What's Been on My Mind

What's been on my mind: in a word, FOOD! I had my wisdom teeth removed on Monday morning, and since then have been longing for my return to the world of solid food, crunchy food, and anything that involves excessive action on the part of my molars.

It hasn't been all bad; oatmeal with cinnamon and mashed bananas, pureed sweet potatoes and carrots, and gallons and gallons of pudding! But while I've had several hours a day to "enjoy" my spring break oral recovery, I've been thinking about all of the wonderful food I will be able to devour again very soon.

One relatively recent adoption to our kitchen has been our sourdough starter, aka "mother" (I want to come up with a more clever name for it, but creativity is lacking recently). Every morning, I add some whole wheat flour and water to it. Then, after it has absorbed a sufficient amount of yeast from the air, we take some of it and combine it with flour and other ingredients and bake a delicious sourdough loaf. It is so easy! This week, we are planning on making a few smaller loafs that will act as bread bowls for the tomato soup we just bough from Raikowski Farms at the winter farmer's market. I'm excited!

Another Pizza Post!

Friday night pizza just got even better! Yesterday, I decided that I would make my own dough from scratch. There was more than a slight chance of eating subpar pizza, but I didn't care. I was feeling adventurous, darn it, and I wanted to stop relying on pre-mixed doughs, dough from cans, and anything having to do with dough in boxes and/or lovable, obese dough boys. I googled "pizza dough recipes", clicked on the very first one, made a few adjustments, and watched my hope and anticipation rise along with the dough.

And rise it did. As you can see from the pictures below, the dough expanded like Charlize Theron preparing to be in the movie Monster. And it turned out really well! I had to ask Amanda several times while we were enjoying the pizza if she really liked it, because I have found that I genuinely enjoy things that I make for myself regardless of whether they are truly good or not. After several confirmations that, indeed, the pizza was one of the best we had made, I feel like I can declare this a success.

Friday Night Pizza Dough

1.5 tsp dry active yeast

1 cup warm water

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp salt

2.5 tsp white sugar

2 tsp basil

2 tsp oregano

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes.

2. Stir yeast mixture in with the rest of the ingredients. Cover and let rise. Preheat oven to 350 while you wait.

3. Roll out on pan, pizza stone, or whatever you are baking with. Top with pizza toppings and enjoy!

The All-American Meal

While trying to eat more healthfully and more sustainably, meals like burgers and fries seem to go by the wayside. Not purchasing factory-farmed meat and avoiding deep-fried genetically modified golden Freedom Fries can be an impediment in enjoying an occasional indulgence like this. However, with a few minor adjustments (and education), this meal is well within reach.

It is unbelievably easy to be apathetic about a concept such as how meat is produced. When I have tried to talk about those close to me about why I am striving to become a locavore and the topic of meat comes up, I have heard, "Oh, don't tell me! It's really gonna gross me out!!" on several occasions. Now, I'm not trying to be preachy and I feel that I am generally pretty unassuming in the presentation of my points. But I will take my opportunity now to step up on my soapbox and hopefully (when I actually have readers), I can educate some people about making appropriate food choices.

CAFO's, or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, is likely where your meat comes from when you go to the supermarket and pick up a pound of ground chuck to grill some delicious burgers. These operations place tremendous stress on the animals, not only by forcing them into an intolerable living space, but by injecting them with growth hormones, dosing their feed with antibiotics, and forcing them to trudge around in an exorbitant amount of fecal matter. The videos that floated around the internet a few years back of people doing absurdly inhumane things in order to get animals to stand for long enough to slaughter them were not an isolated incident. This happens all over the country, and these animals are the origin of the meat you buy. Yum!

Purchasing local, free-range meat accomplishes several things. First, you are supporting local farmers who desperately need help in this era of enormous commercial farms. Second, you have more of a direct connect with the ecosystem than with commercial meat. Third, you can generally ensure that the animals were treated humanely during their life and are free of residues from antibiotics and pesticides when you actually eat them. The origin of the ground bison for my burger, pictured below, is a small farm just outside of Stevens Point. Amanda and I have passed by on our bikes before, and it is quite reassuring to know exactly where this meat came from.

In lieu of deep-fried french fries, I baked some thin slices of sweet potato until they were crispy and delicious.

If you want to read more about why you should avoid factory-farmed meat, I recommend Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, What to Eat by Marion Nestle, and Grub by Anna Lappe and Bryant Terry.

NYC Green - No Impact Man

I recently decided upon New York University to finish up my education in the field of physical therapy. A rational person might think I would be mildly concerned about moving to a city with a population approximately 350 times larger than where I currently live, but I cannot wait to make the transition to life in the greatest city in the world.

Since Amanda and I have recently been attempting to live even more sustainably, I wanted to find out how I can continue with this lifestyle, OR become even more sustainable. Some things are quite obvious; New York has a terrific mass transit system, so our greenhouse gas emissions are bound to decrease. But there are some things that I wanted to know more about. Luckily, many of the books I have been reading lately have many potential applications to my new life in NY.

The first of these books is No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process by Colin Beavan. Beavan says that he always described himself as an environmentalist, but really didn't know how his actions were very different than anyone else's. With that in mind, he undertook a yearlong project to not only reduce his impact on the environment, but through various organizations and simple actions, leave a positive impact as well. Beavan lives in Manhattan, and during his year of no impact living, he gives up packaging, buying new things, all transportation with the exception of walking and biking, and eventually, electricity. While his eco-experiment may seem a little extreme (and it may well be), it teaches us some very important lessons about how our small individual actions can lead to large collective action. It inspired me to make several changes in my daily life which, hopefully, will inspire others to make subtle yet important changes in their actions which hopefully will inspire many, many others.

I strongly recommend No Impact Man (and Colin Beavan's blog) to anyone who cares about the future of our planet and how they can play a role in making that future as bright as possible.

Pizza!

For the last few weeks, we have set one dinner a week as pizza. I think I can say with some certainty that our unofficial "Pizza Night" is here to stay. And as a hungry college student with access to some wonderful cheeses, I am quite happy about it.

Since beginning this blog, our weekly pizza has already evolved. We used to buy those Pillsbury cans of dough at the supermarket (which, don't get me wrong, are very delicious), but have advanced ourselves to buying mixes of "95% organic ingredients" dough from the Co-Op. Not only does it taste much better, but we're putting more of our dollar back into the community by shopping at the Co-Op than at County Market. We also don't buy those convenient bags of pre-shredded cheeses that are ubiquitous at all big chain supermarkets. Instead, we buy cheese that we know is from Wisconsin (and preferably from Rudolph, WI - Dairy State Cheese Co.) and shred it ourselves. These changes may seem small, but it is ensuring that (1) we have the freshest ingredients, (2) the ingredients have less food miles on them, and (3) more of our pizza money stays within the area.

The Food So Nice They Named it Twice

Couscous primavera was on the menu the other night, and this simple and quick recipe did not disappoint. Couscous is another item which we now purchase from the bulk bins at the Co-Op and store in a used sauce jar. We seem to be accumulating more and more jars and other containers that we would have thrown away or recycled, and I'm excited to fill them with things I would have bought anyway to cut down on superfluous packaging.

Anyway, the couscous primavera took about 25 minutes to make (including prep time), and was not only delicious but inexpensive. However, we may shelve this recipe until the spring and summer, at which time we can get all of the ingredients from the farmer's market and make this a very local dish.

Tofu!

This post is long overdue, but I'm finally putting it up! Last week, Amanda's experimental dish was Tofu Rigatoni Casserole. Since we could not find any bulk rigatoni at the Co-Op, we used some penne we had previously purchased and seem to always have on hand these days. This was a pretty easy meal to make, and one that produced a considerable amount of leftovers, which is always good - until we forget about them in the fridge...

Eating this meal reminded me of how delicious baked pasta dishes are, and made me want to make more dishes with a delicious layer of bubbly, baked cheese on top. But alas, while eating thick layers of cheese on top of everything may be a gesture bursting with Wisconsin pride, it is also bursting with saturated fat. Oh well. Every once in a while is certainly okay though.

Dining Out the Green Way in Stevens Point

The other day, I went to Cafe 27 for lunch, and halfway through declared it to be my new favorite dining establishment in all of Stevens Point. I don't know why it took me so long to go there, but I know that I will now instantly become a regular.

Cafe 27 is a restaurant that is committed to sustainability through the purchasing of ingredients from local farmers, and updating the menu on a daily basis to reflect what is available and what is in season. They also serve New Roots Coffee, one of my favorite local roasters.

Now, I have only experienced lunch at Cafe 27, so I can really only vouch for part of the menu, but I am eager to try some fresh baked goods some morning in the not-too-distant future. Until then, my mouth will be watering in anticipation of the next batch of their delectable sweet potato chips.

The Adventures of Purchasing Bulk Noodles and Making Lasagna

One of the things that Amanda and I are going to try doing is purchasing more things in bulk to avoid all of the plastic and cardboard that seems to encompass everything on our planet these days. Luckily, we have a pretty schnazzy little bag that is the perfect size for holding lasagna noodles, and we just happen to be making lasagna this week. Boom!

Veggie lasagna is one of my favorite things to make. I can put one together in about 45 minutes, and the leftovers feed us for lunch the rest of the week. The only "green" change that we made this time was the aforementioned noodles purchased in bulk. Hopefully we can get our hands on some more of the marinara from our winter farmer's market, and some cheeses from Wisconsin Dairy State Cheese Co. and make this recipe even more local and delicious next time.

Whole Wheat Penne with Marinara - Part Deux: The More Eco-Friendly Version!

Eating well in the winter while adhering to certain guidelines one sets for themselves can be difficult. Odds are the nutritious food you would purchase in the grocery store came from across the country, or if you chose a less nutritious alternative, they are probably loaded with preservatives and have been sitting on the shelves for several weeks and are primed to stay there for several weeks more. That is why when Amanda and I heard about a winter farmer's market taking place at our favorite coffee shop, we had to go and at least check it out.

And what a wonderful surprise it was! There were only a few local vendors there, but you could tell that each of them had put their heart and soul into everything they were selling. There were potatoes, eggs, myriad meats, sauces, baked goods, and gluten-free energy bars, not to mention those selling non-edible items such as homemade soap and yarn.

We bought some homemade marinara sauce from one of the vendors, and decided to go to the Co-Op to finally start purchasing pasta in bulk to curb our purchasing of unnecessary cardboard and plastic. We bought a new jar which henceforth shall hold our pasta, loaded it up with whole wheat penne and waited patiently for dinner. And by waiting I mean we had an eventful day, where I was running around in excitement about my acceptance into New York University's DPT program and Amanda nearly smashed her finger into smithereens. When dinner rolled around, it was utterly fantastic. The sauce was much darker than marinaras we used to purchase from the store, and much sweeter as well. I can say with certainty that we will be at the winter farmer's market every week until we get the actual farmer's market back. It feels good (not only in my stomach, but my heart as well) to support locals that are trying to make a difference with what they sell, and I am glad we wandered upon these wonderful people.

Finish the Squash!

As you may recall from a prior post, we had a huge squash and unlimited possibilities for the leftovers. What we settled upon was a recipe for squash and avocados in a sweet chili salsa. This was a good recipe, but not necessarily for a main course. It's like -2 outside, we need something a little more substantial sometimes.

Yeah. Nothing else to say about this one really. We made it. We enjoyed it. We took pictures. And then we snacked afterwards because we were still hungry.

Swing and a miss!

Spiced carrot and feta gnocchi sounds like a sure bet for an amazing dinner. The picture in the recipe book inspired me to give this recipe a shot, and although it looked like a somewhat daunting effort, I thought it would be well worth the work.

As I was making the gnocchi and watching all of the dishes accumulate (I dirtied more dishes than anything else we've cooked recently. It was ridiculous!), the thought crossed my mind that this might not work out. Casting this thought aside, I pressed on. The sauce called for two tablespoons of mint, but I only added one. This still turned out to be too much mint and overwhelmed our palates. The gnocchi (sans sauce) was pretty good, except it was hard to perceive any of the feta cheese. It was a carrot and mint dominant dish.

It was not an altogether terrible recipe. I don't see us making this again any time soon, but with a few modifications, including volume as this recipe made about 8 times as much as the two of us ate, we could try this one again.

Green Stimulant: Organic, Fair Trade, Shade Grown Coffee

I am borderline addicted to coffee. I feel that I am noticeably more irritable if my day does not start with a cup of that magical bean juice (Mmmmm....bean juice. Makes it sound appetizing, doesn't it?). At the commencement of my coffee drinking days, how I got my coffee and where I got it from were seemingly irrelevant factors in my mind. Starbucks? Dunkin' Donuts? Sure. Paper cup? Eh, why not.

Nowadays, as I am trying to actualize more of my environmental beliefs, I find it imperative to only support suppliers of coffee who are committed to certain standards. If I can help it (when I'm traveling it is more difficult to do so) I only purchase and brew organic, fair trade, shade grown coffee. It is a mouthful to say, and a hassle to explain to someone similar to me a few years ago.

"Why does it matter where you get your coffee from? It all tastes just about the same anyway, and why pay extra money to get a bunch of little stamps on it?" It matters because coffee is a complex thing; not only in terms of flavor, but in terms of politics as well. You can bet brands like Folgers, Starbucks, and Dunkin' Donuts have decimated large areas of rainforest to clear space to exclusively grow fields and fields of coffee. I understand the concept of supply and demand, but clearing huge areas to grow coffee is detrimental to both that eco-system and, much less important in the grand scheme of things, quality of the bean. Before these large brands emerged, all coffee was shade grown, as that was how the plant evolved over time. Genetics have since allowed for new hybrid plants to be grown that are more tolerant of sunlight and have a higher yield of coffee beans. To top it all off, these new hybrids became dependent on pesticides and chemical fertilizers to grow to their potential. Now we have a trifecta of environmental devastation: habitat clearing, loss of biodiversity, and contaminated soil.

So there's why I support shade grown coffee. The reason I support fair trade is pretty simple: a higher share of the dollar I spend on my much-needed caffeine fix goes to the farmer and the community at the source, where that money is much needed. Much of the world's coffee is grown in regions where poverty is rampant, and large corporations such as Nestle, Sara Lee, and Kraft are buying huge amounts of coffee with no regard for hard-working people struggling to make a living producing sustainable coffee.

Last but certainly not least, is the organic label, which I will not even delve into. We all know why supporting organic practices is a more ecologically suitable option.

One of my recent favorite quotes is from Michael Pollan who says, "You can vote with your fork three times a day." Well, I think you might as well make it four, and vote with your coffee. Support brands that adhere to shade grown, organic, and fair trade standards. Now, I make my coffee with a french press, which not only tastes significantly better than drip coffee, but does not generate paper waste in the form of used coffee filters. I also began buying my coffee in bulk and putting it right in a vacuum container. The Stevens Point Co-Op has a myriad of different blends in bulk, and are ecstatic to see people bring in their own containers. We can all do something to reduce our impact, and researching what you can do to help can be a rewarding experience and make you feel like you're making a difference.

Baked Baked Potatoes Potatoes

Baking things twice always makes them better, right? Last night for dinner was twice baked potatoes, which was twice as good and twice as filling as boring old ordinary potatoes. This recipe was quite simple, and my only complaint was how long we had to wait for them to bake the first time through. The recipe also frightened me into whipping the potatoes for an insufficient amount of time with a threat of glue-tasting mush! Here is the link to the recipe.

Now, on to the matter of potatoes nutritionally. Did you know that potatoes have more potassium than bananas? Shocking! They also have a surprising amount of vitamin C. See, who needs to ship oranges and bananas hundreds and hundreds of miles in the middle of the winter when we can have potatoes! Hooray!!!

Quiche fit for Popeye

The other night, I decided to cook one of my favorite dishes that my Nana would always make. Spinach quiche is a fantastic dish, easy to make, and nutritious and not very costly. When I opened my recipe box to look for the 3"x5" card that held the recipe for this glorious meal, I discovered that only the ingredients were listed, with no further instructions. Having helped both my mother and my Nana make this meal in the past was quite beneficial that night, as the only aspect of cooking the quiche I had to guess about was the cooking temperature (which, I can definitively say after cooking this, I still am unsure of).

I made some variations to what I knew the instructions would have told me, and I believe they helped the dish. I'm pretty sure the recipe calls for the frozen spinach to be defrosted in the microwaved, then squeezed of all juices and mixed with the liquid ingredients. This time, with some successful improvisational cooking under my belt, I decided to sautee some garlic with the onions that the recipe called for (both locally grown), and added the frozen spinach (organic) after those were soft. The quiche had a noticeable amount of additional moisture, but the aroma and flavor of the onions and garlic brought a new dimension to the quiche.

Hubbard Squash Squares in Cream

I have a pretty cool girlfriend who made a great meal for us the other night and wrote about it in her Brown Bear Blog. Here is the post and some pics of the process!

Every week, Matt and I each pick a recipe that is totally new and challenging to us. Last week we found what was probably the last of the local winter squash at our Co-Op and I decided that I would use it for my dish. I've never cooked squash before but I was romanced by the idea that I could eat local produce in the depths of a Wisconsin winter.

After I figured out what type of squash I had (gray hubbard... I think) and a recipe, we went back to the Co-Op and picked up a local onion and some organic sour cream. I've been looking forward to making this meal all week and let me tell you, it was an adventure.

One of the things I have learned from this experience is that squash is not easy to peel. I was stabbing and grunting and just trying to get at this thing anyway I could. Eventually though I got the hang of it and the rest was easy. I didn't butcher it too bad.

The end result was delicious but oh so filling. We only used half the squash and still had leftovers. Guess I'll be making squash again soon.

Hubbard Squash Squares in Cream

4 cups cubed, peeled hubbard squash
dash of pepper
2 tbsp EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 med. onion, sliced
1 cup sour cream
dill weed
Cook squash in boiling, salted water, covered for 10 min. or until tender. Drain well. Sprinkle with pepper.
Meanwhile, cook onion in small saucepan in EVOO for 3 min or until tender. Remove from heat.
Mix sour cream and onion with salt, stirring well.
Place cooked squash in serving bowl. Pour cream mixture over top. Sprinkle with dill weed.

Tuesday January 19th - Grilled Cheese and Creamy Tomato Soup

One of Amanda and I's favorite quick meals, and one of the best things to have on a chilly Wisconsin evening. The tomato soup, though still store-bought, was leagues ahead of Campbell's in terms of flavor and quality. We used our homemade bread and the local cheese (both of which keep making appearances in this blog) for the grilled cheese sandwiches. I feel way better about simple meals like this now that we're using less ingredients such as processed cheese individually wrapped in plastic and bread baked somewhere nowhere near here.

Monday, January 18th - Portobello Mushroom Sandwiches

In lieu of a grease-laden CAFO burger, Amanda (read her blog!) and I opted for a healthful and scrumptious meat alternative. Portobello mushrooms are low in saturated fat and cholesterol, while being rich in phytochemicals and minerals such as folate, zinc, and magnesium. Also, instead of following a recipe, I decided to ultimately just wing it and briefly marinated the mushroom caps in a mix of olive oil with minced (locally grown) garlic, thyme, fennel seeds, and a dash of cayenne pepper, before cooking them. We then topped them with local cheese and ate them on our homemade bread. A mouthwatering, local, healthy, and simple meal!

Homemade Bread - Attempt 2

After the first semi-failed attempt at homemade bread, I was eager for another opportunity to prove myself a worthy baker. I feel like I was slightly more patient while waiting for the dough to rise, and leaving the house while that happened proved itself to be a decently successful strategy. However, the anticipated two loaves once again ended up being one. The bread is still fantastic, just very filling.

I made a couple of adjustments to the recipe this time. I really shouldn't be tweaking recipes that I can't really make correctly yet, but I threw caution to the wind and just went for it and made...two minor adjustments. In a not-quite-groundbreaking fashion, I added two tablespoons of flaxseed meal and a teaspoon of local honey. Flaxseed is a quite potent supplement to, well, anything really. It is loaded with all kinds of good stuff; omega-3 fatty acids in the form of alpha-linolenic acid, loads of both soluble and insoluble fiber, and lignans which act as powerful antioxidants. There are innumerable studies that show that flaxseed plays a role in the prevention of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and even the severity and frequency of hot flashes. It's an amazing ingredient that you can throw into any number of things while you're cooking, and I think I will do just that with many more recipes.