Meatless Monday: Summer is for Salads

It’s the first day of summer! And the weather in New England is glorious at the moment. With such perfect weather it is a shame to spend too much time indoors. In our house, summertime is salad time, especially now that fresh local greens and berries are making their way to our farmers’ markets. With some careful planning before you go to the market, and a bit of advance preparation on the weekend, you too can stock your fridge for a week’s worth of salads.

In all my years of Meatless Monday blogging I can’t believe I have never shared this favorite recipe — a riff on “Kidney Bean Salad” from Recipes for a Small Planet, by Ellen Buchman Ewald, first published in 1973. This easy to prepare salad is versatile and economical; it can be altered depending on the ingredients you have on hand, making it perfect for a surprise invitation to a potluck. Served on a bed of greens with a side of bread it is all you need for a quick dinner on a hot summer night. It stores well in the fridge and makes a wonderful grab and go lunch for the office or a spontaneous picnic. No need for those high-price containers from the deli section!

The original recipe follows with my changes in brackets.

KIDNEY BEAN SALAD [AKA Three Bean Salad]

6 portions; 1 portion=approx. 7 grams of protein

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup dry kidney beans [1 small can kidney beans + 1 small can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained, + 1/3 lb. fresh or frozen green beans, lightly steamed]
• 1 green [red] pepper, chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped onions [Vidalia]
• 1 teaspoon crushed or minced garlic
• 1/2 cup olive oil [extra virgin]
• 1/4 cup wine vinegar
• 1/8 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon tomato catsup
• dash [or 2 or 3] hot sauce
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley [Italian] 
• 1 cup yogurt whisked with …1/4 cup milk powder [Greek yogurt]

DIRECTIONS

• Combine the beans, pepper, onions, and garlic.
• Make a dressing of the remaining ingredients EXCEPT yogurt and milk powder.
• Pour the dressing over the bean mixture and toss gently. 
• Refrigerate at least one hour.
• Just before serving, stir in the yogurt mixture.

Optional additions: chopped cucumber and/or celery. NOTE: I chose not to stir the yogurt into the mix. I prefer to top each salad with a scoop of Greek yogurt, some crumbled feta cheese, or some grated sharp cheddar. The salad stores better that way.

Enjoy your time outside the kitchen! And come back next week for a complete list of the salad recipes I have shared over the years.

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.”

Meatless Monday: Monastery Lentils

This was one crazy, mixed up holiday season. With an out-of-town family wedding just one week before Christmas, things got a little out of control, and the usual ways of celebrating were lost for the year, or at least delayed.

I finally got around to preparing a lentil dish to greet the new year. But I was about a week late. For a history of this custom and for past lentil dishes, check out these posts from 2011 and 2014. 

This time I turned to a dog-eared recipe from one of the first cookbooks I acquired — Lentils, Monastery Style from Francis Morre Lappé’s Diet for a Small Planet, published in 1971. Perhaps “Monastery Style” alludes to the sherry, but, whatever the reference, this recipe is one of the best in the volume.

Here’s the original recipe verbatim.

Lentils, Monastery Style 

Serves 4-6

In a large pot sauté 3- 5 minutes:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 1 carrot, chopped

Add and sauté 1 minute more:

• 1/2 tsp each dried thyme and marjoram leaves

Add:

• 3 cups stock or seasoned water
• 1 cup dry lentils, washed
• salt to taste
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1 lb canned tomatoes

Cook in covered pot until lentils are tender (about 45 minutes) and add:

• 1/4 cup sherry

Have ready:

• 2/3 cup grated Swiss cheese

To serve, place 2 tbsp of grated cheese in each serving bowl and top with soup. This soup is especially delicious served with corn muffins. 

I followed the 1971 version pretty closely, but I did tweak the recipe just a bit. 

• I recalled that the lentils were a little crunchy following these directions, so I soaked them for several hours, and then drained and rinsed them before using.
• For the stock I used 3 cups of water and 2 cubes of Rapunzel Vegan Vegetable Bouillon, the no salt variety. [The tomatoes + the cheese should supply all the salt you need.]
• I used a 28 oz can of Muir Glen fire roasted, crushed organic tomatoes. 
• Because I used extra tomatoes, I also added a teaspoon of Penzey’s Bouquet Garni, a blend of savory, rosemary, thyme, Turkish oregano, basil, dill weed, marjoram, sage and tarragon. 
• Finally, in lieu of sherry, I added 1/2 cup of Marsala.

This dish made enough for two generous meals for the two of us when served with corn bread and salad, and it was delicious!

Notes on Francis Moore Lappé

Decades before the Meatless Monday movement began, Francis Moore Lappé wrote Diet for a Small Planet in response to the growing need for protein by the world’s rapidly increasing population. In the book’s introduction Lappé states: “For the first time it is possible to implement an end to the gross waste of literally millions of tons of high-grade protein, to release men from the confines of a largely meat diet, and to enjoy nutritionally sound protein from the richer and far more abundant sources that the earth provides. Here, step by step, is how you, the individual, can improve your own style-of-life— and at the same time help your very small planet.” Lappé is the author or co-author of 18 books and continues to work in the food movement. She is the cofounder of three organizations, including Oakland based think tank Food First and the Small Planet Institute which she leads with her daughter, Anna Lappé. See more here.

Happy Meatless Monday. 

And health and prosperity to you and yours in the year ahead.

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.”

Meatless Monday: Ricotta Has Many Uses

I made this cake for Father’s Day. I’ve made it many times and have shared the recipe in this blog before. 

The original recipe for Blueberry Ricotta Squares comes from a cookbook compiled under the direction of my cousin Kris Bregani for the Greenfield, New Hampshire PTO.

Over the years I have tweaked it, substituting almond meal for half the flour and butter for the shortening. [Butter is trending right now. “Ending the War on Fat” is the cover story of the most recent Time, and a delectable curl of butter is the cover’s star.

You can copy the cake recipe from last summer’s post. After the cake is cool I cover it loosely and store it in the fridge, but it is easy to warm a square up by zapping it for a few seconds in the microwave [on a microwave safe plate].

This is still a cake, with lots of carbs from sugar. But is high in protein, and thus makes a delicious special occasion breakfast treat. It’s way better for you than a Danish.

No matter what container size of ricotta you purchase for this cake, you will have leftovers.

You could use it to top a dish of pasta, but I have another idea…

Combine your extra ricotta with an equal amount of nut butter. Blend well with a fork and add local honey to taste. This make a delicious spread for toast, and a great alternative to the classic P,B & J Sandwich. The idea comes form Recipes for a Small Planet, by Ellen Buchman Ewald, published in 1972. One testimonial on the cover claimed that this volume “makes all other cookbooks obsolete.” I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s a good one.  

Happy Monday. Have a great week!

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.”

Meatless Monday: Learning to Deal with Kale

Something happened over the weekend:  the Meatless Monday site now lists me as a blogger-on-board, top right if you care to look. In appreciation, I’ve resolved to give my blog a bit of a schedule and to post on Mondays on a food-related topic on a more regular basis. So please bookmark this link (or mine), and check in every Monday for a new recipe or idea. While you’re at Meatless Monday, be sure to look on the site’s home page for the week’s featured recipes and the latest news on food issues, and to check out what some of the other bloggers have on their minds.

Today’s topic? My history with kale.

Kale is one of those good-for-you foods that I wish came with an instruction manual. It is only recently a part of my cooking repertoire, and then only after a lot of trial and error. I grew up in a Sicilian/Yankee household in a suburban Boston town. Kale was not something my dad grew in his garden. Nor was it something anyone I knew ate.

I have no memory of kale in the supermarket until the last decade or so. And I know (because I checked) that it was nearly absent from my first cookbooks. My 1973 Joy of Cooking (the same edition that describes how to cook woodchuck) gave kale a brief mention in a one-paragraph entry “About Greens,” which included a generic recipe that involved simmering a 2 lb. side of meat for 2 hours and then adding 2 lbs. of any of the aforementioned greens and simmering for 40 minutes more. Kale is not even listed in the index to the first Recipes for a Small Planet.

It was in the ’90s (I recall) that kale became a ubiquitous garnish on the restaurant plate where the lettuce used to be—for its beauty and durability I imagine. Not one to waste food, I usually ate mine, but unlike my experience with golden beets, I did not find myself craving more.

Sometime in the last 5 years, suddenly (or so it seemed to me), everyone from Dr. Oz to my friend Maggie, physical therapist to the aging, began extolling the benefits of eating kale. Kale has joined the short list of Super Foods! Among its many super traits is its high content of readily-absorbed calcium. I’m one to try any means possible to ward off osteoporosis, so my interest was piqued. And then I discovered that, unlike some other super foods, kale is kind to the pocketbook. A hardy crop, it is available everywhere from farmers markets to the supermarket for most of the year. And it won’t break the bank to buy it in the organic variety.

I decided to give it a try.

Experiment 1: I bought a small amount of kale at the supermarket, washed it well, chopped up the leaves, and added it to a salad. Too tough. Too much chewing. The kale got stuck in my teeth.

Experiment 2: I bought a larger bunch of supermarket kale. I washed it well and steamed it whole like swiss chard. No one told me the stems would stay that tough. I needed a knife to eat this dish.

Experiment 3: I bought some kale at the farmers market from a young woman who suggested I chop it up and sauté it in olive oil with some onion. This was better, but the stem was still too tough.

Experiment 4: I bought some kale at the farmers market. I washed it well. I removed all the tough stems. I chopped it and sautéed it with onion in some good olive oil. I added some fresh tomatoes (roughly chopped). This was pretty darn good served with some artisan bread.

This dish tastes even better than it appears.

Experiment 5:—Success, finally! Kale Stew with Tomatoes and Aromatic Spices. I bought a large bunch of organic kale—a dark, curly variety—at Whole Foods. I washed it well. I coarsely chopped a large yellow onion and minced two cloves of garlic, which I then sautéed in a large stainless steel skillet until they became soft.  I removed the stems from the kale, chopped the leaves, and added the kale to the pan, stirring until all the leaves were coated with the oil. I turned the heat down, covered the pan, and cooked gently until the kale was tender. I then added a 28 oz. of crushed tomatoes (I like Whole Foods Organic 365), and 2 teaspoons of Penzey’s Chili 9000 powder, which contains a long list of spices including ancho chili pepper, cumin, cayenne pepper, and cinnamon. (A good curry powder would probably serve as a fine substitute, but I am really fond of the way the 9000 tasted.) I then simmered the mixture, partially covered, for 1/2 hour of so until it became thick like a stew. I checked it for taste and added just a pinch of sea salt and a few grinds of black pepper. I served it over my favorite organic Texmati rice with a good dollop of Greek yogurt on top for a perfectly balanced meal. This is a delicious and hearty dish that an omnivore, or even a carnivore, will love.  

For more kale recipes, check out this site. Have no fear of failure. I’ve told you the most important hint. The kale stems belong in the compost pile, not on your plate!

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: Musings

I have chosen the first day back from vacation to return to a thread from an earlier post — Meatless Monday.

Meatless Monday is 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,” every Monday, all year long.

You might think I am returning to this theme out of guilt for writing about how to cook a woodchuck a few posts back, or you might rightly accuse me of not having my vacation adventures properly summarized and annotated. Whatever my motivation, Meatless Monday is the perfect opportunity to tell you about a couple of ground-breaking books with which you may not be familiar.

In the early 1970s, when the Joy of Cooking was THE cookbook on the kitchen shelf in many American homes, and Julia Child and James Beard were the decade’s culinary rock stars, two revolutionary books were published. Diet for a Small Planet, by Frances Moore Lappé (first edition 1971) and Recipes for a Small Planet, by Ellen Buchman Ewald (first edition 1973) promoted vegetarianism as a way to save yourself as well as the planet.

In the politically-charge Diet for a Small Planet, Lappé introduced the concept of “protein complementarity,” which she defined on the inside cover as “the combination, in the proper proportions, of non-meat foods, that produces high-grade protein nutrition equivalent to — or better than — meat protein.” The book can be viewed as a guide for healthy eating, but the work was originally motivated by Lapeé’s realization that we as a nation “squander” protein and are part of a system actively reducing the “earth’s capacity to provide food for all humanity.” The first half of the book is a scientific explanation of protein theory (along with a liberal smattering of political ideology), illustrated by copious charts and tables. This is followed by a series of recipes, each of which includes information on the protein in the recipe and how it is derived. Many of the recipes might be perceived as bland in this day and age, but there are a few I still use with a few tweaks (Vegetarian Enchiladas, Ricotta Lasagna Swirls, and Lentils Monastery Style). The appendix is a wealth of data supporting all that has come before, as well as helpful hints on cooking items that might be unfamiliar.

The two authors had become acquainted as they pursued their individual projects and each became a major influence on the other’s work. Ewald helped Lappé with her recipes. Lappé wrote the Foreword to Ewald’s book. Recipes for a Small Planet begins with a more concise narrative on protein complementarity and includes a generous appendix, but it is mainly a collection of delicious recipes, each one composed with the goal of maximizing the amount of protein in each serving. Many of my favorites come from the salad and dressings section.

The two books were published to be companion volumes. Both were revised, Recipes in 1985 and Diet most recently in 1991. Frances Moore Lappé has remained a political activist. With her daughter Anna she founded the Small Planet Institute, with the tagline “Living democracy, feeding hope.” Frances and Anna co-authored Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet in 2002. Anna has recently published her own volume — Diet for a Hot Planet “in which she continues where her mother left off and explores the intersection between global climate change and the way we eat.”

Ellen Buchman Ewald and Francis Moore Lappé changed the way a generation of Americans thought about food, cooked, and ate out. Numerous vegetarian cookbooks would follow as vegetarian dining became more mainstream, but these two authors paved the way.

One has to wonder if “Meatless Monday” would even exist without them.