Of Mungbeans and Millet

Wheat, rice, soy, and corn make up the majority of the crops traded on a world market and providing about one third of calories to people around the globe. While these commodities obviously play a critical role in food security, a large segment of crops remains out of the limelight, but still very much vital to allaying hunger primarily in developing countries. These edibles, local in production and consumption and neglected in the area of agricultural investment, are known as 'Orphan Crops.' To feed a hungry planet, more investment needs to go towards propagating and improving these varieties.

Millet is one of the orphan crops adapted to dry conditions. Cultivation dates back 10,000 years in Eastern Asia, and it seems to have predated rice on the Asian continent. Now, India produces the greatest quantities of millet, though it is also widely grown in parts of Africa and China. Like quinoa, this grainlike seed actually comes from a grass, and is used largely as a flour, porridge, and animal feedstock. In Taiwan you can even get millet beer, or the liquor rakshi in Nepal!

Mung Beans are another ancient crop native to Pakistan and India. Where in Asia, Africa, and parts of Latin America, mung beans are a nutritious legume for consumption in soups and curries, in the U.S. the beans are really only recognized as your salad bar sprouts! They are also ground into flour to produce cellophane noodles and are rich in fiber and protein.

Last night, I took my inspiration from the Indian tradition of Moong Dhal, a dish that is supposed to balance the three doshas in the Ayurvedic tradition. For my millet, I based my recipe on Mark Bittman's Autumn Millet Bake.

Depth of Winter Millet Madness (serves 2 - vg/gf)

1/2 cup dry millet

2/3 cup water or mild vegetable stock

1 tbs olive oil

1/2 delicata squash, quartered and sliced (no need to skin)

seeds from squash, pulp removed

2 large collard greens or lacinato kale leaves, roughly chopped

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tbs agave nectar

salt to taste

1. Heat half the olive oil in a sauce pan over medium heat, and toast the millet for 2-3 minutes until lightly toasted. Add liquid and raise heat to bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 20-30 minutes, check to see if more liquid is needed or desired texture has been reached.

2. Meanwhile, in a preheated 375F oven place a an oiled (with the rest of alottment) pan with squash and seeds, salted and spread evenly. Bake for 10 minutes, and then remove the seeds and let cool. Flip the squash and cook another 20 minutes until very tender.

3. Once millet is cooked - I like mine slightly toothy - add greens, cinnamon, and agave. Cook until greens are thoroughly wilted. Throw in your squash and seeds. Salt to taste. Serve with a good and nourishing dhal!

Although I might be enjoying these orphans for their nutritional benefits and overall flavor, what role do they have in an ever-consolidating world food economy? Stanford Professor (and my World Food Economy Prof!) argues that investing in these locally-adapted crops will prove to be critical to adapting to global changes and feeding the growing population in the developing world.

Dare to Bake: Keeping it Together

January, oh where did you go? New Year's Eve snuck up out of the blue, the month flew past, and it's already the 27th and time to post about the Daring Bakers Challenge. The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.

As I have mentioned earlier, I (and my roommate, actually) are keeping a gluten-free (or, at least, extremely limited) and dairy-free household. This has led me to experiment with my baking a bit more. I've also come to realize how difficult it is to make certain desserts without gluten, dairy, or eggs. The wrap-around joconde is officially one of them. As a solely vegan or gluten-free pastry, I think it would have been a success, but sadly the combination doomed us to structural failure.

My Chocolate Mess

Chocolate Pate

20 g almond meal

30 g powdered sugar

20 g sweet sorghum flour

20 g cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbs oil

1/4 cup almond milk

1. Combine dry ingredients. Incorporate wet ingredients so that batter is thick, but not a dough.

2. Spoon into a piping bag (woohoo!) and pipe a narrow strip of design (maybe 3-4 inches wide) onto a silicone baking mat or parchment paper on a sheet pan. Stick in the freezer while you mix up the sponge batter.

The Sponge

85 g almond meal

75 g powdered sugar

25 g brown rice flour

25 g tapioca starch

10 g granulated sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup almond milk

1/4 cup ground flax

2 tbs - 1/4 cup oil

1 tbs cider vinegar

1. Combine all dry ingredients.

2. Whisk together almond milk and flax seed in a little bowl and set aside.

3. Add all other liquid ingredients to the dry except for the vinegar. Add flax "egg" after it gets a little gummy. Mix until just combined. Add in vinegar. Add more oil or milk to get the consistency of thick pancake batter.

4. Spread evenly over your design. Bake at 475 F for 10 minutes until edges start to brown. Cool. Flip onto wax paper. Finish cooling completely.

Watch this video before going any further. Then premold the joconde, leaving an extra circle to separate fillings.

Entremet - mmm, the innards

12 oz firm silken tofu

1 tbs tahini

2/3 cup powdered sugar or 1/2 cup granulated sugar + 2 tbs arrowroot or corn starch

2 tbs Kahlua or espresso

1 tbs agave

1 tbs cocoa powder

1/2 cup chopped dark chocolate, melted

1. Whiz together first four ingredients until smooth. Set aside half.

2. Process the rest with the agave and cocoa. Fold in the melted chocolate.

3. Layer the two fillings, separating with a round of the joconde.

4. Top with ganache (melt some chocolate, and some almond milk, et voila!)

It was tasty. Don't get me wrong. But a crumbly mess, nonetheless. I want to try it again, as I really enjoyed the technique. For eggs, I had used flax to bind and baking soda + vinegar to leaven. The vegan I pretty much have down. The lack of gluten gets me. Tapioca starch is not enough. I have had a couple of successes with xanthan gum, so I might try that next time (although, my biscotti attempt was a complete and utter failure).

Stay tuned for a cuppa joe.

Culinary Trends and Staple Crops

Only a few years ago, this little known grain-like seed made its way into American health-nut culture. Since then, it has become an excellent gluten-free grain substitute and a vegan's best friend. This relative of beets and spinach does best in sandy, nutrient-poor soils - a real catch. Quinoa is a rare case of a complete-protein in a plant, containing essential amino acids and micro-nutrients. It is no wonder, then, that this diamond in the rough was of sacred importance to the Inca and remains a staple in Andean diets.

While forming the dietary basis for many rural Bolivians, the continued and increasing popularity of quinoa in the Western world is changing its traditional role. On the one hand, an international market means elevated incomes for Bolivian producers who choose to sell their crop instead of consuming it. At the same time, the tradeoff for a poor family between eating the grain with a price-premium and complete nutrition, or choosing a cheaper fuel (such as rice) and earning the extra income is a difficult one.

Luckily, "The Bolivian government is backing quinoa, supporting loans to small farmers and promoting internal consumption by giving rations to pregnant women and young children." Listen to the recent segment on NPR.

There are no shortages of uses for quinoa, either. Sweet or savory, veggies or baked good. You can do ANYTHING!

Heather's Quinoa on 101Cookbooks.

Ricki of Diet, Desserts, and Dogs has some tasty Almond Quinoa Muffins.

Sweet Potato Black Bean Quinoa Burgers on Fat Free Vegan.

Whole Foods has some fun recipes, including Acorn Squash, Cranberries, and Quinoa!

And a quinoa substitute for coconut sticky rice with sliced mango would be fabulous!

Is Gluten-Free Italian a Contradiction?

Half of my genetic makeup originates in Southern Italia. I don't know if this necessarily predisposes me to enjoying carbs (pasta, bread...), but I definitely feel a strong Italian bond any time I spend time with a relative on that side of the family (of which I have regrettably few).

This weekend I bused up to Pittsburgh, PA to visit my mother's sister. We spent all of Saturday afternoon on friendly terms with food, wandering The Strip in downtown. We lunched at Enrico's Biscotti, where they sell giant (decidedly nonvegan) biscotti and offer monthly brick-oven-baked bread classes. Following this enjoyable munching, we popped into the Italian grocery, complete with olive bar, olive oil wall, and those gran cereale biscuits I've been craving since returning to America. After another hour or two of wandering shops and seeing a dwindling number of Steelers fans as game-time neared, we headed back to the 'burbs. With a little more crusty Italian bread, a comforting beans and greens soup, and a glass of wine, my Aunt and I retired to the living room to watch a movie with the cats.

The next morning found us making (soy) cappuccinos and coffee, going for a stroll on a nearby farm, and making a quick stop at the Heinz museum of Pittsburgh history. Needless to say, I enjoyed myself immensely! I've included a few lessons I learned, and a recipe I came across in one of the many Italian cookbooks/magazines around my Aunt's house (made-over, of course).

Things Italian (and Italian-American) People Like:

1. Food. Particularly garlic, bread, pasta, and olive oil.

2. Cats. Rome. Cinque Terre. Italian Women. They all have cats.

3. Cappuccino and espresso, particularly with biscotti.

4. Wine. Enough said.

5. Other Italian people. C'mon, we're family!

Crumbly Polenta Cake (GF/VG)

1/3 cup almond meal

1/2 cup brown rice flour

1/2 cup tapioca starch

3/4 cup cornmeal

1 tsp xanthan gum

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup raw sugar + 1 tbs raw agave

1/3 cup canola oil

1/2 cup almond milk

zest of one lemon, and juice of half

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbs ground flax + 2 tbs water

1. Mix together all dry ingredients until well combined. Add sugar, as well.

2. Add all wet ingredients except for the lemon juice. Combine until the consistency of thick pancake batter.

3. Finally, pour in the lemon juice. Stir just until evenly distributed. Transfer batter to a greased loaf pan.

4. Bake 25-35 minutes at 350F until edges are browning and center set.

Enjoy with a nice cup of tea ... or a shot of limoncello?

Peru and My New Chocolate Quest

A homebody with wanderlust probably most accurately describes me. I love to relax at home (meaning the parents' house), spend a day baking, getting my hands dirty in the garden, maybe going for a nice bike ride, and curling up with a familiar book. At the same time, I often feel a strong desire to brush off the reins of society and go off on an adventure in the rainforests of South America or traipse across the countries of Oceania.

Okay, so I did spend the greater part of my college career infatuated with the exotic fauna of tropical regions, particularly the forests of this particular large island off the coast of Mozambique (wink wink). It is hard for these magical places not to haunt an aspiring conservation biologist's dreams.

So why do I bring up forests and adventures? Well, I'm not planning any exciting journeys outside the U.S., at the moment (sigh), but I recently came across a tropical connection that may well liven things up in DC. This week's dining section in the NY Times showcased a rare breed of cacao found in Peru. A disease all but did away with this variety in the earth 1900's, but certain regions of the country still house stands of the pods.

Because of its rarity, Nacional has only been used sparingly in chocolate blends, such as those used by Kallari (good chocolate, see my birthday tasting). Moonstruck, a chocolate company from Portland, OR, has recently come out with a product of pure Nacional. These chocolate-covered cocoa beans (oh my goodness!) don't come cheap, but for a veritable chocoholic, it is probably worth every cent. Two Canadian chocolatiers, Point Carr é and Christophe Morel, are also now producing products with the beans.

This is my newest quest - to try to transplant from the tropics. Because of the nature of the product, the variety of cocoa is either grown by cooperatives (as in Ecuador) or still harvested from the wild (in Peru), however, if the product gains popularity, more attention will need to be paid to the sustainability of the production of the beans and the livelihoods of the growers.

That is all. Good night.

Hand me a pie, please?

Every culture seems to have one - the British 'pasty', Indian 'samosa', Russian 'pirozhki', Latin American 'empanada' - a doughy outer shell encasing a sweet or savory filling. If you think about what they are, the popularity and reach of these portable pies makes perfect sense. Vegetable, starch, and protein can be combined in one fell swoop and carried off with ease.

The variety is marvelous, but also makes tracking down any sort of single-pronged history insanely difficult. In the UK, first references to pasties date back to 17th or 18th century Devon or Cornwall. While India seems to have adopted its own pie around the 13th century, this variety is thought to have actually originated in Central Asia 300 years earlier. Even so, no matter where the pie's origins lie, know that it probably has a long and rich history.

Then I was reading Apple and Spice, which is ever so nice, and saw she had posted a gluten-free pocket pie recipe. So there you have my inspiration, if not my recipe (as it is sadly not vegan, nor am I currently in possession of xantham gum). I had a lovely winter squash hanging around (seeing as that is one of the few produce items still around in DC in the winter) and a mandate to use coconut oil from the SOS kitchen challenge! Great ingredient for baking, although for pie fillings, I would prefer using coconut butter ... mmm.

Curry Pumpkin Hand-Pies (wheat-free; makes 2 pies with a 5-6 inch diameter circle)

Crust:

1/4 cup brown rice flour

1/4 cup barley flour (could use buckwheat or sorghum to make gf)

1/4 cup chickpea flour

2 tbs tapioca starch

1/4 cup coconut oil

2 tbs - 1/4 cup soy or almond milk

1 tsp salt

Filling:

1/3 cup pumpkin puree (I used an ambercup squash)

1/4 cup silken tofu puree

1/4 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp curry powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon

pinch salt

* Add a splurt (no, it's not in the dictionary) of agave for a little hint of sweetness

1. Combine dry crust ingredients. Use a fork to work in coconut oil. Add liquid until the dough just comes together but is not sticky.

2. Roll out on a piece of parchment or wax paper, silicone mat, or plastic wrap, to about 1/4 inch thickness.

3. Use a round, sharp-edged object - cookie cutter, large can, tiffin lunch pail (teehee) - and cut out rounds. Leave the circles on the mat, paper, whatever, to facilitate folding.

4. Mix pureed ingredients or puree all in a food processor (season to taste). Spoon about 1/4 cup of the mix (you will have leftovers ... make a minipie!) onto one half of the circle, leaving a good 1/4-inch margin to press folds together. Do so. Crimp with a fork.

5. Bake on 350F for 25-30 minutes until beginning to brown. I also put a little piece of crust dough in separately to determine when that was cooked all the way through.

Enjoy warm or pack for a lunch ... so excited for work tomorrow, now! And let's not forget the the breadth of other possible pies - perhaps an Italian 'calzone', Israeli (and other former Ottoman-empire-locales) 'boureka', and a classic American (or is it?) 'turnover'.

Planting for Oil

While it may look like we’re headed off to a tropical beach, or perhaps down Palm Drive (go Stanford!), this is sadly not the case. Meet the oil palm, the source of both palm and palm kernel oil – funny how that works.

Have you eaten an oreo lately? Maybe not, but what about a granola bar? Cereal? Peanut butter? More and more brands of processed food – cookies, crackers, candy bars, margarine – are using palm oil as a saturated fat and preservative. It has replaced hydrogenated soybean oil in many products, which is perhaps better, if not fantastic, for your health. While it contains antioxidants, carotenoids, and no cholesterol, it is still a saturated fat and still found in heavily processed foods.

Palm oil has another little dark secret. It happens to be a major driver of deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia, spurring on the clear-cutting of large swaths of rainforest and planting of hectares upon hectares of monoculture oil palms. Like rainforest beef before it, palm oil (and the companies that use it) has received a lot of bad press lately. Both Nestle and Unilever underwent brutal beatings by Green Peace ad campaigns

Have a break? from Greenpeace UK on Vimeo.

Militant environmental groups are not the only ones paying heed to the plight of Indonesian rainforests, though. Big business, such as Cargill, General Mills, and the behemoth – Walmart – are starting to make some noise. They are committing to sourcing their oil with sustainable certifications, the most prominent coming from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Best management practices include everything from enhancing soil fertility and biodiversity to supporting local livelihoods.

Unlike other products I’ve discussed, like coffee and cocoa, certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO) is not going to be labeled and readily apparent. Using it is a decision within the supply chain of manufacturers, such as Walmart using only CSPO for its private label by 2015. So what can you as a consumer do? For one, eat less processed foods. And if you just can’t give up those cookies (or that dark chocolate peanut butter, mmm…), then be a discerning customer, do your homework, and find out where the palm oil comes from.

For some, like my peanut butter, you can just go to their website. Search RSPO’s list of members. Or if all else fails, email or call up the company and get the scoop. The more these companies are confronted with consumer demand and concern, the more likely it is we will see some real change

Read the latest on Mongabay.

There is a wealth of info out there on palm oil right now, so if something interests you, leave a comment and I will try to hook you up!

A New Year's Resolution

That is the last of photos like this you will see for a while (why can I not keep a straight face?) ... as of January 1, 2011, I am officially putting myself on a quasi-gluten-free and strict no refined-grains (ie. no wheat flour) vegan diet. Why, you ask, am I complicating my baking life? Health (and hopefully happiness) is my response - I will leave it at that.

2010 went out with a bang - literally. Signore Pepi Roni was shot in the back! Well, at least he was in the murder mystery party I held on Thursday evening. Besides the good laughs, the pointed accusations, and sinister suspicions that pervaded the evening, we also ate quite heartily and in true Italian style.

A lovely loaf of ciabatta (Peter Reinhardt's The Bread Baker's Apprentice).

Fusilli con pesto (no parm or pignoli, walnuts!). But now, no more pasta and bread.

Granted, my diet won't consist solely of balsamic dressed salads. Dessert marked the transition - consisting of berries and these delightful Coconut Dreams by the Spunky Coconut! (rice flour substitute for coconut flour and more coconut oil for the ghee). Gluten-free and vegan. Diet, Dessert and Dogs will also be one of my staple go-to's. So, stay tuned. See how I fare this time around and whether the new diet makes me feel any better :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!