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The Last Dance with Kale (weekly menu 27)

jared — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:17:55 +0000

Kale. Kale. Kale.

I love you so much and you leave me so soon. It feels like yesterday when you arrived out back on our raised bed. And now you look so frail, so overly-eaten and enjoyed. It’s only a matter of time before we consume you completely and await your return in the early winter. I know we could spend our lives together. I know you grow year-round, but there’s something about you that screams “winter.” So forgive me for skipping over your summer season. Consider it an act of joy and appreciation that we feast upon you all week long!

To wine and dine with you, here’s is what I’ve decided:

Lamb dogs with corn pudding and kale
Pasta with kale and parmesan
Butternut squash gnocchi with brown rice and kale
Coconut braised beef with a veggie side dish – kale perhaps?!
Soup!

Given our supply, this could be our last wintry week together. For all our good times together, I thank you. See you in the cooler weather, my dear friend. Adios!

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Winding Down Winter (weekly menu 26)

jared — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:54:27 +0000

Eating seasonally provides each and every one of us a cornucopia of awesome fruits, vegetables, fungi, meats and herbs. There is a spectrum of course. Some folks avoid “fresh” tomatoes in the winter and others dry their summer herbs to use the rest of the year. I would put us somewhere in the middle. We freeze summer produce and herbs, and never buy “fresh” summer produce in November or February. Though, with winter winding down here in the Northwest, I must admit I am truly tired of winter’s offerings.

Enough with the root vegetables already, let’s have ourselves some berries and morels and baby salad greens. Out with the kale and in with the chard (though you can grow both year-round it seems.) And man, am I ready for some fruit! Peaches, figs, plums, strawberries – bring it all, please! Oh. Wait a second. I forgot all about Spring. First Spring then Summer. First morels than chanterelles (in the fall.) Well, wait I must then wait I will.

This week’s menu reflects my weary creativity at the dinner table. To be honest, between the difficulty of my elimination diet and the anticipation of Spring, my meal planning skills are gearing down. I need some inspiration. I need to visit the Portland farmer’s market and see what’s fresh right now. Cause at this moment in time, this is all I could come up with:

coconut curry with vegetables
spaghetti and meatballs
borscht with boiled potatoes

The minimalist menu here says 2 things – 1. This week we are eating outside the home a bit, and 2. I have no new ideas right now. For those of you who don’t know it, next week is the Jewish holiday of Passover and so the “Jewish Thanksgiving” (as I call it) is upon us. One night (if not two) we will attend a seder meal, and on Sunday we visit Japan with the cuisines of the world potluck.

In the coming week I have some new goals for myself and the blog. For one, I need to find out what’s in season and available this time of year and integrate new ideas into my meal-planning brain. I’m also eager to take up the suggestion of a reader (her comment) and write more about Portland’s local food scene. I’ve got some new ideas for research and writing and as these develop, I will share them with all of you.

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Reality Check – where is weekly menu 25?

jared — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:47:50 +0000

It is often the case that this blog looms over me like a disgruntled parent. Yes, I do love writing and I enjoy my stints of novice journalism. At the same time, I’ve set such high expectations for posting regularly that the slightest miss of an entry leaves me reeling with pain and discomfort. Since January 1st (of this year) I committed myself to writing 5 entries a week. Ideally these posts would occur Monday through Friday. But this simple proposition has become a growing pain in the arse.

If you haven’t noticed already, I’d like to use this opportunity to rant a bit, maybe even “journal” here on the blog. Every time I miss a post I get all hot and bothered by the pressure of writing two the next day. And so on and so forth. At some point soon I need to determine a reasonable number for myself. I fear that without a set goal, I may become like many other bloggers and never blog. There are too many distractions to consider and sometimes, too few ideas to write about.

All the while, my various food projects have taken root and have begun to grow opportunities outside my blogging life. Do I write about these other projects? I should but I don’t. Lately it feels like I strive to keep a balance of the blog’s content. I think this ideal hints at an important weakness to this blog. Sometimes I think the blog lacks direction, lacks a focus. I don’t want to write about food I make at home nor do I want to report on the infinite news topics in the food sphere. Maybe this inability to focus reflects my own role in the food world. In the attempt to find a place for myself, I am not pinned down to any one issue or perspective. This is both a blessing and a curse.

Speaking of curses, I have also pigeon-holed myself with the weekly menu. To me, this is the cornerstone of the blog. This is why it all started. I wanted to show other people how to afford healthy and sustainably-sourced foods on a reasonable budget. The weekly menu post was intended to serve as a starting point for our meal planning process. And I think it has served this purpose to some degree. That said, it also looms over me like a disgruntled parent.

Of all my concerns, I am most distressed when I slack on the weekly menu. I think yesterday’s absence is my third so far. Not bad but not an excuse for me. The real problem is this: my partner and I plan together and sometimes this might not happen till Saturday. Or I plan ahead and post the idea I put together and then it alters when she joins me at the writing block. A more recent challenge has been the second phase of the elimination diet. It was easy to plan with everything gone. It is far more difficult to plan with 2 introductions a week, spaced 2-3 days apart.

The variables have intensified and the planning is far more difficult than before all this crazy dieting stuff. Throw social events in the mix and we have ourselves a real obtuse situation. To put this in perspective, today is Saturday and I still have no idea what we will eat next week. With some friends visiting this week it’s all the more unnerving to not know what I’ll have for dinner, lunch and breakfast.

All of this said, I must also mention the weather. I began the blog last fall and spent the autumn and winter typing away on the computer. But now the sun has returned and the warmer weather in suit. Given the last 3 days of excellent outdoor fun, I am certain that my 5-post-a-week goal is insurmountable. Therefore, let it be known that 5 posts a week is a goal; but 3 a week will be the minimum. The weekly menu will remain a bedrock for the blog and that leaves me at least 2 other entries on anything else that strikes my fancy.

Maybe when I’m rich and famous and every post I write is consumed by tens of thousands of adoring fans, I’ll feel more pressure to proliferate my food-obsessed prose. For now, I’m still under pressure from myself and the expectation of writing daily. I want to write weekly; I want to write well and I want to cover important content. All of my expectations must face a reality check:

This blog is a hobby. It is a pleasure, a source of stability and continuity. This is not a test or a job. I am not graded nor judged by anyone other than myself. I must write for the sake of writing, for the sake of sharing.

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No Idea (weekly menu 24)

jared — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:04:57 +0000

It is true – I have no idea what we will eat in the coming week. Most of the time I have an eagerness to eat certain meals or try new ingredients. But I think the post-elimination diet process of introducing new food items (or items I used to eat but then ceased) has challenged my meal planning visions. It is with this lack of direction that I address today’s “weekly menu.”

I learned that I can introduce more than one ingredient a week. Instead of eating let’s say soy for 3 days and than not eating soy for 3 days, I can minimize the process to 1 or 2 days. For example, if I eat soy all day for one day and then stop eating it for 3 days, the reactions will occur and I’ll know whether or not I want to eat soy again. With this in mind, it is challenging to plan around the 2 random ingredient-variable.

This confusion and frustration over how to plan the meals has led me here. I have no plan. This rarely happens and I may solve the problem tomorrow. I suppose this is part of the “alternative lifestyle” experience – the ‘what do I eat’ phase. Maybe after a week of this I will be prepared for next week, and the repeating obstacle of planning 2 new ingredients into the 7-day meal plan.

Oh. To be normal.

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Eggs (weekly menu 23)

jared — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:00:56 +0000

Eggs!

I have not eaten an egg for 64 days. As you may recall I began an elimination diet on the first of January, and I have diligently (and strictly) avoided the 19 items on my allergy list. Tomorrow I will visit the narturopath to discuss the effects of the cleanse on my digestion and general health. As agreed, the 2-month elimination will cease after the allotted time has passed. Therefore, tomorrow begins a new stage in the “allergy experience.”

For the next 19 weeks I will re-introduce each of the individual foods items back into my diet. Now that I have experienced the effects of strict eating restraints, I will soon learn the nuanced needs of my body. Each week I will introduce one item from the list; I will consume the “foreign” food for 3 days. Thereafter I will end the consumption of that same item. In 3-4 days time I will likely grasp the varying intensities of each food allergy.

It is my hope that I can choose the order of food introductions. Some I crave far more than others. The most difficult foods have been eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, yeast and lemons. If I can reintroduce at my leisure, I will surely begin with the egg.

As you might expect, breakfast has been challenging. Yes, I have grown to enjoy the texture of porridge and the sweet summertime taste of smoothies, but there’s something about eggs that leaves me satiated. To both celebrate the egg I intend on eating lots of eggs for 4 days. Breakfast, lunch and dinner will find room for my egg binge. If I’m allergic, I’ll have to say good-bye to a food I really enjoy. Given this uncertainty, I want to treat each ingredient like its the last time we’ll dine together.

To this end, I want to write a series on this process. Each time I re-introduce a food item, I will write an article on that item, with emphasis on the different recipes or dishes I want to make with the ingredient. In this particular case, I think it’s important for me to note that todayI will not be posting a typical weekly menu post. I have decided instead to write a list of meals I look forward to making that require the use of egg(s).

Starting this weekend and going through the first couple days of next week, I hope to eat many egg dishes. Here are a list of ideas/desires that I want to fulfill in the coming days:

quiche or souffle
a tasty banana muffin recipe I have awaiting me
salty caramel ice cream
an omelette with broccoli and cheddar cheese
a desert with meringue
corn pudding

I’m salivating just at the thought of making any of these much-wanted treats! Please allergy-gods, please let me eat eggs again!

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Expectations (weekly menu 22)

jared — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 22:53:54 +0000

Yesterday I was having a conversation with a friend over a cup of tea. The topics varied, but we focused on some of my food projects and their current directions. When the blog came up, an interesting comment was made and it’s stuck with me. The response regarded the weekly menus. My friend said something like, “I like the weekly menu posts because they remind me that I need to do better.” I want to discuss this a bit – specifically, the purpose and expectations of the weekly menu posts.

For the past 5 months or so I have provided an entry devoted to weekly menus. The premise is simple: we plan our meals for the week so we save money and prevent wasteful last minute shopping. The food for the week is purchased on one day, all most always over the weekend. Now this may be the goal, but there are underlying realties. For example, maybe we don’t want to eat the meal on the menu that evening; or maybe neither of us have the interest in cooking. When we just don’t care (and this happens), we eat out or defrost a previous meal, or sometimes scrounge something together with random ingredients in the cupboard.

All the while we have expectations for ourselves. I need to eat certain foods and this prevents eating out most of the time. My wife and I both want to eat healthy meals more often than not. We want to eat seasonally but are not as strict as we have been in the past. We want to eat meals from scratch, but sometimes we don’t want to spend more time in the kitchen. There’s a balancing act here – aspire to live by certain values vs. being human and finding comfort in laziness. We also want to spend a certain amount of money. We may get lazy but we don’t have the finances to eat out everyday. Hence the meal planning, the leftovers and all the frozen food in the basement.

When I write the weekly menu post I have two goals in mind. On the one hand, I want readers to see what we eat in our home on a weekly basis for less than $100 a week. It’s difficult to know what the average household spends on food since most people don’t keep track. It depends so much on the number of people and what they like to eat and if they like to cook. For the two of us who want to eat ethically-raised food and I like to cook, we spend a bit less than 20% of our income on food costs. Note that the average American household spends less than 10% on food.

The other intention of the menus is to show the ways in which one can meal plan. Sometimes, though not regularly, I discuss some of the meal planning strategies that come to use each week. I do not expect others to eat like we eat. I do hope that others will see what we are doing and maybe be inspired, if anything, maybe think more about the opportunity to cook a meal at home. By no means are we a model for “how to eat healthy,” but I want others to acknowledge and attempt our way of life. The more our friends cook, the more food there is to share! That’s what it’s all about – community building.

All of this said, before I ramble any more, let me share the plan I put together for us this week:

Nutted brown rice pilaf with greens
Steak tacos (no recipe yet)
Coconut braised beef (too good to not make again!)
Penne with broccoli

I’d also like to mention that on Sunday I’m going to a ‘competitive potluck,’ for which I am very excited. The theme is New Age casserole! I can’t share my idea just yet, but I promise to write about the event with pictures to share. Next week is also the last week of my elimination diet (hard to believe, I know). After next week, I’ll reintroduce a food item one at a time and see how my body reacts. I’ll have more than this later.

For now, have a great weekend! Cook a feast, share it with loved ones and enjoy some R&R.

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Eating Seasonal Blues (weekly menu 21)

jared — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 04:44:26 +0000

The goal of eating seasonally comes with both pride and frustration. Sure, we like to think of ourselves as consumer-conscious people. After the 100-mile diet we were engrained by the prospect of eating locally and seasonally year-round. Unbeknownst to us, this ideal carries a burden. Eating seasonally also means sacrificing variety and spontaenity in the kitchen. Roasted veggies, braised chunks of meat and hearty stews are delicious. But as the saying goes, you can have too much of a good thing.

This has happened before and it will continue to occur – I’ll praise seasonal, local and organic (etc) but then, sometimes I’ll criticize the hell out of it. Well, today’s post is not so dramatic. But know that writing this week’s menu required a degree of seasonal eating blues.

Here’s what we put together:

Spinach, leek and potato soup
Pot roast, mashed potatoes and sauteed kale
Roasted dungeness crab
Stewed sausage and onion with buttered cabbage
Sweet potato and eggplant curry

This month’s “fancy meal of the month” will be the crab, since unknown to you, we did not have last month. (That’s another story all together.) To be honest though, I think this change of pace will be real good. Maybe seasonal eating grows old after a while, but its nice to revisit some delicious dishes every once in awhile.

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A Fresh Perspective (weekly menu 20)

jared — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 05:16:23 +0000

For those of us who cook at home, one’s library of recipes is both a treasure and a burden. Like an old babushka from communist Europe, the ripped pages, dog-eared cookbooks and scraps of scribbled meal ideas are piled away in the ever-growing corner or dusty cabinet. Each night we peruse the pages looking for a new idea, a fresh perspective. But every time we open the same books, a looming sense of doubt fills our hungry bellies. There’s only so many pot roasts, stir-fries and creamy soups to find in one’s hoarded collection. Thank goodness an outside world exists. If it weren’t for libraries, magazine aisles, Bravo TV, the food channel and other consumer-friendly sources of food ideas, we’d still be standing over the stove stirring at the same old pot of stew.

Last week, while volunteering at the Alberta Coop and cleaning out the various ‘free boxes’ at the store, I came upon a large pile of magazines. At first I did not know these pages belonged to well-known publications. I soon found out that the covers were intentionally removed even though the magazines were perfectly fine. (The reasons for this are a completely different matter.) Among the various options was a cookbook – a “holiday special” for this particular publication.

It was only moments before beginning this post that I bothered to note the magazine’s name. The lovely pictures and wonderful meal ideas sucked me in before I cared to know who wrote what. Well, it turns out that Sunset magazine, a monthly publication devoted to “West coast living” was responsible for this awesome find. Aside from the great recipe suggestions, the simple fact that I got this for free is good enough for me. I’m the kinda guy who will take random cookbooks for the sake of undiscovered ideas only to learn that such cookbooks are soon-to-be trash. Lucky for me, this particular find will not end up in the recycling bin. Instead, I’ll use it regularly next week to feed ourselves and entertain new culinary possibilities.

Suffice to say, I’m very excited about this week’s menu. It’s got flare and flavor, both of which a home cook needs once in awhile. So here’s what I got for the next set of meals:

Pan-fried trout with cornbread and kale (from Sunset)
Coconut-braised beef with rice and vegetables (thank you Mark Bittman)
Jalapeno-ginger butternut squash soup (from Sunset)
Nutted brown rice pilaf with sauteed greens and roasted sweet potatoes (from Sunset)
Braised white cabbage and roasted acorn squash (thank you Jamie Oliver)
Butternut squash gnocchi and swiss chard (from Sunset)

It’s hard not to agree that this menu looks rather fabulous. I’m also happy to provide links to all of the recipes so that those interested can explore these new culinary venues too. If this isn’t one of the best meal plans yet, I don’t know what else could be. And of course the best part is finding this magazine – a real savior in my search for new ideas on the same old ingredients.

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Sorry for the Delay (weekly menu 17)

jared — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 18:22:55 +0000

This being the 17th weekly menu posted, it also happens to be the first posted on a Saturday. I don’t know how many of my adoring fans are awaiting the weekly menu; nonetheless I apologize for the delay. Although, truth to be told, I have skipped the menus some weeks. For some reason I was excited to post this week’s meals and so I feel especially guilty about the 24 hour lapse.

This menu, unlike previous ones, was written more by my wife than myself. Last week’s meals were dominated by winter’s root vegetables. Now, we both love the celeriac, parsnips, turnips and even rutabagas, but when these crops are all pureed with thyme day in and day out, the experience goes a little dry (especially for my wife.) And so, with a fire under her bum, I had her participate in the planning process.

Here is what she came up with:

Polenta pizza with pesto, caramelized onions, sausage, mozzarella, roasted garlic and some winter greens
Beef Stew over rice
Corn soup with acorn squash and sausage
Wild rice with butternut squash, leeks and corn
Oven-roasted Dungeness crab

First off, let me say that 3 weeks into my elimination diet the frustrations have already peaked! It is rather challenging to cook and eat without vinegar (no salad dressing), tomatoes, tofu, beans and eggs, let alone the dozen or so other items on my allergy list. This dietary obstacle will only make me stronger and smarter (as a meal planner) but seeing this through can sometimes be really difficult. Lucky for me, my wife is supportive and helps me see around my usual food ideas.

Take for example the polenta pizza. You make polenta and pour it in a rimmed baking sheet. After it cools in the fridge for some time, you add the toppings and bake it for 20 minutes – voila! Wheat-free and yeast-free pizza. And honestly, it’s tasty and a great substitute when bread is not an option or you want something a tad healthier.

Another bonus to the week is our selection of frozen food items, which includes corn soup and kernels. The wild rice dish is especially delicious and we discovered it last year while living in Minneapolis. Back in Minnesota we did the 100-mile diet and I learned all about wild rice. The best part was that of all the things we ate, it’s indigenous to the region and available via an Indian reservation that participates in harvesting the traditional ways. Thus, eating wild rice was an experience in truly eating local.

Now, on a completely different note, the dungeness crab dish is local to our Portland, OR locale. This dish evolves out of one of my new year’s resolutions, specifically to prepare my wife and I a “fancy meal” once a month. This recipe is loved by a friend of mine and I think it’s time we try it too!

Overall, this week will be great. I love the variety in foods and flavors, even though there are overlaps in some of the ingredients. And since we rarely eat fish in our home, the crab night will be a real treat.

Next time, I promise to have this posted on a Friday. Have a great weekend and keep on cooking!

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Walking the Talk (weekly menu 16)

jared — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:05:38 +0000

As a blogger and educator, it is very important that I “walk the talk.” The popularity of the food movement is growing and I think there will always be a pessimistic sentiment that such values and ideals are incapable of seeing fruition. Therefore, it is my goal to practice what I preach (as best I can.)

Next week starts the after school “healthy eating and meal planning” class. With my list of food projects growing, I think it’s best that I consider each with the utmost regard. This to say, that if I’m going to stand up and tell a roomful of strangers what to eat and how to afford it, I must live by such statements. That said, let me restate the goal of the weekly menu postings:

To provide a post that includes the menu for the following week. We allot 100$ per week on food. The weekly menu is a preview of what can be afforded in Portland, OR for 100$ a week.

Since we do our grocery shopping over the weekend, I normally plan for 5-6 days, leaving room for spontaneous meals out and leftovers. One of the keys to meal planning is leftovers. When you take the time to make a large pot of soup or tray of lasagna, all that work pays off later in the week. Depending on your planning habits, you can also have a week where the leftovers are piling up and there’s a choice over what to have for lunch! For those of you who want to save money, leftovers are essential.

Considering this, for the week ahead here is our plan:

Thai curry with vegetables
Winter vegetable soup
Rosemary lamb chops with parsnip puree and swiss chard
Steak with mashed potatoes and glazed carrots
Celeriac gratin with steamed broccoli and rice

As you can notice here and in previous weekly menu posts, we eat meat once or twice a week. We love our meat! I unabashedly support Afton Field Farms and always look forward to our monthly meat pick-up. Yesterday we received our order for the next month. One of the cuts we purchased was steak, one sirloin and another a round cut. This week I hope to indulge ourselves with the round steak. Though not typically a “choice cut,” a little thoughtful preparation can make a roast taste like a filet.

Besides meat, you will often notice a barrage of vegetables on our plates. When it comes to veggies, we try to stick to the seasons as best we can. Though, this being winter, root vegetables can begin to feel monotonous. So, when possible, I like to throw in some broccoli, cauliflower, carrots or parsnips. One day, I hope to have a root storage setup and then eating out of season will feel less guilty.

In the end, we may be walking the talk, but I think it’s better to suggest we are living by are values. We want to eat well, but more importantly we want to be healthy. Sometimes it takes the extra work of planning to make this goal a possibility. Lucky for us, I love to plan!

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