The volunteer students from D.C.’s Bancroft Elementary School who have put some backbone into the First Family’s organic kitchen garden this season enjoyed a fresh lunch salad topped with sweet, fat peas that they’d helped to grow and harvest. For dessert, they got cupcakes topped with berries, also grown in the garden on the South Lawn.

Thus far the well-tended organic garden, which sports various cultivars chosen by the White House Chef to compliment the cuisine served both to the Obama family and to their guests – with a majority of the bounty going to local D.C. food kitchens – has thus far produced 80 pounds of fresh food. And it’s still June, not even tomato time yet! As the First Lady says in this clip, getting involved in growing, harvesting and preparing fresh, organic food can help with a number of health-related issues that plague this country’s citizens…

Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure are all diet-related health issues that cost this country more than $120 billion each year. That’s a lot of money. While the dollar figure is shocking in and of itself, the effect on our children’s health is even more profound. Nearly a third of the children in this country are either overweight or obese, and a third will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lifetime. In Hispanic and African American communities, those numbers climb even higher so that nearly half of the children in those communities will suffer the same fate. Those numbers are unacceptable.

A. Siegel of Get Energy Smart blog does a little math and comes up with an intriguing scenario related to gardens just about a quarter the size of Michelle’s. If just five million Americans were inspired to create a Victory Garden in their yard (or in containers on their deck or patio, in window boxes, inside by a sunny window, etc.) that produced 20 pounds of food each year, it would amount to 100 million pounds (50,000 tons) of fresh, healthy vegetables and fruits grown right at home or in the neighborhood. That’s 50,000 tons of good food that would not have to be grown with chemical intensive agriculture, harvested by third world peasant/slaves, shipped to your local market using fossil fuels, and costing a hefty chunk of the shrinking household budget.

The added incentive is of course getting people outdoors instead of parked in front of the television when they get home from work, bending, digging, hoeing, tending and simply enjoying their garden. Even that little bit of exercise and simple enjoyment can help reduce a tough day’s accumulation of stress, and reducing stress has its health savings dividends as well.

Kudos once again to our beautiful First Lady, her helpers in the kitchen, the Obama girls and the students of Bencroft Elementary for a tasty job well done. Things like this are a fun and healthy chunk of the Change We Need!

Since our daughter and grandson got back from their sojourn to Florida and Costa Rica, I’ve again had cause to prepare the kind of labor-intensive foods I didn’t bother with at all when it was just hubby and I here by ourselves. One of our favorite cold munchies are two-bite sized stuffed grape leaves, so I thought (since I made a big batch today) that I’d go ahead and give the details on this delicious delicacy.

The key ingredient, of course, are the grape leaves. These should be gathered in the late spring (May-June), when the vines are barely blooming. The newest leaves and the leaves near the bloom clusters are the best, they should be as large as your spread hand at the base. Wild fox grape leaves work too, though they are only about half the size of good vineyard leaves. They also have a tarter flavor of their own, so these can even be the preferred leaves if you’ve got some growing in your immediate area.

When the leaves are gathered, you can freeze or brine them. I usually freeze enough to add to every jar of dill pickles that I produce during the cucumber harvest (July-August), as they help lend crispness to the pickles. Those leaves that you want to preserve for stuffed leaves are best put into brine. For this, use kosher or pickling salt, 2/3 of a cup of salt to two cups of water. I use the “cigar” method, which is pretty easy.

Put your leaves into a flat-bottomed container (baking pan works well), stacked ten or twelve on top of each other. Pour boiling water on them to cover (you may need to weigh them down a little) and let them sit for five minutes. Lay out smoothly on newspaper to dry. Once they’re fairly dry and workable, cut out the base stem, fold the base and sides to a rectangular shape and roll the leaves loosely around a pencil to make tubes. Pack the tubes upright into canning jars (you should be able to get 35-40 in a single jar) and pour boiling brine to cover. If you’ve sterilized the jars and lids first, you don’t have to seal by water bath, the brine should preserve fine for 3 to 5 months. If you’re planning to keep them longer, go ahead and put the jars in a water bath for 20 minutes to seal.

The stuffing can be pretty much anything you can imagine. Our favorites are cous-cous and pine nuts or brown rice. If you make a mean tabouli, just omit the cucumbers (but keep the tomato), undercook the grain. To these add lots of herbs, the best being ground cumin, turmeric (with rice), fresh mint leaves and basil, parsley, and lots of chives. Cook the cous-cous, grain or rice to about half done (use half the water, don’t let it burn). Mix the herbs in, add any grated veggies you want to include – good choices are carrots, peas, bell peppers, eggplant or lentils – plus a healthy amount of roasted garlic and a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice.

Rinse unrolled grape leaves well in cold running water, lay out to dry again on spread newspaper. Put a hefty spoonful of the filling at the stem base end and roll tightly. For this, I fold over the filling the base ends of the grape leaf to cover, roll up one turn, fold in the sides and then finish rolling to the tip. This makes a tight package. As I make the rolls I put them atop a lone (and inedible) grape leaf on the bottom of a soup pot overlap side down. Pack them together tightly and cover the bottom of the pot, then you can put a second layer on top of those. When the leaves have all been stuffed, put another large leaf on top of the pile and weight it all down with a small saucer and add your cooking broth.

The broth is just water, olive oil and lemon juice. To 2 cups water add 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1 ounce of lemon juice (adjust this ratio to get enough broth to cover all your stuffed leaves). Bring to boiling over medium-high heat, then turn down to medium low, cover and cook for about 20 minutes (however long it takes to finish off the pasta/grain and/or rice) plus 5 full minutes. Remove grape rolls carefully with tongs, put on newspaper seam-side down to cool and drain. When cool enough to handle easily you can refrigerate them in a closed container or simply serve at room temperature as appetizers.

I don’t know about all grandmas, but I know from my own experience with other people’s kids that they often come to spend a week or two expecting to be fed precisely what they usually get fed at home, and can be positively horrified to find that Grandma doesn’t stock chocolate cereals or big bags of candy or white bread and baloney for sandwiches, and there’s not a McDonald’s or Wendy’s in sight.

Now, it’s not that I don’t make some concessions to the basic kid-diet. My non-vegetarian grands and nieces/nephews and such do have the option of a can of beef-a-roni or a frozen pepperoni pizza here and there. I’ve even been known to purchase some turkey-dogs to roast over the campfire. But the grilled burgers are black bean, there will be no “Happy Meals,” and no bacon bits for the baked potatoes.

I also stock lots of fruit, whatever’s available when they’re here. I grow strawberries in the garden, those usually get eaten as soon as they’re picked, and they only last so long into the season. I have some cherry tomatoes that went wild one year, show up in unexpected places all over the garden. Those get eaten as soon as they’re picked as well, one granddaughter swears they’re sweeter than cherries! None of the kids seem to like cooked greens very much, but they’ll eat as many peas raw from the pod as I can possibly pick on any given day.

This year I’m trying watermelons again in the garden. Haven’t had much luck with them previously, though pumpkins do just fine. These are the little ones no bigger than a cantaloupe, which I’m hoping will do better. They won’t be in until August, though, which should coincide with when the Florida niece/nephews will be here.

Thing is, I don’t think it hurts a child to understand that things at my house don’t work just the same as they do at their home. We don’t eat fast food, and don’t go out to dinner, as we live too far out in the country and don’t have that kind of money to waste on junk anyway. It’s an opportunity to introduce them to a variety of new, more healthy foods, to let them see where food actually comes from, and to allow them a new view of diet and being more conscious about WHAT they’re eating. In fact, I think that sort of thing is actually good for a child! Besides, it’s always a fun project to include the kids in menu planning as well as cooking and prep.

The toughest task I’ve found through the years (mostly friend’s kids and nieces/nephews rather than grands) is the issue of white bread versus real bread. Some of them act as if they’ve no idea that white bread actually came from wheat before it was sifted and thoroughly bleached. Or that additives to bread – like oats, flax and sesame seeds, even sprouts – won’t poison them. Yet it only takes a day or two stuck with real bread before they learn to eat it without complaint, and some even learn to like it because it makes the sandwich better!

We go through jars and jars of peanut butter when kids are here (we do that when they’re not here too, though a jar does last longer). Once they’ve been cajoled into eating that PBJ on real bread using Grandma’s homemade concord grape jam from the vines right there on the garden fence, they uniformly tell me that store-bought jam just seems like fake juice with gel in it. I don’t use the outrageous amounts of sugar most jam recipes call for, because I don’t have to. Ripe grapes produce plenty of pectin on their own, and I’m not shy of using powdered apple pectin for low-sugar recipes, available right there next to the Ball jars and lids on the grocery store shelf.

I understand that Big Medicine (and its many peripheral lobby groups and supporters) insists that there is no connection between white sugar and hyperactivity in children. I long ago came to the firm conclusion that those people don’t have children. Ask any harried Mom or Grandma, they’ll uniformly tell you there’s very much a direct link between white sugar intake and the level of hyperkinetic frenzy any single-digit midget. A 1-to-1 relationship. Moreover, any observant Mom or Grandma will also tell you that if the child has to actually digest the sugar (unrefined sugars as found in honey or fruit or molassas), it doesn’t affect them in the same way at all.

Thus I don’t deny the visiting kids sweet treats, I simply make them using alternative sweeteners like molassas, honey or dark brown sugar. Or my jam, for PBJ cookies! That way their sweet tooth gets its fix, and I don’t have kids climbing the walls all night long.

A last word of caution on this is that if you do allow your grandkids to make S’mores or roast marshmallows over the campfire, serve your evening meal early so they’ve a couple of hours to get over the sugar rush before bedtime. Otherwise, Grandma and Grandpa aren’t going to get any sleep that night.

Grandma’s Black Bean Veggieburgers
1 can black beans (or 12 oz. from dry)
1 cup rolled oats
1 large egg
1 tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
1-2 tbsp. dark soy sauce (to taste)
1 cup chopped veggies – onions, carrots, bell peppers, zucchini or summer squash, eggplant, mushrooms, whatever
Whole wheat flour, mashed potato or flakes, or corn masa – enough to make the mixture stick together into patties

Beat the egg, add the beans and mash lightly with the other ingredients and mix well. Add enough flour or mashed potato/potato flakes to make a workable mush to form patties that don’t fall apart.

Broil 3 minutes per side or grill 2-3 minutes per side, serve on toasted buns with condiments, lettuce, spinach, sliced tomatoes, pickles, onions, etc.

And for gardening/canning grandmas out there, check out the condiment recipes over at Wise Living Journal.

Under the general heading of “nutrition” we’ve examined how to get the kids to eat vegetables, taken a look at how big food producers subvert our best nutrition goals through targeted advertising, how those same corporations once subverted the AMA to claim there’s no relation between diet and health, and how the best “animal protein” for infants comes comes directly from Mom.

The great blog One Big Health Nut has a post entitled Ten Great Reasons to Become a Vegetarian that just might help to push some of those kids who are toying with the idea all the way over the line. If Mom or Grandma were to help reinforce these reasons at home, that is. Why, a Grandma just might end up with a grandchild (like a couple of mine!) who eats bell peppers and whole tomatoes like apples, shuns any bread with no color, and subverts their school, scout and summer camp buddies to veggieburgers and veggie dogs.

Of Health Nut’s reasons, the ones that have worked best with my kids and grandchildren were #4: Save the life of many animals, #8: Help the environment, and #10: Vegetarian diets are healthier. Mad Cow and e.coli infection (Health Nut’s #1) are great reasons to avoid meat, but kids generally don’t tend to worry about such things much. They worry about obesity – they all know fat kids in their schools, and don’t want to be them – the environment, and (most of all for primary schoolers) animal welfare.

Go on over to One Big Health Nut and get the whole list! It’s worth printing out and putting up on the fridge with magnets. I did!

Ten Great Reasons to Become a Vegetarian

It’s true that one of the many ‘important’ jobs Moms do is to direct the proper nutrition of their families. Some Moms do better at this than others, as the growing obesity epidemic demonstrates. There are a surprising number of working Moms out there who don’t cook, and families that somehow manage to survive on pizza and hamburgers.

I was a singularly lousy cook back when I got married. Knew how to make exactly one thing – Campbell’s Bean with Bacon soup (add a pat of butter and a dollop of ketchup to the pot, eat it when it’s hot). I’ll never forget our first breakfast – I did so want to impress him! But I fried that bacon and fried that bacon until it shrunk to nothing and turned char-black, but it just never would get stiff! Brave and loving soul that he is, my hubby ate it anyway and even pretended to like it.

But pretty much all I heard while learning how to make Kraft Mac and Cheese, Tuna and Hamburger Helper and rice (reading the instructions on the box really helps!), all I ever heard from my husband and his mother was how great her steak fingers and French Fries were. Worse, I was fond of all sorts of vegetables, even Brussels Sprouts, and hubby wouldn’t touch anything green. My Mom was an excellent cook, always served meals with at least 3 or 4 vegetable choices, a bread (often her wonderful sweet cornbread), a salad and some meat. Only when she was mad at us did we end up with liver and onions, but I swear she could even make that taste good!

I did finally learn to cook. Even bought some cookbooks, and Mom gave me some of hers. When the kids got old enough to eat solid food, I decided it was the perfect time to introduce them to vegetables. Told hubby that if he got hungry enough he’d learn to like ‘em too. Surprisingly (to my Mother-in-Law), it worked! Before the kids started school we’d gone vegetarian – ovo-lacto, but no more meat main dishes. And managed to be both healthy and not obese anyway!

Of course, the teachers and administrator at the school my children went to didn’t think anything of informing them that we were trying to kill them – “everybody knows” you can’t live unless you eat processed meat 3 or 4 times a day! I actually purchased a great book on vegetarianism and nutrition, donated it to the school library after informing the teachers and principal that they should read it first – before saying another word to other people’s children about family food choices.

When the kids were teenagers they never seemed to be around for family dinners like they used to be, so I stopped cooking pretty much. Hubby or I would just open a can, throw something together quick, and eat it. I don’t know where the teenagers were eating, but since they weren’t dying I figured they must be eating something somewhere. Then I got grandchildren, and it’s been a regular cook-fest ever since. We sometimes have a house full of them (plus parents), and their favorite thing is the food – either eaten right there in the garden or made into some scrumptous dish.

All of them swear I’m the best cook on the planet, having figured out the best way to ensure Granny gives them extra helpings and lets them eat dessert first. The grandson who lives with us managed to get all the way to 6′3″ and about 155 pounds without ever having eaten meat as a regular part of his diet from the time he was born. He loves everything I make, never tires of telling me how much he loves my… sourdough bread, deep dish New York style pizza, clean-out-the-fridge veggie minestrone soup, black bean veggie burgers, grilled veggie kabobs, etc., etc., etc.

Daughter’s not much of a cook. She can heat up a can of beans , can read the instructions on a package of cake mix or pasta or red beans and rice, and can make some killer nachos. But basic cooking wisdom seems beyond her. How much salt per quart for a big pot of beans or soup, how to substitute what you’ve got for what the recipe calls for, how to add just the right herbs for just the right aroma and flavor are not things she’s ever paid much attention to. Probably because I do most of the real cooking. I know how that works, since I never learned to cook for as long as my Mom was doing it!

It seems like the older i get the more I enjoy trying new things. Plus, with hubby, daughter and grandson all here to give me kudos for the meal, it is a fine ego stroke.

At any rate, my newest granddaughter is due the first week of March. So while I’m working on the baby quilt and other goodies for the big day and its aftermath, I’ve also started collecting cookbooks to give my daughter. She is actually not a bad cook, at least for reading directions and being creative with ingredients. I do wish she liked vegetables more, or at least got more variety. So that’s what I’m going for, along with promises of exotics when she visits here with the baby. Baba Ganoush (eggplant) and pita with a side of serious tabouli and home made lemon and garlic hummus, creamed leek stuffed puffballs (or portobellos), fried kale and sage chips, lentils with olive oil and multi-colored peppers, boiled green peanuts on rice with piñon and saffron sauce, etc.

I don’t know about her husband, but my daughter eats meat very seldom and would like nothing better than to go vegetarian with her daughter. As I told my hubby all those many years ago, if he gets hungry enough, he’ll learn to like vegetables!

Links:

Gourmet Vegetables: Smart Tips and Tasty Picks

The Gutsy Gourmet: Vegetables

Organic Cooking Products