Sundays with Sparky: Kiwi Gelatin...of Science!!!

Second in our Edible Chemistry Set** series is an experiment that involves a colloid, enzymes and molecular bonds.

Ingredients:

2 packets of unflavored gelatin

2 cups of fruit juice (using our super-cool measuring cup, we found that this was slightly more than the volume of twenty thousand grains of rice)
2 fresh, soft kiwis* (or one fresh, juicy pineapple*)

Equipment:

A knife and cutting board
1 microwave-safe bowl
2 clear containers that hold more than 1 cup each (you can use large drinking glasses)

Directions:

Make fruit juice flavored gelatin: – pour ½ cup fruit juice into a large bowl. Sprinkle 1 packet unflavored gelatin over the juice and allow it to “bloom” or dissolve slightly. After 5 minutes, add half the remaining juice and mix thoroughly. Place in the microwave, microwave on high for 40 seconds, check to see if all the gelatin is dissolved. If not, stir, and continue to microwave in 40-second increments and stir until you can’t see gelatin granules any more.  Add the remaining juice and stir thoroughly.

Place the bowl in the refrigerator and allow to cool for 10 minutes.

Divide the gelatin mixture evenly into your two clear glasses.

Cut the kiwi: slice off the stem and blossom end.  Using this as your "flat" side, cut around the sides of the kiwi to remove the skin.  Cut into halves, strips, and then cubes.  Mix one kiwi's worth of cubes into one glass of fruit gelatin.




Microwave the remaining kiwi or pineapple in 30-second increments until the juice is boiling and it is soft and thoroughly cooked. Allow to cool completely.  Mix the cooked kiwi into the second glass of gelatin.

Place both glasses in the refrigerator and wait for at least an hour.  Remove.

Eat the first glass!  Drink the second one! 

What happened:


Gelatin is a colloid. In a colloid, two different substances are mixed together, and one is finely dispersed (scattered) throughout the other. A gel is formed when these particles link together into a web using molecular bonds:  the molecules hook together into a structure that behaves like a solid, even though it is mostly liquid. In gelatin, these bonds are created by a protein called collagen that we get from meat by-products like bones and skin.  (Pectin and agar are vegetable versions of the same process, but they create a starch structure instead of a protein structure.)

Most fruit contains small amounts of protein-digesting enzymes called proteases, but they are plentiful in certain fruits, for instance, kiwi, pineapple, papayas, mangoes and figs.  These enzymes eat through the molecular bonds in the collagen that hold the gelatin in a solid - so if you add any of these fresh fruits to gelatin, it will probably dissolve.*  Meat tenderizer, a protease powder you can find in your spice aisle, is usually made from the papain enzymes found in papayas, or the bromelain enzyme from pineapples.

These enzymes will denature if exposed to heat, so cooking the kiwi fruit deactivated its digestive powers.  This is one reason why fresh fruit is preferable to canned -  canned foods are cooked at a high temperature to kill off pathogens, but that also destroys the enzymes.  If you eat fresh fruit, the enzymes can work with your body to break down protein - so it stands to reason that fresh fruit might make your digestive system more efficient!

* We tried this experiment once before with Sparky's cousin, and it didn't work.  I didn't have a lot of time, and wasn't as choosy in my fruit shopping as I usually am: I bought a hard, sour kiwi.  I am guessing the enzymes are at their most developed in soft, ripe fruits - so when you're choosing a kiwi, make sure it gives under gentle pressure (it should give slightly all over - kiwis that are hard on one side and squashy on another are bruised, not ripe.)  Similarly, a nice, ripe pineapple will have a sweet smell, be golden and not green around the base, and should be firm all over and have green, healthy leaves.

** For those of you interested, I tagged all the items we purchased for the original Chemistry Set with "Quipskit."  If you buy one, be sure to tell American Science & Surplus that you heard about it from us!

The Food Desert Project - Mole-style Enchilada Sauce

Enchiladas are nothing without sauce...but the sauce itself is something greater than just a component of enchiladas: mole sauces can be used to enhance fried eggs, to baste roasting meats or vegetables, or even as a dip for chips.  Mole sauces originally contained peppers and spices: those containing chocolate are a relatively modern invention.  (In pre-Colombian times, chocolate was reserved only for royalty or the upper classes as a ritual drink.)

Enchiladas, however are a decidedly pre-Colombian street food: the original version was simply a corn tortilla dipped in a sauce.  Typically, Mexican enchiladas use fried tortillas that are crispier than our Americanized version that reminds me of lasagna, but this sauce will work for either type.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp minced dried onion
1/2 tsp granulated onion
1/2 tsp granulated garlic
1/2 tsp chili flakes (or to taste)
1 tsp oregano
2 tbsp raisins
1/4 cup wine (either red or white)

2 tbsp sesame seeds

2 tbsp oil
1 jarred roasted red bell pepper, rinsed well (1/2 jar)
1 tbsp whole cumin (or 2 tsp ground)
3 tbsp unsweetened baking cocoa
1 tbsp paprika
Cayenne pepper to taste (start with just a dash)

1 10oz can tomatoes with chilis (select your personal heat preference)
3/4 cup chicken stock

Combine the first 6 ingredients in a bowl and allow to soak in the refrigerator overnight.

Lightly toast the sesame seeds in a skillet until fragrant, then transfer them to a mortar and pestle.  Grind them into as smooth a paste as possible.  In the same skillet, place the oil and the red pepper.  Toast the pepper lightly on both sides.  Add the cumin, paprika and cayenne and allow to toast.  Add the cocoa, sesame paste, and the mixture from the refrigerator, and then mix in the tomatoes and 1/2 cup of the chicken stock.  Simmer on low heat for 10 minutes.

Pour the entire mixture into the blender (or use an immersion blender) and blend into a smooth sauce, adding chicken stock until you get the desired texture.  Return the sauce to the skillet and allow to cook for another 5 minutes to bring the flavor together.

The sauce may be used as-is to fill an omelet or as a chip dip.  For enchiladas or to braise or sauce meat, thin the sauce with stock until it is about the same texture as spaghetti sauce.

Policy Point Wednesday - "Defrosted" in the EU

The European Union Food Information Regulation (FIR) is in the process of creating a designation for foods sold as fresh, which were previously frozen.

“In the case of foods that have been frozen before sale, and which are sold defrosted, the name of the food shall be accompanied by the designation ‘defrosted’."

Previously, the requirement to disclose freezing of a food item prior to thawing and selling was only required when a lack of disclosure might be considered "misleading."

No such labeling requirement exists in the US - requirement being the key word.  The FSIS states it:

"develops and provides labeling guidance, policies and inspection methods and administers programs to protect consumers from misbranded and economically adulterated meat, poultry, and egg products which ensure that all labels are truthful and not misleading."

In other words, although a "previously frozen" designation does exist, it's completely voluntary in the US.  Think about how well that's working the next time you're buying chicken in the supermarket and you find a completely frozen bird in with the fresh ones...

Sundays with Sparky - Ham with Green Eggs....Of Science!

As you may recall, Sparky and I had spent some time making a birthday present for his cousin...this week, her older brother says goodbye to another year.  This cousin of Sparky's is a bright and curious young man, already capable in the kitchen, so I thought it would be fun to put together a kitchen chemistry set.  Using a couple of really wonderful websites, including Your Mother Was A Chemist, The Naked Scientists, and The Accidental Scientist: Science of Cooking along with a hard day's shopping at American Science and Surplus, we came up with a kit and project list that would make Robert Bunsen blush.

Of course, as much as cooking is about math, even more of it is about chemistry.  I decided that Sparky and I would test out one of the projects, using the red cabbage "litmus" juice.

First, I had Sparky chop a hefty slice of red cabbage into shreds.  We put the shreds into a saucepan and covered them with water, then brought the water to a boil.  After five minutes, the cabbage was tender, and we turned off the heat and allowed the cabbage to cool in the water.

Sparky separated two eggs,











He put the whites together in one cup and left the yolks in half an eggshell, in another.  The cooled purple juice went into an third.






The egg whites were whisked thoroughly using our spring whisk, and then we stirred in a shot of cabbage juice -







which instantly turned from deep purple to shocking neon green!  (I estimate we added somewhere between two teaspoons and a tablespoon.)






We then heated two large puddles of melted butter in a skillet until the butter began to brown.  You will need more butter than you would ordinarily use, since the whisked egg whites will spread quickly:  the butter will help conduct heat to the egg whites and cook them.  Sparky carefully and slowly poured the green egg "whites" into each puddle of butter. After each egg white stopped spreading, he carefully placed the egg yolk on it, and drizzled a bit of extra green egg "white" over the top.

After frying up a few slices of ham - voila! Green Eggs and Ham!  Red cabbage contains anthocyanin, a substance which changes color depending on the ph (acidity or alkalinity) of its environment.  It turns pink in acids, and green in alkalis - since egg whites have a ph slightly above neutral at 7.6, the eggs turned green. (They were delicious, despite their shocking color.)

Sparky spent the rest of the afternoon playing chemist by alternating adding baking soda and vinegar to the remaining cabbage, watching it change color with a "poof" each time - for all the world like Fauna and Merry Weather. 

Chemistry good.

Policy Point Wednesday - Et tu, Nutella?

We, the Hays family, are lovers of Nutella - as a matter of fact, we celebrated Valentine's Day with this excellent Nutella Mousse cake, containing shameful amounts of Nutella and fatty dairy.  We are unashamed of our love of dessert and dessert products.

So, it was with a bit of skepticism that I read about a Mom in California's lawsuit against Nutella.  After all, who would think that a sweet chocolate spread could be health food?

Well, apparently Nutella USA - their website alleges that "The “best” breakfast is the one that will be eaten! With the unique taste of Nutella®, kids may think they are eating a treat for breakfast, while moms are helping nourish their children with whole grains. A slice of whole wheat toast spread with Nutella®, a serving of fresh fruit and a cup of yogurt or 1% milk provides perfect balanced nutrition to start the day." Later, the website states that "Eating a good breakfast helps with the intake of fiber, vitamins, and minerals, especially iron and vitamin C, all essential in a balanced diet*."  "Hazelnuts are a main ingredient in Nutella."  I can see where a consumer might read this website and assume that Nutella is at least as nutritious as peanut butter.

This got me to thinking - just what is in Nutella, anyway - and how much?  The website is quick to point out that there are 50 hazelnuts in a 13oz jar...but sugar and palm oil are the first two ingredients on the label.  What does Nutella look like when it's broken down into its component parts?  Just what does Nutella mean by "a main ingredient?"  Most importantly, why do food companies feel the need to make their foods sound like something different from what they are?

In offering us an exact number of hazelnuts, Nutella is kind enough to give us the critical piece of information.  We know that the remaining "main" ingredients are sugar, palm oil, cocoa powder and nonfat dry milk.  Fortunately, as I live in a predominately Caribbean neighborhood, palm oil wasn't really that difficult to find, and the remaining ingredients could be found in my pantry.


Note that palm oil is solid at our somewhat chilly room temperature: it's a solid fat.









I also found dry milk powder (for the photographs, I was only able to find whole milk powder, but I used the nutritional information for dry nonfat milk powder.)  Since Nutella offers 4% of the RDA for calcium, figuring out the amount of dry milk to use was but a few minutes of computation.  I also figured out the milk sugars, so we could subtract them from the sugar grams, just to be fair.

Using calcium, fat and saturated fat, and the given number of hazelnuts - and more algebra than I've seen since high school - I was able to come up with the following recipe that closely approximates a jar of Nutella, both in ingredients and in nutrition (I excluded the flavorings and extenders at the bottom of the list, since they didn't affect the fats or sugars in any significant way)

Each 13 oz jar (10 servings) contains approximately:

1 cup plus 1/4 tsp table sugar
4 tablespoons palm oil
50 hazelnuts, ground (about 1/2 cup ground)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
about 1/4 cup dry nonfat milk powder




(remember, ingredients are listed by weight and not volume)


Translated approximately into a tablespoon-size serving, it looks something like this:

2.25 teaspoons sugar

Slightly less than 3/4 teaspoons palm oil

1.25 teaspoons hazelnuts

1.25 teaspoons cocoa

about 1/2 teaspoons of dry milk

Now, I ask you - does this look like a healthy breakfast....or does it look like SoFAS?  It's not as though the dairy council is promoting spreading a "slice of whole wheat toast with butter and jam, and a serving of fresh fruit..." to start the day.

*Most interestingly, Nutella is not a good source (FDA - 5% or less is low, 20% or more is high) of any of the "essentials" listed in the above quote from their website.

** If you're really interested in all the algebra, I've created a page for my Nutella Proof.  Feel free to check my math.

The Food Desert Project - Choux Pastry Hearts

Lest you think I've gone soft on you - this isn't really the Hays family Valentine's tradition.  You see, we cowpool - and since we're the family with the guts to cook guts, we wind up with most of the offal -yum!  Two years ago on Valentine's Day, I had an inspiration.  (Note: link contains photos of raw offal) The tradition stuck, though unfortunately it's a bit difficult to fit into this blog!

This recipe didn't conveniently happen on Valentine's Day...it came to me in one of those random shafts of inspiration: I was acting as Sparky-chauffeur and dreamily listening to Corinne Bailey Rae on my ipod, and this idea popped into my head:

Choux Pastry Hearts


Pâte à choux – Choux pastry
1 cup milk
1 stick butter
1 cup flour
Dash of salt (if using salted butter)
4 eggs

Combine milk and butter in a pan and heat slowly to melt the butter (or, if you’re not lazy, cut the butter into small chunks and use a higher temp) When the mixture reaches a boil, dump all the flour in at once and stir vigorously until the mixture clumps together, pulls away from the sides, and becomes shiny - we’re almost there in the picture to the left.

Remove to a bowl and let cool for five minutes,
then beat in 4 eggs one at a time until you have a beautiful shiny dough.
At this point you can bake, or refrigerate the dough for up to a day and you can use it straight from the fridge.

Using a piping bag with a large tip (or a similar frosting press, mine eventually leaked, but was quite easy to use - choux paste takes some muscle to pipe) pipe your choux paste into hearts by drawing a fat “v” with your tip that’s about ½” thick and about an inch and a half long. If the pointy bits bother you, push them in with a wet fingertip after everything is piped.

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 350 and bake for 10-20 minutes more, until golden brown and set (they should be firm to the touch.) Allow to cool and fill as desired or freeze for later use.

It’s funny, I’d never made choux paste before, at least I don’t remember making it – but I remember as a little girl that my mother made crab puffs for a school bake sale (sometime in the late seventies) and they were all the rage. I remember hating the darned things because she made hundreds, and we spent hours poking tiny holes in them and squishing them full of mayonaise-y filling. The above choux recipe is technically geared towards savory applications like that one; most choux-paste dough for sweets contains sugar, but I don’t think it needs it. So, here are two very different ways to use this all-purpose dough, first, a dainty tea sandwich:


Crab Béarnaise filling:
2 egg yolks
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp water
3 tbsp olive oil
¼ tsp cornstarch
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
1 tsp each tarragon, parsley, onion flakes and chives rehydrated in 2 tbsp wine, drained
2 tbsp chopped olives
1 tbsp capers
2 cans crabmeat, well drained

Combine the egg yolks, wine vinegar, water, and olive oil in the blender. Blend well. Add the cornstarch, salt, pepper, and drained herbs and blend to combine. Pour into a heavy bottomed saucepan (or a double-boiler) and heat slowly until thickened (note how it thickens so you can see the bottom of the pan when you swipe the spatula across it.)










Fold in remaining ingredients. Cut Choux Pastry Hearts in half, fill bottom with crab mixture, replace top and serve.

Next, a sumptuous and easy dessert, especially if you’ve socked away previously-made pastry hearts in your freezer:

Cranberry-Almond Fool Filling


2 cups sweetened whipped cream (about 1 cup of unwhipped heavy cream, whipped with about 1/3 cup confectioner’s sugar or to taste)
½ can jellied cranberry sauce
1/3 cup slivered almonds
¼ cup confectioner’s sugar
1 tbsp corn syrup

(If you’re not in a food desert you can probably sub almond paste or marzipan here, but you need to grind it up with some confectioner’s sugar so that it blends with the cream) Process almonds and confectioner’s sugar in food processor until fine. Add corn syrup and process again until it sticks together when pinched between your fingers (keep it loose) Mash cranberry sauce with fork. Fold almond mixture and cranberry sauce into stiffly whipped cream, chill for ½ hour. Place in piping bag. Pipe into halved choux pastry hearts. Serve.

Sundays with Sparky - Vegan Pumpkin Muffins

As you may recall, Sparky's school classroom is home to children with a wide range of cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities, and beliefs, including some kids with dietary restrictions.  Our own family's belief is that food is made to be shared...and classroom snacks should be able to be enjoyed by everyone.

I usually rise to this challenge with fresh fruit...but since we both love to bake, and I had the other part of a can of pumpkin, I thought I would make pumpkin muffins...after all, vegetable puree is a common substitute for eggs in baking.    Dairy-free options are common enough in our pantry - most of us Hayses have difficulty digesting milk, so almond milk has become a staple for us.  I started tinkering with this recipe, making a few substitutions where I didn't have the correct ingredients.  Keep in mind - these muffins may well be vegan, but since the egg's binding power is replaced in part by sugar - they're far from healthy.

The recipe was for 6 jumbo muffins, but it turned out to make 24 mini muffins, plus 3 regular-size muffins.  If you bake in a muffin tin with empty molds, pour a bit of water into the unused cups so it doesn't burn your tin.

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

3/4 cup AP flour
1 1/4 cups raw or demerara sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup pumpkin puree (fresh or from a can)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 tablespoon applesauce
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons maple syrup

First, we preheated the oven to 400 degrees.  Then we mixed all the dry ingredients with a whisk (all the ingredients until pumpkin.)  We then put the remaining ingredients in a separate bowl and mixed thoroughly.





The wet was folded into the dry, (my, doesn't Sparky look so grown-up and capable in this picture? Sniff...)







and then the molds were filled using two spoons as scoops. (Note my favorite cooking instrument just over Sparky's shoulder.  I'm using it right now!)

These took slightly longer to bake than their eggy counterparts - even mini muffins took about 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven.  Sparky reported that his classmates gobbled up these tender little morsels in a trice; they were a big hit.

The Food Desert Project - Koshary - from one desert to another

Unfortunately, I don't have a pretty picture to go with this week's post - I've been putting off posting this recipe until I made a photogenic version, but since Egypt is on all our minds, I thought it shouldn't wait - so here's a little pantry solidarity from the food desert.  Our family's thoughts are with the people of Egypt, as they are with anyone who is struggling to keep their families properly nourished. 

I originally wrote this post well over a year ago, back when, in our minds, Egypt was known more for being a fascinating place of antiquities and culture:

So, I was watching a No Reservations rerun the other night and caught about 20 minutes of the show on Cairo before I had to move on to other tasks (OK, I fell asleep, but not because of the show.)  I pricked up my ears on hearing about Egypt's famous street food, كشرى, which, from the ingredients listed, sounded like it contained nothing but pantry staples - score one for the food desert!

I found several websites devoted to Koshary or koshari, including this well-worth-reading post on Gourmet's website: Koshary Needs Love, Too.  An Egyptian Tourism website had a description and a recipe that sounded authentic, and a number of recipes popped up on Recipezzar and places like that - but the recipe I liked the best came from a listserv entitled www.turntoislam.com - needing only a few tweaks to make it food-desert friendly.

Basically, in an American kitchen, Koshary is an ideal way to get rid of your starchy leftovers - and has the added bonus of being vegan as well as tasty, and so will accomodate your more sensitive guests.  It consists of 5 layers in a predetermined order: pasta, rice pilaf, lentils, tomato sauce, fried onions, and chickpeas.  There are two accompanying sauces that add flavor to what otherwise might be a bland starchy dish - this is definitely a "whole is greater than the sum of its parts" experience.  Best of all, there's very little cooking technique to Koshary - it's really about getting a lot of pots dirty at once, and then assembling which makes it ideal for a large group.

So, I decided to layer my Koshary in one large bowl and serve it family-style; from what I read it's more traditional to assemble it in individual portions to order, but it worked fine for Sparky and I.  The first task was cooking all the ingredients: pasta, lentils (green is traditional, but I used red with success - I'm guessing food-desert dwellers will be able to find split peas if they don't have lentils) and, as Paula Deen delicately puts it "rice and roni" discarding the "flavor packet."  I cooked the "rice and roni" per the package directions in the microwave to save stovetop space.

1/2 cup dry macaroni, cooked per package directions and drained
1 box "rice and roni" mix, flavor packet discarded, cooked per package directions
1 cup of red lentils or split peas, simmered per package directions, drained.
1 1/2 cup tomato puree or crushed tomatoes
1 cup water
2 tbsp dried minced onion
1/2 tsp granulated onion
1/2 tsp granulated garlic
1/2 cup canned fried onions, crushed
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (other firm canned beans could be substituted)

2 tbsp paprika (preferably hot)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tsp jarred garlic
2 tbsp white vinegar
1/8 cup canned lemon juice or white wine
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander

First, make the garlic sauce - combine jarred garlic, vinegar, lemon juice, cumin and coriander in a small bowl and refrigerate at least two hours or overnight.

Prepare your remaining ingredients as you ordinarily would if serving them individually, starting with the rice (per package instructions) and lentils (cover with water and simmer until tender - split peas will take a bit longer, expect anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour, depending on  their age) which take the longest to cook.

Then simmer the minced onion, granulated onion and garlic in the water; after five minutes, add the tomato sauce and turn the heat to low.

Next, cook the pasta according to the package directions.

As the pasta is cooking, prepare the paprika sauce: heat 2 tbsp vegetable oil in a skillet, add the paprika and fry briefly.  Add 2 tbsp of the prepared tomato sauce and remove from heat.  I also found it beneficial to toast the french fried onions in a skillet, but they burn easily - mine got a bit singed, which imparted an awful flavor to the entire dish.  Don't do that. ;-)

Now, for the simple part, assembly:

A layer of macaroni (ditilani would be more traditional, but this worked) goes on the bottom

followed by a layer of rice, and then a layer of lentils

Then the tomato sauce and the fried onions (yes, mine went beyond toasted to burnt)

Then the chickpeas (from what I gathered from pictures, chickpeas are more of a garnish in koshary - but I liked a rather chickpea and lentil-heavy mix)

The whole thing is then garnished with the paprika sauce and the garlic mixture.

Even though my culinary skills were a bit off tonight, I completely understand why koshary is beloved by Egyptians: it's starchy, but the lentils and chickpeas (I keep flashing back to that episode of the Simpsons) make it hearty and satisfying.  The two sauces contrast the blandness of the other ingredients - and it tastes darn fine right out of the fridge at ten-thirty at night!

Funny story - Sparky cannot stand burnt onions, absolutely abhors them - so when I presented him with the Koshary, I tried to soften my mistake with history and some social studies.  I told him it was what people ate in Egypt, and tried to paint a picture of a far-off, exotic land.  He choked about half of it down, but the look he just couldn't keep off his face made me muster up "the food talk."

Moms, you know the one - I told him that Americans often take food for granted.  We don't realize that there are people who make do with whatever is available - and often go hungry anyway. I mentioned organizations like Heifer Project (Sparky helps choose our "gift" every Christmas) and UN WFP (he plays freerice.) I talked about people are so hungry that they'd be grateful for the food we throw away. I argued that Americans can be unpopular abroad, I think partly because we turn up our noses at food that's different - and how important it is for him to learn to politely eat food he doesn't enjoy - in short, I threw the entire Superior Mommy Lexicon at the child.

Sparky, whose eyes were growing wider with understanding as I spoke, paused mid-bite. Then, he very gravely put down his fork and said "OK, Mom...but I am never going to Egypt."

Sigh. Cooking errors speak louder than words.

(Of course, Sparky is fascinated by Egypt and has talked at length about traveling to Cairo; he isn't as spoiled as this story makes him sound - plus, I'm guessing Egyptians are far better at toasting onions than I am. )

Policy Point Wednesday - The New USDA Guidelines and Produce Costs

The recently-released Dietary Guidelines for Americans just announced that "half your plate" should be fruits and vegetables.  Simple enough for those of us with means, but what about Americans who are living on food stamps?  Is produce within their grasp?  A concurrent report by the ERS, How Much Do Fruits and Vegetables Cost? suggests that SNAP benefits offer sufficient funds to reach this goal.  The report was compiled using Nielsen Homescan data, by recording their purchases by scanning the UPC code in their home.  The data was then aggregated and the food costs averaged by time of year and geography.

Fruits and vegetable prices were studied in both fresh and processed forms, where "processed includes frozen, canned, and dried vegetables and fruits as well as 100% fruit juice." The study excluded certain fruits and vegetables sold "each" because of the random weights of these items, although certain random-weight items that were shown to be consistent in weight were allowed.

The study showed that while "value-added" produce (e.g. washed, bagged lettuce, precut broccoli) cost significantly more than their counterparts, but that due to waste (e.g. broccoli stems,) some of those costs may not actually amount to savings.  (Savvy shoppers know to use vegetable waste in stocks and sauces, in much the same way as bones, etc.)  To account for these discrepancies, fruits and vegetable prices were estimated "by edible cup."  

The following fresh fruits - in season - were the best value at under 50 cents per edible cup: watermelon, bananas, apples, navel oranges, pears, honeydew melon, plums, nectarines.  Interestingly, only two processed fruits were under 50 cents per edible cup (and then just barely:) applesauce and pineapple - only raisins are under 50 cents per edible cup in dried fruits.  (Some fruit juices are cheaper, but I'm surprised they're considered "fruit" by the ERS.) 

Vegetables are differentiated by per-edible-cup raw, and per-edible-cup cooked.  Best value fresh vegetables were - whole carrots, iceberg lettuce, onions, cauliflower heads, celery stalks, baby carrots, romaine lettuce and radishes.  Best value in cooked vegetables were potatoes, cabbage, whole carrots, cauliflower heads and sweet potatoes.  Many canned vegetables met the benchmark - sauerkraut, sliced carrots, cut green beans, corn, turnip greens, tomatoes, potatoes, mustard greens, green peas, whole green beans  - but only frozen kale,  french fries, green beans and corn were under 50-cent per edible cup in the frozen category.

Not surprisingly (especially to someone who's been working with them for some time) canned and dried beans and peas are some of the least expensive produce items available.  Every type and form of bean tested was well beneath the 50-cent-per-edible-cup benchmark.

The report goes on to aggregate several day's worth of the recommended amount of produce - considering that the USDA suggests 4.5 edible cups' worth of fruits and vegetables, any produce under the 50-cent benchmark will satisfy the requirments for between $2 and $2.50 per day, leaving between $1 and .50 cents for meats, dairy or other foods (the average benefit for SNAP participants is about $3 per person.)  Of course, considering that fresh produce is shown to be the least expensive in many cases, this guide is less helpful for those who live in a food desert - but it does offer guidance as to which specific produce items are most cost-effective.

Sundays with Sparky - Potato-Leek tartlets

It's Puppy Bowl Sunday, a day which Sparky looks forward to every year. Oh, yea, there's something about some other game, too - but we can remain in blissful ignorance because this year Dad is at work (tee, hee!) There are a lot of foods that work well for Puppy Bowl viewing, but I decided that we needed a vegetable dish that could be eaten with our hands...and I happened to have a couple of leeks in the fridge that needed to be used. Leeks, potato, bacon and cheese are natural partners - and I also happened to have a box of frozen phyllo cups that were taking up far too much room in the freezer.

We used a larger-size cup, but this recipe will probably work better with the bite-size cups that are more widely available in the frozen pastry section of your grocery.

Ingredients:
2 leeks
2 medium potatoes
3-4 slices bacon
Salt and pepper to taste
EVOO
1/4 -1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
About 2 tbsp sour cream
Phyllo tart shells

First, the prep: Sparky washed and loosely peeled the potatoes (I like a bit of peel, so we didn't get them all the way down to their tidy whities) and set them aside.  He then took the root end off the leeks, and cut the green part off at an angle to reveal the pale green inside (the dark green part is too tough to eat.)

Then we sliced the leeks almost in half lengthwise. The inner layers of a leek can sometimes trap dirt and sand, and need to be opened and washed thoroughly.

 The leeks were sliced, the potatoes were diced (cut them in halves to get a flat surface, then quarters, then cut the quarters in slices and then cubes) and thin-sliced bacon was cut into shreds.

Since our bacon wasn't very fatty, we added some olive oil to a hot skillet and sauteed the bacon until it was crispy. Sparky then added the leeks and potatoes and continued stirring until everything was well blended and lightly toasted.


We added a small amount of chicken stock (just enough to coat the bottom of the pan well,) covered the pan, and allowed it to steam for about 7 minutes until the potatoes were tender.



Then, using two spoons, Sparky scooped some of the leeks and potatoes into each tart shell.

I topped this with a small dollop of sour cream and a little Parmesan cheese, and then we filled the tarts the rest of the way, and topped the whole thing with more Parmesan. The tarts were baked in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes. Yum!