kombucha

Awhile ago, my Food & Fitness instructor brought her kombucha culture to class. It was massive. She divided the scoby (symbiotic culture of bacteria & yeast) into pieces so anyone who wanted to make their own kombucha could have a piece.



I took a scoby piece home for kicks. The scoby needed something to feed on, so I brewed black tea (roughly 8 cups water, 4-5 tea bags) and sweetened it with sugar (3/4 cup).



After brewing, I waited till the tea cooled down to room temperature, then poured it into a clean jar (formerly of pickles) with the scoby and about a cup of its original liquid.

The jar was covered with a clean towel and left to undergo the aerobic (oxygen included) first fermentation. During that time the scoby grows thicker, the tea turns slightly sour and the whole thing starts to smell like apple cider vinegar.



10 days later I pour most of the liquid into a second jar, this time with a tight-fitting lid for the anaerobic (no oxygen) second fermentation. You can flavor your kombucha at this point - so far I have tried a capful of elderberry syrup (floral/fragrant and very pleasant), agave nectar (slightly spicy/smoky sweet) and honey lemon (still fermenting). You can use a variety of fruit purees or nectars to flavor.

Meanwhile I brew a new batch of tea to accompany the leftover scoby/liquid for another first fermentation.



5 days later I move the second fermentation to the refrigerator, to slow it down so it doesn't get too sour and fizzy on me. The fermentation lengths are something you can play with, both for the first and second fermentation. It's recommended to taste the liquid every day so you can see how you like it - the longer it goes the less sweet and more sour it gets.

If you're here in San Francisco, I'd be happy to give you a piece of my scoby. If you're not though, here's a good article to get you started with your own. Happy fermenting!

vegan chocolate mousse (and cake)

For Food & Fitness class we had to do a project on a healthy cookbook of our choice. I chose 500 Vegan Recipes because they had a recipe for chocolate mousse that I found intriguing.

It involved avocado (ripe, 1), tofu (firm, 1 pound) and agave syrup (1/4 cup).



I pureed the tofu and agave syrup first, then added melted chocolate (dark, 2 cups). It was a little grainy, but I think it would've worked if the tofu was the soft kind. I wanted to try without avocado because Whole Food's vegan chocolate mousse is really good and all it is is chocolate, tofu and brown rice syrup.



After I added the avocado the mixture became smoother/creamier.



I wanted to serve samples to the class, so I made a vegan chocolate cake to accompany the mousse. This was my first foray into vegan baking and I had no idea to expect. The cake came out dark and dense, like bread almost. Besides having no egg, no dairy, it also didn't have sugar. The only sweetness was from the non-dairy yogurt and applesauce that I put in.

The cake by itself didn't taste very good, although it did have the texture/chewiness of a regular chocolate cake.



Thankfully it tasted better with the mousse. I cut the cake into little squares and placed them in little sample cups, then piped mousse over.



The mousse actually set at room temperature, to a ganache-like consistency. Definitely didn't expect that. Also the dark chocolate taste was too strong (and I'm speaking as someone who loves dark chocolate). If I were to make this again I would use a milk/dark chocolate mixture, and/or cut down the amount of chocolate in the recipe.

If anyone has any vegan dessert recipes to share, please let me know! I'd love to try other stuff.

yummy granola bars

The most yummy thing that we've made in Food & Fitness class to date has been these granola bars. I made them at home with the recipe modified to my liking.

First, the wet mixture: 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/3 cup honey, 1/4 cup flour, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.



Then the dry mixture: 2 cups puffed wheat cereal, 2 cups rolled oats, 1 cup dried apricot (chopped), 1/2 cup salted almonds, 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips.



Combine the two mixtures and drop into a greased 9 x 13 pan. To press the mixture down without getting your hands all sticky, use a greased piece of parchment paper.



Bake in a 350F oven for 20 minutes or until golden. Then let cool for at least an hour before attempting to cut it. Mine didn't cut very well but you might be able to avoid that problem with either a little more honey, or a little more hardcore cooling (in the fridge or freezer).

Feel free to substitute with your own favorite puffed cereal, dried fruits, nuts/seeds, etc!

portion control

Maybe because of Food & Fitness class and in general being ever more conscious of what I eat, I have been changing what/how I eat. Not dieting or avoiding foods, but by 1) eating smaller meals and 2) eating more often. This and lots of dance/exercise means fast metabolism and healthier being.

I think portion control and exercise is a much less stressful way to go than dieting. And portion control doesn't have to involve much of saying no - part of it is switching things around and tricking your eyes.

An example here is how I eat lunch at my internship, where everything is plentiful and self-serve. I take a plate and fill it with salad, then I take a bowl and fill that with starch and meat. It's a reversal from how things usually go, where the plate is starch and meat, and the bowl would be salad. (Which reminds me of the video we watched in Food & Fitness - it talked about Americans planning entrees around meat with starch and vegetables as sides instead of the other way around.)



Also, once I'm full I don't eat any more. Which is hard because I was brought up to eat everything in front of me, to never waste food. So I try to gauge my hunger level and only get enough food that I can finish. (I no longer feel bad about throwing away junk food though. In my mind since it's devoid of nutrients, it's not waste.)

So if you're contemplating healthy changes in diet or lifestyle, I would recommend portion control, and exercise. You don't have to say no to yourself to look good and feel better!

yogurt "cheese"

Imagine eating cheese but not gaining any calories. Sounds impossible but you can get pretty close with yogurt cheese. All you need to do is hang up some non-fat (or low-fat) yogurt in a cheesecloth. The liquid drains away in a day and what's left is something that resembles ricotta.



Of course you have to season it. In Food & Fitness class we added chopped fresh herbs (chives, rosemary, thyme), garlic, salt and pepper. But you can always do sundried tomato, pesto, olives, etc. The possibilities are endless! I might even try yogurt cheese cheesecake and see how that turns out.



In case you're wondering about the crackers, the brand is Mary's and it's from Costco. Rice crackers loaded with different grains and seeds. Super healthy and super crunchy good. A great pairing with the yogurt cheese, or any other kind of cheese!

food & fitness: grains and legumes

In Food & Fitness class most everybody is non-culinary, and cooking with them has been a different experience, in a good way. Everybody is really eager to work together and learn, and even pitch in with menial tasks like dishes. Definitely didn't expect everybody to be so on top of it, but maybe my team just rocks :)



We were assigned to do a hummus-like garbanzo spread. There was no tahini involved, but we made two versions of the spread and put sesame seeds in one. I like hummus better though.



I think the main point being made was that grains + legumes together give us the entire set of proteins that our body needs. Common grains are rice and wheat, with whole grains being vastly better for us because they contain the germ (essential nutrients) and bran layer (fiber). Common legumes are peas, beans and lentils.

It really amazes me that so many cultures have the grain + legume foundation to fulfill people's protein needs so that meat becomes secondary. Think about it, Latin America has rice and beans, East Asia has rice and soy, South Asia has rice and lentils, etc.



Perhaps inspired by the grain/legume theme in class, I made quinoa at home. I've only made it once before, to eat cold as a salad, but this time I made it hot. Quinoa is unbelievably easy to cook, and it's surprising that more people don't know about it since it's a complete protein in itself!

I put quinoa (with some dried cranberries) in chicken broth, 1 part quinoa to 1.5 parts broth. You basically bring the mixture to a boil, then turn the heat off and keep the lid on for about 20 minutes while the quinoa cooks.



Here what it looks like cooked.



Then I fluffed it with a fork, and added some chopped parsley (other good additions would have been caramelized onions or orange zest).



I garnished the top with some crushed almonds, although other nuts would work as well. And to make it a complete dinner, I included some stir-fried veggies. Very satisfying, and no meat necessary!

food & fitness: quickbreads

Besides Sous Vide Cooking (and later on in the semester, Modern Sauces), the other cooking-related class I'm taking is called Food & Fitness. I was hoping to learn more about culinary nutrition than I did in the required nutrition class (that turned out much more science-y than I'd hoped). And so far, I have learned a lot about healthful cooking and what not to eat.

Sadly, I'm not big on avoidance. I'd rather eat less and exercise more than keep a list of what I shouldn't be eating and filter all of my available food options through that no-no list. Because that method requires more work/thinking, and because I believe that it also wears down your available willpower, which could be used to do other things.

Anyway! We alternate between lecture classes and lab classes. Our first lab class involved baked goods, mostly muffins/quickbreads. And the fat in those baked goods were substituted with applesauce and prune puree, which works to some degree because those ingredients provide moisture, which is a big part of what fat does for baked goods.



Our group of seven (almost all non-culinary students) tackled prune buttermilk bread and raisin bran muffins. The prune buttermilk bread used some margarine but also chopped prunes. The raisin bran muffins used a tiny amount of oil but also applesauce.



Another group did banana pecan muffins, which had also a tiny amount of oil but prune puree and nonfat yogurt.



Another group did lowfat fudgy brownies, which only had prune puree.



Everything tasted okay in terms of moistness and sweetness, but the missing fat took away from the savoriness. The substitutions are interesting to me, not because I want to be more healthy, but because it's always interesting to know what different ingredients do for a particular product. I tend to substitute greek yogurt for sour cream, because I think the tastes are similar enough (for a baked good or for a dip), but also because I'm more likely to buy greek yogurt because I can eat it with fruit and honey. I think applesauce and prune puree are ingredients I would add in addition to fat instead of to replace fat. It reminds me of the carrot cake I once made with canned pineapples - the carrot cake came out so moist because of that addition.

I think the star of the session was the apricot blackberry cornmeal kuchen, which had an interesting textural grittiness because of the cornmeal. It was almost like gritty cornbread but very airy, and the apricot & blackberries were delicious. I've never thought of those two fruits as a combination, but I'm definitely going to use it from now on.