Kale Failure Bowl Part Deux – Not Really a Failure

You may remember my previous kale-fail, which was a fail because of the utter laziness in presentation and effort, not necessarily anything to do with the taste. It actually tasted decent, not that I’d go to any effort to serve this to others–but it was certainly a serviceable lunch for one.

Kale Fail #2 is not really a failure–in fact, it was tasty enough that I would serve it to others, but the presentation is still “throw everything in a bowl” style, which is just lazy.

Take one chopped garlic clove and fry it in a bit of oil. While that heats up, snap the stems off about 4 cups of washed kale; if you like stems, throw them in the pan now so they’ll cook a bit more. Then add the kale leaves, a handful of dried mushrooms (We have about a pound from here–best birthday present ever), about 1/2 cup water, and cover loosely. The steam will cook the kale and reconstitute the mushrooms in just a few minutes. When the kale is just slightly past bright green and onto slightly wilted, remove to bowls and toss with McCormick Sesame Ginger Blend (they should be paying me for this!) and just a couple squirts toasted sesame oil.

You’re welcome.

 

The Origin of Umami

Fascinating article about the invention of MSG, and whether it’s actually harmful. I already knew some of this, but much of it was new to me:

Probably the most significant discovery in explaining human interest in umami is that human milk contains large amounts of glutamate (at about 10 times the levels present in cow’s milk). Babies have very basic taste buds: it’s believed that mother’s milk offers two taste enhancements – sugar (as lactose) and umami (as glutamate) in the hope that one or other will get the little blighters drinking. Which means mothers’ milk and a packet of cheese’n'onion crisps have rather more in common than you’d think.

At the end of the article is a list of foods containing the most naturally-occurring glutamate, in mg per 100g. Unsurprisingly, everything on the list (except maybe the grape juice and the Roquefort) is delicious:

roquefort cheese 1280
parmesan cheese 1200
soy sauce 1090
walnuts 658
fresh tomato juice 260
grape juice 258
peas 200
mushrooms 180
broccoli 176
tomatoes 140
mushrooms 140
oysters 137
corn 130
potatoes 102
chicken 44
mackerel 36
beef 33
eggs 23
human milk 22

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Yes, I see that mushrooms are on the list twice. That’s the British press for you: no fact checkers.

 

Easiest Lunch EVER.

Dudes. I am so proud of this recipe that I have to share it. Unfortunately (for you), it was so delicious that I ate it before taking pictures.

I shall dub it: VEGETARIAN, ITALIAN TACOS.

Cut half a medium eggplant into slices and saute over high heat–enough to char it a little as it cooks. Charred eggplant is my new favorite food.

Meanwhile, spread a mixture of ricotta and pesto on a tortilla. I wasn’t really measuring at all, as is my wont, but if I had to guess, it was probably 2-3 tablespoons ricotta and 1 tablespoon pesto. Top with chopped walnuts (about 2-3 teaspoons).

When the eggplant is done, plop it onto the tortilla. If you feel for some reason like you need more protein, top with a fried egg.

That’s it. Fold it up and eat it. It’s delicious, it has all your food groups in it, and it’s delicious. I ate mine in about five seconds, but that might also have been cuz I was really hungry. But mostly because it was delicious.

If I were doing this again, I’d replace the egg with sauteed mushrooms, but we had none in the house and for some reason I was craving an egg.

 

The Handpresso

Have 99 Euros to spare? You could be making espresso ANYWHERE with the Handpresso, a gadget that’s half K-pod machine and half bike pump.

I can’t embed their videos so just click the picture below to check it out. It’s kind of an ingenious idea, but I think anyone actually trying to make espresso with this contraption would be laughed at. That’s why the cowboy does it when only his horse is looking.

 

Does Subway Care About Health Food?

C and I have a debate going about Subway. Actually, it’s not so much a debate as him saying that he kinda likes eating there sometimes and me curling into the fetal position with my thumbs jammed into my ears screaming “NO NO NO DON’T MAKE ME” and generally making myself look like an idiot or a five-year-old child.

I used to really enjoy Subway as a kid, and it was kind of a special treat when we went there instead of Taco Bell. Hoo boy. At some point (high school? College?) my attitude, or tastes, changed, and I can hardly stand to eat there anymore. To me the bread tastes like mush and if the toppings aren’t stale you’ve won the lottery. (There’s also not much there for an aspiring vegetarian like me; last week in Subway I tried to get a “veggie patty” and was told that the Subway I was currently standing in didn’t carry ‘em. Does anyone know how ubiquitous, or not, these things are?)

Anyway, after our “debate” when my thumbs came out of my ears, C said something to the effect of, “You’ve got to at least respect them for encouraging healthy eating.”

And I wonder: do they? Or are they just responding to market forces, like when McDonald’s started offering salads (or “salads” as they look nothing like a salad I’d ever (want to) eat)?

Pro	Con
Jared.	Jared is a great marketing stunt / publicity tool.
They really do have seven subs with less than six grams of fat, and I can’t remember a time, even pre-Jared, that these weren’t on the menu and weren’t promoted as such. I mean, even in the 90s I think they were advertising their health options, and McDonalds definitely didn’t have salad and apple slices on the menu back then.	Nobody actually goes in and orders a six-inch veggie delite with no cheese or mayo (unless you’re me, which is what I ordered last week). You could hit 1000+ calories easily with a footlong sandwich, even if you got tuna, the most innocuous of toppings. A footlong meatball marinara (which I used to gleefully consume in my earlier years) gives me the willies. So while you can eat fairly healthy at Subway, you can also totally stuff your face. Which is great, because that’s democracy at work. But is Subway to be lauded?
They give out toys in their kids meals that are usually about being active (stopwatches, water bottles, sweatbands) or saving the earth. Looks like their current promotion is a reusable lunch sack, co-branded with the Smithsonian, which is AWESOME.	There is no con to this pro. Any fast food company that gives out reusable lunch bags instead of plastic crap that becomes bird toys (I had a friend who gave all her Happy Meal loot to her pet macaw) is awesome.

Okay, so I really don’t know what we’ve decided here, except that I would probably brave that mushy bread for a couple of those bags. What do we think – does Subway “care” or are they riding the wave?

 

Sweet Potato Bread

Made a loaf of bread in the machine yesterday. Potato bread sounded good, and I’ve never done it with a potato rather than with instant flakes (though to all bread machine owners: about 1/3 cup of instant flakes subbed out for 1/2 cup of your flour makes an incredibly soft and delicious loaf). Anyway, we didn’t have any potatoes but we had SWEET potatoes, so I thought I’d try and see what would happen.

The bread is a beautiful orange color, but the texture is a bit strange and the loaf collapsed, a symptom, I’m told, of too much moisture in the dough and not enough gluten.

This makes me curious how a sweet potato differs chemically from a potato that would cause it to absorb less liquid or react with the yeast differently.

I then went searching for answers: I found nothing conclusive, but this person was making potato yeast rolls and was recommended to use a higher-starch variety of potato; Texas A&M University’s agriculture page suggests that sweet potatoes are higher in starch than an Irish potato (same as a white potato?). So that’s not the culprit.

In conclusion, I’m not sure what caused the lack of rise and odd texture, but next time I make sweet potato bread, I’ll try doing the mixing at least, and maybe the baking, without the machine, so I can get a good gauge of how wet the dough is.

And I’m using this recipe, because WOW.

 

What’s Fun About Food?

Today nobody at Chez Scrapple felt like doing much of anything, so I sat around playing Cooking Academy*. It’s a gesture-based cooking game that’s better than Cooking Mama by a long shot, —though so similar to CM that I’m quite surprised nobody’s been sued.

For those who aren’t familiar with gesture-based cooking games, the basic premise is this: You are given a recipe that has a number of steps. To perform each step you move the mouse (or Wii controller, or Nintendo DS stylus) to mimic knifework or stirring or folding a wonton or what have you. It’s so realistic it’s like you’re actually cooking!

If my disdain didn’t come through there, let’s try again: It’s not at all realistic and it’s nothing at all like you’re actually cooking!

The problem with these games, C and I have decided, is that the idea of “cooking” is reduced to a number of menial tasks that the real cook performs without a second thought. A game of dicing onions and peeling carrots is not my idea of a fun night.

I realize the hypocrite I’m being, of course, since I am a huge fan of Rock Band, which to a real guitar player is anathema. Real musicians would probably prefer to see a game that doesn’t reduce the art of playing music to the motion of pressing frets along with a backing track.

So what would a fun cooking game for cooks look like? I don’t know. It would be more freeform, but would still be a game—that is, with metrics and points and in-game rewards. It would not be a collection of recipes with some pretty pictures, is what I’m saying.

It would not be a manage-a-restaurant sim. In this cooking game, you would be cooking. End of story.

Maybe you would develop recipes using the ingredients and equipment you have on hand, with the successful recipes earning you money (through cookbook sales, restaurant licensing, or through your rising stardom and sponsorship on Food Network), which you could use to invest in more exotic ingredients or fancy equipment. I’d try a game like this. The trouble is that recipes are so subjective: who would decide what’s “good”? And is cooking really fun at all if you can’t eat it afterward, or at least smell it while it’s cooking?

Maybe the idea of creating a cooking-game-for-cooks is impossible. But I’d love to know what would go into your dream cooking sim.

*I also made this.

 

Inspiration

I simply have to share the recipes I’ve discovered today. Which will I make first? They all look so incredibly yummy, and healthy.

African Sweet Potato and Peanut Soup – I believe the traditional preparation of this dish involves dunking a still-moist lump of fermented cornbread into the soup, if this City Paper piece is referring to the same soup. Anyway, I don’t think you can go wrong with peanut butter and sweet potatoes.
This Veggie Bowl is going to be lunch today, I think: it looks like it takes all of three seconds to prepare.

And these black bean burgers have just four ingredients and can be frozen? Joy of joys!

 

Worst. Idea. Ever

Safeway’s “festive projects” webpage contains this terrifying, er, “gem:”

Yeah, that. You know what that is? That is “sushi” candy, made of POWDERED DOUGHNUT PIECES, FRUIT ROLLUPS, AND SWEDISH FISH.

Great food styling. Really. Props. It even looks tasty. But then I thought about it and realized that if I ate one of those, I would be eating powdered doughnut, a fruit rollup, and a Swedish fish. In the same mouthful.

Ugh.

 

Nobody told me how easy it was to make paneer

I’ve been hankering for homemade paneer for years. I knew, in theory, that making it is easy: Milk, heat, acid, stir. But I never really realized how foolproof it is.

Tonight I heated half a gallon of whole milk and 1/4 tsp salt to 180 degrees on the dot. I removed the pan from the heat, added 1/6 cup white vinegar, and stirred for one minute.

Half an hour later, I poured the curdly mixture through a cheesecloth-lined strainer; it’s being shaped now with a weight on top (to form it into more of a brick and less of a crumbly mess).

Wow. So easy even I can do it. Love that.

I wanted to make ricotta with the whey, but this smartypants says you can’t do it. So perhaps I’ll bake bread with it, or use it as a soup base. Any whey ideas?