Stop wasting food!

Ever since I read the book "Hungry Planet" by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, I have been haunted by the image of a woman and her children in an African country sifting sand to be sure to capture each piece of grain. Thinking of the hunger in their eyes as I sweep into the trash perfectly good food that I just don't want to be bothered with. What are a few grains of rice in the midst of the abundance we enjoy? Lately, I have been much more careful with even the grains of rice, picking up uncooked grains that end up on the floor, washing them and using them.

I have tried to become more conscious of my consumption of food, more aware of what I am buying, cooking and throwing away. Since I have never really cared much for leftovers, as opposed to planned overs, I confess to throwing away huge amounts of food. Thinking more about waste and the health of the planet, I have been trying to make use of leftovers in meals that taste good and are satisfying.

Today I think I hit the leftover food jackpot. The combination of foods that ended up together was so outstanding that it deserves a recipe of sorts.

I had in the refrigerator leftover cooked jasmine rice, roasted sweet potatoes, half a can of coconut milk, and a serving and a half of 3-can soup. 3-can soup is made with a can of drained and rinsed black beans, a can of Ro*Tel tomatoes, and a can of diced tomatoes.

The rice was a couple of days old and a little dried out, so I poured the coconut milk over the rice in a saucepan, added some fresh ginger and slowly heated it. I warmed the sweet potatoes and the 3-can soup separately. When everything was heated, I put servings of each component in a shallow soup bowl and began to eat. The flavors were perfectly balanced and remarkable. Hey, this should become a stew! So I stirred it all gently together so the sweet potato did not become mush and lose it distinctive role. At last, I got through a day without wasting food, and I can't wait until I have this combination of leftovers again.

A vision of breakfast

Nearly every morning I have a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. I wake up so hungry that I just have to eat right away. While the oatmeal is cooking, I chop apples, walnuts, dates or raisins and then feast on a huge serving.

Last night as I was falling asleep, I had a vision of the breakfast I would eat today and the blog post I would write about it. A message that powerful should never be ignored, so as soon as I opened my eyes, I went to the kitchen. The vision may have been inspired by the fruit I had leftover from trying a recipe by Jill Nussinow, The Veggie Queen. You can see her recipe on Veggie Queen Adventures blog.

Jill's Bright Autumn Salad includes pomegranates, persimmons, and kiwis. The pomegranates were buy one, get one free at Publix, so of course, I had to buy two. That gave me a fruit drawer with pomegranate, kiwis, tangerines, apples, strawberries and a hand of bananas on the counter. I sprinkled chopped walnuts and shredded coconut on top of the salad and enjoyed quite a feast without any oatmeal.

(I try to use local produce whenever I can. The tangerines and strawberries were local, but everything else traveled. The strawberries, bananas, and walnuts were organic.)

When I bought the pomegranate, I also picked up a clever full-color brochures from POM Wonderful showing how to get the arils (the flesh-covered seeds) out of the fruit. I had never successfully used a pomegranate in spite of trying on numerous occasions. I followed the instructions in the brochure and was rewarded with easily removed arils and a delicious fruit that I can now serve whenever I choose. You can see the same instructions at the POM website and become expert at opening a pomegranate.

Two summers pass

Over one year and two summers have passed since my last post. During that time, I have cooked and cooked without blogging. Many new recipes came into my life during that time, both from my own kitchen and from the efforts of many fine cookbook authors.

My biggest discovery was using a pressure cooker, lead to overcome my fears of it by the Veggie Queen's blog. My first attempt, a fabulous butternut squash soup, made me a convert. The speed of cooking and the depth of flavor were amazing.

I have experimented with raw foods, increasingly chosen organic fruits and vegetables, and become much fussier about what chemicals and preservatives I am willing to eat. Not many! And in fact, I prefer none.

I spent some time with my son, a farmer with a blog of his own. There is always work to do on a farm or related to the farm. One of my tasks was to help prepare garlic to sell at the market. That was a lovely few minutes I spent with my son sitting on a bench under a huge pine tree in front of his house. It was a cool day with bright sunshine, and we sat with Monk, the dog, cleaning and trimming the garlic and being together. I also thoroughly enjoyed spending time with him selling his farm products at the Capital District Farmers' Market in Menands on a few Saturday mornings.

As much as I like having a photo of each dish to go along with the recipe, I think that was the reason I stopped writing this blog. It is just too much work to plan menus, cook, record the recipe, and photograph the food, serve it and eat it. That is why I have decided to try posting recipes with very few photographs.

New recipes any day now. Meanwhile, I suggest trying the Vegetable Barley Soup as a nearly complete meal by itself.