Cooking When No One is Hungry

I love to cook when no one is hungry and it can be a wonderful exercise in mindfulness meditation; being present with the herbs releasing their aromatic oils to the air as I am separating the individual leaves by hand, rinsing, and ripping, Cilantro. Mint. Basil. Kitchen aromatherapy.

Tonight I took a few hours preparing an Asian-inspired meal with a sweet dessert treat. Mark Bittman is fast becoming one of my favorite recipe authors. His recipes are simple, easy to follow, and most importantly - they WORK (unlike those of Martha Stewart, but I digress... .) Tonight I tried out Thai Beef Salad and paired it with Noodles with Mushrooms . Fantastic! Thankfully I had my husband around to cook the steak to medium rare. Having spent from ages 12 to 29 as a vegetarian, I never learned to cook meat. I can now cook chicken consistently, however beef is still in many ways a mystery to me. The meal was light, flavorful, and satisfying. This would be great with a beautiful chardonnay or a plum wine.

For dessert I prepared the Coconut Nut Chews. So delicious. I cut the nuts to 1 cup and added 1/2 cup of rice milk chocolate chips. I was surprised at how easy these were to make. Twenty five minutes to prepare and bake and 30 minutes to cool. I do recommend transferring the chews on the parchment paper onto the rack to cool rather than transferring them by spatula. The chews were kid approved!

Now, the real question, did the kid eat the dinner? I had low expectations going in that my son would embrace the meal. I reserved some of the pasta for him and topped it with marinara sauce from a jar. I also set aside some steak for him and he was quite happy to dip it in ketchup. He was quite happy with his adapted version.

This Is Your Meat on Drugs

80% of US Antibiotics End Up in Meat - a recent article form Change.org.

Look down at your steak. This is your meat on drugs. Now, I'm not vegetarian, but this issue alone should stimulate reflection on where we buy our meat and where meat fits into our food system. These drugs end up in the meat we eat, in the environment, and help to create drug-resistant strains of bacteria that kill 10s of 1000s of people each year.

As reported by Food Safety News, the numbers are astonishing. 

Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) announced Wednesday that FDA confirmed the numbers with her office for the first time. She plans to reintroduce a bill she crafted in 2009 aimed at preserving the effectiveness of antibiotics important for human health by limiting their use in agriculture.

So, what can we do now to vote for a different method for raising animals for food? Vote with our dollars! One potentially good source of meat  is a local CSA farm.  These are typically small-scale farms that raise animals organically and/or largely grass-fed on pasture. Often you can tour the farm and see for yourself how the animals are handled. Since these farms are small and the animals kept outside most of the time, they don't need to use the "preventative" drug therapy that the large-scale industrial feedlots must in order to keep disease to a minimum.