Green Options

I confess, I’m slow to change.  At least when it comes to cooking.  A devout recipe follower, I measure my cups and teaspoons and follow recipe direction as if they were sent from above.

Until this week, when I finally took our new solar oven out of the box.  We bought this Global Sun Oven last winter to use at our farm and B&B, Inn Serendipity, with all good intentions.  No plug in required, just open it up and heat up and bake.

Which is where I got stuck, as I would not only be cooking out of my box, I’d be cooking out of my kitchen.  But my husband, John, helped by setting it up for the first time, conducting a mini-science project that even our seven-year old could handle of angling it to garner maximum solar gain.  I had one of my new favorite pies ready to stick in the oven (“Strawberry and Rhubarb Streusel Pie” – recipe below), and took it outside instead.

For almost two years we’ve been eating vegetarian or vegan twice a week and seafood twice a week. I guess you could consider us part-time vegetarians. Eating this way keeps us from overloading our diets with too much meat or dairy and cuts down on our grocery bill. It forces us to eat more fresh produce and to shop locally so the produce actually has flavor.

It is extremely eco-friendly to eat vegetarian twice a week; eating meat takes a toll on the environment big time. The beef, poultry and pork industrial farms notoriously contribute to water pollution, use large amounts of fossil fuels and generate prodigious amounts of greenhouse gases. The United Nations has actually issued a call for citizens of the world to go vegetarian one day a week to curb global warming.

My girls love fresh veggies and fruit on their own, but I also like to puree it and add it to other meals. I’m not trying to hide it but it’s another great way to add more essential vitamins to their diet. When my girls were babies I made their baby food and always used organic ingredients. Their teeth came in quickly and they moved onto solids sooner than later, so both times I ended up with extra bags of frozen cubed baby food. I started adding the pureed butternut squash into their grilled cheese for lunch and whole grain pancakes for breakfast. During that time two cookbooks were released dedicated to adding pureed fruits and veggies to favorite recipes!

One of my favorite places to eat in town is Jyoti-Bihanga, a tasty vegetarian/vegan restaurant run by the Sri Chinmoy folks.  If you aren’t familiar with them, I’ll tell you this - they make a fantastic fake meatloaf, they call it Neatloaf.

You can imagine how excited I was when a friend of mine e-mailed me the recipe, so now I can have delicious Neatloaf in the comfort of my own home.  The recipe as it stands is vegetarian, you’ll need to replace the eggs with an equivalent amount of egg substitute to make it vegan, switch the ricotta cheese with soy cheese or silken tofu, and double check the Lipton Onion Soup Mix as well.

Also, since I cook for a Celiac sufferer, I make it gluten free by simply replacing the Special K with gluten free corn flakes, which changes the consistency a little bit, but keeps the recipe well within the realm of “delicious”.

Here are the ingredients for the Neatloaf:

June on our Wisconsin farm and B&B, Inn Serendipity, ushers in a few weeks of chaos.  Tending everything from gardens to B&B guests, June packs in a cornucopia of duties that take time away from the kitchen and savoring the abundance of the early summer season.

Don’t get me wrong as I truly relish this time of year, when both the days and work lists are long but satisfying.  Which is why we need quality fuel, good food to provide energy for the day.  This Spring Spinach and Asparagus Pasta ranks our new seasonal favorite, as it blends the tender seasonal flavors of asparagus and spinach with a filling dose of pasta, nuts and cheese, seasoned up with a unique, savory soy sauce-based dressing.  Plus it makes a sizeable batch, perfect for easy leftovers throughout the week.

Read on for the recipe and enjoy:

This twist on classic pizza ushers in summer with a tender gluten-free crust, garlicky oven-roasted tomato sauce and the zing of fresh herbs.  You could top this with homemade mozzarella cheese or soy cheese, but what if you’re avoiding both dairy and the highly-processed soy isolates found in many cheese alternatives? Is it even possible to imagine – much less create and enjoy — a pizza without wheat and cheese?

I’ve always loved the idea of foraging for food, but the idea of dying from a poisonous mushroom overdose has always put me off from plucking edibles from the ground for dinner. Luckily, you can often find a carefully selected array of wild and exotic mushrooms at grocery stores or farmers markets. Sometimes, when there’s potential for serious injury, I find it’s best to leave things up to the professionals.

I found this gorgeous array of exotic mushrooms at the Sporeboys stall at London’s beautiful Broadway Market. Mushrooms are easy to cook, good for you, and have a deliciously rich, almost meaty taste that’s a great vegetarian substitute. I made a simple sautéed mushroom mix with olive oil, herbs, and cheese that tasted great on toast as well as pasta. It could also top a number of other dishes that you’ve already got in your kitchen. It’s simple, versatile, and oh so tasty…and no fear of poison! What more could you ask for?

Here’s an easy way to cook your mushrooms and a number of ways to serve them too:

Today’s post is by Kristen Honey, EDF Lorry Lokey Fellow.

Are sardines making a sustainable and sumptuous comeback? The Washington Post attempted to address this very question yesterday in a provocative article about the self-proclaimed “Sardinistas.” According to this group of nutritionists, environmentalists and foodie revolutionaries, the answer is a resounding “yes!”  Sardine advocates and cutting-edge green chefs like Dean Gold and David Myers are bringing this smelly canned food out of the cob-webbed cabinet corner and back into the kitchen in innovative new ways. Or they are trying to, at least.

Just recently, I had the privilege of attending a private luncheon with the Sardinistas at filmmaker Mark Shelley’s Sea Studios Foundation on Monterey’s Cannery Row.  The purpose of this luncheon was to highlight their recent efforts to promote sardines as a delicious and sustainable seafood choice.   What struck me was their point that while Americans love eating tuna and other steak-like fish, we need to eat fish farther down the food chain (like sardines) to help alleviate pressure at the top.

After talking shop, we had the chance to eat delectable canned, frozen and fresh sardine dishes by renowned chef Alton Brown of The Food Network!  If you don’t take my word for how tasty these creatures can be, try out for yourself these sardine-centric recipes for Sarde Arrosto (Griddle Roasted Sardines), Stuffed Sardines and Vuido (widowed potatoes).

Strawberries and cucumbers seem to be everywhere this summer and they make yummy accents to refreshing salads. Shown above is a simple salad packed with the following skin refreshing nutrients when eaten:

Organic popsicles…yes, I said it…that are bright colors, easy to make and full of ooey, gooey yumminess!

Ready for the super specific recipe? Here goes!

The dawn of summertime — just over a week away — calls for barefoot lunches, iced coffee, blossoming flowers, and colorful produce. And what better food to showcase summer’s brightness than a refreshing, cooling coleslaw? Purple cabbage, white-stemmed chard, orange carrots, and green zucchini combine for the perfect combination of crunch and tang.  This naturally wheatless dish is bursting with color and packs a powerful serving of Vitamins A, C and K.

As our gardens start to deliver, as I harvest my first spring veggies this time of year, I always make the same resolution:  This year I’m going to eat more fresh out of the garden.

It sounds obvious, but the truth of the matter is I always get wrapped up in the garden work, from watering to weeding, and food preservation, from freezing to fermenting, that I get too busy and loose sight of the key reason why my family started the garden on our Wisconsin farm and B&B, Inn Serendipity, in the first place:  to savor and celebrate fresh, local, healthy food.

Once again this year, I’m on a mission to feast on the bounty, to not get so wrapped up in the process that I miss opportune feasting moments.  As inspirational fodder, I researched this idea further, resulting in an article for the upcoming July/August issue of Hobby Farm Home magazine:  Farm-style Fast Food:  If the growing season has you too busy to prepare well-planned meals every night, follow these tips for healthy “fast-food” eating.” In addition to that article, here are a few more tips I found helpful: