Baked potatoes with lemon, feta, and herbs

Before the holiday break, the hubs and I were invited over for a Christmas party. We ate baked trout that was steamed in foil packets. The seasonings were simple: bay leaves, lemon slices, delicate garlic slices, and olive oil. It was divine. I try not to be judgmental with my vegetarian ways but hot damn that fish was unlike anything that could ever be recreated in the plant kingdom. So sometimes I cheat, but my vegetarian self always wins. I had to recreate those flavors. My idle time is not spent being bored. I got to work.

I use new potatoes, garlic, shallots, lots of fresh chopped parsley, lemon, capers, red kidney beans, generous pours of olive oil and capers. I carefully arrange everything in small cute foil pouches, and then away they go into the oven coming back steaming an hour later. 

Oh heaven. This is vegetarian comfort food. Just in time for Valentine's Day too. I'll cook you this meal if you can come up with a prettier name than what I named it =-). Yes. They are not really cute, the foil gives them a rather industrial appearance, but trust me these are delicious.


Unwrapped baked potatoes








I really wanted to make these last two images an animated gif. I resisted.

Baked potatoes with lemon, feta, and herbs

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

1 packet of aluminum foil, or enough for 4 10" by 10" squares

4-6 small-medium new potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1/2" rounds

scant 1 cup fresh chopped parsley, can sub chopped dill
1/3 cup chopped shallots

2 cloves garlic, chopped fine

1 lemon sliced (enough for 1-2 slices in each pouch)

4 bay leaves

1-2 tsp capers (do not rinse them)

1/2 cup feta cheese 

1-2 cups cooked kidney beans (canned beans are fine)

olive oil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 º F; arrange everything on a plate, and then lay out foil squares (10" by 10"). 

2. The order in which the ingredients go don't really matter, although it's probably easiest to start with the potatoes. Pour a bit of olive oil onto the middle of the foil. Place a bay leaf on top and then place about 6 slices of potatoes on top. Top with parsley, shallots, capers, garlic and lemon slices. Arrange feta cheese and beans on top. Pour a generous glug of olive oil over the top, crack some fresh black pepper on top, and then fold into pouches like folding an envelope.

Repeat with the ingredients to make 4 pouches. Arrange on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for an hour or less. Serve with some warm crusty bread to soak up the juices. 

Banana oat muffins and nutrition ranting

The older I get the crankier I get with nutrition - especially because I think about how connected food and environment are to one another, and how regardless of the sheer outcome and breadth of many nutrition studies, there is no framework to pump the changes into, or rather that those changes seem excessively slow. When I learn about European (and here I mean country-specific) nutrition policies I can't help but think that the US is in the dark ages. Don't worry I will share those in another post.

I was especially disheartened to read about a study that was recently published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine which found students at half of US elementary schools could buy unhealthy foods outside of school meals. These are competitive foods such as cookies, cakes, and baked goods which are usually sold through vending machines, a la carte lines in the cafeteria, and in school stores. Researchers found that unhealthy snack foods were sold more in the south, where obesity rates are the highest - in fact 60% of public elementary schools in the south were found to be selling unhealthy foods; in the west this number drops to 24%, and in the midwest it is 30%. While the study found that fruits and vegetables were offered to be sold as well, they didn't sell as well as sugary salty foods (duh). If you follow Food Politics, or the Lunch Tray, you may have read about the recent changes, and the pushback, and then again the move forward with updated new federal nutrition guidelines for school nutrition (elementary through high school). Before these new regs were published,  competitive foods were exempt from federal regs, but now they are included in the report as being bound by the same criteria, and the report suggests that competitive foods follow the Institute of Medicine's report. I look forward to Bettina Elias Siegel's school nutrition FAQ. I hope that we can transition to real foods, move away from nutrient reductionism, and take back our food culture. Public schools, where most children learn fundamental basics about their world, have a place in changing food culture, and teaching students how to understand and apply nutrition.

Walmart recently announced their own front-of-package nutrition labeling system. Marion Nestle of Food Politics does an excellent write up on Walmart, presents research on labeling (e.g. a stoplight system works very well), and how Walmart should have waited to release guidelines so they could be in line with the FDA's front-of-package labeling guidelines. Should Walmart be providing their own nutrition labels on the front of packs? Probably not, but they are responding to increasing consumer demand that may help to alleviate the guilt that people probably feel when they feel overwhelmed by the nutrition label; or it's good for business, and it looks like they did something positive; or it will generate good PR and increase sales. Regardless, I still think it shows that businesses change their strategies to meet consumer demand. These changes coupled with concrete federal nutrition polices on advertising and labeling could make it very difficult for food and beverage companies to market and sell bad foods. And this just hot off my RSS: food companies using the First Amendment to market and sell any foods to kids. Marion Nestle why are you such a bad ass?

And finally some good nutrition news. When I was doing my catch-up reading on portion sizes for this month's month of meals, I came across an article from Harvard that revamped muffin recipes. Muffins are the poster child for portion distortion. Stacked on top of each other at coffeehouses, they are closer to processed cakes and cookies than healthy breakfast food. The average size of a muffin has probably quadrupled in size, and it's packed full of refined flour and sugar. Muffins can actually be quite healthy and reasonable. So as you become more enraged, or interested in the nutrition news out of the US, I find I actually enjoy writing about these things, I wanted to share some healthy banana oat muffins I baked up this morning:





nom nom nom nom

Banana oat muffins
Recipe from Deborah Madison's VCFE
Yield: 1 dozen

Ingredients:
2 large ripe bananas
3/4 cup buttermilk or 1/2 yogurt thinned with water
1/3 cup brown sugar (can use 1/4 cup with equally good results)
1 egg
2 tbsp canola or peanut oil
1 cup rolled oats
1 and 1/2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
1 tsp nutmeg or cinnamon
1 and 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup walnuts, optional

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375º F/190º C.
2. Lightly grease muffin pan with oil.
3. In a large mixing bowl mix mash the bananas, and add an egg and the oil. Mix it together a bit. Then add the buttermilk, brown sugar, and oats. Mix it together stirring with a big spoon.
4. In a small mixing bowl, combine the flour with cinnamon and baking soda. Add this to the big mixing bowl. In swift strokes mix everything together until the batter just comes together. Spoon about 1/4 cup or more into the muffin pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden and fragrant. Once cool store leftovers in an airtight container. This makes an awesome breakfast with a bit of fruit and hot steaming coffee. 

I've made this recipe so many times that I've experimented with 1 banana (turns out just fine); I forgot to add the oil once (it was fine, but was a bit dry on day 2 and 3); I subbed cinnamon for nutmeg; I reduced the sugar from 1/3 cup to 1/4 cup and it was the same; I experimented with using milk instead of water (3/4 cup milk + 1 tsp vinegar = acceptable buttermilk substitute); I have used the following flour proportions which have all been excellent: 1) 1/2 all-purpose and 1/2 whole-wheat flour, 2) 100% whole-wheat flour,  and 3) half pastry flour and half whole wheat.

Belgo-American brownies

Brownies! Chocolate! Brownies!

Does anyone bake brownies from scratch anymore? I have no idea why I haven't tried to bake brownies before, considering how much I miss chocolatey, fudgey, American brownies. In my quest to bake more from scratch, I've combined these two perfectly delicious and tested recipes. Three days after I baked these, they remain moist, chocolatey without excess sweetness, came out of the pan without any struggle or crazy sticking, and turned out much better than I ever imagined (e.g were superior to boxed brownie mix - Sara challenge?).  

Here is what I did: I used half butter and half peanut oil, reduced the amount of sugar in the recipes linked above, used excellent cocoa powder (assumed it was a non-alkalized one), and subbed in 125 g of baking chocolate instead of using prepared chocolate chips, and increased the amount of eggs used. These brownies are rich, but not too sweet, you can opt out of topping with walnuts, but their bitterness complements the deep rich chocolate perfectly.

On a side, I am in love with Lucien Massaux butter, and the Cote d`Or Culinaire chocolate.

Belgo-American brownies
Yield: enough for a party (about 20-24 squares depending on how you cut them, 2” x 2” is good)

Ingredients (listed in order of use)
45 g butter (or ½ cup butter)
½ cup peanut oil
2 cups sugar
125 g baking chocolate (or 4.5 oz)
1 and ½ cups flour; 1 cup pastry flour and ½ cup all purpose flour
¾ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 and 1/2 cups cocoa powder (probably Dutch process); I used the top shelf Selection Carrefour 100% cacao without any added sugar.
1 tbsp vanilla extract
4 large eggs (or 5 medium ones - I think the eggs are smaller here, on a visit back to the US I was astounded at how large eggs were) the yolks help to emulsify everything and make the brownies less greasy.
1 cup whole walnuts, toasted then crumbled

Directions

1. Combine the peanut oil and butter in a medium saucepan and heat over medium-low heat. Once the butter dissolves stir in sugar.
2. Lightly grease a 9” x 13” pan and preheat oven to 350º F or 170º C. When it’s warm, toast the walnuts for 5-8 minutes.
3. The sugar won’t dissolve all the way. Stir it around for about 5 minutes and then stir in the 125 g of baking chocolate. Then get out one large mixing bowl and one medium one.
4. In the smaller mixing bowl whisk together the flours, baking powder and salt.  
5. Place the chocolate-sugar-oil mixture in the big mixing bowl.  
6. Add the vanilla to the bowl.
7. Mix in, or beat in, 1 egg at a time. The batter will turn into a smooth batter by egg 4 or 5.
8. While mixing, gradually add in about 3 increments, stopping occasionally to scrape the sides of the bowl down.
9. When done pour batter (it’ll be thicker than cake batter) into the prepared pan. Top with the nuts, and bake in the oven 25-35 min, or until done (when a fork or toothpick inserted comes out clean).
10. Let cool before cutting.
11. Devour. Store leftovers in an airtight container only after they have completely cooled.

Sweet potato pineapple muffins

Sweet potato with pineapple and fresh ginger.

Sweet potato with dates. Look at that fine crumb. 

Prepared muffin pans with oat-brown sugar topping.

Filled to just about 1/2 inch from the top, leave enough room for them to rise.

Fresh baked muffins, mmm lekker. 

In keeping with my goal of testing recipes multiple times, these sweet-potato pineapple muffins have been baked 4 times. The recipe has been adapted from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. The original recipe calls for 1/3 cup of candied ginger. Instead, I used 1/3 cup canned chopped pineapple, or dates. I add in 1 T of fresh grated ginger, along with 1/8 tsp fresh grated nutmeg.

Muffins are quick breads meaning that they don't need to leaven or rise. To bake muffins, mix together all of the dry ingredients in a bowl, and all of the wet ingredients in another bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and with a large spoon (not a hand or stand mixer) combine the wet and dry together with swift quick strokes. Avoid overmixing. The batter is ready when all of the flour is incorporated into the wet, a good rule of thumb is that the batter looks slightly undermixed. Drop batter by the spoonfuls into a greased muffin pan.

In general I try to make healthier modifications, but I find the proportions of this recipe work out nicely, and they aren't too sweet with a 1/2 cup of brown sugar, or heavy with 1/4 cup of vegetable oil. Subbing in whole-wheat pastry flour is fine. The pineapple and sweet potato make a delicious moist end product.

Sweet potato pineapple muffins

Yield: 1 dozen muffins

Ingredients listed in order of wet and dry:

Dry

1 and 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (can use whole wheat pastry flour)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

Wet

3/4 cup cooked sweet potato, mashed (canned or cooked pumpkin would work too)

1/3 cup canned chopped pineapple, or dates, or candied ginger

1 tbsp fresh grated ginger (leave out if using candied ginger)

1/2 cup buttermilk (see note below)

1/4 cup vegetable oil, plus a tiny bit extra to grease muffin pan

2 eggs, beaten

a heaping 1/2 cup of brown sugar (yes I know it's a dry ingredient, but add it to the wet ingredients first)

Note: if you don't have buttermilk, yogurt thinned with water works, or add 1/4 tsp of vinegar to a 1/2 cup of milk. Stir the milk and vinegar together and let stand 10 minutes.

Directions:

Set oven to 375 ºF; grease a muffin pan or line them with muffin liners. 

1. Combine the dry ingredients from flour to nutmeg in a medium-size mixing bowl. Stir together to ensure that it is well mixed. Set aside.

2. Combine the wet ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Stir together to combine. A sturdy spoon is sufficient as muffins do not require a hand or stand electric mixer.

3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. You should add the dry ingredients all at once. Stir together, scraping down the flour from the sides of the bowl. The mixing is done when the flour is mostly all incorporated into the wet batter. Undermixing is fine, but don't leave any huge clumps of flour.

4. Drop batter by the spoonful into a prepared muffin pan. Bake 20-25 minutes until a toothpick or fork inserted comes out clean. 

For the oat-brown sugar topping:

2 tbsp butter, softened

2 tbsp oats or more

1 tbsp flour

1 tbsp brown sugar or regular sugar

small dribble of vanilla extract

Combine all the ingredients. A fork works nicely to mash everything together. Distribute evenly over muffin batter once they are in the muffin pan. Seriously, I've been making this topping since my 9th grade home-ec class.