Cornbread

A cooking experiment the other night was based around fat. I'm eliminating dairy products right now, which means no butter. There are many different types of margarines, but most seem to have a degree of processing and ingredients I'd rather not consume. After cooking with it before to make delicious cupcakes, I thought about giving coconut oil a try.

Vegan Cornbread

1 C cornmeal (medium grind/stone ground)

1 C whole wheat pastry flour (or all-purpose flour or other flour)

1/2 t salt

4 t baking powder

1 T agave nectar (optional)

1 egg's worth of egg replacer

1 C soy, almond, or rice milk

1/4 C coconut oil (or margarine)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Sift together dry ingredients into a bowl. Add egg, milk, and fat. Beat until smooth, about one minute. Do not overbeat. Bake in a greased 8-inch square pan for 20-25 minutes, or in greased muffin cups for 18-20 minutes. Serves nine.

There is a hint of coconut flavor to this recipe, but it's in no way overpowering. The cornbread was very tasty (just ask my roommate--she had one piece one day, and two more the next), went well with my vegan chili, and kept in a closed plastic container for 4 days. Next time I want to add in about 1/2 cup of corn kernels. Other variations could include 2 T of diced green chiles, or 2 T of flaked coconut, to enhance the coconut experience.

Coconut oil is very distinctive in the realm of edible oils because it's a solid at room temperature. This is due to its very high content of saturated fats. However, what's interesting about coconut oil is that its saturated fats are very different from those found in other oils, animal or vegetable. The fatty acid chains are of medium length, instead of long length. You can look up the biochemical details if you choose, but studies indicate that medium length fatty acids tend to have a more positive effect on the body, despite the sweeping statement that all saturated fats are bad for you. In many Pacific countries, coconut oil has been the vegetable oil of choice for hundreds of years. From a common sense perspective, though, I'm using a small amount in a baked good of which I'm eating a small amount each day. Our bodies need fats, and I definitely want to consume the best quality ones I can find.

Where to eat in Berkeley, Part 2

On Valentine's Day, a girl friend and I decided to be each other's hot date for the evening, and we went out to dinner at Herbivore. The restaurant is completely vegan; that is, no eggs, milk or any other animal products. Definitely great for anyone with a milk allergy or sensitivity.

We started off with the vegetable sampler--char-broiled vegetables served with three sauces: pesto, tahini, and lemon-garlic. The vegetables ranged from bell peppers to eggplant to potatoes. They were broiled to a turn and I couldn't decide which of the three sauces was my favorite.

That evening the restaurant was completely packed (unexpectedly so), and they didn't have my first choice for dinner, which was the ceviche. So instead I ordered the roasted beet salad. If you've never had roasted beets, please do. They're sweet and earthy, and are a fabulous combination with greens and vinagrette.

For dessert, I had an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie and their soymilk hot chocolate. I was hoping to try out one of their vegan donuts, but those were all sold out (surprise, surprise). I also got a bit of mudslide ice cream, which is chocolate coconut fudge brownie. It was fantastic, and comes in a huge scoop, so it can easily be shared with one or two friends.

Overall, the menu is very intriguing and has many dishes I want to try. Of course it makes me happy that I can eat everything on this particular menu, instead of being relegated to a small vegetarian section on the last page. I'm looking forward to their cocktails, too, and next time I'll definitely have to try the german chocolate cake.

Where to eat in Berkeley, Part I

Whenever my family comes to visit me in California, we tend to eat our way across LA. Now that I'm spending some time traveling up north to the Bay Area, I'm continuing the tradition. I had a fabulous time over Valentine's/President's Day weekend with friends and family up in Sacramento and Berkeley, plus the ritual sharing of delicious (and not so delicious) food.

First up is the restaurant that is top of my list of restaurants to return to in Berkeley. It's Bacheeso's. Bacheeso's is a family-owned restaurant that features locally-produced and sourced ingredients, plus a name that's very funny to say. Ba-cheeeeese-o's. Wandered over there for brunch/lunch on Sunday. They have a regular menu (which I haven't actually looked at), but on the weekends they serve a brunch buffet. If this conjures up images of pancakes, muffins, and "build-your-own" omelette bars, then think again. On my plate was a spoonful of cabbage salad, pepper & zucchini salad, mashed potatoes, lentils w/ assorted veggies, half a delicious pear, and more that I can't remember. Plus a small cup of rice pudding for dessert. There were also egg dishes, pancakes, soup, roasted vegetables, cake, and more fruit.

In addition to this feast, I had the best coffee I've ever had in my coffee-drinking existence (which, truth to tell, has been short). It was smooth, flavorful, and so delicious I drank it straight up and had to stop myself after the second cup because otherwise I would have been in serious caffeine overload. I can imagine going back just for dessert (a small sampling of which I saw, and had to restrain myself) and more coffee.

The pricing is good; the eating space pleasant, bright, and open; and there is a wall on the way to the restroom tacked up with thank-you letters from various social organizations that Bacheeso's has donated food to. It's nice to have a place that is so socially conscious. I'm really looking forward to my next visit there.

Recipe Review: Apple Oat Muffins

Thanks to a gift subscription (of a sort) from my brother-in-law, I receive Vegetarian Times in the mail (almost) every month. Last month I decided to try out the recipe for Apple Oat Muffins. I didn't have any quick-cooking oats, but instead used a multi-grain blend that I bought at Trader Joe's. The 2 cups of diced apple was obtained by one large Rome apple, on which I left the peel.

The result was delicious! If you look closely at the tops of the muffins, you can see bits of red from the apple peel. The recipe states that the muffin cups will be very full--they were--but you can see that there was no overflow. These were some hearty muffins. I would imagine that you could substitute whole wheat flour for some of the flour in the recipe for added nutrition. The yogurt is a good addition, substituting for the oil used in a standard muffin recipe. These muffins freeze very well, so you can make a batch, stick at least half in a plastic freezer bag, and eat them all week long. Just make sure they spend enough time defrosting--I discovered that frozen muffin is not so nice to eat.

Take note of the shiny pans used to bake these. These pans were specifically purchased to bake cupcakes. The shiny metal leads to very light baking. I should buy separate pans for muffins, in a darker finish, which will give the outside, the "crust" of the muffin, if you will, a much better texture to correspond with the density of the baked goodies.

Sunday Morning Breakfast

Breakfast is really my favorite meal of the day (unless I happen to be having an afternoon tea party). On the weekends I can take the time to cook myself a tasty breakfast and sit down to enjoy it with a pot of tea. During the weekdays, alas, I eat my breakfast in the car during my drive to work.

Today's breakfast consisted of: 1 slice Ezekiel bread spread with 1 T Trader Joe's Organic Superfruit Spread; 2 C spinach topped with 1 medium egg and 1 oz New Zealand Grass-Fed Cheddar; and a pot of Harney & Son tea, Florence flavor (a sort of chocolate hazelnut). The meal (which was incredibly delicious and filling, by the way) weighs in at about 300 calories, with 15 g fat, 18 g protein, and 4 g fiber. Plus I've gotten 30% or more of the RDA for calcium, Vitamins A, C, B12, and some minerals. (This is all according to the calculations at FitDay.)

Now, for a vegetarian, every little bit of iron counts, and this meal contains some from the spinach, egg, and bread. There is a difference between dietary iron found in meat and that found in plant products. Due to the nature of the molecules involved (heme versus non-heme), the body is much more able to absorb iron found in meat. This gives vegetarians a double-whammy, as plant products tend to be lower in iron in any case, but now we also have to deal with that iron being much less readily absorbed. To throw some numbers out there, the recommended daily intake of iron for an adult woman is 18 milligrams/day, whereas for a vegetarian woman it goes up to 32 mg/day. That's why I say that every little bit counts.

So what can you do to help the iron get into your system? One of the key things is Vitamin C. Having Vitamin C in the same meal as iron allows that iron to be better absorbed by your body. That's why, at breakfast, I went for jam on my toast instead of honey. Each would provide some sweetness to my morning, but the fruit spread packs a Vitamin C punch that was otherwise missing from the meal.

The other half of "Kale and Hearty"

I was going to post a recipe review, with pictures even, but my camera's batteries are so dead that it will not even turn on so that I can do a download. The batteries are currently charging, and that post will have to wait for a more auspicious day.

Going beyond vegetables, Kale and Hearty is also about wellness. Good health embodies many aspects of daily living. I'd like to offer two items for this evening, one for you and one for me.

I admit it: I'm a calorie counter. Back in my senior year of high school, I would keep a food diary of everything I ate, calculating the calories and grams of fat. Being a scientist, I like to take the scientific approach to questions like "what is a reasonable diet on which I lose weight in a healthy fashion but still get enough to eat?" So I discovered for myself that I do quite nicely on about 1900 calories a day and normal exercise levels. That keeps me at 145 lbs (healthy for my 5' 7" height). If I gain weight for whatever reason, I can drop down to 1700-1800 calories and increase my exercise. This was highly beneficial to me in college. While all around me fellow freshmen were gaining weight, I was staying stable and actually toning up, because we had a nice fitness facility in the gym.

Back then, I kept track in a little steno notebook. Nowadays, it's all about logging things on the computer. I use FitDay, the first one I found, and the only online log I've tried. I like the way it shows me various nutrition charts, so I can see how I'm doing on all my vitamins and minerals in addition to calories, fat, protein, and fiber. You can also chart your physical activities, moods, and make journal entries. There's also CalorieKing, Calorie Counter, and many others to be found online, all generally free (with advertising).

I recommend that everyone, whether you're trying to gain weight, lose weight or just stay healthy, keep a food diary at least for a couple weeks, so you can see what you're really eating, and what an average day's nutrition is really like. Having the numbers in front of me really does help me make the healthiest food choices. Plus, there's nothing like being a hundred calories short and the end of the day so that there's room for a piece of dark chocolate.

Now, as for my current overall health, I've been noticing that my face has been breaking out in a different way over the past several weeks. The best complexion I've ever had was while I was on a hard-core vegan diet. I am tempted to do an elimination diet to determine if there's something in particular that makes me break out, but that would require me to be incredibly mindful of my diet, perhaps more attention than I'd like to pay to it. For starters, then, I've switched facial washes. My "Desert Essence Thoroughly Clean Face Wash" is probably too harsh and drying, so while at Whole Foods the other evening, I picked up "Alba Sea Lettuce Cleansing Milk", which is for dry, delicate skin. My skin is not in the least bit dry, but is delicate, and after just two days of use, I can already see a difference. I'm glowing a bit, which is very nice to see. :)

Lima beans with Garlic

At work this afternoon, I started pondering what I wanted to prepare for dinner. In the fridge, I knew I had some leftover squash and shredded broccoli stalks, along with marinara sauce, so I decided to do vegetable pasta. So the veggies were sauteed up in a skillet, whole wheat pasta was cooked separately, the two were mixed and covered in marinara. But I knew I wanted something higher protein to go with my carbohydrates. Leftover cooked lima beans would do the trick, and I had that bulb of garlic from yesterday's expedition to the market, so I thought to roast the garlic in the oven and mash that all in with the lima beans, in the manner of garlic mashed potatoes.

However, when I did get home, I suddenly didn't feel like getting my hands all covered with sticky after squeezing all the cloves of roasted garlic out of their jackets. What to do, what to do.... I decided instead to make a bit of "browned" butter and garlic. (I put that in quotation marks because I didn't truly brown the butter, but one could.) A grind of sea salt, and a shake of oregano later, and I had produced serious rainy-day comfort food. Mental recipe success! The initial flavor of the beans is followed by the mellow golden tones of garlic and butter. I imagine that this recipe would work with any light-colored, well-cooked bean, like navy or great northern.

1/2 cup cooked lima beans has 105 calories, 6 g protein, 20 g carbs, 5 g fiber, less than 1 gram fat, and respectable amounts of iron, potassium, and magnesium.

To cook lima beans (and, in general, any sort of bean) from dried, soak the beans in plenty of water for 8 hours or overnight. Drain the soaking water, and add fresh water to cover beans by 1 inch. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 2-3 hours or until tender. Lima beans have a seed coat that may detach during soaking or cooking. This is entirely edible, but may be removed and discarded for aesthetic reasons, if you so choose. Yes, cooking dried beans requires prep time, but once cooked, you can refrigerate and freeze the beans for later use.

To make four 1/2-cup servings, melt two tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan over low-medium heat. Add 4-5 cloves of garlic, chopped. (You can add more or less garlic according to your taste. It is cooked, so the flavor is not too strong.) Let cook gently until the garlic just begins to brown. Add two cups of cooked lima beans, and mix well, mashing with a spoon. Throw in some dried or fresh oregano and salt to taste. Once heated through, serve it forth.