Fresh Corn on the Cob

Corn on the cob is the epitome of summer. But I didn't eat it for years because I could not find it organically-grown.

I'll buy a lot of produce from no-spray farmers, but not corn. No-spray farmers commit to not using chemicals on their plants, but they can start with non-organic seed. Organic farmers must use organic seed, and I want corn that is grown from organic seed, not genetically-modified seed. I don't want to put one dime into Monsanto's pocket. Apart from the disturbing health effects, there's something wrong with eating seeds that have been genetically modified to be all alike.

(Democracy Now reported in Jan. 2010 that a study in the International Journal of Biological Sciences found that Monsanto's genetically-modified corn helped cause organ damage in rats. The study’s author called Monsanto’s GM methods "a very serious mistake, dramatic for public health.")

My mother told me recently about a series on CBC radio by David Suzuki called The Bottom Line. The episode that got her attention included an interview with a seed-saver in India. Vandana Shiva said there used to be more than 300 varieties of rice. Different seeds grew in different conditions. One even grew in salt water. After the 2004 tsunami, a lot of land was salinated, and the genetically-modified rice could not grow in it. However, this seed-saving eco-activist sent the farmers rice seeds that thrive in the salty soil. Feeding the hungry: science can't do it, nature can.

That's why I only eat organic corn on the cob. I believe in diversity in all its forms. Organic has it. GMOs don't.

Last week Finley Farms at the Hollywood Farmers Market had organic corn. I bought six ears and we have relished them. Later I'll use fresh corn in cooked dishes like risotto and bean stews, but the first ears are saved for pure corn-on-the-cob enjoyment. Boiled for seven minutes, they don't even need butter, salt or pepper.

This weekend, if Larry lights the barbecue, I'll peel back the husks to rip out the silks, layer the husks back on the kernels and tie them with string, then soak them for 20 minutes or so while he's heating the coals. Then he'll cook them in their husks over the coals (about 20 minutes) for an even more intense fresh corn flavor.

But only if Finley Farms has more of that great organic corn.

Chickpea Cilantro Salad

On these hot summer days, I’m reluctant to heat up the kitchen, but we still need good meals. This is where bean salads come in handy. Just open a couple of cans of beans, add some diced vegetables, fresh herbs from the garden, and some salad dressing, and you have a nutritious dinner.

Chickpeas (also called garbanzos) are a great salad bean because they have a good texture and slightly nutty flavor.

Besides being a good source of fat-free protein, chickpeas contain fiber that lowers cholesterol and stabilizes blood sugar levels. They're high in magnesium and folate which are good for the heart. Study after study shows their health benefits.

I take containers of bean salad and green salad to work most days. At lunch time I combine the two so the dressing from the bean salad covers the greens as well. Followed by an apple, this simple meal gets me through the afternoon without an energy dip.

All beans are health-promoting, so feel free to use whatever varieties you like in this recipe, which is one of Larry's favorites. You can make it more colorful by using half chickpeas and half kidney beans.

It will last in the fridge for 4-5 days. Let it come to room temperature before eating.

Chickpea Salad
2 14-oz cans chickpeas (or 1/2 lb or 1 cup dry, cooked)
1 1/2 cups chopped celery
1/3 cup chopped cilantro leaves
2 scallions, sliced (some diced onion is fine instead)
salt and pepper
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
3-4 tsp red wine vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil

Drain and rinse the chickpeas.

Combine in a large bowl with the remaining ingredients. Toss well.

Serves 4-6.

Summer Peaches

A ripe peach tastes like summer.

For a few fleeting but delicious weeks I feast on peaches, nectarines and plums, and then that's it until next year.

Let me remind you that conventionally-grown peaches, nectarines and strawberries contain higher levels of pesticide residue than is considered safe, so don't eat them. (Click here for the full list of non-organic produce to avoid.)

You are more likely to find good peaches and nectarines at the farmers market than the grocery store, because they are less likely to have been chilled before you buy them. Refrigerating ripe peaches keeps them at that state of perfection for a couple of days. Refrigerating under-ripe ones gives them a dull flavor.

It is an art to serve perfectly ripe stone-fruit. And yes, you have to ripen it yourself. Even at the farmer's market, it is rare to find ripe fruit. A ripe peach bruises easily and goes off quickly, so farmers pick it almost-ripe, and leave us to finish the ripening at home. Select fruit which smells good, but is still firm. The people at the farmstand can select good ones for you.

At home I put the peaches, plums and nectarines in a shallow bowl on the kitchen counter. I inspect each piece of fruit daily. If it is soft and fragrant, I either slice it into our morning fruit or store it in a bag in the fridge. This daily check is imperative, especially in this hot weather. Once one peach goes off, it spreads quickly and you can lose them all. If a peach has a small bad spot, I chop it out and then use the good parts immediately (tasting first to make sure it's still good). A bad peach won't harm you, but why have a bad taste experience? If a peach is soft and particularly fragrant, serve it or refrigerate it.

On a recent Saturday evening I served donut peaches (pictured) from Joshua Tree along with orange almond cookies for dessert. The peaches were the hit of the evening - beautifully ripe and fragrant.

Ahhh, there's nothing like summer.

Pesto

Now the basil is flourishing in my garden, I have rediscovered my addiction to pesto, the simple blended sauce of basil, olive oil and garlic.

While pesto is traditionally a pasta sauce, I like it on vegetables too. I toss it with steamed carrots and green beans. And I find it particularly attractive spread on yellow patty pan squash. I slice the squash in half, brush it with a little oil, and bake it in the toaster oven at 350° until it's tender. Then I spread some pesto on top, cook it a little longer, and serve. It's pretty on the plate and delicious to eat. If you have a jar of pesto in the fridge, it's fast to make too.

Like all plants, basil has health-promoting properties, including bioflavanoids that protect chromosomes from radiation damage and cells from oxidation. Its volatile oils (that make it smell good) have anti-bacterial qualities and might prevent against bacterial infections in the intestines. It's good for the heart because it is high in magnesium and carotenoids that prevent oxidation of cholesterol. It also contains compounds that fight inflammation in similar ways to NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatories).

Eating basil is a great way to let food be your medicine. Throw some leaves in your spaghetti sauce, chop some into your salad, and enjoy pesto.

The following is my basic pesto recipe, but I sometimes change things up in ways that purists will disavow. I often skip the parmesan cheese, and just add extra salt to taste. (Vegan pesto.) I sometimes add water instead of all the oil - it makes a lighter pesto that doesn't store as well in the fridge but spreads well over pasta. I can rarely find organic pine nuts, so I substitute walnuts.

I keep pesto in a jar in the fridge, covered with a little olive oil to keep it green. I also freeze a few small containers of it to get me through the grey winter months. But really, there's nothing like freshly-made pesto with basil straight from the garden.

Pesto
2 cups basil leaves
2 garlic cloves
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan (optional)
1/4 cup pine nuts or walnuts
1/2 cup olive oil
salt to taste

Combine the basil, garlic, parmesan and nuts in a blender and buzz a few times until well chopped. Slowly add the olive oil with the machine running. You might need to scrape the pesto out of the blender blades a few times. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Let stand a few minutes for the flavors to blend before using.

Makes about 1 cup.

Storage: Scoop it into a small jar, pour olive oil over the top to cover it, and store in the fridge for at least a week or the freezer for longer.

Quick summer dinner

On these hot summer nights, it's so easy to default to a dinner of cheese and crackers, or chips and salsa. After all, who wants to cook?

But with some fresh greens in the fridge, a light but nutrition-packed supper is only minutes away.

The other night I came home late from work and put some leftover Beans with Fresh Sage to warm on the stove.

Then I pulled some malabar spinach from the fridge. This is a crinkly spinach with thick leaves about 4 inches long. We got it from Finley Farms at the Hollywood Farmers Market. Earlier in the year Tutti Frutti and the South Central Farmers Cooperative have grown it. If you see some, grab it. It's great as a spinach salad with mushrooms and balsamic vinaigrette. And it doesn't get slimy in the fridge the way those bags of baby spinach leaves do.

We had washed some Friday night, dried it in the salad spinner, wrapped it in paper towels and put it in a plastic bag in the fridge. The following Thursday it was still good. I piled leaves on top of each other, sliced them into one-inch ribbons, and cooked them with some onion and a couple of tomatoes from our garden.

We put the cooked greens in the bottom of our bowls, spooned some of the warm beans on top, and took our simple yet delicious dinner out into the cooling night.

Quick Greens
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 red onion
2 tomatoes
salt and pepper
4-5 cups malabar spinach or other greens

Warm the olive oil over medium-low heat. Cut the onion in 1/4 inch dice and add to the pan. Cook gently until soft. Cut the tomatoes in eighths and add to the pan. Season with salt and pepper, stir well, and cook gently for about five minutes until the tomatoes start to disintegrate. Cut the spinach into 1/2 inch ribbons and stir into the tomatoes. Cover and cook over low heat, stirring every few minutes. When the spinach is soft (about 5 minutes), taste and season as needed.

Serves 2.

Luscious Lemon Greens

I served these greens to friends on Saturday night, along with a zucchini casserole and Beans with Fresh Sage.

I don't think people eat enough green leafy vegetables, so I make sure to serve them to guests. Greens are a great source of absorbable minerals and calcium, and taste far better than the daily calcium pill so many people inflict on themselves. (Read my article Strong Bones for other ways to get calcium into your bones.)

In this recipe, I cook the greens ahead, and then reheat them with the spicy lemon oil just before serving. Cooking greens in oil helps to break down the cell walls to make the bioflavanoids more available to our body. The quick blanching does remove some nutrients from the greens. My grandmother, who was a health-conscious vegetarian before I was born, saved her vegetable water in a container in the fridge and drank it as a vegetable cocktail or added it to soups.

I used dinosaur kale on Saturday, one of my favorites. I left the stems in to add texture, but the dish will be silkier if you leave them out. I also added some beet greens I had in the fridge. You can use any greens you have on hand. I recommend a base of chard if you are not used to greens or if you are feeding children, because it gets very soft and sweet when cooked.

(You could probably use frozen spinach in this recipe - thaw it and squeeze out the moisture.)

The lemon oil makes enough for 2 lbs of greens. It lasts a few days in the fridge, and is good in salad dressings or poured over steamed vegetables. (I used it last night to sauté some peppers, tomatoes and green beans from our garden.)

Luscious Lemon Greens
1/2 cup olive oil
zest of 1 lemon (not grated -- use a zester that makes thin strips of peel)
3/4 tsp whole cumin seeds
1/2 tsp crushed red chile flakes

Combine all the ingredients in a small saucepan and warm over low heat until the lemon zest curls and sizzles, 5-10 minutes. Remove from heat and let steep at least one hour. Strain and refrigerate for up to 3 days.

1 lb mixed leafy greens
salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1 whole clove garlic, peeled
1/4 cup spicy lemon oil (above recipe)

Bring a large pot of lightly-salted water to the boil.

Wash the greens and remove stems if desired. Cook one variety at a time in the boiling water until bright green, 2-7 minutes, then remove with tongs to a strainer to drain and cool.

When the greens are cool enough to handle, squeeze out all the liquid and then chop them finely. They can rest for a couple of hours at this point.

Warm olive oil and garlic over medium-low heat until you can smell the garlic, 3-5 minutes. Add the chopped greens and cook, stirring, until no liquid remains in the skillet, 3-4 minutes. Add spicy lemon oil 1 tbsp at a time and cook, stirring, until each tablespoon is absorbed. Continue cooking until greens are very soft, about 5-10 minutes.

Season to taste with salt. Discard the garlic clove, and serve immediately.

Serves 4-6.

The benefits of cabbages

The cabbage family (cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, bok choy, broccoli, red and green cabbage, etc.) are important foods in these days of hormone-altering pollutants.

Cabbages contain a chemical that helps our bodies process estrogen in healthy ways. (It's called dim - diindolylmethane - you might be taking it in supplement form.)

It's not only women who need be concerned about the estrogen in their bodies. Many plastics contain estrogen-mimicking chemicals. The World Wildlife Fund did studies 20 years ago that found that there were so many synthetic estrogens in the environment that male animals (crocodiles in Florida, fish in the Great Lakes) were being born with both male and female characteristics, presumably caused by the hormone-disrupting pollutants in the water they lived in.

Hormone-disruptors (found in plastics, pharmaceuticals, and chemical pesticides and fertilizers among other places) are chemicals that change the way hormones work in the body. Small amounts have adverse affects. The challenge is that we don't yet know the long-term effects. We can see, however, that hormone-induced cancers are on the rise.

This is where the cabbage family comes in.

To put it simply, estrogen (along with the synthetic estrogens from plastics and pharmaceuticals and the phyto-estrogens from soy) can promote bone density, youthful skin, heart health and more. Or it can metabolize in ways that lead to cancer.

Eating cabbages helps it be used for good.

Kind of amazing, eh?

To learn more about the benefits of cabbages, click here.

I'm sharing the following recipe for Cauliflower Curry because I think cauliflower too often gets overlooked as a bland vegetable to be draped in cheese sauce. Yet it goes really well with coconut milk (also full of health-promoting properties). The tumeric turns it an eye-catching yellow, and is a potent anti-inflammatory.

If you like a mild curry, use one serrano pepper. If you don't like tofu, omit it and cut back the coconut milk to one cup (store the remainder in the freezer until you need it).

Make sure your spices are fragrant. Ideally, buy the cumin and coriander whole and grind them in a spice grinder.

Serve the curry over brown rice, maybe with some greens on the side for a stunning color contrast. It will be a vibrant and healthy meal. And you won't look at cauliflower in the same way again.

Cauliflower Curry
1 tbsp oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2-inch piece fresh gingerroot, finely chopped or grated
3 serrano peppers, seeded and finely chopped
2 1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp black or yellow mustard seeds
1/2 tsp salt
1 small cauliflower, cut into bite-sized florets (about 3/4 lb after trimming)
1 cup coconut milk
1 lb firm tofu, diced 3/4 inch thick
2 zucchini, halved lengthwise and cut in 1/2 inch chunks
1 tbsp lemon juice, optional

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add oil and when it's hot add the onion and cook 6-8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned. Stir in garlic, ginger and serranos and cook 2 minutes more. Add coriander, cumin, cinnamon, turmeric, mustard seeds and salt. Stir until very fragrant, about 3 minutes. Add cauliflower and toss to cover with the spices. Add coconut milk, reduce heat, cover and simmer 5 minutes. Add tofu and zucchini and simmer, covered, until the cauliflower is tender, about 5 more minutes. Squirt in lemon juice at the end, if desired.

Serves 4.