Frito Casserole

I've always felt that most of the Frito casserole recipes lacked something. Not enough seasonings or ingredients or just too much pre-processed off the counter stuff. Yeah, I know the main ingredient is Fritos, but still, you could cook your own beans, make your own salsa, season your own ground beef taco filling. You get my drift. 

Here's a rough outline to modify as you like.

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef

1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped

1 1/2 tsp minced garlic

1 envelope of taco seasoning 

1 small can Ortega green chilis 

1 small can sliced black olives

1 small can Green Giant MexiCorn, drained

1 can of beans drained -pinto, kidney or whatever you like, you can mix them

1 cup from jar of mild salsa

1 bag of shredded Mexican blend cheese

1 bag of regular Fritos

Shredded lettuce (optional) 

1 cup sour cream (optional)

Brown beef in skillet, drain if necessary, add taco seasoning and follow directions on package. If you don't have taco seasoning, you can add oregano, cumin and chili powder to taste.

Add a little olive oil to a skillet, brown onions and add garlic, then add ground beef and stir to mix, then green chilis and olives and stir to mix.

Combine drained corn, drained beans and salsa

Layer fritos, meat mixture, bean/corn mixture, cheese and continue layering topping with fritos and cheese.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake uncovered for 35-45 minutes or until hot and bubbling and top layer of cheese is melted.

Serve on a bed of shredded lettuce and top with sour cream if desired. Sides can include refried beans and rice and a green salad or you can just eat the casserole.

New pesto recipe and what you can do with it.

1/2 cup of the best quality mild extra virgin olive oil you can afford.

1 TBSP freshly squeezed lemon juice

2-3 garlic gloves, minced

4 cups light packed fresh basil torn by hand. (Don't use a chopper or knife, tear it yourself.)

1/4 cup chopped toasted piñon nuts. You can toast your own or buy them. I bought a bag at Trader Joes and had plenty.

1/2 - 1 cup best quality grated parmesan cheese you can afford. To taste. I use 3/4 of a cup.

Put olive oil, lemon juice and minced garlic in a blender. Then add the basil and give it short bursts of pulse on a higher setting. You want short bursts as you don't want to heat up the oil or emulsify it. As you pulse, you'll notice the column of basil start to shrink down as it is pulled into the blades. After all of the basil is processed, add the pine nuts and pulse again. Then add the cheese a quarter of a cup at a time to taste. Anything from a half cup to a full cup. I used three quarters and it was plenty cheesy.

Once you are done transfer it into small containers. Ziploc small ones are good. Fill them maybe half full, then using the back of a spoon gently tap down and smooth out the top. Then poor a very thin layer of your best olive oil on top to seal the top. This will prevent the basil from being exposed to air and discoloring.

You can keep it in the refrigerator up to two to three weeks but it freezes beautifully. I put it in small containers and then freeze it so I don't have to worry about it going bad before the three weeks are up. When I need some, I just get a container out and let it thaw in the refrigerator for a bit, then I'm good for a few weeks.

Don't know what to do with pesto? How about deviled eggs?

Hardboil some eggs, cut them in half pole to pole, remove the yolks and mash the yolks. Then add some pesto to taste and stir. A little to a lot, depending on how much you like pesto. Then add some mayonaisse until it is the right consistency. Refill the eggs and you are good to go. This is one of my go to pot luck dishes. People are a bit put off by the green color but once they taste them, they go real fast.

You can also mix pesto with some more olive oil or the water you boiled the pasta in to make it runnier, then mix it with pasta instead of using tomato sauce. A nice change from pasta a olio or using red sauce. I also have used it for lasagne instead of tomato sauce. I've made spinach and ricotta pinwheels with the lasagne noodles. Then mixed pesto with cream and poured it over, then top with shredded mozzarella and bake. Nice. 

My Baked Beans

I've been meaning to make some baked beans as I'm now no longer buying canned foods, no matter what the FDA says about BPA. So this recipe is down to only using canned tomato paste. Eventually I'll make my own paste too, but one thing at a time. This uses dried beans, not canned.

I was never a big fan of salted pork or big chunks of pork in baked beans so if you are,  you can either stop reading now or just add your own.

I am also not a vegetarian (despite my aversion to big chunks of pork) so this can be modified to be vegetarian by using vegetable broth and eliminating the liquid smoke if you are really a stickler. Use brown sugar or maple syrup instead of honey if you won't even eat animal byproducts.

My baked beans

1.5 cups of beans (pink or white) - soak overnight or boil for an hour. 

2 cups beef or chicken broth (I used Beef Better than Bouillon)

1 TBSP olive oil

1/2 onion, chopped

heaping teaspoon chopped garlic

1/2 can tomato paste

2 tsp dry mustard

2 TBSP molasses

2TBSP honey

1 TBSP vinegar (I use apple cider but wine would also work)

Sea Salt to taste

pepper to taste

a few drops of liquid smoke (I use Mesquite)

In a large pot, pour olive oil and sauté onion and garlic until transparent. Add everything else and simmer for several hours until beans are tender and sauce has reduced and thickened, 4-8 hours. Can also be done in a crock pot on low overnight or on high for 6-10 hours. 

There's a little Top Chef in all of us.

Nighttime food TV is mostly a spectator sport. You watch the experts do their thing and drool.

Tonight I'm watching Top Chef. The challenge is to disguise a dish for a lunch at the CIA.

I am not a French Onion Soup person. I don't eat it. I don't make it.

However I think I would have done a better job than the chef who drew the French Onion Soup knife.

What would *I* have done?

Slice of toasted whole grain bread topped with Welsh Rarebit made with swiss cheese, topped with carmelized onions, drizzled with beef stock, then topped with shredded swiss cheese toasted under a broiler. A French Onion Rarebit open faced sandwich.

I would have won.

How serious are you?

How serious are you about changing your eating pattern?

Growing your own food?

Eating better? Eating more humane?

Shrinking your carbon footprint by going local?

Then it's time to subscribe to one of the best magazines out there. Your local Edible.

Check out Edible communities to see if there is a local magazine for your city. You'll find everything from farmer's markets to recipes. If you like it, tell your friends. Give gift subscriptions.

Your city isn't listed? Well, maybe you'd like to start an Edible magazine for your community. The information is all there.

What are you?

You are what you eat.

It's like sex. You've had sex with every person who has had sex with your partner.

Well, you've eaten whatever what you eat has eaten.

Do you really want to live on a diet of corn, soy, garbage and antibiotics?

Well, a lot of what you've eaten has. If you're buying cheap beef, pork, chicken and milk at your local large chain grocery store, that's what you're eating. Dairy too. You want grass fed pastured dairy, not factory farmed. Find a local dairy if you can. And beware the produce. You don't know what polluted water it's drinking or pesticides and chemicals they're bathing in.

"...cattle, pigs and poultry raised on their natural pasture and grass-based diets yield meat that is lower in total fat and calories, and food that is higher in good fats like Omega 3's, more concentrated with antioxidants such as vitamins E, C and beta-carotene, and with increased levels of other disease-fighting substances."

Eating Kosher or Halal isn't enough either. Because that just governs the way the animal is slaughtered. The underlying philosophy is that the animal is respected and is treated humanely. There are some suppliers that are going beyond the prayers and slaughter. They are raising their animals humanely and with respect by allowing them to graze in pastures and eat what God intended them to eat. They are providing them a life of Kosher/Halal. Is it pricey? You bet. Regular Kosher and Halal is usually double the cheap grocery chain stuff. Adding the organic respectful humane layer adds another 50% to the cost.

The answer?

Eat less meat and poultry. Face it. Americans eat too much protein anyway. Eat more fruits and vegetables. (From local farms, farmers markets and co-ops if you can). And start your meal with soup. Be sure you have a salad and some bread (but not too much and whole grain. Home made if possible.) You'll find your entreé is much smaller by the time you get to it. So instead of buying a huge cheap, crappy steak, you are satisfied with a small, pasture raised, grass fed expensive steak that is much healthier for you.

It isn't just where your food comes from. It's also what your food eats.

There is no such thing as a salmon filet.

Just so you know.

They may call it a filet, but I have yet to eat any piece of salmon that doesn't have at least one bone in it.

This is what I hate about salmon.

But meatless Monday progresses.

Today I had orange juice and Cream of Wheat for breakfast, tuna salad on home made whole wheat bread for lunch, with some mandarin oranges and for dinner baked salmon, peas and basmati rice.

Tomorrow I may have the left over salmon for lunch. Or I may make myself a tuna sandwich. Or I may have a Cornish Pastie. Or pesto deviled eggs.

I went to the store and spent $28.70. (I have $5.00 and change still in my wallet.) Nothing pre-processed (except the orange juice). I had to tell the cashier that is a turnip, that is a leek.

I bought a leek, a turnip, celery, a white rose potato, some beef and pork to go with the lamb I thawed out, a dozen eggs, orange juice and Gladware for storage.

I'm taking the Huffington Post Week of Eating In Challenge.

Don't eat out for a week. It actually starts next week, but since I've been avoiding fast food and pre-processed food, cooking is now what I do pretty much.

I'll be making soup later this week. The broccoli is still good and I have split peas and lentils in the cupboard.

Even more to avoid.

Plastic water bottles and canned foods. Then again, you're not eating preprocessed canned foods anymore anyway, are you?

BPA. Looks like it may turn out to be pretty nasty too. It's been dropped from baby bottles. But now it's been found that the cans of canned foods are lined with it. And it's used in plastic water bottles. Even the kind you buy to refill with tap water. And it's used to line metal water bottles. Basically you can't avoid the stuff unless you use glass.

Time to cut back some more.

Time to eliminate even more corn from your diet. Soy too.

Those are the two main crops that Monsanto engineers to tolerate Round-up. Virtually all of the corn and soy grown in the U.S. is a genetically modified seed. And it looks like it's really, really bad.

Monsanto only spent 90 days testing it. Ya think that's why no liver or kidney disease or cancer showed up? 90 days? Frickin' bastards.

No wonder the farmers in India are committing suicide.

In the mean time it isn't enough to just avoid the high fructose corn syrup. Time to avoid all corn and soy too. Ears of corn. Corn meal. Tortillas. Green Giant nibblets. And products with regular corn syrup. Corn starch. And there are a lot.

Then there are the farm animals that eat the cheap genetically modified corn. No more pork. Chickens will be difficult to identify since whether they are cage free or free range, there's no way of telling what they're eating. Grass fed cows aren't even immune, since there is a difference between corn raised and grass finished and grass fed. And so far no way to label the difference. Even the terms "organic" aren't any use since the terms aren't tightly regulated by the government. About the only way you can avoid a corn fed animal is to eat fish or New Zealand lamb.

Once again, you can buy imports from Europe. They have resisted GMS, but if they cave, even imports will be tainted by Monsanto's poison. The EU, Japan, China, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand have labeling laws for GMO foods. There is no way you can grow enough produce to feed yourself on a normal city lot. And sorry, but I've tried the vegetarian route and I can't eat exclusively fruits, vegetables and fish. I love chicken and I need some meat occasionally. I don't eat a lot. Sometimes just once a week at my parent's house.

How do you avoid ingesting Monsanto toxins?

Buy organic and make sure it specifically says 100% organic. Otherwise it may have a GMO (genetically modified organism) in it.

Avoid soy, cotton, canola and corn. Personally, I have no problem with cotton clothes. But I'll be avoiding soy, canola and corn. I've been using olive oil (imported from Italy and cold pressed extra virgin) for everything, including baking. No, you cannot taste it in the brownies or cupcakes.

Avoid packaged or pre-processed foods. Duh. Michael Pollan's food rules. If you want to eat junk food, make it yourself.

And there is a new site. The non-GMO shopping guide.



It can be done. But it will take more diligence than just avoiding high fructose corn syrup. And a lot more cooking from scratch.

Onward toward healthier eating.

Goat butter. Organic goat butter.

I came across this in the dairy section of Windmill Farms when I was looking at milks, yogurts and what else they had to offer.

Butter is butter. It's made from the milk fat and I know goats have more fat in their milk than cows. I also know that for those that are lactose intolerant (which I am not) raw cows milk is better than pasturized/homogenized cows milk but goats milk is better than both.

So I bought some.

It's white, like butter should be. Yes, butter should be white, not yellow. I think no matter what cows butter you buy in the U.S. unless you're making your own from cream, they do something to it to make it yellow.

I decided to make marshmallow treats. I haven't had them in maybe two years.

I bought puffed brown rice. I had the goats butter. And they had marshmallows that did NOT have high fructose corn syrup. Yes, they had sugar, but you can't really avoid that. As unhealthy as marshmallows are, these are as healthy as they're going to get.

They went really well.

1/4 cup butter, 4 cups marshmallows, 6 cups puffed rice.

Put butter and marshmallows in a large bowl and microwave for 2 min. Stir. Add puffed rice and mix really well. Put into a well greased pan and put in refrigerator.

I licked the spoon and what was left stuck to the bowl. Tasted great to me.

I'll be taking some over to my parents today to see how they like them.

But so far the goats butter is a great success. Yes, it is a lot more expensive than cow butter and you can't buy it at the regular grocery store.

But I'm not using butter than much anymore. So for the times I do, I might just switch.

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Buy the best quality ingredients you can and cook your own. I think I'll be using more goat butter.

Christmas Traditions

Every family has them. Christmas traditions. (Or Holiday traditions if you prefer.)

Idiosyncratic traditions that are a twist on the traditional and unique to them.

My family is no different.

The House.



Every year my Mother decorates the house. We have stockings on the mantle, even though this coming year all three of her children will qualify for membership in AARP. Except the dogs. They have stockings but don't qualify for AARP, not even in dog years. The nativity is up but a little worse for wear since my mother accidentally vacuumed up a wise man a few years ago. He's now missing most of one hand and a few points from his crown.

In a place of honor is her village. Two sawhorses supporting an old door are placed in front of the sliding glass doors, draped with a sheet of fleece, ready for her to create her village. The three houses in the back are out of scale. They aren't Dept. 56 Dicken's Village houses. My Dad didn't know Dickens from Wal*mart and bought a church and two houses for her that first year. Cheap knockoffs and too big. She didn't care. She loved them. She's added a few of the real Dept 56 ones each year, plus trees, people, walls, etc. They're not all Dickens. Some are Heritage Village or Snow Village. But all are Dept. 56. I've given her benches, mailboxes, bridges and streetlights. My sister gave her a real pond last year to replace the piece of mirror she's been using.

What most people will overlook when they view the village is the sniper. Yes, sniper. There is an olive green plastic soldier with a rifle on one of the village roofs. The house varies from year to year. He was originally placed there by my brother the second or third year she had the village. He giggled throughout the holidays and finally revealed his secret on Christmas day. The soldier was packed with the village that year and has become a part of the display every year since. We say he's protecting the village. My brother now lives in Florida with his family. But when he calls he does ask about the soldier and my Mother truthfully reveals that yes, he's still there.



The Tree.



My Dad didn't want a tree this year. They had moved some furniture so my Mother could sit in a good chair after her back surgery. My Mother said if they didn't get the furniture moved back by Tuesday, Dec. 22, no tree this year. So I arranged for my nephews to come over and move the furniture back. Then my Dad declared he didn't want a tree. Too much trouble, he didn't want to do it, only three days left, why spend money on a dead tree. My Mother said whatever you want she didn't want to argue but I know she was disappointed. So I talked him into it. "As long as I don't have to do anything, it's no more than 3 feet tall and on sale." We were back in 20 min. with a half price 3 ft tree. I was setting it up when he takes it outside to trim the bottom, put it in the stand, then he brings the lights he says he's tested. (They still didn't all work.) They watched me decorate while they watched NCIS. I finished in time for The Good Wife. My Mother loves it. My Dad says when he looks at the angel on the top of the tree he remembers the $726 he won in Vegas. (They bought the angel in Vegas with a small part of their winnings.)

We used to have a big tree. When I was little the house had a chapel ceiling and we'd have a ten foot tree. The star would almost brush the ceiling. The ceilings were eventually lowered to add a second floor and the tree has gotten smaller each year until it's finally stabilized at a 3 footer, balanced on a table specially designated as the Christmas tree table. As the tree has shrunken, so has the space for ornaments. The sterling silver ornaments are packed in a safe place, as are all of the Hallmark ornaments. Even the Star Trek ornaments. Yes, the coveted very first Enterprise light and motion ornament. We all have one. My Mother bought four, one for each of us children and one for them. We all still have them. (And we're keeping them.) They are safely packed away. The polka-dot balls too. And the big bells. Some of the special ornaments that made the cut are the tear drops, the pine cones, the vintage ones from the 40s given to them second hand when they first got married and a few newer additions, mostly elephants, cardinals and dog ornaments. The two Hallmark ornaments that remain on the tree are two dog ornaments with their dog's picture in them. Some hand made felt beaded ornaments done by a friend of the family's mother and some plastic angels sent from Germany by my Grandmother when I was little are also still there.

And the chocolate ball.

It's not really a ball of chocolate. It's a brown ball. My Mother hates it but understands my affection for it. I'm allowed to put it on the tree, but it must be around the back where she cannot see it from the couch. It is a relic of the giant trees of yesteryear and a time when trees had huge incandescent colored lights that burned so hot if your tree dried out they could set it on fire. They were basically chandelier bulbs in muted red, green, blue, white and orange. No yellow or purple. The chocolate ball used to be shiny red mercury glass, but one year it was hung so close to one of those bulbs that it was burned brown, like rich, dark chocolate. My Mother wanted to throw it away that year when the tree came down, but I rescued it. When twinkle lights came out those old strings were relegated to the eaves of the house, but when the local utility was giving out free LED strings to people who would trade in the old sets, the last of the old light strings was finally gone. But the chocolate ball remains. I see to it it's on the tree every year.



The Food.

If anything speaks to the uniqueness of a family's celebrations it is the food. Recipes passed down through generations be they great grandma's unique creation or something cut out of a magazine. The giving of cookies as a gift is a shared joy of this season. This year probably more so, with so many wallets bare, cooking is something with which we can be generous.



The variety of cookies coming from our kitchens has shrunk over the years. We used to divide, share and combine. I'd usually end up making triple recipes of Russian tea cakes, bourbon balls, marzipan, gingerbread people and no-bake bars. My sister's contributions this year are reduced to toffee. Maybe. This year I went to my Mother's house to help her with her baking. (She doesn't like to get her hands sticky rolling balls, and her back still hurts when she stands too long.) This year she chose four: spritz, tea cakes, butterzueg and lebkuchen. I surprised her by making bourbon/rum balls too. She had all of the ingredients. She doesn't like them, but my Dad does. I made them as a reward for him letting her have a tree this year. I also made a cream cheese pie for Christmas Day, because we didn't get one for my Dad's birthday this year (my sister used a different recipe). My Dad loves cream cheese pie and I've been craving it ever since we didn't have it for his birthday.

This is the only time of year we make cut out cookies. My Mother has some cookie cutters that are older than I am. Like the ornaments, passed to her second hand from her sister when she first got married and still used. And of course, the family recipes requiring cookie cutters are only made at this time of year.



Never mess with the tried and true traditional family recipes.

One year my Mother and I decided to be more health conscious about the butterzueg. Instead of using lard, we'd use shortening. (This was before Crisco became the truly toxic Frankenfood that it is now.) They went together really well, rolled and cut nicely, in they went, out they came, they looked fabulous. And they were as hard as hockey pucks. The entire double batch went into the trash and we started over again after a quick trip to the store to buy lard. There may be some recipes in which you can substitute shortening for lard, but our traditional butterzueg is not one of them. Thank goodness lard will always be plentiful in our city due to the large portion of the population that cooks traditional Mexican food from scratch, lard being a requirement.

This year we did baptize a new cookie cutter.



You'd think I'd have learned from this experience, but I am going to mess with another family recipe : bourbon balls. They're mostly cocoa, vanilla wafers and liquor. You can use rum or bourbon. But I'm thinking....kirsch. Because cherries and chocolate is so classic. How bad could they be?

Maybe I'll be starting a new family tradition this year.

Addendum:

The experiment was a rousing success. I have dubbed them Kirsch Bombs. It's the bourbon/rum ball recipe with the following substitutions: Use Kirsch instead of bourbon or rum and use Hershey's Special Dark cocoa instead of the regular cocoa. Adults only.

Eating responsibly.

In a nutshell, this article from Huffington Post lays out simple ways in which we can eat a healthier diet while at the same time eliminating support for factory farming.

I'm lucky. I have access to Straus Family Creamery products in California if I look hard enough.

Lamb. It's the new beef.

The U.S. really doesn't consume near as much lamb as the rest of the world.

Could this be why we are also not as healthy? Ok. One of the reasons?

Lamb is lower in fat, but higher in Omega3 fatty acids. Leaner. Healthier.

I understand it makes great cheese too.

I bought my lamb imported from New Zealand. Which also seems to consume the most lamb per capita in the world.

I'm sure they can spare a few chops.

Putting it together.

In defense of Food by Michael Pollen

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

“Slow Food is a non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world. To do that, Slow Food brings together pleasure and responsibility, and makes them inseparable.”

You might say Julia Child planted the seeds for Slow Food in the U.S. At a time when fast foods, TV dinners and convenience cooking using pre-processed foods was on the rise, she was encouraging cooking good meals using real ingredients.

Eat Food.

Sounds simple. But do you have any idea how much food Americans eat that isn’t really food?

You’ve heard it before. Processed foods contain a lot more salt than we need. They contain a lot more fat than we need. The dangers of hydrogenated oils. They contain a lot less nutrition due to over processing. They contain ingredients we can’t identify and can’t pronounce. And they contain ingredients that aren’t food. If it's boxed, bagged, canned or jarred and has a list of ingredients on the label, it's processed.

Methods used to process foods include:
* Canning
* Freezing
* Refrigeration
* Dehydration
* Aseptic Processing

Processed foods have been altered from their natural state for "safety" and convenience reasons. And scary as it seems, about 90 percent of the money that Americans spend on food is used to buy processed items.

Sugar is sucrose. High Fructose Corn Syrup has been processed to combine fructose and glucose. HFCS is up to 10 times richer in harmful carbonyl compounds, such as methylglyoxal, than a diet soft drink control. Carbonyl compounds are elevated in people with diabetes and are blamed for causing diabetic complications such as foot ulcers and eye and nerve damage. Consumption of fructose is more likely to lead to obesity than consumption of sucrose. There are some indications that HFCS turns off our body’s ability to sense when it’s full and stop eating. Large quantities of fructose stimulate the liver to produce triglycerides, promotes glycation of proteins and induces insulin resistance. Glucose is metabolized in every cell in the body but all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. The livers of test animals fed large amounts of fructose develop fatty deposits and cirrhosis, similar to problems that develop in the livers of alcoholics. In a 2007 study, rats were fed a diet high in fat and HFCS and kept relatively sedentary for 16 weeks in an attempt to emulate the diet and lifestyle of many Americans. The rats were not forced to eat, but were able to eat as much as they wanted; they consumed a large amount of food, and the researcher, Dr. Tetri stated that there is evidence that fructose suppresses the sensation of fullness. Within four weeks, the rats showed early signs of fatty liver disease and type II diabetes. Some HFCS manufactured in 2005 contained mercury. In 2009, trace amounts of mercury were still being found in a wide assortment of products containing HFCS.

Some people are more sensitive to fructose. They include hypertensive, hyperinsulinemic, hypertriglyceridemic, non-insulin dependent diabetic people, people with functional bowel disease and postmenopausal women.

Sugar glossary and list of hidden HFCS and amounts HERE.

To spot fructose on a food label, look for the words "corn sweetener," "corn syrup," or "corn syrup solids" as well as "high-fructose corn syrup."

Other “non-foods” to avoid are:

Trans Fats, "partially hydrogenated," "fractionated," or "hydrogenated" (fully hydrogenated fats are not a heart threat, but some trans fats are mislabeled as "hydrogenated"). The higher up the phrase "partially hydrogenated oil" is on the list of ingredients, the more trans fat the product contains. Olive oil good. Palm kernel oil, bad.

Refined Grains, white bread, rolls, sugary low-fiber cereal, white rice, or white pasta. That includes refined white flour and even unbleached flour.

Salt, otherwise known as sodium. Your limit should be 1,500 milligrams of sodium per day, about the amount in three-fourths of a teaspoon of salt. (Table salt, by the way, is 40 percent sodium, 60 percent chloride.) Only the "Nutrition Facts" panel on a food package will give you the real sodium count. Don't believe claims on the package front such as "sodium-free" (foods can still have 5 mg per serving); "reduced sodium" (it only means 25 percent less than usual); or "light in sodium" (half the amount you'd normally find). In fact, between the nutrition information and the ingredients list, you’ll be able to cut a lot of unhealthy “food-like products” out of your diet.

Or you can follow Michael Pollen’s guidelines:
Avoid foods that are:
1. Unfamiliar
2. Unpronounceable
3. More than five in number
4. Include High Fructose Corn Syrup

Not too much.

Portion control. Sounds simple. But in fact isn’t that easy. Do we weight it? How many of us have food scales in our kitchen weighing grams of this and grams of that? Or do you to volume? Nothing bigger than your clenched fist. Remember that one? Or how about calorie counting? Or Richard Simmon’s “food wallet” with the cards. How much is too much. Not realy my problem. I did Nutrisystem for a year and my problem was not eating enough. After I reached my goal weight I had a cupboard full of “snacks” and some breakfasts left. So “not too much”. Well , I’m still working on that. In my lastest quest to try to portion (eat enough of the correct thing) I have found....Bento.

Bento boxes are portion sized and intended to be used for brown bagging lunch. Most work out to about 600 - 800 ml. There are some larger boxes for men and even family picnic sized bento sets. There are smaller boxes for children’s lunches. You can tell them by the anime and cartoon characters that decorate them and their bright colors. There are thermal ones with seals for transporting soups or liquids. Once you get used to the size of a bento lunch, portioning for breakfast and dinner becomes easier. You can bento a breakfast too. And there are open bento trays designed for dinners.

And even though there is no research supporting it, you’re still going to want to avoid HFCS in case that contributes to over eating.

Mostly plants.

Sounds simple. Until you’ve priced fresh produce. And what if you’re trying to eat green. You can’t grow enough to provide all of the fruits and vegetables you really need. You want to eat local. You also want to eat as organic as possible to avoid chemicals and keep your carbon footprint low. Locavore. Urban gardening. Edible Landscapes. There is a huge movement to replace lawns with edible gardens. Fritz Haeg wrote Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn. Front lawns came into vogue after WWII. With the advent of the middle class and boom in housing, people wanted to display their prosperity in the same way the rich have on their estates: with a huge, wasteful, high-maintenance lawn.

At the extreme there is Urban Homesteading. This isn’t for everyone and is definately time consuming. You’ll also have to check local codes to see if you’re allowed to have urban chickens or other livestock as “pets”.

Can’t grow your own? You can still eat local and organic. Just find a farm near you that will allow you to join their co-op. You can have fresh, seasonal fruits and vegetables year round every week, or every other week.

And for those that don’t have their own yards, there are community gardens. No community garden to join? Well, there’s always...guerilla gardening.

Adventures in eating.

I know it is illegal to sell raw milk in some states, but not in mine.

Tonight I had a bowl of cereal with raw milk. I didn't notice much difference since the cereal pretty much flavored the milk. But I'm giving it a try. The local healthy grocery store stocks it and it isn't much farther than the cheap grocery chain. And for now, I have money to pay more for quality food. For some things, I'll hit the cheap store. But the healthy store has products with no high fructose corn syrup so I'll be going there a few times a month probably.

At any rate, I am keeping a close eye on the expiration date of the milk and keeping it refrigerated properly. No BGH. I haven't checked their eggs or asked about free range chickens yet. I didn't ask if they had grass fed beef either but I will the next time. The local butcher has free range chickens and their eggs but no grass fed beef. I'll have to go to Henry's for that if the healthy store doesn't have them.

Oh, and regular Cheerios? No HFCS. Yay!

And I'm starting to feel better. Don't know if it's just psychological or because I've been off HFCS for over a month.

I'm cooking tonight.

I almost feel like Julie Powell trudging through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. But it's nothing like that. Only I'll be eating at 8:30 tonight. Bad for my acid reflux. But I won't be going to bed for 4-6 hours so I guess it's OK. And I'm not cooking from scratch. Although I did make a salad. Greens from a bag and my Mom's cherry tomatoes. I have fresh cucumbers too but I don't have the energy to peel and slice them, then bag up the leftovers.

I shopped at Windmill Farms today. Bought organic stone ground lots, gluten free pasta, quinoa (red was on sale), some raw milk (going to give it a try) and found some whole wheat crackers that don't have corn syrup in them. Plus various other fresh produce. And some herbal supplements.

Total? $130.00. Well, the herbal stuff was $30.00 by itself. I'll go over the receipt later to make sure no mistakes were made but I'm sure it's correct. I bought a lot of high priced organic stuff.

And....I bought a seafood stuffed salmon. I didn't ask what it was stuffed with but I'm sure for what I paid there is no lobster in it. I'm allergic to lobster. If I throw up 30 min. after my dinner, then I'll know there was lobster in it. But I suspect shrimp and crab and or pollock and perhaps even a scallop. It's all ground up so hard to tell. It will be my first salmon dinner. Never had it before. The guy said 15 min. at 450 degrees so it should be done now.

Salmon and a salad. That's it. I don't have enough energy to make garlic bread. And a white nectarine for desert. I squeezed some lemon juice on the salmon patty and dotted it with butter. Thank you Julie and Julia.

My goal this week? To clean the kitchen enough to really cook. I want to make a spinach feta quiche.

I will miss my favorite crackers.

No more Ritz buttery crackers. They have high fructose corn syrup.

So do Keeblers Town House.

So I am reduced to putting Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers in my chili tomorrow. The chili is fine; my Mom made it from scratch.

Adieu to my beloved Wheat Thins too. I haven't checked Triskets yet. I sure hope they're OK. Mom's cheese ball will never be the same without Wheat Thins but if I have to give up Triskets too, I don't know what I'm going to spread her cheese ball on.

Does Julia Child have a recipe for wheat crackers?

Oh! Bento!

From Wikipedia:

"Bentō (弁当 or べんとう^?) is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. Containers range from disposable mass produced to hand crafted lacquerware. Although bento is readily available in many places throughout Japan, including convenience stores, bento shops (弁当屋, bentō-ya^?), train stations, and department stores, it is still common for Japanese homemakers to spend considerable time and energy producing an appealing boxed lunch.

Bento can be very elaborately arranged. Contests are often held where bento arrangers compete for the most aesthetically pleasing arrangements. The food is often decorated to look like people, animals, or characters and items such as flowers and plants. This style of elaborate bento is called kyaraben.

There are similar forms of boxed lunches in the Philippines (Baon), Korea (Dosirak), Taiwan (Biandang), and India (Tiffin)."

I've decided to start making Bento. There are several reasons. One is...well, they're so darn cute. So much more attractive than the typical brown paper bag or most of the commercial lunch bags and boxes you find. I have two that are both promotional giveaways so I'm advertising on my lunchbag. Not attractive. Another reason is interest. A sandwich, chips and fruit every day gets to be downright boring. Then there is health. I am really trying to cut out high fructose corn syrup and the best way to do that is to make food. That means cooking meals and eating leftovers. Those leftovers will go into my bento. I'll also be making bento from scratch. Westernized at first. But I have a great rice cooker I love and am going to learn how to make sushi rolls. I can get sticky rice and nori sheets easily locally. There are five Japanese markets close to my parents' neighborhood so shopping will be easy.

I'm making the small sideboard I'm using as an island in my kitchen into a bento station. I'm moving the canned goods I store there to the bookcase I use as a pantry in the garage. That will free up space for my bento boxes and drawers for my accessories. The top is my workspace.

I'll take a few pictures of my better attempts.

In the meantime, check out the links on the side: Just Bento, Lunch in a box and Kitchen Cow.

You've got to eat lunch. No reason why it can't be fun.

Two book recommendations.

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollen

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollen

Eat food. Not a lot. Mostly plants.

Look at the ingredients. If it has any of the following, it isn't food but a food-like product. Avoid:
1. Anything with an ingredient you can't identify.
2. Anything with an ingredient you can't pronounce.
3. Anything with more than five ingredients.
4. Anything with high fructose corn syrup.

Now that's a diet everyone can follow.

Make your own Shrimp Cocktail Sauce

You can't buy Shrimp Cocktail Sauce without corn syrup in it. Well, maybe you can but I haven't found any. I suspect if I went to a store with foreign imports (foreign imports seem to use sugar, not corn syrup) or a natural food store you might find something.

But I went to Windmill Farms and couldn't find any.

I did manage to find horseradish, Tabasco and Worcestershire without corn syrup. That's right. You read the label on Lea and Perrins. In the U.S. they use corn syrup. Not so the Lea and Perrins they make in the U.K.

So I made my own Shrimp Cocktail Sauce.

1 1/2 cup catsup ( Von's Organics - no corn syrup)
2 TBSP prepared horseradish ( Captain Toady's hardy horseradish sauce)
1 TBSP lemon juice (from my tree's lemons)
1 TBSP Worcestershire sauce (Annie's natural organice Worcestershire sauce- vegan)
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
Dash Tobasco sauce (Uncle Dougie's Lil' Boom! hot!!! sauce)
Dash Celery Salt (or seed)

Mix, chill to blend flavors - serve with shrimp

It came out pretty good, even though I ate it right away without chilling it and waiting for the flavors to blend. I bet it's awesome now. I may have to buy some more shrimp.