Being Green; still

To me, "being green" can mean a variety of things. Saving energy or using something I'd have just thrown away and, more often than not in this unstable economy, saving money.

Here is a dessert I prepared recently that hit all those high notes. I was using the gas BBQ and I needed to get it very hot and use all three of the burners so instead of letting that heat go to waste I prepared a skillet full of sliced apples with white and brown sugar, a pinch of salt, cinnamon and about a half stick of butter. For the topping I crushed three homemade biscuits from breakfast. I don't like them reheated and made too many for me and my beloved so this was an alternative tossing them in the trash.

After I'd pulled my dinner from the BBQ I put the skillet, covered with foil, on the grill, turned off the center burner and reduced the heat to 325/350 and closed the lid. After dinner, about 30 minutes I removed the foil and tested the apples. That was enough time to cook them and caramelize the sugars. I set them on a board to cool and when we were ready for dessert just spooned the apples into a bowl.

Really any recipe you have for baked apples or an apple crisp should work but using the biscuits was great. The real work for the grill is the preheating so that was already taken care of cooking our dinner. Plus it cooked while we were eating, no fuss.

Sometimes being green is just taking the time to think about how you are cooking.

Share your ideas with us, won't you?

New diet: low carbon

The Cafe of the Getty Center has started something quite interesting. It's called a Low Carbon Diet. This is a committed program by Bon Appétit, a nationwide food management group to lower their carbon footprint. Basically they are will be buying local and reducing the amount of waste. This Palo Alto, CA company has over 400 cafes in 28 states, usually large companies and Universities.

Tired of feeling like you can't do anything? Here's a great way to get started in your own kitchen, What you can do. I also love their Top Five Low Carbon Diet Tips and a cool little search page for local, sustainable food in your area. Eat Well Guide. And finally, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has a pocket seafood guide so you know what fish is ocean-friendly and safe to eat. Don't forget to ask restaurants where their seafood was caught or raised and don't buy seafood that has to be flown in buy frozen when caught. Shipping fish uses less energy than flying it into your market, fresh-caught. If you can't see the ocean don't buy fresh-caught.

If you have some good ideas to lower your carbon diet, let's hear about them.

It's a fine chop you've gotten us into

If any of my family can remember what I was going to use this pix for, please let me know. It seems a shame to let this photo go unused and I can assure you I did use the subject for something. I'd never let that lovely pile of fresh, finely chopped red onion go to waste. Some may keep a Kosher kitchen; I keep a Green kitchen as do the other cooks here in the PBE Kitchens. If you search "being green" here on our blog you'll get the idea.

What should I do with this scrumptious little pile of onions? This is not a contest, I'd just like some ideas. How do you use red onions? Raw, cooked, creamed or blanched. Maybe you never use them and I bet that's a good story. Give me suggestions, either e-mail (pbetouffee@gmail.com) or comments. I'd love to recreate that juciy little mountain of chop with my razor sharp Santoku.

Blog Action Day: Let's hear from you

The question was asked, "What if every blog published a post discussing the same issue, on the same day?

Today is Blog Action Day and since we are three women concerned with the environment I'm starting a post and hope we get a comment or two. Our question is,

"What do you do to help the environment?"

So use this post to tell the world what you do and then pass this on to anyone; everyone. Let's get talking and working before it's too late.

It's all up to us to help out where we can. Can't think of anything new? Here are fifty ways to leave your old habits behind.

Here are just a few post from PBE that support a better environment.
Here comes the sun
Easy summer supper
You gonna use that?
Kermit was wrong, it's easy being green
Rooftop garden

here comes the sun

so, because i am becoming such a little greenie (not the dog treat, mind you), i recently decided that i wanted a solar oven. what's that, you ask? well, basically, it's a dark plastic box with a clear plastic lid that collects heat inside and gets hot enough to cook food. i found out about this earth saving cooking device from the path to freedom urban homestead folks. a popular brand of oven, called a solar sport, is made by the solar oven society. this great company is not only helping to save the environment, they're helping women and families in third world countries that are sun rich, but fuel poor. some women in africa have to spend a full day searching for wood just to have enough fuel to cook their food. the solar oven allows them to use the sun's energy as a free and endlessly renewable resource to cook their food while simultaneously freeing up their time for jobs, for other chores and to spend with their families. another problem with using wood as cooking fuel is that the wood not only adds excessive amounts of carbon to the atmosphere, it is usually burned in closed areas risking injuries from fires and increasing health problems from the families that constantly have to breathe in all that smoke. another great use for the solar oven is to make it simple to use the sun to make safe drinking water by pasteurization. every purchase of a solar oven from the solar oven society helps to fund the organization's efforts to distribute solar ovens in developing countries.

my loving family bought me one for my birthday (thanks, family!) and, i'm embarrassed to say, it promptly sat on the inside of my house for almost two months. work's been a little crazy recently and that, coupled with june gloom, has made it difficult for me to find a day that i'm not at the office and is also sunny enough to use the oven. well, today was the day and i decided to test out my solar oven! i haven't been to the market in a while and i didn't have much on hand, so i decided to keep it simple for my first test and just make a pot of basmati rice. at about 11 am, i put the rice and water in the pot (two black camping-style cooking pots come with the oven), arranged the oven facing south in direct sun on a table on my rooftop patio and put the pot in the oven...



then i clipped the clear plastic top on the oven and let it be (now that's the real meaning of "set it and forget it," mr. popeil)...



the oven also comes with an oven thermometer, which i put in so i could see how hot my oven would get. after setting everything up, i set about pottering around in my garden for a while. after about 15 minutes, the temperature inside the oven was almost 150 degrees. by about 45 minutes to an hour, it was up over 200. the manual said it takes about two hours to cook rice, so i left it to cook and went about my day. about two hours later, i went back upstairs to my patio and checked out the oven. the temperature inside was about 225. i opened up the oven and lifted the lid off the pot to find this...



...a perfectly cooked, steaming pot of basmati rice - i kid you not!



i was so excited! i cooked food with the sun! it was so simple and didn't heat up my kitchen and didn't add to my carbon footprint and all the energy was free! i can't wait to try out some other foods. i'm thinking during the weekdays, i could use it as an electricity-free crock pot and make stuff like red beans for red beans and rice, indian-style dal and stews and such. i'm really looking forward to doing some low and slow braising, like alton brown's baby back ribs. i also got the reflectors for the oven, which direct more sunlight into the inside so you can boost the temperature up to 300 to do baking. can't wait to try that either. yay!

Easy summer supper

We have a cut that Southern California butchers call London Broil. This is a term usually associated with a method of preparation rather than a cut of beef but we never said Californios are logical.

The London Broil cut, in my stores, is taken from the Boneless Top Loin. It's usually about two to three inches thick. We like it seasoned and thrown on the grill, sliced across the grain and for the sake of the beef, don't over cook!

Summer has sneaked into our lives this week with temperatures hovering in the 80s so that means lots of outdoor cooking. And because I've been trying to be "Green*" at least once a week I BBQ'd two LB steaks at once. The first night it was a simple meal of steak and a salad, one of our favorite meals. While the grill was going, I caramelized onions in a small pan, blackened the skin off some red peppers and used both in my salad. I made more than I needed and boy, was I glad I did because the next day temp soared to 100 and I did not feel like cooking.

In the fridge:

• leftover steak
• caramelized onions
• red pepper
• some cooked spaghetti
• basil

What a bonanza. I heated the pasta in olive oil with some garlic, added basil, onions, red pepper until hot and then tossed in the thinly sliced steak. I turned off the heat, covered and prepared some garlic bread. The beef was heated but still had the rareness we like and was great with the garlic bread. This took me minutes from fridge to table and didn't heat up the kitchen that night.

* I know, I blabber on about being Green and conservation but I truly believe we could all make a difference. Let us know any of your ideas for cutting down somewhere else in the kitchen.

You gonna use that?

Here's another in my ongoing attempt to stop wasting everything.

I'm guilty of the following. You only need a tablespoon of tomato paste for a recipe so you open that little can, use a bit and then what do you do with the rest? You toss it. It's not expensive so why worry. Well, as we are learning it's not so much the expense but the energy it takes to produce something. Don't toss the energy, we're gonna need it later.

I tried buying those toothpaste-tubes of tomato paste and they aren't bad but I really didn't like the flavor all that much. I saw this on a cooking show and thought I give it a try.

Open your little can and remove what you need then spoon out the rest on waxed paper, freeze on a cookie sheet then, when frozen, pop into a zip lock bag and back into the freezer. Now when you only need a bit, fish this lump out, and toss in your pot. It melts quickly and you've saved some energy. The world will thank you.

Kermit was wrong; it is easy to be green

While I was down with this crummy cold I spent a bit of time sleeping to the TV and I can't say where I heard this but it must have lodged into a corner of my sticky brain because I woke up thinking of--Cooking Green. Now this doesn't mean eat your veggies, no it refers to being efficient with your cooking fuel. Something, I'm sorry to say, I'd not thought of before but it does make sense. Conservation of energy should not only be for your car.

Only baking one thing in your oven tonight? Don't do it, take advantage of the whole oven and partition off a baking sheet with little foil packages. What the heck, you've two racks, add another baking sheet. Adding more than two might cut down on the efficiency of the oven so don't overload.

What did I cook? The first foil lined baking sheet had separate small foil packets of onions, beets, garlic, and sliced apples. All were seasoned appropriate for their final use and wrapped. The second sheet was a cut-up fryer on a bed of sliced onions and carrots. I pealed a few Yukon Gold potatoes and tucked them in amongst the chicken pieces. All was seasoned with salt, pepper and some yummy smoked paprika. The chicken was tented and both sheets went into a 375 oven for about an hour and a half.

I'm sure you're saying, "I bet that smelled awful." Let me just say the roasting of apples, onions, garlic and beets didn't smell like garbage cooking but it did make you wonder, "Just what IS for dinner?"

The apple packet was the first done, maybe about 30 minutes so out it came. The sugar I sprinkled along with cinnamon and nutmeg had created it's own sweet sauce.

The beets and garlic were next out but the onions needed more color so I unwrapped the packet and put it back in for about 15 minutes more.

When the chicken was near done off came the foil ten so the pieces could brown. I should have either browned the chicken first or removed the foil earlier because it wasn't as brown as I wanted.

Ok, let's take stock. I had dinner for that night. Roasted garlic and leftover potatoes for garlic mashed the next night. Enough chicken for a yummy Orzo salad with roasted beets and onions for lunch. And, not to forget, those baked apples. They went in a non-stick skillet, juice and all, and dusted with a bit of flour (cornstarch would work, too) cooked until a bit thicker and over some ice cream.

All this was done with the same energy used to cook the chicken so I was quite pleased with myself. So next time you're gonna fire up the cooker think of what else you could do at the same time. Save you and the planet some energy.

Don't forget to enter PBE's Pullet Surpise .

Be a wastrel not

A while back I was hanging on the door to the refrigerator trying to think of something to do with all this leftover cheese. The holidays have left me with lots of leftovers and I know there has to be something I can do outside of freezing them to death. Freezing just postpones the job of trashing them.

We are big cheese eaters. Well maybe big because we eat cheese, but I do hate to waste so--what am I going to do with all this cheese bits? A little sliced Swiss, some cubed cheddar, how about those pieces of provolone? Then I remembered a Good Eats episode and went looking on Food Network for the recipe.

Now this isn't the first time I've had trouble finding a recipe from Alton Brown. You'd think it was easy. Type in: leftover cheese; 351 results. Damn. Cheese spread? No luck there unless you'd like to wade through 1,648 results. Type in Alton Brown, 469 recipes; three with the word cheese and nothing close. The agony is, in my mind's eye, I can see him doing this show.

Frustrated but not giving up I "Google" Alton Brown and choose a link called Good Eats Fan Page. This is a scary site but I forge ahead. After a few false starts I stumble onto a list of recipes and then finally, under Snacks--what I've been looking for but, as usual, that whack job, Brown has called it something clever, Fromage Fort. What is he trying to do keep this stuff a secret?
On a side note, this recipe will air again on Wednesday Jan 24 @ 7:00 p. ET/PT.

Here is my ancient Cuisinart, still chugging along. I promised not to buy a new one until this bites the dust but I do lust after the one almost everyone has.

This recipe is easy, tasty and salves my guilt of wastefulness. Before those cheese bits lurking in your ice box turn a lovely shade of blue/green give it a try. Wait, I now have leftover cheese spread; does the horror ever end?