I thought things were bad.

They're worse.

Summer Salads

Simple and easy ways to use up those farmers market finds... and keep up with how fast my herbs are growing.

The Green Salad

This idea came from an amazing omelet from The Bongo Room, which combined asparagus with English peas, with some additional brainstorming with my friend Suzanne, who suggested ideas for how to dress it, which I mostly adhered to...

We got the last peas from the farmers market last weekend; they are now officially Out of Season.  Some asparagus too.  Since I wanted the asparagus to retain some nice snap, I prepared that solely by blanching in boiling water for two minutes, then immediately dunking in ice water to stop the cooking.  The peas came already shelled, half of which I'd earlier used in a pasta salad (yum), so those simply got dumped in the bowl.  Once cool, the asparagus followed, cut into two-inch spears.

For the dressing, I threw some lemon juice, lime juice, rice wine vinegar, and coriander in the blender.  I had some leftover lamb's quarters that I needed to use up as well -- a leafy green "forage food" that's mildly bitter and great in salads with strawberries and balsamic vinaigrette. So I threw in a few leaves and blended everything together.  After finely chopping some mint leaves, I threw everything into the bowl and tossed to coat.

It turned out to be a very fresh-and-earthy tasting salad.  Despite using only a little lamb's quarter, that flavor really came through and nicely complemented the earthy asparagus and the fresh pea and mint flavors.  It had a nice balance between light and cool, and grounding.

The Red Salad

As much as we love watermelon in our household, it can still be a challenge for only two people to get through a whole big melon before it starts to go bad.  Enter the watermelon salad, a new take on watermelon that makes it different enough from ordinary, plain watermelon to make it disappear much faster.

This one is even easier than the first. Open up your watermelon, and cut the flesh into bite-sized chunks. Put the chunks into an enormous bowl, because it's a big watermelon and there's a lot of it. Throw in chunks of crumbly, tangy cheese – we have used goat cheese and feta and have loved both. On top of that, chiffonade a whole bunch of basil. This is easy to do: just stack your basil leaves on top of each other, roll them up into a little cigar, and then slice the cigar cross-wise to make long, thin strips. If you "fluff" them a bit, they will separate, and you can toss them in with your melon and cheese, then stir the whole thing up. If you have a big container with a lid, so much the better, because then you can just snap the lid on and shake.

Altogether the salad is cool, sweet, and juicy, with some nice tang from the cheese and a little accent from the basil. This could also work with mint instead of basil, although we haven't tried that yet.

My herbs are growing like crazy this year! So if you have ideas for ways to use mint, catnip, basil, sage, or cilantro, feel free to let me know. They grow faster than I can seem to eat them.

Pumpkin Pancakes

About a year ago we made pumpkin pancakes and we're only getting around to writing about it now because I'm a horrible procrastinator.

Our pancakes were made with pumpkin butter from Hillside Orchards, but you can also use canned pumpkin and spice it yourself if you're feeling ambitious. Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice all make good pumpkin spices.

Prep

You'll need an egg, 1/2 to 3/4 cup of pumpkin butter (depending on how pumpkinish you're feeling), a cup of flower, half a cup of milk, one tablespoon each of packed brown sugar, vegetable oil, and baking powder, and a quarter teaspoon of salt.

Procedure

Beat the egg, and mix in the rest of the stuff until smooth.  Heat up a griddle (or frying pan if you're a griddle-less savage like me), melting a little butter in the pan to prevent sticking.

Pour a quantity of batter in congruent with the size of pancake you desire and cook that sucker until the edges are dry and the top is bubbly, then flip and cook other side til golden brown.

The resulting pancake is best served with real maple syrup.

Outcome

I don't remember, man, I made this like a year ago. I assume it was good, or we wouldn't have taken these photos and set this entry up. Certainly sounds good. And who doesn't like pancakes? Terrorists, that's who.

Treating our Bodies as Sacred

Thought this was worth sharing, especially for this:

" ...[H]ealth is not just about weight.  It is about treating our bodies as sacred.  It’s about what we put into our bodies and making sure that they are in the best condition possible for the long haul.  It’s about putting things into our bodies that were created by nature or the gods, not by putting synthetic replicas into our bodies as a substitute. It’s something that not only Pagans struggle with, but health is a consideration for all humans.  When we are at the height of our possible health (which is different for all of us because of genetics, injury, etc.), we improve the quality of our life.  We reduce disease.  We prolong life.  We feel better for longer."

This is a discussion that a lot of people shy away from.  In our eagerness to be kind and accepting of each other — which is, indeed, important — we forget that ignoring preventable suffering and physical harm is not kind.  It's touchy, yes.  It's hard to find a proper balance.  I think, most importantly, it relies on people being willing to be kind to themselves, rather than putting others in the awkward position of figuring out whether or not to speak up.  Treating your own body carelessly is not treating it as sacred.  Your mind and spirit are important parts of you, and deserve your attention, kindness, and development.  But your body is no less a part of you, and it deserves no less.

Take care of yourselves.  All of yourself.

Rhubarb Muffins

Rhubarb is one of those vegetables that can be tricky to work with, but is really rewarding. After our current supply had been all but used up, we decided to use the last remnants to make some muffins. Muffins are awesome.

Ingredients 

For our muffins we needed a cup and a half of flour, half a teaspoon each of baking soda and salt, three-quarters cup of brown sugar, half a cup of buttermilk — or use sour milk, or milk mixed with a half-tablespoon of lemon juice — three-quarters cup of vegetable oil, an egg, a teaspoon of vanilla, and half a cup of chopped nuts.

To this we added the last of our rhubarb, one cup's worth chopped.

Topping

We're going to use a topping made from a quarter cup each of brown sugar, chopped nuts, and oats, and a half-teaspoon of cinnamon.

Cookin'

After preheating the oven to 325 and greasing up the muffin pan (we use a 6 large pan, but a 12 small works too), we combined the flour, soda, and salt, then added brown sugar, buttermilk, oil, egg, and vanilla. This was mixed together until it was moist, and then we stirred in the rhubarb and nuts.

The batter was scooped into the tray, and then sprinkled with the topping we prepared earlier. After about half-an-hour our muffins were done.

Diagnosis: Delicious

The muffins came out moist and sweet, with just a bit of tang from the rhubarb. Definitely a recipe worth keeping around and making again the next time we get our hands on some rhubarb.

Processed vs. Whole Foods: Well, I feel validated...

I had a new awareness: it made no sense, in evolutionary terms, to eat things that weren't actually food and expect our bodies to still react in a normal fashion.

I wrote that, so discovering the following video wasn't exactly surprising, really, but it was horrifying.

Stefani Bardin is a TEDxManhattan 2011 Fellow, who conducted small clinical trials using pill cameras to demonstrate how our digestive system reacts differently to processed versus unprocessed foods.  Pay particular attention to her narration, where she explains that some of the ingredients in the processed foods are petrochemicals – that's right, stuff derived from crude oil.

No wonder we can't digest it properly.  See for yourself:

What price do we pay for convenience? Not only do we develop attitudes that cooking is a chore (when it actually can be a part of the social and enjoyment experience of food), but what exactly happens when we absorb petrochemicals instead of nutrients?

Sweet White Wine Tomato Sauce – Guest Post by Zach Lome

The following is a guest post offered to us by Zach Lome. - MCoorlim

Sweet White Wine Tomato Sauce

Hi everyone! I’d like to start out by extending a big thanks to Food In My Food for allowing me to write a guest post. I’ve been friends with Michael for a long time, and I’ve been a food snob for just as long, so when he first started this blog I flipped my metaphorical lid in joy that he and Kat were doing things I wanted to do. As you all may know, they’ve got a natural hand in making cool food and keeping things nice and succinct here, so when Michael asked me to do this post I a.) panicked and b.) got excited, because succinctness is quite frankly not my strong suit. I envisioned a large three-course meal, all from scratch, with multiple tools in use and all sorts of crazy stuff. Luckily, laziness and a busy schedule won out and I landed on the following simple tomato sauce.

It’s All In The Mirepoix

The history of this sauce is pretty boring. I was trying to eat healthier and couldn’t continue to make Alfredo (my go-to sauce), but regular tomato sauce was too boring to me. I crave a variety of texture and flavor in all things i do. I had made a decent tomato sauce recently using cream cheese and roasted red peppers, and while I liked the creaminess I was looking for something chunky to go with tagliatelle or cavatappi, but knew I wanted to keep the roasted red peppers for sure. At this point I stumbled on an unrelated recipe that involved mirepoix, and I knew I had to use this. It’s as simple as can be: a 2:1:1 mix of onion, celery, and carrots.

While picking up the carrots and celery I also nabbed some nicy spicy italian sausage and knew that this was going to go in my dish, which meant I wanted a sauce that would complement the heat from the meat well enough. I grabbed some white wine and made sure to use vidalia (sweet) onions for the mirepoix. This meant I had 3 key sweet ingredients: white wine, red peppers, and sweet onions. From there I just... winged it. And thus this recipe.

Just Throw It In And Wait

History lesson over. This time I didn’t have any sausage, but the sauce is really chunky and sweet and savory and it goes perfectly well on its own. Cooking it is real simple. I made the mirepoix, 2 cups worth, and sweated it in a large saucepan with a little bit of extra virgin olive oil for about 6 minutes. When that was done I threw in the roasted red pepper and garlic (I roasted the peppers myself this time, but just used a jar last time. Both work just fine). At this point you’re supposed to put in tomato paste to up the savory-factor, but I was a butt and had forgotten. The sauce still turned out alright. After stirring everything up nice and fine for a few minutes I poured in white wine until it just barely covered all of the vegetables. Note that this is a lot of wine and can probably be reduced.

Finally, after another minute or so, I dumped in my can of crushed tomatoes and started spicing with the dried seasonings. I kept the heat on medium/medium high for about half an hour uncovered – I really wanted to reduce all the white wine so the resulting sauce would be properly chunky and not thin. Before serving I added a bunch of parsley for color and a splash of lemon juice for flavor.

Ingredients

I know Michael and Kat don’t usually spit out a list of ingredients in their posts, but I figured that, what the hell, this is my show today, so here you all go:

• 1/2 cup finely chopped celery
• 1/2 cup finely chopped carrot
• 1 cup finely chopped sweet onion
• 2~3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp tomato paste
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 or 2 roasted red bell peppers
• 1/4 ~ 1/2 cup good white wine (I didn't measure, precisely)
• 1 28oz can of crushed tomatoes
• dried basil, dried oregano, crushed red pepper, salt, and pepper to taste, fresh parsley

All you gotta do is combine these goodies and you’re set! For a sauce like this a broad noodle or a spiral noodle are your best choices; this time I went with a cavatappi. Tubes aren’t the best because a lot of the chunks are too large to get caught inside the tubes. It’s perfect with fresh-grated parmigiana on top and goes well with sausage, particularly spicy sausage, but is also good on its own.

Bon Appetit!