Culinary Adventures: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

This is a long post, since I haven't done this for a while, but just so you know there is a recipe at the end of it.

Well, I am now into another two-week recipe rotation. I have to say that since I've been getting back into the swing of the two-week menu planning, I've had some hiccups. I've had some quantity problems, and tried some recipes that really just didn't turn out that well, and perhaps most frustratingly I've been struggling with coming up with new things to try.

I've been reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, the very basic thesis of which is "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Mostly this book is about the disturbing rise of "nutritionism" in America. In a nutshell, nutritionism is what Pollan calls the gradual cultural shift from an emphasis on whole foods to foods as collections of nutrients (some healthful, some harmful) that has led to the mass marketing and production of "imitation foods," or foods that have been heavily processed or in other ways altered or modified to fit the nutritional science claims of the moment. These "foods" are promoted as being healthier than the thing in its stripped down, natural state, but often turn out to be worse for you. Margarine vs. butter is a classic example. All this has created a generation of Americans that is unhealthier than the previous one and confused about food, as well as a food industry that is environmentally harmful and economically nonviable.

I didn't really need to be told any of this (although it is interesting), since I have been in the habit of ignoring the dubious claims on food packaging and avoiding processed foods altogether for, well, ever. But what Pollan's book has made me think more about is not processed foods, but produce. I'm out of touch with what produce is in season when. I guess I know that there is summer squash and winter squash and the seasonal correlations there are obvious. I know that asparagus is an early spring thing. The best tomatoes are available in summer. Yet, we can get these things year round...or at least we can get a version of these things year round that has been tweaked and manipulated to meet our unrealistic demands. I don't mean to sound paranoid or project that I am skeptical of science. Science is neutral. It's our unnatural demand that drives bad science. I mean, it bothers me that because we crave and expect access to fresh tomatoes year round, this is how industry meets that need. I mean, that ain't right.

So I've been trying to think seasonally about the vegetables I consume, and planning menus accordingly, but I'm food ignorant in this area and I don't know what's in season. I mean, sometimes you know because there's a shitload of something or other at the store, and it's on sale. But I want to use seasonal food creatively, while still managing to inject variety into my diet. Anyway, all of this is just a really long way of saying that I'm having a hard time meeting that criteria in satisfying ways. I'm sweet-potatoed out for a good long while. I'm approaching my limit with regular potatoes, and winter squash just isn't sounding appealing to me. I can only take so much cabbage/carrots/cauliflower. Look's like I'll be eating a lot of canned and frozen veggies for the next few months.

My last rotation came to an end Friday-ish, and I have yet to rate those recipes, so I'll just go ahead and do that now. As the title of this post suggests, there were some successes, and some relative failures as well.

1. Cauliflower-chickpea ragout (win!)

This recipe will become a standard of mine. Success in all categories.

Convenience: 4

Deliciousness: 4.5

Value: 4

Left-over worthiness: 5

Good for you-ness: 5

2. Pork with braised cabbage and onions (eh...)

After my success with slow-cooked pork back in September, I was really hoping for more here. This meal was good, like something mom used to make, but it didn't blow my mind.

Convenience: 3

Deliciousness: 3

Value: 4

Left-over worthiness: 3

Good for you-ness: 3

3. Miso soup with tofu and soba noodles (mistake)

I bought some yellow miso a while back, thinking we used to do such great things with it at Avanti. I figured I ought, at the very least, to make some miso soup with it, but I wanted it to be substantial enough to work as a full meal. The result was both bland and ridiculously high in sodium. Also, I managed to make way more of it than I wanted or needed. I really try to not throw things out, but I threw a lot of this out.

Convenience: 3

Deliciousness: 2

Value: 3

Left-over worthiness: 2 (the soba noodles get bloated, the veggies ever blander and soggier)

Good for you-ness: 3 (on account of the high salt content)

4. Tuscan white beans and shrimp (win!)

As I noted in my post about this meal, I was skeptical about this combination of elements. This recipe exceeded all my expectations and is going to be in regular rotation for me.

Convenience: 4

Deliciousness: 5

Value: 4 (shrimp are pricey, but only if you eat more than you should. Dry beans are dirt cheap)

Left-over worthiness: 4 (surprisingly durable for a shrimp dish)

Good for you-ness: 4

5. Potato gnocchi with spinach walnut pesto (not a full-scale disaster)

I was a bit in over my head with this one. I love gnocchi, but they are a bitch to make, as it turns out. I had never tried it before, and I couldn't find any recipes that seemed consistent. I did find a lot of warnings about all the things that could go wrong. For a first effort, I think these weren't horrible. It just didn't turn out at all like I had hoped.

Convenience: 2

Deliciousness: 2.5 (OK, so these didn't taste bad. It's just that it was not as expected.)

Value: 3

Left-over worthiness: 3 (these actually held up better than I thought, and were better leftover)

Good for you-ness: 2.5

6. Spiced carrot and lentil soup (the ugly)

This seemed like a winning winter combo to me: lovely vitamin-packed carrots, earthy protein-rich lentils. I found this vaguely Indian inspired recipe that seemed to fit the bill. If you look at the picture, you can see how pretty and appetizing it looks. Not so with mine. Mine was not such a pleasing, smooth yellow-orange...the color and texture of my soup could only be described as "baby vomit." It did taste OK, but in this instance having an immersion blender, instead of pureeing in messy batches in the food processor would have made all the difference.

Convenience: 3 (would have been a 4 with immersion blender)

Deliciousness: 3.5

Value: 5

Left-over worthiness: 4 (would probably freeze well)

Good for you-ness: 5

7. Cornmeal breaded oven fried chicken with mayo-less slaw (win!)

Given my above failures, I wasn't sure how this would go. It turned out great, and has the added benefit of being both tastier and healthier than the fast food version.

Convenience: 4

Deliciousness: 5

Value: 3.5

Left-over worthiness: 4 (I was afraid the breading would get soggy on the leftovers, but another benefit of the cornmeal breading is that this didn't seem to happen. I packed it carefully, however.)

Good for you-ness: 3

I will leave you with the recipes for my most recent success. I am very proud of the slaw, by the way, because I came up with it all on my own. I really want to try this with some Japanese noodles as a light meal on its own sometime. I think the sweet and sour flavors would combine really well with cold noodles.

Cornmeal Breaded Oven Fried Chicken

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed of excess fat and cut into 2-inch chunks

1/2 cup plain low fat yogurt

1/2 cup milk

(or, you could sub 1 cup low fat buttermilk. I often use this half-and-half mix of plain yogurt and regular milk as a sub for buttermilk in recipes that call for it)

1/2 cup cornmeal

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 1/2 Tbsps vegetable oil

In a sturdy ziplock, marinate the chicken in the yogurt and milk for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a pie pan (or whatever works for you) combine the cornmeal and spices. Remove the chicken from the bag, shaking off excess liquid, and toss one piece at a time in the cornmeal mixture until evenly coated. Place the chicken pieces on a baking sheet brushed with half the oil. Brush the remaining oil over the chicken pieces so they brown well. Bake for about twenty minutes, or until they are golden brown (if you feel like they aren't browning the way you'd like, you might want to flip the pieces over midway through the baking time). Serve with a little dijon mustard mixed with honey for dipping. 4 servings

Mayo-less cabbage and jicama slaw

1/2 head of green cabbage, sliced into very thin strips

1 small red onion, thinly sliced

1 apple ( I used Gala), cut into matchsticks

1 small jicama root (about the size of the onion), peeled and cut into matchsticks

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2-1 tsp powdered ginger

2 Tbsps white vinegar

1 Tbsp white sugar

Place all the ingredients in a large tupperware and shake well to combine. Let stand for at least 1/2 hour to let the sugar dissolve and the onion marinate a bit. Serve sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds and green onions.

And On Sunday She Shopped

I've worked out a system for grocery shopping and menu planning, taking my various restrictions into account (schedule, money, distance to store and mode of conveyance), that seems to be working pretty well for me. The system mostly arose out of the circumstance that getting to a reasonable grocery store* is a giant pain in my ass. I've been schlepping down to a Safeway about 3 miles from where I live. (I recently discovered a Sunflower Market, however, that is somewhat closer to me, and safely accessible by bike. I did my last grocery run there and was really pleased with the overall experience.) I realize that may not seem that far, but bear in mind that: 1) I live in a place where the temperature routinely rises above 90 degrees by midday for much of the year, 2) I must negotiate fitting all my groceries in bike baskets and a backpack, which makes for cumbersome riding, and 3) I must brave bike lanes on some pretty busy streets. The whole process of getting there, shopping, getting home and unpacking can take upwards of two hours, on top of which it requires a good deal more cleverness and physical exertion than hopping in one's car. So my menu planning has become an exercise in uber-efficiency; a not-unenjoyable puzzle, the endgame of which is a schedule of meals, requiring a number of items within the limits of what I can reasonably afford/carry that will sustain me healthfully while not boring my palate for two weeks. In short, I must come up with a way to only go to the store once every two weeks.

My list of ingredients and cooking-related groceries for tomorrow's excursion is as follows:

1. Bacon
2. Pork
3. Andouille sausage
4. Quart of 1% milk
5. 1/2 quart of lowfat plain yogurt
6. 1/2 gallon of orange juice
7. Frozen lima beans
8. Coffee beans
9. White rice
10. Walnuts
11. Peanut butter
12. 1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes
13. 2 15-oz cans chickpeas
14. 2 15-oz cans red beans
15. Fresh fruit (I am usually open-ended about fruit and will buy what's in season/what looks good)
16. Lemons
17. Limes
18. Cherry tomatoes
19. Avocados
20. Bell peppers
21. Serrano peppers
22. Celery
23. Fresh basil
24. Salad greens
25. Whole-wheat pita bread
26. Freezer bags

26 items for two weeks of eating; not too bad, I don't think. Notice how I've grouped things that are kind of alike--cans with cans, etc. This makes the process of shopping quicker and easier, so I'm not zig-zagging back and forth across the store. I will update you later about my plan for all these particular items, what if anything I had to cut from the list, how much it ended up setting me back (I'm guessing $70), and any other mishaps or items of note that may occur along the way. But for now I am off to bed. Goodnight, internet.

*On a side note, I live within walking distance of a Whole Foods. This is odd, because the surrounding neighborhood is mostly working class, and let's face it, Whole Foods is pretty mockably boojy. I have shopped there occasionally, and, I don't know, maybe it's this location, but it always seems to be poorly stocked and poorly staffed. The prices are outrageous, for reasons that are nebulous to me. I know they promote themselves as some kind of pro-sustainability, more-ethical-than-thou alternative to a regular grocery store, but I'm not sure I buy it (literally). This piece from Slate and this open letter from Michael Pollan to Whole Foods' CEO John Mackey partially inform my view. For the record, notionally, I am down with sustainable agriculture and the whole "locavore" movement and organic produce and fair trade and all of that. Practically, I think there's a long way to go with all that. I could (and at some point probably will) write about my thoughts on the topic at length, but I'm not going to do that here and now. I would love all my food to be squeaky clean, ethically and otherwise, but when we come right down to it, I'm a shopping pragmatist. When it's reasonable for me to buy, say, cruelty-free eggs, organic milk, local produce, etc, I generally do it, even if it costs more. There are several "natural" products I prefer to the generic brands, which I buy regularly. Laura Scudder's peanut butter, for instance, or Brown Cow yogurt. But my biggest motivator as a shopper is not being wasteful, and I do that by shopping for things that I can afford and that I know for sure I will eat and not end up throwing away. If that means buying the non-organic tomatoes from Mexico at $1.99 a pound instead of the local organic heirloom tomatoes at $5.99 a pound, I can live with that. By the way, although I wouldn't consider myself a Michael Pollan disciple or zealot or anything, an awful lot of what he says about food and food culture in America makes sense to me. Take a look at his work, if you're not familiar with it.