Butter is better

I've been reading Michael Pollan's book in defense of food.

Even when growing up on margarine I knew it wasn't quite right. And yet as a young adult I couldn't freely make that break to butter because of the overwhelming indoctrination against butter. I wasn't aware that this campaign has been going on since the 70's and even though there is evidence to the contrary no one wants to admit it was a failure. At least not publicly. It wasn't till after I read from Sally Fallons book Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats that I made a complete change and chose butter over margarine and avoided processed goods made with hydrogenated oils.

My overall health improved and I lost weight. I had also started taking a super-antioxidant supplement with grape seed extract.

I recently purchase sour cream that doesn't contain guar gum or carrageenan. How simply delicious a naturally unadulterated product tastes. How wholesome and good.

The reason for the addition of such things as guar gum has been done under the supposed idea that this would make the sour cream more nutritionally better. This is based on the lipid hypotheses but as Michael Pollan states in his book such hypotheses as proven to be quite lacking in evidence.

"The lipid hypothesis is quietly melting away, but no one in the public health community, or the government, seems quite ready to publicly acknowledge it. For fear of what exactly? That we'll binge on bacon double cheeseburgers? More likely that we'll come to the unavoidable conclusion that the emperors of nutrition have no clothes and never listen to them again."

Coffee Cake

This coffee cake turned out so good. I had to post the recipe.

Cake:

Blend together 1/4 cup butter, 1/4 applesauce, 1/3 cup sugar, 1/2 cup sour milk or yogurt, 1 egg beaten and 1 tsp vanilla(I didn't have any vanilla).

Mix together 1 cup flour(today I used 1/2 white, 1/2 whole grain rye flour), 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt.

Add butter mixture to flour mixture. Blend thoroughly.

Topping:

Mix together 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 4 tsp melted butter, about 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup oats. Or you can add 1/2 cup chopped nuts instead.

Spread cake mixture in 8 x 8 pan, sprinkle on topping. Bake in 350 degrees oven for about 20 minutes.

Butter, something good for your health

I've been meaning to post more on the nutritional goodness of butter.

Check out this article by Dr. Mercola.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/09/22/7-Reasons-to-Eat-More-Saturated-Fat.aspx

bluegreenreverie

Well, my website http://www.bluegreenreverie.com/ has been up for one week now.

A real food dinner

I have found several things helpful in my quest to eat real food in America. One is having a brother who has an organic garden. And of course who kindly shares much of the nutritious produce. I've used cabbage in several meals. Tonight I made a dish I learned from my mother another person who has been a help. I saw my mom cook and bake many things from scratch. So, I made chicken divan crepes with broccoli from my brothers garden. I was thinking of a website regarding the same thing and the domain name was taken. So I thought I'd check it out http://realfoodchallenge.org/ . The focus is to bring real food to college campuses and a greater understanding about local, sustainable and organic.

Education is definitely the key, because when you understand more about what real food is and what a food product is - you are more likely to make an effort to eat real food. Instead of eating the subsidized american food products that are so cheaply and abundantly available. I suggest reading these books by Michael Pollan, The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food: An Eaters Manifesto. And also the book by Joel Salatin, Everything I Want to do is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front. There are currently 35 requests for Omnivore's Dilemma at my local library. I have yet to read In Defense of Food.

Another Cabbage Dinner

Tonight I made stuffed cabbage. I could have cooked the cabbage a bit longer but, it still turned out pretty tasty. I served it with fresh home-made bread. I usualy mix white, whole wheat and oat flour. I decided to use rye flour instead of oat flour. It turned out really well. I'm not getting any better at slicing bread though. I'll be getting a good bread slicer this month.

This quote was in the cryptogram I did today.

"The time has come the walrus said to talk of many things. of shores and ships and sealing wax of cabbages and kings." Lewis Carrol

Cabbage Kuchen

My brother Kevin has quite a garden this year. I took home half a large cabbage the other day. I had some left-over meat loaf. So, I thought I'd make some Cabbage Kucken. The recipe is from a vegetarian cookbook Laurel's Kitchen by Laurel Robertson, Carol Flanders, and Bronwen Godfrey. I've had this cookbook for years and remembered how I liked this recipe

Cabbage Kuchen:

Topping: 2 onions, 4 cups shredded cabbage, 2 T butter, 1 cup yogurt, 2 eggs beaten, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp black pepper, 1 T caraway seed.

Dough (Kuchen): 2 cups whole wheat flour, 2 tsps baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 egg beaten, 1 cup milk, 2 T butter melted.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

To make topping , slice onions thinly and saute with cabbage in butter. Mix in other topping ingredients and set aside.

Stir flour, baking powder and salt lightly with a fork. Combine egg, milk and butter and stir briefly into dry ingredients.

Spread in greased 8 x 8 pan. Spread with topping and bake for 35 minutes.

I varied this recipe slightly. I like to add in other flours so I also used rye and oat flour. I used only 1/2 cup yogurt and 1/4 water in the topping. Next time I'm thinking to adjust the recipe to have less kuchen and use only 1 1/2 cups flour. I made it in a 9 x 6.5 inch glass baking dish. It was surprisingly good just like I remembered.

Tonight, I warmed it up and we had it with pork chops and hashbrowns. I had fried onions with mine. I made a mushroom sauce for Mike.