Some Knowledge

The kinds of baked beans you get in a can are not very good.  There is a way to make good baked beans, and the process has been handed down in my family for many years.  It is not particularly hard to make homemade baked beans, but it does require some attention and a bit of time.

Start with dry great northern beans.  For a good large pan of beans you will need two pounds of beans.  The night before you want to bake your beans sort through the dry beans a scant handful at a time and seperate out any shriveled, black, or otherwise defective beans.  Pay careful attention that there are no stones in your beans.  Stones sometimes occur in dry beans and can cause nasty things like broken teeth if they are not removed.  Once you have gone through the beans a few at a time place then in a pot with a lot of extra room then fill the pot with cold water.  You will want to soak the beans overnight, for at least 12 hours.

The next morning pour out the soaking water that is left in your now swollen beans and rinse the soaked beans in more cold water.  Now cover the beans in a lot of cold water but do not come too close to the rim of the pot so the beans do not boil over.  Mix two tablespoons of ground ginger in with the cooking water.  This is important, as ginger is carminative and will prevent the beans from causing excess gas.  Mix the ginger into the water well to distribute it so there are no lumps, then put the pot on the stove.  Boil the beans for approximately an hour and a half at a slow simmer.  You will need to check the beans to find out when they are ready to bake.  The beans should boil until they are tender and have no graininess when you taste one.  Do not boil the beans too long or they will go to pieces, but if you don’t boil them long enough they will not be tender.

When the beans are done boiling use a slotted ladle to transfer them to a shallow hotel pan or a large glass baking pan.  You want to spread them out about an inch and a half thick on the bottom of the pan.  Do not handle the beans too much so they do not fall apart.  Now, strain the cooking liquid to get any bean skins out of it and put it back on the stove to boil.  Add one cup brown sugar, one half cup molasses, and one tablespoon salt to the bean water.  Bring the liquid back to a boil and stir to make sure everything is dissolved.

You will need either bacon or salt pork to top the baked beans.  Salt pork is not that commonly available these days, but if you find it, slice it into quarter inch thick pieces and boil it for a few minutes in a pot of water to remove some of the fat.  Bacon is easier to find and perhaps tastes better.  Take a one pound package of sliced bacon and cut it into four smaller slabs evenly.  You will now have a lot of two inch pieces of bacon.  You can cook some of the fat out of the bacon in the microwave or oven, or use it as it comes from the package.  Pour some of the bean liquid over the beans in the pan until they are covered.  Place the strips of bacon or salt pork over the top of the beans.  Now bake the beans in a 350 degree oven.

It generally takes from three to five hours to bake the beans.  You will need to remove them from the oven every hour or so and add more bean liquid so they do not dry out.  As the beans bake the liquid will thicken into a creamy sauce and the bacon or salt pork will crisp to a golden brown.  Half way through the baking you may want to flip over the pieces of pork or bacon so they do not burn, but this is generally not necessary.

These baked beans taste nothing like what comes in any can.  They are rich and creamy and are full of fat and calories.  This is a good side dish to make for the holidays and can be stored in the refrigerator for a few days if you plan ahead and make them in advance.  It is not particularly hard to make good baked beans, but it takes some time and effort.  If you have never had real homemade baked beans you might want to give this recipe a try just to find out what you are missing.

Jelly is the simplest concoction.  It is made from fruit juice, often clarified by filtering, along with sugar and pectin.  Jelly is a favorite ingredient in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Grape jelly is commonly produced.

Jam contains whole fruit and pulp that has been crushed.  A typical example of this is strawberry jam, in which smashed and stewed strawberries are mixed with sugar and pectin and allowed to congeal in jars.  How this food product got its name is debatable, but it may have come from the fact that you have to jam the fruit into the jar to get rid any air bubbles, which take up space and have no food value.

Preserves, the most sophisticated of these products, contain whole chunks of fruit that have been cooked with sugar and pectin, as well as some juice, and allowed to set up in jars.  The typical preserve is something like orange marmalade, which has recognizable pieces of orange and rind.  Strawberry preserves are also often available, which contain whole strawberries in recognizable form.

Hope this information clears up any confusion on this all important question.

You do not need an expensive juice machine to make decent tomato juice.  Also, you do not need to spend a lot of time scalding and peeling tomatoes to put them up whole in jars.  Fresh tomato juice is delicious and is a good way to get your vegetables.  It also makes a nice cooling drink, or a warming drink if you add some hot pepper sauce.

You will need one specialty cookware tool to make your tomato juice.  This item is a food mill.  A food mill is a stainless steel strainer with a handle and an auger-like paddle to force food through the tiny holes and strain out seeds and peels.  A food mill costs 20 or 30 dollars and is available in the cookware section in most larger stores that sell pots and pans.  You will also need a large pot to cook the tomatoes, a knife to cut them up, and a potato masher to squash the tomatoes in the pot before you set it on to cook.

Using the sharp knife, cut any bad spots and stem ends out of your tomatoes and cut them up into a few pieces.  You can take your time doing this as tomatoes do not discolor from exposure to air.  When you are done cutting up all your tomatoes, or when your pot is about two-thirds full, squash the tomatoes well with the potato masher.  Set the pot on the stove under a medium heat and stir occasionally as the tomatoes are brought up to a boil.

When your tomatoes reach a boil, turn down the flame a bit and let them simmer for a few minutes until they are soft and the tomato flesh is cooked well.  Stir them around so that the tomatoes do not stick and burn.  Once the tomatoes are cooked, set up your food mill on another pot large enough to hold all the juice.  Using a cup with a handle, like a measuring cup or a coffee cup, transfer the stewed tomatoes into the food mill and crank the mill handle and run them through.  Occasionally turn the food mill handle in reverse to clear any peels and seeds from the little strainer holes.  When the food mill is loaded with peels and seeds, empty the pulp and throw it away or onto a compost heap in the garden, if you have a garden.

Once all the stewed tomatoes are run through the food mill you will have a pot full of tomato juice.  You can pour it into bottles and keep it in the fridge to drink, or seal it into canning jars and process it in a water bath canner for the recommended time, found in any book on canning.  Fresh tomato juice is a good way to prepare a big harvest of tomatoes, and the cost and work involved is minimal.

Acrylamide is a chemical that is a known carcinogen. It was found in potatoes that are cooked at a high temperature in 2002. Frito Lay, Kettle, and Cape Cod potato chips were sued in California over unsafe levels of this chemical in their products. In an out of court settlement, the companies agreed to reduce levels of acrylamide in their products and paid two or three million dollars in fines.

Apparently, acrylamide forms in potatoes that are cooked to a nice golden brown color. This is not just a problem with processed foods. To avoid this cancer-causing byproduct of cooking, do not overcook potatoes. Levels commonly found in fried potato products are in the 200 parts per billion range.

The price of food is getting higher and higher every day.  If you pay attention to the advertisements that get sent out in the different papers and the mail you can often pick up on items that are selling for a good price.  There are of course, other ways to get deals on foods.

In most cities there are different specialty shops.  I often go to the Chinese market to buy tea and rice noodles.  A one pound bag of rice noodles might go for five dollars in a grocery store, because it is a specialty item.  In the Chinese market there is a wide selection of many different rice noodles, all selling for a dollar a pound or so.  Tea is also less expensive in these stores.  Perhaps it is because the owners of these stores are generally from the country that is the source of these items that allows them to get better deals.  Perhaps it is just volume.  I know I can get a box of 30 vials of ginseng extract at the Chinese market for eight dollars, and the health food store wants ten bucks for ten vials.

If you are looking for spices, try an Indian market.  Indian food is heavily spiced, and these markets sell large packages of spices for low rates.  I just today bought some ginger powder in the Bombay Market that cost three dollars for seven ounces.  The same amount in even a Sam’s club would have cost a lot more.  The ginger is in a plastic bag, but I have canning jars to keep it in.  There is generally a wide selection of spices in these stores and they sell for a fraction of the cost of spices in a grocery store.

If you are looking for deals on food, keep your eyes open and do not be afraid to shop in some out of the way places.  It is a good idea to have a freezer where you can store foods you pick up on sale.  Dried goods keep for a long time and can be stored on a shelf.  Buy the items that are offered at a reduced rate and do not buy things you see that are expensive.  Getting deals on food is not too hard once you know the technique of shopping for discounts.

Chicken is really good when cooked on a barbecue.  Like most other things, there are some tricks to getting your chicken done just right.  Because of the fat in chicken it is really easy to set your dinner on fire if you are not careful with what you are doing.

A gas grill is about the best way to barbecue chicken.  Clean off the grill, get your chicken thawed and trimmed, get some tongs and you are ready.  I tend to set the fire on medium low to prevent setting the grease on fire.  Set the chicken skin side up first to get it going.  With a good low fire the meat will not char.  You want to get the meat up to temperature and crispy without any flare ups.  Close the grill and watch it.  If it starts smoking a lot there is probably a fire going on.  After five or six minutes it will be time to turn the chicken.

Turning the meat every few minutes lets it cook evenly from all sides and makes for golden brown to red crispy skin.  If you notice the chicken getting charred, turn down the flame.  A couple black spots is nothing to worry about, but remember, you are trying to cook your food, not incinerate it.  Chicken takes 20 minutes to 40 minutes to be done through.  You can tell when it is cooked when red juices no longer ooze from the meat and when the pieces are firm and do not yield to pressure.  For the last few minutes turn the heat down really low and let the chicken crisp up evenly.

You can also barbecue chicken over charcoal or even a wood fire.  In the case of wood, let the flames die down and do your cooking over the coals.  Flame is the enemy of good barbecued chicken.  Do not believe the cooking shows that show flames engulfing food on the grill.  Burned food, especially meat, tastes nasty.  Take your time and have something else to do while you are waiting, like swinging on the porch swing or having a refreshing drink.  Do not let yourself get distracted by reading the paper.  You want to keep an eye on the grill for excess smoke and an eye on the time since the last turning to know when you have to tend the food.  If there are hot spots on your grill, and most have these, rotate your chicken from hot areas to cool areas so that it will all cook evenly and be done at the same time.

Barbecued chicken may seem tricky, and some people even pre-cook this meat to get some of the grease out.  Low flames and slow cooking produce a tasty food that will please anyone who has come to visit, or even your family.  Mind what you are doing and cooking is a snap.

It is not hard to build a solar food dehydrator.  This device is basically a box with glazing that holds screen racks for the placement of sliced vegetables or fruits.  If you can’t think of your own design, there are several books on the market that have plans.  A quick search on the Internet shows that there are even plans available online for these dehydrators.

The principle of the solar food dryer is fairly simple.  Heat and light are radiated by the sun.  On a sunny day an enclosed glazed box will build up a considerable amount of heat.  One way to design a cheap solar food dryer is to find an old windowpane.  If possible, for safety, this windowpane should have some kind of frame.  A large window is not necessary if you are only planning on drying a small amount of food.  For larger quantities, such as if you are planning on starting a sundried tomato business, look for larger windows.  While it is expensive, plexiglass may make a better glazing material than glass, as it will not break if something falls on your drier and the glazing will not be damaged by hail.

Once you have your glazing it is time to take some measurements and get some dimensions.  You will want to set your glass at an angle to the ground which will depend on the latitude of your location.  Polar regions will require a higher angle than tropical regions.  A good plan is to go outside on a typical day at noon and measure the angle of a shadow.  Measure the length of the shadow and the height of the object casting the shadow.  You could divide these measurements to get the tangent of the angle of the sun, or you could just use this ratio directly in the design of your box.  To use the terms from highschool geometry, the run of your angle should be the rise of the angle on your box.  This will get you a surface at 90 degrees to the sun, which is what you want.

You will need some plywood or particle board to build your box.  You will need some slots cut into the board, or some runners nailed to the board for the screen trays.  Screen is pretty cheap, and tray frames can be made out of wood.  The important thing to remember when designing your solar dryer is to allow holes for air circulation.  You will want to direct hot air to move over your food so it dries effectively.  You will want to paint the inside of the box black to absorb all the heat from the sun.  You might want to put in baffles to direct the flow of air in your dryer.  You will need to screen over the ventilation holes to keep bugs out of your food.  You will want to paint or varnish the outside of your dryer to protect it from the weather.  Your box should also have legs to hold it off the ground for good air circulation.  Air intake holes should be on the bottom of the drier to keep out rain.

A solar food dryer is a good way to use solar energy to preserve your food.  A dryer can often be made out of recycled materials and can be used for years if it is built well.  Home-dried fruits, vegetables, and herbs can keep for a long time and will provide nutritious food without the added chemicals of commercially-processed items.

Here is a hilarious report on the effects of eating a diet rich in algae.  Scientists were interested in if they could supplement the diets of poor people with algae as a cheap source of nutrition and protein.  What they found is that algae is basically not edible for humans, or even for rats.  The report describes in detail what they did and what the results of this experiment were.

There are a lot of places selling algae supplements for outrageous prices.  AFA bluegreen algae flakes sell for $195 a pound.  The report above describes in detail the effects of eating 500 grams of algae a day.  It is not a pretty picture.  There are some things people just should not eat, and algae is one of them.

There are many creatures in the sea that live on a diet of algae.  These creatures are usually invertebrates.  Shrimp, as I recall, eat a lot of plankton and algae.  Some species of fish even filter algae out of the water.  In general, it is very tiny creatures that feed on this green soup.  Human beings might eat algae as a treat, sometimes, if they have nothing better.  In general, algae has a foul taste.  It upsets the gastrointestinal system because it is indigestible. I have tasted algae, as in kelp, and it is disgusting.  Nobody who wasn’t desperate would want to eat that stuff.

Of course, there are many kinds of algae in the world.  There is also genetic engineering, which works pretty good on one-celled organisms.  Perhaps, if scientists want to feed algae to people, they could create an edible strain.  They could put the gene that makes muscle tissue into the plant, so that it produces digestible meat proteins.  They could put the gene that makes gelatin in bones into the plant so that it produces a gelatin coat instead of a cellulose coat.  They could remove the gene that produces the bad taste.  Of course, they would have to leave the genes for photosynthesis.  With a lot of work they could get a plant that tastes like hamburger, and that would be digestible.  It may take a thousand years before people can do any of this.

Algae is not food.  It has been proven by experiment that people can not eat this stuff and survive.  The thing to do would be to grow algae and feed it to shrimps.  Poor people could then eat shrimp and be happy.  I think they might already do something like this with fish farming.  Then again, the whole ecosystem of the seas works on this principle.  All I can say is after reading the report of that experiment, I have no desire to try to eat algae.

Animal foods are part of the diet of most Americans.  In the world at large, there is an increasing use of meats and animal products.  What is the cost to the environment, the economy, and our health of eating a diet rich in animal products?

In the first place, it takes a lot of food to grow meat.  An animal will only add a percentage to its weight of the food it consumes.  For pigs, they have to consume approximately seven pounds of grain to gain one pound of body mass.  For chickens, this is slightly less, and for cattle it is more.  Ruminants like sheep and cattle can be raised on a diet of grass and hay, but they gain weight at a slower rate and take longer to come to market.  Still, this use of grazing land can offset the reliance on grain feeds that could be used for human food directly.

Aside from the increasing costs of grains for feed, there are other problems associated with raising many animals for food.  There are health problems associated with large concentrations of food animals.  Their waste products can pollute the soil and atmosphere.  High densities of animals feeding on a plot of ground can cause loss of valuable pasture.  There are many environmental problems caused by raising animals in too crowded conditions.

Then, there are the health effects of eating a lot of animal products.  Meat, milk, eggs, all are high in saturated fats.  Aside from fats, there are high concentrations of cholesterol in some products.  Doctors tell us we should limit our intake of saturated fats and cholesterol.  Meat and animal products are good sources of protein, but the associated fats can offset any benefits of added protein to our diet.

Plant foods are much more efficient at providing food for people.  Plants can provide carbohydrates, protein, and healthy fiber.  Plant foods have more vitamins and minerals than most meats.  The only vitamin missing from plant-based foods is vitamin B-12.  This can be supplied with supplements, or by brewer’s yeast.  Feeding grains and soy products to people directly is a much more efficient use of available nutrients than cycling them through the systems of an animal.

Many people object to eating meat because they view it as being cruel to animals.  You have to kill an animal in order to eat it.  Many high-density farms house animals in cramped and crowded conditions.  Farm animals often are fed large quantities of antibiotics and hormones to increase their productivity.  There is some question as to whether this is good for human health or not.

With the cost of food rising and the supplies dwindling, it might be time to re-evaluate our use of animal-based foods.  Some meat can certainly be grown on pasture land and provide food from a resource that can not be utilized by humans.  Rising grain prices may make meat un-economical in the future.  It would be better for the environment, for health, and for the people of the world if we did not rely so much on an inefficient and possibly cruel source of food.  As a protein source, meat is a good supplement, but as a main food it is lacking in balance.  Better utilization of crops could be effected by using plant sources of food for human nutrition.

I just now got around to dismembering Sunny Bunny the chocolate Easter rabbit.  It seems to have a different taste than a regular chocolate bar.  I know it tastes different then the chocolate eggs I bought.  I’m wondering:  Do they use a different formula of chocolate in the bunnies?

Of course I started with the ears.  The ears are the best part of the chocolate rabbit species.  This was a small rabbit, so it didn’t have much in the ear department.  They tasted good, so I continued and decapitated the little bunny and ate her head.  I swear, it tasted different than most other chocolate.  I think they put more wax in the rabbit chocolate so it molds better.  Maybe it’s just the way the chocolate is tempered before they mold it.   Maybe I’m mistaken and deceived by the cute cartoony form of the creature into thinking it tastes different.

Perhaps there are some readers who have performed a detailed chemical analysis of chocolate bunnies.  Perhaps it is a special strain of cacao that is used in the rabbits that gives them a distinctive flavor.  Maybe the candy companies use some adjunct flavoring to give their rabbits a special Easter taste.  I don’t know.  All I know is that chocolate rabbits taste different than normal chocolate.  I may need to do more research on this phenomenon.