Magnificent Mizuna

Mizuna, also known as Japanese Mustard Greens, looks similar to arugula, but has a different flavor.  It is a delicate leaf with a mild flavor, slightly spicy.  The lettuce is a specialty item and not easy to find.  Look for it at Asian markets and farm markets, still available locally.  Mizuna is a nutrition powerhouse:

• Low in calories
• High in folic acid
• High in vitamin A and carotenoids (nutritive chemicals that exist in plant and animal pigments)
• High in imune boosting vitamin C
• High in iron
• High in antioxidants, which help prevent certain cancers.  

Use Mizuna to power up your salads, or eat it by itself, add to soups, appetizers, sautés, smoothies, juices. 

The Super Sweet Potato

There are hundreds of types of sweet potatoes and a yam is not one of them.  A yam is actually a different tuber all together.   Many of us may not be able to tell the difference between a yam and a sweet potato since our grocery stores  usually label the orange variety of sweet potato a yam.  Sweet potatoes range in color from white, to yellow, to deep orange, to purple.  Afraid to eat them 'cause of their sweetness?  Don't be!!!  The sweet potato is one of those nutritionally dense foods that should be eaten despite their sweetness.   Generally sweet potatoes have Manganese, Folate, Copper and Iron.  The darker varieties tend to have more mineral content like beta-carotene, which is best absorbed when eaten with a healthy fat.  They also have Vitamins C, B2, B6, E, and biotin.   Here are the top 5 reasons to eat more sweet potatoes, whatever their color:

1. Reduce Inflammation- they contain antioxidants which lower inflammation in our body.  Inflammation is the root cause for most illnesses like Asthma, Heart Disease, Gout, etc.
2. Fiber-healthy for the digestive tract and lowering risk of certain cancers.
3. Potassium- maintain fluid and electrolyte balance in the body which is crucial for  stabilizing blood pressure and regulating heart function Also reduces  muscle cramps.
4. Nutritious- a rich source of dietary fiber, natural sugars, complex carbohydrates, protein, carotenoids, Vitamin C, Folate, Iron, and Calcium. They have a low glycemic index.
5. Delicious!-they taste so good!   Add them cooked to smoothies, salads, soups, etc.  Although they CAN be eaten raw it is  NOT a best practice.  They contain a chemical, which is cooked out,  that prevents the proper digestion of protein which can cause GI issues.

Try these recipes: 

The Hip Turnip

As many of you know, my summer blogging is inspired by Upper Pond, an organic farm located here in Old Lyme, CT.  I purchased a CSA share from the farm this year;  if you recall from a previous blog, a CSA is a way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer.  A farmer offers a certain number of "shares" to the public, typically consisting of a box of vegetables, but other farm products may be included, each week throughout farming season.  The advantage to the consumer is eating ultra-fresh food, with all the flavor and vitamin benefits, getting exposed to new vegetables and new ways of cooking, developing a relationship with the farmer who grows their food and learn more about how food is grown.  We definitely have this experience with Upper Pond and I am honored to highlight the beautiful foods that they grow, and offer a fresh perspective on how to eat them.  This week I am highlighting the turnip, the young turnip to be exact: white, sweet, crunchy. 

I love turnips.  They are part of the cruciferous family, like broccoli and kale.  Not only are they delicious and versatile, but loaded with vitamins and minerals, however their nutritional value is depleted , as with any vegetable, if you boil them.  Turnips lower blood pressure, and help prevent cancer:

• High in fiber-lowering all kinds of health risks and making you feel full
•  Vitamins-vitamins C, B's (nervous system function, help with fat, carbohydrate and protein metabolism, healthy skin, hair, eyes, liver)
• Minerals- Calcium, potassium, small amounts of iron, magnesium, phosphorus
• Low in calories-51 calories per mashed cup (200 calories for potato).

The leafy greens of the turnip are edible, and are actually more nutritious than the turnip itself!  If you happen to have your turnip with green tops in tact, remove the greens as soon as you can;  the greens will actually leach nutrients from the turnip.  The greens should be washed thoroughly and can be used raw of cooked, thrown in with your salad, soup, sandwich, or sautéed on low heat with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Turnips resemble potatoes in texture, but exude a bitter flavor, unless you are eating them before they are mature.  

At Upper Pond we have the young, sweet turnips in our share.  How to eat them?  Wash thoroughly.  They only need to be peeled if the skin is tough, which should not be the case with the young turnips.  I like to slice them and use them as a , you guessed it, as a "cracker" topped with chopped Greek olive mix (olive tapenade).  The slices can be added to your sandwich.  Cut them into cubes and add to a salad.  Shred the and make a slaw.  I also love them steamed until tender and smashed with Kerrygold salted butter fresh ground pepper, and chopped fresh parsley.  Don't be afraid to just add them to anything.  Throw them in a casserole or roasting pan by themselves or other veggies in a 400 degree oven, toss with olive oil and roast in the oven, turning with a spoon occasionally.  You don't want to miss these recipes.  Turnips have become quite popular in the New York City restaurants.

Finish Your Radishes!

You may have already realized that the topics I write about this time of year are directly related to our locally grown produce.  Most often I have a specific request.  Toward the end of summer it may at first seem as though it takes a bit more effort to find something interesting to highlight because the popular veggies and herbs have already been mentioned. Having said that we almost forgot the radish!   Do you/did you forget the radish, too?

It seems in my experience that radishes are overlooked much of the time.  Can you remember being told to finish your radishes before you can leave the dinner table?  It seems to be the last thing left on the crudité platter if it is included at all.  The radish is usually appreciated for it’s pretty color and ease of cutting into a pretty flower.  It accompanies but is seldom the main event.  Is this true for you as well?  Today I am featuring the radish.  It IS the main event.  Honestly, never have I considered the radish as a powerful food, until now.  It was not on my radar.  The only reason I have purchased the radish was to add color to my crudité platter.  The only other time I have radishes is when they are included in my CSA box (Community Supported Agriculture- a way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer.  A farmer offers a certain number of "shares" to the public, typically consisting of a box of vegetables, but other farm products may be included, each week throughout farming season.  The advantage to the consumer is eating ultra-fresh food, with all the flavor and vitamin benefits, getting exposed to new vegetables and new ways of cooking, developing a relationship with the farmer who grows their food and learn more about how food is grown).  As a member of the cruciferous vegetables, like broccoli, radishes have amazing health benefits.  It is time to start paying more attention to the radish:

5 Reasons to eat your radishes:

1.     Detoxifying-helps to break down and eliminate toxins,

2.     Digestive Aid- helps to relieve bloating and indigestion and aids in the digestive process,

3.     Low in calories and high in nutrients,

4.     Nourishing and hydrating- high vitamin C, Folate, fiber, riboflavin, and potassium,

5.     Cruciferous- helps to eliminate the cancer-causing free radicals.  Radishes contain many phytonutrients that aid in cancer prevention.

The radish offers a peppery flavor with lots of crunch.  They come in many shapes and sizes.  Not only are they used in culinary, but medicinally as well, like all real food.  The radish greens can be eaten as well of course.  To keep the radish fresh, remove the greens prior to storing, wash, and wrap in a damp paper towel prior to sealing them in a container or plastic bag.  They can be eaten raw, roasted, broiled, shredded, chopped, sliced.  Don’t forget to eat your radishes today.  Please click on the "recipes" button for some delicious ideas.

Green Beans Aren't Always Green

Beans can be quite confusing: beans, legumes, peas, lentils. They can be divided into two main groups: those that can be eaten pod and all, called snap or green beans, and others that are shelled for their seeds and eaten either fresh, dried, called shell or dried beans.  Green beans, not always green, are the unripe, immature pods of the most tender bean varieties, and are entirely edible.

Green beans, also called snap beans because of the sound their pods make when broken, are called string beans if they have a fibrous string that runs down the side.  Most of our green beans today are stringless.   There are dozens of varieties of green beans and are the most commonly planted type of bean: haricot vert, scarlet runner, winged, and yard-long bean.  Green beans are not always green;  they can also be yellow or purple.  Yellow beans are sometimes called was beans for their waxy color.

One cup of beans has only 31 calories. High in vitamins A and C, a cup of raw snap beans can provide about 17 percent of the daily requirement of vitamin A and about 27 percent of vitamin C. Folate is present in snap beans as well and they are very rich source of dietary fiber and many minerals.

How to prepare them?  Always thoroughly wash your produce.  I have both a spray and a liquid.  I use the liquid for soaking, such as lettuce or green beans.  Trim the beans by snapping off the stem of stringless beans, quicker yet, bundle them and trim all at once using a Chef's knife.  There is no need to cut the curled in.  Your beans are now ready be eaten raw, steamed, boiled, blanched is my favorite way, with olive oil and fresh garlic.  You can add beans to just about anything and chopping them gives them more versatility.    

Sunflower Power: Did you know?

The Sunflower has an impressive symbolic history and spiritual meaning.  The flower has devoted it's very shape in worship to the sun, harnessing the sun's energy and will move into perfect position, facing the sun to absorb this energy.  The disc of the sunflower is made up of many little flowers. 

What do you see when you gaze upon the flower?  Many of us see the sun, a beautiful flower, or a reminder that fall is approaching.  Others see the sunflower as the giver of delicious seeds.  I now see this flower as a nutritious plant;  Did you know that most of the sunflower plant can be eaten?  I was thrilled to discover this during my research and should have known that sunflower are among the edible flowers.  A word of caution; edible flowers should be eaten organic as flowers are generally sprayed with toxic pesticides.  I am not able to describe how to eat the sunflower and edible flowers as well as LIVESTRONG.com and TheDirtDoctor.com, so please click on the following two links to expand on your knowledge, your nutrition, your recipes, and your creativity:

Sunflower seeds can be added to anything: smoothies, salads, cookies, eaten by themselves.  Raw is best or lightly roasted.  You can grind them into sun butter.  The petals can be added to any of your salads or veggie dishes.  The stalks can be chopped and used as you would use celery.  Please click on the LIVESTRONG link above for additional ideas to utilize the entire sunflower.

Squash Blossoms

Fresh squash is only available a few short months out of the year, making the blossoms a delicacy.   Squash blossoms are the flowers produced by any number of fruiting vines such as zucchini, pumpkin, and other various types of squash. Squash are technically a fruit. The blossoms are either male, providing pollen,  or female, producing a fruit body (zucchini, pumpkin, etc...) and may even be found attached to a small young squash. Picking the male flowers is most common;  the female flowers will produce squash if left on the vine. If you find you have a bumper zucchini crop for example, picking the female flowers will help curtail your squash harvest.  Harvesting squash blossoms is a timely process and they don't have a long shelf life, so once acquired they must be used almost immediately.

Squash blossoms have a mild floral flavor and are very colorful.  They are most commonly battered and fried, but they can be stuffed with cheese, added raw to salads, baked, added to soups or pizzas.  They can be eaten raw although they exhibit much more flavor cooked.  Squash are popular in many ethnic cuisines, particularly in Mexico and the Mediterranean.

There is not much to write here except that these edible flowers are not only beautiful, but highly sought after, fragile and extremely perishable.  They can be difficulty to find, mostly available at farmers markets, as chefs will buy up the entire selection.  Consider yourself lucky if you have the opportunity to try them.

Garlic, The Nectar Of The Gods!

Garlic!  The nectar of the gods!!  Where do I begin?!?!

Garlic is an herb, and a close relative to the onion.  It just may be one of the healthiest of foods, used not only in cooking but also medicinally.  It literally is beneficial for most disease and illness; I will discuss a few.  1.  It is a CURE for and helps prevent the common cold.  Garlic is a powerful antioxidant with antimicrobial, antiviral and antibiotic properties. For colds and flues, it also provides decongestant and expectorant effects. Garlic has vitamin C, is loaded with enzymes and minerals such as sulphur and selenium. 2. Garlic lowers blood pressure.  3. Garlic protects against cancer. 

Whether you are trying to prevent, reduce, or cure an illness or disease, or treat a condition, eat garlic.  It has been used for both food and medicine for thousands of years.  You can purchase it as a supplement in pill, capsule, and powder form, garlic oil, extract, and garlic powder.  You can also purchase it already minced.  Garlic is BEST in its fresh form, crushed, whether you are using it as food or medicine.

Garlic produces a chemical called allicin, which gives garlic its smell.  Allicin is diminished greatly in aged garlic, making it odorless, such as those in supplements.  Allicin is what seems to make garlic work for certain conditions. Many of us may be discourage from eating fresh garlic due to “garlic breath”.  "The same sulfuric compounds in garlic that benefit your health circulate to the lungs and are exhaled with your breath, leaving you with dragon mouth for several hours," says Sheryl Barringer, Ph.D., a professor of food science and technology at Ohio State University.  You can neutralize your “garlic breath” naturally.  See Dr. Barringer’s suggestions below:

1. Eat Raw Apples

Apples contain an enzyme that acts as a natural deodorant to the sulphides in garlic that cause bad breath.

2. Drink Lemon Juice

The acid in lemon juice neutralizes alliinase, an enzyme produced by crushing garlic that causes our unfortunate odor situations.

3. Green Tea

Green tea is very high in antioxidants called polyphenols. As with the enzymes in the apple, polyphenols cover up the odor-causing chemicals in garlic.

Sheryl Barringer, states that it is best to use the bad breath cures at the same time you’re eating garlic, so add apples to that salad with the garlicky dressing or use  some lemon juice in your garlic dip.

You can also ward off garlic breath by chewing on a sprig of parsley—the chlorophyll in it works as a natural breath freshener.  To help remove garlic stink from your hands and cutting board, try rubbing them with a wedge of lemon or on a stainless-steel surface such as a faucet.

Garlic is celebrated; there are even garlic festivals celebrating the herb in things like ice cream and chocolate.

WebMD

FWx

3 Scientifically Proven Ways to Get Rid of Garlic Breath

By Noah Kaufman | Jul 16 2014

Womens Health

Odor Eaters: Get Rid of Garlic Breath

How to get rid of the pungent smell of garlic breath, and get the stink off your hands, too

Published: February 29, 2012

Tomatoes Are More Than Just Lycopene

Tomatoes are well known for their lycopene, which is most present when they are vine ripened.  The best way to get lycopene, which is in the skin and gives red tomatoes their color, and is also present in yellow tomatoes, is by cooking or processing the tomato (sauce, juice, paste).  The antioxidant properties of lycopene may protect our immune cells from destructive free radicals. 

Tomatoes offer much more than this;  "It is said that there is no other known pharmacy that can cure as many things as the tomato."  Not only are they therapeutic, but useful for health and beauty.  Tomatoes contain vitamin C, which is concentrated in the jelly-like substance that encases the seeds.   Many recipes advise removing the seeds, but to conserve nutrients keep the seeds.  Tomatoes contain vitamin K, which plays a key role in clotting blood and maintaining strong bones.  Vitamin A helps maintain healthy skin, hair, mucous membranes, bones and teeth.  They are extremely diuretic, cleanse the body, help reduce cholesterol levels, prevent infections, eliminate uric acid (gout).

Beauty?  It is believed that tomatoes protect the skin against ultraviolet lights.  Tomatoes and tomato products enable your skin to take in oxygen, delaying aging and wrinkling.  According to studies, lycopene contained in the tomatoes and tomato products is protective against the risk of skin cancer.

Sources:
http://www.besthealthmag.ca/best-eats/nutrition/5-reasons-to-eat-more-tomatoes#k19yllk1iKGgk7aU.99

http://www.beliefnet.com/Wellness/Health/9-Surprising-Health-Benefits-of-Tomatoes.aspx?p=2#JQBgoaR3dE6IcAmM.99

http://www.beliefnet.com/Wellness/Health/9-Surprising-Health-Benefits-of-Tomatoes.aspx?p=2#JQBgoaR3dE6IcAmM.99

http://www.tat.com.tr/en/healthy-red/the-beauty-secrets-of-tomato/

Summer Squash Refresher

Zucchini and Yellow Squash are varieties of Summer Squash.  They can be used interchangeably in recipes. Each can be eaten raw, steamed, roasted, grilled, sauteed, etc.  They can be cut in half, hollowed out and stuffed.  So it is virtually impossible to tire of Summer Squash. 

In this newsletter I would like to discuss using the squash in it's raw state.  Raw, they can be added to a smoothie, giving texture, fiber, vitamins and minerals, a nutritional boost for only about 46 calories/cup.  In a smoothie the squash is undetectable.  They can be made into "pasta" using a vegetable spiralizer, adding to  a salad, can BE the salad, or as a raw side-dish.  The spiraled squash can be cooked and served with tomato sauce. They can be cut into chunks or julienne for a veggie platter or a snack.  You can add these squashes to just about anything, including dessert breads, savory breads, cakes, muffins. 

Have a look below at the nutritional value, similar for both varieties.  Be sure to add to your dishes for an extra boost of nutrition and texture.

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Leftover Lettuce? Get excited about Romaine!!!!!

There is so much you can do with Romaine Lettuce!  It’s not just for salads anymore! Have a look at the nutritional information!