Stomach Bugs Make Everything Bad

Well, that title should elicit a big ol' "DUH" from anyone reading this.  (Or, as my nine year old has started saying, "Duhr!")  Stomach bugs do make everything bad.  I came down with something yesterday and it knocked me flat on my ass.  All told, I think I ate a little cereal, a little applesauce, a banana and then a little of my mom's home cooked chicken pot pie and a salad (because by dinnertime, I was actually sitting upright and keeping food down).  Today has been better, but I definitely don't feel "normal" and I definitely don't feel like cooking, much less eating.  Thus, I am not sure what is on the menu for tonight.  I am thinking it will be something REAL easy, like Baked Ziti (that I will try to sneak some spinach into).  I STILL have the Tamale Pie on my menu for this week and I STILL didn't use those freaking poblanos, so it may just be a little blander for the lack of [rotted] peppers included in it.  We will see.  I know that my stomach won't take anything really spicy right now, so it looks like Baked Ziti or, hell, grilled cheese sandwiches if I really don't feel well at 5 pm.  Neither sounds remotely tasty to me right now, but I am pretty sure my kids will eat it without complaint.  Winner. 

Dinner Tonight

Dinner tonight is likely to be a very low-key affair.  Remember a couple of weeks ago, I said I was going to try a new recipe (http://makingeverydaygourmet.blogspot.com/2013/04/is-it-spring-yet.html)?  Skillet Chicken Tamale Pie?  Yeah, that didn't happen and God bless my ever ambitious little chef's heart, I have had some of the ingredients sitting in my fridge since then.  (I really hope poblano chiles don't rot super fast.  Oh, geez.  I just looked back at the date I wrote that post.  Dang, that really WAS a couple of weeks ago.)  Ok, so the goal is to get that meal fixed and obviously to use up some way overdue chiles.  Will that goal be met?  Ummm....I think it is a good bet either way at this point.  I am super busy right now: I have a wedding for 250 people that I am making a cake for (right on schedule with that) on Saturday and I am in the throes of coordinating Teacher Appreciation Week for my older kids' elementary school next week.  [Side note: this whole experience is either going to make me lose my faith in humanity - specifically the parental humanity that populates our school - or bolster it in unexpected ways.  It is as much of a crap shoot as what I will be able to get on the table for dinner tonight.] So, we will see if those poblanos will continue to languish in my crisper drawer for another....ewww.  No.  If I don't cook those things tonight, I think they are probably destined for the compost bin.  Even I have my limits as to how far I will go to avoid wasting food. 

Three Ingredient Dinner? Yes, please!

A THREE ingredient dinner you ask?  Is that even possible?  Oh, yes, my friends.  Yes, it is indeed. http://makingeverydaygourmet.blogspot.com/p/favorite-recipes.html

Here are the raw ingredients that I started with:

The raw beginnings of a fast and fresh dinner.

 

Whole wheat pasta (not processed with eggs), two bunches of raw asparagus and a four ounce package of plain goat cheese.  Start by cleaning the asparagus - remove the rubber bands, wash and snap the woody ends off of the stalks.  Place them on a rimmed cookie sheet, toss with a little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper and roast at about 425 degrees for about 20 minutes. 

 

While the asparagus is roasting, cook the pasta in salted (like the ocean) boiling water.  Once the pasta is cooked, take about a cup of the water out and reserve.  Drain the pasta and crumble in the goat cheese, adding the reserved pasta water if needed to loosen the sauce.  Cut the roasted asparagus into inch to inch and a half lengths and toss with the pasta and goat cheese.  If desired, garnish with fresh snipped chives and viola!  Dinner is served:

 



A delicious, fresh spring dinner made from a mere three ingredients!



Now, my husband is going to be a bit of a stickler on this point, so, to be fair, I must disclose that the freshly snipped chives are a fourth ingredient, and the olive oil used for roasting the asparagus is technically a fifth ingredient, but come on.  That's just being picky because, start to finish, this takes less than 30 minutes to throw together.  It is also delicious, in my opinion, but I love asparagus and goat cheese.  My older two children do not, so they choked it down with the promise (read: bribe) of dessert, but my son enjoyed his asparagus ("sticks") and pasta.  I enjoyed it, too. 

Kids and Dieting

I am not sure how long this post is going to be, because 1) I am running out of time to write today, 2) I have about a billion other things I need to be doing...all at the same time, 3) my head feels like it is going to explode and 4) I am in such a negative mood right now, I am not sure I can handle this subject with as much grace and aplomb as I think it requires.  So, this may be part 2 of 3 or that third part may just come down the road sometime later.  We'll see.

So, I think I left off with my ever-evolving personal views on dieting and my struggle to overcome my obsession with those freaking 20 pounds that I was trying to lose all those years ago.  My last known dieting success, as I mentioned in the previous post Food is Awesome. Dieting is Not., was on the Best Life Diet by Bob Greene.  At the height of my obsession and rigidity with that diet, my daughters were four and two, respectively.  I thought that whatever I was doing, it wasn't affecting them.  You know, because having a mother who is chronically depressed because she can't have a margarita or chips and salsa doesn't affect them at all.  Duh.  I guess I thought that because I never (and I mean NEVER) called myself names (fat, overweight, etc.) I was not making an indelible, negative impression upon their little female psyches.  I was wrong in so many ways.

When my oldest daughter was in first grade (7 years old), I got pregnant with my son and was hugely so when she started telling my husband and me that she wanted to go on a diet because she was fat.  She said she didn't like that her "tummy stuck out" and was "round, instead of flat".  I was horrified, not just because this little girl was so perfect in my own eyes, but because she is (without a hint of mother's pride) a beautiful and, frankly, beautifully made little girl.  She is tall, athletic and thin and has been since the chubbiness of toddler hood began to give way to her father's natural runner's genetics (thank God for that, because she sure didn't get it from me!).  We explained to her over and over and over again that she was just as God wants her; her size was completely proportional; she had no need to diet; etc, etc.  We ended up taking her to the pediatrician, in the hopes that her doctor could talk some sense into her.  We found out, during the course of that conversation, that she thought I was fat - even though she could remember what I looked like before the pregnancy and even though she was fully aware that her baby brother was growing inside of my belly.  It was a wake-up call.  I knew that, even if I was going to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight, I had to do so in a positive way, without labeling it as true "dieting".  I also thought it was an isolated incident, but when my younger daughter, now also 7 years old, came home a couple of months ago claiming that she needed to be on a diet, well....I just about had a stroke.  Anyone who has seen that child knows that there is not an ounce of spare flesh on her entire body.  She is pure muscle and is amazing to watch perform physically (she can rock climb and practices martial arts).  She is also a child who I used to say lives on air [rather than actual food].  (She is not necessarily a particularly picky eater at this point, but she is stubborn as the rocks she climbs.  If she doesn't want to eat something, she will just flat out refuse to do so.  Threats, bribes, etc have NEVER worked for her.  She also has a really sensitive gag reflex.  When I have forced her to eat something she hates - i.e. spinach - I usually end up cleaning up her self-induced vomit.  Not worth it, I tell you.)

So, both of my girls have already started having self-esteem and body image issues.  This is with me setting the "good" example of exercising every day and eating well.  This is with me refusing to denigrate myself by using words to describe my waist size, my butt size, the number on the scale, etc, whether privately or in front of them.  This is with me doing everything that I thought was right.  Maybe we just can't win this battle - our society is so beyond obsessed with outward appearances that it may just not be possible to raise children, female children especially, without doing battle with a nebulous idea of what you "should" or "should not" look like.  I think it sucks, but then again, I think a lot of things suck right now.  My thoughts and prayers are with the city of Boston, with the runners in yesterday's marathon and especially with those that lost so much during the horrific attack.  My heart breaks for the parents of the little boy, so close to my own daughters' ages, who came to see his dad set a good example for his own children, and lost his life for being in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.  God bless you all and may you find the peace and healing that you so deserve. 

Food is Awesome. Dieting is Not.

I have been thinking about something for a long time and trying to figure out how to write about it.  I haven't decided yet, but this may be the first of a couple of posts about it simply because there is no shortage of things to say.  This is hard because it is about a touchy subject - one which I have battled my entire life and one which I have seen my daughters begin to question at a very young age.  I am, of course, speaking of the bane of most women's existence: their weight and the ever-present corollary, dieting.  Dieting has everything to do with food, of course (which is why you are reading about this on my FOOD blog). 

A couple of years ago, I was going through a box of my childhood things that my mother lovingly told me to, "get out of her house or it was going in the trash".  Pack-rat that I am and always have been, I wanted to look through the things that I deemed worthy at one time of saving for all eternity.  I came across a number of filled spiral notebooks, but one in particular caught my eye.  The shabby, partially used notebook contained a food diary that I started keeping when I was twelve or thirteen.  The entries were dated (so I technically could tell you exactly how old I was, but I am not writing this at home and I am feeling a little lazy, so you will just have to take my word for it) and I had written a goal at the front: "to lose 20 pounds".  Man, that 20 pounds has dogged me FOREVER, more than half my lif, in fact, and here - well, here was written proof of it.  I looked at my girlish handwriting and thought, "Jesus.  Have I been on a diet or between diets or thinking about a diet for almost my entire life?!"  The answer was an unequivocal, somewhat depressing and highly startling, "yes",

By the time I answered that simple question for myself, I had had two beautiful baby girls and had decided a short time prior that I needed to start investing in myself and in my health (i.e. to lose 20 pounds).  I was actually on a diet at the time of the notebook discovery - one that I got results with and still stand behind as being a healthy and well-rounded alternative to fad dieting, "The Best Life Diet" by Bob Greene, who was and maybe still is Oprah's personal trainer.  I drank the crap out of that kool-aid; my mother will likely accuse me of being obsessed with it almost to the point of developing an eating disorder.  I watched my food intake in an extreme way, to be sure, and I worked out daily, but was constantly frustrated that I did not see any results on the scale.  I went to a dietitian, I talked to every friend who would listen, I cried and complained and still, the scale did not budge.  That mythical 20 pounds clung to me like a whiny toddler and it seemed, that though I was doing everything right, I would never achieve the goal that I set for myself almost half a lifetime ago. 

So, I found that notebook and I thought about the kind of life I had made for myself.  I was making what I thought were positive changes in my life, like incorporating exercise and choosing better food for my body, but I turned those changes into an obsession of epic proportions.  My 20 pounds lamentation became the focus of not only conversations with my friends, most often occurring at the gym, but also of entire relationships seemingly built upon mutual commiseration about the inability to lose weight.  I realized that by obsessing about those 20 pounds, sticking rigidly to my diet and meticulously fulfilling the exercise regimen I had created for myself, I was eliminating the joys in my life.  I was snappish with my kids (more so than usual) and I sank into a depression fueled, in part, by my inability to enjoy anything (especially while anyone else was consuming a food/drink that I really wanted) that I eventually sought professional help to pull myself out of. 

That notebook made me realize that, regardless of what the scale says, I want to enjoy my life and I want to have a healthy enjoyment of my food.  I won't say that I don't think about losing weight now, because I do (especially since I need to lose a couple of pounds to fit into some clothes that haven't fit properly since I had my son two years ago).  I won't say that calorie counts or fat grams don't occasionally come into consideration and I won't say that my exercise regimen is not intense for a specific purpose.  I will say that I eat what I want to eat and I do so without the guilt that frequently accompanied any kind of indulgence in the past.  I also exercise for stress relief and because I actually enjoy it.  I try to look at food as being the fuel my body needs to accomplish everything that I have to do in any given day.  Which is a lot.  I know that. (I had a conversation last night that made me realize that I kind of sound like a crazy person when I talk about everything that I do.)  So, it's not a perfect relationship with food and it is certainly an ever-evolving one, but I am trying to set a good example for my daughters (and eventually for my son as well).  Sometimes that works better than others, but I don't want them to experience the same epiphany that I had: realizing that so much time and energy was spent on something that sucked a lot of the fun out of my life.  Food is awesome.  Dieting is not. 

Author's (that's me!) Note: After writing all of this, I realize that this will at least be a part one of two, to come later this week.  My next post is going to be about battling all of these issues in my own life and mind, trying to set a good example for my kids and having it kind of blow up in my face.  Some conversations with my friends and with my children recently brought the issue to mind, so, if you like, look for my thoughts on that in the next couple of days. 

Is it Spring yet?

In case you didn't know, I live in Texas where the weather is....unpredictable to say the least.  Yesterday, it was in the mid to upper 80's, sunny (and muggy, because I have to complain a little).  Today, it is rainy and freaking freezing [Mr. Bigglesworth!].  Seriously, it is in the 40's and is just spitting rain.  I knew it was going to get cold, but I guess I didn't realize how nasty it would be.  What does all of this have to do with food, you may wonder?  Well, I tend to plan my menus with not only seasonal produce in mind, but I generally take the weather into account as well.  For instance, I planned hamburgers for tonight - partially because my oldest child has a softball game...maybe?...and partially because I thought it was going to be hot.  When it is hot, I grill like a fiend because I don't want my kitchen to feel like the place where real fiends dwell.  (That's Hell, of course, and Texas frequently feels like the Seventh Circle thereof in the height of summer.)  Now that it is gross and cold outside, hamburgers doesn't really feel like the meal of choice for the evening.  This feels like a beef stew or a chili night, but, unfortunately, I didn't buy any of the ingredients for either of those hearty, soul-warming meals.  I did buy the ingredients for something called "Skillet Tamale Pie", so I might go there for tonight.  Of course, as per usual, I didn't take out the chicken to thaw, so my defrosting ineptitude may mess me up....for like the billionth time.  Hopefully, it will be warmer tomorrow and hamburgers will sound more appetizing.  Hopefully, I will get something warm on the table this evening.  If I do and it is good, hopefully, you can look forward to a new recipe in the next day or so.  We shall see....

How do I Love Thee, Soup?

Let me count the ways...nope.  Not gonna do that.  I thought I might throw some free verse in there, but I'm too tired and this has to be done in a matter of minutes (rather than the hours it could potentially take me to write a poem about my soup, which would probably be a complete waste of time, right?).  I think I have discovered what my true addiction is: soup.  For a while now, a particular kind of soup: Annie Chun's Thai Tom Yum soup, which I have found is like crack in a recyclable, compostable bowl.  You know...having never tried crack or anything.  My point is this though - it.  is.  good.  It is pretty spicy (not of the burn your face off variety) and has the savory-salty-sweet balance that is so characteristic of *real* Thai dishes.  It has noodles (who doesn't love noodle soup?!), chunks of deep fried tofu (better than it sounds, really), slices of shitake mushrooms and Thai chiles, and dices of bok choy, all floating around in a rust colored, salty, spicy broth.  Of course, this is all freeze dried when you put it in the bowl, but, man!  Once you rehydrate it with some hot water, cook it off in the microwave and let it sit for a couple of minutes....yum, indeed. 

The final product: Thai Tom Yum soup...in just 2 minutes!

Grocery Store Nirvana

I am not sure I have mentioned this before, but I hate grocery shopping.  (I probably have since it is such a pervasive and all encompassing hatred, truly only surpassed by my hatred for another of my necessary evils: the local crafts store where I must frequently buy physical supplies for my cake business.  *shudder*)  One would think that, based on the amount of time I spend thinking about (that makes me sound like I have a problem), planning, writing about and actually cooking food, I would also enjoy buying it.  I don't.  I think I would rather do most other things than shop for our meals. 

So, today started off a little earlier than I would have liked thanks to my toddler sweetly crooning, "Moooommmmyyyy!" from his crib and I knew that I had my weekly grocery shopping chore ahead of me this morning.  I planned to hit the gym for a yoga class, with the primary goal of getting a good, restorative workout in before I tackled the supermarket on a busy Saturday.  My excellent yoga instructor started the class off by encouraging us to leave the stress of our outside lives, quieting the chatter inside our heads.  (I love that about yoga - that whole "silencing the mind" part is so appealing to me, even if I only do it for an hour a week.)  She went on to instruct us not to worry about our grocery list or what we thought we should be doing with our time...aaaannnnddd I remembered that I still DID have to worry about my grocery list.  Blerg!  I finished the class, enjoying the little bit of me-time that I still had left and, with a much more relaxed mind and body, headed off to the grocery store to do battle with my list and my fellow Saturday shopping warriors.

Rather than sighing heavily upon entering the store, I found myself looking forward to my shopping...just a little bit.  (If you watch "How I Met Your Mother", at one point there was a character that said that sentence repeatedly in some kind of Eastern European accent - "jist a leetle beet".  That's how I just heard that sentence in my head.  I digress.)  As I got my list out and realized that I was shopping by myself, rather than rushing through my list while tussling with an unruly toddler, I kind of slowed down and thought, with a tiny smile, "well, at least there's that."  I found lots of organic produce on sale - always a great thing - and found organic meats were suddenly, magically, available at my store when they had not been previously.  Yes!  I went down the "Healthy Living" aisle and was grabbing some snacks for my older kids when the staff member stocking the section asked me, "have you tried this other product?  I think I have some free samples in the back if you would like to."  Free food that my kids will like?  Uh, yes please!  She came back with four samples, plus some coupons for the other stuff I was buying.  Wow - seriously, I was starting to feel pretty good about this shopping trip.  I continued to make my way through the store (oddly stopping to answer a question from someone in the baking aisle who said I looked like I did a lot of baking...which I do, but still...odd) and continued to find deals and steals (in the case of a new, talking - for real! - epi-pen for my son.  A lovely little coupon allowed me to pay a pittance for the new device.  Yes!) the whole way.  Add to that the fact that the store seemed somehow quieter than usual (probably because I wasn't struggling with my son the whole time and listening to his repeated whines to get out of the cart) and I left that store feeling almost as light as I had when I left yoga.

I don't know what it was that caused everything to fall into place for my shopping trip today.  Maybe it was a brighter attitude for having practiced yoga first thing this morning.  Maybe it was the positive intentions I set for myself at the end of the yoga class.  Maybe it was just a lightening of my spirit after chatting with friends at the gym.  Whatever it was, the universe paid out for me this morning by making one of my most detested chores seem pleasant and I humbly appreciate it.  I am sure my family does as well - they do like to eat. 

Judge-y Lithography

Well, if that title doesn't draw you in....on a food blog....I don't know what will!  Several months ago (perhaps almost a year even), my sister passed along four fun little prints that she bought online to hang in her kitchen.  My sister is blessed with the interior design gene (I, sadly, am not) and decided, once she had the prints in hand, that they did not "go" with the other colors gracing her cooking space.  They did, however, "go" with mine, so she offered to them to me.  I framed them and hung them in a fairly prominent space in my kitchen; I see them every time I walk into that room and I find something new to love every time I look at them.  Each of the prints is different, but all are done in the style of the 1940's Victory Garden propaganda, extolling all Americans to "do their duty" and grow their own food.  The fun thing about these prints is that they are very vintage looking, but they tell you to, "Eat Local Greens", "Plant an Urban Farm Garden" and "Grow Food on an Organic Farm".  Out of the four, my favorite is a picture of a spoon and fork, standing behind a still life of vegetables (tomato, cucumber, onion, etc.) and a mason jar of what I can only assume are some kind of peas or beans.  Above this little tableau are the words, "Eat Real Food".

"Eat Real Food".  That is such a simple statement, but has become such an expansive movement recently in our culture.  There is so much that this one little sentence applies to: GMO's, the whole Monsanto fiasco, the potential for artificial sweetener in milk...it seems like this "real food", or rather, lack thereof, issue is in my face all of the time and honestly, I do get kind of tired of it.  There are times that I just want to say, "@#$% it!  I've had enough!"  I had one of those moments the other night as I was trying to muster the energy to cook dinner for our family.  The menu that night was scheduled to be: "chicken thighs, marinated in a mojo of freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice, olive oil and garlic, grilled to perfection, served alongside fresh, crisp-grilled asparagus and a salad of Campari tomato slices, topped with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper".  I had, however, forgotten to take the chicken out to thaw in the refrigerator the night before, so while it was [sort of] thawing in a sink full of cold water, I sat down....and promptly fell asleep.

Fortunately, my husband had come home early that afternoon, so my little cat-nap didn't impact my whole "caring for my children" thing, but snoozing did delay our dinner a bit.  I woke up groggy and grouchy and I seriously considered giving the thawing chicken a "@#$% it" by scrapping my original menu plans.  I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do for our evening meal, but right at that moment, cooking seemed like a huge hassle that I was willing to trade for sending my husband out to bring back burgers and boiling the barely thawed meat off for another day.  Blearily, I cast my eyes about my kitchen, trying to make up my mind.  My attention was caught by my new pictures on the wall and I read the words again, "Eat Real Food".  I thought, "Geez.  Even that damn print is judging me!"  No.  Really and truly, I thought, "yes.  Yes, we will."  I shook off my fatigue and made do with what I had: half frozen chicken thighs that took a heck of a lot longer to cook on the grill than they would have, had I defrosted them properly, and which lacked the lemony freshness that a proper marinade would have given them, but my menu came off well and it was good.  And real.  And real good.  Everyone ate it - my oldest had seconds and thirds of the chicken, my youngest had seconds and thirds of the "[s]ticks" (asparagus) and "mmmargh" (tomatoes) and my middle child ate just what was put on her plate and no more. 

So my new, judge-y lithograph saved our dinner the other night.  I am glad I have it hanging on the wall to remind me what is important to me.  Yes, I get frustrated with our food culture and yes, I get frustrated with simply having to cook ALL the time, but I also realize that feeding my family well is one of my top priorities.  I actually like seeing them enjoy a good meal and I really like knowing that I cooked it.  Real food - sometimes it doesn't have to be all that hard; it just takes a little bit of an effort.