What I Eat - Day Sixty

This week's 'What I Eat' focuses on making good food go 'bad.'  Intrigued?  Read on......

Breakfast - Fried Radishes and Toast

I know, I'm eating a lot of fried radishes these days!  What can I say, I really enjoy eating them for breakfast.   I don't like eating radishes raw, and I don't find they mix all that well in other dishes.   The toast is made from gluten-free bread and buttery spread.   Generally, I'm making a concerted effort to move towards vegan gluten-free bread (this Sunflower Flax Rice Bread) and olive oil & balsamic vinegar instead of margarine.  

Lunch - Black Bean Quesadilla

It's hard to take a good picture of a quesadilla!   They are, however, delicious and easy!

Ingredients:
1 onion, finely chopped
4 tsp olive oil
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tsp ground cumin
One can black beans
3 zucchini, sliced
175g Daiya Cheese
1 green chilli, finely chopped
large handful coriander, roughly chopped
rice tortillas

Instructions
1) Fry the onion in half the olive oil for about 5 mins or until soft. Stir through the garlic and cumin. Cook over a low heat for 1 min more. Add the beans and a few tbsp of water. Heat through, then mash up with the back of a fork.
2) Meanwhile, toss the zucchini slices in the remaining oil.  Cook for a couple of minutes each side until tender.
3) Mix the cheese, chilli, and coriander in a bowl. Spread the bean purée over half of the tortillas. Lay over zucchini slices and scatter with cheese mixture. Top with the remaining tortillas, pressing the two together. Cook in batches in the hot griddle pan, carefully turning, for about 1-2 mins each side or until the cheese has begun to melt and the tortillas are crisp. Serve in wedges.

Original recipe here. 

Dinner - Beans, Carrots, and Brown Rice in Honey Mustard Sauce

Ingredients
-brown rice
-navy beans, rinsed from a can
-organic carrots, sliced and steamed

Sauce Ingredients
I just dumped the ingredients into a small saucepan and warming them up while stirring.   I'm guessing at the quantities here, you can adjust to taste.   
-2 tbsp. yellow mustard
-2 tbsp. honey
-4 tbsp. olive oil

This sauce was a hit!   I'd never made it before, but I was told it tasted just like what you'd get at a restaurant.  It's especially helpful for making vegetables palatable to children.  

Instructions
I made this dinner in a rice cooker that has a steamer basket that rests on the top.  I'm quite certain that the non-stick coating of the steamer isn't an ideal cooking surface, but sometimes it's just easier to make a whole meal in one pot/appliance.

Fermentation!

I've been doing a lot of research in the last few months about fermentation. I often prescribe probiotics to patients to repopulate their bodies with beneficial bacteria.  Probiotics bring significant health benefits.  If you would like a taste of the research, click here.  Our bacterial flora is depleted by toxins, antibiotics, altered pH levels, lack of exposure to beneficial bacteria, etc.   We, in the western/developed world, suffer from more osteoporosis, autoimmune disease, depression, cardiovascular disease, cancer, etc.   One difference is that we, as a rule, don't eat many fermented foods.   Fermented foods can serve as both carriers of beneficial bacteria and food for the bacteria we're already carrying.   As I'm sure many of you know, we are composed of more bacteria than our very own cells!     Back in the day, fermentation was (also) used for the very practical purpose of stopping food from going bad (and enjoying alcohol).   If you're like me, you'll immediately start wondering if the fermentation of alcohol is beneficial to bacterial flora.   The short answer is no (but it is complicated).    

So, I've decided to get into fermentation, and I'm starting with a 'ginger bug!'   The ginger bug is a fermentation base that you can grow at home and use for carbonating your own drinks.   I've mixed together two tablespoons of water, two tablespoons of grated ginger, and two tablespoons of brown sugar (pictured above).   The water is supposed to be something other than city water because the chlorine content can kill the bacteria, but I settled on using city water that had been left out so that some of the chlorine could escape (more on this topic in a future post).    People have strong opinions about what kind of sugar you should use, I chose brown sugar because it's what I had on hand.  The plan is to feed the ginger bug for the next five days, with exactly the same ingredients each day, until it is fully fermented and ready to go. Going forward, I should be able to keep it in the fridge, feed it weekly, and use some of it each time I want to make a carbonated beverage.   My understanding is that most of the sugar is used to feed the yeast, that causes the fermentation, as opposed to sweetening the drink.  Check back next week to see how my fermentation adventure goes!