Posts filed under 'Dieting'
My first dinner is next week and I am very happy. The calendar has rolled around again, tourists arrive, there were tour buses in the parking lots this morning when I went to market. The biggest thing, however, was combing through the lists of dishes in my mind and in my magic purple book to make menus again.
A tramp through the market shows me what’s in season for sure– the strawberries are still from Spain– but I found things like duck and goose eggs, more artichokes than most people will ever have seen in one place, and the first of the tiny baking potatoes for antipasto. I can’t bring myself to buy the live hens and pigeons that the vendor will kill to order. If I were rich I might buy them all and set them free. I’d be arrested because Città di Castello may have a swan park, but they do not encourage poultry in the streets.
Inside the wall my herb lady sold me not only a gorgeous oregano plant but perhaps the most glamorous cauliflower ever. I shall make a portrait of her when the sun is shining.
A trip to my butcher proved that in her opinion, at least, pork is better than veal still a while. She tried to talk me into turkey and again I had to explain how mundane turkey usually seems to Americans, even though at €13 per kilo it wouldn’t seem mundane to me. That’s about $10 or £5 per pound — although the British are used to horrific prices and may not find this shocking in the least.
Now begins a time when most of my cookery posts depend on classes or chef jobs and I don’t have to eat everything. Time to diet off the pounds gained from quitting smoking. Time to wander the specialty shops and come up with new ways to use the old things and invent dishes with new things. Time to ask about wines and honeys and time to toast nuts and snip herbs and prune the rosemary and the sages.
I think the Romans had it right when they made the year begin with spring. What wrong-headed power monger changed that?
Here is a hint at things to come. 
April 5th, 2008
Today alisonk came to lunch. She is doing a low carbohydrate regime, so I had to whip up some flour-free goodies. For a first course in place of pasta or risotto, we had a mushroom soup. I made the basic soup a day ago because most soups get better for sitting. When I reheated it I added the part that might not have refrigerated well.
As you can see, it is very dark and filled with mushrooms. The following recipe made soup for two.
No Carbohydrate Mushroom Soup
1 pound (.5 kilo) champignon or button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced. stems chopped
2 tablespoons butter
about .75 quart or liter of strong beef broth
salt to taste
heavy cream to taste
In a heavy pot I sautéed the mushrooms in the butter until they were quite browned and almost dried. Then I added the beef broth. I allowed this to cook and cook down several times, adding water to bring it up to level each time. Because I used “Better Than Bouillon” for the broth I added and needed no salt. When the whole thing was thoroughly infused, I poured it into a container and refrigerated it.
Today, a few minutes before I needed it, I warmed it up almost to a simmer and then added heavy cream, stirring it in, until it tasted balanced and rich. I ladled it into two deep bowl/cups and this is what happened. 
The verdict was “Good!”
For main course, or secondo, we ate Pollo fra Diavolo from this page.
With it we ate a cabbage dish from Puglia that I once had made into a pasta, but today served it as it was meant to be. Because there is no chance at bread, pasta or dessert, I changed the fat used from oil to duck fat, but it will be good without it if you are not as lucky as we are.
Cavolo Pugliese or Pugliese cabbage
This would have been enough for four people normally, but this was a slender menu indeed.
about 3 cups of slivered fresh cabbage
2 small hot red peppers peperoncini
about 2 tablespoons oil or fat
salt to taste
5 cherry tomatoes, quartered
Heat a big frying pan with the fat you will use. Crumble the pepper into it (or take a pinch from a jar of crushed red pepper.) Add the cabbage and toss it about a bit to get the fat distributed. Continue to cook it, stirring once in a while, until some of the edges start to brown and there are no really hard parts left. Add about 1/2 teaspoon or a decent sized pinch of salt, stir and taste. Add salt until it seems right to you. Toss in the tomato pieces and stir until they wilt a bit. Serve.
I had prepared a salad, but there was no room left for it. We had eaten well.
March 4th, 2008
There’s a really good scale and a really good sale on for US residents at ekitchens.
They are selling at least one high quality scale that tares and switches from metric to ounces. The good price is even better when you enter the word FALL into the checkout coupon area– 5% off in addition.
You need a scale.
November 4th, 2007
Memories of a rainy Saturday afternoon in Lecce, Puglia. Everything in this photo is sweet. Everything. It’s not tourist season, there’s practically no one on the street, so it must be for the Leccesi.
This too, a mortadella made of almond paste. What a sausage!
October 2nd, 2007
This is a dessert that was adapted from a fig tart to use those slim, blue, frosted prune plums you find at the end of summer. You can make the pastry, which here is pasta brisé, or buy it at the grocery store or a bakery.
Pastry for a tart pan, fitted into the pan, trimmed to 3/4″ larger than the pan, then folded under and fluted.
soft goat cheese– not the ripened one with crust, but the fresh one you can spread. In Italy look in the fridge for “di Capra”
grated rind of 1 lemon
fresh blue prune plums about a pound, but who’s counting– eat the ones you have leftover
sugar
heavy cream
Preheat the oven to 180°C or 375°F.
Spread the goat cheese onto the bottom of the pastry you’ve arranged in the tart pan. It will be less than 1/4″ thick.
Sprinkle the grated lemon rind over the cheese layer.
Cut the plums in half, remove the stone, and place them in a pattern on the goat cheese, cut side down.
Sprinkle lightly with sugar.
Put it into the hot oven and cook for about 25 Minutes or until the plums have softened. Cool to just warm, and before cutting pour a little fresh cream over it so that it pools a bit around the plums. Serve with a little pitcher with more fresh cream.
This is great for weight gaining diets.
August 31st, 2007
The genuine Greek salad, as I found it when eating in Mykonos in 1984.
This summer there’s one difference. Instead of chunks of plain fresh tomatoes, the tomatoes are made up into Ligurian tomato salad. The tomatoes are chunked, sprinkled with salt, a finely minced clove of garlic goes in, and then it is doused with good olive oil. When eating it on its own, I add a generous amount of finely sliced fresh basil, but for Greek salad I do not. The bowl of tomatoes is covered with a clean dishtowel and left to marinate for at least 30 minutes.
To assemble this Greek salad, which I love to have composed rather than tossed, I peel and chunk a cucumber for the first layer. Over that goes a similar amount of the tomato salad, then a layer of finely sliced onion, a layer of crumbled Feta, and last a handful of dry-cured black olives. This has made me happy five times this week! One other time I sliced everything very thin instead and layered it onto a dry-grilled piadina– a dead ringer for a flour tortilla. A bit of oil and then roll ‘her up. Cut in two and tackle with your hands.
It makes me feel like a Greek island goddess.
August 18th, 2007
The BBC published an article that explains this.
August 7th, 2007
It begins here with a butterflied chicken rubbed with salt, mixed herbs and then hot paprika, all massaged in with your hands. This bird is then roasted at a high temperature– about 425° F (215° C) for 30-40 minutes until an instant thermometer inserted into the thigh joint reads near 180° F.
You can serve the legs and thighs hot or cool the whole chicken. Save the breasts with any juices there are in a tightly closed foil package in the fridge.
And here it becomes a salad. The ingredients here are per person:
one of the chicken breasts
salad leaves, washed and dried and torn into pieces
a handful of pitted cherries (or kiwi pieces or strawberries or whatever fresh fruit sounds appealing to you)
a small spring onion cut into small pieces (you can use a scallion if you don’t find spring onions)
the juice of half a lemon
salt
olive oil to four times the amount of lemon juice
about 1 teaspoon of honey
freshly ground black pepper
Take the chicken breast out of the fridge and carefully remove the bones and cartilege, then thinly slice it including the spicy skin.
In a very big bowl, juice the lemon and add about 1/4 teaspoon salt and a pinch of powdered chili pepper. With a fork, whip in the olive oil, then add the honey, bit by bit until it tastes just sweet enough to you and has a warmth from the chili.
Add the green, the fruit and the onion and toss thoroughly so that all is coated. Taste again. I added a sprinkling of chili, because I felt that to be hot and sweet it needed it. I also wanted just a bit more salt.
Pile the salad onto a plate and arrange the chicken slices, then drizzle the bit of dressing that is in the bottom of the bowl over the chicken slices. Grind black pepper over it all and eat it up!
I had a couple of slices of good German brown bread with mine. Life was very tasty.
In italiano:
Inizia con il pollo. Spargete del sale, profumi misti e paprika forte sul pollo intero, massagiando bene con le mani. Infornatelo a 215° C per 30-40 minuti, fino a è proprio cotto. Guardate che non è troppo cotto. Si può mangiare subito le coscie calde.
E poi mettete i petti con la pelle nel frigo, ben chiusi in un pacchetto di aluminio.
Per fare l’insalata, togliete i petti dal frigo e disossarli con cura, ma lasciate la pelle piquante. Tagliateli a fette sottili.
Gli ingredienti per l’inslata sono alla persona:
un petto di pollo
foglie d’insalata ben pulite e asciugate, a pezzetti
delle ciliege snocciolate (o kiwi, or fragole o qualsiasi frutta volete)
una cipolla di primavera tagliata a pezzi
il succo di mezzo limone
sale circa 1/4 cucchiaino
un bel pizzico di peperoncino in polvere
olio d’oliva in quantità 4 volte la misura del succo
circa 1 cucchiaino di miele
pepe nero
In una ciottola grandissima, mettete il succo di limone con il sale e peperoncino in polvere. Con una forchetta, aggiungete l’olio, man mano, mescolando in continuo. Aggiungete il miele qb per fare una salsa agrodolce e un po’ piccante.
Aggiungete l’insalata, le ciliege o l’altra frutta e la cipolla e fa saltare bene bene. Assagiatela e aggiungete più sale e peperoncino al gusto. Volevo io un po’ più sale e peperoncino. L’insalata deve essere agrodolce e un po’ piquante.
Togliete l’insalata a un piatto, mettete le fette di pollo in un bel disegno, e mettete la salsa che rimane nella ciottola sopra le fette di pollo. Spolverarla con pepe nero. Pronta!
Come July first, you can read lots of salad recipes on La Mia Cucina.
June 27th, 2007
Much less calorific and when I made it last night I thought the angels were feeding me. And about time, too. I’m sick of dealing out one ounce portions of this and oil free portions of that.
I’m also stumped on which photo to choose, so I will put two up and you choose. I’ll remove the one we don’t like.
If you want to make regular asparagus soup, which is creamy velvet in the mouth, go to lobstersquad because she presents it as matter-of-factly as I have ever seen. This is simple cookery, folks. No magic, no special skills required. Her illustrations are ineffably finer than mine, too. However, nice as it is, I want asparagus soup without calories.
Buy a bunch of asparagus, wash them and snap the ends off. Then cut them to an even length that will fit in your big pot. Put your big pot, filled with water, onto a big burner and turn it on. Add a small fist of coarse salt. While it is heating, chop up the parts you removed, and put the pieces into a small pot with water to cover and some broth concentrate, or forgo the water and just put in broth. Put that on a smaller burner to come to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and leave it alone.
When the water boils in the POT, toss in the whole asparagus. Watch it come to a boil again, wait about 30 seconds and test. They should still be firm but not taste raw. Fatter ones will take a bit longer, but not longer than one minute. Remove it from the cooker, put the pot under the faucet and add cold water to stop the cooking. Drain the asparagus into a colander. You already have your snacking and nibbling techniques in place, I think.
After about 20 minutes, remove the smaller pot, drain off the broth and keep it. Pulverize the cooked asparagus and then sieve it– I used a food mill, but many things will do. You do not want teensy weensy openings, or all you will get is juice, but you also don’t want the fibers to remain. I milled it right back into the pot it cooked in. Add back the broth.
Pick up a handful of the cooked asparagus spears and cut them into small pieces, leaving the tips whole. Toss those into the asparagus puree and bring the whole pot to a simmer. That’s all, folks. No cream, no flour, no butter, just delicious asparagus taste and the rest of the stalks you didn’t use can be bagged and kept in the fridge for tomorrow.
It’s a very good diuretic, as well.
March 24th, 2007
It has been since 21 February that I have not had pasta. The urge to have a luscious sauce over a supporting cast of mild long things has recently grown to lead me to try slivered lettuce, slivered cooked cabbage, etc., etc. Hmmm. So when I noticed that I had some buckwheat noodles in a jar in the pantry I decided to have them. They certainly are whole grain and I can eat whole grains. The dish they were bought for is pizzoccheri and I didn’t like that at all. Carole of Alpine Settler feels differently about that, but I learned it for a friend whose favorite dish it is and decided I would rather starve.
I didn’t feel much different about this dish, which at least wasn’t swimming in butter and grease released by Bitto cheese. I truly believe that buckwheat was not born to be pasta. There are disconcerting minuscule crunchies in it that feel like ground glass. And yes, it really is that khaki/camouflage color.
It’s an ideal diet food, because even hungry I couldn’t eat much. Instead of saving the other half of the recipe, I gave it to the cats. They circled it, sniffed it, then carefully picked out the turkey bits. My cats love pasta. They hate pizzoccheri noodles. Here they are having a look. There are eight cats here, and only these two even thought it was worth a sniff.
They’ve dragged an empty catfood bag from the garage trash bin either to tell me what they’d prefer or to cover this abomination from their offended eyes.
March 22nd, 2007
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