Milk Calendar Mondays: Vibrant broccoli soup

Sometimes I wonder where bland diets come from....not medically-necessitated bland diets, but diets that lack interesting flavours and textures.

And yes, I'm fully aware that "interesting" is a highly subjective term...I find the works by English Renaissance dramatists interesting, am fairly sure not everyone shares my literary diversions.

I suppose those who prefer foods deficient in...sparkle...may not have been exposed to said sparkle. Maybe they think sparkle is frightening in the same way people are afraid of roller coasters or bungee jumping: that's nice for some, but not for me, thank you very much.

I don't think there's a problem with the occasional settling for something a little less than wow. At the very least, you appreciate the wow even more when you (deservedly return to it). Unfortunately, there are some who decrease their culinary sparkle so subtly they don't realise they've lost their sparkle. They stop cooking for themselves and become increasingly reliant on lowest common denominator prefab foods (cafeteria offerings, the frozen foods aisle), a mood strikes and doesn't let go, they get lazy and find the walk to the spice cupboard just too far...

So, when I spied this month's dairy calendar recipe (Vibrant broccoli soup) I wondered how...sparkly...it would be. The ingredient list didn't put it into the "Oh my dear word, what on Earth were they thinking" category...but it didn't fall into the "Oh my dear word, this looks as if it has real potential" category either. It did fall into the "Oh my dear word, they think a bit of garlic and chilli flake is daring...no, wait, they think Swiss Chard and Cheddar are daring...so sans bitter greens and pretty much universally accepted cheese this is...um...lowest common denominator."

I will say this. It is a good recipe for a basic thick veggie soup. You can sub a number of veggies for the broccoli (I immediately thought of cauliflower and carrot, but you can probably do a whole host of other flavours and colours) and play with the spicing. It was quick and very easy. It was also reminiscent of institutional food...like what you get in hospital or on certain airlines: inoffensive and lacked sparkle.

Oh well...



cheers!
jasmine

On my rickety shelves: The Food You Crave

Thanks to the lovely people at Random House Canada, a copy of this month's cookbook selection was delivered to my kitchen.

The Food You Crave: Luscious recipes for a healthy life
By Ellie Krieger
Taunton Press/Random House Canada
320 pages; $33

Admittedly, whenever I hear any combination or derivation of the terms detox, recipe low-fat, low-salt, low-cholesterol or healthy I cringe. Years of reading about this diet and that lifestyle, vilified foods, praised foods, not to mention the eventually contradictory nutritionism conditioned me to block out most of the good-for-you, you-should-eat-this-way noise that bombards us daily. My personal eating mantra is pretty simple…and very reminiscent of Michael Pollan’s “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants,” along with avoiding packaging that tries to convince you of the contents’ edibility.

Granted, it can be difficult finding food (and yes, it depends upon what you declare “food”—My Dear Little Cardamummy is convinced lobster isn’t food). Finding food-like things is easy. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for food-like things—I fervently believe a healthy diet does include the occasional Swedish berry—but too many food-like things can be an issue: hence the proliferation of the above, cringe-worthy-to-me terms.

The thing is, food (by my definition food is healthy) should taste good. Unfortunately, it seems as if many of the healthy-monikered foodstuffs I’ve eaten don’t taste good—they are bland, soggy, mealy...boring.

I’ve never understood it.

Shouldn’t one reward good behaviour? As in: if you avoid overreliance on polyhydrogenatedsalisucraloseinatified foods by eating (umm…) real ingredients, the food should not only taste good, but also make you feel good and hopefully happy.

Take the vast majority of the Milk Calendar recipes I’ve been cooking through this year: they were developed to use dairy and have some sort of nutritional balance. Well…some weren’t bad, but others tasted so horrid, I wonder what on earth happened to the recipe developers’ and taste testers’ mouths (and brains) to ever declare those recipes…tasty.

So when I flipped through this month’s cookery book selection, I was a little nervous. Ellie Krieger’s The Food You Crave: luscious recipes for a healthy life had the warning signs of a book that “meant well”—earnestly written with an eye towards nudging readers towards the healthy lifestyle du jour. She is a registered dietician and hosts Healthy Appetite, on the US’s Food Network.

Her expository was heartening to me…in fact, Krieger won me over in the introductory paragraph to her food philosophy:

“In my food world, there is no fear or guilt, only joy and balance. So no ingredient is ever off-limits. Rather, all of the recipes here follow my Usually-Sometimes-Rarely philosophy. Notice there is no Never.”

Here’s a compliment: Quite honestly, if it weren’t for her tips on things like building a better muffin and Mediterranean-inspired eating and boxes of nutrient numbers that accompany each recipe, I’d not think of this as a healthy eating book. I’d think it was a “normal” general-purpose cookbook. Really. The unappetising nature of many “healthy” or “diet” recipes is pretty much absent in her suite of recipes. Breakfast can include Poached egg with herb-roasted turkey breast and sweet potato hash, dinner can be Spinach with warm bacon dressing, and supper can be Tuscan roasted chicken and vegetables. And dessert? Banana Cream Pie. Need I say more?

The book itself is fresh and light. Well-written and easy to follow recipes punctuated with the occasional (lovely) photograph. The entire book itself is simply designed and, well, inviting.

Every recipe I tried worked really well produced delicious food that made me feel…good. What more can I ask for?

Curried Butternut Squash Soup (p 78)
Incredibly easy and very tasty, and (like many good soups) was incredible the next day. I used a the hot curry powder I have in my pantry…probably should have reduced the quantity a bit.





Sage-rubbed pork chops with Warm Apple Slaw (p 195)
The chops were so intuitive, I wouldn’t call it a recipe…but it was a good reminder of how tasty simply prepared food can be. Apart from the unending chopping, the slaw was easy to pull together. I think it could have used a little sugar or honey, but otherwise was very tasty.











Mocha cake with Mocha Cream Cheese Frosting (p 282)
This was a very good and moist cake. As I’m of the school that believes cake should have a tender crumb, so the whole wheat nubblies in the crumb turned me off. I’m not a fan of dolloped frosting, so the relatively thin layer was just perfect for me.






The Food You Crave is exactly that. The food you crave.

So how does it rate?
Overall: 4/5
The breakdown:
Recipe Selection: 4/5
Writing: 4/5
Ease of use: 4/5
Yum factor: 4/5
Table-top test: Lies flat

Kitchen comfort-level: Novice
Pro: Easy and delicious healthy foods
Con: Can’t think of any.



cheers!
jasmine

Hagia is veddy veddy angry with me...

Hallo?

Anyone out there? Sigh...

Apologies for the week's silence. Wasn't planned. You see, I'd planned to upload the latest cookbook review last week, but the universe conspired against me.

Okay, not me personally, but said universe decided to play games with the weather in my part of the world. If you're here, you know that we had a very odd warm spell last week. Sure, it was nice, but when the elements change so drastically, it plays a number with my head. Three days of protomigraines. Glah.

For the lucky ones who tried to engage me in coversation, you know how loop(ed) I was on pain pills (my skin started tingling on Friday). Glah. Feeling a bit better now, but am tonnes behind in everything else I was supposed to do...work, housework, sorting through detritus...

No cooking or baking got done, lived on frozen leftovers, meals from my parents and things declared edible from the fastfoodrama mall.

And this is why my cat is veddy veddy angry with me.

I'd always known that we shared certain culinary preferences: Equal amounts of pleasure can be derrived from eating crunchy things as batting them around. Olives are divine. Beef in a can really isn't food. Ice cream is heaven. Sometimes only lemongrass will do.

Well...she's developed other tastes...for baked goods. Okay. I know of other cats who like breads ... and that's okay (I think)...but she never wanted anything to do with cookies or cakes or pie crust. She's developed a particular prediliction for raw flour. I've caught her licking speckles off the phone and the floor and my hands.

So when I brought home a container of Timbits (doughnut holes to non-Canadians), she tried every trick in the book to get one. She sat by my feet and gazed up at me. She pawed at me. she even hopped onto the couch and snuggled up next to me. When her kittenly wiles proved useless, she basically stuck her head on my saucer and tried to liberate a baked ball of doughnutty goodness.

Umm....no.

Then she heard the words she rarely hears from me: "Naughty girl! Down NOW."

She knows what those words mean...she's been caught doing something she's not supposed to do...but instead of running away and hiding behind the couch, she stood at the far end of the room and just glared at me.

You know the look...I'm sure those of you with petulant children have received it: the you are being so unfair to me. I'm a good little one and I deserve a... look.

I got that look ALL EVENING.

Truth be told, I don't know what baked goods will do to cats...but I don't want her begging for food, nor do I want her to further develop her taste for people food. Given she's not a begging cat, I don't know what's gotten into her.

Maybe she's just peeved at me that I've been so busy...or hiding in dark rooms with a glass of water and a few pills. Maybe this was how I was supposed to make up with her: by giving her Timbits...preferably my favourite cherry ones...

Well...she's not going to be happy with me over the next few days as I try and get caught up with things...and formulate that next post. Oh well...'tis the life of a cat.

cheers!
jasmine