Pinto Bean and Chard Quesadillas with Mexican Slaw and Guacamole

This meal was not only super tasty, it was a nice way to use up both the local ingredients we had on hand, as well as some of the non-locals that have been hanging around to help fill the void of fresh produce. I love trying new things, but for some reason - perhaps I have seasonal affective disorder :-) - I seemed to have lost my cooking mojo in the early part of the year. I am happy to say it is coming back and so far I've had pretty good luck with what I've tried.

I love using simple whole foods, tons of fresh ingredients, and pair them in simple ways that take them to another level. I don't think food has to be pretentious - in fact, that just isn't my style. It also doesn't have to be complicated - by technique, number of ingredients, or some nutritionist logic of combining specific nutrients for "utmost effectiveness". Food doesn't have to be challenging, difficult, or confusing - it should be simple, straight forward common sense, and a pleasing experience to be shared with others.

It is sad to see so many people who come to see food as an enemy, they see it as merely fuel, when food is not only the source of life, it has been, in history, an expression of culture. The problem in reality is that Americans seem to have the one cultural diet that doesn't work. The way we view food, our relationship to it, it's purpose, and the scientific lens we have put it under has caused a culture of obesity and degenerative diseases. Interesting that the more we think we know, the more we tinker with food, the worse our health gets, and the harder it becomes for us to figure out what it is that we should be eating.

That is why I am a proponent of the cultural diet. Humans can be healthy and thrive on an incredibly diverse number of different diets. These diets, passed down over generations, by necessity have been the healthiest diets for the people in the region. The cultural diets are expressions of the land, and the people's ability to coax, combine, and create combinations of food that are celebrations and also sound nutritionally. The American diet has never been this way and as we see it spread across the world, we see our health problems being outsourced right along with it.

The cultural diet we tend to live by is, obviously, Mexican, Latin, or Southwestern. The combinations of many fresh veggies, healthy proteins in the form of legumes, pulses, and nuts, healthy fiber in the form of the fresh veggies, whole grain rice, and grains like quinoa in concert provide a wonderful level of nutritional benefit. There is also much flavoring provided by sauces loaded with tomatoes, peppers, onions, and garlic - things we all know are good for us - but are much better in combination, better still in combination with beans and rice, though scientists don't really understand why. This is again part of the problem with reductionist science - these folks seem to think that there is one thing that can be isolated and added to something else that would provide the same level of nutrition and health as the whole foods in combination. It doesn't appear to work like that, and explanation or not, folks who subscribe to a cultural diet (and also don't fret over calories, antioxidants, cartenoids, and all the other buzz words in today's nutritional mine field), seem to be happier, healthier, and have a better relationship with food, community, and their land.

The point of all this - there are always so many fads going around as to the "keys to perfect health", it is always based on one nutrient, one compound, or more often still, something you should avoid. Whole foods are more than the sum of their nutrient parts, whether it can be explained by modern reductionist science or not, and that is a basic lesson that makes "what to eat" a lot easier to figure out.

Pick a type of food you like and see where it takes you. We like Mexican and have been subscribing to a vegetarian cultural Mexican, Southwestern, Latin (or inspired) diet for about three years and in that time I have lost about 30 pounds, become healthier, more active, my hair looks better, my skin looks better, Brett is more active, and I never worry about calories, fat, nutrients, etc. My eye sight has improved as my diet has improved. I truly don't understand it. I used to have to wear glasses when I read as my eyes would begin to have trouble focusing and everything would go blurry for a little while. A couple of years ago, a few months into our new way of eating, I noticed I didn't need the glasses anymore. I haven't needed them since. I still don't get it. We also enjoy our food far more - there are boundaries based on the typical flavor profiles we are choosing to use, but there is so much room for creativity, variation, and improvisation.

The moral of the story? Food should be fun, it should be enjoyed, and there are ways of simplifying the way we look at food that will not only make our food choices easier, but likely provide significant improvements to our health. Now this is just my opinion, I am no doctor or nutritionist, but I can say that I trust my own body and my common sense and this is what works for me.

I am getting off the soap box now and moving on to the recipe. :-)

















The local booty legend (aka revealing my sources):
no asterisk = grocery store
+ = local produce from The Root Cellar
++ = The Peace Nook (will denote whether product is local or just from the Nook)
* = farmer's market
** = CSA
*** = Container or Community Garden
**** = the non-profit buying club, Blue Planet or Purcell Mountain Farms

Mexican Slaw:
2 cups red cabbage, shredded fine
1 carrot, peeled and shredded
1/4 yellow onion, sliced thin
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped fine *
2 tbsp veganaise
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp cumin
salt
black pepper

Combine all the veggies in a small bowl.

Whisk together veganaise, lime juice, and seasonings to taste.

Pour dressing over veggies and combine well.

Refrigerate for at least an hour to allow flavors to meld.

Pinto Bean and Chard Quesadillas:
2 cups pinto beans, cooked ****
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tomatoes, chopped *
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped fine *
6 cups fresh chard, chopped *
1 tbsp canola oil
a squirt of sriracha
cumin
black pepper
salt
tortillas

Heat canola oil in a medium skillet. Add onions and garlic and cook for about 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes, cilantro, beans and seasonings and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Add the chard and stir frequently until chard is wilted.

Simmer on low for about a half an hour. The beans, veggies, and seasonings will create their own tasty sauce.

Once the bean mixture is finished, layer cheese (if desired) and the filling in a warmed tortilla. Fry and serve with Mexican Slaw and Simple Guacamole.

Well, Happy Friday everyone.

'Til next time.

Super Beany Chili

I have been a pretty bad blogger lately, I could make a bunch of excuses, but really, I don't have many good ones, and the good ones I do have aren't the reason for my lack of blogging, I've just been lazy. We have been cooking though, still mostly "tried and true" recipes, especially since I found some of the first season's local tomatoes! I went to the Root Cellar the other day to get some local salad greens and saw the table full of gorgeous red delights as soon as I walked in. I made a beeline to them and asked the woman there in disbelief, "Are these local?!?" Indeed they are, from somewhere south of Jefferson City, Missouri. I think they have to have been grown in a greenhouse, but it has been beyond wonderful having local tomatoes again. I was surprised at what a wonderful, rich, tomatoey flavor they have. I should have got a picture of them, but I didn't and we are down to just a couple now any way. And those we will be using very shortly. We also got the above mentioned local salad greens, local shiitake mushrooms, and St. Louis made Dijon-Garlic-Lemon-Balsamic Vinaigrette. It is a mouthful, but it is delicious.

Anyways, we made this chili :blush: a couple of weeks ago. It was seriously tasty and we've enjoyed in by itself, with tortilla chips, on baked potatoes, and even on waffle fries (I've been contemplating tater tots too). Since making chili is a process, I made a huge batch and froze a good portion of it for later use. We've been taking a container of it out of the freezer in the evening, and it'll be ready for dinner the next night, wahoo!

















The local booty legend (aka revealing my sources):
no asterisk = grocery store
+ = local produce from The Root Cellar
++ = The Peace Nook (will denote whether product is local or just from the Nook)
* = farmer's market
** = CSA
*** = Container or Community Garden
**** = the non-profit buying club, Blue Planet or Purcell Mountain Farms

Super Beany Chili
2 cups dark red kidney beans +, soaked overnight with a dried cayenne pepper *** and a dried New Mexican Chile
1/2 cup pinto beans ****, soaked overnight with a dried cayenne pepper *** and a dried New Mexican Chile
1/2 cup black beans ****, soaked overnight with a dried cayenne pepper *** and a dried New Mexican Chile
1/2 cup Anasazi beans ****, soaked overnight with a dried cayenne pepper *** and a dried New Mexican Chile
2 cans fire roasted crushed tomatoes
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 red onion, chopped + (not local)
1 yellow onion, chopped + (not local)
6 cloves of garlic, minced + (not local)
1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped *** (frozen from last year)
3 Hot Hungarian Wax peppers, cut into rings *** (frozen from last year)
dried cilantro flakes +
ground cumin
chili powder
chipotle chili powder
salt
1 cup green lentils, rinsed

Soak beans and dried peppers overnight. Drain and rinse the beans and remove the peppers.

Combine beans in a large pot and fill with enough water to cover about two inches. Boil over medium heat for about 2 1/2 hours, covered. Make sure to check the water level occasionally, you may have to add more.

Add the tomatoes, carrots, onion, garlic, peppers, and spices. Simmer covered on medium-low for another two hours. Check the doneness of the beans.

Once the beans are close to being fully cooked, check the spice level and add more if necessary. Add the lentils and simmer for about 40 minutes or until lentils are fully cooked.

This was really yummy chili. I've mentioned before that I had "chili'd Brett out", but it turns out that my chili is generally too volcanically hot for anyone but me. So I don't overdo the spice and I add sriracha, cayenne pepper, dried habaneros, or hot chili garlic sauce to my dishes to achieve my desired spice level.

Well, I've been trying to jump start my pilates routine again. I used to do pilates at least three times a week, and that is saying something for someone who hates exercise. It really made me feel good, I had more energy, more stamina, and I looked, well, a little nicer. I've wanted to get back into it for awhile, so I figured summer and a wedding were pretty good motivation to get started. I also decided I would like to do some "booty exercises" (I am a size 2 girl with a size 4 behind), and get some upper body strength. I have damn strong legs and can carry quite a bit on my back, but the damn 5 lb. weights are almost too much for me. I started my "exercise regimen" yesterday and today I feel like someone ran over me. And I only worked out for about 30 minutes. :-( Now I am off to do pilates, and then probably take a hot bath and hide in my recliner the rest of the evening.

I'll tell you what, the pilates can stay around, but all this strength training, I don't think I will do this very long, I don't want to look all ripped and scary, I just don't want to be one of those bizarre "fat skinny people" anymore.

Oh, woe is me, am I right?

Have a good weekend everyone.

'Til next time!

A Proper Relationship with Food

I was looking at Chandelle's awesome new recipe index (I hope you don't mind Chandelle, I'd like to do mine the same way), and I happened upon her first blog entry where she discussed the purpose of her blog. I have to say, she and I see eye to eye when it comes to our views on the appropriate relationship between ourselves and food and have some of the same concerns about people, even some in the vegan community. In my opinion, she hit the nail right on the head, especially in her resulting commentary to my response. It inspired me to do a post simply to link to it. I read it earlier this morning and have been thinking about it on and off all day. If you are at all interested, please take the time to read it. Her blog is excellent by the way, always full of yummy recipes (and sometimes funny stories about kids and cooking mishaps) and she relies on whole foods that are organic or fair trade and local wherever possible. She is living proof that we can (and should) 'vote with our dollars' and 'eat by our conscience' but not fool ourselves or make our lives difficult by trying to follow a purity of principle, it's just not possible.

'Til next time!

Why I exercise, but not in the traditional sense (plus a grocery store wrap-up)

To be honest, the reason I don’t traditionally exercise, you know going to the gym, working out to a video, or using some funky equipment is, well, because I flippin’ hate it! And I think many people feel the same way about this as I do. Does this mean I think we don’t need physical activity? Well, of course we need physical activity, but I don’t think we need to ‘work out’ in the traditional sense to be healthy and fit. And why do so many feel this way about this type of exercise? It seems that many of us aren’t cut out for ‘traditional’ exercise. Could it be that this type of physical activity is a bit unnatural? Hear me out here.

Here is my anthropological argument against traditional exercise: do you think our ancestors sat around doing curls with rocks? Bench pressed tree limbs? No, they got their physical activity though day-to-day activities of survival and life, walking, swimming, gardening, foraging, playing, etc. Perhaps this is my justification for not wanting to exercise in the traditional sense, but to me, that’s ok, it makes sense.

I prefer to get my exercise the way my ancestors did, from my daily activities, which is very possible, even for those of us who don’t live in walkable cities. This may also be an ‘exercise routine’ that many of us could actually stick with.

You see, I walk at least two miles a day, I enjoy it, happily do it, but don’t realize I’m exercising, I mean I know walking is good for you, but the purpose of my walking is not for the exercise, it is to get me from point A to point B. Psychologically, there is a difference between the two. Ask me to walk two miles on a treadmill? No thank you, it’s painfully boring even with TVs and music, and I must say, at least when I am walking outside, as opposed to on a treadmill, the scenery changes and I’m not just moving in place. (Starting to see my ‘unnatural’ argument?)

I also firmly believe that exercise, like most everything else, is best done in moderation. Continuous, long-term, intense physical activity can be just as bad for a person in the long run as being sedentary. This is not to dog those who have the motivation to make a daily trek to the gym. In a lot of ways, I respect that level of commitment and motivation, however, personally don’t like the rigor and routine it requires. Not to mention, I find it pretty boring.

I also believe that most of us can’t really stick with a traditional exercise regimen, at least not on our own, and again, our ancestors (or even our grandparents who got outside and did hard physical labor, not for physical labors sake, but to farm or what have you) did not need personal trainers. Many of us can’t stick with a traditional exercise regimen and thus ‘fail’ at improving our health through physical activity. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that exercise for exercises sake tends to become a hassle, a chore for most people, who dread the idea of going to the gym. Not to mention, many of the machines and activities at the gym mimic activities that can be done in real life (walking, stair climbing, biking, rowing, and so on), my take is, do these things in real life don’t just mimic them, they’ll be much more enjoyable that way (and cheaper), and will likely not feel nearly as much like exercising.

My point in all of this is that much of our inability to create and stick with a traditional exercise regimen is psychological in my opinion. Going to the gym is a hassle, it’s boring, and it’s not very fun, so most of us either have to convince ourselves that being fit is just beyond our grasp or force ourselves to do something that we likely won’t stick with in the long run. Well, we don’t have to feel that way, nor do we have to force ourselves to the gym. We have to find activities that we either enjoy or distract us from realizing that we are exercising.

Here is some advice that has worked for me on how to get exercise without exercising. Many of these activities are also more environmentally friendly and could save you money on things like gas.

1. Walk to your destination. This is the simplest thing you can do – even if you don’t live in a walkable city. If you live near enough to the places you frequent, start walking to a few of them. It’s hard to feel like you are exercising when you are on your way to work. This isn’t an option? Well, simply park your car as far away as possible from your destination and walk from there (i.e. at the back of the lot where nobody parks). It’s easy, less frustrating than circling to find a ‘good’ parking space, there’s no funky equipment to buy, and it’s something that can easily become a (healthy) habit. :-)

2. Go walking for pleasure with a friend. I don’t mean power walking here, though if you want to that’s fine, I personally don’t prefer sweating, but that’s just me.

3. Go bike riding.

4. Go swimming with a buddy. You don’t have to swim laps either, again, this is an activity that I find to be pretty boring. You might be surprised at how good a few hours of playing in the pool are for you.

5. Take the stairs. This is not only better for you, but you save energy that way also, as some mechanical box is not taking you to your destination, your feet are. I work on the 7th floor of my building and walk up 7 flights of stairs multiple times a day. Did it take me a awhile to be able to do this? Yes, but I hate waiting for the elevator, so I did not work to be able to get up those stairs without being out of breath because it’s good for me, that is just a pleasant side effect, I just happen to be impatient and not really like elevators.

Of course this list is by no means exhaustive. My point in all of this is to show that it’s possible to be fit and healthy without having to slave away for hours a day at the gym. I am thin, strong, fit, and healthy and I will likely never set foot in a gym in my lifetime. It’s not impossible, you just have to be creative and find a reasonable way to get some physical activity that you enjoy. Some like tennis (I don’t like running), some like hiking (that’s fun), some like golf (never played), and so on. Most people don’t do these things because they are ‘good for you’, we do these things because they are fun.

Now I am no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know what I like and dislike and that many other people struggle with traditional exercise in much the same way as myself, so I thought I'd put it out there.

I thought I'd end with a wrap-up of our trip to the grocery store yesterday, maybe give you an idea of the things I'll be whipping up this week.

Let's start with produce, we got three jewel yams, a lemon, a lime, two oranges, a small butternut squash, a yellow onion, a bag of spinach (I hate buying bagged spinach, damn the Midwest and it's winter!), a yellow bell pepper, an acorn squash, some lovely serrano peppers, some lovely jalapeno peppers (I love when peppers start to turn red), and three avocados. I must ask, why do they have to put such big labels on organic produce, I mean seriously, when I get organic little new potatoes, there is a sticker on every single one. How environmentally friendly is that?

Next are bulk items. I love the bulk section, at our grocery store, pretty much everything in the bulk section is organic and inexpensive. We got chipotle chili powder, dried cranberries, peanuts, rolled oats (though not enough, we got the last of what they had), quinoa, yellow cornmeal, and pecans.

And finally, the procesed or minimally processed items. We got an Amy's Roasted Vegetable Pizza, a Kashi cheese pizza (for Brett), canned diced tomatoes with green chiles, canned sliced black olives, canned tomato paste, Original Newman O's (for Brett), Nature's Path Apricot and Nut granola bars, blue corn chips, and organic picante sauce.

Well, this is long enough!

'Til next time.