Every year Epicurious does a prediction of what’s going to be UP and DOWN as far as food for the coming year. Where I live we’re not really in the epicenter of the food biz. We certainly have some good restaurants within a 20-mile radius. We could drive to Los Angeles more often where we might find a more serious mecca of dining, but the traffic is awful. What used to be a 60-minute drive in moderate traffic, is now usually a 90-minute tortured drive of brake lights and flaring tempers. So we stay closer to home and enjoy what good restaurants we do have. There really are many good ones, but they’re not necessarily at the forefront of gastronomy. California offers more healthy alternatives – from Pacific Rim cuisine, to that eclectic kind of California-esque cooking that’s ever so popular. Lots of salads, vegetables, even tofu and sushi. We have ample barbecue, steak in all forms and sizes, burger joints, and pho (Vietnamese soup). There’s comfort food, formal food, cheap and high-end Italian food too.

So, I read the predictions with a slightly askance eye. Will it have any bearing on our eating habits? I’m not sure. You decide:

MOVING UP: Fried Chicken

Really? Hmmm. I’m not so sure we even HAVE any restaurants that feature fried chicken. Fried food doesn’t feature much in most California restaurants. Sure there’s some – like calamari, zucchini sticks, jalapeno poppers and french fries. But not many others. Seems to me that most appetizer menus feature fried food. I rarely order any of those things with the exception of calamari. But maybe I need to dust off some of my 1960’s era cookbooks and find some new methods for making fried chicken at home. It’s just not very healthy, which is why I never attempt to make it.

MOVING DOWN: Burgers

Somehow I doubt burgers are going to take a back seat in most places in our neck of the woods. Everybody loves burgers. And with fries. What is popular here in California is turkey burgers – I do order one on occasion.

MOVING UP: Mini Whoopie Pies

This surprises me. These aren’t popular here at all. As I recall, they’re quite the thing in the midwest somewhere, near their origin. You know what they are? Two soft cookies sandwiched together with a kind of marshmallow filling. I’ve made them, but they’re altogether too much sweet/sugar for me.

MOVING DOWN: Mini Cupcakes

Personally I’ve not even SEEN mini-cupcakes. With the popularity of places like Sprinkles, where the regular-sized cupcake reigns supreme, how could mini-cupcakes even be on the radar?

MOVING UP: Lamb

Hmmm. Maybe so, but it certainly is a pricey ingredient here in our stores. Costco has good deals on lamb, but I think they only carry boneless legs from Australia and racks of lamb. I do enjoy Colorado lamb, though, and seek it out when I can. But have you looked at the fat content? That’s why it’s normally a big treat for us – not only for cost, but for calories.

MOVING DOWN: Pork

Barbecue certainly has made a big impact here in California. We find barbecue (beef and pork mostly) in lots of places. A few restaurants that truly do the barbecue thing (long, slow smoking) are quite popular still.

MOVING UP: an Immunity-Building diet

This has to do with eating foods that are now known to be helpful for building your immune system. I’ve read some about this, but not enough as I couldn’t recall any of them. Apples, onions, organic tomatoes, chicken soup, broccoli, green tea, Vitamin D rich foods (salmon, sardines, tuna), yogurt and chiles all feature large in such a diet.

MOVING DOWN: the Omega-3 foods

I was surprised to read this, but the reason is logical – so many of the Omega-3 fish contain so much mercury, that it’s considered almost more like a health hazard. Some are recommending pills rather than eating the real thing. Besides, we’ve so over-fished our waters there are only so many kinds of fish we can eat. Sad.

MOVING UP: Butchers

It’s becoming a new “in” profession. I’ve been quite disappointed of late when I have visited a store with a real butcher – sometimes they have no idea what I’m asking for. Has made me wonder if the apprenticing has changed its methods so greenhorns are allowed to wait on customers and only one real butcher even works there. I wish I knew more about it.

MOVING DOWN: Mixologist

All those fancy drinks (like martinis and other blender drinks) are apparently going to move out of fashion. We’re not much into trying all the fancy drinks as we’re mostly wine drinkers. We don’t even sample beers much either.

MOVING UP: Homemade beer

Speaking of beer, guess there are now kits for making your own rather than paying the premium prices for some of the boutique brews. This doesn’t even figure on my food radar. Sorry.

MOVING DOWN: Mad-Science Cocktails

Kind of a repeat of the Mixologist downturn. People have been oversaturated with the fancy, crazy cocktails.

MOVING UP: Vancouver

Partly this is because of the Winter Olympics, but Vancouver has become a new mecca for fine dining, I guess. We were even there this past summer for about an hour (before our cruise ship headed out to sea), but had no time to seek out a restaurant.

MOVING DOWN: Barcelona

Seems like there aren’t all that many people who would be affected by this – I mean – flying to Barcelona just to eat? Kind of an expensive trip, I’d say. We’ve been there once, and were quite amazed at the fine dining available. Enjoyed it a lot, but it isn’t exactly going to figure strongly in any of my travel plans in the near future.

MOVING UP: Potluck Dining at Home

This sounds like a great idea. Especially with our current economy and less expendable income at our fingertips.

MOVING DOWN: Formal Dining at Home

So few people do formal dining anymore. We here in California probably started the trend toward casual dining at home about 15+ years ago, so this isn’t news to us.

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I’ve been under the weather lately. I’m now on day 33 of an upper respiratory infection (bronchitis). Prescription meds have been used up and now my body just has to get rid of the last remnants. It’s been a hard fight, obviously, because I still have a pretty awful cough and I still don’t feel good. My Christmas stuff is still decorating the house – haven’t felt up to un-decorating it yet. This bug is just hanging onto me for dear life. My GP says I’m rid of the wheezing (fortunately) and it will just take a bit more time. I’ve never – ever – had a cough that’s been this bad. I’ve never smoked, and I haven’t ever had asthma, but the first doctor I saw in an emergency clinic two weeks ago thought I had both. Anyway, there hasn’t been a whole lot of cooking going on in my kitchen lately. We’ve been pulling out frozen stuff (mostly soups) and my DH has been making trips to local eateries for some take-out. Not fast food since neither of us like that stuff much. I’m not even up to going “out.” I’d rather stay home.

I did walk out to our patio at sunset one evening last week and this was the view:

On the left, at the horizon is Catalina Island (the dark left-to-right strips – it’s 25 miles from the coast to the islands).

There’s also a little update about the Wensleydale cheese I wrote about a week or so ago. Our local Costco (a larger Costco, a bit further away) does carry the cheese year ‘round. I also heard from one of my loyal readers, Cindee, who tells me that Wallace & Gromit adore this cheese. I didn’t know anything about Wallace  & Gromit until then – have never seen any of their movies. Will have to add them to my Netflix queue. As the story goes, the Wensleydale cheese factory was floundering some years ago until by chance the cheese made an appearance with Wallace & Gromit. Since then the cheese has been flying high, the company came out of its slump, and in England they now market the cheddar with a Wallace & Gromit package:

Isn’t that just a kick? And, I’m happy to report that my DH bought more of the cheese with this kind of packaging:

So, stay tuned. I’m not blogging daily, and won’t be until I feel better and have begun cooking again – so I’ll have something to BLOG about.

A year ago: Ground Beef Moussaka

Two years ago: Creamy Leek Soup

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I already have a posole recipe here on my blog. But when I made this one I’d forgotten that, so I made this version, perhaps even easier than the other one. This one uses all canned ingredients for the soup part (tomatoes, hominy, broth) and as long as you have the topping items on hand (grated Monterey jack cheese, radishes, green onions, lettuce – and I added cilantro, sour cream and avocado), this soup comes together in a hurry. This soup I made is not the authentic posole (as it’s usually made with pork). I added in other ingredients. But oh, is it a WOW soup. This is MY KIND OF SOUP, I’ll tell ya. Lots of powerful flavors mingling in the bowl. Lots of textures too. Altogether fabulous.

But first of all I must tell you about a new product – well, it WILL be a new product, I believe – from Muir Glen. I hope you’ve been seeking out Muir Glen organic canned tomatoes already – especially their fire-roasted tomatoes. I just am crazy about them – sometimes they’re hard to find, so I buy a bunch of cans whenever I do locate them. A couple of months ago, the folks at Muir Glen kindly sent me a little gift package of their about-to-released products. (I’m sure the reason they did is that I’ve mentioned Muir Glen several times on my blog, so they probably assumed I’d be more than pleased. They didn’t ask me to write up anything, but I’m happy to, because I believe so much in their superior products.)

Today I’m just going to talk about the Fire-Roasted Tomatoes in Adobo Seasoning because that’s the one I tried out of my gift basket. Very yummy, this stuff! You can order this gift box/basket online through the company’s website. The box I received (above) is $7.00.

I took a taste of the canned tomatoes before I put them in the soup, so I could try to think about the flavor. It’s spicy (has chiles, cumin, oregano among other things) and has a little deeper character than just plain canned tomatoes. Of course, the Muir Glen are fire-roasted, so they already have some deeper flavor to begin with. All things to make this new Muir Glen can very helpful in the kitchen! And very appropriate for things like chili and soup. Adobo is a type of seasoning (popular in Mexico, the Caribbean, Spain and the Philippines) but they vary widely. This adobo is, I think, the Mexican variety. Here’s what wikipedia has to say about it:

• Adobo relates to marinated dishes such as chipotles en adobo or Chipotles in adobo sauce is a condiment in which chipotles (smoked jalapeño peppers) are stewed in a sauce with tomatoes, garlic, vinegar, salt, and spices. The spices vary, but generally include several types of peppers (in addition to the Chipotle and most likely those on hand), ground cumin and dried oregano. Some recipes include orange juice and lemon or lime juices. They often include a pinch of brown sugar just to offset any bitter taste.

As it happens, I added more oregano in my soup, because I wanted a more pronounced herby flavor. But the adobo tomatoes already have some. Plus the cumin, another popular Mexican seasoning. There at the picture (left) you can see the “salad” part of posole – you put that in the bowl first (shredded lettuce, green onions, radishes, avocado and sour cream). Then the soup is ladled in. It’s a fairly dry soup – not a lot of liquid, which was fine with me. Then I sprinkled the cheese and cilantro on top of the soup before serving.

Soups are a standard around my house. I really enjoy making them – and especially the kind like this which have a little cornucopia of toppings – to be added with relish and abandon. You like cheese? Add more. Nix the lettuce? Okay by me. Maybe cabbage is better. Don’t like radishes? Fine, add minced red bell pepper as a condiment. You understand – make it your own. As long as the basic soup is flavorful (yes), healthful (yes, with chicken), you can make this soup any way you’d like. This soup is a winner!
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A year ago: Chicken Bouillabaisse
Two years ago: Pork & Green Chile Stew

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Sometime a year or so ago I wrote up a post about this Pear Crisp (which came from Smitten Kitchen’s blog, and she adapted it from a Gourmet Magazine recipe). It was one of those awesomely good things that enveloped you in comfort with every bite. It contained a flour-nut topping. And the fresh pears just soaked up the goodness of the vanilla browned butter. Looking at the recipe I decided to make this again, but make it gluten-free for my cousin Gary. It was a very easy fix to do that. It called for 1 1/2 cups of flour. I substituted 1 1/2 cups of blanched almond flour instead. It was mixed with whole almonds and spices to make the topping, that turned a very toasty brown (those very dark brown parts you can see in the photo). The crisp went from nice golden brown to nearly burned in a matter of about 5 minutes in the oven. But it wasn’t burned – quite – and those dark brown parts actually tasted quite good.

Ideally, make this when the pears are at their PEAK of flavor. Not when they’re one day past. It still tastes good, but it’s better if the pears are on the underside of ripe rather than the overside of ripe, if you get my drift. The photo at left is the crisp prior to baking with the nut crumbly topping sprinkled all over.
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A year ago: Shrimp & Shellfish Chowder

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Sorry this photo isn’t better – I’d intended to take more photos – I just plain forgot – and when I remembered, these muffins were all gone – but at least I’d taken this one picture, a real close-up using a new lens. Do notice the little dots of moisture here and there in the muffin  . . .

Nearly every Christmas my cousin Gary from northern California comes to visit. He’s a single guy. Very tech oriented (he’s a retired programmer from Hewlett-Packard), and helps me with lots of little things – giving me instruction about html (the stuff that runs how this website looks) and tweaking my computers. Would you believe I have four computers – five if you count my iphone. (And my DH, Dave, has a computer, but he rarely uses it.) I own two desktops at home, an old laptop (that’s going to be retired soon) and a new netbook I use when I travel. Gary’s a member of Mensa, and in his spare time he tutors high school kids in the programming of robots (for an annual international competition). And he always offers to help me cook too. I’d had several recipes I’d wanted to try but I wasn’t up to it because of my upper respiratory infection. We ate out more than usual during his visit.

Anyway, Gary is wheat intolerant, so when he visits I try to make new things for him to try. This time he took home about four recipes – two he asked for, and two I decided he should try. I did do a bit of cooking on days when I felt good enough, and I made these muffins for him to have with his breakfast. Generally we make a trip to Whole Foods so he can buy some GF crackers and bread. But he ate all of these muffins first and liked them. The recipe came from over at Kalyn’s Kitchen blog. Kalyn adapted the recipe from a GF cookbook called The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook by Elana Anderson. Kalyn is a South Beach Diet fan, so no refined sugars, etc.

If you like light, fluffy, traditional muffins made with flour, these might not satisfy you. These are made with almond flour. Not almond MEAL (which I do buy at Trader Joe’s and use for other things), but blanched almond FLOUR, which is a finer milled product – looks and feels a bit more like flour. But of course, it isn’t. The fat content of these muffins is high – but it comes from the natural oils in the nuts (the almond meal and the minced pecans), not from added fat (although there is one T. of oil in it – for six muffins!). So, if you want to tame down carbs, or have a wheat intolerance, give these a try.
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A year ago: Pumpkin Cornbread Muffins (also GF, made when my cousin was visiting in 2008)
Two years ago: Roast Lemon Chicken

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A few months ago I made a soup using a packaged country gravy mix. It was a real hit. And ever so easy to make. I bought a number of packages of the gravy mix, fearful McCormick would take it off the market! I have no hint that’s going to happen, but one never knows. So, I used the same method, the same gravy mix, the same Italian sausage and onion and changed-up the other ingredients. I had celery, zucchini and dark red kale instead of cabbage. The preparation of the soup was generally the same, although kale does require a bit more cooking than the chopped, sliced cabbage. It took about 30 minutes to tenderize the kale, plus the time to sweat the vegetables and cook the Italian sausage. So, all in all, it took about an hour to make.

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If you read my post yesterday, about steeping chicken, then you already know I made a chicken & greens salad. I had a recipe in my repertoire that I hadn’t tried before, from Michael Chiarello (Food Network), from 2006, according to my notes. His recipe was an arugula salad, with a citrus vinaigrette, with grilled chicken and a toasted spice rub. Well, I didn’t have time to go through all of that. Didn’t feel like doing the grill thing for just two chicken breasts. So I turned to an old stand-by chicken cooking method I haven’t used in a long time – submerging boneless, skinless chicken breasts in hot, just below boiling water and letting it sit. It’s like steeping tea – where tea takes 5 minutes to come to full flavor – chicken takes about 20-30 minutes to cook all the way through.

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Maybe this is old hat for you – if so just delete and move on. But I’m going to talk about a cooking method that I use infrequently, but when I need it, I really need it. This was the case last night. We got home late from our house in the desert. I had nothing on hand to fix for dinner. We were all feeling full and like fat cats. We ate lunch out – really good Mexican food in Riverside – and wanted a light dinner. Salad was just the ticket. Read the rest of this entry »

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Lots of other bloggers do a year in review, and I thought it would be a good idea. Just in case you didn’t happen to be in the mood for some of the recipes I blogged about when you read them. But now might be different. So here are my favorite recipes I posted in ‘09:

Butterscotch Pudding – made with real Scotch in it. Heavy-duty on flavor. Not difficult to make, either.

Caesar Salad Dressing – an easy, really easy dressing made with mayo. It’s my go-to Caesar dressing now.

Garbanzo, Feta & Cilantro Salad – a wonderful summer dish, but really could be served any time of year. The flavors are just bursting within that little bowl above.

Mahogany Onions (appetizer) – the onions, cooked until they’re almost black (but not, or they’d be burned) and served on little toasts.

Bing Cherry Compote – never thought fresh cherries could taste so good – cooked, that is, into a compote that is sensational over ice cream. Has red wine in it, but the cherries aren’t cooked much so they hold their shape.

Cook’s Illustrated’s Tiramisu – I learned so much about the definitive method of making tiramisu when I watched this on America’s Test Kitchen. Best tiramisu I’ve ever had.

Savory Tomato Pie – never knew good, summer tomatoes in season could taste so good in a pie. Just the right combo of cheese. Nice crust. Wonderful stuff.

Woodford Pudding – similar (if not the same as) an English Jam Pudding. I think it was the quantity of jam that had discouraged me from making this, but I was totally bowled over with the taste. A keeper.

Bombay Cheese Ball – not like the cheese balls of yore – this one is full of flavor, with a hint of curry, and then topped with all kinds of wonderful things like shredded coconut, dried cranberries and a bunch of chutney.

Italian Sausage, Tomato and Cannellini Bean Soup – an exceedingly EASY soup to make. Can be done in less than an hour, maybe even less than 30 minutes – but it’s ever so much better if allowed to cool, chill, then reheat.

Cranberry-Pecan & Apple Salad – brilliant flavors, ideal for the holidays since it’s fresh cranberries. The chopped cranberries mixed with the apples and pecans just make a wonderful combination – kind of like the old waldorf salad, but better.

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It’s not often – in fact, very rare – that I use this forum/blog for talking about something . . . perhaps . . . controversial. But having just watched this movie, I’m wanting to join my voice with those of many, many others who abhor what’s happening with the quality of the food we buy. There are perhaps lots of different segments of the food biz that could use some overhaul, but in this case, I’m just devoting these words to the subject of this movie.

This isn’t just about Monsanto Corp., the public behemoth of an agribusiness. It’s also about very normal, hard-working farmers from around the globe who got themselves into the crosshairs of that big-bad-business with loads of bucks. Monsanto has tried, and is still trying to destroy them. Their farms. Their livelihoods. And in the process they [Monsanto, IMHO] decided to go down a road that is, in my opinion, on the “wrong side of the tracks.” They became the bully. But it’s a lot more powerful than that, actually. There are other companies who have also patented seed too, but Monsanto may have been the first. And the bully with the biggest fist.  And the movie is about more than just this one farmer. But the specific case is interesting enough to focus on . . .

Now I’m the first one to proclaim I’m all for business. For capitalism. For competition. Having invested money over the course of the last 30 years in a variety of public companies (stocks) I’m happy as heck when said companies make money. But I want no part of companies that use their strongarm tactics to control. To dictate. To destroy. Or ones who lie, cheat, steal, or otherwise misconstrue the facts. Or hide the real reasons.

So, here’s what happened. Back a long time ago Monsanto began doing research with canola seed. Undoubtedly Monsanto invested millions of dollars into this endeavor. They decided to push the envelope – they created a genetically modified version that would resist treatment with “Round-Up,” that ubiquitous herbicide that kills anything that grows. And makes the ground it’s been treated with unusable for a very long time – except for canola seed. So when Monsanto developed this Round-Up resistant canola seed, it meant that farmers could spray Round-Up all over their fields and it would not kill the canola plants, but it would kill everything else. Farmers thought this was the most wonderful thing since tractors. But, before Monsanto put this product out for sale, they decided, in their infinite big-business mentality, to get a patent on the genetically-modified canola seed. They were refused at the Patent Office because as we all know, it’s declared in our U.S. Constitution that you can’t patent food. Food is for everybody. But Monsanto didn’t take “no” for an answer. They took it to court. The court ruled in Monsanto’s favor. That yes, indeed, GM (genetically modified) or GE (genetically-engineered) canola seeds were, in fact, patentable. Which of and by itself allows the patent holder (Monsanto) to sue anybody who uses the patented product (the GM canola seed) without paying for it. On the surface that doesn’t sound so bad. . . Keep reading.

Cut to a few years later. The GM canola seed is being bought up in millions of tons. Farmers love it. Well, most farmers love it and pay the price to buy it. You see, you can’t hold over seed from this Monsanto-engineered canola. Not permitted. Buyers have to sign a contract to that effect. So, farmers do have to buy new seed each year. That seemed not to bother most of the farmers.

But some farmers didn’t buy Monsanto’s seed – they used their own seed – harvested from their own plants. The way it’s been done since man figured out how to save seed and plant it the next season. One such couple, the Schmeisers, of Saskatchewan, Canada, used their own seed, which they’d carefully bred and fine-tuned over their 40 years running their farm. They were extremely proud of their canola seed breeding, actually. Anyway, I’ll cut to the chase here. The couple was sued by Monsanto for growing some of Monsanto’s GM seed in their fields. (According to Schmeiser’s website: Canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto’s Round-Up Ready Canola. Monsanto’s position was that it didn’t matter whether Schmeiser knew or not that his canola field was contaminated with the Roundup Ready gene, or whether or not he took advantage of the technology [he didn’t]; that he must pay Monsanto their Technology Fee of $15./acre.) Schmeiser didn’t buy any of Monsanto’s seed, yet there were some plants found on his property. They guess that the wind, and perhaps the truck that delivered Monsanto seed to the neighboring farm, blew some seed into the Schmeiser’s property.

But Monsanto lied about their testing techniques. And did everything in their power to destroy this couple and their farm. But the Schmeisers decided to fight it. Unfortunately, in the courts, then, Schmeiser lost. Schmeiser has no idea, really, how the Monsanto seed got onto his property. He didn’t/doesn’t WANT it on his property. But Monsanto decided to make a point about Schmeiser’s plants (perhaps because he was very vocal in his dislike of Monsanto’s tactics). Monsanto wanted nothing better than to shut Schmeiser down. Well, the case went to appeal and the court determined that Monsanto’s patent is valid, but Schmeiser was not forced to pay Monsanto anything as he did not profit from the presence of Roundup Ready canola in his fields. After that, Schmeiser sued Monsanto (wanting Monsanto to clean up his fields, remove the Round-Up ready seed/plants). The court upheld the part about Monsanto’s patent on the canola seed, but told Schmeiser he was not responsible for paying any of the fees or fines to Monsanto. (From Schmeiser’s website: Monsanto has agreed to pay all the clean-up costs of the Roundup Ready canola that contaminated Schmeiser’s fields. Also part of the agreement was that there was no gag-order on the settlement and that Monsanto could be sued again if further contamination occurred. Schmeiser believes this precedent setting agreement ensures that farmers will be entitled to reimbursement when their fields become contaminated with unwanted Roundup Ready canola or any other unwanted GMO plants.)

Just to be fair, I did look around the internet for any differing opinions regarding this case and the film/documentary. I found almost none. It appears that no one can refute the facts of the case. Bottom line: it’s scary. What a behemoth company like Monsanto will do to control the selling of its seed in the world. The problem is that right now we’re only talking about canola seed and corn. It has far-reaching tentacles into the future. The EU decided that they would not permit Monsanto to sell GM seed within the EU. (Good for them, I say.) Undoubtedly Monsanto is working diligently on developing other GM seed types. The movie also dealt with a group of farmers in Central America who are growing Monsanto GM corn. Monsanto sells the seed at a very reduced price there – an inducement to get them to start the GM seed machine. Because once it’s started, it’s very hard to turn back the clock or shut the door – the movie questioned whether Monsanto would also strongarm nearby poor farmers, forcing them to pay fees when GM corn happens to pop up on their lands. Who knows. And you also need to know that other companies are working on GM seed too, it’s not just Monsanto. They just chose the lawsuit scenario and became the spokescompany for the bullying techniques that could be utilized.

The other really frightening thing is that here in the U.S. the government has not whispered a word to food distributors about labeling. I’d like to avoid eating GM corn. Or GM canola. But I can’t, because nobody makes the producers/farmers/packagers label products as GM. And it’s not likely to happen anytime soon, either. The documentary also detailed the extremely high number of high U.S. government officials who used to work for Monsanto. We’re not talking USDA underlings, here, but very top officials in many areas of the government sector (including John Ashcroft, among others). I don’t know whether buying organic will assure me of eating non-GM foods. I’ll need to look into that.

The documentary is available in a variety of places. Online you can watch it for free. I got mine through my Netflix membership. The movie production company’s site also contains good info. Schmeiser’s website contains a ton of data, including a “what if” essay about the possible implications of the use of any GM seed. It’s worth reading. But whatever you do, do see the movie/documentary.

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A year ago: My cousin Gary’s Turkey Chili

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