To be or not to be organic

The debate between eating organic and eating everything else can go on for an eternity; but by today's definition "organic" foods are apparently more organic than the non-organically grown foods available at the supermarket. What do I mean by this? The very definition of organic is a substance that is edible. Inorganic means something that is not edible. So for farms that don't use hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, waxes, dyes, or other chemical enhancements to produce the optimal crop, they've been branding their food as "Organic". They tend to use natural methods of reducing pestilence, like using ladybugs for aphid control or diluted white vinegar for weed control.

I cook mostly organic foods in my kitchen. The split is about 40/60, with the latter hinging on my food budget. For practical purposes, I don't buy organic meats. I simply cannot afford that lifestyle. I also don't eat cleanly enough to tell the difference between grain or grass-fed cattle, nor can I tell if a fish tastes like it's been farm raised or wild caught. I can tell the difference in fresh fruits and vegetables. Just eat cleanly for three months, then eat some carrots.. organic and not-organically grown. You can do this test with apples as well. There is a definite pesticide taste in the flesh of apples and carrots that is more pronounced than any other fruit or vegetable that is not organically grown. Where do these chemicals go? Why.. to your liver and kidneys, and it's not like humans actually ingest solvents to rid themselves of these toxins.

You should know that the darkness of an egg yolk depends heavily on what the chickens are fed. They're only healthier because the chickens are fed a healthier feed mix. Some farms brand this as having higher Omega 3 fatty oils. It's just more damn marketing. It's that competitive advantage some farms have over others, IMHO. But, I digress.

Here's what I use in my kitchen:

• organic whole milk or milk not treated with rBST
• antibiotic-free and hormone-free eggs
• unbleached white flour, or organic white/wheat flour
• nitrite/nitrate-free lunch meat, hotdogs, bacon, etc
• fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables
  
• sulphur-free, colorant-free dried fruits
• whole grain bread
• organic juice
  

I don't use corn syrup, ever, not even to make mochi.

I do use a Brita water filter because water in the LA water system is just chock full of nasty chemicals like chlorine and fluoride.

The closer to the earth the food source is, the more you have to eat Organic.

Risotto Milanese

Here's the nth time I've tried making risotto from the Joy of Cooking. I must say that I really dislike the way instructions are written for a lot of their recipes. I think I finally have the order of operations down for this rice dish. Saffron can easily be one of the most expensive spice to get, but it doesn't have to cost more than all other ingredients in the dish. I used Mexican saffron which still imparts the same warm yellowish coloring to the rice, and has a lightly fragrant scent. Currently, I'm cooking for one, so the list below reflects that. The JoC recipe uses a pound of arborio rice which I don't see myself consuming all at once or even for leftovers. Also, my version doesn't add grated Parmesan cheese. I like Parmesan cheese, but oddly, only on spaghetti sauce. Total cook/prep time is 30 minutes. Risotto can be heated up as leftovers, but it isn't as tasty as other types of rice. The ingredients & directions: 1. In a small saucepan, bring to boil 1 cup of chicken broth and a generous pinch of saffron threads. Remove from heat and set aside. 2. In a large saucepan, heat 2 tbsp EVOO and add your optional ingredients. Today I used diced carrots instead of mushrooms, but you can also use fennel, rosemary, garlic, etc. Let the carrots sweat in the oil until partly cooked but not tender. 2a. Remove carrots to a bowl and reserve. You don't want them cooking the entire time since they will get mushy. 2b. In a separate pot, heat 4 cups of chicken stock and set aside. 2c. Add 2 tbsp butter to the saucepan, 1 clove minced garlic, and heat until the oil is fragrant. Add 1 cup of arborio rice and stir until combined. Raise heat to medium. Add chicken stock, one cup at a time until it has been absorbed by the rice. Add the carrots, salt, and freshly ground black pepper. 2d. Add the saffron-chicken stock to the rice and stir until the excess liquid has been absorbed. Turn off heat and serve. Ingredient summary: 1 c. chicken stock 1 generous pinch of saffron threads 2 tbsp EVOO 1 medium organic carrot, diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 c. arborio rice 2 tbsp unsalted butter 4 c. chicken stock, hot salt & pepper to taste A pepper note: I don't have ground white pepper in my kitchen pantry. It's used in so few recipes that I know of that I only have black pepper available. If you don't want to see little black specks in your risotto, by all means, use ground white pepper.

Apple bars

This is a quick, easy recipe for apple bars. It uses fresh apples and can be a party food.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9" x 13" baking dish.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c. organic rolled oats
1 1/3 c. unbleached white flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
12 tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened or melted
3/4 c. brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 sweet, firm apples (I used Gala apples)
2-3 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. In a bowl, sift flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together; then mix in the rolled oats

2. Melt butter and let cool, then whisk together with eggs, vanilla, and brown sugar.

3. Fold together the flour mix and the butter mix until well combined. Pour into prepared baking dish and Bake for 35-40 minutes. Let cool for at least 30 minutes, then cut into bars and remove from baking pan.

Oven notes: My oven doesn't heat properly and heats up unevenly, so I tend to bake for 5-10 minutes longer. If you have an accurate oven, these bars should be baked for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean in the middle.

Elk curry

I am a big fan of wild game meat, except I live in a quaint suburb of Los Angeles and there's often no such meat to be had unless I go out of my way to a specialty meat shop. Fortunately, there's a shop a few miles away, Harmony Farms. I have eaten elk jerky before, but with all the spices really hard to tell what elk really tastes like.

Any meat cooked with curry is prepared a lot like a stew. You take some flavoring agent like ginger or garlic, heat it up with some oil (usually 2 tbsp) in a skillet and add whatever meat. With the exception to roast duck, I don't think anyone else in my family likes eating game meats. I love it and I love reading folklorist-styled cookbooks that talk about the olde ways of preparing food. Anyhow.. onto the recipe.

There's a small hole-in-the-wall Middle-Eastern foods specialty shop that sells a lot of dried goods and spices in Burbank called Y & K Distributing. The curry that I have is packaged under their label and the spice ratios of it are unknown to me; but it is rather mild and flavorful.

Ingredients:

4 tsp curry powder + enough water to make a paste
2 tbsp EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
1 lb elk stew meat
boiling water
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp wine (I used red xiao-xing wine)

Directions:

1. In a skillet, heat oil until hot but not smoking; add curry paste and stir until fragrant but not burning.
2. Add the elk meat and brown the elk meat. This step takes a lot less time than with beef stew meat since there is a lot less fat in elk meat. About 5 mins, or less.
3. Add enough boiling water to cover the meat.
4. Add soy sauce (this is a natural glutamate)
5. Simmer for 45 minutes to an hour. You could add wine to this step. It is optional.

Serve with steamed rice, noodles, or fresh lavash bread.

IMHO, it tastes pretty good.

Red bean mooncakes

So, on my quest to make mooncakes from scratch this year instead of buying them for $20/4pc.. I soaked some azuki beans in water for 2 hours, drained off the water, then proceeded to boil them at a simmer until they were soft. I blended them into a soppy paste with some lard and sugar, except the paste has too much water in it. Hmm.. and, the paste is of a purplish hue instead of dark red -- like what you'd get out of canned, sweetened red bean paste. The recipe I'm using isn't for the faint of heart. There's lard in both dough mixes. Mmmm.. lard.. Well, these look pretty darn strange coming out of the oven (See also: pic2 & pic3). Since I didn't use an egg wash, none of the mooncakes retained their mould image. The crust is about right, a little on the thick side and not sweet even though I added about 1/8 cup sugar to the outer crust recipe. The purple azuki bean paste looks pretty purple, so maybe for the next batch I should use the canned red bean paste instead. Maybe there's a video on this somewhere of how to form these things. The instructions I have suggest to put the fold side into the mould so that the fold is imprinted, but that's just all wacky. Here're the ingredients: One 14 oz package of azuki beans water 3/4 c. lard 1 c. sugar Water-lard dough: 2 c. unbleached white flour 5 tbsp. lard 10+ tbsp cold water 1/8 c. sugar Flaky dough: 1 c. unbleached white flour 5 tbsp lard This batch yielded 12 malformed mooncakes. For this recipe, I used duck lard and while the dough faintly smelled of roast duck (kao ya), the taste didn't stay with the pastry after baking. I ended up using more than 10 tbsp water with the water-lard dough just to get the dough to come together. The bean paste doesn't taste all that sweet because I misread the recipe. It originally called for 1 3/4 c. sugar. Now that I've gone through the process once, I think that a bit of powdered sugar can be added to the water-lard dough without it drying out too much. It would impart more sweetness and still be a dough. The ratio has yet to be determined.