blue artichoke

What botanical species can produces hundreds of gigantic seeds and reproduce exponentially, but is utterly dependent upon "the man" for survival? Corn, that dirty protocapitalist mistress. Look at a corn cob: those tasty kernels are the result of a "catastrophic sexual transmutation" (word of botanist Hugh Iltis); several thousand years ago, a series of mutations transferred the plant's female organs from the top of the grass to a monstrous sheathed ear in the middle of the stalk. The male organs stayed put, remaining in the tassel. There was a point to this mutation; relocating the ear halfway down the stalk allowed it to capture far more nutrients than it could up top, and increased nutrients allowed for increased seed production. But it was also reckless. The seeds were now trapped in a tough husk, costing the plant its ability to reproduce. Plant a corncob and what will happen? Nothing; if any kernels manage to germinate, they'll crowd themselves to death. Nature's eugenics program would have succeeded if it weren't for some guy somewhere in Central America who was seduced by the freakish cob, peeled it open and freed the seeds.
Tasty.

But there's more to this tawdry tale of corn. Corn sex is inventive, complicated and kinky. For starters, the male organs (anthers) look like flowers and the female organ (cob) resembles a phallus, making corn the ultimate cross-dressing couple. The tassel at the top of the corn plant houses hundreds of the male anthers; over a few summer days, the anthers release 14-18 million grains of pollen per plant (that's 20,000 for each potential kernel) in hopes that one will reach the flowered cob a few feet below. It's not overkill, though, because those millions of pollen grains have to travel to the cob and navigate the tight chastity-belt husk to reach the ovary. The flowers try to sneak out past the watchful husk to meet the pollen halfway, by sending out through the tip of the husk a single sticky strand of silk to snag a grain of pollen. In the perfect timing only nature is capable of, the silks emerge from the husk on the very day the tassel is set to shower its pollen. This isn't even the kinkiest part. Once the silky strand has caught a grain of pollen, its nucleus divides in half, creating genetic twins who work together to reproduce. The first twin is the maverick navigator, tunneling down through the center of the silk thread, creating a microscopic tube for its twin to follow, emerging from the tube into the flower behind the husk fortress. Upon arrival, the second twin fuses with the egg to form the embryo – the germ of the future kernel. After all its hard work, the first twin then gets a turn, entering the now fertilized flower and forming the endosperm – the big, starchy part of the kernel. Every corn kernel is the product of this intricate ménage à trois. After conception, the silk dries up, turns reddish brown and gets stuck in your teeth when you eat corn on the cob. Just think about that the next time you eat corn.

Why did corn involve humans so intimately in its sex life? Loneliness. Impatience. It's a simple matter for a human to get between a corn plant's pollen and its flower; instead of the agonizingly slow and wasteful process of Darwinian trial and error, hybridization is a much faster and more efficient means of communication between plant and human. By allowing humans to arrange its marriages, corn can garner the attention it requires and live a worthy and purpose-driven life.

How on earth do I know so much about corn? I read. Though not a self-help book, I'm reading The Omnivore's Dilemma. I'm still reading self-help books, currently The 4-Hour Workweek, but those get me too riled up and productive to read before bed; when I found TOD on my bookshelf, I decided to give it a go. I thought it would be dry, academic and boring (perfect for lulling me to sleep), but it's well-written in an entertaining style and far more interesting than I anticipated (some of the above comes directly from the book). Expect more fun corn facts in the near future, as I make my way through the next 400 pages.

Getting to Know All About You: In what obscure field are you a self-proclaimed expert?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

About two weeks ago I asked what flavor May is. Black Cake said strawberry, and that is the correct answer. May is National Strawberry Month! On my way home from the grocery store today, I saw a forlorn old woman sitting on the bed of a pickup truck in the parking lot of the county health clinic. A sign read: "Farmer's Market -->", so I guessed she was it. She looked a lot like my late grandmother, though shorter in teeth, so I pulled in to see what she was selling. Strawberries! These were pretty little things, and though I had just bought gigantic red strawberries at the grocery store ten minutes before, I bought a quart of these cute little button noses. Coincidentally, I've been plowing through a stack of old cooking magazines, and today clipped recipes for strawberry-orange muffins and brandied strawberry jam. Mmmm... looking forward to Sunday Muffins.

Getting to Know All About You: Have you ever bought anything at a roadside stand?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 05:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Last week I asked GC to name a country, any country. I was flipping through International Cooking, a cookbook assembled by "The International Women of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia," which I long ago pilfered from my mom, as she recently reminded me. "Portugal," he said. However international the ladies of Riyadh were in 1984, they were not Portuguese. GC's second choice was Belgium. The Belgian recipe, though a funny title (Waterzooi) written in a stylish font, is a soup unappealing in 80 degree weather. We'll try it in the fall; for now we'll keep with the more tropical countries. I turned to my recipe collection for something from Portugal, and found a recipe called Spicy Portuguese Bowl -- which also turned out to be a soup. Ah well. This recipe, in hindsight, is more Brazilian Portuguese than Portugal Portuguese. I don't think collard greens are so popular on the Iberian Peninsula. They aren't even that popular in mid-Missouri, at least not at the grocery stores. I had to substitute spinach, grudgingly prolonging my thirty years of remaining collard-free.

Spicy Portuguese Bowl

I subbed spinach for the collards, cheddar-jalapeno sausages for the chorizo and Great Northern beans for the navy. Added the dried fettuccine after bringing the broth to a boil; noodles were fully cooked by the end. Easy to make, super easy! And spicy, whoohoo – I gave most of my sausage to GC. I'm a wimp. Served with cornbread.

1 pound collard greens
1/2 pound chorizo or spicy sausage, cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices
3 cups chopped onion
6 garlic cloves, chopped
4 (16-ounce) cans fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 (15-ounce) can navy beans, drained
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
4 cups hot cooked fettuccine (about 8 ounces uncooked pasta)

Remove stems from collard greens. Wash and pat dry; cut crosswise into 1-inch-wide strips.

Cook the sausage in a large Dutch oven over medium heat until browned. Remove sausage from pan with a slotted spoon, reserving sausage drippings. Add onion and garlic to drippings in pan, and sauté for 5 minutes or until tender. Add greens, sausage, and broth, and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 25 minutes or until greens are tender. Add beans and pepper, and cook 10 minutes. Place pasta in each of 6 large bowls, and top with broth mixture.

Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 2/3 cup pasta and 1 2/3 cups broth mixture)

CALORIES 386 (26% from fat); FAT 11.2g (sat 4g,mono 5.2g,poly 1.4g); PROTEIN 19.4g; CHOLESTEROL 23mg; CALCIUM 204mg; SODIUM 1033mg; FIBER 6.7g; IRON 3.8mg; CARBOHYDRATE 52.9g

Cooking Light, MARCH 1999

Getting to Know All About You: Have you ever been scammed?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 04:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Part of the reason I went over budget last week was because I bought a quart of blueberries. I've been looking forward to blueberry season since the weather warmed up, and the price finally reached a reasonable range. So I bought some, back off! Though I may have wanted to shovel them into my mouth by the fistful, I demurely waited until yesterday to bake some into muffins for breakfast this morning. I froze the rest, to try out my remaining two plain blueberry muffin recipes in the next two weeks. The ones we ate this morning were disappointing, fit for those who prize appearance above all else. They looked awesome: lightly browned and puffy, nicely textured and riddled with dark blueberry polka dots. But the flavor? Not so much. The recipe was rather vague about the sugar, calling for 2 T. in the ingredient list, but directing me to sprinkle the berries in sugar, add sugar to the batter, and sprinkle the muffins with sugar before baking. All that on a mere 2 T? I tossed the blueberries in 2 heaping tablespoons of sugar, added 2 more heaping tablespoons of sugar to the batter, and sprinkled a hefty pinch of vanilla sugar on top of each muffin before baking. Still, not nearly sweet enough. I'm not going to pass along the recipe just yet; I plan to tinker with it while fresh blueberries are still available at a reasonable price and hope to pass along the recipe when I find a nice balance of looks and tastes.

I don't own a home, but I had a homeowner weekend. Yesterday morning, I took Fat Larry outside for a walk through the backyard. Amidst the overgrown bushes, I noticed a lot of dead branches. I found my trusty rusty loppers with three-foot handles, and went crazy chopping shit down, a la Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest. I dragged the downed branches to the big pile of deadwood I've been building for two years and surveyed the damage. Perhaps I got a bit overzealous in places, but for the most part, you'd never know I cleared out so much. We still have ample privacy in the back yard for sunning on the hammock in a bikini. After that, I walked down the street to paint a bathroom and jump out the windows of an empty house, then back to my house to mow the back yard and water the instant garden in the front, with the hose I dug out of the shed and coiled around a new hose-holder-thingy my landlord installed beside our outdoor spigot. I showered, put in some time in the hammock, then made dinner and baked muffins for today's breakfast. Sometimes it's nice to visit the life of a homeowner, but mostly I like leaving the yard work to GC and the landlord.

Getting to Know All About You: What would you plant in your ideal garden (or would you have a garden at all)?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 05:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One cannot live on banana bread alone. True, it is quite versatile, acting as breakfast, afternoon snack and dessert, but it’s not enough. Sometimes you need brownies. Plain brownies are an ongoing Snackdown endeavor here Chez Artichoke Bleu; slow going because our waistlines simply cannot endure another fast-paced competition. Brownies are a treat enjoyed whenever I decide that I need something sweet and chocolatey and a tiny little truffle just won’t cut it. Or, last night. I had a box of unsweetened chocolate left over from the chicken mole, so I searched my untested brownie recipes for one that called for unsweetened chocolate rather than semisweet chocolate chips. I tested one from Cook’s Illustrated (may require registration), which was fairly easy to assemble, though my stirring arm got quite a workout. It called for a rather elaborate preparation of the pan, involving precise measured folds of aluminum foil. Not one for preciseness, I tore off one large sheet and lined the pan, simply and easily. After I filled the pan with batter and popped it in the oven, I set the timer and noticed that the recipe required a 2-hour cool down after baking. Two hours! Why must the editors of Cook’s Illustrated be so cruel? Brownies are not a plan-ahead thing; they’re spur of the moment, stand by the oven and drool at the smells with fork in hand, ready to pounce once fully cooked (and sometimes not even waiting that long). Two hours! Sheesh!

Last weekend, when discussing the Snackdown, someone said that his parents considered naming him “Brownie.” They chose another name, but how awesome would it be to be named Brownie? If GC and I ever had kids, I’d name them food names. Brownie. Pancakes. Butternut. Lobstah. Hell, yeah!

Getting to Know All About You: What food name do you wish you had? What’s your favorite food-related term of endearment (i.e., Sugar, Honey, Petit Chou)?

Update: I waited 15 minutes before cutting into the brownies. GC showed greater restraint, waiting almost 2 hours, but that's only because he wasn't at home. The brownies were good, but certainly not worth waiting two hours for!

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 06:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Now that Gentleman Caller and I have welcomed discrimination into our lives, we are tossing out recipes with abandon. Aside from that decidedly subpar Cuban meal, most of the food I make is good. Just good, not great. Last night, for example, I made a pasta dish with spinach, shredded chicken, cannellini beans and Parmesan cheese. It was really fast and easy to make, tasted good and made a satisfying light summer meal. But I tossed out the recipe. Why? Well, it is a simple dish that doesn't really require a recipe, just some pasta, olive oil and other stuff to throw in with it. Measurements aren't necessary. Also, "good" isn't good enough for us. If I'm to winnow down my thousands of untested recipes, keeping all the recipes that are satisfactory will only obscure those that are outstanding. And we do come across an outstanding recipe occasionally. This one, for example:

Sauced Broccoli The Cat Who…Cookbook

1 small clove garlic, minced
2 t. butter
2 t. flour
1 c. chicken broth
1/8 c. cream
¼ c. cream cheese
2 sliced cooked bacon, finely chopped
4-6 c. broccoli florets cut into small pieces

Sauté garlic in butter until golden brown. Stir in flour. Add broth and cream. Whisk or stir in cream cheese. Cook over med heat for several minutes until desired consistency. Add bacon just before serving. Steam broccoli to desired tenderness. Pour the sauce over the broccoli, tossing to coat evenly. Serve immediately.

Serves 6.

This doesn't really require measurements either. I sautéed the bacon in the skillet first, then removed it to drain on paper towels. Instead of pouring out the bacon grease and adding butter, I just added enough flour to soak up the grease (more than the 2 t. called for in the recipe). I measured the chicken stock, but ended up adding a bit more so it wouldn't burn or curdle while I waited for the rest of the dinner to cook. I also used a 3-oz. pkg of cream cheese, which is a bit more than 1/4 cup. So, I used more grease, flour, stock, cream and cream cheese than called for in the recipe, but there was just enough sauce to nicely coat all of the broccoli. Adding cooked, shredded chicken could turn this side into a main course. I don't throw out all the easy recipes, just the ones that are merely "good."

Getting to Know All About You: Which starch do you prefer: rice, potatoes, pasta, or bread?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I'm sure Cuban food is good, but what I made last night definitely was not. I made Cuban-Spiced Chicken Thighs with Chorizo and Rice; it is the worst recipe I've made in a long while. The recipe is from Bon Appetit, and like many of their recipes, has quite a long ingredient list. What a waste. Luckily, I halved the recipe and don't have much leftover. I made one substitution, Mexican chorizo for Spanish chorizo, because that is all I could find around here. Mexican chorizo is a loosely ground bulk pork sausage with varying seasonings that turn it pink or orange (mine was closer to orange), and is sold in a inedible plastic casing; Spanish chorizo is a firm cooked or cured sausage made from coarsely chopped fatty pork spiced with paprika and chili. I suppose that could have made a difference in the outcome of the dish, but I'll never know. I'm definitely not making this again. It was greasy (from the chorizo) and somehow spicy and bland at the same time. I'll try another Cuban recipe soon, once I recover from the bad taste my first foray into Cuban cuisine left in my mouth.

Getting to Know All About You: What's your least favorite ethnic cuisine?
(Despite this setback, my least favorite cuisine is still Thai.)

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

All my routines are falling apart!
We didn't have our Wandering Gullet meal last night because I underestimated how long it would take the frozen chicken to thaw and, thus, was unable to marinate it as instructed. We might have it tonight, but more likely tomorrow night when GC doesn't have extracurricular activities that postpone dinner.

Also, I went waaay ($20) over budget this week at the grocery store. Living on $50/week is really difficult. The first two weeks weren't bad, because GC missed dinner 2-3 nights/week because of after-work activities. It also helped that I had a freezer full of leftovers and frozen chicken parts. Shopping has been much less enjoyable because there's just no room for spontaneity. Artichokes look really good? Too bad, they aren't on the list. Blueberries are in season! No room in the budget. Sale on brats? No grilling out this week because I can't add to the meal plan. In addition, I've missed out on some social get-togethers that involve meeting up with friends for lunch or dinner. This sucks.

What sent me over the limit this week, though, was GC's move to summer hours at work. He'll need to take lunch to work and keep snacks there, so I needed to stock up on pretzels, nuts, Lean Pockets and sandwich fixin's in addition to my regular weekly food items. These are necessary items and I cut back on non-necessity fresh produce to compensate, but it just wasn't enough to stay on budget.

It seems that I'm not the only one inspired by the Oregon governor's food stamp budget; Rebecca is trying to eat organic on a food stamp budget. She's not attempting the strict $21/week budget that the governor tried (for one week), rather she's using the USDA's Thrifty Food Plan budget of $74/week. She's having an easier time than we are; an extra $14/week would go pretty far, considering GC and I don't eat only organic foods and aren't opposed to generic or store brands. I'll have to really tighten the purse strings for the next two weeks, to compensate for this week's extravagances.

I'll be glad when this is over.

Getting to Know All about You: What was your last impulse buy?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 02:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Math quiz:
Q: Blue Artichoke has one egg and needs to make breakfast for two people on two days, Saturday and Sunday. She has fifty muffin recipes. All muffin recipes call for two eggs to make one batch of muffins. One batch equals 12 - 18 muffins. One serving = 1 muffin. Which recipe Blue Artichoke make?

Give up?
A: Sour Cream Coffeecake Muffins. Come on, the answer was in the title of the post. Easy!

Sour Cream Coffeecake muffins call for 2 eggs to make 18 muffins. Halve the recipe and we have 9 muffins for two people for two days, which means each person gets 2-1/4 muffin per day. However, GC eats five muffins on Saturday and BA eats 4, so Sunday breakfast is a garden veggie patty with cheese on a baguette with sliced apples. That's the answer you got, right?

Stay in school, kids. Math skillz are rad!

Sour Cream Coffeecake Muffins

Fold the batter just four times to swirl in the sugar mixture, not fully blend it.

1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup egg substitute
1 cup reduced-fat sour cream
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (about 7 3/4 ounces)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cooking spray
6 tablespoons powdered sugar
3 teaspoons fresh orange juice
Dash of salt

Preheat oven to 400°.

Combine first 3 ingredients; set aside.

Place granulated sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 3 minutes). Add egg substitute; beat 3 minutes. Beat in sour cream, water, and vanilla.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Make a well in center of mixture; add sour cream mixture. Stir just until combined.

Place 3 tablespoons brown sugar mixture in a small bowl; set aside. Sprinkle surface of batter with remaining brown sugar mixture. Gently fold batter 4 times.

Place 18 paper muffin cup liners in muffin cups; coat liners with cooking spray. Spoon batter into prepared cups. Sprinkle batter evenly with reserved brown sugar mixture. Bake at 400° for 25 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove muffins from pan immediately; place on a wire rack. Cool 10 minutes.

Combine powdered sugar, juice, and dash of salt in a small bowl, stirring until smooth. Drizzle powdered sugar mixture evenly over muffins.

Yield: 18 servings (serving size: 1 muffin)

CALORIES 182(28% from fat); FAT 5.7g (sat 2.8g,mono 1.4g,poly 0.6g); PROTEIN 2.9g; CHOLESTEROL 14mg; CALCIUM 53mg; SODIUM 176mg; FIBER 0.6g; IRON 1mg; CARBOHYDRATE 30.4g
Cooking Light, MAY 2006

Though making this recipe requires many mixing bowls, it's pretty fast to assemble and get into the oven. I used one egg instead of the egg substitute (1/4 c. of egg substitute = 1 large egg) and full-fat sour cream. I tasted one muffin right from the oven, before drizzling with the glaze; it was cinnamony-nutty good as is, so I omitted the glaze. I didn't think a sweet-orange glaze would improve the muffins, and thought it might actually add too much sweetness and a discordant orange flavor. If you try these muffins, try them first without the glaze before deciding if you want to go to the extra trouble.

Getting to Know All About You: What's the smartest thing you said/did over the weekend?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I can't believe that not a single one of you has a self-help book to recommend to me. Are you ashamed to admit you read self-help books, or do you think I'm so perfect that I need no improvement? Those are your only two options; choose one. Did you choose Blue Artichoke perfection? Thanks, but my bent pinkie fingers and poor memory keep me from achieving perfection, also my tendency toward inattention. Long ago, I ripped Authentic Happiness from audio CD to my computer and today transferred it to my fauxPod so I could listen to it while I worked solo all day. It wasn't until a few hours into the book that I realized it seemed really disjointed. I looked at my fauxPod and discovered that the chapters were reordered alphabetically when transferred! I finished listening to it that way and wondered how many other books could be improved upon by organizing chapters alphabetically instead of numerically or chronologically. I suppose I'll have to actually read the book as it was written to see which version I prefer, so that's another book added to my summer reading list.

Getting to Know All About You: What keeps you from achieving perfection?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 06:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Last year, Gentleman Caller and I had a big Cinco de Mayo party; I bought a lot of Mexican-themed party decorations and planned to make the party an annual event. But there was no 2nd Annual Cinco de Mayo party because we opted to go to some mixed martial arts fights instead. I enjoyed the fights, but missed all the good Mexican food I would have made for the party. I didn't miss it long, though, because I made a big Mexican meal for dinner last night.

Because Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of a Mexican victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla, I chose chicken mole, a recipe from Puebla. This is a simplified version of the mole they make, but I don't think the dish suffered from the simplifications. It was smooth and spicy, dark, rich and delicious. And easy to make.

Easy Puebla-Style Chicken Mole

I omitted the raisins because we ate them all earlier in the week, and I zested a whole orange instead of cutting strips, because I think it is easier. I used two boneless, skinless chicken breast halves and two bone-in skinned chicken thighs. I let the chicken cook a bit longer so the bone-in thighs would be completely cooked through before I removed them to shred the meat. Be careful with the immersion blender, if you use one; I splattered the very hot mole sauce on my arms and on the walls.

1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup thinly sliced onion
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 stemmed dried seeded ancho chiles, torn into 2-inch pieces (about 1/4 cup)
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
3 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 1/3 cups coarsely chopped tomato (about 1 medium)
1/4 cup golden raisins
3 tablespoons sliced almonds, toasted
3 (1/2 x 2-inch) orange rind strips
3/4 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
3/4 pound skinless, boneless chicken thighs
1/2 ounce unsweetened chocolate
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion; cook 5 minutes or until almost tender. Combine cumin, coriander, and cinnamon in a small bowl; sprinkle over onion in pan. Cook 1 minute. Add chiles and garlic to pan; cook 2 minutes or until chiles soften. Add broth and next 4 ingredients (through rind) to pan; bring to a boil. Add chicken to pan; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes or until chicken is done. Remove chicken from pan; shred with 2 forks. Set aside.

Add chocolate to chile mixture; let stand until chocolate melts. Using an immersion blender in pan, puree the chocolate mixture until smooth. Cook over medium heat 20 minutes or until reduced to 3 1/2 cups. Add shredded chicken to sauce; stir in salt and pepper.

Yield: 6 servings (serving size: about 1 cup chicken mixture)

CALORIES 211(29% from fat); FAT 6.8g (sat 0.0g,mono 0.0g,poly 0.0g); PROTEIN 27.2g; CHOLESTEROL 80mg; CALCIUM 50mg; SODIUM 380mg; FIBER 2.5g; IRON 2.1mg; CARBOHYDRATE 10.5g
Cooking Light, MAY 2005

This mole is good served with rice and beans, or would also make a good filling for enchiladas or tacos. I served it with Mexican rice and refried black beans. I'll just come out and admit it: I'm somewhat of a rice snob. I never buy long-grain white rice, but prefer brown rice for the feeling of whole-grain wholesome healthiness it give me. I didn't have any plain brown rice for this recipe, so I used a brown rice medley from Trader Joe's ("a delicious blend of long grain brown rice, black barley and daikon radish seeds"). I think it probably would have been better with long-grain white rice, though I doubt the brown rice medley altered the flavor much. Either way, the rice wasn't great, and not nearly as good as the Mexican rice I made for our party last year. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find that recipe right now...

Refried Black Beans

Low-Fat Mexican Cookbook: Contemporary & Classic Recipes for Healthy Eating, Sunset, June 1994.

I've made plenty of black beans, and all have been bland. This is the first flavorful black bean recipe I've made. In fact, it's pretty awesome, or would have been if the beans had been fully cooked. I used dried beans that I quick-soaked (rinsed, covered with water, boiled for a few minutes, then let stand off heat for an hour). This, I see in hindsight, is just a soak, not full cooking. I made them early and let them cook longer than the recipe called for, but they were still a little undercooked. Next time, I'll use canned black beans.

4 oz. Bacon, coarsely chopped
2 med onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 (15 oz.) cans black beans or 4 c. cooked (~2 c. dried) black beans
~2T. distilled white vinegar, or to taste
Pepper

In a wide nonstick frying pan, cook bacon over med heat, stirring often, until it begins to brown and drippings form in pan, ~4 minutes. Discard all but 1 T. drippings.

Add onions and garlic to pan; cook, stirring often, until onions are soft and bacon is browned, ~7 minutes.

Drain beans, reserving ½ c. of the liquid from cans.

Add beans, reserved liquid (use ½ c. low-sodium chicken broth if using home-cooked beans), and vinegar to pan. Coarsely mash beans with a spoon. Season to taste with pepper. Heat until steaming. If made ahead, let cool; then cover and refrigerate until next day. Reheat before serving.

Makes ~ 3-¼ c.

And finally, dessert! Last year I made a Mexican chocolate Bundt cake, for a party-goer's birthday. It was really good, but big for dessert por los dos. I had another recipe for a Mexican cocoa cake that is quite smaller - baked in a 9" square pan. Perfecto!

Mexican Cocoa Cake

Low-Fat Mexican Cookbook: Contemporary & Classic Recipes for Healthy Eating, Sunset, June 1994.

I doubled the amount of cinnamon, but otherwise followed the recipe, omitting the optional spiced cream. I mixed some cinnamon with powdered sugar and sprinkled that on top of the cake, which was a perfect topping. I have two proclaimed 9x9" pans, but one is distinctly smaller and shallower than the other one. I think it might actually be a mismarked 8x8" pan, so that's the one I grabbed for this recipe. Whoops! 8x8" pan is too small for this recipe; the batter rose over the edge and spilled out into the oven. Luckily, I had a cookie sheet underneath the pan that caught the overflow. Anyway, make sure you use the right size pan. The cake is incredible. It has an amazingly light and squishy texture, and has a dark, spicy chocolate flavor. Really, it's awesome. And, though the 1-1/2 cups of brown sugar adds quite a few calories, the use of egg whites and nonfat yogurt makes this deliciously low-fat enough to go ahead and eat a second slice.

Spiced Cream, optional
1 c. sifted cake flour
1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 t. each baking soda, baking powder and ground cinnamon
6 large egg whites
1 ½ c. firmly packed brown sugar
1 c. plain nonfat yogurt
2 t. vanilla
¼ t. almond extract
Powdered sugar

Prepare Spiced Cream if desired; refrigerate.

In a small bowl, mix first 5. In a large bowl, beat egg whites with next 4 until well blended. Stir in flour mixture and beat just until evenly moistened.

Pour batter into an 8” (no! Use a 9x9" pan to avoid batter overflow!) square nonstick or greased regular baking pan. Bake at 350 until center springs back, 30-40 minutes. Let cake cool in pan on a rack for 15 minutes; then invert it onto a serving plate. Serve warm or cool. If made ahead, wrap cooled cake airtight and store in a cool place until next day. Freeze for longer storage.

Just before serving, sift powdered sugar over cake. To serve, cut into wedges or rectangles. If desired, soft more powdered sugar over each serving; then top with Spiced Cream if desired.

Serves 8.
227C, 6g protein, 51 carbs, 1g fat, 1 mg cholesterol, 293 mg sodium

Spiced Cream
Pour ¼ c. nonfat milk into small bowl of an electric mixer. Cover bowl; freeze mixer beaters and a bowl of milk until milk is slushy, 30-45 minutes. In a small pan, sprinkle ½ t. unflavored gelatin over ¼ c. cold water; let stand until gelatin is softened, ~3 minutes. Then stir mixture over low heat just until gelatin is dissolved. Remove from heat.

To slushy milk, add gelatin, 2/3 c. instant nonfat dry milk, 2 T. sugar, 1 t. vanilla and ½ t. ground cinnamon. Beat on high speed until mixture holds soft peaks, 5-10 minutes. Cover and refrigerate for 15m or up to 2 days. If needed, whisk or beat again before serving until cream holds soft peaks. Serve cold.

Makes 2 cups.
1 T. = 10C, 0.6g protein, 2 carbs, 0 fat, 0.3 mg cholesterol, 9 mg sodium

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May doesn't have the inexplicable flavor-affiliation with lemon that April has, but because these muffins bombed last month, I thought I've give them a whirl again while I had sufficient amounts of all ingredients in the house. Maybe I was wrong, maybe lemon belongs to May. It just doesn't feel right, though. Last time, I didn't have any plain yogurt, so I substituted mayonnaise, to GC's dismay. I'm not going to lie; they weren't great. The texture was really dry and crumbly, but the flavor was pretty good. We saved them by crumbling up a muffin in a bowl with a little bit of milk, then zapping in the microwave to warm it up. Mmmmm... lemon muffin pudding. This new batch of lemon poppy seed muffins are distinctly muffinish, with a nicely browned and rounded top and a typical muffin texture. But they still aren't great. The muffin bottom shows no hint of lemon flavor, even though I amped it up with some True Lemon powder. The only lemon flavor comes from the glaze brushed on top of the muffins. The glaze is quite sticky this time, tempting me to stick the muffins on the big bread truck that parks on the street in front of our house. I wonder how many hours it would take ants to devour a truck?

GC likes them well enough, but I don't think they're good enough to share the recipe with you folks.

Getting to Know All About You: What flavor(s) do you associate with May?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 05:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last year, you all came up with a really interesting summer reading list for me. It helped me get out of my reading rut and introduced me to books and authors I would never have enjoyed otherwise. So, again, I call for your reading recommendations, with a twist. This summer, I want self-help type books. Now, before you start in on the jokes, let me be clear that I don't want The Rules or anything to do with my love life, self-esteem, self-actualization or spirituality. These areas are already stellar; I want pragmatic self-help. Surely I have room for improvement in some area... I particularly like time-management and organization self-help books, but I'm open to suggestions in other areas. Right now I'm reading Rightsizing Your Life, which is really tailored to the 50+ empty-nest crowd looking for a lifestyle change. I don't even have a nest, so it'll be a long time until it's empty, but this book will help me work with my clients, many of whom are newly retired. My brother strongly recommended (by mailing me the book!) The 4-Hour Workweek, so that's next up. Another self-helpish book with a far less enthusiastic recommendation ("it's not bad") from my brother is Stumbling on Happiness. That too will go on my list. Three books is hardly a summer reading list, so here's your chance to control my hammock reading for the next several months. Don't let it slip by.

Getting to Know All About You: What are your favorite self-help books, or what self-help books do you think I should read?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 04:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Once upon a time last year, I set out on a magical journey into a loaf of banana bread. Remember that? This Snackdown Challenge has taken a long time, but my interns and tasting team had to take a few breaks from banana bread. We learned our lesson with the pumpkin cheesecakes. I don’t even know if I finished that challenge or picked a winner; all I know is that it will be a looooooong time before I eat another slice of pumpkin cheesecake. Besides, pumpkin cheesecakes have been supplanted by the far superior pumpkin gooey butter cake from Paula Deen. Have you tried this dessert? It makes pumpkin pie and cheesecake cower in the corner, crying. GC’s mom made one for Thanksgiving, and that’s the pumpkin dessert I want from now on. ‘Cause I’m sick of pumpkin cheesecake, just sick of it. I didn’t want to get burned out on banana bread too, so we took this challenge slowly. And now, finally, I can announce the close of the qualifying round.

We tested 40 banana bread recipes. 40! I stopped giving blow-by-blow updates around banana bread #19. Admit it, you skimmed through the Snackdown stuff, didn’t you? I don’t mind; I found it kind of boring to try to write interesting things about each loaf too. Most were plain banana breads, but some had some special ingredients, such as blueberries, coconut, chocolate chips and peanut butter. Of the 40, 17 were deemed excellent: nine classic banana breads and eight specialty banana breads. The specialty breads will be sidelined for now. There are a few special ingredient duplicates (i.e., two chocolate-chip banana breads and two marbled-chocolate banana breads) that will get their own battle. The remaining specialty banana breads (with additions of cranberries, coconut, butterscotch chips and blueberries) are automatic winners, and keepers. For now, though, we’ll concentrate on the nine classic banana bread finalists.

Grandma’s recipe is the standard by which all others are measured. It’ll be difficult, but the winning recipe must surpass her recipe. Eight recipes have the potential. Stay tuned.

Current battle: banana bread
Backburner battle: brownies
Savory battle: meatloaf

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My first month of Not Buying It has come to an end, and I must say that it was rather enlightening. It had a rocky start as I worked out the kinks in the plan, but was really very easy. What I bought:

2 plastic under-the-bed rolling storage bins to replace the ripped and crittered cloth storage bags = $32.35
1 pair of white sandals to replace uncomfortable rarely worn old sandals = $33.47
1 oven mitt to replace stained and burned cloth oven mitt = $5.25
1 plastic 2-cup liquid measuring cup to replace one that cracked in the microwave = $1.96
1 pair of black sandals to replace 1 pair of broken flip-flops, 1 pair of worn-out clunky sandals and 1 pair of black slides that I never wear = Free (I used a gift certificate)

That actually seems like a lot to me when I write it in a list, but when I think about the cat toys, summer clothes, slip n' slides, serving dishes, cooling racks, potted plants, Trapper Keepers, shoe racks, etc. that tempted me this month, it's not much at all. I might add that I did not buy a new hairbrush to replace the one I left in Mexico in March. What girl has two thumbs and can live without a hairbrush for a month? This one. I had the perfect hairbrush and it broke. I got another one that betrayed me, so I abandoned it in Mexico, and haven't found a suitable replacement. Instead of buying and hating multiple brushes, I've been using a comb. Maybe I'll never use a brush again!

Final tally: I spent almost $200 less last month than I did in April 2006, $150 less than I did in April 2005 (when I lived alone and spent 10 days in Poland and Germany) and $80 less than I did in April 2004 (when I lived alone). Pretty good start!

I want to kick things up a bit for May. April was actually really easy once I had the guidelines set, so I want to add a challenge for this month: $50/week for groceries. It isn't quite as extreme as living on food stamps, but it is less than the national average food budget of $82/week. When I created my budget last year, I allocated $100/week for food. I had no idea what my grocery expenditures were, so picked that number as a starting point. The first month was difficult, but after that I routinely came in under budget at between $70-$80/week. That still seems rather high to me - we're just two people and we don't eat extravagantly. I think we can cut it down more, so starting yesterday, which wasn't officially May, but was my grocery shopping day of the week, I set out with a list and $50 in my pocket. I still have $7 left.

Getting to Know All About You: Do you have a food budget? What is it?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 04:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)