FarmerJeannine's Journal, 07 Apr 18

Asparagus, freshly cut, from your garden is maybe one of the best things....ever. The ferns create a natural fence and gives the birds something to chew on later in the summer and fall. I need to make the bed bigger for more plants. Thanks for the reminder and now it is time to dig those trenches and start another row. 

Very true! When I told my mom I'd be eating asparagus daily, she wanted to know why I didn't freeze it... frozen asparagus is not the same veggie as asparagus rushed right in from harvest! Have fun digging trenches! :) Mid-NH is still frozen over, so I'm just starting seeds indoors... 

This weekly entry about your weekend cooking is such a pleasure to read! First question: how do you store the sweet potatoes; are you able to keep them in the soil all winter? Would be too cold for that where I live. I'm glad you're getting used to the taste of spirulina; reminds me to take the jar out & start using it again -- I'm going to try it in my omelet this morning; my sister was the spirulina enthusiast, my brother-in-law gave me her supply of healthy foods when she died; I have enough for at least a decade I think. As to your parsnip dish, my potato au gratin recipe has similar ingredients (except it's cow's milk). Should be nice! You mentioned in a prior post that you make spinach croquettes (or patties?); if you still have parsnips left, I used to buy parsnips just to make croquettes with a variety of grated vegetables and grated cheese. I wonder if I could invent a version with only low-carbohydrate vegetables? I love barley; apart from the fiber, barley is so nutritious. I have a favourite Barley-Wild Rice Pilaf recipe from the Weight Watcher Magazine that I brought to a potluck once; however, I later served the same dish to a nephew & he wondered why I put the weird bits (he meant the wild rice) & spoiled the taste. ;-) Fresh-picked asparagus is wonderful, my father grew it. I must say, I bought frozen asparagus that was great in the winter time, even if not as good. As you know, I would not myself have the patience for blanching vegetables in order to freeze them -- I do blanch them when required by a recipe, although I would probably steam them instead or pressure-cook briefly. Your menu for this week reminds me of favourite high-carb foods from my past. I think it's going to be great! 

I'm glad you enjoy reading my cooking plans!:) I was disappointed by the matzo lasagna - I'll finish it up, but it's definitely not a do-again... I decided to take your suggestion and turn the parsnips into croquettes/patties/baked fritters instead - simpler to make and more sure to please! :) I'll stick with the barley risotto and just stir some black beans and salsa together and top with a little avocado for protein (can't get much easier than that!). Central New Hampshire is too cold for storing sweet potatoes outside -in fact, it's really too cold for growing them properly, but I just keep some in a big pot on the deck because they're pretty (and offer up a few potatoes by the time the killing frosts hit), I store them in our utility room, which runs in the high 50's, low 60's. My memere used to make mashed parsnips and potatoes, which I apparently absolutely hated and would refuse to eat. Of course in those days, a good child was expected to clean his or her plate... I remember being sent into exile outside one year during dinner - I recently asked my mother about it and she said it was because I was not only refusing to eat the parsnip-potato mash, but making horrible gakking-gagging noises and putting everyone else off dinner! Childhood tastes are funny... I absolutely LOVE wild rice, but it's a once in a while indulgence because it's so expensive - my hubby makes it with dried cranberries and pecans... your poor nephew would be gagging and gakking, I fear... :) 

You have me salivating and laughing all at once! 

Careful, that might be dangerous... :) 

The barley risotto gets a big thumbs up! I'm definitely putting it in my regular rotation of menus! :) The AHA cookbook claims it's 4 servings, but it seems more like eight or ten! And turning the parsnip into a fritter-type thing turned out awesome as well - I grated them up, added an equal part grated potatoes, some egg whites, a little parmesan cheese, pepper, olive oil, and some oat bran to help bind the mess together (instead of bread crumbs)... dumped the whole mess out on a parchment paper covered baking sheet (too unwieldy for individual patties), and baked it at 40 F for half an hour... my new favorite way to eat parsnips!! Filling, healthy, AND yummy, hurrah! Makes up for the matzo failure... :) 

Hi, Jeannine, I'm glad all your dishes from this week (except matzo lasagna) turned out to be keepers! I'm not surprised that you got more servings out of barley. I am always amazed at how much just ¼ cup or ½ dry yields. I remember when I was following Weight Watchers, I often took advantage of that because for a very low Point cost, I got a lot of food to keep me satisfied (same with tofu I found, just 1 Point for 3 ounces if I remember correctly). With the parsnips, you ended up with a kind of gratin after all, didn't you? with very different ingredients. Does your husband eat the same foods as you or do you cook yourself special dishes? I'm just wondering whether he is also a parsnips enthusiast? You do eat a great variety of vegetables in a week: sweet potatoes, mushrooms, asparagus, parsnips, potatoes (and I assume onions & garlic even though not mentioned). You mention oat bran, which reminds me I wanted to talk to you about oat starch (not bran, as you pointed out) and also oat bran and oats in general. I did some reading online about oat starch after you mentioned it & from what I understand, it is processed from a more potent variety of of oats that was developed by your Department of Agriculture, then sold to private industry. It is known to lower LDL, and improve cholesterol profiles, but the regular oats (and oat bran) also does (to a somewhat lesser degree, maybe), which has been known a very long time and has been proved over and over apparently. So, if you don't already do it, I wanted to remind you that oats (not necessarily fancy expensive starch) could be very helpful in your WOE. I used to make an apple oat-bran muffin that had no flour whatsoever, just oat bran. I had even re-worked that recipe & developed a Zone-friendly fiber cookie for breakfast that had protein powder & ground flax seeds. As you might know, ground flax seeds and (raw) flax oil are excellent sources of a plant omega-3 (ALA) that is a precursor of DHA & EPA. Healthy in many ways, but I believe useful for improving cholesterol profiles also. My invention of fiber cookies weren't suitable for gourmets, but I liked them & how filling they were, and baked them over and over when I was on the Zone diet (in the 90s). I know there are many plants that are especially helpful for lowering LDL. I recently saw more than one article on the topic on Dr. Axe's website, such as this one for which I listened to the video as well: https://draxe.com/cholesterol-lowering-foods/ If you choose, you might even be able to replace the spirulina by something better tasting? Hope you don't consider this as unsolicited advice, even though it very obviously is? :-) From a friend (and a pen pal!) 

Unsolicited, but very welcome (and helpful!)! :) I have to (and want to) get back to you about oats and such, because the morning is a mess already for reasons I'll explain in a bit, and I have to jump on chores right away - I just wanted to edit my previous post - the parsnip dish cooks at 400 (four HUNDRED) degrees F, not 40! Typing too fast without proofing before hitting the submit button again... 

I enjoy these posts too! they get my creative juices going. While it is not the same as fresh, i have found trader Joe's frozen grilled asparagus spears to be surprisingly good. Just for those who don't have a green thumb (pointing to self). 

Sorry for the delay - we gave our old, frail, diabetic pup his heartworm prevention meds the other day and he's having a bad reaction... high blood glucose and no appetite (not good for a skinny little old boy). Most of the morning got chewed up fruitlessly trying to get Pippin to eat, because if he doesn't eat, he doesn't get a full dose of insulin, and then the whole day gets messed up. So the whole day is messed up... :( But he should be back to normal tomorrow (I hope) - if not, we'll be making a visit to the vet (and he will NOT be getting any more of the heartworm meds!! Especially since he's an indoor dog, anyway.,,). So back on topic... my hubby does not care for much of my diet food - he HATES parsnips - he's never tasted them, though, of course. However, I hae to admit that my garden produces the scariest looking parsnips - they look like some kind of tentacled monster from a H.P. Lovecraft story! But the gratin was a huge success, with me at least... :) I am aware of the LDL lowering powers of oat bran (and apples, and legumes, and barley, and...), so I've been incorporating it into my diet wherever I can. Oat fiber is unavailable around here, and is super expensive via mail order. I have that idea filed in my "heavy artillery" plans, along with things like red rice yeast (natural statins) and plant sterols... if exercise combined with a normal(ish) diet doesn't lower the LDL by August, my next step is to incorporate the somewhat more expensive, but still natural, solutions... only after trying that I'll give in and take the Big Pharma route. Unfortunately, I'm aware that my liver makes cholesterol no matter what I do, so I may still have an issue at my next check up, even if I have plugged up the dietary source. :( I've been taking flax seed oil for the ALA, though I know that the body needs to convert it to the more useful sort provided by fish, and that it's not supposed to be a very efficient process... I'm hoping the spirulina might be more helpful in that respect - I'm not sure that there are many other vegetarian options to fish or krill oil. I'll check out Dr. Axe's site later! And as I said earlier, I always appreciate good advice, solicited or not... :) Thank you! I enjoy trying to figure out how to use up what I have, though it's more fun when the finished product is pleasant to eat as well as good for the body. :) Alas, the closest Trader Joe's to me is a three hour round trip (we visited when we had to go to Portsmouth for a specialist vet visit when the docs thought our dog had cancer - he didn't, thank goodness!!). I always buy frozen veggies rather than fresh during the off season - I find they are better than the fresh veggies available in the grocery store... Anyway, back to work! Take care, all! :) 

Jeannine, I had said I needed to slow down our correspondence. I hate that you felt that you needed to answer quickly, no matter what. I haven't yet taken the time to read the above comment, but I will. Glancing quickly I guess that it has to do with Pippin. Take care, my friend, I am not going away, there is no rush to communicate every day or even every week, for that matter. We are both new to FS, not a good idea to let it take over our lives (you had mentioned your husband was a little annoyed at all the time you were spending on FS). Johanne 

Johanne, don't worry about it - please, please, please take your time getting back to me. I can wait! The way my brain works, I have to jump right on something or it gets lost in the large collection of things on my back burner... :) 

I wouldn't mind being on your back burner! ;-) 

I don't know, it's pretty crowded there... :) 

From what I gathered, oat starch is only marginally better than regular oats and oat bran at lowering LDL -- but I may have misunderstood. I saw 5 intriguing recipes for individual cakes with oat starch as a main ingredient, along with coconut flour, part of a diet invented by 2 sisters that seem to have a large following. (Their "movement" is called Trim Healthy Mama and I don't relate to their lifestyle, I wouldn't be a disciple.) Here is one of their recipes for the Lemon Cake Delight (which obviously I haven't tried because I don't have oat starch). https://sherigraham.com/trim-healthy-mama-lemon-cake-delight-fp/ Since you make family-size recipes once a week, that is probably not your style of recipe, but it might be mine, if I bake it, rather than micro-waving it. 

I'm confused -- I thought you spoke to me about oat starch, it's actually called oat fiber, isn't it? I am checking whether I could find some online in Canada & came up empty, because I don't have the right name. ;-) Amazon.ca sells 5-lb bags! Who would need 5 pounds of fiber at a time? The package contains 755 servings! My favourite online pharmacy does not sell any, except as Shirataki pasta, but I am re-discovering low-carb online stores in Canada. I might order 1 pound, despite not needing any laxative ingredient in my life. Even wierder, Trim Healthy Mama advertises a case of 12 (1-lb) pkgs! & the site says $1 per case. 

Hmmm... I can't find the $1 per case, but I do see that Trim Healthy Mama sell oat fiber for $5.99 a pound - not too bad for a supplement! :) Interesting site, I'll need to dig around there a bit more... thanks for the tip! 

I send you the link for trimhealthycanada.com, but of course the $1 price is a glitch, their website may not be operational in Canada. I should put in an order and see whether they would honour that price. But what would I do with 12 pounds of fiber?!!! http://trimhealthycanada.com/index.php/product/oat-fiber-1lb-package/ 

Links don't always work on FS comments. I don't know why. I notice the Trim Healthy Mama Canadian website is for wholesalers.