Lucid Food_ Cooking for an Eco-Conscious Life - Louisa Shafia [54]
Rhubarb and Pistachios over Thick Yogurt
Rhubarb and Pistachios over Thick Yogurt
This strikingly colorful dessert pairs tart rhubarb with rich Greek-style yogurt. Use a light-colored honey that won’t dull the rhubarb’s bright hue. If you are using regular yogurt, start this recipe the night before so that it can strain overnight.
Serves 4
4 stalks rhubarb, ends and leaves trimmed
½ teaspoon cardamom
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Pinch of salt
½ cup light-colored honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon rose water
2 cups Greek-style yogurt, or 4 cups regular yogurt, drained overnight (see method in recipe for Smoky Eggplant Dip with Yogurt) and refrigerated
½ cup pistachios, coarsely chopped
Cut the rhubarb into 1-inch pieces and put in a small saucepan with ¼ cup water. Cover and bring to a boil, then decrease the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally. When the rhubarb starts to soften, after about 5 minutes, stir in the cardamom, nutmeg, and salt. Break up any large pieces of rhubarb with a wooden spoon. Continue to simmer, covered, until the rhubarb is completely softened, about 4 minutes more. Remove from the heat and stir in the honey and vanilla extract. Let cool. Add the rose water.
To serve, put ½ cup of yogurt in each bowl and top with a few tablespoons of the rhubarb. Scatter a few tablespoons of pistachios over the top.
summer
June, July, and August offer such a wide range of fresh foods that it’s hard to know what to choose. It’s tempting to get stuck in a joyful rut eating beloved classics like corn, tomatoes, and blueberries, but venturing away from the familiar can reward you with new favorites. In this chapter, you’ll discover recipes that use poblano chiles, puntarelles, and apricots, and explore new ways of preparing wonderful old standbys—many in dishes that require little to no heat for low-maintenance meals that keep you cool in the kitchen.
Summer heat calls for amped up hydration, and the first drink we reach for is water, often from a plastic bottle. While it can sometimes taste better than tap water, bottled water can have damaging environmental consequences. We’ll look at why tap water may be the better, even healthier, choice in the long run. A highlight of summer’s bounty is fresh fish and seafood, but in recent years questions about the purity of seafood and the danger of our favorite fish choices becoming extinct have dampened many people’s enjoyment. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to select fish and seafood with a clear conscience and support healthy fish populations with your dollars. You’ll also find fresh ideas for preparing fish here and throughout the book.
Ripple Effect: Choosing Drinking Water
I feel lucky to live in New York City, because our drinking water has the reputation of being some of the best in the world. I hope it’s as clean as they say, because I’ve been drinking a lot of it for a long time, but the choice has been easy: I can either drink tap water that is virtually free, or pay more than $1,000 a year for bottled water.
The problem with bottled water is not just its retail price. Plastic bottles are derived from petroleum, and transported through the use of oil. Roughly 2 billion bottles are shipped to the United States yearly, creating thousands of tons of air pollution. Only about 13 percent of plastic bottles get recycled, while most pile up in landfills.
Still, one must balance those facts against the recent finding that, along with chemicals and bacteria, significant trace amounts of prescription drugs have been detected in tap water throughout the country.
As eco-conscious citizens trying to lead healthy lives, we are put in a tough position. What is the right choice—tap water or bottled? The bigger issue may be the value of our public drinking water. A clean water system is part of what should be expected from a responsible government. But the more we choose bottled water over tap, the less government