Comments on: V-day: Sugar? Yes. Dairy? Not necessarily.

By: Discovering why “healthy” and “Valentine’s Day treat” don’t always coincide.

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 01:39:46 +0000

[...] So I’m realizing that it’s pretty hard to ignore Valentine’s Day when you have three small children. And I’m ok with this — if there is one relationship in which I can swoon with sticky sentimentality, it’s the one with my children (Tim and I are thankfully on the same page in this). When it comes to my little ones, I can be found cutting out construction-paper hearts at 10 o’clock on a Sunday night so that they can find them in their breakfast seats first thing in the morning. I will wear my one red item of clothing — a jealousy-inducing vintage wool cardigan found at a thrift store by my friend Emily (a woman who walks into thrift stores and little treasures start sending out homing signals, beckoning her to take them home for a fraction of their actual worth) to my 4-year old’s preschool party. And of course, I will make them something special, something sweet, something overtly heart-shaped and/or covered in pink sugar. [...]

By: Jen

Jen — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 01:57:12 +0000

Not so much roasting a chicken–I like butter for that–but high heat roasting like veggies in the oven…or wok cooking. Savory cooking where I don’t care as much for the coconut taste or even more, feel like the oil is gonna burn up and hate to waste the pricey stuff. I’ve never thought to use butter for roasted veggies (is that dumb of me?), but I have used olive oil in the past and want to get away from that b/c of it’s lower smoking point than other oils like coconut and red palm.

Red palm is the same as the spectrum shortening, just in the virgin form. But with the minimal processing also comes with flavor and color… It’s in the same family of tropical, highly stable, cooking oils. I just hope the taste isn’t too off-putting!

I sure did feel like our beets for lunch the other day stained EVERYTHING that passed them with a bright fuchsia! Glad to hear they work for food coloring…I’ll have to try that soon. Red dye weirds me out

By: katy

katy — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:05:38 +0000

Spring? It’s not even March! C’mon, Mel — embrace the snow!
Wish I was there, too — I’d surely eat a Pillsbury cookie ; )

By: Melissa

Melissa — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:46:51 +0000

They are pretty cookies. I am about to bake Pillsbury’s Simply Chocolate Chip Cookies. That is as healthy a sweet as I am getting today. Wish you were here, we could share.

BTW-It’s currently snowing outside. When will spring come?

By: katy

katy — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:24:04 +0000

Jen, are you opposed to butter for roasting? Do you mean roasting a chicken?

I’ve never used palm oil (is red palm different than what’s in Spectrum shortening?) for anything other than baking. But I’m no purist — I still used olive oil, and also sunflower (for things such as nut butters). I don’t like it when everything tastes like coconut — and maybe I’m hyper-sensitive to it, but I can taste it in everything. It’s not so bad in some recipes — such as soaked granola — and I use it a lot for the kids (they don’t mind it) but I don’t want to eat an egg fried in coconut oil. Or a chicken roasted in it.

BTW — I used the beet juice again today to color more icing, and it was less orange — not sure what made the color change after a couple days in the fridge. It was still an earthy pink, but one I wouldn’t mind using as-is.

By: Jen

Jen — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:07:22 +0000

Question for you:

I use coconut oil (virgin, centrifuged) for most cooking and pretty much all baking, but hate to roast with it b/c I feel like it’s wasting the oil–esp if not all the oil will be used up. So I just ordered some red palm oil. Have you ever used this? I’ve heard the taste can be strong–but I may not mind that in savory dishes?

Love the beet juice for food coloring (tho more of an autumn coloring agent apparently)! I’m pickling some beets right now and the jar is so beautiful on my counter each day…