The Whole Wheat

Due to popular demand (or the one comment I got about it!), here is the basic recipe I used to make the Shepherd’s Pie the other night. I used this recipe on Epicurious as my base.

Ingredients:

• left over leg of lamb cut into pieces (you could use meat cooked for the dish or leftovers – very versatile!)
• 3 russet potatoes
• fresh herbs (rosemary)
• 4-5 carrots
• 1/2c. peas
• 1.5 lbs spinach, kale, etc.
• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 1-2T butter
• 2T flour
• 1c + 2T milk (+extra for potatoes) – warmed
• 2T parmesan cheese
• pinch nutmeg

Prepare Potatoes & boil carrots:

• pierce potatoes and bake in lower third of oven for 45-50 minutes @ 450 degrees. (Bake the potatoes so they will be stiffer than steamed/boiled) Cool 10 minutes then scoop out flesh and put thru a ricer. Stir in milk, salt, pepper, etc. to taste.
• Cook carrots in boiling water ~ 10 minutes. Add peas for last 2-3 minutes. Rinse with cold water to stop cooking.

Make Creamed Kale (or spinach, etc.):

• Cook greens in 1″ boiling salted water until wilted, 1-2 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water. Squeeze to remove water then coarsely chop.
• Cook onion in butter over medium heat stirring until softened, ~4 min. Whisk in flour and cook, stirring, ~ 2 min. Add warm milk and simmer, whisking, 3-4min. Whisk in parmesan, salt, pepper, & nutmeg to taste. Add spinach and cook until heated thru.

Put pie together & bake:

• In a deep pie dish spread meat on bottom evenly.
• Sprinkle carrots and peas over meat.
• Cover with creamed greens.
• Top with potatoes and smooth top with spoon. Brush/drizzle with butter if desired.

Bake ~1 hour @ 350 degress.

Note: I added the juices that were saved with the leftover lamb. Other than that I only used the creamed kale for liquid. This was enough and the taste was great.

This is an excellent article printed in the Wall Street Journal originally.

How to decipher food label information

PROBLEM: Making sure your family is eating the right foods.

SOLUTION: Decipher food labels by knowing the code words for high fat or sugar content.

Calories and fat grams are easy to follow on food labels, but other details can be misleading.

Here’s the must-know information:

• Words that are tip-offs to sugary content. High-fructose corn syrup is a sweetener extracted from corn that is equivalent to sugar. Likewise, any ingredient that ends with “-ose” (such as fructose, sucrose, or dextrose) is a sweetener. The higher it appears on the label, the more you’ll find inside.

• Watch the total grams of sugar per serving. Four grams of sugar equals one teaspoon (most 12-ounce cans of soda contain nine to 10 teaspoons). Products that are labeled as meeting 100 percent of the USDA Recommended Daily Allowance for vitamins and minerals (such as fortified cereals) might not be all that nutritious if their sugar content is high.

• Food makers will sometimes try to make their fat and sugar contents appear smaller by using unrealistic serving sizes (such as claiming a vending-machine-size bag of chips is actually two servings).

Source: TheState.com, http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/business/16430028.htm