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Hello Friends and Family,

I'm excited to meet David Veneble, the celebrated food host at QVC, tomorrow and to appear on his show: In the Kitchen with David. The show runs from 8-10pm, and I'll be on for 7 minutes or so --- at some point. Wish me luck.

Be well, Susie

We think so -- and we were just nominated for the 2023 Customer Choice Food Awards.

But let's see how the customers vote. If you enjoy our Breakfast Cookies and have purchased them at any time from QVC, we sure would appreciate your vote.

Please use this link to vote!  

Be well and Happy Summer, Susie and Michele

Hello Friends and Family,

It's rhubarb season again and my thoughts return again to rhubarb cake. If you haven't made this cake yet this year, it's not too late! You can harvest rhubarb until June -- and then you need to let the plant hold onto its stalks and leaves.

Last year I posted the recipe for a Country Rhubarb Cake -- which is so good that I'm posting it again. It is, as I said last year, the perfect rhubarb cake. A cake that has that wonderful balance of tart; sweet; and the richness of cake -- and is not too time-consuming to make. The recipe is from the New York Times' cooking site. Julia Moskin found it in Reclaiming Ireland's Culinary Heritage, One Roast lamb or Sponge Cake at a Time. I use Omega-3 eggs to make it, of course, and grass-fed Kerry Butter (from Ireland), and I modify the recipe ever so slightly by replacing one third a cup of the flour with one third a cup of ground flax meal. I'm still searching for the right words to describe the result. Let me start by saying that I couldn't wait to have it again for breakfast. It is a perfectly cheerful dessert -- or breakfast --  for these -- or any times. Be well. Susie

Time: 1 1/2 hours (but sixty minutes of that is for baking)
Yield: 8 servings

INGREDIENTS

2 2/3  cups all-purpose flour, more for work surface

1/3 cup ground flaxseed meal
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar, more for sprinkling
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick (4 ounces) butter (grass-fed), cut into pieces, at cool room temperature
2 eggs, Omega-3 eggs, of course
1/2 cup buttermilk ( I make this by adding 1/2 tsp vinegar to 1/2 cup milk)
1 1/2 pounds (about 8 stalks) rhubarb, thinly sliced
Light brown sugar and softly whipped cream, for serving

PREPARATION 

Heat over to 350 degrees. In a bowl sift or mix together flour, flax, salt, baking soda and 3 TBS of the sugar. With fingers, rub in the butter until the mixture is sandy. Beat one egg and add to the mixture. Add buttermilk and blend until a dough is formed. (It will be quite stiff and sticky). Turn out onto a floured surface and divide in two. Roll out each piece to fit a 10-inch baking dish. Line bottom of pan with one round allowing it to creep up the sides. 

Cover the dough with the rhubarb and sprinkle the rhubarb with one cup of sugar (don't skimp). Place the second round on the top and pinch together the edges. Pinch together any holes. Beat the remaining egg w. one teaspoon water and brush it on the dough.

Place in a pan or on a baking sheet (to catch the drips) and bake until the crust is golden, about 1 hour. Immediately sprinkle w. granulated sugar and serve warm with a sprinkling of brown sugar and whipped cream. (I forgot to sprinkle the cake with sugar -- and didn't miss it -- and used cream instead of whipped cream.)

Delicious!

https://gosolo.subkit.com/susies-smart-cookie/ 

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Susie Allport, Founder of Susie's Smart Cookie, located in Pound Ridge, NY, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Susie's Smart Cookie creates delicious Breakfast Cookies and Bites with two grams of vegetarian Omega-3s and a healthy balance of Omega-3s and Omega-6s. These tasty breakfasts to go -- or anytime snacks -- are a satisfying and sustainable way for people to boost their Omega-3s, fats that are essential for a healthy diet. We think of our Breakfast Cookies as being just sweet enough for kids but not too sweet for adults, so our customers run the gamut from commuters and travelers to athletes and students to busy moms and children -- just about everyone. Some customers call our Breakfast Cookies the SAT cookie because of how focused they make you feel. Others say they would never fly without one.

Tell us about yourself

For most of my adult life, I was a science writer, writing books about science and nature. After publishing a book on the history of Omega-3s, essential fats that are concentrated in our brains and other fast-acting tissues (The Queen of Fats: Why Omega-3s were removed from the Western Diet and what we can do to replace them. the University of California Press, 2006), I began fooling around with our favorite family recipes in order to add Omega-3s. Most Americans don't get enough Omega-3s in their diet (and they consume far too much of a competing fat: Omega-6s). My Breakfast Cookies are an extremely effective way of boosting the Omega-3s in an individual's tissues, which is like giving that individual a shot of WD-40. That is extremely gratifying and makes me happy to be doing what I am doing.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Creating the recipes for these Breakfast Cookies and transitioning from being a science writer to a baker. In business, fires that need tending pop up every day. I had to learn to take these in stride.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

Keeping your eye upon the future -- and the present -- at the same time.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

If you want to create and sell a product, make sure you have your pricing right from the very start. Find good employees and compensate them well. If you believe in your product, as much as I do my high Omega-3 Breakfast Cookies, selling them is no problem.

Hello Friends,

The Country Hen was the first egg seller to intentionally boost the Omega-3s in their eggs. I visited them decades ago when they first started and learned their incredible back story.  I wrote about that experience for the now-defunct Vital Choice Newsletter, and those who are interested can scroll down and read the entire article.

Anyway, the news today is that The Country Hen is now selling their eggs by the dozen -- rather than their usual 6 packs. Their eggs have always been pricey (a little less so when you buy them by the dozen) -- but not when you consider that they have almost as many Omega-3s as an equivalent weight of wild salmon. For instance, there are 730 mg of Omega-3s in a 3 oz serving of wild salmon and 600 mg in two Country Hen eggs. Not everyone loves salmon and Omega-3 eggs can be a great alternative. 

I hope you have a great source of eggs wherever you live. 

Be well and enjoy the piece I wrote,

Susie

            Which came first: the egg or the omega-3 enriched egg?

            The omega-3 enriched egg, of course, since all eggs used to be full of omega-3s when the chickens that laid them foraged for a living, scratching and pecking in backyards and farms.

            These chickens lived -- almost entirely -- on green leaves and bugs. And the omega-3s in those green leaves and bugs were concentrated in their eggs for the same reason that omega-3s are concentrated in the breast milk of women: to support the brain development of the next generation – chicks, in this case, instead of infants.

            When we humans interrupted this process and ate those eggs, we ingested almost as many omega-3s (including long-chain DHA and EPA) as we would from the same amount of many species of fish. Which -- considering the importance of eggs in human diets around the world – must have made quite a contribution to our omega-3 intake.

            Only recently came the commercial egg, the egg laid by chickens in large operations and fed a diet of corn and other grains. This egg still has significant amounts of omega-3s, including DHA (it’s still an egg after all), but only a fraction of that in a truly free-range egg. 

            What a seismic shift this represents in our food supply! How much has this one, altered food contributed to the many illnesses that have been linked to a deficiency of omega-3s?

            Artemis Simoloulos, the president of The Center for Genetics, Nutrition and Health in Washington, DC and a lioness in the field of omega-3 research, was the first person to recognize this dramatic change in eggs. In the late 1980s, a few years after Simopoulos first realized that the green leaves of plants contain significant amounts of the parent omega-3 fatty acid ALA (and after a conference in Washington at which she and other attendees realized that the food supply, in general, had shifted away from omega-3 fatty acids and towards omega-6s), she thought back to her childhood in Greece and the chickens that wandered up and down the hills in the search for food. One of the plants they were eating was purslane, she knew, a plant she had already shown to be especially rich in ALA. And so she had the idea of comparing the eggs of these free ranging chickens with chickens fed a commercial diet.

            Simopoulos knew just where to find such eggs: on her family’s farm on the southwestern tip of the Peloponnesus where chickens forage for themselves and are, rarely, if ever, fed. On her next trip back to Greece, she collected some of these eggs and boiled them for five minutes before packing them in her luggage and carrying them back to the United States, to a laboratory at the National Institutes of Health. “You can’t bring uncooked food into the country” as Simopoulos told me recently.

            This was the very first time that eggs produced under completely natural conditions had ever been analyzed, Simopoulos also told me. And the first time they had been compared with commercial eggs.

            The results are not surprising, given what the two sets of birds were eating. But they are still astonishing given the enormous health benefits of eating a diet rich in omega-3s. Simopoulos’ Greek egg contained about 300 milligrams of omega-3s, including 112 milligrams of DHA. A commercial or supermarket egg had less than 30 milligrams of omega-3s and about 19 milligrams DHA. The ratio of polyunsaturates to saturates and monounsaturates to saturates was the same in the two eggs. What differed – greatly – was the ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s: 1.3 to 1 in the Greek egg and 19.9 to1 in the commercial egg.

            Simopoulos got similar results with the six different batches of eggs she brought back with her from Greece (at six different times of year). Her findings, published in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine in 1989, gave birth to the first commercial omega-3 enriched eggs when George Bass, an egg producer from Bogotá, Columbia asked for her advice in setting up a new egg operation in Hubbardston, Massachusetts. Simopoulos recommended that Bass try to replicate the diet of a chicken in the wild by feeding his chickens a mixture that contained flax seed and fish meal. The first Country Hen eggs to go on the market contained about 170 milligrams omega-3s. Bass continued to fiddle with his feed until his eggs now boast 300 mg of omega-3s; the same as the original Greek egg.

            Bass’ exact feed formula is proprietary, but it contains two types of fish meal and flax seed, as well as corn and soy splits. It costs about 3 times as much as commercial feed, a cost that is reflected in the cost of the eggs and has inspired at least one customer to ask if Bass feeds his chickens champagne and caviar.

            Two decades later, there are a host of omega-3 enriched eggs on the grocery shelves, a good thing, of course, but consumers are understandably confused by the widely varying prices and omega-3 content. Perhaps it will help them to go back to the egg that came first, the Greek egg, the original omega-3 enriched egg. And to understand that even chickens fed a commercial diet of corn and soy will have some DHA in their eggs (18 milligrams according to the most recent USDA nutrient data).

            My recommendation is to find an egg whose taste you enjoy (always very important!) that has as close to 300 milligrams of omega-3s, and/or 100 milligrams of DHA, as your pocket book will allow. Or to buy your eggs from a local farmer who understands the importance of what the chickens are eating. These eggs cost more, but they don’t carry the price tag of a diet rich in omega-6s -- and deficient in 3s. Consumers concerned about the welfare of the chickens can also choose cage-free or free-range eggs.

            Eggs are having a renaissance these days as organizations such as the American Heart Association back down from former recommendations limiting egg consumption (recommendations that never had good scientific justification). But as eggs resume their rightful place in the American diet, let’s not bring back just any old egg. Let’s bring back the original, omega-3 enriched egg.   

(By the way, an added benefit of enriching the diets of chickens with feeds containing significant amounts of omega-3 fatty acids is that these chickens are healthier than others: they have better immune systems and fewer illnesses.)

A Belated Happy New Year,

And I hope it is a happy and healthy year for all of you.

One of the highlights of my holiday was to watch my oldest grandson with a very young cousin -- such inner tenderness (in such an outward terror!). 

Another was to see one of my six-year-old grandsons put together the Bonsai Lego set that I had given him. He did it in just an evening -- though the set was rated for 18 and up. I also love his drawing of the Bonsai and the fact that he attributes his Lego ability to the Cocoa Breakfast Cookie he eats on most mornings. I'll take the compliment -- but know it's not true. I eat one too most mornings and could never build such a thing!

Happy Building and Healthy Living in 2023,

Susie

Happy Thanksgiving to All of you,

I am so grateful to have such enthusiastic and loyal customers!

I know I've said this before (and I'm sure that most of you are well aware): there are many ways to make sure that your Thanksgiving dinner is rich in Omega-3s and has a healthy balance of Omega-3s and Omega-6s. 

1. Use Omega-3 rich butter such as Kerry Butter from Ireland or Anchor butter from New Zealand. There are also local butters made from grass-fed cows but I am never sure whether the cows are grass fed year round. 

2. Add flaxseed meal to your stuffings -- and even to the flour that you use to make your gravy. I'll be adding a half a cup of flaxseed meal to the stuffing that I'll be roasting inside my 15-pound bird, and I'll be replacing one fifth of the flour I use to make the gravy with flaxseed meal.

3. Use canola oil to coat the bird before roasting. I usually sprinkle my turkey with salt and pepper and coat it with oil before roasting. And I use canola oil for that purpose, of course, since it has a very favorable balance of Omega-3s and Omega-6s!

4. Use Omega-3 eggs for all your baking.

Follow all of these steps and you're sure to be serving a healthy -- as well as a delicious -- meal to your family and friends.

Happy Thanksgiving from Susie's Smart Cookie.

Be well,

Susie

Happy Fall Everyone,

It's apple-picking time and thanks to a generous neighbor, I have a bushel of delicious (unnamed) apples in my garage. So I've been experimenting with recipes that really showcase the apples. Apple pies are much too labor intensive, in my opinion, and don't have nearly the ratio of apple to crust I like. Most apple cakes are much too gooey.

So I'm happy to say I've found my perfect apple cake and it's called the Apple Sharlotka. It is mostly apple and only takes about ten minutes or so to put together -- especially if you don't peel the apples. Most recipes for the Sharlotka call for the apples to be peeled, but there's a lot of flavor in the peel so I highly recommend skipping this step -- especially if you know that your apples haven't been sprayed. 

Another change I make is to replace 3 tablespoons of the flour in the recipe with flaxseed meal, a change that adds Omega-3s to this recipe, as well as a large dose of wholesomeness.

Ingredients:

9-inch springform pan

butter for greasing pan

6 large tart apples

3 large eggs at room temperature (omega-3 eggs, of course).

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup flour -- minus 3 tablespoons.

3 Tablespoons Flaxseed Meal

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Powdered sugar to finish

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper and butter the bottom and sides. Halve and core the apples and slice them into smallish pieces. Pile the cut apples directly in the prepared pan. In a large bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar with an electric mixer until thick (don't overbeat). Beat in the vanilla. Then stir in the flour and flax with a spoon until just combined. 

Pour the batter over the apples and use a spatula to spread the batter so it covers all exposed apples, pressing down on the apples. Bake for 60-65 min, until a tester comes out free of batter. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then flip out onto a plate. Peel off the parchment paper and flip onto another plate. (In reality, you can use either side as the finished side.) Dust with powdered sugar and serve warm or at room temperature, with or without a dollop of slightly sweetened whipped cream. 

Enjoy -- and let me know if this becomes your favorite apple cake too!

Susie

Hello Friends,

Since moving to my new house on the lagoon, I've been trying to discover what greens will grow well in my sandy -- and often-wet -- soil. So far, I've tried -- without success -- arugula, Swiss Chard, and kale.

But there are violets everywhere and I've been using their leaves in soups and sautés (recipes to come). This year, I also planted celery plants early in the spring. Flash forward to September -- now -- and, although I don't have any thick, juicy celery stalks, I do have an abundance of healthy celery leaves.  I'm used to using celery leaves in soups and salads, but what would they taste like all on their own?

My first attempt to answer this question came in the form of a celery leaf pesto, which I used on orzo to make a vibrantly-green, delicious side, which would be a splendid accompaniment to fish or chicken.

Any pesto recipe would do but I make mine with canola oil and walnuts (for their Omega-3s, of course). This was so good that I plan on making extra to freeze for the winter!

Salut and be well,

Susie 

Ingredients:

4 cups celery leaves

2 cloves garlic

1/3-1/2 cup canola oil (to taste)

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup walnuts (to taste)

1/2 cup grated parmesan (to taste)

Puree everything in a Cuisinart and store in the fridge or freezer until you need it. 

Dear Friends, 

We, here, at Susie's Smart Breakfast Cookies are trying to reach more good people like you. So we thought that you would be the best people to ask: Why do you enjoy Susie's Smart Breakfast Cookies?

Thanks for whatever you can tell us -- and thanks, as always, for being our loyal customers.

Let us know your thoughts and please use the discount code: whyilikebreakfastcookies to take 20% off your next order. Be well and enjoy the last weeks of summer,

Susie and Michele