Fresh pea soup

It's summer! What happened to May? I can't remember... something about a big exam...

It was raining and cold all last week in Albany, however: fresh pea soup seemed like the perfect compromise between summer expectations and a more chilling reality. This soup can be whipped up in about 15 minutes.

Fresh pea soup:

• 1-2 cups fresh or frozen sweet peas
• 1 small onion
• 1 tablespoon butter (this recipe calls for no cream, so use the butter)
• dash of olive oil
• chicken or miso broth (1 tablespoon miso paste dissolved in 1 cup boiling water)
• salt and pepper to taste

Chop the onion, melt the butter and olive oil in a small saucepan, and saute the onion on low heat for for several minutes until translucent, stirring occasionally. Add the peas (frozen right out of the bag is fine), stir, and saute for a few more minutes. Add about a cup of broth (just enough to cover the peas and onions), cover the pot with a lid, and leave it alone for a 5 minutes (I took a shower during this time). Cook just long enough for the peas to soften a bit so that the skins will puree more smoothly, but not so long that the peas turn that sickly yellow-green color. Turn off the heat and remove the lid to cool, then puree with an immersion blender and adjust seasonings. Serve hot or cold!

The soup will be this color! 

(Flowers at the summit of Sleeping Beauty mountain by Lake George, NY.)

Eating more fat (and protein)

Home over winter break, my parents picking up the tab, I found myself eating more protein. Instead of ordering soup out (usually the cheapest item on the menu), I'd order a salad with chicken or a fish sandwich. At home, we had protein every night: lots of fish, tofu, turkey, and bacon, duck, and lamb for the holidays. I felt more full at the end of each meal, and then noticed that I was snacking less throughout the day. My net intake seemed to be about the same.

As a med student, it's easy to develop a fear of fat, both in your food and on your body. (See Mulling on lipids from last April.) When I described my typical school diet to my mother, a family doc, she noted that it's strikingly low in fat--leaving me at risk for staying hungry throughout the day and eating more overall.* That rang true.

Since returning to school, I've made it my goal to eat more protein and to finish each meal feeling satisfied. It helps that my dad sent me back with two beautiful pieces of fish--tuna and swordfish steaks--which I cut into small pieces (about 3 oz) and served on top of noodle soup or with an Italian pasta dish. The nice thing about high fat fish? You can eat a small piece and feel full. The additional protein does not have to dominate.

Instead of a purely vegetarian split pea soup, this week I made split-pea soup seasoned with chicken sausages. Absolutely the easiest recipe I know. This comes from my dad but it is also the recipe on the Goya bag (sorry, dad!).

Split pea soup with sausage:

• 1-1.5 cups dried split peas
• 1 onion, sliced in half or chopped
• 1 carrot, sliced in half or chopped into large chunks (optional--makes the soup slightly sweeter)
• 1 chicken sausage, in large pieces
• tablespoon olive oil

On high heat, saute all of the ingredients in the olive oil. Add several inches of water and boil until the split peas are soft, adding more water as needed. Season with salt and pepper.

Food for tonight and the week: swordfish, tomato 

sauce, pasta pot, split pea soup with chicken sausage.

(*In terms of weight loss, low fat diets are no more effective than other diets, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. In terms of heart disease, low fat diets are more effective at lowering total and LDL cholesterol, while low-carb diets are more effective at lowering triglycerides and raising HDL cholesterol--both are important strategies.)

So this is med school

All year I have been able to get by without flashcards, without mnemonics (I think they're silly), with a more holistic, logical approach towards learning as well as lifestyle -- plenty of time to run, eat well, and socialize. Most of the time, anyway. But this week we are getting slammed with microbiology, and it's moving rapidly -- we're already onto immunology! Just two weeks to cover hundreds of species and an entirely new vocabulary. So, I wonder, is this what second year is going to be like? All signs suggest yes.

This new level of intensity means I have to be more focused, which, paradoxically, lends itself to more distinct study breaks, as opposed to a slow, dawdling style of studying. Dinner with friends is a way to retain some humanity in these daunting times. (Am I being overly dramatic? I'm just sensing a shift in the workload and trying to make sense of it.)

Spring risotto. Good food (and ramps) bring people together.

Servings for one person:

• 4 ramps or 1 small onion, chopped
• 1/4-1/2 cup peas or other spring vegetable (such as mushrooms or spinach)
• 1/4 lb Arborio or Japanese rice
• 1/2-1 tbsp butter
• ~1 tbsp olive oil
• dash of wine (optional)
• unsalted chicken broth (optional)
• 1/4 cup parmesan
• salt and pepper

On medium heat, melt butter and olive oil in a frying pan, then add the lower half of the ramps (the white and pink parts; or all of the onion). When translucent, add the rice and stir to coat. Add water or stock 1/4 cup at a time, as needed to keep the rice from sticking to the pan, stirring constantly. At some point, add a dash or two of wine. Cook until rice is fully cooked and creamy but still chewy. Just before finishing, stir in the green ramp leaves, the peas, and parmesan, and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle each serving with olive oil and a sprinkle of cheese before serving.

A green and fibrous feast

Theme of the day: antibiotic resistance. Do not over-prescribe antibiotics! But, wow, the main culprit is not physicians but farming practices. Pump cattle full of antibiotics and it will run off into the environment. Yet another reason to avoid beef.

Instead: finally got my hands on ramps! Perks to being out in the boonies. Found a large pile of them at the Troy farmers market for $3 a bunch (that's half a bunch pictured below), still available even as the market was closing up for the day. Added a couple to a quiche yesterday and thought they made a huge difference.

To take a page out of my dad's cookbook, tonight's dinner were those eagerly-anticipated ramps, combined with English peas and spaghetti, alongside artichokes. The star of the dinner ended up being those artichokes, cooked up by my friend Travis according to his mother's recipe. (At one point we were each on the phone with our parents, asking for cooking tips.) We ate them slowly, leaf by leaf, after the pasta as a sort of drawn-out summer dessert.

Artichokes steamed with garlic:

• 1 artichoke per person (available nearly year-round at Trader Joe's)
• 1 clove of garlic per artichoke
• olive oil, salt, and pepper

Slice the stems and tops off of the artichokes so that they resemble flowers. Slice up each clove of garlic and stuff slices in between the artichoke leaves. Place the artichokes upright in a large pot (with a lid) and fill the pot with 1-2" of water. Drizzle the artichokes with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place the lid on the pot, bring to a boil, then lower the heat and steam for 30-45 minutes until tender.

Pasta with ramps and peas (quantities for one person):

• 1/4 box of pasta
• 1/4-1/2 cup of peas or other spring vegetable
• 4 ramps
• ~1 tsp olive oil
• parmesan and black pepper

Slice the ramps, from roots to leaves. Heat olive oil in a frying pan, then add the ramps and peas. Cook for just one minute and turn off the heat. Toss with the almost-cooked pasta and serve with parmesan and black pepper.

Take that, gut flora!

Middlesex

Hormones are nuts. The adrenal glands resemble small clumps of fat on top of the each kidney. Yet they synthesize hormones that control metabolism and sexual characteristics: and what is more important than food and sex?

I just learned that if you have a defect along the pathway that makes cortisol (a 21-hydroxylase defect, to be exact), your body will go into overdrive to produce all the intermediates in the pathway on the way to cortisol. It's like if someone doesn't return your phone calls: you may call and call again until they call you back and you know they've received your message. While the missing end-product (cortisol) is one thing, excess of these intermediates can wreak havoc all over the body: in particular, the excess testosterone in females (especially fetuses) leads to male characteristics (such as male or ambiguous genitalia). Treating the mother with the end-product -- returning the phone call -- will signal to the fetus that everything is OK. The overdrive will recede, and a female baby will end up normal.

Last night I had a pasta primavera for dinner (makes two servings):

• 4 small zucchini or 1/2 large zucchini, cut into rounds
• 1/2 cup English peas
• 2 chopped scallions or other herbs (parsley, etc.)
• 3 sliced or chopped garlic cloves
• ~1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tbsp butter (optional)
• dash of white wine (optional)
• 1/2 box spaghetti
• parmesan
• hot chili flakes
• salt and pepper

The key to this, I think, is to barely cook the vegetables. To barely cook the pasta, even. As the pasta water boils, heat the oil and butter in a frying pan and add the garlic (and wine if you're using it). Cook at medium heat until fragrant; add the zucchini and herbs and cook for 1-2 minutes. Turn off the heat and wait for the pasta to finish. When the pasta can bend but before it's fully cooked, drain almost all of the water and pour the pasta plus some pasta water into the frying pan with the zucchini. Add the peas and cook at high heat until the water has evaporated and the pasta is done to your liking. Season with parmesan, chili flakes, salt and pepper.

Cooking for speed

Not every meal has to be elaborate. When I walk into the house hungry and stressed out, it's nice to have something that I can cook so fast it leaves me no time for snacking. After the lecture that I just sat through (see below), today was one of those days. For those of you with jobs that prevent you from coming home midday for lunch (school has its perks!), I think this would make a delicious weekend breakfast!

Too simple to be a recipe, consider this as more of an idea: English pea omelette (English peas are in season right now and it's nice to have them in everything). Heat and butter a frying pan, pour in a layer of uncooked fresh peas, beat 2 eggs together and pour them over the peas. Season with salt and pepper, and herbs or cheese if you like (I used about a tablespoon of leftover homemade buttermilk salad dressing). I can vouch for this being really good.

(Unfortunately the omelette collapsed. I think in my enthusiasm for spring I overdid the pea:egg ratio.)