Bean and Eggplant Burritos

I discovered a new recipe last week. I made some refried beans, but then got side tracked with kiddies for a while. When I got back, they were dry and crumbling. I had had a roasted eggplant in my fridge, which I was going to use to make Baba Ganouj, but never got around to... so I blended it into the dried refried beans! Viola! I got my family to eat eggplant, which they think they hate. I feel like a good mom today.

Bean and Eggplant Burritos (makes about 14)

2 cups beans of choice (I used a combo of pinto and red beans)

1 medium eggplant 

2-3 cup cheese finely grated, divided

1/4 cup lard/butter/olive oil (I used lard)

salt

pepper

chili seasoning (optional)

cumin (optional)

14-18 smallish tortillas (Delicious tortilla recipe)

Method:

Beans

Soak beans for at least 8 hours in warm filtered water, to which you have added apple cider vinegar. (You can actually lengthen the soaking time, to aid in digestion. I usually soak my beans for two full days, making sure to change the water daily.) Strain and rinse before cooking. Cook in a pot of salted water until very tender. When the beans first come to a boil, turn down the heat, and skim the foam that rises to the top.

Strain well. Add fat of choice to the pan you cooked the beans in, and return the heat to medium. Add the beans, and using a potato masher, pulverize the little buggers. Let cool.

Eggplant

While the beans are simmering, preheat your over to 350. Wash, and then prick your eggplant with a fork. Once the oven is heated, pop that baby in there straight on the rack. Let it cook until the skin is browned. Pull it out and cool it.

All together now

When the beans and the eggplant are both cool, blend them in batches. Begin with the eggplant by cutting the top off, and then down one side. You should be able to easily peel open the skin. Put all the flesh into your blender, and start adding the beans. You want to have a relatively thick consistency -- think cookie dough, only this won't be as sticky. You should be using most of the beans for this. Empty the contents of the blender into a large mixing bowl as you go. Once you have the right consistency, little by little, add one cup of the finely grated cheese to the bowl of beany-eggplant. Mix as you add so that you don't end up with clumps of cheese.

Spoon a much of the filling as you can safely fit onto a tortilla, while still being able to roll it up. Place seam side down into a baking dish. Top with grated cheese, bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

Notes:

I made two pans of these: one plain, and one with homemade red enchilada sauce. The sauce was amazing, but was a little too spicy for the babes. 

Red Sauce:

2 cups homemade broth

2 tblsp fat of choice (I used lard)

1/2 tsp Chipotle pepper (I got crushed and ground it in my coffee grinder/herb grinder)

1 small can/bottle tomato paste

1 tsp cumin

dash onion powder

dash garlic powder

salt and pepper to taste

Heat Lard on medium, add chipotle pepper and let it get aromatic. Add broth, tomato paste, and everything else. Let boil for about five minutes. Thicken with a slurry of milk, or water, mixed with a little flour. (Try 1/4 cup milk/water, with 2-3 tbls flour.) Add this to the boiling sauce, and stir. Pour over the burritos, before you add the cheese. Bake as per instructions above.

Utah and Candy

Did any of you see the headline today about Utah and candy consumption? Or as one news source put it, "Utah Leads Nation in Candy Use". I thought that was a great way to word this. I don't know what bothered me more, the fact that this is true, or the quotes from the good professor. Essentially we, (Mormons, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, LDS, what ever we call ourselves), are trading one vice for another. I am not exempt, but I do severely limit how often I imbibe.

What are your thoughts on this?

A New Perspective on GMO's

So, any thoughts?

On Cholesterol

This will be my second venture back into the blogging world after a brief sabbatical. During the time I was gone I changed a lot of diapers, had another baby, and started a Master's program in Health and Nutrition Education. I thought I'd drop the schooling bit in now, because what I'm about to introduce to you may seem radical...

I had a friend ask me the other day which cholesterol was the good, and which was the bad. I was totally embarrassed to admit that I couldn't remember, and honestly, that I had never known. As I thought about that the rest of the day, I finally realized the reason my mind had never retained that information is because I don't believe there is good and bad cholesterol. I really love cholesterol, and so I thought I'd share my mental ramblings on this sadly misunderstood nutrient.

What is Cholesterol?

Cholesterol fits tidily into the fats and lipids category, and should be revered for its many functions in the human body. Both HDL (high density lipoprotein), and LDL (low density lipoprotein) perform vital functions in the human body, and deficiencies in either are catastrophic in nature. Cholesterol, in times past, was blamed for clogging arteries. I find it poor logic, though, to look at a wound, and blame what we find there for the presence of the wound. We don't blame blood for scratches and cuts. We don't blame bandaids for them either. What is it that causes cholesterol to get stuck in a person's arteries? There are several mechanisms in place, but the primary problems that cause blockages in arteries are in fact poor blood sugar metabolism, which cause inflammation i.e. over consumption of carbohydrates (this can include fruit for particularly sick people) and resultant damages on a cellular level. Google this, "cholesterol patches damaged arteries" -- it's not really a secret.

Further, check out all cholesterol does for you (other than patch damaged arteries):

• All cell membranes in the human body are made sturdy by a combination of cholesterol and saturated fat. So that pretty much covers everything your body does. Let's end there... Just kidding, there's more.

• All human sex hormones are a break down of cholesterol. (That link is a Chris Masterjohn link. If you don't know of him, he's a smarty.) A  cholesterol deficiency can lead to a deficiency in these, which would wreak havoc on more or less all of your systems -- because our bodies function as a whole organism. You cannot experience degradation in one system alone. To name just a few of your systems that would struggle due to imbalance in these hormones, though: reproductive system (duh), pulmonary system, cardiovascular system, adrenal system, and... more. 

• Many other hormones are also made from cholesterol, such as cortisol, the stress hormone, and aldosterone, which regulates mineral absorption.

• Cholesterol aids in the absorption of fat soluble vitamins K, D, E, and A. Your body can even make vitamin D out of cholesterol. It's kind of this everywhere fix-it guy.

• Your body uses cholesterol to make bile. Bile is a green, viscous liquid made in the liver, which aids in the digestion of fat.

• It also aids in the absorption of minerals.

• For all the women reading this, morning sickness has been linked to a cholesterol deficiency, because it is linked to hormonal imbalances, bile production, and mineral absorption. (Magnesium is a big culprit here. Magnesium can also make you smell better when you sweat. That's fodder for a different post, though.)

Where do you get it? Where can you get it? Where should you get it?

Your body makes cholesterol in your skin in the same sort of fashion as it make vitamin D. Your body can also make cholesterol out of carbohydrates, in a similar fashion it can manufacture saturated fats from carbohydrates. Caution friends, this is far from ideal. In the absence of sun, and dietary cholesterol (or saturated fats, as it were) your body will crave carbs so that it can manufacture these other building blocks. This adds an extra step, and we know that the over consumption of carbohydrates: 1. depletes our bodies of minerals, 2. injures our bodies on both a large and small scale.

It is also important to note, the cholesterol made by your skin when exposed to the sun is in a different form than dietary cholesterol, (it is sulfated, or attached to a sulfur atom) and serves different functions in the human body than the dietary form. Dietary cholesterol is also important, because your body doesn't make the sort you get from foods. Your body, when exposed to optimal amounts of sun, will make about 98% of your cholesterol! That is amazing, and also scary considering how much time we all spend inside, and all of the things we have heard about sparing our skin sun exposure...

Just to make this slightly more controversial, cholesterol lowering drugs inhibit the human body from making cholesterol. That's right folks. Even though there is this, and this we are still giving statin drugs to the aging... even though low cholesterol is linked to double the mortality rate than high cholesterol. It is also linked to depression, suicidal thoughts, and violent behaviors.

The best dietary sources for cholesterol are:

• Shrimp
• Lobster
• Eggs
• Liver
• Pork
• Beef
• Chicken, with the skin
• Cheese
• Full fat milk
• Cream
• Butter
• Human milk ("The cholesterol in human milk supplies an infant with close to six times the amount most adults consume from their food." -- Mary Enig PhD, and world renowned lipids expert.)

So basically, google "high cholesterol foods", and eat those. Provided they are real, whole foods. Avoid snack foods like tater chips.

Interesting articles to read on the subject. Warning: sometimes Masterjohn can be a little dry...

Dr. Natasha Campbell-Mcbride 

Dr. Chris Masterjohn (Read this especially if you fear I'm leading you down the path of heart disease.)

Dr. Uffe Ravnskov 

Dr. Mary Enig on breastmilk composition.

Duke University on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Cholesterol 

Also:

Wikipedia: Cholesterol (I know guys, Wikipedia. It actually does have some good information these days.)