Sugar High

With the holiday season nipping at our heels this weekend I thought it the appropriate time to write about the proverbial message of “make good food choices at holiday parties.” Yes, we’ve all heard from our friends and read the healthy eating articles about “How not to gain the holiday lbs” and my message will certainly include the truth about that. However, today I am writing about a much more serious food related issue. Type 2 Diabetes.

The University of Chicago just released a study (you can see the CNN article here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/11/26/diabetes.projections/index.html) that projects within the next 25 years the number of Americans with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes will double. Of that projected 44.1 million, 90% of those cases will be Type 2.

Let’s briefly cover Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes so we all understand the drastic differences between the two. Type 1 diabetes is NOT a preventable disease. Type 1 diabetes occurs when the body loses the ability to break down glucose (food sugars) in the blood and turn food into energy. Typically you are diagnosed with Type 1 when you are young. The treatment for Type 1 is insulin injections.

Type 2 diabetes is a very preventable disease. Here are some things that will help reduce your risk of developing Type 2- high blood pressure, family history of heart disease, and (the most common) simply being overweight. For some people, they may not have any of these risk factors and their body still develops Type 2 diabetes however that number is low. We are seeing a rapid rise in the number of Type 2 diabetes that is directly linked to the obesity problem we have in this nation.

So, I am writing this message in hopes that we can start a chain reaction and help promote the message of a healthy lifestyle. I’m not saying you shouldn’t ever have ice cream or deep dish pizza or cake. I’m just saying you should have it every day. I’m not saying that you have to run 10 miles a day. I’m just saying you should try and be active every day, go for a walk, play tennis with your family, go to a park and play tag.

I know how to eat healthy can be a bit confusing, there are so many messages and so much information I understand it can be a bit overwhelming. So here are some great tips to help start your new life to healthy living!!

• Don’t keep soda in your fridge. If you don’t keep soda in your fridge you won’t drink it at home! So simple!! A single can of soda can have as much 13 teaspoons of sugar (that’s about 40 grams!!!!)! Instead, get your family used to water with orange, lime and lemon slices (ok, maybe a bit extreme if you’re used to soda) OR watered down juice (start with 2/3 juice 1/3 water, then after a week or so switch to ½ juice and ½ water).
• Start using all whole grain products. Save white bread, white pasta and sugary cereals (made without grains) for special occasions. Even if you are buying the “white wheat bread” make sure you read the ingredients. It has to say whole wheat flour not just wheat flour. If it just reads “wheat flour” you are getting de-germinated wheat, which is lacking in fiber and bran and many nutrients you get from the outside capsule of wheat. Food companies have come a long way with the flavor and texture of their wheat products. So, start using whole wheat products and your family will get used to that being the flavor and texture of what breads, pastas and cereals should taste like! Trust me, when you eat pasta out at a restaurant it will be a nice treat J
• You must eat breakfast. I know many people aren’t hungry in the morning, but even just starting your day with a banana or piece of whole wheat toast will help jump start your body’s metabolism. It has been proven that people who eat breakfast burn more calories and lose weight faster than those who don't have breakfast! Studies have also shown children can focus more and perform better in school when they have breakfast. Same can go with concentration for adults in the workplace! So make it a priority to have breakfast- whole grain cereals (look for those with more than 5 grams of fiber), oatmeal, fresh fruit, piece of whole wheat toast, greek yogurt (or any natural yogurt, none of that low-calorie artificially sweetened stuff) and scrambled omega-3 eggs are just a few suggestions to start your day!

Hopefully these few tips will help you on the road to a healthier 2010 (look for another entry soon about healthy holiday appetizers that don’t taste like cardboard…..)

Happy Black Friday, hopefully everyone’s gotten some great deals!!

Buh-bye Fried Onion Topper

Unfortunately for my family (but fortunately for me!), there are few food traditions we have surrounding the holidays. I have always used this mass gathering of people as my little culinary laboratory audience, testing new recipes and getting feedback from a nice sized crowd all at one time. With that being said I am confident that we have never, ever had green bean casserole (THANK GOD) or sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top (DITTO THE PREVIOUS COMMENT). Now, I don’t mean to be offensive to those of you who do enjoy those items. However, I will offer up a few suggested side dishes to expand your holiday culinary horizons. There are so many incredible ways to prepare vegetables with amazing flavors why limit yourself to fried, canned “onions” as a (frozen/canned) green bean topper, high fructose corn syrup (marshmallow) topped sweet potatoes and canned crescent rolls? So here are some suggestions for some variety in your holiday side dishes, all of which are just as easy as poppin’ the top on some canned goods.

Peas with Prosciutto (and a touch of cream!), serves 4-6

• 3-4 oz. diced prosciutto
• 2 T. unsalted butter
• 1 lb. frozen peas
• 2 T. cream
• Salt and Pepper, to taste

Place diced prosciutto and butter in large (not nonstick) fry pan and turn heat on medium-low. Render some of the fat out of the prosciutto and cook until lightly golden. Add the peas, sauté until warmed through. Finally, add the cream cook another 30 seconds to minute and remove from the heat. Season with salt and pepper.

Maple Glazed Root Vegetables, serves 4-6

• 3 large sweet potatoes (look for those rather than yams), cut into 2” chunks
• 4 parsnips, peeled and cut into 2” chunks
• 8 carrots, peeled and cut into 2” chunks
• 1 celery root head, peeled and cleaned and cut into 2” chunks
• ¼ cup olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1/3 cup maple syrup (real stuff here people, none of that Mrs. Butterworths business)
• 1 T. Dijon mustard

Preheat oven to 400. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Place all vegetables in a large bowl, drizzle with the olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss to coat all the vegetables with oil. Pour onto sheet tray and spread out evenly. Roast at 400 for 15-20 minutes. Turn oven down to 350, roast another 15 minutes. Mix together the maple syrup and Dijon mustard in small bowl. Remove vegetables from oven, drizzle with maple-mustard mixture and stir to coat. Roast for another 10-15 minutes until nicely caramelized.

Ok, this next recipe is delicious. Many people are not familiar with gougeres. Please let me help you become intimately familiar with these delicious little french morsels of love. A gougere is a sort of cheese puff, made from a dough called Pate a Choux. It is the same dough used to make cream puffs and éclairs. It’s a wonderful dough that can be used for sweet or savory things simply by adding either sweet components (orange zest, a bit of sugar) or savory components (gruyere cheese, fresh herbs). In a classic gougeres recipe gruyere cheese and fresh thyme are added. PS-you can make these little nuggets weeks ahead of time, prepare them the entire way except do not bake them. Scoop them onto your sheet tray, freeze them individually for about 1 hour then remove them from the tray, put them in a freezer baggie and freeze until ready to use! Simply bake them a few minutes longer….fabulous!

Gougeres, makes about 32 pieces

Based on Pastry Guru David Lebovitz’s recipe

· 1 cup water

· 6 T. unsalted butter, cut into pieces

· ½ t. fine grain sea salt

· 1 cup white whole wheat flour

· 4 large eggs

· 2 sprigs thyme, leaves chopped finely

· 1 c. grated gruyere cheese

Line 2 sheet trays with parchment paper or silpats. Preheat oven to 400. Simmer water, butter and salt in large, heavy bottomed saucepan. With heat on medium-low, add the flour all at once and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon for about 2-3 minutes, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pan. You will end up with a ball of beautiful, yellow dough. Remove from the heat and let rest 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes, add the eggs one at a time, beating heartily after each addition. Eventually you will end up a smooth shiny ball of dough. After all the eggs have been added, mix in the thyme and gruyere. You may now use a piping bag set with a large round tip to form your puff circles, you may use a large storage bag that has the corner snipped off or you may simply spoon these out (about 2 T. per puff). Bake at 400 for about 10 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 375 and continue baking another 20-30 minutes until uniformly golden brown.

Bon Apetit Turkey Tom!

Turkey Day Tidbits Part I-Hello Tom!!

Ok, call me crazy but I could handle a Thanksgiving with no turkey.

(I know you may now be a little scared and think that I am a touch insane or just not well in the head. I promise I’m ok, and yes do end up eating turkey every year on this holiday…) I would be absolutely fine if the protein at the meal was, say, roasted filet or a nice seared piece of salmon. But, alas, I succumb to the pressure of this all-American feast and endure the laborious prep of this mild-flavored turkey, Tom. (oh, btw, we’ll be referring to the turkey by his name, Tom, for the remainder of this entry.)

And rather than read about how I would prepare another dish to present as the main course for this feast, I’ll just jump right in to Part I of my Turkey Day Tidbits Helpful Hints Sheets.

Part I

YOU MUST BRINE YOUR TURKEY. It doesn’t matter if you are buying the cheapest frozen bird or the most incredible organic, free-range fresh bird you must brine it. Absolutely. Luckily for me, my family has been brining our turkey for about 15 years now. We started long before the brining frenzy began, so even though we do indeed serve turkey every year (ba humbug) my family has been preparing it in a manner that enhances the mild flavor of the turkey by adding aromatics (orange zest, peppercorns, garlic, rosemary, etc.) and moisture to the turkey through use of #1-a brine and #2-compound butter, which we’ll talk about in just a sec.

How does a brine work?? Fantastic question! So, here’s where my food science nerdiness really comes out. In order to understand a brine we must first discuss what it is. A brine in it’s basic recipe/equation is ¼ cup kosher salt to 4 cups water. From there you can add other aromatics, similar to how you make a marinade. Back to the NaCl and H20, or salt and water. Turkey Tom naturally has sodium and water in him, just like humans. The purpose of this brining liquid is to have a higher amount of salt and water outside the bird (in the brining liquid) than inside the flesh, then through the process of osmosis salt molecules and water molecules will travel back and forth b/w the bird and the liquid to create an equilibrium. The salt molecules inside the flesh of the turkey will leach onto the water molecules and help the Tom stay much more moist than without the brine. (careful, though, you can brine too long and throw off the osmosis equilibrium and end up wit a salty bird…..and be sure to rinse Tom off before roasting!)

TURKEY BRINE (for about an 8 lb. turkey, adjust accordingly)

• ¾ cup kosher salt
• 4 cups boiling water
• 6 cups ice water
• 2 cups cold apple cider
• 2 oranges, zested
• 8 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
• 12 peppercorns
• 1 T. dried rosemary
• 1 T. dried sage
• 1 T. dried thyme

Add the ¾ cup kosher salt and 4 cups water to a small saucepan and heat until the salt dissolves. Pour the hot liquid into a large bowl, or pot, and add all the ice water (if you have room, otherwise just let the hot salt-water cool to room temperature and then proceed). Pour the cooled salt water into a large (I mean big, huge, monstrous) bag, add the remaining ingredients and then add the turkey. Place your turkey into a large bowl or a bucket (incase it drips) and turn the bag every few hours. For a turkey 8-12 lbs. let it brine 5-6 hours. Any larger than that and you can let it brine overnight.

When ready to roast, remove from the brine and rinse thoroughly with water. Pat dry and you’re ready for your compound butter!

MASSAGE TOM WITH BUTTER

My last piece of essential advice about preparing Tom for his box of doom (aka-the oven) is to prepare a compound butter to rub between the skin and the flesh of the breast. I never understood why people only put seasoning and butter on the outside of the bird, not many people eat the skin! So using a compound butter on the breast meat not only gives flavor to the actual meat itself but it also prevents that delicate white meat from drying out. Also known as the “no more basting tip!!!” Many people think basting is the way to prevent the breast meat from drying out but it has been found to add zero moisture to the meat. The only thing basting does is pick up fat and sugars from the liquid on the bottom of the pan and pour them over the skin, making the skin golden brown and crispy (hey, you-here’s another tip- butter on the outside of the bird does the same thing. AND since you won’t be opening up the oven every 20 minutes to baste you’ll reduce the cooking time. Heck yeah!).

So, here is a guide to what I add to my compound butter for Thanksgiving, however you could use it any time of the year if you are roasting a whole bird of any sort!

COMPOUND BUTTER (this is a good amount for a 15lb.+ bird)

-2 sticks unsalted butter, super soft

-sprig of rosemary, chopped

-5 fresh sage leaves, chopped

-4 sprigs of thyme, chopped

-1 orange and 1 lemon, zested

-5 cloves garlic, minced

-2 shallots, minced

-about 1 T. salt and 1-2 t. pepper

Mix all these ingredients together and, using a spoon, scoop some up and place under the skin on either side of the breast bone (on the breast meat). Use the skin to “scrape off “the spoon and give Tom a nice little massage to work that butter into the skin. Reserve a bit of the butter to rub on the outside of Tom.

Now that Tom has been bathed in a brine and massaged with some compound butter he’s ready to roll! Place him in a roasting pan on top of a roasting rack (yes, you do really need to use a roasting rack) and begin by cooking him at 400, breast side up, for about 20-30 minutes until nice and golden. Reduce the heat to 350 and if you like, you can now flip him over to help the juices run into the breast meat or you can cover him with some foil if the breast is browning quickly. An instant read thermometer is also a must have for turkey day, as that is how you will be able to tell when the turkey is done! The leg and thigh (dark meat) needs to reach about 165/170F, which will eventually reach 175/180F, before you remove from the oven and the breast meat needs to reach about 160F, which will eventually reach 165F. Be careful not to touch the bone w/ the thermometer as you will get a faulty read and be sure to take the temperature in multiple spots!

(here’s a good temperature video-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfPesBm3bDQ).

Good luck, and as always feel free to tweet me- @drizzlekitchen or email me- Kendra@drizzlekitchen.com if you have any questions! Come back tomorrow for part II of Turkey Day Tidbits!

Thanks and Giving 2k9

As Thanksgiving approaches there are a million charities that are sending pictures, letters, free address labels all in attempt to collect donations. And I have no doubt that all of these charities are good at the core, helping the homeless, saving starving puppies, helping build a new children's hospital, etc, etc, etc...

Well, I'm no charity so I'm certainly not asking you for any money (but I'll be MORE than willing to take any sort of donation to the Kendra Peterson for Jimmy Choo's Foundation). However I would like to let you know about one of the three charities* that I have dedicated my business charitable donations and my personal charitable donations to. St. Jude's Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN is one of the most amazing organizations I have ever come across. The foundation and hospital were founded by Danny Thomas in 1962 and since then have become one of the leading researchers in children's cancer. Since St. Jude was established the survival rate for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (the most common form of childhood cancer) has increased from 4% in 1962 to 94% today. It’s advancements like these that I think are so amazing and the are because of any and every donation that comes into St.Jude.

I could go on for pages and pages about how incredible the charity is and every amazing thing they provide for their patients and families but I will make my message a bit more concise so you aren’t reading for days (there really are that many incredible details!!). I was lucky enough to get a private tour of the hospital last year and here are some of the things that touched me the most:

· On site lab: some of the cancers treated at St.Jude are so rare that it’s not profitable for large drug manufacturers to produce medicine for those in need of it. St. Jude refused to accept that and now produces their own drugs on site to make sure everyone gets the medicine they need whether they make 5 pills per year or 5 thousand.

· Cafeteria: the cafeteria recently received a huge face-lift, with different themed food areas that provide nutritious and fun cuisine for patients, staff, families and visitors. Example- the gelato/bakery counter (which looks like an old soda fountain shop and has stools sized for kids and adults) where kids can come and decorate their own cookies and cupcakes and can get house-made gelato.

· Each treatment area was a different theme: my favorite area was new york. The floor tile looked like sidewalk and grass, the walls had skyscrapers painted along with trees and a central park theme and the ceiling tile had different shaped tiles to look like sky and clouds!

· In-patient rooms: Critical care patients have their own private rooms (fully stocked with fun stuff including Wii!) and parents have a separate adjoining suite so the parents can be near their child during intensive treatment and the patients feel that they have their own space.

· Outpatient: Most of the treatment at St. Jude is outpatient and through generous private and corporate donations, housing is provided for families as well as gift cards (for food, phone calls, gas, etc.) to ensure they have what they need while the children are going through treatment.

· There are no white walls at St. Jude. They don’t want the hospital to look like a sterile, scary hospital so there is no wall in the facility that is white. Whether there is artwork from the patients hung, pictures of supporting celebrities hanging or murals painted this hospital feels like anything but a hospital.

· Blood supply: More than 50% of blood supply in hospital come from employees

· Teen zone: There are “hang out areas” where parents not allowed. There are tv’s, magazines, games all geared toward teens so they can have fun and feel like a teenager. Many pop teen artists also come and perform for the patients in the Teen Zone.

· St. Jude treatment is free to patients. (You must be referred by a doctor and it must be a cancer they are currently researching, which is almost every childhood cancer)

These incredible tid-bits of information about St. Jude are just some of the reasons that I choose to support such an incredible hospital. The advancements that St. Jude has been able to make in medicine are a direct result of the amazing support they have received, whether it is a $1.00 donation or a $100,000 donation. Every little bit counts and with the holidays approaching St. Jude is sending out a fantastic message that can touch everyone- “Give thanks for the healthy kids in your life, and give to those who are not. ” And if you would like to donate or just learn more about St. Jude you can do so here: www.tg.stjude.org

There are also many retailers that participate in the “Thanks and Giving” campaign; Williams-Sonoma companies (pottery barn, pb kids, pb teen, WS Home and West Elm), target, brooks brothers, ann taylor among many others which are all listed at the aforementioned website.

Thank you for taking the time to read about an amazing charity! And whether you choose to donate or not, be sure to give thanks for the healthy children in your life.

*Other charities I choose to donate to are- Imerman Angels, www.imermanangels.org and UNICEF, www.unicef.org