Tip of the Month: On March 28 at 8:30 p.m., your local time, World
Wildlife Fund is asking individuals like you, businesses, governments and
organizations around the world to turn off your lights for one hour -- Earth Hour -- to make a global
statement of concern about climate change and to demonstrate your commitment to
finding solutions. Apparently the city of Paris
is participating -- so can you!
Food Focus : Chick-peas or Garbanzos
Enter the humble chick-pea --
Cicer arietinum) -- a foot soldier in the very large pea/bean
family.How did it get its name?Like so many of our words, a distorted French
import, in this case an already somewhat distorted descendant of the Latin cicer (hence ceci in Italian).Nothing I
can find relates it particularly to chickens.
Wikipedia claims "7,500-year-old remains have been found in the Middle East."It's hard to imagine what's left of a
chickpea after so many years!Still
important in that region, it gives us the ever popular hummus, easily made in a
blender with cooked chickpeas, tahini (sesame paste), olive oil, lemon juice,
garlic, salt, pepper.Don't forget to
soak and rinse the chick-peas before cooking or, if using canned, to rinse
them.This increases digestibility.Vary the proportions of the ingredients for
different tastes and textures.Add some
pitted olives or roasted peppers or other tasty cooked vegetables for
variation.
The whole legume group is
honored as a source of inexpensive protein.What else is in chick-peas?Many
minerals, assuming good growing conditions: calcium (bones), magnesium (heart),
iron (energy), and multifarious zinc.Earl Mindell calls zinc a "traffic director" because of its
participation in protein synthesis, enzymatic actions, pH balancing, mental
actions, and anti-oxidant activity.Oysters and liver are even better sources of zinc than chick-peas,
always assuming that the environment they grew in provided it.
Reference: Earl Mindell's New Vitamin Bible,
Mindell & Mundis, Warner Books, 2004.
Recipe of the Month: Flatbread
Ingredients:
1 cup of Chick-pea flour: basan (Hindi), harina
de garbanzo (Spanish). I find this easier and tastier than whole wheat
flour, but that's also possible.So
is cornmeal.
1 1/2 cups of water
1 teaspoon of sea salt
3 tablespoons of olive or coconut oil
A liberal sprinkling of zaatar (a mixture of
thyme and sesame seeds and lemon) or other spice you like. Maybe rosemary
or dill?
Directions:
Put the flour, then the water, then the salt
into a bowl and mix well. Expect pancake batter consistency.
Let it stand for half a day or over night.
Preheat the oven to 450 F.
Warm the oil in it in a 12-inch skillet or pan
When the oil is hot but not smoking, add the
batter, sprinkle the spices, if any, and then bake it for 30-50 minutes
until done."Done" is when the
edges are brown and the flatbread will come away easily from the pan.
Recipe
adapted from Food Matters, Mark
Bittman, Simon & Schuster, 2009.