Last newsletter we featured a roasted ratatouille recipe that just so happens to be an excellent base for a wonderful braised lamb shank recipe.
Follow the instructions for the roasted ratatouille.
Last newsletter we featured a roasted ratatouille recipe that just so happens to be an excellent base for a wonderful braised lamb shank recipe.
Follow the instructions for the roasted ratatouille.
It is that time of the year when Nature is at its most abundant producing overflows of tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, and peppers. How do you eat it all without it going bad? Well, there are many ratatouille recipes out there but this tops them all. The amounts below are just suggestions, it works well with any quantities your garden is producing or with the bounty your friends are giving to you.
The link below contains an excellent article about a new UC Davis olive oil consumer study. Essentially the study showed that consumers do not prefer the oil that olive oil experts rate as the highest quality. The main challenge for consumers is acquiring the taste for the bitter and pungent qualities of real extra virgin olive oil. Acquiring this taste is similar to acquiring the taste for the strong and bitter flavors found in coffee and beer. However, when the consumers learned that the strong flavors found in real extra virgin olive oil is evidence of a high concentration of antioxidants they began to be more receptive.
May was Mediterranean food month and the Mediterranean Foods Alliance website had a recipe contest and has posted the winners on their website.
We have mentioned this website before because it is one of the best sites if not the best site for learning about the Mediterranean diet. They have an educational introduction for the beginner, extensive resources for the experienced, lots of wonderful recipes, practical tips for introducing the Mediterranean diet into your diet and much more. This is all presented in a beautifully designed website, well worth the visit.
Below is the best article I have read on cooking with extra virgin olive oil. In essence, the phenolitic compounds found in high quality extra virgin olive oil protect the oil during the cooking process so it does not break down into harmful substances. Low quality olive oils do not have these compounds so it is actually more harmful, not less harmful, to cook with them. There are many other factors that make high quality extra virgin olive oil the best choice for cooking. I highly recommend reading the entire article.
The scientific truth on cooking with extra virgin olive oil
Below is a fun article on making flatbread with olive oil from the New York Times. It is amazing how versatile olive oil can be. I keep learning new ways to use it which encourages me to also conduct my own experiments.
Olive Oil Helps Produce a Classic Flatbread
Below is a link to a recent study done at Harvard University that found replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats may reduce your risk of heart disease by 20 percent more than just reducing fat intake. This is significant because it implies the low-fat craze is not the healthiest approach. Our body needs fats so why not consume healthy fats. Extra virgin olive oil has both polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats and is one of the healthiest fats around. One fun way of replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats is to replace butter with real extra virgin olive oil in desserts. We have a wonderful carrot cake recipe on our site that does exactly this and it is yummy. You can find the recipe here.
Below is a link to a recent study that is the first of its kind to investigate the effect of different components of the Mediterranean diet. They looked at large samples of people who loosely followed the Mediterranean diet but at the same time left out certain components of it. What they found is not surprising. The major benefit of the diet occurs when all elements are included. In other words it is very synergistic. Our modern tendency is to seek single ‘active ingredients’ and turn them into drugs. However this study suggests that a whole range of beneficial eating habits is what does the trick. The most important components were moderate intake of alcohol and a low consumption of meat, with a high intake of vegetables, fruits, nuts, olive oil and legumes. Read the article.
I cooked the roasted cauliflower recipe mentioned below and it was very good. The rich nuttiness of the roasted cauliflower compliments very nicely the tangy caper dressing. I cooked it for an hour and the cauliflower was nicely browned so I took it out. It was very crisp, almost too much, so I think next time I will add a little water to the dish while it is baking to cook the cauliflower through a little bit more. After you take it out you kind of wonder how do you serve a whole head of cauliflower. Next time I will cut the cooked cauliflower in quarters then pour the dressing on to make sure each serving gets a lot of the tangy dressing. I will definitely do this again. It was very simple to cook but the flavor was very elegant. It turns a boring cauliflower into something special.