Pasta with Butter and Sage

[cjsmith]

To my bemusement, every so often wine randomly appears with my name on it. This shipment's frou-frou newsletter included a recipe for something I have eaten three times in my life, all of them in Italy, all of them with extreme gastronomic bliss.

Naturally I misread the recipe. But such is the power of the scrumptiousness of sage that what I actually did came out very well anyway.

Here I present CJ's Misreading of Sterling Vineyards' Version of Pasta with Butter and Sage.




Pasta for 6 people
1/2 cup butter
2 tablespoons fresh sage leaves
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
ground black pepper

I used a pound of pasta, and I think it might have been too much for the amount of sauce I got.

I used unsalted baking butter, and there's no point; this recipe wants a touch of salt anyway.

I couldn't fit a sage leaf in a tablespoon so I took a wild guess.

The original recipe did not call for powders of any kind. Oops. It didn't even call for onion; it wanted shallots. I don't know how my brain made that leap. Well, this is the CJ Rendition.

Slice or mince the sage.



Are you supposed to use the stems too? I cut those off before mincing the leaves. Man did the kitchen start to smell good at this point.


Melt butter over medium heat, and when it is bubbling, add the sage, garlic, and onion powders. Remove from heat and keep warm for at least five minutes to infuse with the savory flavors.




Make pasta according to instructions; drain. In a bowl, toss with the sage butter and most of the grated cheese.




Transfer to individual plates and sprinkle with freshly ground pepper and the rest of the cheese.



Unlike the version I first had in a lovely restaurant in Florence, this one really does seem to want the cheese and the pepper. Fresh garlic and shallots might help, but probably still won't duplicate that version. That's fine though. I ate two helpings as it is.

I suggest insalata caprese with it.


Verdict: OM NOM NOM NOM

Comments

[lkeele.livejournal.com]

Well, first of all, your body needs calories to function. It's only the over-consumption of calories relative to your activity level that leads to weight gain, health problems, etc. Calories only come from three sources -- carbs, protein, and fat. Fat and protein need to be limited, especially the first one -- that leaves carbs. (Ok, I lied, calories are also found in alcohol, but that speaks for itself, doesn't it?). So, the majority of your calories should come from carbs. The USDA recommends about 45% of your calories from carbs, LESS THAN 30% of your calories from fat, and the rest from protein. (Making carbs not the strict majority, but the larger percentage). The RDA for women our age for grains is 6 oz a day (where a slice of bread or 1/2 cup of cooked grain counts as roughly an ounce), and that's if we exercise 30 or *fewer* minutes a day.

Secondly, the calories *in* veggies and fruit actually *come* from carbohydrates. In fruit, it's fructose, in veggies, it's a starch similar to the carbs in wheat. In both cases, there are also tons of vitamins, etc., and of course fiber if you eat fresh fruit and veg, but it's not as simple as fruit and veg being vitamin loaded calories -- they're vitamins and fiber and water and carbs.

And thirdly, most complex carbohydrates also provide vitamins. Wheat is a complex carb, so is rice, so is potato. The ones you want to avoid are simple sugars -- candy, corn syrup, soda pop -- those are truly empty calories, but not because they're carbs, but because they're so refined they've strained everything BUT the simple sugars out of it.

Of course, in all carbohydrates (and in all food, for that matter), the less refined & processed the better -- so wheat bread is better than white, simply because the wheat is less refined, and whole wheat pasta is better than white for the same reason, but wheat itself is *good* for you. It's a natural source of low fat protein and of fiber, and carbs in general are the best source for many of your B vitamins, and a great source for C and E and iron and lots of those trace minerals. Of course, many of these vitamins are stripped in the refining process, which is *why* whole grains are better than refined ones, but the refined grains (white bread, white pasta) are usually enriched -- they've had precisely these vitamins added back. (Except fiber).

I usually eat my white flour products *with* veggies -- tomatoes and lettuce and onion and sometimes cucumber on sandwiches, veggies and often beans in my pasta sauces -- which makes a tasty vehicle for my veggies, adds vitamins, and adds nice fiber to the whole thing.

In fact, the main problem with carbs is not the carb itself, it's the fat we tend to serve with it. Cheese and oil on pasta or pizza. Butter and sour cream on baked potatoes. Butter or margerine (I hate fake butters) on bread.

My grand conclusion is that carbohydrates are an essential part of any nutritious diet. If you don't eat carbs *at all*, you're getting too much fat and protein, or you're not getting any calories at all, both of which are dangerous. Unrefined grains are better for you than refined ones, but enriched refined complex carbs (like white flour) are just fine if you remember to look after your fiber. Eat pasta. Eat baguettes. Enjoy. :-D

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Well, obviously I wasn't suggesting no carbs of any kind at all. But I'd rather have the ones that come along with vitamins, fiber, bla bla bla, than processed white flour ones. Vegetables rather than that baguette.

I don't believe for one minute in US RDAs. If I record my intake for a week I'm nothing like that mythical person who should be eating two THOUSAND calories EVERY DAY. Heck, I wasn't like that person when I could run three miles in the morning! I also get severe blood sugar crashes when I eat too much bread or pasta. In short, all the research in the world won't tell me the US government's recommended diet is even remotely good for me.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

...and if they're that wrong about a few things, I'm cynical enough to quit listening about a lot. For example, any group that doesn't even look at, say, glycemic load, is someone I BETTER NOT listen to about food. *shudder*

Side question, 'cause I'm curious. What is it about carbs that makes it such a hot-button issue for so many people? When I mention I want less refined empty crap, what would make anyone in the world assume I want zero carbs at all in my diet? That sort of leap wouldn't happen if it weren't a major hot-button issue, with lots of previous conversations coming to people's minds.

I should be clear that I'm not trying to single you out; I'm wondering why I see this in lots of people. I saw a woman once get red in the face with veins prominent on her forehead because I didn't have a sandwich for lunch (and she did) and she started not only assuming I was a "crazy" Atkins person but she thought Atkins people tried to have zero carbs (obviously she's never read a thing about that diet). I mentioned in LJ a few years ago that I wanted to reduce my carb intake and increase my protein intake, and somebody then thought I meant carbs zero and protein something like eighty, too. No, I meant bringing the protein up by maybe ten percent. Where are people GETTING this? And why do they have so much emotionally invested in telling me why I am VERY VERY WRONG? If it weren't so widespread I'd feel my intelligence was insulted, but clearly it is not about me, not at all.

[lkeele.livejournal.com]

Mind you, I wasn't suggesting for a minute that YOU were trying to get rid of all carbs in your diet. I was only using that as an extreme example to show that *some* carbs are in fact healthy, and that's what I meant by "building block of nutrition" -- carbs should be a large part of your calories. But do eat your veggies!

I've had "crazy Atkins people" personally attack me (verbally) for suggesting carbs can be healthy. It's one of those stupid, needless hot button issue wars I somehow got involved in. It was tough, teaching a healthy cooking class right when Atkins was the most popular fad diet. Thus, I'm stupidly sensitive. That, and as I've admited, I'm a total carb addict. :)

Also, just to be clear, I was responding *specifically* to your statement that carbs are 'calories without vitamins', as that's a common misconception of carbohydrates. Some are, of course, but it has a lot to do with how refined your food is. I'm a big fan of low levels of refining and processing in food in general, as every time we mess with mother nature, we lose something.

And I wholeheartedly support you trying to back away from refined carbs and eat more protein. That most definitely should help your blood sugar swings. I personally find that the ratio of protein to fast-acting sugars at any particular meal changes my susceptability to low blood sugar. So, if I have a breakfast of plain yogurt, that I've sweetened myself and added flavoring and a few sunflower seeds, I'm good until lunch, no problem. If, on the other hand, I eat a "yogurt" out of a carton, pre mixed, pre-sweetened, stablilized and 'fruit-flavored', even with the sunflower seeds, I'm low two hours later. Same amount of protein, but MORE processed sugars. Bleh.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Mind you, I wasn't suggesting for a minute that YOU were trying to get rid of all carbs in your diet.

Oh, OK - I get it now! Yeah, I don't think very many people would seriously advocate removing them all, and now I see what you meant by saying carbs in general are a building block. I thought you meant the very processed stuff like white-flour pasta was a bastion of wonderful health, and I was going buh, buh, ...? :-)

(I do get that enriched flour has had some vitamins added back in. Somehow I doubt it's absolutely everything that gets lost, but then, my real thought there is about the fiber content anyway. I will spare you the description of why, as I'm sure you can guess. It's related to a side effect of The Medicine I Will Not Name and boy am I glad I'm off that.)

I should be more cautious when I say "carbs are" whatever; I've gotten very loosey-goosey about my verbiage. A good reminder for me, there.

I've had "crazy Atkins people" personally attack me (verbally) for suggesting carbs can be healthy.

That's just weird, because Atkins done right ("right" according to a friend of mine who's been on it for a while AND is feeling very healthy AND also has a brain to look at stuff like nutrition intelligently) has a metric buttload of veggies. My understanding is that you just don't get zero carbs if you're eating like that. Oh well. There's all kinds and flavors of crazy out there.

And I wholeheartedly support you trying to back away from refined carbs and eat more protein. That most definitely should help your blood sugar swings.

Sure did. I'm probably overly proteinated these days, as I'm no longer going to the gym and doing weights and ramping up a huge cardio program like I was when I first made that adjustment. Man, there's nothing like eating a little protein when you're pumping iron, though. Wow.

Most pre-fruit-flavored-and-sweetened yogurt is almost a little scary. Some days I wonder if it isn't just as good to have some ice cream!

[lkeele.livejournal.com]

I do get that enriched flour has had some vitamins added back in. Somehow I doubt it's absolutely everything that gets lost

Ok, here's a question for a biochemist. They say that naturally occurring vitamins are absorbed better into your body than vitamin supplement pills, right? So isn't enriched and fortified food essentially vitamin supplements, only crushed and added to the tasty things, as though you were a cat who needed your meds mixed with tuna? That is, wouldn't these vitamins food was enriched with act just like the supplement pills and not absorb as well? Not that there's anything wrong with taking vitamin supplements, mind you, but it ain't the same as eating vitamin-rich food. Or am I wrong about that?

It's related to a side effect of The Medicine I Will Not Name

Ick, ick, ick. I'm very glad you're off of it too. (This was a long-lasting side effect of my dead thyroid, too. I'm only now weaning the prunes out of my diet. Sorry, that was probably too much information.)

My understanding is that you just don't get zero carbs if you're eating like that.

I think you have to keep in mind that people who are looking for fad diets don't *want* to read the research and do the program right, they want a quick fix. They read some of the book, get into their head that Carbs Are The Devil, and avoid them like they were actually fat cells rushing to attach to people's thighs. And I'm talking about otherwise intelligent people, too. I've actually seen people use phrases like "Evil carbs" while they carefully pulled the mayo-covered roast beef and processed cheese out of their sandwich and eat that, leaving the seven grain bread behind. No exaggeration.

Most pre-fruit-flavored-and-sweetened yogurt is almost a little scary.

More than a little scary. Tastes like plastic. Any time food tastes like plastic, it literally frightens me. I imagine masked men in lab coats experimenting on yogurt-like substances until they get the consistency levels the statistics of the focus groups determined was best... At least, with a good reliable brand of ice cream, you know what's in it without having to study chemistry first.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh dang it, I just got rebooted and I lost a wonderfully erudite and well-thought out comment. Grump! Well, you'll have to make do with this one instead. :-)

So isn't enriched and fortified food essentially vitamin supplements, only crushed and added to the tasty things, as though you were a cat who needed your meds mixed with tuna?

Either that or it's more like eating vitamin-rich food, because the vitamins arrive alongside key partner nutrients and some energy! I don't know.

Sorry, that was probably too much information.

Nah, it was exactly the right amount to convey the idea. *sigh* Man I hate that sort of thing. I only wish I'd read up on the side effects BEFORE starting the med rather than a couple weeks AFTER. The doc waved his hand and said "oh, no side effects to speak of" and like a fool I believed him. But um, at risk of oversharing again, some things are easier to prevent or to head off than to fix once they've started! I won't make that mistake again. Always do the reading.

I think you have to keep in mind that people who are looking for fad diets don't *want* to read the research and do the program right, they want a quick fix.

*nod* Yeah, most of 'em. I've also seen some intelligent and thoughtful adoptions of things that happen to be fads, too.

I should go dig up the independent study somebody did when Atkins was so big. It hurts my brain. See, I believe firmly in calorie math. It's physics, right? The energy I consume minus what I burn minus what I eliminate is what stays on me, right? No matter what special little snowflake metabolism I have, no matter whether those calories come from string beans or steak, I don't magically produce extra kcals of energy from nowhere, right? Yet when the carb-protein-fat mix got tweaked (and I wish I remember by how much), without changing the total intake or the vitamin combos or the exercise program, the lower-carb test group lost more weight (with some statistical significance) than the control group did. I do not grok! A good scientist, of course, doesn't ignore results he doesn't like; a good scientist goes to figure out why. I hope somebody does. I can imagine several things that might be going on, there, but I'd love to know, and it sure isn't my field.

[lkeele.livejournal.com]

CJ, you're always erudite and everything you say is well thought out. Sorry you lost your comment, though, I know how frustrating that can be!

"oh, no side effects to speak of"
See, that's another one of my hot-button issues. Doctors who can't communicate. Grrr.... The side effects you have been referring to are NOT trivial! They probably won't kill you, but they sure don't make life a lot of fun. Don't get me started.

Didn't mean to slam all people who follow fads. I happen to be rather fond of some of them -- I adore the Harry Potter books, for example, and think they're entertaining, and their over-all quality is rather independent from whether or not they're a 'fad'. Diets are the same -- some actually work, and some work for some people and not others. It really depends on the thought put into it by the individual and/or that individual's doctor.

Yeah, I believe in the calorie calculus -- it makes good sense to me. I'd like to revisit those studies, now that there has been time to process the data, do long-term follow-up, etc. That's the problem with following fads -- it's *hard* to do it correctly, even if the so-called fad has good science behind it, because really good science takes a long time to thoroughly explore and prove and balance with other known factors. I know higher protein to carb ratios can help stabilize blood sugars, AND protein and fiber can help slow down the metabolism of food to make you feel full longer, but if you're eating AND using up the same amount of calories, it shouldn't effect your weight one bit. So, essentially, WTF??? I need to take some chemistry and physiology classes to support my burgeoning interest in nutrition issues.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

The side effects you have been referring to are NOT trivial! They probably won't kill you, but they sure don't make life a lot of fun.

Yeah, and we haven't gotten started on the ones that will kill you. I was lucky. I now know how incredibly easy I had it. And I'm still around to gripe.

I don't hugely blame my prescribing doc, because he's not an MD. He's a podiatrist (I forget which degree that is) and he sees a drug like this, or a case like mine, once in ten years -- maybe once in a career. On the other hand, he's licensed to prescribe this stuff and maybe he should read up a little. On the other other hand, I'm obviously the kind of patient who does a bucketload of research on my own, and he clearly trusts that.

Well anyway -- no lasting harm done, and I've learned never to skimp on my reading.

calorie calculus [...] So, essentially, WTF???

Exactly! Here are a few theories I have pulled right out of thin air:

- Calorie content numbers, particularly for carbohydrates, are vague and inexact. If it turns out that they're inexact enough for the test and control foods chosen in the study, it's possible that the whole study could be explained by this alone.

- Calorie burn numbers are vague and inexact, because extracting one kcal of energy from a pile of one kind of molecule might REQUIRE more energy than extracting one kcal of energy from a pile of another kind of molecule. The net payoff you get could be pretty different. The cost of digestion may or may not be taken into account by the food labeling methods. I simply don't know.

- The more protein you eat, even on an identical exercise plan, maybe the more muscle you build. Maybe some of those people in the study were building muscle while the others were busy building fat, or bone, or eyeballs. Muscle contributes to a higher resting metabolic rate, thus changing -- with no difference in measured intake or in an exercise plan -- weight loss rate. [I don't know whether this study had higher protein in the test group, higher fat, or both. Wish I could find it again.]

- I doubt everybody in the study put their, ahem, output, on a bomb calorimeter, so that whole piece of the equation was probably lost. (But if they did I am prepared to be very impressed.) Again, I don't know whether the original food labeling ditched the undigestible calories accurately.

I'm having way too much fun with this. It's so much better than trying to get work done...

[lkeele.livejournal.com]

Oh I know it. I just went through their little "mypyramid.com" thingy, wherein it figures out the perfect diet for 'you' based on a few numbers you type in, and it tells me I can lose weight on 2200 calories a day. Yeah, I guess I theoretically could, if I spent about 12 hours in constant, vigorous exercise, AND had my thyroid pill dosage increased, but as it is, I'm still gaining weight on 1500 calories a day, WITH daily exercise.

But the main point holds: wheat *is* a vegetable. You just can't process the shit out of it and expect it to still benefit you like one. :) (Corn is a vegetable too, and look what happens when you make corn syrup out of it?)

And, of course, your main point is well taken -- vegetables are better for you than baguette. And balance is key, isn't it? I'd eat nothing BUT pasta if I thought I could get away with it, but then I'd have those horrible blood sugar crashes that I've (mostly) been able to avoid lately, and scurvy to boot. I really need to work on getting fresh fruit and veg to be a larger portion of my daily fare -- I've moved away from that since moving back to the states, and I need to move back to how I was eating in Egypt! Beans for breakfast, salad with every dinner, very limited meat.

[lkeele.livejournal.com]

Sorry, correct website is 'mypyramid.gov'.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

...and I need to move back to how I was eating in Egypt!

Oh man, I'd give a lot just to wander over to that souq again. Absolutely fresh produce of all kinds. Wow.

[lkeele.livejournal.com]

Yeah. You and me both. What I wouldn't give for that kind of market available here, or even some fresh produce that didn't look all waxy and unappealingly uniform in color... We have a summertime "farmer's market", but for some reason, it sells mainly knicknacks and house plants -- not a lot of actual veg. I've got to start growing my own.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh wow - some of the "farmer's market" things here are pretty good with the produce, nuts, and fruits. Bummer...

Yeah, growing your own sure seems to be the way to go, doesn't it? If I had a lot of time I'd want to put in raised beds and I'd do veggies and herbs in them.