Themed Halloween food: Stuffed peppers / Alien pods

Before

After

Would you like some Alien pods? Maybe you'd prefer if we called them stuffed peppers? 

Some friends recently threw an Alien watching party. Dinner was composed all of all stuffed (read: potentially exploding) items. The hosts prepared fish stuffed with crabmeat and butternut squash ravioli. We brought along stuffed peppers / Alien pods which were, coincidentally, vegan.

To prepare them, I carefully sliced out the stems and then cleaned out the insides of the peppers. I made three cuts to allow three (more or less) flaps and trimmed the edges to make them somewhat (very "somewhat") triangular. I brushed the pan and each pepper with olive oil. Since peppers are crisp when they are raw, this was tricky. With practice, I imagine they'd be more attractive (or frightening?)

The filling was a mix of diced sautéed vegetables (onions, zucchini, celery and kale) with brown rice and almond slices. I baked the peppers for about an hour at 350 degrees and we ate them room temperature. 

What's your favorite scary food for Halloween-y meals?

Fresh Pasta: Pastaworks

Pasta slicing machine

Garlic focaccia

Artisan egg pasta sliced to fettucini width 

Fettucini with kale, garlic and mushrooms

This summer we stopped at Pastaworks Hawthorne in Portland, Oregon, for freshly made and even more freshly cut, pasta. In the store, you choose the kind of fresh pasta you'd like cut from the prepared sheets, and what shape you'd prefer. The market also has an amazing selection of traditional Italian goods like wines, candies and olive oils, as well as local and imported cheeses. 

After much debate (how to choose!) we decided on the artisan egg pasta sliced to fettucini width. I prepared it with locally grown kale, garlic and mushrooms from the farmers' market.

Delicious.

Who is ready for a trip out west?

Teeccino: Caffeine Free Herbal Coffee

Warning: This is going to sound like an infomercial. 

I used to drink entirely too much coffee. The first thing I did every morning was brew Italian coffee in my moka. Later in the day, I'd have more coffee or a coffee soda (I love illy's coffee soda and Manhattan Special. I always felt proud that I'd stop drinking caffeinated products by mid-afternoon. What control I had!

And I was always a terrible, terrible sleeper. I'd wake up during the night and wake up ridiculously early. If I didn't have my coffee first thing, I'd have a searing headache and be annoyed all day, even if I eventually drank coffee and tossed back some Tylenol. Traveling was hell because I needed coffee immediately and of course, that wasn't always possible.

Clearly I was addicted.

I decided to try to break myself of the habit. Completely. It took me about two weeks to stop drinking any coffee. Emotionally, I still want it. I meet clients in coffee shops and now order sweet treats instead of the coffee whose delicious scent is everywhere. I tend towards sweets in the afternoon for a sugar pick-me up instead of a caffeinated one. While I deeply desire a beautiful cappuccino, I'm enjoying the effects of not being addicted: Less headaches and better sleeping.

I think I was able to cut the coffee out in part because I continue with the morning routine I've had for years. Every morning I prepare Teeccino in my moka and then sit quietly to drink it before doing anything else.

I started by replacing some of the regular coffee with Teeccino coffee and eventually replaced all of the coffee with Teeccino. Yes, even though I slowly cut back on the coffee, I still had a low-grade headache for days (back to the Tylenol for that period.) Eventually, the headaches faded away.

Teeccino is a combination of barley and fruits, like figs, that are roasted for a coffee flavor. No, it doesn't taste exactly like coffee and no, you wouldn't be able to fool anyone who is a real coffee connoisseur. But, it does the trick.

The grind is a little too fine for the moka (the last sip is grainy), but I can deal with it. The barley coffee is similar to Orzo Bimbo, an Italian, instant barley coffee for kids, but since it isn't instant, the Teeccino is better. The Teeccino also has a more complex flavor than a straight-barley drink.

The company was kind enough to send me some samples so I could try some other flavors that I haven't been able to find in local stores. I was always a purist when it came to coffee, so instead of flavors like vanilla nut, chocolate or hazelnut, my favorite is the Mediterranean Original (see picture above.) Order it here.

Have you tried giving up coffee and caffeinated products (chocolate/sodas)? 

Lactose-Free Living

Like our recent gluten-free diet trial, I tried eating lactose-free for about two weeks in order to better answer friends questions about lactose-free dishes. And much like the earlier diet, it was initially quite difficult (no mozzarella? no ricotta? what?) and then eventually became easier. 

I often start my day with a milk, yogurt and fruit smoothie (usually with some flax seed meal, chia seeds or wheat germ thrown in). Instead of the milk and yogurt, I used bananas (a great thickener, as are chia seeds) and juice (orange and Trader Joe's lemon ginger echinacea mixed juices were favorites) with the fruit.

Lunch was the trickiest. I often pack my husband a sandwich and make one for myself working at home. And those sandwiches always have cheese. To eliminate the cheese, I tried some of these combinations, which were great, on whole grain bread:
hummus and tomato
meat (cured sandwich meat or leftover chicken, beef or pork) and avocado
roasted vegetables and avocado
egg salad
tuna salad (with olive oil, mustard and capers instead of mayo)

For dinner, many Asian (Chinese stir fries, meat or vegetable dumplings, noodle dishes, Indian curries, etc.) are naturally lactose free. It was easy to make a traditional American dish of meat and potatoes without milk products, but when it came to Italian pasta dishes, I needed to replace the cheese. I found that nuts offered a similar taste and texture to cheeses. I sprinkled some toasted pine nuts on pasta with a marinara sauce and prepared risotto with thyme, mushrooms and crushed walnuts. We also had roasted fish (olive oil, white wine, garlic, lemon juice and a few tomato slices) with brown rice and vegetables sautéed in garlic.

I generally cook everything with olive oil instead of butter, so that wasn't tricky. For dessert, we tried fruit or rice/soy ice cream. I was really taken with Rice Dream Bites (rice dream ice cream covered in a hard chocolate shell.)

For more information and recipes, try Whole Foods' guide and Livestrong's guide to eating dairy free.

Announcing Unrest, a poetry chapbook by Chloe Yelena Miller

As I suggested last week with my recently published poem Hunger, food and cooking often appear in my poetry. And it isn't any different with my first poetry chapbook, Unrest, which will be published by Finishing Line Press in January 2013. Unrest illustrates the experience of loss through food, foreign language, travel, visual art, and more. This collection allows what once was to be resuscitated.

Renée Ashley, author of Basic Heart, writes of Unrest, “These poems rest easily in the world because they are so much of it: family, love and loss, mixed inextricably in the crucible of food, of consideration and preparation, literal and figurative, of artichokes and lemon water, tomatoes, figs, of guava paste on dry toast, foods that seduce and sustain us.”

Thomas Lux, author of Child Made of Sand, says, “This is an exceptional debut by a young poet unafraid of being understood while at the same time writing with utter originality. Read this book!”

For a preview, click through to read these previously published poems.

This is a limited edition collection, and pre-publication sales will determine the press run. If you are interested, I hope you will consider purchasing a copy during this pre-sale period by ordering online.