"Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

I first heard Michael Pollan speak when he was a guest on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.  "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."  It seems like such a simple statement, but when you really delve into it, they're words to live by.

Salad - Its What's for Dinner

"Eat food."  Not as dumb as it sounds.  There's a big difference between food and "all these edible, food-like substances" (MP) that you can buy at the grocery store.  "Food" is fruit, veggies, fish, whole grains, meat, milk, eggs, nuts, etc.  While shopping, its usually easy to see the difference between food and food-like substances.  This doesn't mean that all packaged food is bad - be a label reader.  Could you feasibly make the "food" that's in your grocery cart in your own kitchen?  Do the ingredients sound like they belong in a chemistry set?  I'm certainly not perfect - I'll eat Kraft Singles (aka processed cheese-food), chicken nuggets, instant pudding, etc on occasion, but if I ask myself "is this food or a food-like substance" I often make better choices.

Healthy Meals

"Not too much."  Eat like almost every other country on earth eats - stop eating when you're no longer hungry.  Don't wait until your brain tells you you're full.  I've found that if I serve smaller portions and have to physically get up and go to the kitchen to get more, I'll often think twice about whether I'm actually still hungry.

Boulder Farmer's Market, Take 2

"Mostly plants."  Plants are good for you.  For the past year, I've made a point to serve a meal without meat/fish at least once a week.  I also try to make the veggie the largest portion on the plate, and the meat (if I'm serving it) the smallest.

Best Dinner in a Long Time

My resolution for 2012:  make better food choices.  I've gotten pretty good at doing this at home, but I really need to improve at work, at restaurants, while I'm out shopping and a Crunchwrap Supreme from Taco Bell would really hit the spot...  What is your 2012 resolution?

Great Side Dishes

More advice from Michael Pollan below:


Michael Pollan's 7 Rules for Eating

1. Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. "When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes, or eat something with 15 ingredients you can't pronounce, ask yourself, "What are those things doing there?" Pollan says.
2. Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can't pronounce.
3. Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store. Real food tends to be on the outer edge of the store near the loading docks, where it can be replaced with fresh foods when it goes bad.
4.  Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot. "There are exceptions -- honey -- but as a rule, things like Twinkies that never go bad aren't food," Pollan says.
5. It is not just what you eat but how you eat. "Always leave the table a little hungry," Pollan says. "Many cultures have rules that you stop eating before you are full. In Japan, they say eat until you are four-fifths full. Islamic culture has a similar rule, and in German culture they say, 'Tie off the sack before it's full.'"
6. Families traditionally ate together, around a table and not a TV, at regular meal times. It's a good tradition. Enjoy meals with the people you love. "Remember when eating between meals felt wrong?" Pollan asks.
7. Don't buy food where you buy your gasoline. In the U.S., 20% of food is eaten in the car.

MP's 4 Myths About Healthy Eating

• Myth #1: Food is a delivery vehicle for nutrients. What really matters isn't broccoli but its fiber and antioxidants. If we get that right, we get our diet right. Foods kind of get in the way.
• Myth #2: We need experts to tell us how to eat. Nutrients are invisible and mysterious. "It is a little like religion," Pollan said. "If a powerful entity is invisible, you need a priesthood to mediate your relation with food."
• Myth #3: The whole point of eating is to maintain and promote bodily health. "You are either improving or ruining your health when you eat -- that is a very American idea," Pollan says. "But there are many other reasons to eat food: pleasure, social community, identity, and ritual. Health is not the only thing going on on our plates."
• Myth #4: There are evil foods and good foods. "At any given time there is an evil nutrient we try to drive like Satan from the food supply -- first it was saturated fats, then it was trans fat," Pollan says. "Then there is the evil nutrient's doppelganger, the blessed nutrient. If we get enough of that we will be healthy and maybe live forever. It's funny through history how the good and bad guys keep changing."

Read more about these myths here.  Read even more about Michael Pollan here, here, or here.  Or a ton of other places.

The Evolution of a Recipe

I am so lucky to have grown up in a family where my mother cooked dinner regularly, and we ALWAYS sat down as a family to eat (whether it was a new recipe, an old favorite, "must-go" night - AKA leftovers, or at a restaurant).  Dinner time with my family is something that I'll never take for granted.  People have asked where my love of cooking has come from, and I can say without a doubt its from growing up with parents who appreciated food, pushed us to help cook dinner, and encouraged us to try new foods.  Because of my parents, I've been helping in the kitchen for as long as I remember.

I've been asked how I "make up" recipes, how I know what to add to make something taste better, how I know what will taste good together, etc.  Experience over time and practice are the only keys.  There is no magic list that tells you what to add, but knowing the basics of flavors that go well together and seeing what other people combine in recipes helps you perpetually add to your mental cooking encyclopedia.

Sometimes I start from scratch when I'm making something up, but often I start with a recipe I know that I love.

For example, recently, I started out with my Chicken Marsala.  (A recipe that I cook 3-4 times/year, which is a lot for any recipe for me.)  Keep in mind that this recipe (like any recipe) is just a basis for me - if I don't have shallots, I'll sub onions.  Sometimes I use prosciutto, if I don't have it I add some extra smoked paprika.  Etc.

Chicken Marsala

Mix about 1/2 cup of flour with the following spices (to taste):  smoked paprika (~1 Tb), garlic powder (~1 tsp), black pepper (~1 Tb), cayenne pepper (pinch), dried oregano (~4 shakes), dried thyme (~2 shakes).  Pound 1-1.5 lbs of chicken tenders to 1/4" (between sheets of plastic wrap).  Heat enough EVOO to coat the bottom of a large skillet over medium-high heat (on my electric stove, that's about 1 tick below medium - I hate electric stoves...).  Dredge the chicken in flour mixture.  Slip into pan and fry on each side until golden brown (~3 min/side).  Do not crowd the chicken - cook in batches.  Remove chicken to a platter in a single layer.  Lower heat to medium heat (for me, approx halfway below low and medium on the dial).  Add 3Tb unsalted butter, 1 diced medium shallot, and 2 oz of thinly sliced/ribbon-ed prosciutto and saute for 2 minutes.  Add 3 cups of sliced crimini mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms are slightly brown on the edges and have given off their liquid.  Add 1 cup of sweet Marsala, bring to a boil, and scrape brown bits off the bottom.  Reduce the Marsala by half.  Add 1 cup of chicken stock and cook 3 minutes.  Lower to medium, return chicken to pan, and cook about 5 more minutes until chicken is cooked through and hot.  Serve over pasta (bowtie is my favorite).


THE EVOLUTION

While grocery shopping, I saw a package of frozen portobello mushroom ravioli.  Immediately I thought about making a Ravioli Marsala.

First try:

 

I followed my Chicken Marsala recipe almost to a T (with 4 servings of ravioli).  Obviously, there was no chicken to dredge in flour, so I dusted my onions in about a Tb of flour and small amounts of the spices.  I also had no prosciutto.  The result?  It was ok.  Not terrible but not something I'd want to identically duplicate.  There wasn't enough sauce, and the sauce that was there was very thin.

It wasn't great - but I wasn't giving up.  This happens a lot - good idea but mediocre result.  I generally don't stop trying though until I've tried a few more times.

Luckily, this was an "easy" one - the second try was YUMMY!

Mushroom Ravioli Marsala

This time, I didn't take out my recipe and instead cooked by what looked/felt right and what was in my fridge at the time.  It helped that I've cooked my Marsala on many occasions, so I knew the basic steps.

Finely chop 2 medium red onions.  In a bowl, toss with ~6 Tb of flour, 1 tsp of smoked paprika, 2 hefty shake of garlic powder,  1/2 tsp black pepper, 1-2 shakes of cayenne pepper, 1 pinch of ground cloves, 2 shakes of dried oregano, 2 shake of dried thyme.  Heat enough EVOO to cover the bottom of a large skillet over 'high' heat (on my electric stove, that's medium).  Add the onions.  Cook for ~2 minutes.  Add ~4 ounces of diced prosciutto.  Add ~4 cups of sliced crimini mushrooms and 2 Tbs of butter.  Reduce heat to med-hi and stir occasionally until mushrooms are golden brown around the edges.  <Meanwhile, bring your ravioli water to a boil.>  Add a can of beef broth (to the sauce, not the water).  Simmer for 4 minutes.  Add enough Marsala to make a generous amount of sauce (~1 cups).  By now your water should be boiling.  Add 4 servings of ravioli (32ish) to the water and cook according to package (mine take 3 minutes).  Remove the ravioli to the pan of sauce.  Ladel one spoon of sauce into the bottom of the bowl.  Add ravioli.  Top with more sauce.  Enjoy!


I know that next time I make this, my recipe will vary slightly - but thats ok with me!  At least I know I have a place to start from.

Our First Thanksgiving in Colorado

For Thanksgiving this year, it became obvious pretty quickly that we wouldn't be able to travel home.  Joe had just started his new job, I was temping (and any time off was unpaid), tickets were exorbitantly priced, and who really wants to spend the majority of a four day weekend in an airport??  So instead of flying home, we had our first Colorado Thanksgiving.

I do most of the cooking for me and Joe, and was overwhelmed with the thought of cooking an entire Thanksgiving dinner for the two of us.  I knew that my only "cooking day" would have to be Thanksgiving day itself, and I wasn't sure if I could get everything done in 8 hours or less.  But, once we decided flying home wasn't an option, we invited my mom to fly out and join us, and she accepted.  The prospect of a Thanksgiving dinner suddenly became a lot less scary when I knew that I'd have her here to help do the shopping and the prep work while I was at work.

Thanksgiving ended up being a beautiful day (I'm pretty sure we hadn't had snow yet by that time of year, even though upon moving here we were promised that our first snow would be before the end of October).  Our friends from Denver, D and K were also able to come, so instead of a Thanksgiving for 2, we had a Thanksgiving for 5!  Somehow, all the prep happened so quickly and painlessly that it was a relaxing day of alternately cooking and sitting with our feet up.

The menu:

Mom and the bird

We bought a fresh, local turkey and made Alton Brown's Roast Turkey.  I don't think we use cinnamon or apple in the aromatics, I think we use lemon instead (possibly an earlier iteration of the recipe).  The most important part of the recipe though is brining the turkey to make it moist and tender with natural ingredients, rather than a whole bunch of salt and chemicals (like a lot of the "fluid added" frozen turkeys).  Our family has made this turkey recipe for years, and Mom has been known to have a brining turkey travelling with them in the car when she and Dad would come down to W'Burg for Thanksgiving.

 

Carved turkey and the rest of the "buffet."

 

Sweet  potatoes!  We pre-bake them and then squeeze them out of their skins, add brown sugar, cayenne, butter and half & half then bake them as a casserole.

 

Bobby Flay's Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Pomegranates and Vanilla-Pecan Butter.  My dad always loved having Brussels sprouts on Thanksgiving, so I wanted to make sure to have some on the menu (Joe and I both also love Brussels sprouts, so it was an easy addition).  This recipe was from Bobby Flay's Thanksgiving Throwdown, and it must have been a popular thing to make, because we had to go to two stores to get enough Brussels sprouts!

 

D made green bean casserole - one of Joe's favorite side dishes!

 

And or course stuffing!

Missing from the pictures are the gravy, the mashed potatoes, and the homemade pumpkin and apple pies that Mom made.

Perhaps My Favorite Meal in Italy

Amid exploration of the hill towns of Umbria (2007), we happened upon a very small town called Orvieto.  We got there in the evening, and there wasn't much open, but we certainly had to pay respects to their INCREDIBLE Duomo, which is covered in mosaic tile on one side.

Next to the Duomo, there was a small restaurant that happened to be open.  We sat on their patio, in a corner of the Duomo's piazza.  None of the wineries in the town were open, so we asked the waiter to pick out a local wine for us to try.  He suggested that instead of a full bottle, he could create a tasting of his own.  Along with our wine tasting, we asked if he could also put together some kind of sampling of the local foods.  These are what he came up with:

Half of the meats on this platter, he called "particulare," because they were local specialties that don't have English names.  It was an assortment of local salamis, and other cured meats.  I'm not sure what they all were, but I would love to duplicate that platter again!

He also made a platter of local cheeses.  Two sheep's milk, one goat milk, and one cow milk.  Surrounding some luscious local pears.  Perfecto!

Of course, there was also freshly baked bread and local olive oil on the side.  While this was by no means our biggest meal of the trip, it was incredibly local, personalized, and fit the atmosphere.  Our waiter was also so proud to show off the local specialties!

Eating with Famous People

(or at least taking our picture with them when they come to our table!)

Some of you may remember, that the family Christmas card from 2007 had a picture with the now UBER famous Michael Symon.

 Here we are at Lola, soon after Chef Michael Symon became Iron Chef Michael Symon.  I was SO excited to meet him!  As a perpetually disappointed Indians fan, I told him, "YOU are Cleveland's World Series!!"  That night, Mom and Carla had the duck and Dad and I had the rabbit.  Dinner at Lola does not disappoint, neither does dinner at Lolita, or lunch at B Spot (other Symon Cleveland establishments).

Food and Travel

Over the past few years, I have discovered that when I travel, my favorite pictures are usually the ones I took of food.  Yes, I am that strange person that takes out a camera, even in the middle of a fancy restaurant...  In 2007, my family and I went on a trip to Milan, Florence, and the hill towns of Tuscany and Umbria.  Here are a few of my food photos from that trip:

Bruschetta with (clockwise from top left) pate, roasted garlic, tomatoes, arugula and parmesan reggiano

Fresh pasta with rabbit sauce

Possibly octopus?

Prosciutto and pineapple

Ravioli

Port with cantucci

If you haven't travelled to Italy yet, you need to!  The food there is incredibly fresh and cannot be replicated outside of the country.  And the wine, wow....!