Feta Tzatziki

A friend and I went to lunch at the bistro at Merridale Ciderworks the other day.  We saw feta tzatziki on the menu.  It sounded wonderful and, since neither of us wanted a big meal, that’s what we ordered.  Sadly, the actual dish was disappointing.  The tzatziki was runny and the feta—instead of being incorporated with the yogurt—floated in chunks in the watery dip. 

I usually enjoy the food at Merridale so I was surprised by the runny tzatziki.  It had all the right ingredients but they just weren’t put together in the right way.  I took the idea home with me and tinkered until I came up with something I liked better.  Here’s how I made it:

I peeled two cucumbers and seeded them.  I don’t care for long shreds of cucumber in my tzatziki so, instead of grating them, I cut the cucumbers into a very fine dice.  I put the finely diced cucumber in a sieve, salted it generously, and then tossed the cucumber with my fingers in order to distribute the salt throughout.  I set the sieve over a bowl and left the cucumber to drain for a couple of hours.

When the cucumber had drained, I got out my blender.  I put a cup of Greek yogurt in it together with a cup of crumbled feta cheese.  (I crumbled it myself from feta in brine.  Don’t buy the already crumbled pieces in a bag.  They’re too dry.)  The ingredients were too thick to puree readily so I added a couple of tablespoons of buttermilk and blended them smooth.  

I crumbled another cup of feta onto a dinner plate and added a teaspoon of lemon juice and a tablespoon of olive oil.  I mashed this mixture with a fork until the feta was broken up into small crumbs. 

Next, I transferred the blended mixture and the mashed feta to a large bowl and added another cup of Greek yogurt.  I mixed these ingredients until they were well combined. I squeezed the cucumber with my hands to remove as much moisture as possible and stirred it in too.  I added a couple of teaspoons of finely chopped fresh dill and half a teaspoon of dried oregano.  I tasted the mixture and added a bit of salt. (Not much. Feta is quite salty on its own.)

I covered the bowl and put my tzatziki in the fridge for a couple of hours so the flavours could meld. 

The flatbreads and pitas in the grocery store didn’t look appetizing to me so I made some thin rounds of plain foccaccia bread myself.  Just before I served the tzatziki, I brushed my foccaccia rounds with olive oil and heated them on the grill.  They made a perfect accompaniment to the dip.

I’m pleased with the way this recipe turned out.  It’s slow to make but you’re not standing over it every minute, and the end result is worth the time invested.  I hope you enjoy it too.

Charity

I have a friend who, as a result of an incurable illness, is on a social assistance disability allowance.  She gets about $625/month from the government and from this she pays $535 for rent on her tiny apartment, about $35 for electricity and another $30 for phone.  Not much left for food there.

My friend is allowed to earn up to $500 to supplement her income; more than that and she is disqualified from receiving her allowance.  When she is well enough to do so, she supplements her allowance through work but, even in months when she is well enough to earn the full amount, making ends meet is a struggle.  She walks everywhere because a bus pass is a luxury she can rarely afford.  Aside from underwear, she has not bought new clothing in years.   Her wardrobe comes from local thrift stores as do her dishes, linens, and furniture.

Despite that fact that her embattled immune system needs the nutrition, fresh vegetables are often out of reach for my friend, especially in the winter months.  Many is the month when need forces her to choose between subsisting on rice and oatmeal or visiting the food bank to ask for assistance.  Even so, when she does have enough to get by, she can be found sharing what she has with various homeless people in town–people she considers less fortunate than herself.  Her positive attitude and generous spirit are an inspiration to me.  At the same time, it angers me that such a good person has to struggle so, just to get by.

When I purchased our CSA share this year, with catering in mind, I bought the largest one available.  It was my intention to serve this beautiful, organic, locally grown produce to my customers.  Fate, in the form of illness, intervened and I have not been working at all so I find myself with a surplus of vegetables every week.  I’m grateful to have them and to be able to share them with my friend.  I phone her after I’ve picked up my basket each week, tell her what I have, and ask her what she can use.  Sometimes she takes a fair bit and sometimes, when she has money enough to buy her own fruit and vegetables, she takes none at all.  I then set aside what we can use, and the remainder goes to the food bank.

Many people who use the food bank are in circumstances similar to my friend’s.  Others are elderly or have children to feed.  For most of them, including enough fresh fruits and vegetables in their diet is an illusive goal.  Food banks do what they can through programs like BC Sharing (a cash donation program that allows them to purchase produce at wholesale prices) but, for the most needy among us, there is nearly always a nutritional deficit.

Because I wish to help address the nutritional challenges faced by many food bank clients, I purchase BC Sharing coupons regularly at the grocery store.  If I’m at a store that doesn’t participate in the program, I make a point of speaking with the manager and requesting that they do so.  I also shop with donations in mind.  I pick up fruit and vegetables that will keep relatively well—root vegetables, cabbage, citrus fruit and apples—and I try to deliver them to the food bank on the afternoon before they open their doors to clients.

Like all good ideas and many good intentions, this one comes with a caveat:  Refrigerated storage is limited or non-existent at many food banks.  Before purchasing or harvesting fruit and vegetables for donation, call the food bank in your area to ensure that they have the means to accept and distribute them.  If they don’t, look for other ways to get fresh food to those in need.  Community kitchens, seniors’ drop-ins, day cares for children from low income families are but a few options.  If you contact your MLA’s office and explain your intentions, they’ll be happy to connect you with organizations who can put your donation to good use. 

So…If you’re gardening, plant an extra row.  If you’re shopping, buy some extra fresh fruits and vegetables.  Make sure your donation reaches people in need.  It’s like tossing a pebble into a pond:  The effects of your kindness will ripple outward, touching your entire community.

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 Photo:  biteofthebest.com

Hope

I’ve cooked with all of the kids in my life.  Kitchen time is time to learn about each other, to develop important skills—counting, measuring, patience—and to enjoy a sense of adventure.  Curiosity is a strong component of childhood learning, as is pride in work well done.  Children will try almost any food that they’ve helped to prepare, even when it includes ingredients with which they are not familiar.

This same principle applies to gardening.  Children who help to plant and tend a garden are more likely to eat the produce that comes out of it.

There’s a children’s song by Tom Chapin called The Ultimate Lunchroom.  In the lunchroom, the school lunches are nutritious and given to all students for free.  The students grow the food themselves in a garden and compost their leftovers to help feed the garden again.  The process is so cool that they also do it at home.  A dream?  Perhaps, but the community garden at Alexander Elementary School is helping to bring that dream a step closer to reality.

The Alexander Community Garden was designed through a process of consultation with the school and the community, and through discussions at Cowichan Green Community events.  Once decided upon, the design was given form by volunteers from Cowichan Green Community, Ceres Edible Landscaping, and the Rotary club.

Work began on the garden in March, 2011.  It was built on gravel fill so the first step to building the garden was building the soil itself.  The gardens were sheet mulched using cardboard, newspaper, compost, and alfalfa and then inoculated with effective microorganisms.   This effective permaculture technique yielded the live soil necessary to sustain the herbs, fruit trees and shrubs that were subsequently planted.  Rotary club volunteers built some raised vegetable gardens and a pergola, and Warm Land Waterworks directed the installation of an elaborate micro-drip irrigation system.[1]

Right now the Alexander Community Garden doesn’t look like much:  It’s a collection of small plants on a plot surrounded by piles of gravel and bark mulch, but gardeners plan for the long haul.  The hard work done by volunteers this year has laid the foundation for what will grow in the garden in the years to come.  In a few short years, this unprepossessing space will be a little Eden, bearing cherries, apples, gooseberries, loquats, strawberries, blueberries, sunchokes, blackberries, raspberries, mulberries, grapes, Saskatoon berries and a wide variety of herbs.[2] 

Students will plant annual crops in the raised beds in the community garden, they’ll help to care for the permanent plantings, and—in the process of getting their hands dirty and learning about the cycle of planting, growing, and giving back to the soil—they’ll gain an understanding of and enthusiasm for eating the produce that they grow.  That’s the way to build healthy habits.  That’s the way to build hope for the future.

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[1] Jason Greenwood for Cowichan Valley Voice, issue 33, August 2011

[2] Jason Greenwood for Cowichan Valley Voice, issue 33, August 2011

Faith

Just a short walk from my house, in Kinsmen Park on Alderlea Street, are the Cowichan Green Community gardens.  They are allotment gardens, intended to provide those who live without access to garden space a place to grow vegetables and flowers. 

At the very back corner of the community gardens is a circular plot.  At first glance it appears to have been left to go wild, and to have become choked with weeds.  A closer look tells a different tale.  The garden contains ancient foods, indigenous wild plants that fed hunter gatherers for thousands of years.    

The garden is designed to illustrate the Ayruvedic belief that foods have six distinct tastes—bitter, pungent, astringent, salty, sour, and sweet—and that each of these foods has a purpose in maintaining good health.  The plants within each section of the garden are individually labeled with their names and a more specific description of their attributes

Ayurveda is the traditional medicine of India.  Its principles are based upon the concept of tridosha, or the system of three doshas.  The doshas--Vatta, Pitta , and Kapha—are dynamic forces with distinct characteristics that shape all things in the universe.

In humans, the doshas control all mental, emotional, and physical functions and responses, and also determine the state of the soul. Each person is born with a unique harmony or balance between the doshas that is necessary for that person to experience perfect health.

In the Ayurvedic view, an imbalance between the doshas produces a condition called vikriti, a Sanskrit word that means "deviated from nature." Such an imbalance will eventually lead to the development of disease, obesity and/or mental disorders. As a result, to prevent disease, each individual must maintain the doshas in, or restore them to, their proper balance.[1]  Diet is an important tool in this process and foods are chosen with this purpose in mind.

I'm not a practitioner of Ayurveda but the lessons taught by this garden are worth learning.  It’s a sensory tool, teaching the viewer to recognize and identify edible wild plants by sight.  It provides not only written information about each plant’s flavour, but also the opportunity to taste the plant itself, thus promoting an understanding about how these plants can be reintroduced into our diet.

I’m touched by the enthusiasm and care that went into building the wild foods garden and by the gardener’s faith in our ability to understand and share the joy of nature’s bounty.

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[1] http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=diet&dbid=12

Carrot Zucchini Muffins

I enjoy a muffin for breakfast, particularly if it is home baked and still warm from the oven.  I've found that when I have house guests they enjoy them too, so over the years I've tucked away quite a few recipes.  They're all hand written, on various scraps of paper, and tucked higgledy-piggledy into a dog-eared cardboard folder.  You can tell which are my favourites--the ones I revisit again and again--because they're covered with scribbled notes and spattered with batter.

I had reason to add  yet another scribbled note to my zucchini muffin recipe today.  When I went to bake  them this morning, I noticed that I had quite a number of carrots.  Since I knew the carrots would add both flavour and colour to my muffins, I adapted my recipe to include them.

Here's how I made them:

I started by covering a cup of golden raisins with boiling water.  I let them sit until the raisins had plumped and softened, and the water had cooled to room temperature.  The raisins absorbed enough water to increase in volume by half.  I drained them and left them sitting in the sieve, over a bowl, to be sure that all of the excess water was gone.

I grated a cup each of carrot and zucchini on the coarse side of my box grater.  I've noticed that my food processor shreds things more coarsely than a box grater might.  If I were to use a food processor to prepare the vegetables for this recipe, I would use the fine shredding blade.  I pack the grated vegetables firmly into a dry measure when portioning them.

I added

• 4 beaten eggs
• 2/3 c. canola oil*
• 1-1/2 cups of lightly packed brown sugar
• 1/2 c. buttermilk
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

to the carrot and zucchini and stirred until they were well combined.

In another bowl, I whisked together

• 2-1/2 c. all purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg

I added the drained raisins and--using my hands--tossed them gently until each raisin was coated with the dry mixture.  (This helps to keep them suspended in the batter, preventing them from sinking to the bottom of the pan.)

I added the wet mixture to the dry ingredients and stirred, just until they were combined.  Muffin batter should be lumpy and may have bits of unincorporated flour in it.  Over-mixing the batter yields a tough muffin.

I spooned the batter into buttered muffin pans, filling each cup completely, to make 18 muffins.  I baked them at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

These muffins are best served warm.  If you're not serving them as soon as they're baked, reheat them in the oven, not the microwave. 

If you're not concerned about the extra fat and calories you can also heat and serve these muffins diner style:  Cut the muffins in half vertically, butter the cut sides, and place the muffins buttered side down on a griddle over medium high heat.  Serve them when the buttered side has toasted.  You'll be a breakfast-time hero.
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*If you wish to reduce the amount of fat in these muffins, you can substitute unsweetened applesauce for some, or all, of the oil.  It does change the texture though:  A muffin made with applesauce instead of fat will be moist, but less tender.)

Giant Zucchini

I have, sitting on my counter right now, a zucchini that is the same approximate size and shape as the Graff Zeppelin.  I got it yesterday, at Alderlea Farm, when I went to pick up my CSA box.  There was a bin of them there, with a sign saying “Help Yourself.”  I did.

As I was carrying my vegetables to the car, a woman about my age caught sight of the giant zucchini and asked “What on earth would you DO with one of those?!”  I was surprised. I can’t imagine not knowing how to cook large zucchini. 

Surely everyone who has ever had a home vegetable garden, or known someone who has a home vegetable garden has, cooked a large zucchini at one time or another.  In the cool, grey days of spring, when we want to see something—anything—growing in our gardens, many of us plant far more zucchini than we will ever need.  The resulting bounty spurs us to ever greater heights of kitchen creativity.  Everyone I know has at least one signature zucchini recipe, and most home cooks are happy to share them.

Our annual bounty of zucchini brings with it some health benefits.  As an excellent source of manganese and vitamin C, a very good source of beta-carotene, and a good source of zinc, zucchini provides us with a great combination of conventional antioxidant nutrients. It also contains an unusual amount of lutein and zeaxanthin. These antioxidants are especially helpful in antioxidant protection of the eye, including protection against age-related macular degeneration and cataracts.[1]

Zucchini not only provides a very good amount of dietary fiber (a mainstay of dietary protection from Type 2 Diabetes) at 2.5 grams per cup, but it also provides polysaccharide fibers like pectin that have special benefits for blood sugar regulation.[2]

Because I like its taste of zucchini and enjoy its health benefits, I buy it year round but summer zucchini—fresh from the garden or from a local farm—is zucchini at its best.  It has a fresher flavour and is richer in nutrients than zucchini that has been transported for days and then kept in cold storage. 

I always serve zucchini with the skin on.  Many of the nutrients in a summer squash are in the skin itself.

 In the hope and belief that there are more giant zucchini in my future this summer, I’ve decided not to make pickles or relish from the one I have now.  I’m going to slice a couple of rounds off of it, scoop out the seeds, and stuff them like I would do bell peppers.  They’ll be our supper tonight.  The rest of the zucchini will get seeded, grated and bagged in one cup portions.  I’ll set some aside for tomorrow’s breakfast muffins and then freeze the rest.  Shredded zucchini is the home baker’s secret to moist baked goods.  I’ll be glad to have it come winter.

I’ll be sharing my zucchini muffin recipe in tomorrow’s blog.  Do you have a favourite zucchini recipe?  A funny zucchini story?  I’d love to hear them.

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[1] http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=62#healthbenefits

[2] http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=62#healthbenefits

Illustration:  stephiemccarthy.com

 

Soylent Green Jello

A couple of weeks ago, I read an article about scientists in China making human gelatin.  My first reaction was “EEEWWW!”   My second was “WHY?!”

Apparently this human gelatin is not quite Soylent Green, nor is it in fact called “human gelatin.”   Recombinant gelatin is the correct term.  To make it, human gelatin genes are injected into a variety of yeast.  The yeast then produces recombinant gelatin with controllable features.[1]

One argument for using this recombinant gelatin process is that the animal gelatins we currently use can carry infectious diseases, such as BSE (Mad Cow Disease).  Animal gelatins also vary in consistency from batch to batch, posing challenges for manufacturers.[2]

If you are interested finding out more about the arguments in favour of using recombinant gelatin, some are presented at http://www.fibrogen.com/recombinantgelatin.

Even having read the arguments in favour of making and using recombinant gelatin, I find myself conjuring nightmare images from old science fiction movies.  You know: frightening tales like “Species” about the perils of crossing humankind with other species, even on a single cell level. 

My admittedly emotional response to this subject is not eased by my disquiet at the location of the research.  It’s being done in China; home of massive industrial pollution, and a conscience-free user of agricultural chemicals.  Many foods produced and packaged in China have been found to contain carcinogens and chemicals banned for use here in North America. I mean—really—we’re talking about a place were melons explode in the field due to excessive application of growth hormone![3]

If there are concerns about carrying infectious diseases in animal gelatin, why not look for a substitute in the plant world?  There are any number of them out there: pectin, agar-agar, and carrageenan to name but three.

Manufacturers of animal gelatin have been producing a consistent product by means of batch testing for decades now.  This process of testing and adjustment has been sufficient to yield gelatin of consistent enough quality for widespread use throughout the food and pharmaceutical industries.  When scientists say that they are striving to improve consistency through controllable gelatin, I take that to mean that they are striving to reduce costs to the manufacturer, not to improve the quality of gelatin itself.

We don’t have to worry about recombinant gelatin showing up in products on our grocery shelves in the immediate future:  There is still research to be done and it will take some time to scale up for commercial production.  If you, like me, have concerns about consuming it in the future, start writing letters now to ensure that product labeling will list it specifically, as different from animal gelatin.

I think I’m going to dig out my Victorian cookbooks to see what I can find out about making gelled desserts from pectin.

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[1] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110713101952.htm

[2] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110713101952.htm

[3] http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/2011/05/17/china-watermelons-chemicals.html

photo: factoidz.com