Yay octopus!!!!

octopus steals my video camera and swims off with it (while it's Recording) from Victor Huang on Vimeo.

If the octopuses using coconut shells as tools didnt convince you to stop eating them, this totally will! Look how smart he is!

Another Reason to Go Organic

That is, if you have to eat meat, or other animal products. Here is a synopsis of a Scientific American podcast about how flies are transferring antibiotic-resistant microbes from factory farms to US. Apparently 70% of antibiotics used in our country are applied to livestock. So, really, this antibiotic resistance problem is more about factory farms, which totally makes sense, because they are unnecessarily giving antibiotics to animals before they get sick, just so they can grow more of them in a small area. Duh.

This is interesting to me, because I am working on a project that may lead to the development of new antibiotics - but I assumed they were only for people, because they would prevent disease associated with certain bugs, not actually kill them. You would think this sort of antibiotic would be less useful for factory farmers. You can imagine at some point all our traditional antibiotics failing, and you would have bug-specific antibiotics that would be used for preventing disease in humans. This could potentially be a good thing, because then the farmers would be unable to overcrowd. Maybe.

I just think its weird how people have to deal with the consequences of farming practices with their health. Doesn't seem as worth it anymore, does it?

Sweet Harvest Potato Pies/Pancakes with Squash, Carrots, Apples & Onion

This is the god damn best thing I've made in a while.  Holy hell.  I was inspired by Justbento.com 's Oyaki potato dumpings.  Of course, because I don't eat meat, I had to fill them with something else - and I had been thinking about squash and carrots, and apples and onions - subsequently I decided that they would all go quite nicely together!!!

Sweet Harvest Potato Pie/Pancakes
1 acorn squash
2 carrots
1 sweet onion
2 apples
1 pkg mash potato mix
6 Tbsp corn starch or so
salt
brown sugar
maple syrup
cinnamon
fenugreek
coriander powder
olive oil
rosemary

1. Cut up the squash.  This was the most unpleasant part.  There has to be a better way to do this.  Maybe if I cooked it first and then cut it up, it wouldn't be so bad.  I worried the entire time that I was going to cut a finger off.

2. Cut up the carrots and put them a foil-lined pan with the squash.  Drizzle with olive oil, a little salt, brown sugar, maple syrup, rosemary, cinnamon - whatever.  Mix it up a little.  Bake at 400 for a while ~20 min?  I dunno.

3.  Chop and saute up the onion until it starts getting translucent.  Throw in the chopped apples.  Cook until the apples are soft.  Put some cinnamon, salt, fenugreek, and coriander powder on there.  

4.  When the apples are soft, put the onion and apple mix in with the squash and carrots, which would be getting softish at this point.  Mix and bake together until the squash and carrot are soft, to your liking.  Turn it up to 425 and bake for 10 min, I'm guessing.

5.  At some point, you will want to mix up your instant mashed potatoes, however it tell you to.  Try not to eat too much of it before you start adding the corn starch.  Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing, so I just was adding corn starch and mixing without measuring until it seemed sort of dough like.  It also helps if you cool the mashed potatoes down a bit?

6.  Make flatish patty like potato thingys, and when your squash mixture is done - spoon some into the center and pull the dough over it to cover and make a dumpling!!!  Add some olive oil to the frying pan and fry until the potato is brown.  It helps not to check on the potato too often, otherwise the browning part will flake off instead of staying on your dumpling.  Serve with maple syrup.  Amazing.

7.  Alternatively, you could add a little water to your dough and make potato pancakes!  (This sort of happened by accident, but it all worked out)  Serve with your squash mixture and drizzled with maple syrup.

SOO.. In my opinion, cooking onions with apples is the yummiest way to eat an onion.  Forget about the apples, the onions are SOOO good.  Maybe if you cook onion with apple juice or sauce, or apple cidar vinegar, you would get the same effect.  ANYWAY, that dumpling was positively the best thing I've made in a while.  SOOOOOO good.

(Sorry I take crappy food pictures.  Ha)

Guess the Vegetables!!!

What do you do if you want something healthy - like a salad - but you want something warm?!  You make mixed vegetables!!  This is the ultimate in mixed vegetables.  There are nine different vegetables in here (that I can remember)!!!  Can you guess?

I put some white wine vinegar, MSG and garlic powder on there to top it off.  I then proceeded to eat the entire pot.

I also made a similarly delicious soup with many of the same vegetables in vegetable stock. I also added some rotini. No pictures though. It was delicious, I burnt my tongue on it pretty badly since I was so eager to eat it.

Michelle's Ultra-Healthy Please-Jesus-I-Don't-Want-To-Be-Sick Vegan Curried Cauliflower Stew

I feel a sickness coming on. How to stop it? I don't know if I can, but I will sure try with teas, vitamins, lots of water drinking, and eating healthily like I've never eaten before. Why have boring old canned (no) chicken noodle soup, when you can make the healthiest, nutrient-punched soup I can conceive of?

Ingredients (roughly, cuz I don't measure anything):
1.5 c vegetable broth
1.5 c water
1.5 c chopped cauliflower
2 smallish red potatoes, chopped
3 cloves garlic
.5 c chopped carrot
.5 c chopped beets (fresh)
1 smallish green pepper
5 brussel sprouts
handful of fancy garden greens (spring mix or spinach or whatever)
1.5 tsp curry
1.5 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cardamom
.5 tsp cayenne pepper
.5 tsp Accent
2 tsp dried cilantro
Some cloves (don't eat them!!!)
1 bay leaf

First, boil some chopped cauliflower and potato in 1:1 vegetable broth:water (you don't need that extra sodium). Throw in some chopped garlic. When those are nice and soft, whiz it up in the food processor until it is as smooth as you want it.

Throw in lots of nutritious vegetables. I used more potato, carrots, beets, green bell pepper, and brussel sprouts. Spice with curry, turmeric, cardamom, cloves, cayenne pepper, cilantro, bay leaf and Accent (which is naughty, since we are trying to cut down on sodium intake - alternatively, you could use salt, if you decide you don't care about your body). I ALSO put in a couple leaves of the cauliflower head because that is supposed to be good for flavoring, but don't eat them. Simmer gently, covered, until the potatoes are soft (not sure how long that took 20 min?). At the very end, I wilted some garden greens on the top since those are healthy too! Now, it is ready to consume and fight off your cold virus!!!

Remember! Take out the cauliflower leaves and don't eat the icky cloves or bay leaf.

If I had been able to find the coconut milk I swear I had, I would have put that in there. I was also making quinoa and lentils to add to the soup, but I decided that it wouldn't fit quite right, so I didn't. You could add tofu or white beans or something to boost the protein levels, if you wanted. Something else you could do that I totally forgot about: add some ground flaxseed! I have some in my freezer, but I always forget it is there...

ATTN: B12 Info for Vegs

SO. There are rumors on the internet about vegetarian/veganism causing brain shrinkage as a result of vitamin B12 deficiency. I thought I would do my own research and address these issues.

First off, the people in the study were OLD. Second, people have known about these sorts of neurological problems from B12 deficiency for a while. Old Hat. I suppose this is news now because they proved people who have less vit B12 levels actually sustain more brain shrinkage with age. More importantly, this is causing concern for the current recommended daily intake, since all the people in the study were within the "normal levels."

So, what is Vitamin B12? It happens to be the most complex of all the vitamins, and it is only produced by bacteria. Meat-eaters get their intake of V B12 from meat, obviously. We're not going to talk about those sources, though. It turns out people have 2000-5000 ug of B12 stored up in their livers already, and only through years of reduced intake, can develop a B12 deficiency. Most "B12 deficiencies" are actually folic acid deficiencies, which is produced from B12 by the body. Both are B vitamins, in any case. So, anyway, if you are worried you are not eating enough B12, you are probably fine because you probably still have some of your stores intact. A B12-only deficiency only affects a few enzymes indirectly, one of which is responsible for production of neurotransmitters. For this reason, depression can result from B12 deficiency.

Adults need 3 ug/day of vitamin B12 (or so they have said). Many ovo-lacto vegetarians get this from their intake of dairy, eggs, and fortified sources. Milk has a significant amount of B12, but eggs are controversial because they contain a factor that disrupts uptake (or so I hear). Cheeses are sadly not very B12 rich. Pescatarians can gets LOADs of B12 from various mollusks and fishes (I suggest looking at Seafood Watch to choose the most environmentally friendly ones). Vegans need to get their B12 from fortified sources, such as various breakfast cereals (usually the healthy fiber-y ones, but some yummy ones are also ok). Fortified soy products are also available, such as soy milk. The B12-substitute in fortified sources is cyanocobalamin, which is actually just B12 collected from commercial bacteria producing places with a -CN group attached. The body can use this beautifully. Sadly, there are plant sources of B12, but it is not bioavailable for people. Some vegans have tried to prove this otherwise with questionable results. I say, eating spirulina, seaweed, or other algae is not going to cut it.

What IIII Suggest (and am going to do) is get B12 from mussels and fortified cereals, and milk (organic, happy cow). Mussels contain like 28 ug of B12. So all you need for a week is a couple servings of mussels and youre covered, because of the whole storage thing. Mussels are better than oysters and clams in their farming methods (even though they have less B12). Oysters and clams still are sustainably farmed, just not so wonderfully so as mussels. Clams and clam juice have a ridiculous amount of B12. Clam chowder is happily also an excellent source. The most fortified cereals, like All-Bran and Total type cereals, have >10 ug B12. Yummy cereals have <10 usually. Which is still fine. You need one serving of fortified milk to get the proper amount of B12. I have ALSO decided that marmite and vegemite are good sources of B12. There is a kiwi in my lab here, and she brought in marmite once, and it was actually quite lovely on toast with melted cheese. I plan on making an effort to find some. Full list of B12-high foods.

Is Our Planet Doomed?

David Letterman has given in to fatalism. It's whats happening to a lot of us in the face of the blatant ignorance of some of the Republicans. Sigh. It probably is too late, but at least we can try?

Letterman was talking about this because Thomas Friedman was on his show. I had coincidentally listened to a npr with him on it. I think I want to read his book, actually.

Also, I would like to take this moment to remind everyone to stop eating fish, basically. I listened to this npr about bluefin tunas. All the fish are basically screwed. And besides, if we all turned vegetarian/vegan, we would all lose weight and our cholesterol would go down, so seriously, what's to lose?!

Delightful Vegan Zucchini Bread!

This is basically the from this recipe I found on Allrecipes.com. Give credit where it's due. I changed it up some though!!!

Delightful Vegan Zucchini Bread (No Eggs, No Butter)
2 1/2 - 3 c shredded zucchini (basically a medium sized zucchini)
3 c fancy organic flour (I used spelt wheat and organic 1:1)
3 tbsp milled flax seeds
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 c brown sugar (or 1:1 brown:white)
1 c apple sauce
3/4 c vegetable oil (I used grapeseed)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp crystallized ginger

So!
Mix the flour, flax seeds, baking powders, salt & ginger together nicely.
Combine the oil, apple sauce, vanilla, and sugar together and mix until smooth.
Dump the wet stuff in with the dry stuff. Add the zucchini! Mix!
Bake at 325 for 70 min!

I like the ginger addition a lot. I would probably add more next time. When I made it, it wasn't quite vegan because I ran out of apple sauce and threw in some hard butter, which I was too lazy to melt, so there were smallish chunks of butter in the batter. I think this turned out well, though, because there are these soft gooey parts in the bread now that I think are from the butter chunks. Also, I might try to bake it at 350 instead of 325. What's the difference, right? This fit into a largish bread pan for me, I guess maybe people normally make smaller loafs of dessert breads, but whatever. FYI.

NEXT TIME: I think I want to have some zucchini chunks, so I'm going to roughly chop a fourth of it next time and shred the rest. ALSO, I think I want to try adding some rosemary, it felt like it could go for something green and garden-y in there. Honey might also be fun (But I don't have any because the bees are struggling right now, and I'm not sure what to do about that...). Oh! And I had delicious bars today with golden raisins in them, and I think that would definitely be fun! I didn't know golden raisins were so good in desserts! Maybe if I had golden raisens, I wouldn't do the zucchini chunks. Why do all my breads seem like they're going to end up as fruitloaf?

Vegetarian Quorn Helper

This is a vegetarian version of Hamburger Helper made with Quorn brand grounds! I'm a big fan of the Quorn grounds, and all Quorn products really. They're not vegan though, they contain egg, so thats a little bit of a bummer, but they really do an amazing job. ANYWAY, this was not made with A box of Hamburger Helper or anything, but it does remind me of it.

I was happily making a box of macaroni and cheese, and since I am trying to use up all the food items in my house right now before I go shopping again, I decided I would add something to the macaroni to make it last longer. In the freezer - half a bag of Quorn grounds! Lovely! Topped off with the cheese mix from the mac & cheese, milk, tomato sauce, and fresh tomato.

Box of Mac & Cheese (I was using fancy Annie's Organic Whole Wheat)
1/2 bag of Quorn grounds
some sort of oil
milk
tomato sauce
tomato
salt
garlic powder
various herbs & spices

Cook up box of mac and cheese. Strain mac and cheese. Defrost and warm through half bag of Quorn grounds in the same pot with a little oil (I used grapeseed), throwing in a little salt, black pepper, and garlic to season them. Add back the mac and cheese and make the cheese sauce as it says on the package. You can stop at this point if you want! Or continue....

I like the fresh chopped tomatoes on it especially, so you need that. I also threw in a little milk and tomato sauce on it when I reheated it later, and that spiced it up. The last time I made it, before I ran out, I had milk and tomato sauce, which I cooked down a little with the mac & cheese. I also added chili paste for a little heat, oregano, garlic, and marjoram. Fresh tomatos on top, and it was yummy!

Pesto & Pepperoncini Pizza

This was yummy -

1 pre-made pizza crust
sun-dried tomato pesto
garlic
olive oil
grated italian cheese blend
pepperoncinis!
olives

Smear olive oil on - cut up garlic roughly - bake at 350 for 5-10 minutes to soften garlic. Smear pesto on, load up with cheese, pepperoncinis and olives. Bake until cheese is melty and golden brown, YUM.

I will admit that I got heartburn from this pizza though, but it was worth it!

Best Potato Mush Ever / Vegetarian Cottage Pie!

Potato Soup

Every Once in a While, I get a crazy thought like, ‘Maybe I’ll try a liquid-only diet!’ So I made this potato soup since I have all this stuff just sitting around. Turns out, its more semi-liquid than liquid but it is SO delicious.

5 smallish red potatoes
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
2 tbsp olive oil
half bag of frozen peas & carrots
1/2 bag of some flavor of instant potatoes (I had butter & herbs)
3/4 bag onion soup mix
1/4 – 1/2 c half & half
1/4 c butter (half a stick)
~2 c water
1 bay leaf
salt
pepper
minced garlic
parsley
dried chives
some chicken bouillon if you’re not veg – I cheated

Cook the potatoes, chop them up!
Soften up the onions in the olive oil, add the garlic at the last moment (~30 sec), before adding some water and potatoes.
Blend up about half this mixture until smoothish. Return to pot.
Add more water if needed, frozen peas & carrots and onion soup mix and bay leaf, heat until near boiling.
Add instant potatoes and stir around well.
Add half and half and butter and all the spices how you like them.
Heat and mix until everything is nice and yummy.

I eat mine cold or room temp because I heard the complex carbs are better that way and heating them up destroys them, but that may or may not be a myth. (Note: Wikipedia says its true, and they have a reference I'm too lazy to read right now) It’s excellent however you want it. IMO.

Cottage Pie!!!!

So, I took the leftovers of the above and made a lovely cottage pie type thing. Find some random savory pie recipe off the internet - make sure you don't overwork it like I do EVERYTIME - put it inside a pie tin or oven-safe bowl. Split the leftover potato mush into two - Mix one part with Quorn grounds in some pleasing ratio, put in the bottom of the pie crust. Overlay with remaining potato mush. The savory crust could use some salt or garlic sprinkled on it. This was very yummy, IMO.