Arctic Char with Sorrel Pesto and Pumpkin Leaf Thoren on CBC's Weekend Morning Show

This morning I will be presenting the following on CBC's Weekend Morning Show with guest host Laurie Hoogstraten.  Gorgeous Arctic Char is available year round at Gimli Fish.  It is consistently a beautiful product.

The Bean or Pumpkin Leaf Thoren is a Kerala, South India recipe.  I used a mix of tender zucchini leaves and stems, squash and pumpkin leaves as well.  I'm thinking of trying these leaves in a Tajine dish substituting for Swiss Chard, although, that is healthy in the garden now as well. 

Arctic Char with Sorrel Pesto

Pesto
2 handfuls fresh sorrel (gorgeous perennial available to plan from Sage Garden Herbs)
1 handful basil
1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped
1 garlic clove
juice of one lemon (optional, I left it out as the sorrel is very lemony)
1/4 cup good olive oil
black pepper

Arctic Char
2 tbs olive oil
1 fillet of Arctic Char (available fresh and local from Gimli Fish)
pinch sea salt
good pinch black pepper

1. Pur�e the pesto ingredients in a food processor or with a mortar and pestle. 
2. Heat olive oil in large pan over medium-high heat.  Season the fish and add it, skin side down for a few minutes (maximum 5).  Turn fish and cook for a few minutes more, depending on thickness of fish.  Remove fish from heat, plate and spoon pesto over. 

OR  Spoon a generous amount of the sorrel pesto over the uncooked Arctic Char and grill, on one side of a very hot BBQ until done or bake at 400� for 10-15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish.

Enjoy!

OR  Mix Sorrel Pesto with sour cream and spoon over cooked Arctic Char when plating.

Bean Leaf or Pumpkin Leaf Thoren

3 cups finely shredded bean or pumpkin leaves (use the youngest leaves and stems)
1 dried chili
1 pinch cumin seeds
2 shallots (or half of red onion)
1 cup grated coconut (unsweetened  A good one is available at Dino's Grocery Mart)
1 tbs oil (olive or canola, I often add a drizzle of good coconut oil on later for flavour and health)
2 tsp rice
2 tbs chopped onion
1 dry chili, broken
salt, to taste

1. Grind the chilli, cumin seeds and shallots together, coarsely.  Crush in the grated coconut.  Mix all together.
2. Fry mustard and rice in hot oil.  Add onion and chili pieces and saut�.  Add the ground ingredients and fry a little while.  Then add the greens and cook, with a little water and the salt until the water is all evaporated.  Medium heat.

Enjoy!

There are health benefits associated with bean and pumpkin leaves for anti-inflammatory benefits as well as benefiting people living with diabetes as it helps to regulate the blood sugars.  Squash and beans would have been grown, as part of the three sisters or three aunties for excellent permaculture for soil nutrition as well as for the benefits of eating.

Food Reward Friday

This week's lucky "winner"... cola!

Thirsty yet? Visual cues such as these are used to drive food/beverage seeking and consumption behavior, which are used to drive profits. How does this work? Once you've consumed a rewarding beverage enough times, particularly as a malleable child, your brain comes to associate everything about that beverage with the primary reward you obtained from it (calories, sugar, and caffeine). This is simply Pavlovian/classical conditioning*. Everything associated with that beverage becomes a cue that triggers motivation to obtain it (craving), including the sight of it, the smell of it, the sound of a can popping, and even the physical and social environment it was consumed in-- just like Pavlov's dogs learned to drool at the sound of a bell that was repeatedly paired with food.

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Lemon Cake with Blackberry Buttercream

I made this cake, and it's delicious, and you should probably make it too. It's also really pretty. My blackberry frosting turned out bright pink (that's all the berries, no food coloring here!), which would be SO CUTE at a girl's baby shower. But I didn't make it for a baby shower, I made it for Amanda's birthday, which was also SO CUTE. 


Guys, I wish I could tell you more about this cake right now, or about how the decoration job on this is "rustic" because I'm super impatient with frosting things (cut out sugar cookies are the worst), but really, I'm a little busy. Catching up on episodes of Parenthood in preparation for season 5. OMG. I laugh. I cry. Every single episode of that show is an emotional roller coaster. I'm out of control. 


Ok, now I just talked about baby showers, Parenthood, and emotional roller coasters in one blog post. Don't get the wrong idea, folks� I know what you were thinking. You and your filthy minds. 




Just make this cake already! 

Lemon Cake with Blackberry Buttercream

Cake

Adapted slightly from Martha Stewart

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2 1/2 cups  all purpose flour (or 2.5 cups plus 2.5 tablespoons cake flour)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon lemon zest

2 cups sugar

2 large eggs plus 3 large egg yolks

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 cup milk

1 lemon, thinly sliced and seeded

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour two 8X2 inch cake pans, tapping out excess flour. 

Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and lemon zest.

In a large bowl (I used stand mixer) beat butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar until light and fluffy. Turn speed to low and mix in eggs and yolks, one at a time, scrape down bowl. Mix in 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Alternately mix in flour mixture and milk (scraping down bowl each time) beginning and ending with flour mixture; mix just until combined.

Divide batter between pans and smooth the tops. Bake until cakes start to pull away from sides of pans, about 32 minutes. Let cool in pans 10 minutes, then run a knife around edges of pans and invert cakes onto a wire rack.

While cakes are baking, bring remaining 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water to a boil in a saucepan, lower heat, add lemon slices, and simmer for 25 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer lemon slices to a sheet of waxed-paper. Stir remaining 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice into syrup.

Using a toothpick, poke holes in warm cakes on rack. Brush with lemon syrup. Let cool completely before frosting. Decorate with candied lemon slices and fresh blackberries, and drizzle any a bit of remaining lemons syrup over berries. 

Frosting

Adapted slightly from this recipe

?1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature?

4 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup blackberry puree (from about 1 cup of loosely measured blackberries--see below for puree directions)?

1 tsp vanilla extract?

pinch salt?

Puree the blackberries in a small food processor or with immersion blender. Strain through a fine-mesh strainer, using a rubber spatula to press the juice and puree through. 

In a large bowl (I used electric mixture with paddle attachment) cream the butter at medium speed for 1 minute. Reduce speed to low, and (carefully, so you it doesn't go flying everywhere) add in the powdered sugar and pinch of salt. Mix until combined, then add the vanilla and blackberry puree. Increase speed to medium, and beat until smooth. 

It might look a bit separated at first, keep beating. If it's too runny, just add a bit more sugar, and likewise, if it's too stiff, add a bit of liquid (either a splash of milk or puree some more blackberries). 

Food Reward Friday

This week's lucky winner... salted nuts!!

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Southwest Quinoa Burrito Bowl...Salad

Some of my gal pals are really into the no-salad-salad, as they call it. The no-salad-salad is basically a big bowl of salady stuff that isn't leafy green and lettuce-like. They throw in a whole bunch of veggies, beans, and baby corn. 

Ugh. Can I tell you something? I hate baby corn. It totally freaks me out. When I was a little kid I loved it...until one time, at a fancy restaurant (ahem, it was the O'Callahan's restaurant at the Shilo Inn in The Dalles, OR... which I thought was like, the fanciest of fancy...it wasn't) I yoinked a baby corn off of Mel's plate when she wasn't looking, and it was pickled or something, and it tasted awful, and I threw up. I've been super anti baby corn ever since that day. PS. this is totally not food-blog friendly, but I have a lot of stories that end with "and then I threw up." 

But I digress, this post really has nothing to do with baby corn or my wimpy stomach. It's all about no-salad-salad.

So anyway, whenever I try to make the standard no-salad-salad, I feel like it doesn't come out quite as good as when my friends do it. It feels like a big, jumbled, incoherent mess. That's why I like themed no-salad-salads. Like Greek-style salads loaded with chickpeas, cucumbers, tomatoes, and olives. Or, my favorite: a no-salad-salad with southwest flair. Otherwise known as a burrito bowl. Can we just call it a Southwest Quinoa Burrito Bowl�Salad? 

This one has so much goodness in it: sweet corn fresh off the cob (not the baby variety, thankyouverymuch), avocado, green onions, tomatoes, cilantro, black beans, and cotija cheese, all doused with fresh squeezed lime juice. You could definitely eat this as is. Or you could make it even better by tossing it with quinoa and a creamy southwest sauce. I vote you do that. I vote you do that right now. 

Southwest Quinoa Burrito Bowl Salad

Serves 4

Creamy Southwest Sauce

1/2 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon honey

1 tablespoon water

1/2 teaspoon of each: cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano

Splash hot sauce (I use Tapatio) 

Juice from half a lime

Salt & pepper to taste

For sauce, whisk together sour cream through hot sauce, until smooth and creamy. Save the other lime half for salad. Salt & Pepper to taste. 

Salad 

1 cup uncooked quinoa

1 can black beans, drained & rinsed

1 large tomato, diced

1 avocado, diced

Fresh corn off the cob from 1 ear

2-3 green onions, sliced

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

1/3 cup crumbled cotija cheese

Juice from half a lime

Creamy Southwest Sauce

Cook quinoa: Rinse until water runs clear, drain. Add to a medium pot with 2 cups of water and a pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to medium low and simmer 15 to 20 minutes, until water is absorbed. Fluff with a fork and cool before mixing with salad. 

Stir together black beans through cotija cheese, and toss with lime juice. Add cooled quinoa, and stir until just combined (gently, so you don't moosh up the avocado). Salt and pepper to taste. To eat, either mix in the sauce, or add sauce to each serving. 

Wine Country or Bust: Sonoma

We went to wine country last weekend for Amanda's big dirty 30 birthday. Can I just move to Sonoma like, right now? 

It was so beautiful there, the people are super friendly, and the food and wine... yep. Loved it. A lot. 

The eight of us (Sonomaballin' Crew 2013...classy as always) rode bikes down little dusty backroads between vineyards, drank a ton of wine (maybe a little too much wine, but who's counting), tasted all kinds of cheese, ate a ton of good food, and went a little crazy in the swimming pool at our rental house. 

Highlights: riding bikes through the most beautiful country side ever, the wine and pizza at Benziger Family Winery, the scenery at Ravenswood, the artwork at Imagery, the picnic we had at Bartholomew Park Winery, the brunch at Girl and the Fig (seriously, get the fried green tomatoes, you won't regret it...and the chorizo, holy hell that chorizo...), Jim from Jacuzzi Winery (he asked if we have "YOLO" in Seattle), and the all around good timing friends I was there with. PS. A few photos here are from Dee, Evan, or Amanda, the rest are mine. 

Brown Fat: It's a Big Deal

Non-shivering thermogenesis is the process by which the body generates extra heat without shivering. Shivering is a way for the body to use muscular contractions to generate heat, but non-shivering thermogenesis uses a completely different mechanism to accomplish the same goal: a specialized fat-burning tissue called brown fat. Brown fat is brown rather than white because it's packed with mitochondria, the power plants of the cell. Under cold conditions, these mitochondria are activated, using a specialized molecular mechanism called uncoupling* to generate heat.

The mechanism of brown fat activation has been worked out fairly well in rodents, which rely heavily on non-shivering thermogenesis due to their small body size. Specialized areas of the hypothalamus in the brain sense body temperature (through sensors in the brain and body), body energy status (by measuring leptin and satiety signals), stress level, and probably other factors, and integrate this information to set brown fat activity. The hypothalamus does this by acting through the sympathetic nervous system, which heavily innervates brown fat. As an aside, this process works basically the same in humans, as far as we currently know. Those who claim that rodent models are irrelevant to humans are completely full of hot air**, as the high degree of conservation of the hypothalamus over 75 million years of evolution demonstrates.

Two new studies concurrently published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation last week demonstrate what I've suspected for a long time: brown fat can be 'trained' by cold exposure to be more active, and its activation by cold can reduce body fatness.

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