The Kitchen Scale

Warning: A really dull looking picture

Whenever I attempt to "get healthy" (my euphemism for losing weight) I tend to get into habits and ruts, sometimes obsessively so. Like right now I start my day with a packet of instant peaches and cream oatmeal. So far I'm still liking it. 

I think that this is what anyone who is trying to "get healthy" does. If something works once then keep doing it until you make yourself ill from the lack of variety, get mind numbingly bored with it, or it stops working. I know that this isn't necessarily healthy with food. Some people end up on diets limiting themselves to only a hand full of foods or on one of those disgusting cleanses (like the maple syrup, water, cayenne, lemon juice whatever) because they drop weight fast... and then can't maintain it so they go back on the cleanse again. And if I hear someone say it's healthy one more time I'm going to squeeze a tube of honey up their nose. And before I get to far into this, yes there are some people who have had doctors recommend cleanses and I am not talking about them. I'm talking about the people who cleanse frequently and obsessively... like an older lady I worked with who was always on a cleanse because she was in denial that she was getting close to 50 and that gravity exists. To her I would like to say, "Subsiding on water with stuff floating around that you found in the back of your cupboard for weeks can not be good for you-electrolytes must get out of whack, all of the stuff in your digestive track gets freaked out, and you aren't consuming enough calories to be able to function. You are in essence starving yourself, yet you claim to feel so good afterward. Well why don't you ask people who are starving due to poverty if they feel all clean and energized or if they would rather have a club sandwich and see which one they pick." (Hint: It will be the one with bacon.) 

Anyway, to get away from that particular rant I'll try to get to the point. Severely limiting what you eat will not help you get healthy (both with and without quotation marks) for the long term. Once you stop your cabbage diet you will gain weight back, and if you only eat a few things then you will most likely be lacking nutrients. I find that what works best for me is to stick with an arsenal of basics for the day to day diet. I have my staples that I can easily turn to without having to put a lot of thought into it- grilled shrimp tacos, vegetable stew and dumplings, rice and stir fry, my lovely instant oatmeal, etc. Well I found a new one, and by God the picture of it looks so boring! (And judging by the picture alone you might think I'm a dirty water cleanse type of person who thinks grazing can pass for a meal, which I think I've made clear I'm not.)

It's actually lettuce wraps. And they are a revelation and a model of simplicity. You in no way need a recipe for the the lettuce wraps, but with the risk of being condescending I'll just tell you what I use: 5-8 big leaves of lettuce, 1 T hummus, 2 T babaganoush (you can even see a little dab of it peeking out from one of the lettuce wraps), and 2.5 oz of boar's head turkey breast. But the options are endless- chicken or tuna salad, ham and cheese with a spicy mustard, roast beef with thousand island dressing or cocktail sauce, sauteed mushrooms, peppers and onions, grilled shrimp... really whatever you want. And the ability and option to change it up is why it is something I know I will be turning to time and time again. It's a basic concept that I can manipulate to be what I want, so hopefully I won't get bored. 

Aahhhh I'm so lame AND late

So, I totally forgot to blog about the last day of my marathon Thanksgiving! And now I am in the special hell reserved for finals and a repressed cold, so just pictures this time!

Chile and Citrus roasted Sweet Potatoes, so amazing!

Tamales waiting to get steamed, don't they look happy and cute?

These were filled with a mixture of onion, chiles, tomatoes, and mushrooms. And they were so good that the next day we made more (some were roasted poblanos, queso, onions; cilantro, onions, queso; mushrooms with roasted garlic and queso). In fact, I doubled the recipe so my brother could stash them in his freezer. A couple days later when I talked to him he admitted that they were gone...

Thanksgiving Part two

A multi part Thanksgiving inherently makes the actual day of Thanksgiving a little less than exciting. It was a slow day full of leftovers and cooking for the day. We had masa boats that became rafts and roasted tomato poblano soup which tastes amazing the next day.

Both the soup and the masa vessels required a roasted poblano raja which included roasted poblanos, onions, oregano, garlic, and a few other tasty ingredients.

Roasted Poblanos, sitting happily in a bowl.

After the rajas the dishes take very different directions.  For the soup I roasted a bunch of tomatoes under the broiler. Roasting things under a broiler generally frightens me as I do not want to burn my brother's house down. And for some reason I think that tomatoes can spontaneously erupt into flames after a little heat is applied....

Luckily I did not ignite these tomatoes.

From there I put them through the blender and added them to the cooking raja on the stove and let that cook down and then added in some stock, salt and spices. Easy Peasy.

And below is a picture of my failed masa boat that eventually became a raft.

I have no clue how the masa rafts are as leftovers as my brother ate the last one because it was sad and lonely. The soup is significantly better the next day and even better if the final product is send through the blender a little and topped with queso. But what isn't better once topped with queso?

Gobble Gobble Part One

Wednesday my brother and I went around to various markets to get everything on our grocery list at the best possible price. We went to the Mexican market, the Asian market, and the super market. And eventually we got everything we needed. Plus a few treats. My brother and I both have a love for inexpensive Asian cookies, we feel it's what proves our Asian heritage. So here is what we found:

For some reason the sweet on the left looks like a chocolate ex-lax equivalent, probably because of the "ex" part of the name. It was good, but not my favorite.  The Stikko is pretty good, but between the vanilla sweets I much prefer the Tahitian Vanilla Pocky. It smelled more like real vanilla and doesn't break like the stikkos do.

Anyway, back to the actual food cooking and preparing. My brother and I do non traditional Thanksgiving. He is a vegetarian and we are both the types of people who will make stuffing or mashed potatoes or whatever any time of year, so we don't need to get our fix at Thanksgiving. Plus it's more interesting this way. So this year we're having a three day Mexican Thanksgiving! Mexican because we were born in California and good fairly authentic Mexican food is a big part of what we're about. And three days because we couldn't decide what to make and it is just the two of us, so it would be a little excessive to make everything one day.

So day one. We made Red Chile Rice and Chile Rellenos. All of the recipes we use are from a Rick Bayless cook book, I highly encourage all of you to go out and buy one of his books if you like real Mexican food. Everything has about a thousand steps, but it all turns out well.  Since I'm making two things over three days I'll give you one recipe a day and pictures of the other dish.

First I made the Red Chile Rice.  First you will need to make Chef Bayless' "Essential Sweet and Spicy Ancho Seasoning Paste", for any of you deathly afraid of heat I wouldn't worry,  I didn't find the rice to hot. However, since I apparently can tolerate spicy foods I would suggest cutting back on the amount of paste you ultimately use, or serve it with sour cream or avocado.

First in a pan over medium heat (the suggested equipment is an ungreased griddle or a heavy skillet), I used a frying pan as my brother has three pieces of stove top equipment- a wok, a giant soup pot, and a frying pan. You want to roast 8 cloves of garlic, unpeeled. Just toss them onto one side of your heating surface. Then (you will probably need to do this in shifts) toast 8 medium dried ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded. Now as I'm looking over the recipe I will admit I did not stem or seed them. O well. Now the garlic will blacken and you want to turn it to make sure it doesn't ignite or completely turn black, you just want to roast them until soft. The chiles are going to toast quickly, only a few seconds on either side while applying pressure. There will be popping noises and perhaps a little smoke, don't worry you're still doing it correctly. Or at least the way I did it... and lets just ignore that little bit about me not stemming or seeding the chiles... Your kitchen will start smelling sweet as the sugars in the garlic caramelize and the chiles toast. They will start to smell like really fragrant dried fruit- like raisins or prunes.

Put the toasted chiles in a bowl full of warm water so that they can sorta come back to life. I put a saucer in the bowl to keep them from floating up. They can just sit there for a half hour while you get on with other things. Like this would be a good time to let the garlic cool and then slip the skins off of them.

In a food processor blend the chiles, garlic, 2/3 cup water or broth, 1.5 tsp oregano, 0.5 tsp ground black pepper, 1/8 tsp ground cumin, and a scant 1/4 tsp ground cloves. Blend this into a puree. (I feel I should tell you that we did take the stems off... we just didn't take the seeds out at this point.) It is suggested that you strain the mixture. I don't think we did that either (at the blending point I let my brother take over). Actually I'm positive we didn't strain it. Well, it won't kill you if you don't strain it. It may ruin your credibility as someone who can either a. cook or b. read. Now season with  some salt, keep in mind that you will later be adding this to some stock (with varying levels of sodium) so season accordingly.

Now you will not need to use all of this mixture. You can either halve it from the get go (since I apparently can't read I will not be doing the math for you), or you can reserve the rest and follow the suggestion of Chef Bayless- use it as a marinade. I imagine this could be very tasty on some pork or chicken that you could grill up to have a long with your rice.

In a large pot heat  1 T. vegetable oil over medium heat. Add 1 cup rice (medium grain is suggested) and 1 small white onion that has been diced. In another pot (or wok) heat 1 2/3 cups water or broth with 5 T. of the ancho paste. In the rice pot you want to push it around a little and let the onion soften and the rice turn whiter/chalky. In the broth pot you want it to come up to a boil. Once both have gotten to their individual destinations add the broth pot contents to the rice pot and stir to make sure all the rice is in the liquid then cover and turn the heat down slightly to medium low.

We cooked it for about 15 minutes and then I checked it and it was almost there and still a little while till we would finish the rellenos, so I took it off the heat and kept it covered. A little while later it was perfect. Feel free to serve it with sour cream, salsa, cilantro, queso, etc.

Now for Chiles Rellenos...

Jalapenos simmering in a pot of water, brown sugar, and a pinch of salt. On some of them you may be able to see the special T shaped cut.

And now an uber blurry photo of the filling which included tomatoes, garlic, green olives, cheese, and onion.

I was just really proud of myself for being able to whip egg whites into somewhat stiff peaks by hand, and pretty quickly if I do say so myself. So yeah, be amazed.

Frozen, floured jalapenos with the filling in the background.

Again, frozen, floured jalapenos, but this time with the batter in the background (egg whites, yolks, a dash of flour and a pinch of salt).

Glorious Chile Rellenos.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and stayed tuned for Day Two of a Mexican Thanksgiving! Adios!

P.S. The formatting of this post got wonky, I don't really know what happened and it won't let me fix it... so I'm sorry that it looks crazy. I guess the holidays do this to all of us.

 

Hidden Gems

I'm not quite officially on Thanksgiving break, its more self declared. I ducked out of class early today and took the train to my brother's house. I know its weird that I don't go home for Thanksgiving, and with travel time going home isn't really any longer (not that I've done the math, but when you travel that day is sorta shot anyways).  Since I went away to college I visit one of my brothers for Thanksgiving in Portland. Its nice because there is a certain amount of autonomy yet complete dependence. I can stay downstairs and work on my papers for school and he can be upstairs doing whatever it is he does (lately its cleaning fish tanks).

But really when I visit we do two things. Eat and watch movies. And thats what our days revolve around. Yeah we walk his dogs and go do some dog rescue stuff. Occasionally we'll shop (no sales tax!), but that generally revolves around food. 

My train got in around dinner time and I had half of a lifeless wrap for brunch, but I was starving by the time he picked me up. He told me that there was leftover pizza in the fridge and that I should help myself and that we would go by the store, but I should hold back for dessert.

Well my dears this is where the balancing act gets tricky. On one hand I have gained a little weight since my all time low earlier this year (+9). But last week I lost 3 pounds. I get the feeling I'm going to gain it all back while I'm here. And thats ok, I'll get back to it all when I get back to school. I know the devout dieters who radiate a holy carotene glow will shake their heads and recite the canon- "It is not a diet, but a change in lifestyle." Go eat some celery and leave me alone. This is our national holiday of eating. Its a holiday of eating! Holiday! Eating! It's our (un)fortunate patriotic duty to over eat and nap. I'm so proud to be an American. So with that balancing act in mind (which is not really a balancing act considering that all the weight- no pun intended- is on one side) I am on Thanksgiving Break.

So I kicked it off the best way I know how- carrots and tofu dip, cold pizza and a banana split. To be perfectly honest I don't think I've ever had a banana split and it was so good. My brother took me to this house that was converted into a dessert place in Portland. It was amazing. The front of the menu is their standard stuff and on the back they write in the specials and cross them off depending on availability. The place is Portland funky and overall completely inspiring.  But I have two confessions.

First, I'm not clear on what flavors of ice cream I had. I think there was vanilla, berry, mocha, and mint. But you have to understand it was all coated in different syrupy/berry/sauces that completely change the dynamic of the ice cream. Nonetheless I am fairly embarrassed.

Second, I don't know what the place is called or where it's at. I just follow my brother.

At this point, if you've even made it through this post you are probably wondering why I'm even writing. Well, because I need to get back in the saddle. The writing saddle, the diet saddle, the something other than political science saddle, etc. Now these are a lot of saddles so needless to say its going to be a bumpy ride.

Also, sometimes you just have to tell the world that you are just going to enjoy the ride and repercussions be damned , its time to smell the pumpkin pie scented roses. Which would be amazing!

But I am going to leave you with a promise for the near future- Mexican Thanksgiving. O it will be glorious, so stay tuned kiddies and whatever ideas you have about dieting, put them on pause if only for a day.

Mmm Mmm Good!

For the past week or so I've been feeling a little under the weather. It's one of those icky feelings where you can't really pin point what it is and it's changing daily. So at least there is that added element of suspense. Now, earlier this week the weather changed from sunny to rainy. Now, I love the rain so this is always fine by me. Rain is fantastic cooking weather because when its raining whats better than being in a cozy kitchen chopping vegetables and making something that feels nourishing? Now some of you are probably screaming its summer, whats better than grilling outdoors in beautiful weather?! Well, I don't have a yard to cook in and I don't really grill, so there.

Now, since I was feeling sick and the weather was so beautifully gloomy I thought that nothing would be better than soup. But not just any soup, chicken noodle soup. Now for me the beauty of making soup is the lack of rules and the rustic quality that lends a hearty feeling to soup. Because of these characteristics of soup I am not going to give you any measured quantities, just suggestions. Soup is the hippy of the food world, its free flowing, easy going and all around groovy. It loves everything and resists The Measurement Man.

First I started with a whole chicken in a stock pot that I filled with water, just enough that the chicken is covered. To that I added in a some carrots (1/3 of a bag of baby carrots), celery (3 stalks), an onion, bay leaf, pepper, salt, one clove of garlic, a dash of chili flakes (I can't help myself), and a little bit of vegetable bullion. I let that simmer away until the chicken just kinda fell apart.

Then I let things cools a little and took the chicken out of the broth and tore the chicken off the bones and discarded the skin. I cut up the dark meat and some of the breast to put back into the soup and strained the broth and skimmed the fat off. (If you have the time let the broth chill in the fridge and the fat will harden and it will be super easy to skim off.)

Then I made the soup. I put the broth back into the stock pot and tossed in some carrots, celery, some chicken and a bag of egg noodles. I let that cook and salted it liberally and added in some dill. Dill in chicken noodle soup is amazing! It brightens the entire dish and makes it a little more summer appropriate.

To be honest I was hoping that the day after eating this soup I would wake up cured of all ailments. Alas, I still felt a little icky. But after an afternoon spent in the kitchen I felt like I had gone through a stress detox and ready to go with the flow. So I guess instead of feeling miraculously better I became a bit of a hippy.

Day Three

It was wayyyyy too hot to cook, so I went by Trader Joes and I have to say I was happy with what I got. Yeah, the burrito isn't what I'm used to (I'm originally from a state that borders Mexico so I'm used to gooood Mexican). But the Vietnamese chicken wrap was perfect! I really suggest it. The herbs and the dipping sauce is so great and summery!

From top to bottom there is the Vietnamese Chicken Wrap from Trader Joes, a bean and cheese burrito from Trader Joes (not spectacular, but not bad), grapes, a hummus and veggie plate, and soy ice cream (obviously I am not eating a whole container a night... I just wanted to clarify).

Day Two

Well, it was hot here today. Despite the air conditioning it was too hot to really cook. Which I think will help me in the long run. Not because I will eat less (at least not all the time), but because I turn to fruits and vegetables. Also, you may notice that one of the pictures is the same as yesterday, thats because I had it again today. And, you may see some foods twice, thats because I ate it twice. Very logical if you ask me. That and I'm trying to make you think you're going insane. Enjoy!

I feel bad that I didn't include captions with my last post, so here you go. First off we have a blurry hot sauce laced hummus with corn tortillas, cucumbers and carrots. Then we have some popcorn, grapes, and a sliced plum. Blurry hummus plate again. Followed by a Thai green curry inspired stuffed bell pepper which is definitely nothing to blog about. And I ended my evening with a diet root beer vegan float!

Day One

So here is my attempt for today's photos, I am going to apologize now for the bad formatting. I am not creative enough at the present to come up with something better. Also, I don't know what happened to the quality of some of the pictures... they are very grainy and I'll try to work that out.

 

 

 

Spanish Tortilla... Quiche... Thing

So, I don't really know what it is I made for dinner tonight. About a week or so ago I attempted to make my mom's crustless quiche, without the recipe and lower in calories and fat. It didn't rise the way hers does and it was pretty basic, but still really good. I wanted to find a way to jazz it up though. Tonight while I was browsing the internet for a dinner idea, I stumbled across a recipe for a chorizo and potato Spanish tortilla. This was it! I would apply some of the elements from the tortilla to my quiche and make a bastardized tortilla... quiche... thing.

In this photo(taken seconds after the tortilla/quiche came out of the oven) you can see the turkey pepperoni I used as a healthier alternative to chorizo, peeking out from under the potatoes.

Spanish tortillas are not like the tortillas you would find in Mexico, these are a fun egg and potato dish. Something Babyface  would love!

Potato and Turkey Pepperoni Tortilla

4 egg whites

1 T. fat free sour cream

dash of chili flakes

dash of salt (be careful because the feta is going to add a lot of salt)

1 T. flour

1 oz. fat free feta

1 oz. or 15 slices of turkey pepperoni (cut the slices into quarters)

3-4 slices of onion (or about one handful or 2 oz.)

2 crimini mushrooms, sliced

2 oz. of potatoes, sliced (somewhere between medium and thinly sliced)

1. Spray a medium sized pan with pam and heat over medium heat. Add the potatoes on one side and the mushrooms and onions on the other. Don't move them around too much at first because you want them to brown up a little. And let cook for about 5-10 minutes. So that the onions and mushrooms have caramelized and the potatoes have browned.

2. While everything is going on in the pan combine the first 5 ingredients and combine well. Add the feta and pepperoni.

3. When the  onions and mushrooms are cooked add them to the egg mixture.

4. Pour the egg mixture into a pam-ed baking dish. (I have a lovely oven proof, ceramic dish that is a hybrid between a bowl and a plate.) Top with the potato slices and bake in an oven preheated to 350.

5.Bake until it has risen slightly and is firm-ish to the touch and bounces back. (My oven's temperature was all over the place and took about 20 minutes as it went from 200 to 400 degrees. I would suggest checking after 15 minutes.) Let cool for about 5 minutes and then enjoy!