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Kitchen Roselli, 131 Main and Greek couscous salad

Something in the Thai Steak Salad dressing at 131 Main in Cornelius (NC) tugged at the corners of my palate. Something familiar but unusual in an entrée salad. A blast of  summery green not usually keeping company with butter-tender bits of filet mignon. They added fresh mint to amp up the beef, mango, noodles and green onions. Good thing I’d started with the wild mushroom-artichoke soup because the Thai flavorings would have blown that mild-mannered soup out of the water, taste-wise.

Three days after that Stoic the Vast and I made our winding way to Kitchen Roselli in East Bend (NC), another taste treat from start to finish. I know it was really good because Stoic didn’t go ballistic over the bill. The service was lovely, it was the best antipasto I’ve ever eaten (good cheeses and salami are key), they make their own bread, pasta and desserts. Stoic had a gargantuan cream puff drenched in dark chocolate and I (virtuous smirk) had lemon sorbet. Of course, I also drank about half the bottle of Sicilian wine that tasted like Michael Corleone’s bee-buzzing honeymoon  looked (but without the nasty explosions).

Easy to put together, this couscous salad makes 10 servings -- enough for several lunchboxes.

Easy to put together, this couscous salad makes 10 servings — enough for several lunchboxes.

Then Monday we finally had a sunny spring day and I felt like cooking, not just like eating (a key difference). I tried the Greek Couscous with Olives from a recent American Profile newspaper supplement, and both I and Stoic were enthusiastic. The thread here is fresh herbs — mint in the Thai salad, basil in the penne with vodka sauce and rosemary on Kitchen Roselli’s focaccia and mint in this salad.

A tiny piece of Krusteaz’s honey cornbread, a dish of applesauce and the last of the Villa Pozzi Nero d’Avola made a terrific supper. I’m struggling to keep myself on the diet wagon, and with food and drink like this, I feel as though I’ve eaten something, not just anything. I’d suggest tasting your red onion before adding it. If it’s got as much of a whammy as ours did, you might want to soak it in ice water for an hour or so before combining with other ingredients. Either that or chop it into pieces big enough to pick out!

Shirley Herb from Northumberland (PA), about 25 minutes from where I grew up, submitted this good recipe to American Profile. Take it to picnics this summer because it’s good, it’s different and it has no easily perishable ingredients.

Greek couscous with olives

1-1/4 cups water

1 cup couscous (whole wheat if you like)

1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and diced

1/2 cup chopped red onion

6 ounces marinated artichoke hearts, drained and quartered

1 cup ripe olives, minced

3 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

1/3 cup fresh mint leaves, shredded

2 large garlic cloves, minced

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 generous pinch salt

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (I used slightly less)

1/2 cup good-quality olive oil (make sure, because this is what you’ll taste)

Romaine lettuce

Tomato wedges

3 tablespoons toasted pine nuts**

Bring water to boil. Pour over couscous in heat-resistant pan or bowl. Cover, remove from heat and let stand 5 minutes.

Add bell pepper, onion, artichokes, olives and cheese to couscous and toss.

In glass jar with lid combine mint, garlic, pepper, salt, lemon juice and olive oil. Shake well to blend.

Pour dressing over couscous mixture and stir to combine. Refrigerate, covered, until chilled.

To serve, line salad bowl or individual salad servers with Romaine leaves. Garnish couscous mixture with tomato and sprinkle with pine nuts. Serves 10 at 250 calories, 17 g fat each.

** I like to say I’m not a Wal-Mart fan, but their pine nuts cost a fraction of  others’ prices. Also, have you tried their Cara Cara oranges? Seedless and the taste is somewhere between that of a naval orange and, a blood orange.

Category:

Couscous, good food, healthy cooking, Olive oil, Salad, Simple foods, Spring, Tomatoes

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New year, new me, blah, blah, Brussels sprouts

Time to get re-revved. I’ve rejoined the YMCA after 6 years away. I can walk on the treadmill, do weight circuits, take water aerobics, spin and zumba classes, swim laps. If only it weren’t so much easier to lie in the recliner, read novels (ooh, like Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior) and eat leftover Christmas candy!

birthdays 030

Birthday girl and fairy godmother.

Christmas around here really isn’t over until our middle daughter’s Groundhog Day birthday. Between Christmas and then we have 3 others — Vlad the Plaid’s, Dora the Explorer’s and middle daughter’s daughter’s — so it seems like a six-week present spree. With presents, of course, come cake and ice cream.

Actually, the best birthday meal we’ve had in forever was Dora’s fairy godmother’s birthday supper for her and Vlad at New Town Bistro in Winston-Salem. This is a modestly priced, pleasant little place our dentist recommended (!) as his and his wife’s go-to restaurant.  The food is consistently good and imaginative (although we still can’t figure out why the apple-chicken sausage with Vlad’s pork tenderloin), and the menu changes just enough to give it an atmosphere of adventure. The desserts are OK, but the emphasis is on meats and fish and vegetables. The basil-sprinkled sweet corn,  thumb-fat stalks of roasted asparagus, tender spring-green slices of fried squash, sautéed mushrooms with the sweet tang of red wine, Brussels sprouts with walnuts.

Now my daughters and I belong to a small but loyal cadre of Brussels sprouts fans. We’ve loved them since before they were trendy, since my mother cooked them only until tender-crunchy and served them only with a dab of mustard and a squirt of lemon juice.

Love sprouts but not cilantro which is in original Food Network recipe. I omitted.

Love sprouts but not cilantro which is in original Food Network recipe. I omitted. Photo: Christopher Testani.

Even before New Town, He Who Does Not Like B.S.  brought in a bag of baby sprouts from his winter garden. They were a pretty jade and closed as tightly as a sleeping newborn’s fists. I X’d their tender stems, sliced them in half and soaked them in salt water to discourage hitchhiking insects, patted them dry and oven-roasted them, using this Food Network magazine recipe. Even He said they were “interesting.”

Roasted garlic Brussels sprouts

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat; add 2 chopped garlic cloves and 1/2 teaspoon each cumin seeds and kosher salt and cook 2 minutes or until fragrant. Stir in 1 tablespoon brown sugar, the juice of 1/2 lemon and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Toss with 1-1/4 pounds halved Brussels sprouts on a baking sheet. Roast at 450 ° until tender, 18 to 24 minutes. Toss every few minutes but not so often you don’t get the little crispy bits which are the best part of this dish.

I can’t tell you how many servings this makes because 3 of us polished it off with seconds. We like our sprouts!

Category:

Brussels sprouts, healthy cooking, Holiday eating, Olive oil, Roasting vegetables, Rural life, vegetables

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Full moon setting; rosemary mashed sweet potatoes with caramelized shallots

Florida-grapefruit yellow moon dropping to the horizon outside study windows this morning, something I’d miss if I could sleep past 4 a.m. The last of the moonlight makes luminous the mist exhaled by the sleeping pastures, and I wonder, again, how I can leave this extraordinary beauty for a more prosaic site with more people,  more life.

Because I drove more than 150 miles yesterday for lunch with a cousin I hadn’t seen in 44 years, my glamorous second-cousin Amy with her mother’s smokey eyes and voice.  Amy’s dad and my mother were first cousins in the more-or-less gothic Lawrence clan. Not that they wore black eyeliner and tattoos, but each of the four children of Amy’s and my great-grandparents seemed to suffer blows beyond the usual twists in life’s journeys. Which doesn’t mean they weren’t beautiful and privileged — they were, all of them. 

So it was extraordinary to sit for several hours with someone who has her own take on our shared family dramas, who remembers me half a century ago, someone who was there when the elderly siblings dove into their Manhattans before every family celebration, someone who also beheld our formidable great-grandmother swathed in black and swirling snowflakes before the annual Christmas Eve blow-out. The Cheever biography I’m reading disparages autobiography-as-novel, but I think my mother’s family was the ultimate, hair-raising novel.

That’s my beautiful cousin on the right who looks WAAAAY more than 6 years younger!

But if they didn’t do well at emotional expression, they excelled in the kitchen. Thus, as their true descendant (even if I do look like her despised mother-in-law as my mother said all the time), I would rather cook and eat than say something meaningful to someone else or, for that matter, see long-”lost” relatives. Which is why I need to live where there are someones, particularly those who walk and hit the Y (which is what I’m going to do instead of joining Weight Watchers — I have to feel good enough to work out which is only going to happen with some water exercise classes).

My FB friend Peg R. has an interesting proposal, that all of us struggling with food/weight issues commit to being 3 pounds lighter by Jan. 1. (She’s also suggesting each of us be able to do as many pushups by then as we are years old, but that’s not going to happen.) A  manageable goal that should, nevertheless, make us feel that we’re constructively dealing with  the stressful holidays.

By way of a positive beginning, I gained nothing over Thanksgiving. It was more important to do things other than eating and, when eating, to choose the healthy foods. The following Nov. 2010 Cooking Light recipe is my go-to sweet potato casserole for the foreseeable future. Farewell marshmallows and gobs of butter; hello, crisply caramelized and lightly sugared shallots.

Rosemary mashed sweet potatoes with shallots

2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons good-quality olive oil, divided

3/4 cup thinly sliced shallots (about 2 large)

2 teaspoons brown sugar

2 pounds sweet potatoes, roasted and peeled

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in skillet over low heat. Add shallots and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle with sugar; cook 20 minutes or until shallots are golden, stirring occasionally.

Nothing but healthy food and drink as far as the eye can see.

Put sweet potatoes through ricer. Add rosemary, salt and pepper, whisk until blended. Spoon into serving bowl; top with shallots and drizzle with remaining 2 teaspoons oil. Makes 6 servings of 202 calories, 6.3 fat grams each.

Category:

healthy cooking, Holiday cooking, Holiday eating, Importance of others to recovering addict, Weight loss, Why overweight?

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Green beans and parsley redefined

Every once in a while — often enough to keep me trying new recipes — I stumble across one that redefines a food (or two). This is one of those

Fall in northern Iredell County. The view from the living room.

recipes — made me almost forget the tender turkey breast glazed in summer’s peach preserves and next to the beans on last night’s dinner plates.

When Stoic the Vast brought in fistfuls of parsley from the herb garden, we both commented on its wonderful fresh smell, but we had no idea what it would taste like, combined with toasted pine nuts, Worcestershire, garlic and olive oil. I guess this is a parsley pesto, which I’ve always scorned, but nevermore quoth the raven and I. It is abfab.

And the green beans he froze last month? Rejuvenated, restored and remade into something bright and interesting, a vegetable that does waaaay more than swim in condensed mushroom soup and fried onion strips. We might eat this for Thanksgiving dinner.

Having just read Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller, I’d splurged on a wee $10 bottle of good California oil, so I’m sure that played a part as well. When I tasted the oil as Mueller advises, I’d indeed felt the trademark burn at the back of my throat that he says is the mark of oil containing actual anti-oxidants, not a bunch of stuff we don’t want to think about.

Green beans glisten with olive oil and are crunchy with nuts and chopped parsley.

The food network recipe calls for walnuts. Of course, I didn’t have any and substituted pine nuts. As usual, I charred the pine nuts when toasting, but since I like the faint taste of charcoal around the edges, I was not unhappy.

Green Beans with Walnut-Parsley Sauce

1/3 cup toasted walnuts

1-1/4 cups parsley

1 smashed garlic clove

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup olive oil

1-1/2 pounds fresh or frozen green beans

Put walnuts, parsley, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, lemon zest and salt in food processor. With motor running, add oil and process until coarsely chopped and blended. Cook beans (4 to 5 minutes in boiling water) until tender-crisp, drain and top with sauce. Probably should serve 6.

Irrepressible summer flowers blooming for Halloween.

For the last few days I’ve been freezing fresh herbs for winter soups and stews. Just put about a tablespoon of leaves in each compartment of an ice cube tray. Cover leaves with water and freeze. When a winter recipe calls for fresh thyme, oregano or parsley, you’re ready. When cubes have frozen, simply dump into reclosable freezer bag. (You can use broth instead of water for even more flavor.)

Category:

healthy cooking, Holiday cooking, Olive oil, Sidedishes, vegetables

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A Tale of Two Pies

I ate the best beef of my life last week at 131 Main in Cornelius (NC) – another bon voyage whoopdedo for Dora the Explorer. I ordered the Thai Style Steak Salad and expected the usual chewy beef bites that bite back. But these were like butter — tender, sweet and with a distinctive flavor. I found out later from the manager that the beef  with the Asian noodles, cabbage, mint, fresh avocado and mango was trimmed from filets mignon. Beef bites, in other words, that relate to the usual as Dame Maggie Smith,  to Britney Spears.

Of course, what I photographed was the mile-high peanut butter pie that I shared with Stoic the Vast. Even though he wasn’t crazy for the cinnamon in it, I was, and I also loved the crunchy nuts in the crumb crust. What a meal, what a meal!

Peanut butter pie drizzled with chocolate and buried beneath an avalanche of real whipped cream at 131 Main.

We heard from Dora in Tanzania this morning, saying that she was on her way to another island near Zanzibar this afternoon, getting to know her 17 classmates. And she’s supposed to be home Dec. 15, the day “The Hobbit” opens.

I saw the first aster blossom yesterday; we have fewer hummingbirds and the goldfinches are stocking up for winter among the sunflowers. Fall will come, and we’ll drink cocoa and use blankets at night.

The gang’s all here for lunch, including Pearl the puppy and Ariel the black cat. That’s a harlequin glorybower shrub next to them.

Last week we  had another bon voyage party with old friends from the newsroom, Dora and her friend, who’s just back from a year in Russia. We had tomato pie, Molly Katzen’s Szechuan green beans, green peppers stuffed with scalloped sweet corn (a Mayo Clinic heart-healthy recipe), the Silver Palate’s zucchini bread, ice cream sandwiches with fresh raspberries and lots o’ wine, including a bubbly toast to these two adventuresome young citizens of the world.

I couldn’t find my Presbyterian cookbook when I was ready to make the tomato pie so I used the Episcopalian one. Mistake. For once, the Episcopalians held back more than the Frozen Chosen (I can use that expression because I am one.) The Presbyterian recipe has more basil and tomatoes and even though I’m showing you a picture of one I made, the other is better. I promise.

The Presbyterian pie, like so much in our church, depends on your ability to wait. Give it 15 to 30 minutes to “set” after you remove it from the oven, and it will be firm and cheesy, not tomato-juicy.

Edie Holland contributed this Fresh Tomato and Vidalia Tart to our church’s 250th anniversary cookbook, “Fourth Creek Meeting House Encore (2003). And it’s worth it, by the way, to look for  a Vidalia onion — they’re almost always significantly sweeter than other yellow onions.

Fresh tomato and vidalia tart

1 refrigerated pie shell

8 ounces cheese, shredded (I used Cheddar — a touch of blue would be good, too, or Swiss or Havarti)

2 tablespoons fresh basil, cut into thin strips with scissors

4 medium-size ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded, sliced and drained for 15 minutes

1 large onion sliced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 cup good-quality olive oil

Heat oven to 400.° Fit pie shell into tart pan. Sprinkle cheese over crust and top with basil shreds. Arrange tomato and onion slices over cheese. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Bake 30 to 40 minutes. Serves 8.

Our daughter’s friend says even the Episcopalian version of the southern tomato pie is “insanely delicious.”

Category:

healthy cooking, Pie, Seasonal food, Tomatoes

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Baby onions, grown-up onions

Baby onions have stems no bigger than the stick on a Q-tip. The easiest way to slip them to their 1-inch recommended depth is to use a dibble planter with inches marked on it (like the one made for me by my friend Jerry Keys out of poplar wood). Poke a hole to 1 inch, plop in the onion and firm the earth around it. Just make sure that your onions can enjoy all-day sunbathing — I put a few in a shady nook  to see what would happen (and because I was out of onion room) and they haven’t grown a bit, just moped.

Baby onions waiting to go in ground. The established plants in each hill are garlic and leeks.

If your onions do something more productive than mope in the shade, someday you can enjoy this onion tart from the April 2011 issue of Cooking Light.  A rustic crust like this (no pan) is also called a galette. This one is heady with the earthy flavors of roasted onion, feta and Swiss cheese and fresh thyme. My thyme plants are also mopey (or deceased) so I used 2 teaspoons dried thyme instead of 2 tablespoons chopped fresh. The magazine suggested an arugula and walnut salad to accompany since neither of those ingredients will be overpowered by the  onions and cheese.

Onion tart

1 tablespoon olive oil

2-1/2 pounds onions, peeled, trimmed and thinly sliced

2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 14.1-ounce package refrigerated pie dough (1 crust)

1/4 cup crumbled reduced-fat feta cheese

1/4 cup shredded reduced-fat Swiss cheese

1 large egg, lightly beaten with 2 tablespoons water

Heat oven to 425º. Heat oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, thyme, salt and pepper; cook 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Roll or stretch out dough on parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle feta cheese in center, leaving 1-1/2-inch border; top with onion. Sprinkle with Swiss cheese. Fold piecrust border up and over onion mixture, pleating as you go, leaving a 6-inch-wide opening.

Combine egg and water; brush over dough. Bake at 425º for 25 minutes or until golden. Cool for 10 minutes. Makes 4 servings, 402 calories, 9 g fat each.

Onion galette with the last of our 2011 onion crop.

 

Category:

good food, healthy cooking, Local food, Rural life, Simple foods

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Set points, sloppy joes and settling points

I think I’m happy to have found this article by Joseph Hooper in the March issue of Elle magazine. It explains why I went at weight work this morning with a bang that’s left me still breathing hard 20 minutes afterward.

There’s no reason for this piece to be titled “Sexy and I Know It,” unless that hed is for a monthly column because the piece itself is about keeping weight off after you lose it and how very, very tough that is (only 2 to 20 percent of losers manage). Mostly, because our bodies themselves are fighting our good intentions. (I nominate myself for a place in what he calls the “one-woman hunger museum.”)

Science is pretty clear by now that anyone losing more than 10 percent of her/his body weight “experience(s) a corresponding change in crucial appetite-regulating hormones.” In other damn words, lose weight and feel hungrier.

And while I’m losing weight, science also says my metabolism is slowing down. Curses! As if it weren’t already comatose. So I can only be successful by doing as the author’s wife — paying “undying attention to what she eats and how much she exercises.”

The silver lining in this big, purple cloud is “outfoxing our uncooperative physiolog(ies) with exercise. ” Weight training and sprint work seem to help, but “The most important priority is to get regular exercise and plenty of it,” as much as one hour daily.

This is a really well-written and researched piece (why I keep lifting quotations). Hooper cites Dr.George Blackburn as recommending that we lose no more than 10 percent of our weight, slowly, then simply maintain that loss for six months “to let your body metabolically recalibrate.” Jury’s still out on whether our bodies actually do that, but I like the idea of just staying for a bit at this weight of 198, which is probably what the authors call my set point. My settling point, which they also use, is probably more like it. Eventually, I’d like to not settle and continue on my way to 174.

In the meantime, I’ll eat a diet heavy in vegetables and fruit, curtail sugar (maybe even dairy and gluten when I can without being a diet diva), and exercise, exercise, exercise. Oh, and get plenty of sleep. Hoping someday to, paraphrasing Hooper, embrace healthier new habits as real pleasures.

I know you can use protein crumbles in your same old, same old sloppy joe recipe, but I’m not supposed to eat soy (too much estrogen) so I  really enjoyed this variation from the April issue of Parenting magazine. My best guess is about 400 calories per sandwich with an onion hamburger bun, 1 ounce of grated cheddar and 1/2 cup of the sloppy joe mixture.

Black bean and salsa sloppy joes

I used a corn and black bean salsa which ups the protein content ever so slightly.

2 teaspoons olive oil

3 minced garlic cloves

2-1/2 cups rinsed, drained canned black beans

1 15-ounce jar mild chunky salsa

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon Dijon-type mustard

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon salt

Cheddar cheese, shredded

In large skillet, heat oil and add garlic, sauteing until golden (don’t leave — it chars in the blink of an eye). Stir in beans, salsa, brown sugar, Worcestershire, mustard, cumin and salt. Bring to simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Spoon onto buns and top with cheese. Stuffs 4 sandwiches.

Category:

good food, healthy cooking, Maintaining weight loss, Sandwiches, Simple foods, vegetables, Why overweight?

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Five guys, anniversary and pickled eggs

I have a long-time friend who’s said since she met His Royal Plaidshirtness (HRP) that he’s one of only 5 good guys in the galaxy and that if I ever leave him, she will personally take me apart. I agree he’s one of the good guys, and I happily think back to 24 years ago at this moment  when oldest daughter Joanna and I were on our way to Divajade to get our hairs done for the 1 p.m. wedding whoopdedo up here in the pasture.

A good partnership at work: Lew, Dannye and their 3-year-old grandson, Townes. Baby eating Greek yogurt.

At the same time, or near’bouts, daughter Alexandra was headed for a shower in HRP’s grandparents’ pink shingled house where she spent the night and discovered just how many praying mantis nymphs hatch from one egg case (up to 400, evidently). 

I don’t agree with the 5 good guys part, though. Projecting myself back into yesterday’s choir loft I see many more than 5 men who are grownups, who are funny, sexy, committed to their relationships and hard at work at something, be it a job, a father-daughter dance, babysitting for grandchildren or cheering a daughter-in-law’s flute solo.

HRP is the right guy for me who will always (damn his eyes!) call me on my delusional thinking, but there are plenty of others “out there,” including the loving, longtime husband of my friend Dannye, who hosted a real ladies’ lunch for us old newsroom gals last week. I know for sure Lew made the good coffee, and I’m guessing he helped with a few other things as well. The house and yard and table were completely Southern Living-perfect, and Dannye taught us how to make good deviled eggs without mayonnaise (hummus, yellow French’s mustard and a few drops of Tabasco).

All of us ate the pickled beets, but I alone braved the pickled eggs. I’m a Pennsylvania Dutch girl, and pickled eggs are just a colorful part of that. I’ve eaten some from a sketchy-looking gallon jar on a bar, but mostly I’ve made my own by peeling hard-boiled eggs and letting them take it easy for a few days in a non-reactive container (glass or stainless steel) of pickling beets. 

I use the easy-breezy-lemon-squeezy pickled beets directions from the always reliable 1987 Fearrington House Cookbook: A Celebration of Food, Flowers and Herbs (Jenny Fitch, Ventana Press, Inc.). The older my taste buds become, the more I find I enjoy a small, piquant taste of pickle with many meals.

Pickled beets (and eggs)

A fuzzy picture of chicken salad, grape tomatoes, chips, a deviled egg, pickled beets and a very colorful pickled egg. You can see how the pickling liquid works through the white.

1-1/2 pounds fresh beets, cooked, trimmed, peeled and cut into wedges

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup cider vinegar

1/2 cup sugar

2 whole cloves

1/2 teaspoon pickling spices, tied with cook’s twine in cheesecloth

Combine water, vinegar, sugar and cloves and bring to boil. Add pickling spice packet and stir until sugar dissolves. Pour over beets. Add hard-boiled eggs for a little taste adventure and cover the container. Let sit, refrigerated for 2 or 3 days (stirring gently every now and then), but serve pickles at room temperature.

 

Category:

Beets, eggs, healthy cooking, Marriage, Pickles, Spices

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We are feminists (who like to eat and, sometimes, cook)

The tiresome women who insist that feminists oppose love and marriage make me tired. The young women who insist that they’re not feminists make me tired.

Miriam in her studio

In my mind — and it’s been this way since the scales fell from my consciousness in the mid-1970s — real feminists want women and men to have the widest possible range of choices. Children, no children, house-husband, house-wife — as far as I’m concerned all fit within the rubric of feminism (whatever that might be) as long as people engage productively in their world.

Some of the most interesting women I’ve known have been stay-at-home moms. Conversely, some of the most boring, self-involved people (male and female) I’ve met have supposedly great careers. And so it goes.

I don’t know Ann Romney, but I have a Mormon friend without pots of money who works hard every day at home to make her children good citizens of the world. She makes the best bread I’ve ever eaten, taught me to like kale (in a sausage chowder), met her husband when they were both in the Army and jumped out of a plane for the first time when she was pregnant with her oldest. Now that’s a woman, hear her roar!

Just before Easter three of my former newsroom buddies and I met for wine and laughter in Miriam’s painting studio (you can see some of her lovely work behind her or get a better look at Miriamdurkin.com).

Among the 4 of us we’ve had 7 marriages, 9 children and, so far, 9 grandchildren (Three of us had very young marriages in the beliefs that if we didn’t marry right then! we’d never have another chance and that an unmarried woman was a non-person.) We’ve written poetry, written about books, movies, pop music, dance; NASCAR; we’ve edited same. We’ve walked dogs, baked cookies (or not), diapered babies and traveled for fun and for work when those babies were sick (or not).

In 34 years we have never had nothing to discuss!

Then, of course, we went out for supper at The Pewter Rose, a favorite bistro now owned and run by the wife of one of our former newsroom photographers. And what does it tell you that we ALL ordered the same special — a whiskey- and honey-glazed salmon fillet over baby greens with lemon-basil vinaigrette,  goat cheese and candied walnuts ?

My somewhat warm and fuzzy point is, I think!, we need to drop the labels and do what it takes to wake up in the mornings drug-free and looking forward to the day, open to the unexpected and to change. And help others do the same. And strew this life path with good food that somebody has cooked. Like this 384-calorie per serving Cajun shrimp, spinach and grits from the May issue of Woman’s Day magazine.

Shrimp and grits has (have?) become a cliche on Southern menus, but this version is so colorful and healthy that it breathes new life into that fixture. And, p.s., my husband fixed the grits. Perfectly. For more nutritional pop serve with blood orange slices and broiled Roma tomato halves, topped with olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme and a wee bit of brown sugar.

Cajun shrimp, spinach and grits

1 cup quick-cooking grits

2 tablespoons olive oil

1-1/2 pounds large peeled and deveined shrimp

2 teaspoons Cajun or blackening seasoning (low- or no-salt)

1/2 teaspoon salt, divided, and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 cup frozen corn, thawed, or canned whole-kernel corn, rinsed and drained

1 bunch spinach, thick stems discarded

Cook grits according to package directions (thank you, el Patron, as his Salvadoran milkhands used to call him). Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Season shrimp with Cajun seasoning and 1/4 teaspoon salt and cook for 2 minutes. Turn and cook until pink opaque throughout, 1 to 2 minutes more. Remove skillet from heat, add lime juice and toss to coat. Transfer to plate and wipe out skillet with paper towel.

Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Add corn and heat through. Add spinach and 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper and cook, tossing, for 1 minute. Return shrimp to skillet and toss to combine. If spinach has not wilted, turn off heat and put lid on skillet until it does. Serve over grits, or gree-yuts as it’s pronounced in these parts.

I mistakenly (!) added 2 tablespoons of the Cajun seasoning, and it was not too much. Maybe my seasoning is old and faded, maybe it’s my tastebuds or maybe this dish just needs that “Bam!”

Granddaughter Ashley embodies the joy possible in any good -ism.

Category:

Feminism, healthy cooking, Salad, Shellfish, Simple foods, vegetables

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Neuroses, chocolate bunnies and tuna casserole

I will never be able to eat everything I want to eat. I will never be able to eat enough to make me “happy” (read: numb). I will never be able to eat enough to make me feel loved, appreciated, beautiful, fill in the blank (and this I mean literally — the hollow that is within me is like that of a chocolate bunny).

OK, having realized that, can I now move on with my life? Please? Millions of privileged, normal-weight people do that daily, hourly even. Look at a cupcake, the rest of the tortilla chips, whatever, and hear an internal voice that says, simply, “No, I can’t.” And that’s the end of it. There’s no tussle back and forth between the lean conscience and the chubby devils on the shoulders. Just: I can’t.

No problem for me with alcohol, drugs and cigarettes. Just the peanuts in the pantry, the ice cream in the freezer.

Years ago as a struggling single mother of two, I remember rushing home from work to a beer or two while I fixed supper. Then the moment that I realized how much I was looking forward to that beer or two and that I couldn’t drink alone and lonely. That was the end of it. Now, I’d like my Easter miracle, please, to be that this is my end of over-eating to make myself “feel better.” I do believe in fairies, I do, I do, or anything else that will help me take this huge step.

Except that nothing can help me. Only I can take it. Again and again. And again. The bunny never feels full, only complete or devoured. I’m aiming at my version of complete, which is the best I can be. Happy Palm Sunday.

And in a lurching segue (oxymoron alert!), this is the best tuna casserole I’ve ever tasted. The recipe says it makes 4 servings, but they are huge. Can easily be 6 or 8 with a huge serving of spring greens beside. And a blood orange is the perfect capper to make you forget you might “need” a cookie or two.  Use reduced-fat sour cream, mayonnaise and milk, and it still has a decadent mouth feel.

Tuna noodle supreme from Ellen Proctor of Great Barrington, MA, on allrecipes.com several years ago:

1-1/2 cups sour cream

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

4 cups cooked small pasta shells (I hate it when a recipe doesn’t give you the amount of UN-cooked pasta — I used 3 cups uncooked, and it made a little more than 4 cups of cooked small shells.)

2 cups broccoli florets

1 12-ounce can tuna, drained and flaked

1/2 cup chopped sweet red pepper

1/2 cup sliced green onions

Heat oven to 350º. In large bowl, combine sour cream, mayonnaise, milk, cheese, mustard, salt and pepper. Stir in cooked pasta, broccoli, tuna, red pepper and onions. Transfer to oil-sprayed 2-quart baking dish. Cover and bake for 40 to 45 minutes until hot and bubbly. If you like a little crunch around the edges of your pasta, finish with 5 minutes of uncovered baking time. Note: For either fresh or frozen broccoli florets, throw into pasta cooking water for last minute or two of pasta cooking time. Drain pasta and broccoli together and continue with recipe.

 

Category:

Casseroles, Chocolate, Fish, Food addiction, good food, healthy cooking, Self control, Stress eating, Weight loss, Why overweight?, Willpower

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