Well, the shoulder is doing pretty well. It is a challenge, though, being at home. Food is calling. A lot. But today I have done fairly well. Healthy snacks, including a banana-blueberry smoothie (with almond milk). I got an HOUR in on the bike. I know, right? I have also been walking to the mailbox every day, been editing the book, washed my hair and finished reading Moby Dick. All of that without any pain meds...not even acetaminophen!
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9/18/2011 3 Comments Cooking aheadSo, I have been doing a lot of cooking. First, some veggies about to be oven-roasted for a lovely oven-roased vegetable stock...carrots, onions, celery, garlic and parsnips. Parsnips? I didn't even know that I liked them! Some of the stock went into making a tasty Roasted Red Pepper and Pumpkin soup. It was good, but I will be tweaking this recipe and when I am happy, will share with ya'll here! I have been fortunate to find red bells on sale for a week or two now, so have been roasting them to use in various ways. There are so many benefits to roasting your own peppers. It makes the house smell wonderful, it's super easy to do and it adds so much flavor. Start with freshly washed peppers, put them on a pan under the broiler (on hi) and turn until all sides are black-ish. I know, you will think you have ruined them, but trust me, you haven't! Let them cool and then the peel will come right off. But don't throw the peels away. Keep them for the next pot of veggie stock that you make, because there is still a lot of flavor in them! (you can freeze them until you're ready.) I was going to post a pic of them here, but suddenly the Picture app is not working.
I made a bunch of Samosas, (from Angel's last post) and froze them. Also I made a tasty vegan Minestrone, which we ate and I froze the leftovers. In about another week I will be undergoing a shoulder surgery, and in order to keep up my current eating habits and hopefully NOT gain back any of the 20 pounds I have lost thus far, I will have to really behave myself! I plan on making some more falafels today, which will also be bound for the freezer. It will be much easier to cook with one arm in the microwave! Caio! OK, so this is a method more than a recipe when it comes to the filling, but I can give you the bread measures.
3 cups whole wheat or white whole wheat flour 1 tsp salt 1 T sugar (optional) 1 T. yeast (I use SAF instant, so I don't bother with the water proofing) 3 T. of vital wheat gluten (helps with the elasticity, but you don't have to have it in there) 1 1/4 cups warm water (give or take. with the VWG, you may need more) You want a dough you can knead, so I usually start with the cup and a quarter of water and see where I am. You can knead in more flour if necessary. Once you've got it smooth and elastic, let it rise until doubled. For the filling, saute: 1 chopped onion some garlic (I don't think you can have too much, but I generally do 2-3 minced cloves) a good bit of minced ginger root (Again, I don't think you can have too much. A note: Ground dried ginger is not the same, but it's doable if you're out of fresh) curry powder, salt, pepper to taste 1 diced sweet potato (skin or not, your choice), boiled til tender about 1.5 cups of cooked chick peas (a drained can's worth if you're in a hurry) Heat that all up and then kind of mash it about a bit (the sweet potatoes help this out). Add: Frozen green peas and lemon juice Taste throughout. You'll know when it's yummy to you. Cool. This is good over rice, too. Split your dough up into 12 pieces and start stuffing. I generally let the samosas sit for about 30 minutes after stuffing to let the bread proof a bit. Bake in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Great with chutney. I bet a good tomato relish would work too. On the heels of Renee's great news, I have been thinking about the things I do automatically that make the way we eat really easy. So, here are some of the must have-must do things that happen around here.
Must Haves Rice cooker: There are two things I'm consistently not good at in the kitchen. One is making biscuits, but that's ok, as I really shouldn't be eating them anyway (I do have a work around that is pretty good, though). The other? Making rice on the stove. I either get it too mushy or too al dente. With my handy rice cooker, I just load it, hit the switch, and go off and do something else. It shuts itself off, even. Sometimes, I make rice and portion it out so I can just pull out a portion and zap it later to go with leftovers. Strangely, with the rice cooker, brown rice cooks in about 25 minutes, so no excuses that brown rice takes too long. The rice cooker also works great for barley, quinoa, and other grains. Crock pot/Slow cooker: This is another great press button and walk away tool. A while back, I was really into using the crockpot to make seitan cutlets. The crockpot is also great for cooking large batches of beans without having to worry that the water gets too low and you burn them. I also make marinara in there, and have even used it to cook polenta. You can even carmelize onions in there for onion soup. I've also made lasagna in it, subbing in tofu for the ricotta (if you mix it with spinach, who can tell it's tofu?). Blender: I am still having a love affair with my Vitamix, although it got today off from breakfast duty. Smoothies are a great thing for breakfast, and I up the protein by adding hemp hearts (hulled hemp seeds). Even if you have a high powered blender, you probably want to make your vegan raw balls in your food processor. Stove-top Smoker: Renee asked me once how I manage to eat beans without that smoky flavor of ham. You can buy liquid smoke (I've got some in the cupboard), but you can also get a small stove-top smoker box for about $20 that allows you to smoke onions, tofu, or anything else you feel like putting in there. While smoked red onions look like worms in a pot of navy beans, they sure are good. What's in my pantry Beans: Red, white, black, chickpeas, lentils--you name it and it'll probably show up in my cupboard. I love cranberry beans (borlotti) sauteed in garlic with rosemary and crushed red pepper then served over soft polenta. Pinto and black beans make great burrito fillings, and I have yet to meet a chickpea I didn't like. Runner's World has a great lentil taco recipe, too. Make a batch of "cheez" and you can really go to town (Note: You can leave the added fat/oleo out of that sauce and you won't know. I'm currently hooked on making roasted green chile cheez sauce--I think it's better than the rotel version)! Grains and Grain Products: Brown rice, brown basmati, rolled oats, quinoa, whole wheat couscous, pearl couscous (also whole wheat), polenta, barley. I also have some red cargo rice up there that might be a bit scary right now. We're lucky to have a Chinese grocery that gets a wide variety of mixed rice blends that even contain lentils and other fun things in them. I also try to keep Three Ladies brand rice noodles in there, as well as rice vermicelli. Rice paper wrappers for summer rolls are a mainstay, and there's also seaweed sheets (I know it's not a grain, but I have been contemplating some black Thai sticky rice veggie rolls lately). Canned goods: Tomatoes, tomato paste, coconut milk (it comes in "lite"), mushrooms, and back up beans for meals in a rush. I also like to keep a can of emergency Herdez salsa around (when I run out of Renee's salsa verde). Fresh Produce: Of course, anything in this group is good. I do keep a bag of Walnuts in the freezer. I also always have carrots, celery, onions. I also try to keep a bag of baby spinach (the Popeye stuff from Kroger is cheap and good) and a big bag of mustard greens in there. I'm a mustard green freak. I eat the stuff raw, and my most common way to cook it is to saute it in garlic and crushed red pepper just until it wilts. Money saving tips I buy the bagged bananas and peel them, put them on a cookie sheet and freeze them whole for smoothies (if you don't have a Vitamix, you can slice them into chunks and then just bag them. If you cut every banana into the same number of chunks, you will know how many chunks=1 banana). I buy and use a lot of citrus these days. Keep an eye on the price per lemon/lime and make sure the bags are not actually more expensive than the individual ones. Oranges are almost always cheaper by the bag. My produce fellas start putting stuff on "clearance" around 10 in the morning. Often, I can score an eggplant that is perfectly fine for 89 cents just because it is older than the new ones they are setting out. The same is true of various peppers and the fancy little cukes. Normally, I'd warn against buying packaged things, but bagged greens like mustard greens can be a great deal--you don't throw anything away. Also frozen vegetables are awesome--they don't have the salt and again require no cleaning so there's no waste. I don't buy fresh broccoli or cauliflower unless it is majorly on sale, for instance. Artichoke hearts are a great freezer deal, too, and are great in pasta sauce. Frozen veggies also give you control over the "mush" factor. You can thaw them and throw them uncooked into pasta salads and the like, too. Make your own veggie stock. Save those carrot peels, onion peels, garlic cloves that are tiny, celery that goes wonky. Freeze it and when you have enough to fill your crock pot, add water and salt and a bay leaf or two and you've got some "free" stock from what was going in the trash anyway. I also save the cooking liquid from my seitan making. Why not? If you have a Whole Foods or other store nearby that sells in bulk, it's a great way to try out new things without committing to a big bag. You can just buy a cup of quinoa, for instance. When I lived in Auburn, I shopped at this little natural food store (Dayspring) that had five gallon buckets in the back with dehydrated hummus mix, falafel mix, nuts, seeds, spices, couscous, and even granola. I hit that store every pay day and had a good stock of "instant" fixes. I also recommend looking for Chinese and Asian grocery stores. Sam's Oriental in Little Rock is a great place to shop, as is the Asian Grocery in Ashley Square and the Indian Grocery on Rodney Parham across the street from Lily's Dim Sum. iHerb.com is also a great shopping resource once you figure out that you really do need a large can of nutritional yeast or that you don't want to drive across town and hit every store you can find for hemp seeds or other things. If you use my code, JIX581 on your first order, you get $5 off. And, if you order $40 bucks worth of product, shipping is free! Restaurants: Go Indian or Vietnamese and you're almost guaranteed a great meal. People often ask me if there is anyplace I am willing to eat; honestly, I can find something to eat just about anywhere, and there are lots of great guides out there for how to order veg when dining out. American-themed restaurants are the exception, really, but I probably won't be walking into Cheeburger, Cheeburger anytime soon (and even if I do, I'm sure they have a salad). I think the problem is not so much that there aren't options but that we often don't take advantage of them because we're afraid the other diners will look at us funny (or we say, oh, well, it's a treat). So sorry it's been awhile since I last posted. Angel probably thinks I have fallen off the face of the planet! I have a lot of catching up to do. First, last week I made Quinoa, Corn and Buckwheat Noodle Salad from The Passionate Vegetarian (which Angel likes to refer to as PV). It was my first experience with quinoa. It was okay, but I will be trying the other colors. This quinoa was the black variety. I found the beautiful red corn to add, and it was a very colorful and pretty salad. While I liked this okay, it was not my fave recipe to date. It also takes a little extra prep compared to other grains. You have to wash it, and wash it, and wash it again. The seeds have a coating of saponins on them, which is basically a natural soap. I should think that would not be too tasty. On another note, I went camping over the Labor Day weekend. By myself. I really needed a little peace and quiet. I had always wanted to go down to Hot Springs and "take of the healing waters". I went to the Buckstaff Bath House. For a mere $64, you can find a bit of sanity and calm. I was soaked, scrubbed, sitzed, whirlpooled, steamed, hot-packed and massaged into a limp noodle, which felt very needed and very wonderful. I came home feeling more like the real me than I have felt in a long, long time. And I must do it again....very soon. I had thought to do a post on emotional eating, as I did not honestly observe the vegan principles during my little camping stint. I even ate cheese. From a can. I haven't eaten cheese from a can since I was a kid. But perhaps we will explore this issue in another post.
So, what's the great news, you ask? Let me preface it with a brief refresher of why I let my baby sister talk me into trying this whole vegan experiment in the first place. My doctor didn't like how high my LDL was. I told her, "I am not going to take a pill". I used to eat an egg for breakfast every morning with a piece of cheese on a slice of bread. Yep, every day. Then there was usually meat and cheese at lunch, then some form of meat at dinner. Angel's challenge was this: cut back on the animal protein and see if it helps. It had helped Dani, after all, and it seems to help Angel as well. Now I might eat animal protein anywhere from 2 to 5 times per week. Big difference. Last week I went and had my blood drawn to see how the numbers were looking and sat down today with my doctor. I think it would be fair to say we were both astonished! On May 10th, my overall cholesterol was 238, today it was 209. Nearly 30 points! My LDL? It was 149 on 5/10; now it's 129. I am only 14 points from being in normal range! How awesome is that? She said, "I don't know what you're doing, but keep doing it! What are you doing, anyway? It's highly unusual to see that big a difference with diet alone. It usually takes medication to effect a change like that." I told her I was "veganish" and had really not felt deprived, as I have discovered a lot of new recipes I really liked. She said I needed to write a book (which is something Angel and I have batted about). I also told her that the longer I am in health care, the more I believe that the best medicine that we have is the food we eat. I have to say, that for me at least, that the proof is now in the pudding...I mean whole grain cereal! Thanks, Angel, for helping me make this change in my life. You just may have saved your big sister's life! 9/1/2011 0 Comments Angel Update: More Vegan FunI seem to be a little stuck, but I'm not giving up. I should see the scale start moving again this week, as my hormonal fluctuations should be done with. (Sorry if that's TMI, but it's simply what's going on). I went on a seitan cooking spree last week. Here's what I've been playing with in the kitchen. Dairy Godmother's Cheatballs. This was my second time to make them, and they are awesome. I leave the oil out, and don't miss it. How about a cheatball sub? I made french bread with white whole wheat flour, scooped out the innards and saved for crumbs later. My freezer stash of Italian fauxsage was depleted, so I took time to steam a double batch while the cheatballs were baking. Again, I just leave the oil out. Yum! Finally, I made a pizza last night, using Josh's Pizza Cheeze recipe. I left the oil in this one, though. I only used about a cup of the cheeze. I thawed two bags of chopped spinach, squeezed it out, mixed it with some garlic-salt paste and then kneaded in the cheeze. I spread it on a partially baked crust, then did a drizzle more of cheeze on top. I'll definitely be doing this again. I didn't have enough blanched almonds, so I threw in some raw ones. The Vitamix doesn't care if there are skins on (nor do I). |
The Two Fat SistersRenee and Angel welcome you to their blog. Hopefully we can change our name some time. In the meantime, watch as we try to get there. Archives
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