Here, Fishy Fishy Fishy...

I was posting the previous blog post onto my twitter feed (ahem) when my eyes caught this post from Slow Food USA:

Pacific Bluefin Tuna Overfishing


This, my loyal readers is TERRIBLE NEWS. Sadly, this news isn't new at all.


First of all, show of hands: who even knew bluefin tuna was in this much trouble? If you didn't, you're not the only one. At many a sushi restaurant here in Chicago you can still easily find it on the menu. It's not like shark fin soup, which everyone seems to know is bad. If a reputable US restaurant has it on the menu, it can't be that bad or unethical to eat, can it?


I admit that until a few years ago, I didn't think so. On our third date, the BF and I went to a sushi restaurant where he whipped out his copy of the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch list so he could order responsibly. I had never seen or heard of this thing. Clearly, our waitress did not either: as he probed where and how certain fish were caught, she kept assuring us the fish was fresh. Not was he was asking, ma'am. 

But I was intrigued (after the date, he remarked that he was glad I didn't run out of the restaurant thinking he was some sort of a freak for having a seafood guide). As I didn't have a smartphone to download the electronic copy, he gave me a nifty little wallet-sized Shedd Aquarium seafood guide. I've used the same one ever since. 

Which reminds me: I now have both a smartphone and a need for the updated guide. Hold on a sec.... okay, I'm back.

But when it comes to making only intelligent seafood choices, I'm not perfect. Sushi is far and away my favorite food, so it's really hard to say no to things that I'm just a sucker for, although they may be in the yellow zone. However, I do put my foot down on bluefin. There is a sushi restaurant near me that has a special (although I'm not sure why its called a special when it seems to be on the menu every time) that serves tuna sashimi 3 ways: otherwise known as 3 levels of fattiness. And make no mistake, it's delicious, without comparison. Every time a good friend from New York visits, she always requests one evening at this restaurant simply because of the tuna special. Last time, though, I inquired with the waitress about the type of tuna they used for it. As soon as she told me, I just couldn't order that appetizer along with her. You get one guess why.

Don't get me wrong- I wanted it. But I also want to be part of the solution, and the solution is not really all that difficult. By making my voice known with my dollars and decreasing demand, fishing will decrease. When that happens, the tuna population can relatively quickly bounce back. Fishermen overfish because they say their livelihood depends on it. But yet they've never given an answer to what they will do if they cause their own livelihood to go extinct. Cutting back won't make them a ton of money, but it will keep them in business for far longer than if they continue down this road. And with proper regulation- if that ever happens- we can all happily enjoy bluefin moving forward. But if not, enjoy your next piece, because it may be your last.

By the way, curious about what the Seafood Watch is? Click on that link above. They even have an app (available here) that you can download to have at your fingertips. Not only will it help guide you on responsible purchasing choices as it relates to seafood populations and ecosystems, it will also help you make healthy choices in terms of mercury levels, and your own health. 

Yowza

Ay, geez, I didn't realize how long it had been since I last posted. Yes, 2012 was not the greatest time for writing in the short history of the Au Naturale blog, my loyal readers, so if you are a loyal reader, thanks for continuing to be loyal.

I once read an article that took a very pointed jab at all the abandoned blogs littering the internets, and I swore I would never become one of those. Hey, look what (kind of) happened. So I'm slapping myself on the wrist (or back of hand, or across the face) to get back in shape.

You know what else I'm doing? Apologizing for not writing at all, which I swore to you I would never do again. So, there goes that resolution. But look! It's 2013! It's time for new resolutions! The slate is wiped clean!!! At least, I've decided it is.

In any case, I won't make any excuses. There's been a lot of things and big changes going on in my life in the past few months, and hopefully a few good ones coming up in the next few months. I'm not going to give details here because I feel like I might jinx it... as in, what if the good thing doesn't happen and then I have to answer for it? Granted, some of you readers are also folks I talk to on a regular basis and know what this is all about and are probably rolling your eyes at me. The rest of you are probably rolling your eyes because I could seriously not be more vague right now if I tried.

Disclaimer: this is probably the most annoying post I've ever written. Apologies.

But in any case, these Big Life Things have taken over my life, and in the times I finally felt like I had a free hour to write, I instead decided that was yet another hour to devote to working on the Big Life Things. And then I saw an update from a blogger I've been following who is working on similar Big Life Things, and I decided if he can find time to blog, so can I!

So here we are. Um. Hi.

As usual, I have many things I plan to pontificate on. I won't do it in a novel here. I can say that recently I enjoyed a lovely dinner with some good friends and we got into a discussion about healthy things, thoughts on meat vs. vegan, and the follies and thoughts of what has been referred to as the Western Diet and western diseases. My friends made some good points- some of which I agreed with, and some of which I didn't. The ones I didn't had to do with the fact that I am more of the belief than they are that the modern Western Diet- think corn everything, artificial everything, preservative everything- is a cause of many western ills. Do I think it's everything? No, because I don't believe that much of life has simple answers. But I can't imagine how many other things affect our health as much as our very wonky, very unnatural diet.

I didn't debate it much with them because it was super loud in the restaurant, I was uncomfortable because a rotating heater above our table made me feel like I was having post-menopausal hot flashes, and I didn't want to get into a heavy debate at such a lovely dinner. But wouldn't you know it, the next day I saw this article and it reinforced much of what I was thinking, including the fact that one factor cannot explain it all. I wish to learn more about this study:

New Health Rankings: Of 17 Nations, US is Dead Last

It's also a great argument for more gun control. But that is a discussion for a different day, in a different venue.

So ends my crappy new year's post. There are more that I've half-written until the guilt of not working on the Big Life Things left them idling in my drafts folder. But I see a light at the end of the tunnel, and expect this blog to make a resurgence. We're going to party like it's 2011.

What The Heck is a Caponata? *RECIPE ALERT*

I love finding recipes that are more than just tasty, but pleasant surprises, such as the leek and swiss chard tart.  Because sometimes you look in your fridge and see stuff that you have to use up right now or risk throwing in the garbage. You look for something that isn't too fancy, probably isn't going to blow you away, will "do the trick" if you will, but ends up being something you want to keep in your recipe box forever. The recipe below is one of those.

We've been pretty good about using everything in our CSA box, but we're not perfect. However, we've been better at anticipating when we're getting overwhelmed and been proactive about it, such as last weekend's canning adventure; stay tuned for details about that.  There was one week, though, where I decided I needed to be in charge of dinner. This was during the crazy period where the BF was acting as personal chef, dishwasher, and housekeeper, and I wanted to give him a break. I took a look at the fridge, grabbed a cacophony of veggies that needed to be used, including bell peppers and an on-the-verge-of-being-tired eggplant, and headed up to his place.

I then scrambled for a recipe.

Yeah, yeah, I wasn't as prepared as I needed to be. What else is new. But as he got home from work and began to wind down, I realized I needed something easy and fast. And eggplant and peppers and onions- surely there had to be zillions of recipes around the interwebz to help out. Much to my surprise, the "hey, this should work just fine" recipe that I quickly settled on shocked us both by how balanced and delicious it was. It was listed as an appetizer-y, salad-y, you could say caponata (does that work here? Yeah, I think it does. Let's call it caponata-y) food, but with some improv I turned it into a dinner sandwich so amazing that we pounced on the leftovers for seconds. It's now in the permanent repertoire.

The recipe, of course, is not listed below as I found it. In my creature-of-habit haze I automatically sliced the eggplant into half-inch slices and sweated it out with salt before I noticed that the recipe called for me to roast the eggplant whole. This, in turn, caused me to have to adjust how I cooked it. It worried me that the pieces looked a little dry after pulling it out of the broiler, but that was just on the surface. Once I chopped the slices into tiny cubes, I realized the interior was still juicy (well, as juicy as an eggplant can be... perhaps juicy is the wrong word?) and the texture still worked perfectly in the finished product. It also saved some cooking time, as well. Also, part of me wonders if roasting it whole would have even been the best way to do it: eggplant is a very bitter veggie on it's own, which is why taking the time to sweat it out is key. I fear the bitterness would have remained if I had just thrown the whole thing in the broiler.  If you wish to try it though- just prick the eggplant with a fork, roast for 30 minutes, then peel and chop- let me know how it turns out.

Below is the recipe as I made it in sandwich form. Capers are an option, but we didn't have any and I thought it was awesome. The BF thought capers could have worked, so again, if you wish, try it and let me know how it turns out. And I bet if you let it marinate in the fridge overnight it's even better the next day. We just thought it was too tasty to wait and find out. I wouldn't hesitate to do it again as a meal, but it's original caponata-y, appetizer-y intended purpose, topped on toasted slices of french bread or water crackers, will surely make it on the appetizer menu of my next dinner party. Holidays, anyone?

Eggplant & Red Pepper Caponata-y Sandwich

• makes 3 sandwiches
• 1 medium eggplant (about 1 1/4 pounds) 
• 1 medium red bell pepper
• 1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
• 3 tablespoons capers (optional)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 garlic cloves, minced 
• 4-6 pieces whole wheat bread
• 3 slices mozarella or provolone cheese
• 
  

Preparation

1. 1. Slice eggplant into half-inch slices; season both sides liberally with salt and set aside for a half hour
2. 2. Preheat broiler
3. 3. Cut bell pepper in half lengthwise; discard seeds and membranes. Place pepper halves, skin sides up, on a foil-lined baking sheet; flatten with hand. Broil 15 minutes or until blackened. Place in a zip-top plastic bag; seal. Let stand 15 minutes. 
4. 4. While bell pepper is steaming in the plastic bag, rinse salt off of eggplant slices and pat dry. Lay slices on the baking sheet and broil for 10-15 minutes, until beginning to wrinkle 
5. 5. Peel pepper, then chop pepper and eggplant into small pieces. Do not mince.
6. 6. Combine eggplant, bell pepper, onion, and remaining ingredients in a medium bowl; toss well.
7. 7. For sandwiches, lay 2 slices of bread in toaster or broiler; top one piece of bread with a slice of cheese. Toast until cheese is bubbly
8. 8. Top cheesy bread slice with caponata and complete with other slice of bread

Late Fall Musings

I've been reflecting that there is so much to write about, and yet, so little in some ways. While I have a few recipe alerts, I also feel that I should be waxing poetic about something in the news as it relates to food, or agriculture, or preservatives, or what not. It's a good thing that I was running around like a chicken with it's you-know-what cut off when that study came out about organic veggies not being healthier. I did a lot of reading and following up on that study, how it was conducted (badly), what it was missing (a lot), and what else it was missing (the big picture). I have a lot of opinions on it which could be a 3 page manifesto. But don't worry, I won't go off on a rant about that. At least, not now.

I think this post is more of a thoughtful one, the kind of post that I had originally intended this blog to be: a journey through my Au Naturale "conversion", if you will. It's a post dedicated to the idea that having nothing to write about is, in and of itself, something to write about. It's the fact that I look back at what I've been eating over the past few months and my diet is somewhat unremarkable. And that- again, in and of itself- is remarkable. At least by other people's standards, but now no longer by my own.

"Okay, JC," I can hear all of you collectively sigh with accompanying eye roll. "Stop being so elusive and just say what it is you want to say."

What I've realized is that over the past few months, as much as I have been able to control it, my diet has been completely Au Naturale. I eat mainly what has come in our farm box or available at the market, supplemented by basic ingredients commonly found in grocery store bulk bins. The rare packaged goods are scary-word free. Much to my surprise, I'm also eating way more vegetarian than I ever have before. That is mainly due to the fact that we won't buy any meat that isn't raised humanely and properly (read: pastured), and considering the best meat can only be found at the Sunday market and at a premium price, it's become a special occasion type of thing. Long gone are the days where I bought packages and packages of steaks and chicken breasts to throw in the freezer. I've been better even in restaurants, sticking mostly with sustainable seafood or black bean burgers, but I'm not perfect. The lack of meat in the house means I'm now craving chicken on menus (I used to make chicken at home on an almost nightly basis so I ignored it in restaurants). Don't worry, though. I don't plan on becoming a full-blown vegetarian. In fact, I've had such a strong craving for red meat lately, I've been dreaming of the 2 pasture-raised strip steaks I snatched up just yesterday to enjoy with an awesome chimichurri sauce I haven't made in a long time. Mmm.... meat....

So for me, this is boring. And boring is exciting. I remember when I first started and I obsessed over every little thing, kept feeling like I was slipping up here and there. As I mentioned, I'm not perfect. But I'm feeling pretty good. In fact, while I'm not looking forward to my farm box ending in another month and a half, I am kinda looking forward to the day in late December when I get confused upon walking into a Whole Foods, having not had to shop for groceries, traditionally speaking, since May.

Reading this over, it almost sounds like a farewell post. Fear not, loyal readers! Much fun shall still be had with this blog. I've also realized that I don't necessarily need to write a novel each time I post; if anything, I should take a note from tumblr and keep this short and frequent. But as we've all figured out by now, I like to write. A lot. And so I shall continue....

CSA Efficiency (and a sorta recipe alert)

Well, it happened again, as it sometimes does. CSA produce was accumulating faster than it was being consumed. Between my travel schedule and some other life things that put the onus on the BF to be Head Chef for a few weeks, we were letting the food go the way of the compost bin.

Disclaimer: This is not a rip on the BF's abilities or initiative. Just imagine him coming home and being in charge of dinner and clean up for two while I busied myself with other things. That's a decent amount of time and responsibility to ask one person to do for another. Yes, he's great.

This week we did something unusually uncharacteristic of us: we planned ahead. In the past, it's been hard to sit down and pre-plan dinner. Beyond the time and organization needed, it takes some of the fun out of cooking and spontaneous menu planning based on what your stomach is telling you it wants at that moment. On the other hand, it can be necessary. This week it worked for us. We took inventory of what we had in our respective fridges and what we could make based on tried and true recipes, what we had already in-house, and what we needed to buy. One other uncharacteristic thing we did was to allow ourselves to go back and repeat recipes. We love trying new dishes and rarely repeat ourselves, even those dishes that we've loved, but it felt safe to do so this week.

So our dinner plates saw the likes of caprese salads, leek and swiss chard tarts, and more. The BF cold-canned some peppers to be consumed during the upcoming football season. Onions were set aside to make a batch of french onion soup this weekend. Feeling good, we looked at what remained: even more leeks, some peppers that escaped the canning adventure, carrots, and potatoes.

At this point we were both proud of ourselves and feeling a bit lazy. The laziness worked out well for one of the last remaining recipes on the list: the Hobo Dinner.

We've done this before, but I've never blogged about it, and feel like now would be a good time. Everyone has a need for a hobo dinner recipe. It's almost impossible to screw up and can be modified to include foodstuff that you need to use. In fact, in the past we've almost always made a vegetarian version, but we had some pasture-raised ground beef that we wanted to use and so made our first carnivore version.

I'm not going to post a formal recipe below. Seriously, this can be improvised so well that any recipe would be more an informal guide than hard and fast rules. Simply take any good roast-able or grill-able veggies- hot or bell peppers, carrots, zucchini, onions, even broccoli- and chop coarsely into chunks. Add potatoes (fingerlings are good because they're small enough to add whole; or grab some small reds or purples and just halve or quarter them), a couple of cloves of garlic, and a few generous pats of butter.  Season with some salt, pepper, and any other seasonings that suit your fancy- I enjoy rosemary. Wrap it all up in foil, and throw on your grill on medium to medium-high for about 45 minutes. Unwrap, and voila.

The great thing about this recipe is that, all wrapped up in foil, you can't really screw it up. The steam cooks everything without the risk of drying out, and you can easily do a readiness test  by unwrapping it slightly and testing a potato with a fork. If you wish to add meat, the juices will also keep the meat from drying out while seasoning everything else. No grill? Throw it all in the oven on 400.

I don't want to have to resort to a weekly hobo dinner if we get behind on our veggie usage; if we need to use it as a last resort only once or twice more during the summer, I will be happy.  But it's an easy and delicious recipe for anyone to have in their back pocket.

Beet Success **RECIPE ALERT**

I realize my re-experimentation with the Earthbox posts isn't really working. We've had many weeks of boxes for which I have not uploaded photos nor elaborated on how we use them. Part of me feels defeated, and part of me feels non-chalant: truthfully, we haven't done much with our produce except grill, eat in salads, or use as pizza toppings for a causal 4th of July get-together. In the end, they wouldn't have made for good posts. I probably would have lost readers.

However, there may be a few of you-- I'm looking at you, initial 3 or 4 early Loyal Readers-- who may remember my failed experimentation with beets detailed in one of last summer's posts.  For those of you who don't want to interrupt reading this entry to start all over with a different entry, suffice it to say I am not a fan of beets. Other than an amazing dish at Taxim in Chicago- and trust me, I've tried to find the recipe or at least a description-- I've never met a beet that I liked.

So, the more observant of you may have noticed that we've gotten beets in almost all of our boxes and are probably wondering how we've used them. As the BF is a big fan, they've gone with my best blessings to his fridge.

But they've sat there, neglected and unused. As we tend to cook most of our meals together, he hasn't really had a chance to use them on his own. Eventually, once the oldest batch was in danger of needing to be pitched, he proposed a solution that was both quick and shareable: Beet chips.

We've gotten good at making regular chips. I mean, really, who doesn't like potato chips in at least one form or another? With the abundance of potatoes that show up in the farm box, chips are both a non-labor intensive preparation as well as saveable future snack. Not that we've ever actually saved them. They're almost immediately consumed whenever we bake up a batch.

Beet chips are similar in may ways: easy to prepare, easy to store, easy to consume. And the best part of all? I ACTUALLY LIKE THEM.

So there you go! I'm sure the BF would like some variety in his beet preparation, but I'm happy if I only ever ate them in this form forever. And for those of you who are as beet-averse as me, go for the crispier, more carbon-covered ones. Normally I don't like burned chips, but for these, the crispier, the better.

As always, a few other notes before I grace you with the recipe. When it comes to any chips, but especially these, the thinner they are sliced the more solid and crispy they will be when out of the oven. If you have access to a mandolin, as we do, now is an excellent time to use it. Either the narrowest or second narrowest setting will do. If using a knife.... well, be careful.

Also, cooking times are approximate and should be adjusted based on your oven and how thin your slices are. We perfected the technique in my oven at 26 minutes. However, when making a batch in a different oven while on vacation, 26 minutes scorched them. We used a thinner slicer setting, but the oven callibration may have been different, too, and found that 15 minutes was perfect. Moral of the story: keep your eyes on the chips.

Enjoy! And if you are a new reader who likes beets, perhaps you'll like the cold beet soup earlier reviewed in this post. (See how I did that?)

Beet Chips

(serves 2-4, depending on your serving size)

Ingredients:
3 beets, de-stemmed

1 tbs olive oil or olive oil spray

Sea salt

1. Preheat oven to 375. Prick beets with fork and place into glass baking dish with 1 inch of water; cover with foil. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until easily punctured with a fork. Remove from oven, allow to cool. When cool enough to handle, peel the beets.

2. Turn oven down to 350.

3. Adjust mandolin to the 1.5mm or 3mm setting. Slice beets onto plate or in bowl.

4. Line a baking sheet with foil; brush or drizzle olive oil lightly onto foil. Place as many beet slices as possible onto baking sheet without overlapping. (You may have too many slices to fit on one baking sheet, so you may need to repeat the process again a few times.) One by one, flip each beet slice over so they are coated on both sides with the oil.

5. Lightly shake sea salt on top of beet slices. It is not necessary to flip and salt the other side of the beets.

6. Bake beets for 15-26 minutes, depending on your oven setting. When chips begin to brown and curl up, they are ready. It is okay if some beets are not quite super crispy when you pull them out, as they will continue to bake a few minutes more out of the oven.

7. Enjoy!

A quick note- do not leave un-eaten beets out in the open for too long, especially in humid weather. They absorb water quite quickly and will turn limp and mushy. Store all uneaten beets in an airproof container for later.

Mama Mia! *RECIPE ALERT*

I started the Au Naturale diet to become a healthier person. Of course, it doesn't always work the way I intend. From all of my face-plants in the McDonald's drive-thrus on business trips to gorging on all-natural yet highly caloric homemade Cadbury Creme Eggs, my waistline continuously expands and contracts like a car tire on a hot day.

It seems like an oxymoron when you can eat local and organic yet still gain weight. But local beer is still beer. Pasture-raised meat is still meat- although leaner. And a pound of zucchini, as nutritious as it can be, is still a pound of food when eaten all at once.

And there, Loyal Readers, is how a relaxing weekend away almost split a pair of jeans.

A few weeks ago, the BF and I got to escape to the wilds of northern Minnesota for a long weekend away. Northern Minnesota is glorious, with many of the 10,000 lakes within driving distance (I personally counted about 45). We used the trip as an excellent opportunity to go through two of the CSA boxes in our possession: one from our regular Sunday pickup, and one from a rescheduled pickup due to the trip. Unfortunately, in our rush to grab the second box and pack it up before we hit the road at 5am for a 12 hour drive, I completely forgot to take a picture. But it was very similar to week 2, which you can see below:

Yellow pepper, zucchini, lettuce, 2 tomatoes (one green), sungold tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, beets

Again, the cooking results from weeks 2 and 3 were nothing terribly fancy as we threw almost everything on the grill, along with pasture-raised chicken breasts from C&D Family Farms and Pirate Wurst brats from Crafthouse Market Goods. Seriously, it's hard to think of cooking anything indoors when the weather is amazing, and a front row seat to a glorious lake view only sealed the deal.  Lunches were leftovers or the BF's preferred vegan lunch meats on locally baked bread with the lettuce and tomato that you see above. And we passed many a lazy summer day away sipping on Surly beer, locally brewed in Minneapolis and only found in the Twin Cities. The BF loves Surly's Furious Red Ale, so we had to make a stop on the way up to grab provisions.

But man, was it a lot of food. When we were done just 4 days later we had gone through almost all of it, and by then I was swearing I would not drink alcohol nor eat my weight in food for the next week. So it goes to show: a lot of healthy food can still be a lot of food. More than once I was uncomfortable. But at least I was uncomfortable with food that won't have unintended effects on my body.

A few days after we got back, tired, without much in the fridge, and certainly not in the mood to cook, we threw together an easy pasta dish using Pasta Puttana noodles, the remainder of the veggies, and herbs from the back deck. Part improv, part slightly modified from a recipe online, it was light, refreshing, and flavorful. Not too boring, not too heavy on the oil, and quick to whip up, it was almost the perfect pasta primavera. Too bad we weren't drinking, because a crisp glass of Pinot Gris would have been the perfect accompaniment.

I raced to write down what we did before it slipped away forever. Note that we've made a few pasta primaveras since then and none quite measured up to this one. Although I'm sure they could have if I just took a minute to look back at what I wrote:

Pasta Primavera: (serves 2)

1 8 oz pkg seasoned garlic tagliatelle from Pasta Puttana
3 tbs olive oil
2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 small zucchini, chopped
1/2 large yellow pepper, chopped
generous dash of crushed red pepper (if you like some spicy)
3/4 cup fresh basil
2 springs Italian oregano
1 spring hot n spicy oregano
freshly grated parmesean cheese

Directions:

Bring a pot of generously salted water to a boil. If using dried pasta, add to water and cook based on package directions. If using a fresh pasta such as Pasta Puttana, continue to steps below while waiting for water to boil.

Heat oil over high heat in large pan; saute garlic for a minute- keep an eye on it or it will burn.
Add veggies, saute for one minute.
Add herbs & red pepper flakes, and toss all together. Turn heat down to medium and cook everything for 3 minutes.
Turn heat to low and cover to keep warm while cooking/finishing pasta.
If using fresh pasta, add pasta to water and cook for just one minute.

Drain and return pasta to pot. Pour contents of pan (including remaining oil) into pot with pasta, toss together.  Serve with fresh parmesean cheese.