Tapioca Pudding Tries Of Terror

By Guest Blogger

Tapioca pearls are jello-like bites of sweet delight. I believe they taste great and can be used in many foods, from Taiwanese meat dishes to sweet creamy puddings.

Pudding emerged around the nineteenth century. It was not always the creamy dessert that we enjoy today. In the medieval times pudding was filled with meats, like Yorkshire pudding. Beyond being meat puddings we have many other types of pudding like banana, blancmage (a French almond pudding), chocolate, mango and of course, tapioca pudding. Tapioca pudding was commonly made throughout the 20th century. It might have even been made for you some time in your childhood, do you remember? Tapioca pudding can also made in multiple variations including mint, chocolate and even pistachio, which was the variation we made. Sounds good right?

Tapioca products come from the cassava root, which is a thick starch. Tapioca flour is commonly used instead wheat flour in South America,The West Indies and India. Tapioca is gluten free and is used as a thickening agent in things, mainly foods. Most of the time tapioca pearls are just made out of tapioca flour and water. Though, depending on pearl type there might be other ingredients. White tapioca pearls can be made out of caramel, starch and chamomile root. There are two main types of tapioca pearls: black and white. There are also green, red and purple pearls. When cooked, white pearls become translucent while black pearls stay the same.

The name tapioca is derived from the word tipioka, the name for this starch in the Tupi language of South America. Tapioca Pudding is so popular that it even has its own day on July Fifth. Along with just being a pearl tapioca can be packaged as a flour or even flakes.Tapioca pearls were first used in bubble tea in the 1980s. Street vendors eventually added pearls and other sweet items to their drinks to to attract customers. In addition to  tapioca pearls, they also added fruit chunks, agar, fruit jelly and water chestnuts.. So when I saw tapioca pearls  at Lee Ming Asian grocery store,  it reminded me of one of my favorite drinks, bubble tea. So we bought them and tested them out in pudding because it seemed more dessert-like than a tea.

We tried to make tapioca pudding but failed. The pudding itself was delicious: milk, vanilla, sugar and pearls simmered together for an hour and a half and then eggs yolks were tempered   in. The only problem was that the pearls were like gummified bits of chalk rock in a sweet, custardy vanilla pudding. They were undercooked and dry. Later, we realized that the recipe called for small pearls and we  were supposed to let them soak in water overnight.

On St. Patrick’s day we were having a guest come over for a meal.  We wondered what could we make for dessert that was green and meet everyone’s approval. Since we make natural food, we do not use any dye in any food we make and/or eat.. It tasted like a nutty torte with vanilla jello bites lodged in it. Dessert had to be gluten free because there are allergies in the family. We already had tapioca pearls so finally one of us had a great idea of making pistachio tapioca pudding that would be green and natural. This time we decided to cook the tapioca pearls in water, not milk. It took one-hour and forty five minutes to cook the pearls when the package said it would take sixteen to eighteen minutes in boiling water. We would later learn that shey should be cooked in boiling water until they are done.. Overall it was a good experience and pistachio tapioca pudding might become our St.Patrick’s day tradition. From both of tour tapioca trials,  we learned that  the cooking time was longer than we expected. Just leave the hard work of pearl cooking to the masters who know how to do it best–and remember to finish all your pearls!

Soba noodle stir-fry secrets

By guest blogger

Everyone thinks that pasta comes from Italy, right ? You know the trio: pasta, pizza and bread? Well, the truth is that Marco Polo brought pasta to Europe in 1721 from China, where they could have been making pasta hundreds of years before Marco Polo! Now that  the cat is out of the bag just let it roam free. (Sorry I burst your bubble of fame, Marco Polo. I hope no offense was taken.) I decided that since pasta could have come from an Asian country, then why not make an Asian noodle dish?

People started to eat soba noodles in the Edo period in the early 1600’s and continued to eat them frequently because they realized that pasta had nutritional value. Over time, soba noodles started to be made in factories. The basic process of making them is to first mix the flour and water into a dough. The flour-and-water mixture is then flattened into a thin belt-like piece of dough and is cut into narrow strips. Finally, the noodles are packaged and shipped to grocery stores to be sold. Not all factories make the same type of soba noodles. The word ‘soba’ literally means thin noodles. Since soba means thin noodles there are many different types of soba noodles including: green tea soba,seaweed, buckwheat, yam flour, mugwort soba and wheat flour soba. So if you ask for soba noodles be sure to tell which type you want. Beyond different types of soba noodles there are also different types of soba noodle dishes for different seasons. In summer, you will find lots of cold soba dishes while in winter you will find more soba noodle soups.                                     

Soba noodles have many health values and are tasty. Buckwheat soba noodles have the most nutrients out of all of the types of soba noodles. For example they have lots of protein and are gluten free. I have read that the buckwheat soba noodles do not have a super strong flavor so you will not be able to taste the buckwheat flavor. But, if the noodles use other ingredients they will have different nutritional values and flavors.   

My family and I tried making a soba noodle stir-fry recipe that I found. I gave each of us jobs. There were different jobs like chopping, frying and mixing.

chopping

making sauce

cooking noodles

We worked together and made a delicious gluten free, dairy free recipe. It had an umami flavor with a slightly bitter sauce, thick noodles and crispy tofu and napa cabbage. It also had sesame seeds, ginger, green onions and the sauce. Overall this was a delicious team effort.

Credits: wikipedia, health line International Pasta Organisation, and visitokinawajapan             

Fusion Acorn Squash

Getting local

When I created this blog a few years ago, the focus was on food origins, local food, healthy foods, and for a while my exploration with a vegan diet.  Now, things have changed, but there is a standing commitment – our family eats local for most of our food.  In addition, we primarily eat whole foods.  By this I mean we use very few pre-made or packaged meals, we avoid canned foods, and we try for the most part to eat in season.  So, a lot of the blog remains the same.

Why fusion?

There’s a couple answers to this question. First, we had received a trial of HelloFresh that we needed to cook a sesame beef recipe. Alright, I know, this isn’t local.  We thought we would try it just to check it out. The recipe was interesting and it inspired me try something new. And, I have to admit, that every once in a while it is nice to have a ready made meal – especially on busy nights. This isn’t a review of HelloFresh, but I can say it was good, easy, and if you feel you want to develop some cooking skills it is a good option.  We struggled a lot because it created a lot of packaging waste.

I think the challenge for most of us is the late winter when we’ve eaten kale and sweet potatoes until it seems like they are coming out of our ears.  Last week at our Farmers’ Market, I got an acorn squash.  Given that the HelloFresh meal was for two and three of us planned to eat and the squash needed to be cooked, I took some inspiration of the asian inspired dish and added squash to our meal.  Thus, my second motive to fuse – cook that sqaush aa winter food that we’ve seen already one more time than we probably would like using the inspiration from the pre-prepped meal.  And the results were pretty yummy.

What did I do?

I decided to roast the squash using an asian-inspired baste.  I haven’t seen many asian recipes that use acorn squash or roasting as a technique, so putting this baste/sauce on the squash while roasting counts as a fusion for me.

Here’s the basic idea.  I don’t usually write down proportions, so this is my guess:

1. Preheat oven to 400
2. Mix: 1 TBSP Sesame Oil, 1 TBSP vegetable oil, 2 TBSP grated ginger, 2 cloves garlic crushed, 1 TBSP Tamari or Soy Sauce, and 2 tsp of rice vinegar
3. Cut and clean the squash and cut into wedges.
4. I laid the sqaush on the cut sides and basted the tops with the above marinade
5. Roast for 20 minutes
6. Flip and baste the other sides of the squash
7. Roast for 20 more minutes or until fork tender

And the result

I think the adults in the house decided this was YUMMY!  Even the other diner thought it was OK, but preferred the sesame beef!

Pho-Ventures

Image Credit

By guest blogger

This week’s blog is all about pho. I love pho because of the aromatic broth, the clean cuts of beef, the crunchy scallions and the chewy rice noodles. The name pho is thought to be derived from the french word feu which means fire.There are two types of pho: northern pho and southern pho. Northern pho traditionally is light and its condiments are a watery chile sauce, bird’s eye peppers and scallions. On the other hand, southern pho has bean sprouts, jalapenos, hot sauce and a whole plate of herbs!                     

You  make pho broth by simmering soup bones in boiling water for 6-8 hours with the spices. The main spices are anise, cardamon, cinnamon, cloves and coriander. Once you have tasted your broth you will notice that the spices add most of the flavor. Then you can cook some rice noodles according to the directions on the package. Slice some partially frozen beef into thin strips and put the beef into bowls.This makes the meat easier to slice. Then add the rice noodles and pour your boiling hot broth on the beef and noodles. It is okay if the beef takes a while to cook in the broth. This is natural. Chop up some herbs–you can use basil, bean sprouts, cilantro,mint and jalapenos. Finally, put your pho and condiments on the table and you are ready to eat.

We made pho not very long ago and were not super happy about it. The broth was bland and did not have much flavor. The beef, however, was good. It was juicy and cooked considerably well in the soup. The soup didn’t have a lot of flavor because we did not use fish sauce or toast the spices for very long for fear of burning them. Along with making our own pho we also tried instant pho which was also not very good because the noodles had a paper-thin texture. We tried using the leftover beef broth from our homemade pho and we also used the instant pho’s  oil and spice packet, which both made it better.  Neither was a great on the first try, but we will try again.

In conclusion, you should try pho and then try making it at home. You might love it like I do.

Sources:

Lucky Peach Issue 19

Hannah Huyunh’s Prezi All about Pho: What’s Pho? And is it good for you? https://prezi.com/lkrm-njfwpzn/all-about-pho/

Warming up again

I have had a lot happening in my life and have not posted in a long time.  But now that I have launched new life, have a new mix of food interests, and have gained some ideas about how to spice up this blog, I will start posting again.

The posts will retain some of my previous interest in local, healthy foods, but also there will be guest posts from another writer who offers some fresh insights.  My guest blogger is a student in elementary school who I am working on writing with and is passionate about international foods.

Future posts will also return to some recipes I create and also modify based on dietary needs.  In my current house, dietary restrictions prevent us from using gluten and most dairy products.  I will do some research and explain the dairy issue in another post.

One Degree – for me it’s two, but that’s pretty good

Yesterday my Vegan Pledge group went on a field trip to Whole Foods.  I usually shop at the Whole Foods in Durham, but the planners for the Vegan Pledge had us meet in Chapel Hill.  We toured through the store and learned about different products and got shopping tips. When we hit the baking isle, I was ecstatic to see One Degree sprouted flours.  When I say ecstatic, I yelped like a kid in a candy store and immediately grabbed a bag of Sprouted Whole Wheat Flour.

I was so excited to find this flour, I looked for it at Whole Foods in Durham at a food coop and was thinking I would have to order it on-line. Honestly, I think the people in the store thought I needed some medical intervention.

I was even more excited when I learned that One Degree has an idea I love and I didn’t know anyone was doing.  I think I love the idea since I wrote about it recently. If you notice in the picture there is a QR code.  I almost jumped up and down like someone on the Price is Right when I scanned the code.  The clouds cleared, a bright beam of light shone down upon me, and harp music played in the background as I looked on my iPhone to see information about where the wheat in this bag was grown!  Imagine that – technology really helping us know how many degrees separate us from the food we eat!  So this wheat came from Alberta, Canada, whoops – that is why I say two degrees.  That is a long way from me in North Carolina.

But, the good news is it made wonderful bread.  I’m thinking about a piece now as an after dinner snack.  If you don’t know about it, sprouted grains and flours are healthier, contain more protein, and have lower carbohydrates. The bread is a little chewier than typical American sandwich bread, but it’s so yummy!  The bread rose freakishly and sort of looks like an alien life form (see below) but it is tasty and filling.  Here’s a picture:

Now, while this bread is kind of ugly, I do want to say one more thing about bread.  As readers know, I bake my own bread.  But I’ve had a problem, the loaves were lopsided.  It turns out the oven wasn’t level.  After leveling the oven, my loaves looked better:

 

Vegan Pledge – Week 2

Yesterday was the second meeting of the Vegan Pledge.  I’ve got many reactions to this and will try to stay focused.  Let me start simply, it was terrific!  I haven’t fully resolved my questions about vegan ethical perspectives.  I think I still need to learn a lot more before I can really answer my questions.  However, while it seems a stretch, I see a lot of connections to my thinking on this blog about origins of the food I eat and what that means in the larger picture.  But to make this connection, I have to start by offering a breif description of the meeting and highlight a few important points.

The meeting began with a Question and Answer session with a registered nurse who is vegan and also has extensively researched relevant nutrition information.  She eats a no salt, no fat, vegan diet and recommends this as a lifestyle that leads to improved health.  There are numerous, unbiased (this is key) studies that support this claim; most notable is the China Study. The key to the unbiased research is that many studies yield different conclusions, but very often those studies are funded indirectly by agribusiness – particularly meat producers.  In addition to the depth of knowledge she had about diet, she also knew tons about supplements and had great information for us on that.  However, the overwhelming sense that I started having was the notion of moderation.  ANY step towards vegan is better for our health, animals, people and the planet than continuing the SAD. This idea of moderation – I am not completely comfortable with this word – continued throughout the session.

Here’s the problem with moderation, it’s too passive. I don’t think the point of the PAN Vegan Pledge is to encourage moderation.  I don’t think vegans want a moderate approach.  I agree with this.  We need RADICAL changes to happen to resolve a myriad of problems.  But, where I like moderation is thinking about the ethics of it all.  As I sat listening to the speakers, I felt a growing understanding that the vegan lifestyle isn’t just about ethical treatment of animals.  This is an important point, but it is moderated with the notion of ethical treatment of the planet, our fellow humans, the resources we are fortunate to have, and even the ways we treat ourselves and our bodies.

With this emerging perspective, I began listening differently.  The opening session was followed by a cooking demo.  I was anxious, nervous, and a little apprehensive because I wondered what my lunch might be like from a meal with NO salt and NO fats or oils.  Guess what?  It was wonderful! Not what I expected, but delightful. We had a Limeade Green Smoothie, Hail to the Kale salad, lentil soup, and Chocolate Pudding and PB&J bites.  All of it yummy and flavorful.  I even learned some cooking tips and was inspired to try more salad dressings without oils.

After this presenter we had a short presentation about animal welfare in industrial agriculture.  This wasn’t new information to me, but again there was a moderation in the discussion.  While the central concern was animal welfare and preventing brutality, there were acknowledgements that this goes beyond animals.  There are human workers exploited in the process.  The industry creates significant environmental damages.  Thus there was a broader discussion of how the ethics of being vegan stretches beyond animal welfare.

After the session I left feeling more enthusiastic.  I saw that this is a multifaceted set of ideas.  While the dominant voices (at least what I heard the prior week) were narrowly focused on animal rights, I see that that there is more nuanced and complex thinking about ethics.  I headed off to Whole Foods for some extra food items and ran head on into the issue for me.  Walking through the produce, I got excited to see one of my favorite growers’ purple sweet potatoes for sale in my Whole Foods.  I thought, WOW this is great.  I didn’t need sweet potatoes, finished my shopping and left.  After reflecting on it, I realized, this is exactly the problem.  That farmer will be at my market on Saturday.  I can buy it directly from him.  Isn’t that more ethical?  Wouldn’t it be better to put the money directly into his pocket rather than through a middle man?  I think this is similar to my struggle with the focus on animals.  NO, we shouldn’t be harming animals.  But we also can’t turn a blind eye to the fact that if I make that choice, I may also make a choice to buy soy-based tofu that is processed and packaged and delivered over thousands of miles to me.  I don’t know that workers were treated fairly to get that tofu to me and I don’t know that the company  who makes the product is also reputable.  So it isn’t as simple as I don’t want to hurt animals.

Now, to leave on a brighter note and also back to my focus here – here’s a locally sourced vegan snack:

What is here is a vegan cheese spread called Spread made in Durham, NC on a cracker made in Hillsborough, NC.  OK the raw materials I have no idea about.  But, I can say vegan and local and in the case of Spread, it’s even only sold direct from the maker or through a local small business.  I can’t say this fixes all the ethics issues, but I am happy to have a local, vegan snack!

A new twist on an old standard

Soups are great in the winter.  Many are vegan, but potato soup needs cream, butter and then cheese on top.  The challenge becomes in creating a creamy, thick soup that still feels like potato soup, but doesn’t have all the dairy.  I found a recipe on Healthy.Happy.Life.  Before talking about that, let me say, this is a great source of inspiration for anyone seeking vegan meal ideas.  The author has great ideas, makes interesting dishes and offers inspiration – especially to me a newcomer.  So, while some things seemed odd to me, I just followed directions and made Potato Soup sans dairy.  Here’s my bowl:

It turned out pretty good.  I was most worried about almonds in soup.  But they tuned out to be nice and creamy.  The little potato garnishes also seemed odd, but actually were very good in the soup.  My comment would be I added a lot of spices to get a nice flavor.  That included onion powder, black pepper, garlic, and cayenne pepper.  One modification to this recipe was that I boiled two cloves of garlic in the potatoes to add that flavor.  I also used the potato water to thin the soup as needed.

Now, that flatbread cracker, that is an interesting point and something to revisit in another post.  I’ll try to get that up soon.

Starting the vegan pledge … what is ethical?

So I’ll say that I started this post yesterday after the first meeting or the local PAN Vegan Pledge.  I was struggling some to really capture my thoughts, so I waited to finish.  I came back today and the draft is gone.  So I will just have to start over. I will however admit, I am really struggling with this post.

I attended the first meeting of the Pan Vegan Pledge yesterday.  I’ve been excited about this meeting for a while, so I will admit my expectations were high.  The first meeting consisted of introductions, a cooking demonstration, and some time for small group discussion of different issues and concerns that we pledges might have.  I will start by saying I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and energy the hosts and mentors brought to the meeting.  We’d had an ice storm the night before, but the room was filled with about 40 people (including mentors and pledges).  The mentors shared their journey to becoming vegan, sharing both how and why they became vegans as well as describing their recent meals to offer a sense of a variety of vegan meals.  A theme from many of the mentors involved becoming vegan for ‘ethical reasons’  or described themselves as ‘ethical vegans’ (I put this in single quotes because it is a paraphrase.).  In discussing ethics, there were two dominant concerns that were mentioned: 1) concern for ethical treatment of animals and 2) concern over fair-trade and child labor issues.

These are important concerns, but actually don’t reflect a significant concern for me and the core of this blog.  I think we have a major problem in this country with regards to food; we don’t know what we eat, where it comes from, or how it gets to our plate.  My vegan exploration was primarily motivated as an exploration that would inform me of alternatives and also allow me insight into the vegan lifestyle’s views on these issues.  Clearly this is not a scientific study, but I wonder now whether these issues are as pressing.  Throughout the meeting there were some mentions of GMOs and the environmental impacts of industrial animal agriculture.  But we also talked about chain restaurants that prey on low wage earners, use food sources from the lowest prices to make profits, and rely on an industrial food system that obfuscates the origins of the food we eat.  Similarly, people shared ideas for using convenience foods to simplify vegan eating, but these foods are also suspect in terms of environmental hazards from production as well as transportation, refrigeration, and packaging.  From my perspective these are also huge ethical issues; just not ones that involve physical harm to animals or children.  Please understand I am not advocating either.  But we do need to keep in mind that ethics is complex.

Let me make this more concrete.  Tonight I cooked my first vegan meal.  Last night was another fantastic meal at Fiction Kitchen to marvel the tastebuds marveled – I had the ‘pork’ barbeque and was having a hard time staying in my seat for the joyous cascade of flavors! – I digress.  So tonight was Sweet Potato Burgers with a Side salad:

I will say that I don’t know where any of the ingredients came from – save one I used homemade chili powder from chilies I dried and crushed – and that’s the issue with this.  I can get Sweet Potatoes now at the Farmer’s market.  In fact, I can get most of the ingredients for this dish there.  When I do that, I give the money to the farmer, the food travels a shorter distance to me, no animals are harmed in the process, and no children are forced into labor to get that food.  This is the kind of ethics I am talking about.

During the next few meetings I’ll start asking more questions.  I am really stumped by this.  More than one person talked about the fact that  ovo-lacto vegetarians are not really responding to all the ethical dilemmas.  But I think this it a straw man argument.  If that is your stance, is it any different if you aren’t considering all the environmental issues as well?  I don’t want to come off negative or argumentative… I really want to understand.

Is that what I think it is?

Last week I tried a new restaurant, Fiction Kitchen. It was fantastic. I had ‘chicken’ and waffles that were amazing.

So there are several cool things about this place. First, its vegan friendly all vegetarian. Second they get a lot of their stuff from local providers. There are few places that offer locavore options around us. But those that do are meat heavy. Moving from vegetarian to vegan (it all starts tomorrow) makes that even more challenging.

I’ve been talking about it a while and the day has arrived. The vegan pledge starts tomorrow. I’ll attend a meeting tomorrow and hope to have lots to share. I’ll post tomorrow about my first experience.