Is apple cider vinegar healthy?
Or is that a myth?
Honestly, I’ve always wondered about all those studies that tout this, that or the other thing to try to prove a point. One day we’re supposed to stop drinking coffee because it’s harmful, then another study comes along and says no, coffee is good for you.
Ditto chocolate. And coconut oil.
And other stuff.
Are these really scientific studies or generational shifts, like theories about child-rearing?
I guess, like a lot of life — it depends.
It depends on the study, how many people are study subjects, who is sponsoring the study and so on.
Obviously, findings made in unbiased settings with no corporate sponsors done over a long time with many subjects are worth paying attention to.
So I was happy to read this article which cautions people to beware of the “apple cider vinegar can speed up fat loss, lower your cholesterol and help with diabetes” notions. Apparently, the studies that have been done are way too small and don’t actually prove anything of the kind.
Which is not to say there’s no use for apple cider vinegar. I always have a bottle on hand. It’s a good choice for basic vinaigrette when you don’t want something quite as powerful as Balsamic vinegar or as harsh as wine vinegar. It’s nice as a liquid, in small amounts, to deglaze a pan of sauteed chicken. You can use it to give some extra flavor to caramelized onions.
And so on. Like this recipe for Vinegar Pie. Don’t laugh. It’s true, it may sound weird but adding a bit of apple cider vinegar to custard makes a hugely delicious difference. Like the sweet-and-salty thing with chocolate covered sea salt caramels. The apple cider vinegar cuts the sweet just enough. You actually don’t taste the vinegar.
This is a quick, easy and light-on-the-stomach dessert that’s terrific for summer. Or anytime really. You can add some sliced almonds if you wish.
Vinegar Pie
1 9-inch unbaked pie crust
4 large eggs
1-1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
1-1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
sliced almonds, optional
whipped cream and/or fresh berries
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place aluminum foil over the pie crust and weight it down with pie pellets or dry beans. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the weights and foil. Return the crust to the oven and bake for another 3 minutes. Remove the crust and let it cool. Lower the oven heat to 350 degrees. Mix the eggs, sugar, melted butter, cider vinegar and vanilla extract. Blend ingredients thoroughly and pour the mixture into the prebaked crust. Sprinkle with some sliced almonds if you wish. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until filling is set. Remove the pie, let it cool and serve it garnished with whipped cream and or fresh berries. Makes one 9-inch pie
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On Mother’s Day we always have a family cookoff. I really really don’t like going out for brunch to a crowded restaurant. I find it is actually easier to just cook something at home instead of expecting four grandchildren of various ages to sit there and behave themselves for what would be an enjoyable amount of time to eat but the grownups wind up eating fast before anyone gets too restless.
I’m not really a cranky old grandma. Just ask my grandchildren!
It’s just easier at home.
So, we’ll have an early Sunday dinner but before that we will be cooking for the cookoff. This year’s theme is “Chocolate Chip Cookies.”
That could mean anything. The only rules are that the recipe must contain chips and CANNOT be the original Toll House cookie and CANNOT be Grand Finale cookies from my book, Hip Kosher.
I am going to try the variation here. Ed always almost comes to tears when he remembers his mother’s chocolate chip cookies. But she never left a recipe. I remember those cookies as being drier than most and also they looked lumpy, not flat. So I included more flour in this recipe than most standard chocolate chip cookie recipes. I am also adding sea salt at the end because, well, because I think sea salt and sweet chocolate cookies are a swell combo.
And because I am experimenting with coconut oil these days, I added a little of that too.
Also, letting the dough chill out in the fridge gives a firmer texture, if you like your chocolate chippers that way.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup unsalted butter almost at room temperature
2 tablespoons coconut oil
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1-1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
12-14 ounces chocolate, chopped
sea salt
Beat the butter, coconut oil, brown sugar and white sugar together with a mixer at medium speed for about 2 minutes or until creamy and smooth. Add the vanilla extract and eggs and beat them in thoroughly. Mix the flour and baking soda and add to the butter mixture. Blend into a uniform dough. Fold in the chopped chocolate. Chill, if desired, for 2-48 hours. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place parchment on cookie sheets and scoop golf ball size balls of dough and place them on the parchment. Bake for about 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt. Cool the cookies for 2-3 minutes, then remove them to a cake rack to cool completely. Makes about 48
FridayReads: Our FridayReads -
Here at Team FridayReads, we are practicing book addicts. Because we suffer from this contagious and life-saving malady, we often read multiple books at a time. This means our hair is extra shiny, we walk with extra pep in our step, and our #fridayreads won’t fit in one Tweet!
Here’s what…
I’m reading Binocular Vision, a collection of short stories by Edith Pearlman.
Are granola bars healthy?
When they first became popular, back in the 1980s when my kids were little kids, I thought so. And in my efforts to be a “good mother” who tried to give my children healthy food, I bought what was available then. Granola bars were frequent snacks in the house and for school.
I later learned that many of those so-called healthy snacks weren’t.
Just because something is called granola doesn’t mean it’s healthy.
Like if the bars are loaded with trans fats, hydrogenated vegetable oil, high fructose corn syrup, marshmallows, chocolate, artificial color and so on.
Here’s a recipe for Honey-Oat Granola Bars. Yes, they have chocolate. And honey is a sweetener. And there’s a little brown sugar in there. Still, there’s oats and dried fruit and nuts. You can add some sunflower seeds if you wish.
And they taste good. These are rich, so you just eat a little and feel snack-full.
Honey-Oat Granola Bars
2 cups quick cooking oats
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
3/4 cup honey
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped almonds
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 cup dried cranberries
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9-inch-square baking pan with parchment paper, letting a few inches hang over the side of pan (to help you lift the bars out of the pan). Brush the paper with vegetable oil. Place the oats on a cookie sheet and bake for 5-6 minutes, mixing them once during the baking process, to toast them slightly. Mix the vegetable oil, honey and brown sugar in a saucepan and cook over medium heat for 1-2 minutes or until blended, smooth and hot. Combine the toasted oats, almonds, chocolate chips, cranberries, cinnamon and salt in a bowl. Pour in the honey mixture and stir until well blended. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until toasty brown. Let cool in the pan. Lift the square out of pan using the overhanging paper. Cut into squares or rectangles. Makes about 2 dozen
I think it’s possible, when you work out, even with a trainer, and all you talk about is food the entire session, that you can gain weight just from the conversation.
I suffer through “squats” and some awful exercise called “mountain climbers” (I HATE those!) and my trainer yaks about not eating carbs but then we frequently wind up our session talking about all the wonderful pasta dishes his mother and grandmother used to cook.
Robbie is from an Italian family so he also mentions the braciole, the broccoli rabe sauteed in garlic and olive oil, the cheesecake.
But, I digress from the no-carb thing.
Robbie recently mentioned that his grandmother made a spaghetti dish and topped it with breadcrumbs. He told me that a lot of old timers did that because grated cheese was so expensive and breadcrumbs were a good substitute.
I had to try it.
This dish is really good. Also cheap. Also easy to make for a quick dinner.
I’ll have to do even more mountain climbers to keep the pounds off I guess.
Spaghetti with Breadcrumbs
1 pound spaghetti
1/3 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1 teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon peel
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
optional: mashed or chopped anchovies or 2 tablespoons rinsed capers
Cook the pasta according to package directions. While the pasta is cooking, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a sauté pan over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook briefly. Add the breadcrumbs and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5-6 minutes or until the crumbs are golden brown and toasty. Add the parsley and lemon zest stir and cook for another minute. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Drain the pasta, but reserve about a 1/2 cup of cooking water. Add the pasta to the pan with the breadcrumb mixture and toss the ingredients to distribute them evenly. Pour in the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil and enough cooking water to moisten the pasta. Add the cheese and some salt and pepper to taste. Remove from the heat and serve. Makes 4 servings
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Here’s an oldie but goodie. My Mom’s Marble Cake, which she would bake whenever there was leftover sour cream that was about to get the heave-ho. It’s a moist cake and she served it plain, as a snack or coffee cake. But sometimes she’d frost it with a thick, fudgy icing.
Well, I’ve read so much lately about the benefits of coconut oil, that I wanted to see if I could make various dishes using that instead of the dreaded hydrogenated vegetable shortening (coconut oil is solid at room temperature). The recipe calls for only 1/4 cup shortening so I thought it might be a good place to start.
It was. There is a definite coconut flavor to the cake (although when I served the cake no one was quire sure what that “new” flavor was). Because of that it has more of a sweet quality about it.
I also substituted non-fat plain yogurt for the sour cream.
Maybe that makes this cake a bit of a healthier snack.
But it’s the same old, same old Mom’s Marble Cake. For traditionalists, use vegetable shortening instead of the coconut oil and sour cream instead of the yogurt.
Mom’s Marble Cake with Coconut Oil
1 ounce unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup coconut oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-3/4 cups cake flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup plain yogurt (non-fat is fine)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8-inch-square baking pan. Melt the chocolate and set it aside. Cream the sugar and coconut oil together in the bowl of an electric mixer set at medium for 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat the ingredients until well blended. Sift the flour and baking soda together. Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture in thirds, alternating with the yogurt. Beat the mixture for 2-3 minutes to blend the ingredients thoroughly. Divide the batter in half. Mix the melted chocolate into one of the halves. Either drop blobs of alternate batters into the prepared pan or spoon in one batter, add the second and swirl it into the first. Smooth the top. Bake the cake for 30-35 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then invert onto a cake rack to cool completely. Eat plain or frost with fudge frosting. Makes one cake serving 8
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FridayReads: Our FridayReads -
Here at Team FridayReads, we are practicing book addicts. Because we suffer from this contagious and life-saving malady, we often read multiple books at a time. This means our hair is extra shiny, we walk with extra pep in our step, and our #fridayreads won’t fit in one Tweet!
Here’s what we’re…
#fridayreads I’m reading The Falls, by Joyce Carol Oates