Another mid-week meal for busy families

Quincy’s black bean quesadillas:

6-8 8” tortillas (soft)
½ buttercup squash (bake cut side down for 30 min or so at 400
2-4 cloves garlic
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 ½ cups cooked black beans
Handful of fresh spinach or swiss chard, chopped
Fresh cilantro (optional)
2 cups grated cheese

Bake squash and scrape out flesh.

Saute onion and garlic for 5 minutes. Add squash and sauté ‘til warm (another 5 minutes or so.) Season with sea salt and pepper. Remove from heat.

Spread ¼ cup of the squash mixture on half of the tortilla, top with a sprinkling of black beans, then a bit of cheese, then chard or spinach, finish with a bit more cheese and the cilantro if using. Fold the empty side over the layered side, press gently. Repeat with remaining tortillas.

To cook:
Either brown them in a fry pan (a few minutes each side until lightly browned) or cook them on the BBQ on low-to-medium heat (watch carefully).

Using a pizza wheel, cut each tortilla into thirds. Serve with all of your favourite Mexican sides (salsa, guacamole) and carrot-cabbage salad (recipe below).

Some tips:
Bake your squash ahead of time and freeze the flesh. Then all you need to do is thaw it before getting your fillings going.

Try replacing the squash with sweet potato (baked or boiled)

Try feta or mild chevre (soft goat’s cheese) instead of cheddar or mozzarella.

Soak and boil black beans from dried for more flavour and texture (I find the canned a little mushy). It's easy, just soak 1-2 cups of dried beans overnight in plenty of cold water. Drain, add fresh water to cover by a couple of inches. Bring to a boil and simmer 'til cooked to your liking (an hour or so). Freeze extras so you always have them on hand.

Carrot & cabbage slaw

2 cups grated carrots (use the bigger holes on your box grater)
2 cups grated red cabbage (I use a flat cheese slicer to make my cabbage thin and ribbony)
Toss this with basic dressing (see below).

Dressing:
1/3 cup olive oil
2T cider vinegar or white wine vinegar
11/2 T maple syrup
1/2 t salt
ground pepper

Before serving, squeeze half a lemon over the slaw and add the zest of one lemon. (Hint: zest before squeezing - it's much easier.)

Walnuts are yummy sprinkled over too.

Cell phones and radiation -- things you should know!

We have all heard about cell phone safety when it comes to driving. But few people know there is a new body of research looking into a different kind of cell phone safety, namely the potential health effects of using cell phones. As it turns out cell phones emit radiation (I had no idea) and because many people have the devices stuck to their ears for hours on end some scientists are concerned that our bodies might be receiving more radiation than is safe or healthy.

There is much research yet to be done, but preliminary data from several reports points to increased occurrence of brain tumors and salivary gland tumors in people who have used cell phones for 10 years or longer. Other reports link behavioral problems in children to cell phone use.
If you have your doubts consider this: Last month Maine’s House and Senate voted to approve for consideration a bill that would require all cell phones and their packaging to carry a warning label, advising children and pregnant women to keep the device away from their heads and bodies.
The National Cancer Institute in the U.S. says that although studies have not shown any consistent link between cellular telephone use and cancer, scientists feel that additional research is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn. (Did you catch the word “consistent”?)

So while scientists are researching away, many government agencies in Europe are busy making recommendations for children to avoid using cell phones and for everyone else go looking for devices with the lowest radiation output.

Until manufacturers are required to label the phone’s radiation output be thankful that the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has measured the output for us. They tested over a thousand devices currently on the market (in the U.S.) and have ranked them by radiation. You can search for you phone, PDA or smart phone in their online database to see where it ranks. The database is also a helpful tool if you’re looking at getting a new phone. You can search the database at http://www.ewg.org/cellphone-radiation.

EWG also developed some simple guidelines for how we can all be safer with our cell phones (from a radiation perspective). Download their guide to safe cell phone use at the web address above. In the meantime, here are some of the highpoints of EWG’s recommendations:

• Buy a low-radiation phone. Look up your phone, or search for a new phone, in their guide. (Check under your battery for the model number.)
• Use a headset or speaker. A headset emits much less radiation than your phone and using speaker phone mode keeps that radiation away from your head.
• Less radiation is emitted when your texting compared to talking, and texting keeps the radiation away from your head.
• Stay off the phone if you don’t have a strong signal. Your phone will emit even more radiation when it’s working hard to get the signal to the tower.
• Limit children’s phone use. Young children’s brains absorb twice the cell phone radiation as an adult’s.

A quick, healthy meal for busy families

It's easy to feed your family healthy delicious meals from scratch when you have a stack of great recipes that are quick and easy to prepare. If you want to try this one, be sure to put the brown rice on to cook before you start preparing the stew.

Chickpea stew with tomatoes
Serves 4-6

1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic
1 ½ t cumin seeds
1 T grated fresh ginger
3 tomatoes, chopped or a cup of tomato sauce (chunky)
1 t ground coriander
1 t ground cumin
1 t tumeric
1 t salt
Pinch of red pepper flakes
¼ t cardamom seeds, ground
3 cups cooked chick peas
1 cup water or broth
4 T chopped cilantro

Heat 2 T oil in a good sized pot or sauté pan. Add cumin seeds and sauté for a few seconds. Add onion, ginger and garlic. Saute until onion is soft. Add tomatoes and remaining ingredients (except cilantro) and cook until bubbling.

Serve over brown rice and sprinkle with cilantro.

Quick tip:
Try cooking your own chick peas from dried and you’ll never go back; the flavour and texture are addictive. I cook a big batch and freeze them so I always have them on hand instead of relying on canned.

Here’s how:
Soak 2 cups of dried chick peas overnight in lots of cold water. Drain in the morning, cover with more cold water, bring to a boil and simmer until cooked to your liking (you may have to add more water along the way). If your beans are fresh this should take no more than an hour.

Be careful with plastics

I have a love-hate relationship with plastic. It has simplified our lives in many ways but we’d all be better off with less of it in our lives. Avoiding plastics altogether is practically impossible (and may be not necessary) though there are some kinds of plastics that you really should get out of your life.

Plastics are graded by type using a number system established by the plastics industry. The numbers that you see inside the recycling triangle represent what poly-this-or-that the particular plastic is made of (ex. polyethylene, polyvinyl, polypropylene). These numbers make it easier for recycling facilities to sort them.

Plastics with the numbers one, two and five are the plastics that you can recycle in the blue bins. Pop bottles are made of number one plastic, a grade that is one of the easiest to recycle. Health Canada is taking a closer look at this grade though since it hit the market without a full safety assessment. Number two plastic is a little heavier (milk jugs). My go-to book “Ecoholic” rates it as “Not a bad plastic, compared to the others.” Likewise number five plastic isn’t considered too bad. You’ll find this number on yogurt containers.

There are two plastics that you want to rid your life of. One is PVC, or vinyl (graded as number three). It is toxic when manufactured, off-gasses throughout its life, and is everywhere, from vinyl shower curtains to some brands of plastic wrap and some children’s toys. If ever there was an evil plastic this is it. PVC products often have softeners added to make them more pliable or clingy. This kind of plastic has that distinctive “new toy” smell caused by phthalates, which are potential hormone disruptors and thought to be carcinogenic. PVC has also been found to increase breast cancer risk.

The other plastic to avoid (for food and drink) is number seven. This is the plastic that contains the chemical bisphenol A, the hormone disruptor that the federal government has banned from baby bottles. Unfortunately it is also in the plastic that lines most packaged food cans.

Since plastics aren’t stamped with safe use guidelines here are a few tips:
• When a plastic is labeled microwave safe it doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful to your health. It only means that it shouldn’t melt when heated. To be safe don’t heat food in plastic containers, no matter what number is stamped on it. Chemical leaching is intensified when the plastic is heated.
• Avoid plastic wrap if possible. If you just can’t give it up, at least don’t use it in the microwave. Instead, use a lid or failing that a dish towel.
• Any plastics that you use for food should have the numbers one, two or five on them (inside the recycling symbol). These are the food-safe numbers. Items marked with these numbers are also recyclable. Don’t put food or drink in any containers marked with the number seven.
• Rid your house of soft plastic bath toys and vinyl shower curtains.

Eco-friendly seafood choices

We’re a family that loves fish and seafood, which is great for a few reasons: It’s tasty, quick and easy to prepare and loaded with things that are good for you. But there are things about fish and seafood that aren’t so great.

There was a time when we’d by salmon fillets in 10 pound boxes we at so much of it. But that was a few years ago, before some worrisome information about salmon farming came to light. There have been many issues with fish farming, but the one that stuck with me is the fact that most farmed Atlantic salmon has up to seven times more PCB’s than wild Pacific salmon, due to contaminants in fishmeal they’re fed. (There are many studies that document this fact so don’t think that environmentalists are hanging onto one old study.) And one more thing, the pink flesh of farmed salmon is thanks to a dye in the fishmeal, since the flesh of farmed salmon is naturally grey.

There are many benefits to eating salmon, namely the abundance of omega 3 fatty acids in the flesh. But I don’t think that outweighs the risk of PCB consumption. Plus, there are other sources of omega 3s, like sustainably-fished Pacific salmon, flax seed and chia.

Unfortunately PCB’s aren’t the only worry with fish. Mercury is another and there are several species of fish that have especially high levels of the neurotoxin. Mercury is extremely harmful to pregnant women and children and even low levels of exposure can cause developmental problems.

Because of mercury contamination Health Canada recommends that pregnant women eat fresh tuna no more than once a month. Canned tuna, as long as its light tuna (skipjack is what you want) is okay to eat weekly. Stay away from white or albacore tuna - it has three times the mercury level of light tuna. There are similar mercury alerts for Atlantic halibut, swordfish, sea bass and several others.

Health issues aside there are the worries of destructive fishing methods, over fishing, pollution and habitat destruction that are depleting fish stocks at an alarming rate.

So how do you know what fish you should be choosing? Here are a few guidelines:
• Canned salmon is usually okay. More often than not it’s sockeye or pink from Alaska, which are among the better-managed fish stocks in the U.S. They are also low in contaminants.
• Fresh water farmed fish can be a great eco option, since it’s grown in contained ponds so is less environmentally destructive. Farmed rainbow trout is a good alternative to farmed salmon. Superstore is the only place I have been able to find fresh rainbow trout.
• Frozen Alaskan pollock and salmon are healthy and eco-friendly options too. Look for them in the frozen fish section of Sobeys and Superstore.
Don’t worry about committing all of this to memory. Instead print out one of these handy wallet guides to help you navigate the grocery store. www.seachoice.org and www.seafoodwatch.org.

Finding a (truly) good cup of coffee

There are few consumables I enjoy as much as good coffee. Curled up in a cosy chair with a steaming cup of espresso is my favourite way to start the day. But don’t be lulled into thinking that coffee is as gentle on the environment as it is on me in the morning.

The environmental impact of coffee is huge and complicated. Coffee comes from far away places so in that respect it has a carbon footprint that’s larger than many things we consume. But there are other ways that coffee can have a negative impact on us, the environment and the distant lands where it’s grown.

Coffee is big business. Canadians consume more than 118 million kilograms of roasted beans each year. That’s about 4.37 kg per person (adults anyway), which is almost 10 pounds of beans a year. I actually consume more than that, so I want to make sure that every cup I drink is as green as possible.

It used to be that most coffee was grown under a canopy of trees using few pesticides and no synthetic fertilizers. Coffee was a crop that actually helped with habitat preservation for migratory birds and other wildlife. But to feed the world’s appetite for coffee many farmers have swapped their traditional farming practices for harsher, higher yield methods – like clear cutting for sun-grown coffee, heavy use of pesticides and a dependence on petroleum-based fertilizers. (This is the coffee you get when you buy the big brands at the grocery store or when you stop by a large chain coffee shop.) As you can imagine this coffee has taken a toll on the environment and on workers’ health. Not to mention the fact that workers often don’t get paid a living wage either.

Brewing coffee from pesticide-laden beans picked by near-slave labour isn’t the way I want to start my day. And you don’t have to either. There is a handful of local shops selling coffee that is good in every sense of the word.

• Just Us! is a brand of coffee carried at both Sobeys and Superstore. Their coffee is organic and fair trade as well, meaning that the coffee farmers get paid a fair wage for their beans. (Fair Trade certified grower cooperatives also encourage more sustainable farming practices, support community development projects and ban the use of the most toxic pesticides. So even if they’re not organic chances are they’re not as bad as regular grocery store coffee). Look for Just Us! in the natural food section.

• Red Whale sells fair trade and organic beans and brewed coffee.

• Java Moose has some organic blends and also buys many of their beans directly from growers, so while it isn’t fair trade certified the farmers do get a fair price for their beans because there is no middle man.

• Bikes and Beans has great coffee too, some of it organic, some fair trade and some farmer-direct.

• Starbucks sells fair trade coffee and occasionally has organic blends.

Whether you brew your own at home or stop by a coffee shop to grab your morning fix (or both), it can be easy to enjoy a greener coffee. Don’t forget to bring your own cup.

Cooking from scratch: 5 easy recipes for greening your diet

Roasted Tomato sauce

About one dozen tomatoes
2-3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 large onion, sliced
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs of fresh herbs (oregano, rosemary, thyme) or 1 t dried
Pinch of red pepper flakes
2 T oil
Sea salt and pepper

In a large baking dish or roasting pan (9x13 or larger) spread the sliced onion, garlic, bay leaf, pepper flakes and herbs.

Core the tomatoes, slice them in half and lay them cut-side down on top of the onion mixture.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle with the olive oil

Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes.

Remove from the oven and when cool enough to touch remove the bay leaf and herb stems, and wiz in the food processor to desired consistency.

Tip: This freezes well. Make a bigger batch if you have a larger dish. Try adding 1/2 grated carrots under the tomatoes before you put them in the oven to roast, or 1/2 cup red lentils or tuck in chopped red pepper.



Thin crust pizza dough

1 t sugar
1 cup warm water
1 T yeast
¼ cup olive oil (or any type of oil)
About 2 ½ cups of whole white or multigrain flour
2 T fine cornmeal or coarse corn flour
1 t salt

In a small bowl dissolve sugar in water and sprinkle over yeast. Set aside for about 10 minutes until it starts to bubble.

In a large bowl combine 1 cup of the flour with cornmeal and salt.

Add the oil to the bubbling yeast mixture and pour over the flour. Mix well and begin adding the rest of the flour about ½ cup at a time until you have a nice doughy consistency. You might be left with ½ a cup or so of flour that you can’t stir in. Just sprinkle it on the counter and knead it into the bread.

Shape dough into a ball and place in a lightly greased bowl covered with a tea towel. Let rise until doubled, about 1 ½ hours. I put mine in the oven to rise (with the oven off).

To make the pizza:
Punch down the dough and divide in three equal parts. Roll each piece into a 12” – 14” circle, add your toppings and bake at 400 for about 15 minutes, depending on how crispy you like it.

Tips:
You can freeze the dough after you punch it down and divide it.
Try adding a teaspoon of dried herbs to the flour before you mix the dough.


Macaroni

2-4 T butter
1 heaping teaspoon of Dijon mustard or dried mustard
2 T flour
2 cups milk
2 cups shredded cheese
Freshly ground pepper
½ pound macaroni noodles (or another shape)

Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Stir in flour and continue to stir for a couple of minutes (‘til it starts to smell a little toasty). Stir in mustard. Using a whisk, add about ¼ cup of the milk, stirring well. Still using the whisk, add the rest of the milk. Keep stirring until it comes to a gentle boil and starts to thicken (about five minutes). Let it thicken a bit more and then stir in the cheese. Keep stirring until the cheese melts, then remove from heat and add a few grinds of pepper.

Toss with the cooked pasta.

Tip: Try using a couple of different types of cheese to vary the flavour. Add a little paprika and cooked cauliflower to make it heartier.


Bridget’s House dressing

2/3 cups of olive oil or grape seed oil
4 T vinegar (cider, sherry, white or red wine vinegar)
3 T honey or maple syrup
1 t sea salt
Freshly ground pepper.

I put everything into a mason jar, put the lid on and give it a good shake.

Tip: I usually make this with ½ walnut oil and ½ olive or grape seed oil.



Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

1 ¾ cup whole grain flour
½ t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
½ t salt
2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
¼ cup flax meal (ground flax seeds)
¼ cup wheat germ (can substitute chia or bakers’ bran)
¾ cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 cup oil or melted butter
1 T honey
¼ cup milk
1 t vanilla
1/2-3/4 cup chocolate chips
½ cup pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds


Turn the oven to 350 and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients (except chocolate and seeds)

In another bowl combine oil (or butter), honey, milk, vanilla. Beat in egg. Add to dry mixture. Combine well. Stir in chocolate and seeds.

Drop by generous tablespoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheet.

Bake 12-15 minutes.

Remove from oven and let set a bit before moving to cooling rack.

Tip: The dough can be frozen. Try switching it up with different types of nuts or seeds, raisins or other dried fruit.

Greening your diet for a healthy planet and family

In this season of abundance I have been giving a lot of thought to the idea of regional food independence. It’s the notion of supporting local farmers so they can make a reasonable living and supply us with high quality local food, a basic cycle that was hardly worth discussing a generation ago.

But you need to buy local food to make the cycle work. Judging from the burgeoning frozen food sections in our local grocery stores, the average family’s dependence on frozen and other packaged foods is leading us off the healthy green path in more ways than one: Processed food travels a great distance to reach us and includes lots of packaging waste; it tends to be loaded with chemical additives (flavour enhancers, preservatives, dyes) and includes unhealthy fats and too much sodium. It’s really no surprise that the old fashioned homemade diet is better for the earth and healthier for us too.

So how did we get in this sorry state? There are many reasons, but one of them is that a whole generation has lost the everyday know-how that enabled our grandmothers (and for us lucky ones, our mothers as well) to whip up dishes from scratch. It’s something we’ll need to relearn whole scale if we want the local food movement to grow and prosper, if we want our region to become less dependent on food that is trucked in from far away places, and if we want to be healthier overall.

It’s about learning to cook (as opposed to reheating) which is why I taught my children, age six and nine, to make homemade pizza dough. (I want them to be as confident proofing yeast and setting pizza dough to rise as they are pouring their own cereal.)

I know that people turn to packaged foods for speed and convenience too. But some of the most popular packaged foods are the easiest to make from scratch. (It would take me longer to walk to the salad dressing section of the grocery store than to mix up a batch of homemade dressing.) Here are my top five suggestions for greening your diet for a healthy planet and family:

1. Tomato sauce – Avoid jars and make your own with fresh or canned tomatoes. Make a big batch and freeze some for later.
2. Pizza dough – Replace frozen pizza with homemade dough or pita bread (topped with your homemade tomato sauce). Homemade dough freezes well too.
3. Salad dressing – Does your fridge house a crazy collection of bottled dressings? Make your own from oil, vinegar, maple syrup, salt and pepper. Use it for salads, or drizzle it on meat, fish or vegetables before grilling or baking.
4. Mac & cheese – It takes about 15 minutes to make a basic cheese sauce from scratch so you can bid goodbye to boxed Kraft Dinner and other packaged versions of the real thing.
5. Cookies – Baking cookies is quick, easy and fool-proof. That’s why they’re always the first thing that kids learn to bake. They’re also a satisfying snack that can be surprisingly nutritious…if you make your own.
Take a look through your fridge and freezer to see what other packaged foods you might like to replace with a homemade version.

Eating local -- all year long

September 4th was the Eat Atlantic Challenge, a day Atlantic Canadians were asked to eat only food grown or produced in Atlantic Canada. Those who took part know that this time of year, locally grown food is so abundant it’s a breeze to make a meal of food grown nearby. Given our climate though, eating a locavore’s diet (meaning local-only food) through the winter is a challenge for even the most committed. But savouring little bits of locally grown fare is doable year round. It’s the best way to “green” your diet, since local food has a small carbon footprint (as opposed to food trucked in from California or South America). Supporting local farmers also makes our region more independent.

I know the last thing you want to think about this month is what you’re going to eat in February but if you’re into eating local food you really do need to plan ahead and now is the time, since we’re in the thick of the fall harvest.

Here are some freezer staples that keep my family eating local food year-round:
In September I can’t get enough of field-ripened tomatoes. I roast them for tomato sauce for weeks on end and when I’m too tired to roast any more I simply bag the tomatoes whole and put them straight in the freezer. (Ideally you could skin the tomatoes first by cutting a small “x” on the bottom and plopping them into boiling water for 30 seconds. The skin can then be peeled off easily before the tomatoes go into the freezer.) I use the sauce for pasta, pizza and as a base for soups.

With a freezer full of tomato sauce we can last until April without buying tasteless tomatoes grown in faraway places. We mostly avoid tins of tomatoes and have no need to buy jars of sauce, which makes me happy for a few reasons. Although tins are recyclable, they are lined with a plastic coating that contains BPA, the hormone disruptor that is being removed from many water bottles; the sauce jars can’t be recycled locally; plus my freezer stash hasn’t been shipped in from Heaven knows where.

We buy a 50 pound bag of winter squash each September and spread it out on shelves in the basement. Throughout the fall I roast two at a time, scoop out the middle and freeze it for use in soups, stews & quesadilla fillings. My husband (strong and patient) peels and cubes several squash for roasting with other root vegetables.

We pick organic apples from a friend’s tree each October. My husband peels and bags as many as we can stuff in the freezer to use in tarts, fruit crisps and for fresh apple sauce all winter long. Ditto for local rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries.

A healthy approach to laundry

I’m convinced that I do twice as many loads of laundry in summer as I do in winter. It’s not because I want to (although I do love my clothesline) it’s because there are more dirt, dribble, sweat & grass stains on our clothes than other times of the year. In our house there is little hope of wearing something more than once.

Staying on top of the dirty clothes pile takes effort, but it can also be quite harmful, for you and the environment.

Most mainstream laundry detergents are derived from petrochemicals that pollute our waterways and they’re not that great for people either. Detergents leave a chemical residue on your clothes and bedding, residue that you absorb through your skin. To make matters worse, most detergents and laundry aids are heavily scented with artificial fragrances that contain phthalates, which are potential hormone disruptors. They can cause headaches and aggravate allergies and asthma too. Phthalate residue is formulated to linger on your clean laundry (smell it and you’ll know for sure). So you absorb that residue as well. It’s just a little each time but week after week a little becomes a lot since these chemical residues build up over time.

Stain removers and bleaches are harsher than detergent so the above scenario gets compounded. Many contain neurotoxins and carcinogens. Fabric softeners are alarmingly toxic too. All of these substances account for the majority of household poisonings among children.

There are many ways to make your weekly (or daily) laundry chore more eco-friendly and a lot healthier for you and your family. Here are just a few:

Choose an eco-friendly laundry detergent. Down East, Nature Clean and Seventh Generation all make detergents that are unscented, effective and HE compatible.

Boost the cleaning power of these detergents with borax. It’s a naturally occurring mineral salt that works as a whitener, brightener, fabric softener and deodorizer. Look for it in the laundry aisle (Mule Team is the brand, with great retro packaging.) Add equal amounts of borax and laundry detergent to your wash water. It needs time to work its magic; let your laundry soak for 15 to 30 minutes before you start the wash cycle.

You could also use washing soda, in the same ratio. It needs to be dissolved in hot water first.

Take advantage of the sun - it's the world’s greatest bleach. Or chose oxygen bleach.

Consider non-toxic stain removal. Treating the stain quickly is the key to effective, non-toxic removal. Try soaking the item in a mixture of ¼ cup borax to 2 cups of water then launder as usual. Lemon juice and salt gets rid of rust stains (I’ve tried it). Sprinkle the stain with salt and squeeze lemon juice over it. Put it in the sun or let it sit overnight and then wash as usual. Hydrogen peroxide mixed with water gets rid of blood stains (I have tried that too).

Make your laundry life easier and don’t buy white clothes for your kids.