maple syrup - Related Content

Food gifts are good gifts!  for friends, for yourself, for the holidays and in the New Year.  As my Mom used to say, "This is for me, from one who cares!"

Bakery and Other Specialties in Wisconsin, for example include:  Apple Bread from La Crescent, Cherries from Door County, Kringle from Racine, Pasties from Hurley, Pickled Ham Hocks and eggs from Milwaukee, Sausage from Backalars and Pickles, Cheese, Cheese curds and Sausage from almost anywhere!  What specialties are in your area?

Berries and Cranberries were harvested by native people who knew their health benefits.  Phytochemicals found in berries and other foods with deep color are important in a plant-rich diet.  Wisconsin is #1 producer of cranberries in the U.S., growing 59% of the cranberries used for juice, dried cranberries and more!  Add some dried "crane" berries to whole grain oat granola or to a pinecone birdfeeder!

Beverages like Sprecher’s Root Beer and specialty sodas, Spotted Cow beer from New Glarus, Apple Cider from almost any Orchard Store like Bauer’s in La Crescent, and, of course fruits of the vine: wines, brews and hard beverages from local wineries, breweries and distilleries.  Local people take pride in what they bring to the festivities and to the economy. 

CSA (Community Support Agriculture) refers to a partnership between farmers who sell their home grown (often organic) produce, eggs, chicken, pork and more direct to the eaters, who serves as shareholders or subscribers.  You pay before the season and begin getting a “share”, a box of food (or a couple of chickens!) at harvest time. Now is the time to consider trying this for next spring and summer!  For more information ask around or go to the Know where your food comes from website.

Fish.  Smelt in spring, trout in summer and perch through the ice in winter are catches we treasure in the Great Lakes and upper Midwest region.  Check out the  Red Cliff Fish Company who sell fresh, smoked and frozen fillets of Lake Superior fish.  Yum!

Game Meats have always been a northern staple for families that knew how to hunt and prepare these lean proteins. Today, bison has become popular in tribes for its cultural and spiritual value.  It is gaining recognition among non-natives as a low cholesterol meat as well as for its contribution to tribal economies.  Check for it in your local co-op, small meat market or larger meat departments.

Honey is a healthy locally produced food.  If you can’t buy from a farmer, check the label for its origin!  Local honey is often given credit for increasing our immunity to common local weeds to which folks have allergies.  It tastes great, too!

Local dairy, meats and produce  Check out your local Food Co-Op for items sourced from local farmers and cooperatives like Organic Valley in La Farge, WI or Belgioso Cheese in Denmark, WI.

Maple Syrup is a flavorful ingredient that kept native diets calorie and mineral-rich through long winters.  Once you taste locally produced maple syrup, you won’t go back to corn syrup with maple flavoring!

Wild Rice adds great nutritional and cultural value to any food gift and can support native tribes who harvest and process this “good berry” or “manoomin”, using traditional ways.  Check out Native Harvest Ojibwe Products, a division of White Earth Land Recovery Project. Warming water temps are making the survival of this grass vital to the identity of Ojibwe people in Northern WI and MN.  All efforts to reduce global warming will protect this high protein, high fiber spiritual food.

Story: 
Locally grown foods have many benefits.  The Wisconsin Local Food Organization tells us that they help: 
* Develop and strengthen a connection between local farmers, chefs, and eaters
* Awareness about what grows around us
* Highlight personal and environmental benefits
* Put a face, a place and taste to our food
* Get people cooking again and foster healthier eating
* Experience and enjoy incredible food and meals
* Support local small business and their workers
* Keep dollars in the local community
* Help us identify with the land we live on and the culture of food production

Convenience has been a boon to the food industry since after World War II.  Our mothers and grandmothers who once cooked from scratched were prime targets of advertising for all things easy from Jello and Swanson TV Dinners to menu items "in a mix" of all the food groups.  In processing, fiber and its nutritional value are removed to make grains, for example, more shelf stable.  Preservatives, additives, salt, sugar and even gases are added to make them tasty and long lasting for distribution around the country.   But today, we can examine that system and get closer to the food and to the land.

Consider a convenience food (like chips, instant potatoes, cake mix, soda pop) that could be made from scratch in your kitchen.   How could a natural food like nuts, sweet potatoes, frozen cranberry juice or a homemade baking mix add to your life rather than be an inconvenience.  It may be a challenge to address in partnership with a friend or family member.

If you would like to be notified when we share new recipes, be sure to scroll to the bottom, provide your email address, check the box confirming you are not a robot, click on a few photos to prove it and click subscribe! You will then receive an email after each new post. Remember, we're always looking for new recipes, so keep sending them to ecopact@fspa.org!  

The Seasoned Franciscan will be on hiatus for the rest of Advent and the Christmas season.  Watch for a new post in mid-January!

Merry Christmas!  Vicki

Ingredients:
1 C yellow cornmeal
1 1/2 C amaranth (may substitute all-purpose flour)
3 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
3 T maple syrup (pure is best!) 
1 sweet red pepper, chopped
1/3 C warm water
1/2 C coconut oil (may substitute sunflower or corn oil)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Line an 8x8” baking dish with parchment paper
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. Add maple syrup and sweet pepper
3. Stir in water until just combined, then add oil (a few lumps are fine)
4. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and gently smooth the batter
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown

Option: Brush additional maple syrup on cornbread as a glaze while still hot.

Story: The recipe Maple Amaranth Cornbread is shared by Meg Paulino who has been part of maple syrup production on Saint Joseph Ridge. It was posted by the Ho-Chunk Nation's Division of Health as a Harvest of the Month. For Indigenous people, both maple syrup and amaranth have many uses and sacred connections to their food sovereignty, culture and spirituality.

Amaranth Facts:

Amaranth has more than 70 species. It can grow up to 9’ and has bright purple, red, or yellow flowers. The young plants and growing tips of older plants make nutritious vegetables that can be boiled like spinach or eaten raw as salad.

Some varieties are valued ornamental plants as both the leaves and the flowers can be stunning. Others are grown for their seeds which can be cooked whole or ground into flour. The plant is indigenous to North and Central America but also grown today in China, India, Southeast Asia, West Africa and the Caribbean. It is shown above during harvest in India.

Amaranth is considered a seed. The seed is about the size of a pinhead. Amaranth has 9 grams of protein per cup and twice the amount of protein as rice and corn. It is a complete protein, meaning it contains all the essential amino acids your body needs. It is also is gluten-free, and high in minerals and antioxidants.

It is harvested and stored much like other common cereals like quinoa and buckwheat. It can be stored whole in the pantry for 4 months or in the freezer for 8 months. Amaranth flour can be kept in the pantry for 2 months or in the freezer for up to 4 months. It pairs well with squash, corn, cinnamon, vanilla and chocolate. We would find Amaranth in the whole foods section of a coop or other grocery store. Bob's Red Mill is one of many companies that sells amaranth and other whole foods. Amaranth can be foraged. However, if it grows in an area that may have been sprayed or grows in pesticide-sprayed soil, it will most likely absorb the toxic chemicals, making the plant itself toxic.

This hardy plant has followed the cycles of colonization which brought it from its origins in mesoamerican to China, India, Southeast Asia, West Africa and the Caribbean. The harvest of amaranth is shown above in India. Colorful names have been used for it's many species such as African spinach, bush greens, callaloo, Chinese spinach, golden grain of the Gods, Indian spinach, Joseph's coat, yin-choi and love-lies-bleeding and pigweed.

Ancient Indigenous Food:
The Aztecs of mesoamerica cultivated amaranth as one of their major crops and used it during several seasonal festivals honoring various deities. The American Indian Health and Diet Project describes one festival in May during which milled amaranth and toasted corn seeds are mixed with honey or maguay sap (much like agave). This sweet dough was used to make idols that represented the war god Huitzilopochtli. Food historian Jonathan D. Sauer writes that "during the festival meal these idols are broken up, distributed, and eaten in a communion-like ceremony."

"In the 16th century, Spanish conquistadors banned the plant's cultivation, fearing that the spiritual connection with it would stymie the establishment of Catholicism on the continent. Quinoa had a similar demise, but was rediscovered centuries later."

Ecology journalist Cecilia Cowell writes in the Guardian, "It could feed the world: amaranth, a health trend 8,000 years old that survived colonization." She reports that "for many Indigenous farmers in Guatemala and the United States, growing amaranth has provided a degree of economic independence, but it has also offered a route to food sovereignty.

If you would like to be notified when we share new recipes, be sure to scroll to the bottom, provide your email address, check the box confirming you are not a robot, click on a few photos to prove it and click subscribe! You will then receive an email after each new post. Remember, we're always looking for new recipes, so keep sending them to ecopact@fspa.org!

Ingredients:
2 T extra-virgin olive oil or vegetable oil
1/2 C chopped onion
1/2 C chopped green bell pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 oz lean ground beef or turkey
1/4 C bulgur (*see note)
2 T chili powder
1 tsp smoked or regular paprika
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 C water
1/3 C ketchup
1/3 C tomato sauce (low sodium or salt-free)
1 T Worcestershire sauce
4 whole wheat hamburger buns, split
Serves 4

Directions:
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add meat, breaking it up with a wooden spoon, until it is no longer pink, 3-4 minutes. Add onion, bell pepper and garlic. Stir in remaining ingredients, reduce heat to low, cover and cook, stirring once or twice, until the bulgur is tender, 10-12 minutes.

Traditionally served with pickles and potato chips as pictured above by mashed.com in The Untold Truth of Sloppy Joes.

*Note: Bulgur is a quick-cooking whole grain that’s made by parboiling, drying and grinding or cracking wheat berries. It can be fine or coarse, which has a similar texture as cooked ground meat. Using it in this recipe cuts the saturated fat in half and adds 6 grams of fiber. With a whole wheat bun, the fiber count goes up some more!

Bulgur can be found in the whole foods section in bags or in bulk. Bob's Red Mill is a popular brand. Click this All Recipe link for a video version of preparing this recipe using all beef!

Story:
Bulgur: Bulgur is a whole grain, meaning it contains the endosperm, germ and bran of the grain. Because it comes from the whole wheat seed or “berry”, it is rich in fiber, B vitamins and other nutrients and has a nutty taste no matter what seasonings are used. The wheat berry itself can also be used after cooking in many similar dishes.

Bulgur is a wheat product. We picture “amber waves of grain”, wheat shining in the sun across the American Plains. While wheat grows in many parts of the world today, the humble origin of wheat is Egypt, the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean or the “fertile crescent.” Originally, foraged, early cultivated species of wheat were einkorn, emmer and spelt which are gaining interest today for their health benefits.

The first bread was most likely baked in Egypt where archeologists believe it may have been the result of flour accidentally falling into the brewing barley beer. Huge wood-fired ovens have been unearthed in Egypt which may have been built and stoked with wood by the hands of Hebrew slaves and others. Jesus and his friends would have been raised on whole wheat barley and wheat loaves of all kinds.

Cooked, bulgur can be added to bread dough (reduce flour in recipe by 3/4 C and water by 1/4 C.) Use it in a Greek Salad called Tabouli or as a substitute for rice or couscous.

Sloppy Joes: Some believe that this popular sandwich is a more flavorful version of a Midwest “loose meat” sandwich like Iowa’s Maid-Rite or Nu-Way. Mashed.com writes that the Sloppy Joe got its start in Sioux City where a cook named Joe (translate “common” Joe) added tomato sauce and seasonings to a loose hamburger, making it sloppy. Others claim it originated in a messy or “sloppy” restaurant owned by Jose Otero in Havana, Cuba. His sandwich became known by his nickname, “Sloppy Joe.” It seems a famous patron was Ernest Hemmingway who convinced a friend in Key West, Florida to Americanize the sandwich and rename his restaurant “Sloppy Joe’s!” This eatery still serves over 50,000 “Sloppy Joes” and hosts a yearly Hemmingway look-a-like contest. Conagra's Hunts Foods (known for tomato products and ketchup) developed a special sauce named “Manwich,” advertising that “a sandwich is a sandwich, but a Manwich is a meal!” presenting an even quicker route to the convenient dish.

The Sloppy Joe is a popular school lunch item and can be made for a crowd at home in a slow cooker or “Nesco.” Today the Sloppy Joe has meatless versions using all bulgur or TVP (textured vegetable protein). A leaner version called the Sloppy Jane, is made with ground turkey. Sloppy Joe filling can be served on a hoagie and topped with cheese, wrapped in lettuce or a tortilla, embellished with coleslaw and onions. Variations make it an even more popular recipe!

If you would like to be notified when we share new recipes, be sure to scroll to the bottom, provide your email address, check the box confirming you are not a robot, click on a few photos to prove it and click subscribe! You will then receive an email after each new post. Remember, we're always looking for new recipes, so keep sending them to ecopact@fspa.org!