Alice uses cast iron pots and wooden utensils and keeps the recipes as close to the traditional recipe as possible. She even utilizes a fire pit located outside her home to test authentic recipes. For more information about Alice the Cook, visit her website at http://www.alicethecook.com
In future blogs, I will offer recipes, kitchen hints, and historical cooking lessons.
One of the non-profits I support is Second Harvest Heartland. Second Harvest Heartland is the Upper Midwest’s largest hunger-relief organization with a mission of ending hunger through community partnerships, and is a 501(c)(3)nonprofit organization. They count on volunteer hours, food and cash donations.
Last month, my place of employment hosted a Week of Service where employees are encouraged to give back to the community via donations of goods or services. Several of us volunteered a couple of hours to Second Harvest. It was fun and educational.
At the end of the run each year at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, my members of my kitchen donate our tips to Second Harvest Heartland. For every $1 that is raised $9 of food is purchased for the community.
If you would like to consider a donation, visit their donation website HERE. Every little bit helps and offers an opportunity to help those less fortunate.
Each weekend, I visit our local farmer’s markets to pick up produce for the household. I visit the Minneapolis Farmer’s Market on Saturdays and the St. Paul Farmer’s Market on Sundays. I pick up fresh vegetables, herbs, meats, and dairy. I take pride in knowing that I am helping local farmers and other entrepreneurial spirits by visiting and purchasing from their booths. I still shop at our local grocery stores, but I do tend to favor the local shops and vendors.
Some of the delicacies I have encountered include Hope Butter, which provides a delicious finish to any dish or topping, Amish butter, or free-range dairy goods. Some people may not realize that grass-fed cattle and dairy cows are happy and their produce are high in Omega-3 fatty acids (good for you) and have less instances of illnesses and require less antibiotics and growth hormones (also good for you).
In the Twin Cities, I tend to favor plenty of local restaurants because they are not large conglomerates or they use locally raised produce. Among my favorites include Ngon Vietnamese Bistro, Wild Onion, or Lucia’s. Because of the economy, all restaurants are hurting, but if you take a moment to think about where you eat and who benefits from your dining out, you can make it worthwhile.
Outside of historical cooking, I have several interests but they all pertain to food. On another blog the question came up “how do you get fussy kids to eat their vegetables?” I’ve been blessed as my son likes many vegetables, so it is not a fight. But for several of my friends’ kids, it is a challenge. I thought I would post these suggestions for prosperity and hope that my readers may learn a few things.
Kids are motivated by their parents and peers. If they have friends or parents who eat vegetables, they are more likely to do so as well. Some foods are tastier to kids than others. I still have a strong dislike to brussel sprouts since my mom forced me to eat them as a young child.
What does your child like to eat? Do they like sweet flavors such as ginger, cinnamon, cilantro, etc. or do they like savory flavors such as cumin, curry, mustard, etc. or spicy such as chilis, vindaloo, etc. Use there taste center to your advantage.
Vegetables that are kid friendly:
Sweet Potatoes – baked, oven fried, chips, or mashed. Not bad for you if you leave off the brown sugar and the marshmallows. I add a dash of cinnamon to my son’s and I prefer a cumin and cinnamon blend on mine.
Beets – very red and very sweet. Can be found as chips to start with.
Veggie Booty – a snack food made from real veggies. It’s a good start and a better choice than cheese puffs.
Baby Carrots
Zucchini and yellow squash – can be cut up like french fries and grilled or oven fried
Summer Squash
Edame (soybeans) – Oddly enough, kids like the mild sweet flavor and its an opportunity to “play with your food” as the beans need to be removed from their shell.
Black and garbanzo beans – just fun to eat as you can pop them into your mouth like candy.
If the earlier suggestions fail, there are other suggestions that may work:
If your child likes spaghetti and pizza, make your own sauce by adding pureed zucchini or other vegetables while cooking the sauces
Adding a vegetarian soup to ground meat and adding breadcrumbs or oatmeal before cooking meatloaf or making meatballs.
Making lettuce wrap meals. Meals like tacos and other foods can be made into a sandwich using lettuce leaves instead of bread. This can be fun for the whole family.
When eating out at a buffet, empower your child to select their own veggies. You might be surprised with their selections.
When barbecuing, grill veggies along side the meat so your child will have a tasty selection.
When all else fails, cover the veggies with a sauce the child may like. Ketchup is very popular in our house. When I was a young woman, I did not care for the taste of broccoli, but when I covered it in garlic cheese sauce, I couldn’t get enough of it. Nowadays, I eat the broccoli without any sauce.
I hope these suggestions help. Feel free to add to the comment section your suggestions.
After preparing the segment for Renaissance Magazine, Brandon and I had a lot of left overs – about 3/4 lb of pieces of roast pork (uncooked), carrots, leeks, and a few other ingredients. I put them together to create a lovely curry pork and vegetables.
Utilizing the ingredients above and adding a few, I created a dish that was quoted as, “tastes like it came from a ‘nice’ Asian restaurant” from a Chinese national.
Below is the recipe I came up and I have been enjoying it for my lunches.
one cup of leftover braised carrot and leek dish
3/4 lb of roast pork, cut up
one onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup of frozen peas
1 tbsp of yellow curry powder (store bought)
1 tsp ground cumin
2 pinches of sea salt
ground pepper to taste
1 tbsp of cooking oil (sesame or sunflower)
In a heated wok, add the oil and when hot enough begin adding the pork to begin cooking. Turn the pork every two minutes so that it begins to brown nicely and add the onions.
Continue to cook and add the left over braised carrots and leeks. Continue to cook and add frozen peas. Continue to stir when cooking and add the curry powder and cumin. Finish with the salt and pepper.
I did not need to use rice or noodles with this dish. It should be sweet and savory, not spicy. Sadly, I ate it all before I could photograph the plate.
Brandon and I got together today to work on the next Renaissance Magazine article (July). I’ve posted in an earlier blog about the different steps we take as a team in planning, writing, cooking, and photographing for the story. It’s a long process. Tonight, it took almost 4 hours, even though the dish was rather simple to cook.
For the benefit of our readers, we thought we would co-document our efforts here. We began discussing what we wanted to cover. We knew when we went out to Siouxland, we would be shooting and packaging 4 pieces in advance to save time, but added to the authenticity to the historical aspect.
Once we decided on a path, Brandon and I went out to the market to pick up our ingredients. I had some of the ingredients at home, but we needed to pick up a few extras items. From the start, it’s a team based effort.
Ingredients for the July edition
Next, we begin planning out what needs to happen to get to a finished product. Who needs to do what and when. One of us may be cooking while the other is chopping or gathering spices or shooting the photography. We both take turns. When one is cooking, the other is shooting photos and vice-versa.
Anj (Alice the Cook) cooking up a storm
We might hav a bit of down time or need something else prepared. Brandon is better than I at deboning and flattening meat.
Brandon (Nicholas) flattening the meat for the dish.
As you can see, when we are working together for a story, we are not in costume and because of the colder months, we are not yet ready to test recipes over the fire. I’m sure I will do a future blog on that subject. Still, more cutting and prep work go into the dish.
Anj cutting up leeks.
Until we finish cooking and then we work on the plating. The food needs to look good on camera and somethings, frankly, don’t. Brandon’s carving the meat as I prepare the plate for photographing.
Cutting the finished product and preparing to plate it for photos.
We spent a lot of time tonight documenting our work for Renaissance Magazine for prosperity sake. You will have to check out July’s issue to see what we made so that you can make it at home as well.
