Posts filed under 'Dieting'
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
The last hem of winter’s skirts is brushing past us these days. People in Minnesota would laugh at us for saying it is cold, but it feels cold and humid. The heat has popped back on during the day. I don’t feel like going out into the garden under the windy gray skies, even though with a sweater it would be fine to do so.
Last week the windows were opened from mid-morning until sunset. Not now.
Still, it is nearly Easter and so I am thinking about what new things I can cook once Easter is come. I am almost at my goal of fitting everything well. I should be gradually adding complex carbohydrates to my diet soon.
What fits this weather? Soup, of course. Frittata. Roasted things and things with hearty sauces. All of the baked vegetable dishes we’ve ever cooked on these pages are ideal for this season of leeks, cabbages and potatoes. I would love to have polenta carbonara right now, but I have no interest at all in messing up my metabolism, which now can make adequate glucose to keep the old brain turning over.
The cherry tomatoes I bought last week were as sweet as strawberries in the mouth. The cucumber was disappointing. Last year the hydroponic cucumbers were very, very good. This year they are undistinguished. Did they change the variety? Or did Coop change the grower?
The non-cooking activities outweigh the cooking activities by a lot, currently. I bought a splendid remnant at market – three meters of beautiful upholstery fabric at one and a half meters wide for €20. That’s a buy for sure. I plan to make dresses for two antique chairs I have and use daily, which has them looking tatty. I haven’t yet found a good upholsterer and can’t afford to reupholster them right now, anyway. First I have to finish the banana colored linen bikini I started for one of them last year.
So, what’s cooking? Today it’s poached chicken. Poached chicken is not boiled chicken. You have to use a good, strongly flavored broth, for a start. Cover the chicken completely with the broth, bring to a simmer and cover it. Continue to simmer until it is just done. I use a thermometer to check doneness. Leaving it covered, turn off the heat and allow the chicken to cool in the broth. That’s it, folks. Fish is poached exactly the same way, using either fish broth or vegetable broth. Chicken will keep in the refrigerator for a couple of days, but don’t try to keep poached fish more than a day. The quality of fish will plummet quickly.
Poached fish or chicken is flavorful and has a nice texture. It can be eaten as is in slices or cubes, or masked with a sauce and served cool, or it can be used in any dishes in which you use cooked chicken with a better result than chicken boiled to extract the flavor and make broth. One idea might be to use the broth to make risotto and serve the chicken in thin slices on top of it. You see? I wrote a whole sentence in which rice occurred without wincing.
I can imagine a country potpie made with either pastry or with a lid of browned mashed potatoes using poached chicken, too. You could cook some carrots, onions and peas in the broth, then thicken it for gravy, assemble it and bake it just before dinner. The next time you go to a potluck or a picnic, poach chicken and make chicken salad with it. Lots of very thin slices of celery—I heard recently that celery has a plant hormone very like male human hormones and therefore is appealing to women. Any recipe you like is fine. Perhaps a curried mayonnaise with a handful of raisins and some peanuts or cashews? I love chicken salad—always in chunks and never ground—with sliced and toasted almonds or white grapes. It’s easy to experiment, because you can always pull out a small amount and try a new ingredient before altering the whole batch without knowing you’ll like it.
My sister used to make what was called “Irish Chicken Hash.” It consisted of chunks of poached chicken, chunks of onion, chunks of parboiled potatoes, all in a buttered low baking dish. Salt and pepper, and then pour thick, heavy cream over it, add pieces of butter and bake slowly. It is delicate enough for an Irish duchess. I recommend it for underweight duchesses. Eat it with something green or something bright yellow/orange. I remember my now-departed brother-in-law pouring ketchup over it, as he did to most things, and to me that explains adequately why he didn’t reach sixty.
If all you want is a chicken sandwich with leaves of lettuce and lashings of mayonnaise, go ahead and I will try to forgive you.
March 19th, 2007
This is the yellow and pink chicory I served KZ, who does not eat green stuff. Is it not pretty, pretty?
And here is what KZ thought of Sunday lunch here.
March 14th, 2007
Jeans have been an almost impossible wearable for the imperfect of body for several years now. Waistines have plunged, legs have narrowed, appliqués of everything from Swarovski crystals to weird ethnic embroideries have confused the meaning of jeans.
Today the Telegraph published an article that claims to have solved the jeans worry by saying which jeans are for whom. I’m not so sure. The main problem I found was that they identify as high waisted a jean that starts a good 3″ below the natural waist. By today’s standards that may work as a definition, but bodies don’t adopt current standards.
A bosomy type, a curvy Sofia Loren, many women currently accepted as gorgeous would look awful in that waistline because it sets an impossible proportion between top and bottom.
What do you think? Have they left out some important types or am I nuts? Just wearing jeans is a statement for me here and now. I’ve found absolutely no jean adapted to me and so I still wear my old standard classic or straight cut jeans and hope they’ll last this trend. Even if there were mom jeans here I couldn’t and wouldn’t wear them. I don’t have that butt-sprung shape at all. Mom jeans don’t get a mention at all in that article, presumably because they have little to do with style.
Later today I have to go try on the challenging Donna Karan black straight leg jeans. I should have a drink first, but I’m on a diet. Maybe I should start anti-depressives first.
March 7th, 2007
It has now been eight full days since I started this blog diet. So, how’s it going, you asked?
(Or even if you didn’t.)
Slowly and with a certain amount of difficulty, I am learning to be without sugars and easy carbohydrates. Last Sunday I was frantic and ate an apple. Many times I am distracted and can’t think well. The Brain Age program reinforces my recognition of that effect. I have been tired and dragging around. There’s not a thing in that list I didn’t expect, but I know it does go away and I will feel better than usual eventually.
This morning my waist is 1-1/2” smaller. That would be partly from the drastic water loss, but also from the beginning of losing internal fats. With restricted carbohydrates, your body does not hold water very well. I drink a lot and still wake up parched, sometimes several times in a night.
Sometime within the next week my metabolism will begin to efficiently turn proteins and fats and complex carbohydrates into the glucose my brain needs to work. I could push that ahead with more exercise, but since I am no juvenile, I am not rushing it.
Two kilos of spinach, one kilo of Swiss chard, a whole butternut squash, three kilos of broccoli, some lettuce and radicchio, a whole cauliflower, and that apple, mean that I am eating well. There have been small servings of chick peas, white beans and cooked whole grain as well. I eat meat, of course, and quite a number of eggs. The shrimp and cabbage dish was just two days ago.
While I am glad I don’t have to stay on this diet forever, I could once I got used to it. The problem is not getting to eat with one’s friends, but I’ll be able to later.
I made this photo series to show how I handle these large vegetable purchases. I don’t live really close to shops, and I wouldn’t shop often when dieting anyway. The less exposure, the less temptation. Fresh raw greens don’t keep for more than a few days, because they lose vitamins to enzymes and they just go off.
When I get them home, I fill an enormous bowl with heavily salted cold water. They all get bathed like this to drive out any residents. Organic vegetables are likely to have tenants, and the fresher they are, the more likely. Those squatters don’t mind water, but they can’t take salty water.
In the case of greens, and especially spinach, I cut the root end off before bathing, because there’s so much dirt caught there.
Once the saltwater bath is over, something like broccoli or cauliflower can just be rinsed. I will then trim, cut up and blanch in boiling, salted water, the broccoli for about 90 seconds time from when the water returns to a boil. It is removed to a strainer and left to cool. The cauliflower will keep better and I usually don’t blanch it.
Greens still need more bathing. Showers don’t work for greens, because the dirt clings in too many nooks and it needs a chance to detach and then, being heavier than water, to sink to the bottom of the bowl. I fill the bowl, put the green in, then with my hands work it as if it were in a washing machine, turn, squeeze, turn, and then lift it out of the water and put it into a metal mesh colander. This get repeated at least three times, or until the last water hasn’t left any dirt in the bottom of the bowl.
At that point I usually feel sorry for people who live in warm places, because they can have spinach all the time, but it never tastes as good as spinach that has been touched with frost. I don’t suffer too much for the Californians while I stuff the clean leaves into a great big pot, lid it and put it onto a burner. It is cooked just until a stem isn’t raw, but still has a crisp texture and is very green. It is drained in the colander again and allowed to cool.
Once all these vulnerable vegetables have been blanched, you can refrigerate them and they will last at least through the week, and probably beyond. The spinach can be formed into balls and wrapped in cling wrap, as can also the Swiss chard, the broccoli can be popped into a bag. You can use them any way you normally use them but they need a little less cooking time.
I’ve made frittata, a pan of spinach reheated in olive oil with hot pepper flakes and garlic, and with an egg poached on top, stir fries, salad with freshly hardboiled eggs, and I’m really looking forward to a spicy curried cauliflower with lashings of Greek yoghurt! A tuna salad made with quantities of onion, celery and red pepper equal to the tuna was tasty on Wasa wafers, which is my diet bread. We only get the one original kind here, but it’s terrific when bread isn’t allowed. I have had it also with cream cheese and smoked salmon, too.
Yes, I miss wine and pasta is what comes to mind when I think delicious and fast. I love tomato juice, but it doesn’t replace blood oranges completely. I haven’t longed for anything like cake or chocolate — hot chocolate made with Splenda and skim milk fixes that – but I do miss fruit. Even with all those greens and with huge vitamin pills, I’m trying to get more calcium. The fatter you are the less likely you are to lose calcium, but I plan to be thin.
Now it is time for those of you doing this with me to tell me how it is going with you.
March 2nd, 2007
Yesterday my Umbrian neighbor gave me this. It looked like a rose to me. A rose is a rose… unless it isn’t.
Here Julianna made this dish and blogged it!
Today I made this dietetic dish from one fourth of it. This is cavolo verza, more or less I think Savoy cabbage. Considering that Savoia is a part of Italy and the family from which the king came, it is odd that they don’t use that name … cavolo di Savoia. But they don’t. Having eaten this now, I think I would have preferred the plain, white cabbage, which is called cavolo capuccio, or hooded cabbage. This, however, is what I had today.
For one person you need:
- about 1/4 of a cabbage, sliced as thinly as you can slice with a knife
- about 1/4 of a red pepper or capsicum or peperone, which are all the same thing, julienned
- 1 clove of garlic, sliced thinly
- 8 ounces of small, peeled shrimp
Prepare the ingredients before cooking, because this takes mere moments. Heat about 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, not olive oil, in a wok. Toss in the garlic, the pepper and the cabbage and add about 1/4 teaspoon of salt, a good pinch. Stir and fry briefly, until the cabbage loses the raw taste but is still quite crunchy. Add the shrimp and toss again until they are just pinked up. Generously grind coarse black pepper over it, stir in and plate the dish. It takes quite a lot of pepper to taste peppery over the sweet blend of cabbage and shrimp.
And here, my friends, it is!
As always, click on the photo to enlarge it.
February 28th, 2007
Today I received a “Box from Home” which for expats is something in the line of winning a local lottery or an all-expenses-paid week in New York. I get them often, but I have never shared them before– not because I am not excited, but because I am selfish and private.
The reason I am sharing this one is because it hit so many gongs in a row! I went through the house looking for a really American setting for it, and found this antique wedding ring quilt on the daybed. Hunh!
First, look at all those books! That represents weeks of entertainment while Spring gets a move on and the fog and rain go away. Then, the Tee shirt– the fabric below it I have had for years and now I know what to do with it, because some of the seashells match the shirt. There is a big ole silicone pastry mat that I really could have used when I made Hot Silk, too. This one has shapes and measurements on it, so you don’t have to guess when the pastry is the right size. There is Avena lip balm and Burt’s Bees tinted lip gloss. There’s a new body cream which promises to make me glow. I could use some glowing. There is mint flavored dental tape– how terrific is that?
There is also a new brain game for my Nintendo ds. Happy day!
But then there is that big sack of cocoa nibs. Just wow. Really. I love those and in small quantities I can have them on this diet! My mind is reeling with ideas for recipes once I can cook freely again. Lamb in spicy tomatoes with cocoa nibs? Butterscotch pudding with these stirred in? Oh my, oh my.
I am a very happy dame today. Thank you, eg.
February 26th, 2007
I like the comments made on the other fashion post from yesterday. I would love to hear your ideas on where you would wear these designs from the Autumn/winter collections. So, get clever!
All are from the Telegraph, fashion reporting of choice.
February 24th, 2007
How is this for a reasonable goal? Unlike a lot of runway fashion, this could be worn by many woman in reasonable shape. The photo is from the UK Telegraph.
This, on the other hand, doesn’t look like it would go anywhere I go.
February 23rd, 2007
I have been looking at every single runway show reported in the UK Telegraph and the NY Times since the Paris shows started weeks ago. These are all for Autumn/Winter 2007, but good ideas will get incorporated into this Spring/Summer street fashion, because why would we wait for fashions to appear in our shops at prices we can’t afford anyway?
Today the first of the Italian reports began with a Telegraph slide show “Clips.”
Soon we will see only scattered shows from Istanbul and Singapore. That’s not to say that there isn’t delicious design coming from lots of different countries, but only to say that most countries don’t have a cohesive and collective effort in place that is reported around the world.
Sometimes a collection reminds me of a particular friend, and sometimes they make want to jump up, grab some fabric and the sewing machine and adapt, adapt, adapt. John Galliano and Marc Jacobs have me fired up about becoming a proper hanger for their clothes as reinterpreted for “not the size zero runway model everybody is worried about.” 
Like this healthy and sporty looking girl, who could be from anywhere, almost. Applause.
February 19th, 2007
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