Brianna's Spanish Flan

​Ingredients
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
8 ounces reduced-fat cream cheese, (Neufchâtel), softened
8 large eggs
1 14-ounce can nonfat or low-fat sweetened condensed milk
1 12-ounce can nonfat or low-fat evaporated milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Cook sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium-high heat, gently  swirling the pan (do not stir), until the mixture turns golden brown, 5 to 7 minutes. Immediately, pour the caramel carefully into a 9-inch round metal cake pan. If it stiffens before it completely covers the bottom of the pan, warm the pan in the oven, then swirl to cover the bottom.
3. Beat cream cheese in a large bowl with a mixer at medium-high speed until soft. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until thoroughly combined, scraping down the sides. Add condensed milk, evaporated milk and vanilla; mix until combined. Carefully pour into the prepared pan. (You may hear some cracking; the pan will be very full.)
4. Place the cake pan in a larger pan and pour enough hot water around it to come 1 inch up the sides. Bake until golden and set at the edges but still wobbly at the center, about 1 hour. A knife inserted in the center should come out clean. Transfer the cake pan to a wire rack and let cool to room temperature, about 1 hour. Then cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight. To serve, run a knife around the edge of the pan and invert the flan onto a plate.
   

Nutrition
Per serving: 247 calories; 8 g fat ( 4 g sat , 3 g mono ); 160 mg cholesterol; 33 g carbohydrates; 10 g protein; 0 g fiber; 192 mg sodium; 478 mg potassium.
Nutrition Bonus: Calcium (18% daily value).
Carbohydrate Servings: 2
Exchanges: 2 other carbohydrates, 2 fat

The dish that I decided to create is flan. Crème caramel, flan, or caramel custard is a custard dessert with a layer of soft caramel on top, as opposed to creme brûlée, which is custard with a hard caramel top. The dish is eaten throughout the world. Flan is found in recipes as far back as ancient Rome. It was during Roman times that domesticated chickens were first kept for laying eggs. The Romans, with eggs in surplus, and consulting the Greek's knowledge of the art of cooking, developed new recipes, one of which turned out to be a custardy concoction known as flan. It was originally a savory dish (not sweet, but aromatic and pleasing to the palate). The Roman Empire was destined to fall and on its ruins arose Medieval society. Yet the transition between ancient times and Medieval - though often violent - was somewhat contiguous. Flan survived barbarian invasions (and perhaps pacified a barbarian or two). It surfaced as a generally sweet dish but still based on the old idea of mixing creme and eggs to form a custard. Our word for flan actually is derived from the Latin, "flado" (meaning flat cake), which became "flaon" in Old French. Each country makes their flan based on their traditions or foods that are important to their culture. For Puerto Ricans, it is mixing coconut and condensed milk to the mixture, for Vietnam they would add black coffee to the top for taste and for Cuba they have ice cream and cinnamon sticks to the final product. To create this dish it does not require much skill except to the be cautious and watchful. This skill is important for when melting the sugar into caramel, because if you don't turn the oven off at the right time than you can put the sugar and have to start over again. The products for this type of dish you are able to obtain in any supermarket. The average cost of this meal is about $10-$15 depending on brand on ingredients and it makes a serving size for 20-30 depending on the size you wish to cut it due to the sweetness. The people that makes money off of the groceries that are needed for this recipe are the brand named items - the money goes back into their company. One of the large businesses that are involved are Neufchâtel for their cream cheese. The only difference between this cream cheese and regular cream cheese is that Neufchâtel has lower fat content.  If you compare 1 oz of cream cheese with the same amount of Neufchatel cheese then you’ll discover that the latter has about 6.6 g of fat compared to the former’s 9.9 g. Neufchatel cheese also has more protein (2.8 g) as compared to cream cheese’s 2.1 g. Both cheeses have the same carbohydrate value. Each ingredient has different points that are good or bad for our bodies one way or another. When you eat food, each ingredient is processed differently depending on the way the body breaks the food down. Your body will break the Flan down in a few days because it is not heavily packed with a lot of ingredients or other foods that will make it stay in your system longer. The percent of the meal that is processed vs. whole food is about 35% vs. 65%. According to the nutritional info on the label, how our body will deal with this food is well. Due to the sweet taste of the caramel, our tongues will taste the sweetness but it will not harm us.  All of the ingredients for this recipe has all been made/received/collected locally. How far away each ingredient was distributed depending on the brand but from research the maximum number of miles that the food is collected from is 50 miles. The only ingredient organically grown are the eggs which come straight from the chickens, the rest of the ingredients had to be processed from multiple items to create this one ingredient. The processing affects the environment because it's all machine spun, machine packed and machine created. Having done so much processing and packaging affects the environment since so much gas and pollution comes from factories that has no need for the extra items. When the company gets what the food or item they need out of a bigger item then they throw away all extra material they have no need for with pollutes the water and covers waste lands.

This unit I have learned many things like from what is "healthy" food , what is "unhealthy" food and how to tell the truth between the two instead of what is on the label.  During this unit it was really useful and informing to be able to understand the truth behind how food is made and distributed. When we first started watching Food Ink I was skeptical because of my first encounter with it but this episode was different. Yes there were some gruesome parts but the overall point behind was that their was a mother that just wanted justice for what haven't to her son and why it happened. Food recall or contamination in food is important because a week that it's been out of a factory you're already introducing it into the supermarkets and peoples homes. Once they start eating it than it becomes a greater issue when sickness or death happens and the company doesn't want to take the blame for it. What I see to be as the biggest problems with our food system is how we distribute and advertise our food. Since the population is growing rapidly, there is a higher demand in food. Also there is a greater serving size. A serving size for a piece of cheese was a cube and now it's almost half a block. Fast food restaurants tend to give food out past the serving size. For example, french fries, a serving size is a small handful whereas they give you more a big handful to two handfuls and the amount of salt in the small serving is. People think that what they are given to them as children or depending on the size of their plate is how much food that they should eat, when in reality it's not always healthy. For holiday gatherings such as Thanksgiving or Christmas people tend to fill their plates and are expected to eat all of it even if they fill themselves not being hungry anymore. Some changes that you can make to your food choices is being able to try diversity. It's okay to have junk food or greasy food but you have to proportion it with healthy food too. For example white bread isn't healthy for you so you can make wheat pasta or eat wheat bread. It's just the little changes that will help you live a healthier life style in the end as long as you're willing to give it a change. I am willing to make this change since my mom is on a diet and my dad wants to lower his blood cholesterol. We already switched to wheat bread, started to eat smaller portions and eat vegetables at every dinner. I am also on a no soda diet (drinking only water, tea and orange juice). I only drink ginger ale when I am sick.