I needed to go grocery shopping, but I was also starving. This is when I started to scavenge to see what was left that I could squish together into something yummy.
Quinoa - since I have been buying this at CostCo now, I seem to always have some waiting in the wings. Possibility: I could just make plain quinoa... however, I could add some flavor to that if I just had some
Chicken Broth - AWESOME! Just enough left in the fridge to make two cups of quinoa (in case my husband had some crazy idea he was going to steal some of my gluten-free goodness on this day!).
But, woe is me... while I do love my mother grain, wouldn't this be most mundane? My tastebuds cried out to me for more! I begged them to understand that I didn't think there was too much more to work with. Then I walked around the kitchen and there was a
Tomato - well now... it seems like a nice red juicy tomato like that is just begging to join the party, but how? What to do with this red voluptuous fruit?
I went online and typed in quinoa and tomatoes in the search bar. The response that most intrigued me had one additional ingredient,
Black Beans - these are the moments I am thankful for canned goods. However, traditionally I prepare black beans with a whole bunch of ingredients (ie. bell peppers, garlic, apple cider vinegar, etc.) that I simply did not have available. This recipe did not speak of such things, it did, however, mention a
Lime - my husband LOVES these! I ran to the fridge - could it be? Would there be? YESSSS!! There they were - two lonely limes!!
I felt like I was on to something. My taste buds were all a-flutter. Then I read the rest of the ingredients - I had none of them. I felt betrayed, I was disenchanted by the internet recipe - How could it DO THIS to me?!What a TEASE!
I decided to compose myself and reevaluate my situation. I had a nice palette of ingredients to work with... Could these, along with some seasonings, perhaps, do the trick all on their own? And then it occurred to me: waiting in the refrigerator, holding out for its moment to shine was that little jar of
SOFRITO! and this wasn't any old sofrito, this was homemade sofrito! Made by my Puerto Rican mother-in-law! (In case you do not have a Puerto Rician Mother-in-law, or do not know how to make sofrito yourself, I found this recipe, but there are TONS out there. You can probably tell by the pictures of my quinoa that I did not use the tomato/red sofrito for this.)
The crowd goes WILD!! The taste buds are tingling!! The stomach is grumbling!! We are ready to roll!! Here is what I did, so simple.
Quinoa, black beans, tomato, lime & sofrito.
I prepared the quinoa in my rice maker (I am lazy, I know). One cup of quinoa with two cups of chicken broth over it, stir, close up the top, put it on rice setting and got to the rest of my work.
I cut the tomatoes (I found another, so I used two) into cubes, or as close to cubes as possible.
I rinsed and drained the can of black beans.
Put the tomatoes and the black beans in a bowl together.
In a smaller bowl I put the juice of both limes (next time I do this I might do one or 1.5 limes instead) and two heaping tablespoons of the sofrito (I might kick this up next time!). Mixed well.
When the quinoa was finished I added it to the bowl with the tomatoes and beans and mixed.
Finally, I added the "sauce" and mixed it in as well.
It can be served warm, room temperature, whatever you like! I don't particularly like things straight out of the fridge (and I had so much I have been keeping it in the fridge), so I throw a bunch in a mug (is this weird?) and microwave it for about 30 seconds - that has been my favorite temperature.
Want some?
As I am enjoying my last mug of this delicious quinoa salad that I have eaten as lunch, snacks and one night it was a side with dinner (yes, yes, overkill, I know! But I LIKE it, it is gluten-free, dairy-free and clean eating!!) I am wondering: Why the heck didn't I buy any more tomatoes so I could MAKE MORE?!
Being a conscious eater may translate, for some individuals, into a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, for others it may mean buying less processed foods, or buying more organic foods, but whatever it ultimately translates to on your plate, it all begins the same way - someone starts thinking about food. If you've begun thinking about food, or are looking for reasons why you should be thinking about your food, here are five films you should watch that will nurture the conscious eater in you.
Food, Inc.
No conscious eater has missed this one. It received a lot of press coverage when it was nominated for an Academy Award, so most people, even if they have not yet seen it, have at least heard of it. The tag line on the official movie website is "Hungry for Change?" The fact of the matter is, you will be by the time you finish watching this movie. Here is the trailer for the film so you can see for yourself
Food Matters
Where Food, Inc. focused mostly on the food industry and the impact it has on our diets and culture, Food Matters comes back to looking at the actual food and its affects on our health. The film begins with a quote from Hippocrates that pretty much sets the stage, "Let food be thy medicine." While the message seems to be pro-Raw diet, which I am not 100% sold on (see my post on Vegetables: Raw or Cooked?), the discussions of the nutrient deficiencies in our diets, the lack of nutritional education for most medical students and the cancer studies were all equally fascinating. The official website of this film is packed with all kinds of resources and communities, so if you are intrigued by what you find in Food Matters, there is plenty of stuff to keep your curiosity satiated. Here's the trailer for you to check out:
Tapped
Do you drink bottled water? Do you think it is better for you than tap water? Do you think it is different than tap water? If so, here is a film to get you to start reevaluating some of your choices. I was first awakened to the true horrors of the water industry when I watched Blue Gold: World Water Wars last Spring (see my post here), but Tapped managed to take that global perspective and make it incredibly personal for me. Their official site is also jam packed full of information from the movie and beyond. This is a must-see film for anyone who carries a bottle of water with them. Cue the trailer!
King Corn
Two guys, friends in college, decide that, upon graduation they will move from Boston out to Iowa to farm an acre of corn crops. Why? Well, they found out that an inordinately large proportion of their bodily make-up was from corn! If you have read The Omnivore's Dilemma or been exposed to Michael Pollan in any way - other writings, interviews, etc, than this news is not terribly earth shattering, most of us in America would find the same thing. However, these gentlemen decided to explore it further - grow corn and follow it to see where it goes and what it becomes. This was a fun movie to watch with a serious message. Do they have an official website? Of course! Who doesn't - check out the King Corn official website, then check out the trailer:
No Impact Man
An author and activist in New York City was thinking about what his next project should be, when he came up with a year-long endeavor for his entire family to undertake. This family of three went through an entire year, still living in the city, producing no waste, turning off their electricity, using bike and scooters, taking stairs instead of elevators, buying no new products and everything else in their power to make NO ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT on the world around them. This was a family that lived on food in packages before the project and then began to make use of the farmer's market, growing their own and eating in season. This is a compelling project that was documented on the No Impact Man blog and in a book 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 (holy moley! That is a LONG title!!). Take a sneak peek at the whole deal with this trailer:
There they are - five films to make you think. There are more, and there are books, too, but for today, we will stop with this early primer. By the way, if you have Netflix, then you are in super-luck, because ALL FIVE of these movies are availble for instant streaming (I just checked), so you can start watching them right now! Enjoy the movies, come back and let us know what you think and whether or not you feel these films have nurtured the conscious eater in you!
Some of you may have heard of the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog project by Darren Rowse. I am doing this with the SITS blogging community and I was working on my first assignment today (while I had a completely different post planned for you) and I got a little carried away. In short, the first assignment, called "The Elevator Pitch" is an attempt to get you to define your blog. I always have great difficulty doing this in print, but I can talk to someone about it without a problem. When completely stumped, I came up with a ridiculous writing assignment for myself. I asked myself a question and then gave myself time to just free write on it. Here is my question and answer, for any of you who wonder what my motivation for this blog is.
Question: Nicole, I don't have the Internet, but I hear you write a blog called "Searching for Sustenance" what is that and why do you do it?
Answer: Searching for Sustenance is a blog that I created when I realized that I was eating without thinking. Once my eyes were opened to all of the things I was missing - all of the horrors - I, being a teacher at heart, wanted as many other people to know as possible. I began to tell my friends, my family, and even started slipping things into my high school math lessons to try to shine a light. However, it never seemed enough, it never felt legitimate. Those conversations were always distracted within some other context, and people found a way to forgive themselves, forgive me and take us all off the hook for all of the things we WEREN'T doing to make it better. I couldn't force the issue in those arenas. I needed to find another way.
I decided to create a blog. A blog where I knew, at least in the beginning, I could wax philosophic until the cows came home and believe, or in fact, know, that no one else would be reading but me. However, in the depths of my soul I hoped and wished that eventually I would find like-minded souls. People, who upon reading all these things I kept finding out, would decide this IS something we ALL need to be talking about. This IS something we ALL need to be THINKING about. Food is serious, eating is serious - we can love it and adore it, but do we APPRECIATE it?!
Searching for Sustenance has two roles - to learn and to teach. I write about the things that I learn in hopes that if I write something wrong, someone out there will find it and comment right away so that we all learn together. And in that way it teaches. I have been a teacher for 12 years, but I never enjoyed the whole idea of "I have all of the answers, here they are for you," that is simply impossible no matter what you are teaching, no matter how long you are doing it. My style is more about, " I enjoy learning about this. I have figured out a lot of different places and resources we can go to in order to learn together. Here is what my experience is telling me might be right in this situation. What do you think?" That's how I roll with this blog as well. I am learning about food, the food industry, ways to eat better and healthier, resources to tap into in order to accomplish that goal and I am gaining more experience with it as I go. I am NO expert, by any means, but I'll share what I know and what I am really curious about is: WHAT DO YOU THINK?
That's it. It helped. I wrote a new About This Blog page and a new About Nicole page. So... um... WHAT DO YOU THINK?
All week I am all over the Internet blogging about food, commenting about food, reading about food and finding tons and tons of stuff! I simply can NOT dedicate a single post to each individual find, so here's what I am going to do: I am going to give you a CliffNotes version of some foodie finds that I think you might all be interested in, so you have stuff to read and tinker with over the weekend! Here it goes:
Food Web Sites and Tools
Foodily.comUnveiled this week, Foodily.com has been called the Facebook for food. I have only just started tinkering with it, but so far I like what I see. It is a recipe search engine where you type in an ingredient and it spits back recipes in an order that takes into account the seasonability of the ingredients and the likes of your facebook friends.
foodgawker.com A collection of recipes from all over the Internet selected for their beautiful, mouth-watering gawk-worthy photos. Just check it out, you'll see what I mean.
BonJour Mezzaluna and Curved Cutting Board set I have had my mind set on picking up a mezzaluna for myself, so when I saw this set in this month's issue of Clean Eating magazine, I was instantly sold. The cutting board is curved and the handle is magnetic for easy storage of the two pieces together.
Naïve and Slightly WoozyMark Bittman's response to the reaction he received for his "manifesto" in The New York Times Opinion pages. In it he directs us to one of the comments that brings up some truly intriguing arguments about climate change and their role in the food industry. It is definitely something to think about.
Lemon Dijon WingsSince I am fairly certain will be having my husband's favorite hot wings this Sunday for the Big Game, I decided I wanted to do something different with the extra batch of wings I had hanging around this week. I found this recipe on AllRecipes.com and it was DELICIOUS. I baked the wings instead of grilling them (since there is still about of foot of snow and ice outside) and they came out super yummy. I also decided pretty last minute I was going to make them, so I did not marinate overnight, just about an hour or so (I can't WAIT to taste them with even more marinating time!).
Crispy Roasted Chickpeas Perhaps this one isn't new to you, but when I first stumbled across this one, I nearly jumped out of my chair! I need to try this. I have a couple of different spices I would like to try it with, so when I go grocery shopping this weekend, you can bet I will be picking up some chickpeas! Thank you, Steamy Kitchen!
Food ACTION
GE AlfalfaThere really is only one topic on my mind this week and it is genetically engineered alfalfa. Please take a moment to use this tool from the Food & Water Watch to write to President Obama to let him know that regulation of genetically engineered foods is NOT one of the places where he should be worrying about government over regulation!
Do you have a food website, tool, food read, recipe or food action you think I should check out and share with the readers of Searching for Sustenance? If so e-mail me at BlogWithNV@gmail.com!
(holy moley! That is a LONG title!!). Take a sneak peek at the whole deal with this trailer:
I have had my mind set on picking up a mezzaluna for myself, so when I saw this set in this month's issue of 
