Chlorinated Chicken

For those of you that have family or friends that eat meat I thought I would post a link to an article about the acceptable USDA levels of chlorine in chicken processing. I was a reading an article this morning about the fact that the EU is considering allowing US chickens into their markets. The issue at hand is chlorine. Obviously this doesn’t impact me directly but I wanted to share it so that you can pass it along to your friends and family that eat meat. No matter how you look at this chlorine doesn’t belong in food. I won’t even use bleach in my home due to the toxicity. No wonder the health of this country continues to deteriorate.

More Melamine Tainted Milk in China

(pictured: Homemade Almond Milk)

Just weeks after China executed two people for the last melamine tainted milk scandal more people are arrested for doing it again. This is exactly why I am afraid to buy Chinese products. Stories like this make me wonder if anything from China is safe.

What do you think about the safety of Chinese products? Do you try to avoid all Chinese products or just some? Do stories like this make you worry about the other processed foods you buy?

Curry Powder

Today started on a funny note that resulted in my idea for dinner, curried ravioli stuffed with almond feta. Let me tell you how I ended up making curry powder today.

To say that I am not a morning person doesn’t give you an accurate picture of me in the morning. I am one of those people that doesn't mentally wake up until hours after I first open my eyes. Since giving up my 2 double shots of espresso to start the morning I move even slower than normal. I basically sleep walk through my morning.

It was darn cold this morning so I decided to make oatmeal. I grabbed the cinnamon and ginger to get those in the bowl first and something didn’t look quite right. You guessed it; I combined cinnamon and turmeric instead. After I noticed what I had done and washed the bowls I have been thinking of curry all day. I finally decided to make a vegan version of the curried pasta in “The Professional Chef”.

Here is the recipe for curry powder I will be using tonight in my ravioli dough.

Curry Powder
Makes about 1 ounce

Ingredients:

¾ ounce cumin seeds
¼ ounce coriander seeds
1 teaspoon whole mustard seeds
4 small dried chilies
1 tablespoon cinnamon, ground
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 tablespoon ginger, ground

Directions:

Place cumin, coriander, mustard and chilies in a heavy saucepan and cook over medium heat until the spices begin to lightly brown, or you can smell them.

Remove the spices from the heat and allow to cool. If you want a mild curry powder break the chilies in half and shake out the seeds. For a hotter curry leave the seeds in the chilies. Place all the toasted spices in a spice ground (or coffee mill) and process until they are fine. Combine the ground toasted spice with the cinnamon, turmeric and ginger. Store in a closed container.

Nutritional information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 165.99
Calories From Fat (39%) - 65.56

Total Fat - 7.83g
Saturated Fat - 0.71g
Cholesterol- 0mg
Sodium - 42.69mg
Potassium - 735mg
Total Carbohydrates - 26.52g
Fiber - 11.58g
Sugar - 1.25g
Protein - 6.52g

Comments:

The beauty of making your own spice mixes is that you can change the proportions to suit your taste. I like to leave some of the seeds in the chilies to give the curry a little more “zip”.

The most vile "meat product"

source: www.netstate.com

I was catching up on my blog reading this morning and came across an entry at "Fooducate" that needed to be shared. To say that I found this to be disturbing is an understatement. Those of you that eat meat will be much more grossed out by this. Don’t worry; this isn’t going to be one of those suffering animal stories. I can't read those sorts of things either. However, the author explains where the meat that goes into chicken nuggets, chicken sausage, etc. comes from. It wasn’t at all what I expected. Reading things like this is exactly why I prefer to make our food.