Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Handy post from Sarah Wilson about cooking from the freezer

tuesday eats: how to freeze things

I know this seems like a really daggy post. But stick with me, at least until the jump. It gets really interesting. See this quinoa recipe below, from 101 Cookbooks, an amazing resource for super healthy food ideas…I challenged myself to make it entirely from stuff pulled from my freezer. There are tricks and things to know…read on…

2010-07-27_1108

A full freezer is a green freezer

New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman is a mad freezer nut. He wrote recently in Oprah magazine that storing food in the freezer is actually economical because freezers work more efficiently when they’re full…something to do with solids stay cold longer than gases, so keep the whole lot at a more consistent temperature. Rad. Mark pretty much stores everything in his – flour, lemons, fruit, bacon. I’m not far off.

Some stuff is better frozen

Frozen tofu, for instance, stirfries better. Also, many starchy vegetables, like corn and peas, are better frozen than “fresh”. Starch breaks down as soon as the veggie is picked. Freezing stalls enzyme break-down. So those peas? They’re frozen not long after they’re picked and are in better nick than those that travel to the markets than to your local shop and then sit in your fridge for a few days…

But bear this in mind…

Watch out for freezer burn – make sure everything is covered, filling containers to the top. Sauces and pesto can be stored with a layer of oil on top. Cooked beans and rice  can be topped off with water...

for more visit sarahwilson.com.au

More and more, I'm depending on my freezer when cooking. As a single person with a chronic illness it allows me to save precious money, time and energy.

Posted via email from FrucMal Miscellaneous

Sunday, July 04, 2010

"Every day includes much more non-being than being. This is always so. One walks, eats, sees things..." via @DanijShapiro

"Every day includes much more non-being than being. This is always so. One walks, eats, sees things, deals with what has to be done; the broken vacuum cleaner; ordering dinner; washing; cooking dinner. When it is a bad day the proportion of non-being is much larger."
- Virginia Woolf
Blog – Moments Of Being | Dani Shapiro

Posted via email from Carissa Thorp's Posterous

Thursday, July 01, 2010

Publication of XMRV papers should not be blocked

Blocking publication also sends the wrong message to CFS patients, to the public, and scientists. Not only does this action raise suspicions about their motives – are they trying to publish only the result they believe is correct? – but it ignores the very important fact that science is self correcting. Scientists are humans, and they make mistakes. But eventually the right answer will come to the surface. And that is why PNAS and Retrovirology should respect peer review, publish the XMRV papers, and let science correct itself.

Posted via email from Carissa Thorp's Posterous

Monday, June 28, 2010

CS Lewis - the "clean sea breeze" of old books | No ideas in a vacuum - Joel J. Miller

Lewis himself helps us understand this in his famous (also 1944, by the way) introduction to St. Athanasius’ book, On The Incarnation. “Every age has its own outlook,” he writes. “It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.” Why? Because “All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it.” He could have easily used Orwell’s name there.

The problem is that every period ends up sharing “a great mass of common assumptions” and contemporaries (or locals, etc.) have trouble thinking beyond those assumptions. Lewis offers one help: “to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries [different contexts with different assumptions] blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books,” in his case then one by the great Alexandrian bishop Athanasius.

Posted via email from Carissa Thorp's Posterous