Cooking, but not with Al Gore!

My life has been crazy busy the past few months, but I haven’t been experiencing the wackiness dominating Mr. Gore’s life. We share a passion for the environment that’s for sure, but I have never received a Noble Peace Prize for it. Although, if you had been to my house lately and witnessed some of the negotiations I have with my teenagers, I believe that I would be a strong candidate. My marriage is still intact, and I was sad to hear that his is ending. And well, I haven’t had a massage lately.

Cooking has taken a back burner to a cute grandbaby, summer fun, and unfortunately the dreaded need to work. One meal that I cook on a Sunday that makes up for all the skipped meals during the week is Café Rio’s sweet rice, black beans, and sweet pork. (I am not a big pork fan, so we do the other white meat at our house.) If you haven’t seen these recipes on line before, here they are, and your family will love you for them.


Café Rio Pork

1 cup medium Pace salsa
1 cup brown sugar
3-4 lb sirloin roast (I use 4-5 boneless chicken breasts)
Place meat in a crock pot. Mix salsa and brown sugar together, and pour over meat. Cook on low for 8 hours.

Cilantro-Lime Rice

1 cup uncooked rice
1 tsp butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp lime zest
1 can (15 oz) chicken broth
1 1/4 cup water
2 T freshly squeezed lime juice
2 tsp sugar
3 T fresh chopped cilantro

In a saucepan combine rice, butter, garlic, lime peel, chicken broth, and water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and cook 15-20 minutes. Remove from heat. In a small bowl combine lime juice, sugar, and cilantro. Pour over hot cooked rice.

Black Beans

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
2/3 cup tomato juice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
2 T olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 T fresh chopped cilantro

In a nonstick skillet, gook garlic and cumin in olive oil over medium heat until you can smell it. Add beans, tomato juice, and salt. Continually stirring until heated through. Just before serving stir in the cilantro.

Hey Al, these recipes are so good that they could almost bring about world peace or at least save a marriage.

A reason to care about Earth Day :)

This past week my first grandbaby was born, and he is just the cutest thing ever! Just as when my own children were born, I loved this baby immediately and wanted the best for him. I have heard it said that my generation is the first to pass on a bleaker future to our children. Wow! My parents worked hard and sacrificed all of their lives so that I could have it better than they did. I can’t erase the national debt on my own or fix the health care crisis, but I can make small changes in my life to give our children a better future. As I have listened to talk radio, I don’t understand why being green has become such a political issue. Shouldn’t taking care of the things we are given just be the right thing to do? In most things I would consider myself a conservative, but when I hear Sean Hannity say he doesn’t have time to smash a cardboard box and throw it in a recycling can, I become confused. Really how hard is that? Now, I am not suggesting we all sell our cars and ride a bike everywhere we go or give up modern conveniences and live like the Amish, but just doing simple things can make a difference. Most green activities are just a matter of a change of habits. For my office this year, I bought a calendar with 101 ideas of ways to save the planet. It was printed with soy ink on recycled paper of course. Here are 10 easy things we can do:

1. Always recycle food and beverage cans. Recycling aluminum uses only 5 percent of the energy it takes to process aluminum from raw materials.
2. Remember to turn off the faucet while you’re brushing your teeth, applying makeup, or shaving. The water saved during one instance of brushing your teeth is about 2 gallons.
3. Birds are much more efficient than people at killing insects, so encourage birds to visit your yard with a bird feeder that is suitable for the wild birds in your area.
4. Be honest- how much junk mail do you actually read? You can control the amount of unsolicited mail you receive and reduce paper waste. Learn how to opt out of junk mail at www.dmachoice.org
5. Every mile you walk is estimated to add 20 minutes to your life.
6. When the charger for a cell phone is left plugged in, about 95 percent of the energy goes to waste – so unplug all chargers when not in use.
7. Plastic bags are a major environmental no-no. Keep a stash of reusable fabric bags in your car so you won’t forget to take them along when you go shopping.
8. Dust your lights! Keeping bulbs clean makes them work more efficiently.
9. Here’s a natural way to freshen the air in your home: simmer citrus slices and a few cloves in a pan of water for about an hour.
10. Don’t try to change your lifestyle dramatically all at once. Be realistic about making green changes and incorporate them gradually in your daily life.

One of October’s hints is placing a wool blanket under the bottom sheet of your bed to make it feel warmer. I must confess that I have a mattress heater, and I love it. So I will save energy in another area and indulge myself with my mattress heater. I’m hoping Al Gore has a mattress heater of his own because it is heavenly on a cold winter night.

Take some notes Jesse and Tiger

Well, I hear that Jesse James has decided if sex addiction therapy could possibly salvage Tiger’s marriage and reputation, he might as well give it a shot. I guess they think that a doctor’s “diagnosis” should excuse their bad behavior. I can’t decide who the bigger cad is, but I am definitely leaning towards the Cheetah or quite possibly Johnny Edwards. I was starting to believe that all famous men are incapable of any kind of fidelity, and then my heart was warmed by a report about Jeff Bridges. He recently won several awards including an Academy Award for his role in Crazy Heart. He attended all ceremonies with his wife of 33 years and apparently they seemed very, very affectionate. In fact, Piers Morgan of Britain’s Got Talent fame was recapping events of the Oscars, and said of Bridges, “It is amazing to see a Hollywood husband keeping his hands like that on his own wife.” So Tiger and Jesse, if you want your marriage to last, just keep your hands from wandering.

Guilt-free French Fries for the Food Revolution

If you happened to watch any of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution show last Friday, you were probably alarmed by many things you saw. The disgusting presentation on how chicken nuggets are made and the fact that the elementary school classroom he visited was still willing to eat nuggets anyway, or the fact that these children didn’t even know what a potato was but could immediately identify French fries was troubling.


After watching the Oprah episode on Food Inc., I was interested in reading a book she highlighted on her show. Food Rules by Michael Pollan gives some pretty basic eating guidelines, but after watching Food Revolution, I realized that many people don’t have a basic understanding of the importance of eating real food.

There are 64 Food Rules listed. These are some of my favorites:

#13 Eat only foods that will eventually rot. Does a Twinkie ever rot?
#19 If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.
#20 It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car.
#21 It’s not food if it’s called by the same name in every language. (Think Big Mac.)
#57 Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does.

And in honor of rule #39 - Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself, I thought I would blog my favorite home-made fry recipe.


Oven Baked French Fries

3 large russet potatoes and one medium sized yam, scrubbed, unpeeled & cut into ¼ inch strips.
4 cups cold water
2 Tbls apple cider vinegar
¾ tsp salt
1 tsp chili powder
½ tsp paprika
2 Tbls canola oil

As potatoes are sliced, immediately drop them into a large bowl containing the water, vinegar, and ½ tsp salt. Let soak for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Drain potatoes very well. Lay potatoes on dish cloth and place another on top. In a clean, dry bowl toss potatoes with remaining salt, chili powder, and paprika, and then stir in oil. Arrange potatoes in a single layer on an oiled baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes, turn and bake 5 minutes more.

Now if only I could find great tasting guilt-free fry sauce!

There is hope for my stupidity!

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years." - Mark Twain

These brownies actually get better with age.

Last week I was craving something chocolate. To be honest, I am almost always craving chocolate. Keeping with my desire to keep things whole grain, I decided to try a new whole grain recipe from King Arthur Whole Grain Baking Cookbook. This recipe suggested letting the brownies sit over night before cutting. I don’t know about your house but most brownies don’t even make it to the next day at my house. Craving chocolate as I was, I didn’t wait. I thought they were okay, but wasn’t sure I would even make them again. My family wasn’t big on them either. The next day I, of course, was craving chocolate and cut myself a brownie. The chocolate flavor was rich, and I really liked the brownies, by day three I was sold. The best thing about these brownies is that my family passed on them because the flavor wasn’t real sweet and rich the first day, and there was plenty left to satisfy my need for chocolate.

Double Fudge Whole Grain Brownies

1 cup unsalted butter
2 cups packed light brown sugar
¾ cup cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 Tbls vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 ½ cups hard white wheat flour
2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9x13 pan.

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Add sugar and stir to combine. Heat briefly until mixture it hot and starting to bubble. Stir in cocoa, baking powder, salt, and vanilla. Cool mixture until it feels like hot bath water. Whisk in eggs, stirring until smooth, then add the flour and chips, again stirring until smooth. Spoon the batter into prepared pan. Bake about 30 minutes, until a cake tester poked into the center reveals wet crumbs but not raw batter.

Still standing

Among the many reports coming out of Haiti during the past 3 weeks, one of my favorite stories is about a bronze statue – the unknown escaped slave. As I have watched the news and listened to reports of the destruction, I was reminded this week of the facts concerning Haiti that I am sure I learned during world history class over 25 years ago. So the mini history lesson is this. Haiti is a former French colony and was the hub of the slave trade, and it is the only country on earth to have gained independence by a slave rebellion. This bronze statue in Port-au-Prince is a symbol of the freedom gained through that revolt. Amazingly, amidst all of the rubble and devastation this statue that symbolizes Haiti’s spirit is still standing.