"Vegan" is more a sociological term, designating people who don't eat (or use) animal products, and that could be for environmental, ethical, animal welfare or health reasons. But, "no meat"is not nutrition. Potato chips and coke might be vegan, it is not nutritious. The Whole Foods Plant-Based diet, without added Sugar, Oil or Salt (SOS), is the nutritionally sound basis for a healthy vegan lifestyle. The focus is on #WFPB without SOS, based on the work of T. Colin Campbell in The China Study.
A lot can be said about bird's beak knives, but I consider the main issue to be that the handle is thin enough to hold it with my fingers, and that it is short enough to use with my thumb opposed. The photos will show why. In this case this is about coring and quartering strawberries - and, of course, in the process you can easily cut out any bad spots with the tip.
See here for using the knife with the thumb opposed
And here is the overview of the whole breakfast almost finished.
And here is the finished dish with some hemp seeds spread on top, see below for the dish complete with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.
The final result, with a drizzle of balsamic.
Steelcut oats, ground granny smith, blueberries, raisins, goji berries, dates, topped with strawberries, banana, hempseeds and a drizzle of balsamic.
Today it was a day for oatmeal. Now, in this household, every day is a day for oatmeal... but today was a special day, for strawberries were $1 per box in our neighborhood, and it was time to stock up, so here were the results for breakfast.
This was steelcut oats, made with almond milk, some raisins, an shredded apple, loads of cinnamon (mixture of ceylon and cassia cinnamon), topped with strawberries and some balsamic glazé.
Somehow that makes it seem like spring has sprung, but actually today it was colder outside. Still, no reason not to celebrate an early spring inside...
Meanwhile, also a good opportunity to research more on the health benefits of balsamic vinegar, here from articles on Healthline and New Health Guide:
Lowers cholesterol
Supports weightloss
Improves circulation
Anti-glycemic, diabetes-friendly
Reduces hypertension
Improves skin
Anti-oxidant
Helps fight cancer
Lowers Heart-attack risk
Pain reliever
Helps digestion
Good for bone-health
The bottom line is balsamic vinegar is healthy as all get-out and in the case of oatmeal it is a great way to add some rich flavor, and avoiding sugar. One of the core tenets of #WFPB is no ADDED Sugar, Oil, or Salt.
In short, besides the great taste of balsamic to top off your oatmeal, you can use it in salad dressings, I spice up my kale snacks, (sometimes I combine them with some sweet potato, which is fantastic with balsamic). Lastly, it is a great preservative, which is one reason I like to take a reverse doggie-bag of kale with sweet potato with balsamic when I have to eat at restaurants I don't trust.
Some good videos:
and more:
and even more:
And, for good measure, yet one more:
And again:
In short, oatmeal is the breakfast of champions.
Use Case for a Bird's Beak Paring Knife
Cutting the crowns out of strawberries and slicing them in this case in 1/8th wedges is perfect work for a bird's beak paring knife. Along the way, if there are any bruises, you can cut them out precisely with the fine tip of a bird's beak paring knife.
MAC Knife Chef Series 2-1/2" Bird's Beak Paring Knife (PK-25)
As usual, MAC knives are superbly sharp and retain their edges for a long time. Some stubbornly call the bird's beak paring knife a "turning knife," based on the tourné-cut in French cuisine. I never do any tourné cuts, but I have plenty of little jobs where a bird's beak paring knife is just what the doctor ordered, and prepping these strawberries was just one of the many.
On Oatmeal
Key Foods on Unionport recently has offered steel cut oats from Quaker Oats, on occasion they may also have Bob's Red Mill.
Dunya Harvest is a beautiful collection of organic staples that is avalaible at Chang-Li Supermarket. One of my favorites is their Steel-cut Organic Oats.
Dunya Harvest, Steel-cut Organic Oats
The best way to prepare them is always with your automatic rice cooker, in my case a Zojirushi NP-GBC05. There's nothing like just setting the timer at night for 6:30 and waking up to the smell of the oatmeal cooking.
Shredded Granny Smith, raisins, craisins, and some fresh ground Ceylon cinnamon
Once it's done, all I do is shred a Granny Smith apple with my trusty Börner V-Slicer mandolin, and add in some raisins, some craisins, and optionally other dried fruit (apricots work fine too), and some ground cinnamon. I add these dried fruits during the "keep warm" cycle and just wait a few minutes, and voilà you're ready to go. You can top the whole thing with some fresh fruit, and you have a breakfast you can't beat.
Adding the dried fruit in the "keep warm" cycle
As to the cinnamon, the usual "supermarket" variety, is actually chinese cinnamon (Cassia Cinnamon), which has a more full-bodied flavor. For the gourmets out there, the alternatives are Ceylon (Sri-Lanka) cinnamon, which is very aromatic and milder and Saigon cinnamon, which is a little spicier. Much has been made of the fact that Chinese cinnamon contains more coumarin, but it would appear that the amount is so small that the concern is not warranted, as this excellent article points out.
