Pink Rice

This was a delicious accident!  I started with an idea from Alicia Silverstone's The Kind Diet, but I didn't actually follow a recipe.  I boiled Jasmine Rice with organic veggie broth and then I got busy making paper snowflakes with my grown-up daughter.

Next thing I knew, I was smelling something crispy!  Thank goodness the rice didn't actually burn -- there were just some crunchy pieces at the bottom that came right up when I added a little water to the pot.  The crunch made for an interesting texture and flavor.   Since I overcooked it, the rice was kind of sticky and more porous than usual.  I added fresh basil, two chopped tomatoes and the juice of half a lemon.  The rice absorbed all the fresh tomato juice, becoming this lovely, salmon/ballet slipper shade.  When I'd followed Alicia's recipe, the rice had retained its whiteness.  It's only pink this time because I overcooked it.  Nevertheless, we all loved this fresh, funky-looking side dish.

Seasons Must Change

This year was not a big one for the garden.  The heat came early and I'm not cut out for it so I didn't plant very much.  I did have two tomato plants, one of them in a pot in the sunshine, and the other in my cultivated garden patch.  My potted cherry tomato did not disappoint, but my garden plot is now in the shade.  Our growing season spans most of the year and so our trees span most of the yard.  All my garden tomatoes are gorgeous and large, but green.  For weeks now I've been waiting for a hint of blush, but there's still no sign of it.

The same thing happened last year and I continued to wait for a ripe tomato until a few were spoiled by freezing.  Surprisingly, the ones which weren't cracked and soggy on the vine actually turned red in a bowl on my counter!  I thought that was interesting.  They were certainly getting less sunshine inside my kitchen than they were on their shady vine.  Maybe the difference is that our indoor climate is steady, albeit cool.  Taking no chances this year, I've brought most of what's out there inside.  I'll share if something fun happens.

A Word About Nightshades

I've been looking over some of my old writing and found the following blogpost, originally published on "Functional Food 4 Thought" the blog of Atlanta Functional Medicine.  I realized it might be helpful information for those of us who lead with veggies, so am sharing it today.

A Word About Nightshades

Mmm -- a fresh garden harvest. Enjoy with caution, veggie-lovers!

I know, I was just telling you about how adding more fresh, organic vegetables to your diet will cure many ills, but as you clean up your act you may begin to notice subtle differences in how individual foods make you feel. A system laden with the sludge of dairy, sugars, white carbohydrates and processed foods will not be sensitive enough to notice these subtleties. A cleaner system is not addled and numb. The effects of foods are immediately apparent, not delayed as in the sluggish system of someone eating the processed diet. It behooves each of us to be observant diners -- to be present in the moment and understand the effects of our nourishment.

A few years ago I was a novice gardener, so I gravitated toward hardier plants -- the ones which seem to thrive on neglect and seldom get eaten by garden marauders. As I began to clean up my own diet, I noticed a certain uncomfortable feeling on my tongue when eating eggplants which were only lightly cooked. Then I began thinking about how the eggplants in the garden, unlike the green beans, weren't nibbled by critters -- not even a little bit. So I did some research.

Eggplants are part of the nightshade family, the members of which are poisonous in varying degrees! The nightshades contain alkaloids which taste bad to animals, thus ensuring the plants' survival. Obviously, these veggies do not contain enough "poison" to kill you, even if eaten in large quantities, but they do have enough to make you sick, if you have a sensitivity, or to exacerbate certain existing conditions. Cooking the vegetables thoroughly serves to break down many of the offending alkaloids. The effects of nightshade alkaloids vary from person to person. Generally they've been found to cause disturbances in nerve-muscle function, joint function and digestion. If you suffer from arthritis, try limiting your nightshade intake and see if you notice a difference. Besides eggplants, the nightshade family includes tomatoes, potatoes (not sweet potatoes, which aren't even related to potatoes), peppers, tobacco, morning glory and belladonna, among others. The amounts of alkaloids in the nightshades vary from species to species, the worst likely being belladonna which is deadly, and one of the least being the tomato. An interesting side note: Thomas Jefferson deemed the tomato, unknown at the time, the "poisonous love apple" since he noticed it was eschewed by native Americans.

Of course adding more vegetables to our diets is important for overall health. Today's post is about fine-tuning. Your doctors at Atlanta Functional Medicine are familiar with the effects of food allergies and sensitivities and can work with you personally to discover what's best for you, and then you can make an informed choice. Vegetables from the nightshade family may or may not be tolerable for your system. If you are able to tolerate them, they're still better than a slab of baby back ribs!

by Cheryl Salinas

Previously published at Functional Food 4 Thought

A New Kind of Greek Salad

Many years ago, while I was still in college, my family and I spent a couple of months in Greece over the summer.  It wasn't intended to be such a long stay, but there was a highjacking a couple of days after our arrival and U.S. airlines had stopped flying to Athens.  Eventually, since we had to go back to school, we boarded a freighter ship to Ancona, Italy, and enjoyed a few bonus days driving around that gorgeous country before flying home from Rome.  It was a memorable summer, to say the least.  But I digress . . .

Greece:  our time in this seat of global culture was highlighted by fellowship with several amazing people. A Greek friend from school was an amazing host/tour guide in Athens and at his family's home on Mykonos.  Living with the locals cannot be beat for a cultural immersion experience. My Dad's co-worker and his family were also amazing hosts, in and around Athens and also at his grandma's house in the tiny town of Leonidion (I'm not sure how to spell it in English) up in the mountains at the end of the road. In Greece, foods are served in a very unadulterated way -- close to their original forms.  Preparing food is more a pairing of flavors than a transformation.  With fresh ingredients, that's the best way.  Whatever we were eating, the greek salad was ubiquitous.  It was never discussed, we just all pitched in and started chopping -- every day.  In Greece, the salad always starts with tomatoes, cucumbers and feta cheese with olive oil.  There were black olives sometimes, herbs sometimes, bell peppers sometimes, but always cukes, tomatoes and feta.

As our weather begins to warm, I find myself wanting fresher flavors. Since I'm not eating cheese, I got a little creative with replicating that Greek salad tanginess.  The kalamata olives (not a favorite of  my current family but I love 'em) contributed so much toward the tanginess goal, but since I used a bit of restraint for the sake of the fam, I had to find another tang source without the pungency of the olives.  I decided to open a recent jar of pickles I made:  radish and purple onion.  Nothing gets wasted round here, so when I finished the purple cabbage kraut I had bought at the store, I repurposed the pretty brine for the pickles, adding a bit of purified water and a few drops of ume plum vinegar.  The resulting pickle concoction was just what I needed to round out my newfangled Greek salad. The salad was delicious and effectively transported me, temporarily, back to a lovely memory.

End of Season Harvest

The kids have been in school for three weeks already in the deep south, so the gardening season should be just about over, but I still have mostly green tomatoes, and plenty of other things sprouting anew all the time. Our weather has been hellish and soggy, like a jungle, and we all know plants love that.

So here's a recent harvest. Represented are dino kale, rainbow chard, basil, tarragon, Chinese longbeans, tomatoes and my surprise guest: purple cabbage -- that's it toward the bottom: silvery green leaves with purple veins.

The cabbage was a surprise because, well, sometimes my crisper is overly full to the point I lose track of things. About half a purple cabbage was in full-rot (thankfully in a plastic bag) by the time I found it. The rot was nasty, but a brand new plant had sprouted from the slime -- sort of like a cruciferous phoenix! I had a blank spot in the garden so I quickly buried the cabbage-Fawkes to see what would happen. I couldn't be more pleased -- the fresh young cabbage leaves are tender and flavorful.

I utilized my bounty with a delicious, gluten-free Quinoa-pasta salad:

I roasted the sturdier veggies before adding them to the mix. This salad fit the bill for the first college football party of the season. My son's school, University of Georgia, is off to a fantastic start!

Supermom

This photo is unrelated to today's short post -- it's just pretty, recognizable, vegan food: broccoli rabe, tomatoes, chick peas, pine nuts, sauteed. Yum -- this dish was made and consumed some time ago, but now I'm craving it again. I've only had a fabulous green juice today, and you've seen enough of those on AMLV+, hence the above photo.

I've been thinking about the roles we play. The role dearest to my heart -- the core of who I am -- is MOM. I've been doing a pretty good job of momming lately! No, not mamming (a recent online trend for breast cancer awareness -- google it if you've not seen it), momming. We get to an age where there's no point in being humble about what we do well. I'm tooting my own horn -- TOOT!

Being a parent of teens is no joke. I believe it is much harder now than it ever was "back in the day". I don't need to go into all the ways the world has changed since I was a teen, challenging my own sweet mom. As a mom, myself, I've made mistakes and I've had successes. I have no doubt there will be more of each but today, for my own brilliant, talented, multi-dimensional, out-of-the-box kids, I can see that I'm being a good mom. Ah, the Zen that brings. My husband is being a great Dad too, by the way -- thanks honey!

Yes, I'm tooting my horn, but I want to give credit where it's due -- my inspiration, always:

My own gorgeous, amazing mom, Jeanine McKenzie Allen. Following your example brings sunshine to my life, and I'm so grateful. I miss you, Mommy.

Wrinkly Tomatoes + Odds-n-Ends, Plant Rehab Edition

You've seen this before on AMLV+, I know. The reason I know is that, bar none, the #1 Google analytics search terminology for A Midlife Vegan+ is "wrinkled tomatoes" or "are wrinkly tomatoes safe to eat?" or something of that nature. Seriously, someone finds me that way almost every day, so it must be uppermost in the minds of the world. Either that or other bloggers aren't really dealing with the subject of puckered pomodoros.

Years ago, I did a post on the very subject -- basically from a waste-not-want-not perspective. My fabulous Mom, may she rest in peace, used to recycle, reinvent and resuscitate like a pro. We learned early on it was better to just not ask how old the food was since it tasted better if we didn't know. She was inventive and creative, and I've absorbed much of her wisdom by osmosis, I suppose, since my head is full of random tidbits of unknown origin.

Back to the tomatoes -- The earlier post  included a suggestion for turning tomatoes such as those above into a compote -- simply a quick saute with garlic and olive oil, then taken off the heat and topped with fresh Italian parsley. This is amazing on a baked potato or stirred into pasta or soup of almost any kind. I do stand by this compote suggestion, and the proportions don't matter. Each creation will be unique and delicious.

With all the search terms concerning "safety" I thought a followup with more specificity might be in order. While the tomatoes in the photo above would be perfect for a compote or tomato sauce, these would not:

Again, knowledge of dubious origin:  these tomatoes are sprouting -- making baby tomato plants. I don't think these would be "unsafe" to eat, but they don't really appeal, so instead of going into the saute pan, they were planted in the garden. It goes without saying that moldy or soggy produce should be avoided as well.

After finding a good use for these inedibles, I was inspired to continue in the "creativity with plants" bent as follows:

I made some fresh avocado aioli (stay tuned for the recipe) and remembered Mom's avocado plants. This is how she sprouted them. For the first time, I decided to try it myself. I wondered how Mom got the toothpicks into the pit, and was surprised at how easily they slid right in. I guess Mom was worried I'd hurt my toddler hands trying to poke a toothpick into a slippery pit. I'll keep you posted on the avocado's progress.

Next, I beheaded my bamboo. It had been dead as a doornail up above, so I am trying to give it a fresh chance here. It lived happily in a vase of water for years, and then pooped out. A refrigerator repairman once remarked,

"Oh, you have a very lonely money tree!"

So I guess I've been inadvertently hexing my financial house -- nice. Wonder what kind of karma I'm sowing by lopping the head off the money tree?  I'll keep you posted on that as well.

P.S. I noticed, upon re-reading this post, that it is rife with alliteration. Maybe some of these would be great names for a band. My daughter is forming another one in addition to one in which she's the vocalist and also an acoustic twosome where she sings and plays guitar. How about "Puckered Pomodoros"? "Beheaded Bamboo"? "Dead as a Doornail"? "Refrigerator Repairman?" Just kidding about those last two -- having fun after my second cup of coffee! Let me know what you think!

Beautiful Things

This lovely, nutritious Primavera is appropriate comfort food for the season. I love preparing food simply based on what's on hand. This was tinkyada brown rice pasta, grape tomatoes, sauteed purple onion and garlic, frozen peas and Italian parsley with olive oil. I didn't cook the tomatoes or peas. I just added them to the warm pasta at the end to keep their flavors bright.

As I try to adjust to a world without my mother, my heart is warmed by beautiful things all around me. My Mom was always the first to notice, and be grateful for the stunning beauty found in nature and also  in man made things. So beauty will always remind me of her.

My amazing friend, Cheryl, sent me this beautiful dried bay leaf wreath. It is so pretty, I was inspired to take down my dusty old window valance and hang the wreath in its place. My sweet husband brought the lilies to cheer me, and even arranged them in the tall, amber-glass vase my Mom had given me. I love how the vertical reach of this vignette feels somewhat holy.

Upon our return home, I received this gigantic bouquet from my husband's employer. It takes up most of the dining room table. My Mom would love this. Incidentally, the morning before I received this, the large sun, still low in the eastern sky when I dropped my daughter at the bus stop, was exactly the coral-papaya color of the rose up front. My Mom would have loved that for sure. In the background of this photo is an oil pastel portrait of me as a teen, drawn by my Mom.

More beautiful things in my springtime yard:

Even Winter's leftovers are still pretty:

Today's Jeanine story:

When my father used to do business overseas, we sometimes were lucky enough to tag along. One summer, after my freshman year of college, two weeks in Greece turned into a couple of months because of the TWA hijacking that occurred the day after our arrival. All U.S. airlines suspended service to Athens. Eventually, with summer winding down, we opted to board a freighter ship to Ancona, Italy, for a bonus vacay in Rome, and then a flight home. The tragic circumstances of the hijacking aside, we had a lovely summer. At our second hotel, on the outskirts of Athens, My Mom decided to go parasailing. To my immature, 20-year-old sensibilities, my Mom was way too old for such shenanigans. Now, as I do the math, I realize she was the very age I am today -- 46! She was fit and beautiful and very brave. You won't catch me doing most of what she did!

Roasted Green Tomato Salsa with White Beans

As you all know, I  have a surplus of green tomatoes on the vine in my garden, which I see as an opportunity.  Instead of doing fried green tomatoes, (I never was very good at keeping the cornmeal coating on those slippery slices) I decided to try something new.  This is what I came up with:

Roasted Green Tomato Salsa with White Beans
Ingredients:
4-5 small green or under-ripe tomatoes 3/4" - 1" dice
3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 poblano chile
a large handful cilantro
juice of 1 lime
1 can great northern or pinto beans
2 Tbsp. purple onion, finely diced

Broil the chile, turning it with tongs, until blistered on all sides. Allow it to cool. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 425 degrees. Toss the tomatoes with 1 Tbsp. olive oil and salt and pepper and arrange in a single layer in a baking pan with sides. This gets juicy. Roast the tomatoes for 30 minutes. 

While tomatoes are roasting, peel and seed the chile and put it in a food processor or blender with lime juice, 1-2 Tbsp. more olive oil and beans. After the tomatoes are done roasting, allow them to cool for a couple of minutes and then carefully add them to the food processor. Process until fairly smooth. Once the mixture is no longer hot, add the cilantro and process again until smooth. Finally, pour the salsa into a bowl and stir in the onions. They are too pretty to mush up. Adjust seasoning to your liking.


This recipe may seem like a lot of effort for a salsa, but since I was working in the kitchen anyway on some other dishes, It was easy enough, and I think it was worth it for the unique flavor and the vitamin-protein punch of the ingredients. The poblano chile has a smoky richness that is not as sharp as a jalapeno chile, and it goes well with the tart flavor of the green tomatoes, which are slightly mellowed by their roasting, and further mellowed by the inclusion of the smooth, soft-skinned beans. This salsa would be great with any type of quesadilla or wrap, or just as a dip. Ole!