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This is what I’ve been doing in my precious spare time this past week. Making props and costumes for tonight’s “Trick or Treat Street” at our elementary school. TorTSt transforms the hallways/doorways of the school into a street and at the doorways … Continue reading
Soda/sugary drinks: size matters in fight against obesity
From the NY Times article:
“Education matters. If I didn’t believe that, I would have long since abandoned my role as a public health educator. But history has clearly shown that teaching people what is good for them is not enough. It must be accompanied by restrictions that curb unhealthy habits and environmental changes that foster healthier ones.
Cigarette smoking is a classic example. Myriad well-publicized reports documenting its hazards — even warnings on cigarette packs — did relatively little to get people to quit smoking and keep others from taking it up. It was not until smoking was banned in workplaces, restaurants, public buildings and transportation that smokers became social pariahs and millions gave it up. Today only about one American man in five smokes, down from nearly one in two 40 years ago.
Just as the tobacco industry disputed the link between smoking and lung cancer for many years, claiming the evidence was circumstantial and did not prove cause and effect, the American Beverage Association says that there is no proof that sugary beverages are major players in obesity and diabetes.
But why wait decades for conclusive evidence, by which time millions will have been sickened or died from obesity? If there were an environmental threat with even a fraction of the health risk posed by sugary drinks, there would surely be a large public protest.”
As an alternative to giving your kids sodas and other sugary drinks (like Gatorade), try these suggestions:
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I used a turban squash (a type of winter squash or pumpkin) that was sitting on my counter for the past week or so. It was in my last CSA bin of the season (too short). Winter Squash Soup 1 … Continue reading
Made a new recipe for our cooking club yesterday. It was the first time I’d been in a couple of months and I needed some time for just me. I’ve been so incredibly busy with helping my husband open his restaurant (it opened one week ago today) —doing whatever I could to get it off the ground running in the right direction (helped with menu, made some desserts, created some cocktails). I paid a sitter for several nights to go in and pick up the slack wherever it was needed (running food, bartending, waiting or bussing tables) to work for free. Not that I can afford to, but I want to dedicate my experience for our long-term success. Most restaurants are disorganized and discombobulated in the beginning and ours was packed from the moment it opened.
So… a friend gave me a gorgeously designed book as a restaurant opening gift (I think she designed the book) about decorating/gardening/entertaining for a particular season. It has recipes interspersed and one caught my eye. It was for curried pumpkin ravioli with an apple onion sauce. Our cooking club theme this month was pumpkins and apples. How perfect, I thought.
Well, I took it and modified it a bit. First off, I used Butternut squash instead of pumpkin and I roasted mine whole 
(it keeps all the sweetness from running out) instead of canned pumpkin and I added some different spices, and substituted pecans for walnuts. You will need time for this recipe but it pays off! I made a similar dish another fall.
Curried Butternut Squash Ravioli
(adapted from a Pumpkin Ravioli recipe by Carolyne Roehm)
½ stick butter (divided)
1 lg shallot, finely chopped
2 tsp fresh ginger, finely grated
2 lg cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp curry powder
¼ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp cumin
⅛ tsp cayenne
½ tsp salt
pinch black pepper
1-2 butternut squash, cooked whole, peeled, seeded & pureed
12 oz ricotta cheese (whole milk)
1 pack of wonton wrappers
Sauce:
1 med onion, finely chopped
2 Macintosh apples, peeled, cored & cubed
¼ cup white wine
¼ cup pecans, chopped
1 cup chicken stock
¼ cup heavy cream
First cook the butternut squash on a cookie sheet in the oven at 350˚F for an hour or more (depends on size/thickness). You can tell when it’s done when you stick a skewer through the densest part (near base of neck). 
Not a clear photo, but hopefully you get the gist.
(Didn’t use cloves in the end)
Next melt a couple of tablespoons of butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add shallots and sauté until soft. Turn heat to medium and add ginger, garlic, spices and some salt. Sauté another few minutes then add 3 cups of butternut squash. Mix well and continue to cook for a few minutes. Remove and cool. Add the ricotta cheese and cool for at least half an hour.
Before adding ricotta
Using parchment paper on a cookie sheet lay out some wonton wrappers. Take a teaspoon and drop a dollop of filling in center. Wet edges of wrapper with water and your finger. Place another wonton wrapper on top and press around the edges to seal. Pick up the ravioli with an open seam at top then carefully burp the air out (so that it won’t open when brought up to temp). Press sealed edges with a fork if you wish. Repeat. Once the first set of ravioli has filled the sheet, place another piece of parchment on top and continue until you’ve run out of wrappers or filling. Cover with a slightly damp piece of paper towel.
Start the sauce by cooking onions in a sauté pan with a couple of tablespoons of melted butter (and I use a touch of grapeseed or sunflower seed oil) until translucent then add apples and wine. Simmer for a couple of minutes then add the chicken stock and pecans. Cook until apples are soft then set aside while you cook the ravioli.
Bring large pot of water to rolling boil. Carefully place a few ravioli in at a time. While a batch is cooking bring sauce back up to heat (medium-high) add cream and simmer for a minute. Ravioli take about 3 minutes to cook (translucent and floating). Scoop ravioli out with slotted spoon or mesh spyder, draining well.
Top with sauce and serve immediately. 
It was so delicious and worth the effort. But unfortunately only one of my children will eat it! Maybe you’ll have better luck… actually today I’m going to try with a different sauce with some leftover uncooked ones.
sprinklefingers: IMO, it all starts at home…
Interesting bit in the NY Times yesterday – schools are taking steps to make school lunches healthier – more vegetables, more fruit, less crap. And guess what? Kids are protesting. Kids are forming Facebook groups against the changes. Kids are making videos poking fun at the changes.
I hate to…
SO, so busy… can’t come up with anything original as of late. BUT THIS is so spot on.
In the first couple of weeks of the new school year, I, along with some other parent volunteers, stood in the lunch lines and helped the kids make “healthy choices”. I aptly named myself the “Fruit & Veggie Pusher” because, we all know the healthy choices were just getting more (or any for that matter) fruits and vegetables on those kids’ plates. The school lunch provider (corporate lame processed food broker) now give the kids the choice to take “as many” vegetables or fruits as they’d like (while they’re in line, but can’t go back for more) and usually doesn’t actually serve them to the kids. The children can pick out individual containers (or none at all) of the “healthy choice” stuff. Now, at the end of each line is a prominently displayed case of snack foods. I think it’s ridiculous that they have snacks at lunch. 
Do you know how many kids I saw not eat their healthier foods and go get 2-4 bags of chips every day? Too many! These are empty calories that will just make most people fat. They provide no nutritional value, but there they are… at $1 a pop for the kids to buy (if their parents haven’t put restrictions on their accounts). these kids eaten enough food to go on for the rest of the day? Well, not if they’re not taking the fruits and vegetables. And then there are those kids who are already too big and they certainly don’t need any more calories, empty or not. I know that a lot of parents think that give the kids the choice and they’ll learn to make the right decisions. Well, not always. 
Studies show that even adults make poor eating decisions and will overeat more often than not, and will take junk even when they’re not hungry. (Read Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink) Anyway, my kids aren’t allowed to buy the snack foods at school. I just wish it wasn’t allowed in schools in the first place. Because I feel that other parents, if aware of their children’s real eating habits and what the snack foods will do in the long run, they wouldn’t want their kids eating them as well. They care about their kids, they want them to be happy and grow up healthy. And, I’m not saying I don’t buy these snack foods occasionally, but I certainly don’t want my kids eating them daily, and especially in place of real food. So, I just seem I’m just on a rant at times… until I found out what a real rant is one day.
On Fridays the kids get ice cream. Many look forward all week to that treat. My kids are actually allowed to buy one; it’s only once a week. Anyway in our first week one parent volunteer asked me about the frozen desserts that were displayed (they weren’t ice creams). They were artificially colored, flavored stuff and sweetened with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The mom thought that the food service provider had stopped using HFCS. So, when the Food Service Director (FSD) came in, I asked him about them along with numerous other things. It was one of the only things he acted on. He got rid of them, in between service. If it had been me, I would’ve sold them and then not bought anymore, but I’m not in charge.
Anyway, the following week when there was no ice cream or any other frozen treats I asked the woman in charge of the kitchen why not. She said because of the HFCS stuff taken away last week that they can’t buy them. I reminded her (since I was there during it all) that they could buy stuff that wasn’t sweetened with HFCS (I can’t get the artificial colors banned yet). “Well, I just got a list today” was her response. Well, no biggie, I thought. Ha-ha! Until the gym teacher came in. She was screaming at me, “why isn’t there any ice cream?!!” I told her that when the FSD came in last week that he got rid of them because of the HFCS. Then I told her to ask the women that worked there about it because she kept on about it. A few minutes later she came back out and got right in my face yelling, “Who says they can’t have high fructose corn syrup?! Is this a government ban?! Is it the FDA?! As a parent I want to know!!” For goodness sakes, she’s one of the ones teaching our kids’ health and nutrition. I tried to calmly tell her that it was most likely the Food Service Provider’s decision, but it may be because of the USDA’s health guidelines. I tried to tell her that they can buy real ice cream and that there is all natural pudding there. Oy. I’ve always liked this woman, and I was quite shocked at how she treated me. I wasn’t there to get rid of the ice cream. I was trying to get the kids to eat more fruits and vegetables. I would like the snack foods out, but I haven’t pushed on that yet. I really want to do good for the children. 
One girl’s lunch with mostly healthy choices (she ate the scrambled egg first).
I wrote a long post on my phone the other day…and just before I published it… a slip of the finger released it into purgatory.
It wasn’t in drafts, wasn’t waiting for me to retrieve from the dashboard and it was out of my head.
So it’s time for me to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.
I have been busy— cleaning up our house after a week away (with 3 males remaining), cooking, organizing stuff, and being a pain in the backside of my husband and his partners in the restaurant they’re about to open next week.
Another fun thing has been experimenting with the chamber sealer my brother gave us. Helped with left overs from boy scout camp out this weekend. Made storing the huge pot of potato leek soup I made very easy. And sped time/increased intensity of marinade for pork. Now on to the immersion circulator he gave us… some new and exciting foods to experiment creating!
It’s time I began.
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election: TUMBLR TUESDAY: REGISTER TO VOTE EDITION Does it feel like election day is still ages away? It’s not; in fact, early voting began for half of the country this week. And for half of the country, if you’re not yet … Continue reading
Just got home after a week away. My eldest son, my mother and I flew out to California, saw my brother and his family (and had some amazing Modernist Cuisine— and got given some tools to do it at home), and visited my wonderful friend Amy and her family. We then left reluctantly to drive across country …with some detours to show them the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park and The Arches (which I’d never seen). It took us longer than expected but we’re home. Now must get back to reality. Back to laundry and cleaning. Back to my clients. Back to blogging.
Will do it after a good night’s sleep in my own bed. With my husband.