Category Archives: Sound Nutrition

Get a New Grain: Bulgur

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I’m always looking for quick-cooking whole grains I can whip on even the busiest evenings. In that regard, bulgur has become my new best friend. You’d be hard-pressed to find a whole grain that cooks up faster (though quinoa comes close).

bulgur-wheat-whole-grainBulgur is a staple of Middle Eastern cuisine and a standby in Greek fare, too. You could think of it as the grandchild of wheat berries and the child of cracked wheat. Wheat berries are whole wheat kernels. Cracked wheat is nothing more than wheat berries broken into smaller fragments that cook a bit more quickly.

But just as each generation should improve on the previous one, bulgur speeds things up even more. It’s made from wheat berries that have been steamed, dried and crushed. The result: a whole grain that looks similar to steel-cut oats but cooks in as little as 10 minutes. That’s why some refer to it as “Middle Eastern pasta.”

What It Tastes Like: Bulgur can be made from durum, hard red, hard white or soft white wheat. The stuff made from durum and white wheat varieties has a golden hue with mild nutty flavor and tender yet chewy texture. Bulgur made with hard red wheat is a tawnier shade and has a heartier consistency and more assertive taste with slightly bitter undertones.

How to Cook It: Bulgur is available in grinds from fine to extra-coarse. The finer the grind, the faster the it cooks. Fine- and medium-grain are what you’ll find most commonly. Prepare fine- or medium-grain bulgur the way you would couscous: bring liquid (water or stock) to a boil, add the bulgur, cover, remove from the heat and let it stand 10-20 minutes. This allows the grains to steam and get tender but not mushy. Many cooks use 2 parts liquid to 1 part bulgur. At , we prefer a 1:1 ratio for cooking fine and medium grains, which creates delightfully fluffy results. For coarser grains, bring liquid to a boil, add the bulgur, cover, reduce the heat and simmer 20-25 minutes or until it’s tender; drain any excess liquid. One cup of uncooked grains yields about 3 cups cooked bulgur.

How to Use It: Bulgur is a great speedy side dish that you can dress up with chopped herbs, vegetables, nuts, dried fruit or whatever else takes your fancy. It’s the basis for the traditional Middle Eastern herb-flecked grain salad, tabbouleh (Greek cuisine has its own version). Middle Eastern cooks also combine it with ground meat for kibbeh (try our version in Spiced Lamb and Bulgur Sliders). You can cook it risotto style, too, and enjoy it for breakfast, which I discovered after accidentally grabbing an unmarked container of bulgur that I thought was steel-cut oats. (It was a happy mistake, since the bulgur cooked much faster.) It’s also a surprisingly good fit with desserts like our Plum Parfaits with Bulgur and Vanilla Yogurt.

Additional Notes: You’ll find bulgur in packages (either near the flour or with other whole grains) at supermarkets and in bulk bins at health-food stores.

Along with convenience, bulgur has some serious nutritional cred. A 3/4-cup portion (the serving size in our lamb tagine recipe here) has 113 calories, a whopping 6 grams of fiber and 4.5 grams of protein. It also offers more than 40% of your daily need for manganese, a  humble trace element that helps regulate your metabolism and build bone. That makes bulgur one mighty little grain!

The 2010 Dietary Guidelines: What’s ahead from the government?

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You may not turn to the government as your best source for nutrition advice, but the upcoming Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010 will influence what you eat in one way or another. These are the “official” recommendations, and they’re updated every five years. They shape everything from food labeling to public food programs, including school lunches.

The USDA and Department of Health and Human Services, which issue the guidelines jointly, appointed an advisory committee of top researchers in fields of nutrition, medicine, and food safety and technology to evaluate the latest scientific evidence and submit their recommendations in June. Now the USDA and HHS are considering the committee’s proposals, along with public comments (from public-health advocates to food-commodity special interests), and will release the final guidelines later this year.

As with past Dietary Guidelines, this report’s recommendations are aimed at turning our nation’s tide of obesity. Too many Americans are overweight or obese yet “undernourished in several key nutrients,” the committee notes.

What struck me, as I culled through the 700-page report, was how familiar their suggestions are, in that many of their recommendations reflect NOURISH Evolution’s four pillars.

Sound Nutrition: A plant-based diet

Since they were first published in 1980, every version of the dietary guidelines has advised Americans to eat more fruits and vegetables. But the latest recommendations take it a step further, advocating a “total-diet approach” emphasizing plant foods: “Shift food intake patterns to a more plant-based diet that emphasizes vegetables, cooked dry beans and peas, fruits, whole grains, nuts and seeds.”

They also call for us to eat more seafood and fat-free and low-fat milk and milk products, while consuming lean meats, poultry and eggs in moderation.

It’ll be interesting to see how that recommendation is interpreted in the final 2010 guidelines released later this year. Lobbies, like the National Cattleman’s Beef Association and the National Chicken Council, exert tremendous influence on the USDA and may take a dim view of a government guideline for a plant-based diet.

Eco-Bites: Choose environmentally sustainable food

The committee also calls for increased “environmentally sustainable production of vegetables, fruits, and fiber-rich whole grains.”

However, it stops short of recommending organic agriculture as that sustainable solution, saying that the evidence is too limited to declare organically cultivated produce and grains nutritionally superior to conventional. They also conclude that conventional fare is safe, since it meets the Environmental Protection Agency’s standards. (On an encouraging note, however, the USDA appears to be boosting its support of organic and local farming.)

The report also recommends increasing sustainable aquaculture in order to meet the recommendation to eat two (4-ounce) servings of seafood per week. But it doesn’t delve into what constitutes responsible aquaculture, either from a health or environmental perspective. The genetically engineered salmon which is under consideration for approval by the FDA next week will prove an interesting in-the-trenches benchmark on how they’re really defining “sustainable” aquaculture.

While we’d like to see the recommended guidelines call for organic agriculture and responsible aquaculture in more specific terms, the fact that they even touch on these topics is remarkable.

Mindful Meals: Eat attentively

The committee acknowledges that there’s a huge disconnect between what experts, including the government, advise people to eat and what they really eat. “Americans must become mindful, or ‘conscious,’ eaters, that is, attentively choosing what and how much they eat,” the report notes.

We couldn’t agree more–if you don’t pay attention to what you eat, all the great nutrition advice in the world means nothing. But we’re curious how this will play out in the final guidelines, since mindful eating is an intangible, though crucial, part of the equation and the Dietary Guidelines tend to favor concrete advice.

Kitchen Tips: Learn to cook

It’s no surprise that the report scolds Americans for eating too much food away from home, noting that portion sizes have ballooned over the years as we eat out more often. Meals away from home are a big reason why an astonishing 35% of the American diet is now made up of solid (saturated) fats and added sugars–aka “SoFAS” in the report.

To remedy that, the proposed recommendations urge Americans to return to the kitchen to “improve nutrition literacy and cooking skills, including safe food handling skills, and empower and motivate the population, especially families with children, to prepare and consume healthy foods at home.”

They also call for nutrition, cooking and food safety to be incorporated into school curricula from preschool on.

We’re intrigued to see how this recommendation is interpreted in the final guidelines. Will they recommend a certain number of meals per week prepared from scratch at home? How do mindful eating and home cooking fit onto a pyramid? Or will they dispense with the Food Guide Pyramid–which was first introduced in 1995 and evolved into the confusing color-coded, personalized MyPyramid in 2005–in favor of a simpler, whole-food diet?

If they do latter, it will indeed look familiar … it would look a lot like the NOURISH Evolution approach.

3 Ways to Make Fresh Fast During the Back-to-School Rush

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The reason we reach for convenience foods is because they’re, well, convenient. And they’re especially appealing during the back-to-school frenzy. But taking 20 minutes to do these three things at the beginning of the week (then storing them in the fridge until used) will set you up so that a fresh, healthy meal is the fastest choice of all.

fast-healthy-back-to-school-meals

A little do-ahead goes a long way in helping you eat healthier throughout the week.

The Whole Story on Whole Wheat Flour

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I’m a bit of Jane-come-lately to the whole wheat flour party. While I’ve always enjoyed the heartiness of a great loaf of whole wheat bread, other baked goods made with whole wheat flour always brought to mind hockey pucks rather than delicate treats. But, thanks to better availability of all kinds of specialty flours, including different types of whole wheat flours, those old assumptions are falling by the wayside.

whole-wheat-flourOf course, there’s a nutritional advantage to using whole wheat flour. It’s a whole grain, because the flour is milled for the entire wheat kernel and includes:

  • The bran, a source of fiber, B vitamins, minerals and protein
  • The germ, which is also high in protein, vitamins, minerals and fats. Because whole wheat flours have some fat in them, they can turn rancid; store them in the freezer.
  • The endosperm, which is the white, starchy portion of the kernel. Refined white flours–like all-purpose, bread flour, pastry flour or cake flour–are milled from the endosperm and have been stripped of the nutrient-rich bran and germ.

These days, you’ll find a range of whole wheat flours at health food stores (especially in the bulk bins) and even at your local supermarket. To learn more about the differences between these flours, I talked to Suzanne Cote, a spokeswoman for King Arthur Flour. Here are the different types you’ll find:

Whole wheat flour. This is milled from hard red spring wheat, which gives it a characteristic dark color and assertive flavor (some call it nutty, others find it bitter). It’s a  “strong” flour, meaning it’s high in protein. That gives baked goods structure, which is great for a hearty whole wheat bread but can make more delicate items like muffins or cookies tough.

White whole wheat flour. Milled from hard white spring wheat, this flour has a creamier color, softer texture and milder flavor than regular whole wheat flour. Yet, “the fiber and nutrition are very similar,” says Cote. It’s also a high-protein flour, so it’s a good candidate for breads and doughs. It has become my go-to whole wheat flour, and I love using it in pizza dough.

Whole wheat pastry flour. Sometimes also called graham flour (which refers to the grind), this is made from soft white winter wheat, so it has less protein than regular or white whole wheat flour. Use this for tender baked goods, including cookies, muffins, brownies and snack cakes.

But you don’t have to banish all-purpose flour from your kitchen. “Depending on what your application is, you can play with different wheat flours” says Cote. “There’s nothing wrong with blending.”

If you’re adapting an existing recipe, start by substituting a whole wheat flour for one-quarter to three-quarters of all-purpose, Cote suggests.

“The thing to remember about whole wheat flour is that it’s a really thirsty flour compared to all-purpose,” she adds. If your batter or dough looks a bit dry, add a little more liquid.

Armed with this knowledge, I’m happy to use whole wheat flour in a lot more baked goods. Is it ideal for everything? No. You’d still want to use highly refined cake flour, for example, to make a lighter-than-air angel food cake. But for everyday baking–cookies, quick breads and these muffins–I’ll turn to whole wheat.

Think of Food as Food

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Several years ago I was interviewing the highly-respected Greek nutrition scientist Dr. Antonia Trichopoulou. She had studied thousands of Greeks over a span of several decades in order to understand the nutritional effects of a Mediterranean diet (defined by an abundance of healthy oils, whole grains, vegetables and legumes) on long-term health. “So just how healthy is olive oil?” I asked, eager to codify the benefits of each food group for the article I was writing.

food as food“Olive oil is an essential part of what makes the Mediterranean diet healthy,” she answered. But as I scribbled notes and scanned studies, she continued on. “If we look at one nutrient at a time, though, we miss the way they interact. It’s a cocktail of everything that makes this type of diet so good.”

As I tried to deconstruct food into its building blocks, Dr. Trichopoulou kept bringing them back into context, talking about how tasty greens are when sautéed in olive oil with garlic and a squeeze of lemon, or how Greeks like to snack on simmered beans. “It’s much more effective to look at the health of your whole lifestyle rather than individual foods.”

That interview changed the way I thought of healthy eating. Yet amid the constant barrage of diet and nutrition advice here in America I sometimes find myself slipping back into that old reductive view of food. Avocados and olive oil cease to be really tasty things and instead turn into “good sources of monounsaturated fats” (with a tinge of guilt because, well, they’re fats). Tomatoes morph from luscious little orbs into things that are “packed with lycopene,” and whole grain bread goes from being a textural marvel to being “heart healthy.”

While it’s important to understand the impact that certain food groups and nutrients have on our bodies–and we have and will continue looking at them from several different angles on –what Dr. Trichopoulou taught me is that it’s even more important to carry that information back up to 35,000 feet and remember that, ultimately, if your plate is full of things that didn’t come out of a box or container it’s probably a healthy meal.

Most important of all, though, is to remember to think of food as food.

Favorite Quick Summer Dishes

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Summer always seems to imply a certain amount of leisureliness. Multicourse dinners that linger as twilight shimmers its way into dusk. Weekend picnics that morph from lunch right into supper.

But it doesn’t always turn out that way.

Sometimes work keeps you until well after the sun sets. Sometimes kiddos babble or fuss until you can barely pull together your thoughts, much less a full-blown meal. It just so happens that both of those scenarios came into play the other day, which prompted me to pull together a list of my lickety-split, go-to dishes.

Here are eight of our favorites that come together in 20 minutes or less.

Grilled Fish in Parchment with Cherry Tomatoes and Corn
Flaky white fish are tough to grill, but that doesn’t mean they need to be left out of the summer repertoire. Here’s how …

Open-Faced Tomato Avocado Sandwich
This sandwich embodies all sorts of nutritional virtues: whole grains, healthy fats and fresh vegetables. But really it does even more than that . . . it exemplifies how enjoyable even the simplest fresh food can be.

Obscenely Good Eggplant-Ricotta Tartine
This sandwich should come with a rating–and not because it’s topless (tartine is the French word for open-faced sandwich), but because it’s that good.

Honey-Roasted Fig Tartine with Prosciutto
Drizzling figs with honey and popping them under the broiler gives them an impromptu jammy quality; especially good paired with gooey cheese and crisp prosciutto.

Alberto’s Grilled Marinated Asparagus

Use this asparagus–easy and addictive–as part of an antipasto dish, tossed with pasta, or simply for snacking on out of hand.

Mississippi Caviar with Black-Eyed Peas & Cider Vinaigrette
This zesty, summery dish comes together in a flash when you use steamed, ready-to-eat black-eyed peas and precooked brown rice. A perfect summer salad or side.

Big City Souvlaki
When I lived on Corfu, souvlaki meant skewered cubes of grilled, marinated pork. But on a trip through Athens seeking out the best street food and mezedhes, we found this lamb version to be utterly addictive; moist and tender with just the right amount of spice.

Asian Pesto
I first developed this recipe out of desperation with an abundance of end-of-the-season Asian basil (it freezes wonderfully). Now it’s one of our summer staples … especially now that Noemi loves being in on the action.

What’s your go-to summertime supper that helps you unwind at the end of a hot, crazy day? Let us know!

Fresh At the Farmers’ Market: Pick a Pack of Bell Peppers

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Sweet bell peppers always seem to be around–and to some degree, they are. You can find them at the supermarket year-round. But this is their peak season, when they ripen in home gardens and flood farmers’ market stands.

With their iconic bell shape and primary hues ranging from green to red, yellow, and orange (you’ll even find shades of purple), these peppers are the workhorses of the kitchen. We reach for them whenever we want to add a little crunch to a slaw or a dash of color to a stir-fry.

I confess that while I appreciate their sunny palette, mild flavor, and lovely texture, I usually make bells play second fiddle to the fiery glamour of their hot chile pepper cousins. That’s too bad, because they deserve the spotlight. Bell peppers certainly pack an impressive nutritional punch. A red bell has nearly twice as much vitamin C as a navel orange; orange and yellow peppers have even more.

Choosing

As with any produce, you want bell peppers that are brightly colored, unblemished, and firm with thick flesh. Green bell peppers are, basically, unripened versions and taste less sweet (some say, bitter) than red, orange, or yellow peppers. Which variety to use depends on what you want in terms of flavor and color.

Using

You can recruit bell peppers to add a background note to all manner of dishes or make them the star attraction (they’ll enjoy the spotlight). Some ideas:

  • An aromatic base: Just as mirepoix (chopped onion, carrot, and celery) is the basis of many French dishes, Louisiana cooks rely on their “trinity” of green bell peppers, celery, and onion as a key ingredient in Cajun and Creole dishes like gumbo and jambalaya.  A version of Italian soffrito calls for sauteing minced green bell pepper, celery, onion, and garlic in olive oil as the first step in many recipes.
  • As a vessel: Stuffed peppers are a standby dinner in many households. Just cut off the top, discard the seeds and stems, and stuff them with a filling (a combo of browned lean ground beef and cooked brown rice or quinoa would work; so would our Easy Rice Pilaf). Bake your stuffed peppers at 350 F for about 15 minutes.
  • In a hot dish: Sure, temperatures are soaring now, but cooler evenings aren’t far off. Bell peppers play very nicely in cozy chilis and curries, like Kurt’s Iowa City Chili and Lia’s Pumpkin Curry.
  • In a sauce or side: To try bell peppers paired with deliciously complex Aztec flavors, make Lia’s Grilled Onions with Chile-Nut Puree. Our Sweet Pepper Confit shows off a variety of red, yellow, and orange peppers cooked over low heat until they’re meltingly tender for a condiment that works as well on sandwiches as it does sausages.

My version of Spanish romesco sauce here puts roasted red bell peppers front and center in a versatile sauce that’s starring in lots of meals at our house this week–pasta, pizza, a dipper for grilled shrimp … give it a try and let us know how you end up using it.

Love is a Bowl of Sweet Cherries: A Primer

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I’m just going to come right out and say it: I love cherries. Favorite yogurt flavor? Cherry vanilla. Favorite Starburst? You guessed it. So when, at the farmers market yesterday, the man with the cherries kept offering me deals, I happily obliged and arrived home with three—count ‘em, three—pints of cherries. That’s a pint per person in my household. (Just for the record … Noemi was no help. She’d already polished off a pint of strawberries, an apricot and a plum and was totally egging me on with the cherries. And we’d been at the market no more than ten minutes.)

Cherries are actually a tiny stone fruit, of the same family as plums and peaches and even almonds. They’ve been cultivated around the Mediterranean region for over 2,000 years; probably as prized then as they are now for their thin skin, luscious bite and full, sweet flavor. They’re also a good source of both vitamin C and lutein, so they’re beauty’s more than skin deep. Here are three sweet types to try:

Bing Cherries – Bing cherries are the ubiquitous plump, blackish-red variety. They’re firm and plump and burst with a ridiculous amount of flavor for such a tiny fruit. Seek out ones that are dark and firm, without brown spots or blemishes and eat them out of hand or, if you can keep them around, use in the sorbet below.

Oxheart Cherries – I had a funny introduction to Oxhearts; a description given to sweet red cherries with a distinctive heart shape. We have a tree growing next to our driveway that began bearing heart-shaped red fruit. Christopher didn’t want me to eat them (he was convinced they were some exotic poisonous fruit), but then a friend identified them as Oxheart cherries and I forged forth. My reward was a tender, super-juicy fruit with an intense flavor not unlike a Bing. And it had been right there under my nose all along.

Rainier Cherries –  Rainiers, pioneered at Washington State University in 1952, are gorgeous. I think they look a bit like oversized red currants … or as if the sun were shining from within a Bing. Rainers’ rosy skin encloses sweet golden flesh with a slightly more subtle flavor than its red counterparts. They’re fun to experiment with, but also fussy on the tree and priced at a premium.

So live it up with a bowl of cherries while you still can this summer!

Flour Power: Think Beyond Wheat

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Mention “flour,” and I think of the stuff made from wheat. But if cooks don’t live in a wheat-cultivating region–or can’t eat wheat products–they rely on flour milled from rice, nuts, beans and other raw ingredients.

flour-power-think-beyond-wheatMany of those so-called “specialty” products are going mainstream, thanks to the growing ranks of consumers diagnosed with celiac disease (also known as gluten intolerance). The gluten-free market is projected to balloon to $6.6 billion in sales by 2017.

I’m not gluten intolerant, but I appreciate the increased availability of intriguing new ingredients turning up on supermarket shelves, in health-food store bulk bins and, as always, tucked away in ethnic markets.

But there’s a caveat to using these flours: The gluten in wheat flour gives baked goods structure, so you can’t simply swap out wheat flour for gluten-free flours in recipes and expect the same results. If you’re gluten intolerant you’d use a blend of gluten-free ingredients (or pick up a box of gluten-free baking mix) to mimic the qualities of wheat flour. Others without intolerance can sub some of the wheat flour in a recipe with one of these specialty flours (The Cook’s Thesaurus has a great guide to subbing specialty for wheat flours).

Here are three types of specialty flours. Please note: these are ideas for cooks like me, who aren’t gluten intolerant but are curious about what these ingredients can bring to our cooking. If you have celiac disease, check out Shauna James Ahern’s blog Gluten-Free Girl and The Chef.

Nut flour

These have a finer texture than nut meals, but they can be used in many recipes that call for nut meal. Almond flour is the most common type, but you’ll also see flour made with hazelnuts and chestnuts. They have a high fat content and can go rancid quickly, so store them in the freezer.

Try it: These flours add deep, nutty flavor and moisture to baked goods. Substitute for up to a quarter of the all-purpose flour. Nut flours also are a tasty way to thicken sauces.

Rice flour

Rice flour can be milled from white, brown, red or any variety of rice, and it has a long tradition throughout Asia, from India to Japan. Brown rice flour has a nutty quality whereas white rice flour is more neutral.

Try it: Rice flour lends baked goods a crumbly texture, which you can use to your advantage–in shortbread, for instance, which should be crumbly, or to create a tender crumb in cakes. Substitute rice flour for a quarter of the all-purpose flour in baked goods. Use starchy Japanese mochiko (made from glutinous short-grain rice) as a thickener.

Bean flour

Visit any Indian market and you’ll be blown away by the variety of flours milled from beans and other legumes, which are used in baked goods. These days, you’ll find chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour in many supermarkets, too. Bean flours add and earthy, well, beany flavor to food.

Try it: I used chickpea flour to make this socca, a Provencal street-food snack. It’s also a key ingredient in Middle Eastern cooking for falafel and is ideal for making a super-smooth hummus. As with nut flour, bean flour is a terrific to thicken a sauce. Robin Asbell’s terrific new book, Big Vegan, uses chickpea flour in a number of creative ways, including a sauce for terrific vegan mac ‘n’ “cheese.”

There’s a whole world of wheat flours, too, and we’ve tackled in The Whole Story on Whole Wheat Flours. In the meantime, try this simple socca. Viva la France!

 

What’s for Lunch?

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Lately, I’ve been working with a client who has me come to their office several days a week. It hasn’t taken long to get reacquainted with the midday conundrum that bedevils office workers everywhere: What’s for lunch? If you haven’t packed something to eat you’re at the mercy of whatever is nearby.

I’ve already tired of the eateries in the surrounding neighborhood and find myself gazing enviously at coworkers who had the foresight to bring lunch from home. When my boss offered me a sample of her homemade stuffed grape leaves recently–made with leaves from the vines in her garden, no less–only propriety kept me from grabbing the container and scarfing them all down. After searching NOURISH Evolution’s archives, I’ve come up with five tasty possibilities for my own lunch box:

whats-for-lunchAsian Turkey Salad. Lia created this one to use up leftover Thanksgiving turkey, but it would work just as well with chicken. If you’re firing up the grill over the weekend, throw on some extra chicken to use in this recipe, or shred the meat from a supermarket rotisserie bird (just make sure it’s organic). Pack the dressing separately from the rest of the salad so it stays crisp until lunchtime.

Devilish Egg Salad. An egg-salad sandwich on toast is an old-school classic. This version comes together in a flash and would be a hearty repast on toasted whole wheat bread with lettuce and tomato or, as Lia suggests, tucked into lettuce-lined pitas.

Open-Faced Tomato Avocado Sandwich. As easy to pull together as a PBJ, yet luscious with peak-season tomatoes (Lia’s favorite are big, fat slices of a Kellogg’s Breakfast tomato) and creamy avocado, this simple sandwich is tough to beat. All you need are the fixins’ from home and a toaster oven in the office.

Chicken Pate with Brandy. This is a personal favorite that takes me back to childhood, when my mom sent me to school with chopped liver-on-rye sandwiches. That combination would still satisfy, though I’d if I were feeling fancy-schmancy I’d nibble the pate on crackers with mustard and cornichons.

Radish and Goat Cheese Baguettes. As long as you have the fixings on hand, you could throw this together on the busiest mornings. It’s also ripe with possibilities for improvisation–add sliced cucumbers or beets, or swap the goat cheese and arugula for Gorgonzola and radicchio.

If I brought any of these to work, my lunch would be the envy of the office.

How do you get creative with your brown bags?