tonight's dinner, healthier fare

Poststructural Pub
1

Usually, the meals I present here (and that I like to cook) are heavily based on continental “high” cuisine theory, with butter sauces, creams in the soups, pork fats for flavoring (by way of salt pork, prosciutto, etc), chicken stock instead of water for any cooking, and so forth.

And lots of meat, naturally.

Dang tasty, but not exactly health conscious.

So, after talking with my wife about it, I’m trying to cook one meatless dish a week. I was afraid the cooking would be dull and bland like most vegetarian dishes I’ve tried…and some of them have been. I got a crock-pot polenta dish that was basically unflavored polenta covered with some sautéed button mushrooms. Bleh! (I’ve since improved that dish.)

But some of them, like tonight’s dinner, have turned out marvelous.

Tonight is quinoa with just a touch of avocado vinaigrette, topped with toasted pine nuts, grilled zucchini, and eggs. Not vegan (the avocado dressing has yogurt, and the dish has eggs), but not filled with meat either. And it was really really good!

I’ve never had quinoa before, and I was really impressed with how good it smelled cooking, and how good it tasted when done, even though I used no stock, salt, or flavor additives when cooking..just the grain and water. It was a really good base for this meal.

2

You make me hungry!

3

What are those gooey, gloppy piles of sperm-looking things between the broccoli? :astonished:

djm

4

That’s zucchini, not broccoli.

And quinoa, when you cook it, busts open and those spiral parts come out. I suppose the comparison is apt…it is a seed. :laughing:

5

Hmmm. . . crock-pot polenta? It sure would beat the hell out of standing over a simmering pot of mush for 30-60 minutes. I’d be afraid the corn meal would all collect on the bottom, though. Pray tell us how it’s done!

I do a polenta dish that’s somewhere between tamale pie and regular polenta. I do the polenta over the stove (I use a mixture of masa harina (corn flour) and coarse-ground corn meal, a trick I got from a guy who grew up on the stuff), then spread it in an 8x8 pyrex oven dish with a little olive oil. I top it with spicy tomato sauce, whatever veggies I have on hand, usually green peppers and mushrooms, and then a little extra-sharp cheddar. Bake in a hot oven. Done right, it comes out crusty on the bottom and really light all the way through.

6

And any kind of seed is good.

7

I’ll post the crock-pot polenta recipe when I get home…but really, it’s just as simple as any crock pot dish: Add the water and corn meal, and let sit for 5 or 6 hours. For this dish, you then put it in a loaf pan to let set, slice it, and bake it on cookie sheets, so basically the same kind of theory you’re talking about though perhaps not more firm throughout due to the slicing.

8

Not quite. Apple seeds contain a compound that breaks down into Hydrogen Cyanide. Yew seeds are toxic too, and so are Laburnum seeds.
And there are many more.

Eating the seeds with an apple won’t kill you, but might give you a tummy upset. Eating apple seeds on their own, if there are a lot of them, can be fatal. You can’t just say “seeds! Good for me!” Some are, some are not.

9

True.

And the quinoa curly bits looked like a mess of hookworm, I thought. :wink:

10

That’s close, Nano. I was thinking fish eyes and worms.

11

if you want a tasty veggie dish, try Georgian Green Bean Puree
(that’s ex-Soviet Georgia)

Boil green beans till soft, then puree in blender

Puree 2 parts walnuts to 1 part raw garlic in blender

Add a good handful of fresh herbs (parsley, dill, tarragon) and puree
add olive oil to make a paste

Mix with pureed beans and allow to cool

Serve on a bed of rocket (aka arugula) dressed with a walnut oil and lime juice vinaigrette, with lots of crusty bread

also good as a side dish with roasted meats or fish

from this wonderful book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Georgian-Feast-Vibrant-Culture-Republic/dp/0520219295/ref=sr_1_1/202-2132387-6599011?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187149561&sr=8-1

12

Awwwwh! I like quinoa…well, I used to…not so sure now! :astonished: I’ll have to eat it with my eyes closed from now on! :stuck_out_tongue:

Cass.

13

Speaking as a well seasoned vegetarian I must say that:-

  1. toasting pine nuts destroys the healthfulness of of their polyunsaturated oils.
  2. cooking of animal proteins (including casein and eggs) renders thier easily digested raw hydrophile proteins to difficult to digest hydrophobe proteins increasing the overall burden on pnacreas activity.
  3. cooking eggs negatively impacts on the lecithin content in the yolks, which in thier raw state assists with the positive usage of the yolk’s
    cholesterol content.
14

Evidently I thought it looked more appetizing than a lot of folks :slight_smile:

15

Well, we cook about 1/3 of our meals without any meat these days, and have found some interesting pizza, kebabs, and other meals but our favorite find is this one. Unfortunately, it is not that healthy of a meal.


Open faced haloumi sandwich.

One 14oz block of haloumi cheese cut into 1/2 inch slices
16 oz cherry tomatoes (halved)
Garlic 1 or more cloves
2 tble lemon juice
1 tbls balsamic vinegar
2 tbls fresh chopped thyme
1/4 cup olive oil +2 for cooking
Tight grained bread, sliced.

Combine garlic lemon juice vinegar thyme and 1/4c oil, and marinate the haloumi and tomatoes in it for a couple hours or over night.

Drain the mixture and save the liquid.

Heat a pan with the remaining oil and brown the halumi on both sides on medium to high heat do this in batches and keep the slices on a warm plate. *

When this is done cook the tomatoes and the sauce until the skin is bursting. Remove the tomatoes and reduce the sauce to a constancy you like and keep warm.

Toast the bread, put a slice or two of the cheese and tomatoes on it and pour the sauce over it.

Serve and eat

*This is tricky it may stick a bit and if cooked to long starts to fall apart. The temperature will also depend on the skillet. I use cast iron, heat the oil to where it is about to smoke, and throw in the cheese slices while guarding against oil splatters. I am shure you would not do that with teflon coated pans.
16

Yeah, we have to eat quinoa too. It is really high in protein. I guess that is one thing that contributed to the success of the Inca Indians. Empires that depended on corn had to produce more to get the same amount of protein, so they needed more water, etc. It looks like the picture Wanderer posted when my husband fixes it except he just puts onions and broth in it. I don’t see much point in eating it other than to obtain nutrition. I wish they could just compress it into a pill or something. It’s not awful, it’s just sort of nothingy. But I know it’s good for you.


And how about castor bean plant seeds? :astonished: :boggle: :astonished: My mom was always carrying on about those when we were little. She’d point to a plant and warn us that we should never eat castor bean seeds because they would kill us. She pretty much applied that to any seed from any plant so we wouldn’t be confused I guess. Maybe that’s why I don’t like quinoa very much. Mushrooms too. I remember there was a story in the news about some children who ate some mushrooms and died. She told us about that so we wouldn’t be tempted to eat mushrooms growing outside. I’m actually not very fond of mushrooms either. Oh well, she was doing her best. :laughing:

17

Ricin is extracted from castor beans. A lethal dose is about 1/5000 of a gram (which, evidently, you can get by eating about 8 castor beans according to wikipedia)


As for the quinoa, I thought it tasted (and smelled) a lot less like “nothing” than rice :slight_smile: