French toast, Jane Austen, and popsicles

 Today was the series premiere of Aarti Party, this year's Next Food Network Star winner.  Aarti was my favorite this year, as she seemed to be the most likely to include some vegetarian dishes.  Her Indian influences plus the fact that she made some vegetarian entrees during the competition may have helped me come to this conclusion.  Her new show was great and very different from anything else on the network. I'm debating making the pistachio tea popsicles.  Really.

So I had the Food Network on for the morning while I was waiting for Aarti's show, and I caught a commercial with Elle Krieger stating that carbs help lower stress.  I had two thoughts:

1.  No wonder those on the Atkins diet are so cranky.

2.  Now that's research with which I would like to be involved.  Yum.

Rachael Ray made a savory French toast on her show today.  Now that's some good carbs!  And you could find organic ingredients for it, if that's your inclination.  Though I'll have to see how it tastes with soy milk.  She also made sausage to go with it, so you don't have to just dream about it.

I looked up the history of French toast, and turns out it's been around in some form or another since medieval times, originally to use up stale bread.  Waste not, want not.  In England, it was called poor knights of Windsor, since it meant that the gentry who couldn't always afford dessert could still serve it as was expected of them.  So it's likely that Jane Austen ate it at some point in her life.

The recipe for Rachael's savory French toast seemed to go like this:

3 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
nutmeg, salt, pepper
several handfuls of parmesano-reggiano cheese

Mix ingredients.

Gradually warm the skillet/griddle but don't let it get too hot.  Using even slices of bread, drench both sides in mixture, cook on both sides til golden brown.

Since this toast is savory, use honey instead of syrup.  Warm the honey and drizzle over the French toast.  Eat your carbs and enjoy.

She also had strawberries in some sort of balsamic dressing but I was flipping through my Forensic Psychology textbook and missed it.  Oops. 

So here's a favorite snack that could be used as a dessert:

Use one container of Stoneyfield Farms organic yogurt.  They have a new flavor, pomegranate berry, that works well.  Since Stoneyfield tries to use less plastic there are no plastic lids on the small containers, so you'll have to use another container to store the leftover yogurt if there is any.  For one person, use half the yogurt, and chop up about six strawberries to mix in. 

Due to the mixture of savory and sweet in this meal, it would pair well with Pride and Prejudice.  I recommend the BBC version starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, of course.  But if time is limited the Keira Knightley version will do in a pinch.

I dreamt of sausage....

I'm not sure I remember what it tastes like, even.

Jane Austen’s final illness is discussed with intensity and much speculation. When I was visiting her cottage in Chawton, England, there was a display comparing her illness to the disease John Kennedy suffered. Obviously, back then there no tests and no treatment, but the color of her skin and other indications in her final days as mentioned in family documents have lead some to this conclusion. However, this is not the only hypothesis about what led to her early death. For example, cancer has been suggested by more than one Austen scholar.

Which leads me back to dreaming about sausage. Actually, I dreamt of Sausage is a book by Corinna Borden that I received through a giveaway on librarything.com. In return I am supposed to write a review on Amazon. It’s a cool thing, really.

I dreamt of Sausage is Ms. Borden’s story about her travails and travels (including to Mexico) with cancer. I received the book right after discovering the field of health psychology, which is based on the idea that mental and physical health affect each other (the technical term: the biopsychosocial model). So I was excited to find the book in my mailbox. It helps that it was free, of course. But it also was exactly the sort of topic an aspiring health psychologist should be reading about: a personal experience with a chronic, possibly terminal illness.

However, I unfortunately have to admit that I found it heavy going at times. Ms. Borden switches between her journal entries and real life. This is sometimes a bit unwieldy, but it’s bearable. It’s the italics she includes in the reality based segments that started to wear on my nerves. These are her thoughts as she goes through the process of dealing with doctors, hospitals, her husband, family, etc.

For example, my thoughts as I was reading: Cut her a break, she is going through a lot of pain. She’s scared and has cancer.

I thought that same thing over and over, because those italics started to sound really whiny. And then I would feel bad that I felt this woman dealing with this incurable illness was whiny. So I would put the book down. Then I would pick it back up eventually, and by the end I was glad that I had read it.

Ms. Borden points out, rightly, the impersonal, sterile, and often unwelcoming environment of the Western medical system. She, however, seems to blame her husband for a lot of things without taking into account that he has worked for many years to become a doctor in that same system. I agree with her that residency is brutal and no one should have to work under those situations. But being a doctor is something that most people start wanting very early in life. So her husband is caught between a very sick wife and a career that to him is most likely not just a job and for which he has worked many years. She doesn’t even pause to italicize anything about his point of view until almost all the way through the book, when she finally thinks to ask him how he felt about everything.

She also points out the inability of each side- Western and alternative medicine- to work with the other. I was a bit surprised at this, but then toward the end of the book, her Western doctor states that after a certain point he is okay with her trying other methods since after that point Western methods are also not proven. Some of the alternative doctors, however, refuse to work at all with those also trying Western methods. I was also discouraged by some of these doctors’ (and hers, through their influence) attitudes toward clinical trials. One of the tenets of scientific study is that these trials/experiments are able to be replicated. In other words, any random group of people would have very similar results. Her insistence that those trials were only applicable to the people who took part in them was rather naïve. We all want to think that we are very different from everybody else, and to some extent we are. But there are many more similarities.

All in all, a decent thought provoking read.

 Personally, I would rather dream of chocolate.

Dinner with the Dashwoods

I love the cooking shows on the telly. One host (I don’t remember who) stated to use cream of tartar since we probably had it in our pantry just sitting there.

Well, sure. If I knew what cream of tartar actually was.

I found a recipe in the Joy of Cooking All About Vegetarian Cooking cookbook to use the half of the zucchini leftover from the pasta. However, it called for couscous which I did not happen to have just sitting in my pantry. I did, however, have a box of rice w/ special seasoning already included. So I’ve modified the recipe. Another way to change it would require enough cooking knowledge (which I don’t have) to convert cooking time for the microwave instead of the oven, since it would use less energy.


Baked Zucchini Stuffed with Couscous (or whatever you have on hand)

Put in Sense and Sensibility. I like the Emma Thompson version. My reasons? I like that she wrote the script (and won a Oscar for it), and I like her as an actress.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Start the rice according to directions on the box, add water and special seasoning when requested.

While the rice is simmering, slice the zucchini in half lengthwise. Lightly oil a baking dish, place zucchini cut side down, salt and pepper. Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until cut side is lightly browned.

Lower oven heat to 350 degrees. Scoop out middle of zucchini, leaving ¼ inch shells. Chop the zucchini pulp, chop a little onion. If the packaged rice does not include mushrooms and you have some then add those also.

When the rice has a couple of minutes left, add the zucchini and onion (and mushrooms if you added them). When rice is done, fill the inside of the zucchini shells with the mixture. Replace in baking dish and cover with aluminum foil. Bake until heated through, about 20 minutes.  Save the rest of the rice for a side in another meal.

The budget conscious Elinor Dashwood would appreciate making full use of what you already have. Even if it isn’t cream of tartar.

Vegetable Ribbon Pasta (found on rachaelraymag.com, recipe by Tracy Seaman)

Ingredients:

• 1 pound pappardelle pasta

• 3 tablespoons butter

• 3 large carrots, halved crosswise and thinly sliced lengthwise

• 1 large onion, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise

• Salt and pepper

• 4 zucchini, halved crosswise and thinly sliced lengthwise

• 1 cup heavy cream

• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon

• 2/3 cup pecans, toasted and finely chopped

Smart move:

Use a vegetable peeler to make zucchini and carrot ribbons.

Directions:

1. In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook the pasta until al dente. Drain, reserving 1 cup pasta cooking water.

2. In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the carrots and onion, season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring, until crisp-tender, about 7 minutes. Add the zucchini and cream and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, stirring, until the sauce is thickened, about 5 minutes; stir in the tarragon. Add the pasta, reserved cooking water and pecans; toss.

The version for the single Jane Austen fan on a budget:

Go to the grocery store (don’t forget your reusable cloth shopping bags).

Buy the following:

a bag of baby carrots, which can also be used in salads and as a healthy snack afterwards. One zucchini. One onion. A boxed prepared pasta (the kind that already has the noodles and everything) that has a white cream type sauce. Salt, pepper, milk, salad dressing, cheese if you don’t already have them.

STAY AWAY from the ice cream, no matter if the store premium brand triple chocolate is on sale.

Back home, put in the BBC version of Emma for the 1000th time since it first came out in January.

Chop up half the zucchini. Put some of the baby carrots and some of the chopped zucchini in a bowl. Add lettuce, shredded cheese, and salad dressing. Chop a little onion, and add some to the salad if you want. Chop a few more of the carrots. Set aside the veggies that were not used in the salad.

Eat the salad (cuz you’re already hungry) while you prepare the pasta according to the directions on the box. Saute the zucchini, carrot, and onion in butter in a separate skillet, seasoning with salt and pepper.

Plate half the prepared pasta, add the veggies. Save the rest of the pasta for leftovers to eat the next day with Morningstar Farms “chicken” strips or a side of green beans, etc.

Make sure to sit down while eating, not over the counter like Diane Lane in Must Love Dogs (you had to know I’d slide in a John Cusack movie).

Finish watching Emma while petting your dog because he climbed in your lap as soon as you sat down on the couch.