Source: 88-Year-Old Vegan Climbs Kilimanjaro
That’s 19,341 elevation. One of my offspring lives and works in Aspen CO. He climbs fourteeners for fun. But the offspring is 27.5. This dude is 88!
Potato Crusted Spinach Quiche
It’s been two months since I posted a recipe. Too many interesting research articles, bunnies, work…the list is endless. Well the drought is over. I had leftover mashed potatoes in the fridge and told myself “I am not going to waste perfectly fine leftover mashed potatoes”. I hopped online to find a decent potato pancake recipe. But instead, I stumbled on a quiche recipe that used instant mashed potatoes for the crust. One of my go to recipes is frittata that has plenty of potatoes in it. So why not quiche?
Trigger Warning for Easily Offended Militant Vegans
Stop reading now. This recipe has eggs and dairy.
You’ll need:
3 tablespoons EVO
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups leftover mashed potatoes
1 small (or half a large) sweet onion, chopped
2 cups frozen organic chopped spinach, thawed & drained
2 large mushrooms (white button or baby bella) sliced thin
4 large eggs
1 cup organic half and half
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Two dashes nutmeg
salt & pepper
Directions
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
- Grease a 9″ pie pan with 1 T of the olive oil. Press the mashed potatoes into the pie pan to form a crust.
- Bake the potato pie crust for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes turn the oven off and leave the potato crust in the oven for another 15 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside. Cool thoroughly.
- Heat up the oven again, this time to 425 degrees.
- In a large pan saute onion and mushroom for approximately 10 minutes in 1T olive oil and 2T of butter. Add defrosted and drained spinach and continue to saute until the mixture is somewhat dry. Add a dash of nutmeg. You don’t want any visible liquid. Set aside. Cool thoroughly.
- In a small mixing bowl whisk the eggs & half and half. Add the other dash of nutmeg, and a dash apiece of salt and pepper.
- Spread vegetable mixture evenly on your potato pie crust.
- Sprinkle Parmesan and cheddar cheeses over the spinach mixture.
- Pour egg mixture over the spinach and cheeses.
- Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Turn oven heat down to 350 degrees and continue baking for approximately 30 more minutes or until golden brown.
Slice & serve.
Tips
Why yes, of course you can add cooked diced bacon at step 8.5. Swiss instead of cheddar would be an excellent substitute. If you don’t have any leftover mashed potatoes by all means use one of those deep dish frozen pie shells. If you add bacon and use a frozen pie crust this recipe becomes my world famous spinach quiche that I’ve been making for years. But as I move along the spectrum to more of a WFPB diet I’ve been leaving the bacon out.
I’m not quite sure how I would make this pie palatable for my easily offended militant vegan readers. I need to think about this a little more.
Mediterranean-style diets linked to better brain function in older adults — ScienceDaily
Eating foods included in two healthy diets — the Mediterranean or the MIND diet — is linked to a lower risk for memory difficulties in older adults, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Source: Mediterranean-style diets linked to better brain function in older adults — ScienceDaily
From Hospice to Healthy: How a Plant-Based Diet Saved My Mom’s Life
People often call my mother’s recovery a miracle. And while I understand the sentiment, I believe the miraculous thing may be that so much illness could be avoided if people could only move from foods that hurt to foods that heal.
Source: From Hospice to Healthy: How a Plant-Based Diet Saved My Mom’s Life
Great story about love and plants.
Diet quality matters not just quantity in mid-to-late-adulthood — ScienceDaily
A long term healthy, quality diet can reduce the risk of cardiometabolic conditions. Gertraud Maskarinec, MD, PhD, Professor of Epidemiology at University of Hawaii Cancer Center said, “The message that diet quality, not just quantity, matters is important for everyone who wants to maintain both a healthy body weight and a healthy metabolism.”
Source: Diet quality matters not just quantity in mid-to-late-adulthood — ScienceDaily
Google’s Quest To Develop A Plant-Based “Power Dish” More Popular Than Meat
“It’s moving people along a continuum, whether people are eating red meat every day and you ask them to start eating a little more white meat, or they’re already on a white meat kick and it’s a little bit more seafood, or moving even further along to alternative proteins or produce. You can’t expect everyone to start loving lentils day one,” Giambastiani says. “Some do, most don’t. What you’re trying to do instead is get people to think about that continuum.”
Source: Google’s Quest To Develop A Plant-Based “Power Dish” More Popular Than Meat
Google? Wow.
Intersection of Interests
I’ve spent most of my life working in various areas of the life insurance industry. Currently I am back where I started over 41 years ago as an underwriter specializing in mortality risk assessment. My job is to understand what kills people. Sounds simple but it’s not that simple. As a creative and destructive species people have figured out a myriad of ways to kill themselves. When someone applies for life insurance I figure out what is most likely to kill them and charge an appropriate rate for the risk. I really like what I do. Each and every day is another opportunity to learn and improve.
I also love to cook. The Boss has to declare a No Cook Night otherwise I will cook. This love started early watching my father cook supper every night. Dad was a great cook and I had a role model from the beginning. One day I asked him
“Why do you cook?”
“You’ve tasted your Mother’s cooking. Survival.”
Eat to live. Not live to eat. For me, this was a hard lesson learned. Before the age of 20 I weighed over 370 pounds. I’ve used 370 as my highest weight but it could have been higher. I stopped weighing myself because I really didn’t want to know how heavy I was. The story of how is for another time but suffice to say I managed to lose 200 pounds by the time I turned 21. As the years have passed my weight has slowly crept up. I’m proud to be near 190 pounds and approximately 180 pounds lighter than my personal peak. Eat to live, not the other way around. I’ve learned not only how to lose weight but how to keep the pounds off.
I’m a published writer. It’s been decades since I’ve published any of my writing but I’m still a published writer. I maintain two blogs and a journal. This short piece started in my journal and ended up public. This food blog got started to share family recipes. Over time it has changed to the point where I now describe this blog as a food memoir. Now I’m beginning to think the description should be changed again. There is a lot more space devoted to nutrition science which used to be posted on my other blog. For now though, food memoir still works.
One of the fascinating things about writing here is how the recipes are not the dishes I grew up with eating my Dad’s cooking. You also won’t find a lot of the recipes I made years ago for my own family. Some family favorites are here but not many Box Project recipes. For example I pulled one of my “favorites” from the box, handwritten on a white lined 3 x 5 index card. It’s an old James Beard chicken recipe that is delicious. When was the last time I made this dish? I can’t remember. I suspect that many of the recipes I considered to be family favorites I no longer make. What I’m learning is I don’t cook nor eat the same as I did when I was younger. As Dr. Wareham says you start with one good habit at a time. I say you also stop one bad habit at a time (but I did quit smoking, drinking Jack, and start running all at the same time).
The writing, research, and recipes that end up here are mostly where I am at now. And that’s fine. There’s a pot of Vegan Chili Beans on the stove as I’m writing. Defiinitely not a family favorite recipe from the past. But it might just become a family favorite for now and the future.
Improving Diet Over Time May Reduce Risk of Death – Medpage Today
Source: Improving Diet Over Time May Reduce Risk of Death | Medpage Today
“I just work at it like everybody else. I think everybody can develop good habits. I think you start with one good habit at a time.”
Dr. Ellsworth Wareham
Food & Water Watch Wants USDA to Halt Chinese Chicken
Source: Food & Watch Watch Wants USDA to Halt Chinese Chicken
Source: Chinese Chicken Shipments Already Endangering Public Health | Food & Water Watch
This blog started as a repository for family recipes. Over the years since inception this thing has become a mash up. I’ve spent the better part of my working life learning about what kills people. My other blog didn’t feel like the right place for stories like this. So if we’re passing along article links about food you’ll find plenty here.
I hope readers find this type of information useful. I’m not going to discourage anyone from eating nasty fried fast food chicken nuggets processed in China from unsanitary chickens raised and slaughtered in Chile.
It’s your personal choice.
Higher Coffee Intake Tied to Lower Mortality Risk
Source: Higher Coffee Intake Tied to Lower Mortality Risk
The reader comments to this article are also worth reading.
Remember we are talking about association not causality.
And too much of anything is not good.
