This past weekend, P and I decided to get a leg up on Christmas shopping in town (that’s what they call “the city,” or the Honolulu/Waikiki area here).  We decided to stay in the area afterward and try someplace new for dinner.  I’m a member of Slow Food, and learned about Town through the Oahu chapter’s website.  Town is a restaurant that serves food grown from local farms around the island, supporting the slow food movement, from farm to table.  It promotes sustainability on a local level and has a menu that changes daily.  Meaning: your food is farm-fresh, not frozen and flown in from hundreds of miles away.  My cup of tea.

Town is located in Kaimuki, southeast of Honolulu.  After some shopping, P and I got hungry pretty early and arrived at the restaurant about 5:20pm.  It opens for dinner at 5:30pm so we hung out at the front of the restaurant for a few minutes, and looked at the menu they had up from the day before (pictured above).  Town is a cute and trendy place, kind of reminiscent to us of a small San Francisco or New York eatery, with metal tables and chairs, modern and minimalistic decor.  The outside of the restaurant was lined with bougainvilleas, which always adds a charming touch.

I noticed that on the menu for the previous day, there was a bottarga pasta.  Now, I’ve only heard of bottarga from an Anthony Bourdain “No Reservations” episode where he shared it with his wife and family in Sardinia.  It’s basically fish roe (eggs) that’s been dried and cured.  Naturally, I like to try everything at least once, so was intrigued by it.  I asked the server where they got it from (because Sardinia is a far away place from Hawaii) and surprisingly, the chef makes their own bottarga in their restaurant out of ahi tuna!  Now if that isn’t a mark of local, slow food, I don’t know what is.  Sad to say, it wasn’t on the menu the day we went, but I’m sure this won’t be the only time we’d be eating here.

Anyways, on to the food.  P and I started off with some house-made bread that was served with nicoise olives and butter.  (Sorry, I didn’t take pictures of the bread and olives, nor the dessert, because we just dove right in).  I’m usually very picky with olives (I despise them most of the time), but was pretty surprised to taste a fruity, tart olive that wasn’t too briny.  Delicious.

Next up came the salad that we shared. Roasted, sweet beets, sections of orange, fried chickpeas, fresh farm goat cheese, cucumber, and sharp arugula dressed in a light vinaigrette.  Wonderful balance of flavors and a refreshing way to start out a meal.  Our server also informed us that all our vegetables were not only local, but organic too.  We definitely felt good about this choice.

This is what I got – home made, hand-cut pasta, with mussels, prawns, squid, and tomatoes in a light saffron and tomato broth.  This was served in a right-sized bowl.  I couldn’t get over the texture of the pasta!  It was divinely light and chewy, and the seafood was cooked perfectly.  If “town” is able to deliver fresh, hand-cut pasta to my door, let me be the first recipient!

Here’s P’s dish.  Slow-roasted pork shoulder stuffed with fennel and other fresh herbs, served alongside a pool of creamy polenta and fresh kale and collard greens.  So simple, yet so delicious.  Let me just say that all he had to do was stick his fork in the meat and it fell apart.  That’s how tender it was.  The end.

And oh, I forgot.  We usually never order dessert, but since everything we had for dinner was all so good, we wanted to try it out.  We ordered the “miel and honey” panna cotta, served with starfruit and drizzled with honey from Waimanalo Farms.  I wish I had taken a picture of it, but we both stuck our spoons in it before I remembered to take one.  Let me just say it was both light and creamy at the same time, and wasn’t too sweet with the drizzle of honey.  Perfect way to end a meal.

Restaurant details:

Town

3435 Waialae Avenue

Kaimuki, Hawaii 96816

808.735.5900

http://townkaimuki.com

Eggs are probably the most versatile ingredient around.  They’re a complete protein source and can act as a stand-alone meal, whether for a quick breakfast, or a lazy dinner.  During busy workdays, I can still feel good about my food choices by whipping up an easy egg omelet with vegetables and brown rice on the side, rather than resorting to some take-out for dinner.  Eggs emulsify foods like salad dressings and mayonnaise, and bind mixtures such as those you would make for meatballs.  They set custards and are indispensable in baking. They’re not only culinary, but nutritional superstars.

One egg has only 70 calories fit into its perfect little protein package.  It contains 4.5 grams of fat, 6 grams of protein, and about 200 milligrams of cholesterol.  Many have shunned eggs in the past due to its cholesterol content, which is located in the yolk, but intake of saturated and trans fats in the diet can actually raise your blood cholesterol more than the dietary cholesterol located in the egg yolk itself.  A systematic review in the Archives of Internal Medicine found inconsistent evidence linking egg consumption to coronary heart disease.  An egg a day should be fine, as the American Heart Association recommends eating less than 300 milligrams of cholesterol daily.

And the egg has more benefits that can’t be ignored.  It is a good source of lutein and zeaxanthin, two types of carotenoids that lend themselves to eye health, like protecting against age-related macular degeneration, night blindness, and cataracts. Eggs are also one of the few food sources of vitamins D and K.

Eggs contain all nine essential amino acids that make up a complete protein.  Along with other essential nutrients found in the egg, choline is a vital component in the structure of your cell membranes.  Choline is a heavy hitter that serves many functions, including brain development, muscle control, and other cognitive processes like learning and memory. Like folate (which is also present in the egg), choline is needed to prevent neural tube defects during pregnancy.  So all you to-be mommies out there, get crackin!

Egg myth: Brown eggs are more nutritious than white-shelled eggs.

I’ve had to debunk this many times before.  Many people may think brown-shelled eggs may have more nutrients than the white-shelled ones, but untrue.  The color of the eggshell depends on the breed of the hen.  Don’t judge an egg by its cover – it’s all the same on the inside!

Perfectly Poached Eggs

A little bit of vinegar helps coagulate the eggs here.

eggs

1 tsp white wine vinegar (or regular distilled vinegar)

sea salt & freshly cracked black pepper

optional: fresh thyme, a couple sun-dried tomatoes, whole-wheat bread

1.  Fill a 10-inch skillet about 1 1/2 inches high with water.  Stir in the vinegar.  Heat the water and vinegar mixture over medium heat, until the water is hot and slightly simmering.  Never boil the water.  Turn the heat down to medium-low, and crack the eggs, one at a time, into a small plate.  Gently slide one egg into the water.  Crack another egg onto the plate and repeat.  Gently spoon some of the hot water over the yolks from time to time, being careful to not break the yolk.  Poach for about 6-8 minutes, until the whites are set and the yolks are opaque.  Use a slotted spoon to get the eggs out of the water.

2.  Cook eggs, two at a time, replacing the water and vinegar as needed between batches.

So, tell me, how do you like your eggs?

Happy Halloween everyone!  I heart pumpkin season.  You’ve got pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin custard…sorry, now I’m sounding like Bubba in Forrest Gump, rambling on about shrimp.  Anyways, you get the idea.

This recipe is something I whipped up on the fly, a dump-and-stir sort of method that works pretty well, as long as you don’t overmix the batter.  Overmixing eliminates air bubbles that make your batter rise, so when you bake it, you’ll get one tough muffin.  Not a good thing.  Just be gentle!  Pumpkin is such a great ingredient to use if you want to cut the fat while adding a lot of moisture to baked goods; I only used 2 1/2 tablespoons of canola oil in this batch of 18 muffins!  The crumb of the muffin turned out tender and moist – perfect to heat up and snack on with my coffee at work!

Pumpkin has a good amount of beta-carotene, an antioxidant that converts into vitamin A in the body.  Beta-carotene is also a carotenoid, which imparts that yellow/red/orange pigment to the veggie.

Word to the wise: If you’re someone who believes that popping supplements up the wall while eating a poor diet will “make up” for the nutrients you’re not getting in your daily fast food encounters, beware.  Beta-carotene, in supplement form, has been found to increase coronary event and lung cancer risk in male smokers and asbestos workers.  Ingestion of food sources of beta-carotene, however, is safe, and the synergistic effects of beta-carotene in food, along with other phytonutrients and carotenoids, can decrease one’s risk of developing cancer.  Beta-carotene from foods can also enhance your immunity.  Bottom line: get it from food first, and keep chomping on those fresh fruits and veggies!

Pumpkin-Walnut Muffins

makes 18

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup whole-wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp Saigon cinnamon

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree

6 oz lowfat plain yogurt

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 1/2 Tbsp canola oil

1/3 cup chopped walnuts

18 whole lightly candied walnuts, optional, for garnish

Preparation:

1.  Preheat your oven to 350°F.  In a medium bowl, combine the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, pumpkin pie spice, and cinnamon.  Whisk ingredients until combined and set aside.

2.  In a large bowl, add the brown sugar, granulated sugar, maple syrup, pumpkin puree, yogurt, egg, vanilla extract, and canola oil.  Whisk until ingredients are smooth and there are no lumps.  Add the flour mixture, and fold the flour mixture in to the pumpkin batter, until ingredients are just combined.  DO NOT OVERMIX.  It’s okay to have a few little lumps in the batter.  Gently fold in the walnuts.  Spoon the batter into the muffin liners, just shy of being filled to the top.

3.  Bake on two baking sheets, one on the middle rack and one on the top rack.  After 13 minutes, rotate the racks and alternate their positions.  Bake for another 12-13 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the muffins comes out clean.  Cool on wire racks for about 15 minutes before serving.

Nutrition Facts (1 serving = 1 muffin, minus the walnut garnish on top): 137 calories; 4 grams fat (0.6 grams saturated fat, 2 grams polyunsaturated fat, 1.2 grams monounsaturated fat); 23 grams carbohydrates; 2.7 grams protein; 1.2 grams fiber

Xoi vo (pronunciation: soy vah) basically means sticky rice that’s been rolled through your hands.  It’s Vietnamese comfort food to me, of the simplest form.  There’s tons of different ways to make xoi (sticky rice).  You can add yellow or green mung beans, hominy, coconut milk, shredded coconut, and other things to it.  My dad loves this stuff and I got it from him.  He used to take me to little food stops in Little Saigon in Orange County, the largest Vietnamese enclave in the United States, and we’d just hang out, talk, and eat xoi as well as other fun Vietnamese snacks.

Actually, some of my favorite memories with my dad have been food-related, like the time he came to eat lunch with me while I was in kindergarten.  Thinking of my dad, sitting on a kiddie table with a short kiddie chair, eating gross cafeteria Sloppy Joes with me still cracks me up to this day.  I was so proud to have my dad come to my school to eat lunch with me.  When I was older and car-less in college, my dad would pick me up on Fridays to go home for the weekend.  But since there was too much traffic on Friday nights (hello, California, your traffic sucks), we’d stop somewhere to eat sushi, Indian food, Vietnamese food, or whatever.  It was my favorite way to end the week.

Now that I’m in Hawaii, where there isn’t much variety in terms of Vietnamese cuisine with the exception of pho, I’m getting desperate.  Like, so desperate that I have to suck it up and attempt to make xoi vo for the first time in my life, impromptu-style.

I remember how my mom would make it – steam the sticky rice, steam the mung beans separately, lay it all out on a counter, and roll the whole thing between your hands until the mung beans coat the sticky rice.  I made a small batch, just 5 cups’ worth, but I must say, I was just SO DANG PROUD OF MYSELF!  I totally should have made more because my husband is scavenging the bowl now.  Mung beans are a go-to ingredient for a lot of vegetarians because they are so versatile and add protein and fiber to the meal.  It adds a creamy-like texture and sweet nutty taste to the rice.  So here’s the recipe, full with step-by-step photos, because instructions itself with this kind of a recipe can be confusing.  And sorry, I’m not giving exact measurements of water for cooking the rice, because I didn’t measure it out.  It’s intuition, baby!  (If you don’t want to listen to me, listen to the package directions, ha!).

Xoi Vo: Vietnamese Sticky Rice with Mung Beans

makes about 5 cups

1 & 1/2 cups white glutinous rice (also called sticky rice, mochi rice, sweet rice), rinsed once

1 cup dried yellow split mung beans (peeled)

1 tsp canola oil

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

A couple tablespoons light coconut milk or dried unsweetened shredded coconut, optional

Instructions:

1.  I make my sticky rice in a rice cooker.  You can steam it, microwave, or cook it over the stove according to the package’s instructions.  In a rice pot, add the sticky rice.  Add about an inch more of water above the surface of the rice, and soak it for about an hour or two.  When it’s done soaking, pour out a little bit of the water, until you’ve got about half the length of your fingernail above the rice’s surface (I know, I’m so exact).

2.  Now, pop it into your rice cooker, press the “cook” button, and let it do it’s magic!  If at the end of the cooking, you’ve got some opaque grains left, add a few tablespoons of water, cover the lid, and keep warm until cooked.  Don’t freak out.  It’s the worst thing to do.

3.  These are what yellow split mung beans look like.  Little fun beans of joy:

Rinse these twice, and soak them in warm water for about 1 – 2 hours, until you can break one bean with your fingernail.  Rinse the beans once more, then drain.

4.  Set up your steamer with a good amount of water already boiling.  In my steamer, the holes are too big and the mung beans would easily have fallen through.  I laid down two layers of aluminum foil, poked a few holes on the sides, and scattered the beans on the bottom.  Leave the heat on high, cover, and boil away, for about 35-40 minutes.

5.  Fifteen to twenty minutes in to your steaming, take the lid off the steamer, and mash down the beans with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, breaking up the beans until they’re powdery-like.  Do this mashing about 3-4 times in that 40 minute steaming period to achieve an even, powdery consistency.

6.  When you’re done mashing down the mung beans, designate a working area on your counter.  I just slapped down a Silpat and started on it.  Pile your mung beans in the middle.  Add 3 cups of cooked sticky rice on the side.  Mix the canola oil, sugar, salt, and optional coconut milk/shredded coconut with the mung beans.  Using your rubber spatula, incorporate the rice into the mung beans, coating the rice.  You can also knead the ingredients together and roll the rice in between your hands, so that the mung beans get into every surface of the rice.  Do this until incorporated and you have chunks of mung-bean coated rice.

The finished product!

Now I want to know: What’s YOUR comfort food?

Yep, I’m using whipping cream here.  All foods fit into a healthy lifestyle, but moderation is key.  Of course you shouldn’t eat whipped cream regularly, but if you’re making it while having a few people over for dinner, it’s okay to have a small dollop with some sweet, juicy strawberries.  And enjoy it.  To reduce the fat here, you just can’t whip up half-and-half or whole milk – it won’t achieve “whipped cream-like” consistency.  Unless you’d like to make your whipped cream out of lemon juice, water, and nonfat dry milk, as I’ve seen in other recipes.  For me, it’s just easier this way.

You can buy non-fat whipped topping as a substitute, but you should beware of pre-packaged foods touting claims such as “fat-free” or “sugar-free.” If something’s fat-free, it may be high in sugar.  If it’s sugar-free, it’s probably high in fat, or even worse, trans fat.  Just look at the product labels.  If the ingredients have hydrogenated vegetable oils, it may contain less than 0.5 grams of trans fat, even though the nutrition facts label states there’s 0 grams.  So just because it says “0″ doesn’t mean it’s not there!

So I’m just sticking with the basics here.  Fresh strawberries, dressed up with a little dollop of lightly sweetened, almond whipped cream.  You really only need a little to add some decadence to your berries!  Easy to make ahead for a party with no fuss, and beautiful if you use an assortment of fresh fruits.

Strawberries with Almond Whipped Cream

serves 16

1 cup cold whipping cream (or heavy cream)

4 Tbsp powdered sugar

1/2 tsp almond extract

Fresh strawberries, hulled

1.  Place your mixing bowl and beater in the freezer for about 5 minutes or until very cold.  Place your mixer with the beater back in the stand-up mixer and beat the whipping cream until doubled in size and peaks form.  Add the powdered sugar and almond extract, and beat to combine, until stiff peaks form.  Do not overbeat, or your whipped cream can curdle.

Nutrition Facts per serving (1 serving = 2 Tbsp): 59 calories, 5.5 grams fat (3.4 grams saturated fat, 0.2 grams polyunsaturated fat, 1.6 grams monounsaturated fat), 2.3 grams carbohydrates, 0.3 grams protein.

This is as simple as it gets, friends!  A tangy, herby vinaigrette drizzled on top of a bed of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, nicoise (nee-SWAHZ) olives, and jalapeno fontina cheese.  So what’s Provence about it?  With the addition of herbes de Provence into my red wine-balsamic vinaigrette, combined with nicoise olives that hail from Provence, voila!  You can use a French cheese if you want to take this theme all the way, but I just used what I had on hand. 

Herbes de Provence is, hands down, my favorite herb mixture.  It combines thyme, marjoram, basil, fennel seed, lavender, and sage, and I go through it like nobody’s business.  I usually sprinkle it onto vegetables or chicken before roasting.  Utilizing herbs, whether fresh or dried, in your daily cooking repertoire adds more variety to your tastebuds.  I mean, how many of you are sick of the usual salad with Italian vinaigrette, or some other bottled variety that’s been sitting in your fridge for awhile?  Rev it up a little, and you’ll find that you’ll be incorporating more fruits and vegetables in your day because you’re not bored of a certain flavor.

Try to be creative with your salad dressings, by using different types of vinegars (like champagne, rice, white balsamic, apple cider), mixing in different herbs (tarragon, oregano, chives, dill), and using that heart-healthy olive oil.  Typically the vinegar-to-oil ratio for basic vinaigrettes is 1-to-3.  In my vinaigrettes, I don’t use as much oil.  I use almost an equal ratio of both, and the emulsification of the vinegar and oil still works wonderfully.

Provence Salad

makes about 1/3 cup vinaigrette

for the vinaigrette:

1/2 tsp herbes de Provence

1 clove garlic, minced

2 Tbsp red wine vinegar

1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1/4 tsp granulated sugar

1/4 tsp salt

a couple turns of freshly cracked black pepper

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

for the salad (how much is up to you, but the vinaigrette can serve about 3 people if each person gets 2 tablespoons vinaigrette.  Double or triple the recipe if you’re serving more):

romaine lettuce leaves, torn

sliced tomatoes

cucumber, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1/2″ slices

1 ounce jalapeno fontina cheese per person, crumbled

Nicoise olives

1.  For the vinaigrette, combine the herbes de Provence, garlic, vinegars, sugar, salt, and pepper.  Whisk until combined.  Gradually whisk in the olive oil until ingredients are emulsified.  Drizzle vinaigrette on top of salad.

When I was young, my mom taught me how to cook by taste.  We’d be hanging out in the kitchen, and she’d have a pot of soup simmering over the stove.

“Here, taste it,” she’d say.  “What does it need?”

“Ummm, sugar?”  I’d reply, if something was too salty.  And then she’d add a little bit of sugar, have me taste it again, and on the cycle went.

That’s how I learned how to cook – by tasting foods and intuitively knowing how to balance out the flavors.  I think that’s how my cousins learned from my aunts too.  We didn’t really have recipes handed down to us; we just learned by doing.  So when I started to cook more on my own, like in college and after that, even if it didn’t start out so great, I learned eventually what combinations of flavors worked together, and if I was stuck, I’d be on the phone with my mom.

This is one dish my mom would make for us growing up.  Just throw a little bit of this in the marinade, a little bit of that.  And it turned out great!  You can also substitute 1/2 tsp of the canola oil for chili oil to add some more heat, which is what I like to do.  This chicken is also great when it’s grilled, but I was fine just throwing it in the pan here.

Lemongrass Chicken (Thit Ga Xao Xa)

serves 4-6

1.5 lbs chicken thighs, skinless, boneless, excess fat trimmed off (about 6 4-oz thighs)

3 Tbsp lemongrass, minced (cut the bottom bulb of the lemongrass stalk, peel off the tough outer layers, and mince the tender stalk inside)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbsp fish sauce

1/2 tsp low-sodium soy sauce

1 tsp granulated sugar

1/4 tsp turmeric powder

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Freshly cracked black pepper

2 tsp canola oil

1.  Combine all ingredients, except for canola oil, and allow to marinate in the refrigerator, for about 1-2 hours.

2.  Heat the canola oil in a large skillet, over medium-high heat.  Add the chicken thighs and cook for about 6 minutes.  Flip the chicken thighs over, reduce the heat to medium, and cook for another 6-7 minutes, or until done.

Nutrition Facts (1 serving = 1 4-ounce thigh): 180 calories, 9.8 grams fat, 2 grams carbohydrates, 20 grams protein

Tilapia is a fish that is light with a mild flavor.  You can prepare it a number of ways, and steaming is an excellent way to cut the fat down while ensuring full moisture and tenderness in the fish.  Adding aromatics such as ginger root and green onions lends some good flavor without overpowering your protein.

Call it one of my quirks, but I have a pocket-sized Seafood Selector Guide that I once picked up in a San Francisco Airport restaurant.  It’s produced by the Environmental Defense Fund, and stays in my wallet.  Whenever I’m out grocery shopping and want to know if a type of fish is on their eco-best/eco-ok/eco-worst list, I pull out my little guide to help me make my decision.  Kind of time-consuming, yes.  But well worth it.  The EDF classifies fish by considering things like its current population, life expectancy (fish with longer life spans, like Chilean sea bass, are more prone to being overfished and populations may easily be depleted), water pollution, bycatch, and fishery management methods. Some of the fish on the eco-worst list included orange roughy (due to long life span, decreased population, high mercury levels) and red snapper (due to overfishing, mercury levels, and large bycatch).

Fortunately, tilapia farmed in the U.S. is on the eco-best list, and has low levels of contaminants.  But pay attention to where it comes from – tilapia from Latin America is on the eco-ok list, and from Asia it’s on the eco-worst list.  If you’re a pregnant woman or thinking about having kids in the future, you might want to look at these lists next time you go shopping to be sure your intake of contaminants from fish is limited.  And for you sushi-goers out there, the EDF also has a Sushi Selector Guide too!

Steamed Tilapia with Ginger and Green Onion

serves 2

12 oz tilapia filets

1 1/2 tsp finely chopped ginger root

2 stalks green onion, cut into 4-inch pieces

1 tsp fish sauce

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp mirin (Japanese sweet cooking wine)

1/4 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp water

Freshly cracked black pepper

Pinch of salt (optional)

Fried shallots (optional)

1.  Place a piece of foil in a steamer basket, leaving room near the edges for steam to escape.  Place the steamer basket in a pot over boiling water, and lay the filets of tilapia in a single layer.  Sprinkle the ginger and green onion over the fish.  In a small bowl, combine the fish sauce, sugar, mirin, sesame oil, and water.  Drizzle the mixture over the fish.  Add black pepper to the fish, pinch of salt optional.  Cover the steamer basket and steam the fish, about 6-7 minutes until fish easily flakes with a fork. Before serving, add a pinch of salt (as desired, to taste) and top with fried shallots.

Nutrition facts (per serving): 187 calories, 4 grams fat, 3 grams carbohydrate, 35 grams protein

A few weeks ago, our friends Phi and Michael came to Hawaii for their one-year wedding anniversary (yay!).  They came bearing gifts, of which included a bag of goodies from Trader Joe’s, my favorite store for gourmet treats.  In my stash included a bag of whole-wheat penne pasta and a bag of dried mushroom medley.  Thanks for the meal friends!

This meal is great to make if you’ve gotten home late and just want to throw something on the table real quick.  Just boil up some pasta, and everything else is prepared in the same pan.  Plus, you’ve got a little bit of everything to make this meal packed with nutrition.  Fiber from the whole wheat pasta will digest slower than if you had regular pasta which has no fiber, and will help you stay fuller longer.  I call it the “slimming” ingredient in this meal!

The pasta plus the shrimp add a hefty bit of protein to the dish, and mushrooms add minimal calories but meatiness to the meal.  They’re also a good source of selenium, an important nutrient involved in a number of antioxidant reactions.  You can substitute spinach for the arugula in this meal and it would work just as well.  The key is to introduce as much of a variety of colors to each meal as possible to maximize its nutritional benefits.  I’d say ending a hectic day with a quick and easy meal as this is not bad at all!

Shrimp Penne with Mushrooms and Wilted Arugula

serves about 4 – 6

30-36 shrimp, deveined, shelled (you can leave the tails on if you like)

2 cloves minced garlic

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, separated

1 lb whole-wheat penne pasta, prepared according to package directions

0.88 oz package of dried mushroom medley (porcini, portabella, shiitake, oyster, wood ear, or other is fine), reconstituted in warm water for at least 10 minutes and drained (makes about 1 1/2 cups of reconstituted mushrooms; if you don’t have dried mushrooms, use 1 1/2 – 2 cups fresh mushrooms)

1/4 cup pesto

1 Tbsp fish sauce, or salt sprinkled to taste

1/2 lemon, juiced

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

4 cups arugula leaves (can substitute for spinach)

Freshly cracked black pepper

Sprinkle of pine nuts and parmesan cheese, optional, for garnish

1.  In a large skillet, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add the garlic and saute, about 30 seconds.  Add the shrimp and sprinkle with a dash of salt, black pepper, and a pinch of red pepper flakes.  Saute for a couple of minutes, until the shrimp is just opaque.  Transfer the shrimp to a bowl.

2.  In the same skillet, add another tablespoon of olive oil, then the mushrooms and drained pasta.  Add the pesto, fish sauce, lemon juice, and red pepper flakes.  Stir to combine, until the penne is coated with all ingredients.  Season to taste.  Add the shrimp back to the pasta as well as the arugula leaves.  Cook for another few minutes, until the arugula has wilted into the pasta.  Top with freshly cracked black pepper.

How many of us think about where our food comes from?  Ignorance is bliss.  Like that one time, years back, when I ate veal and later discovered how veal was actually raised.  Needless to say, I haven’t eaten it ever since.  More and more, I find myself questioning the origins of the food on my plate.  Recently, I read a book called “The Ethical Gourmet: How to Enjoy Great Food That Is Humanely Raised, Sustainable, Nonendangered, and That Replenishes the Earth” by Jay Weinstein.

I flipped to the part of the book about coffee.  P and I get our coffee from Hawaiian farms that supply to local grocery stores, so we don’t think about where it comes from very often.  When we do go to Starbucks, we see “fair-trade” coffee, which sounds great, but I never really took the time to do extra research on the subject until now.

Americans drink A LOT of coffee.  According to the National Coffee Association’s 2009 survey, about 54% of Americans drink coffee.  Coffee drinkers ages 18-24 gulp down about 2.9 cups per day!  I don’t think I ever drank that much, even while pulling an all-nighter before my college finals!

If you think about it, with the exception of coffee farms in Hawaii, the United States doesn’t have that tropical climate that will support coffee farming.  It’s grown in Central America, Brazil, Ethiopia, Kenya, Indonesia, Vietnam, and more.  Fair trade coffee ensures that coffee farms comply with strict regulations, such as prohibiting child labor, practicing farming methods that support environmental sustainability, and ensuring farms fair prices.  I feel good knowing that my Starbucks cup o’ joe did not originate from farms that employed child slave labor, but from ethical practices accepted by Fair Trade Certification (TransFair USA).  Cocoa, tea, sugar, vanilla, and more can also be fair trade certified.  You can purchase fair trade items at Trader Joe’s (oh how I miss thee!  Come plant a store in Hawaii!), Peet’s Coffee and Tea, Target, and more.

In addition to Fair Trade coffee, you’ve also got organic and shade-grown coffees.  All three are sustainable methods of growing coffee.  Organic ensures your coffee isn’t sprayed with pesticides or chemicals, and shade-grown coffee is grown underneath shade trees that have not been bulldozed down as part of rainforest destruction.  Shade-grown coffee ensures that migratory birds still have a home and supports biodiversity by conserving the canopy above and allowing birds and other animals to still live in their environment.

Here’s a recipe from my dog-eared cookbook, The Gourmet Cookbook.  I actually cut down the sugar to 1/4 cup because I used strong coffee instead of espresso, and I don’t like really sweet coffees anyways.  You can tailor the sweetness to your liking before putting it in the freezer.  Also, the recipe calls for whipped cream, but I didn’t have any whipping cream on hand, so just work with what you have!

Coffee Granita

adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook, by Ruth Reichl

makes about 3 3/4 cups

2 cups hot espresso or very strong coffee

1/4 cup sugar (the cookbook uses 1/2 cup sugar; I don’t like my coffee that sweet so I cut that in half)

2 tsp vanilla extract

accompaniment: lightly sweetened whipped cream (optional)

Stir together coffee and sugar in a small bowl until the sugar is dissolved, then stir in the vanilla.  Pour into an 8-inch square baking pan, let cool, then freeze, stirring every 30 minutes, until slushy, about 1 1/2 hours.

Transfer mixture to a bowl and stir vigorously with a fork until slightly smoother and more uniform in texture, about 30 seconds.  Freeze until firm enough to scoop, about 30 minutes more.

Serve in bowls, topped with whipped cream (or not!).