Nutrition and Recipes

The Basics: Grow Your Own Mixed Greens

Mon, 7 Mar 2011 07:19:51 -0800

I have talked about the basics of growing and using your own herbs, but let’s not forget that if you have the available window, or other suitable well lit space, there are other things that can be grown right in your own home. The best thing for me is baby spinach and baby swiss chard. “Baby” meaning you snip them when they look big enough, but still young and tender. This is a great addition to your salads - sure you are not going to grow a ton of greens unless you really devote some space (see my section on window farms). Snipping them every few days encourages more growth and these plants can keep pushing out new shoots, giving you weeks of freshly grown mixed greens. I have several containers of them so I get a reasonable amount, but even the satisfaction of a few things to add to your salads that came from your own indoor garden can be rewarding. Growing your own mixed greens, herbs, cherry tomatoes, and other plants can be a nice stress reliever in today’s hectic paced world. Slowing down to get your hands dirty, replanting, weeding, snipping and watering all take you to a more grounded place. You are contributing directly to the natural cycle that you have always been connected to, but this can be a powerful, natural muscle relaxer. Try it for yourself - get some containers, some organic soil and some good organic seeds. Or tackle a window farm, but just see what happens when you get your hands involved in that Zen cycle of life. And man those fresh mixed greens taste great!

Please send your comments and send me some of your window garden pics!!

Restaurants: Lung Shan

Mon, 7 Mar 2011 06:54:02 -0800

Following up another article in a magazine I went in search of a beautiful dumpling. That search took me again to Mission Street, San Francisco, where I didn’t find my dumpling. Turns out I showed up too early in the evening and they were just starting to prepare the dumplings. So I was pointed to their regular menu for alternatives.

Wow, what a task this turned out to be! Everything sounded so good! Vegetarians shut your ears, this isn’t going to be pretty. “Slow-cooked Char Siu Pork Belly”, “Braised Mongolian Beef Cheek”, “Thrice Cooked Bacon” (with rice cakes, bitter melon, tofu skin, chili oil and more), “Tingly Lamb Noodle Soup” (with “numbing lamb broth”) and “7 Chicken Wings with Explosive Chili Peppers” are some of the choices. So ordering one of most everything, I promptly forgot about the dumplings. I don’t recall much after the numbing lamb broth soothed my chili exploded senses, but I do recall that I need to go back to Lung Shan soon. Maybe I will even order some dumplings. By the way - pork belly, beef cheeks, and thrice cooked bacon are a really nice occasional treat to this yogi’s generally healthy diet. The key word here is “occasional”. Fill up your other meals of the day with fresh fruits and vegetables, then enjoy the decadence at Lung Shan!

Lung Shan
2234 Mission St., San Francisco, CA, (415) 863-2100
11:00am - 10:30pm Mon - Sat
12:00noon - 10:00pm Sun

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Snacks: Jujubes

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 11:27:21 -0800

They look like small apples that are going bad. They taste like cotton candy if it were made into a fruit. Piles of them show up at the farmers market, customers picking one up, tossing it aside, picking another up, perhaps dropping it into their bags for purchase. The ground is littered with the rejected jujubes. Reminds me of the gai choy stand except this vendor did not seem to mind the tossing of the rejects. I selected a few and left without tossing anything.

Jujubes
Jujubes, red date, or Chinese date. Not to be confused with the artificially sweetened candies of the same name, these look like small apples and have a similar texture and consistency. When immature, they are light greenish and apple-like, but when they mature to brown or purplish black, then wrinkle, the resemblance is more like a small date. They are eaten fresh and dried (candied as well) and are also available in teas, as juice, vinegar, even wine! This fruit was domesticated in the Indian subcontinent by 9000 B.C. and has been extensively cultivated in southern Asia and southeastern Europe.

One serving of raw jujubes can give you a good blast of vitamin C for the day. Here is a nutritional breakdown of jujubes. Try these and see if they remind you of cotton candy.

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Snacks: Asian Pears

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 11:18:52 -0800

Asian pears come in several varieties and I don’t claim to be an expert. I do claim to love Asian pears. They look like big yellow apples and can range from crunchy/crispy to “soak-your-chin juiciness”. Now, a bad Asian pear is quite a disappointment, often with a mealy texture or a skin that is simply to tough to eat without peeling, but a great Asian pear is near nirvana (or whatever blissful state you believe is the end all).

Asian Pears
Pyrus pyrifolia is pear tree species native to China, Japan and Korea. The fruit tends to be quite large and fragrant. Asian pears are a good source of vitamin C and vitamin K and a very good source of dietary fiber. The downside is that a large number of the calories in this food come from sugars. But what delicious sugars! Here is a nutritional breakdown of asian pears.

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Snacks: Grapes

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:35:23 -0800

Red grapes, green grapes, and purple grapes, these little beauties are one of the most popular fruits in the world. Who doesn’t love grapes? When I was a child, my mother used to give me frozen grapes in the summer - a nice cool treat without all the sugar of other frozen treats. Delicious on their own raw and also used in jams, juices, jellies, vinegars, wines, raisins and grape seed extracts and oils.

Grapes
Grapes are a great source of vitamins A and C and contain the minerals potassium, calcium and phosphorus. Grapes are often recommended for weight-loss diets since they provide the nutrients required by the body and yet, keep the weight under control. The caloric content of 100 gm of grapes, about 18 grapes, is equal to about 70 calories. This is considerably low as compared to other fruits. Here is a nutritional breakdown of grapes. Best to enjoy grapes while they are in season. Flying them in from Chile loses a bit of the freshness magic, as well as adds to your carbon footprint.

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