The Reverse Garden

As any good organic gardener knows, the best produce begins with quality soil. Soil created by composting many natural elements, for the largest possible mix of nutrients and trace elements. From this wellspring of potential springs healthy, colorful stuff worth eating.

As any lazy cook (or lazy eater) knows, most produce from any source, especially from the store, if it overripens, is promptly much closer to being quality soil than it is to being dinner. Plenty of people like me could substitute the "crisper drawers" phrase with "the compost drawers" and be at least half-accurate.

The other day I threw out broccoli, bell peppers, tomatoes, and kiwis from the fridge, and apples and limes from the baskets. Bummer! Sometimes the only thing available in the store isn't very fresh and if it isn't eaten immediately it's history. I knuckled down and made myself eat all the big jalapenos which were just verging on going soft. I just couldn't stomach the other things though.

I have less trouble with things that are not refrigerated. I use these baskets, which come in various sizes, that are hooked on cupboard shelves, to store things at room temp so they can breathe, such as onions, garlic, and especially avocados, which I buy unripe. They ripen promptly kept this way and as long as I don't buy more than a few at a time, they are always perfect when I want them. I don't have much counter or kitchen space so these are great. (The picture is from amazon.com, not my kitchen.)

Gardening is not meant to be done in reverse... and it's not meant to be done in the refrigerator. A recent article I read said that studies show Americans throw away 25% of their produce because it goes bad. Some of this can be avoided with a little knowledge. Of course, then you'd have to apply it, which I don't always do. But at least you'd know!

One of my fave blogs (Half of Me) linked to a great article that tells you what veggies should and should not be refrigerated, which should not be kept together, and which go bad faster than others. It's useful info I bookmarked and thought others might benefit from as well:

Spoiled Rotten: How to Make Your Fruits and Vegetables Last

Here's to keeping compost in the garden, and house food edible!

PJ
.

A Few Little Things

Here's a few little things I've made recently that some folks might like. This doesn't have nutrition on it and most are loose concept recipes you can mess with however you like.


Eggs & Mushrooms

I made this in the morning and the kid and I agree it's ridiculously good. It's one of those no-brainer recipes I feel stupid for even writing down, but I never tried it before so maybe someone else hasn't either.

Ingredients:
* couple TBSP saved bacon grease (I make bacon just to save the grease for eggs)
* couple TBSP butter (use all butter if you don't have bacon grease.)
* some diced onion or scallion
* a few minced cloves of garlic
* a couple ounces mushrooms, cleaned/de-stem'd and sliced thin
* a few eggs
* optionally, a little cream or half&half or milk (or just water is fine)
* some finely shredded cheese, any kind you like (we used colby-jack mix)
* beef broth or french onion soup

I put the bacon grease and garlic in a frying pan and let it get hot and start to cook. I added the butter and melted it, then poured in the onion and cooked for a couple minutes, then poured in the sliced mushrooms and a few ounces of either beef broth/stock or french onion soup (I used the soup as it was all I had), and sauteed it all together for awhile until it seemed cooked through. Turned off heat.

In a cup or bowl crack a few eggs into it and add some salt&pepper or whatever seasoning you like, add a little liquid (the cream/water whatever) and use a stick blender to make it frothy. (Optional of course.) In a separate tiny frying pan, spray it and make it hot then pour the egg batter in there. I let it cook, lifting up the sides to tilt the liquid under so it cooks like an 'egg pie'. You could do this as a quiche if you preferred.

Turn the heat back on the mushroom mix so it gets hot again.

Cut the egg pie into however many pieces you need for the folks eating, and put each on a plate. Sprinkle some shredded cheese on the egg-pie-slice and then on the plate just around it. Then dump some amount of your mushroom mix on top of the egg-pie-slice and the plate around it. The heat will melt the cheese into it.

Obviously your quantity of all ingredients needs to be "eyeballed". The mushroom mix should end up very wet at least. You could add thickNthin to make it a little thicker if you need to (that is a lowcarb replacement for cornstarch or other thickeners, see netrition.com for it I think), or just add more 'stuff' to it (you could add chopped peppers for example).

It was yummy! As variation, I think I could have added a little bit of cream cheese or sour cream to the mushroom mix; and I could have added some finely shredded parmesan to the top if I were presenting it to guests.


Cocoa Coconut Bits

Some folks want to get coconut oil into their diet on purpose, and in my case I'm always desperate to add calories that don't have too many carbs, as my weight means my caloric intake needs to be decent to avoid the starvation response that is the primary cause of my fat to begin with, but usually getting that many calories, unless I'm living on bacon and mayo or something, is hard work.

This is a slightly modified recipe a friend gave me. I made this in a silicon baking pan and I'm not sure how well it would come out in anything else; if you don't have silicon, I recommend using the wax paper in a pie or cake pan method instead.

Ingredients:
* 1/3 cup coconut oil (or 2/3 cup if you don't have the cream below)
* 1/3 cup coconut cream concentrate (tropicaltraditions.com has the pure coconut stuff of all kinds)
* 2 TBSP cocoa (I recommend Penzeys.com 24% butterfat dutched)
* 1 tsp vanilla extract (artificial is much lower carb)
* 1/2 tsp cinnamon (or any spice you prefer)
* optionally, other spices or extracts (citrus peel/extract might be nice too)
* sweetener of some kind. I used a lot of sweetzfree. For me usually chocolate is 1 part cocoa to 4 parts sweetener to work; I think I used about 20 drops.

In a small saucepan, melt the coconut oil. Low heat, it doesn't take much. Add in the coconut cream and melt that with it. Add the vanilla and spice(s) and stir well, then stir in the cocoa.

Nonstick spray a silicon pan (I used a mini-donut pan, but a mini-muffin or even plain muffin pan would work), or, put wax paper inside a pie or cake pan. Pour the mix (it is really a thin liquid) into it and stick it in the fridge to chill. Because coconut oil is solid at 75 degrees or so, it'll usually only take about 15-20 minutes to make these chilled (depends on thickness). When fully chilled through, if you used a pie/cake pan, take it out and break it into pieces. If you used a silicon pan, turn each little piece out. I stored all the little mini-donut shapes (quite cute really!) in a ziploc.

My kid thinks this is revolting by the way. She said, "It tastes like it is almost pure coconut oil, bleagh!" Yes... because it is. But, it's a cocoa flavored coconut oil which makes it pretty decent tasting to me, much like a candy of sorts. Once in awhile if I feel like eating something but it's not food time, I'll just have one of these. They are rich enough that you don't want to eat lots, but they have lots of good fat so they are satiating. Deals with my occasional chocolate longing as well. And I bet I could just stir a little ring into my coffee and have a cocoa mocha!


Pesto Chicken Salad

Spice wimps can replace the jalapenos with diced green bell pepper. :-)

Ingredients:
* 4-6oz diced or chopped cooked chicken (this is great for leftover chicken!)
* 1/4 cup pesto
* 2 oz cream cheese, very softened or melted slightly
* some diced scallions (green onions have fewer carbs than bulb onions) I used 4
* some diced jalapeno (the more the hotter, obviously!) I used 2 medium ones
* optionally, some finely grated cheese, any kind you like but pepper jack would be good

Mix the pesto into the supersoft cream cheese. Mix in the chicken, scallions and pepper. Nuke for about a minute which melts the cheese(s) further, then mix well.

You can put this on any kind of breadish, wrap it in a protein crepe, or eat it plain with a fork -- it's good cold from the fridge as well as hot. I could almost live on this stuff and what I like best is that I can make a lot of it thanks to crockpotting some chicken, keep it in the fridge in separate little half-cup Glad plastic containers, and when it's time to eat I can just eat it or nuke it so it's hot and eat it... insta-food, real food, high protein low carb.

PJ

Where I Am!

OK! I started where I am. 381 pounds!

I can finally say again, "I lost 100 lbs!" About time. I know that's a number that would make most people want to swan-dive off a bridge, but since I started at 482 way back when, it's a number I feel pretty good about. My goal is to reach at least 365 -- preferably 350 but that may be unreasonable -- by the end of this 12 week cycle (which is Aug 5).

Nearly five months off lowcarb had added enough water weight that it's taken me three weeks to drop it. From now on though, anything I lose should be fat.

As soon as I can find my tape measure, I'll have that plus a body fat% measure that's done based on those. Doesn't really matter how exact it is, since it's the "change" I'm interested in over time. I want to focus a lot more on body fat% and not just weight.

o0o

See my TT blog for exercise stuff. I've been doing it. It's working... as much as it can, given my weight. This first week is easy, next week I hope to find my max weights for proper workout, and I'm on my way.

It's been Ozark storming so much I haven't been able to use the cool walking park my city just built. And some stupid kid (either mine or my housekeeper's) stole the power cord from my overpriced exercise bike for some reason. I'm feeling very growly about that at the moment!

o0o

I've planned a menu for next week, for the five weekdays. I'm working on eating more this weekend but the official menus start Monday. I must shop today or tomorrow for a few things to finish it off. It allows me to plan all food, 6 eating times a day, prep most things ahead of time at least partly for superfast food, and have great numbers.

I got a burr coffee grinder (economical but great reviews), an electric french press, some 100% kona coffee, and more of the 24% butterfat dutched cocoa. I'm going to start having mochas in the morning (with half&half). I know, this has some carbs, and it's caffeine -- of course, that's half of why I want it, haha! -- but it just sounds so decadent.

I feel like I'm treating myself well, somehow. Like even just taking the time to make something nice for myself to drink is itself a special kindness to myself. I don't normally even make the time to make food for myself, let alone something special, except the occasional experiments I post here. It's funny but it seems like the lowcarb approach has, in the end, had a lot more to do with respecting my body and taking time to do something decent for it, than just the food choices themselves.

For most people it's an eating plan... for me it's therapy. :-)
.

P-Flax Crepe-Wraps v1.1: Caraway-Rye

I'm on the long road of search for a home-made "wrap" that is super low carb, high in protein, easy to make, and can be used for anything from sweet treats to savory meals depending on how you want to season it or sweeten it.

I'm getting closer. I've removed my previous crepe recipe, which had good and bad points, in favor of this one. The current experimental version is 1.1, the v1.0 being the previous plain (vanilla with sweetener) crepe. The good part of 1.0 was that it was actually pretty decent, and with some ricotta and fruit inside and a little bit of sugarfree jam nuked and drizzled across the top, it was very yummy for breakfast. More like a crepe made of eggs, protein powder and other stuff, than a "real" crepe, but I didn't mind at all, nor did my 10 year old. The bad part was that the batter thickened so fast it was just weird.

If you want to see the whole recipe, click on the below pic for a full-size image with the nutrition counts etc. Be sure to see the "variations" at bottom.

This makes 3 crepes.
* The first one, I wanted to mix up chopped chicken, pesto, red peppers and parmesan, but only had pesto. Just that, rolled up in it, was really good.
* The second one, I separately nuked pepperoni on a paper plate till crispy, then nuked some mozzarella on top of it, and flipped its plate over onto the crepe, and rolled that mix up inside it. Yum.
* The third one, I scrambled 2 eggs and added shredded cheddar and hot sauce, and used the crepe to eat it all like a large taco. Worked fine, though you have to hold it a bit carefully (and let it cool first).

Per crepe, Equiv Carbs: 1.85 Protein: 10.05
.

Home-made Processed Food

Today I've been thinking about processed foods. I'm not talking about Pasteurized Process American Cheese Food kind of processed foods, or even the Double Quarter Pounder With Cheese kind of processed food. I'm talking about the potential difference -- or not? -- between foods I make in my kitchen, versus well, foods I just eat, maybe with minimal prep. And whether one is better or worse. Is it the ingredients? The % of processed ingredients in the overall product resulting? The morality of "raw" vs... whatever?

I think I'm a guilt-freak and I'm trying to figure out if I should feel guilty about making concoctions out of stuff like protein powder, flax, eggs, cream cheese, like, "You should be eating chicken and salad! There's no excuse!" or whether I should say "Hey, it tastes good, it has good nutrient-numbers, it keeps me on plan, so it's good."

There is a 'ground base' we could start with. Vegetables and fruits. If you buy them fresh, or better yet pick them fresh, that's as close to unprocessed as you can get. So we all assume that this is the best thing in the world, right? Assuming the veggie or fruit is not so sugar/starch laden that it functions like nature's pasta once it hits your innards. And of course fresh spices, which rock.

Then we move to 'mildly affected' foods. I go to the butcher shop which sells me the 1/4 of a side of beef from a local grass-fed farmer's cow just taken a couple days before, and he gives me a bunch of frozen shrink-sealed stuff that looks vaguely like a frightening science experiment, perhaps some new version of The Blob that too much time thawing on my counter could unleash on my innocent small town, but I know it will look like meat when unpackaged. Before I eat this, I have to cook it, no matter what my cats think of this uncivilized practice. So that is somewhat processed but it is "mostly" unchanged. I think.

What about seeds I grind? Surely a flax seed in 412 eeeny-weensy pieces is no less healthy than a flax seed whole? Is a flax seed eaten plain vs. mixed into a protein drink vs. baked in a muffin any different?

Then we move to processed foods. First, the dairy. I use cream, half & half, sour cream, cream cheese, cottage cheese, blue cheese, cheddar cheese, ok let's just be clear, I pretty much worship cheese in every form it may come in, not counting cheap American processed cheese food in little plastic wrapped slices which I consider an affront to the Cheese God that I will not abide. To be fair, hard cheeses are only processed in their root creation, far as I know; however all the other dairy stuff is pasteurized at the least, homogenized probably.

I'm not sure what either of those are in detail except according to my father, who spent his childhood swiping the big lump of cream at the top of milk bottles on the way to school in the morning from around the mid-40s to mid-50s, it has something to do with why he can't do that anymore. How his stories of luscious cream in the frosty cold mesh with his other stories of walking 2 miles to school barefoot in the snow with only a hard biscuit for lunch is beyond me, but these are the mysteries of parenthood. I have already assured my ten year old that the tragic deprivation of my childhood makes any complaint she may have for the next 8 years pointless and whiney. Dad taught me well.

I'm not really sure what difference that processing makes. My friends used to have 'raw milk'. I thought it tasted disgusting. Another friend drinks skim milk. To me this tastes like I imagine lapping up the dregs of my cat's water dish might. I am a whole milk kinda girl, although I can deal with 2%/1% if I must. Not just whole but even the somewhat intensified milk that Braum's sells, as they are the dairy slash fast food milk source of my choice. This is because it tastes awesome.

(But to be honest, it's also because super walmart, in their attempt to sell me 114.7 items I did not intend to shop for, puts the milk literally at the other end of the store away from the front door. They oughtta have quarter mile markers in that store, it's so big. If it were much bigger, it would cross the state line. I really like milk but I am just not making that much effort for it frankly.) Now that I'm VLC (very low carb) again, milk is out, which since it causes a craving response in me and I'm probably allergic to it in some bizarre way, is for the best.

So ok, dairy products are generally processed but I assume this processing is mostly just making them (a) fit to drink, (b) infused with vitamin D so my programmer / project manager "mole" lifestyle without sun is compensated for, and (c) less likely to kill me from some side effect of industrial dairy cow farming that I had not foreseen. Is it bad that they are processed like that? I don't know. I don't seem to have much choice in the matter though. My cream does not come with variants like "non"-homogenized. Is dairy technically a processed food?

Next we move on to the severely processed. Let's start with my favorite frankenfood: Low Carb Slim Fast drink in the can. 190 calories. 10.5g fat. 4 carbs, 2 fiber carbs, 2ecc, 20g protein. Plus a buncha vitamins. You cannot beat those numbers. After even my super walmart abandoned the LC version in favor of the omnipresent "Optima-reduces appetite!" version (with lowfat and 2g protein?! how does it do that?), I had to order it from Amazon. According to my estimates I need to buy stock in Slim-Fast's parent company, since a hefty chunk of my limited single-mom income is going toward it for the next 7.2 centuries, which is how long I expect my weight loss to take. No, I am NOT on a slim-fast diet, before anybody keels over with the horror of it. It's simply that I am trying to eat lots of times a day, I need a ton of protein a day, and I loathe protein powder. I can mix protein powder in with a slimfast and actually get it down my throat though, so it is helpful to have in my daily intake.

Is it bad to drink the stuff? Oddly the LC version has a lot less chemicals on the ingredients list than the other I compared it to some months ago. If it's the difference between not having a meal (which is my biggest problem: not having food ready in advance, not having time to make it when I'm working, etc.) then I figure it served a noble purpose, despite its processing.

OK now we get to home made stuff.

Let's say I take some eggs, and some cream, and some ground up flax seeds, and some protein powder, and some cocoa (Penzeys.com 24% high butterfat dutched!), and some sweetener (fiberfit and sweetzfree), and some almond oil, and some hazelnut flour (lower carb than almond flour), and I mix it all together in a bowl and then I bake it, for my cocoa muffins v1.8. The protein powder is very processed. The cream is pastur-homogo-something'd, and I'm sure the cocoa has gone through more processing than Liz Taylor's face. The flax seeds were ground up. But hey the eggs were pure!

OK so pop quiz: is it healthier for me to eat this that I make in my kitchen, than to eat something with similar ingredients I buy at the store? (No, it doesn't exist at the store. Humor my example.) Aside from maybe a single preservative ingredient or something, would there really be a difference?

If I am told to "avoid processed foods", does this mean that my combination of ingredients (ranging from pure to excessively processed), mixed and baked into some chemical conglomerate that even my kid likes (which only proves it's probably killing us from the inside out, given her other tastes), is a "higher grade, but still processed, food"?

Is it better for me to eat my eggs scrambled, vs. mixed up in a breadish, because they are less processed that way? Or is the fact that my breadishes are composed of protein, flax, nuts, etc. sufficiently redeeming?

Should I feel guilty about having many dozens of liquid flavorings/extracts, nearly three dozen flavors of DaVinci sugarfree syrups, "alternative sugars" in like 9 different forms, NOT/Starch etc. for thickening -- all pretty close to totally artificial ingredients? Am I losing dietary brownie points for eating things that were not one with God within the last 48 hours?

I want to quote this great passage from Dr. Michael Eades' blog about natural vs. well, unnatural, foods:

There is so much hype about the crappiness of the standard American diet crawling with processed foods of every stripe that it is easy to fall victim to the if-it's-organic-it-must-be-healthful con. Homemade ice cream with organic cream and organic sugar and home grown fruit seems so much more wholesome than store-bought, but your pancreas can't tell the difference. If you eat it (in large quantities) they will come. 'They' being enlarged fat cells and hyperinsulinemia. And 'they' come whether it's 'organic' or not. (Again, were I planning on going face down in the ice cream, I would prefer it made with 'wholesome' ingredients, but I wouldn't fool myself that my pancreas wasn't going to pay the price.)

So theoretically is my Low Carb Slimfast a better choice than frozen corn and peas microwaved? 'Cause even though the latter are "real food" and "natural," they'll kick pancreas butt better than an LC cheesecake will?

Speaking of LC cheesecake, how are they? I don't know. I've made three tiny ones (enough for 2 ramikens) but unfortunately, my hand, the spoon, and my mouth, conspire to eat it out of the Magic Bullet blender cup before it ever gets to the ramikens to bake. I would trade sex for the stuff it's so good. I haven't made it in eons because I think I like it too well. There has to be something sinful about anything I feel that passionate about.

Tonight's food: Godzilla Burgers. A replay on the hamburger mixed with some mustard, worcestershire, oregano, and Gorgonzola crumbled cheese. I'm hoping to make several and freeze a few and fridge a couple. My kid loves these.

Tonight's experiment: a sweetish that started out called 'protein powder donut holes', moved into 'LC funnel cakes', sidestepped to another form of 'waffles', etc. Most lowcarb recipes like this are actually "concept recipes", much like the flax bowl muffin or mock danish or pizza quiche, which you can modify like a mad scientist. There is an original, then variant versions, and four pages of raving, at the lowcarber.org forum, link here.

Now there's that guilt again. "It's fried!" Maybe I can use coconut oil. Trying to get more calories and fat in my diet anyway and it's ridiculously hard. It's dominantly egg, butter, protein powder. If it's encouraged for me to eat eggs fried in butter, coconut oil in my coffee, and protein powder drinks, is it less healthy for me to eat something vaguely akin to a fried pastry? I mean, if I were putting a little sweetzfree or splenda in my coffee nobody'd comment, so adding it to my fried-thing shouldn't matter.

Is it like a matter of "the moral of it" -- morning coffee, protein drink and eggs are somehow inherently better than all of those ingredients (except the coffee) in a different form? I mean is it just WRONG for me if I were to adopt some recipe (using this one as an example) that is "homemade processed food" and eat that quite a lot, rather than fresh veggies and steak?

I guess my point is that recommendations from others in LC-land sometimes seem a bit contradictory or pollyanna and I'm wondering what "really" matters.

.

It's the New Year!!

Year 2007 Resolutions

SECTION A: Me Me Me

A1. I resolve to stop for at least 15 seconds within the first 30 minutes of waking up each day, to concentrate on FEELING GRATEFUL FOR MY LIFE, and FEELING LOVED, and FEELING HOPE ABOUT MY FUTURE. And to say, "Please help me" to the Divine. 15 seconds. How hard is this?

A2. I resolve for one year, this year, to care more about myself than others. My first duty is to myself. When I am happy and cared for, I can be of better help to all -- and a better, stronger example for my daughter. My motto is WWXD: What Would Xena Do?

A3. I resolve to bring regular exercise, at least 3 times per week to begin, into my life. This may have to begin with little more than counting how many seconds I can hold a half sit-up and things like that: that is fine. But it has to be something.

A4. I resolve to make a genuine effort to get at least 6 hours of sleep per night. If this means I don't get as much done and see my best friend less, then that is what it means. My health, my weight loss, my attitude, my mental clarity, are paramount.

A5. I resolve, when affordable, to get my nails done regularly. Though the left hand must be super-short, keeping the right hand short to moderate length but strong will be great for guitar, and keeping them up and painted will be a small concession to luxury and taking care of myself.

A6. I resolve to do at least one archetype meditation per week that is specific to either weight/size-loss, health, or something else important in my life. It doesn't have to take a long time. The impact of these on my reality is profound. There is no excuse for not taking 15 minutes for this.

That is all for the ME category.

I COME FIRST.

SECTION B: Kid Kid Kid

B1. I resolve as of February on to bring my entire house into lowcarb eating. I will supply fruits for snack, LC bread and LC tortillas, but otherwise the child will have to learn to eat lowcarb. There is no excuse as a mother for feeding her crap because it is faster/easier/she begs. She's nearly fat. My responsibility as a mother is to her health, more than to my convenience.

B2. I resolve to get the kid to bed at a decent hour nightly and without bedtime carbs. She is chronically sleep deprived, often unsupervised during the night, and has learned disrespect for my efforts on this front. Aside from which it probably greatly affects her HGH output and metabolism. I will do what is needed because that is my duty as a loving mother.

B3. I resolve to make the kid do stuff with me. Allowing her to play video games or whatever instead of helping me cook, allowing her to do no chores but be messy, is just bad for her, and it diminishes time spent together and her sense of contribution to our mutual life.

That is all for the KID category.

BETTER PARENTING NOW.

SECTION C: Food Food Food

C1. I resolve to use a kitchen timer so that every 90 minutes from waking to sleeping, I am reminded to drink as much water as I can hold. At the most this should involve approximately 6 minutes per day. Six minutes to greatly improve my weight loss, my skin hydration, my health. I can do this. This means filtering water and filling water bottles at night or morning. YES, I can do this.

C2. I resolve to take at least two days per month to do some major LC cooking that can be stored in the freezer. Examples: chili verde, chicken stew, a big turkey, big meatballs, LC burritos. It can make the diff between LC turkey and pepperjack with fresh vegg quesadilla for me and kid vs..... junk or starving.

C3. I resolve to at least mention my food a minimum of 5 out of 7 days per week in my lowcarb journal. Inattention to my eating (and to eating at all) contributes to poorer upkeep of the matter.

C4. I resolve to arrange for my breakfast the night before, so it has pre-planning and is more likely to happen. This is the hardest meal of the day for me so far, but it hugely affects how hungry I am and the effort I will make to eat the rest of the day. Now that I know several foods I can prepare in bulk, there is no reason why I can't arrange for something, even if it's just a couple mini-muffins, a couple meatballs, whatever.

That is all for the FOOD category.

FOOD IS A TOOL: USE IT WISELY.

SECTION D: Others Others Others

D1. I resolve to make a list of the people I need to communicate with and to make a point to email or write them something at least every six weeks. I am falling out of touch with people who care about me and hurting their feelings. It does not take much effort! Just a little organization.

D2. I resolve to visit my grandmother for a couple hours at least once a month. She's old, she lives 5 blocks away, there is just no excuse for not doing so. Ry must come. She can read a book if she's bored but she needs to learn that this is a family responsibility. When I am old I hope someone visits ME.

That is all for the "others" category.

CHARITY STARTS AT HOME.

And that is my 2007 list of resolutions!

I AM QUEEN OF MY DESTINY! RULE WELL.

Here's to a fabulous 2007!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

.

Chili Verde, geared to lowest-carb

My grandfather (whose family left Texas in a covered wagon in 1904 to head to California!) had two dishes he specialized in, and one was Chili Verde. Not just some pork and some tomatillos and a wimpy california anaheim chili, but a KNOCK YER SOCKS OFF mix of hot peppers and pork.

Looking back, I'm not sure why botchilism didn't kill us all, but he would make a gigantic sized pot of it on the stove, and it would literally sit there and simmer on lowest fire for DAYS. (If grandma needed the stove, he would move it to the top of the Wood Stove that was the house's heater.) Everybody in the extended family would at some point drop by and have some.

I have many fond memories of the stuff, and I didn't think of it being "low-carb-able" until I saw the recipe. Granted, I can't have the big homemade flour tortillas to go with it (primarily used to cool the fire of it in your mouth) but that's ok. I don't much like pork, either -- bacon, spicy sausage, and this, that's it. I detest 'ham'. But the meat is so good in this! I can't resist.

If you like SPICY FOOD and meat, I bet you'll like this. If you're a spice wimp, or you don't much care for things like garlic/onions/peppers, skip this recipe, or definitely use only a tiny amount of sweet peppers instead of the pepper mix and quantity I mention -- and use the 'variant' below that makes a thicker, less meat-heavy stew.

I first found the recipe here, although this is only one version (there are many I've found on the web).

Below is the version I make in my large oval crockpot -- and it is more than twice the size of the original recipe so you might want to cut this down a bit if your crockpot is the typical round-size. This stuff would freeze very well for the long term.

Traditional chili verde is basically a thick stew. This recipe, if you want to make that, should increase everything but meat and decrease the meat (so it's more like 4lbs meat and 4cups 'stuff' and 2tsp+ of each of the spices). However I wanted something super-heavy on the meat, so it would be really low carb, yet still with that awesome flavor and heat, so that's what this recipe is geared for. It is basically a bowl of supersoft spicy meat chunks with a bit of 'sauce' that is in the bowl that I spoon over 'em that is the beer, onions, peppers and spices all cooked together.

Ingredients

About 5-7 lbs of pork loin, chopped into bite-size chunks. (There are two 'grades' of this, one half the price of the other. The cheaper is just fine. This cooks so much that when I've combined them, I can't tell the diff anyway. The cheaper variant has a lot of fat; we cut most the fat off the outside of ours first but it's your option. We used about 8 lbs last time.)

8oz of beer and 8oz of water (we use Foster's lager. You can taste the beer if you use more than about 12 oz of it. If it's Fosters, that's not a bad thing (I dislike beer, but I don't mind the malt/hops 'influence' on this), but if you're using cheap beer I'd dilute it! ;-))

About 1/2- 2 cups of coursely chopped onion. (We used around a cup last time. Green onion has fewer carbs than regular if you care, but we used a white onion last time.

About 1.5-2.5 cups of chopped hot and sweet peppers; chop them about the size of the onions. (We used about 2-2.5 cups last time. We use our garden stuff which has poblano, cayenne, jalapeno, anaheim chili, hot banana, cherry bomb, and red bell, now that most the season is over; most of those are very red at this point (hot!) and yummy.)

About 12-14 fresh tomatillos. Chop them about the size you did the veggies. These are the small mexican green-tomatos that come in a 'husk' in the store. You can just stuff 'em in a food processor if you prefer.*

One can (I forget size. 8-10oz?) of the HOT green tomatillo sauce -- the kind you get in the mexican section of the store, NOT the green enchilida sauce.*

* Alternatively just add a few more tomatillos and no sauce, or use more of the sauce and fewer fresh tomatillos, or just forget the sauce, it's up to you. We like the spice of the canned stuff but the freshness of the real veggies.

4oz can diced green chilis.

6 garlic cloves, minced
1.5 tsp Oregano
1.5 tsp Sage
1.5 tsp Cumin
a little bit of salt and pepper
a little bit of peanut oil (or whatever you wish)


Instructions

Dice the pork into small bite-size pieces. Brown it in a big pan, separate or stirred enough that the pieces get a bit cooked on at least 4 sides. It'll take a lot of batches to do this. Toss your browned pork into the crockpot.

Add some oil to the pan and saute all your onions and peppers a little. (Note: peanut oil is good for browning, as olive oil isn't great used with heat and veggie oil usually has trans-fats.) Lower the heat so they can brown without burning. When done, dump the whole pan of stuff into the crockpot.

Mix all your spices, garlic and the water with the beer and dump it over the whole thing in the crockpot.

Put the lid on and cook on high for around 8-9 hours. If you want, you can take off the lid after about 5 hours and stir it well. You'll lose about half an hour of heating time if you do that just fyi (that you should add to the end). I should mention that when you begin this, you don't see the fluid -- it's way at the bottom -- you just have veggies and stuff all the way to the top of the crock. So stirring is a good idea.

Note: you can eat it in 5 hours if you must. But it's better cooked longer; the pork is softer and the spice is stronger and hotter. Sometimes we have a bowl for dinner and leave it cooking for several more hours.... in fact the more it's cooked the better it gets, so cooking leftovers is great.

I stuff those little 4oz "Glad" containers with it, put 'em in the fridge, and several times a day I grab one, take off the lid and nuke it for 45 seconds, and I have an instant little meal. Since it's almost entirely meat it's still pretty filling though not a big portion.

My version of it, per one of those containers of stuff (4 7/8 oz not counting container weight), comes out to around

Calories: 261.04
Carbohydrates: 1.54
Fiber: 1
ECC: 0.54
Protein: 22.10
Fat etc.: no clue

But you really need to figure your own ingredients and quantities for counts. Really. It varies a great deal depending on the quantity of beer, onions and peppers and spices.

I had to figure my counts in reverse -- by measuring how much meat vs. veggies vs. liquid was in one of those little containers we filled 'on average' and then calculate. If you weigh your ingredients in grams and then get the counts for that many grams from the USDA database for that food, you'd have a good idea what the whole recipe has... if you separate it into little bowls, you can divide up how many servings it made.

I love this stuff. Of course, the more veggies and spices you have compared to quantity of meat, the more glorious it is, but the mostly-meat variant above is still insanely good. It has finally allowed me to make a ton of food that is easy to grab a small serving of for eating, freezing for later, whatever.

I recommend most folks start with the above recipe using about 4-5lbs of meat instead. I suspect most people would like it better. I'm really trying to limit carbs is all, hence my over-emphasis on the meat in the dish.

ADDENDUM 10/26/2006: We just made this again. This time, we used a little less peppers, but a can of hot tomato+chilis (Rotel brand), a little less beer, but a bunch of water. The result was still spicy, a little more rich, and with a lot more "juice" (the yummiest part).

Zucchini Cobbler

Lowcarb is a never-ending source of culinary surprise. I detest cauliflower, but chicken fried cauli (aka mock chinese chicken fried rice) is astoundingly good. And I detest Zucchini, but zucchini cobbler (aka mock apple cobbler/pie) is astoundingly good as well. There are other things I haven't tried. But so far, I'm really impressed with how a lot of veggies I never would have thought of using, turn out to be not only 'good replacements' but quite awesome on their own merits. And usually healthier and vastly more lowcarb.

Everybody on the thread where I found this recipe said it tasted just like apple pie. "Suuuuure," I thought to myself, remembering the old recipes where everyone swore that crushed pork rinds with cinnamon were SO yummy. (Bleagh!)

But I'm trying to be kind to the husband to maintain a decent environ since we have Issues at the moment, and apple pie is his fave, so I figured my first dessert ought to start with that.

It's unbelievable. I swear I had a hard time believing that the zucchini would ever truly end up tasting like apple, but damn if it didn't. I think the reality is that maybe zucchini (cooked first with lemon) and apple might not have a whole bunch of taste on their own, so the sweeteners and spices flavor whatever is there. In any case, this came out REALLY GOOD! We were all surprised, haha.

Guess what I am growing in the garden next year. :-)

Zucchini Cobbler

The original thread/contributor and where I waxed on about it is here.

I doubled the filling, as many had commented about that.

3-1/2 cups zucchini - peeled, seeded, and chopped
1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp (5 Tbsp total) fresh lemon juice (I used TrueLemon and water)
1/2 cup sugar-equivalent (I used a mix of splenda, eyrthritol, and diabetisweet which is isomalt and Ace-K)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon *
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg *
* I used 1 teaspoon of "apple pie spice" instead (has those + some allspice)

Put the zucchini and lemon juice in a medium saucepan with lid. Cook covered over medium heat stirring occasionally. Cook around 10 minutes or until the zucchini are very tender/soft.

Stir in the sweetener and spice, cook for about a minute more, then remove from heat and set aside till you're ready for it.

1-1/3 cups carbquik (you could use other meal/flour-ish combos here)
1/2 cup equivalent of sweetener (I used the same as noted above)
1/2 cup butter, chilled (if it's TOO chilled this is a bit of a pain...)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I used 1/2 teaspoon apple pie spice.)

Heat oven to 375.

We used ramekins but you can use a 9x9 baking dish if you prefer. Spray it with nonstick stuff.

Mix the flour-ishes and sweetener, then gradually cut in butter until the mixture resembles course crumbs. Stir half the mixture into the filling in the saucepan. Press the rest of it, minus a little you save for the topping, into your cooking dish(es). Pour in filling, and then top with the crumbles that remain. Sprinkle with a little more cinnamon if you wish.

Bake for around 25-40 minutes or until golden and bubbly. Let cool a bit.

We had some extra filling. It'll rock over ice cream.

I really recommend this!

The Joy of ... a good kitchen

Not to be picky, but if your body is a temple, surely your kitchen is a divine location of sorts.

The source of nurture on occasion as well as nourishment, the kitchen holds the building blocks of our determination, our inspiration, and our dedication. When you eat real food, it doesn't come in a fastfood bag... it comes from the kitchen.

Yesterday I paid my housekeeper/friend a whole lotta money to--while I was working--'deal with' my kitchen in more than the ordinary way. The endless odd plastic containers DH has collected we either threw away or, in the case of a couple dozen half gallon coffee containers, tossed in the backyard garden for seed starting or whatever. Every pan and utensil that had rust (!) on it, we threw away. Every appliance got cleaned, the appliance & lowcarb shelves got cleaned, all the cabinets got wiped out, many of their dishes got rewashed, and so on. It's not done. Well that part is, but there is more. But it's a great start. By the time I finally got back to the kitchen (at nearly midnight when I returned with groceries) it was looking downright CLEAN for the first time since I mistakenly, in my single mom exhaustion, handed it over to the SO, who is becoming more the IO by the day.

I still have a massive fridge-freezer cleanout to do, and big table/counter cleanup, and some shelves I want to get rid of -- I have to walk sideways to get in my kitchen. This is going to stop. -- and the spice cabinet, but I'm not picky. Already it is a place where I actually WANT to prepare food. Unlike the last couple weeks of avoidance, now finally, it's FUN to be in there!


This leads me to more armchair theorizing. We generally avoid stuff we aren't fond of, even subconsciously. And I'm starting to think that the degree of respect that we have for what we eat shows, not only in what we buy and what we eat, but also in how we prepare it.

Recently on a lowcarb forum a woman was saying that prior to lowcarb, she was obsessed with food, ate all the time, and that LC had saved her from that, made her full all the time, killed the carb addict cycle, etc. I found that interesting, because with me, it is just the opposite. I've never really even cared about food. If it's in front of me and I like the taste I'll eat it. If it's not, I won't eat. I've never respected food, I am realizing. I hardly even paid attention to it. If I had food, I scarfed it down with barely a shred of notice, while programming usually, or on the way somewhere, or standing in the kitchen. If me and food had a 'relationship', you might say I severely took it for granted as a result, treated it very poorly.

The idea of actually planning a yummy meal, and preparing that meal, and sitting down and really ENJOYING that meal, is something I haven't even considered in... well, since my mid 20's when I lived alone (the only period of my life I've lived alone).

And a nice kitchen is part of that. I just realized how many cool versions of baking pans I have, like muffin pans but in tons of shapes and sizes and molds. I forgot! They've all been up on an unreachable shelf for a year and a half. Now suddenly I see them and I think of all the great recipes I've seen online that could be made in them. I was eyeing my rotisserie, my deep fryer, my yogurt maker, my ice cream machine, my food processor, my dehydrator, and more appliances, all of which were covered with dust from disuse (many never used at all, bought in the last 1.5 years), now which are gleaming white on the white 'appliances' shelf just outside the kitchen, and I was thinking: gosh, so many great things to make! I bet the kid would love this, and that! And wouldn't it be great to make this other thing for thanksgiving, so the diabetics in my stepmom's family would have something yummy they could eat? And imagine doing this or that as a treat for the kids' classroom! And I could invite my parents to dinner and make -- oooh, yum!

There is some part of me that feels like cleaning and organizing my kitchen, is cleaning and organizing a part of myself and my life on a larger and deeper scale as well (sort of a Feng Shui result). Much like the ritual of prayer, it's a small thing on the outside, but a galaxy of meaning on the inside.

Tonight I have planned a chicken and spaghetti-squash primavera dinner, with a small side salad with avocado and pecan and homemade blue cheese dressing, some corn on the cob for the kid and dh, and if I have time, some zucchini cobbler-ettes (that's the stuff that tastes amazingly like apple pie) for dessert. I'm excited to make it, it'll be fun to have the kid help me, and I think eating it will be awesome.

Now I am realizing: I don't have a table! The dining area is taken over by DH's computer testing station and ebay inventory. The other 2/3 of the living/dining room are split between he and my workstations. My dining table is in the small kitchen pretending to be a counter. The only room for even the smallest table for eating would have to be outside!

It seems dysfunctional to me that we don't have any place to eat! It reminds me of that movie "Mermaids" (Cher, Winona Ryder, Christine Ricci) where the dysfunctional single mom makes nothing but finger foods and they all eat while sitting on counters and whatever. The first time they really sit down at a table for a family dinner, with her new boyfriend, it's wonderful, and she realizes abruptly that he is 'making them a family' (and flips out, feeling threatened).

I wonder if on some level this relates to our rather un-family situation. That we don't have a family table or anywhere that we can sit down and 'be together'. Probably.

But enough psychoanalysis. Back to the kitchen. I cleaned off the rolling cart-thing for food prep, and now it actually stores lots of useful stuff at hand. Last night while shopping I also got a couple new pans and tools (to replace those icky that we tossed) and some cooling racks. And two nifty rectangle wooden trays (molded a bit bowl-like but flat at bottom) I thought were really nifty, that I thought would be cool for holding food instead of a normal plate and less likely to spill (given our lack of table) for wettish foods. And I think I have finished shopping finally. I got all the stuff we were missing (basic kitchen stuff, we were out of like everything!) and lots of stuff for cooking.

Now I have to figure out what to do with the butternut squash I decided to buy and look for some moderate-carb recipe for as a side dish; is there a way to make it sweetish, I wonder. I'm starting to look at veggies, given we have a major garden, and think, "What can I grow that I could eat?" That would surely save money!

It's kind of exciting. It's like a whole new interest in life.... FOOD! And a great part of that is now thanks to having a clean, organized kitchen I want to get creative in.
.