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June 30, 2007
This Tastes As Bizarre As It Looks!
"But it's really, really good!" said MR as he ate his dinner.
This is probably one of those "Don't try this at home" moments.
My mother bought me gorgeous sweet hot peppers, blueberries and tomatoes at the Lancaster Farmers' Market. So I was going to use them in MR's dinner. I decided to saute the blueberries and peppers with one clove of minced garlic in some dry chardonnay. Then I added a whole lot of cauliflower and some Quorn roast. To bump up the protein, I put in eggwhite and 28 g fat free mozzarella. Avocado and flax oil for fat. On the side, MR's favorite CR coleslaw with Walden Farms coleslaw dressing.
It was blue. It was weird. He loved it.
It looked like something out of the bat cave. Like, from a Batman movie.
Sweet pepper and blueberry in wine is delicious. But it's weird. Really, really weird. And very blue.
Maybe you should try this at home. But don't blame me if your husband/wife/partner/person you serve meals to finds it quite, quite bizarre.
Posted by april at 8:38 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Rose Rhubarb Over Sunshine Squash
I love the Allentown Farmers' Market.
Most of our dishes for today's lunch are made with fresh local produce from thence.
Entree:
Rose Rhubarb Over Sunshine Squash
Saute a stalk of rhubarb and a large clove of garlic in two ounces of dry rose wine. Add 200 g grape tomatoes, and cook until they split. Add water if need be. I then add Quorn but you could add any protein source.
On a large platter, arrange disks of thinly sliced yellow squash (aka yellow zucchini) and top with 62 g avocado, crumbled and distributed. Laddle the rhubarb mixture all over it.
This is just a variation on my usual rhubarb rose recipe, but it was a lot of fun today to take super yellow squash, locally grown, and use it as a base. There are so many veggies that make a great base for the kind of sauce most people would serve over pasta. Tons of fun.
We were still working in the black raspberries from the Farmers' Market, so I served those in a raspberry parfait (yes, like the Prince song, though I don't suggest buying one in a secondhand store) with MR's megamuffin. Layers of megamuffin, black raspberries and nonfat ricotta topped with a half teaspoon hazelnut oil.
I'm at the office now (of course) and my mom just dropped off some treats from her Farmers' Market near Lancaster, PA... Amish country. We've got fresh sweet blueberries, sweet/hot peppers, and a ripe tomato. I wonder what I'll come up with tonight...
A few more hours of work then it's off the the gym and home to make some dinner. Even though I'm working most of the weekend, I'm still making time to do some hobby cooking. It soothes my exhausted organizer soul to cook for my sweetie, so cook I will... and there is no question that he will eat.
Posted by april at 3:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 29, 2007
Locally Grown Super Sweet Onion Soup
Today a friend took me and two others to Blackfish. Their special was a chilled cucumber soup that was amazing. As soon as I took a spoonfull, I started to call out spices.
"Tarragon! Dill! Lemon! Garlic!"
That's what was in the soup. It was a chilled creamy soup, and I resolved then to make a CR-friendly version at home with some beautiful super sweet green onions I'd purchased at the Allentown Farmers' Market.
So here's tonight's recipe. Adapt it as you will:
Super sweet green onions
Fresh tomatoes (also local)
Tarragon
Lemon
Dill
Nonfat plain yogurt
Eggwhites
Fat free mozzarella
I put in the eggwhites and the mozza to kick up the protein. I melted the mozza on top of the soup just after boiling the sweet onions in some wate and adding the tomato so that the mozza would melt, a lot like a French onion soup. If I could figure out a way to do it, I'd let it chill, stir in the yogurt, and then add the mozza, but then the mozza wouldn't melt. Hmmmm. The laws of physics are always with us, aren't they?
That being the case, I'm layering the yogurt on top of the veggie mixture and the mozza, and then topping with yet more of the aforementioned spices. On the side I am serving a dish of locally grown black raspberries with hazelnut oil and hazelnuts.
Posted by april at 6:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
How Pilates Pays Off
I think I forgot to tell you this story.
Last Friday I had a press conference at the state legislature in Harrisburg. I was wearing a business suit and heels. They had just waxed the Capitol floor. Very, very slippery.
Sure enough, I slip. BUT: I caught myself, and I could feel the core muscles that I've strengthened with Pilates doing the catching.
No only has Pilates decreased my risk of fracture in the long term, it saved me from an embarrasing wipe out on the Capitol floor.
And if that doesn't make it worthwhile, I don't know what would.
Posted by april at 8:44 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
June 27, 2007
Ode to Seltzer Water
Well, it's not really an ode. I don't know precisely how to write an ode. Is there a specific format, or does one just extoll the virtues of the beloved in flowery language?
Seltzer water is one of my favorite things. The waitstaff at the place where we stay in Scranton has started bringing us seltzer water as soon as we sit down, with a lime. It looks so fancy in its pretty glass with a lime and a stirring stick. Why they put a stirring stick in it is beyond me, and since it's unnecessary plastic I should probably tell them to dispense with the stirring stick. Perhaps it's a statement on the war between stirring sticks and spoons. But anyhow, it's so yummy. And I much prefer seltzer water fresh out of the squirt machine that they have in restaurants to any bottled mineral water. It's been hot, and I seem to drink about four glasses of seltzer water at a sitting in these warm days.
I first discovered seltzer water in college, when my roommate Samantha used to buy Vintage seltzer in the bright blue cans. We'd wake up in the middle of the night and open a fresh seltzer. Of course, you have to drink the whole can at once because you can't drink flat seltzer unless you're dying of dehydration on a desert island (note that I finally learned the difference between desert and dessert! It was the polar bear story that did it.) Samantha is a seltzer purist, and will drink only the plain, unflavored stuff, but I like the lightly fruit flavored stuff you can buy at the grocery store in 1 liter bottles. Peach, orange, raspberry with lime, lemon lime, wild cherry, you get the idea. It doesn't have any sugar, calories, or even any artificial sweetener (not that that would be a problem, as long as it was the right sweetener.)
You can make a lot of fun things with seltzer water. One of my favorites is my CR-sangria, which has a berry flavored seltzer, a shot of unsweetened (not "no sugar added," truly unsweetened, too tart to drink straight) pure cranberry juice, two oz of red wine, and a tiny dot of sucralose or Splenda. (This is also good if you use diet Cherry 7-Up or diet Cranberry Ginger Ale, a beverage that in our house goes by just "diet Cranberry," as though we were on a first name basis with it or something.)
I am fairly sure that there was a dash of seltzer water in my gazpacho at Cresheim Cottage Cafe a few days ago. It had just a little carbonated pop, very interesting. I'll add it to my host of gazpacho recipes.
I've also been thinking lately that there's a way to incorporate the light flavor and kick of a fruit seltzer into a fresh berry dessert. I love desserts that involve berries or other fruit marinated in a sweet wine, even a sweet wine with a tart vinegar like balsamic. Just a tiny dash of seltzer might add a really fun spark to that dessert. Someday when I am actually home and have time to cook again I will try something.
Posted by april at 6:05 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
June 24, 2007
It's Bruchetta In A Glass!
Philadelphia restaurant recommendation: Tinto. Read this review in the Philly Inquirer.
My lawyer friend Jim took me there last night, and we had a meal that was worth a week of saving calories for. WOW! That's what we exclaimed between each incredible course.
Seriously, this is a gooooood restaurant. Perhaps I love food more than most. Perhaps being a little under calories makes you appreciate food more than your average overfed American. But I assure you, the food at Tinto would please almost anyone.
It's tapas style, so you share multitudes of tiny dishes. The most amusing thing was the chicken bruschetta served in a shot glass! Jim and I approached it with trepidation, as we'd been expecting something on a crostini. Apparently not. I grabbed it first, took out the skewer of chicken and vegetables, and said, "I think you eat it like this."
The point is to eat it. No one is looking. Put it in your mouth. Chew. YUM!
The whole experience of eating bruschetta in a glass made me think it would be fun to serve foods in dishes in which they clearly do not belong. "Here is your salad: in five tea cups!" "Here is your soup: in a frying pan!" "Here is your wine: in a soup bowl!" What an entertaining game! I love presentation (MR's mom is with me on that, and she gave us beautiful dishes that are much fun to serve dinners on) so I can imagine a million creative ways to riff off of Tinto's bizarre mixes of dish with dishes.
I loved the atmosphere too... tall tables, wine racks covering the walls, dark and loud so you feel like you can say anything without being overheard.
Jim loves to feed me... "You're wasting away!" he says, when obviously I am not. At 109 (that's my current weight with exercise muscle and a little campaign weight gain) I am slim but no woman's skinny. Jim loves to pour food into me because I appreciate good food and enjoy the game of trying a new restaurant, talking about it for days in advance and telling all our friends who were invited but couldn't make it what a good meal they missed.
Who says that CR folks don't love food??? We just balance out our big meals with low calorie, nutrient dense meals every other day. It's not that hard. I adore food, wine, and the experience of dining at a fine establishment. But I don't let that get in my way of my long term health goals.
Any of you who are planning a trip to Philly need to call Tinto for your reservations now. They're going to be very, very busy.
Posted by april at 4:39 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
June 21, 2007
Geek-Out Harrisburg
We have a press conference in our state's capitol tomorrow morning, so I drove down here from Scranton so I could get a good night's work in on the phone and then be ready for the press conf in the morning. Drove down, did my several hours worth of work, and adjourned to the hotel bar for a glass of wine and possibly dinner (though I wasn't very hungry due to extra large breakfast and lunch at Scranton Radisson.)
Got to the bar and discovered a giant, nearly untouched vegetable tray. Red peppers, yellow peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, grape tomatoes, cucumbers... all for the taking, free! And a fruit tray: strawberries, cantaloupe, honey dew, grapes! There were cheese and crackers too, and I took one piece of gouda but ignored the rest.
Three plates full of free veggies. I asked the bartender if it was really okay that I was eating dinner at the vegetable tray. He said it was fine, they always have leftovers.
While I sat there I read a book that I borrowed from Edward, a book about pensions. It's called Banking on Death, and it's just brilliant. I am so very interested in anything actuarial. I hadn't thought about it in awhile, but last week Edward gave a presentation on pensions to the nurses at the hospital we're organizing, and when he went through exactly how their management had eliminated their retirement security over the last several years, I suddenly remembered how fascinating I find this stuff. Real working people spend their entire lives giving, giving, and giving more, only to find out that they have very little income on which to retire. My nurses, who give up their health, their holidays, their weekends, their time with their families and their peace of mind to take care of our sickest fellow citizens wake up one day to find out that their pension has been eliminated. Sure, they can keep what's in there, but going forward? A tiny contribution from their employer, along with a note that says, "You'd better start saving!" Not so easy when your wage increases are less than the cost of living every year so you're actually losing money with each passing "raise." That's why they're organizing: to have some say in the decisions that affect the rest of their lives.
I'm sitting in the bar, eating my third plate of veggies, drinking a chardonnay (it's summer, okay? I sometimes drink white in summer!) and freaking out over this pension book, and it occurs to me: "I AM A SERIOUS GEEK!"
Most of the time I get out of the geek label, even though my behavior is super-geeky, because I look like a normal girl. Long hair, dresses, painted nails, make up. But deep down, I am a major geek. Granted, I never made a robot blow up at work. But I actually want to read about pensions. I fantasize about a date with an actuary where we could talk about distributed risk. wouldn't have to be a "date" date, I'd just like to meet a real live actuary and ask tons of questions about how they bet on death. Any takers? Free dinner to real live actuary!
Tomorrow I will finally get to go home, after being on the road since early Tuesday morning. MR has taken good care of our cats and is no doubt missing me by now. I can't wait to wake up next to him... with a cat howling in my ear...
Posted by april at 7:26 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
CR Vegan Has A Cookbook!
Does everybody already know that Erin has published a cookbook?
You can order it here.
I just ordered my copy. How exciting!
For those of you who haven't read Erin's blog, it's here.
A fantastic different perspective on CR from a vegan who really knows how to cook. Check it out.
Posted by april at 9:04 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
It's the Salad Lady!
That's what the chef at the hotel where we stay in Scranton said when he saw me eating a salad yesterday at lunch. He offered to go in the back and get me some kale, since a few weeks ago I had asked to have some of the fresh kale that they usually use for garnish. Unfortunately the produce truck hadn't come in yesterday so I didn't get any kale, but the lunch buffet has an excellent salad bar, including chicken strips cooked just in white wine that they sizzle up for you right there. So I had a quite decent lunch.
I've been on the road for three days now and am discovering that cottage cheese is a great road food. Since I have a fridge in my hotel room, I took two cartons of cottage cheese, and I can add it to any salad to punch up the protein and calcium. I've done fairly well on my own road food, though there are always the usual challenges. At least I've managed to work out every day... it's so much more convenient to work out when it just means going down six floors to the hotel fitness center vs. driving to the gym.
Not much time to write and still feeling like I need a few more days of a break, but just wanted to check in and tell you I'm alive.
A few random facts (I like the random facts game):
1. I tried Krispy Kreme Koffee (not a donut, just the coffee. I don't even like donuts, but I love coffee.) for the first time today. Not great, but better than Dunkin Donuts I think. My father was born in the home of Krispy Kreme, Winston-Salem, NC, and took tours of the factory on school trips as a child. At the end of the tour every child would get a doughnut and a cup of Pepsi. Don't you feel sorry for those teachers dealing with thirty kids on a sugar high in a school bus on the way back from the trip? My respect for teachers, which is always very high as I totally worship teachers, goes up even further.
2. Eggwhite omlettes that you order out aren't usually very big. Probably half the size of what I make at home. Today I specifically asked for a whole cup of eggwhites in my omlette. They very graciously made me a giant eggwhite omlette. Then the waitress brought ketchup on the side because one of my co-workers eats the eggwhite omlette with ketchup. I tried a bite and it was quite good, but tried not to eat too much of it as ketchup is almost pure sugar. Gave thought again to making my own sugar-free ketchup. Still need to make the wing sauce. So many cooking projects, so little time.
3. Scranton is beautiful, especially the hillsides with the row houses extending up the hill into the distance.
4. It pays to carry a spoon. You never know when you'll need a spoon, and I find I need a spoon rather frequently. Didn't we learn that lesson from the "Great big gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts" song? I keep finding that I want to eat my cottage cheese but have only a stirring stick, which is not helpful at all. Luckily the hotel will provide me with a spoon upon request, but if I just carried my own spoon this wouldn't be a problem. I'm sure MR carries a spoon. He's not the type to be caught spoonless.
5. Speaking of stirring sticks, I hear from my British friends that in England they don't have stirring sticks. Apparently the British find the stirring stick absurd. When we asked Aubrey de Grey what they use instead of stirring sticks, he said "Spoons!" Well, that makes a certain amount of since. Stirring with a spoon. It seems that the stick does not stir as efficiently or completely as the spoon. Another reason why I take my coffee black, no sugar, no nothing. I can't get involved in the stirring stick vs. spoon debate.
Enough silliness for now... when I have to be a very serious person 16 hours a day for work, I just don't have the energy to write extremely serious blog entries. I'm sure there will be some nasty comments written by people who have a partisan attachment to either the stirring stick or the spoon, but so be it. I wish you all the best, no matter how you stir.
Posted by april at 6:06 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
June 18, 2007
Strawberry Rhubarb Vinegarette
I know I'm supposed to be taking a blogging break, but this recipe is too good to keep to myself.
Strawberry Rhubarb Vinegarette
Put two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and a stalk of fresh rhubarb, finely chopped, in a small sauce pan and bring to a low boil. Add 5-10 frozen, unsweetened organic strawberries and continue stirring until they thaw, allowing their juices to seep throught the balsamic rhubarb mix. Turn the heat down or add a dash of water if the vinegar starts to caramelize, as you definitely don't want that. This makes enough dressing for one salad, so adjust the recipe accordingly if you want to dress more salads.
I served this dressing this weekend on a salad of fresh from the Farmers' Market romaine topped with a heaping helping of avocado and a teaspoon of flax oil. I think it would also be a lot of fun on a salad that contained fresh strawberries, maybe tomatoes, maybe cucumber and red onion. You could also try marinating some diced red onion in the vinegarette in advance for an added punch. I was serving a huge vegetable main dish, so I made the salad rather small, but you could certainly put together a giant dinner salad with a source of protein like grilled chicken, shrimp, tofu, eggwhites, whatever.
My other favorite rhubarb recipe, which I made this weekend, is another entree that you can mix and match your proteins depending on your tastes and nutritional needs. I used Quorn tenders this time.
Rose Rhubarb:
Put 3 oz of a dry rose wine and a stalk of rhubarb, sliced like you would slice celery, in a saucepan. Bring to a low boil and add half a pint of grape tomatoes. Allow to boil until the grape tomatoes pop, and give them a hand when they get squishy by popping them with a wooden spoon so that they release their tomato liquid into the broth. You may need to add a bit of water to keep the pan from boiling dry. Add either a clove of garlic minced or a dash of garlic powder and a dash of half salt or No Salt (but just a dash.) Add your protein source: in this case I used Quorn tenders (already thawed in the microwave) but I think this dish would be excellent with chicken. I've even thought about doing it with tilapia. You really need a light tasting protein source, as it is easy to overwhelm the flavor of the rhubarb. For a variation, you could also add diced red peppers. In fact, I think I'll do that next time. The red peppers would change the taste significantly, but I think their weird savory sweetness would provide an interesting counterpoint to the slight tart of the rhubarb.
Thanks to all for your nice comments. I'm really quite well... just chilling out a bit and focusing on getting my own CR back on track and my work, which continues to be insanely demanding and will be so ever. This weekend was good, got a lot done and ate and cooked very well. I'm sure I'll be blogging full steam again soon. Sorry if I alarmed anyone!
But whatever you do, go try the strawberry rhubarb vinegarette recipe. It's subtle and strange and delicious and says "Summer Farmers' Market!!!" loud and clear. Also, if you come up with a variation, perhaps with another fruit (blueberry rhubarb vinegarette?) do let me know how it turns out.
Posted by april at 8:02 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
June 14, 2007
Taking a Break
Alas, not from work. That remains insanely busy as ever.
I just wanted to let you know that I'm taking a few days, maybe a week or two off from blogging. I'm fine, I just need a little bit of time to focus on getting my own CR back on track after this crazy campaign, and with work being so busy I don't have much time to cook or think of interesting recipes to post, and not much time to write the fun philosophical pieces I like to post from time to time.
It's been a very stressful year, both in my work and in CR-land. Though I don't regret doing the many media appearances, I realize that they've taken a huge toll on my personal life. I had no idea when we agreed to the first one that there would be such a huge backlash of negativity... and I certainly never guessed that I'd make it into one of Rebecca Traister's columns. (Interestingly enough, I read some of her other work and really like it... I think we'd be friends if we were to meet.) I have to absord so much stress and negativity on my job that it's hard to come home and absorb even more online. Of course it is my choice to do the media appearances, and I accept that people will have whatever reaction they'll have. But I need a break from dealing with the trolls, the jerks, and the random people who have nothing better to do than write nasty comments on other people's blogs.
I'm sure I won't be gone long, so keep checking back.
Posted by april at 5:22 AM | Comments (15) | TrackBack
June 11, 2007
Horseradish, Parsley, Lemon, Garlic, Onion
That's what I used to spice MR's dish tonight. He wanted me to use up a ton of turnip green and kale stems, so I did a totally non-fancy dish with stems, eggplant and eggwhite in veggie broth (no salt organic), hazelnuts on the side and teaspoon flax oil on top. When I do these simple thrown-together dishes I like to experiment with different ways of spicing it to make it more interesting. This time he really liked the product, so I figured I'd put the flavor combo out there in case any of you want to pick it up.
I ate just grape tomatoes for dinner because I had a very large lunch... Susie took me out for sushi, and I had a delicious spicy California combo with California roll, spicy tuna roll, (just to clarify for those of you who are confused, a roll = six sushi pieces, or at least that's how they call them here, so the two rolls I had = twelve pieces of sushi. Emi, is that the proper way of referring to sushi, or is that an east coast mistake?) miso soup and green salad with ginger dressing. Easily enough calories for the day, in addition to my 110 cal breakfast of eggwhites with Carolina Treet and flax oil. Really yummy... sushi is one of my favorite foods, and I eat it about once a month. It's nearly 7 pm now and I'm still stuffed from lunch. It's also nice to get some of those unusual foods in to balance off my quotidian diet.
Ummmmm... spicy tuna roll...
Posted by april at 6:54 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Curvy Girl
Now this is a curvy girl. Her name is Kitty. I want one for my house, but MR says no way.
Posted by april at 5:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 9, 2007
A Great Way to Find the Find the Nutrition You Need
Heidi recently asked about pescatarian (and non dairy) sources of Vitamin E, B6 and D. Here are some answers:
First, forget about getting D without supplements and take a good supplement, 1000 IU from all sources (meaning, check your multi to see how much it has and then grab a D supplement on top of that.) Also make sure you're getting D3, not D2. Don't walk around naked in Southern California (which will cause you other problems, not least of which would be getting arrested) or eat cartons of anchovies, just supplement. It's fine for D.
Vitamin E: I eat a lot of almonds to hit the vitamin E RDA. It goes well with having to get my allotment of fat, which as a recovering fat phobe is always an issue.
B12: there are no vegan sources of B12. I get a lot of mine from dairy, but that's a problem for Heidi. So I pulled out one of my favorite tools for finding nutritional magic bullets: Nutritiondata.com. Here's the link to a site where you can search for foods that are highest in x, lowest in y, and of a certain food category.
It's such a useful tool... you can really find exactly what you want and need to fit your specific needs. Hope that helps!
Posted by april at 9:45 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
CR Friendly Spicy Shrimp Cocktail Sauce
We're going to a potluck tonight, and I'm not sure how many folks are coming, so I thought a shrimp tray would be a safe thing to bring since if there are leftovers, we (and Kieffer!) can always eat them. It came with a small tub of cocktail sauce, but that stuff is of course filled with salt and sugar, so I thought I'd try my hand at a CR-friendly version. I just finished it and it's good! Here's the recipe:
1 small can no salt added tomato sauce (not paste)
about a tablespoon horseradish
juice of half a lemon, fresh
shake of garlic powder
tiny pinch of pure sucralose, or tiny dash of Splenda to taste if you can't get pure sucralose
It worked really, really well. It's a bit more liquidy than your average cocktail sauce, but it's good so I don't see the point in adding a thickener. And VERY low calorie: about 15 calories per quarter cup, which is definitely enough to dip a whole lot of shrimp in!
Tomorrow I'll be working on my CR-friendly wing sauce recipe!
Posted by april at 9:35 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 5, 2007
Taste, But Verify
Last night at dinner with co-workers while I sipped my pinot noir (I had eaten a Lean Cuisine beforehand... though I did have an unfortunate bite of the sanck mix) my co-worker who is vegetarian ordered one of his favorite treats: Buffalo wings without the wings. Call them chicken wings, hot wings, spicy wings, little pellets of grease, whatever you will, they come with a fabulous sauce tomato-ey pepper sauce, plus ranch or blue cheese dressing, and celery. So being a vegetarian, he orders the sauces with carrots and celery but no meat. Clever, right? Seems healthy?
Hmmm. I had never had wings before, and so had never sampled the red sauce. I was still under cals for the day ever so slightly, so I tried a bit of the sauce with the celery. AMAZING! Delicious! Hot, spicy, vinegary, with tons of tomato-y vinegary hot spicy peppery bite. I love that! To me, it tasted like a thick hot sauce, so I had quite a bit with the celery. I even tried one small chicken bite, since I had never had one before and my co-workers urged me to give it a go. It wasn't worth the calories... I much prefer the sauce on celery, where the sauce can shine.
So anyhow, we're about to finish when the chef comes out and hands us a new container of sauce, saying that the previous one wasn't quite the right recipe. So we tried that with the celery, and it was even better! I'd never had anything like it. No wonder people like these things so much... though I still contend that the fried chicken bone is a distraction from the true flavor in the sauce.
We were done with our celery and needed to go to sleep, so I took the new sauce to my room and put it in my fridge, thinking to eat it on my rescued veggies the next day. Fine.
Got up, worked out in the hotel gym on the treadmill, did some Pilates in my room, ate breakfast, had a busy morning, ate salad at the salad bar with a little grilled chicken for lunch, and by mid-afternoon was feeling like a snack so I broke out the veggies and the hot wing sauce. Yum! More celery, carrots, musrhoom (yea B!), peppers, and broccoli/broccolini in hot sauce. It was rather more creamy today though than yesterday, which made me start to wonder: what the heck is in this stuff?
I mean, I was assuming that it was some variation on the very low calorie Louisana hot sauce. That's what it tasted like. Or at worst, something like my 20 calorie per tablespoon Carolina Treet barbacue sauce.
So after my meeting I started to look on line for Buffalo/hot/spicy wing sauce recipes.
Two things alarmed me. First, they all seem to be made with copious amounts of ketchup. High sugar, high carb.
Second: they all called for a stick of butter!
So I went down to the restaurant and asked the dear host if I could possibly grab the recipe. He returned about ten minutes later with two bottles: a large bottle of Texas Pete and a bottle of hot spicy Thai chili sauce. I was starting to feel relieved, as those are very low cal ingredients, when he said: "We use these two sauces, plus a whole lot of butter!"
Grrrr. So basically, I blew the number of calories I might have spent on a delicious dinner out in Center City, enjoying fine food under the stars at an outdoor cafe with a lovely bottle of French red in the company of one of my good friends, on some hot spicy vegetable dip made of butter?
I love food, as you know (glad you like the recipes, Garry!) I adore cooking, eating, serving, playing with, reading recipes for, food. I love to find a good taste and then adapt it to be CR-friendly... in fact, my main motivation in asking for the recipe was to find a way to make my own lower carb, CR friendly version. So I'm glad I found a yummy new taste, and I already have an idea for how to make the perfect CR buffalo celery sauce, one that you can serve along side the real thing and have people like just as well or better. I'll test kitchen it this weekend and serve it up on blog if acceptable. But I'm annoyed that I unknowingly ate so many calories on something that just wasn't worth it. I would have enjoyed those calories much more in a nice meal out than in a vegetable dip.
This is one of the main reasons why I favor calorie labeling on menus. Most people don't have the time or energy to be food detectives and go looking up the nutrition info on food before they eat it, yet most people would like to eat well and be healthy, and to choose their treats based on what they really enjoy. When people have the information, they can make their own decisions about what's worth eating and what's not. But when we don't have the information, we tend to eat whatever's there, convenient, and tasty. Especially all of us who are on the run with busy jobs, lives, etc... basically, everyone! We're biologically programmed to reach for fat, salt and sweet tastes, but if we knew that the buffalo wing sauce was probably 100 calories per tablespoon or more, we might choose not to eat quite so much of it, and to save our calories for something we might enjoy more. Or if we did choose to eat it, we would do so with the full information. Informed eaters, making choices to maximize our pleasure and happiness in whatever way we find matches our lifestyle, goals and priorities. Having the information would make it easier to make those choices, since we certainly suffer (or enjoy!) the consequences of our choices.
That being said, I should know enough by now to have researched the ingredients before, not after, consuming the item. I don't expect regular folks to do that kind of research, but I have more unusual goals and priorities and that requires extra effort. I didn't go to the effort, and now for a week I have to cut about 100 calories off my day to make up for it. Blergh.
For those of us who practice CR, or at least for me, it's more satisfying to create dishes that are both delicious and low calorie to eat on a regular basis, and then to enjoy the occasional well-chosen higher calorie meal, than it was to eat high calorie foods all the time. I don't give up any food, but I definitely have "sometimes" foods vs. regular foods. I don't feel like I'm missing anything because if I want a particular food, I just eat it... while balancing off the calories and nutrition in other meals and throughout the week. It doesn't feel like a sacrifice because I feel so much better in the here and now than I did pre-CR, I can't imagine going back. Even a few weeks of eating suboptimally makes me feel dramatically worse, and I remember that's how I used to feel all the time. Those weeks of stress-induced CR slippage felt awful.
Anyhow, when you're in the mindset that a high calorie sometimes food should be just that, a *sometimes* food, you want to know what you're eating on a quotidian basis. That's what makes it hard to balance CR with being on the road a lot. But over time, I'm working it out. From now on, I'll take a small bite of something unfamiliar to get the taste, but do further investigation before consuming a whole serving. Taste, but verify!
Still, it will all be worth it if I go home and engineer the perfect CR friendly low cal buffalo wing sauce. Stay tuned.
Posted by april at 8:16 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
June 4, 2007
Ultimate Veggie Tray Raid
I just stopped in the lobby of the hotel to get some stuff from a co-worker when I saw the staff cleaning out a room where there had just been a reception of some kind. Sensing that free veggies might be near, I walked in and asked if I could have a few of the veggies on the barely eaten vegetable tray. They said sure, and I helped myself to some celery and red pepper.
Then as I turned to leave after thanking the staff, I saw a stack of to-go boxes! So I asked if I could take one and bring some vegetables home with me. They had no problem with that, so I filled a box with celery, red pepper, broccoli, broccolini, and the carved out yellow pepper that was just being used as a serving bowl for the other veggies (a very cute idea, btw!)
One of my co-workers who loves celery happened upon me as I walked out, and I shared my loot. When I told him the story he asked, "Did they ask if you were staying here?"
I suppose I could be the crazy vegetable lady, going from hotel to hotel searching for leftover vegetables. But as it turns out, I am a guest, and one with a fridge in my room.
I love rescuing veggies, and most of these have already found a happy home in my tummy. As Emi said the other day, Viva the Veggies!
Posted by april at 8:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
What You Really Really Want
I love that old song by the Spicegirls. It makes no sense, but has a catchy tune.
First, the amazing whey: MR answers your question:
If she's in Canada, she can get the very stuff from here:
http://www.fortius.ca/products/level3/dynawhey.html
Or you can phone them directly (1-888-714-4697) Alternately, it's available
in Loblaws/Superstores up there.
What I've subsequently ordered is the quite wondrous custom product-blending service available here:
http://proteinfactory.com/shop/home.php
I chose just plain whey protein concentrate (lacks the extra lactoferrin
of the DynaWhey), flavored with chocolate and banana and sweetened
with a 50/50 mix of Neotame and sucralose (safer IMO than Ace-K, which
is in the DynaWhey along with the sucralose).
Second, the lower digestive tract issue:
She is taking magnesium
CITRATE; if she wants a stool-softener, she should be using the OXIDE.
Third, seconds after reading Bethsheba's comment re: the grilled chicken salads, I walked by the hotel restaurant and saw "Lunch Special: Buffalo Chicken Salad!" There is no escape! Happily, this time I packed a lot of my own food and got a hotel room with a microwave and a fridge. So I just polished off a Lean Cuisine and my home made salad, with some flax oil and salsa, as a nice dinner in my room while I was getting work done. Later on I'll go out with co-workers and they'll have dinner, but I'll just enjoy a glass of wine and the company without the calories. Lean Cuisines aren't everyday food, but they do fine in a pinch on the road, and they're much better than a lot of the God knows what you get out here. Tomorrow I have my whey that I can put in a glass of skim milk with flax oil for breakfast, and then for lunch I'm going to suggest that we all go down to the buffet at the hotel that has a huge and excellent salad bar. I somehow forgot my yogurt, but I'll pick up some while out, or just eat another whey shake with skim milk with lunch. Then dinner will most likely be a second Lean Cuisine. I far prefer my own home cooking, but it's a requirement of my job to travel so I'll do the best I can. Still getting all the calcium and Bs in my shakes, and the As, Ks, Cs, etc. in my salads.
Last night over dinner I got into a conversation with MR about how I create the dishes I make. It all started when I was telling him about a dish I used to make years ago, when I was vegan and ate a ton of carbs. It was spinich stuffed shells in a pumpkin sage sauce. It was great! Basically you stuffed the pasta shells with a mixture of steamed spinich, crumbled tofu and garlic, then you made a sauce of pumpkin, plain soy milk, garlic, and fresh sage, then baked the entire thing in a casserole dish. Garnished with sage leaves. You could smell it cooking from a mile away.
As I talked about it, I decided I wanted to make a CR version based on the same principles but something MR and I would eat. So here's how the thought process goes:
1. Get rid of the pasta. Easy -- it doesn't taste like anything anyhow.
2. We don't use soy milk, but we do use both regular organic milk and yogurt. The pumpkin sauce would be even better with the extra bite that yogurt gives it, so I'd substitute nonfat plain yogurt (but you have to add after removing from heat.
3. Spinach isn't as flavorful, IMO, as many heartier greens like kale. And MR dislikes cooked greens anyway, but greens make a great bed for any hot sauce you might serve over pasta. I often serve marinaras over beds of kale or arugula, or both. So I could pour the sauce, hot, over fresh kale. The kale would maintain its integrity but still serve as a great backdrop to the sauce. (I, for the record, like cooked kale fine but prefer raw.)
4. MR loves a creamy bite of nonfat ricotta, and it would make a good addition to the creaminess of the sauce to dot the kale bed with five tablespoons of nonfat ricotta, distributed around the greens, before covering the entire creation with the pumpkin sauce.
5. Flax oil would make an amazing buttery topping, and we eat a teaspoon at dinner every night, so there, pour that on top.
There you go: dish transformed, totally CR friendly, to MR's specific tastes, but probably tastes a lot like the original.
When I think about cooking, I start with some basic ideas about what the person I'm cooking for enjoys eating. People are very, very different in their tastes, and I've found that I enjoy cooking for someone more after I've eaten with him or her a whole lot, so that I get a sense of what buttons he or she really likes to have pushed.
For instance, MR loves to walk in and see the table set with so much food that it looks like it would take him a week to eat it. He adores volume, and he has the patience to sit there and eat for forty-five minutes. I, on the other hand, like little foods, and so I have no problem with eating things that are smaller but higher calorie sometimes, since I don't crave the volume in the first place. Usually I am done eating a good twenty minutes before he finishes, and my smaller stomach feels plenty full. I do however tend to like to eat more often, hence I frequently have a snack plus three meals in the day.
MR also likes things that are creamy. "Cream" soups (made with yogurt), ricotta parfaits, pumpkin pie, etc. He loves avocado. I can always add pleasure to his meal but dotting it with bites of pure creaminess, like the ricotta in the above recipe idea or avocado chunks in a gazpachzo. My mother on the other hand, hates anything creamy, most likely as a result of a childhood allergy to milk. She won't even eat guacamole, cause its texture reminds her of creamy stuff!
My mom loves cooked fruit. She is the woman putting mango in her Southern vinegar barbacue chicken recipe. She is rarely without a can of pineapple. So what I've learned from that is that she likes a touch of sweetness, with a little tart, in most anything. You can use combinations of vinegars, fruits, peppers, and even wines to achieve this end. You'd be amazed at how much just a combination of a dry rose wine with a dash of balsamic vinegar and a shake of pure habenero pepper flakes will punch up the flavor of shrimp, scallops, or even a vegetable if you use it as the cooking liquid.
I came of cooking age in the fat phobic nineties, so I never owned a bottle of oil until I started CR! I learned to cook in water, in broth, but more than anything, in WINE! My dad and I joke that we always cook with wine, as we love to hang out in the kitchen together throwing some of the wine into the food and plenty of it into our glasses. Red wine, white wine, rose wine, even super sweet dessert wines. You may have had pears poached in port, but what about taking the same port, mixing it with a teaspoon of hazelnut oil, and drizzling it over fresh berries? Even just cooking in wine adds flavor to most anything, and I love the smell of red wine and garlic wafting through the house. Put that with the smell of some red peppers roasting in the oven and you can alert the entire neighborhood to the fact that dinner is on its way.
Now that I use oils for their healthy fats, I've learned how they can complement a dish without overpowering if when they're used in small amounts. Flax is especially versitile, and takes on a buttery taste in savory dishes and an almost floral taste in sweeter dishes. We never cook with oil because it oxidizes in the heat, but we always add it to our dishes after removing from heat.
Here's a great recipe for a salad or vegetable/fruit dressing to make with oil, for all your fat phobes out there getting used to using oil as a flavor:
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon hazelnut oil (Rapunzel organic is a great brand)
Cinnamon or nutmeg (or both) to taste
I made this first at the Ray Kurzweil lunch auction as a dressing for our salads, and it got rave reviews. The interplay of the hazelnut flavor with the spices is amazing, and the balsamic gives it just the kick you want in a salad dressing, along with the essential sweetness that goes so well with cinnamon.
Of course my favorite season is summer, and I can't wait to get to the Farmers' Market. I love playing with vegetables. This summer I may not have much time for hobby cooking, and I'll be on the road a lot until this campaign is over. But when I can get home I'll be stopping by the Farmers' Market on the way and gathering up whatever's fresh and unusual. Concord grapes, heirloom tomatoes, weird varieties of cauliflower, purple broccoli... they're all found at the Allentown Farmers' Market, conveniently located at the rest stop on the PA Turnpike.
It always cracks me up when people say that CR people must not like food. I love food... both to eat it and to cook it. Always have... in fact, it's probably one of the reasons why I adapted rather easily to a lower calorie level. Once I realized that I could get rid of a lot of unnecessary calories without sacrificing flavor, and in fact increasing the flavor in many dishes -- try your favorite homemade marinara sauce over spicy fresh arugula instead of pasta and you'll see what I mean, while saving yourself hundreds of calories.
Speaking of homemade marinara, here's my simple tomato sauce, made to show off the tomatoes when they're at their peak of summer ripeness:
tomatoes, chopped
very dry red wine (somthing you'd drink)
garlic, minced
fresh basil
Heat the wine in a sauce pan and add garlic. Simmer for about two minutes and add tomatoes. Keep simmering, adding more wine if needed. Add the basil about two minutes before removing from heat. You probably leave the thing on the stove for a total of fifteen minutes, stirring constantly. If you wanted to simmer it for the entire half hour necessary to cook a third off the calories in the wine, you could do so by adding small amounts of water to make sure the pan doesn't go dry. But honestly I prefer the full wine version and think it's worth the extra calories.
I rarely give amounts in my recipes because I create them fresh almost every time... it explains why I have literally hundreds of meal files on my nutritional software saved on my computer. I do it by feel, and how I feel varies from day to day, with the quality of ingredients, who I'm cooking for, how much time I have, etc. I've learned how to adjust the macronutrient ratios by adding things like hazelnuts so I can figure it out as I go and still come up with the amounts I want of everything.
I'd love to have a CR iron chef game: give me your calorie level, your macronutrient ratio preference (if you have one), and a few of your favorite foods and I'll make up a meal to fit it. Anyone who wants to play should write me for reservations at our house for dinner!
Posted by april at 4:48 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
June 3, 2007
Cold Creamy Summer Gazpachzo
In the eternal quest to find something cold to serve on these hot days, I made a variation on my traditional gazpachzo.
This is two servings worth: one that I served tonight, one that I left for MR to eat tomorrow whilst I'm in Scranton.
2 green pepper
2 cucumbers
mince, but not totally puree, in food processor
blend into 2 cups of low sodium V8 juice.
Add: lots of chili powder. I used my special chili powder from around the world shaker, but any would do.
Plus: cumin, red wine vinegar (dash), tarragon (dried), garlic powder (lots), lemon juice (half a lemon), tabasco (a few shakes, any variety), a dash Worsterschire sauce, and 1 teaspoon of flax oil.
Then... and here's the revolutionary thing: add a half cup plain, nonfat yogurt to complete the creaminess and add calcium/protein without adding a whole lot of calories. Also, you get that yogurt bite. Delicious!
Serve cold.
I added a few g eggwhites (9 to be exact) to MR's soup, then served a side dish of broccoli with garlic and olive oil and lemon, plus a giant choco-banana whey shake. And his quotidian glass of wine with dinner. He loved it.
I, on the other hand, had shrimp. Yes, I can write it without fear of inspiring a round of kitty howls since my cat can not, as yet, read. I gave him two shrimpies, raw, just like he likes. I cooked my shrimp in red wine with garlic and a dash of half salt and they were fabulous! No leftover shrimp in our house! I also had a pint of grape tomatoes, a piece of nonfat cheddar cheese, and a bunch of black olives (fifty cals worth), plus some wonderful French red. I really enjoy meals that are very simple, distinct separate tastes. A bit of this, a bit of that, but all on their own where I can taste them. So odd since I do adore cooking for others as a hobby, and have been thinking a lot lately about the way I blend flavors. But for myself, I like to taste every individual ingredient. Hobby cooking is so much fun, but what I personally want to eat is often different from what I serve. The truth is, a salad of 100 g kale with a cup of nonfat plain yogurt, four tablespoons of salsa and fifty cals of olives plus 1 tablespoon flax oil is my own taste nirvana... when I eat my simple quotidian food, I feel completely satisfied. I enjoy playing with flavors for others, and for those for whom I cook often, I enjoy learning their tastes and crafting meals to fit within their nutritional goals while hitting all their taste pressure points. But for myself, I love strong tastes, totally separate from each other, so that I savor each as its own individual flavor.
Tomorrow I'm off to Scranton for most of the week, so I'd better go now to cuddle up my cats so they don't eat MR in my absence. Will be checking the blog from the road and hope to write. Will definitely be packing the whey!
Posted by april at 8:44 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
June 2, 2007
S-H-R-I-M-P Night Chez L'Orange
My cat loves shrimp so much that we can not speak its name aloud without tipping off a chorus of "MEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOWWWW!" So we have learned to spell the name of the beloved crustacean, much as though we were parents of a four year old who had not yet learned to read.
I often eat fish or chicken when out, but MR eats meat precisely once a month. So tonight, the long-awaited meat night rolled around and I made shrimp.
Here is today's shrimp dish, which made MR very, very happy.
I took raw, unpeeled shrimp, and boiled it in 3 oz of a very dry rose wine, with grape tomatoes and a whole lot of fresh cilantro. Cooked until the shrimp were bright pink and looked done through, topped with 1 teaspoon flax oil and some avocado chunks. Giant, plate-sized dish of steamed asparagus with yellow squash, topped with garlic and lemon juice. Glass of wine.
People who say we must be starving have clearly never seen the volume we eat. Regular, non-CR'd folks often can't get through it cause there's just too much food. But it's low calorie, nutrient packed.
Kieffer got several pieces of shrimp. He is now lounging on the floor, trying to stay cool. MR is hating the heat and humidity, and I feel guilty cause I love it. My hair loves this weather, I feel safe and comfy in a womb-like hot wet atomsphere. As Jessica Simpson said, the real me is a Southern girl, and I will forever feel most at home in the midst of extreme heat and humidty.
Which is not to say that I would turn down some air-conditioner, were it to be offered. But I do enjoy the CR effect on body temp... I can endure much higher temps than I could pre-CR.
Okay, onward to do the dishes...
Posted by april at 5:41 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Cold Summer Vegetable Salad with Creamy Tomato Cilantro Vinegarette
I think MR's lunch is six inches tall. When you put together all these layers of raw veggies, you end up with a lot of height!
Finely chop and layer on a large plate (all raw, except for Quorn):
Romaine
Yellow crookneck summer squash
Green zucchini
Cauliflower
Quorn tenders
Cilantro leaves
Avocado
1/2 cup nonfat plain yogurt
Creamy Tomato Cilantro Vinegarette:
1/4 cup low sodium vegetable juice
2 tablespoons nonfat sour cream
fresh cilantro
garlic powder
red wine vinegar (about two tablespoons)
chili powder
Mix and pour over salad.
It will take MR an hour to eat this gargantuan plate of food. He loves volume, so this will make him happy. I also made him one of his favorites, a virgin Bloody Mary, for the side. All for 592 calories.
Posted by april at 12:41 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Cold Foods For Hot Days
It's so hot here that no one really wants to eat. And once certainly doesn't want to turn on the oven or stove. So I'm looking for cool ideas for cold foods with healthy ingredients. My cold cruciferous salad was a big hit, and I'll be doing a gazpachzo soon, but I need more inspiration. Thoughts?
Posted by april at 4:09 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack