Daria Can Cook – and so can you!

In the interest of getting through lots of delicious veg, today was an unintentionally mostly raw day. I was cold when I woke up, so I started with some vanilla rooibos in my favorite mug.

This mug is from the Christmas Tree Shop, which is emblematic of everything that is wrong with our country, but I still like drinking out of it. Especially now that it makes me feel like Lady Gaga.

For lunch I made myself a hummus plate. I started with this:

and ended up with this:

Loved it! The Asian cucumber was a little hard to get used to at first – it’s fairly fuzzy. But it tastes like a cross between a cucumber and summer squash, so once you get past the hairiness it’s pretty delicious.

I will be the first to admit that my dinner was not pretty. In fact, it was downright ugly. But it had intense inner beauty.

In the mix: a head of romaine, more Asian cucumber, raw sweet corn, a smooshed avocado, balsamic vinegar.

I’d say I’m off to a good start getting through my CSA abundance before it goes bad.

I’ll leave you with some encouraging news via Civil Eats:

“Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack are joining together to hold public discussions on “competition issues affecting the agriculture industry in the 21st century and the appropriate role for antitrust and regulatory enforcement in that industry.” This is the first time any such talks will have been held on an industry that is massively consolidated and under-regulated. For example, did you know that in 2006, 83.5% of beef-packing was controlled by 4 companies, same goes for 66% of pork packing, 58.5% of the chicken processing and 55% of turkey processing. Similar numbers exist for the seed companies, the grain processors bringing animal feed to feedlots and HFCS to most of the packaged foods in the supermarket, and the supermarket retailers themselves. Numbers this high indicate a lack of competition.”

Check out the original post to see how you can join the public discussions and help support smaller farms!

I’ve been yammering a lot lately about agriculture and eating disorders and blogging and almost everything but recipes. Largely this has just been for me; the past few posts have helped me get some thoughts in order. If they’ve bored you silly along the way, my apologies. If you’ve enjoyed them in any way, awesome.

Part of what these posts have helped me figure out is what I want this blog to be. When I started it I was thinking it would just be a chronicle of our CSA eats, but I was reading lots of food/lifestyle blogs where people post everything they eat and do and I started to mimic that. But I think what I really want to do here is share how delicious and nourishing eating fresh, local food can be. And that means pictures and recipes…with the occasional bout of yammering thrown in.

So here goes! Last night I cooked our chicken legs Julia Child-style.

There were three, but this was after Trent attacked them. I used a simple technique from Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home: I heated up a mix of butter and olive oil in a large skillet, then put the chicken thighs in and flipped them once every minute for about 40 minutes. I know that sounds intensive, but it’s actually very little work (other cuts, like breasts, would take less time). I cleaned and organized the kitchen in between flips. The advantage of this technique, aside from promoting clean surroundings, is that the meat cooks evenly and it stays incredibly juicy. The skin also browns nicely. I know it could be psychosomatic, but now that we’re eating humanely-raised chicken I swear the skin tastes good. I used to hate it.

For the record, I love Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, but it may not be entirely beginner-friendly. It helps to bring a wee bit of cooking knowledge to it. That said, the rustic fruit tart recipe is so easy and so delicious, it’s almost worth it for that alone.

For lunch today I made a raw beet and carrot salad.

I peeled and grated 1 beet and 1 carrot and doused them with the juice of 1 lemon, a shake of salt, and a grind or two of pepper. You really only need the juice of half a lemon here, but I try to drink the juice of one lemon each day. Bizarre, I know, but I swear it keeps my skin clear. I picked this tip up from an old issue of Jane magazine. Thanks Jane!

It would never have occurred to me to eat raw beets – I have Mark Bittman to thank for that. Last summer I tried the raw beet salad from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and was amazed at what a little acid does to the normally overpowering earthiness of beets. The carrots in my version help tame that earthiness as well.

After I scarfed the salad I sauteed the beet greens in a little butter and ate them out of my beautiful pink-flecked salad bowl.

Plus a cold chicken leg was consumed, caveman-style. Loved it.

First, a disclaimer. I started reading food blogs because I was in a cooking rut and needed new recipes for inspiration. I started writing one because I liked the community of people interested in healthy eating that I found in the blog world, and I wanted to be part of it. One of the things that I love about this community is that people try new things together – almond butter, breakfast cookies, banana soft serve – but this can also be a drawback. I think that it’s easy to get caught up in blog trends and to feel bad when  one isn’t a part of them.

I was really struck by April’s comment on Kailey’s post (about food combining not working for her) that she feels guilty for not trying food combining since it’s taking over the blog world. I sometimes feel this way too – all these other people are eating high raw diets…maybe this means I’m not a “clean” or “good” eater! But the more I think about it, the more I realize that any pressure to be a “better” eater is coming from myself, not from any of these other bloggers. I’m always amazed and impressed by Gena’s approach to raw foods. When I first started reading her blog I unfairly assumed that she would see non-raw lifestyles as bad, but she continually stresses that you need to eat what works for you. She is consistently non-judgmental and open to other people’s lifestyles, which I find really impressive and inspiring.

I’m realizing that it’s my own hangups that cause me to worry about eating a “bad” diet, and that thinking in terms of good/bad when it comes to what I eat is pretty insane and destructive. Yes, there are moral questions related to diet – is it ok to eat animals? how can I promote more ecologically sound farming practices? – but it doesn’t make me a bad person if I don’t eat high raw or if I do occasionally eat an entire box of cereal in two days.

So long story short, I decided that I would give food combining a shot. I didn’t make this decision because everyone else is doing it or because I think it will make me a better person; instead I thought I’d try for curiosity’s sake.

The verdict? I have to try again later. ;p I tried to start the day with a beautiful bowl of fruit:

This mix of cantaloupe and peach was delicious, but I think I waited too long to eat breakfast. I was feeling a little shaky and lightheaded by the time I got to this, so it wasn’t enough. I tried to have some almond milk to hold me over, but I still felt bad so I had a big cup of cereal. Some mornings I can get by on smaller breakfasts, but some mornings I can’t.

I did successfully combine lunch. Giant salad of spinach, CSA lettuce, carrots, avocado, salt and pepper, and balsamic:

and the rest of the avocado mashed on toast with more balsamic:

Dinner was yet another CSA scramble:

I don’t know if this is properly combined or not – I’m not sure where eggs fit. At any rate, since I didn’t properly combine breakfast and since this was a shared meal with T, who is not interested in food combining, I didn’t worry too much about it. It was one of our best scrambles yet, thanks largely to the CSA bacon, which is nitrate and nitrite free, consisting of humanely-treated pig, maple syrup, salt, and hickory smoke. Stellar.

The result? I don’t know if I felt any real difference, but then again I didn’t combine properly all day. I’m also still out of whack thanks to jetlag, so I’m not so in tune with what’s making me feel good and what’s making me feel crappy. I think I’ll try again in the future, once I’m solidly back on east coast time.

More travel recap soon! For now I need to read. Oh so behind, as usual!