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November 10, 2006
Stegosaurus Cauliflower
At the Allentown Farmers' Market on Thursday morning, I came across a variety of cauliflower that I'd never seen before. It's called Veronica cauliflower, and you can see it here.
To me, it looks like a stegosaurus. What do you think?
Anyhow, I brought it home and cooked it (I can bring home the cauliflower...) and it was delicious. Last night we ate it with dinner just steamed with flax oil. Tonight, for MR, I made it as the base for a "spaghetti" dish: one where I make a traditional tomato sauce, the kind you would put over pasta, but instead put it over a low calorie vegetable. Here's how to make this one:
-- Take 2 oz dry red wine. Bring 64 grams of onion, or thereabouts, diced, to boil in the wine. Add 60 g shiitake mushrooms. Stir in 50 cals (in this case, using Muir Glen organic, that's one half cup) tomato sauce. Mix and simmer for approx 1/2 hour. Add 1 tablespoon capers.
-- I steamed the cauliflower for 2 mins, plus 260 g eggwhites to bump up the protein. Settled them both into a dish, the added a few dashes of oregano. Then I covered with the tomato sauce, and topped with a fourth cup of nonfat ricotta, separated into four tablespoons. On top of that I placed 100 cals of black olives, artistically arranged. Add 1 teaspoon flax oil. Serve piping hot!
MR loved it, and I loved watching him enjoy it. Cooking, for me, is an art in itself, divorced from eating. I enjoy eating what I cook, and I enjoy cooking things for others that I don't eat. To me, it's like being a painter. I might paint a beautiful picture that I want to hang in my bedroom and look at every morning when I wake up. But I might also paint an amazing picture and sell it, or give it away. The fact that I'm not staring at it doesn't diminish its artistic value, or the pleasure I get from the process of creation.
It often doesn't make sense for me to eat the same thing that MR is eating. I am ten inches shorter than he, and I have different calorie requirements. So I'll frequently make him a dinner and make myself something totally diffterent. Tonight was an example. I made him the dinner I described above, then I ate my salad (that he made this morning) with nonfat plain organic yogurt, salsa, olive and flax oil, and a whole whack of almonds. I loved my dinner, he loved his. They don't have to be identical for us to enjoy the experience of sitting down at a beautiful table to a delicious meal that is satisfying on every level, from the cellular on up.
Here's my nutritional crunch for the day. I realized late that I should have more almonds and cut back on the olive oil, but it was too late! MR had already added my Australian olive oil to my salad. So I'm a bit low in Vitamin E. Will remedy that with more almonds tomorrow. My D is low, but so is everyone's. I supplement with 1000 IU per day.
Nutrition Summary for November 10, 2006
General (71%)
Energy 1050.8 kcal 53%
Protein 66.7 g 133%
Fat 36.7 g 57%
Carbs 86.9 g 29%
Fiber 21.9 g 87%
Water 1580.0 g 105%
Vitamins (85%)
Vitamin A 8851.4 IU 295%
Folate 311.8 mcg 78%
B1 (Thiamine) 1.6 mg 134%
B2 (Riboflavin) 3.5 mg 270%
B3 (Niacin) 15.4 mg 97%
B5 (Pantothenic Acid) 5.6 mg 112%
B6 (Pyridoxine) 1.6 mg 96%
B12 (Cyanocobalamin) 1.8 mcg 74%
Vitamin C 115.7 mg 129%
Vitamin D 6.2 IU 2%
Vitamin E 10.8 mg 72%
Vitamin K 312.8 mcg 261%
Minerals (92%)
Calcium 962.0 mg 80%
Copper 1.6 mg 180%
Iron 11.1 mg 139%
Magnesium 358.6 mg 85%
Manganese 3.8 mg 165%
Phosphorus 1282.8 mg 183%
Potassium 3451.0 mg 73%
Selenium 99.4 mcg 181%
Sodium 1289.1 mg 99%
Zinc 9.4 mg 86%
Lipids (15%)
Saturated 4.3 g 21%
Cholesterol 24.7 g 8%
Here's what I ate:
Usual breakfast of 1 cup eggwhites scrambled and topped with 1 nonfat cheddar single, 1 tbsp brewers yeast, and 1 teaspoon flax oil. coffee.
Lunch: megamuffin, grape tomatoes
Dinner: salad (kale, napa, tomato, green pepper) topped with 50 cals black olives, 1 cup nonfat plain organic yogurt, 20 cals salsa, 1 tsp flax, 1 tsp olive, 17 g hazelnuts on side. 8 oz red wine.
Hmmm... I forgot to add my wheat bran, which has five cals but a ton of fiber. Also, I use a dash of half salt which would put me over the RDA on potassium, as it is made of same.
1050 is low for me, but I'm making up for a high Wednesday night dinner with co-workers. Soon I'll go back in the 1200 neighborhood.
Tomorrow: weekly Whole Foods trip, followed by a road trip to visit some friends in Baltimore. I will be very glad to have my megamuffins to pack for road food!
In other news, I've decided to start mixing organic nonfat milk with my coffee, to add to my B vitamins and calcium. In doing searches for good sources of same, that's what I came up with, and it's easy to buy and store.
Off to bed... more long nights lie ahead!
Posted by april at November 10, 2006 8:22 PM
Comments
That cauliflower looks scary!
I'd be too scared of it to buy it.
Posted by: istanbulwitchy at November 10, 2006 8:04 PM
April,
I have a problem with the tastiness with most of the foods you prepare for yourself. You know I hate eggwhites, so your breakfast is not appealing at all to me, but also, plain yogurt on salad greens especially if olives and salsa are involved? Not very tasty. Those items just don't go together. Any gourmet cook, even any regular cook can tell you that. On the other hand, the food you prepare for MR or the food you eat out in restaurants seem much more interesting. Are selling yourself short on taste when you prepare food for yourself I wonder? Your choice of menus don't make CR seem too appealing most of the time. But for example Mary's do. I don't want to sound like the NYT guy, I think the dinners you prepare for MR sound much yummier. Maybe you just have a different sense of taste, not a very universal one.
Posted by: istanbulwitchy at November 10, 2006 8:20 PM
they should call it the Mandelbot cauliflower 'cause it looks like a perfect fractal.
Posted by: Thomas at November 10, 2006 8:33 PM
Taste. Incorporate taste. I can't emphasize this enough. Eggwhites and quorn whatevers are not tasty. But there are other tasty protein sources out there. You should talk about them more even if you don't eat them. People are not interested in eating tasteless stuff when they're first interested in cron and are already giving up carbs. Your diet is bland, but that's your choice. You should make sure that a CR diet doesn't have to be as bland and tasteless. People don't want to be served with goldfish food like blandness when they first invest in something new for their lives.
Posted by: istanbulwitchy at November 10, 2006 10:48 PM
I tested with a few friends of mine who eat a Cronie diet most of the time: The result is, eggwhites suck for all of them. Nobody wants to eat them, nobody thinks they are tasty, they'd rather eat an omelette with a proper egg or two, nobody I know wants to have anything to do with them. Apparently, eggwhites are not very popular among human species now, are they?
Posted by: istanbulwitchy at November 11, 2006 1:06 AM
Darling Z...
The solution is simple: if you don't like eggwhites, don't eat them! And I could be wrong, but I don't believe you've ever tasted Quorn.
Taste, as they say, is a matter of taste.
At least we agree on Nicole Kidman.
love a
PS MR says that the hair the make up artist did for the Grazia shoot makes me look like Nicole Kidman. Somehow I doubt it, but we shall see!
Posted by: April at November 11, 2006 8:08 AM
That cauliflower is beautiful. It looks like it could be a table centerpiece.
Posted by: Gina at November 11, 2006 3:20 PM