What's on your menu?

In the spirit of getting back to eating healthy, we (okay, mostly me) made a meal plan for the week and a shopping list that includes going to five different places (farmer’s market, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods or Lassens [unless someone can suggest a better place for bulk dried beans], Costco, and the Asian market).

Since it’s been hot and dry during the day but a bit chilly at night, we’re looking at salads for lunch and warmer meals for supper.

On tap for the week:

• Chinese chicken salad (found some good cabbages at the farmer’s market!)
• miso soup (hence the Asian market—making it from scratch!)
• quinoa salad (quinoa plus veggies) with creamy balsamic dressing
• Mediterranean orzo salad
• wraps (whole wheat olive oil wraps + hummus + veggies + feta)
• white bean and kielbasa soup (found a great turkey kielbasa at TJ’s)
• chicken piccata (Clean Eating recipe, so a bit lighter than the usual)
• whole wheat pasta w/red sauce (already made/homemade) and turkey/spinach meatballs (homemade)

We hit the farmer’s market and TJ’s today; tomorrow we’ll do Whole Foods and Costco. The Asian market is within walking distance, so that’ll be easy.

What’s on your menu this week? Any healthy recipes to share?

The healthy mac-and-cheese experiment, take one

Remember when I asked about healthy/healthier mac-and-cheese recipes? I finally got around to trying one, last week when we were on a “make a shit-ton of food to freeze” kick.

I opted for this recipe, and made the following tweaks:

I used caulflower instead of squash, and I didn’t measure it; I basically used a small head of cauliflower. Instead of buy both peccorino Romano and Parmiagano-Romano, I just used Parmiagano-Romano. And of course I ditched the panko crumbs and parsley, because that does not a creamy mac-and-cheese make.

The result: a rather bland mac-and-cheese that tasted of cauliflower. It’s not bad, it’s just not…not at all what I wanted.

We had some shredded medium cheddar in the fridge from a previous meal, and I tried adding a bit of that to the individual servings…and it was much better. I was hesitant to use cheddar in the recipe because it normally doesn’t cook/heat well (it’s so oily), but now I’m re-thinking that. It shouldn’t take a lot of cheddar (especially if I went for the extra-sharp kind) to bump up the recipe flavor.

I’m also pondering this recipe, which is similar to the first but uses cheddar and jack cheeses. I’ve also seen one that tosses in half a cup of gorgonzola, which sounds heavenly. (I do like a spot of gorgonzola with my pasta, Gromit!)

The experiments shall continue!

In which we lose a week of work

I started this blog post on Saturday, 5/18. Silly me. Why do I try to write blog posts when I’m sick?

If you missed it on the FB/Tweetie, I went to the ER  on Tue 5/7 and was subsequently diagnosed with diverticulitis, something I highly don’t recommend. Ow. OW. I have a stupidly high pain threshold, and pain sent me to the ER. (After doing some research online to determine that because it was on the left side, it wasn’t appendix or gall bladder unless I was a medical freak. It was in the upper left rather than more common lower left quadrant, but because one of my sisters had an attack of diverticulitis a few months ago, I had a—pardon the pun—gut feeling. The ER doctor walked in after reviewing the results of my first-ever CT scan and said, “Good self-diagnosis” with no irony I could catch, despite my being on the Good Drugs at that point.)

Facts learned: 50% of adults over 40 have diverticulosis, which is the small pouches that form off the intestine. Having an attack of diverticulitis, wherein a sack or sacks become inflamed/infected, happens because you’re not eating enough fiber, not drinking enough water, not exercising enough, or because of hereditary (my maternal grandmother suffered,* and one of my sisters was in the ER just a few months ago with it).

Aaaanyway, this resulted in me essentially losing a week of work/life, and causing my poor little brain to asplode from the misinformation and contradictory information provided to me.

For example, one of the antibiotics I’m on has side effects including stomach pain and constipation. This is to treat me for abdominal pain and intestinal issues…. On the plus side, I lost a pound a day. The icky metallic taste in my mouth helped with that.

But wait, there’s more! To counteract the constipational side effects from the two antibiotics and the painkiller, according to the drug packaging, I should make sure to eat fiber and exercise.

Yet here is what, according to the paperwork sent home with me from the ER, I’m supposed to eat (according to Wikipedia, this is a low-residue diet): pancakes, waffles, white bread, white rice, pasta, meat (including beef), well-cooked vegetables w/o seeds, fruits w/o seeds.

And here is what I’m not supposed to eat: healthy, high-fiber shit like whole grains, fresh fruits and veggies, nuts, seeds, etc.

And no exercise.

This is what we might call being caught on the horns of a dilemma.

Note that this diet is the exact opposite of everything I’ve been working towards over the past few years. I’ve cut out all the white crap. (So the first regular English muffin I had during my convalescence? My eyes rolled into the back of my head, it was so good. I can’t remember the last time I had one.) I like raw veggies (the first thing I ate after being given a clean bill of health was an enormous Greek salad). I’m used to eating veggies, salad, lean meats.

The biggest irony of all is that this hit me 1.5 days into when Ken and I were doing an elimination eating plan, which we expected to do for 5-7 days, cutting out dairy, sugar, alcohol, gluten, and caffeine.

(Not that I couldn’t have alcohol until 48 hours after the nasty antibiotic. I would have killed for a glass of wine to help me fall asleep some nights. But see, e.g., losing a pound a day….)

Granted, this was temporary, until my body healed; now I’m back on a healthy, high-fiber diet again.

Except, according to old wives’ tales that the local ER and some doctors still believe, a high-fiber diet (specifically nuts, seeds, and corn/popcorn) can cause a flare-up of diverticulitis. My doctor, whom I love, said, “Not that there’s any scientific proof of that. I have no idea where it comes from.” The Mayo Clinic backs up what he says.

Eat your seeds and nuts, people. Drink that 8+ glasses of water a day. Exercise regularly. And for crying out loud, if it hurts, call your doctor. You do not want me to repeat the horror stories told to me of what will happen if you don’t.

--

*Before I learned this, I commented to Ken that I’d somehow had it in my head that diverticulitis was an old-fashioned ailment, no longer common, like goiter. Guess what else my grandmother dealt with? Mmm hmm.

Healthy mac and cheese?

Okay, here I am with another question for my foodie friends! (Note: I'd be grateful if you posted your responses here rather than FB/Twitter/G+, so I can keep everything together in one place. I cannot find anything on FB after a day or two after it's been posted, and I rarely even check Twitter, and I'm on G+ even less. Thanks!)

This time, I’m looking for a reasonably healthy macaroni and cheese recipe. I say “reasonably” because it’s hard to make something full of cheese super-healthy, but I want to strike a balance. I’ve been eating Amy’s Organic frozen mac and cheese, but it’s expensive, and doesn’t use whole wheat/whole grain pasta. I’m choosing it over boxed mac and cheese – which I can get as whole grain and organic – because if I make a box of mac and cheese, I will eat the entire box. And it’s still more processed than I’d like.

So what I’m thinking is, if I make my own (either in the crock pot or oven, or on the stove), then I can freeze it in portion-sized amounts.

I’ve done a little research and found bits and pieces of recipes that sound good, but I can’t seem to find one that covers everything I’m trying to do – and I’m not a good enough cook to know how to combine recipes.

Here are my parameters: 

• Ideally less than 400 calories per serving (where a serving is a reasonable size, not a quarter of a cup or some such bs).
• Whole wheat/whole grain pasta – doesn’t really affect the recipe; I can just substitute.
• No ingredients beyond pasta, cheese, and things that make it saucy. No breadcrumbs, no onions, no cauliflower. Those things are all fine and sometimes I do want a dish like that, but right now I’m looking for bog-standard comfort-food mac and cheese.
• When I see the phrase “low fat,” I think “chemical shitstorm.” I’d rather have a strong-tasting full-fat cheese and use less of it than use a blander low-fat cheese that will trigger my body to eat more.
• A little flour or cornstarch is fine, yogurt/milk is fine. I’m open to suggestion.

Here are some of the recipes I’ve looked at online. None of them fit all my parameters, so one question is, how could I combine these ideas?

Fitness recipe. What I like is the idea of using Greek yogurt for creaminess. What I don’t like is the onion-garlic puree (I could see trying it later, though), the breadcrumbs, or the reduced-fat cheddar. Would ditching the puree and using regular cheddar keep it below 400 calories, I wonder?

Food Network Squash Recipe #1. I know I said nothing funky, but eventually I’d like to try something like this one, with squash. Will it appreciably change the flavor? (I add squash, carrots, all sorts of stuff to spaghetti sauce and it doesn’t change the flavor, but then again, tomato sauce is different than cheese sauce.) What would happen if I left the squash out but used the same basic recipe? Likes: Ricotta, regular cheese. Dislikes: Lowfat milk (it’s not enough to make a big calorie difference, though), doesn’t give calorie count.

Food Network Squash Recipe #2. Ditto questions about squash above. Likes: Yogurt (would use regular, not non-fat), decent calorie count (but how far would it go up w/regular yogurt and cheese?). Dislike: The low-fat/non-fat options.

AllRecipes recipe. Likes: Basic and simple. Dislikes: Low-fat stuff, and what’s the calorie count?

Blissful recipe. Would cauliflower puree make it bland? Otherwise, my biggest issue with this one is the lack of calorie count…I’m guessing it’s high, given the cream cheese.

The Focus and the Joy

My friend, the divine Shanna Germain, picks a word for each year. Something to focus on, to embrace, to work towards, to center around. (Follow the link on her name to read her explanation, which is much better than mine. Go on. I’ll wait.)

So she asked her friends and readers what their words were, and this year, I can’t decide between two. They’re different, but yet they’re both internal.

Joy. Focus.

These words, along with Temperance, the Tarot card I pulled on Samhain (to illuminate the Celtic year ahead), are what I’m meditating on right now. No definitive answers yet. But I know I want to focus on joy, and find joy in focus. I want to recognize and experience joy when I’m in the middle of it—I want to be mindful of it—and I want to rediscover the joy of doing the things I love, the things that are good for me. Writing, eating healthy, running, dancing, laughing, loving, singing, being.

It looks like the beginning of the year will also be about learning, gaining knowledge—which I know will help me with focus.

In February, I’ll be taking a couple of writing workshops in Oregon. In March, I’ll be attending the first-ever California Dreamin’ conference, a joint effort by the Los Angeles, Orange County, and East Valley RWA chapters. In March and April, I’ve got a 6-week online course booked on Pitches and Blurbs, and I may do some other online courses through the Oregon Writers Network later in the year.

Overall, I need to look at my production schedule and make some plans for the beginning of the year, writing- and publishing-wise. I started thinking about it last night, to let it soak into my subconscious. Dean Wesley Smith’s blog posts on the topic are a huge boon for me.

Starting next week, Morgana and I are taking a 6-week online course called Align Your Life! Magic, Purpose, & Living the Way You Really Want, taught by my acquaintance, the splendidly lovely T. Thorn Coyle. I’d only recently heard about it, and shot an email to Morgana, and when I didn’t hear back, I kinda forgot. Then last night around 10 pm she called me to tell me she wanted to do it, but registration was about to close! So I fired off an email and our deposits, and we’re in. Whew!

I feel I’ve lost touch with my spirituality over the past few years, and I need to make it a priority again. Morgana’s expressed similar feelings, although I can’t speak directly for her. I think this will be a good first step.

Meanwhile, Ken and I have been discussing our goals re: health and fitness. We’re hoping to both do the three-week nutritional cleanse that I did a couple of years ago (our chiropractor’s father is a nutritionist). It’s a fantastic jump-start, focused on detoxing certain organs, and a good way to get back to basics. Bad habits have crept in again. After I did the cleanse last time, I felt so much better—to the point that my night vision actually improved.

Beyond all this? We’ve talked about taking a photography course so we can learn how to use our camera to its full capabilities, and I’d like to take piano lessons again. (Ken wants to take guitar lessons, but my suggestion is that he take piano lessons with me to learn how to read music, plus we already have a keyboard.) But nothing’s hard-scheduled past March, except for the 2013 Iron Butt Rally (end of June into the beginning of July) and another OWN workshop for me in July. There will be cross-country trips to visit my sister, of course, and no doubt trips north to see my other sister, and trips south to see Ken’s family. There will be friends. There will be joy. There will be focus.

There will be life, as best as we can do it. I’m looking forward to it.

Food, glorious food!

I’m finally starting to feel better from cold #2 (which came on the heels of cold #1, thanks to Ken bringing it home with him), which means food other than mac-and-cheese (albeit organic whole wheat mac-and-cheese) is sounding appealing to me. Plus we did a major shopping today because we’re hosting Boxing Day brunch for Ken’s brother and sister-in-law and their three boys and Ken’s mom.

I don’t enjoy cooking, but I enjoy eating, and it’s nice to be interested in something more than mac-and-cheese and fresh meals from Trader Joe’s and Fresh & Easy. I did make a huge vat of split pea soup last week; a good chunk of that is in the freezer (along with the vat of red sauce I made) and I even gave a goodly amount to our tenant.

Here’s what’s on tap for the next few days:

Tonight’s dinner will be Mongolian-type stir-fry with veggies, tofu, and noodles. I actually bought most of the ingredients last week but we’ve been way to tired to cook them, so I’m glad they’re still good.

Tonight I’ll also be throwing a mess of onions in the slow cooker to caramelize overnight, in preparation for a near-future slow cooker French onion soup. I’ve got the cheese to shred (a gruyere/cheddar mix), and an adorable tiny whole wheat loaf from TJ’s to go with it.

At some point there’ll also be a vat of sloppy joes in the slow cooker, some of which we’ll freeze. Freezer’s getting full…!

We’ve got a great two-bean soup with sausage (we use a chicken-herb sausage from TJ’s) and kale recipe that’ll happen soon, too. Now that the weather’s turned cold (and is so pleasantly overcast and sometimes even rainy!) I want hearty soups and stews, and soups in particular are a great way to load up on healthy veggies!

For brunch, we’re having a make-your-own-breakfast-burrito bar (TJ’s whole wheat olive oil wraps, scrambled eggs, hash browns, cheddar-gruyere and feta cheeses, mushrooms, chopped tomatoes, green onion, green pepper, salsa, sour cream…I feel like I'm forgetting something), scones (Ken’s mom’s bringing those) with clotted cream and lemon curd and jam, fruit salad (via Ken’s sister-in-law), and various drinks (coffee, tea, bloody marys, mimosas).

Right now, though, it’s time to stop thinking about food, continue sipping my Duchess Grey tea, and get back to work!