Sleepy Time Foods

Springing forward time wise means a lot of good things. Spring is here. The days are longer with sunsets beginning at seven PM. Summer is just around the corner. However it also means being wide awake at eleven PM or midnight This screws up our Circadian rhythms and makes for a bad wake up call the next morning. What to do? Eat foods that will make you sleepy.A few bites and you’ll be craving your pillow and forty winks.

Just what foods will do the trick? One of the best is celestial Seasonings Sleepy Time Extra herbal tea.It has soothing chamomile along with spearmint  lemongrass and hawthorn. Valerian, a long used sedative for millenia is also thrown in for guaranteed drowsiness.There are the other Sleepy Time blends such as the original recipe along with ones that have echinacea  and ginger. Another snooze inducer is that classic warm milk. It has tryptophan in it, the same chemical that’s in turkey. You can add a tiny pinch of nutmeg along with the smallest drop of vanilla extract for more flavor. Milk can be heated in the microwave so you can make it there without the threat of it being scalded. Surprsingly tart cherry juice can also bring on sleepiness , thanks to the release of melantonin. The juice can be bought at GNC or online rather than at your local grocery store. Everyone thinks that a cup of hot cocoa will do the trick but that’s a wrong assumption. Chocolate has caffeine which will keep you up all night along with sugar which again can keep a person from getting a good night’s rest.

As for foods, yes you could have a nighttime snack of that leftover turkey. It may be a bit too heavy though so consider lighter options. Pretzels can do the same job. They’re full of carbs which can make you feel sleepy. Another snack option are bananas.They’re chock full of Vitamin B 6 which is essential in the melantonin synthesis .They’re also loaded with potassium which causes muscles to relax. Have one two to three hours before going to bed.Peanut butter is another snack guaranteed to cause zzzs thanks to the nuts being high in niacin, an essential key in creating serotonin.. What you eat at dinner can also affect the way you sleep. This is when the turkey can come in handy, especially paired with a salad. Lettuce , along with kale and spinach are loaded with calcium which aids the brain in using tryptophan. Even hummus can help you fall asleep. It starts off as L-tryptophan once it’s been processed by the body but then turns to 5HTP which releases relaxing serotonin. Serve it with mixed veggies or toasted pita wedges.Fish such as tuna, salmon and halibut share the same Vitamin B6 as bananas along with being very high in tryptophan too. Eat any of the three to ensure a sound night’s sleep.

Don’t let this new time ruin your sleep habits. Eat the right foods before going to bed to feel drowsy .Doing such will guarantee a good night’s rest and an easier wake up in the morning.

Stir: An Inspirational Foodie's Journey

Food and cooking are the best remedies for getting us through hard times. Grad student and foodie , Jessica Fechtor, relied on them for getting through the horrendous hell of suffering an aneurysm, the surgery to correct it and the scary recovery period afterwards. It was not modern medicines that healed her  but the primal need to cook and bake.

Her book Stir:My Broken Brain And The Meals That Brought Me Home (Plume Publishers) is a truly inspirational book. Ms. Fechtor is a writer , first and foremost and she neatly explains what had happened to her as succinctly as she would a recipe. This was a girl who had it all, including a love of all things relating to the kitchen.Then it hit, blood pooling in one area of her brain. It gets graphic, yes, but this is about hospital and operations as much as it is about batters and ovens. All in all she passes through this ordeal with humor and courage..It doesn't end though with her collapse and procedure to"fix" what had happened. More problems ensue when she returns to Cambridge. A residual infection,pseudomonas, crops up, despite the wild stew of antibiotics she's been on. More surgery, followed by a slow rebuilding of her former life. She loses her sense of smell, sheer horror for any home chef or baker.After all how can anyone cook without the nose to signal  that the sauce is done or the roast is burning?It does come back - not with the smell of food but with fresh paint in her apartment building's lobby.

This book is also about food. There are all sorts of recipes from all sorts of sources. There are homey family ones such as her grandmother, Louise's apple pie and her stepmother's Amy's potato salad.There are oatmeal cookies dedicated to her beloved Eli who never left her side along with a ziti recipe that his family made. Ms. Fechtor is also the creator of the famed and popular food blog Sweet Amandine, named after her favorite cake. There are several recipes of her own creation Crispy Rice and Eggs and a Lemony Pasta With Morel Mushrooms and pasts (this last a nod to Alice Waters and Chez Panisse). Cooking is also comforting and comfort food. It's seen in Ms. Fechtor's recipe for Cherry Clafoutis, made when she, her now husband Eli, and their friend spent a respite in Washington State, known for its' juicy red cherries where they bought a sack of them.It's also evident in her recipe for a non traditional latke recipe that is zinged up with sweet potatoes and curry. Readers will enjoy and definitely make her homemade tomato soup accompanied with a homemade brown soda bread, the perfect comfort food cure for any dilemma,

Stir:My Broken Brain And The Meals That Brought Me Home is about the healing power of cooking and baking. It is the medicine Jessica Fechtor needed to survive a nightmare aneurysm and the hell that followed. Buy this book , read it  for not just her story but for the food that fed her, both literally and figuratively

Exotic Fare To Liven The Everyday

There's a condition known as the late winter doldrums. It usually  comes about after months of blah weather  and the cure is a trip to an exotic locale.(maybe not so much so if you live in the currently tropical NYC area) This can be expensive but there is a more inexpensive way of dong this. Cooking meals from faraway places. It's easy and fun, a great way of livening up everyday cooking.

This was evident in both Melissa Clark and Martha Rose Shulman's columns in yesterday's New York Times Food section. Ms. Clark's A Good Appetite takes home chefs to  Dakar, Senegal. She offers up black eyed pea fritters and Vietnamese inspired pickled carrots. The recipes come from the great Senegalese chef.Pierre Thiam, author of "Senegal: Modern Senegalese Recipes From the source To The Bowl." One of his signature dishes is accara, black eyed pea fritters. that are a popular street snack back home.It's similar to falafal in taste and flavor , usually served in a baguette. It's spiced up with a fiery sauce containing the six alarm Scotch Bonnet pepper.After rubbing off the skins, its a quick pulse in the food processor.Baking soda along with onions and a pinch of red pepper is added before it's rolled into balls and fried. He serves it with Vietnamese pickled carrots,a nod to his Vietnamese godfather,This again requires Scotch Bonnet peppers along with onion , serrano peppers and Vietnamese fish sauce. It's a spicy accompaniment that would be good for barbecues as well.

Martha Rose Shulman gives us a taste of the healthy exotic in her Recipes For Health column. Her trademark is delicious and good for you. Her recipe this week was taken from Lukas Volger , a well known vegetarian chef.His latest book "Bowl: Vegetarian Recipes for Ramen Pho, Bibambap, Dumpling and Other One Dish Meals"gives us recipes for veggie filled dumplings and ramen soups. The recipe Ms. Shulman gives readers is for bibambap a  Korean mixed rice,Iis a layered meal that usually with beef however Chef Volger adds roasted vegetables to his. A good dose of butternut squash along with broccoli rabe and shiitake mushrooms are added as one of the layers. It is spiced up with gochuchang, the Korean fermented chile paste along or sambel oelek,a ground chili and seafood paste, depending upon your taste. Molasses and soy sauce are also mixed in to temper either sauces' fieriness.  The garnish provides the protein as well as more tradition. Usually a raw or sunnyside up egg  is added for the topping along with pickles. These can be home made as well using Kirby cucumber,in a rice wine brine.

Liven up those late winter culinary blahs witch exotic meals from faraway places. Try a Senegal accara or a healthy bimbambap .It's a fun trip for the palate.

The King Of Pot Roast

Everyone American has their favorite pot roast memories. Whether it's brisket on the East Coast or daube down in New Orleans, it's been a kitchen staple for generations.Now there's a king, yes king of pot roast, Gavin Kaysen and he's making the dish haute.

Brett Anderson wrote about this nostalgic dish in today's New York Times Food section.He grew up in Minneapolis/St. Paul where pot roast reigns supreme.It's also the home of Spoon And Stable,Chef Kaysen's signature restaurant.The dish wasn't on the menu at first because Chef Kaysen felt it may offend diners. He thought that he was pandering to their down to earth tastes. because he was a young cook  with an impressive resume. Chef Kaysen  first worked at impressive restaurants in Switzerland,London and California, He, himself, also  impressed the famed French  chef  , Daniel Boulud which lead to a seven year stretch as executive chef at Cafe Boulud  This alone  could be off putting to many  Midwestern customers who may be insulted by his rendering of  their family  dishes. Instead he first  offered dishes with a nod towards the Minnesota regional along with a nod to nearby Canada instead  The initial Spoon and Stable menu offered:. Canadian bison, cheese curds in the creamed spinach  and dill cured salmon. It was a whim that made him sneak in his grandmother, Dorothy's pot roast onto it . It was a good call. Diners loved it.

Mr. Anderson does too. It is not mom's pot roast, instead a more upscale version. The sides are lacy chanterelle mushrooms along with a pomme puree,  a silkier version of mashed potatoes and a milk soaked and sauteed parsley root. Mr Anderson missed the traditionally made veggies which are usually soft enough to mash. - although Chef Kaysen feeds those to his staff. The gravy was spot on, redolent with rosemary and silken. This is the way it should be .Pot roast gravy is a restorative Paleo broth , appealing to our most primal tastes. The meat used is a richer flavored  shoulder cut the French called paleron and Minnesota butchers call flat iron roast. Why this, instead of the usual chuck that everyone including Kaysen's grandmother's Dorothy used? According to the chef, it has a "really fantastic tendon that runs right in the middle of it" .If it's cooked down enough , it turns into a marrow like consistency.He first used it during his time at Boulous for the pot au feu. However home chefs following the recipe need not worry, Chuck roast is the meat called for. It also has carrots and parsnips for pot roast purists too. Tomato paste is also added for color and flavor as well along with enhancing the meat's flavor.

Gavin Kaysen is the king of pot roast. His recipe ofor pot roast will change the way America thinks about it. It 's still comfort food but elevated to another level.

Food As Art

Does our food define us ? Do we define food as art?Or art as food? These are the questions raised in a fascinating new book by Dwight Furrow. Read  this interesting to find out;

The book , Food As Art In America - How Americans Have Changed The Way We Eat (Rowan & Littlefield Publishers ) is a meaty chew of a read that questions almost everything.It's a book for serious foodies and even professional chefs that delves all sorts of aspects of culinary ideas and movements.He goes into great detail about the Slow Food Movement, started by Carlo Petrini who was aghast by American fast food taking over elegant Italian dining.Mr. Furrow also gives us interesting ruminations about food as art and the trends that take over. He devotes  entire pages to the 18th Century philosopher Emmanuel Kant along with passages devoted to Mick Jagger and Italian grandmothers. Foodies may cringe or may not like when he describes eating is violent - and when you think about it - it really is.It is  slaughtering meat and plucking fruit and veggies from their habitats. It's then cooking on top of a high flame and then being devoured later. That pasta or lobster may look pretty on the plate but they're going to get savaged and ravished in a few minutes.

Foodies may enjoy the chapter on reading into a meal. He writes intensively about what homeyness means  and brings up Thanksgiving and apples. Without the holiday the turkey is just a bird, without the story of Eve and the snake, the apple is just another piece of fruit. Mr. Furrow also delves into the food of love and aphrodisiacs through the centuries. That's followed by an interesting interpretation of we are what we eat. Of course there is a section on vegans along with the different kind of vegetarianism and what it all means. He also dissects haute cuisine and home cooking in a wittily titled chapter called "Can Tuna Casserole Be A Work Of Art?" There is also a chapter dedicated to keeping food traditions in an ever changing world and what is authenticity. In this he mentions Mexican border food, the cuisine that gave us the beloved tortilla. Mexican food purists scoff at it saying it's not true to the country, yet it has been around for generations.Mr. Furrow ends the book with more ruminations on the future of taste along with his worries of food mediocrity and mass globalization of tastes.

Food As Art in America How Americans Have Changed The Way We Eat is a fascinating insight into our modern foods tastes and loves. Read it to understand why we need to preserve food as art. It's full of insights to chew on.

Spring Cleaning Cuisine

March begins the start of the Spring cleaning season. It's a time to sift through the fridge freezer and pantry and toss out whatever you can to make room. However don't' be so trash happy Sometimes those foods can be used instead of being thrown out. Think of it as Spring cleaning cuisine.

Of course home chefs should check the dates of their canned foods. However most expiration dates usually have a three year window. You can easily use any canned food or  soup in  tonight's meal. If you overbought soups at your grocery's ten for one price sale, then repurpose them as sauces. Any cream based one, such as celery or mushroom can be a great sauce for a noodle casserole.Cans of tomato sauce will go into sauce but zing it up by adding a pinch of pepper  for arrabiata or better yet, make steak pizziola or chicken parm with it.Mix it with rice to create a form of spicy Mexican arroz.  with chicken or  shrimp.Canned veggies  can also have their turn. Canned corn, one of the most versatile can be turned into tasty salads with black beans and chopped fresh peppers or as a filling for tacos. One great idea is adding it to various soups such as potato to give it color and sweetness. Canned string beans are not only good hot but also cold in a summery  salad. Add chopped onions  along with just oil and vinegar for a vinaigrette dressing. The same for beets. Make a salad from those canned ones for a nice side with grilled steak or chicken.

Cleaning out the fridge and freezer is a whole other experience.  Soured milk is considered vile and instantly tossed into the garbage but hold on. It is useful.It can be used in making cheese as well as polishing silver.Glam girls can use it as part of a  homemade face mask.Smear it on ,let it dry then rinse it off. If you have any sour cream and it's still good, then use it in a variety of dishes. Try it to enrich casseroles as well as a sub in for ricotta in pastas.Sour cream also gives homemade coffee cakes an unbelievably rich crumb and density. It's also a good toppings for desserts too. Those mini dishes of leftovers , like leftover peas, carrots or broccoli can add some color to omelets. Toss in a cup of that still viable pepperoni and ham for a fun frittata.Any extra eggs can be hard boiled for egg salad. Give it a light   pinch of  tarragon to enhance the flavor. What about all those mysterious  foil wrapped packages? Probably left overs from the holidays.The meat is fine, whether it's turkey , chicken or ham. You can easily defrost it in the microwave and have it with gravy  or as part of a sandwich.

This is the time for Spring cleaning. However look at the food you;'re tossing out/If it's before the expiration date or still relatively good use it. Consider it a bonus of Spring cleaning your kitchen.

Saturday Night Specials

Saturday is usually the one night of the week when the family can sit down and have dinner together. The problem is that it's the same foods week after week,  The solution is adding some zing to make these family meals  special. Don't worry  They're nothing elaborate. It's just tweaking  recipes up a notch or two for  tasty and memorable meals.

One of the easiest meals to assemble is the BLT. It's a quick throw together of bacon, lettuce and tomato, on toast.Tweak it by changing the bread. King's Hawaiian Rolls are perfect for creating mini sandwiches or you can try the new Sandwich Thins by Pepperidge Farm.One roll  may be only  one hundred calories but it's also great for creating the perfect sandwich .The filling will stand out  because the slices are almost wafer thin yet sturdy I like these for my BLTs. As for the tomatoes, get the vine ripes. These are a deeper red and richer in flavor. Ditch the iceberg lettuce and switch to Romaine. Again this type of lettuce amps up the sandwich and melds well with the tomato and bacon. Also a dab of ranch dressing zings up the whole combo, rather than just plain mayo , Heroes are another much eaten Saturday night meal. Give them  a Gallic twist by using a baguette  and slathering on a homemade garlicky aioli,  This is a simple blend of garlic and mayo. Add some sliced hard boiled eggs and tuna for a Provencale vibe, along with capers  and a variety of veggies. You could also just have a typical Italian hero, but add pancetta, and mortadella with a balsamic vinegar based dressing.

Dinner means a hot meal too. A family favorite is baked mac and cheese. Liven it up with adding different cheeses as opposed to using just cheddar.Use fontina and Gruyere along with fontina for bite. Bacon or ham are another great way to give the classic casserole some zing. Add layers of  either  along using them as a crunchy topping. Bacon and ham can also make a homemade pizza more interesting too. Since Saturdays are usually pizza night, Try your hand at a homemade one.Please everyone by using their favorites as toppings, from steak slices to even crab meat. This is great if there's adults but you'll need to create a special kind of pie  to grab the kids' attentions. Try mini deep dish ones baked in a muffin tin. The dough can be a homemade one or one made with Biscuit. You can also use Pilsbury  crescent rolls. too. The filling is pizza sauce, of course, but you can also throw in pepperoni or olives for a nice surprise. Baked fried chicken that's been spiced up with cayenne is another fun meal. Serve with homemade cheddar biscuits and ranch slaw.This last is just simply mixing shredded cabbage with ranch dressing. (you can use any salad  dressing here).

Amp up that Saturday night meal. Give those much used recipes a well needed twist with new ingredients or products/ The result is a memorable dinner that the whole family will enjoy,