fall deliciousness

While I'm missing scenery like this....

I'm indulging in one of my favorite foods: SQUASH!!! If you know me well enough, you know that I buy squash frequently -- butternut, to be specific. When I first lived in an on-campus apartment at Gordon and was learning the ropes of cooking meals for myself, I discovered how easy, delicious, healthy, and FUN cooking squash could be!! All I had to do was cut the squash through the middle, seed it, and put it in the oven. I might add too much brown sugar to continue classifying it as "healthy," but it's the thought that counts, right? I continue to love squash - and other kinds too, like spaghetti and acorn. And I've "graduated" from just making plain squash to making some delicious recipes, too thanks to friends and magazines. I thought I'd share two of my discoveries here....

My all-time favorite recipe for butternut squash can be found here, per the recommendation of my friend Kelly Soifer -- all to her credit. I LOVE this recipe - I've made it quite a few times already and don't plan on stopping.

Butternut Squash, Lentil, and Coconut Stew

Ingredients:

• 1 cup lentils
• 1 butternut squash (peeled and chopped into cubes)
• 1 tomato, diced
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 4 cups vegetable stock, or water, or enough to cover

Tempering:

• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 teaspoon mustard (you're supposed to use mustard seeds, but I've used ground mustard)
• Red pepper flakes (depending on how spicy you want it - I'm not a spicy fan, so we just put in a few)
• 1 garlic clove (finely chopped)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 lime juiced (or a lemon works too)
• cilantro leaves (to taste)

How to make it:

Rinse the lentils, then, in a large pot, combine squash, lentils, tomato, coconut, turmeric, cumin, and enough vegetable stock (chicken broth would work too) to cover. Bring to a boil, and then simmer, covered for about 20 minutes. Remove cover and simmer 10 minutes (squash should be soft). 

The tempering (I had never done this before - and it's kind of fun!!): In a small frying pan, warm the oil until it's hot. Add the mustard (or mustard seeds) and the red pepper flakes, garlic, and salt. Pour the contents into the soup (including the salt) and then spoon a ladleful of soup back into the frying pan (it will sizzle so don't get too close!) and then pour it back into the pot.

Cilantro is an excellent topping and I think other things like honey would be delicious too (I've just put the honey straight in the pot and it adds a nice flavor). You can serve this over rice, or even without it - it's pretty hearty :)

Another one of my favorite's is this one from Family Circle Magazine:

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients: 

• 1 large butternut squash; cut into wedges
• 3 tablespoon oil
• 1 chopped onion
• 4 cloves finely chopped garlic
• 1 peeled, cored, and chopped apple
• 5 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup apple cider (or apple juice)
• Salt, ginger to taste
• Sour cream and cilantro = optional toppings

Here's how you do it:

Peel and seed the squash and roast in the oven with 2 tablespoon oil @ 350 for about an hour (maybe more - it should be soft). Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a soup pot and once it's hot, saute the chopped onion and garlic. Then add the roasted squash, chopped apple, chicken broth, and apple cider. Simmer 30 minutes (apple should be soft). 

Puree in food processor (or, what we do is use the "magic bullet" mixer - quite handy for this recipe so you don't have to take the soup out of the pot!). Add salt to taste and serve with sour cream and cilantro.

My one problem with butternut squash recipes is that they can be a bit time consuming when you have to peel, cut, and roast the squash. However, if you plan your time out well, you can roast the squash a day in advance -- or maybe just earlier in the day. And if you have a good knife, the peeling isn't too bad (that was NOT the case in my apartment so I opted for frozen squash to save my fingers and sanity. I know frozen defeats the purpose, but it was still good :))

ba-na-na-naaaaa

I have a banana addiction. I used to have a banana a day and I will put a banana in every meal: breakfast (with cereal/oatmeal), lunch (peanut-butter, banana, honey sandwiches are my favorite), dinner (plátanos, anyone?), and dessert (perfect addition to vanilla pudding!)

During our “Faith & Practice” Seminar at LASP, we were divided into groups of 7 or 8 and were asked to come together to discuss how we as Americans should engage with Latin America. Many of the groups, including my own, focused on consumerism since we consume many products from Latin America…and what better topic to pick for me than bananas, a fruit I (obviously) love!

This blog post isn’t meant for me to coerce you into following my new convictions about banana consumption, but rather a way for me to tell you a little bit about what I learned about bananas while I was in Latin America…and why those lessons have challenged me to think differently about my banana consumption and purchases.

[fun fact: bananas do not grow on trees! instead we call them a plant and they grow in group of three. as you can see above, there are three generations for this banana plant - L to R: grandchild, child, and grandparent :)]

Some fast facts from the USDA Economic Research Service

**in 2007, the united states imported 7.908 billion pounds of bananas

**Bananas claim over 50% of the volume of fresh fruit imports

-Bananas rank no. 1 in US per capita fresh fruit consumption (followed by apples & oranges)

-Bananas are imported primarily from Guatemala, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Honduras

Unfortunately, banana production and trade has not always been carried out in an ethical and just manner. While I was at my internship, I read two books on Latin American History/Politics, recommended by one of my professors.

Here is an excerpt that draws attention to some of the harmful affects of the banana industry in the early twentieth century:

"In 1899, [the Boston Fruit Company and Tropical Trading & Transport Company] merged to form a singular enterprise: UFCO (United Fruit Company). Here began a remarkable chapter in the history of U.S. investment, penetration, and control in Central America. UFCO established a virtual monopoly on the production and distribution of bananas"

--Modern Latin America 6 ed. (Skidmore & Smith)

I saw injustice within the banana industry first hand when our group traveled to visit a protest site of former banana workers and they told us their story. At this site, men, women, and their families (approximately 500 of the 7,000 affected by the chemical during a period of time) live under tarps to protest against the banana companies which used pesticides resulting in sickness for many workers. These workers have different forms of cancer and other ailments such as blindness because of the pesticides used on the bananas. Unfortunately, the multi-national corporations involved have yet to pay for the damages they caused and the former workers continue to live at this site outside of the government offices in Managua (the capital city of Nicaragua). The consequences of these pesticides had an enormously detrimental affect on many workers and I do not believe that this story is the only one among other Latin American countries who are involved in the banana industry.

[banana plantation in limón, costa rica moving bananas from the land to be prepared for export. notice the blue bags that are covering them]

Besides workers abuses, many banana plantations are not environmentally friendly because of the bags they use to cover the bananas as they are growing. We visited a few banana plantations in Costa Rica, and you will see blue bags covering many of the growing banana bunches and the amount of these disposed for this huge industry is not good for a planet in need of lowering waste! Now many banana plantations are using recyclable or eco-friendly bags, but in the past this hasn’t been the case.

So…what do we do? There are some awesome fair-exchange/fair-trade banana companies such as equal exchange (www.beyondthepeel.com) and EARTH Bananas, a banana plantation in Costa Rica which sells their bananas in Whole Foods! Even if you don't shop at Whole Foods, you should check them out because it's a really cool business that they are operating. I wish there were fair trade/equal exchange bananas in all grocery stores, but this has yet to happen.

[bananas are rinsed and sorted and then put in boxes, then shipped to us!]

Eating locally has become a bigger theme for our consumption of foods. Eating locally is good for a number of reasons (you should definitely watch Food Inc. to learn more about them!!), but one of them is the lessened environmental impact because of the oil and other resources used to get products across the oceans and continents. Since most of the US’s terrain isn’t very good for growing bananas, it is hard to “buy locally,” so I think the second best option is to buy less.

My local grocery store doesn't sell fair exchange or EARTH bananas so I am trying to only buy organic bananas and eat less of them in general (my next step should be talking to my grocery store about getting equal exchange bananas but i haven't gotten up the courage to do that yet!). Unfortunately organic does not mean "just & ethical", but at least it is better for the environment and not using pesticides is also eliminating the possibility of workers becoming sick from pesticide use. I wish there was a simple answer to eating and buying ethically produced products or that there was one website that would sum it all up and tell me where to shop and where not to shop. But I believe that the exercise of trying to be informed and make good consumer choices is a good practice and something that needs to become a bigger part of my life.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on bananas – I would love to hear them! So far it has been a little difficult eating less of one of my favorite fruits, but thankfully there are many other yummy fruits to compensate :)