Garden food cures 'breakfast food blahs'

For days now, I've had the "breakfast food blahs." I don't eat gluten anymore; so no toast, frozen waffles or pancakes for me. Nor do I eat oatmeal or farina. For a while I was enjoying hash browns (freezer case variety), eggs and turkey bacon. But anything all the time gets boring after a while. I've also had homemade yogurt smoothies on occasion. But lately, nothing seemed to suit.

Until this morning when I really looked at the three red potatoes I recently harvested from a "voluteer" potato vine in my garden. One was of medium size; the other two were small and one of those had a very crusty-looking skin.

I call the potato vine a volunteer because I didn't plant it this spring. Two years ago, I cut up a nearly rotten red potato and planted the pieces in a patch of earth around my witch hazel tree. They came up and I harvested some red potatoes believe it or not. I ate them, too. Some volunteers came up last spring and I pulled them out when they got to looking scroungy, eaten alive almost from flea beetles. When a new vine sprouted this spring in the very same place I let it go until it, too, got that moth eaten look. It was offensively ugly. When I jerked it up, however, I found the three potatoes mentioned above and lots of tiny red balls which could have turned it more if I let them grow.

I try to eat every food item my sloppy gardening produces. So this morning I set to peeling my little 'volunteers;' then, I sliced them very thinly and began to fry them in two little skillets with tiny amounts of butter and olive oil. I added some sliced onion (store bought) and some minced red pepper from the garden I was drying. And a small tomato, also from my garden, chopped up. Then I added one small piece of summer squash from the farmer's market, sliced but not so thinly, and finally some chopped up arugula. I seasoned with some Spike and a little garlic powder.

This made a good little golden-looking breakfast for me. Yum!

Cool carrot salad

Today I cleaned out the fridge. As a result, I had fried cabbage and onions for breakfast. I also made a carrot salad out of the floppy carrots I found in the vegetable drawer. Some of them were growing hair (roots?). No worry; I chopped off the ends of each carrot, scrubbed them with a vegetable brush and used a peeler on them. Then, I shredded them with the little Black & Decker mini-processor I bought 14 years ago.

I think I used about 8 rather small carrots. I added a tablespoon or two of orange juice, some Craisins and a quarter cup of raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing.

I let the carrot salad chill in the clean refrigerator all day and had a little for dinner with hash browns and romaine and avocado salad. Yummy!

Blackberries! No jam

On a recent visit to my sister's home in Georgia, I joined her as she walked her miniature dachshunds, Cinnamon and Ginger. We decided to venture beyond her well kept subdivision to explore an abandoned housing project. One of several near her neighborhood north of Atlanta which bit the dust during the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007, the project area is huge. At one end a construction pond has morphed into a marshland replete with cattails bursting in the summer sun. At the other end we found a trove of wild berry patches. Blackberries, I'm almost sure. It was early in the day before the summer heat had taken hold but we had nothing to hold the easily available pickings and decided to come back later.

We did that, dragging my just awakened daughter Katie with us. Actually Katie and I got there first. Laura came later with the dogs which she tied to a small tree in the midst of one of the blackberry patches. It was mid morning and hot so we didn't stay long. Among the three of us we gathered at least 12 cups in a short time. They sat on Laura's kitchen counter for a day. Then she rinsed about half and froze them. I rinsed the rest and brought them back to Tennessee with me.

The berries were extremely tart, but I dumped them in a pot thinking I'd add gobs of sugar and make a little jam. Big Oven has a simple recipe. After the berries had cooked down quite a bit I plopped a sample spoonful into a bowl and added sugar. After mixing this up I tasted some and found the sweetened berries had a good musty flavor.

But... The berry seeds were so big and so many that the texture was just unacceptable. I didn't know what to do.
I finally strained the cooked berries and got a little more than a pint of thick bitter juice.

I know dark berries have great anti-oxidant qualities so I'm drinking the stuff. Instead of adding sugar to the bitter mix, I add a couple of tablespoons of berry juice to 8 ounces of apple juice.
It tastes fine and I think it's healthy, too.

'Tarting up' brown rice

A few days ago I wrote about brown rice as a great gluten-free staple food and credited it with helping me lose a little weight. One of my faithful readers, Kishia, immediately responded that she liked the idea BUT that brown rice can get boring sometimes. Kishia is a Facebook friend and one of my daughter Katie's best friends from childhood.

Then, my friend Irene quickly came to the rescue with a few ideas for "tarting up (her phrase)" brown rice dishes. "Herbs, hot sauce, or lemon pepper are just three ways to liven up brown rice," she advises.

I use a little unsalted butter and some soy sauce to season plain brown rice. These may be counter-productive for those on fat restricted or low salt diets. When I have leftover brown rice for breakfast, I add half a banana, chopped, a pat of butter and some honey before I microwave it.

I also think short grain brown rice has a more interesting texture than long grain brown rice.
I mentioned before that I am partial to the Lundberg brand. Then today while sorting through piles of clippings and unopened mail I found the following recipe for Short Grain Spanish Rice, clipped from my last bag of Lundberg.

Short Grain Spanish Rice

1 can (14.5 oz) undrained diced tomatoes
2-3 cups water or chicken broth
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 and 1/2 cups Lundberg Short Grain Brown Rice
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper (optional)

Drain tomatoes, reserving liquid. Add to the reserved liquid enough water or broth (or combination, thereof) to make 3 cups. Set aside.
Heat oil in 4-quart heavy saucepan with a tight-fitting lid.
Add bell pepper, onion and garlic; saute briefly. Add rice and cayenne; stir.
Add the 3 cups reserved liquid. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 30 minutes. Add tomatoes. Cover and continue cooking 20 minutes.
Remove from heat, let stand in covered pot for 10 minutes. Fluff with fork, salt to taste.
Yield: 5 cups, 6-7 servings.

I haven't tried this but it does sound yummy.

Now, after finding the above recipe, I decided to go online to find a recipe for rice pudding made with brown rice. I've always loved rice pudding which I learned to eat in the school cafeteria in Benton, Arkansas. Of course, that was long ago when school cafeterias first started getting federal funds and all the food was cooked in house and served from steam tables and there were no snack food or drink machines to be found.

Brown rice requires more water and more cooking time so regular recipes for rice pudding just don't work. I'd never thought to look online before, but I found several at the Lundberg website:

Old Fashioned Rice Pudding

1 1/2 cups cooked Lundberg® Short Grain Brown Rice
3 eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup raisins or chopped dates (optional)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups milk
nutmeg
finely chopped nuts (optional)

Beat eggs, add sugar, beat until smooth. Add milk, salt and extract. Add rice and raisins. Pour into greased shallow baking dish. Sprinkle with nutmeg. Set in pan of hot water and bake at 350 degrees for 90 minutes or until custard is set. After baking for approximately 30 minutes, gently stir custard to suspend rice. Serve warm or cold with milk or whipped cream. Serves six.

Bacon and eggs with cheese, no toast

This morning I went by my doctor's to have my blood pressure checked -- I actually had to make an appointment for this -- and my reading was 120/80. Hurray! For a while now my readings have bordered on being high: 135/89 or 140/85. My daughter told me the lower number represents your resting blood pressure and that nowadays doctors like to see that number in the 70s. But when I was young 120/80 was considered normal.

The LPN (licensed practical nurse) who took my blood pressure was young African American woman. Shorter than me (I'm 5'3"), very pretty and with a lovely sunny disposition she smiled and said, "You're doing something right!" I wanted to hug her.

My blood pressure is extra important now because I'm seeking to donate a kidney to my daughter who lost kidney function in January of 2008. A beautiful twenty-something she went to an Urgent Care clinic with what she thought was a bad cold or the flu. They took blood and urine samples and sent her home with a prescription for an antibiotic. Her tests revealed her kidneys were functioning at 10 percent and that she was severely anemic. (The kidneys secrete a hormone that stimulates red blood cell production in the bone marrow.) The clinic called her and told her to get to an emergency ward immediately.

Like many seemingly healthy young people my daughter is a victim of IgA nephropathy, an auto-immune disease that can result in permanent kidney damage. As soon as we heard the diagnosis -- permanent kidney damage -- I volunteered myself as a possible kidney donor. I remembered an aunt who donated a kidney to her daughter way back in the 1940's. They both lived long healthy lives afterwards.

I was ready to get on the operating table in January of 2008. But we soon learned things were not that simple. She's been on dialysis for two years now. In the first kidney transplant program she registered with her transplant coordinator resisted me as a possible donor from the beginning. Because of my age. I am 67. She would not even agree to test my blood until I proved myself exceptionally healthy. I made the mistake of telling her my blood pressure was sometimes borderline. That made things even worse.

Recently, Katie applied to Vanderbilt's Kidney Transplant Program here in Nashville. I accompanied her as a post-operative care-giver and possible donor. They took my blood the same day (right after they took hers) and I soon learned that I am a blood match for her. Hence, my double excitement about my good blood pressure reading.

But what have I been doing right, as my beautiful nurse said?

For one thing, I've lost seven pounds. For another, I've been on a gluten free diet for about two months now. Of course, this second thing has helped with the weight loss since it eliminates bread and anything else made with flour. It has also alleviated my irritable bowel syndrome, something that has plagued me ever since I can remember. I have not been diagnosed with celiac disease for which a gluten free diet is recommended (in fact, it is the only treatment for it).

In a roundabout way, the gluten-free diet has improved my eating habits overall. I eat more fruits and vegetables, partly to replace toast and sandwiches and partly because I seem to crave them more. I've also cut down on fats, red meat and have switched from regular to turkey bacon.

Finally, brown rice has become the gluten-free starch that holds my diet together. I cook it in a ricer two or three times a week. It's always on hand so I can eat it when nothing else is. I buy Lunden's Short Grain Rice in bulk at Cost-Co (NOT at Whole Foods! I boycott them because of their right-wing, anti-union Chief Operating Officer.)

Farina, my best breakfast

With few exceptions, my husband Jimmy doesn't really like the things I cook. One of these (exceptions) is my special farina breakfast. I just follow the directions on the box to make two servings. But I add some things:

A banana, sliced (half in the bottom of each bowl)

Then, I add about 1/3 cup each of the following ingredients to the pan just before serving:

C'raisons (that's a brand name for dried, sweetened cranberries)
Dried blueberries
Chopped walnuts, chopped pecans or chopped almonds (or any combination thereof)

After mixing in these ingredients, I divide the hot cereal equally into the two bowls with banana slices in the bottom, top with pats of butter and some brown sugar, then serve.

This is yummy; Jimmy scrapes his bowl clean. He adds a packet of artificial sweetener to his. I'm a fat lover and sometimes add a splash of half 'n' half to mine.

We have this healthy breakfast with some orange juice.

If you want old-fashioned (slower cooking) farina you'll have to buy it at a health food store (not Whole Foods!) because you can't find it in regular grocery stores. They only sell the kind that's been treated with disodium phosphate to make it cook faster (2 1/2 minutes). I did talk to one grocery store manager and he said he could special order the regular kind, but I haven't done that, partly because I like the fast cooking. Lazy me!

I also make the same basic recipe with quick cooking oatmeal (rolled oats). I think the oatmeal is healthier but Jimmy likes the farina kind best.

Very bad fried okra

I love okra. I really like just plain boiled okra. You know, the slimy kind. I grew okra last summer and again this summer. Last summer, I had about 8 plants; this year, only two. One of these is extremely productive.

The trouble with okra after these start producing is that you have to eat or freeze what the plants produce. I still haven't got the knack.

You can't eat them raw like cherry tomatoes. They're too fuzzy. Actually mine are downright prickly before they're cooked.

I had a old slew saved up in the fridge and today decided to make fried okra to please my husband, Jimmy. I started by washing them and chopping off the ends; then I sliced them.

Then I dumped the sliced okra into a mixture of egg and milk.

Then I used a slotted spoon add them to a cornmeal mixture in a Tupperware container designed for marinating meat. It has a top that seals really well so you can turn it over during marination.
I shake it so the cornmeal get all over the okra.

To the cornmeal mixture, I had added way too much Spike, some onion salt and garlic powder.
I also added some of my home-grown lemon-scented oregano and too much plain salt. My daughter used to fuss at me because I didn't cook with enough seasonings so now that she's out on her own, I've started adding anything and everything to spice things up.

I fried the okra in a Dutch oven like cast iron skillet in a combination of butter, olive oil and safflower oil. I did not deep fat fry the okra. I don't know how to do that and besides I would be terrified of the amount of hot grease needed to deep fry anything.

Despite my dipping the okra in an egg and milk mixture before "dredging" them, most of the corn meal mixture fell off the okra immediately. To make matters worse the loose cornmeal and that stuck to the okra got slightly burned.

Oh, well.

On his way to the kitchen to get his share of the okra and salmon patties I cooked to go with it, my husband said, "I've about decided the best thing to do is eat TV dinners. You don't have all the mess..."

"And they usually taste better," I added as he returned to the living room.

"Yeah," he said after he sat down again, "It doesn't make any sense to make all that mess for something that tastes like squat."

He's right. That fried okra was worse than squat. It was too salty and too grainy. The taste of okra was lost along with the slime.

That's the last time I fry okra.