April 2011 – Kitchen Stuff I Love

7 ways I’m more Earth-friendly in the kitchen

Apr 222011

In honor of Earth Day, I wanted to share seven steps I’ve taken the past few years to be more environmentally friendly in the kitchen, beyond changing light bulbs and buying organic.

1. Glass storage containers

Glass storage containers

I made the change from plastic to glass containers partly for health reasons, but it has an environmental benefit, too. The jury’s still out on which material is easier to recycle or costs less energy to produce, according to my research. But I had to regularly buy new plastic containers to replace ones that got warped, scratched, or damaged. My glass storage containers, on the other hand, look as pristine as the day I bought them. They’re oven safe, stack nicely in the fridge (though they don’t nest well when empty), and – most important to me – they’re not leeching chemicals into my food. Yes, the lids of these particular containers are still plastic, but we all make trade-offs somewhere.

2. Reusing plastic zippies

A sandwich baggie drying for reuse

I still like zippered plastic bag for storing certain leftovers, like rolls, sandwich meats, chopped lettuce, and other items. If what I’m storing isn’t messy, I’ll rinse the bags when their original occupants are finished, let them air dry over a whisk or something on the drying rack, and reuse them. This way I get a couple more uses out of each bag and I don’t feel so bad about using something disposable.

3. Composting

Biodegradable compost bags

Composting is the process of taking food scraps from the kitchen, putting them in a pile in the yard, and eventually they break down into ultra nutritious soil for the garden. So those food scraps stay out of the landfill and enrich my plants. Admittedly, I’m better about composting in the summer, but I try whenever I’m chopping a lot of lettuce or making salads to collect the scraps for the yard. Hubby gave me these biodegradable compost bags for Christmas a couple of years ago, so I can pile the scraps in there and then toss the bag in the compost bin. Shredded paper works great as brown material in the compost bin too. Read more about composting at HowToCompost.org.

4. Expanded recycling

My little recycling station. Pretty? No. But it works!

When we first moved here 10 years ago, my only recycling options were paper and soda cans. I was content with that, until I saw the efforts my friend Nicole made to recycle. (Can we say throwaway guilt?) She told me about recycling bins around Greenville that I could use. But I was still limited to metal, glass, and “plastic bottles with a neck”. (I know, why not just say plastics #1, 2 and 4 or whatever?) Then last year my town opened an expanded recycling center, accepting metal, plastic bags, glass, all types of plastic, batteries, and more. So I set up 4 mesh laundry baskets – plus a sturdy trash can for glass – in the dining room as a recycling station, and take them to the center when they’re full. Between this and composting, we’ve reduced what we throw away by 50-70%.

5. Cloth towels instead of paper towels

Fresh kitchen towels hanging on the oven handle

I used to go through paper towels like nobody’s business. Drying produce, wiping up spills, and I’m not really sure what else, but I did something so that I’d use a roll of paper towels a week. Meanwhile, I’d pull out 2 kitchen towels at a time from my huge stash and use those two for weeks, basically just to dry my hands. I finally realized that was silly. A clean kitchen towel was just as good for drying produce and other tasks. So now I keep more cloth towels in the kitchen and rotate them every few days. Yes, I do kitchen laundry a little more often, but that’s friendlier to the environment than a pile of used paper towels.

6. Cloth instead of paper napkins.

A pile of my cloth napkins

I really thought this would be a tougher switch than it was. But I had all these cloth napkins I wasn’t using, and we were going through a lot of one-and-done paper napkins every week. So I swapped the paper for cloth in the napkin holder, suddenly it was done and not a big deal. Yes, again it means more kitchen laundry, but I can actually do a full load dedicated to kitchen linens instead of the half loads I used to do. Win, win.

7. Reusable grocery bags.

Some of my many reusable bags

Best. Idea. Ever. At first, I felt awkward carrying bags into the grocery store. (Even more so at Target or the mall.) But once I started bringing my own bags, I’ll never go back. They’re easier to carry, you need fewer bags for the same amount of groceries (which means fewer trips to unload), and they don’t hurt your hands like the plastic bags do. I also have several fabric coolers that I tote along for ice cream, dairy and meats – essential for summers in the South! I started for environmental reasons, but I continue because this switch made my life easier. My biggest problem now is that I have more bags than I could ever possibly use, but retailers are coming out with the cutest new reusable bag designs. Must resist!

Could I do more? You betcha! I could make organic more of a priority, make packaging a consideration when choosing a product, make better use of what’s in my kitchen already so we don’t throw anything away. Maybe areas of improvement could be another post. But what I do now is such an improvement over what I did a few years ago, which was better than what I did a decade ago. Imagine where I might be 5 years from now!

Have a tip for being greener in the kitchen? Please share in the comments!

Lessons learned from burnt bacon

Entertaining

Apr 202011

Burnt Bacon

We had 7 people for brunch this past Saturday morning. Normally, brunch is a piece of cake for me. Eggs, grits, maybe scones or biscuits (in this case scones), a potato of some form, fruit, and bacon. Hubby handles the bacon – cooking it on a large electric skillet on the breakfast table, out of my way in the kitchen. I cook everything else, and have made brunch so often that I can do it in my sleep.

At least, usually that’s how it works.

Now, it’s been a rough couple of weeks for me – our dog’s had 2 surgeries (but now cancer free, thank you God), hubby’s been sick, my stepfather is ill – and I wasn’t in the greatest place for entertaining. But we had weekend company – my college friend B–, I wasn’t cooking dinner that night, and we always do Saturday brunch when B–‘s in town. Brunch is easy, and cheap. (Which was important because lots of money went to the dog’s surgeries.) No biggie.

I made lemon ginger scones the night before, cut out the dough, and froze it so I could bake the scones fresh Saturday morning (and I have extra in the freezer to enjoy another day). I had all my pans and ingredients at the ready so I could get started first thing in the morning. I’ll cut up fruit first, start the grits and home fries, then get the scones in the oven and make the scrambled eggs while everything else cooks.

I have this routine down. I know when to start each item so they all finish at about the same time.

Except the bacon. That’s what screwed me up. I decided, since hubby hadn’t been feeling well, that I would let him sleep in and I would take care of the bacon. Now, I can’t easily go back and forth from the electric skillet to the stove when I have three burners and the oven in use, so I decided to bake the bacon. Chefs do it all the time on TV, even Cooking Light in their March 2011 issue said baking gave you the best bacon, and you didn’t have to babysit it. I have the oven on anyway, at nearly the same temperature that Cooking Light calls for, why not kill two birds with one stone?

Did I mention this was turkey bacon? That makes a difference in the cooking time. And I wanted to do a whole pack of bacon, which didn’t completely fit on the baking rack so I had to overlap a little. (Only have two oven racks, one of which was occupied with scones, so couldn’t use two baking sheets for bacon.)

Tip: If you want the bacon to brown and cook evenly in the oven, air must circulate around it. Air can’t circulate if the entire rack is covered in bacon. I wound up having to flip the bacon and rearrange it halfway through baking. So much for hands off.

Have I described before how small my kitchen is? It’s a one-butt kitchen, as we say, and I don’t have a lot of counter space. I’m already using three burners, a large baking sheet for scones, and now a baking sheet for bacon. I pulled the scones out when they were done, but the bacon wasn’t quite finished, and I had no where on the counter to put it. I turned the oven off, left the bacon in, and tried to finish the rest of my dishes.

My oven retains a lot of heat when the pizza stone is in it. Food continues to cook in that residual heat. So by the time I had counter space free where I could put the baking sheet, the bacon was overdone. Crispy. Crunchy. Slightly black.

You know what? No one cared but me. People still ate 3/4 of the bacon, and devoured every other part of the meal.

(Actually, that’s a lie. Hubby cared, so even tired or sick, he’s doing the bacon from now on.)

What did I learn?

Don’t try to do something to take the load off someone else if you’re already managing 5 things and adding one more will throw off your routine and possibly risk all six tasks. Hubby is always happy to help, and I should have let him do what he does best.
Don’t try to cook something for company that you’ve never made before. I shouldn’t try to bake bacon for guests until I’ve cooked it that way for myself and know what I’m doing.
I need to give myself a break. Everyone else took the bacon in stride, and were just happy to be fed. One bad dish didn’t spoil the brunch, and my friends would argue that it wasn’t even a bad dish. I’m dwelling on the bacon, and everyone else is enjoying the scones, grits, eggs, potatoes, fruit, and yes, the bacon.

So what’s your burnt bacon? Ever screwed up part of a meal for guests but overcame it? Please share your story in the comments!

A sweet little flowchart and a sweeter debate

Ingredients

Apr 142011

NuNaturals Stevia

In my reading today I came across this cute but important little chart entitled “How to Choose a Sweetener” from the BeFoodSmart website. I’ve never heard of this site before, but as I’m very concerned with the chemicals in my food, I will definitely explore BeFoodSmart more in the coming days.

I made the switch 5 or 6 years ago to stevia in my morning pot of tea. I used to use a tablespoon of sugar, because I couldn’t stand artificial sweeteners. Back then, only a handful of companies made stevia packets, and some of those were bitter or off tasting. I tried several before settling on the NuNaturals brand, which I buy in bulk from Amazon.

Now, this does still have additives, because stevia is so sweet you have to mix it with a filler. I’ve bought pure stevia before, and it’s almost impossible to measure properly because you need so little to make something sweet.

I have not tried the new stevia products on the market, including Truvia and others. The NuNaturals Stevia that I use is still sold as a dietary supplement and not a sweetener because the FDA approved a single compound in stevia, rebaudioside, for use as a sweetener. The more complete plant extract, stevioside, can only be sold as a supplement. (Don’t ask me why, I’m not a big fan of the FDA.)

Given a choice, I’ll always pick the most whole option.

Yes, I can hear the cynics out there saying, “If you’re so concerned about whole foods, why not grow the plant and use that?” I’ve thought about it, believe me, but this is where I’ve made a compromise based on time and convenience. If I can find a stevia plant this spring, I’ll try it in the garden and see how it does.

Now, a couple of my friends think the NuNaturals stevia is bitter, or has an aftertaste. Maybe it does, and I’ve gotten used to it because it was so much better than the other brands I tried years ago. I’d be curious if anyone else feels the same. Please let me know, or if you have another brand you prefer.

As for artificial sweeteners, I have a real problem with Splenda, so it annoys me how much it’s used in processed foods as a sugar replacement. Even places where you don’t expect it – like Emerald Nuts Cocoa Dusted Almonds. They’d be great if not for the aftertaste. I didn’t even realize they had sucralose (Splenda’s chemical name) until the aftertaste lingered in my mouth and I read the label. I felt so betrayed.

I don’t want to get into the scientific debate about Splenda – is it safe, does it make people gain weight, does it cause cancer, etc. That’s important, and a factor for me, but I don’t care for it primarily because of the taste (or more accurately the aftertaste), in addition to wanting to minimize chemical additives where I can.

Truvia and its competitors seem very like Splenda to me – one chemically isolated or altered ingredient.

Why can’t we just have less sweet products? Smuckers makes a line of lower sugar preserves. No Splenda added, just less sugar. I’m seeing lower sugar or no added sugar in other areas of the grocery store, too. I know sugar is structurally important in baked goods and preserves, so using less may mean altering the product in other ways. Depending on the product, I may not like those compromises.

Another alternative sweetener that I use is agave nectar, which I primarily use in combination with maple syrup on pancakes and french toast.

But again, agave is becoming a trendy sweetener so quality differs across the board, and production may not be sustainable if demand keeps increasing. We can’t win, can we?

All this being said, when I’m baking, I turn to sugar – granulated, brown, or powdered, depending on the recipe. I haven’t been brave enough to try baking with stevia, or any other natural replacement like agave. I have a stevia cookbook, but I hate to go through the effort of baking and then dislike what I’ve made, so I haven’t even tried.

What about you? Have you baked with a natural sugar alternative? Do you try to limit artificial sweeteners?

[Source: Be Food Smart]

Fabulous, Inexpensive, Almost Effortless, Roast Beef

Recipes

Apr 122011

Juicy, easy, roast beef

Ever wish you could make your own deli roast beef at home? Luscious, tender (and lean) roast beef without the $12 a pound price tag?

Well, today’s your lucky day! (Unless you’ve never wished you could have deli roast beef at home. In which case, you don’t know what you’re missing! Or, you’re like a friend of mine, and allergic to beef, in which case I weep for you.)

But I digress. Delicious roast beef, from the January/February 2008 issue of Cook’s Illustrated.

Did I mention this recipe is only 4 ingredients?

Salt, pepper, beef, and canola oil. That’s it. And it uses a relatively inexpensive cut of meat, eye round roast. I can get a two pack of roasts from Costco for less than $4 a pound. We have one roast that week and I freeze the other for later. You want about a 3.5 pound roast, but larger or small is fine, just adjust the cooking times.

The most important thing to remember about this recipe is you must plan ahead.

The roast is salted overnight, and then spends a couple of hours in a low oven the next day. So plan your time accordingly, and don’t serve a side dish that requires significant oven time, as it would have to wait until the roast is completely done to start cooking. Oh, and to make your life easier when cooking roasts or Thanksgiving turkey, invest in a probe thermometer. The timer/temperature part sits outside the oven while the thermometer sits in the roast inside the oven. I can’t imagine doing this recipe without it.

Okay, so the night before you want to have roast beef for dinner, take your 3 or 3.5lb roast out of the fridge, and put it in a bowl or other container. If your roast has a fat cap and you’d prefer to remove that, go ahead. The fat can keep it a little more moist during cooking, but I’ve made it both ways and it’s delicious either way.

The salted eye round roast

Sprinkle the roast with a tablespoon of kosher salt. If your roast is larger than 3.5 pounds, use a little more salt, if it’s smaller use a little less. If you’re using table salt, cut the amount in half – half a tablespoon equals 1.5 teaspoons. Rub the salt in to evenly cover the roast, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight. I like to put the roast in a metal loaf pan so the juices don’t get all over the fridge.

The roast ready for overnight resting

The next day, take the roast out of the fridge, and let sit on the counter for about 30 minutes. This ensures more even cooking because you’re not putting a cold roast in a hot pan. Pat the roast dry with paper towels (don’t rinse the salt off), rub with 2 teaspoons of canola oil and 2 teaspoons of black pepper, preferably freshly or recently ground. I use a spice grinder and grind my own pepper every month or two.

Pepper for the roast

Turn the oven on to 225 degrees. Take a baking sheet and line it with foil (for easy cleanup, totally optional) and set a rack inside the pan. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a heavy bottomed skillet or saute pan over medium high heat until it shimmers – the oil moves fluidly and quickly when you tilt the pan. Carefully place the roast in the pan – it should sizzle – and brown on all sides. I set a timer and rotate the roast every three minutes.

Browning the roast

I brown the ends, too, but not for the full 3 minutes.

Oh, I recommend you turn on your vent while doing this, as it can get a little smoky.

When the roast is evenly and beautifully browned, transfer to the prepared baking sheet.

The browned roast, ready for the oven

Insert the probe thermometer into the roast, place in the oven, set your temperature alert to 115 degrees for medium rare (120 for medium). I walk away and forget about it until the alert sounds. If you don’t have a probe thermometer, the roast will take about 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours, depending on the size. You’ll need to pull it out and check the temperature with a meat thermometer.

My probe thermometer, set for 115 degrees

Once the roast reaches your desired temperature, turn the oven off. DO NOT open the door. Adjust your temperature alert to 130 degrees for medium rare or 140 for medium, and again walk away. This will take another 30 or 45 minutes, again depending on the size of the roast. (Also, when my pizza stone is in the oven it holds temperature better and so the roast finishes more quickly. Just keep that in mind.)

When the roast reaches final temperature, pull it out and let rest on the counter, loosely covered with foil, for about 15 minutes. You should do this with any cut of meat, by the way. A lot is going on in cooked meat with pressure and heat and temperature, but suffice to say a rested meat is a juicier meat. The larger the cut, the longer it should rest.

The final roast, resting for 30 minutes. Patience!

The final roast, resting for 15 minutes. Patience!

Once the roast is rested, slice thinly and enjoy as is, on a roll, in a wrap, or on a sub.

Roast beef, sliced and ready to enjoy. Doesn't that look scrumptious?

The leftovers make excellent philly cheese steaks! (For easiest slicing, chill overnight and then slice.)

I’ve also served this at my Open House, and it gets rave reviews.

Sliced Roast Beef at my 2010 Open House

Do you make your own roast beef? How do you like to prepare it? Let me know in the comments!