Almost Vegan Banana Bread

I've had bananas in my freezer for a while just waiting to be turned into banana bread. Today, I looked through dozens of banana bread recipes online for one that used honey and whole wheat, and that also didn't use eggs (I'm out and didn't feel like buying any). I found an excellent recipe that not only met my requirements, but it also didn't use dairy. It's a much healthier alternative to regular banana bread using only 3 tablespoons of oil instead of a stick of butter, and it tastes (in my opinion) just as good.

Because the recipe calls for honey, it's not technically vegan, although I know many vegans who still eat honey. To make it a truly vegan recipe, you could substitue agave nectar, or possibly even maple syrup.

Instead of walnuts, which I'm not a fan of, I used a 3oz bar of Theo 70% dark chocolate that I hammered until it broke up into small pieces. The chocolate was a delicious alternative, but next time I think I'll only use 3/4 of a bar. The banana was obscured somewhat by the chocolate. It might also be quite tasty with cacao nibs instead of chocolate.

Of course, everything I used was organic, and the chocolate, honey, and flour were all local. Overall, I'm quite happy with the results, and I'll definitely be making this recipe again.

Why GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) are a Bad Idea

An astounding amount of food produced in this country is now genetically modified - especially corn and soy products, which are used in almost all processed foods. The idea behind GMOs is to make food resistent to pesticides and diseases, while simultaneously promoting their growth. While this sounds like a good idea in theory, in practice, we don't actually know what the effects of GMOs on humans are - there haven't been adequate studies. Studies that have been done on rats and hampsters, however, have shown that animals fed diets high in GMOs had significant reproductive problems and growth retardation.

Not only are there very real potential health problems, we have no idea what the long term effects of GMOs on the planet are. Rapidly changing the genetic makeup of plants and animals will effect the ecosystem. Just think about how devastating the effects of introducing new species of plants and animals to stable ecosystems that have no way of dealing with the newcomers has been. Entire species have died out, as well as new ones taking over and becoming horrible pests.

One of the worst aspects of GMOs is that in the US it is not required that products are labeled as being genetically modified, so unless you are actively avoiding them and know what to look for, you are consuming GMOs all the time. An article in the Huffington Post lists the top 10 reasons why we should be labeling GMOs (click on the links in each picture to read more).

For a downloadable guide to non-GMO shopping, go here. The best way to keep yourself GMO free is to eat organic, non-processed foods, and to make sure that the animal products you eat haven't been fed GMOs.

Chicken Stock

I'm not particularly adventurous in the kitchen - mostly because cooking has always been somewhat intimidating to me. I am, however, making an active effort to cook more often. When you cook from scratch, you have complete control over what goes in your body, and it's the only way to guarantee that what you're eating comes from places that you're ok with.

Last night, I made chicken stock for the first time. I had eaten part of a roasted chicken from Whole Foods, and I didn't want the rest to go to waste. Now bear in mind that I don't have any of the appropriate equipment for making stock. A friend asked me if I had a stock pot, and I said, "What's that?" She looked at what I did have and suggested that I split the chicken in half and use my 2 largest pots to make the stock, so I did, which made it possible for me to make a reasonable amount.

I had no idea how foolishly simple it is to make chicken stock. Put the chicken carcus (skin and all) in the pot. Cover with cold water. Add vegetables, salt, pepper, and any herbs and spices you want, and then simmer for hours and hours. I took a trip to the farmers' market where I bought carrots, spring garlic, shallots, spring red onions, and spring Walla Walla sweet onions. (Only in Seattle are there spring onions at the end of July). The spring onions had the stems still attached, so those got thrown in the pot. I didn't use the Walla Wallas in the stock - just their stems. I want to eat the onions themselves because they are the tastiest onions in the universe. I bought cellery from the store - unfortunately, I went to QFC, which has the worst selection of produce in the world so they didn't have any organic available, but it's within walking distance of my apartment, and sometimes you have to make compromises. I also threw in some fresh rosemary from the garden.

Once I was done cooking the stock, I tasted the result, and other than not having enough salt, the stock was amazing. I added the necessary salt until it was to my liking (which is still pretty low soduim), strained the stock into gladware containers, and put them in the freezer.

I feel rediculously accomplished for having successfully made something that always intimidated me. Now that I know how simple it is, I'll be making it much more often.

In Which I Discuss my Garden (WARNING: if you don't care about the state of my garden, don't read this. You will be bored)

My garden looks like a jungle. My plants are all growing at rates that far exceed what I would have ever expected - especially since I haven't used any fertilizer yet beyond what was in the potting soil. Although everything is growing well, not everything has proven to be successful (due to user error, not because of the plants themselves). My broccoli, for example, produced a beautiful floret that was perfect for eating right when I went on vacation. My roommate, who watered the plants while I was gone, didn't cut it off, so it flowered. I also learned that 2 broccoli in the same pot doesn't work well. One of the plants grew to be enormous, while the other just stopped growing because the first was taking all the nutrients. Some of my herbs (my oregano, cilantro, and catnip) are producing flowers so quickly, I can't keep up with them. This is particularly bad for the cilantro, which when it flowers, stops produing the useful and tasty leaves that are used for seasoning. I got two varieties of lavender, one which hasn't flowered at all, and the other which turns out to have the wrong kind of flowers for harvesting. It's really pretty, but it's purely ornamental. My oregano got some sort of oregano disease. I separated it from the rest of the plants, and it hasn't spread to anything else, which is good.

On the other end of the spectrum are the plants that have done exactly what I wanted them to do. My strawberries gave off a nice amount of fruit. To be truly worthwhile, however, I think I would need twice as many plants as I had this year. My everbearing plants produced a small amount, while my June bearing variety had the highest yield - plus, they just tasted better. My sugar snap peas have given me enough peas for 2 small side dishes, and there's enough on the plants for one more. Once they start to bear fruit, they look horrible - the leaves all start to die as the plants give all of their energy and nutrients to the seeds. I planted a second round of peas - this time with about 2 1/2 times as many seeds as I used for the last batch. They're one of my favorite foods, and as far as I'm concerned I can never have too many sugar snap peas. My cherry tomatoes have far surpassed what I was expecting. My balcony gets partial shade, so I figured I'd be lucky if I got anything at all from the plant. It just keeps growing and growing and growing. The first cluster of tomatoes ripened on the vine - there were too few to make anything from, so I gave them to friends (I hate raw tomatoes, but love them in sauces). Currently, there are dozens of green tomatoes that all appeared at the same time, so they should ripen and provide plenty of fruit for cooking.

It's still too early to tell if my carrots and zucchini will be successful. The zucchini looks like something from the Jurassic era - huge leaves that just keep getting bigger and bigger. They haven't flowered yet, but I'm confident that I will soon have more zucchini than I know what to do with. Zucchini grows really well in this part of the world. My carrots are growing, and I think they will turn out well. I had to separate a few that were growing too close together (if you've ever tried to plant carrots, you know that the seads are absurdly tiny, and it's hard to avoid accidentally dropping a couple of seeds in the space where only one seed is supposed to go). I tried transplanting the carrots, but they don't seem to be doing well. I might just have to give those up as a lost cause and just be happy for the ones that made it.

Then there are the plants I bought from my school's plant sale (Bastyr has a wonderful medicinal herb garden, and they sell herbs and seeds whenever they are available). I decided on a mugwart plant - specifically the Chinese variety that is used for moxa, a calendula plant, and a valerian plant. All three are doing amazingly well. There are 3 baby mugwart shoots in the pot that were really unexpected since it hasn't flowered. The Calendula keeps on flowering, and the valerian is looking good. I need to research how to harvest valerian becuase the root is what's used for medicinal purposes.

Overall, I would say that my garden experiment has gone extremely well. At some point, I seem to have developed a green thumb. I managed to kill almost all of my plants last year, so the difference is impressive. Plus, it's a lot of fun.

Killing Ourselves with Speed

Here's a great article about the current trends in cooking. "It’s time to take a step backward when it comes to technology and get better acquainted with our ingredients."

I know I'm guilty of being lazy in the kitchen, but when I do cook, I make every effort to use fresh, organic, local ingredients, and it's amazing how much more delicious it is than getting something pre-made.