Journey From Sloth and Despair: June Edition

You may recall that I have been working towards health and well-being through clean eating.  No?  Here are some links for you to peruse:

Journey from sloth and despair: the beginning
January sloth and despair
More of the Journey

Anyway.  I spent a good month cleaning up my act this spring.  I eliminated ALL fast food (ok - nearly all), just about all processed food (boxed, bagged, prepared, colored, canned, jarred, etc.), all simple carbs. (potatoes, pasta, bread), and even grains/legumes (oats, rice, beans, wheat, etc.).  Also no alcohol or sodas (ok -- I did have the occasional Diet Pepsi.  I'm no angel.).

I ate (nearly) solely fresh meat and fish (lean beef, chicken, turkey, seafood), and low-carb veggies and fruit for over a month.  Why?  Because I needed to break my attachment to food.  I needed to see what my body was like without chemicals and junk in it.

It was SUPER difficult for the first several days.  I went to bed dreaming of cake and wine and mac 'n' cheeze.  I woke, craving cereal and donuts and danishes.

BUT: things I started noticing:

• My stomach was happier.  It was peaceful (if you know what I mean)
• My skin was GREAT (with all the water I was consuming)
• I would wake,and feel less muzzy and fuzzy and gross
• My allergies improved (could be that the atmospheric allergens decreased, though)
• I started to really LOVE fish (tilapia and salmon are lovely!)
• Fruit became a delicious dessert, especially strawberries
• I totally stopped craving fast food and high-fat snacks
• Diet Pepsi became a treat (one glass, with ice) rather than sustenance

After about a month of this, I decided it was time to start adding back a greater amount of foods.  I added more proteins, fats, and fruits/veggies.  Also alcohol in small amounts.

Things I noticed:

• My body likes pure meats better than processed (sausage, bacon, lunch meats).  I know this because I had a few stomach aches AND I'd feel kind of grody after eating a salad with chopped lunchmeat and bacon
• Avocados are WONDERFUL, no matter how high-fat
• Cherries are good for me
• Diet Pepsi is still not that great for me.  I feel weirdly chemical-ish after drinking much of it
• Alcohol now gives me a gross feeling the next day.  Even just one glass.  Sigh.  
• Real cream (whipped, with just a tiny bit of sugar) is terrific on berries as a dessert.  Just a bit.  And I don't care if it IS high-fat.  It's deelish.  And doesn't make me feel gross like CoolWhip does.  My mouth doesn't feel all slimy afterwards.
• Whole, raw almonds are a fantastic snack.
• My body NEEDS lots of water. No matter what.
• Triscuits are grossly slimy feeling, and Pringles?  EW.

My next step will be adding back grains, legumes, and so on.

This has been amazingly enlightening. 

Some questions I had:

• Is it more expensive to eat "whole-ish-ly"?  Not that I've noticed.  Pre-packaged foods are fairly expensive, and fast food is too.  I buy a bag of frozen tilapia fillets ($9/12 of them), a bag of frozen turkey patties ($8/12 patties) (just ground turkey, pre-portioned), and lots of veggies/fruit, and maybe a buy one get one free steak, and I'm set for the week.  I buy almonds on sale, and lemons/limes by the bag.  
• Is it hard to dine out at restaurants?  Well, kind of.  Depending on where you go.  We went to an amusement park, and UGH.  But I did find a restaurant that had a big salad.  However, the protein available was chicken strips (breaded).  But still, could have been worse.  At most restaurants (not crappy ones) I can order grilled protein (chicken, steak, fish) with veggies.  I just ask for no butter or sauce.  I ignore the breadbasket, and request no croutons/bread/junk on the plate.  Mexican places are excellent, because I can order fajitas with no tortillas (with extra lettuce), and make a fabulous salad.  I even have some guacamole.  No margaritas, though.
• Do I end up cooking twice to accommodate my family?  Sometimes.  But mostly, I just make them additional sides (potatoes, pasta, breads), and they eat my healthy stuff PLUS the other stuff.  
• Do I feel like I'm obsessing about food?  Kind of.  But I realized that I already was focused on food.  "Can I get away with eating pizza?" and "what will I make for dinner" and "what kind of martini" and so on.  Now, it's just the opposite direction.  "How can I make this a clean meal?" or "Will they be able to make this without breading?" and so on.

I'm indulging in small amounts of full-fat sour cream, butter, and olive oil.  I'm learning that veggies are NOT supposed to be just vehicles for dressings and cheeses and sauces.

I don't want to be all religious about this.  All fanatical.  But something needed to happen.  I needed to clean up my act.  I've done it!  I have no illusions.  I"m going to eat pizza again.  I'm going to eat cake and drink wine.  I love tortillas and bread.  I do.  But ... I really needed a re-set.

Journey From Sloth and Despair, Pollock Edition

Remember how I'm continually (well, on-and-off continually) striving to eat "cleaner" and more whole-foodishly?

Yup.  Still doing it.  BUT.  Today's lunch was one of the best examples of how fresh food can be incredibly vibrant AND furkin' HEALTHY!

I have no pictures except for that of an empty plate. It was too good to stop and take pictures.

I'll write this in the order you'd need to, to serve this for yourself at lunch.

POLLOCK FILLET (about 100 grams, or a typical portion). 
Thaw it in the nuker.  Don't cook the hell out of it, just make it not frozen.

CAULIFLOWER: (about 1 cup when chopped)
Cut 1/4 of the head of a cauliflower off.  Cut off most of the stemmy part.  No need to go crazy,.  It's going to get all blended up. Chop into teeny bits.  SHOMPSHOMPSHOMP with your big knife.

[REMOVE POLLACK FILLET FROM MICROWAVE, then heat a small cast iron skillet or nonstick pan to medium]

Put CAULIFLOWER into a microwave safe bowl with a teeny sprinkling of water and microwave for a few minutes until soft.  If it starts to brown, take it out.  It's slightly overdone, but ah well.

Put fish into the pan.  If you like, put in a bit of olive oil first.  I didn't but that's just me. I don't care if it sticks.

CAULIFLOWER into a blender with a few TB of milk, some salt and pepper.  Add other herbs if you want, or some horseradish (you could add cream or butter or cheese too, but I"m goin' healthy here).  BLEND, blend, my friends, until all the lumps are gone.  No, really.  Like mashed potatoes.

When fish is nice and flaky (just like YOU! ha.), set aside.  

Put on your plate about 1/4 cup of fresh pico de gallo (I get this from the produce section of our Kroger.  It's chopped tomatoes, jalapenos, onions, and cilantro with a bit of lime juice and garlic).  Then top THAT with 1/2 of a PINK GRAPEFRUIT, supremed (that's fancy-talk for "cut in half, and cut out the good stuff in chunks and leave the grody white stuff in there").  You may want to sprinkle the grapefruit with a teeny bit of sugar or Splenda-ish stuff.

Then put your fish on top of that.  Squeeze out some of the juice from the grapefruit carcass onto the fish. 

Spoon the cauliflowertatoes onto the plate next to your pile o' healthy yum, and taste to see if it needs more salt or whatnot.  **NOTE, added later.  Before you spoon the cauliflowertatoes, CHECK to see if they are still hot.  Mine cooled off extremely quickly, and could have used a quick 30 seconds in the microwave.*

Seriously?  Only about 235 calories, and that's if you USE 1 TSP OLIVE OIL.

I give it an A+ for flavor and health.
It's a 3 out of 5 on the "pain in the butt to make" scale (5 being lasagne with homemade noodles and fresh ricotta, 1 is scrambled eggs EDITED: 1 is a PopTart)

Journey From Sloth and Despair: The Seafood Edition

A few days ago, I went shopping all by myself.  Bliss. 

I decided that I was going to be brave and buy some things I've never tried.  Some of which I've never even CONSIDERED trying.  But if doing Indonesian cooking lessons has taught me anything, it's that the weird-looking stuff sometimes tastes awesome.

So. 

I bought a can of salmon.  Yes, I know.  Not too adventurous.  But, I'd never bought any before (canned) and I had just heard a thing on NPR about eating sustainable foods, and canned salmon is high on the list!  So BAM, into the cart.

Then I bought kale.  I have had kale before, but this time I was going to try to get the rest of the family to eat some.  BAM.  Into the cart. 

My final excitement was swordfish!  I do love fish, but never seem to get it since my family is not a fish family (that one was for you, Steven).  PLOP.  Into the cart.

Now that I"m home with all my sea-related bounty, what to do?  Well, I decided to throw a 'seafood-tasting' dinner.  Here's how it all went down:

Reheated mashed potatoes from yesterday's dinner.  CHECK.

Shrimp:
Small shrimp, thawed in cold water, then dunked in egg, and then dropped into cornmeal that had about a teaspoon of "grill seasoning" added into it. Fried them in shallow oil.

Salmon:
Took the canned salmon and drained it (like canned tuna), mixed it with crushed Saltines, some dried dill, and some finely chopped parsley (plus salt and pepper).  Formed into little patties, dunked in the egg, then into the cornmeal.  Fried in shallow oil.

Swordfish:
Took the piece (only .6 of a pound) of swordfish and coated it in some Teriyaki marinade.  Heated some oil in a small pan until very hot, and seared each side for a few minutes.  Then put it on an oiled baking sheet and finished in the oven while I finished making the salmon cakes.

Kale:
I like kale chips but hadn't foisted them on the family before.  I washed the kale in the sink, ripping into pieces and removing the tough stems.  Put kale onto a kitchen towel and mostly dried it.  Divided it onto two baking sheets.  Poured a bit of olive oil over the leaves and tossed.  In the first sheet, I sprinkled the kale with garlic powder, cumin, and some kosher salt (too much salt, as it turned out).
The other kale got about 1-2 tsp. of sugar and some cinnamon.  (I know!  I was experimenting).
Baked them at about 450F for a few minutes, tossed the leaves about a bit, and added a few more minutes. 

Served all with whole tiny bell peppers (raw), some homemade shrimp cocktail sauce (horseradish and ketchup). 

Results:
Kids liked the salmon cakes! WoW!  So did I.
Everybody liked the shrimp.
Daughter liked the kale, son tolerated it. (Cinnamon ones were surprisingly good)
Potatoes went over fine.
All liked the Swordfish.  Actually, I prefer tuna steaks, but this was fine.
All liked the teeny bell peppers.
I was the only one who tried the spicy sauce.

Now I know that I can safely make shrimp or salmon to rave reviews, and I can serve swordfish as long as there's something else to fill them up, since they were more lukewarm on that. And hopefully, son will come around to liking kale chips as much as daughter.  Bell peppers will now go into lunchboxes!

I give today a B+.

Making A Turkey Dinner (many, many photos)

Last week, I had some time off from my (very taxing*) job, and decided to use that time to make my family A Nice Dinner.  The kind with a meat, some veggies, and a dessert!  All in a row, and on purpose.

[*my job is awesome]

I chose this menu:

Turkey Breast with Stuffing

Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

Green Beans with toasted Almonds (why am I randomly Capitalizing? I don't Know.)

Cranberry Jelly

Pumpkin Pie with CoolWhip (do NOT knock CoolWhip)

I started with an eight-pound TURKEY BREAST.  It was frozen, so the day before, I plopped it in the fridge ON A PLATE to thaw.  It started as hard as a turkeybreast-shaped rock.

Please imagine this right-side-up.  My photo editing  mojo has temporarily escaped me.

LOOK INSIDE!  A PRESENT!

It's like a poultry version of CrackerJacks.

It was my very FAVORITE part of making turkey.  The bag o' giblets.  OR SO I THOUGHT.  I obediently slid the plastic (hmmm.  Usually paper.) bag of stuff from the opening of the turkey.  "Hm," thought I. "Feels lumpy.  Must be the giblets!  I'll just let it set here in the sink and thaw a bit more.  Then I'll rinse the bits inside of it and see what I've got to work with."  

I rinsed and then patted the turkey dry.  USING PAPER TOWELS, people. 

Upon further inspection, the bag said to "put contents of package into small sauce pan and heat over medium..." and so on.  So I thought, "hey, I'll rinse the giblets."

Only to find NOTHING BUT ICE.  It was frozen pre-made Gravy Substitute.  Ick.

Into the trash bag it went.

I bought this GORGEOUS bread on superduper sale a few months ago, and froze it.

Tore it up into smallish pieces, sprayed with some baking spray, then sprinkled with "Poultry Seasoning" (ground rosemary, sage, thyme) and garlic.  Tossed into the oven (350F) until crunchy, maybe 10 minutes (I stirred them around occasionally)

This is ONE celery rib, ONE big carrot, half of an onion and HALF CUP of fresh (frozen) cranberries. All cut up tiny, and with 3 TB of butter. 

Roasted them in the pre-heating oven (maybe 350F) for a bit, then stirred them. Put them back in.

They got nice and softish.

Added the toasty bread to the veggies.

Mooshed them about a bit.  Note to self.  They are HOT.

A bit dry, so I added some chicken broth.  Maybe a cup.  Didn't want soupy, just damp.

Smooshed it all kind of flat so it would evenly absorb the broth.  Tossed the whole thing back in the 350F oven for maybe 10 more minutes.  GETTING THE STUFFING HOT makes it safer to stuff poultry, AND helps the cooking be more even.

BURRRRRRP.  'Scuse me.                   JUST KIDDING.                I pulled the skin up and stuck pieces of butter AND some fresh-ish herbs between skin and meat.  I also rubbed the OUTSIDE with butter and herbs.  Schmancy, no?

Do yourself a favor and CUT THE CHUNK OF BUTTER BEFORE you start playing around with the raw bird.  I wash my hands like a fiend when cooking poultry, but I'd rather not take a chance with contaminating the rest of the butter.

These are fresh-ish herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano).  I have a little herb garden near my back door.  I forgot to cut them down before winter, so they are just sitting there under the snow.  I went out (barefoot, thankyouverymuch) in the snow and ripped off a handful of whatever was closest.  They were dry, but still awesome.

STUFF.  I didn't really stuff it all firm, but I did pat it so it wouldn't all fall out.  Don't to forget to stuff the other (neck) end.  Also?  When you pull a pan of stuffing from a 350F oven, IT'S HOT.  Duh.  You'd really think I'd remember that.

"I"m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille."

This is the plastic bag I always keep in the sink when I prepare poultry.  ALL of the wrappers and paper towels and such go in there.  It minimizes contamination.  When I'm done, I tie it up and then wrap it in another plastic bag and toss it.  Then I wash my hands AGAIN.

OK:  The turkey is tucked safely in the 350F oven.  I shoved some more herbs in around it (on the bottom of the pan) because, basically, I hated to waste what I went out IN BARE FEET IN THE SNOW for.  The oven rack was low, probably the bottom third of the oven.  

Bake for (in this case) about 3 hours, or until the temperature of the breast meat is about 155F.

Now it's time for PIE!

I used the recipe from Joy Of Cooking.  Love that book.

 

Most, but not all of the ingredients.  Pumpkin puree, evaporated milk, butter, shortening.  ALSO used:  vinegar, water, flour, sugar, salt, eggs.  Spices.  I may still be missing something.

This is 1/2 cup of shortening and 1/2 cup of butter.  I cut the butter up a bit, and tossed the whole bowl into the freezer, since my shortening lives in the cabinet over the stove, and it was a trifle melty.

See? I remembered the salt.

Took it out of the freezer and added the 2 cups flour, 1 tsp. sugar, and 1 tsp. salt. 

I used the pastry blender thingy to cut it all up into the flour.  Now and then I'd toss it all (like you're being fancy when sauteeing something and want to flip it without using a spoon).

Obviously, that went well. Sigh.

They say to cut it together until it looks like crumbs.  I really think it looks more like cottage cheese.

This is the magic ingredient.  Vinegar.  I add about 1-2 teaspoons of vinegar to a cup with some ice.  Then I top it with 2 tablespoons of water.

Then I pour it over the crumbly flour mixture. After that, I toss the dough about a bit to distribute the water, but I don't stir it.

I mush it down with my hand (that I just rinsed with COLD water, so I don't heat things up). This makes sure that it's all reasonably well moistened.

And DUMP onto the counter.  I am VERY bad at making crusts pretty, and I suspect that my technique stinks.  So don't necessarily do as I do.  I know. I inspire such confidence. 

I fold it a couple times and then stick it into a plastic bag.

This bag will go into the fridge for just as long as it takes me to make the filling.  So maybe 5 minutes, tops.

2 eggs (YES, Steven, that's Grandma's stirring fork.  HA! I win.)

Now, you could dig out your spices like this, or...

You could take the cheater's way out.  I have this because it's awesome on a pumpkin spice latte.  But I tried it in the pie this time!

A little salt....

2 teaspoons or so spice

a bunch of sugar (about 1/3 cup)

 

Evaporated milk.  NOT condensed milk.  DO NOT make that mistake. Gag.

Pumpkin puree.  OR you could eviscerate your very own pumpkin, seed it, peel it, steam it, cool it, mash it, and then strain it.  Or. You could open the can. 

 

Taste test it.  I KNOW it has raw eggs in it.  This tasted lovely, BTW.  But you need to know how your spices are.

Here's my fairly ugly pie crust.  I sort of rolled it out, and sort of pressed it in with my fingers. 

NOW:  separate an egg and set aside the white.  Mix up the yolk.

Dump the yolk into your UNBAKED pie crust and schmear it around so it covers all the inner surfaces.  This will keep the pie filling from making the crust all soggy and nasty.

Be-yolked crust.

I FORGOT TO TAKE A PICTURE!  BAKE THE CRUST!  PREBAKE it for maybe 10 minutes.  REALLYREALLY.  Don't forget.THEN add the lovely filling.

Fill 'er up!

The filling should go almost to the top, not quite.

BAKE at 425F for 15 minutes, then lower heat to 350F for 40-50 more minutes.  Take out when it's not jiggly and a knife inserted in the center comes out with only a LITTLE of the pumpkin clinging to it.

Whole almonds.  Take your green stone mortar (or pestle? whichever) and whack each one to break it roughly.  Plop them into a smallish pan with NO OIL or anything.  Dry-pan toasting is great for almonds.

Stir those puppies around while you let them toast on medium heat.  It will seem like nothing is happening for a good long while (5 minutes or so) and then all of a sudden, BAM.  They'll toast.  Then they'll burn right the hell up.  So the minute they start to brown, take them off the heat.  

When they're toasty enough for you, POUR THEM OUT OF THE PAN onto a plate or a paper towel or something, because if you don't they'll be bitter, blackened shadows of their former nutty selves.  Toss the almonds JUST before serving with fresh, steamed green beans.  I use one handful for each person.

What you see here is the roasting pan and its globs of deliciousness (drippings and some stuck-on stuffing and herbs).

Took the turkey breast out and put it back onto our CLEAN cutting board.  Covered it with foil for now.  

BY THE WAY.  Notice that I use a cutting board with a little indentation around the edge for the turkey.  This keeps turkey juice from sliming all over the place.  WASH IT WELL after each stage of production.

  I sprinkled the whole pan (with drippings and some stuffing) with Wondra flour (designed to not lump).  Cooked it right in the pan on medium low heat while stirring.  Just until I smelled the flour cooking.  Then I added a bunch of milk (1.5 cups, maybe?) along with some chicken base (like bouillon, but better).  Stir stirstir.

Stirstir.

Added some more milk.

"What day is it? It's CHRISTMAS DAY, SIR!"  (or just Tuesday)

 This was a rather labor-intensive meal for a weekday, but I had some time.  It was a HUGE hit with the family, and provided lots of leftovers.  

Hurray for turkey!