Full-on American Food

When I was a kid, I heard someone explain how a hot dog was the perfect illustration of a quintessentially American food. You've got a sausage from Vienna, bread from the Midwest and condiments from across the globe. I liked the idea of food illustrating our melting pot, but really can't we offer up something better than a hot dog? If you say McDonalds I am now plugging my ears and running away screaming. I find it sad that most of the rest of the world thinks golden arches and Coca-Cola when they think of "American Food."

What is Real American Food? It's basically "peasant food." Real American Food is simple, fresh and easy to prepare. The thing that makes Real American Food unique is the surprising blend of flavors from around the globe.  I've worked in restaurants with some truly talented chefs. I've watched amazing chefs on television. They all say the same thing: get the freshest ingredients you can and cook it simply and you'll always have amazing food. I think it finally sank in when I started cooking with Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food.

Tonight's dinner is Real American Food: Pork Chops with russet and sweet potatoes and Swiss chard. The pork, sweet potatoes and chard are all from a local farm with Avalon Acres. The russets came from Costco. Easy, breezy, simple meal.

Pork Chops with Potatoes and Greens
Season pork as early in the day as you can, but at least 30 minutes prior to cooking. I made up a rub with sea salt, pepper, chipotle powder, garlic powder, onion powder and a bit of brown sugar. You can season it the night before or in the morning and pull out of the fridge while you prep/cook other things. It needs some time to come to room temperature to cook evenly.

Slice potatoes and season lightly with salt and pepper. Brown in about 1/2 TBSP olive oil in skillet (they will not be fully cooked). Add chopped or sliced onions and garlic if you like. Remove from pan and add a bit of vegetable oil or bacon grease (just about a scant teaspoon or so). Brown pork chops on both sides. Add a cup or so of chicken or vegetable stock and scrape up the browned bits. Add back in the potatoes, cover and lower heat. Allow to simmer for about a half hour until the pork is cooked through and the potatoes are tender. Wash and roughly chop greens and add to pot; cook until tender (mine took about 5 more minutes).

I served this with homemade bread and some brown basmati rice since my children are hit-or-miss with eating potatoes. It's not fancy, but it sure is tasty.

Sustainable Reading

When Bel at Green out Every Window invited me to participate in the Earth Day Reading Project, I loved the idea immediately. Share three books that have most inspired you to choose to live more sustainably. Fiction, nonfiction, graphic novel....it's all about what has made motivated you to turn ideas into actions. Full rules and a great list of gardening blogs can be found here at The Sage Butterfly.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver inspired me to action almost immediately.  We had begun to garden and had a compost bin. We were buying less "processed crap" with all the coloring, additives and packaging, but weren't quite sure what else we really could do. After all, we live in the suburbs...it's not like we can feed ourselves from this tiny bit of earth, right? Within a year of reading this book, I realized the power that comes from reconnecting with our food sources. I love Kingsolver's fiction, but her sharing of her family's commitment to eat only locally for an entire year (no bananas!) changed how I think about food.

I picked up a copy of the Kitchen Garden Planner at a bookstore's going out of business sale. We lived down in Florida and had asked (and received) permission to plant a small garden plot in the back yard of our rental. I dreamed of what I might do with a home and yard and garden of my own. As it turns out, I plant squash in the flowerbeds. All of my planted space is a kitchen garden, each year more beautiful and each year more edible.

I know, I know. Insert joke about garden gnomes here. But the interior of this book is filled with amazing illustrations detailing the many ways sentient being  might live in harmony with nature, might balance needs of self with needs of the system of which we are all part. When I was a child, I discovered this book next to a rocking chair in my grandmother's guest room. She had placed it there purposely so a little girl weary of grownup conversation might find some magic with which to amuse herself. Whenever I harvest herbs, I think of the gnomes in this book. If I ever make my own dandelion root tea (not unlikely, these days), I will credit this book for the inspiration. 

So that's three. I considered including Bill McKibben's Eaarth, for its influence on my planning and thinking, but there is no action yet I can directly attribute to reading the book. Square Foot Gardening was also a strong contender for the Top Three, because he makes it easy to get started with gardening no matter where you live. I appreciate that he thinks growing things should be mostly fun.

Pink Icing Without Food Coloring

What must a mother do when her child has an option for a big, fancy cake with cartoon characters and chooses a Mommy-made cake? Well, here "mommy made" means somehow making a chocolate cake "with pink frosting" that has no crazy dyes.

As primates, oh heck...as animals, we get a wealth of information from color. Color can tell us if a tomato is ripe or not. Color can tell us that the pear has gone south. Studies show that we respond to color even more than actual flavor, which is why the best chefs know you "taste" a dish with your eyes first...food appeals to all the senses.

Back before chemistry entered the mix, food was colored only with natural dyes. Depending where you lived (and the season), you might use beets, turmeric, blueberries, flower petals...things like that. In modern times, food dyes are often bright and appealing and also often dangerous. It's hard to be a parent these days without at least hearing of the many ills associated with artificial food dyes, especially the very-common FD&C Red 40.  Almost everyone knows least one other parent who swears it turns their otherwise normal child into a little demon from the ninth level of Hades.

All that said, I don't generally disallow a treat just because it has some artificial dye. If a friend offers Skittles or M&Ms I will probably indulge and allow my kids to do the same. I even make Strawberry Jello at least once a year, though I am planning to use Mary Jane's ChillOver (vegan!) from here on out, so some red icing on a cake is no big deal, right?

Well, it's one thing to buy it or accept it and another to willingly and purposefully inject this stuff into something your child has requested.  Enter the googletubes: how do you make pink icing without food coloring?

I found several suggestions for raspberries and strawberries, along with admissions that the color was quite weak. Finally I settled upon trying dried hibiscus and beet root powder. I've taken some pictures to show the difference.

Here is the "pink" hibiscus butter mixed with sugar. My butter looked quite pink after simmering and straining. It was dotted with pink after cooling, and a lovely pink after it warmed back up and I stirred it. But when mixed with sugar, the pink was barely visible. It was a lot of work with no visible result.

Inclusion of beet root powder changes all! I added some cream cheese to my hibiscus butter/sugar mix to even out the already-pasty color (just in case, then added 1 TBSP beet root powder. I was impressed! The picture here shows a pink plastic cup to help gauge the pinkness that first TBSP. More powder = more pink. Yes, at this point I did realize it was just as easy as simply adding red food coloring! I was still nervous about possible flavor issues, so made juice from smushed strawberries and added that to thin the icing vs.using water or milk. I tasted with/without and it really doesn't matter, but the berries add a lovely, juicy note to the icing, so I consider them well worth the minimal trouble invested.

Here's the final result. It looks very pink and tastes even better. Pinkalicious!!