Autumn fare and photos

I recently spent a lovely hour in the Botanic Gardens near me in Dublin, taking photos. It is a place where I go for walks a number of times a week, and it is great to have such a resource nearby. They have launched an organic fruit, vegetable and herb garden there this year, and it has been a wonderful addition to the place. This is a photo of some of the produce, on display at the moment as we approach Halloween.

The images inspired me to come home and make some soup - always a comforting activity on a cold day! I had some wonderful Crown Prince Squash sitting in my vegetable bowl, so I decided to use one of those. As usual, my supplier of choice was Jenny McNally at Temple Bar Farmers Market, and she had told me that the Crown Prince is her own favourite - and it certainly made a great soup! This is the recipe that I used, which I've often used for butternut squash, so I would say it'll work for most types of squash.

Ingredients:

1 medium squash (organic if possible)
1 tsp of coriander seeds (whole)
2 cloves of garlic
750 ml of stock (either vegetable or chicken) or water – plus more if necessary
1 medium onion, chopped
olive oil

To garnish: small handful of coriander leaves, finely chopped, and plain yoghurt (sheep’s milk based if dairy intolerant)

To prepare:
Heat the oven to 200°
Split the squash lengthwise into two halves, and then into wedge-shaped chunks and remove the seeds with a spoon; rub over with olive oil, and sprinkle with the coriander seeds. Place clove of garlic (do not remove skin) in the centre of each half of the squash.
Bake in the oven for approximately 40 minutes, or until a knife can easily be inserted through the squash – it might take longer depending on how ripe the squash is.
Meanwhile, sauté the onion in a little olive oil until soft and transparent – this takes a little while, but keep the heat low as otherwise the onion will burn!
When the squash is cooked, leave to cool for a few minutes until it can be handled. Then peel off the skin – or scoop out the flesh - and chop roughly. Squeeze the cooked garlic centre out from the skins (it should come away easily)
Add to the cooked onion, and add half the stock (or water).
Blitz with a hand blender or use a food processor.
Add the rest of the stock or water to get the consistency you like – ideally quite thick but not a puree.
Serve with a dollop of yoghurt and sprinkle with coriander leaves

Other options on the spices would include cumin or fennel seeds, both equally delicious. Any left-over soup freezes really well.

Exploring healthy eating advice

I am an avid reader of books which advise on healthy eating and healthy lifestyles, along with pretty consistent online research on the same topic. However, I was pretty startled to read about claims as to the extent to which the ph of your body affects your health. I was aware that an alkaline digestive system is a desirable thing, but reading about the claims that having your whole body in an alkaline state totally discourages cancer from flourishing was a new concept for me. Having also recently read that sugar encourages cancer cells in the body to replicate - and ingesting simple carbs makes your system acidic apparently - the two theories seem to complement each other. Also, stress can very quickly turn your system from alkaline to acidic - in as little as five minutes! All very interesting, but are these theories sustained by good research and lots of empirical evidence? As usual, it is very difficult to tell how well founded some of these theories are, and if the paranoia about the efforts made by big business to suppress some of these findings has any basis in reality. However, if these claims have even a small grain of truth then they should be explored by everyone to see if making changes to diet can improve health and longevity - not just to tackle obesity, but to address other major illnesses such as arthritis, diabetes and cancer.

On cooking rice...and other grain topics

While finalising my Tips & Tricks Guidelines for my Asian Inspiration cookery workshops, I decided to do a bit of online research on other people's experiences with cooking brown rice, which is the only type of rice that we now cook with (in fact I actually dont like white rice anymore when compared with brown). There seems to be a bit of mystique out there about how to cook brown rice, when I have found it to be much more forgiving than its white counterpart, which is apt to turn into a gelatinous mess if you turn your back on it for a minute! Brown rice on the other hand is difficult to overcook, and each rice particle remains separate even when the rice has gone cold. All this and its so much better for you - holding onto its vitamins and minerals and all the fibre that makes it a low-medium GI food to eat - and it tastes better - what more could you want?! So, go on, get out there and buy some brown Basmati rice, cook it for 30 minutes with double the quantity of water to rice and hey presto - great rice!

On a related carbohydrate topic - have you ever traipsed around a city mid-afternoon with someone who is wheat intolerant, in search of something quick to eat to tide you both over from an insubstantial and early lunch through to a late dinner? Well, it is an experience that you wont want to repeat if you can help it, but it is one that I went through recently in Dublin. Outside of lunchtime, the food options for people who are wheat intolerant - and up to 20% of people apparently have serious difficulties in digesting wheat - reduces to almost 0! Unless you count fast-food joints, which ironically are probably the only option available, where you can have chips and a burger, but you would prefer something slightly more healthy than that. We went from one end of the city centre to the other, and the vast majority of places which were serving food had wheat-based bread and no other options. So there was traditional Irish soda bread, Italian panini, French baguette, brown sandwiches, white bread sandwiches, pasta, pizza, but no other form of carbohydrate in sight! Why hasnt anyone tried to provide even spelt-bread based sandwiches as an option around the city? Perhaps we could have gone as far as the Maison des Gourmets in Castle Market - where they do sell spelt bread in their bakery - they might have managed to put something together for us. However, by the time we had got to that part of the city, our will to continue the search had waned considerably, so we ended up in a Mexican restaurant, which in fairness to them, they managed some corn-based tortillas and nachos for us - which at least gave us enough of a boost to contemplate the bus ride home!

Jamie Olivers Ministry of Food

I watched the first programme of this very intriguing new series on TV last night, and think that if Jamie Oliver can pull this one off, he can hope to make a real difference to the health of the nation - of Britain that is - not sure if we can emulate it here in Ireland or not! The main thrust of the programme is to take an entire community (Rotherham in Yorkshire) and persuade them into healthier food habits -apparently Rotherham is high on the UK list for obesity, fast-food eaters and many other indicators of poor health habits.

His way of persuading people is to teach them to cook, using healthy ingredients, and then to get them to 'pass it on' to at least two friends. He has started with 8 people and by a pyramid arrangement is hoping that they will have 'passed it on' to enough people who will pass it on to enough people etc etc to do all of Rotherham within the period of the programme - which I think is a month of episodes! It is hard to know if the eating patterns in evidence would be the same here in Ireland, but certainly the direction is the same for many people. However, it was shocking that one 5 year old child had never had a meal cooked for her by her mother (who by the way came across as a highly intelligent, articulate young woman caught in a horrible poverty trap). In the first programme, the mother showed a great aptitude for cooking but her problems in making ends meet financially are causing her difficulties with being able to stay with the new way of doing things and also being able to pass it on to others. It'll be very interesting to see if Jamie can make it work...

By the way, the Ministry of Food title is a throw-back to the second world war where the Government in Britain had to get people to make do with what was available to them during the war period - I seem to remember hearing/reading that the British people were at their healthiest ever during that period (well, presumably those who werent killed in the war or had bombs fall on them!) which was a combination of an incredibly healthy diet and masses of exercise!

I have actually joined the Pass it On movement on the Minister of Food website - dont know if it'll catch on in Ireland, but we could certainly do with it! So, if anyone wants to be a part of my 'pass it on' group and you want to learn how to make one of Jamie's recipes, then get in touch with me... alternatively if you want to join and teach others then

the address is http://www.jamiesministryoffood.com/content/jo/home.html