Fridays Food Finds

Food Web Sites and Tools

• Fork & Bottle: Best Food Forums Do you like to talk about food, wine, or even coffee? Then you need to check this site out. There is a list of various forum links with ongoing discussions in each one of these topics! Although it says this site hasn't been updated since September 2008, the list of forums offered is pretty extensive and each of them is still going. I have found a forum to my liking - the Sustainability one, of course (although it is in the process of moving right now), and I may even start to explore some of the others! *Note: this link is part of a larger site Fork & Bottle, that you may want to check out in full!
  

Food Reads

• What if the U.S.D.A. Subsidized Gardens? I absolutely love this post, probably because I LOVE stories through pictures - make sure you click on the graphic in Bittman's post and truly read it. Then ask yourself - What do you think about where our country spends its food money?
• Sedentary Work and Obesity: Another View This is a MUST READ. It is short, but I want you to think about this. I will have a post to share my own viewpoints about this and I am disappointed that the Times did not publish this letter.
• 5 Ways to Sabotage Weight Loss If you are on the path to a healthier weight and you are wondering what things you could be doing to make sure it sticks, this post by Skinny Mom's Kitchen will at least give you 5 things to AVOID!

Good Food (Recipes)

• Homemade Peanut Butter and Banana Oatmeal Recipe I have to give this a shot. Since I was trying it, I thought I'd share it too!
• Oven-Baked Salmon I had salmon, I decided to look for something to do with it. This came up. It was so common sense, so simple, so ridiculous, I said, "Sure, why not?" It was awesome. We had some lemon on the side while we ate. I feel like I want to make salmon every night now :)
• Baked Eggs with Herbs I have written of my obsession with eggs on this blog before - Why haven't I ever BAKED them? This seems brilliant to me. It's on my list!!

Food FIGHTS 

• Tell the Girl Scouts How Big the Gluten-Free Market Is! If you missed my ONE post this week, please check it out. I can't believe the Girl Scouts' argument. If they said anything else I probably wouldn't be this adamant, but our grocery stores are being overrun by gluten-free products - there MUST BE a demand for them!
• Get to the Fracking Action Center at Food & Water Watch to find out what you can do to ensure that fracking is not happening in your community, and to learn how you can support efforts to protect the nation's water.

 

Do you have a food website, tool, food read, recipe or food fight you think I should check out and share with the readers of Searching for Sustenance? If so e-mail me at BlogWithNV@gmail.com!

Friday's Food Finds

Food Web Sites and Tools

• Local Harvest While I know I have written about this amazing site before, I have never featured it in a Friday Food Find which it totally deserves. Local Harvest is the site I go to find local farmers markets, coops, CSAs an online vendors as well. I guess it is because it is Farmers Market season over here that I've got Local Harvest on the mind. I want everyone to have the same yummy experiences I am having here in New York!

Food Reads

• Sustainable or Organic ~ Which is Healthier? This is an interesting blog post from a sustainable farmer discussing the differences between these two techniques of farming. I love to read everyone's opinions on these two and their experiences with both.
• **Antibiotics: Are They Overused in My Food? A great question and an equally great post about an issue we should all be aware of. Read this. Take action.
• **10 Reasons to Retweet for Clean Water Here in the States we're getting ready for the unofficial start to summer fun this Memorial Day Weekend with many opening up their pools and planning other fantastic water adventures to keep cool. However, there are so many that do not have the luxury of clean water for fun or even for their own survival - take a moment to read Meg's post to find out what's going on and how easy it is to help! 

Good Food (Recipes)

• Homemade Powdered Sugar This is another great post from the Damsel for a quickie (no... REALLY quick) and easy technique for making powdered sugar in a pinch.
• 10 Cook Out Hits for Memorial Day Leave it to the Huffington Post to give us 10 recipes for the price of one! Who can pass up an article like this. They look delicious, I'll have to run through the list with the hubby to which ones we'll check out first. Let me know how your selections go!

Food FIGHTS 
**This week our food fights are embedded in our food reads! Check out the actions you can take to get the word out to the FDA about Antibiotics in our food and how you can tweet to the world about clean water in those important reads!
 

Do you have a food website, tool, food read, recipe or food fight you think I should check out and share with the readers of Searching for Sustenance? If so e-mail me at BlogWithNV@gmail.com!

The Yields from the Farmers' Market

Saturday was the first new farmers' market of the season here in Staten Island. I was excited. I was ready. And then, as I made my way over to the market I realized I had only $17 to celebrate with! GASP!

Luckily there was not a lot of heart break since it was the beginning of the season and there was not a ton of selection for me to miss out on. So here's what happened:

I got potatoes:

Which I roasted for dinner tonight:

Then I got spinach:

Which I also made with dinner tonight:

And I got three herb plants: cilantro, basil and rosemary, that I have transplanted and placed in my backyard:

Lots of basil up front with cilantro bringing up the rear.

My little rosemary sprigs.

It wasn't much, that's for sure, but I have plants that will continue to produce and I made a delicious dinner for my husband, my brother and myself tonight.

Tonight's dinner included:

• Roasted lemon-garlic chicken thighs
• Roasted Red Potatoes
• Wilted spinach with red pepper flakes

The recipes are on their way!!

Friday's Food Finds

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

• Google Recipes Well, it was only a matter of time, I guess before the search giant would dip its toe into the recipe search engine field! It is very simple to use. You can either go directly to the landing page for the recipe search engine (using the link above), or type in a recipe you are looking for right into the search bar at www.google.com and then click the "Recipes" option that comes up on the left-hand side once you conduct your search. When you have clicked that option, you have enabled their recipe search feature which opens up a number of options below it including ingredient selections as well as tie constraints. Definitely worth checking out.

Food Reads

• Food: Six Things To Feel Good About It's a good news read! Mark Bittman takes a moment to rundown six places where we've been moving in the right direction in our food fights. If you missed this when it ran in the NY Times, then you must check it out today! 
•  What genetically engineered alfalfa means to you This is a truly important article for everyone who is currently not a farmer to read. We get the gist that GE alfalfa is bad, that it threatens organic, real food, but how. A quick intro to the dangers of GE alfalfa and what we can do to safeguard our food against it.

Good Food (Recipes)

• Black Bean Soup (Panera Bread) This was my first Google recipe find. It took me back to my favorite recipe search engine (Food.com), but it took me less than a minute to find a black bean soup recipe that I had the time and ingredients to make. This was DELICIOUS. I can't wait until my next big shop so I can make a huge batch of this soup to freeze!
• Italian Sausage With Fennel, Peppers and Onions I found this one with Supercook.com since I knew I wanted to do something with the sausage and the fennel I had, but had not come up with this simple brilliance on my own. This recipe was AMAZING! The sausage came out perfectly, the fennel (I love fennel) added such a fabulous flavor to the whole dish, OH! and I only had bell peppers, so I can only imagine what extra fabulousness awaits you if you have the fancy frying peppers that are in the recipe! (My mouth is watering just remembering this recipe...)

Food FIGHTS 

• Sowing the Seeds for a Fair Farm Bill  The Food & Water Watch group and its volunteers have arranged gatherings all over the country (and even some international!) to raise awareness about the upcoming Farm Bill and actions we can all take to ensure that it is fair.
• Just Eat Organic! Watch the video, share it, let's get it viral and, above all, CONSIDER IT. If we purchase Organic products, then, economically, it would be foolish for the "powers that be" to threaten organic foods with the deregulation of genetically engineered seeds and animals.

Do you have a food website, tool, food read, recipe or food fight you think I should check out and share with the readers of Searching for Sustenance? If so e-mail me at BlogWithNV@gmail.com!

Mark Bittman's Week of Oatmeal

If you've been following along with Mark Bittman's Opinion column over at the New York Times, you know that Oatmeal has been more than just a hot morning treat, it has also become a hot topic.

Image from McDonald's website

First, let's deal with How to Make Oatmeal... Wrong. Last week, Mark Bittman wrote an Opinion column about McDonald's addition of oatmeal to their menu. He was pretty clear about how he felt about this new, seemingly nutritional, addition to the menu of one of the most vilified food establishments in the country:

"From a marketing perspective, they can do almost nothing wrong; from a nutritional perspective, they can do almost nothing right, as the oatmeal fiasco demonstrates."

He went on to discuss the true cost (in medical bills!) of eating McDonald's oatmeal and discussed other oatmeal products (Quaker Strawberries and Cream Instant Oatmeal) hiding behind the same misleading nutritional assumption: "oatmeal = healthy, always." He was on a roll, and I completely understood where he was coming from when he felt the need to e-mail McDonald's to ask why. Their response was not surprising, but Mr. Bittman's response in his blog in the days that followed might have been to some:

"I’m going to make an attitude adjustment: I think it’s a good thing, or at least not a bad thing, that McDonald’s is doing oatmeal." (read the complete response in his post Three Follow-Up Thoughts (and One Recipe))

He wrote an opinion piece on oatmeal, he wrote a blog post in response - for many that would be enough oatmeal discussion for the week, but not Mark Bittman! When I caught a segment of the Today Show this morning I realized that Mr. Bittman might really have oatmeal stuck in his brain! He came on the show to demonstrate 5 different techniques for using oatmeal.

I battled with the the html embed code to try to get this video clip right here before your very eyes, but it has decided it does not like me and does not want to cooperate. For now, here is the link for Mark Bittman's 5 Ways to Jazz Up Your Oats on the Today Show. (I will return here when I have conquered the embed link!)

And here are the recipes posted on the Today Show website:

Mark Bittman's five delicious ways to make oatmeal Oats are nourishing, inexpensive and easy to cook. Mark Bittman, author of "How to Cook Everything," shares his delicious recipes for an oatmeal-filled breakfast.

 I am personally most intrgued by the Leftover Oatmeal Fritters that he was handing out with that soy sauce!

Let me know if you've tried any of these recipes or if you have your own opinion about McDonald's efforts in serving up a healthier breakfast option.

Finding Healthy Recipes

I have always counted myself as exceedingly lucky that my adventures in cooking began with the Internet by my side. I wished my mother was alive to see how many new and different things I was able to try in the kitchen, simply on a whim, because the technique was a mere click away for free. However, as I began to transition toward a healthier lifestyle I found, in the beginning, that the recipes I needed were more and more clicks away. If you are beginning this journey yourself, I would like to impart some of the tips I have used to expedite the process.

Food.com, once known as Recipezaar, has always been my personal favorite for finding a recipe for all of my needs. I always loved how this was a community-built project and how the Nutritional Facts of all of the recipes are available. Now I have learned about other great recipe search engines like  Foodily.com. Recipe search engines are where my kitchen-computer relationship began, so it was here that I first began my quest for healthier recipes as well. While, in the beginning, I could just go to the site and type in anything I needed, I found that there are a couple of things I can do to ensure that I get back some of the less indulgent recipes when I need them. Here are a couple tips:

Choose Your Words Wisely

Select your search terms carefully, instead of just typing in "lemon chicken" search for "baked lemon chicken" (223 Food.com recipes come up for that search and Foodily's responses  seem endless). Terms such as baked, broiled, grilled, and steamed can steer your searches away from the deep fried delectable daring to tempt you on your search!


Use the Search Filters Provided

Begin by typing in your search into the search bar. When the results are revealed, click the button "Narrow Your Search", a menu will open up on the left hand side of search. You can really control what kind of recipes you get back here.

This is just a piece of the side bar.

The major categories for the filters are Courses, Main Ingredients, Preparation, Cuisine, Occasion, Dietary and Nutrition. These categories, particularly Dietary and Nutrition can help you find recipes that fit within your new dietary desires.

On Foodily.com each recipe comes up visually with its list of ingredients displayed. Next to each ingredient is a magnifying glass. These magnifying glasses serve as your filters (they are pretty awesome). Simply click on one next to an ingredient you love or hate and see the options appear:

You can instantly refine your search to either take out all the recipes that include this ingredient, or, if it is something you know you have sitting in the kitchen, you can show only recipes that have it. I love this feature, personally, because it helps me quickly sort out all of the gluten-packed recipes that I can't even consider!

Expand Across the Internet 
 
There are tons of other recipe search engines out there. Some of them have similar filters and many have "Healthy Cooking" or "Healthy Recipe" sections. Saying you don't know how to cook healthy is no excuse if you are reading this! Because if you are reading this, you have an Internet connection and there are countless places to find healthy cooking techniques for free! I gave you two to start with - Food.com that is created by people of the Internet sharing their own home tested recipes, and Foodily.com that searches many of the recipe sites of the Internet (food.com included) to give you exactly what you are looking for. No excuses now... Get in that kitchen!!

Friday's Food Finds

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

• the epicentre The first thing that caught my eye on this site ia their encyclopedia of spices, however, it does not end there. They also have some interesting cooking videos, tips with recipes, an ingredients section that discusses each chosen ingredient at length and then includes recipes as well and other categories for the cooking curious. While the recipe index may not be as extensive as some other sites on the Internet, those topics this site does choose to address are done so completely.
• Open Source Food I am beginning to think I have a thing for food photography. This site is exactly what it claims to be open source food. Free to join, open to everyone with the goal of "Amazing Recipes. Delicious Food. Beautiful Photography. Created and rated by you and fellow food-lovers from all over the world. Open Source Food is your gastronomic hub where every visit will bring inspiration and a rumbling belly..."

Food Reads

• Frankenfood:It's Alive! This is a great article from a local Long Island publication. What I love about it is how Marisa Musto teaches us to find out if our food is GMO by READING SOME LABELS!! Yay!! Thanks Marisa!! You should also check out Marisa's blog Cook's Book for a more personal take on her experience of going to The New Generation of Food lecture as well as some sweet-looking recipes!
• The Organic Egg Scorecard We learned that eggs are a bit healthier for us than we first imagined, now the question is - who do we buy them from? This is a fabulous rating system put together by the Cornicopia Institute this past Fall that really looked into how the chickens are raised, fed and treated while they are laying our yummy breakfast treats.
• Farm Bill Issues; Budget Issues; and Rural Data I have been saying it for months - the Farm Bill discussion is important and it is coming - well here is a bit of how it went down this Thursday. Washington officials will be on break next week for President's week, so that gives you time to read this through, mull it over and think about what you might want to tell you rlocal representatives.

Good Food (Recipes)

•  Kale, Spinach and Pear Smoothie This recipe was shared in my comments section by Kim of Incandescent Blue Flame in answer to my plea for produce help. Now I am pretty certain I will end up directly in the dog house if I use our spinach (my husband's favorite) to make a smoothie, however, this is definitely on my list of must-trys. First of all, it is like Yoda-green and the geek in me is screaming that drinking this will ensure that the force is strong with this one (wow... sorry. Did I über-geek you without warning? It has been a rough day. My defenses are down). Secondly, it has PEAR in it and PEAR is deliciously awesome and makes everything so much better.
• Favorite Family Recipe: Eggs Why not go crazy? Eggs are awesome, we can eat them again and with the scorecard above we know which brand to buy to soothe our conscience, so let us eat eggs. This is a listing of all of the egg recipes on the Family Favorite Recipe website. They all look egg-cellent (Oh boy... perhaps I shouldn't be allowed near a keyboard on days like these!).

Food FiGHTS

• Millions Against Monsanto I added this link to the Changing the Way We Eat post, but I could understand, if, with everything else that was in that post you were simply too overwhelmed to take any action at the time. If that was the case, do so now. Join the group to make a difference.
• Food Democracy NOW Is another group from Monday's post, that I simply want to reiterate today. If you have not already joined, do so today. If you have joined, then just hop back on the site to see what the most current action to take may be.

Do you have a food website, tool, food read, recipe or food fight you think I should check out and share with the readers of Searching for Sustenance? If so e-mail me at BlogWithNV@gmail.com!

I've Got The Produce... Now WHAT?!

If you read my last post on Urban Organic, you know I just got a box of goodies - fruits and veggies! So, of course, now I have some questions...

What SUPER COOL THINGS should I be doing with my new fruits and veggies?

Kiwis. I can count on my hands the number of times I have had them. I pretty much have just eaten them straight out. Am I missing out on some very cool thing to do with kiwis??

Same with pears - I LOVE THEM, but I eat them the way they are. I have seen lots of recipes where people cook them. Should I be doing this??

I have lots of things to do with broccoli, but what is your favorite?

 Kale. I don't know what to do with it. in fact, one of my first tasks after writing today was to investigate the wonderful world of Kale. I'm not even sure I have ever had it. I think I must have, but not knowingly so, and, therefore, I am unfamiliar with it's taste.

I am looking for all types of Kale suggestions. Of course, you know I will be referring to my Jack Bishop cookbook in minutes, but if you have a favorite, I am all ears!!

My husband loves spinach. I wish I had my camera in hand when he recognized it last night. Actually, a video would have been more appropriate. Anyway, we typically do the wilted spinach with garlic, oil and red pepper flakes (oh... dear... mouth watering...), or a salad, or as a garlic-spinach-chicken dish, but that's where our experiments end. Do you have anything new for us to try?

Anything else in there you see and have a great idea about? Zucchini? Yellow onions? Russet potatoes? Red delicious apples? Grapefruit? Carrots? Lemons? Hamlon oranges? Bananas? Green leaf lettuce?


Any advice is welcome!

The Perennial Plate

Image captured from http://perennialplate.com

I am late to everything. Seriously, I should list it as one of my chronic conditions. My best friend knows this, my brother, well, he shares this problem, and my husband and I are a disaster together when punctuality is in order. At work I take the latest schedule possible and then beg for a free period as my first class, at play, I swear friends and family are starting to give me separate times to be somewhere just because of this issue, and for grad school, I had my interview, on the phone, the day before classes began and was told to bring my application with me to class - OK??!! That's me. I'm "that guy". So it came as no surprise to me that when I discovered The Perennial Plate, a year long sustainable food documentary series, during its 48th week! Nonetheless, I have found it, I have started watching from the beginning, and I LOVE IT!!

Daniel Klein is a chef and activist from Michigan who created this documentary to show a year of "socially responsible and adventurous eating." I have only just begun my adventure with Chef Klein, but I can tell you, what I have seen (the equivalent of nearly two months worth of documentaries) has been thought-provoking, engaging, inspiring and fun. I only wish I knew of this before Thanksgiving, so that I could have my whole family sit and watch Episode 1: Turkey together in order to have a full appreciation of the meal we consumed.

What I think is so wonderful about this entire series is that it is not preachy, it is simply real. The sincerity in this project is evident throughout and the "good food", the "right thing to do" simply seems to sell itself. This documentary is simply a chef exploring his world so he can eat in a way that makes the best sense to him. On his journey he finds others who are doing the same, living the same way, and they learn from each other. If you want to join them on this adventure, GREAT, if not, well that's not going to stop them... soon enough you will see.


I think it is high time I show you the trailer for this fabulous documentary, so you can get set to go on the journey as well. Without any further ado, I give you, The Perennial Plate:


Perennial Plate Trailer HD from Daniel Klein on Vimeo.'

You can either watch all of The Perennial Plate through Daniel Klein's Vimeo page or through The Perennial Plate website. On the website there are  recipes, however, if you are a regular Vimeo user, it might be easier to subscribe to Daniel Klein's videos.

Start your journey now, even as the project is coming to a close - it is not too late, I doubt it ever will be - it is a perennial plate, after all. Watch them with those you eat with and then share them with others. Then come on back here and let us know what you think!

 

Friday's Food Finds

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.com Unveiled 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.

Food Reads

• The Genetically Engineered Alfalfa Deregulation Battle If you haven't heard the news yet, both the House and the Senate have allowed genetically engineered alfalfa to be to pass without regulation. It is now in the hands of the president. The news is all over the Net, so here are just a couple of reads: Did the White House pressure the USDA to approve Monsanto's GMO alfalfa? and OrganicGate: Are Whole Foods, Stonyfield Farm, and Organic Valley Cozying Up to Monsanto? are just two that can give you an idea of the current mood surrounding this issue.
  
• Naïve and Slightly Woozy Mark 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.
• What Would Happen if We All Decided to Buy Organic? A great rant on the Rant/Rave website that just reminds us, once again, how important our food purchases are.

Good Food (Recipes)

•  Lemon Dijon Wings Since 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 Alfalfa There 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!