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Another Short Break

February 12, 2009

I’m sorry for my absence of posts the past few days. I’ve been taking another short break from blogging. My Grandfather passed away over the weekend and I decided once again to travel back to the US for a couple of weeks. This happens just three short months after the death of my Grandmother so life is a bit, well, strange right now.

This week has been a time of pondering all the wonderful memories of my grandpa, Pop, as we called him. I will miss him greatly. He had a sweet tooth that could be rivaled by few. I have no doubt that my own comes from him. I always had someone to eat the products of my hard work when I was back home and baking. I shared a lot of my baking with him over the holidays and he absolutely loved the Fruitcake Cookies I made and he was often the recipient of my Mom’s Caramel Corn that I shared with you last fall.

These are a few of the many things that will always make me think of him.

I’ll return to blogging (and reading your blogs) by next week. I’ve noticed I have several new readers in the comments and I want to say Thank You! I appreciate all my readers and each and every comment I receive. I will be back soon!

Links to a Healthy Weekend

February 7, 2009

Great stuff out there this week. I’ve noticed there is a slight trend among food blogs towards all things chocolate. I wonder what holiday is coming up that would encourage that? I’m really looking forward to all the Valentine’s Day posts that are sure to come this week!
On to the links…
Savor the Thyme had a recipe for Almond, Flax & White Chocolate Nutella Dessert Pizza. You don’t even need to see the recipe or a picture to know that has to be amazing!
Passionate Eater had some beautiful pictures and information on where to get good eats in Zurich, Switzerland. Even if you have no plans to go there, you have see the pictures of the food! You might just book yourself a trip.
What Does Your Body Good? brings up an excellent topic this week – using rather unhealthy ways to raise funds for health-focused organizations. Stop over and tell her what you think.
Next week is Random Acts of Kindness week. How will you celebrate?

If you are looking for some new reads 100 Best Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes should give you plenty.

I also wanted to give a shout out regarding Twitter. I love it and it has become a substitute for office mates since I started working from home. Aside from some pretty hilarious people that make me laugh, I get great leads on posts and information.
I also like to share when I find great posts – like yours! If you are on Twitter please leave your info in the comments so I can follow you. Or, if you are so inclined you can follow me at http://twitter.com/lori1329 and I will reciprocate.
Enjoy your weekend!

Balsamic Pasta and Rodizio Dining

February 5, 2009


I haven’t been a fan of balsamic vinegar for very long. I used to find that its flavor was too sour, too intense. As time has gone on, I am realizing that it was more the quality I was buying that was causing the problem rather than the actual vinegar itself.

I find that I almost crave it now. I use it on my salads with olive oil all the time and my most recent discovery – balsamic vinegar with pasta.
Let me back up a little bit.

There is a type of dining here in Brazil called rodizio (hoe-dee-zee-oh). If you’ve been to a Brazilian steakhouse you somewhat get the idea, but the style extends way beyond this. Basically, you sit down to your meal and servers bring food around to you and you select as much as you want.

At a steakhouse the food of choice is meat, however, you can eat rodizio pizza, seafood, sushi and pasta in Brazil. There is a place in town that serves rodizio pasta here. I had heard that the chef was a very experienced gentleman who has lived in many cities in the world working for a Brazilian airline and their associated hotels. Lucky for us he then move to Maringa and opened his pasta rodizio restaurant.

Let me first explain that gourmet dining or anything remotely close is a rarity here. There are few nice restaurants in town, but most of them serve meat after meat after meat. There isn’t much variation or what I would call culinary skill involved. I’m not saying it doesn’t take skill to make good meat, but that is a cultural thing here. Almost all men know how to make it well. However, culinary art remains at only a couple restaurants in town.

Before I go on I must also fit in a quick aside. A few weekends ago in my links I mentioned that we eat out here much more than we did in the US because the prices are so incredibly reasonable. This meal is a perfect example. This buffet of excellent pastas served to you in a dimly lit, date-night atmosphere came in at R$15 per person. That’s U$ 6.58 a person at the current exchange rate.

Here is a bit of a photo tour of some of the dishes before I explain my balsamic dish.

First there was a salad of greens topped with a pickled eggplant and, of course, rice. I have yet to be to a restaurant here focusing on any type of cuisine that did not serve rice.


A sweet coconut flan-type cup sitting in a spoonful of an herb and pepper sauce. A very interesting contrast of flavors.


Pasta with a sauté of chopped pears and cinnamon.


The unique award went to our dessert – Chocolate Gnocchi. It was traditional homemade potato gnocchi served in a hot chocolate sauce with hot pepper. The sweet flavor with a very subtle heat in the back of the throat was perfect. I would love to try and recreate this.


There were many other things like lasagna scented with cinnamon, spaghetti with garlic and oil, and sweet potato dish with a honey mustard topping and chicken, but I will stop there.

About half way through the meal the waiter brought out this dish. I could tell right away from the smell that it contained balsamic vinegar so I gladly accepted.


It was a tortellini-like pasta fill with a strong cheese in a balsamic vinegar. Seems too simple to be exciting, but the contrast of the flavor of the cheese with the tartness of the vinegar was excellent.

I was in the kitchen the other deciding on a lunch. I had zucchini that needed to be used and then I noticed a small bowl of left over cheese tortellini from a previous meal. They sell a variety of fresh pastas in the supermarket it here and it’s an easy go-to dinner on the nights I don’t feel like putting forth much effort. So I took my leftovers and set out to recreate the dish similar to the one from the restaurant.

I was thrilled with the results and I can’t wait to make it again! I went heavy on the veggies so I would need less pasta. It is delicious, but also a bit heavy and high in calorie.

You can add the balsamic vinegar at any point during the cooking process. The heat will cook out the acidity making it sweeter. If you don’t like a strong flavor add it early. I like to add it after the dish is cooked because of the tartness and this most closely resembles the original dish.

Balsamic Vegetable Tortellini
Makes 1 serving

Olive oil
Small zucchini, chopped
¼ onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, chopped
½ to ¾ cup fresh cheese tortellini
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

Put just a bit of oil in your skillet and sauté veggies until they reach your desired consistency. I like mine still a bit crunchy. Add pasta to heat through. Toss with vinegar and serve.

The Green Hypocrite

February 3, 2009

Being a hypocrite was a topic in one of my readings this week. That word always makes me cringe. I hate the thought of it, but I think many of us have filled the role at one point in our lives. Sometimes it can turn into a rewarding and humbling experience, other it’s just plain embarrassing.

I’ve learned that the more you speak out about your passions the more transparent you are and at risk for being labeled a hypocrite. Hypocrisy is a huge issue when it comes to health, but there is only one topic I can think of that beats it – being green.

I struggle with this a lot. When it comes to my green practices I typically do what I can without saying too much about it or getting on a soap box to say this or that is a good idea.

Why? Well, because often it feels like I am doing one green thing only to cancel it out by another green thing I’m not doing.

I unplug my chargers, but have been known to go over the speed limit. I may try to choose a more eco-conscious travel accommodation, but then I’m taking a plane to get there. I recycle and try not to do any excessive printing from the computer, but how long was my shower?

Green living seems to open the opportunity for being a hypocrite. There is always more you could be doing differently to help. Lately the media is giving us list after list of changes we need to make. You can’t help but feel guilty when you don’t do every one.

My practices have changed a lot since moving abroad. My favorite change, if you can call changes favorites, is the use of reusable shopping bags. When I got to Brazil and came home carrying 10 plastic bags for 8 items I knew this was the place to start bringing my own.

Aside from the environmental impact I love carrying them because I can pack the food in myself and they are so much easier to carry on my shoulder for 7 blocks. I will say I was surprised that I rarely saw anyone with their own bags when I was in my hometown in the US over the holidays. The bags are for sale everywhere, but no one seems to be using them.

My first encounter with the benefits of bringing your own bag came several years ago on my first trip to Europe. If you haven’t been, most grocery stores in major cities charge you for your bags. I recently read that Ireland charges 33 cents per bag and has reduced plastic bag consumption by 95 percent.

This made me remember that small changes make a big difference. I think this is key in protecting our resources for future generations and saving the polar bears. I am so sensitive to the influence our choices have on wildlife. Among other things, I couldn’t imagine a world without polar bears!

So I’ll continue to do what I can, but you won’t catch me as one to shout at the hilltops about actions you need to take to be greener. Why, because it is likely there are several I’m not doing myself.

Are you satisfied with the green changes you’ve made? Do you ever feel like a hypocrite when you do something that doesn’t fit the list of suggested changes?

Pre Football Food: Pita Bread Salad

February 2, 2009


In an effort to prepare what was sure to be football food overload on Sunday, I made sure Saturday night was salad night. I found this recipe in Rachael Ray’s magazine a few months ago and finally had to chance to try it.

It is filled with veggies and so easy to make. You can find the original recipe here. I made a few changes based on availability.

They included:

Using lime instead of lemon (we don’t have lemons here)
Didn’t add the herbs – I’m not a big herb fan in salads, except for maybe cilantro
Used red onion instead of scallions
Skipped the bell pepper
Cut the recipe a bit to make it two dinner size servings

After all that, this is how the recipe turned out. I think I now might need to make it again as a recovery to football food!

Pita Bread Salad

Adapted from EveryDay with Rachael Ray

2 pita breads, baked until crispy
¼ cup olive oil
Juice of 2 to 3 limes
1 clove of garlic, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
1 small cucumber, chopped
1 to 2 tomatoes, chopped
¼ of a large red onion, sliced
5 cups of mixed lettuce, roughly chopped

In a bowl whisk oil, juice, salt and pepper. Stir in cucumber, tomatoes and onion. Pour over lettuce and toss to combine.

Slice pita into small wedges and toss in the salad. If you want the pita to stay firm, just top each salad with the wedges and don’t mix in the dressing.

Links to a Healthy Weekend

January 31, 2009

Happy Saturday and happy last day of January! It’s been an incredibly fast month for me.
What are your healthy plans this weekend? I’m going to play some Squash with my husband today and get in a run on Sunday. Sunday night we are going to settle in to watch the big game. (The Puppy Bowl is already scheduled on TiVo) We are 4 hours ahead of the east coast right now, so it is going to be a late night.
There was so much great reading out there this weekend.
Hope you enjoy the links this week!
Feed Between the Lines had a post on Breaking Down Barriers. It is a great step by step plan to getting past those obstacles that stand between us and our health goals.
Lighter Footstep shared some information about green Super Bowl parties.
Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice had a wonderful recipe for fruit pizza. I was especially intrigued by the addition of anise and orange peel to the crust. Yum! This looks like a tasty, and rather healthy, addition to your party spread.
Nomadic Matt’s Travel Site posted about the Secret to Long Term Traveling. Even if you don’t like to travel you have to read the 2nd to last paragraph about mini-retirements. It makes you think and is a philosophy I believe in. We shouldn’t waste our healthiest days missing out on what we enjoy.

Brazilian Moqueca

January 30, 2009

I wrote this post back in 2009 when we were still living in Southern Brazil. Our friends in Maringa invited us over to teach me how to make Brazilian Moqueca. The post recaps that experience and shares the recipe Moqueca de Camarão that I put together after this hand-on cooking lesson. 

I have a pretty exciting food journey for you today. Okay, at least it was exciting for me. 

Last weekend a friend of mine invited my husband and me over for lunch. Her husband was going to teach me how to make Moqueca! Moqueca de Camarão to be exact.

Moqueca de Camarão is a dish from Bahia in the north. It is basically a shrimp stew served over rice, often with farofa. My friends had just taken a vacation to Salvador in Bahia and were happy to show me how to make it.

This was very exciting for me for two reasons – 1) I had never had or made the dish before. 2) I found out that a fish shop here sells fresh (not frozen) shrimp. I’ve been living here 18 months and just now found that out!


We have not yet been to the north of the country, but we hear the north and south of Brazil are like two different worlds. This was my first time eating Moqueca and I loved it. It was such a nice change from the red meat overload we get here. I’m looking forward to making it myself very soon.

I have the recipe to share with you, but I have to warn you there is a secret ingredient that I have not found out how to make yet. We’ll call it a seasoning paste. I’m pretty sure it was a paste made from garlic, cilantro, parsley and cumin, but I don’t have exact measurements. I’ll let you know when I find out for sure. It was similar to sofrito, but I’m not sure it is the same thing here.


Let’s get started.

First, this dish is made with azeite de dendê. This, I have learned, is what we call palm oil. This is traditionally used in the dish, but any oil will do if you don’t have access to it.

Next, the dish is made in a clay pot. I plan to try to get my hands on one before we move back to the States and pray it doesn’t break in the shipping process.

 


Ingredients were already chopped and ready to go when I got there. I was pretty much a witness to the whole thing, but I got good pictures. Anyway, I am estimating amounts based on what I saw.

 

Moqueca de Camarão
½ cup palm oil
2 medium onions, sliced
2 green peppers, sliced
4 cloves of garlic sliced
3-4 tomatoes, sliced
1 Tbsp seasoning paste
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
¾ to 1 cup coconut milk
Heat oil in the pot. Add onions, green peppers and garlic. Cook for about 3 minutes. Add tomatoes and seasoning paste. Continue cooking for an addition 3 to 5 minutes. The goal is to cook the tomatoes down into more of a sauce.
 

Add shrimp and cook until barely cooked through. Stir in coconut milk and simmer. Place lid on pot and continue to simmer for 7 to 10 minutes. Serve over rice.
 

In addition to the rice he also made farofa. Farofa is a toasted mandioca flour most often served with meats and rice and beans. Mandioca is also known as manioc, cassava and yuca. Mandioca is also used to make tapioca – just to throw in some more info for you there.

I had never seen Farofa made from scratch, but it doesn’t look hard. You add a little more palm oil to the pan, a chopped onion and then the mandioca flour and toast it up.
 


We had an awesome tapioca dessert too, but I’m going to save that for another post. Enjoy your Moqueca!

My Agave Research and More Sugar Confusion

January 29, 2009

I’ve been spending part of my week researching sugars and supposedly natural sweeteners. What I have determined is – I have a headache!
I’ve become more interested in sugar lately because 1) We now live in Brazil where the sugarcane industry is huge. 2) I notice a lot of people switching from this sweetener to that one in an effort to be more ______________ .(Fill in the blank with your choice of words: healthy, green, natural, fake food free, etc.)
I use refined white sugar in moderation. Yes, I do know that this is a processed food, has addictive properties, and on, and on. I’ve read it all. I use a lot less of it currently, but still use the traditional recipes that have been in my family since my great grandmother and they call for sugar.
I’ve been questioning agave nectar for a while which lead me to look at other sugars which has led me to the conclusion – raw honey and pure maple syrup probably reign supreme for being the most natural sweeteners. When it comes to all the others, one is just about as bad as the other, for one reason or another.
What started my search: Agave
As most of you probably already know agave comes from the core of the agave plant in Mexico. The short story is the juice is extracted, filtered, heated and hydrolyzed (a chemical process to break bonds) to break down its naturally long fructose chains. So it is basically a processed sweetener and the result is 90% fructose. As most of the information I read states, HFCS gives is about 55% fructose.
Why can fructose be a problem?
As long as you eat fruit you consume fructose. The main reason commercial products containing fructose are a problem is the massive amount (like most things in our society) we are consuming versus the amount we would typically consume from fruit.

One research study I read from Nutrition & Metabolism stated that fruit contributed about 16 – 20 grams per day, while commercial foods are now giving us 85 – 100 grams of fructose a day.
Fructose, unlike other sugars, is absorbed and metabolized directly by the liver. It’s possible this overabundance can lead to problems with insulin sensitivity and obesity. Some evidence of it contributing to a fatty liver has been suggested as well.
So what’s the conclusion?

Heck if I know! Just kidding.

The truth is I’m on a journey just like you – to continue cleaning up my diet and separate myself from this society that seems to be tricking us into believing what is healthy and what is not. My nutrition background helps me to understand how things are processed in our bodies and how things are processed commercially, but that doesn’t mean I have all, or any, answers to the sweetener debate. Well, except for the fact that I’m not in favor of artificial sweeteners at all.

My personal consensus is that I’m not going to switch to something like Agave nectar as my sweetener because I don’t think it is any better than white sugar. I plan to incorporate more raw honey and maple syrup (If I can afford it. U$ 13 for a tiny can at my grocery store in the States.). I’ll continue to use white sugar in some of my baking. At the same time I will be trying to reduce my needs for sweets/sugars all together.
If you’re interested, here is a list of some of my reading along the way. Some of it honest, some of it fact and some of it swayed by industry. I think it is important to check out all sides and decide the best approach for you, keeping common sense in mind.
I also want to mention if you haven’t checked out the blog The Nourished Kitchen and are interested in sweeteners, go there now! She has some great posts on modern and natural sweeteners that I found in my search: Modern Sweeteners: What Are They & What They Do and A Guide to Natural Sugars & How to Use Them

Here are some of my other reads:

Madhava Agave Nectar
The Truth about Agave Syrup from Living and Raw Foods
White sugar vs raw sugar from Green living tips
White Sugar from a processor of Brazilian sugarcane

Photo by Neal McQ, www.freerangestock.com

Lemonade Award

January 28, 2009

I have a feeling lemonade is the last thing on everyone’s mind in the US. I doubt ice, snow and power outages are making you think of summers on the back porch with a tall glass of the good stuff. I hope things are well where you are and you are staying safe and warm.

Daydream with me just a bit that those summer days are just around the corner because I have good news to share. Tangled Noodle honored me with the Lemonade Award! How cute is that?

If you haven’t checked out Tangled Noodle, put it on your list right away. She has a unique perspective on food and life and her posts creatively intertwine her family and ethnic background. You will learn a lot. Her post about The Faces Behind the Food really hit home with me. I love food history and appreciate those who hang on to those cultural traditions.

So now I get to hand out a little sweetness of my own. I’d like to give the award to one of my regular reads Eating Well Anywhere.

This was one of the first food blogs started reading. Laura is full of helpful kitchen tips, answers your most creative food questions and shares wonderful recipes made with fresh ingredients. How about some Chili with Wheat Berries? I bet she has one somewhere for amazing lemonade.

Trying Some New Bars

January 27, 2009

I should probably clarify that I mean the eatin’ kind, not the drinkin’ kind. And this time they were not purchased but made by yours truly.

My husband is training for a marathon type event here in Brazil. The Volta is 100 km race around the island of Florianopolis in Santa Catarina state. It is a relay with 24 stage. Most people participate in teams where each team member runs about 3 legs of the race. Some of it is on the road, some on rough terrain and some on the beach. Needless to say he is running a lot.

He had been asking me if I could make him some kind of bars for part of his breakfast. The bar selection in the supermarket where we live is practically non-existent. You basically have a few choices of breakfast granola bars filled with preservatives.

Now, I’ve tried making my own energy bars before, but I usually end up incorporating so many ingredients that they have way to many calories and fat to be considered nutritional. However, considering how much he is running this isn’t really a problem for him so I gave them another try.

I found this recipe for Chocolate Cinnamon Energy Bars and used part of it as my base and then went on from there. Warning: these have quite a bit of brown sugar. They were almost too sweet with the fruit so next time I’ll be cutting that back. Other than that I thought they turned out pretty good and he likes them too.

However, I’ll be having them in moderation for sure. They fall into more of the meal replacement category than a snack.

Energy Breakfast Bars

2 ½ cups rolled oats
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup whole wheat flour
¼ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
½ cup honey
½ cup vegetable oil (I used soy)
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup prunes, chopped
½ cup soy nuts
1/3 cup unsweetened, flaked coconut

Line a small cookie sheet with foil and grease well. In a bowl combine oats, brown sugar, flour, baking soda and salt. Pour in honey, oil and vanilla; mix well until all dry ingredients are coated. Stir in prunes, nuts and coconut. Press into greased pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Cool and cut into bars.

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