Food as Medicine

This Friday the Integrative Medicine Club is having a Healthy Integrative Bake Sale. We held the first healthy bake sale at the end of last year and are continuing this great event. Our healthy approach has been so popular it has even been mimicked by a variety of other organizations. Although at first I was a bit saddened to see our original idea taken by other groups, in the end I am really happy that our club has taken the entire concept of a bake sale on a 180 degree turn. I am glad that our idea was so popular that other people wanted to do it as well. I say no to obese med students! Who made it a rule that baked goods had to be fatty and loaded with unhealthy ingredients? The Integrative Medicine Club strives to educate and demonstrate the importance of nutrition on health. We are really the only club that addresses this topic and the reason why we love our healthy bake sales. Simply put, food is medicine.

I have been busy working in the kitchen all day. I made three batches of cookies today: chocolate almond, matcha green tea, and ginger cookies.

We'll focus on the ginger cookies. Ginger is a great food and has a variety of health benefits. It has a long tradition of helping to relieve gastrointestinal distress and is also loaded with antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds. Gingerols, the anti-inflammatory compound, may help to alleviate the pain in patients with arthritis. These cookies also do not contain any white sugar. Rather, the sweetness comes from brown sugar and molasses. Sweeteners like refined white sugar and corn syrup are void of virtually all nutrients and artificial sweeteners like saccharine and aspartame do not provide any nutrients and may cause health problems. Molasses is a sweetener that is rich in nutrients such as manganese, copper, iron, calcium, potassium, and magnesium. So basically, these cookies are sort of good for you.

The original recipe called these cookies "gingersnaps" but I would change the name to "gingerchews." These are definitely not your normal crispy gingersnaps that actually snap when you break them. Instead, these are soft and chewy, which I definitely prefer. I rolled the cookies in some sugar to give them a little shine, but it would be even prettier to use to larger grain turbindo sugar. These don't have a strong taste of ginger, to be honest, I don't really like the flavor of ginger. There is more a flavor of the nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger mixed together with the molasses. It's a nice combo. These are really yummy cookies and so easy to make.

Quick plug: These will be featured at the Integrative Medicine Club Bake Sale this Friday from 1:30-3 on the plaza between COM, CON, and COP. Find our table under the tent to taste all of our tasty treats!

Gingerchews
adapted from Sweet Pea's Kitchen

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• Pinch of salt
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 large egg
• sugar for rolling

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, spices, and salt. In another bowl, combine together the brown sugar, molasses, vegetable oil, and egg until smooth. Mix the flour mixture into the brown mixture, stirring until dough comes together. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 20 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll into ball by heaping teaspoonfuls and roll the balls in sugar and place on the greased baking sheets 2 inches apart. Bake 8 minutes.
3. Remove from oven and leave on the baking sheet several minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Cookies will be very soft when removed from the oven but they will firm up.

This dish gets an 11

Today is going to be a terrible day, I can already tell and it's only 10:30 in the morning. It is cloudy and gloomy outside and I have a LONG day of studying ahead of me. At least the day started off well, 100% on TL, hip hip hooray. Before I dive into this bottomless pit, I thought I would write a little bit about dessert last night.

The boys spent a whole day climbing outside while I was a prisoner in the house with my head in my book. As my mini-break, I decided to whip up a pie. I had some leftover buttermilk from the fried green tomatoes, and one of my favorite things to do with buttermilk is make pie (oh and red velvet cupcakes). Buttermilk pie is so easy and it's really delicious. It reminds me more of a custard than a pie because it doesn't have a crust. Once you bake it, the top gets a nice crust and is so yummy. Joey and I have a silly ritual of rating our dishes after we make them. It's a 1-10 scale and really doesn't have any strict criteria. 1 means it's absolutely horrible (luckily, nothing has ever been given this rating) and a 10 means it's one of the best dishes you've ever had. Most things get a 7 or 8, occasionally we have a 4. Joey's rating for this buttermilk pie is an 11, it's officially one of his favorite things in the entire world. Yeah, it's that good.

I recently acquired a mass amount of peaches from a good friend (thanks A!). I thought it would be nice to make some kind of peach syrup over the buttermilk pie. I found a great recipe for peach lavender syrup that I thought would compliment the pie wonderfully. The original recipe called for use of vanilla beans, but those little guys are so expensive, so I just substituted a little vanilla extract. I am hesitant with lavender because sometimes it can give off an overly floral taste. I wish that this dish actually had more lavender flavor. You could definitely smell the aroma, but I think the overly sweet taste of the sugary syrup overwhelmed the delicate lavender. I would probably decrease the sugar a bit and let the lavender seep longer. Also, I would just spoon the peaches soaked in syrup over the pie and not drizzle extra syrup on top. It makes the pie too sweet. Just a bite of pie with a bite of peach, divine. Another option would be to reserve some of the syrup and mix it in with some whipped cream to serve over the pie. Delish.

Okay, enough distraction from studying. Here's the recipe. Off to JAK STAT, phosphatidylinositol, Ratkhe's pouch, Hashimoto's and other things I don't completely understand yet...

JC's Buttermilk Pie with Lavender Peaches
adapted from Olivia's Buttermilk Pie and First Look, Then Cook

For the Buttermilk Pie

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup biscuit mix (recommended: Bisquick)
• 1/3 cup (5 1/3 tablespoons) butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9-inch pie pan. Put all ingredients in a bowl and blend for 1 minute with a handheld electric mixer. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Bake for about 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes.

For the Lavender Peaches

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 tablespoons dried lavender blossoms
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 medium firm but ripe peaches, pitted, cut into 3/4-inch wedges, skins removed*
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Combine 2 1/4 cups water, sugar, lavender and vanilla extract in a saucepan. Boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat; cover and let steep 10 minutes. Strain syrup into medium bowl; discard lavender. Return remaining syrup to same saucepan; add peaches and lemon juice and bring to boil. Reduce heat; simmer about 5 minutes. Transfer peaches to bowl. Boil syrup in pan until reduced to 1 cup, 12 to 14 minutes. Pour over peaches. Chill uncovered 2 hours.

*Here's a trick to easily remove the skins from peaches: Place the peaches in boiling water for 2-3 minutes and then immediately remove them and place them in an ice bath for a few minutes.The skins should peel right off.

Fried Green Tomatoes (not a very creative title...sorry)

Instead of studying for my test next week, I was busy being interrupted by Stacy and my dog multiple times.

As a result, I was persuaded into going to Fry's (Ghetto Groceries Inc.) and making Fried Green Tomatoes....yes like the movie. Although, I must admit that I've never actually seen it before.

In any case, the deep fried and green tomatoes were bomb.com

Fried Green Tomatoes

• 3 lbs green tomatoes (6-8 medium tomatoes)
• 3 large eggs, beaten
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 3 cups vegetable or peanut oil
• 3 batches of dredge (recipe below)
• Kosher salt (You should buy this and not use regular iodized salt. You'll thank me later)
• Lemon Juice (if needed)

Slice the tomatoes into 1/4 inch think slices. Note: Don't use slices that include the stem. You'll regret it.

Next, whisk the eggs and butter milk together in a small bowl and place it to the side

Now, make the dredge (Fancy word for: flour and other crap that makes a very tasty and crunchy crust post frying). How do you do this? Technically you need to sift all the ingredients together, twice. But, if you are not a baker or do not shop compulsively at Ikea's cooking section like someone I live with, a fork will suffice to mix it all together in a wide shallow bowl or a plate.

Dredge Recipe

• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons corn meal (can be found in baking aisle)
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 1.5 teaspoons of ground pepper (freshly ground preferable)

Now that all of your mis en place is ready, pour the oil into a 12 inch skillet or a normal frying pan. Turn on the heat to high. Typically you want to have a candy or digital thermometer around so you can maintain the oil at 365 F. I'm too cheap to buy one, so I just heated it up until the oil started to sizzle when I threw some flour into it. 

Note: Taste your tomatoes. They should taste tart. If not, sprinkle a little bit of salt and lemon juice onto them.

Once your oil is more or less at temperature, cover your tomatoes in dredge; try to dust off excessive amounts. Then coat the tomatoes in the egg/milk mixture and then re-dredge them again. Re dust off excessive amounts of dredge and throw...I mean gently place the tomatoes into the frying pan. 

Flip the tomatoes once they turn golden brown with a spatula. This should take 1-2 minutes on each side depending on how hot your oil is. Be sure not to let them burn because you left the kitchen to watch the Oregon vs Stanford game like I did. 

Once done, take your spatula and lay the tomatoes on a plate with paper towels on it. I had extra Trader Joe paper bags around, so I just used that.

Let them cool, and enjoy! If you are one of those types who needs to always have dips for their appetizers, I would suggest peppercorn ranch dressing.