Green Options

As mid-January rolls in, those traditional New Year’s health resolutions fade away:  Loose ten pounds, get fit, etc.  Why?  Deprivation sucks.  Our food loving community here at Eat Drink Better continues to rise like yeast dough on a hot day for one common reason:  we embrace food with passion and realize that our eating choices impact the world around us.  Hungry for knowledge, we share a mutual quest to eat and drink better.

So while January still hangs on the calendar, come up with your own “Good Food Bliss List” for 2010.  Folks probably are familiar with the “Bucket List” concept, popularized by the movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman:  Make a list of all those things you want to do before you “kick the bucket.”  Oh yeah one more point:  do them.

The “Good Food Bliss List” has two key differences:

1.  One year time frame.

Just think about what you could realistically achieve in 2010.  I confess I’m the local, seasonal, organic version of Veruca of Willie Wonka.  Higher standards (and hopefully a dash more pleasant), but I still want it now.

After the rocky economy and related bumps along the way in 2009, everyone is looking for a smoother New Year.  Indulge your guests this evening with a toast with Homemade Irish Cream, a creamy indulgence that makes any worries melt away.  At least, shall we say, for the moment.

I confess, for a celebratory toast I’m always partial to something sweet.  But as I started reading labels of my favorite commercial liquors I realized how much of that sweetness came from high fructose corn syrup and other additives.  With that motivation, I started experimenting with various homespun versions on our B&B guests at Inn Serendipity (didn’t need to twist any arms there), and this Irish Cream (kind of like a Baileys) quickly became the house favorite.

By controlling the ingredients that go in the drink, you can opt for better quality items like organic cream (I use Organic Valley), fair trade cocoa (our B&B orders cocoa from Equal Exchange by the case), and sugar (we buy bulk from Wholesome Sweeteners).  Skimp a little on the whiskey if you need to.  A cheap variety would work just as well as it will be masked by the other flavors.

Here’s the recipe (from our Inn Serendipity B&B cookbook, Edible Earth), with a toast to a smooth 2010!

The biological properties of cocoa are widely misunderstood.  A Science News article has recently reported that chocolate needs to be looked at in a new light.

According to the article, consumers have treated dark chocolate as a good source of  the antioxidant flavonoids that appear to reduce blood pressure and perhaps protect people from dangerous blood clots.

The National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., held a Cocoa Symposium in June this year that brought up findings that dark chocolates retain very [...]

Chances are, that delicious cranberry sauce you enjoyed on Thanksgiving has not expired, and works great with oatmeal!

Try this easy recipe:

-1/2 cup oatmeal

- a pinch of cinnamon

- sliced organic apples

- leftover cranberry sauce

To me, morning bowls like this taste better than cookies and go down better with tea or coffee than a danish or muffin.

As I’ve mentioned before, oatmeal is a favorite breakfast of mine. Oatmeal has an abundance of health benefits, containing nutrients such as vitamin E, magnesium, iron, selenium, and zinc.

Sometimes the best-laid family Thanksgiving plans do not entirely pan out.  Due to various circumstances or issues, your family is left with just a small gathering.  With the help of my mother, I have a few great ideas to make sure the house is still warm, and the cooking is still delicious for your holiday meal, despite only having a limited number of guests.

Try cooking up a smaller meal, a turkey roast, beef roast, pot roast, or pork roast.  All of the meals come mostly prepared if you purchase them from the store, sans various fixins, or spices.

These options drastically cut cooking time, but also allow for a great small family meal with plenty of left overs.  Using simple preparations, this meal can easily be made in the oven in a short period of time.

Don’t call me Scrooge, but it took me till my thirties to confront the fact that I don’t honestly like most traditional holiday foods.  Gingerbread?  I’d prefer chocolate any day.  Eggnog?  Pour me a daiquiri.  And don’t get me started on fruitcake.

During my childhood and for years after, guilt motivated my holiday food choices.  I felt compelled to please and fit the traditional cookie cutter mold, loading my plate with ethnic specialties from my Baltic roots that I couldn’t pronounce and smiled as well-intended relatives asked for confirmation.

As I came of age into marriage and parenthood, motivated by the fact that my waistline clearly indicated I had a finite daily calorie count allotment, holiday priorities changed.   The more I wrote about and advocated within the food scene, I rekindled the celebratory side of food.  Eat to enjoy, share and make merry.  Not because your mother spent all day making Latvian blood sausage.

Don’t get my wrong; I love the Christmas season with all the sugarcoated trimmings.  I’ve just realized the importance of placing holiday food traditions back on the celebratory pedestal, based on my and my family’s own terms.  Take a twist on tradition this season and form your own fresh holiday food memories. Here are four tips to get you cooking:

Due to circumstances beyond my control (a crazy family), I missed out on a lot of things in my childhood that others take for granted.  Strangely enough, one of those things is Chex mix.  I never tasted Chex mix until I was 30 and it was quite an enjoyable discovery.  But living and cooking for a spouse with Celiac Disease put Chex Mix back into the forbidden recipe book, never to see the light of day.

Once Chex started offering gluten free varieties of its cereals, everything changed.  I got the family heirloom Chex mix recipe from my Mother In Law (we call her Mama Bear) and have made it as an occasional snack/treat for special occasions.  This is by no means health food, it’s to be eaten sparingly and as a treat, not an everyday food.  Here’s how to make gluten free Chex mix.

As turkey wafts the air this week, it means only one thing to me:  the scents of all holiday baking to come.  But how does our green and frugal focus at our Wisconsin farm and B&B, Inn Serendipity, blend with seasonal bake-offs?  Focus on creatively using ingredients already stockpiled in your pantry.

Case in point:  the story behind our annual bake-off favorite, Peppermint Biscotti.  Anybody else acquired a stockpile of those red and white peppermint candies, the freebies you pick up at restaurants and never use?  Or leftover candy canes? When I collected everything in our house last year, I had a gallon-sized plastic bag of peppermints.

I agree, there’s hardly any nutritional value in these peppermints or anything to prioritize in the sustainable of organic category.  But the point is I had them, they already existed and I’m a firm believer, whenever possible, to use up rather than throw out (or stir up mint-flavored compost).

Nestle, who owns 85 percent of the pumpkin canning crop, apologized last week for a looming shortage on the classic Libby’s 100% Pure Pumpkin and Libby’s Pumpkin Pie Mix filling. This year’s harvest was smaller than expected thanks to heavy rains and saturated farm fields in the Midwest.

As we head into the Thanksgiving season, all eyes (and mouths) fixate on that key holiday ingredient:  food.  From turkeys to pumpkin pie, Thanksgiving gifts us with a list of seasonal traditions that celebrate our love for good food.  While these all rank important holiday elements, let’s not miss the key ingredient rooted in the inherent concept of Thanksgiving:  gratitude.

A mindset of green gratitude emphasizes positive abundance, relishing the glass half full perspective.  An important concept to keep on the front burner, especially as tanking economies fuel table conversations that tend to serve up sentiments of fear, scarcity and deprivation.

Add a dash of green reflection and gratitude to your Thanksgiving table by throwing these three questions on eating and drinking better into the conversation mix:

We all need a little sweetness in our lives sometimes. Every once in a while, you should be able to fully enjoy a sweet, gooey, chocolatey and delicious dessert without any feelings of guilt and remorse. With the holidays around the corner, finding vegan desserts that actually taste good and have some redeeming nutritional qualities can be difficult. Look no further! For all you vegan dessert lovers out there, bring this recipe to your next holiday gathering and even the carnivores will be licking their plates clean.