Look & Cook

I am blessed. I am blessed to have met a women such as Pauline Roos, my Grandmother...my Omi. I learned what I know in the kitchen from her. Learned to be positive and loving and enjoy cooking for people. Learned that the kitchen is the focal point of a home and if that focal point is full of love & light & laughter everything will be OK and life somehow becomes easier. Sitting at my kitchen table with company or in solitude, eating or just having a cup of tea, is moment of bliss.

Her way was a "look and cook" style. Taking what ever was in the fridge or cupboard and creating a delectable feast. Always vegetarian, always well-rounded. I lived with her for a while and during that time I gained a wealth of knowledge from this sturdy, determined woman. She taught me how to wash greens, cut vegetables the "correct" way and acknowledge my moods while I prepared a meal. Her beliefs around the preparation of a meal had a strong macrobiotic influence. The cutting of a carrot had to be taken on with a certain attitude and cut a very specific way. Calm, flowing diagonal cuts with as much good intention as I could muster up. Each vegetable had it's own desire on how it wanted to be cut and prepared, she always listened to that message. Once, I cut the carrots into little rounds and needed to throw them all away because they were not cut properly. I was 19 then and did not quite grasp what she was trying to teach me. Washing lettuce or greens three times seemed to take FOREVER...but, slowly I understood what she was sharing with me. Slowly I could feel the energy of these vegetables I consumed. I could feel the difference between a meal made with love and one just thrown together. EVERYTHING tastes better when one of the ingredients is love!
People were the focal point of her life, she loved visitors and always had a few "lost souls" living in her house. Dinner usually involved more than her and I, with someone knocking at the front door just as we sat down to eat. I remember expressing to her once that I was worried there would not be enough food to feed everyone who was there. "There is always enough food, that's just the way it is." and she was right!

Vegan Chocolate Cake

by Lisa Witzke
I am posting this recipe in honor of Pauline Roos. She loved sweets! A little cookie here, a little pudding there, a little bit of sugar in her coffee...or on brown rice made her day.

8-10 Servings

Dry Ingredients
1 ¼ cup unbleached flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
½ cup cocoa powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon baking powder
Wet Ingredients
1 ¾ cup maple syrup or agave nectar
1 cup water
5 tablespoons oil or melted soy margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon white vinegar

Preheat over to 350 F. Oil an 8-inch cake pan or cupcake tins. Sift the dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl whisk together the wet ingredients. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients gradually until smooth. Pour the batter into prepared cake pan or cupcake tins, bake 30-35 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Top with Cashew Cream(below) and fresh fruit!

Cashew Cream

Created by my friend Annie Keohane

2 cups cashews
1 TBS coconut oil (the solid white kind – spectrum or nutiva)
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup water
Soak cashews in filtered water overnight or 6-8 hours. Rinse well and place in blender with the rest of the ingredients. Blend till creamy and smooth. Add a little more water if it's too thick. Taste to see if you want to add more vanilla or maple syrup.
This is a great non-dairy whipped topping for the holidays. For a healthy dessert you can make sundaes by blending frozen bananas, strawberries and a few dates with just enough water to make it blendable and spoon into bowls. Top with cashew cream, some chopped nuts and coconut, maybe some shaved organic dark chocolate if you like.

A Food Revolution!

I viewed Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on television last night. It aroused a few thoughts for me...
First, I was proud! We NEED a TRUE food revolution. We NEED education and awareness about the food we eat and the industry which produces it. We NEED to bring food back into the home, around a kitchen table with friends and family. We NEED preparing a meal to be fun and inclusive and delicious. Everything has become fast, quick and easy...we NEED food to become slow and savory again. The food we consume as a nation is disgusting. Where are the vegetables? Where are the whole grains? Where are the products which resemble what Mother Earth intended? When a chicken nugget is a staple of our children's diets, there really is a problem out there. We need to re-introduce our palates to wholesome, real food. YES, it take some work and dedication but isn't it worth it? I don't know a lot about Mr. Oliver but I hope he is a real catalyst for change, not a media hungry businessman pushing some hidden agenda. There are a lot of NEEDS and I hope everyone is inspired to create a food revolution right inside their own kitchen!
Second, why is it that overweight people are always the target of poor eating habits? I know PLENTY of skinny people who eat horribly if they eat at all. It's what we eat that is an issue NOT what we look like! EVERYONE needs to re-evaluate their diet and their health issues. I would venture to guess that most of the ailments we have are food related. Pay attention to your body, listen to the signals it is sending you. Intuition is vital! If we do one thing everyday to promote a healthy body think of the things we could accomplish in a year! French fries are not a vegetable and soda does not rehydrate you.
Third, it scared me a bit. When the media and big corporations get involved in the most basic principals of life they become over sensationalized, marketed "life styles". It reminds me of the magazine "Simple Living", the idea of living simply becomes a consumer product. Buy this product or concept to "help" you create a simpler life. Preposterous! Do we want Wal-mart to be the place we purchase our organic vegetables? Or Monsanto creating the organic standards for the world? We need a food revolution that starts at the beginning, get big pharma and the corporate monsters out of our food chain! Do something RADICAL...plant an organic garden in your yard.
Please check out The Center for Food Safety and SLOW FOOD they are great resources to help educate yourself about our food.

Warm Orzo Salad

This recipe is from my favorite restaurant in Burlington, VT PENNY CLUSE

Serves six

This is a salad and not a sautéed pasta dish, so the ingredients should be warmed but not cooked thoroughly. You should be able to distinguish all of the ingredients in the finished product.

4 cups cooked orzo pasta (cooled and lightly oiled)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup pitted kalamata olives, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons capers, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
½ cup diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley
2 cups packed fresh spinach
½ cup good quality feta cheese
Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper

In a large sauté pan, combine the oil, olives, capers, garlic, tomatoes, and parsley. Generously sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover with the spinach and cook on high until the spinach shows signs of wilting. Add the cooked orzo to the pan and toss once or twice, just so the ingredients intermingle. Distribute the feta on top and put into a warm oven for a few minutes. Turn out onto a warmed serving platter.

A Buzz of Bees is Abound

Bees have been on my mind of late. In conversations unrelated to one another, across the continent. Stories of connections made with beekeepers, bee charmers and honey. I wonder what the message is. BEES. These buzzing beauties of the wild. A matriarchal society of winged insects, to me, one of the most beautiful creatures on this planet. Creating a community to survive, nourishing and protecting their queen, feeding Her royal jelly and creating a hive of intricate geometrically proportioned cells. They are an inspiration!
I drive down the road these days and see so many hives in back yards. The gleaming white boxes stacked neatly next to one another awaiting a worker bee with legs full of pollen. As I weed my garden in the summer months I witness a fuzzy black, brown and yellow bee land on the stamen of a flower, I wonder if it is visiting me from my friends hive down the road. I imagine it's journey from their house to mine over the tree tops and into every vibrant pollen engorged flower they spot along the way. Ducking into the petals to collect the precious yellow gold they need to keep their queen and hive alive and healthy.
It is nearly the first day of spring, and I await the string of warm sunny days that will lure the worker bees from the hive they have been keeping warm all winter, out into the crisp fresh air. Ready to pollinate the world, one flower at a time.

"The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee; A clover, any time, to her is aristocracy."
-Emily Dickinson

Baked Pears with Honey & Ginger

by Lisa Witzke Serves 4

4 perfectly ripe, firm Bartlett pears (peel, cored and cut in half)
½ cup sucanat
2 t ground ginger
4 T local honey
1 T fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 t grated lemon peel
5 T butter or butter substitute such as Earth Balance

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In cast iron skillet place ½ T butter, melt. Arrange pears cut side down in skillet. Sprinkle pears with ¼ cup sucanat & 1t ginger. Mix honey, lemon juice and peel in a bowl pour over pears and dot with 2 T butter.
Place skillet in oven. Bake 15 minutes, basting occasionally. Turn pears over and bake additional 5 minutes.
Arrange two pear halves on a plate.
Place skillet with syrup from baked pears on stove. Add ¼ sucanat, 1 t ginger, 2 ½ T butter whisk until butter is melted and syrup is a bit thick.
Spoon over pears.
Garnish with sprig of mint.
And for utter decadence a scoop of Purely Decadent coconut milk Coconut frozen dessert!
Yummy!