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| Memo
No. 2023 September 17th, 2007 |
WARNING
Downing your daily drug dose with certain beverages may undermine the medication's effectiveness or increase the risk of side effects. For example, alcohol interacts with many drugs. Even healthful drinks, such as milk and cranberry juice, can pose risks. Be sure to discuss interaction problems with your pharmacist. Sometimes restrictions are listed on the prescription container.
Source: Consumer Reports on Health, September 2007.
COTTAGE CHEESE AS A SOURCE OF CALICUM
If you are trying to get more calcium, don't count on cottage cheese. It usually retains only 25 to 50 percent of the calcium from the milk it is made from, though a few brands are fortified with added calcium. A cup typically has 120 to 200 milligrams of calcium, a cup of milk has 300 milligrams; a cup of plain yogurt, about 400 milligrams. Still, low-fat or nonfat cottage cheese is a rich source of protein and is one of the few cheeses truly low in fat.
Source: University of California, Berkeley Wellness Letter, September 2007.
DON'T SKIP BREAKFAST
If you skip breakfast because you are trying to lose weight, it's time to rethink your strategy. Research has shown that breakfast is an integral part of the diets of people who have successfully shed pounds and kept them off. According to a cross-sectional study of almost 3,000 subjects in the National Weight Control Registry who had maintained a weight loss of 30 pounds or more for at least one year, 78 percent reported that they ate breakfast every day. "Breakfast is the wrong spot to cut calories," says Louis Aronne, MD, director of New York-Presbyterian Hospital's Comprehensive Weight Control program and clinical professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. "What winds up happening is that your lunch becomes your breakfast, your dinner your lunch, and then you eat at bedtime. When you go to bed to sleep, the calories have no place to go, so they are stored as fat. And you're not hungry the next morning because you're still absorbing calories from the night before."
Source: Cornell University Food & Fitness Advisor, September 2007.
I JUST CAN'T HELP MYSELF
Yesterday I cut pies at our annual church festival, a job I've had for several years. The next day I always feel an urge to talk about pie making including the good, the bad and the ugly. Although other desserts were served, people do love pie. Many people make their own and others donate a pie from Chief and other stores that remain anonymous. I may care that they are not HOMEmade, but it doesn't seem to matter to a lot of people who chose "store-bought." I wish I knew the name of the woman who donated two gorgeous lemon meringue pies. The meringue had to be 2-inches high and beautifully browned. There were no beads of moisture on top nor had it shrunken away from the crust. I wasn't the only one impressed because a person who ate a piece also wanted to know who had baked it. It was grand champion quality! Which brings up another point: Always donate the best you can bake for occasions like this!
Some of the young girls and older ladies, too, remarked to me that they hadn't mastered making a good crust. To them I say buy a Pillsbury refrigerated one in the dairy department. It's a better-than-average crust and I'm a credible judge because I do make good pie crust (practice does make perfect when you've been at it for almost 56 years).
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Another mistake bakers make is baking fruit pies in foil pans. Foil reflects heat and in order to get the bottom crust done, the top gets overcooked or burned. Under-baked, the crust will be doughy and we had a few of those Sunday. Personally, I prefer glass for all pies. I make fruit ones in 8-inch glass pie plates and guard them (the pie plates) with my life because this size is no longer available. Sad but true, you know you're getting older when things in your cupboard have reached the collector category!
AN APPLE A DAY KEEPS EVERYONE HAPPY!
I bake desserts according to the season and certainly this month apples are my first choice. When I'm working at Chief I cannot tell you how many customers ask me what apple I use for various purposes. My apple-of- choice is the Golden Delicious because it's an all-purpose apple and so is the Gala.
Although apples are available year-round, to me they are their crunchy best at harvest time in the fall. Pennington is Chief and Ray's supplier of area grown apples and a wide variety are now available from them. As I've said many times, the nearer my food is grown to me the better I like it, so you'll find Pennington apples from Wauseon in my grocery cart while their supply lasts.
Martha Stewart's September 2007 issue of Everyday Food includes a recipe for Apple-Cinnamon Upside-Down Cake. I couldn't wait to try it. Once again, I urge you to pick up the Everyday Food magazine available at Chief or Ray's.
APPLE-CINNAMON UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE
- 1 stick plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature, divided
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 3 Gala apples (about 1 1/2 pounds) each peeled and sliced into 8 wedges
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup whole milk
Preheat oven to 350F. Coat bottom and side of 9-inch cake pan with 2 tablespoons butter; sprinkle bottom with brown sugar. In medium bowl toss apples with fresh lemon juice; arrange in prepared pan in two concentric circles (you may not use all the slices). Meantime, in an electric mixer, beat remaining 1/2 cup butter with granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat until incorporated. With mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture in three parts and the milk in two, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Spoon batter over apples; smooth top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45 to 55 minutes. Cool cake in pan on wire rack for 30 minutes. Invert cake onto rimmed platter. Recipe makes 8 servings.
Source: Everyday Food, September 2007. |
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