1lb ground beef
1/2 onion
2 cloves minced garlic
1 egg
Salt, pepper
2tbsp flour
make into meat balls and flatten
fry in oil to brown (some pink in center)
celery
snowpeas
sliced bell pepper
remainder of sliced onion
Fry briefly w/LITTLE (pinch) salt and pepper
water (maybe 1/2-1cup?)
vinnegar 2 tablespoons
2tblespoons sugar
2 slices ginger
sweet and sour sauce to taste (use real, not thai chili)
1/2 tblespoon corn starch w/ water to thicken (end up with about 1/4 cup)
Finish cooking meat in sauce, adding in cornstarch slowly to thicken. add in veggies set aside at end and serve with rice
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Meatza incarnation # delicious
Another meatza, this time with ingredients in... austria!
1 package wildflower leaves (seriously, you can get them here, pretty awesome)
2 tblspoons butter
2 cloves garlic
1 pound ground meat
tomato sauce
gouda cheese
salami slices
Saute garlic with wildflower leaves in the butter. Mix with meat and put into pan (I used a bread pan.) Oven at 190C for 10 minutes. Pull out. Put on toppings and put back into oven until cheese is done. Take out, enjoy.
1 package wildflower leaves (seriously, you can get them here, pretty awesome)
2 tblspoons butter
2 cloves garlic
1 pound ground meat
tomato sauce
gouda cheese
salami slices
Saute garlic with wildflower leaves in the butter. Mix with meat and put into pan (I used a bread pan.) Oven at 190C for 10 minutes. Pull out. Put on toppings and put back into oven until cheese is done. Take out, enjoy.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Three Andrew Recipes
First, the mixed drink.
An 'Andrew'
1 part pomegranate juice
1 part orange juice
1 part dark rum
splash of sprite
Biakabutuka Omelet
2 eggs
1/4 cup salmon
10-12 slices pepperoni
2 spears asparagus, cut
Mozzarella cheese
Baltimorean Omelet
Crab
Crab
more crab
oh and toss on some old bay
and maybe a couple of eggs
An 'Andrew'
1 part pomegranate juice
1 part orange juice
1 part dark rum
splash of sprite
Biakabutuka Omelet
2 eggs
1/4 cup salmon
10-12 slices pepperoni
2 spears asparagus, cut
Mozzarella cheese
Baltimorean Omelet
Crab
Crab
more crab
oh and toss on some old bay
and maybe a couple of eggs
Monday, June 14, 2010
Another all meat pizza!
Here's another one for the carnivores out there. I made it up as another way to finish off the stir fry chicken I make each week. It's a pizza in form only incidentally and there may in fact be an italian name for what this actually is. Regardless, it was tasty.
Enough chicken to cover pan. You can either pound out a chicken breast into a thin sheet or just use up left over chicken pieces.
Tomato sauce to cover chicken
Cheese of choosing.
Meat and toppings of your choosing.
Place chicken as the "crust" and add toppings to taste. Place under broil for 10-15 minutes until done. Serve and enjoy.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Why food isn't just "food"
Food is not just food. I'm surprised by inane justifications of eating that reduce it down to just nutrition. We can and should talk about the nutritional quality of food, but food is never just food. It is not just about ingesting something that sustains us then we poop it out. If food were just nutrition we would all take pills that fulfill our requirements for the day then that would be it. But we don't do that. Instead we decide to prepare meals; those preparations are cultural acts. What is in our meal, how we prepare it, the history behind that meal, the history behind its preparation, what are the symbols involved in it? These are all questions and qualities of the food that need to be and should be considered. Food is a symbol, a political act, a dating ritual, a protest, and an affirmation. Food is never 'just' food.
I love my sister, but when she said food was just food I felt that holly righteous rage inside of me and the need to smote her from every mountain top from here to Middle Earth. How could food just be food? Didn't she realize that the simple act of making breakfast for dinner was more than about just food? Didn't she realize that she was reinacting something our parents had done with us since we were really young? There's a history behind that meal, there are memories, emotions with that meal. The fact she chose to share a portion with me was HUGE... she almost never does that. So there are elements of social bonding behind it as well. This was not some TV dinner plopped in a microwave, this was my sister reaching out, attempting something she rarely does and doesn't feel comfortable doing. The meanings behind all it were so important, so meaningful. To proclaim that food is just food, well that takes away a lot of that, strips it away and lays it bare to the hot sun to rot. It was like completely discrediting all that meaning, making it so that the social bond she was trying to forge was trivial. How could she do that? How could she trample on how touched I was at her offering to cook something for me?
To me it reflects something very disturbing about how Americans increasingly view food. We talk too much in deconstructionist terms, breaking down food into components, nutrients, instead of viewing the food in whole terms. A lot of the nutrition debate is phrased like that too. We talk about optimal macronutrient ratios and calories instead of the deliciousness of the apple, or using whole foods. In numerous studies on diets it has been shown that people who consume whole, fresh foods eat healthier and better and sustain weight loss longer than those who focus on ratios of protein, fat, and carbs. People who cook their own food from scratch show the same.
Why though is hard to pin down. A lot of people assume that when you focus on fresh whole foods you're guaranteed to ween yourself off the processed food high in carbs, sodium, and Frankenfats, and that is why those people are healthier. Or all that preparation with the food means we eat less because we value it more. All that is probably true, but even then we are still thinking about breaking down the food into valuable parts instead of seeing the value in the whole. I'm going to throw out another theory though. I think consuming whole food, preparing it yourself is healthier because you apply more of the cultural and social into it. There's love there. There are bonds shared and broken. It's healthier not simply because the nutrients are better, its healthier because there is more of the non-physical wrapped up into it.
I'm fond of the Papuan example. I think they have the way to think about food right. For them food is wrapped up in everything they do. It's common among them to not think with their heart (which is an industrialist/ mechanical viewpoint, something to share at another point) nor with their head, but rather with their stomachs. When you eat food prepared and grown by someone else in their culture, you consume a part of that person. That work that goes into the meal is an actual, physical (to them) part of them that you then consume in the act of eating. In essence everyone is a cannibal, and no-one really has a problem with that. (In point of fact, this is where some of the mistaken cannibalism reported to westerners comes from, an example of misunderstanding a worldview.) It's beautiful. When people are married and have "arranged" marriages, those marriages are consummated in lavish feasts and pigs/ livestock are exchanged between the participants. You give me this wife here for those 200 pigs I loaned you three generations ago. The consumption of those pigs cements that bond between the two families, villages, tribes. When people die their spirits live on in the trees, crops that the villagers eat, further extending their memory and giving back to the continued health of the village. How could food just be about food to them? Try explaining a carbohydrate to these people. They'd probably nod politely and go "uncivilized foreigners, don't they realize this food contains the spirit of my ancestor and provides for our continued good health? They keep consuming bad spirits, maybe that's why they're so fat and unfit? They need to consume more of their ancestors."
Perhaps that's an extreme example, but it's also an illustrative one. My sister though not fond of religion (she hates it, though I make the argument her atheism and liberalism are also religions, she's probably not fond of that either) would be hard pressed to deny though the symbolism in a passover feast or thanksgiving meal. How about Christmas day dinner? We don't consume ham at Easter just because its ham, we consume it because in a way it embodies and resembles the flesh of Christ. These meals bring people closer together, they're symbolic in terms of what we eat and how we eat them and consummate social bonds. You typically don't invite strangers to dinner (though if you did, that's an example of your charity) you invite loved ones, or potential loved ones who you want to create closer social ties with. We even get uncomfortable when invited to dinners, celebrations that involve social bonds we're not quite ready for. The 3 week boyfriend invited to a passover meal with the girlfriends parents. Why we are uncomfortable isn't simply nervousness, it also reflects our apprehension of closer ties when we're not quite ready for them.
People who cook their own food from scratch intuitively I think understand a lot of that. They understand that the love that goes into a meal and the journey of that meal means as much as the end product - a blob of nutritious gobble gook. We even say that "our love went into this meal, you will eat it!" I think that makes the meal more real, more nutritious in ways that go beyond calorie counts and macronutrient ratios. That's why people are healthier.
I don't think my sister quite understands that. I don't think she quite understands love that way. In her worldview where food is just food, people are therefore just people, who should be used and abused to suit her own whims. In a world where food is just food you can reduce people, de-humanize them, strip them of social and cultural meaning. What is the point of life then? Its very nihilistic, bleak, and unimaginative. Where are the shades of color and meaning that define life like I see it? How do you respect people as people in that world? Maybe then that phrase she employed "food is just food" reflects a lack of that deeper something within her, that eye, that heart, that stomach that understands and feels the social bonds created. Those single golden threads that unite all of us, that tie us all together into this great beautiful world.
Food is not just food, its life.
I love my sister, but when she said food was just food I felt that holly righteous rage inside of me and the need to smote her from every mountain top from here to Middle Earth. How could food just be food? Didn't she realize that the simple act of making breakfast for dinner was more than about just food? Didn't she realize that she was reinacting something our parents had done with us since we were really young? There's a history behind that meal, there are memories, emotions with that meal. The fact she chose to share a portion with me was HUGE... she almost never does that. So there are elements of social bonding behind it as well. This was not some TV dinner plopped in a microwave, this was my sister reaching out, attempting something she rarely does and doesn't feel comfortable doing. The meanings behind all it were so important, so meaningful. To proclaim that food is just food, well that takes away a lot of that, strips it away and lays it bare to the hot sun to rot. It was like completely discrediting all that meaning, making it so that the social bond she was trying to forge was trivial. How could she do that? How could she trample on how touched I was at her offering to cook something for me?
To me it reflects something very disturbing about how Americans increasingly view food. We talk too much in deconstructionist terms, breaking down food into components, nutrients, instead of viewing the food in whole terms. A lot of the nutrition debate is phrased like that too. We talk about optimal macronutrient ratios and calories instead of the deliciousness of the apple, or using whole foods. In numerous studies on diets it has been shown that people who consume whole, fresh foods eat healthier and better and sustain weight loss longer than those who focus on ratios of protein, fat, and carbs. People who cook their own food from scratch show the same.
Why though is hard to pin down. A lot of people assume that when you focus on fresh whole foods you're guaranteed to ween yourself off the processed food high in carbs, sodium, and Frankenfats, and that is why those people are healthier. Or all that preparation with the food means we eat less because we value it more. All that is probably true, but even then we are still thinking about breaking down the food into valuable parts instead of seeing the value in the whole. I'm going to throw out another theory though. I think consuming whole food, preparing it yourself is healthier because you apply more of the cultural and social into it. There's love there. There are bonds shared and broken. It's healthier not simply because the nutrients are better, its healthier because there is more of the non-physical wrapped up into it.
I'm fond of the Papuan example. I think they have the way to think about food right. For them food is wrapped up in everything they do. It's common among them to not think with their heart (which is an industrialist/ mechanical viewpoint, something to share at another point) nor with their head, but rather with their stomachs. When you eat food prepared and grown by someone else in their culture, you consume a part of that person. That work that goes into the meal is an actual, physical (to them) part of them that you then consume in the act of eating. In essence everyone is a cannibal, and no-one really has a problem with that. (In point of fact, this is where some of the mistaken cannibalism reported to westerners comes from, an example of misunderstanding a worldview.) It's beautiful. When people are married and have "arranged" marriages, those marriages are consummated in lavish feasts and pigs/ livestock are exchanged between the participants. You give me this wife here for those 200 pigs I loaned you three generations ago. The consumption of those pigs cements that bond between the two families, villages, tribes. When people die their spirits live on in the trees, crops that the villagers eat, further extending their memory and giving back to the continued health of the village. How could food just be about food to them? Try explaining a carbohydrate to these people. They'd probably nod politely and go "uncivilized foreigners, don't they realize this food contains the spirit of my ancestor and provides for our continued good health? They keep consuming bad spirits, maybe that's why they're so fat and unfit? They need to consume more of their ancestors."
Perhaps that's an extreme example, but it's also an illustrative one. My sister though not fond of religion (she hates it, though I make the argument her atheism and liberalism are also religions, she's probably not fond of that either) would be hard pressed to deny though the symbolism in a passover feast or thanksgiving meal. How about Christmas day dinner? We don't consume ham at Easter just because its ham, we consume it because in a way it embodies and resembles the flesh of Christ. These meals bring people closer together, they're symbolic in terms of what we eat and how we eat them and consummate social bonds. You typically don't invite strangers to dinner (though if you did, that's an example of your charity) you invite loved ones, or potential loved ones who you want to create closer social ties with. We even get uncomfortable when invited to dinners, celebrations that involve social bonds we're not quite ready for. The 3 week boyfriend invited to a passover meal with the girlfriends parents. Why we are uncomfortable isn't simply nervousness, it also reflects our apprehension of closer ties when we're not quite ready for them.
People who cook their own food from scratch intuitively I think understand a lot of that. They understand that the love that goes into a meal and the journey of that meal means as much as the end product - a blob of nutritious gobble gook. We even say that "our love went into this meal, you will eat it!" I think that makes the meal more real, more nutritious in ways that go beyond calorie counts and macronutrient ratios. That's why people are healthier.
I don't think my sister quite understands that. I don't think she quite understands love that way. In her worldview where food is just food, people are therefore just people, who should be used and abused to suit her own whims. In a world where food is just food you can reduce people, de-humanize them, strip them of social and cultural meaning. What is the point of life then? Its very nihilistic, bleak, and unimaginative. Where are the shades of color and meaning that define life like I see it? How do you respect people as people in that world? Maybe then that phrase she employed "food is just food" reflects a lack of that deeper something within her, that eye, that heart, that stomach that understands and feels the social bonds created. Those single golden threads that unite all of us, that tie us all together into this great beautiful world.
Food is not just food, its life.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Maetza!
Ok really it is a Meatza, but to appease the family I'm staying with I called it Maetza and told them it was an authentic Lebanese dish. I even played it up a bit and told them I'd found this recipe when I was perusing a couple of Lebanese websites looking for something delicious to make them last night. It wasn't until dinner that I finally admitted that no, it was in fact an primal all-meat pizza. Now in fairness, at this point I got some rather strange looks from my friends mother who thinks I'm a low carb nut-job. But it did bring about a discussion about being Primal, what that means, and how we can apply it to our lives. Maybe worth it in the end.
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds of meat, and none of that reduced fat foolishness that was all over Giant's shelves yesterday (I used Lamb and Bison)
2 Cloves minced garlic
Basil, oregano, cilantro.
1 can diced tomatoes or tomato sauce/ pizza sauce (abt. 2 cups.)
Soft cheese either white or yellow, preferably from a good source.
Toppings: anything you want.
Preheat oven to 450 w/ cast iron (or pan, whatever) inside. Mix meat with garlic and herbs (I picked these fresh from outside, amazing) and make sure it mixes well together. Place meat in a thin ~ 1/2 inch thick sheet on bottom of your pan, create a small 'lip' to hold in sauce with meat like the crust on a regular pizza. Put this in the oven at 450 for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, get your toppings ready. Last night, we had caramelized onions, sliced tomato, asparagus and spinach. After 10 minutes take out pan and drain off most of the grease. Add on your toppings starting with the tomato sauce first, then cheese, and finally the veggies. Put back in the oven and cook for 20-30 minutes until veggies are roasted and cheese is melted. Take out, serve, enjoy.
Note: Last night we used diced tomatoes on the pizza, then filled the rest of the cast iron with another two cups of tomato sauce and cooked the asparagus in that. After we pulled it out we drained the asparagus tomato sauce mixture off and served it as a light soup.
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds of meat, and none of that reduced fat foolishness that was all over Giant's shelves yesterday (I used Lamb and Bison)
2 Cloves minced garlic
Basil, oregano, cilantro.
1 can diced tomatoes or tomato sauce/ pizza sauce (abt. 2 cups.)
Soft cheese either white or yellow, preferably from a good source.
Toppings: anything you want.
Preheat oven to 450 w/ cast iron (or pan, whatever) inside. Mix meat with garlic and herbs (I picked these fresh from outside, amazing) and make sure it mixes well together. Place meat in a thin ~ 1/2 inch thick sheet on bottom of your pan, create a small 'lip' to hold in sauce with meat like the crust on a regular pizza. Put this in the oven at 450 for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, get your toppings ready. Last night, we had caramelized onions, sliced tomato, asparagus and spinach. After 10 minutes take out pan and drain off most of the grease. Add on your toppings starting with the tomato sauce first, then cheese, and finally the veggies. Put back in the oven and cook for 20-30 minutes until veggies are roasted and cheese is melted. Take out, serve, enjoy.
Note: Last night we used diced tomatoes on the pizza, then filled the rest of the cast iron with another two cups of tomato sauce and cooked the asparagus in that. After we pulled it out we drained the asparagus tomato sauce mixture off and served it as a light soup.
Salmon and Sweet Potato
Another easy roasting recipe. Preheat oven to 400 with pan inside. Add 1 diced sweet potato with some olive oil, salt, pepper and cook for 10 min. Take out and add in salmon with olive oil, salt, pepper, and some paprika on top for kick. Cook another 20 min or until done. Take out, serve, enjoy.
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