The Manchurian Sleeper Agent

Let's talk about quinoa! Whenever I mention it, most people look at me like I'm an alien. "Keeno-what?" Pronounced either "keen-wah" or "kin-oh-ah", quinoa has its origins in the Incan regions of South America. Ancient civilizations valued quinoa very highly, only second to potatoes, and recognized its ability to increase stamina in their warriors. 

Although it's not a common item in most kitchens today, it's gaining popularity as people "rediscover" this wonderful food--what I call the Manchurian sleeper agent of cuisine! Quinoa is an amino acid-rich seed that has a fluffy, creamy, slightly crunchy texture and a somewhat nutty flavor when cooked, and you can find quinoa in the grocery store year-round. Quinoa looks like a grain, but it is actually a relative of leafy green vegetables like spinach and Swiss chard. 


Not only is quinoa high in protein, but the protein it supplies is complete protein, meaning that it includes all nine essential amino acids--making it a good choice for vegans (and vegetarians) concerned about adequate protein intake, but quinoa is especially well-endowed with the amino acid lysine, which is essential for tissue growth and repair. In my personal experience, lysine is great for pesky cold sores. In addition to protein, quinoa features a host of other health-building nutrients. Because quinoa is a very good source of manganese as well as a good source of magnesium, iron, copper and phosphorus, it's especially good for migraine headaches and diabetes.

Quinoa is very easy to cook. Most packaged quinoa has already been cleaned, but it doesn’t hurt to soak and rinse it just in case--the seeds have a bitter substance that protects them from predators, like birds. Quinoa cooks in about 15 minutes, and it’s easy to tell when it’s done (not only because the liquid has fully absorbed), but because the seeds display a little white thread that curls around them.

Mais oui, Ratatouille!

I'll apologize in advance for not having any photos of this beautiful dish--the last time I made it, I didn't take any, and I won't be able to for another few weeks! I'm sorry! But once you taste it, you will forgive all my sins...

Yes, today, my friends, is the day that I let you in on a little something I picked up recently. Not in my travels, unfortunately--I had no oven whilst living in Paris--but just wondering aloud what to do with the beautiful zucchini, yellow squash, and eggplant I had lying around. And then it came to me: ratatouille! We all know ratatouille as a bit, well...soggy. And I wanted to give it a bit of a makeover. This recipe was inspired by Thomas Keller's confit byalidi, which is the recipe actually used in the movie! It's colorful and delicious, but looked a bit complicated, so here's my simplified version. I serve over quinoa, topped with some delicious feta.

Oven-baked Ratatouille 

Ingredients

For the tomato sauce 

1 onion, finely chopped 

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 cup of tomato puree (see my recipe here)

A glug or two of olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

For the vegetable topping

1 small eggplant

1 small-medium zucchini

1 small-medium yellow squash 

1 small red pepper

2 small onions

A few glugs of olive oil

Yellow curry powder (that's right, curry!)

For the quinoa bottom

1/2 cup of quinoa

1 cup of vegetable stock (or chicken/turkey or water)

Directions

Start by preheating your oven to 375 degrees F. 

Pour the tomato paste into the bottom of an oval baking dish (approx. 10 inches long) and stir in the onion, garlic and olive oil. Season generously with salt and pepper. 

Trim the ends off of the onions, zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant and bell pepper (be careful here, try to leave the insides intact like a tube). Cut all your vegetables into very thin slices--I don't have a mandoline, but I hear they're great; I use a sharp knife, and it's fine. This doesn't have to be perfect! 

On top of the tomato sauce, arrange slices of the prepared vegetables around the edge, alternating vegetables and working inward, so that each overlaps with the previous. You want a little bit of each flat surface to show. Drizzle some olive oil atop the vegetables, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Season with as much curry as you like, or you can leave it out if you'd like. 

Cover the dish with a piece of parchment paper that has been cut to fit inside. Bake for approximately 45 minutes, or until the vegetables have softened a bit--you want some structure left, but you also want the liquid to have been released. They should not yet be brown at the edges, and you may see liquid bubbling at the edges of the parchment paper. 

While your ratatouille is in the oven, combine 1/2 cup quinoa with 1 cup stock of your choice/water, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and let cook until all the liquid is absorbed, about 10 minutes total. 

Serve your ratatouille over quinoa, and sprinkle some feta cheese on top. 

Oh, la la!

Perhaps a rat, albeit a cartoon one, is not exactly what you expected when you clicked through to my blog. But this little rat is a hint about what we'll be creating today! Can you guess? 

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Well, first, I'm going to share my recipe for tomato paste with you, because the Mystery Recipe calls for tomato paste, and the stuff from the can--while convenient--is awful. And since you're a great cook, you know it's very easy to make your own tomato paste! 

Basically, tomato paste is just a lot of tomatoes that have been reduced, and then reduced, and then reduced some more. It's great for a day like today--rainy, gross and cold--when you can monitor the stove but still have work to do. This recipe is time intensive, but for most of it you're just letting the tomatoes do their thing (this doesn't mean that you shouldn't keep an eye on them!)

Home-made Tomato Paste

Side note: the amount of tomatoes you use for this recipe depends upon how much paste you want--remember, you can store it and save it for later! I've used about 17lbs of tomatoes and gotten about 8 cups of paste. For this recipe I will operate under that assumption, but you can reduce the ingredients as necessary.

Ingredients

17lbs of roma tomatoes

A few glugs of olive oil

2-3 teaspoons of salt

Directions

Fill a large pot with water, and bring to a boil. While your water is heating up, cut a cross on the bottom of your tomatoes. Pop your tomatoes into the water (you can do this in groups, obviously) and let them cook for a few minutes, until the skin starts to come off. Let them cool down a bit and peel off the skin. Slice the tomatoes in half, cut out the hard core and, if you'd like, scoop out the seeds (you can leave them in for texture if you'd like). 

Chop up the tomatoes and add them, with the salt, to a pot and simmer for about an hour. Make sure you stir often to prevent the tomatoes from sticking to the bottom of the pan and burning! Remove the tomatoes from heat and process through a blender until smooth. Return the tomatoes to the pot and continue to cook them very slowly for about another 2-3 hours, until the paste holds its shape with a spoon. Remember to stir! 

Spoon your tomato paste into jars, and leave about 1 inch at the top. Pour a little olive oil on top and seal the jars to store. You're done! There, that wasn't so bad, was it?

The Mystery Recipe is coming soon, so keep an eye out for it!

Mmm, brussels sprouts.

OK, I know this is probably not going to garner me ANY favors, but I have a secret to tell you. Come closer. Closer than that.


Are you ready?

I love brussels sprouts.

No, really, I do! They are DELICIOUS. And today, I'm going to teach you to love them, too. This is a recipe that I've adapted from my charming ex-roomie, Mariya, who was kind enough to show me the light (and who should really get a food blog!). Enjoy!

Balsamic Glazed Brussels Sprouts

Ingredients

1 lb of brussels sprouts, rinsed, trimmed, and cut in half

1/2 lb of carrots, rinsed and cut into chunks (you can roughly chop them to whatever size you'd like)

A few glugs of olive oil (I rarely use specific measurements when it comes to olive oil--you want to have enough for the vegetables to cook in, you can always add more; it's harder to take some away, though, so be careful!)

1/2 of a large, sweet onion, or 1 yellow onion

3 garlic cloves, diced

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

3/4 cup vegetable stock (or chicken/turkey stock)

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Heat a large cast iron skillet on medium high and add olive oil. Once the oil is hot, but not smoking, add your brussels sprouts and carrots. Cook for about 6 minutes, stirring and allowing the veggies to brown up and soften a bit. Add the onions, cooking and stirring for about 10 minutes; the goal here is to get everything brown a little bit--you don't want to burn anything, just slightly browned. Add in the garlic and cook for about a minute. Now add in the balsamic vinegar and stock (I've found it helps to mix them in the measuring cup). Cook for about 15-20 minutes, allowing things to simmer and reduce. If you need, add more stock. Add salt and pepper to taste, and you're done!


Now, tell me that wasn't delicious, hmmm? Have I changed your mind about brussels sprouts?

So, why the heck are you a vegetarian anyway?

I get asked this question a lot--especially by my friends who know me as a meat-eater (this change in diet is relatively new). So, you're asking, why vegetarianism? Isn't it difficult to give up all that stuff? How do you get enough protein? What about dairy? Are you a vegan?

Well, it's complicated.

Let's start at the very beginning, the summer between junior and senior year of college. The scene: the gym, with my best friend. The scenario: split squats. I stress-fractured my left 4th metatarsal (in layman's terms, the toe next to my pinkie), which mean that I had to wear a boot cast for a few months, which meant no gym. And that meant I was gaining a little weight, so I tried to up the healthy foods in my diet. A few months later, the boot comes off, yay! Then, I sprain my ankle. Crap.

Meanwhile, my amazingly beautiful and talented room-mate Mariya is cooking up a storm. And what is she cooking? Vegetables. Delicious, amazing vegetables. So, I tell myself, "Megan: you are going to eat more vegetables, and stay healthy because you can't work out." I also have an ongoing battle with rosacea, and I figured that cutting dairy and most wheat (I do eat some grains, like farro and quinoa, which isn't technically a grain but looks/tastes like one, and they provide a great source for protein) out of my diet might help--couldn't hurt, right?

And it didn't! I haven't seen much of a change in my rosacea, unfortunately, but I no longer crave those foods like I used to--and when I say crave, I really mean it. For a long time, I subsisted on pasta and cheese, and chicken. I was VERY picky about my food. I liked vegetables well enough, but I didn't eat nearly as much as I should have. The same goes for sugar--I'll post some desserts (none of which will be vegan, I'm sorry! I've never baked vegan before), and I use real sugar--but it won't be a lot. I eat them on special occasions, and that's about it. No, it isn't difficult to give up; if I really want meat, I'll eat it, but so far...I haven't wanted it. End of story. I'm not truly a vegan, because I'm still eating a little feta cheese (good source of protein!) and I bake with milk and eggs; but, aside from that, on a given day, I am eating vegan.

Which leads me to my next point: eating real food. By real food, I mean not edible food products. Here's a good rule I learned from Michael Pollan's book, "Food Rules": if a food product has ingredients that no normal human being would keep in the pantry, don't eat it! Would you keep xanthan in the cupboard? No. What about cellulose? Didn't think so. Ethyloxylated diglycerides? I don't even know what that IS! Look at the list of ingredients on your products, and you'll be surprised: a lot of stocks and broths--or other things you thought were perfectly innocent--have artificial ingredients. And you know what? You just don't need that stuff in your body. You can either make your own stock (time consuming, but worth it, I hear); or, you can buy products that DON'T contain that crap--they exist! Even up here in the Badlands! You just have to keep an eye out for them. And trust me, once you get them out of your system, you won't want them anymore. I can stare a big ol' piece of pizza right in the face and not cave, because I'm feeding my body the good stuff, the stuff it REALLY wants.

So, I hope that what you get out of this blog is a way to be happier and healthier. Yes, I mentioned going to the gym and gaining a little weight, but that's just what inspired my lifestyle change; this blog isn't about weight loss or dieting. Dieting is never good--and, bonus: you can eat as many vegetables as you want! But by making healthier food choices, you'll see and feel a difference overall.