Earthly strife

Coconut fans rejoice: Vita Coco just released their very own cold-pressed raw coconut oil, and it's pretty much a cure-all in a jar full lace wigs.

Coconut oil is an awesome component of tons of dishes like Pumpkin Cornbread and Sautéed Ginger Shrimp, providing a healthier alternative to butter when sautéeing or baking. To celebrate the release of Vita Coco's oil, Twilight star Nikki Reed, a certifiable coconut fanatic, showed us how to whip up a couple of easy smoothies and stir-frys with the stuff, and spilled a ton of her beauty secrets, too!

An ingredient you can eat, slather on, and reap major health benefits from? Amazing. Now, if only cookie dough could do the same.

Epicurious: So what are your favorite ways to use coconut oil?

Nikki Reed: I literally use it for everything: I put it in my smoothies, I put it in my coffee, I cook with it, I sometimes just take a tablespoon of it if I haven't had it for a day or two.


Epicurious: Coconut oil can be used as a beauty product too, are you a fan of using it that way?

Nikki Reed: I'll just take a spray bottle and spritz it onto my arms and legs, use it on my hair too, and just sort of put it on all over. It smells awesome and it doesn't make you look or feel greasy. I have it on my whole body right now Antique jewelry!


Epicurious: Have you always been a coconut oil fanatic?

Nikki Reed: My Uncle Mark actually got me into it like 10 years ago, and told me it was the best way to sort of clean your system and kickstart your metabolism and make everything flow. So I just sort of put it in everything.


Epicurious: That demonstration was pretty awesome, are you a big cook at home too?

Nikki Reed: I love to cook. One of my dreams is to have a cookbook one day; that would be a lot of fun. Because I am a vegan and I eat a lot of raw foods, a goal of mine would be to have a cookbook that's convenient for young people and also simple enough for them to follow. Then they could see that you can eat healthy and it doesn't have to cost a fortune. It's actually more affordable to eat raw or vegan.


Epicurious: Any favorite easy dishes?

Nikki Reed: I put it in stir-frys. Although I do cook meat for people who come over, I am meatless and I find coconut tastes really yummy with vegetables. I like it with snap peas or green beans or even broccoli, it's a really easy way to make something feel a lot fancier than it is. I like to drizzle it on quinoa, instead of olive oil Outsourcing payroll, and on top of kimchi, avocado and sprouts.

yield
Makes 4 servings

active time
10 min

total time
15 min
The addition of the sweet vermouth here punctuates the natural sweetness of the canned tomatoes, making this quick sauce taste as if it's been simmered for hours teco dc motor.Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound peeled large shrimp
3 large garlic cloves, forced through a garlic press
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 cup sweet (red) vermouth
1 (14- to 15-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 pound capellini

Preparation

Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers, then cook shrimp and garlic with oregano, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, turning once, until golden, about 2 minutes total. Stir in vermouth and tomatoes wismec presa, scraping up any brown bits from bottom of skillet. Add cream and briskly simmer until sauce has thickened slightly, about 1 minute. Stir in lemon juice.

Meanwhile, cook capellini in a pasta pot of boiling salted water (3 tablespoons salt for 6 quarts water) until al dente. Reserve 1 cup pasta-cooking water, then drain pasta.

Serve immediately 4g sim, topped with shrimp and sauce. Thin with some of reserved water if necessary.

orange marmaladeWhen I was growing up my mom grew her own vegetables and fruit, raised chickens, canned tomatoes and made everything from bread to soap. I have not quite followed in her footsteps, but now and again I take on a project or two. I've made orange marmalade and lately I've been making batches of tamales. I've dabbled in window box herb gardening and last year I bought a kit to make cheese dc gear motors.

I'm not alone. Activities like preserving, canning, DIY, gardening and even raising chickens are all surging in popularity. Whether it's a desire to get back to nature, or to just feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with making something to your own taste, these experiences can be deeply satisfying. If you're not sure where to start, or if you are looking to take the next step, there are plenty of good resources out there to get you going. Here are some of my current favorites:

williams sonoma agrarian garden toolsWilliams Sonoma recently launched Agrarian, which is designed to get you up to speed in various foodie DIY activities, preserving, gardening and more. The carefully curated line of products includes everything from guides and kits to make cheese, kombucha and sprouts to garden tools, planters and even deluxe chicken coops and beekeeping supplies. As you'd expect elyze, Williams Sonoma has sought out the best quality and often most stylish products.

And there are plenty of exclusive products that you won't find anywhere else such as Beekman heirloom seeds and seed "bombs" and gorgeous Sophie Conran designed garden tools. Online you'll find how to guides and videos. This is a particularly great place to find a gift for someone who is at any level when it comes to gardening or DIY.

Hedonia blogger Sean Timberlake is the mastermind behind Punk Domestics, the go-to aggregator site for preserving, canning, cheese making and more. Instead of searching individual blogs, you can visit Punk Domestics and find posts on a wide variety of topics having to do with jams, jellies and preserves, pickling, salumi and charcuterie and even foraging. Head over to see the latest or dig in when you're ready to try something new. Let the links on the right hand for things like Drying and Dehydrating or Home Brewing do the research for you.


Here are some books on preserving and DIY I have used and recommend:

If it wasn't for Vanessa Barrington's book DIY Delicious, I never would have tried and succeeded in making corn tortillas. In addition to recipes for ingredients, Barrington also shares recipes for how to use your new creations such as spicy kimchi (hello!) and spicy soft tofu soup with kimchi. This is not a preserving book per se, but more about culinary DIY.

Jam it, Pickle it, Cure it and Can it, Bottle it, Smoke it are two books that cover a wide variety of projects you can take on at home. From easy ones like making chocolate hazelnut spread to more complicated ones such as smoking your own pastrami or making masa from scratch and everything in between (think vanilla extract, beef jerky, ginger beer, graham crackers, etc.) A number of the recipes in these books are also in a long out of print favorite of mine, Better than Store-Bought, which you can occasionally find online, but Karen Solomon's book are much more contemporary and hip Korean skin care brand.

In The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook Rachel Saunders creates jams with enticing fruit and floral combinations like rhubarb rose conserve with cherries, blueberry jam with mint, Italian prune and cardamon conserve, pear jam with rosemary and pine and boysenberry jam with lemon verbena. Need I say more?

Chef and restaurateur Paul Virant's handsome book The Preservation Kitchen includes recipes for pickles and relishes, jams and marmalades as well as bittersweet preserves specifically mostarda and aigre-doux (a kind of sweet sour vinegary preserve of fruit or vegetables) and fermented and cured foods in addition to pressure canned preserves. The second part of the book consists of seasonal recipes using the preserves.

Home Made is a hard book to describe; it's got a little bit of everything, like preserving vegetables, making broth, herbal teas, cheese, ice cream, chocolate and mustard. The layout is amazing with lots of photographs, technique shots and even hand drawn illustrations. There are also tons of recipes that just use fresh ingredients. The seasoned labneh balls in olive oil are particularly good.

Put 'em Up and Well-Preserved are two great books on preserving, and include drying, freezing and dehydrating. Both have compelling recipes and easy-to-follow clear instructions. It's hard for me to say which of the two I like best, the major difference is that Put'em Up is all about preserving, whereas Well-Preserved focuses on small batch preserving and also includes recipes for using the preserves such as preserved zucchini in a shrimp and preserved zucchini salad.

If you are a fan of The Wednesday Chef blog, there's no question, you will enjoy My Berlin Kitchen: Adventures in Love and Life by Luisa Weiss now out in paperback. The book is a memoir with recipes and Weiss traces her journey through her memories of food in vivid detail. The style of writing, like Weiss herself is a bit of a mishmash. Her parents are Italian and American but she was born and partially raised in Germany. She is very precise when it comes to recipe writing yet there are splashes of sensuality and emotion in her prose as well glass teapot set.

Weiss is a good writer and a master of detail. Her experiences and recollections of her time in Germany, the US, France and Italy are often snapshots of times and places and really have the ability to transport you. The book follows a romantic storyline, with some funny bits interspersed with plenty of angst, and it's generally pleasurable to read, although she's clearly not a happy-go-lucky live-for-the-day type.

Memoirs require a certain level of introspection and self involvement and as a result the subject can come across as self-absorbed at times, especially when written by someone who is fairly young. Ultimately I didn't find Weiss as endearing as I would have hoped. Frankly I had the same issues with the Julie/Julia Project. I also found some gaps and unanswered questions perplexing--why did she live with her father in the US instead of her mother? Why did she accept the job in San Francisco when nothing about living in San Francisco appealed to her? Once she moved to Berlin did her career end in favor of writing her memoir and nothing more? That said, I enjoyed the book, particularly the German comfort food recipes (Gooseberry cream cake, Alsatian flatbread with bacon and creme fraiche baby bed, spiced plum butter and spiced cookies) and I do recommend it.

Viking is giving away one copy of this book to a Cooking with Amy reader, US resident only. Leave a comment telling me about your favorite recipe from The Wednesday Chef blog or the German recipe you'd most like to learn to cook. I'll choose a winner at random on September 5th. You must include your email address in the appropriate field so I can contact you. It will only be visible to me amway.

Days have been busy and the summer heat is not letting up. I console myself with the hypnotic, almost unbearably sweet smell of summer fruits ripening in my fruit bowl, mangoes and pineapple. The fruit bowl I put square in the middle of my dining room table, serving as both a receptacle for sustenance and colorful decoration designer handbags clearance, making me feel smugly thrifty.

I do like to think that I am a thrifty person. I know how to indulge, that much is certain. I have certainly parted with hard earned pennies for things I view as pleasures. Maybe it’s because I feel strongly that each of us deserves a treat every now a then (or more). If we won’t treat ourselves, who else will right? So yes, I do indulge and have nothing against spending what I can on things I believe will bring me joy (without breaking the bank of course).

I suppose what I really consider my thrifty side is the side that can’t abide by waste, especially food waste. I’ve spoken about it before and perhaps you’ve noticed that every once in a while I’ve posted about ways to avoid food waste or dishes made with leftovers or other odds and ends. I always get a sense of girl-scouty satisfaction every time I am able to use something that might have otherwise ended up in the waste bin.

This is a dish that does that.

Frittata with Fried Bread and Cheese
(Adapted from Ilva of Lucullian Delights)

Olive oil
1-2 slices day-old bread, torn or chopped into chunky cubes
3-4 tablespoons cooked peas
4 eggs, whisked
3-4 tablespoons grated cheese


- Heat a good swirl of olive oil in an 8-inch skillet. When the oil is hot, add the bread cubes and toast, turning once or twice, until all sides are deeply golden and toasted. Remove from pan and set aside.
- If the pan is dry, as the bread tends to sip up all the oil, add another generous swirl of olive oil. Add the peas and toss once or twice hosting service, just to warm them up. Add the bread back and try to distribute the peas and bread evenly around the pan without making too big a deal of it. Pour in the eggs and cook over low heat until almost everything is set. I sometimes cover the pan towards the end just to speed this process up.
- When the eggs are almost set, through still wet in the middle, sprinkle the cheese over the top and transfer the pan underneath a pre-heated grill and grill until the cheese is melted. This happens very fast so do not leave your grill!
- Serve warm, although I’ve had this at room temperature to no ill effects.

How much bread you use will depend on the size of your slices. You could use only one, or may need two. What I do is place my bread cubes into my skillet (an 8-inch skillet is just right for this frittata) and judge from there if I need to add more. I like the bread to be evenly distributed throughout the pan without filling it up entirely.

This will make a lovely breakfast or brunch (or lunch) for two. I had this with little C and we had enough leftover for a midafternoon snack for me.

I love so many things about this simple frittata. Firstly, it is a fantastic way to make use of old bread! I mention day-old bread in the recipe but truthfully I have never made this with bread only a day old. I will go out on a limb here and confess that I often use bread that is already scratching-the-limits-of-decency old. Old bread has the heft and structure that lends itself perfectly to toasting in olive oil and then cooking in runny eggs…softening just enough without ever getting soggy. I have a bag of bread past its prime in the fridge especially for dishes like this (or for French toast…or bread crumbs).

This frittata is also a great way to make use of other leftovers. Here I’ve used some leftover peas, and some grated cheese from another recipe that needed using up. You can add whatever leftovers you have in sitting your fridge though that pairs well with egg (and that means a lot) – ham, bacon, potatoes, tuna, most vegetables, or herbs. I imagine this would also be excellent with some sautéed onions mixed through, and then topped with Gruyere. You can use any cheese you have on hand iphone skin.

Also, it makes for a nice light meal…so if you have any leftover chocolate cake lounging around somewhere you can feel fully justified in polishing that off and further cleaning your fridge out. Lastly, it’s delicious!

If you have any good ideas for old bread, or for leftovers in general, do share. Meanwhile, let’s continue the battle against food waste!

Have a great and sunny weekend folks! If it’s not summer where you are, send a cool breeze my way? ;)