The Soaked Bean

Seeking Nourishment, Finding Traditions

Braised Butternut Squash + Polenta: Fast Slow-Food

By

braisedsquashwebfinal

During nutrition workshops or consultations at some point the following question invariably comes up: how do I cook nutritious meals fast?

Maybe you, dear reader, are currently pondering the same thing.

I feel you.  All of you.  As someone who’s comfortable in the kitchen and who also really enjoys spending time there, I’ve definitely asked myself this question on many a tired Thursday night.  It’s a big one.

Everything’s moving at an increasingly rapid pace, culturally speaking.  We’re working longer hours to pay for growing expenses, spanning greater distances in shorter amounts of time, mining deeper for gases, rare metals, data.  The possibilities are limitless, expansive, vast, if only we had the time.  Time could be said to be our most precious commodity and we allocate it accordingly, seeking the fastest solutions for problems, not least such corporeal ones like what to eat tonight.

The free time we have is typically spent on leisurely pursuits—taking a walk, meeting a friend for a drink, and, more often than not, looking at a screen.  Whether it’s the news or a premium-cable series or a 90’s romcom or a video-game or an instagram feed from someone living in the wilds of Maine or Los Angeles, it’s no surprise that at the end of a long and stressful work day, we want nothing more than to plug into some other story to unwind.

And while there’s nothing inherently wrong w/ this, what’s happened is that the time for cooking, preparing a nourishing meal, has been reallocated and what nourishment we receive is a byproduct of convenience which, as we all know, is never what it’s cracked up to be (see: the tv dinner, the happy meal, the delivery pizza).

Cooking, in my opinion, is self-care just as stretching in the morning, showering on a regular basis, brushing your teeth, drinking enough water and getting some good sleep are; it should be part of our daily routine.  But it isn’t.  We’ve never been taught to integrate it into our routines as we have those other things which brings me back to that commonly-posed question.

How do I cook nutritious meals fast?  Where do I start?

Start here, with a butternut squash, some polenta, some spinach.  This is a recipe for what I like to call fast slow-food.  Fast because you’ll spend 15 minutes doing something–chopping or whisking or stirring.  Maybe 20 if you’re new to the kitchen.

Slow because the rest of the hour or so until dinner is served can be spent doing whatever it is you do to unwind.  Meanwhile a series of chemical reactions will be working for you, transforming squash, spinach, corn into nourishing meal.

There’s no secret trick or secret soy-based-shake for this.  Cooking takes practice and a bit of planning and, yes, a bit of time.  But by learning to make a few, simple recipes it will get easier and easier to incorporate them into your daily routine.  To make nutritious meals (relatively) fast.

Who knows?  Maybe the more time you spend in the kitchen, the more you’ll enjoy being there.  Dear reader, it happened to me.

Braised Butternut Squash + Polenta

Note: I haven’t cooked butternut squash in ages, mostly because I disdained peeling it.  B/c it’s braising for such a good amount of time, there’s no need to peel–the skin softens up beautifully and can be eaten.  Otherwise, you can easily scoop the squash from the skin. 

Adapted from Ottolenghi’s Plenty More

For the Squash:

  • 1 butternut squash, sliced in half lengthwise then sliced in 3 sections
  • 1/2 cup chicken bone-broth
  • 1 knob butter
  • 5 pods cardamom, crushed
  • 4 bay leaves
  • 1 teaspoon whole black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
  • 1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds
  • 1 section of orange rind
  • couple of pinches salt
  1. Turn oven to 200C.  While oven heats, place squash bottom-side down in a large braising pan.  Pour broth over and add herbs and spices.  Add dabs of butter on top of squash.
  2. Place in oven and let braise for 45minutes-1hour, until soft. Occasionally, spoon broth over squash while braising.

For the Spinach:

  • 1 big bunch spinach, roughly chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 knob ghee
  • couple of pinches salt
  1. Place cast-iron pan on medium-heat.  Add ghee.
  2. Add garlic and salt and cook until fragrant.
  3. Add spinach and stir, cook for 10 or so minutes, until deep green.

For the Polenta:

Note:  For maximum digestibility I soak my polenta overnight in warm, lemony water. 

  • 3 cups chicken bone broth
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup course polenta
  • 1 knob butter
  1. Bring bone-broth and water to a boil in a large sauce-pot on the stove.
  2. Whisk in polenta and turn heat down to low.  Cover and let cook for 30-45 minutes, giving the polenta a good whisk every 10 minutes or so.
  3. Turn heat off and add butter, stir.

Layer polenta, spinach and squash on plate.  Serve w/ a good grate of parmigiano, glug of olive oil, and sprinkle of salt.

Broth-Braised-Kale + Cooking Yr Greens

By

fistfulofkale

Is it just me or has the sway of what is #trending become that much stronger these past few years?  The web has become a looking glass into the apartments, the closets, the kitchens, the cafes, the “lifestyles” of inspiring folks around the world.  #Inspo is to be found everywhere, and, ironically, its effect has been to prune away nuance in favor of #trends, which have begun to shape the most fundamental parts of our lives, including what we eat.  Especially what we eat.

Food trends have existed for a good, long while.  Wherever there was abundance, there were foods that rose and fell in and out of fashion (like the Roman tradition of stuffing a bird within a bird within a bird which has, incidentally, cycled back as the “turducken”).  In the last five or six decades, since food production was taken out of the hands of individuals and placed in the proverbial hands of industry, these trends became broader, more globalized.  Suddenly, you could eat the same Kraft dinner in Calgary, Canada as in Mumbai, India as in Christchurch, New Zealand.

In the past decade, we’ve turned away from industrial foods like Kraft dinners but the globalized food trend has only grown: the açai smoothie bowl, the green juice, the spiralized zucchini noodle, the avocado toast, the raw kale and quinoa salad.  No matter where you’re living, you’ve probably tried at least a couple of these foods in the last years, n’est-ce pas?  I sure have.

brothkale

Especially, the last one.  The raw kale and quinoa salad.  I must have made this salad at least three (or thirty) dozen times along my learning-the-ropes-of-nourishing-myself way.  But, the thing is, I don’t love raw kale.  In fact, I don’t even really like it.  If I’m totally honest, I never have.  No matter how tenderly its massaged, it’s still sort of, well, rough, and the time it takes to chew one forkful can feel like an eternity (the mastication of a never-ending bowl of raw kale is, I believe, Dante’s 8th circle of Hell).

So why was I eating so much of it?  Because it was so damn good for me.  At the time, in the early twenty-tens, raw kale and quinoa seemed the pinnacle of health-food, of “clean-eating”, and different versions of the combination flooded the web.  W/ so many folks singing its praises, who was I to think differently?

Six years further along my nutrition camino, I’m here to tell you that raw kale ain’t it, at least nutritionally speaking.  In fact, all of those dark, leafy greens that are so damn good for you (like chard, collard greens, spinach) are 10x better when they’re not only cooked, but well-cooked.  I’m talking about a good 20-minute simmer on the stove.

kaleinpan

Cook Yr Greens, Break Thru The Walls

Cooking is alchemy.  Something new is created w/ the addition of the elements–fire, water, oxygen–and time.  The raw food movement has a point: some foods do lose nutrients during this process (milk is one of the best examples).  But the majority of foods, specifically plant foods, benefit greatly from this alchemical process.

All of plant-foods’ nutritional juiciness–the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients–are stored in their cells, which are surrounded by walls.  These walls are made to withstand breakage and to protect the cells, thus it’s necessary to “break through the walls” if you want to obtain all those juicy nutrients.  Cooking or other alchemical processes like fermenting, sprouting, and preserving are all methods of breaking through the walls and “unlocking” nutrients.

In regards to dark leafy greens, specifically, it’s important to remember that certain nutrients like vitamins A, E and K are fat-soluble, meaning they need to be eaten w/ a fat in order to be absorbed by our bodies.  Kale and the other dark leafies are super-sources of vitamins K and A, so choosing a cooking option that includes a fat, like sautéing, “breaks through” yet another wall, letting you get the most out of yr greens.

Lately, I’ve been braising my greens in some mineral-rich bone-broth.  It’s a simple way to incorporate more bone-broth in my day (when I’m not feeling like straight-sipping on a mug), and makes a tough green like kale absolutely silky.  I’m always amazed at the color at the end–a rich algae-green,–and how much the greens cook down, making the daily recommendation of 3-4 cups of dark leafies feasible.

Are broth and kale both #trending?  Yep, definitely so, but this is a recipe based on traditions not trends and it’s one that not only makes me feel good but also tastes heavenly.  Give it a try and consider that the rise of food trends isn’t a bad thing, it’s just important to remember to think and to eat for yourself.

algaekale

Broth-Braised Kale

  • 1 knob ghee or tallow
  • 1/2 onion, sliced thinly
  • pinch salt
  • 1 clove garlic, sliced thinly
  • 1 bunch curly kale, chopped roughly
  • 1/3 cup chicken bone-broth
  1. Heat cast-iron pan on medium heat.  Once nice and hot, melt ghee.
  2. Add onions and salt generously, cook and stir until translucent then add garlic and cook and stir for another few minutes.
  3. Add kale and stir, mixing the kale, garlic and onions together.  If it seems like you’re using too much kale for your pan, don’t fret!  The kale’s going to cook down, majorly.
  4. Add bone-broth and turn heat to low.  Simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until broth is gone from pan.