Leaning Vegetarian

Archive for July, 2009

My mom is concerned about my iron intake, now that we’re emphasizing vegetables and grains and reducing our red meat. Mom’s not randomly worrying – in years past I was anemic for a long time, and had to take iron shots and supplements.

So how much is that? Rachelle and I need 18 mg/day; Kaela can get by with 15 mg/day per the Dietary Reference Index.

Good news for Kaela – Cream of Wheat cereal has a bit more than 10 mg per cup (but the instant kind in the picture only has 8).

Some other amounts from the USDA lists:

There’s a lot of fortified cereals on that list; sorry about all the brand names but they show up high on the list, and do vary a lot.  Those tomatoes and refried beans might just be Monday’s lunch right there. (Though that’s rather a lot for lunch.)

Spinach ranges between 3 to over 6 mg/cup if it’s cooked, depending on whether it’s canned, frozen, or fresh (and frozen has the least, which surprised me).  Oddly enough, raw spinach has much less. Those beet greens in the picture run just under 3 mg/cup.

Alas, we don’t get all of that.

When I was anemic, I ate stacks of spinach, but spinach and other dark green vegetables have a drawback – while they’re very high in iron, it’s not in a form that’s as easy to assimilate as iron from meat sources. The NIH mentions that calcium, tea or other tannin-containing foods, and some components of legumes and whole grains hinder the most efficient absorption of iron. So it’s important to combine it with vitamin C, and to have calcium-rich foods at a different meal if you’re aiming for the maximum iron intake. Which isn’t to say that yogurt and spinach dishes aren’t good for you and delicious, just that you aren’t likely to get all the iron available in the spinach with that combination.

Balanced Diet

Hummus is a great snack or mayonnaise substitute, and I like it with all sorts of flavors. This lemon/garlic is a start, but do try roasted red peppers, or chiles, or dill and green herbs. It’s great in a sandwich, or on top of naan. Alton Brown uses peanut butter in his version instead of the tahini, and there’s a version with artichoke hearts at Pinch My Salt (great picture, too).

Soak your chickpeas overnight in a bowl with a generous amount of water – they’ll absorb a lot. Drain them and put them on the stove to boil until tender. This does take a while – I’ve tried grinding them when they’re soft enough to pierce with a fork, and I should have let them cook a bit longer.The shells will start to come off on their own – you can rub them when they’re cooled and remove them if you like; I don’t notice any ill effect or texture from a few left on.

For a couple of cups of dried chickpeas to start (the top photo shows chickpeas that have already soaked overnight), I used two big cloves of garlic, about three tablespoons of tahini, something like a quarter cup of lemon  juice, plus some water from the chickpeas.  I know, this is hopelessly vague – but hummus is ideal for adding the flavors that you want in just the proportions that you like. For a point of reference, the girls thought ‘Wow! Garlic!’, so you may want to start with one clove, chopped, and add more to your taste. I’m also fond of the citrus bite, so you may want to go lighter on the juice. I’ve seen recipes that add good olive oil as well, though I’d used only water.

Grind the chickpeas, chopped garlic, lemon juice, tahini, and a small splash of water in a food processor. (I suspect a blender works just fine, though I haven’t made it that way.) Check the texture, and add more water as needed – you can err just a dab on the thin side since it will thicken as it sits, too. I add about a teaspoon of salt at the end.  I’m really wanting to add some cumin and peppers at this point, but I’ll keep it plain for this batch and add an update with the pepper hummus. This is still a little grainy – it’s still good, but I’d like the texture to be smoother.

Serve on your favorite bread/cracker or dip vegetables in it (I’m having the leftovers with snow peas and yellow squash as I type), or use it as a spread on a sandwich.  I couldn’t resist a dusting of chile powder on here.

Quinoa is a harvested from a plant originating in the Andes, revered by the Incan culture. Although we use it as a grain, the plant is actually related to beets and chard. The most common color found in grocery stores is ivory, but the colors vary from ivory to red to a black quinoa developed in the US.

How do you pronounce that?

I’ve most commonly heard it KEEN-wa, although ki-NWA is out there too.

What’s in it?

It’s high in protein, and contains the complete spectrum of essential amino acids. A one-cup serving has a 15% of the daily value for iron, as well as other minerals including magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and calcium. Quinoa is also gluten-free.

I like the chewy consistency (think brown rice) with a lightly nutty flavor. It lends itself well to both sweet and savory dishes.

How do you cook it?

Quinoa has a bitter coating (saponin) that should to be washed off before cooking (some packaged varieties are prewashed). Rinse the grain in a bowl or strainer and rub the seeds between your fingers to remove this coating.  I’ve seen recommendations to soak it overnight, but I’ve also cooked it right after rinsing.

Prepare quinoa by adding two parts water to one part washed grain, and bring it to a boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer until the water has evaporated and just to the surface of the grain. Turn the heat down to low, cover it and let it cook until fluffy when mixed with a fork.

I like it for breakfast with raisins and brown sugar with a bit of flax seed for crunch.

Rachelle will be posting her delicious quinoa and chickpea pilaf soon. Here’s a sneak preview, with yellow tomatoes from our garden:

Collard Greens for Supper (Alisa Cooper)

This one hits home for me – my mom’s already been diagnosed with osteoporosis and has had some spinal surgery related to it.

It doesn’t seem too hard to get adequate calcium in a day, since I do eat dairy products – is it? I’m not real keen on plain milk, though I do use soy milk on cereals, and flavored soy milk to drink. I eat a fair bit of cheese and yogurt. Back to the numbers.

I need 1000 mg of calcium per day, so that looks like:

That’s just about right, if one doesn’t mind eating predominantly dairy for their calcium – what else is a good source?

Looking at the USDA list was a real surprise. Collards (357 mg/cup) and sardines (325 mg/3 oz) are above plain milk (306 mg/cup nonfat)? And cornmeal (483 mg/cup) above all three? The good news for the day, if you have a sweet tooth like mine, is that thick vanilla milkshakes are high up on the list (457 mg/11 oz, if you don’t mind 351 calories). And I’m curious as to why nonfat yogurt has more calcium than low fat yogurt. Anyone know this? I’ll make a note to look it up.

I can see I’m going to have to find more greens recipes so we’re not relying too heavily on dairy products. What if you don’t eat dairy? I will see if I can track down some recommendations for the lactose-intolerant. What are your favorite non-dairy calcium sources?

Pizza is one of the easiest things to make for a combined vegetarian/meat meal without having to cook or prepare anything separately – the guys can have their ham or pepperoni, and we can have our cheese and veggies.

This pizza dough that can be kept in the refrigerator for a few days, and in the freezer for up to 3 months.  Once again, I’m pulling the recipe from thefreshloaf.com though this one originated in Peter Reinhart’s American Pie as the Neo-Neapolitan.

Mix everything together in a large bowl – I’m adding a dab of milk and slightly more oil than it calls for since I like chewy crusts.  Proof the yeast if you prefer; I’ve had fine luck with adding it directly to the liquid and mixing the flour in right away.  Turn out on to your favorite kneading surface and knead (or use your dough hook) – this will be sticky; a dough scraper/spatula is useful.

I’ve had some requests for pizza this afternoon, so I’m going to leave half the dough to rise for an hour or so at room temperature. I cut the other half in two pieces, slathered them with olive oil, and I’ll put those in the fridge for later this week.  (I should’ve made more so I could put some in the freezer and I wouldn’t have to make any next weekend.)

I like the rustic type crust, so I’m just going to stretch and pat it by hand. Feel free to use a rolling pin if you’d prefer a thinner or more uniform crust.  Rolling and filling it on parchment paper makes the transfer to the oven a lot less precarious – I’ve had breads fold over into disappointing shapes when they stick to the pan I’d been finishing them on, even with cornmeal.  One of these days I’ll practice enough to be able to toss it into a round, but today’s attempt resulted in a lot of fingers poked through the dough or shapes that could not even charitably be called round.

Hopefully this summer I’ll have tomatoes (or, failing that, I’ll hit the farmers’ markets for some local Grainger county tomatoes) and can work on a good pizza sauce recipe.  For now, I’m going to (mumble) cheat and use store-bought sauce and cheese, and some sliced ham for our meat-eaters.

I still don’t have a pizza stone or tiles, so I flip our largest cookie sheet over and use it in the oven on the next-to-lowest rack setting, letting it preheat with the oven.  I’ve got the oven at its highest setting but if yours will go to 500°, great. I pull the far corner of the parchment into the oven to slide it from my working pan onto the hot pan.  The cooking time will vary depending on the size and thickness of your pizza and toppings, so watch it after about five minutes and go from there.  I pulled this out at seven minutes to check, and the bottom was still too pale for my taste, so I removed it from the pan and parchment and set it directly on the rack.

A word of warning: at least two of us burned our mouth when this came out of the oven; be more patient than we were and let it cool a bit.  I’m going to try this dough with a topping of olive oil and a dusting of parmesan for bread sticks as well. I’ll post an update when I do.

Naan is a flatbread that is delicious as a base for beans, sliced grilled meats, or vegetables (or Nutella, for that matter). I like gothicgirl’s recipe from the Fresh Loaf a lot.

It takes about three and a half hours from start to finish, but you only need to be present for about 20 minutes of mixing, 15 minutes of kneading/dividing, and 40 minutes of patting flat and baking (less time if you’ve got a big baking stone or a larger oven than I have so you can cook more than two at once).

Put the milk on the stove and heat it slowly to 110°F to scald it. I’ve also used the first appearance of small bubbles around the edge to know when it reaches this stage.

I understand that there’s an enzyme in milk that interferes with yeast development, and that scalding breaks it down. Someday I’ll look it up.

Dissolve the sugar in the milk and let it cool til just warm.

Mix the flour, yeast, and salt together.
Add the milk and mix – you’ll wind up with a stiff but sticky dough.

If you’ve got a mixer, do use it if you like – I don’t have one so all my recipes are kneaded by hand.

Turn it out onto a clean floured counter and knead for a few minutes until it’s quite smooth.  It’s sticky enough that a dough scraper is very handy.  I’ve made a homemade scraper by cutting down the top of a yogurt container to a rounded square; here I use a spatula which does the trick too. 

Put it back in the bowl to raise for a couple of hours. The original recipe calls for two hours; I’ve left it for three with no ill effects.

Turn it out and give it a couple quick kneads, and then divide it into 12 (if you like rounds you can fit in your hand) or fewer if you’d like something more pizza-sized.  Let these rest for 20 minutes or so while you heat the oven.

If you have a baking stone, you can cook these directly on the stone; I use two cast-iron pans, I suspect a sturdy baking sheet would work too but I’ve not tried it.  Turn the oven up very high – mine doesn’t go to 500°F, so I set it at its max – and put the pans in the oven to heat on the bottom rack.

Pat or roll each dough ball quite thin.

When the oven is heated, flip a naan onto the hot ungreased pan, close the door, and cook for about 2 minutes. Turn with tongs and cook another minute and a half. These should be browned a bit on both sides and quite puffy.  Take them out of the oven, and I like to run a stick of butter lightly over the top.

These are delicious warm but reheat well for 10 sec in the microwave. I can’t testify to how long they keep, since ours never make it more than 2 or 3 days for this dozen.

Next investigations: adding garlic or onion or sesame seeds.

When I see articles, blog posts or comments wherein the author states ‘food is only fuel, no more’, I feel kind of sorry for them.  Where did he grow up? Has she no taste buds? How did her family celebrate, and was food really not a part of that?

For me, both for good and bad, food is far more than fuel.  It’s the caring of my grandmother Agnes, fixing us strawberry-rhubarb pie to celebrate the return of spring and fresh fruit.  It was dinner as the meeting point where tales of work, grade school bullies, political follies, and hopes for the future were discussed. It’s a moment of creation, bringing something out of many elements to, with luck, a delicious new whole. It’s a place of adventure, tasting dishes from places we’ve never been, and revelling in how different the taste of fennel or poblano is from everyday fare. And it was a consoling pint of Cherry Garcia ice cream and bottle of Guinness when the world was falling down around me.

With the introduction of more vegetarian meals into the mix, though, there’s some tension added to these connections: “Are you fixing something I can eat? Where’s the meat? I’ll just get some cereal later.”  I apologize to the meat eaters in the family when I’ve made you feel left out or excluded from the family table.  I’ll keep that in mind as we go on, and be sure to emphasize meals that are flexible enough for all of us that we can still share the nourishment of self and family and spirit.

The ‘What the heck is…?’ series will be covering ingredients that are new to us or that we think might be less familiar. Let us know if there are any items you’d like to see us cover.

Tempeh is a cake of fermented grains or beans, which originated in Indonesia. The grains are compressed and inoculated with the rhizopus oligosporus culture, then fermented at a warm temperature until a web of white mycelia forms and holds the grains/beans together.

Three types of tempeh

I’ve cut some slices of three varieties from my local market (these are all from Lightlife):

Soy

Wild rice

Three-grain

A serving (4 oz, or half a package) has 20-22g of protein, depending on the variety.  Tempeh has more protein than tofu, as well as calcium, iron, and between a third and a half of the daily fiber requirement.

I sauteed these strips with a little bit of ginger, garlic, and a splash of soy sauce.  The three-grain is the mildest of the bunch, with a rice-like texture that crumbles readily.  The wild rice has a stronger brown/wild rice flavor, and combines the textures of those two grains.  The soy has the firmest texture, and to my taste buds, is the closest to a ‘meaty’ texture if that’s what you’re looking for.  I’ve used strips in stir-fries (excellent with snow peas), but you can also crumble them for use in dishes like tacos or casseroles.

Tempeh keeps in the fridge for about a week, and in the freezer for a couple months.  Darker spots are spores and are normal.

Thanks to Turtle Island Foods, www.soyfoods.com, the Vegetarian Research Group, and the contributors to Wikipedia.

There’s a joke floating around on the internet that goes something like this:

How many vegetarians does it take to change a lightbulb?

Just one, but where do you get your protein?

Of course there are other things than meat that have protein. We eat them regularly, even when we are eating meat dishes too. Off the top of my head, some of these in the last few days have been

black beans
yogurt
brown rice
hash browns

The better question is how much do we need? I looked over at the USDA site at the Dietary Reference Intakes provided by the National Academy of Sciences .

If I scroll down to the Macronutrients page I see that for me, a 49-year-old female, I need about 46 grams of protein per day.

Cool. But what does that mean? Taking the list above for example, I’d have:

(These numbers are taken from the list from UC Davis and the USDA National Nutrient Database.)

So it’s not a particularly hard task to get enough protein – another 1-2 grams for some juice plus 6 for an egg at breakfast, some peaches and cottage cheese (up to 28g for a cup), and I’m good for the day.

What’s your favorite protein source?