Hot Salad in the City

I’m sitting out on my back deck, my flesh a feast for the mosquitoes, sipping some very drinkable sangria. And it’s 90 degrees. At eleven at night. Portland is in the middle of one of its worst heat waves in memory. Tomorrow we’re expected to tie our all-time high temperature of 107 degrees. All I can say is I am so, so grateful Aaron installed the A/C window unit in our bedroom this afternoon. Oh, yes, it’s true: many Portlanders don’t have A/C. There are even some, like us, who technically do have it, but never actually use it.

Earlier tonight we ate some quickly-thrown-together dish of rice spaghetti (at Iris’ request), garden zucchini fried in oil, leftover grilled chicken chunks and some torn basil. I tossed it all with some salt and pepper and a mayo-curry dressing I whipped up a few weeks ago when we ran out of salad dressing. It was fine, meaning everyone felt fed. But it wasn’t anything to get excited about.

As I was boiling the noodles, just that little bit of burner heat set off the emergency fan on my range (seriously) and the kitchen was almost inhabitable. And since I’ve just returned from BlogHer (more on that later) I hadn’t done any grocery shopping or meal planning and I’m literally just throwing protein together with veggies as quickly as I can.

(Oh, who am I kidding. I never do serious meal planning.)

Photo credit: Francesco Tonelli for The New York Times

I've got a few more quick dishes for hot nights in my repertoire, but not as many as The New York Time's Bitten columnist, Mark Bittman, who has 101 Simple Salads for the Season.

I love the way the recipes are divided. The first group is all vegan ingredients (unless you want to add the bacon Bittman suggests) so I know they're dairy-free, too. Then there are vegetarian salads, then seafood, then meat and then noodles. Most don't require any cooking, and best of all, almost all of the ingredients will be in season in the US at some point before October.

Here are a few standouts I want to try:

16 is really close to one of my favorites (fennel and apple).
28 is a revelation. I never would have thought to put figs and almond butter together.
38 is one of the many recipes with watermelon. I love watermelon in savory dishes.
They call 43 obvious, but I've never eaten raw beets. Have you?
50 may become my new lunch salad. Boiled eggs are a new staple.
78 sounds like something my sausage-loving, Midwestern husband would love and may force me to figure out how to make gluten-free bread.
79 could be a great one for impromptu dinner parties with grown-ups and kids.
I want to eat 81 right now. But the prune plums in my neighbor's tree are about a month out.
And 82 may work with all my arugula that's bolted.
94 Quinoa Tabbouleh!
I think even my quinoa-hating kids may love 99 since it calls for cherries (I'd make it with red quinoa, which is less bitter.)

There's a you can get even more ideas or offer some of your own at the Bitten blog's comments.

Tomorrow night, we may eat well. And not melt.

Linky Love - Local Eating in the News

Psssst! If you look over on the right-hand column of this page and scroll waaaaaay down you'll see the Google supplied news for local food issues. I always find interesting stories from around the world on local eating and food supply issues.

Food is the mega trend of 2007

The U.S. is easing up on its practice of selling surplus commodoties to NGOs at low prices, possibly opening the door for small farmers worldwide to get a more fair price for their crops. From The India Times:

The virtual disappearance of dumping is great news for farmers across the world who can now expect to receive the real price for their crops from the world market. Unfortunately, the downside is that for the world’s 850 million hungry people, often concentrated in countries ravaged by war and famine, the decline in food aid also means plunging further into hopelessness.

Related to this, last August U.S.-based CARE, one of the largest international aid organizations in the world, announced it will turn down 46 million dollars in food subsidies from the U.S. government.

***

Just as I was realizing that there were no presidential candidates that have local food on their radars, I read that it's an actual campaign issue in Ontario, Canada:

All parties polish apple to promote local foods; Ontario farm aid now yields city votes, too

Depending on the day on the NDP campaign bus, Howard Hampton might be munching on a strudel with organic Swiss chard grown near Hamilton or Italian sausage from a King City pig.

It's part of a plan to promote the local food movement, underscored by a radical platform to pass a law, if the NDP were elected, that would require grocery stores to reserve shelf space for Ontario produce.

The four biggest parties have platforms to provide a boost to local farmers and get more of their products into our bellies.

It's a sign that politicians have realized agriculture is also an urban issue. City dwellers are increasingly concerned about where their food comes from, and how it is grown.

***

I may need to go visit Fran Clemetson in Maine. She writes about her book group reading The Omnivore's Dilemma and how it inspired her to plan local meals for her family of six. I need a book group that helps me plan dinner!

Eating Exclusively Local; Well, Almost

We have a rather proactive book group and had been discussing ways to promote the local food economy when some of us decided to create a challenge by eating exclusively locally grown food for at least one meal and reporting back to the group about our experience. We had a good discussion around the challenges of meal planning.

***

And it's that time of year again: Thanksgiving! This is a special food holiday for me because this will be the eleventh anniversary of holding it at my house (except for the one the year I was pregnant with Iris because our kitchen was under construction and I had morning sickness from hell). I love the week-long ritual of planning, shopping and cooking. Oh, and the eating, too.

The 100 Mile Diet people are getting everyone ready for a local Thanksgiving. I encourage anyone who is on the fence about eating locally to try out the 100 Mile Thanksgiving, or, as we do it, eating from your region or state. Given that the traditional Thanksgiving dinner draws from seasonal foods in North America, it's really not that hard. For most people it's pretty easy to find turkey, pumpkin, potatoes and other vegetables from close-by. LocalHarvest is always a great place to start.

***

We just finished the last celebration of Clara's Birthday Week. I'm beat. But we've got an old friend (and her we-haven't-met-yet husband) coming for brunch tomorrow and I've got to get planning. The Tipping Tree eggs hadn't shown up at the co-op as if 6 PM last night (gah!) but I've got tons of apples from Kruger's Farm and the farmers market, plus local sausage, so I'm thinking...I have no idea. I have to get on the recipe sites and figure this out.

I seriously want a book club that will brainstorm meals with me.

She *would* hate potatoes

Last Tuesday night’s frittata was hearty and delicious, though Clara boycotted the potatoes. I believe she does this to spite me. And I don’t care because potatoes are a neutral, like tofu, they’re gluten-free AND they’re easy to find locally year-round so I will continue to cook them. I believe frittata will become a regular in my repertoire and will up our weekly egg intake from three dozen to four. (This is not an exaggeration.) And it’s good for getting rid of vegetables.

(This seems to be a theme with me lately—getting rid of food, rather than cooking with it and enjoying it. But I am enjoying this food. Perhaps I'm just suprised by this fact.)

The prep.

Except for the zucchini, I'm still doing this all by hand. Can't get into the food processor.

The sauté

The food photography session at Blogher was exceptional, though it's only made me see how bad my photos are. I have a great digital SLR, I just haven't read the manual. How lame.

Does it look yummy? It was, depsite the moody photo.

It doesn't help that I have filtered daylight as well as all sorts of halogen light sources in my kitchen.

Again, really bad white balance. But I'd been at this for about an hour and was starved so I just snapped this and was happy that this one was eating, and eating happily. The other one didn't get her picture in this post, just to spite her.

Zucchini Potato Frittata

Serves 2 adults, 1 hungry toddler and a picky 3 year-old. Goes great with a sturdy green salad (think fresh Romaine and beefy tomatoes).

2 tablespoons olive oil
4-5 baby red potatoes, cut into thin slices
1 medium onion, cut into thin slices
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
1.5 cups shredded zucchini
4 large eggs, beaten
7 – 10 fresh basil leaves, chopped
1/2 cup shredded goat mozzarella (or swiss or feta, or skip cheese to make this dairy-free)

1. Heat the oil in a small oven-safe skillet. Add potatoes and onions and sauté until softened, about 8 minutes.
2. Add zucchini, garlic and basil leaves and sauté about 2 minutes, until zucchini is soft.
3. Pour eggs over vegetables and tilt pan to evenly distribute. Add salt and pepper to taste then sprinkle cheese over the top.
4. Cover the pan and set heat to low and cook for 10 minutes. Check it often!
5. When the eggs are set remove the pan from the stove and place the pan in a preheated broiler for about 2 minutes, until the cheese is just golden.
6. Cut frittata into wedges and serve.

adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home

10 Tips for Eating Healthfully on a Budget

Got this from Canadian Living via sk*rt. Original author is Cindy Burke who wrote To Buy or Not to Buy Organic: What You Need to Know to Choose the Healthiest, Safest, Most Earth-Friendly Food.

1. Shop the farmer's markets for food in season. The best prices and the freshest organic produce come from the farmer's market.

2. Buy seasonal produce in large quantities and freeze what you cannot use immediately. You can make shakes and smoothies all winter from a couple of flats of frozen organic strawberries or raspberries. The flavour is better, too!

3. Shop around at different stores to see where the values are found. Plan your shopping trips around your findings.

4. Join a food co-op. Members often receive a discount or monthly coupon for five to 10 per cent discounts.

5. Buy a share in a CSA (community supported agriculture). Shares are typically about $400 (you can pay in installments) for a weekly box of produce during the growing season. The cost typically works out to about $30 or less per week.

6. Use coupons. The best way to obtain coupons for natural or organic foods is to visit the website of the manufacturer, or use an Internet search engine and type in the words "grocery store coupons" and "organic" for printable coupons.

7. Buy from the bulk bins. Organic flour, sugar, cereals, pasta, spices and many snack foods are less expensive (and easier on the environment) if you purchase them from the bulk food section. Some stores even have peanut butter, maple syrup, cooking oil and even cleaning products available in bulk. Bring your reusable bags or containers and reduce your waste at the same time.

8. Grow your own healthy foods.

9. Shop the sales. Buy organic or shade-grown coffee beans on sale and freeze the excess. Organic meats, frozen foods, butter and bread products all freeze well for several months.

10. Practice cooking creatively. When you have leftovers from dinner, try to use them in another meal -- add them to a pasta dish, veggie burrito or omelet, or fold them into a soup or sauce. Don't waste food.

Meal Planning: I may have figured it out

I came home from BlogHer to a fridge full of mishmash and rotting vegetables. And while I was gone my dear friend, Leah, had her second baby boy so I could totally justify getting take-out from Thai Ginger my first night back. An order for the family with the new baby, and an order for my family while we’re at it. Thai is my weakness.

But I'm determined to be more organized in my kitchen. So Monday night I finally sat down to plan meals for the week. I do some form of this occasionally but I’d totally slacked in the last few weeks of constant traveling and work overload.

This time I approached it differently. Instead of wandering through cookbooks randomly, making long ingredient lists, and feeling deflated because I will never have the time to cook something fabulous on a weeknight (I have very aspirational cookbooks), I simply wrote down ingredients that are in season right now and easy to get:

zucchini
yellow squash
lettuce
spinach
kale
chard
green beans
berries
potatoes
corn
broccoli
peppers
celery

And then I pulled out my beloved Moosewood Cooks at Home cookbook and just looked up dishes by ingredient. I knew this book, which is simple vegetarian recipes, would have recipes I could handle under duress. Here’s what I came up with:

Monday: Thai take-out, remember?

Tuesday: Frittata. Use some zucchini and potatoes that have been lingering. Serve dilled beans.

Wednesday: Cheese quesadillas with shredded zucchini. Use up the rest of the zuc from Tuesday. This is the perfect dinner for our picnic in the park at the free summer concert series. Serve with wine (just the grownups, of course).

Thursday: Chicken salad. Apples, celery, feta and greens. (I added the chicken to the salad.)

Friday: Fish in a packet. Dover sole, zucchini, mushrooms and Walla Walla onions from my dwindling stash. Serve with carrot and parsley salad.

I made my list and headed for New Season. Stay tuned. I may have just solved all of my dinner making dilemmas.