Vegan Stuffed Peppers

When I was a kid, I loved my mom's stuffed peppers. Fluffy rice, warm ground beef, all wrapped in a bell pepper (my favorite food) and topped with tomato sauce and cheese - WINNER. But as I get older and more aware, I feel a little differently about animal products, for bunches of reasons spanning the social, the political, and the economical. The one that wins in this recipe, however, is the flavorful.

1/2 cup brown rice (or grain of your choice)
1 cup lentils, rinsed and sorted
3 cups water + 1 T vegetable bullion OR 3 cups vegetable stock
4 green bell peppers
2 red bell peppers
1 small carrot, shredded (about 3/4 cup. You could do this with just about anything, and add as much as you want. I think that zucchini would be an excellent addition. Eggplant might not go amiss, either.)
1 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp cumin
2 t onion powder

In a large pot, combine the rice, lentils, and cooking liquid. Bring to a boil, and cook uncovered approximately 20 minutes. When cooking time is up, kill the heat and cover the pot; let sit at least five minutes.

While the rice and lentils are cooking, prep the green and red peppers. Slice in half lengthwise, remove stems and seeds.

TIP: When prepping peppers, I use a melon baller to scrape the ribs out. The slightly sharp edges cuts more cleanly than a spoon, requiring less force, and the small shape fits inside the peppers better than a knife.

Set the green pepper halves aside. Put the red peppers cut side down on a foil-lined pan and broil at 425 for 10-15 minutes, or until skin is partially blackened and flesh is tender. Remove from oven and cool on pan. Set oven to bake at 350. Once the peppers have cooled, peel the skin off. Puree with cumin, oregano and onion powder.

Once the rice and lentils have sat for a few minutes, use a wooden spoon to mash the lentils slightly, until the mixture holds together somewhat. Add shredded veggies and red pepper mixture and stir to incorporate. Spoon into prepped green peppers. If you're making ahead, this is where you cover them with foil and stash them in the fridge. If you're not, this is where you cover them with foil and bake 15-20 minutes, or until peppers are soft and yummy.

Christmas Caramel Corn

At 22 years old, I am the youngest of the "cousin" generation by about seven years. Buying Christmas presents for a sprawling group of adults with diverse interests and negligible certainty of being present at our big Christmas Eve Seven Fishes Feast is always a challenge. Lottery tickets are the usual answer but this year, we went... edible. Sure, my cousins have no chance of winning money with this gift, but with a bag full of this all-grown-up candy corn, who cares?

8 cups of popped plain (unbuttered) popcorn
4 cups pecans
2 cups sugar (brown or white - your call. I like one cup of each.)
1/2 cup corn syrup (or honey or agave if you're not fans of Big Corn.)
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter or margerine
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1 bag of red and green M&Ms

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Grease two large pans; cake pans work best. Spread popcorn and nuts in pans.

In a small pot, combine sugar, corn syrup and butter. Heat over medium until boiling; put a lid on it and let it boil for five minutes. Remove from heat and add baking soda and spices; mix quickly. The misture should be light and foamy. Pour over popcorn and nuts, stirring to coat.

Bake at 250 for one hour, stirring every 15 minutes. While it's in the oven, cover a large area of your counter with wax paper or tin foil. Turn the finished caramel corn out onto the covered area and break it up into bite-sized chunks - be sure to give it a second before you go in there bare-handed, because hot sugar can seriously burn. Once it is completely cooled, mix in the red and green M&Ms. Package in pretty bags or airtight boxes.

Serves: 16
Nutritional Info: Really, really bad for you. That's why you only make it at Christmas and give most of it away.

Why I Blog

Right before the end of school, one of my roommates called me obsessed with food, at all stages: not just eating, but growing and preparing it as well. Since then, I’ve been trying to put into words why I find food so interesting. Why am I obsessed, not just with blogging about cooking, but with where food comes from, where it goes, and how it gets there? The obvious part is what everyone shares: I need it to stay alive. But yesterday, I finally realized that it fascinates me because it’s an easily understandable way to model the production economy – it works just like any other production model. The difference is that with food, only a minuscule percentage of the population is engaged in just consuming. At some point, almost everyone has experience growing or preparing their own food. Not so with a laptop or a t-shirt or a tube of lip gloss.

What’s more, I see the food grow-make-eat cycle, and the rich interplays therein, as a way to model bigger problems in our society and to look for solutions in a way that is essential and engaging to everyone. As much as the appearance of abundance in suburban supermarkets gives the impression that the food model we’re using works, it isn’t, and there are problems at every step of the way.

• Grow – Industrialized agriculture is a problem because it encourages the use of non-native plants, monoculture farming, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), and crops dependent on petrochemical (oil-based) fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. Organic is more expensive to the consumer, but industrialized agriculture is deeply expensive in terms of our planet’s health.
• Make – Except for a few high-profile executive chef positions, the vast majority people who handle food between the field and your plate are not working desirable jobs, and as such, they tend to be socioeconomic minorities, paid a pittance for thankless and sometimes dangerous labor. The spectrum covers a lot of complicated problems, but the worst are in places the average consumer will never see, like harvesting vegetables or processing meat.
• Eat – Another complicated problem, but for America, we spend the least on food – 10% of our income – of any industrialized nation, and we’re leading industrialized nations in a trend of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, gout, and other “diseases of civilization” that belie a food culture in shambles. We are what we eat, and we’re eating crap.

But the really interesting part is the greater implications of this model. The problems we face in the production, preparation and consumption of our food present a microcosm of the system of problems faced by America and the world at large in terms of our environment, socioeconomic inequalities, and overall health. I say “system of problems” because, in the words of great conservationist John Muir, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” Those three big problem areas are deeply interrelated, and that’s why connecting them to the grow-make-eat food model works. Each step of the food model is richly interrelated to the other steps. You can’t fix one without needing to make changes to the others.

For example, let’s say we get rid of corn and soy subsidies, something I would love to see happen. The first effect is in growing – now it’s much less profitable to grow corn and soybeans, so drastically fewer people do it. Downstream in the “make” stage, there’s a shortage of corn and soy for snack food producers, so further downstream at the “eat” stage, snack foods become much more scarce and expensive, and people ease off eating them. That’s a good thing. But corn and soy are also used to feed livestock on CAFOs. What do CAFO owners and operators feed them instead? How does this change the health of the livestock? How does the change the supply of meat for processing? Are workers laid off of hand-to-mouth jobs? And how does this change the quality and availability of meat for consumers? And next year, how many farmers who switched to new crops will still be in business? Because of their previous dependence on big corporations like Monsanto for seed, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, the remaining small farmers of America are in large part on the brink of bankruptcy. One bad year could put them under. For every action we take to fix part of this broken system, there infinite repercussions downstream.

And that’s the key to why I’m fascinated by food. My boyfriend likes to call me a tweaker because I can never take a recipe for what it is. I have to change something about it to see if it makes things better or worse pretty much every time I make it. He calls it tweaking, but it doesn’t just apply to food. It’s part of my greater way of thinking, and when you look at the big picture you realize that I’m not a tweaker, I’m a fixer. Whenever I’m presented with a problem, no matter what I will start looking, evaluating and trying out solutions.

I look at the world, and I see a bunch of broken systems, infinite problems begging to be solved. I look at the grow-make-eat model and I see a smaller, more manageable version of those same broken systems, interrelated in the same way. It’s still a very complex system of problems, and I still don’t have the answers, but I keep working at it, trying to figure out a way to solve the system. I know that the solutions for the food model will make great strides towards solutions in the environmental-socioeconomic-health system of problems, and if those food model solutions will give us important clues for how to solve the entire system of problems. So I guess I love food because I’m a human, a fixer, and an optimist.

Simple Summer Slaw

I really love making things that challenge my idea of what I dish "should" be. I am also a big fan of using every part of the buffalo. Or chicken. Or vegetable. This slaw combined both of those. I made steamed broccoli for dinner a few days ago, I had these big leftover stalks after trimming the florets off. Leave it to my mom, and she'd probably toss them in a compost - fueling next year's vegetables is a noble pursuit, but I wanted to try something different. This afternoon, the weather is beautiful but hot, so something light, crisp and refreshing was in order. I'd say this summer slaw fits the bill.

2 broccoli stalks, about 5" long, peeled and cut into matchsticks

1 small sweet apple, chopped into matchsticks (avoiding the core)

2 small carrots, grated or cut into matchsticks

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

2 t sugar (optional)

1 T whole grain mustard or dijon mustard

In a large bowl, toss the broccoli stalks, apples and carrots until well mixed. In a small bowl, mix the vinegar, sugar and mustard until unform. Pour over the slaw mixture and toss until evenly coated. Let sit at least 15 minutes, so the flavors get friendly. I recommend serving this with a slice or two of a good sharp cheddar.

Dinner Tonight: Tandoori Gyros

I've said it before, I'll say it again: I love ethnically confused cooking. If you're paying $30 a plate for it, go ahead and call it fusion, but if it's in my kitchen, it's ethnically confused. I have had very little Indian food in my life, because my dad is so incredibly averse to spicy food. This month's Food Network magazine had an easy recipe for chicken tandoori, and since I can control how spicy the food I make is, I was finally able to try it - with, of course, an ethnically confused spin on it.

PS - I'm so happy to finally be home, cooking in a real kitchen again!

Tandoori Gyros

Naan bread (store-bought, or, if you're feeling adventurous, make your own.)

12 oz. cooked chicken, sliced or shredded.

2 cups cauliflower, steamed

2 large Roma tomatoes, sliced

1 large sweet onion, sliced and sauteed until caramelized

6 oz plain Greek yogurt

1 small red onion, chopped

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground coriander

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons paprika

In a food processor, blend two tablespoons of the yogurt, the red onion, tomato paste, vegetable oil, garlic, ginger, corianter, cumin, and one teaspoon of paprika until it forms a smooth paste. In a large bowl, toss the chicken, cauliflower, tomato and onion in the yogurt sauce. Spread the mixture on a foil-lined pan and broil for ten to fifteen minutes, or until lightly charred. While the chicken is in the oven, mix the remaining yogurt and paprika together. To serve, spread the yogurt sauce on the naan and put the tandoori mixture on top. Fold the naan in half and enjoy.

Whatatta?

As the semester wraps up and life gets crazy, a young woman's thoughts turn to... the fridge. How it's packed with ingredients and in desperate need of cleaning and where on earth did all these eggs come from? Today's fridge-busting recipe is not quite a fritatta, not quite a quiche... I give you, ladies and gentlemen, the whatatta. Bursting with veggies and other happy-making ingredients, it would have been the perfect way to start my afternoon if the stupid university would turn on the air conditioning in the dorms.

You will need:

2 slices of stale whole wheat bread

6 eggs

1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons milk

2 tablespoons olive oil (or butter)

1/4 cup chopped onions

1/2 cup chopped mushrooms

2 slices chopped bacon (optional - if you leave it out, add a pinch of salt)

1 1/2 cups spinach, cut into strips

1/2 tablespoon baking soda

1 medium tomato, sliced

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Shred the bread into small chunks and press to cover the bottom of a lightly greased brownie pan. Beat one egg with 2 tablespoons of milk and pour over the bread to soak.

Over medium heat, saute the onions in 1 tablespoon olive oil or butter until softened; add bacon and mushrooms, and saute until caramelized. Remove the pan from the heat and let the mix cool.

In a large bowl, beat the five remaining eggs with the remaining 1/4 cup milk and the baking soda. Fold in the spinach and the cooled onion-mushroom-bacon-goodness mixture from the stove. Pour into the brownie pan over bread and egg mix, and top with sliced tomato and mozzarella cheese. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, or until the center is no longer runny. The whatatta will rise substantially as it bakes, but will fall once it cools. The cheese should be very well browned; if you want to slow the browning process, cover with foil during baking. Let cool slightly before serving.

Serves 4.

Calories per serving: 300

Carbs: 17 g

Fats: 18 g (mostly monounsaturated fats)

Protien: 19 g

Food, Inc on POV

I'm not a bad college student, just a modern one - I don't watch much TV. I watch a lot of laptop, but the TV I share with my roommates is turned on for two hours or less per week, and only for specific programs. I was upset when I found out I'd missed PBS's Earth Day showing of Food, Inc, a fascinating and enlightening look at where our food really comes from. But I was elated to find out that, until this Thursday, April 29, it's on PBS.org.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to know where your food comes from. The best cooks in the world can't make great food without good ingredients, and the foods we've come to accept as standard are simply sub-par; for example, Food, Inc. talks about green-picked, gas-ripened "notional tomatoes." Yes, they look like tomatoes and act like them in food, but even a child can tell the difference between the pink, watery flesh of a "notional tomato" and the succulent, ruby-colored flesh a real vine-ripened tomato that hasn't traveled halfway around the world. The bottom line: If you eat food, you need to see this movie.

Lunch Today: Focaccia Bites

Last night, I went out with my roomies to my favorite local restaurant, The Witches Brew, and Jane ordered the focaccia with tomato, rosemary and olive oil. Oh. My. It was amazing. So afterwards when we did our grocery shopping, I had visions of a home version dancing in my head. And somehow it came up that Lindsey had never tried anchovies, so they made their way into the recipe as well. These "bites" are perfectly snacky portions of focaccia, baked in muffin tins, topped individually with fresh basil, sliced tomato, and, if you so choose, anchovy.

1 package active dry yeast

3/4 cups + 1 tablespoon warm water

1/2 teaspoon sugar

3 tablespoons olive oil (1 tablespoon reserved for pans)

2 1/2 cups flour, plus extra for surfaces

1 teaspoon salt

2 small tomatoes, cored and thinly sliced (12 slices; aim for tomatoes the same width as your muffin tin)

basil, chopped, to taste

12 anchovies torn into (optional)

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Let stand until bubbles appear, about 5 minutes. Stir in sugar, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 cup flour, salt, and remaining flour. Turn dough out onto floured surface and knead until loose and elastic, about 5-7 minutes. Put dough in a lightly oiled bowl, turn to coat, and cover. Let rise in a warm place until doubled, 1-2 hours.

When the dough is almost done rising, grease all the muffin tins liberally with olive oil. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Using a bench scraper or sharp knife, divide the dough in 12 pieces, and press them into the muffin tins. Cover loosely and let rise again until doubled.

Preheat oven to 450. Dock the dough with your thumb and first three fingers, pressing to the bottom of the pan. sprinkle with basil, top with a tomato slice and, if you choose, an anchovy. If you skip the anchovies, sprinkle the tomato with a little salt - one teaspoon should cover almost the entire batch.

At 450, bake until golden brown and hollow-sounding, 20-30 minutes. Remove from muffin tins immediately, and serve still warm. Enjoy!

Nutritional info to come. For now, know they are roughly 150 calories each with the anchovies.

Dinner Tonight: Not-sta

Sometimes, I just really want comfort food, and while I consider a whole lot of things "comfort foods," one of the leading contenders for comfort champ is a big bowl of pasta, with a lot of sauce on top. But sometimes I want comfort foods on days when I've already overeaten.

This morning I went to brunch with two good friends, and had something the diner called "Eggs Florentine Benedict," which is basically regular eggs benedict with an interjection of steamed spinach between the egg and the English muffin. It was fantastic, but ironically, the one part of the meal that fell flat for me, the Hollandaise sauce, was the one part that ran me way, way over for calories. So when I came home from work with a growling tummy and a pounding headache, I had to get creative about that big bowl of pasta.

This is the solution to the pasta problem: Squash. When cut into long, thin slices, steamed squash takes on a texture enough like pasta to keep me happy. When I make this at home, I use my mom's mandoline to simplify the job, but I found tonight that I can do just fine with some focus and a chef's knife. Cut the ends off the squash, halve it crosswise, and carefully cut the halves lengthwise into wide, thin strips. Cut the strips into strings. (See why I use the mandoline?)

You will need:

1 T olive oil

1 clove garlic

1/3 cup onion, chopped

1/4 cup mushrooms, chopped

1/2 cup carrots, grated

3/4 cup water

1 small yellow squash or zucchini, cut into long, skinny strips

1 cup spinach, cut into strips

1 6-oz. can of tomato paste

Basil and oregano to taste

In a large pot over medium heat, sweat the garlic and onion and let them start to caramelize. Add the mushrooms and saute until they are wilted and tender, then the carrots. Stir in the squash strings and water. Cover and let cook until the squash is tender, about 2 minutes. Add the spinach and let cook until wilted, about 1 minute. Stir in the tomato paste, and season to taste.

All this seems like a lot, but because it's all vegetables, it cooks up quickly once the prep is done, and it serves just one person. This recipe made me two big bowls of not-pasta comfort food, and still came in right around the 400-calorie mark. Consider me comforted.

Serves: 1

Nutrition information: 404 total calories, 49g carbohydrates, 19g fat, 16 g protein, 11g fiber, 574mg sodium.

Try This: Understand Size Distortion

Weight is a difficult subject for me. I have always been a wide girl, even though I'm petite. I've struggled with weight all my life, and I feel able to talk about it now because, strangely enough, I have lost ten pounds since I started this blog in October. I'm bringing this up because I had a recent reality check about sizing distortion in women's clothing, and while not a foodie topic, I feel like I should discuss it here. Size distortion and portion distortion are the twin devils of American culture - as the "size to be" gets smaller, restaraunts push bigger and bigger portions to eat. They might be different issues, but they are inextricably linked. What you eat determines what you weigh. It took me 20 years to really grasp that concept, and now that I've got it, I'm getting healthy - but there are still a lot of people out there who don't get it.

One of my favorite things to do when there's nothing to do is browse dresses online and pick them out for my "after" photo. I mean, cute dresses exist for the big girl, but supercute is a bit beyond our reach. One of my favorite sites is ModCloth.com, and now that I'm finally seeing real progress (yay, double-digit losses!) I started looking at their sizes. And wow. They are tiny.

After a bad run-in with their customer service team - it's always a joy to be implicitly called fat by a stranger who wouldn't know you from Eve - I channeled my snow day and seething energy into a little research. Because as much as we know about Barbie's unnaturally distorted figure, what do we know about real women and their natural figures?

According to the CDC's 2009 summary of data collected between 2003 and 2006, the average American woman (AW) is 5'4" tall, weighs 169 pounds, and has a 37" waist. According to American lingerie manufacturers, she wears a 36C bra. And based on her BMI (29, the borderline between overweight and obese) and research about the relationship between the waist-to-hip ratio and weight-related health risks, she has 43.5" hips. That's about a Misses size 18.

That's what "normal" looks like, but normal is overweight. What does healthy look like?

The one thing that won't change is her height. So the hypothetical ideal average (HI) is stil 5'4". Since she's average, let's put her at 125 pounds, right in the middle of her ideal weight range, 110-140 pounds.

The AW has 37% body fat. The ideal is 20-25%; too much lower and hormones and reproductive organs are disrupted. Let's say that at 125, HI has 23.5% body fat. Based on the reversal of a fitness calculation system developed by the US Navy, she would probably have a 28" waist. Since she's healthy, she probably has 38-40" hips. And since she's no longer overweight, like the AW, her bust is likely in line with the old average of a B-cup bust. That's more like a Misses size 8.

Now what about ModCloth? Since the data I've used this far is for the "average" woman, it makes sense to reference their medium size. To create the average for the ModCloth medium, I took a random sampling of 20 dresses from the "Under $50" section and averaged their bust, waist, and hip measurements. Only half of these dresses had any stretch, including smocking, stretch material or elastic. Most of the dresses that had stretch had it only in the waist. Not all of these dresses listed a hip measurement.

Another ModCloth problem is how they do their sizing. Rather than testing the garment on a dress form to see what sizes it can fit, they lay the garment flat and measure the bust, waist and hip size across the front of the garment. I have enough problems with this method, but what it comes down to is that the measurements listed are approximately half of the measurement the garment will fit. The average I came up with was 16"-14"-18.5" - that would fit roughly a 32" bust, a 28" waist, and a 37" hip. That's a Juniors size 5. Juniors sizes are meant for girls just starting puberty, so the bust and hips are slightly smaller. A full-grown, curvy woman would have to decide between a garment with a too-big waist or a two-small bust/hip.

So let's compare:

• The average American woman is 42-37-43.5, a Misses 18.
• The healthy ideal for the average American woman is, hypothetically, 34-38-39, a Misses 8 or 10.
• And the Modcloth average medium is 32-28-37, a Juniors 5.

Even if the average woman was perfectly healthy, she couldn't fit into the average ModCloth medium. Her waist would fit, but her bust and hips would not. If she noticed this and decided to try and lose more weight in order to fit into her dress, she would probably be unsuccessful, because hips, as you know, are bones, and when you're fit, they are probably as small as they will get. Breasts, too, are hard to reduce without surgery, or extreme malnutrition.

Two inches may not seem like a huge difference, but consider this: one pound of body fat has a volume of roughly two cups, or 29 cubic inches. Even assuming that HI can lose those two inches on her bust and hips to fit into that supercute dress, it would equal a total volume of 116 cubic inches off the waist and hips alone, equal to four pounds. You can't lose weight in just one area, so she would probably lose eight pounds total trying to lose those two inches.

That would put her at 117 pounds, which is so light, it's the bare minimum for giving blood. One nasty stomach bug could be very dangerous to her health, and one restaraunt meal would blow almost all her calories for the day. She will have shifted away from a healthy medium, towards an unhealthy extreme that may encourage further size distortion and lead to eating disorders and a whole host of other psychological problems. Let me be clear: this is bad. And while my encounter with ModCloth's distain for the upper sizes left one bad taste in my mouth, this information leaves another that is far worse. Discriminating against curvy girls is one thing, but discriminating against healthy girls is far worse, and the slim margin is so enticing as a means to lose "just a little more" that I find it sickeningly insidious.

So the question is: where do we go from here? How do we tackle the difficult issue of size distortion? How do we affect change?

Try This Recipe: Mock Risotto With Vegetables

That turkey chili from last time was really good - and good thing, too, because the friend I was cooking with had somehow made it to the ripe age of 20 without ever trying chili. I don't know how that happened, but I do know I've won him over. Depending on who you talk to, I'm good at that.

One thing I'm not good at: moderation. I always forget how much bigger rice and beans get when cooked, so I made about double what I needed. Half went in the chili, and half went into the fridge for a midweek meal. My absolute favorite thing to do with leftover rice is fried rice, but a close second is mock risotto. This recipe makes five to six generous helpings of creamy, veggie-studded comfort food - the perfect thing for the middle of a long, rainy week.

I used:

2 1/2 cups cooked rice

1 1/2 cups cooked beans

2 cups water (more as needed)

1 cup milk

2-3 T olive oil

1/2 T red pepper flakes

1 large clove garlic, chopped

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese

2 T grated parmesan cheese

3 cups zucchini, quartered lengthwise and thinly sliced

2 cups mushrooms, sliced

1 1/2 cup spinach, shredded

Put the rice and beans in a large pot, and add milk and water to cover. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently, and then lower the heat and cover. Check on it every five minutes or so, and scrape up any bits that get stuck to the bottom. (Or leave some. They get yummy.)

Coat the bottom of a large pan with 1 T olive oil. Add the red pepper flakes and put on high for up to a minute, to infuse the oil with spice. Add the onions and sweat them for about a minute. Add the garlic and sweat it while the onion starts to caramelize. Scrape into the rice mixture, and stir until uniform. Add the cheeses and stir them in, as well.

Add a little more oil to the pan, and lightly saute the zucchini until just wilted. (It's ok to do this part in batches. I was using a small pan.) When it's done, add it to the pot, too.

Prime the pan again, and this time, saute the mushrooms over low to medium heat. Once they heat up, they'll shrink and release liquid into the pan. (A small pan is actually better for this part.) Once they release that liquid, give them one good stir and place the shredded spinach on top. The mushrooms will finish cooking (and taste like wonderfully mushroom-y mushrooms, since they kept all that liquid nearby) and steam the spinach. Once all the spinach is wilted, reduce heat to low until the mushroom juice is all cooked off, stirring frequently.

By now, the rice mixture should be thick and somewhat porridge-like. If it's still very watery, remove the lid and raise the heat for a few minutes, until it reduces somewhat. Old rice won't always absorb all the liquid, and that's ok. Once it has thickened, add the mushroom and spinach. Remove from heat, cover, and let sit for five to 15 minutes so the flavors can blend. Serve with grated parmesan.

Serves 5-6

Nutrition info for a serving of a generous cup (up to 1 1/4 cup): 272 calories, 43g carbohydrates, 6g fat, 21g protein, 8g fiber, 398mg sodium.

Dinner Tonight: Turkey Chili

Right now, I'm broke. The university has messed up my last few paychecks, and between preprofessional society dues and gas money, the one I did get is already gone. Such is the life of a college student.

That said, I was craving real food. The food at school is pretty uniformly terrible, as I'm sure you've gathered by now. What real food can you make on a budget? Something with dry rice and dry beans, because those are, pound for pound, the cheapest and most filling foods on the planet, I kid you not. My darling roommate shared some of her ground turkey with me, I picked up extras from the salad bar, added the dry rice, dry beans, and seasonings I keep as my pantry, and BAM - cheap, healthy and filling college student meal, with enough to share and plenty of leftovers for later.

Want some? You need:

1 cup dry beans (I used red kidney beans)

1/2 cup dry rice

1 T olive oil or other fat

1/4 large white or yellow onion

2 cloves garlic

1 cup chopped bell pepper, red and green

1/2 cup chopped baby corn or corn kernels

1/2 lb ground turkey or beef

1 jar of your favorite salsa

The thing with dry beans is that you have to soak them first. I rinsed them this morning and left them to soak while I was in classes. If you want to skip this part, use dried beans. Once the beans have soaked for a few hours, drain them, cover with water, and boil with the lid on until they are mostly tender. In a bowl, wash the rice until the water runs clean. Add the rice and more water to the bean pot and recover; cook for about another 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, elsewhere...

Chop your onion and mince your garlic. Set them aside and chop your other veggies. Lightly coat the bottom of a large pan with olive oil, put over medium-high heat, and add onion and garlic. Sweat for a few minutes, and allow them to start caramelizing before you add your peppers. Once the peppers are tender, scoot all the veggies to one edge of the pan, and add your meat, stirring frequently to break it up. Season to taste with chili powder, cumin, and oregano. (The right balance this time was something like 1 T chili powder, 1 t cumin, 1/2 T oregano. Start small, and taste often.)

When the meat is done, toss in the baby corn, stirr it all together, and add the salsa. You can take this off the heat until your beans and rice catch up, if the beans are being picky like mine were. Mix it all together in the pot. Serve on a bed of raw spinach, and top with some shredded cheddar cheese.

Serves: 5

Nutrition for 1 cup chili served on 1 cup spinach with 1/4 cup shredded cheddar:

401 calories, 36g carbs, 20g fat, 27 g protein, 12g fiber, 307mg sodium.

Try This Recipe: Pork-Leek Dumpling Soup

This past week, Working Class Foodies aired an episode about the quest for authentic Chinese-style dumplings, and just watching made my mouth water. I have had a lifelong love affair with Chinese and Chinese-American food. I had to try this recipe. I made it last night, and it was delicious, authentic, fun - everything I could have hoped for.

But day-old dumplings can be a bit of a drag. Much like French fries, once they get cold, they're not as good and it's hard to revive them. My solution: soup. I had about a cup of leftover pork-leek mixture, and I chopped and froze two leeks while making the dumplings yesterday. I recently read an article from America's Test Kitchen about making a flavorful broth in half the time using ground meat instead of scraps. It all came out of the freezer and became a delicious soup for lunch.

Dumpling Filling:

1 lb. ground pork

1 leek, washed and finely chopped

Scallions, chopped, to taste

2 T minced ginger

2 cloves minced garlic

2 T soy sauce

Combine all ingredients until uniform; cover and store until you're ready to assemble your dumplings.

Dumpling Wrappers:

1 3/4 c flour

1/2 c water

Mix water and flour until a tight dough forms. Knead with well-floured hands until elastic and springy. Wrap tightly and let rest for 10 minutes, or until ready to assemble dumplings. Make as little or as many dumplings as you like, just remember the 7:2 flour-water ratio.

When ready to assemble dumplings, you're going to want some help. This works best if one person is rolling out the wrappers and another is filling the dumplings. Using a sharp knife or bench scraper, on a floured surface divide the dough. This recipe easly makes 32 wrappers. Remember to keep the dough you're not working covered tightly, because dry dough is too tight to roll out.

Take one small chunk of dough and roll it out very, very thin. Put a lump of pork-leek filling in the center of the dough; dip the tips of your finger in water and lightly wet the edges of the wrapper. Fold the edges so they meet at the top, forming a package around the filling. If you want to make the soup, reserve at least a half-cup of the filling.

Once your dumplings are assembled, bring a pot of water to a boil and cook in small batches for about 6 minutes. Remove to a plate to cool, then to a serving dish. They are ready to enjoy with the sauce of your choice! (WCFoodies recommends a sauce with chopped scallions, ginger matchsticks, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar.) And the next day....

For the broth:

1/2 cup or more reserved pork-leek mixture

1 leek, washed and finely chopped

In a large pot over medium heat, lightly brown your pork mixture. Once the mixture is browned, add 3-4 cups of water and simmer 10-15 minutes, or until broth is lightly colored and flavored. (At this point, the Test Kitchen recommends straining the meat from the broth. I left it in. Your choice.) Add chopped leeks, simmer 5-10 minutes until leeks are soft. Season to taste with rice wine vinegar and soy sauce. Add leftover dumplings; simmer until dumplings are warmed through, about 5 minutes. Enjoy!

Try This Challenge: Frige Frenzy

We're wrapping up the semester here at Hofstra - classes ended Wednesday, and exams start Monday, or have already started, for those with proactive professors. My roommates and I are preparing to go our separate ways until late January, and that means... someone has to clean out the refrigerator. Jane tackled the yucky part over the weekend, tossing everythign rancid, moldy, and stinky. (I find we have a tendency to find cheese and forget about it. I almost cried when I tossed that delicious French feta from Highland Farms.)

Tonight, we moved on to the stuff that was still good. Last night at dinner we picked up some fixings from the salad bar - spinach, artichoke heart, red peppers, onions - and Jane turned them into amazing omlettes with the eggs and grated asiago we had waiting in the fridge. Every bite was unique, but amazing, and I'm thinking about all the wonderful things that mix of flavors could be, like bite-sized frittata appetizers if made in mini-muffin tins.

One of the things lurking in the bottom of our frige, which doesn't have a freezer but sometimes freezes things anyway, were the Eternal Plums. I bought plums many, many weeks ago - I think right before Halloween - that never got eaten, but never went bad. They weren't frozen, but I think the cold at the bottom of the frige put them in a kind of fruit stasis. We also still have an open box of pancake mix we took home after Iron Chef, so naturally... we made crepes. I'll be honest, I'm trying to lose some weight right now but I feel like this dessert, which isn't bad in moderation, is worth every calorie. Speaking of calories, new feature! Every recipe will now include nutritional information at the end. (Let me know if you like this, or if you don't want to know.)

Crepes with Plum Compote and Nutella

2 c. water

2 c. sugar in the raw

3 plums, pitted and diced (roughly 2 cups)

1 c. pancake mix

1 c. milk

1 large egg

Butter or cooking spray

In a large pot, dissolve as much sugar as possible into water. Heat over low, stirring frequently, until remaining sugar dissolves. Add plums, and barely simmer, stirring frequently, until fruit is cooked and syrup is dark and thick. For us, this took about 40 minutes. The test is that if you put a bit of syrup on a plate, let it cool slightly, and tip the plate sideways, the syrup should drip very slowly. This was so simple, but delicious, and we saved some for breakfast tomorrow. If I were to make it again, I would add cinnamon. Cinnamon enhances sweetness but does basically nothing to the nutritional content of food.

For the crepes, beat the pancake mix, milk, and egg util uniform. The batter should be slightly thinner than regular pancake batter. Put a pan over medium heat and, once warmed, lightly coat with butter or cooking spray. Pour 1-2 tablespoons of batter into the center of a pan, and use a spatula to gently spread the uncooked batter off the edges, making the crepe thin and wide. Flip, cook on the other side, and remove to a plate. Like pancakes, a crepe will "release" when the down side is done cooking, but too much prodding will make the more delicate crepe fall apart. The edges and top of the crepe should "dry" slightly, and no longer have the same shine that uncooked batter does. If you can easily get your spatula under the crepe, it's ready to flip. If you have to do too much wiggling, give it a few more seconds.

Once you have your finished compote and your empty crepes, spoon 2 tablespoons of plum compote and a half tablespoon of nutella (if you so choose) into your crepe. Roll it up and enjoy, because these puppies are delicious.

One plum and nutella crepe, as described above is 140 calories: 26 g. carbs, 4 g. fat, 2 g. protein.

Try This Challenge: Iron Dorm Chef

Sometimes, I really love college. Tonight was one of those times. Almost every Tuesday the RAs have some kind of program and I couldn't resist tonight's program - Iron Chef. There was a table covered in possible ingredients, including things like pre-cooked pasta and chicken to help everyone meet the 35-minute time limit. The secret ingredient: corn.

I have never had so much fun improvising before. My roommates were in a separate group, and I was paired with three strangers. (They were good sous chefs, though, just in case anyone who knows them is reading this.) When the secret ingredient was announced there was a mad dash for the ingredients table and I grabbed an apple and a can of whole kernel corn, thinking, "I can make something with this, right?"

One of my teammates started dicing the apple, another opened and drained the corn, and I started beating an egg. I added a splash of milk, a tiny bit of vanilla extract, and asked my third teammate to grab the box of cake mix. Extra points for anyone who has already guessed what I was making, just from this partial list of ingredients: Apple-corn fritters. After a few false starts I got them to fry up beautifully, these little buttery, battery mini-pancakes studded with sweet bits of apple and corn. For added sweetness I also included a sprinkling of demeraro sugar, and some whole wheat flour to thicken the batter further when the first fritters fell apart. And remember, kids - when frying, use an oil with a high smoke point, like canola or peanut. This is the one place where olive oil and butter are not your friends.

It was an exercise in applied theory, because I had never actually made a fritter before, but I plated the nicest three and my teammates worked on presentation while I figured "Why the heck not?" and fried up the rest of the batter.

My roommates put together an impressive feast: caramelized onions and red pepper with cumin in improvised tortilla-crepes, fajita style. (The wrappings were made with a combination of pancake batter and creamed corn.) For desert they had chocolate popcorn balls - yum. Smart girls that they are they snagged the leftover choco-popcorn and it is tempting me from next to the fridge. Somehow, though, my modest apple-corn fritters won the day and I have no leftovers to nibble. I do, instead, have my share of the grand prize: a purple inflatable ball shaped like a hippopotamus.

Dinner Tonight: Morrocan/Middle Eastern-Inspired Meal

This past weekend, I went home for a few days, and probably the best part of being home for the weekend (aside from showering in a private bathroom without flip flops) was going to the Grower's Market on Saturday. I picked up some sharp cheddar cheese and fresh apple cider for my dad, and shopped around for me: Some of Highland Farms' excellent French feta sheep cheese; North Star Orchards' sweet, crunchy Empire apples; and a honkin' big head of cauliflower. I admit, I was also tempted by exotic, three-foot stalks covered in brussels sprouts. Because they are a special horror to my mother, I have made it to 21 years old without ever having been confronted with a brussels sprout, and thanks to a recent post on Simply Recipes I am eager to try them.

Sunday I drove back to school (and learned on the way that in New York there is a maximum IQ for drivers licenses) with the cheese, the last apple, and half the head of cauliflower in tow. The money on my meal plan has been dwindling, along with my patience for the terrible food at school. So, what do you do when confronted with half a head of cauliflower and an eggplant brought by a visiting friend that's moving to punkyville? You make dinner, of course.

My starting point was the cauliflower. My favorite way to eat cauliflower is roasted; toss it in olive oil, season however you want, and roast in the oven around 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until tender and delicious. Cauliflower and eggplant together remind me of Morrocan cuisine (a strange association since I've never actually had Morrocan cuisine, just read about it) so I lightly seasoned the cauliflower with cumin, chili powder, and a tiny touch of garlic.

I admit my continued cluelessness about Morrocan food, but that doesn't mean I'm not enthusiastic. The eggplant dish, which I jumped into with both feet, came out serentipitously well. If you know what Morrocan food is like, tell me if this bears any resemblance at all to it, please:

Roasted Eggplant Somethingy

1 medium eggplant, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1-2 T olive oil

Cumin, chili powder, garlic or other seasonings to taste

1 c large bread crumbs. (We had some stale ciabbata bread that was absolutely perfect.)

1 small can tomato paste

1 large can diced tomatoes (or 2-3 medium tomatoes, diced)

Toss the eggplant in olive oil; add spices. Add bread crumbs, tomato paste, and diced tomatoes and toss until uniform. Since I cook college style, I laid out a large sheet of tin foil, laid the eggplant mixture on it, and wrapped it up. (Not because I'm lazy but because I only have one pan.) You can put yours in a casserole and cover it. Bake at 400 for 30-40 minutes or until the eggplant is tender.

I also served this with roasted red peppers, hummus from the dining hall salad bar, and rice. (Couscous or pita bread might have been more appropriate, but I had rice, and it's not like they sell couscous or pita bread on campus.) I got to share this with my roommates and a friend who is starting to starve because of the absurdly high prices of food on campus. There were almost no leftovers, just a little bit of eggplant left in the foil because we all filled up on cauliflower, rice, and red peppers with hummus. Yum. ^_^

Try This Recipe: One-Pot Lentil Stew & Recipe Exchange

My mother is a very sensible woman and does not usually pass on or even read chain emails, but she actually sent me one recently. It's a virtual recipe exchange; send your favorite go-to easy recipe to the person who sent the email to her, and then pass the recipe exchange invitation along to your contacts, asking them to send her a recipe and do the same, so that you recieve recipes from their contacts. It's kind of interesting because you wind up with recipes that you might not have gotten otherwise.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I actually participated, in part because I am sick as a dog and have been nursing a pot of lentil stew. It's excellent, as dorm fare goes, and pretty darn good as a sick-day cookup, too. This is the recipe I sent out (to my Aunt Patti, actually.)

One-Pot Lentil Stew

1 c. chopped ham, bacon, or canadian bacon

1 medium onion, chopped

2 medium carrots, chopped

2 stalks of celerey, chopped

2-3 cups of any other veggies you feel like adding, chopped. Tried and true: cabbage, potato, spinach, turnip, and parsnip - not necessarily in the pot together, but they each work well in this stew.

1 can of diced tomatoes, with juice

1 can of V8

Water (fill the empty tomato can and pour it in)

Salt, pepper and rosemary (optional) to taste

1 c. lentils (or other dried bean)

In a large pot over mediumt to high heat, cook the ham and onion together until they begin to caramelize, stirring frequently. Add the carrots, celerey, and other veggies, stirring until they begin to wilt. Add diced tomatoes, V8, and water. Simmer 5-10 minutes, or until the veggies are tender. Taste and season with salt and pepper as desired. If you want, add a whole sprig of rosemary. (Rosemary tastes great in this, and by adding a whole sprig you can cook in the flavor but pull out the needles, so it doesn't ruin the texture.) Add lentils and simmer, covered, for 15 to 20 minutes or until lentils are tender. Serves 8.

If the recipe exchange sounds interesting to you, let me know by emailing me at uronlysunshine@gmail.com. I'll add you to the email before I send it out - I'm curious to see what I'll get back. Enjoy!

Try This Recipe: Mom's Dark Chocolate & Orange Cake

My mother loves to bake, even more than I do. As I've mentioned before, she is a chemist, and baking is chemistry with really tasty results. She also decorates cakes for friends and family. When my oldest cousin got married, Mom made her wedding cake, covered in fondant and Cornelini lace. Learning from her has been one of the best things in my culinary education. If you have a little extra orange buttercream icing, try your hand at making buttercream roses.

This is the cake she made for my 21st birthday. She created this recipe for the Hershey's Cocoa Classic, and got all the way to the Pennsylvania State Fair with it last year, before being railroaded by an anti-citrus judge. Be aware, this cake is very strong in flavor, and quite rich. You could easily get 16 slices from this, and even more if you've got a sharp knife.

For the cake:

6 T butter

6 T margarine

1 3/4 c sugar

2 eggs

1 t vanilla

2 c flour

3/4 c Hershey's Special Dark cocoa

1 1/4 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1 1/3 c water

Grease and flour two 8-inch cake pans, line bottoms with wax paper, grease paper. Preheat oven to 350. Cream butter, margarine and sugar in large mixer bowl. Add eggs and vanilla; beat 1 minute at medium speed. Combine dry ingredients; add alternately with water to creamed mixture. Pour batter into greased pans. Bake for 45 minutes at 350, or until layers test done. Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack, removing wax paper immediately, and allow cakes to cool completely.

Orange buttercream icing:

3/4 c butter

1 t orange extract

Zest of 2 medium oranges

3 c powdered sugar

1 1/2 T heavy cream

(optional) food coloring - 2 drops red, 4 yellow

Cream butter, add extract and zest. Gradually add cream and sugar. Add food coloring if desired. Beat on high until smooth and light.

Chocolate fudge frosting:

6 T melted butter

1/2 c Hershey's Special Dark cocoa

2 c powdered sugar

1/4 c heavy cream

1 t vanilla extract

Pour melted butter into mixing bowl; add cocoa, stirring until smooth. Gradually beat in powdered sugar, cream, and vanilla. Beat until smooth.

To assemble the cake, level your halves, and torte the layers - cut them in half horizontally, so that now you have four thin layers of cake. Fill between the layers with the orange icing, and use it to make a thin crumb coat on the sides of the cake. This does a couple of things: torting the cake distributes rich orange flavor, and the crumb coat keeps the cut edges of the cake from gunking up the outer layer of your icing with - you guessed it - crumbs. Ice the sides and top of the cake with chocolate icing, and decorate with the remaining orange buttercream. No matter how it looks, this is a showstopper once the first person takes a bite.

Try This Vlog: Working Class Foodies

If you've read more than two or three posts by now you know that I am a huge fan of Simply Recipes and 101 Cookbooks. Now, I am also a fan of Working Class Foodies. The premise of this sort-of vlog is that siblings in New York are looking to prepare healthy food from sustainable sources on a tight budget. Sounds pretty familiar, huh? I'd get my brother in on this, but he has a thing for Cheetohs and Top Ramen. WCF is just fun, light, informative, and it makes my mouth water every time I watch it.

In other news, we finally have a fridge! My roommates and I are all looking forward to being to store the food we've prepared, and I am looking forward to... boxed lunches. Yessiree, you heard me right, I am looking forward to boxed lunches. My schedule this semester runs me hard from 9 to 5, and there simply are no Hofstra meals that are fast, cheap, and appetizing. Solution? Bento! I might not spend the time and effort Anna the Red does but that doesn't mean I can't learn a little something from the Japanese art of the boxed lunch. This weekend will include a grocery store run for an appropriate box, rice, and some nice fresh veggies.

Try This Recipe: Basilisk Repellent

I feel like there's no point in obfuscating my location any more, now that it's been plastered across national headlines. I go to Hofstra University, and in case you haven't heard, this past week my campus has been rocked by first allegations of gang rape, and then the unsettling truth that it was consentual. This has been accompanied by other, actual, incidents of violence - a brawl during a Greek life party, an armed robbery, and two incidents of young women being detained and harassed by young men. All in all, no one is feeling very safe on campus right now, especially young women.

I was lucky enough to have five years of training in Tang Soo Do before leaving for school, but neither of my roommates have had much self-defense training. The university offers a weekly Aikido class, which we'll be taking together for a while. Lindsey, one of my roomies, has taken to calling it "Basilisk Defense."

As an aid to all basilisk defenses, I think all young women should carry some form of basilisk repellent. In New York, the strict laws about Mace and pepper spray make me want to err on the side of caution, so here is a homemade version of anti-creep spray that is perfectly legal. Keep in mind that the purpose of self-defense sprays is to give you a chance to run away, not inflict harm. I have overheard plenty of young women talking about how they'd try to beat up a creep like that, and the point is: don't. If you are ever in that situation, your job is to stay safe. Focus on remembering what your attacker looks like and how you can get away. If you are able to spray, do so, and make a break for it. My Aunt Gloria's advice is to look an attacker in the eyes, because it reminds him that you are human, too, and it also slows his reflexes.

Get a small spray bottle, like the kind scents come in, which you can often find at craft stores. Fill it most of the way with rubbing alcohol, and add a few drops of your favorite essential oil. Top with water or witch hazel, cap, and shake well. It's really that simple - a good spray of that about the eyes and face will sting an attacker and distract him long enough for you to run away.

Almost anything in a spray bottle can work: perfumes, sanitizers, anything with some alcohol in it stings. I actually carry a bottle of fabric freshener in my purse, because it has the benefit of stinging alcohol, as well as not looking like a weapon, and the confusion factor of "It stings, it stings - why do I smell like spring rain?"

So, ladies and gentlemen, please keep yourselves safe. Be aware of your surroundings, trust your gut, and look out for yourselves and your friends.

PS - Friday was my birthday. Soon to be posted: my mother's killer chocolate cake recipe.