For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Exceptional reading this week. Whatever you do, don’t miss Michael Ruhlman’s calling BS on the food industry deceiving us into believing we’re too busy to cook. There’s also new data suggesting your genes may determine what diet suits you best (healthstyle anyone?) and important news for diabetics taking vitamin B supplements.

I read many more wonderful articles than I post here each week. If you’d like to see more or just don’t want to wait until Friday, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@summertomato) or the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. For complete reading lists join me on the social bookmarking sites StumbleUpon and Delicious. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you there. (Note: If you want a follow back on Twitter introduce yourself with an @ message).

Links of the week

• Message to Food Editors: What 30-Minute Meals Really Mean <<Please read this, it isn’t long and it is important. Michael Ruhlman does a fantastic job of explaining how absurd it is that Americans have stopped making food (i.e. health, family, culture) a priority as essential as showering, sleeping and spending time with family. You do have time to cook and eat well–it doesn’t take much. (Huffington Post)
• Fructose: poison or nutrient (or both)? <<People love to make a huge fuss over specific nutrients, but we would be much better off (and less stressed) keeping things in perspective. This is a great example of why. (Nutrition Data)
• 10 Tasty and Healthy Store-Bought Snacks <<BS of the week. Chips, pretzels and ice cream are “healthy”? Seriously SELF editor-in-chief? (Yahoo! Health)
• Individual Response to Weight-Loss Diet May Depend on Genes <<Though we still do not completely understand the interactions between diet and genetics, I can’t imagine how this wouldn’t be true. We have different eye, hair and skin colors. Why would we all metabolize foods exactly the same? Especially since we already know metabolism changes with muscle/fat mass. This is why it is so important to 1) not be dogmatic about diets and 2) find your own healthstyle. (Diabetic Mediterranean Diet Blog)
• Want college students to eat better? Try appealing to their sense of the greater good <<When food is a priority people make healthier choices. Turns out this is much more effective than teaching people about nutrition. Knowing facts is good, but caring is better. (Los Angeles Times)
• Kids Buy More Salad If You Put It Under Their Noses. This Is News? <<Not surprisingly, kids are a bit easier to manipulate than college students. Put healthy food in front of them and they’re 300% more likely to eat it. (Tree Hugger)
• Your chance to tell the FDA what you think of food-package labels <<My vote: tell them to ban them. Front of package food labels only serve to trick consumers into believing processed foods have nutritional value. They say these are “smarter food choices” but the smartest choices are in the produce aisle (or out of the store completely) and don’t have labels. (Los Angeles Times)
• Diabetics should not take high doses of vitamin B, researchers say <<“Rather than reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke, the vitamins appear to actually increase it, the researchers said.” Oops. (Los Angeles Times)
• Whole Grains Reduce Heart Attacks and Strokes <<Not particularly surprising, though I know some of you still don’t believe this. The study is a review of the science and is pretty reliable, though most of the experiments don’t even account for differences between intact grains and whole grains. (Diabetic Mediterranean Diet Blog)
• How to pick, store and cook peas <<Peas are such a springtime treat. Here’s some useful tips to make the most of them, with a recipe. (SFGate)
• Cabbage and lime salad with roasted peanuts <<This recipe looks so fresh, delicious and seasonal. Yum. (smitten kitchen)

What inspired you to eat well this week?

I used to look like this. Not anymore.

Nothing makes me happier than helping someone discover real food. Not only does their health physically transform, but they learn about a world of tastes and flavors that can be truly life changing.

My friend E began her healthstyle upgrade at the beginning of 2010, and I’m delighted that she agreed to share her story with Summer Tomato readers.

E. Foley is a geek girl extraordinaire. She writes amazing online dating profiles for geeks and non-geeks, helping clients all over the world find love. Her writing can be found at Examiner.com, Dating Sites Reviews, and elsewhere as a ghostwriter. By day, she is the Copywriter at ThinkGeek.

Follow her @geeksdreamgirl on Twitter.

Dating profiles for geeks = http://geeksdreamgirl.com

Why I Love WeightWatchers But Would Never Go Back

By E. Foley

My name is E and in 2003, I became a Lifetime Member of WeightWatchers after losing nearly 50 pounds and reaching my goal weight of 145.

Fast-forward to 2010, and I now weigh over 230 pounds. I’m 5’7″.

I gained back every pound I lost on WeightWatchers and then some. I did try to lose it. Over and over and over again I rejoined WeightWatchers and lost a handful of pounds before slipping back into bad habits and regaining them.

There is so much I love about the WeightWatchers program, but in the end, it’s Darya’s Healthstyle that has been the best choice for me.

Things I Loved About WeightWatchers

Weekly accountability

Knowing that I had to step on the scale in front of a staff member every Saturday motivated me to stay on track.

Group support

It may sound dumb, but it really felt good to have the group applaud for me when I had a good week. Knowing they’d be there to support me on a bad week was also comforting.

Balanced nutrition

I’ll get into this more later, but the WeightWatchers program, if followed to the letter, is nutritionally sound.

Role models

All the staff members are Lifetime Members, and there are always a few Lifetime Members who attend weekly meetings.

Things to ponder

Every meeting gave me something to think about, a food or recipe I wanted to try, or a warm fuzzy feeling that propelled me into the week.

Reasons Why I Can’t Go Back to WeightWatchers

Gaming the System

When I achieved Lifetime status, it was on the Flex plan. This plan allows you a certain budget of Points per day which you can spend on various types of food. The Points value of the food depends on its calories, fat, and fiber. Many vegetables are zero points, which you’d think would encourage their consumption. Not so. When I reached my goal weight, I was burning calories like mad at a gym. Some days I did two cardio classes in a row and then yoga or Pilates. This allowed me to earn Activity Points which I then spent on those tasty (but sugary!) Milk & Cereal bars that are anything but healthy.

When I regained the weight and went back to WeightWatchers, I jumped back into the same Flex program. The game for me was figuring out how to play the numbers so they added up on paper to the magic number. It got to the point where I could be “perfect” on paper but not lose a single pound.

Frustrated, I’d quit.

WeightWatchers’ Attempt at Healthstyle Fails

Later, WeightWatchers rolled out the Core program and I saw success again. Core allowed members to eat lean meats, fat-free dairy, fruits and vegetables “until satisfied.” A weekly Points budget allowed eating things that weren’t Core (namely carbs, sugars, and fats). Also included on the “free to eat” list was your daily serving of heart-healthy oils.

But Core wasn’t popular among the WeightWatchers membership. In my meetings, I’d often be the only person in the room on Core, so advice in the meeting was tailored toward Flex members. Sometimes I’d get lucky and have a leader who was on Core, but not always. Even though I was losing weight regularly on Core, the lack of support for the program made going to meetings not as helpful or motivating. WeightWatchers finally eliminated the Core program, going back to a One-Plan-Fits-All mentality.

Eat Healthy OR Filling

Remember how I said that the plan is nutritionally sound if followed to the letter? The problem with WeightWatchers is that as long as you lose weight, no one questions what you’re eating. I wish I still had my food journals from those days, because I can tell you I went full weeks without consuming a vegetable or fruit.

In the meetings, the leader would talk about getting your heart healthy oil in every day, and inevitably, someone would complain about having to “waste Points” on olive oil, when they could just use a few spritzes of aerosol cooking spray instead. When you’re working with 20 points per day (which is what I was eating when I was close to my goal weight), it does seem like a waste to use 4 of those points for a tablespoon of olive oil. Especially when 4 points could be spent on bread or meat or cheese. Or a Milk & Cereal bar.

Diet For Life?

My biggest problem with WeightWatchers is that it never felt like a way to eat for the rest of my life. Maybe it did for a while, but once hard times hit, I didn’t have the incentive to stick to my guns and eat healthy, mainly because what I ate when I was on program wasn’t all that tasty. (WeightWatchers has tons of recipe books, but all the recipes are pretty bland and uninspired.)

Finding Darya Was The Best Thing That Happened To Me

Dr. Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating, says that “the best diet is the one you don’t know you’re on.” This is exactly how I feel about my new healthstyle.

I don’t feel stressed out about food.

I don’t feel deprived of things I want to eat.

I don’t look forward to the day I get to “eat normal” again.

I don’t feel like the way I am eating is a ball and chain.

I don’t eat food that doesn’t taste delicious.

My Healthstyle

Breakfast: Every other Sunday, I make a giant batch of breakfast hot pockets from scratch. I have played with the dough recipe a bit to decrease the white flour down to 5 cups white, 3.5 cups wheat, 1.5 cups almond meal. Since my boyfriend is vegetarian, we use the sausage substitute. They freeze well and reheat in the microwave in 95 seconds. I love them because I am not a morning person, so I wake up as late as possible and eat on my drive to the gym.

Exercise: I am blessed to have a work schedule that allows me to work out from 8:30-9:45 a.m. just about every day. I do miss the gym from time to time, but I’m there more days than I’m not, which is a great start!

Lunch: I love salad bars, but they’re so expensive. So I started up a Salad Club at my work! We have anywhere from 4 to 6 people who participate each week, pitching in various veggies and fruits and toppings and dressings. If you’re curious, follow me on Twitter and you can see a picture of my Salad Club every weekday. When I’m lunching at home, it’s usually kale with toasted nuts and garlic and whatever leftover grain I have in the fridge.

Snacks: Back in my WeightWatchers days, I avoided nuts. Too high in calories, too high in fat, too many Points! Now, I have a variety of nuts on my desk at work and usually eat an ounce or two of nuts every day. They really help bridge the gap between meals and prevent me from snacking on the junk food in the office kitchen.

Dinner: I make all sorts of great things for dinners now. We still have our old standbys (vegetarian tacos & Annie’s mac n’ cheese), but more often than not, I’m surfing the internet for recipes after buying whatever looks good in the store (Sadly, being on the East Coast makes the farmers market thing a little less feasible in the winter. But spring is almost here!!). I think my favorite so far is the stuffed portobello mushrooms (pictured here).

The Bottom Line

I don’t feel like this is a diet. I feel like I’m eating better and tastier foods than I have in my whole life. I’ve eaten more nuts and olive oil in the past 3 months than I have in 3 years. But I’m losing at a steady rate of about a 1/2 pound per week. No, it’s not fast or impressive. But I’m eating amazing food, I’m never hungry (for long!), and I’m not killing myself at the gym to do it. If it takes me 3 years to get down to 140-150 again, that’s fine by me. The weight loss is just a pleasant side effect of my healthstyle, and I have Darya to thank for all her advice and personal coaching.

If you’ve been lurking on the blog and wondering about working with Darya to get your healthstyle on, take the step and do it. I feel so much better and the weight is melting off while I’m eating the most delicious food of my life. You can do it, too.

What is your healthstyle?

Collards, Carrots and Lentils Recipe

Healthy eating is important, but for most people (myself included) there are two factors that will almost always trump your best intentions to eat well: taste and time.

In the long run you will not win a battle of wills against your taste buds, and if you think about it you probably don’t even want to. If you hope to build long-term healthy eating habits I suggest focusing your efforts on making the food you cook at home taste as good or better than your default, less healthy alternatives.

Convenience is also a big factor in our daily food decisions. Time is one of our most precious resources, and although I recommend eating slowly I am a big advocate of cooking simply and quickly. In fact, one of the reasons I most often decide to cook at home is that making my own food is much quicker than visiting even the closest taqueria. It is also healthier and cheaper.

On a typical weeknight, I sit down to dinner 15-20 minutes after walking in the door. Granted, I usually cook for just myself, but doubling my recipes is fairly easily and doesn’t cost much in time.

This kind of efficiency does require a bit of planning, however. My meals are typically composed of a big pile of vegetables and either beans, lentils, eggs, fish, intact whole grains, or some combination of these. Half the battle is being sure these things are in your home when you need them.

My fridge is always stocked with fresh vegetables and herbs from my weekly farmers market trip. I also usually set aside a little time each week to cook a large batch of either beans or lentils, which are among my absolute favorite foods for adding substance, texture and a world of flavor to dishes.

I’ve written before about how I make beans using a pressure cooker, but today I want to focus on lentils. Lentils are smaller and more delicate than most beans. As a result, they cook faster and don’t require as much culinary foresight (beans require an overnight soak, while lentils do not).

There are many varieties of lentils. Some are more firm and keep their shape after cooking, making them ideal for adding to stir fries and salads. They can also be used as a substitute for or addition to grain dishes. Examples of firm lentils are French green, black beluga and the most common Spanish brown varieties.

Yellow, red and orange lentils are even smaller and more delicate, which causes them to fall apart and turn to liquid during cooking. These lentils are common ingredients in soups, stews and Indian food.

Because I frequently use lentils as a last minute addition to vegetable dishes to make them more substantial, I have worked to optimize the cooking and storage for a few of the firm varieties. My preference is for the French green and black beluga, but since black lentils are harder to find I performed my experiments exclusively on the green and brown varieties.

My goal was to find the optimal cooking time and the best freezing methods for lentils. Specifically I was hoping to find a convenient method of freezing individual servings that could be stored indefinitely and used within minutes at any time, similar to my method of freezing brown rice.

Traditionally I cook lentils on the stove top in a regular covered sauce pan, but this time I also tried the pressure cooker to see if it could reduce cooking time. In each of my experiments I used 1 cup of dry lentils and 6 cups of water with salt. I added the lentils to a pot of cold water and started my timer when the pot hit the flame.

When preparing lentils, always be sure to rinse them and check for small pebbles before cooking. I do this by slowly pouring my dry lentils into a fine mesh strainer (while checking for pebbles), then rinsing them under the faucet for 30 seconds or so.

A few things surprised me during my experiments. The first is that French green lentils have a much more robust, complex flavor than brown lentils, which have a more subtle flavor and creamier texture. Brown lentils also retained more water and didn’t hold their shape quite as well as the green lentils, and took substantially longer to cook. For these reasons, I strongly preferred the green lentils in my experiments, though I would happily use brown lentils in a hearty stew or as a bed for meat or poultry.

Additionally, because brown lentils didn’t hold their shape as well, I was unable to freeze them in individual plastic wrapped servings like rice. However this method worked wonderfully for green lentils.

As you might expect, my success at freezing lentils in plastic wrap depended on how much liquid I could remove from them before freezing.

For best results, strain lentils very well using a fine meshed strainer before wrapping in individual servings. Carefully place 1/2 cup of lentils in the center of a square of plastic. Fold two opposite edges over the lentils, twist the ends and tie them in a half knot at the top, trying to avoid folding plastic into the lentil ball. To use, run the frozen ball under warm (not hot) water until you can untie the knot. Place lentils in a bowl and microwave 2-3 minutes. Stir with a fork and use.

Both brown and green lentils also froze well in plastic tupper containers. If you know you will be using lentils regularly, you can split a batch you prepare into two or more containers, keep one in the fridge for use and freeze the others. When you are ready, transfer your frozen lentils from the freezer to the fridge the day before you want to use them. Alternatively you could freeze them in Pyrex or glass containers and simply microwave when you want to use them.

I was also curious if a pressure cooker could reduce the time necessary to prepare lentils. For beans a pressure cooker provides an obvious advantage, since on a stove top they can take hours to cook thoroughly. But lentils take only 30-40 min and do not require pre-soaking as beans do. Boiling lentils requires very little attention (make the rest of your food while they cook) and cleanup is easier, so I was curious if there would still be a time advantage using a pressure cooker.

I got different results for the different varieties. For green lentils the pressure cooker did not provide much of an advantage over regular boiling. I found the optimal pressure cooker time for green lentils to be 5-6 minutes, but it takes about 15 minutes for it to pressurize (could maybe be reduced with less water) and another 5 for depressurizing after cooking. Given the extra cleanup/hassle of using the pressure cooker over a sauce pan, the 35 minutes it took to boil the same amount of lentils feels like a better deal.

Another advantage of not using the pressure cooker for green lentils is it’s possible to check the texture as they cook. With the pressure cooker I found it was easy to undercook or overcook the lentils, and the time window was very narrow. This is not ideal if you want the lentils to keep their shape for freezing.

On the other hand, the time advantage gained by using a pressure cooker for the bigger brown lentils was substantial. Brown lentils cooked completely in 7-8 minutes in the pressure cooker, bringing the total cook time to under 30 minutes. However it took well over 45 minutes for them to soften up with boiling alone.

Though I didn’t test them in these experiments, my experience with red and yellow lentils is that they cook in a pressure cooker in about 4 minutes, much faster than simply boiling. This substantially cuts the amount of time it takes to cook with them.

Summary

French green lentils were my favorite for flavor, ease of cooking and storage. They are easiest to prepare by boiling with salt in a regular covered sauce pan for approximately 35 minutes. If well strained, they freeze beautifully in either individually wrapped balls or in a tupper. They can be kept 4-5 days in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

Brown lentils take longer to cook and time is saved by using a pressure cooker. These lentils can be frozen, but do better in a large solid container than in individually wrapped servings.

Either variety stores well in the freezer and has the potential to substantially cut down on daily cooking times when prepared in large batches and used repeatedly.

Do you freeze lentils? Do you prefer to use a pressure cooker?

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Informative bunch of articles this week on the web. I’m particularly excited by TreeHugger‘s list of canned products that don’t contain BPA and the FDA clamping down on health claims. There’s also an interesting glimpse of the possible future of healthstyle: genetic testing to find the best diet for your body.

I read many more wonderful articles than I post here each week. If you’d like to see more or just don’t want to wait until Friday, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@summertomato) or the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. For complete reading lists join me on the social bookmarking sites StumbleUpon and Delicious. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you there. (Note: If you want a follow back on Twitter introduce yourself with an @ message).

Links of the week

• What does saturated fat cause? Arguments. <<Great article in the Boston Globe by Summer Tomato reader Allison Boomer. This is her take on the controversial new study on saturated fat.
• 7 Companies You Can Trust to Use BPA-Free Cans <<I still get a ton of questions about BPA and cans. Turns out some companies have been doing it right all along. (TreeHugger)
• Snake Oil? Scientific evidence for popular health supplement <<Really cool visual display of data on the effectiveness of various health supplements for certain conditions. Thanks @geeksdreamgirl for the heads up! (Information Is Beautiful)
• Cheers to FDA: health claim warnings! <<Seems the FDA is finally tired of food companies printing lies on their packaging. Woohoo! (Food Politics)
• Top 10 Most Dangerous Foods <<BS of the week. Leafy greens? Are you kidding me? What a waste of bandwidth. CHOW also called out Time Magazine for publishing this ridiculous piece. How does this pass as journalism? (Note: Hell yes this gets a “nofollow”)
• Low-Fat Diets Beat Low-Carb Regimen Long Term <<This headline is a bit misleading. Actually neither diet really works in the long term unless you are only interested in losing 5-10 lbs. That’s because dieting doesn’t work. (HealthDay)
• DNA test ‘could predict most effective diet’ <<Given that one diet doesn’t work for most people but that certain diets work well for certain people, could this be the future of healthstyle? (BBC News)
• Whole Grains Take a Bite Out of Type 2 Diabetes Risk <<Believe it or not there actually is data that people who eat whole grains don’t get much diabetes. Gasp! (HealthDay)
• Potassium-Rich Foods Do a Heart Good <<That means vegetables. Yep, they’re good for you too. (HealthDay)
• Roasted Baby Carrots, with Chile, Mint and Orange Glaze <<Carrots are in season and this is one of the most unique recipes I’ve seen. Very tempted to try it out. (The Bitten Word)

What inspired you this week?

Photo by Robb North

Finding inspiration to cook something new at home is not always easy, but with a little practice you can learn to pick up recipe ideas from common things in your everyday life.

Daniel Patterson, chef/owner of San Francisco’s acclaimed Coi restaurant, elevates this concept of finding inspiration from daily life to an art form. I asked Patterson about the thought process that goes into creating dishes for the menu at Coi, and how a regular home cook may try to use these principles to inspire his or her own cooking.

At Coi, every dish has an organizing idea. Patterson strives to connect the eater to a particular concept, which may integrate culture and nature, or people and place.

“The idea is so important to me. Cooking is a form of communication.”

A recent addition to the menu at Coi is a dish that Patterson explained as a “foodscape,” evocative of a certain place at a certain time, with a particular feeling. He wanted to capture the essence of late fall into winter in a rural place, when the rains have come and the fields are green. It was intended to evoke the feeling of an older world, where there may be the smell of things like hay, barn and pasture.

To convey this feeling Patterson used hay to flavor the dish, which he recently described in detail in San Francisco Magazine.

Cooking things in hay is a traditional practice. Typically in Europe, big cuts of meat will be roasted in hay, which accomplishes two things: it insulates to preserve heat, and it imparts flavor.

Lamb is something that was traditionally cooked in hay. Patterson wanted to work within this tradition, but reinvent the idea for modern Bay Area diners. Instead of lamb or other meat, Patterson used the hay to flavor carrots, which are extraordinary here locally.

“We look at how things are done traditionally, but bring them into our reality and make them vivid for contemporary palettes.”

Integrating old-world cooking techniques and re-imagining them as contemporary dishes imparts both emotional depth and energy to foods.

But such innovation need not be limited to 4-star kitchens. A home cook can also borrow from cultural traditions and reinvent recipes to reflect ingredient availability and personal preferences.

According to Patterson, you can find inspiration by reading cookbooks and going to markets. “Have curiosity, that is the most important thing.”

Local ingredients are the easiest way to begin. “Cook greens simply with a little rice wine vinegar then think, ‘What would go with that?’ Maybe chicken. Then continue on from there.”

In this way, Patterson says cooking should be intuitive. Yet he acknowledges that we are not starting with the same level of knowledge about food as our ancestors did.

“We need to rebuild our connection to cooking. No one knows what things should taste like anymore. We’re starting disadvantaged compared to our ancestors in the tradition of cooking.”

But as long as we start with simple, fresh ingredients it is possible to learn a few techniques or preparations that can be the foundation for several dishes. Once we have these down we can add complexity and build upon the things we’ve learned.

“Go get any kind of greens. Cook until tender, chop them up, throw them on pasta with some lemon zest and chili flakes, then you’ve created a template that you can use any time you see greens.”

Patterson thinks it is possible for us to reestablish our connection to food culture and give the next generation the advantage most of us never had.

“People cooking with their kids is the best thing they can do. This will be our salvation. My kid will have no taste memory of an industrial food product. Then when he’s older those foods won’t resonate, won’t taste like food.”

The possibility that a new generation of children could grow up without dependence on industrial foods is, of course, Jamie Oliver’s now famous TED Prize wish. That we are now able to even have this discussion, which was probably not possible even 15 years ago, is an inspiration in itself.

What inspires you to cook?

Kapani

I recently acquired a cast iron skillet and have been dreamily brainstorming all the fun I get to have with it.

Obviously my first adventure had to be this Spanish tortilla recipe, which turned out awesome. But I also had visions of recreating my grandmother’s slow-cooked spaghetti sauce and being able to make perfect steaks in my BBQ-less apartment.

But I knew there had to be more I could do with such a big, heavy object–so I turned to the coolest people I know for suggestions:

I must admit, my favorite answers didn’t exactly involve food:

But by far the most touching reply I received was a link to a Posterous post from @GregKnottLeMond. I encourage you to click over and read it, it’s short and sweet:

The post describes how the adorable skillet bird above came to be:

For @SummerTomato ‘s Consideration

The creativity was not, of course, restricted to metallic critters and demolition:

These blogs that specialize in cast iron cookware were also recommended:

Cooking In Cast Iron

Black Iron Blog

Derek on Cast Iron

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the collective inspiration! Here is my consolidated list of ideas:

1. Clonk someone (@thescramble)
2. Cure alcoholism (@mcnee)
3. Bicep curls (@JeffACSH)
4. Nut crackin’ (@RtReview)
5. End a romance (@cookerguy)
6. Fry chicken (@cookerguy)
7. Break stuff (@cookerguy)
8. Work on two-handed tennis backhand (@cookerguy)
9. Fight zombies (@benhamill)
10. Frame a picture (@omewan)
11. Plant bonzai trees (@omewan)
12. Stop burglars à la Home Alone (@leslieconn)
13. Burn thermite (@mcnee)
14. Hit John Mayer (@foodiemcbody)
15. Make metal critters (@GregKnottLeMond)
16. Deep dish pizza (@bob_koss)
17. Squeeze paneer (@newtomato)
18. Burgers (@thescramble)
19. Steaks (@thescramble)
20. Corn bread (@lonelygourmet)
21. Spoon bread (?) (@virginiagriffey)
22. Roast meats (@jameswcooper)
23. Crustless pies (@blee27)
24. Pancakes (@bob_koss)
25. Sauté zucchini (@JeffACSH)
26. Pineapple upside-down cake (@HeatherHAL)
27. Hashbrowns (@arielmanx)
28. Seared meat (@arielmanx)
29. Spanish tortilla (@FBloggersUnite)
30. Bibimbap (@annemai)
31. Tarte tartin (@annemai)

What are your favorite things to do with a cast iron skillet?

Photo by ReneS

For some people cooking alone is a chore rather than a treat, but those people don’t know what they’re missing.

If cooking for yourself seems like more hassle than it’s worth, it may be time to start thinking more selfishly about the whole business.

Eating is a deeply personal, private experience that stimulates all of your senses. We each have our own particular tastes, preferences and memories associated with different foods, and each of these can elicit an entire universe of physical and emotional responses.

When you cook for yourself, especially when you aren’t beholden to the desires of others, you have a perfect opportunity to indulge some of your favorite pleasures. Cook something fancy and high brow, enjoy a favorite childhood dish or just throw 12 odd flavors together and see what happens. You have the freedom to make what you want, exactly the way you like it.

We eat alone for different reasons at different times. Sometimes we are in a hurry. Sometimes family is out of town. Whatever the reason, taking the opportunity to cook for yourself is almost always the most interesting, convenient and pleasurable option.

I began this list on my own, but some of the points were inspired by a book I recently picked up, What We Eat When We Eat Alone by Deborah Madison. It is a quick read and a good source for more inspiration and recipes.

10 Selfish Reasons To Cook Alone

1. Splurge. Buying exquisite ingredients to feed a crowd can be prohibitively expensive, but a single serving of white truffle can be had without breaking the bank. That is, so long as you prepare the rest of the meal yourself. If you adore Kobe beef or lobster tail, why not use a weekend alone to treat yourself to a fabulous dinner without going out?
2. Indulge. Have you always wanted to try bacon on your oatmeal? Go for it, no one’s looking.
3. Impress. Cooking someone a meal and sharing it can be one of the most intimate experiences on earth. Being alone is a great time to practice. Hone your cooking skills and show that special someone what a great catch you are. If you’re already spoken for, adding a few interesting meals to your repertoire is also a great way to impress your family and friends.
4. Save. My favorite burrito at the place down the street costs about $6. At home I can make the exact same burrito for $2. Plus if I already have the ingredients around I can make it in a fraction of the time. How is that for thrift?
5. Thrive. My personal favorite reason to cook for myself is that I have complete control over what goes in my food. Here in San Francisco, splurging and indulgence can be bought within a quarter mile in any direction. When I’m home I enjoy making healthy, nourishing food cooked exactly the way I like it.
6. Improve. Don’t consider yourself a particularly good cook? The only way to get better is to practice. Trying out new things in the kitchen can be much less stressful when you’re alone, so take the opportunity of solitude to make mistakes without inspiring disappointment or ridicule.
7. Hurry. If you cook regularly and have a decently stocked kitchen, you can make yourself a meal faster than most places can make one for you. Driving somewhere, waiting in line, ordering and waiting for your food may seem like the fastest option but it usually isn’t.
8. Perfect. Is there a dish at your favorite restaurant that you wish you could recreate at home? Try it one day when you have some free time. You might not get it exactly right the first time, but you can probably get pretty good at it eventually.
9. Relax. No one is home? The pressure is off! There’s no one to please but yourself. Cook at your leisure, make pancakes for dinner, break all the rules. When it’s just you there are no expectations.
10. Experiment. Maybe you’ve always wished for a quick and easy dessert that doesn’t have any added sugar. Maybe you’re curious if lasagna can be made in a skillet instead of the oven (it can). Indulge your cooking curiosities when no one is looking and you have a little extra time to play around.

What do you love about cooking alone?

Photo by ginnerobot

Happy New Year!!!

I hope you had a happy and safe time yesterday and a wonderful 2009!

Thank you all for helping Summer Tomato grow, it has been a pleasure getting to know you the past 9 months.

Today I want to share some highlights from 2009. My greatest hope is that each of you find value in what I write here at Summer Tomato. These are the posts you “voted” for with your comments and retweets, thank you dearly for your support.

Best of Summer Tomato 2009

1. Better Than Pasta Subtitutes: Summer Squash Noodle Recipe

This recipe and video where I show how to easily make noodles out of zucchini in less than 5 minutes got featured on Lifehacker, making it the most popular post of 2009. It was delicious too 🙂

2. Should I Buy Whole Grain Pasta?

Distinguishing between real healthy food and fake “health food” is not as straight forward as it should be. Whole grain pasta is a perfect example.

3. Mindful Eating And Portion Control

A brilliant guest post by neuroscientist Jyoti Mishra Ramanathan about the importance of mindful eating and how a single grape can change your life.

4. Don’t Eat This, Don’t Eat That: Why Fast Food Is Never Healthy

Eating slightly-less-bad fast food is not a winning strategy for health. It also tastes disgusting. Treat yourself to a better life and learn to eat decent food.

5. 10 People You Can’t Trust For Diet Advice

Snake oil comes in many forms. Think you can trust the government or doctors for diet advice? Think again.

6. 10 Reasons To Never Eat Free Food

Just because it’s free doesn’t mean you have to eat it. Learn to recognize real value and real cost when you see it.

7. How To Eat In Restaurants: Healthy advice from SF food critic Michael Bauer

Usually eating out makes it more difficult to maintain a healthy weight, but renowned San Francisco food critic Michael Bauer says otherwise. I learned his secret in an interview last summer.

8. How I Lost 20 Pounds In 9 Months Without Dieting

Losing 2 lbs a month may not seem like a huge success, but that is only because you are used to those pounds coming back. Would you feel the same if they stay off? This Summer Tomato success story is amazingly simple, and an impressive update is on its way….

9. Automatic Health: Lessons From Personal Finance

My favorite analogy for health and weight loss has always been finance. Why do people feel strongly enough to devote their lives to a secure financial future while ignoring their personal health? Does one really matter without the other? The principles are the same, and you can approach them in the same way.

10. How To Become A Slow Eater

How you eat can be just as important as what you eat. Learn to eat slowly and appreciate flavors and textures, your life will be better for it.

11. Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis – It’s NEAT!

Even if you don’t have time to make it to the gym, regular physical activity can be part of your life. Learn all about getting exercise without going to the gym by exercise physiologist and scientist, Travis Saunders.

12. Are You Eating In The Matrix?

Do you know what you are eating? Is it really food? This isn’t a joke, it is time to consider what is and isn’t food.

13. 30 Ways To Slow and Prevent Aging

I turned 30 in 2009, but am often mistaken as being younger than my 23-year-old brother. Woohoo! This year I spilled all my secrets.

14. Orthorexia, Bacon Worship And The Power of Food Culture

How is it that we live in a society where both obesity and anorexia are more prevalent than ever? The breakdown of food culture may be the cause, and may also point to the solution.

15. Learning To Love Foods You Don’t Like

Can you name one way you are a happier person because you hate Brussels sprouts? If you can, please email me. If you can’t, please read this article and consider expanding your palate (and your mind). Who knows, you might actually enjoy it….

Thanks again for all your contributions this year. I’ve learned as much from you all as you’ve learned from me. You guys rock!!

Photo by melloveschallah

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”

–Rita Mae Brown

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2010 marks the beginning of not just a new year, but a new decade. Rather than using this as an excuse to set and/or stick to diet resolutions of years past, consider setting an anti-resolution to stop the cycle:

Decide today to quit diets and never pick up another one.

For some people (my former self included) chronic dieting is a way of life. Structured diets help us feel secure and in control of our fate, while giving us something to strive for and accomplish.

In a twisted way, diets can be comforting and giving them up can be as difficult for some as quitting smoking.

But most people are not trying to stop dieting, they are trying to do it better. Dieting is usually seen as a positive ambition, a form of self-improvement.

But what if diets do more harm than good? What if they lower instead of raise your quality of life?

Weight loss and better health through food and exercise are wonderful aspirations, but contrary to popular wisdom they are not synonymous with dieting. If your goals are long-term and not for specific or imminent events, then dieting will never help you achieve them.

Healthy eating and regular exercise need to be your default, automatic behaviors and not a special case scenario; weight loss diets by definition are temporary–an exception, not the rule. This is another way of saying our daily, habitual behaviors are unhealthy and promote weight gain.

Typical diets address the symptom, but ignore the problem.

Most of us will sidestep this logic by convincing ourselves that once our desired weight loss is achieved through dieting (and that’s a big IF it is achieved) we will enter into a “maintenance stage.” But maintenance is only a theoretical purgatory that looks just like the original diet dressed up to be a little sexier.

The real test of a diet’s success is not weeks or months, but years and decades later. And since we never think of diets on these long time scales, most will fail eventually. This is an uphill battle of regular slip-ups and constant restriction.

How about a different strategy?

This decade instead of picking a diet with the goal of losing X number of pounds, decide on a list of healthy habits you want to adopt over the next several months and years that will help you reach your long-term health goals. Building habits may not result in the same quick results you’d experience on a traditional diet (though they can), but you will continue to see results for many months and the changes will be permanent.

Habits take approximately 4-6 weeks to form, and most people can only adopt 2-3 new habits simultaneously. Use your list to set up short-term behavioral goals throughout the year to gauge your progress.

To start, choose the habits that are easiest and most fun for you personally. Set an end date to examine your progress in 1-2 months. Write it in your calendar and set aside 15-30 minutes that day for the analysis. (e.g. By February 15, I will bring my own lunch to work at least 4 days a week).

Remember that habits can be either positive or negative, such as the proactive taking the stairs at least twice per day versus the reductive limiting dessert to once per week. A good strategy is to pair a negative habit with a positive one that can replace it. For instance, limit red meat to once per week pairs nicely with eat fish 3 times per week, particularly if you are accustomed to eating lots of protein.

Once you have successfully integrated a few new habits into your healthstyle, pick 1 or 2 more for the following months. Continue to add new habits, minimize bad ones and assess your progress at regular intervals. Start now, and don’t wait until next January to evaluate your results.

By the end of 2010 you should be able to adopt 5-10 new habits that will significantly improve your health both immediately and in decades to come. As your health improves, your goals may evolve to reflect new and possibly more advanced ambitions. This is good, it means you’re making progress.

Not everyone will have the same aspirations or be able to tolerate the same daily routines, so you should think carefully and set goals you think you can achieve. Whenever possible, try to write your goals in specific rather than general terms. For example, instead of writing eat more vegetables, write eat something green at both lunch and dinner.

Don’t get hung up on setting guidelines you can follow 100% of the time, the goal is to set routines you can achieve most of the time. Remember, exceptions are okay and an inevitable part of life. For this exercise we are focusing on what you do as habit. That is, your average meals where you have control over what you eat.

Here are just a few examples of healthy habits to get you started, but these are only meant as inspiration. Spend some time making your own list and assigning priority to each habit. If you have any questions or suggestions, please write them below in the comments.

Healthy habits for a new decade

1. Make vegetables the centerpiece of dinner at least 5 days per week.
2. Limit dessert to once per week or less.
3. Replace soda with sparkling water during lunch.
4. Do not eat from the bread basket at restaurants.
5. Include legumes in at least 4 meals per week.
6. Take the stairs to the office at least 4 times per week.
7. Eat breakfast everyday.
8. Do not eat foods with added sugar.
9. Shop at the farmers market every weekend.
10. Put down your fork between each bite of food.

What’s on your list?

You may also enjoy:

• Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, by Brian Wansink. A fantastic book on breaking and creating healthy eating habits. Funny and informative.
• Last year’s rant about New Year’s Solutions.

Sometimes it takes a new set of eyes to see things clearly. Sometimes a new perspective can be enough to change your world.

In the blockbuster film Avatar, advanced neuro-technology is used to plug human consciousness into alien bodies (avatars) and operate them remotely. Scientists use these avatars to explore the planet Pandora and learn the ways of its native people, the Na’vi.

The Na’vi share an intimate bond with their natural habitat, making their behavior seem primitive and incomprehensible to the humans studying them. But when Jake Sully immerses himself in Na’vi culture as an assignment, his experience changes him in ways no one could have imagined.

Behaviors we don’t understand are often the easiest to ridicule and reject. But putting aside your preconceptions and coming to a new world with open eyes can be the best way to improve your circumstances and enrich your life.

Do you have prejudices that are keeping you from eating healthy?

I have certainly had many.

Believe it or not, there was a time I thought all organic food was an elaborate, expensive hoax designed to trick rich people into paying more for food the rest of us could get for a fraction of the price. I just didn’t get it. I hadn’t yet tasted the difference, so I didn’t believe it existed.

There was also a time when home cooking seemed to me like a laughable, time-consuming and pointless affair, better suited to married life or, well, anyone who wasn’t me. Why would I cook when someone else could do it for me?

Weekly shopping at the farmers market was another tough idea to swallow (who wants to get up that early on a Saturday?), as was ignoring free food at social events–one of the most fundamental and revered components of graduate school (it’s free!!).

My problem was that I didn’t yet see the value in these activities, so they didn’t seem important.

But of course, I was wrong.

It is absolutely worth the extra effort and money for higher quality organic vegetables that I am actually excited to eat.

Cooking for myself is by far the most efficient, tasty and healthy way to feed myself.

And shopping at the farmers market and maintaining a high-quality diet is the single most important thing I do to stay healthy; it is also really fun.

But I don’t expect you to believe me. This is not the kind of information you can read on a blog and automatically integrate into your life.

To understand my enthusiasm for farm fresh food and home-cooked meals, you really have to dive in head first and try it yourself.

There’s nothing to lose and everything to gain.

So what’s stopping you?