorite. It can also transform the bland green bean into a tasty treat.It also serves a great base for sauerbraten and gravy . The Deutsche Club in Clark, NJ has a delicious spaetzle dish, chock full of beef and gravy. This last is one version I enjoy, however try to  recreate it in a primarily vegan household. juice. It was portobello mushrooms with mushroom caps and stems. The gravy was a combination vegan butter, sage - which is used a lot in German cuisine and the juice from the mushroom bits. The dish turned OK, but next time,I'll make the spaetzles with green beans. The noodles can also be served with any kind of cheese. My cousins like theirs with butter and Parmesan which is a southern Italian spin on the dish. Buttered spaetzles can also be a great side to roast chicken and/or Cornish game hens too.They  served can also be chicken breasts in a lemon butter sauce too.

Spaetzles are a versatile addition to any menu. They can be used as a main dish or a side. Have them as part of your Spring dinner plan.