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March 30, 2009
Is That Why You Wanted a Coleslaw?
My father and I both love Sarah Bareilles' "Love Song." About a year ago I was blasting it in the kitchen when MR came down from his office upstairs. "Don't worry, sweetie, it's not about you," I said. I was having a rather rough time in a close friendship at that moment and expressing myself by playing air-piano in the kitchen.
Things are much calmer now, everyone is happy, we are all too tired from work to fight, and the drama quotient is way, way down. I like it. But that doesn't stop me from loving my favorite drama queen song.
So when MR requested cabbage on the grocery list this week, I knew he wanted a coleslaw. Remember the host of weird coleslaws I made last summer? I took a coleslaw break over the winter... cold dishes just aren't as appealing when it's freezing out and in... but now I'm back to making him his beloved funky coleslaws.
Today's was:
200 g green cabbage
250 g red cabbage
200 g Quorn tenders
Garlic, chili powder, Chipoltle Tabasco
2 tbsps non fat sour cream
Creamy crunchy southwestern coleslaw!
Side dish: zucchini steamed in red wine vinegar, lemon juice and black pepper.
Prep time: 15 minutes, between work, work and work.
Posted by april at 3:11 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
A Long Winter's Soup!
It's nearly April here and yet it's still way too cold, in my book. It was very windy today, and it seems like whenever I'm in the house I'm still wrapped up in layers. Being a North Carolina girl, I never get used to these long Northern winters, even though I realize on some level that it's not nearly as bad here as it is in New York, Boston, or (ugh!) Vermont.
That being said, even though I feel like it should be warm and sunny and I should be enjoying cold salads of napa cabbage topped with grapefruit slices, pickled red onions (you soak them in lime juice) and avocado in a ginger mango yogurt dressing, sitting outside on the patio and getting some sun (though I never really get sun because I'm covered in sunscreen, it's the warm that counts) I am actually huddled inside, working on my computer and warming up to a nice hot soup I made this afternoon. It's the perfect thing for when you want to pack in a lot of veggies but don't have a lot of time and really need to warm your body up!
A Long Winter's Soup
1 bag "Oriental Blend" frozen veggies (broccoli, mushrooms, snap peas, water chestnuts
1 bag frozen chopped okra
3 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoons no salt added tomato paste
Lots of garlic
Curry powder
Black pepper
Make the broth out of the veggie broth and tomato paste, so it's a light clear tomato veggie broth. Add the veggies and boil until piping hot. Season to taste.
You can add the fat source of your choice once removing from heat: flax oil, olive oil, even avocado. For lunch I had mine with 10 grams of MR's mom's spiced nuts. You could also add your own protein: I had mine with a cup of lowfat organic cottage cheese, but you could easily stir in chicken, turkey, fish, tofu, Quorn, even shrimp.
This soup is keeping me nice and warm as I work my way through what seems to be a never-ending mountain of work. Not much time for cooking these days, but one does have to eat, so being able to throw together a soup with nice frozen veggies really helps!
Thanks Kristin for all your kind words... glad you're finding the blog helpful! I did notice a decrease in my cholesterol after starting CR, though mine has always been pretty low. My HDL went up quite a bit when I started exercising seriously too. The biggest difference is in my blood pressure, which at peak CR is about 90/70.
Posted by april at 1:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 29, 2009
How Many Calories?
The question of how many calories to eat is always a tough one. People tend to think they are eating way fewer than they actually are, so when the try to restrict, they often go down way too low, lose weight too fast, or just get so hungry that they freak out and binge.
The best method, I think, to determine how many calories to start with is to get a very accurate assessment of how much you're eating currently, and then drop gradually. For instance, weigh and measure every calorie you eat on three *average* days, not days when you're being "good." The problem here is that most people eat out, and it's almost impossible to account for those calories. Restaurant meals are usually loaded with hidden calories, even the ones that look healthy.
So if you can't weigh and measure your average days, here's another way to find a place to start. Look up one of the online BMR calculators. Here is one that I like. It's amazing how accurate these things are. You can then plug in your activity level and use the Harris Benedict Equation to figure out how many calories you need to maintain your weight. Caution: if you are very muscular, it will underestimate your calorie needs. If you're very overweight, it will overestimate your calorie needs. Muscle burns a lot more calories than fat.
Once you've got that number, you can try cutting a little bit off it and see what happens. If you lose more than a pound or two a week or feel lightheaded, dizzy, or wiggy with hunger, eat more. It harms your health to lose weight too fast. If you're not losing, first try monitoring more carefully. Usually we think we are eating less than we are, and are eating hidden calories in restaurant food or a bite here and a bite there.
That's my idea of where to start. Hope it helps!
Posted by april at 10:21 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Super Stuffed Eggplant Pizzas!
This is a really, really good one:
An eggplant, sliced lengthwise, steamed for three minutes in the microwave and then hollowed out.
100 g zucchini, diced
100 g tomato, diced
100 g green pepper, diced
20 g shiitake mushrooms, diced and pre-cooked for 1 minute in the microwave
2 oz fat free mozzarella
1/8 cup nonfat ricotta
garlic powder or garlic, minced
oregano
basil
1/4 cup no salt added tomato sauce
Mix the diced veggies with the ricotta and the spices in a bowl. Fill the hollowed out eggplant carcas. Top with no salt added tomato sauce and mozzarella. Microwave till the cheese melts. Top with olive or flax oil.
This time I added some soy pepperoni, only 20 cals worth, as we don't like to eat too much dementia-causing soy. It added to the total pizza effect.
MR really freaked out over this dish. I was pretty happy with it.
Posted by april at 4:48 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Fat Stripper Blend
I'm sure I'm not the only person who did a doubletake upon seeing the aforementioned advertised at the juice bar at my local grocery store. Apparently it is a smoothie that involves banaba (not banana) leaf, inulin, creatine, and something else. Its ostensible purpose, I trust, is to strip the fat away from the juice consumer. However, the title is somewhat easy to misconstrue, and while I'm not sure on what grounds, I feel that I should be offended by it.
I must alert Dr. Stacey to this one...
Posted by april at 6:37 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
March 28, 2009
A Simple Asian-Inspired One Dish Meal
In between access at the hospital, conference calls, mountains of literature to produce, and the vague attempt to keep up with my yoga and Pilates practice (Davy Arizona has ordered me to do yoga at least five times a week, because the difference in my mental state is so huge when I'm on my yoga vs. when I'm not... and I'm amazed at how much more effective I am at my job and everything else when I'm doing yoga) there's not much time for cooking, cleaning, or any of the normal domestic tasks I once enjoyed.
So Saturday night I made a super quick and easy dinner for MR while I was in the process of hashing out important work decisions... and it turned out yummy!
Shiitake mushrooms (two large, more small)
250 g asparagus (don't look, Davy)
300 g broccoli
185 g Quorn Tenders (pick your own protein though!)
2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
garlic
ginger powder or fresh ginger
flax and olive oil
First, take a dash of water put it in the pot. Pour in the Quorn and turn up heat to high to thaw the Quorn. Pour in the soy sauce, lots of ginger, and add the shiitake mushrooms and any hard pieces of the veggies, like the asparagus bottoms or broccoli stems (at our house we eat absolutely every piece of the vegetable.) Once those are cooked through, and just before serving, add the asparagus tops and broccoli crowns, adding ginger and garlic to taste. You can even let the stems and mushrooms simmer for awhile with the heat off to really soak in the flavors, and then add the more delicate veggies at the last minute to keep them from getting over cooked. Once the veggies are lightly steamed, remove from heat and serve with a teaspoon of olive and a teaspoon of flax.
I served a zucchini in lemon juice with black pepper side dish, plus the usual hazelnuts and wine, but you could easily make it a one dish supper.
Posted by april at 11:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Curried Stuffed Mushrooms
Okay, since you had to suffer through yet another attack of April is annoyed, here's a recipe:
White stuffing mushrooms, hollowed out and microwaved for 1 minute to pre-cook
Non-fat sour cream, one teaspoon per mushroom
Minced garlic
Curry powder
Chipoltle Tabasco sauce
Non-fat mozzarella: 1 oz per 6 mushrooms
Pre-cook the mushies. Place the garlic inside the mushroom. Mix the curry powder into the sour cream. Put 1 teaspoon of sour cream into each mushie. Top with mozza and a dot of Tabasco. Microwave till the mozza melts, about 1 minute.
Top with flax or olive oil after removing from heat.
Posted by april at 5:16 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 27, 2009
April Gets Annoyed at Comments -- Take 75
Here's another perplexing comment:
I find it interesting that you are willing to sacrifice the true benefits of CR for splurging on weekends. If this is all about the new information that the cells get from CR, then I think it's a pretty safe bet that when you eat "whatever", (and regularly it seems) you are confusing the cells.
Also, the Walford products look to me to be just another form of engineered "food" - scary. I would definitely skip them in favor of nothing or something real.
Huh? New information that cells get from CR? Like reading the paper? What? Confusing the cells?
How many times have I been over the fact that it's the average number of calories that produces the CR effect, not the time of day when you eat them, how many you eat at one time, or anything like that? This person must just be joining our regularly scheduled program already in progress. Heck, alternate day feeding works just fine in the lab animals... as long as the average number of calories is at a CR level. It wouldn't matter if I ate 1000 calories all week and then ate 3000 at one sitting on the weekend... it's the average that matters. Now I do tend to be a bit more consistent than that, but the point remains, the benefits of CR come from the average, not some bizarre notion about the cells getting new information. I can't even figure out where that one came from.
As to Walden Farms products (which I think is what the commenter meant, not Walford, but who knows?) I refer you once more to my entry on nutrition superstition. Be scared of "engineered" products all you want... that's your superstition talking, not the evidence.
I think the thing that annoys me about comments like this (other than the fact that they're based on no evidence and a complete lack of understanding of what we're talking about) is that they come with a holier than thou judgmental tone. OOOOOOOHhhhh, you eat out sometimes, so you're bad! Ewwwwwww... those foods aren't natural! How can it be? Yet if folks never eat out (like MR), the rest of the population says, "Hey, why can't you losen up and have fun? You must have an eating disorder!"
Life is life, people. CR is a way to improve and extend life, not to build yourself a cage where you stop doing the things you enjoy. I love going out to eat, but I do it less frequently than I used to, and I make up for it with low carefully measured calories on other days. That doesn't negate the effects of CR... I am now absolutely sure that eating out at least once a week for three years I was getting the benefits of CR because I kept my total calories low. I know that because having been back above what appears to be my CR switch point, I know that the short term benefits (such as never getting sick, needing less sleep, relief from anxiety, etc.) come back at a certain weight and calorie level, and go away above that. My blood pressure seems to reflect a similar phenomenon. How I get to that calorie level and weight is irrelevant: whether it be eating a consistent amount every day of all organic natural foods or eating low calorie days five or six days a week and high one or two... as long as adequate nutrition is there, it doesn't matter!
The great thing about CR is that there's no *one* perfect way to do it. There are as many ways to do CR as there are practitioners... so that's at least ten or fifteen...
Posted by april at 3:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 24, 2009
Weird Food I Will Never Eat
Davy Arizona and I ride back and forth to the hospital (one of the three places we're organizing currently) together a lot since we live in the same little town right outside Philly. We spend a lot of time sitting in traffic, and I'd say 85% of the time we talk about work, 10% we talk about either yoga or fishing, and 5% of the time we talk about whatever random thing pops into our heads.
Yesterday as we pulled into the parking lot I announced, "I've been making this weird new soup for breakfast. It's a cup of veggie broth, 200 grams eggwhites (pre-cooked), 1 tablespoon brewers yeast, and a teaspoon of flax oil. It's super high protein, good on Omega 3's, gets in my first dose of brewers yeast for the day, and is yummy and easy to eat!"
I noticed his eyes glaze over the way they do when he's not paying attention to what I'm saying, at all. "You're not paying attention," I said, "And I'm okay with that."
"Yeah, when you start talking about weird food I will never eat, I go back to thinking about fishing."
I don't blame him. The thought of opening day of trout season is rather riveting.
Posted by april at 4:10 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
March 22, 2009
Lemon Parsley Vinegarette
Have I posted this one before?
Bunch of flat leaf Italian parsley
Organic lemon juice, fresh or jarred
Tablespoon minced garlic
Red wine vinegar, lots
Dash half salt
Blend in food processor until liquid, adjust the flavors to taste.
Parslicious!
Posted by april at 6:38 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
March 18, 2009
All She Wants To Do Is... Work?
Sorry for my long absence... I am not dead, just working.
More soon.
Posted by april at 6:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 8, 2009
There Must Be Fifty Ways to Stuff an Eggplant
But this is one of the weirdest:
Eggplant Cheeseburger
1/2 eggplant, gutted
80 g Quorn grounds (u could use ground beef)
1 fat free cheddar single
Walden Farms Russian (aka Thousand Island) dressing
Dill pickle relish
garlic powder
Cook the eggplant for three minutes in the microwave then remove from heat. Gut the eggplant, defrost the Quorn. Mix the Quorn with the eggplant guts, top with Russian dressing, dill pickle relish, and garlic powder. Cover with cheese, microwave for 2 mins.
That, plus a giant coleslaw with red and green cabbage, fat free mozza and Walden Farms coleslaw dressing, avocado and oil (oh, and a cranberry sauce parfait with FF Ricotta) was lunch for MR. I had: surprise! My usual salad and cottage cheese, with special weekend avocado.
That eggplant cheeseburger is really weird, but good.
Posted by april at 10:12 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 7, 2009
Eggplant Stuffed with Curried Zucchini
I don't have much time to do much of anything, but tonight I finally made dinner for my angel and here's what it is:
1 eggplant, microwaved for three minutes and gutted
80 g Quorn tenders
157 g zucchini
2 oz fat free mozzarella
curry, garlic, cider vinegar
Chop the zuch and and marinate it and the Quorn in cider vinegar and the spices. Stuff the gutted eggplant with the marinated veggies/Quorn and top with the cheese.
On the side, I am serving 300 g asparagus, plus the eggplant guts (diced) and 100 g eggwhites, marinated in lemon juice with curry, garlic and black pepper, plus 30 g avocado. Topping the dishes with 1 tsp olive oil and 1 tsp flax, and he has 8 g hazelnuts on the side along with his glass of wine.
I have no idea what I'll eat for dinner. Not feeling all that hungry. Exhaustion and stress plus having eaten a rather big day yesterday (fundrasier for Senator Casey at a really good Irish bar, complete with authentic Irish St. Patrick's Day food... not so much in need of food right now...)
I'll think of something.
Posted by april at 3:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 1, 2009
Won't Stop Shakin' Up What I Can
That's a line from Christina Aguliera's "Keeps Gettin' Better," which Iisten to when I need a pick-me-up, which is all the time now.
So I'm running three campaigns, I have to clean the house because Oprah wants to come and film MR cooking (I said no way no thanks media, no time!) and I'm in one hospital 12 noon - 3 pm and 10 pm - 1 am a lot of days, meeting with nurses at others at 7:30 am and 3:30 pm and 7:30 pm and 11:30 pm on others. My erstwhile second in command, Susie, is out on maternity leave and due to give birth literally any day now, but the rest of my staff: Jeannie, Davy and Danny, are doing amazingly well.
I am tired. Really tired. Really bone tired, but not feeling too bad all things considered.
Made a new soup today. For myself, actually. Took about two minutes.
10 calories vegetarian vegetable broth
1 can clams
1 can no salt added tomatoes, diced
1 package Trader Joe's Harvest Hodgepodge frozen vegetables
chili powder, Texas Pete, curry powder, garlic powder
avocado
The curry is really awesome.
P.S. For the record, MR is cleaning the kitchen himself.
Posted by april at 4:28 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack