Roasted and Toasted

I was strolling through the produce section and spied big, gorgeous heads of cauliflower.  According to the World’s Healthiest Food website, cauliflower and the other veggies in the Brassica family (cabbage, broccoli, collards, kale, rutabagas, turnips, arugula, radishes, and more) should be eaten 4-5 times a week due to their fabulous cancer fighting, anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, cardiac health, and detox abilities (not to mention that one cup of cauliflower also has almost a day’s worth of Vitamin C).

Yes, roasted cauliflower soup would be perfect for dinner as a side for my delicious cheese bread.  (I know the bread is supposed to be the side, but my family is so enamored with this new style of bread I’ve been making, they more often than not put it in the center of the table and the main course over at the edge).

Below is a recipe for the rich and thick, nutritious and delicious soup I made…and a few pictures! (I’ve been hearing my blog needs more pictures…so here they are.  While you are cooking, please excuse me while I go clean the flour off my camera…)

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

Roast Cauliflower Ingredients:

1 head cauliflower, cut into small florets

2T extra virgin olive oil

6 whole cloves garlic

1t salt

1t fresh ground black pepper

1/4t fresh grated nutmeg (love my Microplane grater!) 

Instructions:

-Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and toss to coat cauliflower.

 

-Roast in single layer on parchment-lined cookie sheet in 450 degree oven for 20-25 minutes until cauliflower is soft and browned.

Soup Ingredients:

1 medium onion, finely diced

1T olive oil

1T butter

3T flour

2c chicken stock (homemade!)

1c milk (or half-n-half for a richer soup - I used milk)

3T sherry

Instructions:

-Add olive oil and butter to large sauce pan over med heat until bubbly.
-Reduce heat to med-low and saute onion until soft and golden (about 10 minutes). 

-Sprinkle flour over onions and stir for 1-2 minutes until completely combined and bubbly. 

-Add stock and milk all at once and whisk constantly over medium heat just until thickened. 

-Remove from heat. 

-Add cauliflower and puree with hand mixer until smooth (taking care not to splash hot soup on your neck like I did last night).

-Adjust salt and pepper as necessary.

-Stir in sherry (more or less to taste).

-Eat and enjoy! (Makes four servings)

 

I served our soup with homemade Artisan Bread in Five Minutes cheese bread (made with Tillamook cheddar) topped with grated Tillamook Garlic White Cheddar and toasted under the broiler until bubbly and golden!

Change of heart

Oatmeal, goatmeal, double-boatmeal.  I hate OATMEAL!  I grew up eating pasty, plain glops of oatmeal. every. single. morning.  Yuck.

I buy it in bulk now because my children love it, my husband loves it, and even the dogs love it (sometimes I let them “prewash” the pans before loading them in the dishwasher).  So, why couldn’t I learn to love it too?

 

Oats are nutritious (check out what the World's Healthiest Food page has to say about them).  The bran (the outer casing that protects the germ – the part that grows) is high in fiber and including oats in ones diet is thought to prevent heart disease and lower cholesterol, so this reformed breakfast skipper vowed to try.  But, first I had to do some research.

 

The oats used in oatmeal are Avena sativa – a member of the grass family grown for its nourishing seed.  Oats are sold for human consumption in several forms:

-Groats are hulled and cleaned whole grains.  In this case, oats.  They may be eaten as such but are more commonly found in their cut or rolled forms (oatmeal) or ground into oat flour (another story for another time). 

-Steel cut oats are whole grains cut into a few pieces that produce a hearty, chewy cereal but take the longest to prepare (upwards of 30 minutes).  

-Rolled oats (aka old-fashioned or regular) are the most common form used as breakfast cereal (five minute cooking time) as well as in baking (like my beloved oatmeal scotchie cookies!) 

-Quick oats are rolled extra thin to reduce cooking time to one minute and are best used to make pasty globs of mush (ok, ok, sometimes I use them in meatloaf, smeatloaf, double-beatloaf.)

-Instant oats are akin to parboiled rice (and are just about as flavorful, or un-flavorful, I should say).  They are rolled thin and precooked and often found individually prepackaged and loaded with sugar.  I guess that’s better than nothing, but I still won’t eat them…or the aforementioned quick oats.

While I will choke down rolled oats on occasion, I've found steel cut oats to be delicious.  A popular (but expensive) brand is McCann's Steel Cut Irish Oatmeal.  I’ve tried them and I know people who swear by them, but I find the ones in the bulk section of the grocery store to be just as good (and usually less than $1 a pound).  I will say the McCann’s webpage is packed full of great information including this cool graphic  showing how steel-cut oats are produced and seven, yes seven, different cooking methods as seen here (who knew I could use my rice cooker?  I might have to try that sometime).  

Although I’ve prepared my steel-cut oats several ways (toasted in a bit of butter and cooked on the stove top is pretty good), I'll stick with my favorite method.  It seems to be the easiest and produces the best final texture.  And, I can start it before I go to bed at night and have breakfast ready when I wake!  

Overnight Oatmeal   

Ingredients:

-1 cup steel-cut oats

-3 cups water

-1 cup milk

-4T unsalted butter

-Optional – I let people dress up their own oatmeal after it’s cooked but any of these may be added prior to cooking: raisins, dried cranberries, figs, dried fruit, nuts, cinnamon, brown sugar, maple syrup.

Instructions:

Put all ingredients in a crockpot, stir to combine, set on low, and cook for 9 hours.  Easy-peasy!

(Makes 4-5 servings)

I've changed my mind about oatmeal and have included it in my breakfast repertoire. As a matter of fact, this morning I had a bowl topped with homemade granola - another totally acceptable rolled oat preparation - which I'll talk about later in the week.  (Stay tuned!)

Favorite Food Website

I want to introduce you to one of my Favorite Food Websites.  I diligently listed it on my Pinterest page even though I really haven’t been back there since I put it all together.  (But, that’s beside the point)

I found this page by accident - or not – maybe while researching one of the many food items I’ve featured throughout the blog – however, unlike my Pinterest page, I return to it faithfully when I need a dinner idea or am in search of a tidbit of trivia.

 

The World’s Healthiest Food page lists 129 of what they consider to be the best of the best.  The foods were picked based on the following six points: nutrient density, largely unprocessed and void of unnatural ingredients (Where’s the Spam? Oh…), familiar to the general populace (no chayote squash or ginkgo nuts on this list), readily available country-wide, affordable, and – of course – tasty.

The WHF list is packed with common sense items - the same foods seen on many similar ingredient inventories - colorful fruits and veggies, nuts and grains, lean meats, sustainable seafood choices, and low-fat dairy items.  But, what makes WHF stand apart from the others is how they present the information.  Each of the 129 flavorful fodders has a dedicated page containing nutrition information (calories, vitamins, fiber, fats, etc.), specific health benefits, physical description of variations, tips on how to select the best items, recipes for each and even history facts (Did you know, even though some parts of the world have been enjoying bananas for some 4,000 years, they were not available in the United States until the end of the 19^th century?).

 

The Food of the Week (there’s a new one every…well…week) is Garlic.  I learned eating it might help with iron metabolism, it contains vitamin C (who knew one ounce has 14.7% of your RDA), and was considered sacred by the Egyptians and placed in the tombs of Pharaohs.

 

The oodles of recipes containes on WHF are listed on one page and are all simple, quick (they boast each takes less than 30 minutes) and delicious and include ideas for meatless and meaty main meal options as well as side dishes, desserts, soups and salads.  I especially love that I can sort them by ingredients to use (I picked salmon, as I have a freezer full) or omit (say…onions) as well as nutrients required (I selected omega-3 fatty acids).  I clicked my choices, hit "submit," and was immediately presented with two salad recipes and seven fish main dishes.

 

Mmmmm…the Salmon, Cucumber, Dill salad recipe sounds divine…and I have a glut of fresh dill growing, so I might actually have to check it out! 

While I’m at it, why don’t you check out the website:  http://www.whfoods.com/  I’m sure you’ll find it worth adding to your Favorite Food Websites too! 

All About Avocados

About a week ago, I decided to dig in to MIT’s free, online Kitchen Chemistry class. The first lesson involves preparing salsa and guacamole – two tasty and nutritious treats I love to make. I, however, decided to focus on the guacamole portion of the lesson right now because I rarely make salsa when tomatoes are not in season – I’ll save that one for the summer. (Call me a tomato snob, but I don’t like them if they are not locally grown and vine-ripened. They just don’t have that deep, rich tomato taste to me.)  Without any further ado, here is what I learned about avocados:

Avocados (Persea americana) - sometimes called alligator pears (so says my research, quite exotic sounding, huh?) – are fruits and, oddly enough, are in the same family as cinnamon. More specifically, they are drupes (new term for me) which are fruits that have pits or stones (meaning the seed is protected by a hard outer shell – think peach, plum, cherry).

Avocados are full of folate (good for heart health), vitamin K, dietary fiber, vitamin B6, vitamin C, and copper and have more potassium than a medium banana.  They also contain nutritious monounsaturated fat (oleic acid) which is thought to increase good cholesterol (HDL) and decrease the bad (LDL).   

Ripe avocados are firm with a little give but not squishy and have darkened, unblemished skin.  Notably, avocados do not ripen on the tree - it is not until after they are picked that they begin the ripening process.  This makes them very shippable and durable but a pain to get just right.  Everyone who has cooked with avocados knows they are usually rock hard when found in the store and using avocados in a recipe takes some pre-planning.  Everyone also probably knows that stashing them in a brown bag at room temperature will ripen them...but why?  Gas is the answer - ethylene gas to be more specific.  Fruits and other parts of plants naturally produce this during key stages of growth.  Some fruits, such as bananas, produce copious amounts of ethylene.  In fact, placing an overripe banana in the brown bag with an unripe avocado will supercharge the process.  (This works to ripen tomatoes too.)  To cease, or at least slow, ripening, place the avocados in the fridge.  The coolness will put them in a sort of suspended animation - for a few days. 

Once the avocado is cut open, it will begin to rapidly brown.  Some fruits turn brown when exposed to the air due to a process called oxidation which is, in essence, a reaction by fruit enzymes (found in bananas, apples, potatoes, avocados and more) to the oxygen molecules in the air. This chemical reaction (akin to rust in metal) can be slowed or stopped by destroying the enzyme (through cooking), lowering the pH of the fruit (with ascorbic acid like orange juice or lemon juice) or physically blocking oxygen exposure (covering with water or plastic wrap). In guacamole, the addition of lemon or lime juice to the recipe accomplishes this as does pressing plastic wrap against the surface of the final product. I also found some recipes that suggest adding mayonnaise to the guacamole - which makes sense - as mayo is a stable emulsion of oil, egg yolk and either vinegar with a pH of 2.4 or lemon juice with a pH of 2.2. (<7 is acidic, >7 is base, 7 is neutral) (I’ve heard mashing the interior of the pit and adding it to the dip will do the same, but I’ve never tried it.)

Well, all this fancy science talk has made me hungry.  I think I'll go mash some avocados!  Here is my favorite Cook's Illustrated Chunky Guacamole recipe:

3 medium avocados, ripe (preferably Hass - the kind most commonly seen in the store)
2 tablespoons minced onion
1 medium clove garlic, minced
1 small jalapeño chile, minced (1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons)
1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro leaves
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin (optional)
2 tablespoons lime juice

1. Halve one avocado, remove pit, and scoop flesh into medium bowl. Mash flesh lightly with onion, garlic, jalapeño, cilantro, salt, and cumin (if using) with tines of a fork until just combined.
2. Halve and pit remaining two avocados, and prepare. Gently scoop out avocado into bowl with mashed avocado mixture.
3. Sprinkle lime juice over diced avocado and mix entire contents of bowl lightly with fork until combined but still chunky. Adjust seasoning with salt, if necessary, and serve.