Chili, Broccolini & Shrimp, Oat 'Risotto'.....

[osodecanela]

I don't eat much rice.

My husband wanted a light supper, and as I ran outta gas on my way home (poor planning on my part), I was later than expected in getting back to the house. For once, he wanted to eat at home.

I cruised thru Safeway and found gorgeous broccolini, shallots, fresh Anaheim chilies and salad shrimp. I had quick cook steel cut oats in the house. A bit of coconut oil some garlic flavored chicken stock? Time for an oat risotto.

Ingredients:
Two 6 oz. bunches of broccolini, tops separated, stems diced
One good sized shallot, minced
One Anaheim chili, minced (seeds if you like it hot, 1/2 the flesh only if you're a Scovil wimp.
1 sweet red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
2 tbsp coconut oil
3/4 lb salad shrimp
1 cup quick cook steel cut oats
2 cup garlic flavored chick broth
1/4 cup grated mozzarella

Over medium high heat melt the coconut oil, and sauté the broccolini stems, chili, shallot and red bell till the shallots are translucent, then stir in the oats to toast them. Add one cup of the stock and stir till mostly absorbed, then add the broccolini heads, the cheese, the shrimp and the second cup of stock and stir constantly till the liquid is absorbed and the risotto tightens up. If it's drying out too much and the oats are not cooked thru (about 8 minutes), add more stock and keep stirring. Serve modest amounts topped with sour cream or plain Greek yogurt.

This worked well tonight. Dinner took about 25 minutes start to finish.

Comments

[toppercub.livejournal.com]

Is the fat in the coconut oil concerning at all?

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

Not at all. First of all the amount in total isn't large. 2 tbsp spread out over 4-5 servings isn't horrendous. Secondly, several of the local cardiologists, as well as my own primary care provider are pushing folks to use this as a way of reducing your triglycerides. My own provider thinks it correlates well with weight loss. She had been pushing me to use it on toast, till I reminded her as a celiac patient, I don't do toast.

In my own kitchen more and more the fats that I cook with are either coconut or olive oils. Also, butter over margarine, but butter will often go bad before I use it up. Which one I use still most depends on what flavor is complementary to what I'm preparing, but these days more and more I reach for the coconut.

[jharish.livejournal.com]

For the last 10 years, I've lowered my cholesterol and triglycerides by switching away from cooking with vegetable fats and moving towards animal fats, since heat tends to create hydrogenation in vegetable oils at far lower temperatures. This is why many epidemiologists point out that there was little heart disease until the introduction of soybean oil and margarine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framingham_Heart_Study

Most of my education on fats comes from the first 60 pages of 'Nourishing Traditions', a heavily researched cook book that attacks 'Policitally Correct Nutrition' as one of the major causes of all the health problems in the US. The rest of the education comes from how much healthier I am now that I use coconut and palm oil and butter way more than any of the 'healthy' fats like Canola Oil, which is terrible for you.

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

Don't use margarine - haven't in many years. Since I no longer eat bread, butter lasts a long time in my house.

The two major cooking oils that are used in my house are coconut and olive. On rare occasions, sesame oil is used as a seasoning, walnut in salad dressings and to preserve the wood surfaces of salad bowls, cutting boards and other utensils. Peanut oil is also used rarely and that's on the rare occasion I need to cook something at ultra high heat (It has a very high smoke point), but as I said, It's a rare occasion. I wound up giving away my last bottle of corn oil and tossed the last bottle of canola when it went rancid. The only reason I don't use coconut oil exclusively is that my husband hates coconut in general, so I have to work at hiding the flavor if its any foodstuff that isn't highly seasoned. Garlic and onion is getting added more & more to hide the coconut scent from him.

I no longer will use vegetable shortening, so the next time I make tamales, it'll likely be coconut oil that gets used. I know manteca is standard through out the Latin world, but I had too much of a Jewish upbringing to allow myself to enjoy it.

[jharish.livejournal.com]

I have wondered if we might have done things differently if we had come up with different names for things.

Like instead of calling things like Diabetes(type 2) and Arteriosclerosis "disease" we call them 'Food-related injuries'. If I had been told that my grandfather died of a food related injury I might have spent more time watching what I eat as a youth. But instead he died of a heart attack brought on by obesity and arteriosclerosis.

I would call it a conspiracy but I don't think it is actually a group of informed people pushing the decision. I think we just put profits ahead of well being in the food industry and we're left with this wasteland of "health knowledge" that mostly comes from commercials telling us what's healthy and what isn't. (Like those lying dairy commercials or any pharmaceutical commercial).

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

Two things to remember: Caveat emptor & follow the money.

This is one of the major drawbacks of our capitalist system. The people with money and who stand to financially benefit further can either pay to further the use of their products (i.e. advertising, lobbying/buying legislative support for their companies/industries).

Who pays for medical research? Drug companies.

Who is fighting any legislative attempts to limit the sales of sugary drinks? The beverage industry.

When did we arrive at the decision that a healthy breakfast was a bowl full of sugar? How about a generation of kids, now adults, who grew up watching tv commercial for froot loops (et al), and whose mothers were pressed to give in to that pressure so they could get their kids fed quickly & out the door, so they themselves could get to work, since industry no longer pays a wage that allows most families to survive with a single breadwinner. (Just before seeing your last comment, I shut he tube, after getting disgusted by back to back commercials for Poptarts and Toaster Strudel.)

Meanwhile, who of any financial resource is out there fighting against monoculture in our foods? Who is out there funding research on nutrition? Why aren't track shoes, gym clothes, gym memberships and bicycles non-tax items, but drugs, health insurance and Wonder-bread are?

[jharish.livejournal.com]

Have you heard of Dr. Mercola?

He's controversial, but he's also a friend of mine. His blog is a good source of information.

The problem is that he's very sensational about 'this will kill you' kind of things. It helps him sell products. However, the research he presents is often groundbreaking and deeply interesting. He's shown research about transplanting gut bacteria from skinny people to fat people to get the fat people to lose weight. Since the gut bacteria makes up much of our craving mechanism, fat people were finding themselves making better choices around food with the new bacteria.

The Weston-Price foundation is another place that's worth checking out. They represent a huge amount of 'alternative' food research that discusses disease from a epidemiological standpoint of matching it up to when certain types of modern foods were introduced. (Like Margarine and Arteriosclerosis, corn syrup and type 2 diabetes)

http://www.westonaprice.org/
http://www.mercola.com/