More on almond milk: Ingredient analysis

I used up the last of my store-bought almond milk today and took a look at the ingredient list.

From the box of Almond Breeze^®, original:

purified water, evaporated cane juice, almonds, tricalcium phosphate, sea salt, potassium citrate, carrageenan, soy lecithin.

The website (a U.S. website for the company based in Sacramento CA) lists the following ingredients as well: Dalpha- tocopherol (natural vitamin e), vitamin a palmitate, vitamin d2.

Not bad, actually. Let’s see what Wikipedia has to say about some of these ingredients, shall we?

Tricalcium phosphate is generally used in powdered spices as an anti-caking agent, rising agent and nutritional supplement. I’m guessing that here it is the added calcium, 20% Daily Value per 1 cup (240mL) serving.

Potassium citrate “may be used to control kidney stones due to either uric acid or cystine.” “effective in reducing the pain and frequency of micturition when these are caused by highly acidic urine.” “an effective way to treat/manage gout and arrhythmia,” “widely used to treat urinary calculi (kidney stones), and is often used by patients with cystinuria.” “also used in many soft drinks as a buffering agent.”

I guess in this case it’s the buffering agent, which “adjusts the pH of a solution.” I’d like to know why almond milk needs a buffering agent. Anyone know?

Carrageenan: Now here’s one that I know about. Without looking it up, I can tell you that  it’s a thickener. Sea vegetable based, I think.

Soy lecithin: An emulsifier. Again, this is something I know.

Evaporated cane juice: A sweetener

The other ingredients are vitamins. .

The Blue Diamond/Almond Breeze has nutritional information on their website.

The empty carton in front of me indicates 10% Daily Value of vitamin E, 0% vitamin A (though the American website indicates a vitamin A additive), 2% iron, 10% phosphorus (from the tricalcium phosphate or naturally occurring?) and 6% magnesium.

What’s in home made almond milk?

Almonds, water, and sweetener such as dates. I used hazelnut flavoured agave nectar as sweetener yesterday.

1 cup (143g) of whole almonds is rich in protein, containing an equal amount of protein and carbohydrate, which is mostly fiber. Almonds are high in monounsaturated fat and contain some polyunsaturated fats. They’re high in Vitamin E, magnesium, copper and phosphorus, have a huge amount of manganese and contain a fair bit of of calcium and iron

I know that the nutrition of almonds and the nutrition of almond milk aren’t the same because most of the almond is left behind in the processing. I don’t know if any nutrients – and how much – is present in the resulted liquid. I’d be interested to find out, though. Does anyone know? I tried finding the information but a misleading headline gave me nutritional information for almonds, not almond milk.

Finally, of course one cup of liquid is not equivalent to one cup of nuts. This isn’t really an accurate comparison (I guess you could say it’s a “diluted comparison” if you like plays on words) but it’s an interesting one. I did the research because I’m a nerd like that.

Additional reading:

• NutritionData
• WHFoods: Does packaged almond milk provide the same health benefits as whole almonds?

Eat well, be well,
Canadianfoodiegirl.

Andrea's recipe project

Been intending to post about this for quite awhile, but a tweet that I made alluded to it and since my tweets appear in my blog, I thought it was time.

Introduction

Ever since I moved out of my parents’ house at 19 I’ve been accumulating recipes in a binder. What began with recipes photocopied from cookbooks and newspapers, and photocopies of newspapers, expanded. Since around 2000 I’ve been accumulating recipes from websites.  I prune every so often, but for every few that get thrown into the recycle bin there are many more that get added. I’ve increased binder size at least twice and at some point in late 2008 added a second, smaller binder, using it for desserts, beverages and holiday recipes.

My process for recipe collection

While scrolling through blogs and other websites I’d see a recipe I like and either print it straight from the website or copy and paste it into a Word document. Most often it was the latter. I often had a file in progress of recipes that were copied, pasted and formatted (Arial, 10 or 11 pt font with 12-14 pt title, sometimes ingredient lists made into two columns to save lateral space) and eventually printed. I find most recipes in blogs – either the main post or in the comments – and blog pages don’t print well.

At the bottom of most of the recipes I’d note the source URL – the exact page – so that I could go back in case I needed to reprint, wanted to see photos and/or context or wanted to see the blog comments.

Enter the laptop

In February my desktop computer died leaving my laptop, which I’ve had for a year and a half (20 months) as my only computer. At that point I realized that I could have been using my laptop in my kitchen for the past year and a half. Then it occurred to me: Most of the recipes from that binder are available online. This was the genesis of an ongoing project. Going through the recipe binders, finding the recipes online and bookmarking them in Google Bookmarks.

The benefits of this:

1. Losing the heavy binder.
2. Recycling all the current pages.
3. Saving paper by not printing out new recipes. This equals less clutter in my apartment and less environmental impact, though I realize that the paper is being made whether or not I buy it.
4. Saving money on paper and toner (though negligible).
5. Everything is organized by category. I currently have 32 categories in Google Bookmarks, whereas my binder has fewer.
6. I can place recipes in more than one category.
7. Way easier to find what I’m looking for. Hypothetical scenario: I return home from picking up my weekly CSA selection with some kohlrabi and want recipe ideas because really, I have no idea what to do with kohlrabi and hadn’t even heard of it until I participated in the CSA two yeas ago.
   I go to Google Bookmarks, type “kohlrabi” into the search box, click “search bookmarks” and find every recipe I’ve got that mentions kohlrabi. Of course, I could just do a regular Google search, and I’m sure I will. [This reminds me that I need to find and bookmark recipes for kohlrabi because I don't have any.]
8. Google Bookmarks has a “notes” field. I’ve used it for recipes that I’ve previously made. For example, the recipe for “Swiss Chard with Tomatoes and Chickpeas” had a note on it written in pen. Now that note is in the bookmark: “Don’t add too much water. Add small amount at first. Finish with chili flakes and Gomasio. Try fleur de sel”.

The only disadvantage that I foresee: Getting food on the keyboard,  possibly a reason that my backslash key currently isn’t working. Also, I might want to back up my bookmarks even though they’re online.

Having the URLs at the bottom of printed recipes has been helpful because I can go back to the website. For example: The printed recipe for “Pasta with Roasted Eggplant and Tomato” from Serious Eats, posted last September, has a direct link at the bottom of the page so I can either type out the entire URL, which I seldomly do, or go to the SE (etc.) website and search for the recipe for bookmarking. Where I don’t have the URL at the bottom I Google the recipe name.

I tweeted the following today:

“Amusing typo while googling: Instead of typing “sauteed rainbow chard with raw beets” I typed “sauteed rainbow chart with raw beers”.

It was a recipe from The Kitchn and I hadn’t noted the source. Mmm, rainbow charts with raw beers.

I started in project in March, I think, and am well into the binder despite it not being a daily task. I’m onto the “vegetable” section after clearing out “favourites”, breakfast,  muffins, breads, appetizers/dips, soup, salad, grains, and pasta. The main binder has around 15 categories (a main index of 10 tabs was further subdivided at one point) whereas, as mentioned above, my bookmarks so far have 32 categories,  including “favourites” and “must try”.

It’s satisfying to throw out a huge stack of completed pages. This has also given me an opportunity to throw out recipes that I didn’ t want to keep. The final phase will be scanning recipes that I couldn’t find online (magazine photocopies, some of the original newspaper photocopies) and saving them as PDF on my server at canadianfoodiegirl.com. I’ll then bookmark those.

I still have cookbooks that I buy, and I enjoy those. I enjoy reading through cookbooks as regular books and I’d like to grow my collection. I’m happy to be freeing myself from the big-ass recipe binder – and it does feel freeing.

Eat well, be well.

Last Friday's dinner for two: Red Snapper en Papillote

Last week I decided that on Friday I’d make dinner for two. Of course being a food enthusiast, reader of food media and food blog writer, I had some ideas. However, I decided to consult my friend who writes the blog In The Weeds. After all, he’d helped out another friend with a similar dilemma and I know that he enjoys menu planning. (Dear Friend, how should I refer to you in posts since you don’t publish your real name online?)

He thought about it and sent me two recipes, a fish and a lamb. After deciding on the fish, with modification indicated below, I googled for similar recipes and found the one that he’d sent me. The recipe: Red Snapper en Papillote. Now, I know that Mark Bittman recently got in trouble at grist.org for using red snapper. Apparently it’s one of the most endangered species in U.S. waters. Bittman replied to that page with an apology and explanation. I’d never made red snapper before, and darn it, I wanted to make red snapper. Hence my now often cited trip to St. Lawrence Market on Friday. (Seriously, I’ve never mentioned the market more often than I have in the last five days).

The original recipe from Gastronomie.

Red Snapper en Papillote

• 2 snapper (or other firm-fleshed white fish) fillets
• 2 medium yukon gold potatoes, sliced paper thin
• 1 red onion, sliced thin
• 2 stalks green garlic, sliced thin
• 1 lemon, preferably Meyer
• 10-12 cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 tbsp dried Fines Herbes (tarragon, thyme, chervil, parsley)
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Read on for directions, photos, etc.

I almost passed on the recipe when I got to the second ingredient. I neither have a food processor nor a mandoline slicer and my knife skills are not that accurate. Then I remembered that I rarely cook exactly to recipe.

Green garlic, also known as garlic scapes or garlic shoots, is similar to green onion (or scallion). It’s the shoots from the bulb of garlic. There’s a good description of green garlic here, and I actually remember the headline “My Friend the Garlic Scape” published in the Washington Post almost a year ago.¹ Green garlic/scapes/shoots is found in farmer’s markets but I have yet to find it out of season. Garlic scape season is July to August in Ontario.

I already had a container of mixed heirloom tomatoes at home (grown in an Ontario greenhouse) so I chose to use those rather than buy cherry tomatoes. I decided to use asparagus because I’d bought some earlier in the week at Fresh and Wild in Bloor West Village, along with the tomatoes and a bunch of kale.

My adaptation:
Red Snapper en Papillote

• 2 snapper fillets
• 1 red onion, sliced thin
• 1 Meyer lemon
• A bunch of asparagus, blanched & cut into smallish chunks (depending on the size of the bunch you might not need the entire thing  – see sides below)
• Mixed heirloom tomatoes, cut up (I think I started with 5 and added more)
• 1 tbsp Tarragon, thyme, parsley
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 450º.
2. Season the snapper on both sides with kosher salt & fresh-cracked black pepper. Set aside.
3. Lay out a piece of aluminum foil large enough to enclose both pieces of fish*. On top of that, lay a piece of parchment.
4. Next, layer on two-thirds of the onions, and half the tomatoes. Sprinkle this mixture with the zest and juice from half a lemon.
5. Lay the fish on top of the vegetables, and squeeze the juice from the remaining lemon half over the top (okay, I forgot to squeeze the lemon the second time). Season with salt & pepper, and drizzle with half the olive oil.
6. Top the fish with the remaining vegetables (remaining onions and tomatoes, asparagus), and the herbs. Drizzle with remaining olive oil.
7. Bring up the sides of the foil/parchment, and pinch closed; roll the ends tight to make a sealed pouch.
8. Bake at 450º for 22 minutes (or 18 minutes for flakier fish).

*This was suggested as a footnote in the original recipe and I decided to take the suggestion because foil is sturdier and I felt that it was less likely to fall apart than flimsy parchment paper. I also didn’t know the quality of my supermarket-purchased parchment.

Neither of us ate the onion because it was too strong but it provided aromatics.

Side dishes:

Inspired by the potatoes in the original recipe I roasted a combination of white and red baby potatoes in olive oil and a bit of kosher salt, and finished them with truffle salt.

After washing a bunch of kale and removing the stems I combined the kale and a splash of water in a large pan. I covered the pan (with another pan), and cooked the kale over medium-high heat, tossing occasionally with tongs, until the kale was bright green and tender. When it was almost finished I threw in some of the asparagus that didn’t make it into the fish. After removing from heat I tossed the kale with some balsamic vinegar.

I took some photos, but they are at home whereas I am not. I will update this post.

---

¹ Perhaps the headline reminds me of the title of a Freaks and Geeks episode called “Kim Kelly is my Friend”.

Cooking skincare

Today I attended Meghan’s Cooking Cosmetics: Natural Body Care workshop. I had my camera and intended to take photos for the blog but forgot to use it. I was having too much fun. Meghan’s mom came in and took a couple of photos so maybe they’ll be on Meghan’s blog. Most of what was demonstrated we took home.

What we made:

• Chocolate Face Mask – the only product we made to taste and didn’t take home.
• Almond Oat Cleansing Meal
• Apple Lip Balm
• Cocoa Butter Dry Skin Lotion (one of my favourites)
• Epsom Salt Bath Soak
• Everyday Toothpaste (see her recent blog post with video), in which she replaced her usual peppermint oil with the Thieves Blend as per my suggestion.  A blend of clove, lemon, cinnamon bark, eucalyptus, and rosemary,  I’m in love with the Thieves line. I use the foaming hand soap. It’s antiseptic, non-drying and smells amazing. Other products in the Thieves line include dental floss, mouthwash, toothpaste (and an “oral care kit” with all three), lozenges, household cleaner, waterless hand purifier, wipes and hand soap. Buy it through Meghan or my mother.

I could post recipes here but I’d rather you sign up for one of Meghan’s workshops for only $40. The date of the next one is TBD but check the workshop listings on her website or her blog.

I left inspired and looking forward to brushing my teeth with my new toothpaste. I bought vegetable glycerine on my way home and look forward to experimenting with her recipe book and inventing some of my own recipes.

My Sunday baking project was the almond bread [link updated] that I’d first discovered through Meghan. The bread turned out more moist and fluffy than last time because last time I only had two eggs and the recipe calls for three. I managed to get arrowroot starch all over myself (black outfit) and the stove, the counter, the sink, and some of the floor. It’s clean now, but first I had to clean the starch off the spray bottle of cleaner.

To those who are wondering if she’s just as adorable in person as she is in the videos she posts on her blog, the answer is yes.

I’ll stop now, lest I start to creep her out.

Coming up: Two posts regarding food activities on Friday.

On Mintz and Men

[I began this post at 5pm, had to abandon it unfinished at 6:47 to get my butt to seder that was to begin at 7 but didn't begin until 8, and finished after.]

[April 9, 3:10pm: Edited to make it a bit shorter.]

I apologize in advance for the length, because I generally don’t have the patience to read anything that’s this long.

Occasionally I read something that makes me smack my head with disbelief, as in, “I can’t believe he/she wrote that.” I wasn’t going to post about this. I wasn’t going to comment on Corey Mintz’s  article in last Saturday’s Toronto Star about an unconventional passover seder. I first noticed it in Taste T.O.’s weekly Saturday feature In the Papers (April 4). I starred the Taste T.O. post in Google Reader, unsure if I wanted to read about it again, post about it, or go there in general. It seemed like an article I had to bookmark. So, I thought “Mintz, you ass.” and moved on. I wasn’t going to address it here.

Sometimes I begin comments in response to blog posts and find that that they’ve become opinion pieces or diatribes.  Well, that sort of lead me to this post, except that I wasn’t commenting to a blog post.

Another fact about me (one was revealed on Monday): I briefly worked in radio a couple of years ago. While between careers around 2003 (?),  and then on a casual part time basis through 2008, I worked for Rogers Broadcasting, which owns Jack FM, CHFI, 680 News and The Fan 590 in Toronto. One of the first people I met there was  Maurie, who had been a producer on Jack FM’s morning show until the station went to a DJ-free format.

Maurie is my Facebook network. and today he posted audio of an interview that he did with Dave Trafford at CFRB 1010 earlier today, an interview which he was recruited to do in response to Corey’s article.  A lot of Jews listen to Newstalk. I grew up listening to CFRB in the car when Andy Barrie was still on air there (now I listen to him every morning on CBC). The interview is not on CFRB’s website nor do I know if it will be.  Maurie posted it as a video link. It may or may not be accessible to you. It may or may not be copyright infringement.

The interview with Maurie and CFRB’s Jessica Baker was good. Their messaging was basically, “The seder is mostly about family, we enjoy the family time and the festival meal, we don’t have the patience to read through the whole book beginning to end, we count the pages until the part that says we eat and then we’re done.” Pretty consistent with my experience and that of most people I know. One friend’s family reenacts the plagues with masks and toys, which I think is awesome, and tomorrow I’ll be at a seder hosted by two friends, one of whom is a rabbi, and I’ve been informed that there will be lots of discussion going late into the night. Lots of wine too.

So, Corey’s article…

(more…)