Benefits of Cooking – in thriver words

Garden Preserves

When the garden delivers its bounty, you may need to make garden preserves. Even though many of the seeds I planted this year didn’t germinate, I have an abundance of some things. If you’re more successful than I am, you may need a way to preserve the bounty.

Preserves typically refers to cooking something with sugar, usually fruit, so that it will last. I can’t think of anyone I know personally in my adult life who has made fruit preserves. They’re more likely to have frozen, dried, or in rare cases, pickled something. Not being great at freezing, cooking is a better option for me.

During a busy week, making a cobbler or pie may seem daunting. But preserving berries doesn’t have to involve rolling a crust, mixing biscuits, or locating gluten-free oats for a crumble topping. All you need to do is cook the berries.

If you know you’re going to make a pie or cobbler later, add sugar or brown sugar, water, a little corn starch, and a squeeze or lemon or lime and cook briefly. Once the mixture cooks down, you’ll have a compote you can use for your pie or cobbler. It can also be used to top pancakes or bake into a breakfast bread.

I don’t always use refined sugar. Sometimes, I substitute honey or a mixture of honey and maple syrup. And I like to mix blackberries and blueberries.

But berries aren’t the only item I have in spades. Arugula is also abundant. I love a peppery salad, but I can’t consume it fast enough. Cooking works for arugula as well. Not only can it be sautéed, it makes a great addition to potato soup. If you want a hearty stew, add cabbage and chicken to arugula potato soup.

It’s fun to cook new assortments of greens together – chard, bok choi, dandelion, spinach, kale – in varying proportions.

Cucumbers are also prolific producers. I love to use them in cold soups, pico de gallo, popsicles, and to line the bottom of a glass of Hendricks gin in addition to the more traditional salad treatments. I also dip them in hummus or ranch dressing and eat them all by themselves. With so many options, I don’t need to pickle, freeze, dry, or ferment.

Fresh vegetables and fruits will last longer than those trucked to your local grocery, but if they’re approaching the end of freshness and time is short or energy low, it’s okay to let go of a dream day of baking in favor of a quickly cooked compote. Or throw some greens in a frittata if they start looking wilted.

If you’ve done all the cooking you can, give your neighbors a treat. My garden gifts often result in a hot meal unexpectedly delivered to my door a few days later.

I’m always amazed how much food can be grown in a small space. My garden often yields enough excess for garden preserves.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Measure or Pour

When teaching kids to cook, is it better to measure or pour? I’ve always liked teaching kids to cook using measuring cups and spoons. It’s a great way to teach and visualize fractions. It’s an opportunity to point out how things work better if you follow a certain order of operations. Beyond math-related functions, it’s a chance to learn cooking vocabulary and how to read recipes.

Determined African American girl rolling dough with flour covered arms.

But a lot of cooking is smell and feel and knowing what a certain kind of dough should look like. That information can’t be found in a recipe. It has to be experienced. And sometimes the temperature and humidity in your kitchen will mean you need to alter a recipe. It seems equally important to allow kids to learn simple cooking and baking by eyeballing quantities.

Perhaps the best choice is both measuring and pouring. I know it means spending more time in the kitchen in possibly messy circumstances that will require additional cleanup time. On balance, you’ll gain the opportunity for presenting family traditions, math lessons, and English lessons in addition to overt cooking instruction.

In preparation, you’ll need to get comfortable with winging it. If that’s not your thing, try cooking dinner a night or two by using only what you can remember of a recipe. Pay attention to what you forget or tend to use too much of. Nothing about this is critical so don’t be afraid to laugh.

Once you have a bit of confidence, add fresh ingredients and children. Try making the same dish with and without following a recipe. Add unexpected changes that smell like a good combination. Play, play, play.

If we’re truly going to limit processed food, we have to get the kids comfortable in the kitchen. I know some restaurant owners whose mom let them play bake in the kitchen when they were quite young. She says the results weren’t always good, but they were learning and having fun. I’d offer they were gaining comfort and confidence.

When you’re comfortable and confident in an environment, you’re able to focus and learn. It’s the ideal state for absorbing new information.

Now’s the time. Get the kids in the kitchen. Let them measure and pour to their heart’s content. They’ll probably use too much salt, too much sugar, and definitely too much vanilla. It’s hard to judge how fast it will pour when you’re not used to the size and weight of the bottle.

They’ll love using a grater and microplane. Buy a protective glove if you’re worried about them cutting themselves. Show them how to zest citrus and squeeze juice without getting seeds in the food.

Demonstrate peeling garlic and slicing onions. If you’re nervous, buy some kid-safe knives and show them how to keep their fingertips out of the way.

Measure or pour, you’re not just prepping food. You’re prepping your children for being cooks. That’s a huge step along the way to incorporating fresh ingredients into their diet. The benefits are huge!

If You Don’t Like the Heat

If you don’t like the heat, you can get out of the kitchen as they say, but we want you to stay in the kitchen AND get out of the heat! That may be easier said than done. We set a high temperature record in March. I no longer know when to plant my garden or prune anything. What I’m learning is that excessive heat is more than just annoying, it ages you!

Each year, the heat and humidity bother me more. That’s annoying, but a new study published in Science Advances suggests that it’s not just making me uncomfortable, fussy, and sluggish. It could be phenologically aging me. If that’s true, it’s probably physiologically aging me too. That sounds bad.

It’s a given that excessive heat creates the danger of heat stroke. We also know it can adversely affect heart problems and age your skin. I guess it stands to reason that longer numbers of days with temperatures exceeding 100° Fahrenheit would affect us in other ways. My body certainly tells me to get out of the heat!

A friend who lives closer to the equator experienced 60 consecutive days of temperatures over 110° last year. As she tells it, she would get up and do her outside work knowing that it would be too hot later in the day. Her plan was to then come in and do paperwork and volunteer hours after that.

Instead, once she finished the farm work, she found herself lying on the concrete floor for hours until the sun went down. She simply didn’t feel like moving. Trying to figure out if she was getting old, lazy, or old and lazy, she finally realized that the heat seemed to be aggravating her heart problems and affecting her blood pressure.

This year, she’s moving further north for a month to see if she feels better. If that works, next year she’ll expand her heat vacation to three months. I have a neighbor who leaves in June and returns in September. Seems they are onto something.

Here’s an excerpt from the study:

“For example, one-unit increase in heat days at the caution+ level is associated with a 1.15-year increase in PCPhenoAge acceleration over a 7-day window (95% CI = 0.63, 1.67); this means that 10% more heat days corresponds to a 0.115-year PCPhenoAge acceleration. This association remains significant over 30-day (B = 1.08, 95% CI = 0.53, 1.62), 60-day (B = 0.98, 95% CI = 0.40, 1.56), 1-year (B = 1.66, 95% CI = 0.56, 2.77), and 6-year (B = 1.87, 95% CI = 0.68, 3.06) windows. Comparable results are observed for heat days at the extreme caution+ level; for example, a one-unit increase in heat days over a 6-year period is associated with a 2.88-year increase in PCPhenoAge acceleration (95% CI = 1.28, 4.48).”

The bottom line is that people who experience more heat over the long-term age faster biologically than people who live in cooler environments.

I will add that quality of life decreases when the heat index is over 100°. Gardening may become exhausting. It’s harder to stay hydrated. And sitting on the porch visiting with neighbors sounds like sitting in an oven baking with potatoes.

Not all of us can move or go away for months at a time. We may have to alter our schedules to garden at first light, walk for exercise indoors, and grill in instead of out.

I’m sitting in a stuffy RV with wind gusting up to 49 mph outside. Humidity is 86%. The temperature is only 68 outside, but it’s way hotter in here and it’s only April 2. I am dreading August.

Now’s a good time to practice staying in the kitchen where there’s air conditioning. And if you don’t like the heat…I’m with you!

Chili When It’s Chilly

During the holidays, serve chili when it’s chilly! Part of my family has already arrived for Christmas. I wanted to spend time enjoying them, so I cleaned and cooked in advance. That doesn’t mean I don’t have to clean the kitchen every morning, but it does mean I have a lot more time to play. When they arrived, my kitchen was filled with a variety of fruit and my refrigerator with chili.

I know that sounds like a lot of chili, but there wasn’t just one kind. That’s one of the things I love about the dish – there are many delicious versions that can be tailored to the preferences and food tolerances of a varied family.

Histamine intolerance means traditional tomato-based chili is problematic for me. Chicken chili or white chili eliminates that issue. I used great northern beans that I precooked in water and chicken broth seasoned with salt, pepper, fresh garlic, onion, dried chiles, chili powder, and cumin. Once the beans were done, I used the broth to boil a peeled, cubed potato until it was soft.

The broth formed the base for my chicken chili. I added water, more spices, cubed chicken breasts, and the cooked beans. I also added some cream and then let it cook 20 – 25 minutes until the chicken was done. This can easily become chowder with a more substantial cream base and the addition of corn.

Was it exactly traditional white chili? Not really. But the flavors are there. The texture was pleasant and the chicken delicious. This white chili is perfect paired with gluten-free crackers, garlic toast, Brazilian cheese rolls, or rice. And not only does it address my histamine issue, it means my grandson who won’t eat ground meat has a chili option.

I also made tomato-based chili using ground turkey. We love red meat, but often opt for poultry when using ground meat. Again veering from the traditional, I added black beans that I had precooked when preparing the great northern beans. I like black beans, and my system tolerates them better so I could use the leftovers with rice as a side dish.

While I also have a casserole ready, we’ve gotten multiple meals out of the chili. It’s easy to grab and heat when someone gets hungry. Given that we live in different time zones, meal times are always weird for a few days.

And every meal doesn’t have to be the same. Served over Fritos® and topped with cheese, you have Frito chili pie. Add to pasta for a three-way (watch yourself). Top a hot dog, smother a tamale, or make a taco salad and chili serves as a supporting actor.

Chili gets better as it cooks so reheating doesn’t detract. Given this, and the versatility, it’s hard to find a better make-ahead food, especially when it’s chilly.