It all has to do with “molecular machines” — teeny devices made out of individual atoms — that mark the start of a wave of nano-innovation that could drastically change, well, a LOT. You want transparent solar panels? Tiny, super-efficient supercomputers? Cancer-killing robots that wander your bloodstream like assassin Ms. Frizzles? Nanotechnology could be the way.
The three winners — Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir James Frasier Stoddart, and Bernard L. Feringa — will split the $930,000 prize for their work, including building a “molecular motor,” a light-powered device powerful enough to rotate a glass tube 10,000 times its size.
“The molecular motor is at the same stage as the electric motor was in the 1830s, when scientists displayed various spinning cranks and wheels, unaware that they would lead to electric trains, washing machines, fans, and food processors,” the Nobel committee said in the press release announcing the prize.
Of course, nanomaterials come with some troubling potential side effects, from extra-sharp nanotubes that could act like asbestos in the lungs to teeny tiny pesticide nanodroplets that might never go away. But the Nobel committee, for one, is betting that these technologies, deployed correctly, have a whole lot of good to offer us.
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It all has to do with “molecular machines” — teeny devices made out of individual atoms — that mark the start of a wave of nano-innovation that could drastically change, well, a LOT. You want transparent solar panels? Tiny, super-efficient supercomputers? Cancer-killing robots that wander your bloodstream like assassin Ms. Frizzles? Nanotechnology could be the way.
The three winners — Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir James Frasier Stoddart, and Bernard L. Feringa — will split the $930,000 prize for their work, including building a “molecular motor,” a light-powered device powerful enough to rotate a glass tube 10,000 times its size.
“The molecular motor is at the same stage as the electric motor was in the 1830s, when scientists displayed various spinning cranks and wheels, unaware that they would lead to electric trains, washing machines, fans, and food processors,” the Nobel committee said in the press release announcing the prize.
Of course, nanomaterials come with some troubling potential side effects, from extra-sharp nanotubes that could act like asbestos in the lungs to teeny tiny pesticide nanodroplets that might never go away. But the Nobel committee, for one, is betting that these technologies, deployed correctly, have a whole lot of good to offer us.
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Sure, processed foods can save you a little time. But what you gain in convenience, you lose in money, environmental impact and maybe even health.
That’s because processed foods require more labor to convert them from their natural state to something that fits in a box, bag or tub. You’re also paying for the chemicals added to the processed food to keep them fresh. You’re paying for the packaging, too, which is totally worthless once you get it home. Indeed, $1 out of every $11 you spend at the grocery store you spend on packaging you throw away.
Speaking of that packaging, it’s probably the biggest source of trash in your home. Think about the pile of empty boxes, bags and wrapping you’re left with after you unload your groceries and put them in the refrigerator or cupboard. Plastic waste is especially egregious since many communities still don’t recycle and it doesn’t biodegrade. Instead, it turns into millions of pieces of microplastic that get in the oceans and soil and that animals mistake for food.
Here are 7 processed foods that normally come wrapped in paper or plastic that you can easily make at home. They’ll be fresher, cheaper and waste-free if you skip plastic produce bags and take your own when you shop.
1) Yogurt
Yogurt couldn’t be easier to make at home. Heat a half-gallon of milk to about 180 degrees, using a candy thermometer to test the temperature. You can heat it on the stove, but I usually do it in the microwave to prevent scalding. Let it cool to 110 degrees. Put a quarter cup of the milk in a glass or small mixing bowl and add a couple of tablespoons of powdered milk if you want thicker yogurt (this step isn’t essential). Add the mixture back into the bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of yogurt and whisk into the milk. Cover the bowl with a towel. Some people then put the bowl in a warm oven. I wrap mine in a heating pad, which I set on its highest setting for a couple of hours and then turn down to low for a few hours. It will take 4-6 hours for the milk to become yogurt. You can spoon it into individual serving jars or keep it in the bowl. Use the whey that collects in the bottom of the bowl in pasta sauces, salad dressings or just stir it back into the yogurt.
2) Hummus
Buy raw chickpeas in bulk at your grocery store or food coop. If possible, use your own reusable bag to hold the peas. At home, soak them in water to cover overnight until soft. Or simmer them for a couple of hours until soft. Drain the chickpeas, rinse under running water, then drain and toss into a food processor with 3 tablespoons olive oil, 3 tablespoons tahini, salt, pepper, a clover or two of chopped garlic and the juice from at least half a lemon. Process until smooth. Season to taste, adding more lemon, garlic or tahini as desired.
3) Shredded Cheese
Pre-shredded cheese always comes in a plastic bag or tub along with chemicals to prevent mold growth and even the dust from wood pulp which is added to prevent the cheese from clumping. Why not grate your own cheese instead? It will be fresher, cheaper and you can minimize packaging if you buy a chunk of cheese from your deli counter rather than in the dairy aisle.
4) Salad Dressing
Most salad dressing is sold in plastic bottles which are hard, if not impossible, to recycle in most communities. Yet, DIY salad dressing couldn’t be easier to make, and it’s tasty, too. For a simple vinaigrette, combine 1 part olive oil to 3 parts red wine vinegarvinegar in a clean jar with a lid. Add minced red onion, a sprinkling of salt, pepper and garlic powder, and one or two teaspoons of Dijon mustard. Stir vigorously until well combined. Adjust seasonings to taste. You can replace red wine vinegar with fresh lemon juice, add finely chopped basil, or fiddle with it in other ways you like. For more ideas, see 7 Fantastic Salad Dressings You Should Make Today.
5) Mayonnaise
If you’ve never made your own mayonnaise, you’re in for a real treat. It’s fresh, flavorful and very creamy. Check out Alton Brown’s recipe, which whips together an egg yolk, salt, dry mustard, a bit of sugar, lemon juice, white wine vinegar and of course, oil. Double or triple the ingredients depending on how much you need, keeping in mind it will last just about a week in the fridge. Store it in glass jars with tightly fitting lids. And don’t miss this great Care2 post, 12 Surprising Uses for Mayonnaise.
6) Ketchup
I find most processed ketchup contains way too much sugar. You can dial the sweetness down and turn up the spices and flavor if you make your own. You can make it from canned tomatoes, but to skip the packaging, use fresh plum tomatoes you get at the grocery store or farmers market. Peel, seed and dice the tomatoes, add a tablespoon or so of minced red onion, a tablespoon or so of apple cider vinegar, minced garlic and hot sauce if you want some spice. Process in a food processor. If it’s not as thick as you’d like, simmer it on low until some of the liquid evaporates. You can also play with spices like ground ginger, cinnamon, honey and cloves. The beauty of making it yourself is that you can make it exactly the way you like it. Don’t be afraid to experiment.
7) Salsa
Why buy this in plastic tubs when it’s so much better made fresh? Chop fresh tomatoes into a small dice until you have about two cups. Add around a quarter cup chopped red onion and a smattering of diced green peppers or cucumbers if you want more veggies. Flavor with lime juice, chopped cilantro leaves, a teaspoon or so of ground cumin, a couple of cloves of garlic minced and something hot – Sriracha, Tabasco, chili pepper flakes or chopped chili peppers. Add the heat incrementally so you don’t overdo it.
8) Juice
Most juice comes in plastic throwaway bottles or jugs. You can make your own orange, tangerine and grapefruit juice simply by cutting the fruit in half and using a hand juicer to press out the liquid. For vegetable juices and apple or pear juice, you’ll probably need an actual juicing machine (most food processors will simply puree the fruit or veggies, not juice them). But if you drink a lot of juice, it might be worth the investment to buy an electric juicer.
What’s your favorite “make from scratch” food that helps you skip the processed product?
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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
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Mother Jones
During the broiling-hot Texas summer, I search for dishes that fall into a sweet and cool spot: seasonal produce prepared with minimal heat. Tomatoes are easy. Eggplant, one of my very vegetables, presents a special challenge. The ways that I love to cook it—searing and roasting—are just too damned hot for August. I sometimes grill it, of course, but standing in 100-degree heat over a fire doesn’t always appeal.
After a sweaty recent visit to the farmers market, I found myself the owner of three gorgeous purple eggplants—and feeling no desire to fire up the stove or grill to cook them. Then, from the depths of my culinary memory, I recovered a technique I learned from Paula Wolfert’s outstanding 1994 book The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean: You simply wrap the eggplants in foil, prick them all over with the tines of a fork, and cook them on a gas stovetop over a low flame—so low it barely heats the kitchen. Then you separate the flesh from the skin and puree it with a few other ingredients into baba ghanoush, the classic Levantine eggplant spread. The open flame gives the eggplant a subtle smokiness that really elevates the dish. (Of course, cooking it over a charcoal grill is even better.)
Guided by Wolfert, one of my culinary heroes, that’s exactly what I did. The following recipe is adapted from Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean, which brims with summer-ready ideas. (Note to self: try a chilled version of “Yogurt and Leek Soup with Mint.”)
Baba ghanoush gear
Baba Ghanoush
(Makes two cups)
3 medium-sized eggplants
2 small cloves of garlic, crushed and peeled
A couple of strips of pickled red onion (optional)
5 tablespoons of tahini
One lemon, sliced in half
3-4 tablespoons of water
Sea salt and freshly gound black pepper, to taste
Extra-virgin olive oil
Garnishes
Some kind of ground chile powder—Allepo pepper (as Wolfert suggests), paprika, or, as I used, ground chipotle pepper
1 small ripe tomato, diced
A few sprigs of parsley, chopped
Trim the stems from the eggplants and wrap them with foil. Using a fork, prick them in several places, all over. Set two gas stovetop burners to a low setting, and place two of the eggplants on a grate directly over one, and the third over another (see photo). Let then cook, turning them occasionally with a tongs, until they become quite squishy and are releasing steam. Their collapse should be complete, abject. Wolfert suggests dumping them into a basin of cold water and peeling them immediately. I simply let them sit for 30 minutes or so in a bowl, then I stripped away the foil, rinsed them in cold water, and then peeled them over a bowl.
Note the low flame.
Add the tahini, the garlic, and the onion (if using) to the basin of a food processor fitted with a blade. Squeeze half of the lemon (over a metal strainer tio catch the seeds) into the basin, and add a pinch of slat and a grind of pepper. Process until absolutely smooth, pushing down the sides of the basin with a rubber spatula in between whirs if necessary. This step is crucial to Wolfert’s brilliant baba—creaming the tahini, lemon, and garlic at this point will give the final product a gorgeous lightness. Now add the eggplant flesh, two tablespoons of water, and a glug of olive oil, and puree until absolutely smooth, again pausing to intervene with a spatula if necessary. If you’re having trouble achieving absolute smoothness, add another tablespoon of water. Now taste, adding a bit more salt or lemon if it seems necessary.
To serve, spread as much baba ghanoush as you expect to eat in one sitting on a plate. (The rest should be kept tightly covered in the fridge—it will maintain peak flavor for a few days). Give it a few lashings of your best olive oil, a brisk sprinkle of ground chile, some grinds of black pepper, and some diced tomato and chopped parsley. Serve with good crackers. This spread would also be a good excuse to make Alice Waters’ fast-and-easy flatbread—but that would mean turning up a stovetop burner all the way to medium.
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It’s a warm summer evening, and you’re on a back porch with a group of friends, drinking a beer and getting ready for dinner. Someone passes you a paper plate, a seeded bun, and—wait, you don’t eat meat? Oh. Well, here’s a tomato and some lettuce.
If you steer clear of beef, you’ve probably experienced a similar scenario. If you’re lucky, you maybe even found a frozen soy patty masquerading as a burger that, when grilled, sort of tasted like nothing, and drenched it in mustard.
I know: Vegetarians need to stop whining about missing out at barbecues because we choose to cut delicious juicy hamburgers out of our diets. But even if you’re just trying to cut back on meat, or trying to impress a vegetarian, the alternatives usually offered are lackluster at best, and unhealthy and environmentally questionable at worst. As my colleague Kiera Butler reveals, it can take just as much energy to produce a veggie burger as a beef burger, and many soy-based fake meats are processed with hexane, a neurotoxin.
Luckily, there are savory alternatives to this dilemma, made from ingredients you probably have at home. I reached out to a few vegetable-oriented chefs and cookbook authors for their favorite burger recipes, which are shared below. Some of them are vegan and gluten-free, too. And you can always freeze them after you’ve made a bunch, so next gathering, you’ll come prepared with a burger made with unprocessed ingredients and devoid of mystery chemicals.
Mushroom Burgers with Barley (vegan)
Lukas Volger takes his vegetarian burgers very seriously, as evidenced by his book on the topic. He also hosts the cooking show Vegetarian Tonight; see below for the episode featuring the Mushroom Burger with Barley, which Volger cooks while clad in a neatly arranged apron and hipster glasses. Volger opts for potatoes rather than eggs when binding his burger, meaning the result is vegan. Writes Volger: “This burger, based in part on the fortifying soup, is simple and delicious and abundant in mushroom flavor. Substitute other mushroom varieties, such as oyster mushrooms or plain button mushrooms.”
Ingredients:
Makes four 4-inch burgers
1 small potato, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 portabello mushroom
12 cremini mushrooms
10 shiitake mushrooms
½ teaspoon dried thyme
2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 cup cooked barley
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Steam or boil the potato until tender. Mash with a fork. Trim off the stem of the portabella mushroom and scoop out the gills. Chop into 1/2-inch pieces. Thinly slice the crimini and shitake mushrooms. Preheat oven to 375° F.
Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium heat. Cook the portabello mushrooms and dried thyme for 6 to 8 minutes, until the mushrooms begin to soften and sweat. Add the crimini and shitake. Cook for 10 minutes, until the mushrooms have sweat off their moisture and it has dried up in the pan. Deglaze with the vinegar, scraping off browned bits with a wooden spoon.
Transfer mushrooms to a food processor and coarsely purée. (Alternatively, chop the mushrooms finely by hand.) Combine the mushroom mixture with the potato, barley, salt, pepper, and mushroom mixture in a mixing bowl. Shape into patties.
In a large oven-safe skillet or nonstick sauté pan heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat. When hot, add the patties and cook until browned on each side, 6 to 10 minutes total. Transfer the pan to the oven and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until the burgers are firm and cooked through.
Don’t forget to “go crazy with the condiments,” adds Volger: Yogurt sauce, caramelized onions, homemade pesto, or more sauteed mushrooms, as pictured above.
Recipe from Veggie Burgers Every Which Way: Fresh, Flavorful and Healthy Vegan and Vegetarian Burgers—Plus Toppings, Sides, Buns and More, copyright © Lukas Volger, 2010. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, The Experiment, LLC.
Beet and Bean Burger
Courtesy www.theKitchn.com
Recipe editor Emma Christensen loved the legendary beet burgers at the Northstar Cafe in Columbus, so she and fellow Kitchn bloggers set out to recreate their own version. The resulting burger, writes Christensen, “had a deep, savory umami flavor” and unlike other veggie burgers, “captured that unique hamburger texture.” Dice the beets really small, she notes, and don’t use a food processor if you’re trying to avoid mushiness. I liked how this burger uses lots of cheap and readily available ingredients; find the full recipe here.
Falafel Burger (vegan and gluten-free)
“Whole-food dishes like falafel—chickpeas ground up with spices and then deep fried—might be a better beacon towards a less meat-intensive future,” writes MoJo‘s food and agriculture blogger, Tom Philpott. Falafel might be the ticket to a better burger, too.
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Because I’ve lived in two meccas of smoked meat—Central Texas and North Carolina—people often ask me for tips on barbecue at this time of year. Here’s the thing: barbecuing is long, smoky cooking over low heat. If you want to get the flavor of how to do it, check out the “Fire” chapter of Michael Pollan’s new book Cooked. The chapter ends with Pollan smoking a whole hog overnight in his backyard—a tricky process that takes practice, skill, and lots and lots of time. For me, barbecue is like beer: its making is best left to pros and obsessive amateurs.
Meanwhile, Tom’s Kitchen is devoted to simple home cooking, so you won’t see me devoting a column to proper barbecue anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like to have a bit of fun with fire and smoke. What people usually have in mind when they ask me about barbecuing is really what should be called grilling—essentially, roasting over charcoal. (I’ve been told grilling also happens over gas flame, though that concept is foreign to me.) What follows is a dead-simple way to turn a whole chicken into a cookout through the magic of butterflying—cutting out the backbone with a sturdy pair of kitchen shears. Don’t be intimidated. It only takes about 15 seconds and it gets you a moist, evenly cooked bird with a crisp skin.
You can take your butterflied chicken party in many different directions. You could slather it in a barbecue-style sauce before crisping off the skin and serve it with slaw and other traditional ‘cue sides; you could go Mediterranean and marinade it in lemon zest and chopped rosemary and serve with a fresh salsa verde (essentially a parsley pesto); or do as the recipe below suggests, which is to look south to Mexico for inspiration. I hacked the meat up for tacos, and served with tortillas, guacamole, and a charred-tomato sauce.
Grilled Whole Chicken with Charred Tomato Sauce
Prep and marinade bird
2 cloves of garlic, crushed and peeled
½ teaspoon powdered hot chile pepper (could be paprika, smoked paprika, or ground chipotle pepper—I used the latter)
½ teaspoon of cumin, ground
A bit of fresh oregano if you have some on hand
½ teaspoon sea salt
Several generous grinds of coarse black pepper
I tablespoon of olive oil
1 4-pound chicken, preferably raised on pasture
Place the first five ingredients, garlic first, into a mortar and pestle. Pound the garlic into a rough paste. Add the oil, and pound a bit more.
Using kitchen shears, carefully cut the backbone out of the chicken (see this Melissa Clark video for an excellent demo), and using your hands, open the chicken outwards and press down down vigorously, flattening it. Now turn it skin-side up and rub the paste all over the skin. Let it sit in the fridge for at least 30 minutes and optimally overnight.
Prep the grill
Get some good hardwood charcoal going by whatever method you prefer—I use a chimney. When the coals are white-hot, collect them on one half of the grill basin. The goal is to create a hot side and a cool side. Put the grated grill top, which should be clean, in its place and let it heat up for a minute or two.
Prep the salsa
6 medium-sized, ripe tomatoes
1 clove garlic, crushed and peeled
1 to 2 fresh jalapenos or serrano chiles, roughly chopped
Sea salt to taste
Put the garlic, half of the chopped chiles, and a pinch of salt in a food processor and set aside—you’ll run the blade after adding roasted tomatoes.
Grill time
Place the butterflied chicken, skin side up, on the cool side of the grill, and the tomatoes on the hot side. Cover with the grill lid. Let the tomatoes cook, turning and recovering the grill as needed, until nicely charred all over. Add them to the food processor and whiz until you have a smooth salsa. Check for seasoning—add and process more chile pepper and salt if needed.
Meanwhile, leave the chicken cooking on the cool side, covered, until a meat thermometer plunged into the deepest part of a thigh reads 105 degrees. When it reaches that temperature, you’re ready to crisp off the skin. Simply flip the bird over, skin-side down, onto the hot part of the grill and let it cook there until he skin is crisp and caramelized and the thigh temperature reads 180 degrees.
Let it rest off the grill for 20 minutes before cutting the meat off he bones into taco-ready chunks. Serve with the salsa plenty of hot tortillas.
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