Happy Holidays and Edible Architecture

Our Pathfinder Produce fresh fruits and vegetable market is closed this week and next for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, but our staff extends holiday greetings to our friends and customers.  Our market will reopen on Thursday, January 8, 2015.

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Last week, our good friends The Schlegel Family came to Pathfinder Village and worked with our students and adult residents to create some colorful gingerbread houses.  I had fun taking pictures during their visit, but I was wondering if there’s a way to make gingerbread houses healthier and less sugar-laden.  Even though many builders do not eat their creations, there’s always a fair amount of sampling that goes on during the construction process!

I did a little web surfing and found a few options.  There are several ways to build houses out of vegetables, as these posts from vegetablefruitcarving.com and the Green Giant’s Facebook show.  The Green Giant’s entry uses cream cheese as mortar; I would probably use a Neufchatel or non-fat cream cheese as a lighter calorie option. (These should stay cool and be eaten fairly quickly, given their dairy content).  You may need to use a few strategically placed wooden toothpicks to hold the veggie house together.  I would also use more carrots or maybe celery logs for the gable ends and a holiday plate for the base.

Another option that looks like fun is to use pretzel rods (low-salt if possible), with peanut butter mortar.  Epicurious.com offers a recipe that uses small pretzel sticks, but it would be easier to use pretzel rods (or a combination of pretzel sizes and shapes).  You could also incorporate breadsticks too, to provide some variation in texture and coloring.  You might be able to decorate the houses with some dried fruits, nuts, and maybe just a few candies.

I was also thinking that if you didn’t wish to eat your house, you could also make the building walls and roof from the mixture of applesauce and cinnamon (TONS OF CINNAMON) that is used to make tree ornaments.  I haven’t tried this, but it could work if you made the walls a bit thicker.  The recipe is at the McCormick Spice website; just be aware that it takes a long time to bake these. 

But there are purists who will not be denied their gingerbread … so here’s a recipe from Healthy Recipe Blogs with less sugar and very basic ingredients.  When you roll out your dough, cut the shapes you will need for your house … two identical long sides (include some windows), two shorter sides with second story gables (one with a door opening), and roof panels.  You could probably cut back on the brown sugar in the recipe, and add just a bit more molasses.  (Blackstrap molasses comes from the third boiling of cane juice to extract sugar; it is lower in sucralose, doesn’t cause a spike in blood sugar levels, and is rich in minerals like iron, calcium, selenium, manganese, potassium, copper, and zinc). 

For traditional gingerbread houses, “royal” icing is used to hold the house parts together … that’s a combination of confectioner’s sugar, meringue powder, water and sometimes egg whites and flavorings (there are tons of recipes online).  I wasn’t able to find any widely-used edible alternative glues; some sites recommend using either basic non-toxic white glue or hot glue for houses that aren’t going to be eaten.  Maybe if you’re inventive, you could use toothpicks and bamboo skewers to help hold everything together, and just use the minimum amount of icing and candy decorations.

As many families now have their kids home from school, maybe these ideas will offer a fun afternoon activity once all the excitement of the holiday is over.   You may want to try some of these activities later during the winter, especially if the weather is too unpleasant to play outside.

Until next time, enjoy the holidays, and be well. Best wishes to all in 2015!

Lori

More About Grapes

Wow.  It’s hard to believe that we are rounding out another year at Pathfinder Produce.  We hope everyone will join us this Thursday, Dec. 18, for our last produce market of 2014.  Our market will be closed on Christmas and New Year’s Day so our staff may spend time with their families.  We hope to see you on January 8, 2015 at our next fresh produce market.

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This past weekend, after being out in the cold for several hours, I was hungry.  Really hungry.  I was also really busy, and couldn’t wait around for something to cook.  I didn’t want to reach for junk food, so instead I grabbed a handful of raisins and nuts, and was pleasantly surprised on how these natural treats got me through until I could make something more substantial.

Raisins are a staple at my house, and we eat them a lot with cereal, in baked goods, or just by the handful.  Sweet and delicious, these dried fruits are a concentrated source of iron, potassium, B vitamins, carbohydrates and fiber.  Raisins are sun- or air-dried table grapes, which of course, are delicious and satisfying as well.  To learn more about how raisins and other dried fruits are grown and processed, the Sun-Maid Company offers a comprehensive free downloadable book that they published for the company’s 100^th anniversary back in 2012.

(Yes, the Sun-Maid Girl was an actual person – her name was Lorraine Collett Petersen.  She was one several Sun-Maid reps who handed out raisins at the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco; she was later selected by the company president as the model for the company logo.  Mrs. Petersen went on to be a nursing home nurse, and made public appearances as the original Sun-Maid girl until her death in 1983).

Grapes are technically berries, and are comprised mostly of water.  One cup of table grapes, with about 100 calories, provides more than a fourth of the recommended values of vitamins K and C. Grape seeds are also rich in antioxidants.  According to organicfacts.net, grapes are helpful in treating or preventing many health issues, including digestion problems, asthma, migraines, heart disease, fatigue, kidney disorders, and eye conditions.  And because they are rich in flavonoids, grapes help reduce cellular oxidation damage, which is linked to cancers, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases. 

According to the World’s Healthiest Foods, phytonutrients in grapes are also thought to help you live longer:  Resveratrol (found mostly in the skins and seeds) “has recently been shown to increase expression of three genes (SirT1s, Fox0s, and PBEFs) all related to longevity.  (Maybe Mrs. Petersen’s endorsement of raisins helped her live to age 90).  WHF adds that grapes also have a low glycemic index, which helps prevent type 2 diabetes by maintaining proper insulin reactions and blood sugar levels.  (A British Medical Journal study in 2013 found that eating whole fruits -- blueberries, grapes, and apples -- reduces the risk for type 2 diabetes, but drinking fruit juices – which have more sugar -- increases the risk for diabetes). 

The Sun-Maid free book has many different raisin recipes, and there are many dishes featuring grapes on the web that you may add to your winter menus.  Here are a few to try:

Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Grape Sauce

Wild Rice Pilaf with Rosemary and Red Grapes

Roasted Brussels sprouts with Grapes and Salad

From all of us at Pathfinder Produce and Pathfinder Village, we wish you and yours a happy, festive holiday season and thank you for your tremendous support for the “little market that could.”

Be well!

Lori

The Vines of History

We hope everyone will be able to join us this Thursday, Dec. 11, for our next tasteful edition of Pathfinder Produce, our fresh fruit and veggie market at our Village Commons.  There’s only two weeks until Christmas, so it’s a great time to start planning holiday menus! 

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At a recent family celebration, my daughter gave me a beautiful piece of art – a hand-colored wood burning of purple grapes she had created.  It’s a special gift, and it will be placed on my walls with her other drawings and paintings.  She is presently finishing up her degree; this semester’s coursework included an art history course covering Classical antiquity.  People of ancient cultures enjoyed celebrating and honoring deities with lavish parties that included grapes; there are many existing artworks depicting these events on vases, frescoes, mosaics, etc.  Wine drinking was even formalized -- Greek symposia were scripted gatherings for wealthy men, where they drank and convivially talked in rooms designed especially for the purpose.  (Man cave, 1.0).

Of course, the Romans, who borrowed not a few aspects from Hellenistic culture, continued their celebrations with grapes.  According to a 2006 BBC documentary I watched recently (featuring Terry Jones, co-director of Monty Python and the Holy Grail), the Romans also sent huge shipments of wine to the barbarian Celts, who lived in France before it became a major grape producing region.  (The Romans would later go on to annihilate the Celts, steal their gold, and enslave the survivors after the Gallic Wars, c. 50 BC). 

The growing of grapes for food and wine predates the Greeks, going back about eight millennia.  According to Wikipedia, domestication began in the watershed area of the Black Sea.  Grapes and wine also were important to Egyptian, Hebrew and Christian cultures, probably because in the Ancient World it was far safer to drink wine over microbe-infested ground water.  (Noah grew grapes, grapes were important in Middle Eastern economies, Christ turned water into wine at the wedding at Cana as his first miracle, and in later Christian-era art, grapes symbolized the sacrament of the Eucharist).
 
At the same time, native people throughout North America included grapes in their diets, but probably not for wine, as the abundant “fox” grape species (v. labrusca, v. riparia, and v. rotundifolia), have less sugar content than the Old World grapes.  According to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, Spanish friars initially brought European varieties here in the 1700s to use at their California missions.  Commercial production of grapes began in the East as early as 1802, when Catawba varieties were grown in the Carolinas; the first successful winery business was founded by Nicholas Longworth of Cincinnati, who used Catawba grapes to make sparkling wine that was well-received in Europe and by German immigrants.  (Longworth became known as the “Father of American Grape Culture”; his great-grandson, Nicholas III, went on to be U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives and the husband to Alice Lee Roosevelt, the controversial daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt.)

The most-famous grape of American derivation is probably the Concord, which was developed in 1849 by Ephraim Wales Bull of Concord, Massachusetts.  The deep purple grape, which is a cross between the labrusca and perhaps either the Catawba or a vinifera variety, became popular when Dr. Thomas Welch pasteurized grape juice to prevent its fermentation.   Welch introduced the grape juice to be used for communion during an age where America’s excessive thirst for alcohol was being questioned.  His process led to the start of the grape juice industry; other popular grapes and grape products include seedless grapes, white grapes, raisins and sultanas.  According to the AMRC, “Consumption of fresh grapes has increased from 2.9 pounds per person in 1970 to 7.9 pounds in 2009. U.S. consumption of grape juice totaled 4.1 pounds per person that year (ERS 2009).” 

Next week, we’ll look at some of the health benefits grapes offer, as a balance to this week’s celebration of spirits.

Until next time, cheers!

Lori

Holiday Crunch

We hope that everyone will join us as our Pathfinder Produce Market reopens this Thursday, Dec. 4, for the freshest tastes around.  We’re open from 2 to 5 p.m. and hope to see you during the holiday season! 

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Each Thanksgiving many pledge to avoid over-eating during this season of plenty.  But with so many holiday meals, parties and other celebrations, it’s always difficult to toe the line.  I managed to not over load my plate during recent meals, opted out of the extra slice of pie, and made sure to take some extra walks over Thanksgiving weekend.  During the weeks between now and Christmas, I will try to keep walking during my lunch break, and maybe hop on the stationary bike that sits neglected in the garage.

Of course, with so many treats tempting our sweet-tooth, it’s also a good idea to intentionally add more fruits and vegetables to our diets.  I’ve been seeing some photos on Facebook and Pinterest with festive fruit and veggie trays.  One friend shared an imaginative tray arranged as a Thanksgiving gobbler; it featured lots of raw veggies like cauliflower, broccoli and celery.

Celery is a vegetable that was always part of our holiday celebrations when I was a kid, however the way we served it – packed with regular cream cheese - is a modern no-no.  A better variation on this is to serve celery sticks with a healthy ranch dressing made out of Greek-style yogurt.  A healthy recipe may be found at the blog, Wellness Mama. 

Celery has long been turned to by dieters (and comedians needing a visual representation of dieting) because of its high fiber, low calories, and many other health benefits.  According to the World’s Healthiest Foods website, “Recent research has greatly bolstered our knowledge about celery's anti-inflammatory health benefits, including its protection against inflammation in the digestive tract itself…. In addition to well-known antioxidants like vitamin C and flavonoids, scientists have now identified at least a dozen other types of antioxidant nutrients in celery.”  These antioxidants have been shown to prevent oxygen damage to our cells, blood vessels, and organ systems.

If you have concerns about sodium intake, you need to factor in that celery is naturally sodium rich (35 milligrams of sodium per stalk).  The folks at World's Heathiest Foods recommend using celery within five to seven days of purchase, storing it in the refrigerator as to retain its healthful nutrients.  They also add that to get the maximum benefit from cooked celery, it is best to steam it for 10 minutes. 

A quick cruise around the internet reveals some innovative and delicious sounding celery-rich recipes, but celery is one ingredient that can be added to most soups, stews, or cut up raw and added to green, fruit or tuna or chicken salads.  Here’s a link to the New York Times Well Blog that offers a sampling of menu ideas, including a hearty minestrone, and a broccoli and celery soup.

Until next week, eat well and be well!

Lori