"Stick it to the Man" Soy Chorizo Pasta

Soybeans - Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

On Tuesday, 75-year-old Indiana soybean farmer Hugh Bowman brought a lawsuit before the Supreme Court, and lost to agribusiness giant Monsanto. His lawyers asserted that Monstanto's patent on Round Up Ready soybeans–engineered to survive the ubiquitous weed killer Round Up–had been exhausted, and that long-time customer Bowman hadn't infringed their patent when he went elsewhere for seed mixes for his late-season crop.

In a nearly unanimous decision, the Supreme Court disagreed with the farmer's defense team. Mr. Bowman will pay Monsanto more than $84,000 in fines.

Oh...snap?!

It's as if everyone involved in this case was trying to hold onto something: a fruitful harvest, a patent (90% of U.S. soybeans are Round Up Ready), a lawyerly reputation. Such high stakes make me appreciate my no-cost blog, and of course encourage me to eat something I can share with you.

This week, I cooked with soy chorizo for the first time. I wanted to invite the Indiana soybean farmer to dinner–austere times are on his horizon–but rumors suggest he's throwing soybeans at the younger union members back home, asking them why an old geezer has to stick it to the man alone! (I'm JK).

Now, it's your turn to revolt. Get yourself to the kitchen. Stick It To The Man Pasta makes enough to serve several of your friends, colleagues and superiors at work. Be careful sharing the recipe with teenagers, though. Indignation is for family chefs and farmers, only.

"Stick it to the Man" Soy Chorizo Pasta
16 oz. fresh green beans
10 oz. soy chorizo
10 oz. penne pasta
18 oz. marinara sauce

-Simple Steps-
Green Beans
Cut in half or into thirds, removing stems
Bring 1/2 inch of water to a boil
Add green beans, a pinch of salt and two peeled garlic cloves
Steam for about 5 minutes
Set aside

Boil the pasta for 10 minutes or per instructions listed on box.

Combine soy chorizo and marinara sauce and cook over medium heat for 5-10 minutes.

Mix everything together, and top it with your favorite cheese. Sour cream curbs the spiciness. It's like bolognese sauce with a twist.

Soy Chorizo and Green Bean Pasta

Okay, that looks great, but in what way have you 'stuck it to the man', you might ask?

It's true: you're not pulling the wool over any one person's eyes. But, if you've bought soy chorizo from Trader Joe's, you've got half of it left. It lasts for weeks and weeks. What's more, you're not bankrupt by keeping leftovers for yourself! You haven't made the landlord mad. In fact, it's by legal means only that you secretly hide your plastic bag of soy chorizo like the important discovery that it is. You're prepared for vegetarians. You're ready for a power outage after an earthquake. Ritz crackers are for your nemeses. You'll enjoy pasta instead.

Some advice: do not try to plant the soy chorizo in your backyard. It won't yield anything. And, who knows where the big seed brother lurks.

-MDB

A New Way To Love Chard

My cousin was working for a business mogul who dealt in broccoli–among other things­–when she tipped me off that the stems have more nutrients than the florets. And to think I’d snubbed my nose at whole-plant offerings at the school cafeteria! Though, in the end, my cousin’s broccoli boss turned out to be an oppressive jerk whose tip I've yet to validate, I did appreciate what he was driving at. When I became sophisticated enough, I took a break from broccoli for beet’s taller, brighter cousin: chard. I assumed it would be a bigger hassle and produce more waste than food, but I proved myself wrong.

Tips and facts

*There’s nothing Swiss about chard; I have no idea where that came from.

*To maintain freshness, wash soon after purchase.

*Store in refrigerator in a sealed plastic bag.

*You should wash and eat the entire plant. The stems are a bit like celery, with a twist. Note that the same cooking instructions apply to chard of any color.

Chard with Garlic and Olive Oil

• Thoroughly wash the chard.
• Pull or cut leaves from the stems.
• Finely chop the stems. Don’t mince.
• Saute the stems in olive oil and garlic, salt and pepper. They should be slightly tender, not mushy. Set aside.

• To cook the leaves, boil them past wilting for 3 to 4 minutes. 
• Drain thoroughly in strainer.
• Puree the leaves, adding a pinch of salt.
• Optional: add a splash of milk or cream. Surprisingly, almond milk works as well. And you can get away with a pinch of cinnamon or nutmeg.
• Sprinkle sauteed stems on top and eat.   

The beauty of this antioxidant-rich food is that it can be boiled, wilted, steamed, braised or microwaved. It goes well with sweet potatoes, with eggs, with rice and pasta, with baked fish, with cream or Parmesan cheese. It can be served as a side dish or hidden in your children’s lasagna. You can tell them it’s frozen spinach but they’ll catch on sooner or later.

Red chard! My lasagna recipe is coming soon.

Quinoa Crazy–When Our Hunger for Health Taxes South American Farmers

Sometime in the late 90's when my mother was still buying most of my groceries, a curious new carbohydrate snuck into the household palate. Quinoa ("keen-wa") was all the rage. Here in the U.S., it became a culinary mainstay at Buddhist retreats. The Skinny Bitches promoted it. The Quinoa Diet lauds it for its low glycemic content. Did I mention it's gluten-free? Move over brown rice. Hello round, slightly crispy miracle vegetable-grain, a relative of beets and chard, first cultivated by the Incas hundreds of years ago.

Vegetarians love it for its high protein content (14% to 18%) and hard-to-find amino acids. As a three-quarters vegetarian myself, I certainly support trying to get vitamins through food, rather than in pill form. But, quinoa can't help me here. It's not on my shelves right now.

After what I learned today, I'm glad I haven't been eating the stuff. Much of what's on supermarket shelves comes from Bolivia and Peru, countries whose farmers are on a hamster wheel of Western demand. It's a terrible irony: South American harvesters can't afford to eat something that used to be integral to their diets so they've turned to our fast food for sustenance. Enter one of the downfalls of free North-South trade. According to Alternet, in Lima, Peru, a chicken is cheaper than quinoa, which has tripled in price since 2006.

This food, which seems to flow freely in U.S. and European markets, isn't the only strain on South American agriculture. In Peru, the asparagus capital of the world, some farmers have abandoned their water hungry crop all together. Though I've read that a group of non-profits is devising water standards that will serve as fair trade measures, I haven't seen any related details.

Around the time I started eating quinoa, I began to hear the phrase, "Think Globally, Act Locally." Since American farmers are now hip to the crop–it grows in places like Colorado and Oregon–I put a call into my local Whole Foods to see if they carried a brand I'd feel comfortable eating. The clerk thought for sure he did, and put me on hold to examine the package of TruRoots organic quinoa. "It's from Livermore, California, but certified organic in Oregon," he said. That could work! I rushed to the Tru Roots website only to read that "TruRoots Organic Quinoa supports the livelihood of small family farms in the Andean plains." 

Hopefully, sometime in 2013, the Year of the Quinoa, I'll find a farmer's market where the grain is cheap and home grown. And as I sit down to dinner, I'll thank tillers everywhere.