Did You Know?

Did you know that Ice cream was once a delectable and nutritious dessert food, made from unpasteurized milk and cream? Now it contains pasteurized milk, agar-agar for thickening, mono- and di-glycerides for emulsifying, calcium carbonate for neutralizing, sodium citrate as a buffer, hydrogen peroxide as a bacteriacide, oat gum as an antioxidant, and various other chemicals for flavoring, such as amylacetate for banana and vanilidene kectone for vanilla.

Gluten Free Black Bean Chicken Flautas

Yields: 12

12 small gluten free or wheat flour tortillas

1 cup cooked shredded chicken

1 cup cooked black beans

1 large diced shallot

Handful chopped fresh cilantro or parsley

2 crushed garlic cloves

1 small chopped green chili, remove seeds

1 tablespoon cumin powder

Sea salt and black pepper

Extra virgin olive oil

Freshly grated parmesan cheese

Add extra virgin olive oil to a large skillet. When hot, saute chili, shallot, cilantro, cumin, and garlic until softened. Add chicken and black beans. Season with sea salt and black pepper.

Pre heat oven to 400 F.

Put one tablespoon of the chicken mixture in the center of a tortilla and sprinkle parmesan cheese on top. Roll up tortilla and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet, seam side down. Repeat with all of the tortillas until chicken mixture is gone. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over the rolled tortillas. Bake for 15 to 25 minutes, turning them over half way until crispy and golden brown.

Enjoy hot with dipping sauce of your choice.

Did You Know Salmon Dye May Be Damaging Your Eyes?

www.livestrong.com - May 23rd, 2013

Wild salmon gets its distinctive pink color from its krill-based diet. Farm raised salmon, without access to krill, is not actually pink. It's grey. Since no one wants to eat grey salmon, fisheries give the salmon a color boost by using artificial dyes in their feed. One such chemical, Canthaxanthin, has been linked to retinal damage in humans. Dyed salmon should be labeled as such in stores, but this law is poorly enforced. Ask your fishmonger to be sure.

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Chocolate Risotto

1/2 cup arborio rice

4 cups full cream milk

1 cup bittersweet chocolate

2 tablespoons salted grass fed butter

This is the same process as making regular risotto. Heat full cream milk in a pot on medium to high heat to a simmer. Reduce heat to very low to keep the milk hot during the whole cooking process. In a heavy-bottomed, deep sided pan, melt butter and saute the arborio rice to coat the grains (about 2 minutes). Add one cup of the milk to the arborio. Stir until all the milk is absorbed. Continue to add one cup at a time repeating the process until the rice is cooked (about 30 minutes). Stir in chocolate to melt and serve immediately with fresh cream, ice cream, or fresh berries.

What Are We Really Eating?

Graffiti Eggplant Sweet Potato Avocado Salad with Creamy Dill Dressing

Dressing:

1 cup plain Greek yogurt 

Small handful fresh chopped dill 

1/2 teaspoon yellow curry powder 

Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Blend until smooth. Keep refrigerated.

Salad:

4 graffiti eggplant

1 large sweet potato 

1 large avocado 

1/2 small red onion thinly sliced 

Extra virgin olive oil 

Sea salt and black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 F

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Peel and cut sweet potato into large chunks. Cut eggplant into thick discs. Coat sweet potato and eggplant in plenty of extra virgin olive oil. Season generously with sea salt and black pepper.Arrange in a single layer and bake until cooked (about 20 minutes) turning over halfway during co o king.

Peel and cut avocado into large chunks. Remove veggies from the oven and arrange according to the picture on a large serving plate. Drizzle extra virgin olive oil and creamy dressing over the top with fresh dill. Serve warm.

Squirrel Feeding study GMO corn vs Organic corn

This was an actual real life experiment conducted on a farm in the fall of 2012 to see if animals really can tell the difference between GMO corn versus organic (non-GMO) corn. This picture is one of the five experiments that was conducted and every single time the squirrel always preferred the organic corn over the GMO corn. The squirrel always ate the organic corn up first then went to go eat on GMO corn last. They also used different varieties of both organic and GMO corn every time just to rule out the possibility that maybe the squirrel was getting to liking one variety over the other but to their complete disbelief he still always preferred to eat on the organic corn more! The results even surprised me.

Vegetable Tart Recipes: Gorgeous, Verdant Pies For Spring

www.huffingtonpost.com - May 13th, 2013

When we think of baking a colorful tart, we generally turn to fruit, chocolate and other sweet variations. In our effort to put more vegetables into everything (because we really, really like them) we want to remind you of how delicious, beautiful and impressive a great vegetable tart can be.

Have a spring brunch you need to pull together? Vegetable tart it up. Need to make lunch for friends? We'd recommend a vegetable tart recipe. Light dinner? Well... you probably know where we're going with this. Making a savory vegetable tart also allows you to include one of our favorite ingredients in your recipe: cheese. Which vegetable will you make your next tart with?

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CLICK HERE for the recipe to the Gluten Free Roasted Eggplant Tart seen here 

Gluten Free Cranberry Chocolate Biscotti

Yields:12

2 3/4 cups gluten free all purpose flour blend 

2 teaspoons gluten free baking powder 

1 teaspoon gluten free xanthan gum 

1 teaspoon sea salt

3 large room temperature eggs 

1 cup sugar  

1 cup dried orange flavored cranberries 

1 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F

Combine all the dry ingredients including chocolate chips and dried cranberries. Beat sugar and eggs until light and fluffy and add to the dry ingredients to combine. The dough will be very sticky so wet your hands to form dough into a log and press down to about 1/2" thickness on a lined cookie sheet. Bake for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven. 

Lower temperature to 325 F

Cut lengthwise when it's cool enough to handle with a very sharp knife. Bake a further 20 to 30 minutes or until dry and firm to touch.

Food and Health Industry NOT Linked!

Cheesy Egg Soufflé

3 large eggs, yolks and whites separated

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

1/2 cup freshly grated gruyere

1 tablespoon gluten-free flour blend

3 tablespoons grass fed salted butter

Sea salt and black pepper

Pre-heat oven to 350F

Butter and flour 6 small ramekins. Prepare your basic roux by melting butter in a pan on medium heat, add flour and cook, whisking constantly until it just begins to turn a light brown color. Heat milk until hot, but not boiling. Add a small amount of roux into the milk and mix, then add the milk mixture back into the roux. whisking constantly until it started to thicken and bubbly. Lower heat to low, add a small amount of the roux to the egg yolks, whisking constantly to combine. Add the yolks back to the sauce whisking well. Whisk the cheese in slowly until melted. Season with sea salt and black pepper. Set aside.

Whisk egg whites until soft peaks form and fold into the cheese sauce (don't mix!). Pour into ramekins and bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until fluffy and golden. Serve immediately.

Rice and Vegetable Bowl

2 cups cooked basmati rice

1 cup cooked pinto beans

1 cup cooked diced sweet potato

1 large shallot, diced

2 large garlic cloves, chopped

Handful fresh parsley chopped

Handful cherry tomatoes

Extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt and black pepper

In a deep sided skillet on high heat, cover the bottom with extra virgin olive. When hot, add shallot, tomatoes, garlic, and parsley. Season with sea salt and black pepper. Sauté until soft (about 2 to 4 minutes). Add rice, beans, and sweet and toss well to combine. Season with sea salt and black pepper. Drizzle extra olive oil over the top to serve. Garnish with fresh herbs.

What You Don't Know About Processed Food

www.huffingtonpost.com - May 1st, 2013

You've heard of pink slime. You know trans fats are cardiovascular atrocities. You're well aware that store-bought orange juice is essentially a scam. But, no matter how great of a processed-food sleuth you are, chances are you've never set food inside a processing plant to see how many of these products are actually made.

The term "processed food" is ubiquitous these days. The food industry has attempted to co-opt it by claiming canned beans, baby carrots, and frozen vegetables are "processed foods." Can you help explain why a Pop-Tart is years away from a "processed food" like hummus?

You have to ask yourself, could I make a Pop-Tart or Hot Pocket at home, with all those same ingredients listed on the package? I don't know anyone who could do that in their home kitchen. How would you even go about procuring distilled monoglycerides and BHT, for instance? These are highly-processed food products loaded up with sugar and sodium, subjected to abusive processing conditions, and assembled with a litany of additives, many of which nobody ever consumed prior to a hundred years ago.

Yet it is possible to make your own black beans at home by soaking and then cooking them. You could even attempt a rudimentary canning operation to preserve them. You can also make hummus by grinding chickpeas with a few other ingredients like lemon juice. The same goes for frozen vegetables and even baby carrots, though homemade baby carrots wouldn't look as pretty as the ones you buy at the store. The "processing" these foods go through is minimal and not disfiguring. The end result still looks like a food that once grew on a farm.

Many people are put at ease when government agencies and the food industry state that controversial substances are "generally recognized as safe." Why is this not as comforting as it sounds?

The idea of something "generally recognized as safe" seems so reassuring, but the more you know about the U.S. system of food ingredient regulation the less cause there is for comfort.

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