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Archive for the ‘vegetables’ Category

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!

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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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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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Travels with Tootsie, sweet potato and peanut stew

All communication from E. Africa so gratefully and excitedly received!

Any day that begins with a video conversation with Dora the Explorer and one of her older sisters calling to say they’re coming for Christmas is a fab one.

Saturday morning the Tanzania group was in the middle of 3.5  internet-free weeks on their schedule. So everyone went into a Stonetown internet cafe to upload pictures and talk to their parents. I’m sure all the parental units were as excited as we.

Sunday they again left all social media for 10 days. I will admit grudgingly that I’m proud of her for being so bold. And it is exciting and gratifying to see images from across the world — not just glassy-eyed snaps from the latest frat party. Evidently, though, wherever in the world college women are photographed, they stand with their hands on their hips and their torsos slightly turned.

It’s now “only” 12 weeks until the end of this semester abroad so I’m starting to think about African food. That and why I’ve larded on 13 pounds in the six weeks since my August high school reunion. Anxiety, depression and a stinking cold are, I believe, the deadly triumverate, deadly to taking care of oneself anyway. Today was my first walk with the puppy in a week and a half, and I already feel better and less likely to skid into the slough of despond.

The African-inspired slow-cooker sweet potato-peanut stew we enjoyed is healthy, easy and cheap to fix. And until we piled it on noodles moistened with a wee drap o’ cream cheese, fairly non-fat. The 1/2 cup minced fresh parsley is as necessary to the distinct, sharp taste of this stew as it is to tabbouleh.

This seems like something Dora the Explorer, who shops now in open-air markets full of seashells, cardamom pods and “logs” of cinnemon, will enjoy in December. I was a little leery of  the amount of allspice but, honestly, the individual tastes combine into a unique and hearty whole. Even Stoic the Vast, who can usually identify any spices he’s not crazy about, could not name or disparage the allspice. 

Peanut-sweet potato stew (from Time, Inc.’s All You website)

6 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 3/4 inch slices (about 2 pounds)

3 red onions, peeled and thinly sliced (I used a smaller amount of chopped green onions because that was what I had)

1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, not drained

1-1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

Salt and pepper

2 cups water

1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

1/2 cup creamy or crunchy peanut butter

Stir together potatoes, onions, tomatoes, cumin, allspice, salt, pepper and water in a slow cooker until thoroughly combined. Cover and cook for 4 to 5 hours on high. Just before serving, stir in parsley and peanut butter. Makes 4 318-calorie servings.

Category:

African food, Casseroles, Emo eating, Exercise, Fall, Tomatoes, vegetables

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Upside-down cake starts the weekend off right

Some of our sunflowers have as many as 20 flowers on a stalk.

The days dwindle down but not the garden. More and more and more tomatoes and peppers find their way into huge piles — like highway department de-icer in the winter — on the dining room table.

I made a thick, sweet pasta sauce today (7 pounds tomatoes in 4 servings sauce) that tastes of tomatoes, a few fresh herbs and the echo of garlic only. I made 2 quarts of applesauce last night, and that’s using only a fraction of the  hard little apples out there on the tree, hard little apples that have a big taste when simmered with cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and a pinch of salt. I also made a Deborah Madison summer squash soup with curry spices today, and it, too, has a big, sweet flavor, exotic and round without tasting anything like commercial curry powder.

But Friday was baking with summer fruit day. I made a peach-raisin-almond crisp and froze it for when the youngest is here in a week or so, and I also made a nectarine-plum upside-down cake from a King Arthur flour recipe. My husband Livermush would like one every week, please, from now on. He loves cake and this has a sweet, moist cake holding up a layer of soft, carmelized fruit in stained-glass colors.

King Arthur Flour fruit upside-down cake

Topping

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

As much sliced stone fruit as it takes to cover an 8-inch-square baking pan (24 to 28 ounces)

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Cake

1-1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (I use, you guessed it, KAF)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1-3/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg.

Topping: Melt butter and mix with brown sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon. Spoon mixture into ungreased 8-inch-square baking pan. Heat over to 375.°

Cake: Slice nectarines 1/4-inch thick. Lay slices in prepared pan and sprinkle with lemon juice. Set aside.

In large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar, then beat in milk, egg and vanilla. Mix together flour, baking powder and salt, then stir into egg mixture. Gently pour batter over fruit in pan.

Bake cake for 45 minutes or until cake begins to pull away from side of pan and springs back from touch. Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes in pan on rack. Invert pan onto serving platter and let it sit 1 minute more before removing pan. If any fruit sticks to pan, carefully scrape it off and replace it on cake. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream. Making 6 to 8 servings.

A simple buttery cake is the base for caramelized summer fruit slices.

Category:

Cake, Desserts, Fruit, vegetables

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2 pounds and 2 weeks ’til reunion!

Here comes the sun! Several kinds of sunflowers beginning to bloom with red and white okra at their knees.

I wonder if any other of my classmates has to buy a new fence charger before our 50th reunion in 2.5 weeks. When I went out to put on fly masks this morning, we had a free range quarterhorse, and it will not do if any of our three amigos range onto N. Meadow Rd. while we’re in Pennsylvania.

I wonder a lot of things.  This is kinda like a mega-blind date with 100 or so people I knew a lifetime ago. Who will have grown into really interesting adults? Who will have worked really, really hard at staying the same people they were at 17 and 18? Who’s died? Who’s better than ever? (Is that possible?) Can I have a real conversation with anyone (remember, we’ll be only 90 miles from Penn State)?

Will the guys who called me Baby Huey in 9th and 10th grades repeat it, still thinking it’s so funny? How will I handle it if they do, understanding, of course, that they can only hurt the 14- and 15-year-old in me, not the 67-year-old who’s a year younger than they are, who still has her hair, who shared a Plaza Hotel bathroom with Harrison Ford and who’s within 2 pounds of her 24 years ago wedding weight!

Like so many high schoolers — maybe most — I felt I fit in nowhere (except on a stage so I was always singing somewhere). I didn’t date; I didn’t go to a prom or any of the near-constant dances, all of which required not just a date but a boyfriend. (I am so, so happy that seems to have changed, and many, if not most, of my young friends at church went to their proms this year in flocks of friends.)

I was smart, and the ’50s and ’60s were not a time for girls/women to be bright.   Boys had to do better and be taller, be the ones to talk about themselves on dates (for those who dated).  I had some kind friends, male and female, and it’s for them I’m going back.

Because why? Because I’m curious. Because I want to know that our small group is happy (although I think “happy” is a meaningless construct), healthy and still interested in our world, still taking classes or lessons, still riding our bikes, in good relationships with our spouses, our children and/or  grands if we have them, not complaining about our joints, still laughing, still kind. I want to be with people who share some of my same memories, people who remember me at 16. I want to be inspired and to inspire.

And if I were honest, I’d admit I’d like to see some people really miserable. Proof that karma’s a bitch and all that.

I want to re-visit my younger self, wear that ugly 1962 senior picture on my ID badge and make peace with her. Applaud her and tell her she did the best she could with what she had. Tell her I understand how very difficult it was to be her 50 years ago and if anybody calls her Baby Huey, cold-cock ‘em with my newly tanned and muscled arm.

**********

In the meantime, nourishing that kick-ass body, I made this salad last night with leftover corn frozen on July 4 and with the last of our 2011 green beans. Corn had been cooked on the cob and beans, blanched when frozen so I did no further cooking.  Both need at least a 2-minute blanching.

This recipe ran in EatingWell magazine in 1995 and The Essential EatingWell Cookbook (2004) as well. I don’t think the amount or proportion of beans and corn matters much — I used roughly half and half which is more corn than recipe calls for.  But it’s just like any salad — your creation. We enjoyed it with tilapia fillets baked in cumin-, cilantro- and jalapeno-laced tortilla chips.

Green bean salad with corn, basil and black olives (see caption)

2 pounds green beans, trimmed

3 ears corn, husked, blanched and cut from cob

1/2 small red bell pepper, finely chopped

1 small red onion, finely chopped (I used scallions)

2/3 cup black olives, halved and pitted (wish I’d had)

1/3 cup chopped fresh basil

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 cloves garlic, minced

Hot sauce, such as Tabasco, to taste

Salt and freshly ground papper, to taste

Leftovers make a perfect summer lunch with slices of ripe avocado.

Combine bell pepper, onion, olives, basil, oil, vinegar, lemon juice and garlic in appropriately sized bowl. Toss to mix well. Season with hot sauce, salt and pepper. Toss in corn and beans. Cover and refrigerate to let flavors blend. With proportions given, makes 6 to 8 servings.

 

 

Category:

Salad, Simple foods, Summer salads, Uncategorized, vegetables, Weight loss, Why overweight?

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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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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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Roasting/sauteeing produce just past its prime

 

The pitbull's idea of sharing a chair

Nothing like a nice relaxing 20 minutes of yoga on the floor with a 70-pound pitbull who thinks I’m down there to play and a brain-damaged, chatty cat who thinks I’m down there to play pillow.

The yoga and 15 minutes of weight work, plus a 30-minute bike ride in the freezing rain let me tuck into salmon-soy-ginger patties and whole wheat Israeli couscous with currants and toasted pine nuts for supper. Exercise is the surest way I know to avoid snacking in the late afternoon, and the earlier in the day I do it, the more likely I am not to squander that work on some refined carbs.

While I was “relaxing” in savasana (corpse pose), I was remembering being a gleaning coordinator for the Society of St. Andrew, a hunger ministry, and how the gleaners and I used to talk about we knew “how to use a paring knife.” Bruises and blemishes, in other words, didn’t deter us from using the produce we picked from farmers’ fields and orchards.

But without playing fast and loose with food safety, there’s another trick to using produce that’s just past its glory, and that is roasting or sauteeing. Baby carrots, for instance, which so often taste like chair legs

Carrots are charred in spots, tender and sweet.

or fire wood. Heat the oven to 425°, toss in a bit of olive oil, a little salt and pepper, on a rimmed baking sheet, roast, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 15 to 20 minutes, and then add a couple tablespoons balsamic vinegar, along with 1 packed tablespoon brown sugar. Toss again, and you’ll forget you thought those carrots didn’t taste like a thing.

Or apples.  I had 4 boring Granny Smiths that were beginning to soften and shrivel. I put 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter in a saute pan and peeled and sliced the apples. When the pan was warm and the butter melted, I added the apple slices, along with 1 packed tablespoon brown sugar and a generous half teaspoon of apple pie spice. Had the apples been even more boring than they were, I’d have added the juice of half a lemon. Stir fry over medium-high until the apples soften. Technically, these are fried apples, but I choose to ignore that. They are wonderful. Apple pie without the crust and ice cream.

Now all I have to do is clean off the cat hair and dog spit so I can go to choir without smelling like a pet shop.

Cat in search of padding

Category:

Exercise, Fruit, good food, healthy cooking, vegetables, Weight loss

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Chinese New Year, fried rice

Happy first day of the Year of the Dragon! I am making this the first day of my 2012 as well because the 22 days preceding have been pretty much a wasteland (waist-land?) as far as diet and exercise.

On NPR’s “The Splendid Table” yesterday Lynn Rosetto Kasper talked to John Tierney, author of Willpower: Rediscovering The Greatest Human Strength and, together, they listed the two greatest predictors of success in any endeavor as intelligence and self-control. Oh me, I can’t do anything about the first but, evidently, I can and should work on the second.

The only tool for improving self-control mentioned was fairly constant monitoring, which means back to the calorie counting as well as weighing myself every morning. Current studies see people cheered on and their resolve strengthened by daily weigh-ins.  OK, and I’m driving 30 minutes each way this afternoon to walk in the closest mall, which is tiny and dull but better than getting soaked here at home.

To celebrate the Year of the Dragon, you couldn’t find an easier, tastier dish than fried rice. Not so healthy ordered out, but at home you keep a handle on the oil and salt. The better your vegetables, of course, the less need for salt to make them taste like something. (When I took a Chinese cooking class a lifetime ago at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, I was shocked by the cupfuls of salt the instructor poured into everything, all the while saying she was using so much less than your average restaurant.)

A stir-fry is a forgiving dish. You can change to accomodate what’s in your fridge or to your tastes as you will. Which is why there are only suggestions in the following. As my friend Jon N. says, “People who cook know what to do.”

You’ll need leftover cooked rice (about 1 cup per serving) and some tasty bits of leftover protein  (2 or 3 ounces per serving). I used both boneless, skinless chicken thighs and some ham. My leftover rice was flavored with a little salt, some unsalted butter and a large cup of frozen peas.

The only “trick” (and it’s not very tricky) to a stir-fry is to have everything chopped or minced and ready to toss into the hot skillet or wok. Besides the chicken and ham, I chopped 1 cup baby carrots, 1/2 medium onion, 2 cloves garlic and 4 scallions (these last for the finished dish only).

I beat two whole eggs with 2 tablespoons water, scrambling these in another pat of unsalted butter in an electric skillet heated to 350°. Remove eggs from skillet as soon as you’ve flipped them and slice into strips.

Add 1 tablespoon of canola oilto skillet and stir-fry carrots and

Clementine "cuties," small Bosc pears and purchased fortune cookies are the perfect accompaniments to this Chinese New Year's celebration.

onions until soft. Add garlic, a big ol’ pinch of powdered ginger, salt and pepper and toss. Add meat, then leftover rice, together with 2 tablespoons (per 4 cups rice) low-sodium soy sauce and 2 good “glugs” oyster sauce. Add cooked egg and toss gently to warm through. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.

That’s all there is to this lovely one-dish meal. If you have some squash or celery or Chinese cabbage in the vegetable drawer, use them with or instead of the carrots. I should have included a handful of baby ‘bello mushrooms in mine, but I forgot. I’ll put them on tonight’s pizza instead. Happy New Year!

Category:

Chinese food, Rice, Self control, vegetables, Willpower

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Reasons for the season

“After all, recent research shows that by the year 2020, it’s estimated that 83 percent of men and 72 percent of women will be either overweight or obese.” Adam Bornstein, livestrong.com editorial directorImagine, a nation of Michelin men and women, waddling in and out of big-box stores and home to collapse on their sagging sofas in front of hundreds of cable channels. 
So, as Bornstein suggests in the same posting, in the interests of avoiding such a fate, we need to plan now, this morning, to start our New Year’s healthy eating and fitness regimes today, rather than spending the entire month of January simply recovering from our December excesses. Well, yuck. That would be like looking for meaning in the month and not excuses for indulgence. Real grownup stuff this, and, not coincidentally, real possibilities for epiphany.
 
Last December I baked cookies like a Keebler elf. Every day and in every way. I also ate cookies like a full-sized person, more than full-sized. Not as many as in previous holidays, but enough to sometimes have days or nights of the sugar “blahs.” And I exercised if I felt like it, if the weather was good, the stars were propitious or it was a day beginning with the letter “W” or “X” or whatever.
 
This December morning I weigh 6 pounds more than when I and Mr. Honeybuns Are a Food Group married 23-1/2 years ago. Yet the other day when I tried to fasten a pretty snakeskin belt I wore on our honeymoon, it was at least 6 inches from latching. An unfortunate reality to put up against dear friends’ saying recently, “You’ve never looked better.” Alas, there was  a time, brief though it may have been, when I wasn’t built like a sparkplug.
 
For Christians this is the season of Advent, of waiting, anticipating. And how does this connect to nurturing ourselves, physically as well as spiritually?
 
From Gail Godwin’s “Evensong” (her 1999 sequel to “Father Melancholy’s Daughter”): “…in inner-world terms, as people drawn to the light, we go about preparing for the hoped for and the unforeseen in exactly the same way. You clean your house and make yourself ready, you light your candles, you say, “Come, Lord, come.” And then you compose yourself and wait for the knock.”
 
Making ourselves ready, composing ourselves, is — for want of a better cliche — being the best that we can be. We should be able to take a child in need onto our laps and extend ourselves for that child (literally: others). We should be good stewards of the resources with which we’ve been blessed, and good health is certainly one of the greatest of blessings. Being ready can be as simple as being physically able to take a walk when son or daughter suggests one.
 
So I’m headed to the kitchen now to make lentil-tomato soup for friends and a lemon cake to put into the freezer (cake batter’s not nearly as appealing as cookie dough!) for the 12 Days of Christmas. Tomorrow is St. Nicholas Day, and neither cake nor soup will fit into a a wooden clog, but I’ll  just re-read “The Christmas Anna Angel” (Ruth Sawyer, 1949) instead of baking more small and tempting comestibles.
 
From the November 2011 issue of Taste of Home magazine:
Lentil tomato soup
4-1/2 cups water
4 medium carrots, sliced
1 medium onion, chopped
2/3 cup dried lentils, rinsed
1 6-ounce can tomato paste
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon dried dillweed
1/4 teaspoon dried tarragon
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
In soup pot combine water, carrots, onions and lentils; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes or until vegetables and lentils are tender. Stir in tomato paste, parsley, sugar, vinegar, salt, thyme, dill, tarragon and pepper; return to boil. Simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes to blend flavors. Serves 6. Each 3/4 cup serving has 138 calories, a trace of fat, 351 mg sodium, 9 g fiber and 8 g protein.
NOTE: You can also saute carrots and onion in 1 to 2 tablespoons EVOO before proceeding w/ recipe for a slightly richer vegetable taste.
 
 

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Advent, Holiday baking, Holiday eating, Soup, vegetables

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