Going Green

Scratch Cooking November 4th

Goinggreen — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:04:18 GMT

Last night I went to the first night of the Second Annual Great Bliss festival featuring the Honorable Lama Marut. It was just what I needed to get some perspective after a mighty stressful day of work. There is nothing like listening to a Buddhist teacher to remind you of what matters and what doesn't.

Through my communications company, I am working on a TV show on Planet Green called Wa$ted, getting all their eco-friendly products for them this season. It's fun but tv production time lines are CRAZY! So yesterday was lots of scrambling around to get stuff for 2 episodes that start filming next week and one that starts on Friday.

I stayed in my pajamas and never left the house until I realized at 6 pm that a) I wanted soup for dinner and b) I really needed to go be around the positivity and peacefulness of a Buddhist gathering.

Let's start with the soup. I made Carmelized Onion with Spinach and Mushroom soup. I chopped an onion and cooked itin a few tablespoons of butter until it was brown. Then I threw in some more butter, about a tablespoon, and about 12 chopped mushrooms. I sauteed that until the mushrooms were starting to brown and then tossed in about 1/2 cup cherry juice (you could use wine), a teaspoon of dry sage (I could have used fresh, but read on to find out why I didn't) and some salt and pepper. I cooked it until the juice was absorbed and then added about 2 cups of spinach leaves. Once those wilted, I added around 6 cups of the broth from the sauce for the Shepherd's pie and cooked for 20 minutes. While it was cooking, I took a shower and got dressed!

It was quite delish and will be enjoyed again tonight before I go to the second night of the Second Annual Great Bliss Festival to find out more about how to find happiness. I will let you in on a little secret. Here's the answer on how to find happiness - make other people happy. That's it, don't worry about a better job, a better car, a better husband, a better body. The only way to happiness is to make other people happy. So why is that so darn challenging?

The big joke is that I SCREAMED at my daughter just before going to the Second Annual Great Bliss Festival because she didn't want to go outside and get me fresh sage leaves. And I am pretty sure that according to the Buddhists, that screaming would result in some pretty negative karma. I did apologize, but still, the goal would be to not scream in the first place.

Thursday night they have their silent auction and Second Annual Great Bliss Festival Party. Guess what I am donating...I will give you a hint - ________ of the month.

In Buddhist tradition, you dedicate the positive karma of going to a teaching to others. So tonight, I dedicate it to all of you. May the positive karma flower for you in this lifetime. And if it does, we can call it the GG bump!

Scratch Cooking November 2nd

Goinggreen — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:45:58 GMT

It was a relatively quiet Halloween weekend. Friday night I went to a small party dressed as another Hitchcock leading lady; this time Kim Novak a la Vertigo in the black turtle neck and white coat with black gloves. It was interesting. Despite all the make up, I looked very reserved compared to everyone else. The majority of women at this party were dressed as sexy cop, sexy maid and sexy cow girl. And the host was covered in red makeup and had horns glued to his head.

It is true that in my younger days, I did once go to a Halloween party as a biker chick wearing not much more than fake leather shorts and fake leather bra, but still, I was 20. It seems that now most women, regardless of age, are dressed like their most slutty alter ego, including young girls.

We watched a rogue copy of Paranormal Activity. I’m not big on horror movies and this one was just plain stupid and predictable. At one point, it was supposed to be scary, but it was just laughable!

The freakiest thing all weekend was the adult man – the guy looked older than me - dressed in costume that came to the house for candy, sans children. At first I thought it was just odd. Then I wondered if maybe he was developmentally disabled, and then it hit me that it was kind of creepy. Thank goodness for the dog. He’s super friendly but barks a lot and loud. He can sound quite menacing even though his bark really means, ‘please pet me’.

My daughter was a nerd. She wore shorts with suspenders, big glasses, pig tails and a name tag that said “ask me about quantum physics”. She looked adorable. Her best friend was baby spice of the Spice Girls; Union Jack dress and high heeled boots. I love that my daughter opted for silly instead of sex pot. Makes me proud!

Okay, so here is what was cooking today.

I made the girls some French toast for breakfast with the remaining oat bread. (thin slices of bread dipped in a combination of egg, milk, vanilla and cinnamon and fried in butter). I don’t miss that many bready things, but I do miss French toast.

Then I decided to make a gluten-free linzertorte. I followed the recipe in the Gluten-Free Cookbook. Toast 1 cup almond flour for 8 minutes at 350 degrees. Mix with ¾ cup brown rice flour, ¼ cup soy flour, ¼ cup tapioca starch, 1 teaspoon xantham gum, ½ teaspoon baking powder, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon and a pinch of cloves. Set aside. Cream 1/3 cup butter with 2/3 cup brown sugar, 1 teaspoon lemon zest and 1 egg. Add dry ingredients and mix. Divide in 3 discs, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes. Press 2 discs into bottom and sides of a 9” spring form pan (the kind where the bottom pops out). Spread 1 ¼ cups jam on top (I used the home made strawberry jam). Take last disc and shape into a rectangle. Cut in strips and arrange over top of jam in a lattice pattern. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 – 45 minutes.

I also wanted to make a vegetarian shepherd’s pie and biscuits for dinner so I started some split and black eyed peas soaking and started on a broth to make a sauce. For the broth, I cooked a quartered onion, a few stalks of celery, the green tops of two leeks, thyme, parsley, 3 bay leaves and salt with a cup of tamari and 6 cups of water. I cooked it for about 2 hours and then strained it.

In the afternoon I started the peas cooking in water and cooked them for about 1 ½ hours. I also started on the sauce. I sautéed a chopped onion in 2 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil with some thyme, tarragon, salt and a bay leaf. After the onion started to brown, I added a chopped clove of garlic and ½ cup black cherry juice (you could use wine, but I didn’t feel like opening a bottle). I cooked it until the juice was almost all absorbed and added 3 tablespoons of garfava flour (you can use regular flour). I cooked that for about 2 minutes and then added 3 cups of the broth. I cooked it partially covered for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime, I started on the veggies. I sautéed some cubed onion and carrots in 2 tablespoons of butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil with a little salt for about 5 minutes and then added ½ cup broth, covered and cooked for another 5 minutes. In another pan I sautéed some halved crimini mushrooms in 2 tablespoons of butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil and a little salt for about the same amount of time. I added some cubed, peeled celery root to the carrot and onion mixture, covered it again and cooked for another 5 minutes. I threw some cauliflower, white and romanesco and some Brussels sprouts in boiling water for a couple minutes and then pulled them out and put them in a big glass pan. I added the cooked, drained peas, the mushrooms and the onions, carrots and celery root along with the sauce (minus the bay leaf).

I boiled some cut up red and white potatoes until they were soft and then mashed them with ½ cup light cream and 5 tablespoons of butter. I put the potatoes on top of the veggies and baked at 375 degrees for 40 minutes. It doesn't look so pretty in the picture with the red potatoes, I think next time I would use all white. It tasted good, thought!

It was some work, but I have to say, it was totally worth it. The sauce was rich and delicious and really made the dish.

While the potatoes were boiling, I made some biscuits. Mix 2 cups flour with 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon sugar and ½ teaspoon salt. Cut in 5 tablespoons of butter until it is like fine crumbs and then mix in ¾ cup half and half. Knead it for a minute or so and then pat out to about ¾ inch thick on a floured surface. I cut mine into circles using the top of a glass. Put them on a baking sheet and back for 15 minutes at 450 degrees.

Loads and loads of leftovers. We’ll be eating shepherd’s pie for a month!

Scratch Cooking October 30th

Goinggreen — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:36:37 GMT

How fun to chat with some of you girls last night as part of Girls Night Out. I was dizzy from the speed of the conversation! And thanks to those of you that gave me the pass for Halloween, I am going to pick up some fair trade candy from the co-op tomorrow!

So after the lovely chatting last night and a day in which I did not take a shower or get dressed until after 3 pm (my first shower in 2 days, yes work IS kicking my ass), and in which I watched the Bonner hearings (remember the guys who sent forged letters to congress saying things like the NAACP doesn't support climate legislation? Now that deserves a You Lie!) my brain was fried. So it seemed only appropriate that I make green fried rice.

Easy peasy, as it were. Make a pot of rice. Sautee a chopped onion in sesame oil, after a few minutes, throw in some chopped broccoli and beans (I used a combo of Romano beans which are like flat green beans and some flat beans from my garden). Sautee for about 15 minutes until veggies are soft. Throw in some rice wine vinegar and soy sauce along the way. When the rice is done, add a little more sesame oil to the pan and toss in the rice. Add more soy and vinegar to taste and sautee for a few minutes. And dinner!

You can throw in an egg too if you want but it's not necessary.

We had ours with some fresh raspberries for dessert. A good end to a busy, and sometimes stressful, day and a great chat with the wonderful women of PNN.

A word about the pan in the picture; it was my maternal grandmothers. She died when I was 2 so I have no recollection of her, but I love using that pan because it has literally seen almost a century of cooking! Using it makes me think of medieval times, when people passed down pots and pans in their will - talk about reduce, reuse, recycle!

I think we should all have at least one every day item that stays in the family and gets used. To me, it's a way to connect with your own ancestry and while future generations may not have memories of those people, it's a kind of thread between the past and the future.

Okay, enough philosophizing, on with the day!

Scratch Cooking October 26th

Goinggreen — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:43:53 GMT

So, was today a turning point in healthcare reform? The Senate sent a bill to the Congressional Budget Office to analyze and that bill included a public option. A public option that states can opt out of, but a public option no less. So here's a little salute to some of the people that helped call the lobbyists out - Billionaires for Wealth Care:

Scratch Cooking October 25th

Goinggreen — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:53:30 GMT

I had an epiphany this weekend; I should always dress like I’m in an Alfred Hitchcock film. Okay, let me explain. I was at a costume party on Saturday and the theme was Alfred Hitchcock. Out came my grandmother’s black leather gloves, pocket book, pill box hat and lamb’s wool coat. In the pocket book, along with a mirror and comb, I actually found my grandfather’s business card from when he had a dry cleaning business. On the back was an address and phone number my grandmother had written when phone numbers still started with 2 letters as opposed to numbers.

Anyway, the red lipstick, the gloves, the dresses, the wraps, the men in dapper suits like Cary Grant, we all looked really good. But here’s the problem; it normally takes me 20 minutes to get ready for anything and getting ready for this party took me over an hour. The under garments alone take 20 minutes! And then there’s the powder and the lipstick and the eyelashes. I don’t know how our mother’s did it and managed to make a meal. No wonder post-war American women got hooked on cooking short cuts, they were spending all their time getting dressed!

Despite all the time powdering my nose, I did manage to get some cooking in this weekend.

Friday my daughter stayed home sick, so I made some apple pancakes for breakfast. A note here on things you never need to buy - you never need to buy pancake mix, muffin mix or cake mix. All they are is a combination of flour, sugar and leavening. Anyway, I always keep some homemade gluten free muffin mix in the freezer (a combo of flours, sugar, spices and leavening) and I mix it with egg (or ground flax see in hot water), milk (or almond milk), some flavoring, some spices and some kind of fruit. In this case, I added chopped apple, cinnamon and vanilla and fry them in some canola oil. Because of the leavening in the muffin mix, they come out very thick, like a cross between a fritter and a pancake. Pour on some pure maple syrup and they are addictive!

Saturday I made some oatmeal bread. It’s the same recipe I use for the milk and honey bread, I just replace 1 ½ cups flour with rolled oats. The oats make it sweet and chewy and perfect for PB&J.

Today, I had a few projects going, all involving cream. The first was lemon and ginger pots de crème. Pots de crème are small cups of custard. They are a quite luscious. Here’s the recipe I used:

1 ¼ cups cream

¾ cup sugar

¼ cup ginger

½ cup lemon juice

½ teaspoon grated lemon rind

1 egg

4 egg yolks

Heat 1 ¼ cups cream with ¾ cups sugar and stir until sugar dissolves. Once sugar dissolves, remove from heat and add ¼ cup sliced and peeled, fresh ginger that’s been blanched in boiling water for about 30 seconds. Remove the cream and ginger from the heat, cover and let sit at room temperature for one hour.

Remove ginger slices and whisk in egg yolks and egg. Whisk in lemon juice and pour through strainer. Add lemon rind and pour into custard cups. Put the cups in a pan filled ½ way with hot water. Bake at 325 for 40 minutes. It should still be soft in the middle. Remove from pan and let cool. Serve at room temperature with fresh berries or candied ginger.

For dinner, I made a gratin of potatoes, cauliflower and spinach.

5 mixed color potatoes

1 large cauliflower

2 cups spinach

1 shallot

Olive oil

1 cup cream

1 cup ricotta

½ cup milk

Salt

Pepper

Nutmeg

Slice potatoes and cut up cauliflower. Boil in salted water for 20 minutes. In the meantime, chop shallot and sauté in 1 -2 tablespoons olive oil at medium heat for 5 minutes. Add washed spinach leaves and cook until wilted. Drain potatoes and cauliflower and layer in a buttered 9 x 13 inch pan. Squeeze out spinach and put on top.

Mix cream, ricotta, salt, pepper and nutmeg and pour over vegetables. Pour milk on top and bake at 325 for 30 minutes. Kick heat up to 350 and cook for another 15 – 20 minutes or until it starts to look golden.

It would have been great with some kind of simple fish, but I am cutting back on fish at the moment. I recently saw Sylvia Earle from Blue Ocean Institute on the Colbert Report and she says that, in order to be environmentally friendly, there are only 3 kinds of fish we should be eating at this point – tilapia, cat fish and carp. And only farm-raised, at that. That’s because the methods of catching wild fish are so destructive and so many species have been dangerously over-fished. I’m thinking maybe it’s time to just take a break from fish and seafood altogether and go back to a stricter kind of vegetarianism.

So instead, the gratin stood alone and you know what, it was plenty! Especially with those pots de crème waiting for us for dessert!

Scratch Cooking October 22

Goinggreen — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:51:58 GMT

Today I got a little slice of LA life I don't ordinarily see. I road the bus from Santa Monica to downtown and back. Actually I rode my bike to the bus which took me from Santa Monica to downtown. I had a meeting, I have no car, I didn't want to cancel. The iphone map let's you map out a public transportation route which is pretty cool!

The people watching was fascinating. The people on the bus were of every race, ethnicity, age and style. There was a woman that made it her business to make sure that every elderly, disabled or woman with baby got a seat. She refused to let the bus driver leave the stop until her self-selected charges were safely seated. It was very sweet, actually. Then there was a guy, probably in his late 20's or early 30's that struck up a conversation with 2 people that spoke very little English. They were European and had just arrived in LA. With very little feedback, he kept that conversation going for at least 45 minutes.

On the way back, I seemed to keep over hearing people asking about when their stop was coming up and getting wrong information. So like a mother hen, I had to make sure they knew when to pull for the stop and where to disembark. This included a big group of rather large tattooed young men who were actually quite sweet and a girl that started asking if we were at Wilshire and Barrington yet about 30 minutes before we even got close. When we finally arrived at Wilshire and Barrington, she looked to me for approval and I gave her the nod to go ahead and venture forth.

Speaking of disembarking and young men, when we got back to Santa Monica, I got off the bus at the same time as a young guy, probably in his early 20's. He was dressed like he was going to work in a restaurant. He was walking next to me as I walked toward my bike and right as I got there he turned to me and said the words every single, 43 year old woman longs to hear "by the way, you're still sexy for a woman of your age."

GROANNNNNNNNNN!

I have already been told by a number of friends that I should take it as a compliment, but seriously, being told your sexy as a pick up line is already lacking in panache. Being told your sexy with caveats? Ugggghhhh. And that line "woman of your age". As if I was toddling across the street on a damn walker not unlocking my bike!

I must confess, there is a very snobby part of me that wanted to make a snarky comment about him being a busboy riding the bus, but I stopped myself. Because guess what, I was riding the bus myself and you never want to throw out an insult that implicates yourself. Plus, I have nothing against busboys or bus riders, just snotty ass kids that give women semi-insulting compliments.

I came home to a sick kid walking through the door. I asked what was wrong and she oinked and said she was growing a tail. It seems more like a cold than swine flu, but I'll let her enjoy the drama of it for a day.

It was a soup for dinner kind of night. I sauteed a sliced leek in a few tablespoons of olive oil for about 10 minutes. Then I threw in 2 large sweet potatoes cut into chunks (you can peel them, but I leave the skin on), salt, pepper, a sprig of rosmary (leaves taken off the branch) and about 6 or 7 cups of water. I cooked it until the potatoes were soft and then ran it through the food processor.

My daughter said it tasted like Thanksgiving. That's because I always make sweet potatoes sliced and roasted in olive oil with garlic and rosemary. It's one of her favorite things and I wanted to replicate it in a soup for her.

I also confess to you right here and now that I did break down and buy her some cough drops because A) even though I know they are candy, they make her feel better and B) I knew there was no way I could make them for her in a time frame and form that would make her happy. So I hope you will forgive me. The ones I bought were made of organic honey if that counts for anything!

Scratch Cooking October 21st

Goinggreen — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:20:52 GMT

What is it about breakfast for dinner? It's just so nice when you don't feel much like cooking and not in the mood to eat anything in particular to have some pancakes or scrambled eggs for dinner.

My intention was to make pancakes for dinner, but my daughter decided to make herself French toast for a snack, so that plan was foiled. So instead, I made some buttery rice (1 cup rice, 2 cups water and about a tablespoon of butter, some salt and pepper), sauteed some broccoli and onions and added in 2 beaten eggs. It wasn't exactly breakfast for dinner, but it was close.

Our dog actually stole a little off my daughter's plate. Have you ever before known a dog that likes broccoli? Ours does!

My daughter asked how I made the rice so buttery and my answer was...butter! It is true that just about everything is better with butter.

So it was a very simple dinner tonight, prepared and ready in about 20 minutes. And guess what, nothing pre-cooked, canned or packaged was used.

I don't know what I will do tomorrow night. My daughter asked if we were also giving up buying groceries and I had to remind her that I don't have a car, which makes grocery shopping a little difficult. I have my bike, though, and nothing to stop me from running by the co-op or the fish store for some supplies. So I guess I don't really have an excuse except that I haven't felt like going to the store.

I have some lentils in the house, so if I still can't manage to drag myself there, lentils for dinner it will be!

Scratch Cooking October 20th

Goinggreen — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:04:59 GMT

So tonight I went out for a really lovely dinner with my friend Nina who is in the wine business. I want her to start writing a blog because she puts these status updates on her facebook page that are so thoughtful and passionate about the food and wine at the retaurants she goes to that I actually sometimes feel like I can taste it!

We were talking about how snarky food writers have become. It's like they think that to be interesting, they have to be negative and clever.

Now I will confess that when Anthony Bourdain said that someone's broccolini tasted like doll hair a few years ago, I laughed, but it didn't make me excited about food. This is a new era and mean is out! Writing about food and wine with appreciation is where it's at! And it's always fun to enjoy a meal with someone who isn't there for the spectacle but because they really know how to enjoy food.

So not much cooking went on tonight or Monday, but Sunday night I did cook some biryani and chana masala, or that is what I will call it. You see, I never really cooked any Indian food until recently and then the only things I ever tried to make were kitchari, which is a pretty simple rice and lentil dish, and Aloo Tikki which is like a chickpea and potato pancake. I always felt a little too intimidated to try to make Indian food because I didn't grow up eating those spices and flavors. But Sunday I decided to play around with some Indian spices and rice and soaked chickpeas and make a dinner out of it. And, actually, it was really, really good!

For the Biryani, I sauteed turmeric, ginger, corriander, cumin, fenugreek, slivered almonds and salt in oil for a few minutes. I would say about a teaspoon of each spice and 1/3 cup of almonds. I added a cup of rice, 2 cups of water and cardamom seeds from about 6 pods.

For the Chana Masala, I soaked about 1 cup of chickpeas in water for 8 hours, drained them and then cooked them in water for about an hour and a half, skimming off the foam along the way. While that was cooking, I sauteed a small chopped onion, 1/2 a chopped jalapeno, 1 clove minced garlic, and about a teaspoon each of turmeric, corriander, cumin, salt and pepper. Once the onions were soft, I added a chopped tomato, 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro and about 2 teaspoons of grated, fresh ginger and cooked for another 15 minutes. Finally I drained the chickpeas and added them in with a cup of water and cooked at high heat for 20 minutes so that the liquid boiled down into a nice sauce. You could use canned or pre-cooked chickpeas, the whole thing would take about 10 minutes of prep and a total of 45 minutes or less to make.

We ate it with some sliced and salted cucumbers, which were perfect to offset some of the spice. It was a lot like making rice and beans, just with Indian spices.

So the lesson is, don't be intimidated!

Scratch Cooking October 18th

Goinggreen — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:31:51 GMT

This weekend was all about going through piles of papers and baking stuff in between. You know the piles I'm talking about. We all have them. They're the piles that we make of "I'll deal with this later" papers, mailings, letters, notices. This weekend, I whittled them down to next to nothing. Hooray! Okay, so my next to nothing is like 4 piles, but still, you can see my desk again!

Ah, but who cares about piles of paper, it's the cooking in between that matters.

Yesterday I made mini quiches again. This time the filling had 1/4 cup chopped chantrelle mushrooms, 1 chopped small onion and 1/4 cup of thinly sliced basil leaves sauteed in about 2 tablespoons of butter until it was dry. I crumbled in some blue cheese, put in some filling and poured the custard over it (1 1/2 cups half and half, cream or milk with 3 beaten eggs and a pinch of nutmeg, salt and pepper.) The extra I baked in a dish so I could try it. Oh, how I love blue cheese!

I also made a recipe I hadn't tried in years. It's the Norwegian Coffee Cake from the Tassajara Bread Book (the whole book is available on Google books). It's a sweet yeasted bread with cardamom. If you follow the original recipe, it makes a LOT of dough. The first time I made it, when I was in high school, I used the maximum proportions of ingredients (8 eggs, 12 cups of flour) I have no idea why other than I didn't have a good sense of how much that would actually make. I baked it in a giant red pot (It might have been a lobster pot!) and even then, it was overflowing. It looked like a giant popover from the tea party in Alice in Wonderland. I had never heard of cardamom before that and the fragrance was totally intoxicating. And the taste, too!

Here's the recipe for a much smaller version, small enough to bake in a bundt pan!:

First you mix 1 1/2 tablespoons yeast (2 packages) with 1 1/4 cups whole milk, scalded and cooled to lukewarm, 1 1/2 cups white flour and 2 tablespoons brown sugar. Set aside and in a mixer, beat 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup butter and 3 eggs. Fold egg mixture into dough. along with 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon cardamom, 1 teaspoon lemon peel, 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1 1/2 cups white flour. Knead, let rise 40 minutes. Put in a greased pan. Let rise 30 minutes and bake at 375 for 45 minutes. You can also use the dough to make cinnamon buns or any kind of sweet, yeasted pastry. You can also put icing on it, or just toast it with butter and jam.

Speaking of cinnamon buns, I also wanted to make something I could eat, so I made a variation on the cinnamon roll recipe in the Complete Gluten-Free Cookbook. Mix 1 cup sorghum flour with 3/4 cup garfava (or other whole bean) flour, 2/3 cup tapioca starch, 1/2 cup cornstarch, 2 tablespoons potato flour (NOT starch), 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon xantham gum, 4 teaspoons yeast, 1 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon dough conditioner (optional). Set aside. In a mixer with the paddle attachment, combine 1 cup milk, 2 tablespoons safflower or other vegetable oil, 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar and 2 eggs. Beat until well mixed. Add the flour and mix for about 4 minutes.

Split the dough in 2, make into a square about 1/2 inch thick and wrap in plastic wrap dusted with sorghum flour. Refrigerate at least 2 hours (I left mine over night).

Combine 1/2 cup melted butter, 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1/3 cup cornsyrup. Pour into 13 x 9 inch pan and sprinkle with pecan and walnut halves.

For the filling, combine 3/4 cup chopped walnuts, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup soft butter, 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon and 1 peeled and chopped apple.

Take out one packet of dough. Put it on a piece of parchment paper sprinkled with sorghum flour. sprinkle more sorghum flour on top and put a piece of parchment over it. Roll out into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick. Remove the top piece of parchment. Spread half the filling on the dough. Roll up the long way, like a carpet and cut into pieces about 2 inches thick. Put each piece cut side down in the pan on top of the syrup and nuts. Repeat with other packet of dough.

Let rise about 2 hours until double in size. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes. Cover with tinfoil and bake another 10 minutes. Remove from the pan after 5 minutes, otherwise they will stick! And believe me, you won't want to lose any to the pan, you will want to eat every bite!

Scratch Cooking October 16th

Goinggreen — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:45:47 GMT

In praise of quinoa. I don't love the taste, but what a great thing when you don't feel like a 'main' course protein but you know you need protein! Last night I really just wanted roasted fall veggies for dinner but I hadn't eaten any protein all day so I knew I needed some. It was red quinoa (mixed with hato mugi) to the rescue. Hato Mugi is also known as Job's Tears and that seemed appropriate given the week I've been having.

It tasted a little stale, I have to admit. Probably because the hato mugi have been in my refrigerator since my last boyfriend bought them, and that was over a year ago. My how time flies! I'm not quite as bad as Ruth Reichl's mother (if you haven't read Tender at the Bone, stop what you are doing right now and go pick it up. I mean it! Stop reading. Now. Go to the library or book store. Cancel your weekend plans. Read that book!) but I really do hate to let things go to waste. If they don't have visible signs of having gone bad, I am prone to use them.

On the other hand, having gone there with the hato mugi, I believe it is time to relegate them to the compost pile along with any lingering thoughts of that louse of a boyfriend. Out with the old, and all that jazz...

The veggies on the other hand were super yum. Squash, sweet potatoes, potatoes and broccoli roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper. My daughter actually said "delicious broccoli, mom". WOW!

Not sure what cooking projects are up for this weekend. I am carless so whatever it is, it will be with very local ingredients, like the ones already in my house!

Blogger Action Day; Mission Climate Change

Goinggreen — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:20:21 GMT

Today is blogger action day. And the topic? Climate change. It's funny, since I write about climate a lot, so I want to make today a little different. So let's move from climate blogger action to climate action, shall we? Starting with 9 days from now, October 24th, being climate action day.

More than 3000 events to choose from in 158 countries, come on sign up! There are actions in Europe, Africa, South America, Asia and North America. So let's pick a place and do it! What do you say we all meet in Senegal? How about Paris? Istanbul? Or we could save the carbon emissions and each represent in the place we live.

The idea is to incorporate the number 350 at an iconic place in your community, and then upload a photo of the event to 350.org website. Why 350? That's the level of global carbon emissions we need to get to in order to prevent more than 2 degrees warming in global temperatures. Right now we are at 387 and climbing.

Here’s another thing you can do. Call your Congress critter and your Senators and tell them to quit listening to corporate lobbyists and start listening to scientists – and real scientists, not the ones bought and paid for by Exxon – and pass climate and energy legislation that will get us to the reductions we need. Oh, and while you’re on the phone, tell them this; no offshore drilling, quit subsidizing coal and let the EPA do its darn job and regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act.

Talk to your friends, neighbors, family, colleagues about why you support strong climate and energy legislation with aggressive reduction targets. Talk to them about the money to be saved, and incentives, for energy efficiency. Talk to them about the money to be made in innovation and new technologies. Talk to them about the cost, trillions, of doing nothing about climate change. Talk to them about the number of illnesses caused by coal and exhaust pollution, the same pollutants that cause climate change. Or the emissions from an agricultural system that is making us sick. Talk to them about clean, domestic energy sources that improve our national security and create good American jobs.

Pick something you are going to do differently to waste less, use less and lower your carbon footprint. After you pick that thing, pick another. Then encourage a friend to pick one. Pick another. The more you pick, the more your friend has to pick. Oh, and by the way, your friend also needs to encourage their friends to pick and keep picking the behavioral changes we are all going to make to do our part in the battle to stop catastrophic climate change. See where I’m going with this?

And the next time someone denies that climate change is real, or caused by human activity, ask them this; do you REALLY think you’re smarter than a rocket scientist? Then direct them to the NASA site on climate change.

Now, if you are still in need of more blogger action, I give you for your reading pleasure some super wonky climate stuff, presented in what I think is a humorous manner, (but maybe I’ve been reading this stuff too long!) check out the CROC Blog (it’s a little inside baseball here but essentially Greenpeace issued a report today saying that a project in Bolivia that the Nature Conservancy has held up as an example of how forest offsets can be successful is actually an example of how they don’t work) and How CBO Budget Scoring Devalues Efficiency – With Puppies!

Happy Blogger Action Day ’09. Let’s get this thing done!

Scratch Cooking October 14

Goinggreen — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:48:01 GMT

Today was a lousy day. I found out why my neck is hurting so much - I have degeneration in the discs and cartilage. This doctor likes to blow up the x-rays and draw big circles around all of the areas that are abnormal. I guess knowledge is power but in this case it just bummed me out.

And on my way back from the doctor to the pharmacy to pick up my brand spanking new prescriptions of muscle relaxant and anti-inflammatory, I got distracted and rear ended the car in front of me. It was raining, there was traffic and I wasn’t thinking very clearly. Clearly. It was a young kid in an SUV and he couldn’t have been sweeter. His car had a little dent in the bumper. My Prius on the other hand has a cracked bumper and an accordion for a hood. Ugggggghhhhhhh.

Oh, and while I was at the pharmacy, I ran into a woman I know from ballet who is a total anorexic nutball and had to listen to her go off about how the antioxidants in chocolate aren't enough to justify the calories, blah, blah, blah. Now you know that I am generally a pacifist, but my neck hurt, the doctor still doesn't know what I have but for the first time said the words "borderline lupus" which I can tell you is really fun to hear and I just destroyed the front end of my car. So,don't tell anyone but I wanted to ring her scrawny little neck and throw all 72 pounds of her out the window! Either that or force feed her chocolate like a foie gras goose! (By the way, while I was writing those words, it seemed only appropriate that I should be polishing off some fair trade chocolate that my daughter handed me. So ha!)

Life seems to be conspiring against me but for one thing. I remade Jacques and Julia’s salmon encrusted in potato last night, you know the recipe I made the first night of scratch cooking, and it came out much better. I chose a center cut piece of salmon and I sliced the potatoes super thin on the mandolin. It wasn’t perfect, some of the potatoes came off, but one side of one piece was exactly the right color and texture with buttery, golden brown potatoes. So I took a picture of it and that is what I will show you. Ta da!

Okay, I am taking my car crashing, achy, whinny, angry, unforgiving, pathetic self to bed. Tomorrow has GOT to be a better day!

Scratch Cooking October 12th

Goinggreen — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:23:09 GMT

6 pm on Monday. Cranky, tired, sore. Doctor said to go ahead and eat wheat, because, the wheat and gluten allergy tests came back negative. Made the gnocchi with wheat flour on Saturday night and woke up at 2 am with excruciating neck and hip pain. More excruciating pain last night kept me up for 3 hours. Read on the internet today that not eating wheat or gluten for many months can very well result in a false negative. Ugggggghhhhh. Popping extra strength tylenol like candy all day. More work to do. Hungry. Want to open a bag of rice pasta and boil it. Want to so badly. But here's what happened instead.

I cut up half a kabocha squash and baked it in olive oil, salt and pepper. I stuck it in a 400 degree oven.

My daughter was enlisted to chop an onion, a few carrots from the garden, some broccoli and some grean beans. We also had a few peas from the garden and some spinach. I made a pot of white rice. We sauteed the veggies in sesame oil. When they were soft and starting to brown, we threw in the cooked rice, a splash of rice vinegar and a splash of wheat-free tamari. We sauteed for a few minutes and tossed in a beaten egg and stirred until cooked.

And so, it was fried rice Monday night when it could have been lazy, tired, cranky, open a package of something overly salted and with preservatives in it Monday night.

Something I have noticed since we started doing this; not only do we have hardly any garbage, which has been true since we started composting a few years ago, but we also have hardly any recycling. Of course, less packaged foods means less packaging! Since I hate walking out to the alley to take out the garbage and recycling, I am totally loving the minimized waste, in addition to the reduced footprint on the planet.

Tomorrow is member day at the Coop. 10% off on everything in the place. I plan to do a bit of stocking up on ingredients. The great thing is, I skip all the canned and packaged food aisles and make a strategic strike on the bulk bins!

Scratch Cooking October 11th

Goinggreen — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:54:34 GMT

It's been a few days and I have much to say, but where to start? Let's start with Jamie Oliver. He's young, hot, and all about scratch cooking! Did anyone see the New York Times article today on his new mission to help make the most unhealthy town in America - Huntington, West Virginia -healthier by teaching people how to cook from scratch? A Brit teaching Americans about fresh, healthy food? Who would have thought that would ever happen? When I lived in London in the mid 80's, British cuisine was still butter and mayonnaise sandwiches!

So Friday and Saturday were all about taking whatever was in the refrigerator and making something from it. Sadly, Thursday was another migraine and head in the toilet day so Friday was a soup day. Chopped onion, chopped potatoes, chopped green beans, chopped brocolli and baby spinach with water, salt, pepper and herbs. I had 3 bowls of it. Sure, I was feeling icky and kind of wishing that I could just open a can of soup, but because I made it myself, it had the amount of salt that I needed, the ratio of vegetables to broth that I needed and I didn't have to worry about preservatives and additives sending me into another tail spin.

Saturday, I ended up at a friend's house after a hike and we made a kitchen sink salad. I will try to remember what was in it; romaine lettuce, chopped onion, chopped zucchini, chopped tomato, chopped pear, chopped almonds and a chopped leftover baked potato, plus some chickpeas. We put on a little olive oil and a little fig balsamic vinegar and looked at each other and said "this is either going to be really good or really disgusting". We each had multiple servings, so I guess that answers that!

During the week, my daughter and her friend expressed an interest in making gnocchi, so I suggested that we make sweet potato gnocchi from a recipe on IdealBite. I made the ricotta in the morning. By now, I am sure all of you know that recipe by heart!

The gnocchi were very easy and made a lot! We made 2 sauces. The first was a tomato coulis. I sauteed some chopped onion in olive oil and added some salt, pepper and 3 chopped tomatoes. I also added the seeds from about 6 caradmom pods and a splash of red wine. When it had cooked for about an hour, we pushed it through a seive. The flavors were really lovely. For the other sauce, my daughter browned some butter, which is basically heating it until it gets brown and fragrant, and threw in some fresh sage leaves from the garden and salt and cooked it until the sage leaves were a little crispy.

My friend Michele brought over some heirloom tomatoes from the local community garden and some fresh mozzarella. We clipped some basil from the garden and made insalata caprese.

I remember the first time I heard about insalata caprese. Actually, I didn't hear about it, I read about it when I was 22 in a guidebook on Italy right before a trip I decided to take there on a whim. Actually, someone I worked with was going there to see her twin sister who was living in Bologna. I was tired of being broke in New York, okay with my job but hating my boss and ready for a change so I quit my job and found a chip ticket to Italy and tagged along for 3 weeks. I actually dragged my friend and her sister to the isle of Capri for Easter because I wanted to try that salad. We stayed at a place called the Eden hotel which was on the not touristy side of the island overlooking a beautiful groto. There were lemon and orange groves and sheeps and goats. We paid about $5 a night and because it was Easter and nothing was open, we had Easter dinner with the family that owned it. And the insalata Caprese absolutely lived up to expectation.

After dinner, which I must say was so delicious that 4 of us almost finished all the gnocchi, we went to see Michael Moore's new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story. I have no idea how that movie got an R rating other than the fact that most of it is about the American people getting f***ed by the investment banks. It's disturbing, funny and distinctly non-partisan. He hits as hard on the Democrats as he does on the Republicans, maybe even harder. See it, get pissed off and then tell me what action we should take because, seriously, children being locked up for profit? In addition to cooking up dinner, I'm ready to cook up a revolt. This system is broken and we need a new one!

So far today I am working on a few Bob's Redmill recipes. I met Bob once a few years ago when at his store in Portland, Oregon for breakfast. He looks just like the picture on the packages.

I made some quinoa sour cream fudge cupcakes. I just ate one with some of the homemade strawberry jam. YUUUUUUUMMMMMMM! I have some dough rising for the homemade buttermilk roll recipe on the back of the potato flour package. Okay, I'm off to shape some rolls!

Sisters on the Planet

Goinggreen — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 05:29:03 GMT

So last week I attended the Governors’ Global Climate Summit. The point of the conference, in its second year, is to create collaborations among state and provincial governments around the world on climate issues. It was also meant to push the likelihood of an international agreement at Copenhagen in December by creating preliminary international agreements between sub-national governments.

It is heartening to know that so much is happening on emissions reductions, deforestation prevention and renewable energy standards at the local and regional level despite the failure of certain national governments, like ours, to pass national climate policy. And there is much to be excited about in terms of the agreements made at the conference between mayors, governors and premiers from China, the U.S., Indonesia, India, Brazil, Canada and elsewhere.

What was frustrating, though, was the lack of representation of women on many of the panels. Yes, there were women, but they were vastly out numbered by men. Is this a function of who ends up in elected position? Certainly. And yet the women who were there are leaders and warriors on climate and environment. One governor from Brazil, who has done incredible things in her state to stop deforestation, said that she didn’t want her future grandchildren to ask her why, when she had the pen in her hand, she didn’t do everything in her power to stop climate change.

In that spirit, Oxfam America's Sisters on the Planet initiative honored outstanding women for their work to affect climate change policy last Friday at the close of the conference. The honorees included California Senator Barbara Boxer, a true warrior on climate issues and the co-author of a senate bill to tackle climate and energy policy. Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, Linda Adams, was also honored. She is one of the many women responsible for Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s surprisingly progressive stance on environment and climate change. When they write the story of how a person as unlikely as Arnold Schwarzenegger became a leader on climate issue, that script will have plenty of roles for women!

The woman who was really amazing, though, was Sharon Hanshaw, Executive Director of Coastal Women for Change, in Biloxi, Mississippi. Sharon lost her house, her car and her business – a hair salon – during the devastation of hurricane Katrina. Living in a FEMA trailer, she helped organize local women and gave voice to their concerns over the lack of government support for rebuilding low income communities. Coastal Women for Change trained women, low income residents and people of color to speak out about the recovery process. They also came up with solutions for their communities, like training child care providers and developing disaster preparation. They also became advocates for climate change prevention, recognizing that coastal areas like Biloxi are on the front lines. Sharon may not hold elected office, but what she is doing on climate and environmental justice matters. It matters a lot. And despite her own personal tragedies, she made working on behalf of an entire community her priority.

“Women are the leaders, whether they’re at the head or not,” Sharon has said. And so whether we have the kind of representation in government or on panels that we should, we still have an important, no a critical, role to play in solving the climate crisis. We are often the ones that decide what our families buy, what they eat, and where they live. All of that matters. And so often, women are the conscience of our community, whether it’s a governor recognizing that the decisions she makes today effect future generations or a parent teaching her little one not to waste. And that matters, too.

So here’s to all the sisters on the planet and the sisters on PNN.com. Keep making your voices heard. We are the leaders, whatever our jobs, whatever our titles. And we can lead the world out of this mess!