Eating Seasonally: Winter Squash

I've been having a spat of writer's block lately; unfortunately, the books I have been reading have been so engaging that I am driven to finish them rather than write about them, which is what I had planned on doing.  It happens.  To keep the juices flowing, I decided instead to post a little recipe on one of my favorite foods - winter squash!

First, I just have to mention that 'squash' is a pretty fun word to say.  Almost as great as it is to eat.

There are several varieties of this rugged little guys (I say 'little' when some of them can grow to weigh almost a ton). You may know them as...

• Acorn Squash
• Kabocha Squash
• Turban Squash
• Spaghetti Squash
• Butternut Squash
• Hubbard Squash
• Various types of Pumpkin
• Many, many more

Winter squash is a pretty significant fruit.  Originally cultivated in Central America from wild squashes about 10,000 years ago, winter squashes spread to the north and south over time, and were a staple in Native American diet - so much so that, in some tribes, the dead were buried with squash to provide them with sustenance in their afterlife journeys (similar to the Egyptians!)

Though they grow mainly in the summer, their tough rind and general hardiness allow them to be stored easily throughout the winter months - hence the name.  This proved invaluable to indigenous peoples, as they did not have access to the modern conveniences of refrigeration or canning techniques.

Another draw is that they're very nutritious!  Winter squash comes chock full of all sorts of goodies: beta-carotene, B-complex vitamins, a load of Vitamin C, Omega-3 fatty acids... too many to list, so check out this link for a full analysis.

Plus, they're tasty.  Like, way tasty.

So yeah, that's enough of the history/science lesson on friggen squash.  How about a recipe?

Roasted Balsamic Butternut Squash

I modified a recipe from Epicurious to more suit my insatiable desire for butter and feta cheese ^_^

You will need...

• 1 1/2 - 2 lbs. of butternut squash
• sea salt and fresh ground pepper
• 1/4 - 1/3 cup of balsamic vinegar
• 2 oz organic feta cheese
• as much pastured butter as humanly possible (I prefer Kerrygold)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line cookie sheet with foil.  Cut squash in half, the remove the seed and pulpy fibers - you can save the seeds for bakin' later if you like!

Now, you can either leave the squash halves as is, or cut them into smaller pieces.  Up to you.  Once they're cut (or not), place 'em evenly spread on your cookie sheet.

Melt butter in a pan and then drizzle onto squash - cover those suckers!  Add salt + pepper to taste.

Bake for 45 minutes, or until browned and soft to the touch (use a fork or knife - 400 degrees is hot).

Remove from oven and douse evenly in the balsamic.  Let cool to room temperature, top with feta cheese and then greedily devour.

Hope you like it as much as I did!

This piece has been submitted to Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday - check it out!

Just In Time For V-Day: Bacon-Wrapped Beef Heart

I have to give a lot of thanks for fellow Mark's Daily Apple forum goer hannahc for allowing me to post her recipe for Bacon-Wrapped Beef Heart (and helping me kick-start the recipe section of my blog!)   Sounds... AMAZING, doesn't it?  To some in the US, definitely.  To most, though?  Unfortunately, probably not.

There is a lot of stigma in the United States about organ meats.  I found my first bite of lengwa (cow tongue) to be... disturbing, but I quickly overcame it and it is now one of my favorite "cuts".  Same with liver, though my own experiment with preparing it was not quite as successful as the restaurants, I'm afraid.  Anyway, these were hard for me to eat because I had never eaten them before;  strangely enough, things like pancreas, heart, brains, kidneys, liver... these, along with the glorious, glorious fat, are prized above all else in many (most) cultures.  The organs and fat are where the majority of the vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients are stored in the body - how else does a lion get his daily dose of vitamin C?  Eating a whole damn zebra is how.

Anywho, without further ado:

My first foray into offal was well...awful...liver and I did not get along! After buying a side of grass-fed beef last October, including a majority of all the organ meats from the animal, however, it was time to try once again.

It started with about 3 pounds of Beef Heart (how appropriate for the day before Valentine's Day :) :

Then I had to trim some of those arteries off the meat:

Next came the best part...wrapping the entire thing in one pound of bacon:

And now it is tied up with cooking twine, ready to go into the dutch oven:

Once in the dutch oven, I added sliced carrots, sliced yellow onion, 3/4 cup red wine, 3/4 cup hot beef stock, thyme/oregano/parsley/black pepper/bay leaves. After bringing the liquid to a boil on the stove, the entire thing went into the oven (lid on) for 4 hours at 350 degrees fahrenheit:

It looked and smelled AMAZING after four hours! :

I sliced it thinly, and this is the final plate:

It tasted great! Similar to any other roast, but the meat was a little bit...smoother I guess is the word I'd use. Very tender, and tasted much more like a roast or steak than like liver (which was a good thing). The bacon was a bit carmelized and delicious, and the sweetness of the carrots and onions permeated the entire dish. I only had one beef heart to work with, so I'm really glad it turned out so well! The leftovers will be amazing :)

It seems like a tough cut, so I think it really needs the long cooking time to help make the meat tender. I would definitely recommend it as an introduction to organ meats!

I can't wait to try this.  Once again, credit is to hannahc in the post Offal Succes! on the MDA forum.

Happy Bacontines Day, everyone! 


Attention: This post is being featured on Food Renegade's Fight Back Fridays - please check out some of the other awesome Real Food blogs!

How We Can Help To "Teach Every Child About Food"

"Sadly, in the next 18 minutes when I do our chat, four Americans that are alive will be dead through the food that they eat."

I found this TED Talk to be inspiring.  There are people out there actually TRYING to make this connection in people's lives:  the food that we eat directly correlates to the quality of our lives.  All of the disparate cultures in the world can come together and agree on one thing - we eat to live.  We are bound together by our dependency on food and the very real effects that WHAT we eat have on our bodies, minds and spirits.

I've never seen 'The Naked Chef' - Jamie Oliver's moniker over in Britain, and the title of his first series of shows in the late 90's - but I am definitely intrigued.

The above talk addresses the outcome of and the concerns that inspired the making of his newest show, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (debuting March 26th on ABC).

"I profoundly believe that the power of food has a primal place in our homes that binds us to the best bits of life.

As do I, Jaime, as do I.  Like Mr. Oliver, I am sick of seeing the people around me struggle to lead healthy lives. Unfortunately, many don't care to, but that is their decision.  These people are not why I have chosen to speak up; though I hope that I may, leading by example and providing education if interest is sparked, inspire some to happier, healthier lives.  It's for my grandfather who follows every piece of popular dietary advice and whithers away and dies well before his time.   It's for my aunt who adopted a low fat, cholesterol-phobic diet after suffering a heart attack - when evidence has been around the entire time the "low-fat craze" and the "Prudent Diet" have been around that this is not the case.  I do it for me, 7 years ago, the depressed, morbidly obese teenager who was convinced that I was overweight because of my genes; convinced that I was depressed because something was wrong with me; when, all along, it was my diet of industrial byproducts, processed grains and Frankenfoods along with a lack of community and connection with the food, the people - the world - around me that kept me a miserable train-wreck of a person.

I worry for them.  I worry for us all.  CHD is rampant.  Leading cause of death in the industrialized world. Obesity and type II diabetes rage through our population, affecting our CHILDREN now.  We bleed billions upon billions of dollars into the medical INDUSTRY every year trying to treat diseases that arise from a system that is already sucking us dry monetarily as well as spiritually.  And to what end?  It's still killing us in droves.

"This is a preventable disease.  Waste of life."

And the prevention lies in education.  Responsibility.  The responsibility of those who have pulled us away from our food - the creation of this fast-food nation of people who have absolutely no idea how sustenance end up on their plate.   One of the most unsettling parts of this presentation was the utter lack of knowledge that the children had about the vegetables presented to them.  How does one, in this bountiful cornucopia that we live in with access to fruits and vegetables from all over the world, not know what a potato is?  There are children that have never even seen a real garden, let alone the horrendous farms and monocrap wastelands whence come magically their food - generally heavily processed and full of shit that ISN'T EVEN FOOD (and don't forget wonderful things like fillers and the ridiculous amount of sugar in chocolate milk).

It's a chain reaction; consequent generations are more and more removed from their food, becoming more dependent on government and corporations to feed them and having no idea what's in their food, let alone what constitutes a healthy diet.  Thankfully, there are people like Jamie that are impassioned and trying to make a difference.  Thankfully, he has resources and pop culture is aware enough of him (he's in commercials on major networks and such) that this message will reach a wide audience.  This is definitely a step in the right direction; but it's only a step.

So what do we, the common folk that lack the influence and wide-reaching impact of a celebrity food-guru, do to aide this movement?  There are resources available to participate, forums for your voice to be heard.

• Check out Jamie's Food Revolution Campaign - and don't forget to review the petition!

• Better School Food has a lot of information, including a Top-10 List for what can make a school lunch healthier and an Action Plan for some concrete ideas on how to bring quality into your child's lunchtime.

• Farm To School will help you bring local, sustainable, healthful food to children's lunch trays.

• The Slow Food Movement has a Time For Lunch, providing an easy way to write to your legislators about strengthening the nutritional standards of the Child Nutrition Act.

   
And outside the lunch room?  What about education for you and I?  Look into the Slow Food Movement mentioned above and network with people that are trying to move us away from being a 'Fast Food Nation' and reunite us with the unifying marvel that is our food.

Another avenue for involvement can come from the Weston A. Price Foundation.  The WAPF is dedicated to REAL nutrition education and preserving farmer's rights against government and corporations (supporting initiatives like the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund).

This problem is not going to solve itself.  And while its great that we have celebrities and personalities that actually have the interest of the common people at heart, we cannot rely on them.

This has to come from us.


And it has to start with what's on your table.