Black Bean Soup Recipe

When I was a young man I lived for two-and-a-half years in Central America.  Actually, I was still a boy when I left but the challenges there forced one into manhood, ready or not.  With my companions, I lived in a dozen different places between Guatemala and Costa Rica.  In each place there was a cook who prepared our meals, usually in primitive conditions.   I could tell some stories about those kitchens.

We thought the food something to be endured, not appreciating the culinary traditions of the different regions.  Now I look back upon the food with a sense of marvel for as humble as they were, they ate more wisely than the relatively rich people of the U.S.  Much of their food was natural and local:  corn tortillas, frijoles, and rice with an abundance of local fruit.  The fruit was to die for, especially the pineapples.  And the cooks knew an amazing number of ways to cook bananas. 

We ate a lot of black beans.  Many days we had beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  The black bean has a sentimental place in my heart for in those long ago days when this young boy was trying to become a man, it was my primary source of protein, fiber, minerals, antioxidants, and a bunch of other phytonutrients.  There is no better nutrition bargain than a pound of dried beans.

So the traditional black bean soup really must be included in our short list of breakthrough recipes.  I wanted a recipe that was authentic, one you could prepare without opening any cans.  Using natural food is cheaper than buying processed foods.  Take the black beans:  You can buy a pound from the bulk bin for under $2.00 and it will make six cups fully cooked.  If time is short, use  4 cans (15 oz.) of black beans (totaling six cups of beans when drained) for about $6.00.  Same thing for the chicken stock and Jalapeno pepper—you get a healthier, tastier, cheaper result if you cook it yourself.

Skip’s  Black Bean Soup

Ingredients:

1 lb. black beans, rinsed and drained

1 qt. homemade chicken stock

2 C water (if beans aren’t soaked overnight)

1 bay leaf

1 carrot, finely sliced

2 T olive oil

1 Jalapeno pepper, seeds removed and diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

½ bell pepper

½ onion, chopped

2 ribs celery, chopped

½ tsp cumin

½ tsp ground oregano

½ tsp chili powder

½ tsp black pepper

1 tsp salt (or to taste, depending on salt in stock)

1 T vinegar (optional)

1 lime (optional)

Directions:

1. Black beans may be soaked overnight in 6 cups water and then drained, or alternately, begin with dry beans.  If beans weren’t soaked overnight, combine chicken stock, water, black beans, and bay leaf in a saucepan, bring to a boil, then simmer ½ hour. 
2. While beans are simmering, wash and prepare vegetables.  Saute jalapeno pepper in olive oil several minutes; add garlic and cook one minute more. 
3. When step #1 is done, add carrots to simmering pot.  After 30 minutes add sautéed jalapeno pepper and garlic, bell pepper, onion, and celery to pot.  Add seasonings and stir well. 
4. Simmer 1 to 1½ hours more until beans are tender but not mushy.  Stir several times each hour.  (If you want natural rice with the soup, this is a good time to cook the rice.)
5. Remove about half of soup from pot and puree with a blender, and then return to pot. 
6. Adjust seasoning as needed.  Add water if needed for desired consistency.  Black bean soup may be served over rice and garnished with your choice of lime juice, sour cream, avocado, tortilla chips, chopped onions, grated cheese, parsley or cilantro.   Black bean soup is pretty basic; the garnishments make it interesting.  Enjoy.  Serves 6.  Time: about 3 hours.

Please comment:  This recipe can be adapted to a slow cooker, or simplified by using canned black beans, canned chilies, and store-bought chicken broth if you’re running short on time.  Please share your recipe, or favorite uses of black bean soup.

Skip's Beef Stew Recipe

Not Getting It

I start worrying that someone isn’t getting the nutrition message when they mutter some form of, “Well, moderation in all things, that’s what I always say.”  Ugggh.  It’s enough to make you scream.  Often, they believe this mindless phrase is found in the Bible.  It isn’t. 

Some attribute the phrase to Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean, but Aristotle was saying you should seek the happy space between excess and deficiency.  Actually, that’s our goal in Word of Wisdom Living.  We seek a thoughtful balance, for example, between life-shortening junk food and blowing your life worrying about food. 

To help you maximixe your life, Word of Wisdom Living, on each week’s subject, provides the quick answer to a healthy diet, along with one of 52 Healthy Changes to help you do it.  We also offer menus and recipes for your consideration, recognizing that everyone has different needs. 

Back to moderation in all things:  Think of the three categories—best, good, and worst.  We seek the “best” on things critical to our health.  For things that matter less, “good” is good enough.  And we shun the destructive effect of “worst.”  Consider the example of fats:

1. Best:  Be sure to get adequate omega-3 fats from plant and animal sources.  No moderation here—this is essential to the health of brain and body.
2. Good:  Butter, olive oil, and coconut oil are examples of healthy fats.  Enjoy them—in moderation.
3. Worst:  Avoid deep fat fried foods.  Period. No moderation.

Meat Sparingly

The Healthy Change this week says: “Agree on a 'sparing' meat intake goal as a family and write it down.  Let your goal guide your menus.”  In the opening Quick Answer, we reminded that at the end of the day, our care of animals would say everything about the humanity of our society.  I believe this.  And we eat animals in our home, but sparingly and with thanksgiving.

We all turn our heads towards a pasture of grazing cows, don't we?  The beautiful wife especially enjoys seeing the newborn calves with their mothers in the spring.  But it’s sad to see an aged animal left in the field to fall victim to predators and disease.  In our best world there are no CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations, like feedlots).  The cattle graze contentedly at pasture, reproduce, and, humanely, become meat for mankind to enjoy, sparingly, without waste.  This can best happen on the scale of the family farm, or ranch.  We don’t need monopolistic food corporations to do this right. 

Rediscovering Stew

Stew is a traditional dish; mankind has enjoyed it for millennia.  People today don’t eat stew as much as in olden times.  As a child I looked forward to my Mom’s stew.  Stew is roughly ¼ meat, ¼ potatoes, ¼ aromatic vegetables (carrots, celery, onions), and ¼ liquid (broth or stock).  Stew isn’t strongly flavored; most of the taste comes from the meat, and the vegetables. 

The flavors in stew can be as simple as salt, pepper, and a bay leaf or two.  Most recipes include garlic, and perhaps thyme and sage.  Add a little chopped parsley before serving, if you like.  Older recipes include Worcestershire sauce.  My Mom didn’t add tomatoes in any form, so I don’t either.  I also avoid those '60s and '70s recipes where the flavor base is a package of onion soup mix. 

The editors of Cook’s Illustrated gave their test kitchen’s take on stew in their big book titled The Best Recipe.  This is what I gleaned from their study of stew:

• Liquid:  Chicken stock gives a better taste than beef stock per Cook’s Illustrated.  This is good as chicken stock is more practical to make.  You can use store-bought, but it’s a pale version of homemade.
• Flavors:  If you use garlic in your stew (did I mention the beautiful wife’s mother had the surname of “Garlick,” or that she loves the smell of Gilroy, the garlic capital ?) Cook’s Illustrated says the flavor is better if you sauté it first.  Some recipes, especially for slow cookers, just toss the garlic in the pot.
• Meat:  The tougher meats are fine for stew—beef, lamb, or pork all work.  I was curious to use lamb, mainly because, to my knowledge, it’s the only animal that still comes to market straight from pasture.  But the market had beef chuck roasts for $3/lb, so how could I resist?  If you use lamb or pork, the shoulder cuts offer the best value.  Cook’s Illustrated avoids the pre-cut stew meats, as the sizes are often irregular and come from a variety of cuts. They also suggest browning the meat, but I don’t.
• Vegetables:  In addition to the specified vegetables, stew is another dish good for cleaning out the vegetable inventory.  One source said parsnips were an overlooked vegetable; I put some in for an experiment—parsnips might be one of those acquired tastes.
• Time:  Add ingredients according to their cooking time, rather than all at once.  Per Cook’s Illustrated beef takes 2-½ hrs stewing time, while lamb and pork take just 2 hours.  Of the vegetables carrots (and parsnips) take the most time, about 1 hour; potatoes (depending on the variety) take ½ hour; peas, if used, should be added just before serving.  Working moms might prepare stew on the weekend, or use a slow cooker. 

Skip’s Beef Stew Recipe

I know, it takes a lot of chutzpah to put your name on a recipe that’s been cooked for millennia.  But I do, if only because I make my version as healthy as practical.

Ingredients:

2 lb. beef or lamb, trimmed and cut into 1” cubes     

3 cups chicken stock (of beef, if homemade)

1 tsp salt (assumes stock/broth is not sodium free, otherwise 2 tsp)

1 tsp pepper

2 bay leaves

1 T Worcestershire sauce (optional)

1 tsp thyme

½ tsp sage                 

3 large boiling (see below) potatoes, diced 

4 carrots, sliced

2 medium onions (white or yellow), chopped

3 ribs celery, chopped

2+4 T olive oil or butter

4 cloves garlic (or more, if you like), minced

4 T flour

1 cup water or stock (enough to cover vegetables)           

1 cup frozen peas (optional)

Finely chopped parsley (optional)

Directions:

1. Place meat, stock, salt, pepper, bay leaves and thyme in a 4 qt. kettle, bring to a boil then lower heat and simmer one hour (add a half hour for beef).  After trimming the meat, I actually had 1 lb.-10 oz. and it was plenty.  (Note: My recipe doesn’t call for browning the meat.) 
2. While the meat is simmering, clean and cut potatoes, carrots, and celery into bite-size pieces; chop onions into smaller pieces.  Add carrots to the pot after 1-½ hr (1 hr. if using lamb or pork).  (Note:  Boiling potatoes are the waxy type, like the red or thin-skinned straw-colored varieties.  You can use Russets, just remember they cook faster.)
3. In a frying pan, while meat and carrots are simmering, sauté chopped garlic in olive oil about 1 minute and add to pot at any time.
4. In the same frying pan, make a roux by stirring flour into 3 T hot olive oil or butter; cook 3-5 minutes until a nutty aroma develops.  Blend water or stock into roux and transfer to stew pot, at any time.   (I added a little Kitchen boquet to improve the color.)
5. Add potatoes, onions, and celery for last 30 minutes of cooking time.  (Excess cooking makes them mushy.)  Add liquid to cover vegetables.  (My vegetables were larger so I added almost three cups.)
6. Before serving, check seasonings (some like their stew a little saltier), and stir in optional peas.  Sprinkle with parsley.  Serves eight to ten.

Please comment:  Yes, I know, we always ask for comments.  But the thousands of comments you have made are a big part of the success of this blog.  So please comment on your family’s experience cooking stew. 

What other recipes would you like to see?  Our focus is on basic recipes that enable the breakthrough to healthy eating.  We only get 52 in a year, so we have to make them count. 

The Joy of Coleslaw

Pringles and the Industrialization of Food

My first job out of college was with Procter & Gamble, a soap company that also sold factory foods like Crisco shortening and salad oil.  Desperate for new products, P&G had resorted to growth by acquisition (Duncan Hines cake mixes, Folgers coffee, Jiff PB, etc.).  The smart guys at the top, however, knew the most profitable growth came from creating new products.  They saw an opportunity in potato chips, which at that time was a regional business with many players.

So P&G food scientists invented a potato chip with a long shelf life that could be shipped cross-country from a central factory.  No woman who knew her way around a kitchen would ever think of the product that resulted—Pringles.  But a food engineer with his brain bound by industrial thinking would.  Pringles used a cheap ingredient (potatoes), factory-processed into a mash, then formed and cooked with hydrogenated oil (a P&G expertise). 

The result was a patented and trade marked, densely packed, salty treat that would keep a long time.  I think the uniform shape of Pringles appealed to the corporate mentality—regular potato chips, in their random shapes and sizes, defied their controlling instinct.  By 20^th century standards, Pringles was the perfect food invention.  Customer health, to my knowledge, was never a consideration. 

P&G expected that national advertising and marketing muscle would let them dominate the regional potato chip business, even though Pringles didn’t taste any better.  It didn’t happen that way.  Instead, Frito-Lay bought or drove out the other chip companies and today dominates the supermarket chip aisle.  P&G’s Pringle brand is a distant #2 and now they’re going to exit the business by selling out to Kellogg’s.  I think P&G is the more forward thinking company here—starch fried into salty snack food belongs in the last century.  Funny how Kellogg’s can’t see that. 

A Better Idea

Smart 21^st century home cooks will take the path less travelled—reinventing the food of our pre-Industrial Revolution ancestors.  Forget about potato chips, Pringles, or fast food French fries and check our delicious Oven-Roasted Fries (recipe here).

In Praise of Cabbage

You get a big health bang for your buck with cabbage.  Cabbage is full of bone-building vitamin K.  Cabbage contains cancer-fighting antioxidants (including vitamins A and C) and glucosinolates.  It’s also rich in anti-inflammatory compounds.   (Similar benefits are found in the other cruciferous vegetables, including Brussels sprouts, Bok Choy, and broccoli.)  To learn more about the benefits of cabbage read here.

Family Food Traditions

The beautiful wife’s father was an unusually good man who grew up on a family farm in one of Utah’s mountain valleys.  Before his passing, he reminisced about the hard time farmers had between the World Wars.  “There was no money in the house,” he recalled, “but we were happy and had plenty to eat.”  In the fall they packed the root cellar with the food that would carry them through the winter—apples, onions, potatoes, oats, wheat, and plenty of cabbage.  “We stored the cabbage on a bed of sand and it lasted most of the winter.  When it started to turn bad, Mom made it into delicious sauerkraut.” 

From my own childhood I have a memory of cabbage.  Before our nation got addicted to credit, people lived on the money in their pocket.  One night we were eating a cabbage salad for dinner and Mom remarked, “At the store I only had a nickel in my wallet, just enough to buy a cabbage.”  It’s been a few years since you could buy cabbage for a nickel, but my memory is still clear on the value of this cruciferous vegetable.     

The cruciferous family is so healthy you should include it in your menu most days of the week—so coleslaw is this week’s recipe.  Because healthy snacking is the topic of the week, note that coleslaw makes a good snack, and can be added to fish tacos for a tasty meal too.  I wanted a recipe that didn’t start with a cup of mayonnaise.  I also wanted one without sugar, but because most recipes require vinegar, a little sugar is needed to offset the bitterness. 

Skip’s Peanut Coleslaw

Ingredients:

½ cabbage (makes 4-5 cups when shredded)

2 carrots, coarsely grated

½ bell pepper, finely sliced

½ onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, finely cut on diagonal

¾ cup roasted and salted Virginia peanuts (or whatever’s handy)

Sauce Ingredients:

¾ cup yogurt (or sour cream, or half-and-half, but use more corn starch)

2 T cornstarch (to thicken)

1 T Red wine vinegar

2 T sugar (we used agave nectar)

1 T lemon juice

2 T horseradish sauce (adjust for the concentration of horseradish used)

½ tsp celery seed (okay to substitute caraway seed, or fennel seed)

½ tsp ground mustard (or 1 T Dijon prepared mustard)

Generous pinch of red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper to taste (remember the peanuts may be salty)

Directions:

1. Prepare vegetables.  Beyond cabbage, most any vegetable works in coleslaw.  Including red cabbage adds to the color.  If pressed for time, you can also buy coleslaw vegetables already prepared.
2. Make sauce by combining wet ingredients and spices.
3. Toss vegetables in sauce and refrigerate several hours before serving.
4. Before serving, add peanuts.  (The peanuts get mushy if left in the coleslaw.)
5. This recipe takes a little time but can be made in advance and used in several meals.  Feeds 8.

Please comment:  Cruciferous vegetables offer a great combination of healthfulness and value.  We try to include them on our menu most days of the week.  Share your favorite ways to enjoy cabbage. 

Secrets of Stir-fry

Learning to Cook

There’s a phrase among doctors that goes, “See one, do one, teach one.”  It means that some things can be learned simply by observation, and that having done one you’re qualified to teach the procedure.  Doctors sometimes laugh when they hear this, likely because they’ve learned by sad experience that everything not’s that simple.  Like cooking.

Because I’m fascinated by the Asian use of meat—as a condiment rather than the main course—I wanted to include a stir-fry recipe in our evolving cookbook.  Stir-fry can also use less edible portions of plants, like the stalk.  Stir-fry is also a good way to use the produce loitering in your fridge.

Did I mention I’ve never cooked stir-fry?  I didn’t even like it.  But any recipe that is plant based, sparing of meat, quick to cook, and affordable, deserves a second look.  I started by Googling the term, “secrets of stir-fry.”  After that I compared stir-fry recipes.  Bottom line:  Stir-fry is bite-sized pieces of vegetables with a little meat, cooked quickly in a hot pan.  Period.  Oh, and eat it while it’s hot, before it gets soggy.

Secrets of Stir-fry

After a day of research and a half-day of cooking, here’s what I learned:

1. There are four steps:  a) prepare ingredients, b) cook meat and remove, c) cook vegetables, and d) add sauce and meat to vegetables and finish cooking.  Actually, if you like stir-fry over whole grain rice, you better start the rice first.
2. Need a wok?  No. A frying pan is actually easier to keep at the hot stir-fry temperatures.  The main advantage I see in the wok is the high sides keep your stovetop cleaner when the splattering starts.
3. Which meat?  Chicken is most used with stir-fry, but you can use anything for protein, including peanuts and cashews.  Actually, the nuts save the meat-cooking step.  The chicken is often marinated while the vegetables are being prepared; they say it keeps the meat from getting tough during frying.
4. Best oil?  Among the healthy oils (like peanut oil, coconut oil, olive oil, or organic canola oil) they all work.  I stir-fried four batches of chicken using the oils above and asked the beautiful (and discriminating) wife which she preferred.  They tasted all the same.  Don’t use butter—the pan’s too hot.
5. Which vegetables?  Whatever.  About everything works, including the aromatics (celery, carrot, onion) the cruciferous family (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, or cabbage), asparagus, bell peppers (any color), bok choy, or snap beans.  There’s a stir-fry secret here: cheap, less-desired plant stalks are made edible.  You can also add bean sprouts, water chestnuts or bamboo shoots.  One recipe even uses watermelon rind.  Limit yourself to four or so; cut vegetables into bite-size pieces but slice carrots thinly as they take longer to cook.  Put onions and hard veggies in to cook first, and add leafy vegetables like bok choy last.
6. How to season?  Most recipes start with a little soy sauce (though any Asian sauce will work) and may include ginger and/or garlic, plus something hot (red peppers, chile powder, or cayenne).  Green onions are also used.  You can make great stir-fry with these plus salt and black pepper.  Some recipes include cumin, coriander, and curry or just turmeric. 

Skip’s Chicken Pineapple Stir-fry

It takes a lot of nerve to put your name on a recipe that billions of people have cooked in thousands of ways—but I did.  Makes me smile.  This recipe is for four people:

Ingredients:

½ C chicken stock

2 T soy sauce

1 T red wine vinegar (or whatever you have)

1 T agave nectar (or some form of sugar)

1 T cornstarch (to thicken)

2  Boneless chicken breasts (about 1 lb.)

Peanut oil (or any healthy oil)

1 C white onion

1 C celery

½ C carrots, sliced thin

½ C bell pepper

½ C green onions

1-2 C pineapple (optional)

1 tsp garlic, grated

1 tsp fresh ginger, grated

½ tsp red pepper flakes (or any hot spice)

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions: 

1. Prepare the sauce by combining chicken stock, soy sauce, vinegar, agave nectar, and cornstarch.  Set aside.
2. Cut chicken breast into equal size cubes or strips, and marinate if desired.  A marinate can be made using soy sauce, vinegar, agave nectar and cornstarch in the quantities above, plus ¼ cup cooking oil.  Note: If chicken is not to be marinated, prepare the vegetables first.
3. Prepare the vegetables and pineapple by chopping into ½” to ¾” pieces, and slicing carrots.  Other vegetables can be substituted as needed.  When washing vegetables, dry them before cutting to reduce spattering when cooking. 
4. Heat a pan until a drop of water sizzles, then add 2 T cooking oil.  Caution:  Be sure water is gone before adding oil as it will cause spattering of hot oil. Continue heating until cooking oil shimmers.  Add meat and cook until browned on each side.  Remove meat but leave liquid in pan.
5. Add more cooking oil and heat until shimmering.  Add vegetables in sequence, beginning with onions and other hard vegetables and finishing with softer vegetables (which need less cooking).  Do not add pineapple.
6. While vegetables are cooking, add minced ginger and garlic, and red pepper flakes.  If these are used in powdered form, simply add to the sauce in step #1, but use a little less.
7. Add in order: the sauce from step #1, pineapple, and meat.  Stir to coat.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Cook until done al dente, you don’t want it mushy.  Remove and serve over rice, say the dinner prayer, and enjoy.

Please comment:  Share your best stir-fry recipe or tip.  Stir-fry is another good way to add vegetables to your diet.

Saving Old Recipes

The quick answer:  Recipes are often family heirlooms, but those from the last century may require "healthing-up".

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1000 Words

I’ve renewed my intention to keep posts under 1000 words so can’t tell the whole story of our recent trip to Sacramento.  Except to say we attended the funeral of the beautiful wife’s namesake Aunt Clare; had dinner with my Mom who gave us some of her delicious Heavenly Hash (mixed berry jam) and prized Christmas fruitcake; and stopped at Elk Grove Walnut Co. for just-harvested walnuts at $5/lb., shelled.  (Yes you can get some, just Email: egwalnut@comcast.net.) 

But I did tell the walnut lady the lovely story of how Aunt Clare’s husband died after a 50-year marriage and how she rediscovered her first true love, whose wife had also died, and how through the years each had saved a portrait of the other, and how at 80 he swept her off her feet, again, so they could spend their last years holding hands in Hawaii.  Which simply proved that Robert Browning was right when he penned, 

Grow old along with me!  The best is yet to be,

 The last of life, for which the first was made . . . .

As I turned to leave, the walnut lady,  wiping a tear from her eye, thanked me for sharing the story. 

Nor can I tell how my Mom’s dad, a hard rock miner, died of pneumonia when she was just two, and how she and her widowed mom survived the Depression by the grace of God and the kindness of her Aunt Kate (she of Aunt Kate’s Chili Sauce), and how through the hard years Mom came to cherish the promise of Christmas future.  I can’t even tell the story of how at the moment she turned from girl to young woman, when she expected nothing for Christmas, her mother surprised her with a beautiful green gown that she later wore to the dance where she dazzled her husband-to-be.  Well, actually, that story has to be told—next week we’ll set food aside and tell a Christmas story.

Cooking and Flavor

By now you know I can’t resist a good story.  But the real subject of this post is how to improve old recipes.  On our drive to Sacramento I read Mark Bittman’s Ebook, Cooking Solves Everything: How Time in the Kitchen Can Save Your Health, Your Budget, and Even the Planet.  It’s short, meant to be read in one sitting, and echoes the argument we’ve made here:  If you want good health, cook!  I didn’t realize when I started this blog that home cooking would be the key to health.

Bittman, in his Ebook, shared his three favorite flavors for improving a dish:

1. A squeeze of lemon or lime juice.
2. Highlight with smoked paprika.  (Not the old stuff sitting in your spice drawer waiting for you to make deviled eggs, but Spanish paprika, also known as pimenton.)
3. Toss on whatever fresh herbs you have on hand, chopped.  (This works best, I think, if you have a herb garden, or at least some leftover parsley, cilantro, or thyme.)

Taking Stock

Bottom line:  It's best to make your own stock.  The picture (above) shows the evolution of stock.  Campbell's broth, mixed as directed, costs $3.34 per quart.  Swanson's Chicken broth is $3.39.  Maggi's chicken bouillon flakes are cheaper but the ingredient list starts with "salt, cornstarch, MSG, hydrogenated palm oil", etc.  Actually, all these imitations of old-fashioned chicken stock are high in sodium (salt) and artificial ingedients.  The tastiest, cheapest, and healthiest is our homemade chicken stock (shown in the pint Mason jar).

Saving Old Recipes

Have you looked through the recipes of a grandmother or great-aunt who has passed on?  If so you will notice that between the World Wars, food began to be modernized, i.e. made more convenient, or more factory-processed.  Food Inc. accelerated meal preparation, but didn't tell us they were also speeding up our aging process. 

Stock, as shown above, was replaced by high-salt, low-taste, factory substitutes.  Lard was replaced by Crisco, or hydrogenated vegetable oils.  And the amount of sugar in cakes and cookies approached the amount of flour, which was refined and bleached.  If you love those old recipes, here are some tips I’ve collected to "health" them up.  (Yes, "health" can also be a verb.)

1. Flour:  Use whole grain flours, or a mixture, in place of refined flours. 
2. Sugar:  Minimize the use of sugar; reduce sugar by ½, or at least by ¼.      
3. Broth:  If a recipe calls for store-bought chicken broth, Campbell’s, or chicken bouillon cubes—pull out your homemade chicken stock.  Last week I made three batches of Skip’s Potato Soup.  For the 3^rd batch I forgot to take my chicken stock out of the freezer so, because I was in a hurry, I used store-bought.  We could tell the difference—the soup was good but the flavor was diluted.
4. Fat:  Only use healthy fats.  Ignore the call for Crisco and substitute butter, or lard if you’re experienced.  Instead of refined vegetable oils, use butter, olive oil, coconut oil, or cold-pressed organic oils. 
5. Low-cal stuff:  Minimize low-calorie versions of food.  There are no studies—to my knowledge—showing any benefit from low-calorie food products.  The best way to reduce calories is to avoid refined foods in favor of whole foods.  Whole foods are full of fiber and fill you with way less calories.
6. Ditto for low-sodium products.  Less salt is better but some, especially if prescribed by your doc.  But the bigger issue for most if that salt is mainly found in processed foods.  Lowering the sodium doesn’t restore the lost nutrients.  Often low-sodium foods are higher in sugar.
7. Vegetables:  To increase your intake, puree your produce and add it to entrees, sauces, and soups.

Please comment, share your share your favorite healthy recipes, or your favorite healthy cookbooks.  In the next post we’ll tell how the Sunday roasted chicken got processed into those frozen chicken nuggets. 

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

Soup Recipes

The quick answer:  To live longer, eat like a peasant—enjoy whole foods, which have more nutrients and fewer calories—beginning with soup.

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The Folly of Metrics

You’ve heard the management truism about the value of metrics?  It says that whatever we measure will improve, that if we report the measurement it will improve more, and if we set goals for the measurement, it will improve faster.  I was a fan of metrics in my youth because of their power to direct behavior.  I’m still a fan but with this caveat—the most important things don’t lend themselves to measurement.  (Confession:  one metric in my life is the number of daily readers of this blog—your visits help to make my day.)

Love, for example, is essential to our happiness, but have you ever tried to measure it?  So there is this danger, you know, that in life we may be measuring the wrong thing.  Do you think money will make you happy?  It will definitely increase your options, but it tends to interfere with the source of true happiness: love.  So be cautious about counting your money too often. 

Here’s another example of a metric gone awry: calories.  In the early days of nutrition science, in the late 1800s, they learned to measure the calories in food.  Because it was easy to do and there were few other metrics, calories got a lot of attention.  The dominance of this metric led to the false idea that calories caused overweight and that the cure for overweight was to count and restrict calories.  If you look around, you can see the error of these assumptions—the more we focused on calories, the more overweight we became. 

In a prior post—The Skinny on Overweight—we posited that the quality of our calories was more important than the quantity.  If you wanted to reach a healthy weight, rather than count calories, you should change the nature of your food. 

The issue here is that whole foods are full of fiber and very filling.  They’re also high in nutrients and low in calories.  Processed foods are the opposite, high in calories and low in nutrients.  So if you eat mostly whole foods, you’ll get plenty of nutrients but not too many calories.  We won’t all have the same figure if we do this—that would be boring.  But we will achieve the goal of this blog:  Eat smarter, look better, and live longer.

Starvation Recipes

Making money a primary metric leads to foolish behavior.  Out of control borrowing, especially in Greece, has been a financial disaster for the European Community.  In street demonstrations, the Greeks have defied the reality of their plight, but nonetheless, hard times are in their future.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Though difficult, it’s essential to learn to live within one’s means.  Here in the US, we’re having our own hard experience.

So how do you survive in a tough economy?  If you read Greek, buy the new cookbook, Starvation Recipes, written by a woman of Athens.  During WWII, occupied Athens suffered severe food shortages and people became very creative about conserving food.  The author studied WWII era newspapers and collected ideas and recipes for surviving on less.  The book is selling well.  Which all leads to this week’s subject:  the nutritious economy of soup.

Living Longer

A friend suggested I listen to a podcast titled, “Can We Reverse Aging?”  The podcast reminded me of other truisms:

• Across all species, the larger animals live longer.  Blue Whales, the largest of mammals, can live 200 years; the mayfly lives but a few hours.
• Conversely, within a single species, the smallest live the longest.  That’s good news for the beautiful wife, at 5 foot, 2 inches.
• A longevity pill would be worth billions, so scientists are hard at work.  The research to date has shown just one way to slow aging—eat less calories.
• Studies of varied species prove that as long as long as nutrients are adequate, life is extended, even doubled, by reducing calories. 

A word of caution—caloric restriction hasn’t been tested on humans.  There is interesting literature on longevity improvements in Denmark and Scandinavian countries during WWII food shortages.   The calorie-restriction findings are bad news for Americans because our daily calorie intake has steadily increased in recent decades.  As our diet has gone off the tracks, overweight has increased in step. 

An Interesting Woman

This all leads to a UCSF professor born in Tasmania: Elizabeth Blackburn.  Blackburn earned a Nobel Prize for discovering the enzyme that regenerates telomeres.  Telomeres, you will recall, are the protective tails on the chromosomes that protect the DNA within each of our cells.  Aging is linked to the shortening of our telomeres so the enzyme that restores them could also extend our lives.  (Shortened telomeres have also been linked to cancer risk.) 

Blackburn’s current interests are reported to include how stress harmfully shortens telomeres, the cancer risk of shortened telomeres, and how eating less calories helps to restore them.  The drug companies would love to discover a molecule that lengthens telomeres, thus lengthening life and reducing cancer risk.  A lot of money will be spent on telomere research, but I think it unlikely a pill is the answer.  Where is the answer more likely to be found?  By rediscovering recipes for traditional foods.

A Word About Recipes

Going off-subject for a moment, UNESCO has compiled a list of world heritage sites, seen here.  Checking out the sites on the list is to take an exotic vacation without leaving your home.  Traditional recipes (returning to our subject) are also a world heritage.  The other day, the beautiful wife was making Christmas cookies with a recipe handed down from her mother.  The recipe is in her deceased mother’s handwriting so I saw it as a family heirloom.

If you’re mathematically inclined, you can figure out that inventing a simple recipe of, say, 8 ingredients with each tested at three different amounts, requires over 6000 batches to test all the combinations.   This is an impossible task.  So a well-evolved recipe, tested by time in many kitchens, is truly a heritage.  Can you see a good recipe as a treasured algorithm distilled from eons of cooking experiments?

I subscribe, from time to time, to Cooks Illustrated.  They have a great test kitchen and like to improve or invent recipes.  If I’m currently subscribed, it’s because I like all the background information about why you do certain things, or use certain ingredients.  If I’m not paying for it, it’s likely because they don’t focus enough on health, or because they may over-complicate recipes in search of a certain taste most of us can’t discern.  For everyday cooking, recipes must be kept simple.

I’ve looked for blogs that offer recipes with the idea of linking to them.  It’s been a disappointing search.  I’m wary of commercial blogs.  Only a few blogs have a real focus on health.  To catch people’s interest many blogs use exotic ingredients and my focus is to be more practical.  Here are the recipe essentials I look for:  Healthfulness, Value, Simplicity, and Taste. 

So I was pleased to see the blog, Peasant Food.  Two sisters are putting ideas we support to work by combining traditional healthy foods with the tools of the modern kitchen.  They have a love affair with legumes (the best value in food) and offer their Butterbean and Bacon Soup recipe, shown in the picture above. I’m going to try their recipe.

Skip’s Recipes

My approach to recipes is to make a statistical survey.  I look at dozens of recipes and search out trends in ingredients.  When a trend is visible, I look at the healthiness of the ingredients.  Then, I look for simplicity and value (yeah, no truffles).  Finally I make the recipe and convene a tasting panel.  (Another source of recipes is our readers—we're making a list of the best to share.)  Sometimes the panel is the beautiful wife, but my favorite panel is a bunch of grandchildren.  They love tasting food—kids don’t usually get to give out the grades. 

I once was working on a homemade macaroni & cheese recipe and though I didn’t find the perfect recipe, I was pleased the grandchildren liked my efforts more than the Kraft version we used for comparison.  Kids will eat packaged foods, but they prefer real food. (This was a single-blind test, meaning the grandkids didn’t know the origin of the tasting samples.) 

Soup Recipes

Soups vary around the world, according to the ingredients at hand.  In the US the most popular soup recipes are tomato, chicken, potato, onion, clam chowder, and perhaps black bean soup.  Campbell’s would argue Cream of Mushroom, but I think it is used more as an ingredient than as a soup.

We previously offered recipes for split pea soup, and chicken soup.  We don’t have a recipe for tomato soup; we usually buy Trader Joe’s.  “Is this an example,” I asked the Beautiful Wife, “of a soup that’s just as well purchased as made at home?” “Perhaps,” she said, “but you can’t beat the tomato soup served at Nordstrom’s.”  She’s right.  Nordstrom’s recipe was published in their cookbook and versions can be found on the Internet so I decided to make potato soup the subject of this post. 

Potato Soup

The humble potato—like wheat, rice, or corn—is a dietary mainstay in certain regions of the world.  Potato soup is a heritage dish, economical, tasty, and easy to make.  You can make it with any variety—Idaho russets, the red new potatoes, or even sweet potatoes.  The russets are softer when cooked; the new potatoes are firmer.  The following recipe worked with both.  (Caution: If you store potatoes, keep them out of the sun and remove any sprouts or green spots before using, as they contain the toxin solanine.)

Common ingredients from our survey of potato soup recipes:

• Potatoes, onions, celery—this is the basis of nearly every recipe.  Sometimes the 3^rd mirepoix ingredient, carrots, is added. 
• Chicken broth.
• Milk, thickened with roux. (An alternative is to thicken by adding cheese at the end of cooking.)  Older recipes include cream but I used whole milk.
• If you’re feeling prosperous, bacon or ham. (But add less salt.)

Potato soup recipes require little flavoring.  Typically they include thyme, salt and pepper, and a little chopped parsley as garnish. Other flavor combinations:

• Garlic, cumin, red pepper flakes.
• Mustard/Worcestershire sauce, allspice.

Warning:  You can tell the recipes from the ‘50s and ‘60s, when food began to go off the track.  Chicken stock is replaced by bouillon cubes in water; butter (for the roux) is replaced by margarine; and celery salt is substituted for fresh chopped celery.  In this era, convenience blindly passed from virtue to vice.

Skip’s Potato Soup

Ingredients:

  3 C. potatoes, washed and cubed

  1 C. white onion, chopped

  2/3 C. celery, chopped

  3 C. chicken stock

  3 strips bacon

  2 C. milk (some recipes include cream)

  2-3 T healthy fat (to sauté)

  2 T butter or bacon fat (for roux)

  2 T flour

  ½ tsp. each thyme, salt, and ground pepper

Directions:

1. Place stock in large soup pot and heat to boil.  While stock is heating cube potatoes (washed, but unpeeled) and place in soup pot.  Chop the onion and celery. 
2. In a frying pan cook the bacon; chop and set aside.  Leave 2-3 T bacon grease in pan. 
3. Sauté the onions and celery in pan, starting onions first.  Add the sautéed onions, celery and flavor (thyme, salt, pepper) to the soup pot. 
4. Reusing the frying pan, make roux with butter/bacon fat and flour; cook about a minute.  Stir in milk and cook 5 minutes to thicken (do not boil).  Add to soup pot. 
5. Continue cooking soup until potatoes are tender.  Remove about half the soup to a blender and puree.  Return to soup pot.  Add chopped bacon, adjust salt and pepper if needed, and garnish with chopped parsley.  Serve.

We served this with a spinach salad and corn bread.  This morning the Beautiful Wife returned from walking and talking with her friends; she exclaimed upon entering the house, “It smells so good!”  So this recipe will also make your home smell good.  I took some of the soup to the grandchildren for taste testing (one mom had just delivered a new granddaughter; the other was gone on a photo shoot).  Grandchildren love soup.  If there’s extra soup, freeze a quart for later.

Please comment:  Share your favorite soup recipes.  Oh, one other comment, did you think this post too long?  If so, my apology; one thing just led to another.

Making Soup

The quick answer: A warm bowl of soup makes a perfect winter dish.  It’s also healthy, tasty, economical, and filling (plus low in calories).

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Canned Soup

I spent two and a half years in Central America when a young man, living with humble people and eating their food.  It was a seminal experience that influenced my life.  I didn’t fully appreciate the wisdom of their diet at the time, but it was affordable, minimally processed, and mostly local.  I still remember the first soup I ate—homemade chicken vegetable.  It stands out because I discovered the chicken’s foot in my bowl.  I thought my Mom was a frugal cook, but these people were world-class in waste reduction.  Water-based soups were a regular part of lunch and even dinner.  I regret that it never occurred to me to collect a few recipes   

Later, the soup most familiar to me was Campbell’s.  The Campbell soup can, artfully copied by Andy Warhol, is an American icon.  The Napoleonic Wars caused the invention of canned food in the early 1800s.  There was a double benefit to the can:  It fit the needs of wartime eating, plus in-can cooking sterilized the food, eliminating spoilage.  Indeed, consumption of canned foods (like other bad habits) increases during wartime.  The Campbell Soup Company got its start following the Civil War based on one improvement—a condensed soup cut costs.  The user could add water or milk when the soup was heated, which at least gave the appearance of cooking.

The health complaints against Campbell’s soups have been the sodium content (lowered for a time, but recently increased when sales continued to drop), and concerns about high levels of Bisphenol A (BPA is a human endocrine and nervous system disruptor, a cause of obesity, and a suspected carcinogen).   There is a movement away from canned foods, though they’re useful when you don’t have time to cook dried beans, or don’t make your own tomato sauce.

Campbell soups played a role in the rise and fall of casserole dishes, I believe.  In the post-WWII emphasis on convenience, casseroles rose in popularity as a single-dish meal.  Recipes often included a can of Campbell’s soup.  Unfortunately, taste and wholesomeness were lesser considerations and there is a generation now who distain casseroles.  This is unfortunate as casseroles have a place in traditional cooking—think of ratatouille.  We should have a post on tasty and healthy casserole recipes.

Homemade Soup

Two things:  First, it’s cheaper to eat traditional home-cooked whole foods than buy modern processed foods (even before you consider the cost of healthcare for the diseases of the modern diet).   That’s our position—healthy home food is cheaper than factory food.  Second, Marie Antionette, wouldn’t have lost her head if she has just said, “Let them eat soup” and then cooked up a big pot to mollify those hungry protestors. 

Leah Widtsoe, a formidable advocate of healthy eating, wrote a 1943 book titled How To Be Well: A Health Handbook and Cookbook.  Widtsoe spoke of traditional soup making:

“A soup kettle is a wise possession for every family.  In it should go every scrap of meat, bone, cooked meat, chicken and turkey bones.  If a rolled roast or shoulder of ham is ordered, insist that the chopped bones are sent also for soup or gravy.  In the vegetable soup kettle go all clean vegetables parings, outer leaves or lettuce, celery, pea pods, chopped parsley, and all bits of good food that should not be wasted.  The basis of the soup of the day should be found here. . . . One must never waste good food.”

Soup is more a winter food and in Widtsoe’s day the wood-burning kitchen stove often heated homes.  So the stove would be hot often enough that bacteria wouldn’t get established in the soup kettle.  The soup kettle was displaced by modern heating, which led to the success of Campbell’s soups.   

It's time to reinvent soup making.  The soup kettle is no longer practical but a plastic container with a closable lid, placed in the freezer, could take its place for saving scraps.  Another innovation is slow cooking using a crock-pot.  Set the crock-pot on low for 8-hour soups, or on high for 4-hour cooking.  Or you can just simmer a pot on the back burner.

What are the most popular soups?  Tomato, followed by the chicken soups.  Other favorites include potato, onion, split pea, and clam chowder.  (For our split pea soup recipe go here.)  

There are established patterns to soup making.  Meat flavored soups, with the exception of the chowders, traditionally have four ingredient groups:  meat in some form, stock, mirepoix (chopped onion, carrot and celery), and herbs (typically bay leaf, thyme, and parsley, plus salt and pepper).  Some may include a carb, like egg noodles, rice, or perhaps orzo. 

Chicken Soup

If you read through enough chicken soup recipes, you’ll see a pattern.  The chicken is either whole, cut up, or pre-cooked & chopped.  The latter is the quickest to make, you can be done in 40 minutes.  Recipes using cut up chicken usually call for browning of the chicken with the mirepoix in a frying pan. 

For raw chicken—cut up or whole—plan on 2+ hours cooking time, but there’s a benefit—you can make your own stock by cooking the chicken with mirepoix, and the traditional herbs (bay leaf, thyme, and parsley).  Or you can slow-cook by using a crock-pot. 

To make chicken noodle soup simply follow the basic recipe and add ½-1 cup of egg noodles (preferably whole grain) per pound of chicken plus extra water.  For chicken and rice soup, substitute a cup of rice for the noodles, with extra water, adding it as needed to meet the cooking time of the rice.   For cream of chicken soup, replace the stock with milk and puree after cooking.  These are well-evolved, simple recipes. 

The approach that makes the most sense to me begins with the carcass of a roasted chicken.  After you’ve enjoyed a meal of roasted chicken (you may be buying them roasted, but a future recipe will feature home roasting) you’re left with the carcass.  I confess to throwing these in the garbage in my prior life.   The recipe below starts with stock; if you have a carcass see note #1.

Skip’s Chicken & Rice Soup Recipe

Ingredients:

1 lb. meat scraps (about 3 cups)

6 cups liquid (I used 4 cups homemade stock and 2 cups water.)

3 cups mirepoix (roughly equal amounts of chopped onion, celery, and carrot)

1 cup of mixed wild rice, or brown rice (If you like more rice, add another cup plus 1-1/2 cups additional water.)

2 each bay leaf

2 T chopped parsley

½ tsp ground thyme

1 tsp each, salt and ground pepper

Directions:

Combine ingredients in a large pot, bring to a boil, and simmer 40 minutes.  Let cool, add salt or pepper if needed.  If too thick for your taste, add a little water.  Homemade bread or cornbread makes a nice side.  Could this be any simpler?  For the small family, this makes 2-3 meals.  Put a quart in the freezer for later use.

Note 1:  If you’re starting with a cooked chicken carcass, flatten the carcass in a pot, cover with 6 cups water, and add herbs (bay leaf, thyme and parsley).  Bring to a boil and simmer at least two hours to loosen meat and make stock.  Remove and discard the skin and bones, and chop up the meat.  Return the meat to the liquid (you can add extra meat if you have leftovers), add the mirepoix, rice, and salt and pepper, and cook per directions above.

Note 2:  If you want Chicken Noodle soup, replace the rice with noodles and reduce liquid by one cup.

Note 3:  We made this recipe with turkey.  We simmered the carcass of our Thanksgiving turkey for three hours with a couple of bay leafs to make a simple stock (no mirepoix).  When done, we gleaned the loose scraps of meat seen in the photo.   The stock and meat were refrigerated for several days before making the soup above.  Perhaps the turkey was content we wasted so little of his sacrifice. 

Please comment:  Share any favorite food blogs that follow the criteria noted above (Healthiness, Value, Simplicity, and Taste).  Contribute your favorite soup recipe.

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

Sugar and Addiction

The quick answer:  The objective in eating less sugar is not to replace sugar with sugar-like substitutes, but simply to eat less sugar.  The split pea soup recipe attached delivers wonderful sugar-free flavor.

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Addiction

What’s addiction but the inability to resist harmful behavior.  Though known through out history, the rapid spread of addictive behavior is a phenomenon of our time.  The growing variety of addictions suggests a fundamental human vulnerability triggered by the modern diet and way of living.  Though some people are more vulnerable than others, with repeated exposure anyone is susceptible. 

Food addictions, as we have seen, make a good business for the suppliers.  The success of Coca-Cola, which originally contained cocaine, and of other caffeinated and sugary drinks is testimony to this.  These and other sugary foods are mildly addictive to most, but some find them highly addictive.  A central challenge of healthy eating and living is to live free of addictions. 

Occasionally we hear the refrain, “moderation in all things.”  This is actually a way of saying everything is okay, and we know that isn’t so.  Some things, like tobacco, or trans fats, should be avoided completely.  Other things—like sugar or sugar substitutes—should be minimized.  It would be wiser to say, “moderation in all good things.”

The reader comments to the last post suggest that even diet sodas are addictive and one reader asked for ideas on how to quit.  Serious addiction requires professional help and programs exist to provide such assistance, but here are a few suggestions for the mildly addicted:

1. Make your home a safe place:  If something desirable is in your home, it will be eaten.  So keep your addictions out of the home.  Healthy Change #8, for example, said to “buy candy a piece at a time; never bring a box or bag of candy into the home.”  So if you’re unable to resist soda drinks, just buy one when you do your weekly shopping.  And get a hacksaw and cut the drink holders out of your car.  Ha ha.  
2. Seek friends who don’t share your addiction.  A recent book, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks, followed the behavior of people who stopped smoking, a difficult addiction.  Those who were successful gravitated to social groups who didn’t smoke.  Try inviting your friends to quit unhealthy practices with you; the best outcome is when friends improve together.
3. Eat a healthy diet.  Poor nutrition is addictive nutrition—some researchers, for example, describe sugar as “the mother of all addictions.”  The science is not complete but there is evidence of the depressive effect of sugar on neuro-transmitters like serotonin, which leads to addictive behavior to compensate.  The sugar substitutes may also have this effect.
4. Remember you’re being watched.  There is scripture about the sins of the fathers passing to the sons, and their sons.   If you want to protect your children, work very hard at eating well and avoiding addictive behavior.  The generation X’ers who embraced street drugs grew up in a culture where adults abused prescription drugs.
5. Replace your addiction with something better.  Take a walk when you’re tempted to reach for a diet drink.  Water always tastes better after a walk.

Stevia

Readers have asked about stevia as a replacement for artificial sweeteners.  I think the question misses the point—to improve our diet the safest approach is to reduce all sweeteners, not just our sugar intake.  There is no research, to my knowledge, that shows a total health benefit from replacing sugar with any chemical that has the same sweetening effect.  To improve health and longevity, we need to de-sweeten the modern diet and return to traditional flavors.

Look at the history:  A new chemical or product is regularly discovered and marketed to replace one found addictive or unhealthy.  Since sugar was shown to be unhealthy in the amount being consumed, we have seen a series of potently sweet new chemicals being introduced, from saccharine to cyclamate, to sucralose, to aspartame to the most potent yet, neotame (acesulfame potassium).  Short-term, these products are probably safe to use.  The long-term safety remains unknown and may never be known due to the needle-in-the-haystack difficulty of proving what makes us ill among the thousands of foods we eat. 

Stevia is a traditional sweetener in Latin America and is now used around the world, especially in Asia.  China—not generally considered a safe source for processed foods—is a significant exporter of stevia sweeteners.  The leaves, once used intact, are now chemically processed to isolate several of the sweetening molecules.  Two, stevioside and rebaudioside A are marketed in different forms.  Rebaudioside A was approved for the FDA’s GRAS (generally regarded as safe) list in 2009, which simplifies its addition to food products.  Coca-Cola and Cargill developed a stevia product called Truvia, and Pepsi-Co developed PureVia.  The use of these products will grow and we eat at our risk.

We have used stevia products in our home but have stopped.  My beautiful wife didn’t care for the after taste and I decided I just didn’t know enough about how they are manufactured. 

Please comment:  Reducing sugar intake to the AHA guidelines of 6 tsp daily for women and 9 tsp for men is about a 75% reduction for the average American.  The goal is to de-sweeten our diet, not just to replace sugar with non-sugar sweeteners.  Please share your experience with eating less sugar (whatever the form). 

Recipe:  Split Pea with Ham Bone

In the post on legumes I promised to share our recipe for split pea soup.  It’s a traditional dish good for several meals, full of flavor without resorting to sugar.  We started with the Cooks Illustrated recipe, which follows the traditional ingredients for legume soups but took too long.  Split pea soups are a thrifty dish for using ham bones left over from a Sunday dinner.  We cooked this twice, once with a ham bone from the freezer, the second time using cooked ham hock/shoulder from the store.  Because the amount of bone will vary, we wrote the recipe per pound of bone:

Ingredients

1# ham bone with a little meat attached, or a ham hock/shoulder

4-6 cups water, or enough to cover ham bone

1-2 bay leaves

1 cup split peas, rinsed

½ tsp thyme, dried

1 T EVOO

1 medium onion, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 celery stalk, chopped

1 T butter

1 garlic clove, minced (optional)

1 new potato, cubed (optional)

Tabasco sauce (optional)

Directions

1. Place the bones with meat in a suitable pot with bay leaves.  Bring to boil and simmer 2-1/2 hours.
2. Remove the bone from the pot and set aside to cool.  Add split peas and thyme to the pot.  Return to boil and simmer 45 minutes until peas are soft.  (Steps #3 and 4 can be done during the 45 minutes.)
3. While the peas are simmering, add olive oil to a frying pan and sauté carrots, celery, and onion about ten minutes, until soft and moisture is evaporated.  Clear a little space in the pan and add butter and optional garlic, then stir into the vegetable mixture. 
4. Remove the meat from the cooled bone(s) and chop into small pieces.
5. Place the vegetable mixture, cubed potato, and meat in the pot of split peas.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Simmer for 20 minutes.  Add optional Tabasco sauce to taste and serve after cooling.  (During step #5 a green salad can be prepared and served with bread.) 

Note:  Not counting the 2-1/2 hours of step #1, this meal can be prepared in a little over an hour.  Cook it on a day when you have extra time and you’ll have enough leftovers for several more meals.  A 3# ham bone made enough to freeze a quart and provide two dinners and a lunch for two people. 

Let us now honor the Luddites

Remember the Luddites?  The very name almost makes us laugh.  In the early 1800s they raged across the countryside of northern England, destroying the textile machines that were taking their jobs.  They’re remembered for their crusade against the advance of the Industrial Revolution—for the naïve believe that progress could be resisted.  The Luddite movement was put down harshly by the powers that were, but there was something to their protest that caught the public fancy.  On the 200^th anniversary of their first protests, we still remember their name.

A new, nobler, image of the Luddites was presented in the March issue of the Smithsonian.  The Luddites were not actually opposed to the textile machines—most of them worked in the industry.  Instead, they fought against predatory practices, like putting the young to work at poverty wages without proper training as apprentices.  The rising issue was how to balance the conflicting needs of man and machine.   Business was looking after the machines quite well, thank you, but someone needed to look after the people.  Their movement was a first step in the long march to better treatment of workers.

This brings us to the 20^th century march of the Industrial Revolution through our food supply.  We are in a new century now, and the health consequences of the industrialization of food are ever before us.  The first task of the 21^st century should be to reinvent—to reform—our dietary with the passion of a Luddite, but with the wisdom history can provide.  We shouldn’t oppose machines that mill flour more efficiently.  But we should oppose the removal of vital nutrients to improve shelf life or appeal to our innate desire for sweetness. 

The roller mill making refined and bleached white flour is bad; a mill suitable for home use is good for those who can afford; but a mill in the grocery store that allowed the purchase of freshly ground whole flour by all would be better.  Industry should serve man, not vice versa.  So we are engaged in a process of reformation that is both wise and creative.  We seek a new paradigm for how to live and be well in the modern time.  And this brings us to gateway recipes. 

Gateway Recipes

In the beginning we thought our readers would be most interested in scientific food studies so we placed less emphasis on recipes.  Instead we have seen a growing interest in what we’ve termed gateway recipes.  Gateway recipes are more than directions for a meal—they open the door to a better way of cooking and eating.  The recipes for the Breakfast Compote and Katie’s Granola are revolutionary because they eliminate the need for unhealthy store-bought cereals.  The recipe for Basic Bread had a similar effect—it showed that bread could be healthier, tastier, and cheaper if made at home.   Dropping French fries from our dietary sounded easier after we tried the Oven-Roasted Fries recipe.  Gateway recipes enable the food reformation and they also send a sharp message to the corporate chieftains that they must reform or become the new dinosaurs.

Cruciferous Vegetables

Named for their cross-shaped flower, cruciferous vegetables are this week’s subject.  The family includes broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower (all shown above), plus kale, Brussels sprouts, bok choy, and radishes, all potent sources of antioxidants, soluble fiber, vitamins, and minerals.  This is reason enough to include them in your diet but studies also suggest they are protective of cancer.  You can read more about Dr. Joel Fuhrman's take here. 

It is impossibly difficult to prove the role of any substance in promoting or preventing cancer.  But there is growing evidence the cruciferous vegetables are protective of colorectal, breast, prostate, lung, and other cancers though further research is needed.  Cruciferous vegetables have no official intake recommended but epidemiological studies suggest at least five weekly servings.

Returning to the idea of gateway recipes, you readers have recommended these cruciferous dishes:

•  For a hold-the-mayo vinegar coleslaw with oregano, go here.

•  For a Broccoli Cheddar Soup recipe look here.

•  If you miss German food, here’s the recipe for a red cabbage dish.

•  And for Pasta with Hashed Brown Sprouts and Pine nuts, go here.

Please comment:  Be a Luddite by sharing recipes that enable healthier living, or suggesting topics for gateway recipe research.

Skip's Scalloped Potato Recipe

About Your Comments

Last week I removed a comment for good reason and I appreciate the support shown by readers.  But I think we owe an explanation of our comment policy.  Your comments are what make this blog work—If you didn't care enough to comment, the blog would die.  Your comments are life giving; they share valued information and guide my research.  And they have taught me something:  women are different from men, even more than I had appreciated.  (After all these years, still learning.)  Not too many guys write comments, but when they do it is usually to argue some point.  When women write they don't argue, rather they focus on areas of agreement and build consensus. 

In the last thousand or so comments, I have only deleted three or four.  One was from somebody selling something—this is a noncommercial blog.  Two were from guys (including my best friend growing up, now a dentist); they were trying to help but by introducing contention.  This isn't about thought control, or group-think; rather it's about survival of our shared cause.  If we are united we can make a difference as our force builds; if we aruge with each other, our energy is dissipated and wasted.  So we work to build areas of agreement about what matters most to your health, and try to be tolerant.  That's our policy.

Second Request:  Last week we asked you to share dishes that your men enjoyed, that used a minimum of meat.  We didn't get any comments so we repeat the request.  Please share your guy favorite recipes.  Here is one of mine:

Skip's Scalloped Potatoes (Serves up to 12, adults and kids; use a 9” x 13” dish.)

I promised to share a recipe that used meat for seasoning, so here is my version of scalloped potatoes.  This makes a nice Sunday meal when family or guests come and you have time to cook and visit.  It’s pretty healthy, not too expensive, and just a little labor intensive (any husband can be trained to make this).  I’ve made scalloped potatoes as my contribution to dinner for years; I used to start with a can of mushroom soup until a food writer made fun of cooks relying on canned soups.  Cured me.  Typically, recipes use either a milk-based sauce or chicken broth; I tried both together and liked the taste.

In retrospect, I see that scalloped potatoes are a good recipe for using any milk, broth, cheese, onions or potatoes going bad.  Just toss in the odds and ends.  As I’m not the fastest cook, I start 3 hrs. before dinner.  I serve the scalloped potatoes with my homemade applesauce (Martha Stewart has it posted here, if you can believe), which I make while the scalloped potatoes are baking.  Last time, one daughter brought a spinach salad and another daughter brought a tasty fruit tort made in a spring-form pan.  We enjoyed a great meal that was pretty healthy and had leftovers for another night.  After dinner we usually take the grandchildren for a walk down to the park or the beach.  If we’re lucky we catch the sunset.  Maybe we should call this “recipe for a perfect Sunday”.

Ingredients:

4 tbsp butter

4 tbsp flour

2 cups milk

1 cup chicken broth

salt, pepper, and maybe a little rosemary, or crushed chilies, whatever.

6-8 oz of chopped pork (bacon, ham slice, or even a pork chop)

6-8 oz mushrooms, sliced

6 large russet potatoes (I keep an extra potato handy in case it’s needed to finish off the dish.

1 large yellow onion, or 2 if you’re an onion lover.

3 cups of grated cheese (I usually use Tillamook Cheddar, but on this day the refrigerator offered three: sharp cheddar, pepper jack, and Dubliner Irish cheese, and everyone liked the mixture.)

Directions:

1.     In a saucepan make a roux by adding flour to heated butter.  Stir in the milk and then the chicken broth and simmer a few minutes to thicken.  Season with salt, pepper, and whatever.  Set aside.

2.     In a frying pan sauté the chopped meat and mushrooms in a few tbsp of butter.  If the meat is not precooked, like bacon, put it in first.  Set aside.

3.     Wash and slice the potatoes, keeping them together like a stack of poker chips. Clean and chop the onion. 

4.     Arrange half the potato slices in a 9” x 13” baking dish.  (Pre-spraying makes it easier to clean, they say.)  Pour in half of the sauce, all of the mushroom/pork, and the onions.  Layer the remaining potato slices on top and add the remaining sauce.  (There should be at least ¼” of freeboard so the sauce doesn’t bubble into the oven while cooking, which makes the Beautiful Wife grumpy.)

5.     Cook for 75 minutes at 350 degrees F.  Add a single piece of foil over the dish midway if you don’t want the top layer of potatoes too crisp. 

6.     Remove from the oven.  (The potatoes should be a little firm to a fork, but not too soft.)  Layer the cheese on top and return to oven for 15 minutes more.

7.     Let the dish cool 15-20 minutes before serving (potatoes will absorb any excess juice).  Serve.