Always organic? Not in this economy...

.
So I try to buy organic as much as I can- it tastes much better, helps preserve the environment and often supports mid-sized and small farms- but (as I'm sure many of you understand) in the last few years it's become too expensive to buy everything organic.
So then how do I decide, standing there in the produce aisle biting my lip, which kinds of apples to buy? For a while I was choosing based on price: potatoes, onions and carrots are cheap anyway, so going organic there wasn't much of a price jump. Raspberries? Forget about it.
But I recently came across this handy pocket guide and thought it might help my readers too. Below is a little card you can print out and put in your wallet that shows which produce gets coated in pesticides (so buy organic!), and which ones are less heavily sprayed (so save your pennies!).
Plus, it's cute.

Yoga Soup

I've noticed a funny thing: the more yoga I do, the less meat I want to eat. I've been on a bit of a yoga binge lately~ my pass was about to run out and I hate to waste money! Plus, kundalini yoga chills me out like no other legal substance or activity I've ever found.
But it's odd, afterwards I usually crave lentils. Last night I'd been to five classes in seven days, yeah! But what to eat for dinner? The exercise speeds up my metabolism, so I couldn't wait long for food to cook and was out of tofu. (Yes, I've learned to make tofu worth eating. Well done, Philly girl!)
Then I remembered, I have those white beans in the fridge I made from scratch... wow, it's been a summer of beans, hasn't it? I like to saute a mirepoix (which is diced onion, celery and carrot, the holy trinity of cooking) with a clove of garlic, throw in a pound of dried great northern beans and add a bay leaf. Pour in six cups of water and let the slow cooker do its magic on medium-high for about 6 hours. I add a spoonful or so of salt at the end, and voila! Healthy deliciousness.
Here's the soup:
Yum!

Here's the recipe:

Nearly Instant Yoga Soup
serves 1 hungry yogini or 2 as first course

1 1/2 cups cooked white beans (drain and rinse a can's worth if you're not hanging out making beans from scratch)
1 handful fresh spinach
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 1/2 tsp. grated fresh ginger
1 tsp. garam masala
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. curry (if it needs it)
hot sauce to taste (sambal olek if you've got it!)
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1 diced plum tomato
2 tbs. chopped peanuts
handful of fried shallots (only if you have them on hand)

Put beans and enough water to thin to your liking (about 3/4 to 1 1/4 cups) in a medium pot over medium-high heat. Add spinach and next 5 ingredients. Bring to boil and simmer 3 minutes.
Pour soup into blender or food processor. Whiz until pureed (thin with more water if desired). Return to pot and add hot sauce, salt and pepper to taste. Heat through 2 minutes more.
Pour soup into bowl and sprinkle with tomato, chopped peanuts and fried shallots.
Sat nam!

Sickie Soup

Oy vey, the first part of this month I had a terrible cold, replete with fluid that filled my ears and made it hard to hear. What? Oh yes, I'm feeling better now, thanks. When one is sick and has a partner, spouse or roommate, there's a built-in Nurse Agreement for when one of you can't leave the couch (well, hopefully; if your arrangement does not include this deal, perhaps it's time to re-examine your options?). However, when you live solo and have difficulty asking for help *ahem* it presents a problem: what do you make for yourself when you're ill and just getting up to use the loo makes you sway?
I offer you my solution: Sickie Soup.
Please forgive the shaky hand~I was super-sick when I took this!
This soup has just 3 ingredients (with 2 optional additions), all of which can be kept in your larder so you don't have to forage beyond the front door. The best part? It's delicious even when you're not ill; serve it to guests and they'll never suspect you tossed it together in a mattter of minutes.

Sickie Soup*
Serves 3-4

about 1/3 of a 1lb. bag of dried cheese tortellini (Trader Joe's brand is nice)
2 14-oz. cans chicken broth (Swanson's is tastiest)
a fist-sized chunk of frozen spinach OR 3 handfuls of fresh spinach
optional pinch of nutmeg
optional grated Parmesan cheese for sprinkling

Boil the tortellini in a pot of boiling salted water until just barely al dente. (Resist the urge to boil them in the chicken broth; canned stock has a fair amount of sodium and in the time it takes to cook the pasta the broth will reduce and become terribly salty.) Drain well. Rinse out pot; add chicken stock, cooked tortellini, spinach, optional nutmeg and ground pepper to taste. Briefly bring to simmer over medium-high heat. Serve with additional ground pepper and optional Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top.

*This recipe was inspired by a similar version made by my Aunt Linda Petrone, whose cooking and warm heart always made me feel loved and cared for.

T-Day Countdown

Two days and counting, dear reader! Are you ready? Or preparing to be ready? I have my next few days all planned out, I love this time of year.
My Thanksgiving dinner should be great: I plan to spend it with some excellent friends, several of whom are part of my chosen L.A. family. I love these cats; the year my Uncle Tyler died and I had to catch a red-eye Thanksgiving night, they moved dinner earlier so I could still participate. They were also patient and kind when I freaked out at a friend who accidentally added my soup garnish (delicate fried apple peels) to the salad. You can't ask for a better family experience than that. We've celebrated assorted holidays together through divorces and break-ups, promotions and moves, deaths and new loves. Good times.
This year I will be contributing 3 items to the table
1) A Wild Mushroom Soup, which started out as a recipe by Michele Scicolone but has evolved enough that now I consider it my own. I was not planning on making soup, but Ray and David tag-teamed me in a flattery throw-down on Sunday. I was helpless to say no.
2) An Italian Broccoli and Cauliflower "Flan" with Spinach Bechamel Sauce (though it's really more of a gratin), and
3) Cranberry Sauce. There are 3 cranberry sauces on the docket... it's not a competition, but I predict mine will rock the house. It has a secret ingredient that makes the flavor pop. No, not MSG. Ok, I'll tell you, but you have to keep it between us (no one needs to know how basic these things are): just add a dash of salt. Every year I turn out a nuanced and interesting cranberry sauce that is embarrassingly simple. That's my favorite kind of cooking.

This afternoon David and I will make a pilgrimage to IKEA to purchase the remaining plates and wineglasses for our crowd of almost 20, and afterwards I will head to the grocery store to buy fresh mushrooms and cream, broccoli, cauliflower and spinach. I wisely purchased cranberries this weekend- Ray would have a fit if I showed up sans sauce! Last year I had to elbow past an elderly lady to snatch the last bag of cranberries, oh it was ugly. (Yes, I know there's a tart circle of hell reserved just for me. Mmmm, but my sauce was fantastic...)

Tonight I will make the cranberry sauce, tomorrow the soup, and the morning-of my house will smell of broccoli and butter. And you, dear reader? What are you making (or buying!) this year? Let's put it out there- you know me, I love the dish.

Urban Tomato Growers, Unite! (Membership: 1)

I'm growing my own damn salad. Well, that's the plan. We'll see how it actually pans out.
Tory plans, God laughs. -Shiksa proverb

I don't know if you noticed but recently spinach, a veggie I've always loved (the only one my mother couldn't overcook) has been killing people. Or making them grossly ill. Though this was tidings of great joy for most small children, I was not pleased. The bigger huge agribusiness gets the more often these problems occur, and the more homogenized our food becomes. Think about all those pale sad tomatoes you see in the grocery store (not the beautiful heirlooms you find at your farmers market, on OrganicExpress.com or occasionally at Whole Paycheck). They all look eerily the same, don't they? And they're all quite equal in their mealiness, bland flavor, and boredom factor, no? It's not a mistake. Those suckers were bred to be shipped long distances, nothing more.
And let's reflect on the word "agribusiness" for a minute. It gives me chills. They lopped off the "culture" for a reason: it truly is factory farming now. There are three big corporations (ConAgra and friends) that control a scary majority of our country's food production. That's unnatural. For real reporting on this, check out www.oxfamerica.org. At the point where spinach isn't safe anywhere, something has gone wrong.
Ok, so what can I do? Other than complain while the children shout with glee? I live in a city, I have no yard, I'm not a lobbyist in D.C. What can I actually change?
It all started with this tomato.
In July I was slicing one of these glorious fruits in half for lunch; when I opened it up I saw all these crazy squiggly green and white thingys. Ack! My co-worker leaned over and said, "Oh look. The seeds must have started to sprout." Uh, right, yeah. You'd never guess my dad planted a big vegetable garden every summer for much of my childhood. sigh. So I took that sucker home, stuck it in a tiny pot and dumped some dirt over it. I set it outside my door, right next to the basil plant I was slowly killing (something I do every summer), and forgot. When the basil leaves were shrivelled and crying I'd water everything, but whatever. I watered a pot of dirt for a month and a half, simply because I was too lazy to throw it out.
But then It Happened. One day a teeny tiny sprout with two little leaves stuck up a 1/2 inch from the dirt. Eureka! I'd done it, in spite of myself! I was growing a tomato. After that I took a keen interest in caring for my tiny charge, and today a big yellow flower bloomed on top of my 18-inch tall tomato plant. Magnificent.
Check it out, dear reader, here's the result of that flower a few weeks later!

The weather is getting cold (well, by Southern California standards), so yesterday I replanted the tomato plant and the basil, which miraculously survived my "care" this summer. I stuck them both in a pretty aluminum trough, filled in the gaps with potting soil and brought them inside. Apparently basil and tomatoes are more than good neighbors on the plate; an English gardener who has genuine expertise informed me they grow well together, uh, there are complimentary nutrients that they give or deplete from the soil... I wasn't paying close attention, but it's a good pairing. This morning I found a packet of organic mesclun salad greens from Seeds of Change. I think I'll throw them in the mix and see if I can grow my own damn salad; bite me, ConAgra.
And you know, there's something deeply satisfying about growing a little seed (ok, weird sprouted tomato) from an empty pot of soil into a strong, tall plant that smells green-tomatoey and may someday feed me. I feel a little closer to the mystery of the Universe.