Giving for Good

Each of us has important people in our lives whom we like to honor with tokens of love, gratitude, and affection. The quest to find meaningful gifts that will be enjoyed and not stowed can be daunting, expensive, and exhausting. I have assembled a smattering of ideas for alternative gifting that I hope will help and inspire you. 

Honor the Person Who Needs Nothing with a Gift that Keeps on Giving 

• Consider making a gift to Kiva in his or her name. Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Here’s how it works: You make a gift to Kiva in the amount of $25 or more in honor of someone. Kiva notifies the individual about your gift with an invitation to search through the Kiva database of over 5,000 loans and select a borrower. When the loan is repaid, the process repeats! 
• At Oxfam Unwrapped YOU choose the gift when you honor someone. (For example: A Christmas donkey for $150 or a toilet for $50.) You receive a humorous gift card to send. 
• Heifer International works in much the same way. You can browse their gift catalogue here. 

Stuck with what to give a grandchild? 

• How about the gift of an adventure with you? Check out the intergenerational offerings at Road Scholar. 
• Or consider a gift to his or her college fund. Ask your son or daughter for info on how to make a contribution. Or, set up a CHET account yourself and take the CT tax deduction.

If you want to give a tangible gift, try these ideas:

Edible Gifts:

• Homemade baked goods.
• A gift certificate to a favorite coffee shop, deli, or restaurant.
• Support a family farmer by shopping at CitySeed Farmers Market (Saturdays and Sundays until Dec 18) OR online through Local Harvest with its catalogue of over 5500 products including fresh fruits, nuts, dried fruits, and non-edibles from beeswax candles to clothing and baskets.

Shop for Good:

•  Make someone’s life better by shopping at Ten Thousand Villages, a fair trade retailer, with an online shopping site AND a physical store on Chapel Street. The company strives to improve the livelihood of artisans in developing countries. According to the website, “$140 million in sustainable income has been earned by makers who would otherwise be unemployed or underemployed since our founding in 1946.”
• Shop to benefit a local not-for-profit such as Creative Arts Workshop’s Celebration of American Crafts. 
• Shop at a museum gift shop: Yale Center for British Art, Yale University Art Gallery, the Peabody Museum, or the New Haven Museum Shop.
• Give a green and useful gift like LED lightbulbs, good for the environment and for the user’s budget. IKEA is a great place to shop for these; it is the only type of bulb they sell.
• Also at IKEA: For every toy, piece of play furniture, or children's book sold until December 24, the IKEA Foundation will donate $1 supporting children's right to play and develop. The New Haven store is collecting soft toys for the Yale New Haven Children's Hospital, so buy a few extra to put in the donation bin. 

Other Ideas:

• Do you have too many cookbooks? Pass some of them on, perhaps adding tabs for your favorite recipes and decorating with a gadget or two instead of a bow. 
• Make a gift. 
• Do you have too many notecards? Give them, along with a selection of beautiful stamps, to someone who still likes to correspond the old-fashioned way. 
• Divide and repot your plants. (Be sure to keep them warm when you transport them).
• If you have a skill you would like to share with someone, give the gift of lesson(s).

Happy Gifting!

[Note: This is an edited version of an article I wrote for the holiday issue of HomeHaven News, a monthly newsletter for the members of HomeHaven, an organization in New Haven helping seniors to "age in place." While some of the ideas are geared to shopping locally, I hope they will give you ideas for ways to help the community in which you live.]

Meatless Monday Matters

CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL.  In these uncertain times each of us needs to commit to doing all we can to lower our individual carbon footprint.

Eating less meat is one step we can take.

Wasting less food is another.

A small step is better than no step. It can be as simple as making a meal at home from ingredients you have on hand, especially those that are nearing the end of their shelf life.

If you feel like comfort food at the moment, this recipe might be just what you need. Inspired by a dish I once ordered at a pancake place, it comes out of the oven high like a popover and falls as soon as you cut into it. It will take you to a happy (ier) place. 

It is very easy to make and is a great way to use up apples picked earlier in the fall that are starting to become a little soft. If you do much cooking you probably have the other ingredients in your fridge and pantry.

BAKED APPLE PANCAKE

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup butter
• 4 tart apples
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup milk

Directions

• Preheat ovn to 425°.
• Melt the butter in a large cast iron skillet.
• Peel and slice the apples.
• Add the apple slices to the melted butter and stir.
• Lower the heat and continue cooking, stirring often until apples are tender.
• Remove the skillet from the heat.
• Combine the eggs, flour, and milk and whisk together until smooth. [You can use a blender.]
• Spread the apples evenly in the skillet.
• Pour the batter over the apples.
• Bake for 20 minutes until the pancake is puffed up and nicely browned.
• Cut into 6 pieces and serve immediately with a bit of maple syrup.

[I have only baked this in a skillet but I imagine a casserole dish would work, too.]

This may not be the most nutritious meal, but there are far worse.

• This comfort dish has benefits, too.
• You have kept food in your fridge from going to waste.
• You have lowered your carbon footprint by passing up meat AND by leaving your car turned off.
• It is also a really cheap meal. Perhaps you can do some good with the money you save.

I am not saying this is all we need to do in the days ahead, but observing Meatless Monday is a good start.

On Mondays I often blog on food, food issues, or gardening in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

The Great Pumpkin Revisited

Just in time for Hallowe'en! Today's Meatless Monday topic is the pumpkin. Celebrated at this time of year for its potential to grow to a gargantuan size and the ease with which it can be carved, the pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo) has been a valuable source of nourishment for centuries. 

The pumpkin originated in Central America but is now grown on six continents. Pumpkins come in numerous varieties. Some are better for eating or growing large; others are better for carving. The Jack-o’-lantern in the photo was most likely carved from a Connecticut Field pumpkin. 

The Pilgrims were not familiar with the pumpkin when they landed on the shores of what is now Massachusetts in the 1600s. But they soon learned of the many ways the Native Americans put the pumpkin to good use including roasting of long strips of pumpkin on the open fire for eating, and drying strips of pumpkin for weaving into mats. The creative colonists went on to invent uses of their own: the origin of pumpkin pie occurred when the colonists sliced off the pumpkin top, removed the seeds, filled the insides with milk, spices and honey and then baked the pumpkin in hot ashes. They also found a way to turn it into beer, a tradition that continues in the brewing of seasonal ale to this day.

Pumpkins are a nutritious food, low in calories, high in fiber, and packed with vitamins and minerals. One cup of cooked pumpkin has 2 grams of protein, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 564 mg of potassium, an astounding 2650 IU of Vitamin A, and a mere 49 calories.

Newly-harvested pumpkins are readily available at farmers markets, farm stands, and supermarkets. With Thanksgiving on the horizon, store shelves are well stocked with cans of pumpkin that have been cooked and puréed to make life easier when you have to whip up a pumpkin pie on the fly. 

These cans of pumpkin are good for lots more than pie, so pick up a few before they disappear. They will come in handy when you crave a pumpkin treat and local pumpkins are nowhere to be found. One of my favorite uses for pumpkin purée is in a cornbread recipe I adapted from a recipe from The Muffin Cookbook: Muffins for All Occasions, a spiral-bound cookbook published to promote name-brand canned goods and dairy products.  

Tex-Mex Pumpkin Corn Muffins (Cornbread)

Ingredients:
1 cup yellow organic cornmeal
1 cup unbleached organic flour
2 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon (or more) of your favorite chili powder
2 eggs
1 cup canned organic pumpkin (NOT pie filling) 
[Note: Feel free to cook and prepare your own.]
1 cup low-fat milk
2 tablespoons organic canola oil
1 4 oz can chopped green chili peppers (mild) or one small, fresh chili chopped
3 oz (or more to taste; I use at least 4 oz) of extra sharp Cheddar cheese, grated

In a large bowl combine dry ingredients. In a smaller bowl beat eggs; mix in pumpkin, milk, oil, and chopped chili peppers. Add wet ingredients to dry; combine with rubber scraper just until moistened. Turn into an oiled 10” cast iron skillet. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake in 425° oven for 20-25 minutes —just until cake tester comes out dry. If you decide to bake as muffins, temperature should be lowered to 400°, time will be approximately the same, but check on the early side. Makes around 18 muffins. 

This cornbread is a wonderful accompaniment to pea soup or curried kale. Leftovers (if there are any) taste great after being lightly toasted in a toaster oven and then spread win a little grape jam.

Now for some Jack-o’-lantern trivia in honor of this holiday: This tradition was brought to the United States by the Irish. The myth behind the Jack-o’-lantern involves a stingy man named Jack who makes a deal with the devil and finds himself wandering forever after he dies, unable to gain admittance to either Heaven or Hell. Legend has it that the devil tossed Jack an ember from Hell to light his way. Jack placed the ember in a carved out turnip which he carried with him as he roamed the earth. People in the British Isles began carving various root vegetables to make their own “Jack-o’-lanterns” to keep Stingy Jack and other evil spirits away. The Irish used turnips (and sometimes potatoes). Upon arriving in the US, they discovered the readily available, larger, and easy to carve pumpkin. “Turnip Jack” soon became history and the pumpkin Jack-o’-lantern became part of American culture. 

[Note: This post was originally published in October 2010.]

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.

Meatless Monday: Water Saving Pasta

We are in a drought in Connecticut. Our fall palette is somewhat muted this year with russet tones replacing our normally brilliant reds. Our rainfall deficit is why state residents are being asked to voluntarily reduce water consumption by 10%. The New Haven Regional Water Authority has a number of water saving tips on its website. We don’t have a water shortage at the moment, but we need to preserve what we have in our reservoirs.

Over the past year or two in our house we have switched to low flow toilets, and we recently replaced a sink with leaky faucets. We have long had water efficient shower heads and aerators on our sinks. So we are down to the small things, mainly being more mindful of water use whenever we turn on the tap. This brings me to my Meatless Monday adventure of the day, my experiment with Barilla Pronto Pasta. Pronto promises: One Pan. No Boil. No Drain. Dinner for 6 in under 15 minutes!

I have long been a fan of Barilla in general and Barilla’s no-boil lasagna in particular because it allows me to make lasagna quickly on demand. So when I noticed Pronto products on the shelf I decided to give them a try. The Italian-American woman on checkout made a snide comment when she put the Pronto in my bag, but I brought it home and did a little research.

I checked out the Barilla website and found a YouTube video.

I decided Friday night was the night and I followed the directions on the box:

• Pour the whole box of pasta into a large skillet,
• Pour three cups of cold water into the pan, making sure that the water covers the pasta.
• Turn the burner to high, stirring regularly, until most of the water is absorbed.
• Remove from heat and add your favorite ingredients.

It worked! Less water, and none down the drain. Fewer dishes.

Here are before and after images:

Starting Out

Done

I used cold water from the fridge and I couldn’t bring myself to turn the flame really high,  so it took 12 minutes instead of 10 for my pasta to cook. You will know when you stir it if your pasta is done.

I saved half the pasta for another day and topped the rest with a small batch of fresh pesto. It was delicious, and it had the taste and texture of the pasta I normally used.

I am not sure how they do it; the ingredients and nutrition info for Pronto Penne are the same as in the traditional variety. I wonder if you could do the same with the whole grain version, perhaps with a little more water, and a little more time? Could you use a little less gas by not turning the burner quite so high? I will have to do some experimenting.

What I do know is that Pronto made life a little easier on the night I tried it, and it did take less water.

Keep in mind that blue box pasta is not a nutritious meal in and of itself, but if your day has slipped away and you have the perfect something to serve on top, this product is really great.

FYI If you are used to microwaving your leftovers, be warned that Pronto tends to stick together when reheated. It will be fine once you add your sauce and give it a good stir.

Happy Monday!

I often blog on food, food issues, or topics related to growing things on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Meatless Monday: Oven Roasted Tomatoes

Those of you who read my recent post on peaches know that I cannot pass up a bargain, particularly when it comes to food. At a late Friday stop at Bishops’s Orchards in Guilford, Connecticut (on a quick mission to buy lettuce on our way home from Hammonasset Beach State Park) we discovered that large baskets of plum tomatoes were available for just under $11. We had to buy one.

When the weather turned surprisingly wet and windy on Sunday, I had the perfect opportunity to turn these beauties into two large batches of Oven Roasted Tomatoes, using a recipe from a cookbook called The Cape Cod Table, by Lora Brody.

In her preface to the recipe Lora Brody wrote, “These tomatoes will become a kitchen staple when you see how much punch and flavor they add to a vast number of dishes, including soups, sauces, fish, poultry, and meat.”

She is so right. I have been cooking up multiple batches in early fall for the past several years. I use my largest stainless steel baking pan; it holds 30 plum tomatoes, by my calculations equal to the amount called for in the recipe. The recipe is really easy if you have a large pan and a bit of time on your hands.

Oven Roasted Tomatoes

Ingredients

• 5 pounds of plum tomatoes, rinsed and cut in half lengthwise
• 4 large springs fresh thyme, or 2 teaspoons dry thyme leaves [Fresh is great, but dry is fine.]
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3 tablespoons balsamic or red wine vinegar [I used balsamic with a delicious result.]
• 2 teaspoons coarse salt
• Five or six peeled shallots if available [My tweak. I had some on hand and had used them in the past in a similar recipe.]

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 400°F, with the rack in the upper third of the oven, but not the highest position.
• Place the thyme in the bottom of the roasting pan.
• Spread the tomatoes over the thyme, in one layer if possible.
• Scatter the shallots.
• Drizzle with the olive oil, and sprinkle with the vinegar and salt.
• Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the tomatoes have browned (unevenly) and given up their juices and the juices have reduced and become slightly thickened and syrupy. [I let them go for an hour and a half.]
• Allow the tomatoes to cool in the pan.
• Remove the thyme sprigs if used.

Tomatoes before cooking

Once the tomatoes are out of the oven I let them cool down and congeal a bit at room temperature. I put them in a covered glass casserole overnight in the fridge and then bag them in freezer bags, label and date them, and lay them flat in the freezer; I find that three cups per bag works well. If you don’t eat them they will last until next season.

Tomatoes when they are done

My favorite use? Can I mention fish on Meatless Monday? I like to use my oven roasted tomatoes for baking or poaching cod fillets. I discovered individually wrapped MSC certified  Atlantic Cod Fillets, frozen in packages of six at Whole Foods. Three cups of tomatoes is the perfect amount for cooking two fillets, and that is all you need to make a great meal. It is easier if you thaw the fillets in the refrigerator a day ahead.

However you use your oven roasted tomatoes, I promise you will be amazed at just how easy it is to give yourself a taste of summer all winter long.

Happy Monday!

I often blog on food, food issues, or topics related to growing things on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Meatless Monday: Peaches 3 Ways

We had a very pleasant surprise on a visit to Bishops’s Orchards in Guilford, Connecticut several weeks (and a season ago now). We are peach lovers and, though hopeful, didn’t really expect to find baskets of perfect, ripe, jumbo, native peaches for sale. They were pricey at $22.99 a basket, but we couldn’t resist.

They were a little firm when we brought them home. I spread them out in flat baskets in a single layer and waited for them to ripen. By the next morning I found one ready to slice for breakfast cereal. By the next day the scent of peaches permeated the air, and it was time to do something with them. 

These survivors of both the early budding/late frost in the spring and the scorching summer drought that followed are the sweetest and juiciest I can remember — the kind that send liquid dribbling down your chin when you bite into them. We did not want to waste a single one.

I set aside about a dozen, and the rest I froze using a very easy method that had worked for me last peach season.

Easy Frozen Peaches

• Line a baking sheet with plastic wrap.
• Peel and slice the peaches as you would for a pie. [A ripe peach peels easily. If the skin doesn’t come off easily, you can dip the peach into boiling water for 10-20 seconds using a slotted spoon, cool slightly and then peel.]
• Lay the slices on the baking sheet in a single layer without overlapping them.
• Cover with a sheet of plastic wrap, pressing the wrap firmly down over the peach pieces.
• Pop into the freezer overnight (or until the peaches are firmly frozen).
• Put the peach slices into ziplock freezer bags.

Last year I sliced, froze, and bagged five peaches (enough for a crumb top pie) as an experiment. Turning them into a pie was a snap.

That evening we had fresh peach halves filled with Sweet Italian Cream, probably the easiest elegant dessert ever. This was a dish inspired by a recipe in an Italian travel magazine calling for mascarpone, marsala, and crushed amaretti, none of which I had in my pantry. It did, however, bring to mind a ricotta-based recipe from my friend Claire Criscuolo’s cookbook Italian Feast. I had no sweet vermouth, but I did have everything else. I substituted Amaretto and came up with a delicious treat.

Here is my version:

Italian Cream Filled Peaches

(Makes enough to fill 4 peaches)

INGREDIENTS

• 1/8 cup golden raisins
• 1-1/2 tablespoons Amaretto
• 8 ounces whole milk ricotta
• 1/8 confectioners sugar, sifted

DIRECTIONS

• Soak the raisins in the Amaretto for half an hour, stirring occasionally.
• Put the cheese in a bowl.
• Add the now plumped raisins with any liquid remaining.
• Add the sugar.
• Stir to combine.
• Peel and cut two peaches in half.
• Remove the pit.
• Use the sweet ricotta to fill the centers. 
• Put any remaining cheese into the refrigerator.

Claire uses her sweet ricotta to top poundcake and fill cream puffs. She also shared that her mother liked to spread it on her breakfast toast.

And the next day I made this beautiful pie, based on the Neely’s Peach Crumb Pie  on the Food Network site. The only substitution I made was to swap almond flour for the flour. It enhanced the flavor of the sliced almonds, which goes so well with the taste of fresh peaches. 

The recipe is “easy” as it promises, particularly if you have an empty pie crust on hand. The smell as it bakes is sublime. It is particularly delicious served slightly warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. This is why I froze just enough peaches to make this pie on some cold, dreary day in the future when a taste of summer is just what I need.

My apologies. Peach season is over. It’s time for apples and pumpkins now, and these tips will be much more useful next August. Life got in the way of blogging. That happens sometimes.

I often blog on food, food issues, or topics related to growing things on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Meatless Monday: Raspberries, Raspberries

The normal late summer sequence of Pick Your Own in Connecticut is blueberries, peaches, raspberries. It was a terrible season for pick your own peaches; a string of 50 degree days in February tricked the trees into thinking Spring had arrived and then two extremely cold spells damaged the buds, but this year’s raspberry crop is amazing! 

Nearby Bishops’s Orchards grows a variety called Heritage. Their orchard handout sheet explains that pruning the canes to ground level in late winter yields new growth that produces a crop in late summer and early fall. The season typically begins in mid-to-late August, peaking in September, and winding to a complete close after a killing frost. Several friends have reported that the picking is already great, and I have evidence, too — the 4 qt basket of freshly picked berries two friends gave to my husband on Friday!

Raspberries are a fragile fruit, and you really need to use them within a day to keep them from losing their shape and spoiling. I didn’t want to waste a berry. So I came up with a plan. 

• We gently washed and ate some right away.
• We picked out individual beauties, laid them out on a single layer on a baking sheet, and put them in the freezer. The next morning I poured the frozen berries into a ziplock bag. I followed old advice to freeze the berries without washing and to rinse the frozen berries well before using. The new message seems to wash and dry gently first. You can read more about storing fresh berries here. 
• We set some aside in one layer in the fridge for eating on cereal over the next two days.
• I measured out 4 cups to bake into raspberry crisp the next morning.

We had been buying and enjoying long distance berries over the past few weeks as they have been a BOGO item in all the supermarkets. But it was amazing to taste the difference a local berry makes.

Crisp is one of the easiest desserts to bake. It stores well in the freezer, too. Here’s a photo of the one I baked while it was still intact.

Here is the recipe I used; it is based on an old Bishop’s Orchard handout.

RASPBERRY CRISP

Ingredients

• 4 cups fresh raspberries
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/3 cup almond meal [The original recipe called for flour.]
• 3/4 cup rolled oats
• Fresh lemon juice

Directions

• Place berries in a 9” square pan.
• Sprinkle with a few drops of lemon juice.
• Mix together dry ingredients.
• Cut butter into the dry ingredients [This is a snap with a hand held pastry blender if you have one.] 
• Sprinkle the topping evenly over the raspberries. 
• Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until the berries start to bubble.

This was a birthday dessert, so we topped it with Farmer’s Cow Hay! Hay! Hat! Vanilla Ice Cream. 

Raw raspberries (fresh or frozen) are high in Vitamin C and dietary fiber and have many other health benefits. You can use them to top your cereal or spinach salad. 

Raspberries are also great in pie. And they make delicious syrup and jam. There are many, many ways to prepare them. 

I plan a visit (or two) to Bishop’s soon, a tradition I began when our son was small. It was the perfect outing for those early fall school holidays. Bishop’s has a “sin bin” for contributions to pay for the berries that never made it to the basket for weighing; back then I was a generous donor.

If you want to locate a PYO near your, Local Harvest is a great place to start. Enter a location and click on Pick Your Own to find the farms nearest you. It’s a great and healthy family outing. Enjoy!

I often blog on food, food issues, or topics related to growing things on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Saturday Shorts: 08.27.16 Out with the Old

I’m finally back, with a really short post. It’s not like me to throw anything away, but today I tossed the incandescent lightbulbs I had stashed in my basement. I put them in a sturdy paper bag. I crushed them. I bagged the paper bag in a saved plastic bag and then I put the whole shebang into my brown Toter for pickup on Monday.

Embed from Getty Images

I had long suspected I should no longer use these old bulbs. I knew that incandescents, unlike fluorescents, contain no hazardous material requiring that they be brought to a collection center. I had been hoarding them in the hope that I could find out how to recycle them. In August the Sierra Club’s “Mr. Green” answered the question: “Is it better to use up old incandescent bulbs, or should I recycle them for LEDs instead?” In his answer he confirmed that  yes, these bulbs are energy hogs and should never again be used. He also stated that the recycling value of incandescent bulbs is really low and he advised his readers to throw them out. So I finally did. You can read Mr. Green’s full response to this dilemma here. 

When shopping for new bulbs, please take Mr. Green’s advice (and mine) and visit the Energy Star site for some excellent tips.

Have a great Saturday!

Meatless Monday: The Ubiquitous Prickly Lettuce

Prickles

Even in the midst of this year’s rainfall deficit in Connecticut  [currently down about 6 inches from its usual total], the wild urban plants continue to thrive. One of the most prolific inhabitants of the space between fence and sidewalk is prickly lettuce (Lactusa serriola), so named for the prickly spines on the underside of its leaves. An ancestor to today’s salad lettuces, Lactusa serriola is a member of the sunflower family and is native to Europe. 

Prickly lettuce has a basal rosette of pale green leaves from which rises a single hollow stem that can grow to 7 feet! Its alternate leaves are deeply lobed; they typically orient themselves vertically toward the sun, rather than horizontally, leading to the nickname “compass plant.” The tops of the leaves are smooth, but the bottom is prickly, particularly along the midrib [an easy way to distinguish this plant from the dandelion whose leaves have a somewhat similar appearance]. It has a long and sturdy taproot and spreads by re-seeding. Like its modern-day relatives, prickly lettuce grows best in nutrient-rich soils, but it can tolerate dry sites with poor soil, one of the reasons it thrives when lawns are turning brown!

Tiny flowers, gone by.

In mid-summer, the plant blooms at its tip with a profusion of small, yellow flowers. “Individual plants can produce from 35 to 2,300 flowers. Each flower head contains an average of 20 seeds, giving an estimated seed production of 700 and 46,000 seeds per plant, respectively. Most seeds are viable and ready to germinate immediately after dispersal.” The seed can survive in the ground for one to three years.

Pods starting to form.

Prickly lettuce was traditionally used in herbal medicine as a sedative and a painkiller, hence one more nickname, “opium lettuce.” Some modern day foragers gather and eat its shoots or smoke its leaves, but most authorities caution against harvesting and using this plant as it is known to have toxic effects. In fact, WebMD has listed a number of warnings to those who decide to experiment with this plant. They urge everyone to avoid eating wild lettuce in large quantities, but the site also lists a number of immediate dangers to ingesting even a small amount of this plant for those with medical conditions including enlarged prostate, an allergy to ragweed, or narrow-angle glaucoma, as well as for those taking prescribed sedatives or about to have surgery. As a food source, perhaps it is best to leave this lettuce alone.

The plant is particularly troublesome to wheat farmers because the buds can be difficult to screen out of grain. The latex can clog equipment. However, rather than demonizing the wild lettuce, Washington State researchers chose to explore its possibilities as a cash crop. They were intrigued by the milky sap the plant exudes from all its parts when it is broken. A 2006 study had found that the latex in prickly lettuce was very similar to the polymers in natural rubber. The WSU researchers began by mapping prickly lettuce DNA. The initial findings were published in 2015 and seem promising; regions in the plant’s genetic code were found to be similar to those of plants used in the production of rubber. This is indeed good news as the Brazilian rubber tree, our main source of natural latex, is threatened by disease; over half of our rubber products are now being made from petrochemicals. Perhaps one day prickly lettuce will be cultivated and our tires will be made from this wild plant.

Prickly lettuce has one other property I should mention. Peter Del Tredici, author of Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast, states that this plant can be used in phytoremediation of urban sites contaminated by heavy metals, particularly zinc and cadmium. [Another reason not to eat prickly lettuce harvested from a parking lot.] 

I hope you have enjoyed this tale of a plant that you most likely have seen but may not have noticed. If so, you might also like to read my past posts on the wild carrot and purslane. 

Happy Monday!

I often blog on food, food issues, or topics related to growing things on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Meatless Monday: Celebrate Summer

Eat Well. Stay Safe. Don’t Let the Bugs Bite!

Summer is in full swing, and it’s time to head outdoors to enjoy the long sunny days with family and friends.

Much as I like to cook, my summer game plan includes spending as little time in the kitchen as possible. I make lots of salads, some whipped up with canned beans and condiments from the cupboard, others more elaborate and based on what produce has come into season at the farmer's market. My key to success is to make sure I always have fresh greens on hand for a salad base, and to make extra grains each time I cook so that I can easily turn a simple salad into a meal.

As promised here is a link to all my blog posts on salads to get you inspired. They are in chronological order beginning with last weeks’s recipe. I can almost guarantee that there is something in this list to appeal to even the pickiest eater.

• Three-Bean Salad 
• Farro Salad
• Last Days of Summer Salad Note: This is the perfect salad to make when local berries come into season. Don’t wait until September to try this.

The time is now for this Danish treat!

• Kale Salad
• How to Turn Any Salad into a Meal 
• Quinoa Salad
• Greek Cucumber Salad 
• Fred Harvey’s Coleslaw Note: This recipe, made popular by railroad restaurateur Fred Harvey, is simply delicious and particularly refreshing on a hot day — perfect for a 4th of July cookout!
• Hakurei Turnip Salad

Now that we have Salads covered, I want to share a couple of summer safety tips.

As tempting as it might be to run out the door and head to the beach without applying sunscreen or putting on a hat, keep in mind that in the northern hemisphere the sun’s rays are the longest and most powerful at this time of year. Unprotected exposure to intense sunlight increases the risk of skin cancer, particularly between the hours of 10 am and 2 pm. Be warned that while some sunscreens are long lasting and do what is promised on the label, others are inadequate. Each year the watchdog Environmental Working Group tests and rates sunscreens on the market; here is the link to this year’s list. Good Guide is another useful consumer tool, rating products based on safety, health, and environmental factors. See how your sunscreen performs here.

And don’t forget the dangers from insect bites. Even though I don’t plan to hit the tropics, the Zika virus has been on my mind. I visited the CDC website to see what they recommend for insect repellants and I discovered this excellent fact sheet. I then checked out the latest recommendations from Consumer Reports and I learned there was one repellant, Sawyer Picaridin, that is effective for at least eight hours against the mosquitoes that transmit the Zika virus, the Culex mosquitoes (which can spread West Nile virus), AND deer ticks (which can spread Lyme Disease). Here is the link to the report. Sawyer Picaridin can be purchased on Amazon as well as in a number of big box retailers; here is a store locator.

I'm all ready to enjoy some time outside the kitchen. I hope you are, too.

Eat well. Stay safe. Don’t let the bugs bite!

Happy Summer! Happy Meatless Monday.

On Mondays I often blog on food, food issues, or gardening in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”