"Edamame" is the Japanese word for boiled soy beans. Yup, the same stuff that my Louisiana cousins (you thought I only had cousins in Houston? LOL!) grow for animal feed, it would seem. Only yesterday I bought it (Imperial Gourmet All Natural Edamame) in a big box with 8 little (frozen) packages for a little over $7. I am not thinking that that was such a good buy, but, since I've never actually had this food (other than a little taste at a salad bar), I thought it would be worth the investment to try it out.
I thawed out the first package (not enough room in the freezer for all 8). When it was getting time for dinner, I actually read the box. I didn't realize that the pods were not edible. That makes even more of the packaging a waste, since there was really no need for plastic bowls for these beans and, indeed, not too much justification for taking up all that space in shipping and storage.
Looking for more information on this product (there is no "Imperial Gourmet" website that I could find), I did find a web reference on the package to JYC International. J. Y. Chung and his company apparently import these packages directly from China for Sam's, Costco, and others. The website is not well developed, but there is some more information about the history and cultural context of edamame in the Orient and in the States.
I also spent some time trying to figure out the nutritional value of these beans. Not that I doubted that they were good for me. The problem was the packaging. The nutritional panel said that there were 12 servings in the box, but there were only 8 little bowls. In order to get 12 servings, I would have to divide 6 bowls in half and the remaining 2 bowls in sixths and then redistribute the beans from the two bowls to the half-bowls and . . . what a mess!
And then there were the inedible pods. I had to assume that the pods were not included in the nutritional information, but their size (one-, two-, and three-bean pods) and probable random distribution would affect what was left in each bowl after shelling. *snarl*
I ended up ignoring the nutritional information and winging it. The whole problem just aggravated me. Fortunately, after a couple of minutes in the microwave, a little (not nearly as much as the package provided) sea salt, and a dash of soy sauce produced a nice little bowl of beans to snack on. They were labeled as a snack, so I had to try them as a snack. I shelled them all at once instead of squushing them out into my mouth. I seasoned the bowl of beans after shelling. And it was good. A lot of work and worry for a small bowl of beans, but not so bad.
I ate a few beans and liked the crunch and the taste. Nothing overwhelming as far as flavor is concerned, so I figured the bean would play well with others. I dumped the remainder in a stir fry of celery, onion, cabbage from a package of fresh cole slaw, and leftover rice from the previous day. Very nice when served with salmon. The flavors, even with a little garlic and soy sauce did not overwhelm the salmon, so I had to admit that I was proud of my cooking last night.
I will also look for edamame now in other kinds of packaging with clearer nutritional information. It is very likely to become a frequent addition to my vegetable stir-frys.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
National Pizza Month
Oh, cool! This is National Pizza Month. And here's some pizza history to help celebrate.
I guess this justifies our lack of willpower when My Prince and I went shopping at the local warehouse store yesterday. I drove my electric cart past the display case of take-me-home-and-bake-me pizzas with hardly a flinch, but My Prince just couldn't push his buggy past the display. His face took on this pitiful look, and, of course, I had to say "Pick one!" At least he went for the all meat one--fewer carbs, doncha know?
I guess this justifies our lack of willpower when My Prince and I went shopping at the local warehouse store yesterday. I drove my electric cart past the display case of take-me-home-and-bake-me pizzas with hardly a flinch, but My Prince just couldn't push his buggy past the display. His face took on this pitiful look, and, of course, I had to say "Pick one!" At least he went for the all meat one--fewer carbs, doncha know?
Figuring out carbs and glycemic index: Brown rice
I'm struggling now, trying to figure out which foods we can keep in our "inventory" of healthful, low-carb edibles and which needs to be eliminated. We've been stocking the pantry pretty steadily in an effort to feed a grandson, who is a bottomless pit, and My Prince, who is much too old to be a bottomless pit but seems to be, and my own metabolically impaired self. Part of that effort has also been intended to weather the economic storm that has been brewing for some time, with higher food prices and the potential for some shortages to occur. Sadly, this has allowed us to slip into some less-than-desirable eating habits. (Not to mention all these trips to Houston and the storms that we've had lately.)
As I've followed some leads on the internet, mostly starting with "can I keep the X" food item, I've picked up on a couple of things. Most likely this has moved me into the "dangerous knowledge" category, but I'm gonna try to work my way through some of this anyway.
So . . .
We have a lot of basmati rice hanging around and a fair amount of brown rice. The rice cooker was a lot of fun, but now I've learned to use it to steam vegetables, so it's not going to be thrown out. Nor is the rice. We are just going to have to eat less of it when we eat it and be mindful of where we have spent our "carb allowance" on the days that we eat it.
As I've followed some leads on the internet, mostly starting with "can I keep the X" food item, I've picked up on a couple of things. Most likely this has moved me into the "dangerous knowledge" category, but I'm gonna try to work my way through some of this anyway.
So . . .
- Starch that is stored as amylose is higher in density and slower to be metabolized. That means that high-amylose rice, for example, would have a lower glycemic index than one that was not high-amylose. How much lower is a question. My guess is that it not much lower, since rice in general has a high glycemic index, but high-amylose rice would be "better" than other rice if one were thinking in terms of harm reduction.
- Of the various types of rice that are grown, indica rice is higher in amylose than japonica rice. Indica rice appears to be long grain rice, whereas japonica is short grain (and javonica is medium grain). OK, so we stick with long grain rice, including basmati.
- Brown rice is simply a stage in the processing of rice in which the inedible outer husk has been removed. This stage has gives us a large grain because the brown part (bran) would otherwise be removed in milling. It's the bran that has all the fiber and nutritional goodies that our bodies need.
We have a lot of basmati rice hanging around and a fair amount of brown rice. The rice cooker was a lot of fun, but now I've learned to use it to steam vegetables, so it's not going to be thrown out. Nor is the rice. We are just going to have to eat less of it when we eat it and be mindful of where we have spent our "carb allowance" on the days that we eat it.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Tuna-stuffed Eggs
Just for a change from Hurricane Ike, I'd like to highlight an online cookbook that I recently found. It's actually part of Dr. Richard Bernstein's book, Diabetes Solution. I found a PDF file of the book's recipe section on D-solve (a solution until there is a cure). To download the 344 pages of low carbohydrate recipes, click on the link for Additional Resources and then the link for Free Recipes. That will start the download of the PDF file.
This recipe for Tuna-stuffed Eggs is found on page 227 of the file.
The recipe is basically an inversion of tuna salad (putting the tuna in the egg instead of vice versa). It's a tad more sophisticated than my normal tuna salad, but, if I couldn't have pickles, I could at least have cayenne. The egg was nice and tasty, and then the cayenne kicked in. Mmmm.
This recipe for Tuna-stuffed Eggs is found on page 227 of the file.
TUNA-STUFFED EGGSI tried this recipe today. I didn't have any anchovies, so I used bacon. I didn't read the garnish instructions (I am so bad with following recipes); I just chopped the bacon up and mixed it in. I liked the flavor pop from the capers, which meant I had to use more than two per egg.Makes 8 halves
Per egg half.
Effective carbohydrates: 0.3 g
Carbohydrates: 0.3 g
Fiber: 0 g
Protein: 7.4 g
Fat: 6.9 g
Calories: 93
I love the combination of tuna with anchovies and capers, but you can make one or both optional.
Ingredients:
4 hard-cooked large eggs, peeled
1 3 1/2-oz. can olive oil-packed tuna, well-drained and mashed
2 Tbsp mayonnaise
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 anchovy fillets, cut in half lengthwise
16 capers
Cut the eggs in half lengthwise and use a thin, sharp knife to take a tiny slice from the bottom of each half so it will sit firmly in place after stuffing. Scoop out the yolks with a small spoon and place in a small bowl. Set the whites on a platter.
Mash the yolks with a fork until smooth (or press them through a sieve). Stir in the tuna and mayonnaise. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Using a small spoon, stuff the whites with the yolk mixture. Cut each strip of anchovy in half crosswise and crisscross the pieces on top of each egg; garnish with the capers. Serve immediately or chill.
The recipe is basically an inversion of tuna salad (putting the tuna in the egg instead of vice versa). It's a tad more sophisticated than my normal tuna salad, but, if I couldn't have pickles, I could at least have cayenne. The egg was nice and tasty, and then the cayenne kicked in. Mmmm.
Ike and the scrounge for ice (1)
When the power went off during Hurricane Ike, we began the countdown that would end with rotten food from the refrigerator. Since we had prepared for the loss of power by using up as much of the frozen items as possible, we didn't lose $1000 worth of meats. Still, the loss was significant. Even things like mayonnaise and salad dressings cost a fair chunk of change, and we had to throw out more cheese than I could bear to part with.
Some foods could be given a bit longer life with ice. We had already started bagging ice from the ice maker the day before the storm. Since Mama sometimes forgets how the ice maker works, we had to keep checking to make sure that the thing was still running after she had loaded a glass with ice. Sometimes it wasn't. That kept us on our toes the day before.
We stayed in touch with Next Door Cousin while we prepared for the storm and got the idea from her to freeze bottles of water. These solid chunks of ice would help keep freezer and fridge cool longer, while we waited for the power to be restored, and we could drink the water after they melted. NDC did a fine job of getting lots of bottles into the freezer; I only put in a few. Big mistake.
NDC also found that her neighbor on the other side had an old chest freezer. They turned it on and tried to freeze zip lock bags of water. Sadly, while the old freezer was willing, there just wasn't enough time for this idea to work before the storm knocked out the power. Still, it's an idea for the future.
When the power didn't come back on (sounds like I was depending on magic, doesn't it) after a couple of days, things became desperate. Our ice supply would give out on the third day (as NDC kept us in little bottles of frozen water). Food was going to spoil faster than we could eat it; drinks were going to be on the warm side. While My Prince and I were already well used to room temperature soft drinks (seriously no biggie, people), Mama doesn't drink her soft drinks without ice. Cold isn't good enough; ice is essential. So she began to really feel deprived at that point.
One ray of goodness came when Big Kid Cousin, who lives a couple of miles away, got her electricity back. No magic there, just the power of politics. BKC lives in an old folks reservation (senior citizen apartment complex) which also happens to house a lot of people who came to Texas in the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina. Cheers for the Mayor of Jacinto City (Mike Jackson), State Representative Ana Hernandez, and others who went to bat for the old folks . . . seniors . . . at BKC's apartment complex. While these folks got their power back 10 days ahead of the rest of the area, a lot of suffering was eased, not to mention the potential complications for those with health problems.
Another bit of goodness about that restoration of power is that, for a few days, we could put more bottles of water in BKC's freezer--and use her stove to cook. For the first few days after the storm, there was no place to buy ice. Without power, there was no way to find information on television about the location for ice distribution. The newspaper was useless on the subject and the radio was less than useless. We were on our own, and thanks to BKC and her freezer, this was going to be doable . . . until our car broke down.
(to be continued)
Some foods could be given a bit longer life with ice. We had already started bagging ice from the ice maker the day before the storm. Since Mama sometimes forgets how the ice maker works, we had to keep checking to make sure that the thing was still running after she had loaded a glass with ice. Sometimes it wasn't. That kept us on our toes the day before.
We stayed in touch with Next Door Cousin while we prepared for the storm and got the idea from her to freeze bottles of water. These solid chunks of ice would help keep freezer and fridge cool longer, while we waited for the power to be restored, and we could drink the water after they melted. NDC did a fine job of getting lots of bottles into the freezer; I only put in a few. Big mistake.
NDC also found that her neighbor on the other side had an old chest freezer. They turned it on and tried to freeze zip lock bags of water. Sadly, while the old freezer was willing, there just wasn't enough time for this idea to work before the storm knocked out the power. Still, it's an idea for the future.
When the power didn't come back on (sounds like I was depending on magic, doesn't it) after a couple of days, things became desperate. Our ice supply would give out on the third day (as NDC kept us in little bottles of frozen water). Food was going to spoil faster than we could eat it; drinks were going to be on the warm side. While My Prince and I were already well used to room temperature soft drinks (seriously no biggie, people), Mama doesn't drink her soft drinks without ice. Cold isn't good enough; ice is essential. So she began to really feel deprived at that point.
One ray of goodness came when Big Kid Cousin, who lives a couple of miles away, got her electricity back. No magic there, just the power of politics. BKC lives in an old folks reservation (senior citizen apartment complex) which also happens to house a lot of people who came to Texas in the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina. Cheers for the Mayor of Jacinto City (Mike Jackson), State Representative Ana Hernandez, and others who went to bat for the old folks . . . seniors . . . at BKC's apartment complex. While these folks got their power back 10 days ahead of the rest of the area, a lot of suffering was eased, not to mention the potential complications for those with health problems.
Another bit of goodness about that restoration of power is that, for a few days, we could put more bottles of water in BKC's freezer--and use her stove to cook. For the first few days after the storm, there was no place to buy ice. Without power, there was no way to find information on television about the location for ice distribution. The newspaper was useless on the subject and the radio was less than useless. We were on our own, and thanks to BKC and her freezer, this was going to be doable . . . until our car broke down.
(to be continued)
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Ike left the water on
When Mama and I were preparing for Tropical Storm Edouard, we spent some time working on the water supply. We were so very lucky when Hurricane Ike hit us that we did not lose our water supply. We stayed in Houston even without electricity--and we still don't know that that was the best choice--but we clearly could not have survived for two weeks without being able to turn on the tap and get clean water.
Some things did, however, go well, and some of our planning and preparation worked as it was supposed to. More did not.
Sadly, we often combine water and electricity in order to accomplish many of those things. The dishwasher didn't work without electricity, so I spent a lot of time washing dishes by hand. True, we often used paper plates, but we did try to avoid it when we could. We had to borrow the use of a generator to wash clothes after a week. I had made sure that all of our "water work" was done before the storm hit, but I was, after all, supposedly on a short visit and didn't have a lot of clothes, especially cool and casual clothes that would see a lot of dirt as we did after-storm clean up. It was even hard to do general housecleaning--the water was there, but sometimes I just couldn't see what needed to be cleaned without electric lights.
Houston issued a couple of "boil water" alerts, but we usually didn't hear about them until too late (emergency information really stank as far as I am concerned). We had good drinking water, but the dish washing and hand washing and such were probably questionable a few times. We all ended up with tummy issues, but nothing too serious, so I guess we handled it all pretty well.
One thing that we did throughout the time after the storm was fill up every plastic drink bottle we came across with pure drinking water and stash it in an ice chest. Water was good for us to drink at any temperature, but it always went down so much better when it was cold. We reused water bottles and even Coca-Cola bottles. For the trip home today, I filled up some of the small water bottles with water and froze them to help keep our canned drinks cool on the road. I also filled up some Coca-Cola bottles with cold water. I ended up drinking more of our "homemade" bottled water than I did soft drinks. I think we may have developed a new behavior!
Some things did, however, go well, and some of our planning and preparation worked as it was supposed to. More did not.
- We ended our two weeks of no power with 5 gallons of drinking water still in storage, so we had enough for three adults to drink plenty of water on some very hot days. The Red Cross should be proud of us!
- I filled the bathtub with water the night the storm hit. It all leaked out before the storm was gone.
- I had begun saving gallon water jugs to fill up, but then read that we should find jugs that have screw tops rather than the little snap cap that we were getting. The only screw caps were were getting were on two-liter soda bottles. So we started saving those. I only got about 9 saved and filled up before the storm, so that was some incomplete work that might have hurt us.
Sadly, we often combine water and electricity in order to accomplish many of those things. The dishwasher didn't work without electricity, so I spent a lot of time washing dishes by hand. True, we often used paper plates, but we did try to avoid it when we could. We had to borrow the use of a generator to wash clothes after a week. I had made sure that all of our "water work" was done before the storm hit, but I was, after all, supposedly on a short visit and didn't have a lot of clothes, especially cool and casual clothes that would see a lot of dirt as we did after-storm clean up. It was even hard to do general housecleaning--the water was there, but sometimes I just couldn't see what needed to be cleaned without electric lights.
Houston issued a couple of "boil water" alerts, but we usually didn't hear about them until too late (emergency information really stank as far as I am concerned). We had good drinking water, but the dish washing and hand washing and such were probably questionable a few times. We all ended up with tummy issues, but nothing too serious, so I guess we handled it all pretty well.
One thing that we did throughout the time after the storm was fill up every plastic drink bottle we came across with pure drinking water and stash it in an ice chest. Water was good for us to drink at any temperature, but it always went down so much better when it was cold. We reused water bottles and even Coca-Cola bottles. For the trip home today, I filled up some of the small water bottles with water and froze them to help keep our canned drinks cool on the road. I also filled up some Coca-Cola bottles with cold water. I ended up drinking more of our "homemade" bottled water than I did soft drinks. I think we may have developed a new behavior!
43 days and 3 hurricanes
Holy mackerel! What was supposed to be a short trip to Mama's house morphed into a forty-three-day stay. The long stay was because we kept anticipating hurricanes, especially Gustav and Ike.
We did some serious preparation for Gustav and breathed a sigh of relief when he passed us by. There's no ill will in that. Everyone on the Gulf Coast knows that the best outcome is for these storms to just fizzle out. No one ever hopes for a storm to do damage anywhere. But we can't help hoping for a shift north or south just a tad, to dodge the bullet so to speak.
We dodged that bullet with Gustav, but Ike hit us dead on. That was several hectic days of preparation, one night of heavy thumps and scary thoughts, two weeks of no electricity, and who knows how many weeks of recovery.
There will be lots of foodie stories from the storm, but, for now, we are pleased to say that the whole family is safe. Mama's home suffered comparatively minor damage. Our cars fared somewhat worse. And My Prince and I finally made it home today. We had some sick plants, a huge pile of mail, and the every welcoming dust bunnies to greet us, but it was all a beautiful sight. I get to sleep in my own bed for a while, cook in my own kitchen, and maybe even send some of those dust bunnies back where they belong.
Now let's hope for no more big storms for the rest of the season.
We did some serious preparation for Gustav and breathed a sigh of relief when he passed us by. There's no ill will in that. Everyone on the Gulf Coast knows that the best outcome is for these storms to just fizzle out. No one ever hopes for a storm to do damage anywhere. But we can't help hoping for a shift north or south just a tad, to dodge the bullet so to speak.
We dodged that bullet with Gustav, but Ike hit us dead on. That was several hectic days of preparation, one night of heavy thumps and scary thoughts, two weeks of no electricity, and who knows how many weeks of recovery.
There will be lots of foodie stories from the storm, but, for now, we are pleased to say that the whole family is safe. Mama's home suffered comparatively minor damage. Our cars fared somewhat worse. And My Prince and I finally made it home today. We had some sick plants, a huge pile of mail, and the every welcoming dust bunnies to greet us, but it was all a beautiful sight. I get to sleep in my own bed for a while, cook in my own kitchen, and maybe even send some of those dust bunnies back where they belong.
Now let's hope for no more big storms for the rest of the season.
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