Luisa Rios' Kitchen Notebook

The Dirty Dozen & The Clean Fifteen: How to Keep Your Produce Clean

Spring is in the air, which means fresh pro­duces com­ing our way!

Remem­ber: soak in water, spin to dry, store in a clean con­tainer or a plas­tic bag with a paper towel.

As a per­sonal chef, I’m at the gro­cery food store between four to five days a week. Some­times, I can be found gaz­ing dream­ily over the selec­tion of pro­duce (yes, I am that geeky!) Most of all, I love to see the dif­fer­ences between local/organic and “reg­u­lar” produce.

Grow­ing up in Colom­bia, it was very com­mon to pick a piece of fruit from a tree, pol­ish it with my t-shirt and eat it. Right there. No thought or wor­ries about con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, pes­ti­cides, fungi­cides, etc.

Now, even though the impulse is the same, the thought that crosses my mind when I see a lovely piece of fruit is whether or not it has been loaded down with unwanted chemicals.

For exam­ple, did you know that just rins­ing your pro­duce in run­ning water will reduce, but not elim­i­nate, pes­ti­cides? And if you eat five serv­ings of fruits and veg­eta­bles from the Dirty Dozen List (see below) each day, you’ll be ingest­ing an aver­age of 10 pes­ti­cides a day?

In my opin­ion, the best way to keep chem­i­cals out of your pro­duce is to fol­low the Envi­ron­men­tal Work­ing Group’s list of The Dirty Dozen and The Clean Fif­teen. Basi­cally, the Dirty Dozen are those fruits and veg­eta­bles that have a ten­dency to absorb any­thing that’s sprayed onto or around them. So when gro­cery shop­ping, try to find them in as organic and local a form as you can.

Sim­i­larly, the Clean Fif­teen fruits and veg­gies are tough enough to keep chem­i­cals where they belong: on the out­side. For these, if you choose not to go organic, the con­se­quences are likely to be a whole lot eas­ier to stomach.

Remem­ber these lists the next time you go shopping:

The Dirty Dozen (Buy organic):Apples, Bell Pep­pers, Blue­ber­ries, Cel­ery, Grapes (imported), Nec­tarines (imported), Kale and Col­lard Greens, Let­tuce, Peaches, Pota­toes, Spinach and Strawberries.

The Clean Fif­teen (Low­est in pes­ti­cides):?Aspara­gus, Avo­ca­dos, Cab­bage, Can­taloupe, Egg­plant, Grape­fruit, Kiwi, Man­goes, Mush­rooms, Onions, Pineap­ples, Sweet Corn, Sweet Peas, Sweet Pota­toes and Watermelon.

Clean your fruits and veg­eta­bles well, not only of dust but unwanted pesticides.

The way you clean your fruits and veg­gies after you get them home can also make a dif­fer­ence. Soak­ing, for instance, is gen­er­ally much more effec­tive than rins­ing. For squeaky-clean fruits and veg­eta­bles, fol­low this sim­ple formula:

• Fill a large bowl with enough cool water to cover all the pro­duce you want to clean.
• Add 3 Tbsp of bak­ing soda or Cider Vine­gar, and 2 Tbsp hydro­gen per­ox­ide (optional), per gal­lon of water.
• Soak your pro­duce for a few min­utes, but don’t for­get them! Soak­ing too long will leach away the nutri­ents along with the chemicals.

For smaller quan­ti­ties, com­bine 1 cup of fresh water, 1 cup of dis­tilled white vine­gar, 1 Tbsp bak­ing soda and the juice of half a lemon. Store in a spray bot­tle, shake well and spray fresh pro­duce. Let sit for a few min­utes, then rinse and enjoy! (Don’t for­get to clean the tip of the spray bot­tle before stor­ing it away.)

Oat Goodness Beyond Oatmeal

Deli­cious alter­na­tive to oatmeal.

More and more these days, cooks and nutri­tion­ists alike are tout­ing the health ben­e­fits of oats and oat­meal. And I couldn’t begin to tell you how happy this makes me.

Whether they’re steel-cut, old fash­ioned or rolled, I am a huge oat enthu­si­ast. I think I picked up the oat habit from my dad, who has drunk a big glass of oats soft­ened overnight in water every morn­ing for the past 80 years.

At home, oats have become a daily sta­ple. My sig­nif­i­cant other has a mild case of hyper­ten­sion and some pretty scary fam­ily his­tory when it comes to heart prob­lems and heart attacks. And oats are good for low­er­ing cho­les­terol and blood pres­sure, con­trol­ling blood sugar, fight­ing can­cer, improv­ing diges­tion and bowel func­tion, and a whole slew of other things that con­tribute to gen­eral good health and longevity.

So what’s the prob­lem? Well, I love oat­meal, and I could eat a big, hot bowl of the stuff every morn­ing for years to come with­out com­plaint. But my beloved David hates it with a pas­sion, and will prob­a­bly divorce me if I con­demn him to 40 years of monothe­matic breakfasts.

With that in mind, I’m now on a quest to find healthy, deli­cious and nutri­tious break­fast recipes that aren’t oat­meal, but which con­tain oats and all their ben­e­fits. The best oatmeal-alternative I’ve tried so far is Peggy Kot­sopou­los’ recipe for Apple-Oatmeal Anti-Muffin tops, in her lat­est book Must Have Been Some­thing I Ate.

This is an easy and deli­cious recipe to have at hand, and even David said that it’s a keeper. I did take the lib­erty of low­er­ing the con­tent of maple syrup, adding more cin­na­mon (which is also great for the heart) and throw­ing in some home­made toasted almonds and sun­flower seeds I had at hand.

I make a week’s worth of the clus­ters at a time, and store them in a Pyrex glass con­tainer in the fridge, divided by parch­ment paper. Then you can serve them either on their own with a nice cup of white or green tea, or break ‘em up in a bowl of yogurt or kefir. And voila: a deli­cious, healthy and easy-to-serve break­fast that’s ready in no time at all!

If you have any oat-y recipes I must try, please send them my way. I’ll let you know if it makes the cut. Steel-cut, that is….

Beet the Blood Preasure

Here in winter-locked Canada, beau­ti­ful beets are now offi­cially in season!

In addi­tion to being a colour­ful addi­tion to sal­ads and a great nat­ural sweet­ener, beets have also recently been found to be a pos­si­ble treat­ment for high blood pressure!

Peo­ple who drank a glass or two of beet­root juice a day (store-bought or home­made) found their blood pres­sure decreased by up to 10 points.

So if you have hyper­ten­sion, or just want to remind your taste buds that fresh sum­mer sal­ads are just around the cor­ner — think beets!

The Drive of One, The Power of Many

Long ago I decided I wanted to be self-employed. With all its plus and minuses, the busy times, the quiet times, the great days and the not so great too.

For me, one of the biggest chal­lenges of being self-employed was that I never seemed to have enough time for all the dif­fer­ent projects I wanted to under­take. As a result, many of these projects ended up in the back burner or in the TO DO who-knows-when folder. But if there’s one thing I learned this year, it’s that you need a force behind you, some­thing to give you a push, that pro­pels you to start open­ing doors, mak­ing small changes and tak­ing your first steps enroute to a new journey.

I got that push early this year when I went to Port­land, Ore­gon for my first ever IACP (Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion of Culi­nary Pro­fes­sion­als) annual con­fer­ence. There, I met a bunch of won­der­ful peo­ple from many places around the globe, who love what they do and who love to share, talk and men­tor other peo­ple. When I came back, I came back with a pile of ideas and mem­o­ries of peo­ple that I saw for just a few days, but who I knew would have a huge impact in my life and my business.

Thanks to those peo­ple and the push they gave me, I am happy and excited to report that Cook­ing Jour­neys is launch­ing two brand new ser­vices, to help bring easy, deli­cious and nutri­tious food into more peo­ples’ lives.

First, I am launch­ing “Stork Express”, a deliv­ery ser­vice of healthy, pre-prepared foods for new moms (and dads!) who are wel­com­ing a new bun­dle of joy into their lives. There’s no time busier than when you bring a new baby home, and this ser­vice gives moms and dads the great­est gift they could ask for — the gift of time.

You (or they) choose the meals from my menu, pick a date and time, and I come right to their refrig­er­a­tor door to stock them up with 1, 2 or 4 weeks worth of meals. If you are expect­ing a baby, or know any­one in the Van­cou­ver area who is, I’d be thrilled if you took a look at my new ser­vice or sent them a link. (It makes a great baby shower gift, too!)

Sec­ond, after much prepa­ra­tion, I am also launch­ing the “Gal­ley Gourmet” – a pro­vi­sion­ing ser­vice for sail­boats, char­ter yachts and vaca­tion rentals. This sea­son I ded­i­cated myself to recipe test­ing, pack­ag­ing and had a soft launch. We are now open for busi­ness, and also ready to hit the boat­ing sea­son in 2011 in full steam. And, if you are in Van­cou­ver, BC and are going on vaca­tion, just give me a call – let’s stock up for your boat or your cot­tage with deli­cious food!

So what’s the moral of the story? If you have a dream, you can’t keep it to your­self alone. Talk to peo­ple. You will see how talk­ing to peo­ple will open the pos­si­bil­i­ties in front of you.

Hey Blackberry (Bam-Ba-Lam)!

It’s August, and that means just one thing for the Lower Main­land of B.C.: the wild black­ber­ries (the edi­ble kind, not the things you text on) are in full bloom!

It’s been a lit­tle while since the last time I wrote. Sum­mer turned out to be a very pro­duc­tive time full of ideas, plans and projects, all of which I’m look­ing for­ward to shar­ing with you – soon, I promise!

Nanaimo sun­rise — view at 6am

This past week­end, we had a won­der­ful time in Nanaimo set­ting David’s dad up with his own brand new com­puter – the first he’s touched in more than 18 years. It was exhaust­ing  and exhil­a­rat­ing at the same time. It just reminded me of the many won­ders we enjoy today that many times I take for granted. And also the impor­tance of keep­ing curi­ous, active and healthy for the approach­ing “golden years.”

First picks of the sun

The best part of the trip for me was the dawn hours. While the whole neigh­bour­hood was still asleep, I snuck out of the house and picked and munched my fill (and then some) from the gor­geous, big, plum-y black­berry bushes grow­ing in front of my in-laws home, as wild as they can get. I LOVE them – it reminds me of my dad’s won­der­ful pre­serves, when he would make his sim­ple desserts of “fruit in sim­ple syrup.” Mmmmm – per­fect for that quick change of taste after a nice lunch or dinner.

Black­berry flowers

If you live in Van­cou­ver, Van­cou­ver Island or just about any­where in the Lower Main­land, explore the hik­ing or bik­ing paths or parks near you. There are ripe black­ber­ries all over the place. If you bring a pail with you, there’s almost no end to the deli­cious things you can do with them – waf­fles, pan­cakes, muffins, apple-blackberry pie, souf­flés or my per­sonal favourite, all on their own.

Juicy ones, always far away from reach!

If you don’t hap­pen to live in B.C., find out what’s in sea­son where you live, then take your fam­ily out to explore and enjoy!

Happy munch­ing!

Fruits of my harvest!