Another Fermenting Aid

ReCAP mason jar lids

It's starting to be fermenting time again as veggies begin to appear in our summer gardens.
These lids may make it less messy to ferment veggies at home. Simply add a rubber stopper (with a hole in the center) onto the spout hole, put a fermentation lock into the stopper hole, and ferment away.

If fermenting (which actually INCREASES nutritional content in foods), just type fermenting or ferments in the search box located on the right column and it will bring up several posts I've done on fermenting.

Rubber stoppers come in many sizes. A #6 should fir the ReCAP lid.

One of several styles of airlocks from any brewing supply store.

The other good thing about these lids is their general use for mason jars used to store beans, sugars, flours or even vinegars that can be poured out through the jar opening. BPA free.

ps, I own NO stock in this company!

New, Improved Egg Separator

One of my friends sent me this short video and it fascinates me! Don't worry that you don't understand the language because it isn't necessary. The pictures tell it all.

 

Do you wonder what ever made someone try this in the first place? LOL

Antibiotic Spices

Many of us use certain spices for their antimicrobial activity; I know I use garlic and onions a LOT in my lacto-ferments... and I know that other spices have some degree of antimicrobial properties, but I've never had a clear picture of which ones, nor how much benefit is available. Given that many pathogens now come packaged with our industrialized foods like fresh produce, I thought the information might be helpful.

Cornell University did a survey on food-spoilage microorganisms and spices a few years back. The news release about the survey is here. (Full report: "Antimicrobial Functions of Spices: Why Some Like It Hot," Jennifer Billing and Paul W. Sherman, The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 73, No.1, March 1998.)

"Garlic, onion, allspice and oregano, for example, were found to be the best all-around bacteria killers (they kill everything), followed by thyme, cinnamon, tarragon and cumin (any of which kill up to 80 percent of bacteria). Capsicums, including chilies and other hot peppers, are in the middle of the antimicrobial pack (killing or inhibiting up to 75 percent of bacteria), while pepper of the white or black variety inhibits 25 percent of bacteria, as do ginger, anise seed, celery seed and the juices of lemons and limes."

Top 30 Spices with Antimicrobial Properties
(Listed from greatest inhibition to least inhibition of food-spoilage bacteria)

1. Garlic
2. Onion
3. Allspice
4. Oregano
5. Thyme
6. Cinnamon
7. Tarragon
8. Cumin
9. Cloves
10. Lemon grass
11. Bay leaf
12. Capsicums
13. Rosemary
14. Marjoram
15. Mustard
16. Caraway
17. Mint
18. Sage
19. Fennel
20. Coriander
21. Dill
22. Nutmeg
23. Basil
24. Parsley
25. Cardamom
26. Pepper (white/black)
27. Ginger
28. Anise seed
29. Celery seed
30. Lemon/lime

Freezing Eggs

I was thinking about storing eggs because I bought 3 dozen for Christmas baking and have decided not to bake, lest I eat too many sweets. Last year I put 6 dozen eggs in my root cellar in January, and still had fresh eggs in early May (when the root cellar began to warm up with the outside temps).

What I did to keep them fresh was to line the inside of the cartons with plastic wrap, and then coat each egg with lard, and add a layer pf plastic wrap over the top. The idea is to keep the eggs from drying out (as well as keeping them cold). Fresh eggs straight from the hens have a protective coating that does the same thing, but most folks wash the farm eggs they sell so they "look pretty" but they don't keep as long as they do if unwashed.

Did you know you can also freeze eggs? It's simple, and if you raise your own eggs, the frozen extras will come in handy when production slows down. 

Crack eggs into a small container or freezer bags in the quantity needed for recipes, such as "X" number of whole eggs, or yolks only, or whites only. Be sure to label, including quantity!!

If you don't use them for baking, they make great scrambled eggs.

What to do with Insipid Tomatoes

I read somewhere that the taste of bland or insipid-tasting tomatoes may be improved by dehydrating them. I'm thinking that the quick forced-heated air dehydration probably concentrates the sugars, making them taste sweeter. Since I had already made and canned all the tomato variations I wanted for winter...AND I still had a few non-prime, late tomatoes that generally tend to be less flavorful, I decided to give the suggestion a whirl.

First I dehydrated several trays of just thick-sliced tomatoes with no preparation other than washing and inspecting for bad/soft spots. They were cut about 3/8 of an inch thick, and dried into thin, almost membrane thickness.

Next I took several pounds of tomatoes that I dipped in boiling water to skin, then cut into wedges before dehydrating. Those also dried into thin but crumpled wedges.

The final batch was dipped, skinned, cored and rinsed of all seeds. They dried to thin membranes too.

I didn't take any photos because I was busy with some home renovation projects, but the several pounds of tomatoes processed by each treatment all dried to an almost equal amount, filling a quart jar. The REAL test will be in cooking with them this winter!

Freezing Zest

It happens every winter... I want/need some zest to add zing to a dish (usually it's lemon zest) and I have no lemons on hand. It's not worth the gas to drive to town for just lemons especially if the weather is bad, so I do without. Bleck.

This year, with my success at freezing herbs, I am also freezing thin peels of lemon, lime and orange for zest. The orange zest will likely be used in desserts, not sure what I'll do with the lime zest... hot tea maybe. I thought about using my microplane to zest the fruit, but it's such fine zest that I'm not sure how it would hold up to freezing. With small peel sections, I can cut them into thin strips if I need to; besides, a lot sticks inside the microplane and I can never get it all out even with a pastry brush.

I sharpened and tried several of my knives; what worked best was a knife with a thin flexible blade that I use for filleting, shown above. I also found it easier to peel away from me except on the bumpy ends of the fruit. The knife doesn't really conform to the fruit, but the flexibility let me make slices thin enough to avoid cutting into the bitter pith.

After the zest was frozen, I vacuum-sealed it. Once I open one to use a bit of it, I will just bag the rest and put the bag in a small container with a lid back into the freezer.

It was easy to do, and worked so well (I tried some of the frozen orange zest in tea last month) that I may even buy one of those bags of hard, juiceless lemons just to freeze some more zest!

ps... I froze the now naked lemons, limes and oranges whole. I can cut off a wedge for juice anytime later on...

Buying Salmon Tip

I follow Langdon Cook's blog, Fat of the Land. (His new book is Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager.)

Recently he reviewed a book on sustainable seafood recipes, Good Fish: Sustainable Seafood Recipes from the Pacific Coast by Becky Selengut. In his review, he had this to say about one of the many tips from her book, and I thought I'd pass it on for anyone purchasing salmon.

"I like to think I know a few things about Pacific fish, but I'm always learning from Becky, even on familiar subjects. For instance, in her salmon chapter, she gives some buying tips that includes this useful nugget: 'Look carefully at the pin bones. If you see a divot around the pin bones, it's a sign that the fillet is old.' "

When I lived in a city, I could just ask at the fish counter to smell any fish up close so I detect if it smelled fresh. Now the markets here all wrap their fish in plastic wrap on a tray, and there's no way to smell it for freshness. The last salmon I bought smelled fishy right out of the package but I was already 35 miles away from the store, at home. Now at last I have a visual clue, thanks to Langdon Cook and Becky Selengut!

I don't buy much fish anymore except local wild stream trout, but I have her book and Langdon's both on my Wish List. Foraging ideas from Langdon Cook's book may become much more important as the cost of our food keeps going up, and Becky Selengut's book covers sustainable fish, which all fish are NOT. If I'm going to eat fish, I prefer not to eat fish that are being overfished and rapidly disappearing.

Marking freezer containers

I saw this tip on Michael Rhulman's blog and just HAD to pass it on...

Easy and cheap way to mark containers for the freezer, or even leftovers for the refrigerator, is with painter's tape from a hardware store, and a magic marker. I've been using freezer tape, or a slip of paper and scotch tape, but this is so much cheaper, plus the tape is wide enough to also hold the date in a small space!

Why Brine?

Photo from Average Jane's Photostream

It is past Christmas and a brine for a Goose this year, but maybe you have a duck or turkey planned for New Year's Day? You could still brine it! I've been brining my annual Thanksgiving turkey for 3-4 years now, and throughout the year I brine whole chickens and even Cornish game hens. I haven't brined any pork or beef roasts yet, but now it's on my List.

If you had asked me before now why I brine, my answer would have been "to make it juicier", but with no real scientific knowledge behind my observations.

Now, thanks to Harold McGee's book On Food and Cooking, I know that the salt disrupts the structure of the muscle filaments... that is, salt uncoils/unbinds the proteins to form looser bonds. How that actually works is that a 3% salt solution dissolves part of the protein structure that supports the contracting filaments in muscle tissue... and a 5.5% salt solution actually dissolves the filaments themselves. By such actions, the meat actually becomes more tender!

Secondly, the interaction of salt with the proteins result in a greater water-holding capacity in the muscle cell structure, thus the meat loses less moisture when cooked... in other words, the meat is juicier. This is especially important if you are smoking meat a long time over slow heat.

Another benefit of brining is the infusion of added flavors. The moisture in both meat and brine travels back and forth between them until it reaches equilibrium, and any flavorings (herbs, spices, lemons, oranges, and even the salt) you have added to the solution end up in the meat... IN the meat, not just in the outer surface of the meat. Because of that transfer of flavorings, it is important to brine with the correct balance of salt to water, and to brine for the amount of time recommended for the weight of your bird or whatever you are brining. Otherwise, you could end up with a salty bird.

See some brine recipes and tips here.

Freezing Key Limes

I grew up around Key Limes... (when we lived in the Florida Keys my aunt had one in her yard) and I really love them, especially in Key Lime Pie! They are also delicious in beverages, sorbets, and jams. They make excellent marinades for fish (like seviche) or meats, chicken and salad dressings. 

Most of the Key Limes available now in the grocery stores are grown in Mexico, but it's still a Key Lime. Unlike regular limes (Persian Limes, a hybrid), Key Limes are yellow when fully ripe, so if you buy green ones, let them ripen on the counter or in a paper sack for a wee bit. Watch them carefully; the skin is thin and they dry out quickly.

On an infrequent trip to WallyWorld 50 miles away, I bought 2 bags of Key Limes on a whim. They were on sale for 88¢ for a 1 pound bag, almost 2 dozen limes per bag. (My local small town grocery store would never carry Key Limes!) However, I'm not ready to do anything with them and don't even have time to juice the little rascals since a friend just gave me a deer. To experiment, I froze one whole lime for 48 hours to see how it would hold up.

Frankly, I am surprised and quite pleased at how well they did. The cut lime in the photo above was defrosted at room temperature for about 30 minutes before I cut it. It is juicy, and not mushy at all, although the skin might not be good to zest just because it's thin anyway. (The others in the photo have not been frozen yet, just shown for color.)

Given the price of lemons and regular limes in the stores, I wonder if they could be frozen equally as well? Most of the lemons I find anymore are hard as rocks and don't have much juice at all, but occasionally there are a few decent ones, albeit expensive. If they froze well, I could put a few in the freezer when I find good ones. I need to try it!

What to do if the freezer stops

I've got a busy schedule coming up, and nothing to post.

Instead, here's a link to download a PDF on

Preserving Food: What to do if the Freezer Stops. (It's on the list there, just scroll down.)

Plan ahead! Hurricane Season is upon us, and before long winter (and winter storms) will be upon us, too. The PDF contains some valuable tips. Print it out and tape it to the freezer door!

I'll be back in a few days.

Fruit Fly Trap

Photo from uberculture's photostream

Since I started lacto-fermenting vegetables and fermenting plum pits recently, I seem to draw an abundance of fruit flies into the prep area. Both of the types of ferments I am doing allow the CO2 pressure inside the containers to push past the seals and run down the sides of the containers... and sometimes even pool in a saucer underneath them.

There is an easy way to attract and trap those pesky fruit flies, though.

Take a small glass or jar and put a fruit scrap, some beer or some fruit juice in it. (If you use a fruit scrap, add some water.) Then put a drop or two of dish detergent in the liquid (the detergent changes the surface tension of the liquid).

Cover the top with a piece of plastic wrap and secure it tightly over the top with a rubber band. Take a small pointed object like a pencil or large nail and poke several small holes in the plastic wrap. The fruit flies are attracted to the smell, get in and cannot get out; most will drown. Instant fruit fly trap!

Egg Cupboards and Fresh Eggs

If you have eggs in the refrigerator that have been there for days or maybe even weeks, there is always a question of freshness and safety of the egg. If I absolutely have to buy factory eggs during the winter when fresh farm eggs are not available, I often keep them far too long because I really don't like the taste. 

The easy test for eggs is to fill a deep bowl full of water, and place an egg in it. The air pocket on fresh eggs is about the size of a dime, and thin. Very fresh eggs will sink to the bottom and lie on their side; eggs a week or so old will lie on the bottom too, but bob slightly. As the eggs get older, the air pocket inside the shell increases; a 3 week old egg will float with the narrow end pointed down, and a bad egg will just float and/or bob around. A fresh egg cracked onto a flat plate will have a yolk that stands firm and high, with a white that is thick and close to the yolk. As eggs age, the yolk and egg white both lose elasticity; the yolk becomes flatter, and the white runny.

Why do they float? Partly due to the 'cleanliness' fetish. 

All eggs (chicken, duck, goose... ostrich) are laid with a mucilaginous coating on the outside of the shell, which acts as a protective barrier. It is designed to keep air (and thus bacteria) out of the egg while the embryo grows into a chick. All factory eggs are washed of this protective coating, leaving the shells porous. Porous eggs do not keep well or long, even refrigerated, as they allow air penetration and ultimately spoilage. Also, most refrigerator air will hold odors of stored (or overlooked, spoiled) foods and can transfer those odors to the already porous eggs.

My mother kept eggs, unwashed (unless exceptionally dirty) in an egg cupboard on the wall in the cool pantry. Most eggs were used within a week or so of being laid, only washed just before cracking, and with a date penciled on each egg so the oldest were used first. My grandmother kept eggs in the cool cellar for months by coating them with paraffin or vaseline and storing in a bowl, or immersed in a crock of lard, but the eggs had to be fresh and unwashed, and preferably non-fertile.

 

Photo from alex_ford's photostream

The reason for using non-fertile eggs has to do with incubation temps of fertile eggs. Fertile eggs are usually in a nest (before the hen actually sets them) for only a day or so at normal outdoor temperatures. However, if the proper incubating temperature of about 102.5ºF is not reached soon and maintained, the fertile embryo will die and cause the egg to decay.

You can use fertile eggs for storage but you must be sure they are fresh that day. One bad egg in a crock of lard is just as bad as one bad apple in a bushel... both will spoil the others around them.

Almost all of the fresh, free-range eggs I find lately at the farmer's markets have been washed. So while they look clean and pretty, they don't keep well, and I have to refrigerate them even though I use them within a week or so. I'm working on a couple of farmers to keep some unwashed eggs aside for me until I have my own layers. They usually forget, probably because one of the children collects and washes the eggs... and not always the same child.

Once I have my own eggs, I will experiment with different long-term storage methods including coating with beeswax, immersing in waterglass (sodium silicate), lard or olive oil in a crock; coated eggs covered in bran or sawdust mixed with salt, and perhaps other methods as I find them. I doubt I will try vaseline or any other petroleum-based material except probably paraffin, just on general principles (same for GMO oils). 

I really would like to be able to store local free-range eggs over the winter in my root cellar so I always have good eggs available even when the local hens aren't laying. 

Cooking with Tallow

Chicken Fried Steak photo from jasonlam's photostream

Cooking with tallow may be something not many of us do, yet it has some terrific advantages. I recently wrote about rendering tallow, so let's talk about cooking with it. 

Tallow from grass-fed cows is healthy, with a low omega-6 content and a balanced omega-3/omega-6 ratio, low level of polyunsaturated fats (around 3%), and vitamins like Vitamin A and K2. Tallow has a high smoke point, making it ideal for deep frying, although it's best to keep the temp a bit lower, like 350ºF. Deep frying in good fats is not the health buggaboo it has been 'touted' as being, and in fact research is now proving saturated fats are good for the heart and cholesterol levels. (Personally, I contend that saturated fats from CAFO animals are not ever healthy since toxins concentrate in the fat and organs.)

If you are frying battered chicken, chicken fried steak or onion rings in tallow, some bits of batter may come loose. They could burn, giving the tallow a poor taste, so fish them out as you go along. When you are finished frying, the tallow can be strained for re-use because heat has not broken down the structure (unless you used it in the smoke-point), something you cannot do with most fats. If you have fried something with a strong flavor, just drop a couple slices of potato into the hot oil when you take the pan off the heat. The potato will absorb most of the flavor in the oil.

Strain it carefully while it is still fairly hot. I place a scrap of clean cotton cloth or muslin in a metal strainer to catch any browned bits I didn't fish out. Tallow is hard to clean out of cloth so I just toss it. Try to get as much of the tallow as you can out of the pan... when it cools it becomes like hard wax. I use a paper towel for the last film. When the filtered tallow is thoroughly cool, it will be hard. Cover the container, and store in a cool, dark place for re-use. (I store mine in a 4 cup pyrex measuring cup.)

If I need enough tallow to fry something, I find it easiest to melt the tallow in the pyrex storage container in a low-temp oven, until it's just barely liquid, and pour just what I need into my skillet. I use a bit of tallow to fry eggs, or anything that needs a bit of 'grease' in the pan, and I plan to use it in making some pemmican for 'emergency' high-nutrition food storage.

ps... I'm betting tallow is great to re-season cast iron pans. I have one that needs it, so I'm going to give it a shot. I'll post results later!

I have several pounds of beef leaf fat on order for the next time my supplier butchers, which should be in about 2-3 weeks. As requested, I will post pictures of the rendering process.

Ice-Glazed Fish for Freezing

 Photo from sabareq's photostream

My folks had a trout pond and raised a hundred or so trout every summer before they went south for winter (with their freezer). My step-father would fish out the trout, remove the heads and gut them, then Mother would freeze them in bags of spring water, the fish entirely covered in 2-3 inches of ice. (It's a 2-step process because the fish tend to float.) I've always done fish that way too, because the frozen fish when cooked taste like fresh fish, not frozen.

I have an opportunity soon to get a mess of trout to freeze. However, freezing a bunch in bags or cartons of water will take far too much space in my freezer. So, here's an alternative... ice-glaze them.

Freeze the cleaned fish on a tray in the freezer; while it's freezing solid, put a large pan of water in the freezer. (It will take longer to freeze than the fish.) When the fish is solid, dip it in the near-freezing water, and put it back on the tray to freeze. Repeat as many times as necessary to build up a good covering of ice-glaze. I'm using 1/8" or maybe a bit more.

Once your fish are encased in ice, wrap them in film, freezer paper, or foil, making sure the wrapping is tight. Vacuum-sealing is great for this. Fish frozen in this manner and wrapped correctly will keep a long time in a manual-defrost freezer. A self-defrosting freezer turns on the heat to melt accumulated ice on the shelves and walls, partially cooking any foods in the process, so keeping time is much shorter for any frozen food.

Keeping Stored Canned Goods from Rust

I created a long-term storage room for dried foods by enclosing part of the back porch. Unfortunately, we soon needed the space so I moved jars of anything that would not freeze and break out to the root cellar, which remains above freezing usually, but also a little dampish because it is set into the hillside. By the end of last winter, the lids to the mason jars I use for storage were showing spots of rust.

I took off the lids and rings of about 2 dozen jars and spray-painted them (just the outside of the lids, but both sides of the rings). It took forever to get a good coating inside and outside of the screw channels on the rings, and I used up an entire can of spray paint. That stopped the project because I still had well over a hundred jars to go... jars of beans, pasta, grains, dry fruit... you get the picture.

Ball makes a plastic replacement lid for both wide-mouth and regular canning jars (NOT to use in canning, just opened cans in the fridge), but they would be expensive because I need so many. So the jars have been sitting on the root cellar shelves, rusting slowly into total decay. I figure about 3 more years, and the rust will have eaten a hole all the way through the lids.

However, last week I came across a post somewhere about waxing cans and boxes for long-tern storage, to prevent rust in metal cans, and insect invasion in cardboard boxes. They just melted beeswax or paraffin in a large double-boiler (actually a stockpot large enough to hold a cereal box, inside a larger pan of water) and dipped the containers, first the top half, and when cooled, dipped the bottom half. I don't see any reason this wouldn't work for my mason jars.

I would only have to dip about 2" of the jars to cover the lids completely, thus not needing nearly as much wax as if I had commercial metal food cans needing to be covered entirely. Paraffin, a petroleum product, is less expensive than beeswax or a vegetable candle wax and since it won't contact any food I'm okay with trying it.

Next month I will wax some, and see how they fare over this next winter. I have the idea it will work just fine!

Keeping Potatoes

 Photo from Jason Doucette's photostream

I keep potatoes all winter and into spring in my root cellar, buried in straw. The standard tips for storing potatoes are storing them out of light, having good air circulation, and optimal temps of 42-55ºF and high humidity so they don't dry out. Potatoes should not be washed before storing, and they should be allowed to cure for 2-3 days in a cool place to harden the fragile skins.

Check carefully for blemishes and soft spots, or damage from digging. Use those right away (or discard) instead of storing. Store in paper bags but not plastic bags so they can breathe. (As I said, I bury mine in straw.) Potatoes exposed to light will develop a green tint which make the potatoes bitter, and eating a lot of green potatoes at one time is potentially toxic.

Potatoes will enter a period of dormancy, and research has shown temperatures of 42-50ºF extends dormancy the longest although that varies somewhat with variety. The colder temps, however, will cause the potato starch to turn to sugar, and those potatoes if fried will be dark. Do not store potatoes next to onions or fruit, which produce hormones and gasses that will spoil both crops.

I always lose a few from rot, probably from a blemish I overlooked when storing them. But, by the time spring rolls around and the temps are warming, the remaining potatoes always start to sprout, even in the absence of light.

Recently I read on The Old Foodie a notion she took from old ship's logs (logged 200 or more years ago). It seems the potatoes stored on ships for the long voyage from England to Australia didn't fare well. One log said if you drop the fresh potatoes in boiling water for a minute or so, then chill immediately, it 'cooks' the eyes just enough that the potato will not use it's energy to sprout, and will keep better on the long journey.

I'm curious to see if it really works, so I think I will experiment with a few potatoes this winter. I always have an abundance from my garden. The only thing is for me to remember that the potatoes I dip have to be set aside so I don't try to use them in spring as seed potatoes!

Egg Shells in my Coffee

I have been drinking more morning coffee lately, and noticed that although the first cup is fine, subsequent cups from the pot are somewhat bitter. I used to add a quarter teaspoon of demerara sugar to my cup overcome the bitterness, but sugar is now off my list. In reading about organic shade-grown coffees, I came across the suggestion of adding egg shells to the grounds while brewing.

Let me tell you, it makes a difference! Not in coffee taste, but in mellowness. (I drink either a French roast or a dark roast, depending on what my store has in stock.)

The alkaline calcium leached into the brew buffers the acids in coffee, and it adds some extra calcium to my system. The amount of acids in coffee vary by type of coffee maker, controlled by water temperature, speed of water seeping through the grounds, and to some extent by the type of roast of coffee itself.

So far I have just thrown a crushed shell in with the grounds, the more shell edge area, the better. Today I started putting the shells in a cloth re-useable tea bag, but I think I'm also going to pulverize the shells. I also read you could just drop a calcium supplement tablet in with the grounds.

Cooking Grass-Fed Beef

 Flank Steak photo courtesy of thebittenword.com's photostream

The recently released report from The President's Cancer Panel encourages comsumers to eat foods grown without pesticides, chemical fertilizers, antibiotics and growth hormones. Organic grass-fed meats fit that description.

Since I switched to grass-fed meats about 2-3 months ago, I have noticed I cannot cook beef at the higher temps I have normally used, or it will tend to be dry and chewy. I haven't cooked enough pork yet to say if there is a difference in cooking pork.

Allowing beef to come nearly to room temperature before cooking helps lock in the juices. Marinades, even simple olive oil, will increase tenderness. Overnight is best. Dry Rubs are preferred by many folks, but I like to taste the unadulterated meat!

Steaks will cook about 20-30% faster than grain-fed, so reduce the heat, and/or cooking time. Lastly, it is imperative to let the meat rest. This allows the juices in the meat to re-distribute, giving you a juicier, more tender steak.

Other than steaks and burgers, most other cuts of beef excel when braised. The taste is outstanding!


Note: Not all grass-fed beef tastes the same. It varies from farmer to farmer, and the variables include soil composition of the pasture which affects the nutrients of the grass, breed of cattle, regional temperatures, and whether it was aged.

Cooking Tip: Keeping Vegetables Green

Disgusted with those visually unappealing, less-than-bright-green cooked vegetables?

Here's an easy tip to keep those veggies bright green when you cook them. Put a pinch of baking soda in the water. That makes the water slightly alkaline, which keeps the magnesium ion from leaching out of the chlorophyll in the veggies. Voila! Bright Green Vegetables!