Real Food Made Easy » real food

Reason #57 Why I love my pressure cooker!

janice — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 04:23:05 +0000

This summer, I’ve been taking gluten-free baking to the Mayfair Market, and aside from (1) selling lots of baked goods and (2) meeting the people who need gluten-free baking, one of the great things about the markets is meeting and talking with some of the other vendors.

There’s been a tamale cart at most of the Wednesday markets, with GREAT tamales, and for a few weeks now, I’ve been enjoying them. Last night, however, the cart wasn’t there, and don’t you know I got a craving for tamales.

Normally these are not something to whip up on the fly — they take a good hour to steam once they’re assembled, and some assembly time if you decide to make mole sauce from scatch, but….

NEVER FEAR!!! THE PRESSURE COOKER IS HERE!!!

So, with instant masa (worth the price of a bag!) , some mole sauce from the freezer, and the pressure cooker, you too can have tamales from start to finish in under an hour. Hey, they may not be pretty, but no more cravings

Step 1: Mix the masa (I use this instant Masa Mix …) and soak the corn husks

Step 2: Make the filling — tonight, I sauteed some finely sliced chicken thighs, garlic, onions and tossed in some mole sauce from the freezer.

Step 3: Assemble the tamales (a dollop of the masa on the husk, a small dollop of chicken, roll up and fold the bottom under)

Step 4: line them up in the pressure cooker, open side up, and cook at high pressure for 12-13 minutes, then sit off the heat for another 8.

My pressure cooker has a steamer basket that fits inside — excellent for making tamales, cheesecakes, or anything else you might need to steam in a hurry!

The Cost of Convenience

janice — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:19:16 +0000

Last weekend, Kris Constable organized an Ideas conference in Victoria. 2 days, 50 talks, each 10 minutes long. There was no restriction on topics, so they ranged from discussions about optimal housing arrangements, to the benefits of bio-diesel cooperatives, to how technology could aid lymphodema patients! (check out www.ideawave.ca for the deets). I gave a short talk on the Cost of Convenience — my perspectives on our increasing dependence on convenience foods.

This blog post is a transcript of my speaking notes (also down-loadable in pdf for those who prefer print)

The Cost of Convenience (printer friendly version)

This whole talk began with a commercial and an off-hand comment on Facebook.

The commercial: the latest from the McCain family line-up: Frozen potatoes that are peeled and chopped, because “What’s standing between you and mashed potatoes?!” Cue the harried working mom, who is spending all day (in meetings, on the phone, driving home … you get the picture) in a Sisyphean loop of potato preparation!

The off-hand comment, was my observation on Facebook that started with SRYSLY??? Peeling a couple of potatoes seemed like the least of my worries and certainly wasn’t the critical factor in sending me over the edge. After all, I thought, when did we become so busy that peeling a few potatoes was a complete waste of all our time.

Now before we launch into this topic further, I just want to clarify that among “convenience foods”, in fact, the frozen potatoes are some of the more benign things out there, containing only potatoes and sodium phosphate. What irked me more was the approach, once again, that someone (e.g. big food), knew better how I should be spending my time!

As it turned out, this appeared to ignite an interesting exchange of comments, with many having the same impression as I, but others pointing out that with busy families, they would prefer not to spend their time peeling potatoes thank-you-very-much.

Now in my previous life as an economist, life is all about the opportunity cost. One of the hazards of being a “recovering” economist is that this notion is pretty much hardwired into me … so even now, I can’t help wondering what the costs are.

From a straight $$ point of view, there are costs, In fact, compare the cost of potatoes in the bag, at $3.99 per 750 grams, which you can really only use for mashed potatoes, to the actual potatoes at about $1.30 for the same amount – maybe not as big a difference as you might have figured, but remember two things:

The large food processing company buys their potatoes at less than wholesale prices; and

When you buy potatoes in their original state, you have the option to change your mind! Don’t feel like mashed potatoes? You can have baked instead! French fries! Scalloped potatoes! Croquettes! Think of all the options! There right off the bat is an opportunity cost!

Even factoring in your costs (say at the wage rate of $12.25 per hour, which coincidently is the AVERAGE hourly wage of those in the accommodation and food services sector – second lowest among all sector wage rates, only beaten out by those actually growing our food in the agriculture sector!), the time taken to peel and slice 750 grams worth of potatoes is at most 10 minutes, adding another $2.00 to the bill.

So you only spend a bit more money when you add in the time! And you gain a valuable 10 minutes of your time, BUT, you still have to cook the darn things, but you are also stuck with a bag of single-purpose potatoes.

In addition to choice, you ALSO lose the other things you might have been doing while preparing those potatoes:

The tactile feel of the potatoes:

The realization that you are handling something grown from the earth

The opportunity to talk with your kids about how potatoes grow

Choice about where you want to get your potatoes! From the supermarket? From your back yard? From your local farmstand? Organic or not?

That moment of contemplation you might have had while standing in the kitchen at the end of a busy day.

This is just the most recent example of convenience products aimed at making our lives easier! — Rice that cooks in 2 minutes, Pot pies that crisp in the microwave while you talk to your coworkers in the lunch room, or my favourite, the microwaveable hamburger (bun and all!!!)

But I have to ask myself, do I really need to be able to cook rice in the time it takes to put my underwear on?

We (North Americans in general) are becoming such a nation of people who don’t really cook, that shows with titles such as “Semi-Homemade” top the ratings charts (Visions of early tuna noodle casserole come full circle!!!), Swansons is spearheading the campaign for families to stay home and eat dinner together, and we now consider it normal when “making” spaghetti, to pour the sauce out of a jar!

In fact, things have become so dire that the latest US food guidelines (due out this fall), have come to the conclusion that “Nutritional education, cooking skills and food safety needs to be strengthened, especially among families. The idea is to get people to cook and eat at home more” (as reported in the NY Times, June 15, 2010). Pretty sad when your government has to tell you to stay home and eat!

In fact, those who cry the emperor has no clothes (as did Michael Ruhlman at this year’s IACP conference, when stating “bullshit” to the notion that we’re all such busy people that it’s ok to eat like that!), face being called elitist and out-of-touch with reality. Ruhlman raised the titillating, but interesting notion that for 3 minutes of prep to get the roast chicken in the oven, one could have an hour of free time to have carnal relations with one’s significant other, or failing that, help the kids with the homework or heaven forbid, talk about the day’s events!

It’s about choice and how we value our time. Surely basic nourishment (Right at the foundation of Maslow’s hierarchy!!! with water and breathing!!!) is worthy of choosing to spend some quality time with your food? To make a conscious choice about whether to cook or not? For all the decriers of Ruhlman’s stance on this issue, what he raises is merely the concept of awareness and informed decision making about one of our most basic needs – that of eating. BUT, food is not only a basic need, but the ONLY one that weaves a thread through all aspects of our psyches – social, psychological, spiritual

We eat and prepare food to Socialize, Celebrate, Share, Grieve, Entertain and Create, not just to Nourish ourselves.

When we prepare food, we also: Socialize; Share information, skills and knowledge; Celebrate; Create; Decompress; Entertain; and, sometimes Nourish our souls!

If we outsource the preparation of that food, we lose intergenerational transmission of knowledge, skill and intuition regarding our food, and all those other dimensions! I don’t know how many people I’ve had conversations with over the last 3 months who have commented that girlfriends/spouses don’t cook nearly as well as their mothers, and definitely not as well as their grandmothers.

Interesting that food preparation is still viewed as a primarily female activity – activity that is typically omitted from GDP estimates (as studied and written about by New Zealand economist Marilyn Waring), but THAT is another talk for another day!

Couple that with the fact that the plethora of food shows, magazines and “foodie” blogs leave many folks inadequate if they’re not preparing foie gras with sauted rapini they’ve hand-picked from their local organic farm, means many folks give up even before they’ve started!!!! People used to just cook! Without recipes! Tasty food! Dinner after dinner, night after night! And nary a garnish in sight. And that’s perfectly ok!

In many respects, the steady introduction of convenience foods has left us wide open to the “wisdom” of big food, following the latest food fad because its “good for us”. This erodes our basic intuition about how and what to eat – not only are we outsourcing our food preparation, but we are also outsourcing how and what we learn about food.

Cooking with grandma has been replaced by the evening cooking lessons at the Cordon Bleu for the busy working woman (or man) on the go, and the latest debrief from the nutritionists at Company X’s test labs about the latest miracle substance found in exotic plants from across the sea.

The idea I came to talk about began with rant, BUT is really the idea of: How do we begin in-sourcing our food again!!!

I think this is a conversation worth continuing over the next few months! I feel privileged that I am in a position to work with food on a daily basis, but am becoming alarmed that for many people, it takes drastic illness before people consider cooking from scratch a worthwhile endeavour!

I’ve also been thinking about what options there are out there for people who want to in-source their food, but don’t necessarily want to turn their lives upside down doing it. Would something like community or communal cooking opportunities be one solution? Cooking classes in schools? Cooking clubs or multilevel marketing approaches to sharing “how tos” about food?

I’m interested in doing more than just talking about this. What are some of your ideas?

Before leaving you, I would just like to leave you with a few facts that I found interesting, and caused me to pause and think:

Convenience foods of one form or another have been around for generations. Think of pemmican, or couscous, or hasty pudding (hasty taking a full 30 minutes!)

Nutrition science dates to the mid 19^th century and was originally focussed on increasing food yields that would net a more robust workforce for the factories! And not unrelated, a more content workforce, less likely to start an insurgence!

Interestingly enough, Prohibition was one of the biggest blows to fine dining in the United States. With people no longer able to enjoy food with their cocktails and fine wine, alcohol consumption became more about quantity than quality. On the legal side of things, it catapulted soft drink sales to the huge market share they enjoy today. On the illegal side of things, speakeasies only had to offer salty ham and pretzels with their cocktails to keep customers thirsty and coming back for more sub-par spirits!

Campell’s was marketing canned soup as a way of helping overburdened homemakers as early as 1914.

In 1919, Fleishman’s was marketing readymade bread as superior to home-baked

Swanson TV dinners were introduced in 1954, and sold 10,000,000 in their first year!

The home baking mix has been in decline since 1991 – consumers want products even faster than Duncan Hines Brownies!

The early 1970s saw both the opening of Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse AND the launch of the Egg McMuffin (talk about an interesting juxtaposition!)

Choose your own (dinner-time) adventure!

janice — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 04:28:44 +0000

So they tweeps have spoken, with a narrow margin voting in favour of a food-related post!

Tonight’s post is another easy dinner, that you can throw together with mostly on-hand pantry items (depending on your pantry), but can also be modified to meet whatever flavour profile you’re hankering for, or adapt to whatever seafood you have available.

These little fritters are also great for folks who are on carbohydrate-restricted diets, as they make use of nut flour rather than grains — making them gluten-free to boot!

For tonight’s dinner, we went with slightly fresher flavours of lime, ginger and basil, and rounded out the fritters with a few grated carrots for added colour and nutrition.

The choose-your own adventure part? You can substitute the prawns I used here for finely chopped seafood of pretty much any that is moderately firm — scallops, fish, shrimp, even lobster if you’re feeling extravagant! You can also substitute the almond flour for any other nut meal, or even a flour such as chickpea flour for a texture more like tortillitas. The veg are versatile to, subbing carrots for shredded zucchini, or even finely chopped, seeded tomatoes.

Finally, you have control over how you want to cook these — avoiding oil, you can bake them in the oven on parchment, 400 degrees, 10-12 minutes. I’ve panfried these, but you could also drop into simmering broth and have them like dumplings in soup!

We opted here for more asian flavours, but if you’re inclined, you could leave out the ginger, and basil, and add cumin, coriander and cilantro for more Mexican flavours. Hey, they’re your fritters! Its your Monday night dinner adventure!!!

Seafood Fritters

1 lb. prawns, shelled and finely chopped

1/2 small onion, finely diced

1 large clove garlic, minced

1 cup grated carrot

3/4 cup almond flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1 1/2 teaspoon finely minced ginger

zest of 1 lime

juice of 1/2 lemon

6-8 basil leaves, chiffonade

2 eggs, lightly beaten

Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and mix well to combine. Drop by 2 tablespoon scoops into a heated, oiled skillet, flattening slightly as you form the fritters. Cook 4-5 minutes per side, turning only once. Serve warm.

P.S. there were a number of requests for a cocktail post — stay tuned for a post tomorrow for an cocktail post on what to do with the other half of the lime from tonight’s dinner!

Black Bean Chili

janice — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 02:20:07 +0000

I sense a theme coming on — Easy Sunday dinners!

We’ve had dreadful weather lately, and braving it out on the barbeque in the rain and the wind, hoping that summer would magically appear! Well yesterday, the sun was out, and everyone rushed out in shorts and tank tops, madly pursuing summer activities, and I was thinking we might even get to enjoy grilled pizza (and even eat it in the patio!) for our Sunday dinner.

Well we woke up this morning to rain … again. Grilled pizza urges were suddenly dampened, and I found myself turning to winter-ish food cravings. So tonight, we’re having black bean chili for dinner.

For a smaller amount I make this up in a 4 quart pressure cooker. Yes, a pressure cooker Virginia. You can easily double the recipe in a 7-8 quart pressure cooker.

…For those of you with childhood memories of the jiggle-top pressure cookers, and tomato sauce all over the ceiling, have no fear! The modern versions have built-in safety valves, so they self-correct far before the point of explosion! They are also very efficient and I far prefer my pressure cooker to a slow-cooker. I find it preserves the texture and the flavours of individual ingredients far better than a day of stewing in the slow-cooker… Back to your regularly scheduled programming

Chili is pretty easy to pull together, but I find there are a few things that help amp up the flavours and make a big difference.

As with most dishes, take a bit of time to develop the flavours of the onions and garlic at the beginning
Toast the spices before adding the meat, that way the meat browns even more with the spices. You can do this all right in the pan, with the onions and garlic you’ve already sauteed. The toasting really helps deepen the flavours.
A little bit of cocoa powder added to the pot adds a great deal of depth — think of a mole sauce!
Smoked paprika! Once you start using this stuff, its hard to stop

The other favour you can do yourself here is cook your own beans from dried. I know the canned beans are convenient, but dried beans are much more economical, AND you can control the amount of salt in your meals. I cook the beans for about 30 minutes at high pressure — no soaking, no muss, no fuss! You can also freeze cooked beans in a little of the cooking liquid, and add them just like you would use canned beans.

You can certainly make this in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan or a Dutch oven, but you will need to increase the cooking time. The advantage of the pressure cooker, is that you can go from start to plating (including chopping) in under an hour, and still have about 20 minutes to enjoy a glass of wine or a cocktail while the pressure cooker is doing its thing!

Sunday Night Black Bean Chili

1 Tablespoon grapeseed oil

1 medium onion, choppped

1 large celery stalk, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 1/2 tablespoons chili powder

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon dried epazote (optional)

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

1 pound ground bison (or substitute about 8 ounces organic tempeh, crumbled, to make this vegan)

1/2 large sweet pepper

1 cup chopped carrots

2 cups cooked black beans

1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes (try and find an organic, no-salt added)

1 6 oz. can tomato paste

salt and pepper to taste

Saute onions and celery over medium heat in a pressure cooker until the onions are just starting to brown. Add the garlic and spices (thru to smoked paprika) and cook until you can smell them starting to toast. Add the meat and cook until the meat is almost cooked through. Add the remaining spices and herbs, and all other ingredients, leaving the beans on the top. Add up to 1/2 cup water.

Lock the lid on the pressure cooker, and bring up to pressure. Cook at high pressure for 20 minutes, until all the flavours are melded. Bring the pressure down, and serve with corn muffins, garlic toast (or however you like it!)

Serves 4 hungry people.

Crab Cakes (file under easy dinners!)

janice — Sun, 23 May 2010 22:32:58 +0000

Last night we had crab cakes for dinner, and I put up a quick pic of a lone crab cake (taken after we had scarfed down a few with side dish for dinner!), so I thought I would post the basic recipe I use.

Crab cakes are a bit of an indulgence, given the price of fresh crabmeat, but there are a few options out there if you want to enjoy these on a regular basis! Make sure that whatever approach to crab you opt for, that it is good quality (tastewise), after all, these are all about the crab! If you can find tinned crab with a high percentage of legmeat in it on sale, grab it, and stash it in your pantry. Alternatively, keep an eye out for crab coming into the docks for sale — a bit more work, but definitely worth it!

Making crab cakes is essentially like making crab salad with a bit of binder in it — I like to use Japanese breadcrumbs, because they add a bit of texture to the whole works! Not too much though, because the crab should take centre stage. I like the addition of cilantro and a little bit of minced red pepper if I have it around. Its a pretty versatile base, so play around with it! If you like your crabcakes spicy, add some Siracha! If you like Old Bay seasoning, try that and take out the cilantro! they are, after all, your crabcakes to enjoy the way you want!

Crab Cakes (makes about 8 – 10 individual cakes)

1 lb. crabmeat, drained and picked over for shells

1 cup Panko breadcrumbs (or substitute fresh breadcrumbs)

1/2 cup ground almonds

1/4 cup minced green onion

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

1/4 cup minced red peppper (optional)

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg, beaten

Mix everything well and form into individual patties, about 1/3 cup each. Press the patties on the top and bottom into additional Panko, and place in a preheated frypan, with 2-3 Tablespoons vegetable oil. Fry on each side until golden brown and crispy on medium-high heat, about 4 minutes. Serve warm with fresh salsa with lots of cilantro on the side, or with smoked paprika aoili.