Food Fridays: Vegetarian Cassoulet and Two Great Comments

I was tickled that Google referred a searcher to its French translation of my blog.

To appease the search engine gods, I offer a French-inspired recipe today. It is a recipe for vegetarian cassoulet, which I recently prepared:

Vegetarian cassoulet is a hearty meal and goes well with bread, and a little Parmesan cheese as topping.

I prepared the dish from a recipe at PCC Natural Markets:

http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/health/Recipe/Veg_Cassoulet.htm

It is pretty easy to make. You spend about 15 minutes cooking veggies and then sit back for 45 minutes as it bakes in the oven. That’s a great time to relax and open a bottle of wine or watch some TV.

The only part that might need clarification is the ingredient “herbes de Provence,” which I am guessing you might not have lying around. It’s a very savory mixture and I enjoy it a lot. But if you are not that picky, thyme is a pretty good substitute.

Bon Appetit!

Reader Comments

On an unrelated note, I’ve gotten some excellent reader comments. I love the attention, and I am also impressed at how smart you guys are. Thanks, and keep it up.

Here are two of my favorite comments related to food:

From Don Vaught on How Cereal Companies Lie to You

The usual explanation from industry folks (my mother-in-law worked in Quality Assurance for over 20 years at large bakery producers) is that the increased packaging is necessary to insure safe delivery of the product. Completely full bags, while environmentally best in a perfect world, end up making for lots of crushed product. Crushed product leads to upset customers who choose against the brand. The only real idea used as to how to protect the product is to have air in the bag to protect against shocks. They can’t control where the product goes inside the air although it usually ends up smooshed in the bottom due to this newfangled gravity, so they just add an amount of air to try to offset the volume, hence the more than linear increase in the empty space. Emptiness is saddening, especially in the midst of an existential crisis, and maybe it is partially due to companies manipulating our hujumbo buying impulses, but it also makes for products that look like they should. The best engineer’s answer: new fractal boxes. The best economist’s answer: just keep coming back to me on that. The best accountant’s answer: what do you want to hear?

From Joon on Food Fridays: Eating Well While on the Clock:

It also helps to have a fast metabolism. Some people would not be able to sustain that lifestyle without working out.

@RohoMech: The more important thing is the fact that you recognize what goes into salads. Just because it’s a salad, doesn’t mean it’s going to be low in calories. If you get a maxed out salad from a restaurant you’ll end up getting a lot of carbs that will make you hungrier later. You might actually be better off getting a burger with a similar amount of calories, but a larger amount of fat and protein leaving you sustained longer.

I personally think it all comes down to your calorie intake. Ultimately, if you consume significantly more than you burn, you’re gonna get fat.