Book Review: Cooking Green

We are currently away on holidays in the beautiful Okanagan. I am seriously stunned at how beautiful this country is: a platter of different landscapes to enjoy.

I just finished reading a great and inspiring book that I would highly recommend: Cooking Green: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint In The Kitchen, by Kate Heyhoe. It goes beyond the basic requirements of leaving less of a damaging “cookprint”, namely – shopping locally, eating organic food, buying sustainable food – and suggests ways to take being environmentally responsible in the kitchen to a whole new level. I found it very inspiring. I don’t know that I will ever be able to implement all the ideas, but like eating healthy, little decisions every day can substantially change our impact on the earth. Here are some highlights of the interesting topics she covers:

1. This is an ongoing conversation I have with myself and others…Should I buy organic? Or local? But the local is not organic. But the organic is not local. Which is healthier? Which is better for the environment? Tricky business! Kate suggests that being an Ecovore requires a certain fluidity, and ability to have this ongoing discussion, making decisions as situations are presented. Obviously the ideal would be local organic food, but if you are buying from a small local farm, that may not be certified organic(which is an expensive certification for a small farm) but the food doesn’t have to travel very far…then local is maybe a better choice than organic. Little judgement calls all the time.

2. Eat less meat, more plants – This is an obvious one. I know many people aren’t interested or ready to drop meat completely from their diet, but there is definitely no reason why we shouldn’t eat LESS meat. Maybe for you that means planning one meat free dinner/week. We are not strictly vegetarians but in my family we probably only eat one dinner/week that DOES have meat in it. Interesting fact: The daily food and water resources required to feed one cow exceed the daily amount of milk produced by that cow. A single cow produces 120lbs of waste PER DAY and approx 100 gallons of methane per day. They produce more methan emissions than a car!

3. Small Changes: Switching to a totally local diet = driving 1,000 miles less per year. Replacing red meat and dairy with chicken/fish/eggs for one day per week = driving 760 miles less per year. Switching to vegetables one day per week = driving 1,160 miles less per year. Switching from the average American diet to a vegetable based one = driving 8,000 miles less per year!!!!!!! Can you believe those numbers?

4. Water preservation – Water is a non renewable resource, meaning that the water we have on earth is all the water we will ever have on earth. We cannot produce more of it. This is why we have to be careful not to pollute it and compromise the quality of it. Here is the amount of water required to create a SINGLE serving of the following foods: steak = 2,607 gallons, chicken = 408 gallons, milk = 65 gallons, rice = 36 gallons, lettuce = 6 gallons, tomatoes = 3 gallons. Clearly, reducing our red meat consumption is a great way to reduce our impact on the earth. If you eat one less beef meal each week, you’ll save: 40,600 gallons of water, 70,000 lbs of grain, and prevent the emission of 300,000 lbs of carbon dioxide each year.

5. Food Waste – Americans generate 1 lb of food waste per day for every adult and child. Americans throw out 27% of all food available for consumption. JUST 5% OF THE WASTED FOOD IN THE USA COULD FEED 4 MILLION PEOPLE/DAY. Can you even believe that? This just absolutely horrifies me. While millions of people are dying of starvation, we are destroying the earth with our over-consumption.

There are definitely some regular green practices I am already fully committed to: eating as much local/organic/sustainable food as possible, using only green household cleaners, recycling and buying recycled products, buying food from the bulk bins, shopping at Farmer’s Markets. There are many many more though, that I would like to try to take it to the next level. While Kate offers so many great ideas on how to make changes in the kitchen, here are a few that I think are practical steps that I am going to implement immediately:

1. use passive cooking techniques ie)bringing water to a boil, and then removing it from the heat after a few minutes and letting the very hot water continue to cook things. (where appropriate)

2. more commitment to using small appliances than the oven when possible. More energy efficient.

3. organizing a “small appliance swap”! I think we all have small appliances we don’t use often enough to keep, but just throwing them out is bad for the environment…so…let’s swap! I think my milkshake maker and second coffee maker need to find a new home. Sounds like a fun reason for a party!

4. Using reusable cloth napkins. The washing/drying is less energy than the garbage created from paper ones.

Bottom line: I highly recommend this book and think it is actually do-able, written in a non-judgmental and inspiring way, and totally practical. I really do believe that we change our lives in the small decisions we make every day. I would love to hear your ideas on how to decrease your “cookprint” on the earth!

If you would like to learn more about the topic, check out the book or check out Kate’s website: http://www.newgreenbasics.com

Think Fresh: Quinoa

Quinoa Salad

Native to South America, quinoa (KEEN-wah) is a definite superfood! It’s been getting some positive media attention in the last little while, and rightly so! Quinoa looks a lot like rice, that has burst into little curly-ques. It has a wondeful texture, with a little pop and crunch when you eat it.

When I was pregnant with Foodie Baby, I decided to radically alter our diet, in hopes of having a)a natural birth after a dramatic C-Section with Picky Princess and b)the healthiest pregnant body I could possibly have. I read a fabulous book called The Gentle Birth Method by Dr. Gowri Motha. She presented a nutritional plan for having a healthy body and one of the most interesting things I learned is that according to the Standard American Diet(SAD), over 90% of the grain consumed is: wheat. Rice made up almost the entire other 10%. There are SO many amazing, healthy, and delicious grains for us to consume, but many of us just…don’t. Yet we have skyrocketing problems with wheat sensitivity, and she argues, that some of this is simply because we are over exposed to one grain, when we are designed to consume a variety. So I completely eliminated all grain products from my diet, for the duration of the pregnancy, and honestly, it was SHOCKING to me, at how wheat-centered my diet was. Wheat is in everything! Or at least everything convenient! And now I have reintroduced wheat, but try hard not to let it exceed about 25% of the grains in my diet. Quinoa became a new favorite of ours!

Nutritionally, quinoa is second to none! It has a full set of essential amino acids, which makes it a rare vegetarian complete protein. High in fibre, magnesium and iron, quinoa is also gluten-free, making it a great wheat alternative to gluten-sensitive diets.

Quinoa can be used in place of any other grain: pasta, rice, barley. It is great hot or cold, savory or sweet. Picky Princess loves to eat it with almond milk, maple syrup and cinnamon, and Foodie Baby loves it with goat cheese, lemon, garlic, roasted tomatoes and basil.

Tip: Quinoa is coated with something called Saponin. This makes it taste bitter and needs to be rinsed off. So rinse your quinoa well before consuming. The best way to do this is to put it in a large bowl, fill the bowl half way with water and then rub the quinoa between your hands to rub the saponin away. Rinse and repeat until the water becomes mostly clear, which can take several washes.

Here is a super easy and versatile recipe. You can substitute any of the vegetables for others, you can swap cheese and add anything else you like, but it’s a good base. Give it a try!

Quinoa Salad

Prepare quinoa. Bring 4 cups of water to boil and add 2 cups of well rinsed dry quinoa. Simmer until the quinoa curls, approx 15 minutes. Drain any excess water.

In a pan, saute one minced garlic clove with 3 tbs of extra virgin olive oil and sea salt to taste. Saute for a couple of minutes and then pour sauce over the quinoa. Toss to coat. Add the juice of half a lemon.

Stir in two cups of chopped vegetables. This time I used fresh peas, roasted tomatoes and zucchini. Crumble over salad half a cup or so of goat cheese. Serve hot, room temperature, or chilled! This is an easy picnic salad!

Cookbook Preview: Saskatoon Berry Crumble

Saskatoon Berries

I think of all the bounty that summer brings, berries are my absolute favorite. Last summer I bought some flats from the Farmer’s Market and froze what seemed to be a huge amount of berries. Sadly, they only lasted until November. So now I know. The freezer is already overflowing with frozen bags of pretty berries and I’m determined to cram as many in there as I possibly can, so we can enjoy them all winter. This week we’ve made saskatoon berry scones, saskatoon berry turnovers and saskatoon berry sorbet. Without doubt, though, my favorite way to eat berries (other than by the fistful) is in a crumble. This is my clean and healthy crumble recipe. Give it a try!

Saskatoon Berry Crumble with Maple Whipped Cream

Serves 6

4 cups berries, fresh or frozen

1 cup spelt flour

1 cup oats

1/2 cup coconut, unsweetened

1/2 cup almonds, sliced

2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup butter, melted

1/4 cup honey

1 cup whipping cream

1/4 cup maple syrup

Directions: Preheat oven to 350.

Pour berries into the bottom of a 9 inch round baking dish.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Add melted butter and honey and stir until ingredients are slightly moist. You can add more honey, teaspoon by teaspoon until ingredients are all slightly moistened.

Pour onto berries and spread evening. Bake until crumble turns golden, approximately 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, in the bowl of a mixer, fitted with the whisk, beat the whipping cream and maple syrup until soft peaks form. Serve crumble hot with a dollop of whipped cream.

Saskatoon Berry Crumble

Cookbook Potential: Vegetarian Strudel

Pesto Goat Cheese Vegetable Strudel

Today, Sexy Husband and I are celebrating 7 years of wedded bliss! So I wanted to make something nice and, let’s be honest, I never turn down a chance to experiment and maybe whip up something new for the cookbook. It turned out to be so so yummy so it may just make an appearance in the cookbook. I need to come up with some way of making phyllo pastry healthier(so basically I need a miracle), before it will really earn cookbook possibility. But I guess there’s always room for the odd treat. I haven’t written this down as a full recipe but here’s the basic idea in case you want to give it a try…

Make the pesto: In a food processor, pulse together fresh basil, pine nuts, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and salt.

Prep the phyllo: Brush 8 layers of good quality phyllo pastry with a little bit of melted butter and layer them on a baking sheet.

Spread the pesto down the center of the pastry. Crumble a generous amount of goat cheese on top of the pesto. Layer with any vegetables you like. I used: zucchini, tomato, green pepper, mini patty pan squash, mushroom, onion.

Fold pastry over the vegetables brush with egg wash. Bake at 350 for about an hour.  This served four of us, as an entree with a little left over.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Cookbook Preview: Upside Down Vanilla Peach Cake

Upside Down Peach Vanilla Cake

The biggest concern most people express to me when we talk about healthy eating is: I don’t want to give up the sugar! Sugar is tricky. It’s in EVERYTHING and it is mildly addictive. However there are some wonderful, natural ways of meeting our “sweet” needs. For me, with baking, I mostly use: fruit, honey, maple syrup and agave nectar. Most people would never know there’s no sugar in these recipes. And once you’re used to sweetening food more naturally, it takes less and less sweetener to make things palatable.

Upside Down Vanilla Peach Cake
Serves 10

1/2 cup butter – divided
2 tbs raw sugar
3 medium peaches, skin on, pitted, sliced into 1/2” wedges
1 cup coarse cornmeal
3/4 cup spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt (not non-fat, preferably greek style)
1 tbs pure vanilla
1/4 cup agave nectar
3 eggs

preheat oven to 350. Place a 10 inch round cake pan over medium low heat on a burner and melt 1/4 cup of butter. Brush sides of cake pan with melted butter. Add raw sugar and cook until melted and lightly bubbling, about 3 minutes. Cover bottom of pan with peach slices, spiraling once around the outside and then filling in the middle. Reduce heat to low and cook until peaches start to soften and bubble, about 8-10 minutes. Remove from heat.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together, cornmeal, flour and baking powder. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together remaining 1/4 cup of butter, yogurt, agave nectar and vanilla, until well combined. On medium speed, add in eggs and beat until well combined. Reduce speed to low and add the cornmeal mixture. Mix until just combined. Pour batter, which will seem quite liquidy over the peaches and spread evenly with a spatula.

Bake until a cake tester inserted in the centre of cake comes out clean, approximately 20 minutes. Allow to cool in pan for about 30 minutes. Run a knife around the edges of the cake to loosen from the pan. Quickly flip cake over onto a serving plate and tap the bottom to loosen peaches.

**This cake serves nicely with maple syrup sweetened whipped cream or frozen yogurt!

What?

For the last year or so, I’ve been working on a cookbook: fig & fennel. I am just about done with the production stage and entering into the graphic design stage. It’s been such a fun “job” and I hope to release it early 2011. I thought it would be beneficial to have a blog to promote the cookbook, with some sneak peeks of recipes and photos. The spectacular Kristy-Anne Swart of Up and Away Studio has been the photographer for this entire project. I am always moved by her photography and ability to capture the beauty around her.

Over the last few years, my family has made some pretty drastic lifestyle changes to reflect our desires to be healthy in our bodies, healthy in our minds, and to do as little harm to the earth as possible. We have yet to arrive at any spectacular destination, but have found the journey to be life changing. Shopping locally(at least in the summer), teaching our children how the food we eat gets from earth to plate(hard lessons for city kids), and being mindful that our bodies run smoothly and happily if they are fed food as close to natural as possible. These have become things that are highly valued in my life. I want to use this blog to highlight some of the local places we go to for this kind of inspiration and some of the people who make this healthy lifestyle possible.

I think the organic, green, healthy-eating micro-world has a bit of a reputation as being judgmental and hardly attainable. I hope to be able to present recipes and ideas that are simple steps to a healthier life. I believe that every day we make 1000 little decisions about our health and our impact and our power to change our lives is in those little decisions.

The cookbook! The cookbook is full of recipes that are healthy, fresh, and feature food that is as close to nature as possible. It is chock full of healthy baked goods: scones, muffins, cakes, cookies, and one dish meals that are family friendly and easy to make. I’ve been working on them for a long time. They are recipes I cook, recipes we eat, approved by my Picky Princess (4 year old) and a panel of strict critics (you know who you are). I’ll keep you posted as it comes together.

The Picky Princess Herself