In an attempt to stick with meal planning and sensible eating, and to return to blogging, I've decided to publish this week's meal plan and give you updates during the week. Please comment on this format and let me know what you'd like to see!
Following the typical holiday indulgences and a renewed focus on sensible budgeting, Josh and I are eating differently these days. More vegetarian meals are in the plan (to help with weight loss and savings), but simple carbs and processed foods are out. This includes bacon, which is a loss we mourn. Here's the plan for this week:
Sunday: Pork Tenderloin a la Mexicana, from Rick Bayless' "Mexican Everyday." This is my #1 go-to cookbook, and this recipe finds pork tenderloin cut into chunks and sauteed with roasted poblano strips (which I've got in the freezer) and canned tomatoes. Serving with garlicky green beans in the skillet.
Monday: Cilantro chicken salads with guacamole, also from Mexican Everyday. Yum!
Tuesday: Braised and Glazed Butternut Squash with pesto, from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian." Here's my go-to cookbook for vegetarian inspiration, as well as for condiment recipes. I love his hummus and homemade ketchups, but this recipe will be a new one for us. Cubed squash is browned in a skillet, braised in broth, then glazed in the pan. I'll toss in a half cup of homemade walnut pesto, also from the freezer, during the glazing stage. Serving with roasted zucchini.
Wednesday: Braised Kale with Black Beans and Tomatoes, from food.com. We made this on a whim last week and loved it! Trim, tear, and wash your kale during a quiet daytime moment and keep it in the fridge in a mesh bag, and this recipe is a breeze. Serving over a cauliflower and celeriac puree - that last part is new, but celeriac was on sale at the farmer's market, so why not?
Thursday: Pea and Tofu Curry with parsnips, from Bittman's Vegetarian again. This is a total whim, and I'll use curry paste instead of powder. Wish me luck. One-pot meal, although I'd add rice if we weren't off carbs.
Friday: Crock-pot chili, a recipe I'll likely make up on the spot, with grass-fed beef from the grocery store and home-cooked beans. Yum.
Saturday: Fresh from the farmer's market again, we'll make the usual rosemary-roasted pork shoulder and rosemary-roasted potatoes, with a vegetable to be determined by what's fresh and gorgeous. This pork recipe is a winner if there are grapes at the store, but a lot will depend on what Joe and Maggie feel like eating.
So that's week one! I'll publish some more updates as we go, and please let me know if you start following along!
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Thursday, July 30, 2009
My two loves
Food and knitting, my two great non-human loves, have finally joined forces to overwhelm the world with cuteness. Sorry about the photo quality - I snapped these with the webcam - but I don't think you'll be able to resist.
I give you Aubergine and Carrot, from Hansi Singh's Amigurumi Knits. The book was a gift from Wendy, and I can't get enough of these fluffy little summer projects.
I give you Aubergine and Carrot, from Hansi Singh's Amigurumi Knits. The book was a gift from Wendy, and I can't get enough of these fluffy little summer projects.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Edible Foodlike Substances
I know I'm a little late to the Michael Pollan party, as his latest book has already come out in paperback. I picked up In Defense of Food at Camp Zama this weekend, and now I can't put it down.
His message is pretty simple: the Western diet of highly processed, scientifically refined and then fortified foods has made Americans obsessed with nutrition as well as sick, and fat. The answer he offers is three rules: eat food, not too much, mostly plants. Seems simple, right? And I think it is. Josh and I already endeavor to do those three things (although "not too much" often gets overlooked), but after reading 3/4 of this book, I am going after healthy, whole-food eating with renewed vigor.
Edible Foodlike Substances is my new favorite term. It refers to much of the food in the commissary, or American supermarket: Pop-tarts, Go-gurt, cereal bars with milk-like non-dairy frosting strips. Colorfully packaged edible items engineered to trick our senses into thinking they are food, with long, unintelligible ingredient lists and health claims splashed across the front and side panels. Pollan states that avoiding foods which make health claims can, on its own, improve one's health. Eek!
I'm ready for a paradigm shift. It's not a big one for me or Josh, since his weight struggles and my crunchy tendencies (plus unemployment) have already led us to a mostly whole-grain, homemade, vegetarian lifestyle. I'm not giving up white rice in my sushi when we eat out, nor will I start bringing my own food to dinner parties or preaching in other peoples' pantries. I'm going to start cooking more leaves than seeds, though, and eating ice cream rather than "slow-churned low-fat dairy dessert*." I cooked our veggie burgers with a little butter instead of olive oil last night, and made a big colorful bowl of slaw alongside.
Unfortunately, it may be expensive. It should be, apparently: Americans spend ten percent of our income on food, according to this book, while the French spend 14.9%. Avoiding meat saves us some money, accidentally, but I'm through choosing my fruit by cheapness instead of diversity, season, and plain old-fashioned craving. Instead of taking the train to Kurihama Flower World (a garden/amusement park not far from our house) yesterday, Josh and I** bought some potting soil and improved on the little container garden growing on our balcony.
Hoo, I'm excited! Who wants to borrow the book when I'm done?***
*I seriously didn't know Edy's (or Dreyer's) wasn't ice cream until I looked the other day. What the hell?
**That is, I repotted and improved the little garden. Josh carried the soil up the stairs.
***I'd borrow The Omnivore's Dilemma if anyone has it laying around.
His message is pretty simple: the Western diet of highly processed, scientifically refined and then fortified foods has made Americans obsessed with nutrition as well as sick, and fat. The answer he offers is three rules: eat food, not too much, mostly plants. Seems simple, right? And I think it is. Josh and I already endeavor to do those three things (although "not too much" often gets overlooked), but after reading 3/4 of this book, I am going after healthy, whole-food eating with renewed vigor.
Edible Foodlike Substances is my new favorite term. It refers to much of the food in the commissary, or American supermarket: Pop-tarts, Go-gurt, cereal bars with milk-like non-dairy frosting strips. Colorfully packaged edible items engineered to trick our senses into thinking they are food, with long, unintelligible ingredient lists and health claims splashed across the front and side panels. Pollan states that avoiding foods which make health claims can, on its own, improve one's health. Eek!
I'm ready for a paradigm shift. It's not a big one for me or Josh, since his weight struggles and my crunchy tendencies (plus unemployment) have already led us to a mostly whole-grain, homemade, vegetarian lifestyle. I'm not giving up white rice in my sushi when we eat out, nor will I start bringing my own food to dinner parties or preaching in other peoples' pantries. I'm going to start cooking more leaves than seeds, though, and eating ice cream rather than "slow-churned low-fat dairy dessert*." I cooked our veggie burgers with a little butter instead of olive oil last night, and made a big colorful bowl of slaw alongside.
Unfortunately, it may be expensive. It should be, apparently: Americans spend ten percent of our income on food, according to this book, while the French spend 14.9%. Avoiding meat saves us some money, accidentally, but I'm through choosing my fruit by cheapness instead of diversity, season, and plain old-fashioned craving. Instead of taking the train to Kurihama Flower World (a garden/amusement park not far from our house) yesterday, Josh and I** bought some potting soil and improved on the little container garden growing on our balcony.
Hoo, I'm excited! Who wants to borrow the book when I'm done?****I seriously didn't know Edy's (or Dreyer's) wasn't ice cream until I looked the other day. What the hell?
**That is, I repotted and improved the little garden. Josh carried the soil up the stairs.
***I'd borrow The Omnivore's Dilemma if anyone has it laying around.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Simple pleasures
Winter has been exceptionally mild here, objectively and by local standards. They had a doozy last year, I'm told, but so far this year it hasn't hardly broken the freezing mark. Most days, it's in the 40s or even 50s and sunny, with wind. Can anybody tell me why the wind ALWAYS picks up and rushes at night, after a still day? I'd like to know. The wind combines with the chillier nights to whip through our drafty, uninsulated house.
Regardless of the weather, winter is a time for simplicity in my house. The short days send me out into the sunlight for much of the day, and when evening starts around 4:00, I want a pot of soup to simmer and bread to bake in the oven while the boy and I kick back. Good books, (video) games, and lots of knitting are the best this time of year.
So far we've been pretty successful in that department. I reread some of the Harry Potter books recently, and there has been a lot of black bean stew, chili, and even a chocolate chili in this house. I've been baking bread several times per week and knitting a sweater, new wool socks, and the ongoing blanket project.
Then one day last week I started reading a book I'd gotten for Christmas from my big bro Ben: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken. I rarely read nonfiction, but this was a memoir of the baby she delivered stillborn at 41 weeks, and of the baby born healthy a year later. You can hear the book review that pointed me toward the book here.
Hoo boy, did I cry over that book. It was beautifully, tragically written, full of honesty and pain and hope and guilt and grief - oh, me. I read the book in the space of a couple hours, weeping and occasionally laughing on the couch. I was so touched that I sent an email to the author, thanking her and letting her how important her book was to me.
AND SHE WROTE BACK!
Less than twelve hours after I emailed her, she sent a beautiful reply. I don't have permission to publish what she wrote, so it will have to stay between Ms. McCracken and me. I will say that I was incredibly touched once again, and overjoyed that since the book was published, she and her husband have had a third baby, a girl. The book alone was enough simple pleasure for one day, but the email put me over the moon.
And speaking of over the moon, and to completely change the subject, sorry to disappoint if you were really enjoying the dead babies conversation, I actually TEARED UP over a VEGETABLE in the commissary yesterday. And no, it didn't say anything about my mama.
See, I have a soft spot in my heart for Brussels sprouts. While I was raised in a veggie house - and that's really something in frozen Maine! - we didn't eat Brussels sprouts when I was growing up. I'd seen them boiled before, but ew. Then I discovered this recipe, which I've written about before, and fell in love.
Well. Since we moved out of our Rhode Island apartment in June, I haven't seen a fresh Brussels sprout. I've been buying and cooking frozen ones instead, since the flavor and vitamins are sort of, but not really, the same. But really? Freezing a leafy vegetable is not that good. Blech. I kept looking for them at the commissary and in the Japanese grocery stores, but no: UNTIL YESTERDAY! There they were, smiling up at me in the corner of the produce section.
The people around me must have thought I was crazy - grinning like an idiot with tears in my eyes, filling a giant plastic bag with Brussels sprouts. It's a joke vegetable! A punishment for naughty children; you have to eat all your Brussels sprouts.
I bought three pounds. And, along with homemade spinach pizza (Josh's birthday request) we ate every last bite.
Regardless of the weather, winter is a time for simplicity in my house. The short days send me out into the sunlight for much of the day, and when evening starts around 4:00, I want a pot of soup to simmer and bread to bake in the oven while the boy and I kick back. Good books, (video) games, and lots of knitting are the best this time of year.
So far we've been pretty successful in that department. I reread some of the Harry Potter books recently, and there has been a lot of black bean stew, chili, and even a chocolate chili in this house. I've been baking bread several times per week and knitting a sweater, new wool socks, and the ongoing blanket project.
Then one day last week I started reading a book I'd gotten for Christmas from my big bro Ben: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken. I rarely read nonfiction, but this was a memoir of the baby she delivered stillborn at 41 weeks, and of the baby born healthy a year later. You can hear the book review that pointed me toward the book here.
Hoo boy, did I cry over that book. It was beautifully, tragically written, full of honesty and pain and hope and guilt and grief - oh, me. I read the book in the space of a couple hours, weeping and occasionally laughing on the couch. I was so touched that I sent an email to the author, thanking her and letting her how important her book was to me.
AND SHE WROTE BACK!
Less than twelve hours after I emailed her, she sent a beautiful reply. I don't have permission to publish what she wrote, so it will have to stay between Ms. McCracken and me. I will say that I was incredibly touched once again, and overjoyed that since the book was published, she and her husband have had a third baby, a girl. The book alone was enough simple pleasure for one day, but the email put me over the moon.
And speaking of over the moon, and to completely change the subject, sorry to disappoint if you were really enjoying the dead babies conversation, I actually TEARED UP over a VEGETABLE in the commissary yesterday. And no, it didn't say anything about my mama.
See, I have a soft spot in my heart for Brussels sprouts. While I was raised in a veggie house - and that's really something in frozen Maine! - we didn't eat Brussels sprouts when I was growing up. I'd seen them boiled before, but ew. Then I discovered this recipe, which I've written about before, and fell in love.
Well. Since we moved out of our Rhode Island apartment in June, I haven't seen a fresh Brussels sprout. I've been buying and cooking frozen ones instead, since the flavor and vitamins are sort of, but not really, the same. But really? Freezing a leafy vegetable is not that good. Blech. I kept looking for them at the commissary and in the Japanese grocery stores, but no: UNTIL YESTERDAY! There they were, smiling up at me in the corner of the produce section.
The people around me must have thought I was crazy - grinning like an idiot with tears in my eyes, filling a giant plastic bag with Brussels sprouts. It's a joke vegetable! A punishment for naughty children; you have to eat all your Brussels sprouts.
I bought three pounds. And, along with homemade spinach pizza (Josh's birthday request) we ate every last bite.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Engrish from America!
For real. What is this about?
I love Newman's Own. The salad dressing, the salsa, the charitable giving - it's a great company! And while J and I usually make our own pasta sauces, Newman's Sockarooni is a good, tasty alternative when (for example) we're stuck in a horrible hotel room with atrocious cooking facilities. It is not, however, "an intimate companion my pasta will never forget."
Seriously, what is that about? Is the sauce going to make sweet love to our whole wheat angel hair? Angel hair which apparently has acquired a memory? And will survive long enough to not forget the sauce?
This is the strangest marketing choice I've seen since, well, since the last Japanese commercial I saw.
In other news, I got my first care package in Japan! It was so great. Mom knew I had a hankerin' for some levity, and so she sent these:
and a truly depressing book which she advised I not read until I'm feeling better. Maybe I'll put glitter fairy stickers on every 50th page to lighten the mood! Also, my parents live in South Cackalackie, so I will use the word 'hankerin'' as often as I please. I reckon I might use it again in this paragraph. Hankerin'.
Josh is doing this thing where he makes fun of me for typing. He thinks I look like the fat gamer guy from the South Park World of Warcraft article when I blog. This guy:
I think he should get a care package with coal in it. Don't you?
AAAnyhoo...I had lunch yesterday at a friend's house - let's call her Dorothy. Mary Poppins and another woman were there, and Dorothy made delicious alfredo with spinach, and oven-roasted breaded veggies and chicken fingers. Oh my goodness, we had such a great time! Mary P brought blueberry cheesecake too. I am all about food!
I stopped at a florist on my way to lunch so that I could buy a host gift, and found a nice little hanging plant with pink and yellow flowers. (Dorothy and the Oz's have a balcony). Here's a bad picture, taken on the bus and down into a plastic bag:
Cute, huh? It was not expensive, not at all. But after I paid the florist, he indicated that he wanted me to wait a moment. He made me a present!
Isn't that the best thing ever? It made my whole day - well, so did the lunch, but the flowers were a good start.
I love Newman's Own. The salad dressing, the salsa, the charitable giving - it's a great company! And while J and I usually make our own pasta sauces, Newman's Sockarooni is a good, tasty alternative when (for example) we're stuck in a horrible hotel room with atrocious cooking facilities. It is not, however, "an intimate companion my pasta will never forget."
Seriously, what is that about? Is the sauce going to make sweet love to our whole wheat angel hair? Angel hair which apparently has acquired a memory? And will survive long enough to not forget the sauce?
This is the strangest marketing choice I've seen since, well, since the last Japanese commercial I saw.
In other news, I got my first care package in Japan! It was so great. Mom knew I had a hankerin' for some levity, and so she sent these:
and a truly depressing book which she advised I not read until I'm feeling better. Maybe I'll put glitter fairy stickers on every 50th page to lighten the mood! Also, my parents live in South Cackalackie, so I will use the word 'hankerin'' as often as I please. I reckon I might use it again in this paragraph. Hankerin'.
Josh is doing this thing where he makes fun of me for typing. He thinks I look like the fat gamer guy from the South Park World of Warcraft article when I blog. This guy:
I think he should get a care package with coal in it. Don't you?
AAAnyhoo...I had lunch yesterday at a friend's house - let's call her Dorothy. Mary Poppins and another woman were there, and Dorothy made delicious alfredo with spinach, and oven-roasted breaded veggies and chicken fingers. Oh my goodness, we had such a great time! Mary P brought blueberry cheesecake too. I am all about food!
I stopped at a florist on my way to lunch so that I could buy a host gift, and found a nice little hanging plant with pink and yellow flowers. (Dorothy and the Oz's have a balcony). Here's a bad picture, taken on the bus and down into a plastic bag:
Cute, huh? It was not expensive, not at all. But after I paid the florist, he indicated that he wanted me to wait a moment. He made me a present!
Isn't that the best thing ever? It made my whole day - well, so did the lunch, but the flowers were a good start.
Monday, August 25, 2008
No noose is good noose!
NEWS, on the other hand, would be welcome.
The good news is that the renovations on the house we want have been completed. The bad news is that there are about a week's worth of inspections yet required before we can take a final tour and decide whether to rent the place. So we are still in a holding pattern, at least until Friday.
In order to stay sane, I've decided to read a LOT. I've just started Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen. Anybody read it? I've seen the movie, years ago.
Oh and hey, Happy Birthday, bro! I wish I could be there to toast many happy returns.
The good news is that the renovations on the house we want have been completed. The bad news is that there are about a week's worth of inspections yet required before we can take a final tour and decide whether to rent the place. So we are still in a holding pattern, at least until Friday.
In order to stay sane, I've decided to read a LOT. I've just started Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen. Anybody read it? I've seen the movie, years ago.
Oh and hey, Happy Birthday, bro! I wish I could be there to toast many happy returns.
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