Authors: Jr. Ed Begley
Living Like Ed (31 page)
And it does work. In the morning he’ll put some water in it with some potatoes and vegetables, and by the afternoon, it’s soup or stew. He makes all sorts of dishes with it. I think he likes the novelty of it.
I especially like the fact that it’s essentially free food. He mostly uses stuff we’ve grown on-site, and we’re using the free power from the sun to cook it. So that part’s good, even if I do have to watch my step in the garden. Besides, the stuff Ed makes actually tastes good, so I guess I shouldn’t complain. At least he doesn’t make me do the cooking!
Ed’s Cooking Hierarchy
Just as I do for modes of transportation, I have a preference ranking for cooking methods. Raw foods, like salads and many other wonderful fruit and vegetable dishes, don’t require any energy other than what is used to bring the water for rinsing and cleanup, but other dishes do require cooking, and that generally requires energy.
Obviously, when I can, I cook in my solar ovens as much as possible. That would be my first choice.
After that comes electric. There are quite a few things I can cook with electricity, especially if you use the word
cook
to mean making a hot beverage like a cup of coffee or tea, because that’s made in my electric teakettle.
The last line of defense for me is the precious resource known as natural gas. Natural gas burns pretty clean, and I have a natural gas stove and a natural gas oven, as most people do, so I cook that way when I have to. What I don’t do is burn wood or charcoal or propane in a barbecue grill. Wood and charcoal burn very dirty. Natural gas burns cleaner, but it does not even come close to being 100 percent clean, like a solar oven. So the choice to barbecue doesn’t exist in my cooking hierarchy.
Ed’s Favorite Recipes
After seeing a
Living with Ed
episode where I cooked in my solar oven, many people wrote to request the recipes for the dishes I prepared. I’ve included those recipes here, along with a few more of my favorites.
Ed’s Lentil Soup
4 cups water
1 cup lentils
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, chopped
10 broccoli florets
1 teaspoon chopped ginger
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
½ teaspoon chopped serrano or jalapeño pepper, with seeds
1 teaspoon salt
Either on a conventional stove or in a solar oven, in a large pot, bring the water to a boil. Add the lentils, onion, carrot, broccoli, ginger, garlic, and hot pepper. Stir, return to a boil, and cook over medium heat for 45 minutes, or until the lentils become soft.
Stir in 1 teaspoon of salt, and serve. Enjoy!
SERVES 4
Ed’s Vegan Birthday Brownies
¼ cup vegetable oil, plus more for pan
8 ounces soft to medium tofu
1 cup raw sugar or honey
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
¼ cup cocoa or carob powder
1
1
/
3
cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3
/
4
cup chopped pecans
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly oil an 8 × 8-inch cake pan.
In a blender or food processor, blend the tofu, sugar or honey, vanilla, oil, and cocoa powder until smooth and creamy.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder. Add the pecans and tofu mixture to the flour and mix together gently until just combined. If the batter is too dry, add a splash of water.
Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Test with a knife to see if it’s done; it should come out clean with just a few moist crumbs when inserted in the middle.
Cool in the pan for 5 minutes before cutting into squares.
MAKES 6 LARGE BROWNIES
Ed’s Spicy Thai Basil Eggplant
1-pound eggplant
2 tablespoons brown rice vinegar
½ tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 serrano chile pepper, minced, with seeds
3 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons chopped Thai basil
2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted
Preheat the oven to 425°F.
Slash the eggplant in several places so it won’t explode and place it on a baking sheet. Bake for 30 minutes, or until soft when pressed. Remove from the oven and let the eggplant cool for 15 minutes.
When the eggplant is cool enough to handle, peel off the skin and chop the flesh into sugar cube-size pieces.
While the eggplant is cooking and cooling, in a small bowl, mix together the vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, and chile peppers.
Heat a wok over high heat and add the oil. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add the eggplant to the hot oil and cook for 2 minutes, then add the vinegar mixture and cook for 1 minute longer.
Remove from the heat, stir in the basil, and top with the sesame seeds before serving.
SERVES 6
Ed’s Olives
You need to cure at least a quart or two to make it worth your while.
Fresh (uncured) olives Rock salt Olive oil Vinegar or fresh lemon juice Garlic (optional) Herbs, such as thyme, rosemary, oregano (optional)
Wash the olives well, remove the stems, and soak them in a jar of water for 3 days, changing the water every day.
When they have soaked for 3 days, drain the olives. Return them to the jar, adding a layer of 4 tablespoons of rock salt after every 3 cups of olives. Cover the jar with a lid and shake gently to mix the salt and olives.
Turn and shake the jar every day, draining off any excess liquid. After 8 or 10 days, taste the olives to see if they’re still bitter. If they’re not, they’re done. At that point rinse the olives and set them aside.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the olives and boil them for 5 minutes, then drain.
Put the cooked olives in a jar with a few spoonfuls of olive oil and a sprinkle of lemon juice. You can add slices of garlic or herbs to suit your taste. The olives should be stored in a refrigerator and turned or shaken once a week.
And One from Rachelle
I’m not much of a cook. That’s more Ed’s department. But when I do feel the need to create in the kitchen, I have one dish that’s always a crowd-pleaser. I bake salmon in aluminum foil with some lemon juice and spices. It’s a poached salmon, and it’s really moist. Everyone—including me—loves it and thinks it’s delicious. And even better, it’s supereasy.
Rachelle’s Poached Salmon
I’m a person of excess, so the more garlic, the more pepper, the more everything, the better. And then, occasionally, for an Asian variation, I’ll skip the dill and instead use ginger and scallions and garlic to season the salmon.
1 pound (about 4) salmon fillets
2 lemons
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
1 garlic clove, minced
Salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Tear a piece of aluminum foil that’s at least twice as large as your salmon fillets. Place the fillets in the center of the foil and fold up the edges of the foil around the fish, creating a basin.
Squeeze the lemons over the fish and distribute the dill and garlic more or less evenly over the fillets. Season with salt and pepper.
Bring the edges of the foil together over the fish fillets and fold the edges over several times to seal. Place the packet in a deep pan and bake in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes. When the salmon starts to flake, it’s done!
SERVES 4
Being an actress in L.A.—just being in L.A.—there’s a lot of pressure to look perfect, to be thin and stay young and beautiful forever. It’s a struggle. The makeup, the skin-care regimens, the Botox—if there’s some serum out there that will make me look ten years younger but will kill me ten years faster, I might have to get back to you on that. My rational mind would say it’s crazy, but my L.A. mind . . .
Even with all that pressure and the many temptations, I don’t diet. In fact, I eat almost everything. Instead of adhering to strict rules, I exercise and eat a balanced mix of foods including lots of whole grains, lean protein, fruits, and vegetables.
In my opinion, the best way to maintain a healthy weight is to control the size of the portions you eat and to be aware of your calorie intake. As long as you burn as many calories as you eat, you can stay fit and healthy.
Eat Well, Live Well
It’s so obvious that you’re going to feel better eating the freshest, most healthfully prepared organic food that’s available to you. And there’s nothing better than that sense of satisfaction that comes from eating food you’ve grown yourself.
It also feels wonderful to get to know your local farmers—whether at a farm stand or at a farmers’ market—and to support their organic practices and support their local businesses.
You can do so much good for yourself and your community in that way. And you can do so much good for the world as a whole by growing trees and other plants, by cutting down on the distance food has to travel to your table, and by reducing the use of chemical poisons.
When you do buy things from a greater distance—especially from an underdeveloped country—you can choose to buy things that are fair trade.
You can also make much the same choices when it comes to clothing and hair- and skin-care products. You can choose to buy organic and buy local and buy fair trade. And you can choose to stay away from harmful chemicals and to be kind to your body and the environment.
The average distance that food travels from field—or ocean or orchard—to table is about 1,300 miles. That’s the
average
distance.
According to the EPA, gasoline-powered lawn and garden equipment, on average, produces 5 percent of the ozone-forming VOCs in areas with smog problems.
The oxides of nitrogen and sulfur dioxide released by lawn equipment react with water in the atmosphere to form acid rain.
It’s much easier—and much more environmentally friendly—to choose plants that are native to your area or that are native to an area like it.
Choosing the right plants for your garden is good for your pocketbook, too; by planting varieties that don’t need a lot of watering, you will be keeping your monthly water bill lower.
If you have 600 square feet of rooftop, nearly 375 gallons of rainwater would hit your roof for each inch of rainfall, enough to fill close to seven 55-gallon rain barrels.
There are an estimated eighteen thousand community gardens throughout the United States and Canada.
Healthy trees—and other plants—absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, so they’re literally cleaning the air we breathe. They also filter water, prevent soil erosion, help retain groundwater, and provide homes for wildlife.
A typical lawn mower can be as loud as 95 to 100 decibels, and a gas-powered leaf blower can register 95 to 105 decibels. When it comes to composting, brown materials are high in carbon, while green materials are high in nitrogen. For the best compost, maintain a ratio of 50/50 brown to green material. In 1980,
the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) defined organic farming as a system that excludes the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and growth regulators.
Organic agriculture is better for the soil and the ecosystem in which the crops and the livestock are raised.
The market for organic products worldwide is now valued at $28 billion.
There are more than 4,300 farmers’ markets held regularly in cities all across the United States.
It’s more land efficient, water efficient, and energy efficient to grow plant-based materials than to raise animals for meat; it simply takes a lot more land and water and energy to raise a pound of beef than it does to grow a pound of broccoli or a pound of grain.
A solar oven harnesses the sun’s energy. So there’s no additional energy required for cooking. Cooking in it is free, and eco-friendly.
