Guest Posts Archives | Fake Food Free

Roasted Corn Salad and Gardening at Gastronomical Sovereignty

September 10, 2012

It wasn’t my intention to take such a long break from the blog. I’ve been traveling, and posts (and internet access) didn’t go as planned. I’m back, though, and ready to get in the kitchen! I also have a few delicious meals to share with you from our 2,500 mile cross-country trip.

Today you will find me over at Gastronomical Sovereignty talking about gardening and sharing my favorite roasted corn and pepper salad with wheat berries!

Come say hi, and check out Kristy’s great blog while you are at it!

A Quest for Food – Cooking for Health

October 26, 2009

The third post in our Quest for Food series is from Amy at Delicious by Nature. As a Natural Food Chef, blogger, and food lover, her main goal is to show people that healthy food can be delicious and she strives to make nutritious eating fun and enjoyable. She’s here to share her tips for substituting healthier grains while maintaining textures and flavors.

My name is Amy Vig and I blog over at Delicious by Nature. I’m excited to join you all at Fake Food Free while Lori is out because I share many of her same philosophies and love hearing about all of her adventures while living abroad.

When Lori asked me to put together a post, we immediately agreed that whole grains would be an interesting topic to cover. I know that many of us are striving to fit more and more of these powerful little babies into our diets. And for those of you who aren’t…well why the heck aren’t you? Need some motivation?*

Removing the bran and germ of grains, which is what happens when they refine them, results in the loss of key nutrients such as thiamine

Whole grains are a great source of complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, minerals, and B vitamins

They have a higher protein content and quality than refined ones

Whole grain diets have been shown to help protect against the development of some chronic diseases including colon diseases, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer

I can appreciate that sometimes it’s difficult to incorporate whole grains. After all, white rice, white flour, and white pasta abound in the pre-packaged and restaurant foods that are available. Plus, many of the recipes that you’ll find online give the impression that you must use the processed stuff to get the right result. And while I will concede that sometimes brown rice just isn’t the same as white, by learning to successfully adjust recipes you can easily start substituting whole grains for refined grains in even the pickiest of eaters’ meals.

A few tips for replacement:

Parboiling brown rice for about 20 minutes will make it more similar in cooking time to white rice and allows for easier replacement. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add rice, and boil like pasta for 20 minutes. Drain when just starting to soften and set the rice aside. This can be done a couple days ahead of time and then used instead of white rice in recipes like my Paella for 30.

Use whole grain or brown rice pasta in place of regular pasta when cooking at home. My boyfriend swears that the brown rice pasta isn’t even noticeably different, just be sure not to overcook it or it will become quite sticky and gummy. I make a gluten free and cheese free Creamy Mushroom and Sausage Pasta using the brown rice penne from Trader Joe’s.

Replace your usual white products with other things entirely. Sometimes, changing your expectations entirely is easier than adjusting to something that just isn’t the same. In cases where imitation just won’t do, I use things like quinoa to give my dishes a new flavor and texture.

Quinoa is an ancient grain that’s a bit nutty and cooks up in 15 minutes – much shorter than your average brown rice! I love it in my Almond Quinoa Muffins (gluten free) or Quinoa Tabbouleh. I also love how Lori used the wheatberry, another underused whole grain, in this Tropical Wheatberry Salad.

One of my favorite whole grain recipes is for brown rice sushi wraps. By using short grain brown rice and a little rice vinegar wrapped in nori, you have a great base for all kinds of creative lunches. Fill it with just about anything you like!

Tempeh Sushi Rolls
Makes 3 rolls

1/2 block tempeh (about 4 oz)
1/4 cup tamari
2 Tbsp mirin
1 Tbsp wasabi powder
1 cup short grain brown rice
2 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp coconut oil, divided
1/3 cup seasoned rice vinegar
1 small red bell pepper, julienned
8 leaves kale (preferably lacinato), removed from stem and thinly sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 sheets nori
Wasabi and tamari for dipping

1. Steam tempeh for 10-15 minutes until it has “puffed up”. Remove from steamer and slice into julienne strips (about 10 from the 1/2 block)

2. Combine tamari, mirin, and wasabi powder. Mix well. Add tempeh strips into bowl, stir gently to coat, and let marinate at least 30 minutes

3. Cook rice. Once done, pour onto a large baking sheet and season with rice vinegar. Spread evenly across sheet and allow to cool.

4. Heat a small skillet over medium heat. Add 1 tsp coconut oil, then add sliced kale. Stir and cook for about 5 minutes, until tender adding tempeh marinade as you go. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add 1 tsp coconut oil. Remove tempeh from the marinade and then add to the pan, allowing it to brown on each side before removing to a plate.

6. Lay nori on a sushi mat. Spread rice onto the nori (leaving 1/2 inch at closest end to you and 1 inch at the farthest end), then create a thin row of peppers, kale, at the end closest to you. Then use mat to roll away from you, pressing firmly to keep everything together, then sealing the nori with water at the end. Slice into about 6 rounds to serve.

*All whole grain nutrition information came from “The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods” by Michael Murray. This book is a great source of information on the nutritional value of foods and how to use them.

P.S. In case you are just stopping by, I’m in the process of moving back to the US and am currently on an extended trip in SE Asia. I have weekly guest posts lined up this month and will be stopping by with foodie pictures from our travels as time permits.

Photo courtesy of the guest author.

A Quest for Food – Giving It Up for Health

October 20, 2009

Our second guest post in the Quest for Food Series is from Cathy at A Life Less Sweet. She is here to share some of her family’s journey to reduce their consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Her background in chemical engineering gives her a unique perspective on the topic. If you are confused at all about this ingredient she will clear it up for you as well as show you how reducing one ingredient common in packaged foods can change your diet completely; for the better, of course.

A little over a year and a half ago, my family had a diet not unlike much of America. Though we thought a bit about our food, our diet was loaded with processed foods. I’ve done some pretty extreme diets before for my kiddos who each had major food intolerances as infants, but everyone could finally eat what they wanted…and we did. Then the background noise about HFCS finally sunk into my brain, and I started looking into this ingredient. I didn’t like the information that I found, and we decided to give up foods containing HFCS cold turkey. We’ve been on a food journey ever since, and we aren’t looking back!

What is HFCS?

Do you know what this mysterious ingredient that shows up in everything from stewed tomatoes to soda is? High fructose corn syrup is a liquid mixture of two different sugars – glucose and fructose. High fructose corn syrup usually contains about a 50% mixture of the two, though it can have a little more or less fructose depending on the buyer’s needs. Regular corn syrup is only glucose – no fructose. To produce high fructose corn syrup, a corn kernel is manipulated and taken through a complicated series of reactions and processes until it has been transformed into the sugary goo.

How is HFCS different from sugar?

Table sugar – aka sucrose – is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose. That’s a fancy way of saying that glucose and fructose are bound together to form a single molecule. Table sugar consists of a 50/50 mixture of glucose and fructose bound to each other. High fructose corn syrup, on the other hand, contains free glucose and fructose. So, while sucrose and HFCS both contain about 50/50 fructose and glucose, they are not the same.

Does this make a difference? It makes a big difference in taste. Fructose is sweeter than both glucose and sucrose, so HFCS is sweeter than sucrose because the exra-sweet fructose is free to tickle your taste buds. (There are a slew of other product quality reasons manufacturers might choose HFCS over sugar for their product. HFCS can extend product shelf life, help keep it moist, give baked goods a nice crumb, etc.)

There is great debate over whether HFCS is actually any worse for you than sugar. Many assert that they are the same in your body – that sucrose breaks down into free fructose and glucose in our stomachs so fast as to render sucrose and HFCS indistinguishable. There are others that are very concerned about the free fructose present in HFCS and the implications of our bodies struggling to break down this sugar. Our bodies aren’t designed to handle large quantities of fructose. Fructose is processed differently than glucose – too much stresses the body and can result a slew of health problems, including high triglycerides, diabetes, and obesity. (Other factors can also contribute to these health problems, of course.)

I’ll be honest – I don’t know where I stand on this issue at the moment. I must admit, I am skeptical of the assertion that sucrose quickly becomes the same as HFCS in our stomachs. I’m skeptical because of my limited knowledge of how hard it is to break down sucrose into its component sugars industrially. Conversion of sucrose to invert sugar (a mixture of fructose and glucose and often residual sucrose) industrial is low – even under harsh conditions of high temperatures (much higher than our body’s temperature) and very acidic conditions. Maybe sucrose is just like HFCS in our bodies, but I’m not convinced. In the end, it really doesn’t matter as far as I’m concerned.

Why are we giving it up?

Our journey was spurred by concern of over consuming fructose. Since then, I’ve found that the quality of our diet has improved upon giving up HFCS. Giving up HFCS made us give up a lot of junk and switch to higher quality foods. We think about what we’re consuming more. With two young kids to think of, eating higher quality foods (which usually translates to fresher and less processed) and teaching them to like those foods is really our biggest motivator. As new research has poured in causing people to question whether HFCS is any worse than sugar (see my opinion in the section above), I found that whether it does or doesn’t, I still don’t want my family to consume this stuff.

First, there are the health concerns. I don’t think that we know all there is to know about this ingredient and how our body processes it. Second, I’ve found that HFCS as an ingredient really is a good marker of poor quality food. It’s a cheap ingredient and used because of that. That doesn’t mean that foods without HFCS are automatically good, but seeing HFCS as an ingredient tells me – no matter how fancy the packaging – that the product is using cheap ingredients (and probably has a list of ingredients as long as your arm).

As we’re trying to eat better foods – higher quality foods – I’m happy to just avoid all foods with HFCS. There are other reasons – like not supporting the corn economy or eating fewer processed foods (because an ingredient doesn’t get any more processed than HFCS!) – for giving up HFCS as well.

How has this small change affected our lives?

Giving up HFCS has had kind of a snowball effect on our diet. The simple act of giving up HFCS has forced us to consider the foods that we’re buying more carefully. We’ve since given up trans fat and are eating fewer processed foods. We eat meatless at least one day a week. And amazingly, it’s been a fairly painless transition! I find homemade or at least more acceptable processed foods to replace the HFCS or trans fat laden treats that my son sees his friends eating. Our diet is still evolving, but it’s going in the right direction. My kids are learning to accept healthier food, and hopefully our choices now will stick with them for the rest of their lives.

A Quest for Food – Eating for Activity

October 12, 2009

Our third guest post in the Quest for Food series come from Andrea at Off Her Cork. She is a runner and martial artist and her quest for food is all about fueling her body for the activity in which she regularly participates. She’s here to share her tips about eating in a way that keeps her energy levels up.

Hi guys! My name is Andrea and my little place on the web is called Off Her Cork. Our favorite Lori is off being the fabbo globetrotter that she is, so she asked me to do a little guest post for you all. Of course I agreed!

I describe myself as being a runner. I love running and when I don’t get to run, I become very cranky very quickly, which consists of me stomping around and acting all pouty as only a 32 year old can. However, I’m very new to running. I started running in July of 2008 and haven’t looked back since really.

Part of my start for running was to help me lose some weight and to also help my conditioning in order to help my martial arts. Because along with running, my husband and I train in two martial arts during the week as well. We both do Filipino stick and knife fighting and also Muay Thai. I can totally kick my husband’s butt but I’m not one to brag. 😉 This means my schedule is pretty jam packed!

Since running is still new to me, I’m still figuring out how my body works and responds to the activity. I’m currently training for my second half marathon which will be next month (eeep!), towards the end of October. Because I run and do martial arts, fueling properly is pretty important. One of the things that is drilled home for runners is that you need carbs. Carbs are good for you and you need to load up!

From my experience, I have to put a twist on this and say:

Find what works best for your body and make sure to eat smart carbs. Smart carbs are carbs that come from whole grains (oats, brown rice, quinoa), fruit, whole grain or whole wheat bread, and whole wheat or whole grain pasta. Not basic white semolina pasta. Not white rice or white bread. These are not beneficial and are just empty calories. If you work your body, you need to feed your body and feed it well.

Of course I’m still learning as I go along, but I have found for me personally carbs are okay but not enough. I need protein as well. To help my body recover from a run, I need three things:

Protein
Carbs
Small amount of fat

After a good run, no matter what the mileage, I will typically have a glass of chocolate soymilk as my recovery drink of choice. The length of the run and the intensity level will determine how much I have. Short runs equal a small glass. Long runs or runs where I sweated a lot, sometimes will get two glasses! Chocolate soymilk has it all, protein, a small amount of fat, and simple carbs to help give my body fuel and repair itself. I don’t drink milk, but chocolate milk would also work too.

And yes, I said the F word. Fat. I need it and so does my body. Fat helps me feel more satisfied and content. Which is what I want after an intense workout, otherwise if I feel empty all day long, I will eat to fill that void thinking that’s what I need. Which could lead to taking in too much and then I just blew my workout. Fat is not the devil and it is not bad when used in moderation and it is good fat that is eaten.

I follow the same rule for my long runs, which are Sunday mornings bright and early! A long run for me is anything over 5 miles. My favorite recovery and refuel meal after a long run is:

2% Fage (Greek yogurt)
Granola
Dash of maple syrup or jam

This also gives me exactly what I’m looking for. I get protein and fat from the yogurt, carbs from the granola, and simple sugar from the maple syrup or jam. YUM! And it does the trick of refueling and keeping me satisfied until Sunday breakfast so I can refuel with some more real food. During the week when I do shorter runs, I will eat oatmeal or oatbran for breakfast with a banana mixed in and some sort of additional fruit.

With my training, I have learned that protein is what I need more of as my miles increase and intensifies. I prefer to get my protein from seafood but will occasionally have meat as well. I also turn to nuts and nut butters for additional protein intake. Protein helps keep me satisfied and feeling strong.

The night before, my pre-race dinner is a combo of protein, fiber, and carbs. Whole wheat pasta, cheese, and lots of veggies. Or maybe pizza because is a great fuel source! And then on race day, it’s oatmeal with nut butter before heading to the starting line.

All of us are different and it makes sense that all of us are going to require different things to recover and refuel.

Thanks guys! And please come visit me over at OHC where we can talk more about food, running, and life!

A Quest for Food – Culture & Ex-pat Living

October 5, 2009

The first guest post in the Quest for Food series comes from Mindy of Mindy’s Mouthful. She’s graciously agreed to share with us how her year-long expatriate experience challenged the way she cooks and the way her family eats. Now that she’s back in the US she is trying to incorporate the healthy, culturally inspired habits she acquired while living in France.

It seems like forever ago when I found out that I was moving to France. I had an entire year to prepare, but what I didn’t end up being prepared for was how much time I actually had on my hands. Of course, I was busy with our two-year-old daughter and with helping my husband, who was acting as the director of our college’s study abroad program in Strasbourg, since I also work for the same school, but it was nothing compared to having to juggle all of these things at home and work a full-time job.

To fill this time, I started cooking. I always enjoyed cooking, and in fact, it was one of the things that brought my husband and I together many years ago–cooking together. Once I started experimenting with food in France, I decided to create a blog, Mindy’s Mouthful, to document my little adventures.

When I set foot in the local French grocery store, I was a little befuddled…it was so small. But it had the best vegetable section, and then when I started looking around, it also had a gigantic dairy section with every cheese imaginable. And in fact, upon closer inspection, the only things it was really missing were many of the prepackaged, highly processed foods I had come to rely on in the United States.
Of course, it had a breakfast food section and chips and soda and many of the junk and/or convenience foods that we have in the United States, but the main difference was that the ratio of fresh and packaged foods that were actually food (without all of the strange additives that we rely on in the U.S.) to bad-for-you convenience foods seemed to be exactly opposite of a U.S. grocery store.

The French also didn’t seem to be afraid of fat–not everything was full of it, but the pre-made tart crusts were made with real butter, the full-fat cream sold out before the low-fat, and everyone had some block of cheese in their baskets. (And I never once saw a low-fat version of cheese…) But what I also noticed in their baskets were plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. They bought meat, but very little of it. And slowly, my shopping habits followed suit.

When I started thinking about my return to the United States, I really realized how difficult it was going to be to keep up the good habits that I picked up in France. I had always been good about keeping fresh vegetables in our diet, but I knew the selection in my local grocery store in Kentucky was not going to have the variety and quality that I came to rely upon in my French grocery store.

In order to combat this, I joined a CSA for the first time. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to do it, but it’s one of the best things I’ve done. The CSA provides local, seasonal fruits and vegetables, and although I don’t have much choice in what I get, I do get to try out products I would never buy (or find, for that matter) in the local grocery store, like West African Stew with okra or Turnip Mash or Sauteed Kale.

We’ve been back for about two months now, and we’ve recognized that our eating habits have changed, but that without constant vigilance and pre-planning, we will be sucked back into buying out of convenience instead of making decisions based on health.

Photos courtesy of the guest author.

A Quest for Food

October 2, 2009

Since I started my journey with Fake Food Free not only have I been challenged to put my thoughts and explorations from a food perspective into words and recipes, but I’ve enjoyed reading the blogs of others who do the same thing. Over time you realize just how diverse the simple topic of food can be.

It is in exploring this world of food blogging that I realize we all have one simple theme in common – a quest for food. Our quests for food can revolve around culture, living in a new place, travel, reliving memories, improving health, or fueling for activity, and that’s just naming a few. All of these things can be very different, but with each food is involved and I find I’m drawn to all of them for different reasons.

If you’ve been following me over the past few months you know that I have some big things going on at the moment. For a little over two years my husband and I have been living in southern Brazil. As hard as it is to believe this journey is coming to an end. As of Saturday, we will officially be moving back to the US.

Rest assured my adventures won’t stop here. As excited as we are to return home, we are taking a break before completely settling in. Next week, after a short stop in the States we are headed off on a month-long trip to Southeast Asia.

Considering this theme I’ve had on my mind lately I have invited four of my favorite bloggers to provide guest posts for you during my travels. Each week you are going to have some excellent reading material with tips, advice and some new recipes all focused on different topics, but all related to a quest for food.

You’ll be getting excellent posts from:

Mindy – Mindy’s Mouthful
Andrea – Off Her Cork
Cathy –A Life Less Sweet
Amy – Delicious by Nature

Let me take the opportunity to thank each of them right now. You are going to love their posts! Each brings so much knowledge and personality to their writing and I enjoy reading their blogs. I am honored and grateful to have these ladies guest post here at Fake Food Free.

While I hope to do a post when free time conveniently coincides with Internet access, it is likely you won’t be seeing much of me. Obviously, with no kitchen to cook in recipes will be lacking as well. I do have intentions of sharing my food experiences along the way though so I hope you will continue your regular visits throughout the month.

When I’m back in November you can bet that there will be wide variety of real, delicious foods I’ll be recreating!

Guest Post at 5 Star Foodie

July 6, 2009

Happy Monday!

I’m honored to have a guest post up at 5 Star Foodie today! Head on over to learn more about about Brazilian desserts and candy!

A Life Less Sweet Guest Post

September 25, 2008

Good morning!
I did a guest post for Cathy at A Life Less Sweet on HFCS from an ex-pat perspective. If you’d like to check it out, head over there today and take a look. Feel free to leave any comments and I will answer you there.

Guest Posts