Whole Grain Grub

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finger lickin' good

Kick rocks Rachel Ray. There’s a new chef in town. (Wow that was corny.) Last week I had the pleasure of attending a cooking demonstration that was part of April’s Black Chef Series hosted by Putnam Park at The House Of Art in Bed-Stuy. The featured chef of the evening was Chef Mustapha (also knows as Chef Mu), who promised to prepare quick, easy, healthy yet delicious food that everyone can make. I love food and I love cooking so I jumped at the chance to attend this event. This was, hands down, one of the best events I have been to in New York. Not only was the event well put together (there was a beautiful, colorful display of healthy fruits and vegetables at the chef’s cooking station), but learned lots and lots and lots of useful information.

Before the event started, we were each handed a well-styled menu that listed the dishes Chef Mu was going to prepare for us. There were seven in total. Seven! And he only had two hours to make it all. On the menu: sweet shrimp (over fried plantains with mango salsa), coconut snapper fingers, curried sweet potato and apple salad, green bean salad with citrus vinaigrette, spiced honey chicken, sesame cabbage with garlic and ginger, and mini-pancakes with mixed fruit compote for dessert. Chef Mu pulled it off…everything was amazing. Like, wow-am-I really-moaning-right-now–soooo-not-a-good-look-dot-com amazing!

While Chef Mu was cooking, he took time to answer our questions. I think I had more questions than anyone else in the room. Some of the most helpful things I learned were: 1. how long you can keep spices before they decrease in quality (90 days), 2. why do onions make us cry (a dull knife), 3. where does one buy a decent knife for a reasonable price (Henckel via Target).

Ok. So. Two days ago I tried recreating three of the dishes on my own. I deviated from the recipes a tiny bit but the results…Not bad.

Pics below and official recipes to come!

fried plantains (green) with a mango salsa...chef Mu's version had an yummy shrimp on top but I don't trust the seafood at my local supermarket

crunchy green beans topped with a citrus vinaigrette...chef Mu's version had raw onions as well.

curry sweet potato and apple salad with arugula, cilantro and peppers. Chef Mu used a red pepper, but I am not ballin' like that (5 dollars a pound by a).

Soooooooooo…you may have noticed that we have a new look (you BETTER  have noticed…shooooot. Hehe. Kidding!). We were getting a little tired of blogger’s formatting issues and switched over to the good old WordPress. Shout out to my homie A. Cole who helped it happen.  This site is a work in progress. Bear with us… we may be improving the look momentarily. I know a handfull of you were “following” us on blogger.  Why don’t you take a minute to subscribe here ———–>

cheers

Fill her up bartender! I kid, I kid. But this is nice news. Although… I only really drink one to two glasses of wine a week (I always forget to buy some for the house). Good to know either way.

BTW, the study is not limited to wine. It also includes beer and liquor. Researchers from Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston discovered that women who drank the equivalent of a glass or two of wine a day gained less weight and had a lower risk of becoming overweight or obese than women who didn’t drink at all. The study was based on data that followed 19,000 women for 12.9 years.

Recently, I gave a presentation on “What to Eat” for a Black Women’s Health Summit in Brooklyn. At the end of the presentation, a woman asked me if we should be drinking raw milk.

In short, I personally wouldn’t take the chance (but then again I don’t drink milk either way). Heating milk via pasteurization kills a lot of the microorganisms in the milk, making it safer to drink. Now, I should also mention that the reason a lot of cow’s milk contains harmful microorganisms is because these cows are living in mounds of their own feces. Many people who do choose to drink raw milk are getting it from cows who are not living in these conditions (and they aren’t being pumped with antibiotics and eating corn based diets). Raw milk enthusiasts argue that pasteurization kills a lot of the good bacteria along with the bad. And drinking it straight from the cow is much better for us.

New York Magazine published an article this week that highlighted the pros and cons of drinking raw milk (and where to get it within New York City).

Good info. Check it here.

Moooo

One word: MASTERPIECE! So freaking good! Foolproof too.

steaming veggies

baked tofu

Finished product. I get a C on the presentation but I was SO hungry I couldn't play around.

Here’s what you need:

• extra firm tofu
• a bunch of fresh basil
• 3 tbs fresh ginger
• a bunch of fresh mint
• 1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
• 2-3 tbs olive oil
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 head of brocoli
• 5 carrots
• 1 onion

Here’s what I did:

• chop tofu into small cubes
• chop basil and ginger
• marinate in fridge in 1/4 cup of soy sauce for 30 + minutes
• cook brown rice (two cups of rice in four cups of water). Follow package.
• steam chopped veggies on medium in 1/4 cup of water for about  5 minutes. You don’t want them soft. Keep a lil’ crunch!
• on a frying pan, or whatever you got, add 2 to 3 tbs of olive oil and 1/4 cup soy sauce (more if you want)
• stir fry on medium heat for about 5 to 10 minutes. The idea is to make the rice crispy. Just play it by ear until it looks BOMB and starts smelling real nice. Add chopped mint in the last 2 minutes.

I just got a new computer. Which gave me a chance to re-sort through old photos. Last summer, Ash and I took a little trip to Paris and Amsterdam. Lots of markets and cafes and bakeries and fooood. Here are some of the pics.

All of that for only $10 (tip and tax are always included). Love it!

I waited 5 years (since my last trip to paris) to get another one of these mini blackberry pie pastries. Dear god.

Best. Falafel. E-V-E-R!

Everyone eats outdoors in the summer. Like summertime nyc.

Bakeries make me happy. This was in a TRAIN STATION, mind you!

Chomp chomp. Needless to say, I gained 8 pounds. Bread, cheese, bread, cheese, bread and cheese.

Remember how there was always a section in your french textbook that had pictures of the markets to help you learn about foods. This whole market was sooo their inspiration.

Olives!

For all you meat eaters

This is what we made with the food we bought at the market! Yummy pan seared pesto salmon with potatoes and veggies!

Sayyyyyy cheese

I know this is tacky, but that is not a picture of the hummus I made. I got it from the Internet. But I swear mine looked just like this.

Get the buckouttahere with that mess! Really, America? We have sunk to a new low. How is this being accepted as a sandwich? Looking at this thing makes me want to hurl. The sad fact of the matter is that in order for a new food product (and I use the term loosely) to enter the market, food companies have to do a bunch of different steps, including:

1. noticing a void in the market for something
2. creation of a concept
3. research and development
4. development of a prototype
5. sample market test (inc. focus groups to get product feedback)
6. more research and dev
7. market test in Columbus, Ohio (Ohio is thought to be representative of the rest of the US, so companies test new food product there.)
8. product launch

My problem is that this has obviously been tested on a portion of the population, and that portion of the population gave it the thumbs up. Folks have to know this is a ticket to diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Plus, that can’t taste good. There’s no way.

KFC is actually the reason I became a vegetarian. My brother used to work there and bring fried chicken home everyday. It was a family staple. I remember taking a family trip to Lake Tahoe when I was 12 and we brought a bucket of KFC with us to the beach (gotta love Black folks). I literally was having trouble stomaching it and I couldn’t finish my boneless breast. (It’s traumatic even thinking about it.)

At the time, I thought I was a freak. I never liked meat. I didn’t like the way it tasted; I didn’t like the way it made me feel; I didn’t like the idea of eating animals. I would always pick around the fat until there was nothing left (“DAD…you cut me a piece of fat with meat around it!”). But it wasn’t until a couple weeks later, when we went to visit my other (even older) brother and his vegetarian girlfriend, that I realized there was actually a name for people who didn’t eat meat. AND… that you didn’t need to eat meat to survive. My first experience with a veggie burger was love at first bite.

After that trip, I made an announcement to my parents that I would no longer be consuming meat. And I never did.

Seeing this picture of this absolutely disgusting KFC burger reminds me how much I hate meat and that I definitely made the right decision 15 years ago. Just to be clear, I don’t think there is anything wrong with eating meat (if that is something you enjoy). But there is a right way (free range, grass fed, no hormones or antibiotics…if you can) and a wrong way. This, my friends, is the WORST way.

This post has two parts.

Part One: The skinny on fats

I liked this analysis of what the latest research says about fat consumption. Here is the gist if you don’t feel like reading:

• Americans were told to avoid fat.
• Americans avoided fat.
• Americans are fatter than ever.
• There must be more to the story.
• Actually, refined carbs are the enemy.
• Some fats are good, some are bad (unsaturated fat and saturated/trans fat, respectively)
• Swapping saturated fats for polyunsaturated fats—the omega-3 fatty acids found in certain fish and the omega-6 fatty acids in vegetable oils such as safflower and soybean oils—helps the heart
• Want to reduce your risk of cardiac death? Consume more polyunsaturated fats.
• Based on the evidence, “polyunsaturated fats are the best…fat to be increasing in the diet,” says Dariush Mozaffarian (study author)
• Wait.
• Actually, polyunsaturated fats are not free of controversy because you need the RIGHT RATIO of omega 3 to omega 6 (Omega-3 fatty acids, found in albacore tuna, sardines, walnuts, and tofu, are linked to improvement in some measures of heart-disease risk; omega-6 fatty acids, found in eggs, certain fish, and safflower and soybean oils, may cause inflammation.)
• Don’t loose sleep over it, though. If you are eating “good fats” you will probably be okay.
• Ok. In terms of monounsaturated fats (olive oil, sesame oil, canola oil). They are still better than saturated fats; however, they don’t provide the same benefits as polyunsaturated fats.
• But we’ve always heard olive oil is good, right?
• Well, yes, but it may be the phytochemicals in olive oil that offer health benefits.
• Quantity over quality. Meaning, don’t over do it or you will reverse health benefits.

badabing badaboom?

Part Two: High Fat Breakfast healthiest way to start the day

This is another study that I found interesting. Basically, it argues that a high fat breakfast is actually a great way to jump start your metabolism AND it will result in more fat calories burned through the day. Who would have thunk it?