Food. Science. Religion. And the places where they meet each other.

GRAIn salads!

Tue, 8 Mar 2011 19:24:42 -0600

I’m bringing this blog out of retirement for a moment to share with you my recent epiphany about packed lunches. Whole grain salads! You could, of course, eat these at home, but they are a great away-from-home dish because they’re a whole meal in one bowl, don’t need to be reheated, and while they make great “leftovers,” they do not taste like leftovers - that is, food that tastes best right after it’s made but definitely not as good when reheated. That sentence was too long.

Anyway, these salads are super healthy! Whole grains are full of fiber, micronutrients, and complex carbohydrates. Add some beans, and you have complete protein (grains + legumes = complete protein). Add lots of fresh vegetables, and you have a crunchy, tasty salad.

I make 12-15 away-from-home meals per week for myself and my husband (half of which are peanut butter sandwiches), so coming up with appealing new things gets hard. I’m excited about grain salads because it’s so easy to make variations on this theme, which means I can generate variety without having to think too hard. And I can make them nutritious without having to cobble together foods from all the various groups because everything is there in one dish.

I have three versions in mind: the Asian version, the Mediterranean version, and the Southwest version (I use the terms loosely). I’ve made the first two and loved them, and I’m trying to think of more. Here’s what I used (or plan to use), but you can use your imagination and make your own creations.

Asian Whole Grain Salad
2 cups uncooked short-grain brown rice
1/2 a package (about 8 oz) frozen edamame
About 2 cups snow peas, trimmed
A very large handful of bean sprouts
2 carrots, shredded
About 1/4 of any kind of cabbage, sliced thin or shredded
1 bunch green onions, sliced
Asian sesame salad dressing

Cook the rice in 4 cups water until tender and water has been absorbed. Allow to cool to room temperature. Cook the edamame in the microwave for a couple of minutes. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl, and pour in salad dressing to taste. I used a whole 8 oz bottle. In the future, I think I’ll make my own sesame dressing because the dressing I used was a little less flavorful and a little more oily than I liked. Or maybe I’ll just try a different brand of dressing - that would be easiest.

Here’s a recipe for a sesame dressing that I like, though. It should probably be doubled for this amount of salad.

1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
2 Tbsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Mediterranean Whole Grain Salad
4 cups cooked bulgur
1 pint grape tomatoes
1 English cucumber, diced
1 cup feta, crumbled
1 bunch green onions, sliced
1 15 oz can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
A handful of parsley
Balsamic vinaigrette dressing, to taste

Southwest Whole Grain Salad
4 cups cooked quinoa
1 15 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
About 1 cup of canned corn
1 pint grape tomatoes
About 1 cup cheddar cheese chunks
A handful of cilantro
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 bunch green onions, sliced
The dressing here is a bit of a challenge because there’s nothing obvious that’s coming to mind. I bought a citrus lime vinaigrette that I can’t wait to try. Some chunks of roasted sweet potatoes would also be excellent in this, I think.

Yum. Now I’m trying to think up a salad that uses barley and bacon. And how about a fruity grain salad? It’s going to be a long time before I get tired of these!

goodbye for now

Mon, 3 Jan 2011 23:10:38 -0600

I started this blog two years ago because I wanted a place to get some practice with writing. I think it’s served that purpose, but now I’m finding I have no time for it.

I wanted to write about food and cooking, but found that I was really just a foodie wannabe.

I thought I should write about science, but it turns out I hardly read anything sciency anymore.

I now have another outlet for writing about religion. (I have a new post at patheos as of yesterday).

So I think this will be the last post here for a while, maybe forever. I’m going to keep the website up for now because I’m not quite sure I want to send it to it’s cyber grave yet. It’s served some good purposes for me. Writing here helped me decide what I think about organic food, I had some fun posting about food that I made, I was able to make sense of some things I went through in graduate school, and it gave me a place to vent occasionally. I once read that we write so that we can experience life twice. I like that, and I think it’s true. I’d like to keep writing, but I’m afraid my family blog and patheos are all I’ll have time for in the foreseeable future. If you’re a friend, you can find a link the family blog on facebook.

in praise of brown rice

Fri, 3 Dec 2010 22:13:18 -0600

Brown rice used to get a bad rap. In Asia it was considered inferior to white rice, eaten by the poor and during wartime shortages (and as a cure for constipation). I used to avoid it because I heard it took longer to cook than white rice. And I didn’t grow up eating it, so it wasn’t a natural go-to food to pair with my stir fry.

But I’m totally converted to it now. I use short grain brown rice all the time, and find it doesn’t take any longer to cook than the long grain white rice I used to cook. I like the flavor and slightly chewy texture. We had it with beef stroganoff tonight and I much prefer it to the traditional egg noodles. The noodles seem mushy to me now compared with the firm texture of beef, but brown rice holds up well next to it.

I started cooking brown rice as a way of supporting my husband’s whole-grain diet, which was an effort to avoid his family’s disposition towards type II diabetes. (And it’s working, by the way. His blood triglycerides have dropped 50%). Once I tried it and realized it’s no more difficult to cook than white rice, it’s become the only rice in my pantry. And I think it’s becoming more generally more popular as well. At an Asian-fusion type restaurant I go to at a nearby shopping mall you can order brown rice as well as white sticky rice. So it’s not so inferior anymore!

Brown rice is just white rice with the bran and germ left on the grain. And it’s much more nutritious than white rice. The milling and polishing required to produce white rice removes most of the B vitamins, manganese, iron, phosphorous, and all of the fiber and essential fatty acids from the grain. Brown and white rice are the same in carbohydrate and protein content, but brown rice is like getting a multivitamin along with your meal.

I also just read that brown rice is good for breastfeeding mothers because it increases milk supply through improved regulation of blood sugar, cholesterol, and weight. I would think this is true of any whole grain though, not just rice. But hey, it’s good news to me since I’m currently a nursing mother. It’s another example of how eating things the way nature made them is best for our bodies.

an eating challenge

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 09:41:29 -0600

On this Thanksgiving Day, with food on your mind, consider this challenge from the Shelf Reliance company. I got a Costco email ad this week showing their “1-year, 4-person freeze-dried dehydrated food supply,” available for $3,000. This product, called THRIVE, comes with gallon sized containers of dried textured vegetable protein, or TVP.

Take a listen to this ringing endorsement from the company itself of its TVP product. It’s even used in “high classier restaurants!” They challenge you to try it! Uh, can’t wait...