My Food Geek

The foodie was contacted by someone at a marketing firm who works with Wrigley®, asking us to review some new chewing gum. This is certainly outside our normal blogging focus, but we figured, hey, why not? We get some some gum out of the deal, and it’s interesting to have a change of pace now and then. We just hope our budding readership doesn’t see it as selling out. Since I’m “the eater”, it made sense for me to be the guinea pig and try out the gum.

The gum arrived last week, and upon opening the box it came in, the first thing that struck me (after getting past the surprise at the large amount of gum we now had available on which to chew) was the fancy packaging. There are three different flavors, all packed in sleek, black, 15-piece packages that look like something that would be handed out at some high-cover dance club. Each package has the number 5 featured prominently on it, highlighted with a subtle splash of color reflective of the flavor. The flavor names are all fancied up, too: “Rain” in green, “Cobalt” in blue, and “Flare” in red. Each piece of gum is wrapped in the Wrigley’s® style foil wrappers with zig-zag edges, but brightened up with color, and decorated with many “5″s. I’m not privy to the marketing spin, so I’m really not sure why “5″, but the whole effect does look pretty.

I was really hoping for some exotic gum flavors such as some unusual spice with the obvious focus that was put on the fancier-than-normal gum packaging, but I quickly found out that despite the names, the flavors are actually standard gum-fare. Rain is spearmint, Cobalt is peppermint/wintermint, and Flare is cinnamon. All are sugar-free. Despite my disappointment with the standard flavors, I did find the gum refreshing to chew and the flavors seemed to be quite a bit longer lasting than the average gum that I’m used to. Overall I would give this new gum my thumbs up.

The other day, the foodie decided to dig through some of my vegetarian cookbooks for veggie burger recipes. After perusing a few he asked me “TVP or Walnut Oatmeal?” Although I do often really like the way textured vegetable protein works in recipes, walnut oatmeal just sounded too good to turn down. I hadn’t tried either recipe before, because despite my many recipe books, I really have never been much of a cook.
After a quick trip to the store for a few needed ingredients, the burger assembly began. When he got to the browning of the patties, I was amazed at how meaty the burgers smelled. The house filled up with their irresistible aroma and I couldn’t wait to try them.

I was definitely not disappointed when they were complete with these very flavorful burger and their nice meaty texture. They were nutty and delicious and the best veggie burgers I’ve had the pleasure to eat, which is saying quite a lot considering the many many varieties of veggie burgers I’ve eaten in the past. I hope to see this recipe again soon.

The leftover mixture got to make a second appearance as surprisingly convincing meatballs in a spaghetti and meatball dish a few days later.

Walnut Oatmeal Burgers
Adapted from The New Laurel’s Kitchen: A Handbook for Vegetarian Cookery and Nutrition

burger mixture:
1½-3 cups walnut pieces
2 cups rolled oats
½ cup breadcrumbs
3 or 4 eggs, slightly beaten
½ cup skim milk
1 large onion, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp sage
1 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste

for cooking burgers:
oil to brown patties
3 cups vegetable stock

for serving:
hamburger buns and any desired burger fixings

Grind walnuts in blender and combine with the rest of the burger mixture ingredients.

Let the mixture rest in refrigerator for about an hour to let the flavors meld together.

Form the mixture into patties. The entire mixture will make 8-12 burgers depending on the size patty formed. It is recommended to use half of the mixture now, and reserve the rest for use in another recipe or for more burgers later.

Brown patties on both sides in a lightly oiled skillet, then pour the stock into the skillet and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes.

Serve on buns with all your burger fixings.

I am not aware of having ever previously eaten a wheat berry before this last week, despite a past that includes 10 years of vegetarian eating and an interest in healthy grains. The April issue of EatingWell® Magazine had a very nice piece about wheat berries with a number of recipes. Since the foodie and I are experimental types when it comes to food, we decided to try them out. We headed over to the Henry’s in University City where we were happy to discover that they are quite affordable, at around 50 cents a pound that day. Henry’s is one of our favorite haunts for extra produce (when we need something in addition to our CSA bounty) and bulk ingredients, so we were disturbed to hear of its parent company’s recent buy out by Whole Foods. I truly hope they will leave a good thing alone!

Wheat berries are very hearty, with a chewy texture, and a slightly nutty flavor. They turn out to be delicious in a salad with a citrus vinaigrette as well as a wonderful addition to chili. The foodie whipped up the following delectable chili based on the EatingWell® recipe, and I ate it up voraciously (as is frequently the case with his yummy cooking!). I hope to be seeing more of these little grains very soon.

Wheat Berry Chili with Black Beans
Adapted from EatingWell® Magazine, April 2007

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp chili powder
1½ tsp ground cumin
1 tsp oregano
1½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground pepper
4 cups black beans
4 cups diced tomatoes
1-2 canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, minced
2 cups vegetable broth
2 tsp brown sugar
2 cups wheat berries
Avocado for garnish
cooked rice to serve chili over

Cooking wheat berries:

After sorting through 2 cups of uncooked wheat berries and removing any stones, rinse well under cool running water, and place in a large pot with 7 cups of water and 1 tsp salt.

Bring wheat berries to a boil over high heat, cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Drain and rinse.

Heat oil in a Dutch oven or large pot over medium-high heat. Sauté onions, garlic, chili powder, cumin, oregano, ½ tsp salt and pepper until onions are translucent.

Add beans, tomatoes, chipotle pepper, broth, and brown sugar, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 25 minutes.

Stir in two cups of the cooked wheat berries and cook for another 5 minutes.

Serve over rice and garnish with diced avocado.

So, you may have noticed that things keep changing in foodgeek-land. The foodie decided that he wasn’t happy with the look and feel of our old theme, so he started browsing for some other theme options. After a few tries we settled on this one, because we liked the extra edge room of three columns, and the clean look of the rounded sidebars.

Since on top of being a food geek, I am also a computer geek, I spent some time tweaking the layout to fit what we wanted to do with it, and what you see is the mostly final result. You can expect a few more minor changes as we come up with some final touches, but hopefully this is what we’ll be sticking with!

So what do you think? We are very open to feedback and suggestions!

I haven’t quite gotten the hang of this whole blogging regularly thing, and have not been keeping up on my part of the writing! I have, however, continued to get to eat a variety of wonderful creations that the foodie has made. One of these a few weeks ago was Goat Cheese and Beet Tortelloni.

We had gotten beets in our CSA delivery, so the foodie was looking for something to do with them. Being the continuously creative chef that he is, he saw goat cheese in the fridge and decided that goat cheese and beets would pair well together in a pasta dish. I wish I had his knack for thinking of delicious food combinations, but I think that’s why he is the foodie and I am the eater!
Beets tend to make wonderfully colorful dishes, and this one was no exception. The beets in this recipe hide inside the pasta, so a pureed beet sauce added the beautiful deep red color.

Goat Cheese and Beet Tortelloni

Filling:

2 medium sized beets
4 ounces goat cheese
2 tbls bread crumbs
zest of 1/2 a lemon

Bake beets, wrapped in foil, in 400F oven for about 45min or under soft
After beets have cooled, slide skins off and finely grate beets
Place grated beets, goat cheese, bread crumbs, and lemon zest in the workbowl of a food processor fitted with metal blade.
Pulse mixture until it is fully combined

Assembly:

Beet and cheese filling
1.5lbs fresh pasta sheets
(round dumpling wrappers found in Asian markets work, too)

Cut prepared pasta sheets with a 2.5in circular cutter. You should get about 48 rounds
Place 1 tsp of filling on pasta round
Dip fingertip into water and dampen edge of round
Fold in half while trying to push as much air out as possible
Overlap both pointy ends and press together
Repeat until all wrappers are used up
Cook in salted boiling water for 2-3 minutes or until they float to the top of the water

Tortelloni can be made up to 1 week ahead and kept refrigerated