Pasta for the heart

Dinner tonight was lovely. I finally went grocery shopping today (for the first time in a while... we have been deprived of fresh foods!) and stocked up on some essentials: onions, garlic, mushrooms, etc.

So tonight for dinner, we had pasta with a homemade tomato sauce, topped with sauteed mushrooms. One of my favorite things, is fresh tomatoes, in the summer. But summer is not quite here yet, and fresh tomatoes will have to wait. But in the mean time, I am lucky to enjoy my mom's canned tomatoes. Last year (and just about every year) she canned a bunch of my grandpa's tomatoes. Canning is a great way to preserve food! Stay tuned for a future post about canning.

Here is my recipe for homemade tomato sauce:

Homemade Pasta Sauce

2 tablespoons of butter

1 large red onion
2 cloves of garlic

4 whole tomatoes, canned plus juice

Oregano, basil, salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large sauce pan, melt butter. Chop onion and saute in melted butter, until the onions are semi-transparent. Chop garlic and add to the sauce pan. Crush tomatoes and juice with the back of a fork, in a large mixing bowl. Add to the sauce pan, and cook until the juice begins to thicken.

2. When vegetables are thickened, remove from stove, and transfer to the large mixing bowl. Using an immersion blender, puree the vegetables into a thick sauce. Add herbs and salt and pepper to taste.

This sauce can be used over any pasta of your choice. Pat and I ate it over sprouted whole wheat pasta, with some chopped, sauteed mushrooms! So tasty

Hope you enjoyed!

A new spin on a classic cookie

Baking cookies is easy, but baking them as good as you mom is a challenge. It seems that you can never get the consistency just quite right.

So instead of trying to make one of the classic recipes, I decided, "Why not make a new cookie?" This way, I have no standard to live up to!

Baking can be pretty specific, with the chemistry of ingredients. So to start, I chose an already existing recipe, from a cookbook that I have been using lately. The recipe was for tahini cookies, and is from Natural Cooking, The Prevention Way. Then, I tweaked it!

Here is my new and improved recipe for:

Tahini Oatmeal Cookies
6 tablespoons of tahini*
1 cup of oats
3/4 cups of honey
1/4 cup of home-made raisins**
1/4 cup of chocolate chips
1/8 cup of sunflower seeds
2 tablespoons of golden flax seeds
Coconut oil

1. Mix tahini and honey until well incorporated. Then, add the remaining ingredients (except oil).

2. Grease cookie sheet with coconut oil (this adds a little extra flavor!). Drop tablespoons of batter onto cookie sheet.

3. Bake at 300 degrees for about 15 minutes.

*Tahini is sesame seed butter. You can find it at your local supermarket. It is frequently used in Indian cooking, so may be located near other Indian foods at the store. I purchased mine form a local Indian grocery store.

** Homemade raisins are great and easy! If your grapes start to shrivel, don't toss 'em, dry 'em. Just rinse and dry off the grapes, and remove them from the vine. Then, place them on a cookie sheet in a single layer, and let them set in the sun until dried. When they are dried, you can place them in a air tight container, and store them for a very long time.  Homemade raisins are often plumper than store bought ones. Also, they are sweet and delicious, and save one more food from the trash bin. (Remember, if they are too yucky to save, compost them!)

GOOD eating

Here is a great video about food production, that puts our consumption into perspective. If you have a moment, I would highly suggest it!


How to feed the world ? from Denis van Waerebeke on Vimeo.

GOOD Magazine is a great resource. Check them out on the web at www.good.is

happy day!

What's in season?

With each season, there is new life. In the spring, the trees bud, and the grass sprouts. And in the spring, new crops begin to ripen.

However, since our super markets provide many varieties of produce year-round, we have fallen out of the natural cycle of eating seasonal produce for our regions. Perhaps this seems trivial. If you can get what ever you want, at any time of the year, why is it important to know when produce is in season in your region?

Buying food that is locally grown and in season has many benefits -- not only for you, and your health, but also for your community. You benefit by eating fresh food of high qualities. When food is shipped from great distances, so that you can have tomatoes and apples in winter, its freshness is sacrificed for durability and shelf-life. Also, by buying local (within a 100 mile radius of your home), you reduce your carbon footprint significantly. The average food miles that produce travels when shipped within the country, is about 2000 miles, from farm to plate. Calculate your food miles here.

Buying local also helps the community! When you buy locally, you are supporting local community members. They in turn, put their earnings in local banks and spend their earnings at local businesses, retaining the money in the local economy.

Also, if you are able to shop at farmers markets, this is a great way to build relationships with the producers of your food. In doing so, not only are you able to learn more about your food and the way it was grown, but it seems that you will probably gain a greater appreciation for your food. Based on the amount of food that Americans waste everyday (about 1.3 pounds per American, daily), it seems that our current relationship with our food is unhealthy. We are not connected to our foods the way we once were, when we relied on seasons for our foods. Since the convenience level of our food is so high, we are estranged from our foods.

Once we are able to see the connection between food and the land, once more, perhaps we can learn to appreciate our food and our land and our communities more.

To help you learn more about what is in season in your region, check out this great graphic from GOOD magazine:

 (click here for a link to the full article, on the GOOD webpage)

For those of you Midwest-dwellers, here is a list of some of the produce that is in-season in spring:
Asparagus, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, collards, cucumbers, kale, lettuce, mushrooms, onions, radishes, rhubarb, turnips, spinach, sprouts, tomatoes

There are so many choices! You don't have to worry about a lack of variety, when you are eating locally.

I will be trying to eat as locally as possible. Let me know if you have any great recipes with these spring-y vegetables. I would be happy to try something new!

Apple Crisp and dinner with a friend

I spent the day outside, enjoying the weather. A nice way to spend the afternoon. This evening, I am sharing dinner at my dear friend Lauren's place. The other day, she brought over banana cream pie! This is my favorite. Though, another one of my favorites is apple crisp. My mom used to make it all the time, when I was a kid. The recipe I made was a bit different than my mom's recipe, but delicious in its own way.

Apple Crisp
6 apples, thinly sliced
1 cup of rolled oats
1/2 cup of crushed breakfast cereal (I used left over whole wheat chex, but this is totally up to you!)
1/4 cup of raisins
10 prunes, cut in half
1/3 cup of cashews, crushed (you can use any type of nut... my mom loves walnuts!)
1/4 cup of sunflower oil
1/4 cup of honey
1/4 cup of unpacked brown sugar

1. Line a deep dish pan with two layers of apples.

2. Combine the remaining ingredients in a bowl, and toss with a fork. Spread over the top of the apples.

3. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.

Serve warm and for an extra delicious treat, top with vanilla ice cream! So tasty, all your friends will want you to come over for dinner...

Another treat, I have been listening to Norah Jones' cd, "The Fall" which is new from last November. Its such a nice and upbeat cd. If you have a moment, and are wanting some new music, I would suggest it.

Have a great day!