The Undone

The Fire House birthday party hosted by real firefighters was deemed "The Best Birthday Party EVER!" by the birthday boy.

This was the month I was going to get settled in. This was the month I was going to attack my to-do list and feel my full power as a Stay-at-Home-Mom.  I had such high hopes and big plans. This was the month! Then the Polar Vortex hit and closed school for three days. Then there was the Polar Vortex-redux that closed school for another day. Then there was the virus that left the three of us hacking like cats with hairballs. And now, it is the end of January. So many undone things, hiding out in the corners of my house, stalking me in my dreams at night like zombies. This month will forever be known in my house as the month of The Undone.

I have to-do lists, on the back of to-do lists, stapled to to-do lists. Here is one thing I can mark off of my list. Here is the recipe for the Best Strawberry Birthday Cake Ever! (I named it.)

Butterbean's birthday is in November and when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday party he stated straight out - "Strawberry!". Now we try to eat with the seasons and strawberries are not so prevalent in Indiana in November, so while I tried to persuade him that a nice chocolate would be delicious, he stuck to his tastebuds and declared, "Strawberry!". What's a mom to do? Strawberry it is!

When I tried to find a recipe for a vegan strawberry cake, the results were not inspiring. Nothing looked like a birthday cake. Birthdays come around once a year and they deserve a special kind of happy cake- not just a "good-enough but it's healthy" cake. We want spectacle. We want delicious. We want celebration! So, as usual, I had to wing it. I found a recipe online at NamelyMarly and adapted it. The results were pretty awesome and I have had several requests for the recipe, so here it is. You can now mark this off of my to-do list.

Note - this cake is not low in oils, but it's a once a year birthday cake. Eat it that way.

The Best Strawberry Birthday Cake Ever

Ingredients:

1 cup sifted whole wheat pastry flour
2 cups sifted all purpose flour
1-1/2 cups sugar
1 pkg. strawberry vegan gelatin
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup vegetable oil
1 banana mashed
1 can coconut milk (don't use the light or low-fat version)
1-1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 cup strawberries (I used frozen and barely thawed them in the microwave)

Icing:

1/2 cup vegan margarine, softened (I use Earth Balance Soy-Free)
3-1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tbsp. Strawberry puree
1/8 tsp vanilla

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 3  9-inch round cake pans.

In a large bowl, mix whole wheat and all-purpose flour, sugar, strawberry gelatin, baking soda, baking powder and salt together.

In a blender, mix banana and coconut milk for about 30 seconds until the mixture is fairly smooth. Add the vegetable oil, vanilla, apple cider vinegar and strawberries and blend until thoroughly mixed.

Combine the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and beat with a mixer at medium speed for 3-4 minutes.

Pour batter evenly into the three pans. The layers will be a bit thin, but the cake will rise nicely.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until lightly browned and slightly springy to the touch. Remove cake pans from oven and place on a cooling rack for 5 minutes. Remove from pans and place cakes on cooling rack until cool to the touch.

Ice the thoroughly cooled cakes. I iced between each layer and on the top. Decorate the top with sliced strawberries, sprinkles or like we did - 8 birthday candles.

Enjoy!

Honey, I Killed the Basil!

There is a recipe that I crave in the middle of the night, in the middle of the carpool lane, while mopping the floor. This recipe has a flavor so distinctive and satisfying that even writing these words now, my mouth is watering in anticipation of a bite of deliciousness. Sadly, this recipe will not be seen in our house for several months because I have killed the main ingredient. I am distraught.

What can cause such a state of eagerness you ask? It's Pesto Pasta from a recipe by Jennifer K. Reilly. I took a class taught by Jennifer, otherwise known as the Bitchin' Dietician, when I was getting my Food for Life certification. She totally rocked the class and so, of course, I immediately bought her cookbook. Ta-da! Cooking perfection. Every recipe I have made from the book has been fantastic - lick the plate deliciousness. I know this because I have watched my child lick his plate, despite my pleas for some slight decorum.

So, here's the story. In mid-November, I looked up from my kitchen sink full of dirty dishes and saw in front of me a beautiful, full, green pot of basil. It smelled magical and looked like summer. So, I thought, Pesto Pasta tonight! I trimmed a large cup of lovely basil leaves, making sure that I didn't cut the bush too far down. Supper that night was magical, it hit every note of flavor perfectly. 

The next week we left to spend Thanksgiving in North Carolina. Did I water the plants before I left? Why no, they were just fine. But five days later when we returned, my beloved basil plant looked sad and droopy. So what did I do? I watered it of course, but I guess what I really did was flood it. Over the next few days that plant drooped more and more and finally, I came to realize that I killed the basil. So no more Pesto Pasta for the Grabow family. At least for a while.

So, while I am in plant recovery mode, you can enjoy this recipe and tell me how great it is. I will be thinking of you  - and feeling just a smidge jealous.

Pesto Pasta

8 oz. (1/2 pkg.) organic whole wheat spaghetti

3 cloves garlic

1 lemon, juiced (about 1/4 cup lemon juice)

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 medium ripe avocado, pit and peel removed

1 cup fresh basil (a large handful, about 30 leaves)

2 Tbsp filtered water

1 tsp salt

1/8 tsp black pepper

1. Prepare spaghetti according to package instructions.

2. Meanwhile, in a blender or food processor, process garlic, lemon juice, and oil until smooth. Add avocado, basil, water, salt, and pepper; continue to process until creamy.

3. Drain spaghetti and toss with avocado basil mixture. Serve immediately, and finish entire recipe (call up a hungry neighbor!). The avocado will make the pasta dark brown and unappealing as leftovers. (Note from Stephanie - I can't vouch for this - we have never had any leftovers.)

Fall Deliciousness

The leaves are turning and today is probably the last day I will get to work in the garden without dressing in layers to stave off the cold. I'll be harvesting the green tomatoes today with a little bit of sadness - one of my favorite daily summer rituals is walking through the garden inspecting the plants for ripe fruit and ready vegetables. I still have sugar snap peas and beets in the garden to carry me a bit longer, but I will miss the herby smell of tomato vines on my fingers. That smell is summer to me.

Boo enjoys the last soccer game of the season.

Fall break is here next weekend and we will have family in town for Grandparent's Day at my son's school. My planning mind wanders forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas and the heightened stakes of feeding the extended family, who are non-vegans, meals that will satisfy and inspire them. After all, if the food is delicious how can they possibly complain?  We live our lives as an example and fill the table with beautiful and aromatic dishes that encourage our loved ones to inch closer to a healthier way of eating.

Here's the link to a great set of holiday recipes to start your thinking. 

http://www.pcrm.org/health/diets/ffl/employee/holiday-recipes

I'm testing out a pumpkin ice-cream pie recipe that has great promise. I'll let you know how it goes.

How to Go Vegan or 4 Variations on a Theme

It happens in the hallways at Butterbean's school. Someone will slide up next to me haltingly whisper, "I heard you went vegan...", or "Is it true?". I know how they feel. It's so hard to imagine that a Hoosier, a red-blooded American girl from the land of milk and honey would - well- give up milk and honey. Except that it is true and it was easy and it feels great.

Truth is I was never much of a meat eater. When I was a kid my mom would make the best smelling pot roast you can imagine. My mouth would water for hours as the aroma of slowly caramelizing food would waft from the oven into every crevice of our home. When the meal was served I savored every bite of the sweet moist carrots and the candy-like onions. I could never get enough of the melty luscious potatoes. The beef? A side show. Just an anchor for the rest of the meal.

There are lots of different ways to try going vegan. I think of it as eating more fruits and vegetables and not as giving up animal products. Dip your toe in the water - you'll find something that works for you. And if it doesn't stick- what's the worst that comes of the experiment? You ate really healthy food for a few meals?


1.  Vegan Before 6 -  Mark Bittman, the New York Times food writer, adopted a way of eating he describes as VB6, as in before 6 PM. He has a new book coming out at the end of April describing his process. Should be a good read.


2.  Dip Your Toe in the Water - Meatless Mondays - Meatless Mondays means just that - don't eat any meat on Mondays. The rest of the week - do your normal thing. The thought is that if each of us would take meat out of our diets one day per week - we could do ourselves and our environment a lot of good.  Once you had the Monday thing down you could move on to your own version of meatless Tuesday, meatless Wednesday - pretty soon you're up to an entire meatless week! Meatless Mondays are an idea promoted by Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

3.  All In! - Clean out your pantry and make a clean break. This is the total transformation described in Forks Over Knives (you have seen the movie haven't you?) and by the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine. For some of us, throwing out the cheddar cheese and the turkey burgers is the only way to make it happen.


4.  The Gradual Transition - This is what we did. No links to clever websites here. As we used an animal product up, I didn't replace it. Out of butter? Time to buy the vegan margarine. No more ground turkey? Time to load our tacos up with yummy rice, beans, tomatoes, lettuce, salsa - nothing missing here. As the chief cook and grocery shopper for a 7-year old boy and a really sweet (and hungry) husband, a gradual transition seemed the smartest way to avoid resistance to the changes and unhappy eaters. It also gave my vegan cooking skills a chance to catch up.

I'll throw a little John and Yoko in here and say, "Give Vegetables a Chance".

Now We're Cooking

I am often asked about my favorite cookbooks. I have owned hundreds of cookbooks through my cooking life. I can trace my growing up and the evolution of my food education through my collection of cookbooks.

From my grandmother, I inherited old cookbooks put together by the ladies of the First Baptist Church in Dyer, Tennessee. The spiral bound pages are filled with gelatin molds and entrees that include fatback as a staple ingredient. In my 20's I worked through my anxieties by making fluffy white biscuits using gorgeous books by Nathalie Dupree and Miss Daisy King.  I have a couple of decades worth of Southern Living Annual Recipes. (2001 is my favorite!) When I began baking bread a few years ago, my thoughtful husband bought me Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads. This was a precious way of letting me know that the endless hours that I spent in the kitchen were not going to ruin our marriage. Oh, and that he likes bread.

I always write in my cookbooks as I use them. I note adaptations for the next time I make a recipe, like, "remember to add a 1/4 tsp. salt", or I scratch out where it calls for anise. (I can't stand the flavor of anise.) Sometimes I remind myself to halve a recipe next time because we will never eat 2 gallons of Gumbo z'herbes, or I decide to double it because it makes a great meal to have in the freezer for those over-scheduled days.

My life has changed, our tastes have changed, and the birth of my precious Butterbean 7 years ago brought a new importance to the foods that I choose and serve, but one thing has remained constant. Cooking and cookbooks bring joy to me and the people that I love. I think when I die, they should throw a party around the stove and cook through all of my favorite recipes. That would be a great send-off.

Here are 3 of my current go-to cookbooks. Check back in 6 months, they will probably have changed.

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman: I love this book. It's my first touch point for any random ingredient. Find a butternut squash in the bottom of the pantry? (Not that that has happened to me recently.) Check out the index and you'll find 16 recipes using butternut squash. (I ended up baking it, mashing it with maple syrup and serving it as a side. Yum.) Need a new twist on salad dressing? He's got 17 recipes for that as well. Not including the vinaigrettes. The cookbook is well thought out, easy to follow and, at heart, Mark Bittman is a home cook. If a recipe is easy, he says so. If it's more difficult, he tells the reader that and tells you if the work is worth it or not. Fair enough.

Forks Over Knives- The Cookbook by Del Sroufe: My current passion. I've been working through the recipes in this book page by page. Two nights ago it was the Breakfast Rancheros on page 55. (Yes, I served them for supper.) Tonight I'm planning the Sweet and Sour "Meatball" Stir Fry on page 221. I appreciate that all of the recipes in this book are oil-free. Let's face it. I'm a  girl from the mid-South and my taste buds were covered in bacon fat and Crisco for the first 35 years of my life. I figure a recipe must be amazingly well constructed if it can taste good without pork drippings.

And yes, I do still crave bacon. Cooked in a cast iron skillet. Served between layers of flaky white biscuits. On a cracked china plate at my Grandmother's kitchen table. Topped with homemade pear preserves.

Weelicious by Catherine McCord:  These recipes are designed to be served to babies and toddlers, but the recipes are full of healthy, delicious foods. The serving sizes are small, making them perfect for snacks, appetizers or small desserts. I baked the Chocolate Velvet Beet Cupcakes on page 244 for the 1st grade Valentine's Day party. They were a hit and I felt good that I had gotten 40 kids to eat beets.

Since you're here, why don't you tell me about your favorite cookbooks. Maybe you know one I can't live without? Happy cooking!

Quote of the Day

"There’s nothing wrong with candy. It’s the candification of our other food."

Dr. Samia Kawash, The Candy Professor

Photo: HarpersBizarre

Naughty, naughty soda companies!

Marian Nestle at Food Politics shares the details of Coke, Pepsi and other sugary-drink makers efforts to hide their lobbying work against soda taxes. The corporations have every right to fund speech to fight their efforts, but their attempts to hide that funding makes them seem a bit slimy. Even a six-year old knows that hiding the truth is the same thing as lying.


Big Soda sues to hide its funding of anti-tax campaign