Archive for July, 2007

Delaying age or staying young longer

July 22, 2007 at 10:52 am · Filed under health, nutrition

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

Oxidative damage in the body causes ageing.

Uh, what’s that?

Although oxygen is necessary to release the energy in foods that fuels all energy processes, it can also oxidise other molecules resulting to cellular damage that triggers cancer and ageing, among other things. Deep, huh?

The oxidised molecules are what are known as free oxidising radicals or free radicals. They result from smoking, burning of petrol into exhaust fumes, radiation, barbecuing, frying, and normal body processes. True that we’ll all grow old and die eventually. But don’t we all want to prevent a painful and costly death? Don’t you want to continue feeling youthful and energetic after you retire when you finally have all the time for your family and hobbies?

Well, put that way, family, hobbies, being energetic, etc… now you’re talking. I’m hearing you. Don’t stop. What should we do?

Antioxidants fight free radicals. The more known and most essential antioxidants are vitamin A, betacarotene, vitamins C, and E. The less known antioxidants are co-enzyme Q10, lipoic acid, selenium, and zinc.

Vitamin A and betacarotene are rich in red, orange, and yellow fruits and vegetables. Vitamin C is abundant in fruits and vegetables eaten raw. Vitamin E is found in seed foods (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, linseed, sesame seeds), nuts (walnuts, cashew nuts, hazel nuts, except peanuts which are actually not nuts), and vegetables, like peas, beans, corn, and wholegrain.

Eating sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, and broccoli will fight the free radicals provided they are not fried. Boiled is the next best thing to raw. Incidentally, there were a lot of boiled sweet potatoes and boiled saba bananas when I was growing up. It was the ideal picnic food when we went to the beach. It was cheap, easy to prepare, filling, and able to survive beach temperature.

You may be wondering where I got all these information. I learned them from Patrick Holford’s New Optimum Nutrition Bible. I thought it was worth sharing. Holford further gives concrete and do-able tips to increase our antioxidant potential.

  • Eat lots of fresh fruits. Berries have the highest antioxidants. Not do-able though if you leave near or on the equator. Lots of fruits available in the tropics and I’m sure they’re just as good. Think red, orange, and yellow.
  • Eat lots of vegetables, especially spinach, avocado, sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, watercress, and broccoli. Eat them raw, if possible, or boiled.
  • Include seeds and nuts in your diet. Unfried and unsalted.
  • Take a multivitamin and/or antioxidant supplement daily containing vitamins A, C, E, glutathione, co-enzyme Q10, lipoic acid, and anthocyanidin. But mainly vitamins A, C, and E, selenium, and zinc.
  •  Do your best to avoid pollution, smoky places, direct exposure to strong sunlight, and fried foods. About strong sunlight, I suppose it depends on which part of the earth you are, and the time during the day. Sunlight is stronger in Australia, for example. The hours after 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. are when the sun is hottest and most dangerous.
  • Don’t over-exercise. You lose the point of exercising.

I’ve seen body lotions and skin creams with coQ10. I wonder what this antioxidant does when applied on the skin. Can an antioxidant do its work when used in lotion or cream? Best not to ingest it.

Rest assured, there are more benefits and enjoyment in eating fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. Nuts and seeds are good natural sources of coQ10.

Uh, preachy. You mean it’s not good to eat skin lotions and facial creams?!

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At home with Sehymus

July 20, 2007 at 6:01 pm · Filed under food, summer, vego

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

This kitchen was closed yesterday. H and I decided it was time for our weekly lunch in a restaurant. This time, we chose the vegetarian and organic restaurant called Sehymus. They re-opened this week after being closed for 2 weeks. Staff and management had been on vacation.

It was a wonderful welcome treat to regular customers that Sehymus had more greens than I could recall. Romaine lettuce, parsely with red onions, zucchini, yellow and red tomatoes, marinated big button mushrooms, chickpea salad, hummus, carrot tzatziki, lentils, roasted eggplant-garlic paste, among others. Okay, 3 green items. But the buffet still looked very gorgeous and refreshing to the eyes.

For the main course Sehymus offered red unpolished rice, vegetable balls, vegetable burgers, pasta with lentils, millet, runner beans in tomato sauce, and potato stew. The red unpolished rice was interesting. It combined very well with the vegetable balls and burgers.

Sehymus permanently has lentil and vegetable soups. I decided to forego them in order to accommodate more grains and raw vegetables. Before stepping in at Sehymus, H and I had agreed that we would eat slowly,  take as much time as we liked, chew as long as necessary, and try to squeeze some conversation moments while eating.

The first plate. I put a little red unpolished rice, 1 vegetable ball, and 1 vegetable burger. Then I moved on to the salad buffet. Parsely with sliced red onions, romaine lettuce, marinated mushrooms, zucchini, a quarter of yellow tomato, a quarter of red tomato, chickpeas, and roasted eggplant-garlic paste on the side. On top of the salad that covered the warm food, I sprinkled sesame and pumpkin seeds. Got a slice of dark bread for my eggplant-garlic paste. Oh my, the plate had become a mountain.

The second plate. I wanted to try the rest of the grains in the warm food choices. I got a little of millet and lentil pasta. I’m such a salad fan so I got the same vegetables from the salad buffet. Did the same with the seeds. However, there was no replay for the bread and eggplant. Besides, they would seem too much.

Wow! Tiny flies on Sehymus’s walls! Luckily, none of them were curious enough to land on my plate. With Sehymus being an organic restaurant, it stood by the principle of not using insecticides to eliminate those harmless insects. I expected nothing less. Anyhow, I didn’t see any on the warmed buffet tables. As long as the insects were not disease carriers, I guess they were harmless.

I’ve become good at eating buffet style. Experience has taught me to take a little of everything that attracts my sight and take second helpings of those that delight my appetite. Since the sugar in sweet drinks tricks the senses into making you feel full, I always choose to drink only water and, if possible, after eating the second plate.

Most importantly, I don’t rush through plates and helpings. I take my time and therefore enjoy the taste longer and better. This way, I also get the money’s worth paid for the buffet. However, I do have to polish on conversing during mealtime.

Third plate. Don’t take me for a glutton. I can never manage a third plate. As a closure, I sipped a cup of warm and soothing yogi tea.

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New Zealand-inspired homemade meatballs

July 19, 2007 at 6:31 pm · Filed under cooking, fruits, meat

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

Yesterday saw a real experiment in the kitchen. I made meatballs that re-lived (food) memories of the New Zealand trip H and I had done early this year. The timing of my meatballs couldn’t be better. We hadn’t had them for 2 weeks.

What’s special about the meatballs in New Zealand, you may ask. They were fresh and had fresh fruit bits in them. I was very impressed. Lamb meatballs with apricot and mint. Meatballs with plums. Pork meatballs with pineapple. Yesterday I made meatballs with carrots and nectarine.

Ingredients

  • 500 grams ground beef (called beef mince down under)
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tablespoons potato flour
  • salt
  • ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon garam masala
  • 1 shallot finely choped
  • 3 small carrots finely chopped
  • 2 nectarine fruits finely chopped

With the ingredients list in my mind, I took each item out of the fridge and laid them all on the table. By the way, ground beef is on special this week at our neighbourhood store HomeBuy, I mean Hemköp. No, I mean HomeBuy. Make up your mind, woman!

Procedure:

  1. In a bowl, mix the ground beef and egg.
  2. With washed clean hands and short fingernails, blend the ground beef and egg very well.
  3. Add the potato flour. Blend some more. Belnd well. Don’t be shy.
  4. Season with salt, pepper, and garam masala. Set aside.
  5. Peel the onion and the carrots. Chop them finely in the food processor or in the old-fashioned way–manually with a good knife.
  6. Add the chopped onion and carrots into the ground beef. Blend them into the ground beef.
  7. Wash the nectarines. Take the seed off. Or slice the fruit off the seed. Chop the fruit into small and fine bits. Again, using the food processor, chopping machine, or manually.
  8. Add and blend the chopped nectarine fruits into the ground beef.
  9. Form into balls. Slightly smaller than a tennis ball. Bigger than the usual ready-to-cook meatballs. (I made 14 pieces out of this recipe.)
  10. Oil a baking dish and lay the meatballs in it. Top each meatball with a drop or two of olive oil. (Grill oil will work. And so will glaze for more flavour, I imagine.)
  11. Pre-heat the oven at 175 degrees Celsius. Bake the meatballs for 30 minutes or until both sides acquire color (brownish).
  12. Serve with mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes, or potato salad, and fresh raw vegetable and green salad on the side.

The meatballs smelled good in the oven. I could smell the garam masala distinctly and the nectarine. As expected the fruit caramelize during baking.

As usual, I trusted H for the 5-star mashed potato. I wasn’t disappionted. It was delightfully fluffy. Cloud-9 fluffy. It was perfect with tiny bits of real potatoes that the handmixer had missed.

We still have ground beef lying in the freezer. It’s good for 2 more meatball dinners. Will it be with mango, peach, pineapple or plums next time? With so many possiblities, I’m glad I don’t have to decide now.

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Creamy pasta gratin with chicken

July 18, 2007 at 5:34 pm · Filed under baking, cooking, food, pasta, summer

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

There was a lot of action in the kitchen yesterday. First was the wholegrain carrot muffins laced with grated coconut. H and I ate the remaining 4 pieces for lunch today. To me they tasted even better. They remained moist while in a plastic food container at room temperature.

Action number 2 was our easy quick dinner of creamy pasta gratin with chicken. The recipe is from Arla (in order to sell its product, of course) which I pulled of a shelf in our favourite neighbourhood food store.

The recipe is short. The ingredients are few. Great!

  • 300 grams pasta of your choice (I used 400 grams of capelli dinkel pasta)
  • 1 cube vegetable broth (my addition to the original recipe)
  • 2-3 pieces whole breast filet
  • 1 cube chicken broth (another personal addition to the original recipe)
  • 3 decilitres tomato sauce ( I used 4 decilitres)
  • 2.5 decilitres Kelda cheese sauce
  • 1 decilitre grated low-fat cheese
  • salt and pepper

How I didt it? Easy. I set the oven at 250 degrees Celsius. While the oven was pre-heating, I seasoned the chicken breast filets with salt and pepper. I boiled some water in a pot to cook the filets in.

While waiting for the water to boil, I boiled in another pot 2-3 litres water with vegetable broth and cooked the pasta according to the instructions on the package. In between the water and pasta boiling, I put in the breast filets in the other pot with chicken broth. I boilrd the chicken for 15-20 minutes.

When the pasta was done, I drained it and washed it with cold water. Left it to drip in the strainer. When the breast filets were done, I fished them out of the pot and let them cool.

Drip and dry. The pasta was no longer dripping wet. I poured it into the oiled baking dish. Then I poured over the tomato sauce and then the cheese sauce.

The chicken had cooled a bit. I tore and chopped them to pieces. I was wild with the knife and the chopping board. Whew! I was hungry and dangerous. I added the chopped meat into the pasta.

I mixed everything well ensuring that the chicken bits were all over the pasta and that the tomato and cheese sauces coated each piece of pasta. It looked good. I was hungrier and certainly not any less dangerous. I topped the gorgeous pasta blend with grated cheese generously. I used more than a decilitre.

After 10 minutes in the oven, the chicken pasta gratin was done. As quickly as writing this blog. (Duh!). The cheese on top looked very appetizing.

This creamy pasta gratin with chicken is an addition to my list of recipes with strong kitchen potential. For one, you can replace the chicken with smoked ham or turkey,  mushrooms, or a mix of your favourite vegetables.

If you want more flavour in the sauce, you can use a regular pasta sauce instead of tomato sauce. And if you just want the creamy pasta gratin with cheese only because you’re a cheese fan one way or another (or in more ways than one), then skip the meat, mushrooms, or vegetables.

A creamy pasta gratin with cheese reminds me of a meal loved by kids. Meatballs? Yes, that’s a favourite. But I mean, a pasta meal loved by kids. Spaghetti with meatballs! Not quite. It’s macaroni and cheese! Spaghetti with meatballs! You’re not listening. I give up.

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Wholegrain carrot muffin laced with grated coconut

July 17, 2007 at 6:29 pm · Filed under baking, cooking, nutrition, summer

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

Earlier today, I decided to bake moist blueberry muffins. However, since the nutrients of the carrots in the fridge had been ticking off and disappearing by the day, I postponed the blueberries and made carrot muffins instead.

This carrot muffin recipe is a modified version of 2 recipes. The first is the blueberry muffin recipe in my kitchen files which was taken from a Swedish food magazine. The other recipe is Mary P’s carrot chirstmas cake which Mary P bakes and gives away as presents during the yuletide season. Mary P is a former colleague who also loves to bake.

Going back to the business at hand, the wholegrain carrot muffin laced with grated coconut, I used the following ingredients:

  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons creme fraiche
  • 1 decilitre milk
  • 3 decilitres baking flour
  • 2 decilitres wholegrain wheat flour
  • 2 decilitres sugar (use less or none at all if you’re avoiding sugar)
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 225-300 grams carrots, grated
  • 50 grams walnuts, chopped
  • 1 decilitre dessicated ground coconut (add another decilitre if you decide to completely omit the sugar; and/or add 1 decilitre chopped or crushed pineapple)
  • 6-7 big paper muffin cups

Procedure:

  1. Pre-heat oven at 200 degrees Celsius. 
  2. Whip the eggs, creme fraiche, and milk in a bowl.
  3. In another bowl, mix all the baking flour, wholegrain flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. 
  4. Peel the carrots. Grate and chop into fine and small bits.
  5. Put the dry ingredients into the bowl of whipped egg mixture.
  6. Add in the carrots, walnuts, and grated coconut. Add in the chopped and crushed pineapple if you chose to omit sugar.
  7. Mix all ingredients well. Ensure that they are well blended.
  8. Spoon batter into the muffin cups filling 2/3 of each cup.
  9. Place the filled muffin cups on a baking sheet.
  10. Place in the middle level of the oven for about 20 minutes.

The grated coconut provided added sweetness to my muffins. Coconut and pineapple should be sufficient to replace sugar, if you don’t have a sweet tooth and if your body is not lacking in the nutrient zinc. Pineapple will also add moisture to the muffins. If you haven’t noticed yet, this muffin recipe doesn’t use any butter.

I promised myself that I would decrease my consumption of refined flour and refined sugar. I’ve been good in keeping this promise. So good that I feel I deserve occasional homemade pastries. Other occasions are reserved for cinnamon and sandwich treats like, uhm, at work.

H’s reaction to the wholegrain flour in the muffins was very positive. What about wholegrain pancakes, I wonder. I wonder if someone has already attempted to make wholegrain pancakes. 

About Mary P, she gave me an oatmeal chocolate melt-in-your-mouth-super-moist cookie when I saw her last. She promised to send me the recipe. 14 months later, I’m still waiting .

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