Friday

Discovery of the day: Be careful what you ask for

It might be because I have now gained back ALL THE WEIGHT I lost last year, but I've become fixated on how calorically expensive eating out can be. Lucky for me it's all over the news, with lots of blogs and books talking about our Great American Crisis. As most restaurant chains now post nutritional info on their websites, I have lots of ammo at my fingertips to fuel my self-loathing.

Just kidding. It's not outright loathing as much as severe disappointment and discouragement.

I get partial credit here, though. Over the decades I've learned not to eat to the point of pain. (Don't laugh. It happened fairly regularly in my twenties.) Sometimes I do let myself get to the point of feeling over-fed, but rarely anymore do I end up curled up in a ball fearing for my life. I thought I was doing pretty well, overall.

But on a recent visit to Red Robin (a chain like Applebee's, TGIF, etc.) I splurged on a crispy chicken strip salad. Hey, it's a salad, right? And I love me some mass-produces crispy chicken strips. Later, on a whim, I went to their website to look up nutritional information.

OMFG! 1400 calories. Without the dressing? Still a whopping 1014, and that doesn't count the fries I ate off my son's and SO's plates. Considering my caloric intake FOR THE DAY should be less than 1700 cals, it qualified as a disaster.

It's everywhere, too. Last time I traveled for work I made my usual morning trip to the shrine of Sbux. This one had the calorie counts conveniently posted by each of the little snacks in the pastry case. Now I have been known to get a slice of banana bread or lemon loaf on occasion, but JFC! At 480 cal and 390 cals respectively, that's a meal! Oatmeal cookie? 370 cals. Even a plain butter croissant is 310 cal. And you don't even want to know about the coffee drinks.

BTW, none of the Sbux in my area post the calorie counts.

This Washington Post article by Ezra Klein explains a lot. Yeah, we know all that food is a dietary disaster, but DAMN is tastes good, and that's what we react to. There's really no way around it, either, unless you can discipline yourself to leave half your food on your plate or piss off your SO by insisting you split an entree.

We are both trying to motivate ourselves for the slog back to the straight and narrow. But it's hard. We both struggle with comfort eating, reward eating, and depression, all of which combined can make it really tough sometimes to smack yourself on the hand with that wooden ruler.

What, you don't do that? Oh.

Problem is that as hard as one works, it never seems to get easier. As soon as the amount of available mental energy decreases, it gets too hard to do the right thing every single time. Even the healthy changes I made last year (some of which actually stuck) haven't been enough to keep me out of my fat pants.

At this point my goal is to minimize any further damage and not reach a new all-time high.
 

Monday

Discovery of the day: Italian Layered Vegetable Casserole

You might be surprised to learn I did cook during my hiatus. Not a lot, but I did add a few new recipes to my repertoire. Take, for example, this Italian Layered Vegetable Casserole from Susan V's Fat-Free Vegan Kitchen. With all the slicing and dicing it doesn't quite qualify for Project Weeknight, but it's definitely worth doing.

It's pretty much lasagna with sliced veggies (eggplant & zucchini) instead of noodles. The recipe as written uses a creamy bean filling, but Susan notes that it wasn't as well-received as the tofu filling from her lasagna recipe. I'm not terribly concerned with being either fat-free or vegan so I subbed ricotta for the tofu and we were pretty pleased.

The only other mod I made was to omit the sugar from the tomato sauce and throw in just a 1/4 teaspoon or so of baking soda. I can't remember where I learned this trick - maybe from my SO? - but it knocks the acidity of tomato sauce right down. It's a little scary to watch your sauce foam up, but it's kind of fun too.

The thing I most appreciated about this recipe was her tutorial on how to pre-cook the eggplant slices in the microwave. I don't cook with eggplant often because, frankly, it intimidates me. But even I can overcome my fears to throw the eggplant slices in the microwave for 8-10 minutes.

To summarize, I used a good-sized eggplant, about 3 cups of sliced zucchini, and the sauce (omitting sugar, adding 1/4 teaspoon baking soda), along with her tofu filling (subbing 1 pound ricotta for tofu). Any marinara sauce and ricotta lasagna filling recipe will do, really.

Oh, and by the way, when a recipe calls for putting hot stuff from a saucepan into a blender or food processor, just say no. Please. Simply hit it with your trusty stick blender and save yourself from another large piece of kitchen equipment to clean. Seriously, a stick blender can be used in most instances. Just watch for splatters.

Hey, it feels good to be back.
:)
 

Friday

Discovery of the day: I miss this! I really do.

Life has calmed down and I have realized that I really do need to keep posting, mainly because this modest blog has turned out to be my virtual cookbook. This is where I turn when I have no idea what to cook, or when I can't remember what my final white bean chili recipe turned out to be.

So I'll be back, at least whenever I try something new that works. I've got a couple of recipes backlogged to post as soon as I find my notes.

Besides, this is so much tidier than the stack of stained and torn sheets of printed-out recipes in the corner of my bookcase! Only downside is that when the power goes out I'm stuck with PB&J.
;)
 

Thursday

Discovery of the day: How much is too much?

I want to post, I really do. I compose entries all the time, in my head, but I seem to be unable to complete the loop from brain to fingers to keyboard to Blogger.

I have a lot of stuff going on right now and my brain is way too full. I had set myself a goal of posting here every workday, but that little promise has turned into something big and ominous and dark hanging over my head. Where's the fun in that?

I'm pretty stubborn about not giving up on things I want to do, but over the years (OK, decades) I've learned that when my list of 'have to do' and 'should do' items gets long enough, the 'want to do' stuff sometimes has to be jettisoned overboard for ballast. This project is one of those 'want to' things.

So I'm going to spare myself a few ounces of agony and guilt and take a brief hiatus from this blog. It should only be a couple of weeks at most. And who knows? Once I take the pressure off, I may find myself popping in with an occasional post anyway. Because writing about my eating habits is fun! :)

In the meantime, eat well and please check back from time to time.
 

Friday

Discovery of the day: Another MIM success!

I am pleased to announce that I successfully made a batch of yogurt last weekend that came out (almost) exactly the way I wanted.

All it took was a quart of whole milk, one-third cup of dry milk powder, half a cup of yogurt (the starter), a small cooler, some hot water, and about eight hours. Oh yeah, a pot and a stove, too. And a thermometer.

(Do I need to mention the spatula, small bowl, and tiny whisk? Probably not? OK, then, let's get on with it already!)

I read a bunch of different recommendations for amount of powdered milk and starter, but decided in the end to follow the proportions given here. I'm not a stickler for organic, but I did have some Nancy's organic yogurt that I'd bought because it had, like, six different types of cultures. And more has to be better, right?

(Now that I've written 'six', I am doubting my memory. I feel compelled to double-check the carton tonight.)

I heated the milk in the pan on the stove to 170 deg., stirred in the dry milk, then set the pan in cool water until the temp of the milk hit about 110 deg. I took a cup or so of the milk and whisked it into the starter in a small bowl, then poured that back into the pan.

As for my container, I had a clean, one quart peanut butter jar that I'd run through the dishwasher then filled with boiling water (sanitized for your protection). While the milk was cooling I dumped the water out of the jar and let it air dry for a bit.

I poured the milk into the jar, but a quart plus half a cup equals more than a quart so I had a little left over, which I dumped, reluctantly. The jar was capped and placed in my 9 quart cooler. I poured hot water (120 deg) into the cooler until the water level was an inch or two below the level of the milk in the jar.

Then I let it sit. I worried about whether the temp would drop below 104 deg., so I found a small two-piece indoor/outdoor thermometer I had around, one where the outside component relays the temperature to the inside display. I put the outside component in one of my long plastic bread bags, dropped it in the cooler, draped the open end of the bag over the side and shut the lid on it. Then I carried the readout component around with me for the rest of the day.

Overkill, much?

The temp wasn't 100% accurate since the outdoor component floated on the surface, but it gave me an idea of when the temp had dropped too much. I probably went way overboard pulling out a portion of the water and reheating it, but I wanted to be sure it stayed warm enough.

Apparently it did, because when I pulled it out eight hours later, I had a beautiful, firm clump of yogurt. The only thing that bugs me is that it's a little more tart than I hoped, but I know that's related to the long incubation time.

Next time, I'll find my probe thermometer and track the water temp instead of the air temp. I'll also pull the yogurt out after six hours and see if it's firm enough.

I've been toying with trying to find a yogurt maker but the one I want (Salton YM9) apparently is no longer made, and other makes seem to run about $50. Thanks, but for $50, I'll stick with my homemade rig.

Yay, yogurt! Now that I've got it figured out, I'll be making it regularly.
 

Tuesday

Discovery of the day: Hitting the fan

If you read my other blog, you know that I've had a couple of familial wildfires pop up in the past week and they've kind of knocked me sideways. I'm guessing my posting here may well be sparse going forward but I'll check in as often as I can come up with something to write about. Like today.

I have a minor victory to share: I found the perfect bread bags. I've been sticking my sliced sandwich loaves in resealable bags, sucking out the air, and storing them in the freezer. But gallon bags don't exactly fit right, and over time the slices end up going every which way and they tend to get bent, etc., which annoys the crap out of me.

Saturday I found the solution at the restaurant supply store. I knew they had an assortment of oddball plastic bags, and sure enough, I found a 5" x 4" x 18" model. I wasn't sure if it would fit, but at $4.00/100, I figured it was worth the gamble.

Got them home and the universe did smile upon me -- my loaf slid in pretty as you please, just like the bags on store-boughten bread. I have this bad habit of saving the plastic clippy-things from bread bags and was pleased as punch to be able to use one to hold the bag closed, although a twist-tie would work just as well.

I later decided to double up the bread bags 'cause the plastic was rather thin.

I had another success last weekend but you'll have to check back for that one.
:)
 

BYOB: Whole Wheat Buttermilk Sandwich Loaf

Well, I've cranked out enough loaves of our default whole wheat sandwich bread that I now feel I've got it mastered. In my bread machine, anyway. :)

I wasn't at all confident I would be able to produce a loaf that my SO and son would embrace so I was particularly thrilled to have good, repeatable results. We haven't bought sandwich bread in over six weeks!


So here's my recipe, in all its simple glory:

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Sandwich Bread (1.5 lb loaf)
Adapted from The Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book, p 439, for the Breadman Ultimate machine.

1¼ cup water (warm for molasses, hot for honey)
2 Tablespoons honey or molasses
2 Tablespoons oil or cold butter
1¼ teaspoons salt

3 cup less 2 Tablespoons whole wheat flour (red or white, not pastry flour, 14.3 oz by weight)
3 Tablespoons buttermilk powder

1½ teaspoons yeast

Pour water into bucket of bread machine, add sweetener and stir to dissolve. Add salt to bucket, stir. If using oil, add it also.

In a bowl, combine flour and buttermilk powder. Whisk to combine, add gently to bucket.

Make a small well on top of the dry ingredients, add yeast.

If using butter, cut into four chunks and drop one in each corner of bucket on top of dry ingredients.

Plug in bread machine.

Bread machine settings:

• Whole Wheat (not rapid). Display will show 3:27.


• 1.5 lb loaf


• Light crust

De-pan bread to a cooling rack as soon as possible after timer goes off. Paint top with melted butter or oil to keep crust soft (optional). Let cool to room temperature on rack before slicing.

I've only had this recipe fail a couple of times, and that was when instead of using the fresh-ground whole wheat flour from the fancy-pants grocery, I opened a bag of whole wheat flour I'd had in the pantry a little past (OK, 6 months past) the 'best by' date. We had three loaves fail before I figured it out. They just didn't rise properly. They might have even risen and collapsed. That was the first time I'd experienced such a visual demonstration of what happens when you use old flour and I won't make that mistake again!

Some random bread tips:

• I love using the buttermilk powder for baking! I keep the little cardboard canister in the fridge and it's always there when I need it.


• I keep my yeast in an airtight container in the freezer. I bought a one pound bag over a year ago and it's still going strong. I test it every few months just to be sure it's still active.


• I've found that the SAF brand yeast seems to make better-tasting bread than the Fleischmann's, but YMMV.


• I use an electric knife to slice my bread. It's the only way I can even hope to slice it thin enough.


• As soon as it's sliced, I bag the loaf in a resealable plastic bag, suck out excess air, and freeze it.

Yep, I freeze my sandwich bread. It's the only way I've found to keep homemade bread fresh past a day or two. We just pop out the slices we need and either toast them or nuke in the microwave for 10 seconds or so. If you are opposed to nuking, you could put them in a plastic bag and let them thaw on the counter.

I bought my bread machine at a silent auction and it sat in a closet for two years. I am now in love with it and can't imagine making sandwich bread without it. Heck, if it dies I might actually go pay full price for a new one!