A Whole New Challenge…

Something fairly big happened in our lives this past week.. or rather, something of a slightly larger than usual (I’m guessing) size left. On Friday morning T had his gallbladder removed. He is sleeping peacefully at the moment, or I’m sure he wouldn’t want me posting this, but hey, sometimes it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission right?

The whole event was a bit of a whirlwind, starting with the surgery being scheduled earlier in the day than we thought (crushing our plans to take the train into “the city”, thankfully a friend pulled through and gave us a ride to T’s parents where we spent the night), then the surgery being later than we thought (starting at 9, not 7), a dead car battery, a reaction to one of the anesthetics, an excruciatingly long wait in recovery, some nasty car sickness (though gold star for T for not puking!). Luckily the one thing that didn’t go wrong was the surgery itself. T was released about 4 hours after his surgery ended and we were back at home the same night.

Recovery was going pretty well until late last night when T woke up with a lot of pressure under his ribs, feeling like he was full of liquid. We called the Nurse’s hotline (if you have not heard of this please look it up: they are FANTASTIC help, and will tell you what your next step is. Whenever I have used them they have been calm, friendly and helpful and last night was no exception). In this case, they suggested we head to the ER, so after a flurry of activity and a ride in an ambulance (thanks to a snow storm, lack of license and panic) we went to the hospital. Blood tests were done and thankfully there is no infection or anything, just some high liver number stuff, but that’s normal after a gallbladder surgery apparently.  T was given some stuff for acid reflux and it seemed to help a lot, but we still aren’t too sure about the pressure and everything. We did some research at home this morning, and it sounds like bloating and indigestion are a common thing for people who have had this surgery. The people who have dealt with and experienced this suggested some digestive enzymes, but more importantly a very low fat diet.

From what I gather the gallbladder stores bile, and releases it when it senses that you have eaten something fatty. With out the organ, your body just kind of oozes bile (appetizing eh?) into the digestive tract, often causing acid reflux. In addition, because the gall bladder isn’t there to help release the bile, which breaks down fatty foods, it is harder for your body to break down the fatty foods, causing a lot of bloating and such.

So, to the point…

The challenge is now to learn how to cook without all of the butter (and those who know me know how much I love to cook with butter.. currently we go through about a pound per week), oil and fat. Of course, this is on top of the organic thing (which is probably a blessing in disguise: organic butter runs us about 9$ a pound), and also trying to eat vegetarian or vegan 3 or 4 times a week (again, a blessing in disguise as the fats people tend to have the most problems with are animal fats).

I can cook from scratch.. just about anything. No problem. I can cater to Vegans, Vegetarians, Gluten Free-ers. I have cooked without sugars, salt or grainy carbs. Fat free though is something new to me. Please don’t get the wrong idea.. we aren’t deep frying maniacs eating breaded sticks of butter for dinner or anything.. but we do enjoy cream based soups, butter chicken, some grilled cheese or quesidillas or veggie drenched nachos (I’m drooling a little bit thinking of it). Breakfast is usually home made scones, or waffles, drenched in butter with a side of fruit. We can eat avocados once or twice a day without blinking, and I personally will admit to a baked goods and chips addiction.

This is gonna be a bit of a challenge. And, to the best of my ability, I will keep you updated, and hopefully inspired.

If anyone out there has suggestions.. please let me know! Now, bring on the salads…

Raw Fish and Kettle Corn

Well! This week isn’t even half over, and already I have tried two new things.

On Sunday night I tried something that I have always scowled at, grimaced at, and gotten chills from, even when I see other people eat it.  We were at Ro Sushi (I love that place, AND discovered on Sunday that I can eat their tempura.. good company, good food and good discoveries!). I had my green hornet roll (prawn tempura, mango, avocado and cucumber) and a yam tempura roll in front of me, and T had a smoked salmon roll, and the dreaded salmon sashimi stuff on rice.

I am a bit of a texture-phobe. I LOVE smoked salmon, but I like the dry stuff (aka the stuff that doesn’t shimmer in the light).  I also don’t enjoy slimy foods, soggy foods, saucy foods (unless they’re sweet), or anything too squishy. However, in the name of adventure, I tried a bit of T’s slimy looking smoked salmon.. it wasn’t too bad. It was slimy, but the taste was good. I survived (and didn’t even make too too much of a face). A few minute later, I was being convinced to try the sashimi. It takes quite a bit for me to try a new food, especially one that I have already decided that I do not like. Raw salmon would be a good example of this.

Back to the sushi restaurant. After much coaxing, and a little bit of bribery (I can now make T eat one thing that he doesn’t want to try, and I’m saving that one for something good), I was handed a tiny little corner of raw fish and rice on a fork. I could feel my gag reflex stretching in anticipation. I made a few faces for this one (couldn’t help it), and eventually shoved the stuff into my mouth.

It didn’t have as much taste as I thought it would. It was kind of slimy, but not as slimy as I had previously decided that it would be. It wasn’t too too bad. I won’t be ordering a ton of it anytime soon, but I survived. I tried something new (and that I thought would be rather yucky) and proved myself wrong, and kept it down to boot. I guess this would be a win.

Thanks T for the new experience, and heads up: I will get you back…

I also tried something new that I knew would be wonderful.

There are many many things to be loved at festivals.. Corn Dogs , Cotton Candy , and Kettle Corn to name a few.  As I can’t see any way that either corn dogs or cotton candy contain 100% name-able and non-chemical ingredients, I will have to stick with Kettle Corn.

Last night I was thinking about things that I could make and bring to work to snack on, and couldn’t get my mind off of kettle corn. It’s sweet, it’s salty, it’s a little sticky and a little crunchy. I all recipe’d a recipe, and realized that it’s probably also one of the easiest things on the planet to make…

1/4 cup oil

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup kernels

salt

If you have a stove top popper, this is a cinch. If you have a giant pot with a lid, it’s still do-able!

Heat the oil in the pot or popper. Throw in your kernels and sugar, close the lid and agitate (or turn the popper crank thing) until there is about 2 or three seconds between pops.

Put into a large bowl.

Salt to taste.

Stir occasionally to break apart large chunks.

Shovel it into your face.

Quick! Easy! Ingredient Happy and Wonderful (not to mention another win).

 

How about all of you people, did you try anything new this week? Was it good/gross?

Week 5 (I think) in Review

Hello Folks!

So much for updating on Friday night/Saturday morning eh?

Basically Week 5 went really well. Really well, except for the parts where I was a little grouchy, or a little frantic, or pacing back and forth chewing on my nails waging inner war over why I should not (and conversely, should) have a cigarette.

I am happy to report that I did not have a cigarette, and am now on day 10 of not smoking. I am not so happy to report that for the first week or so, my brain was completely fried. Names for things (and sometimes people) were almost always about an inch and a half beyond my grasp, simple things like attempting to cook dinner felt like climbing a mountain in flip flops, in the rain, while trying to balance a soft cover book on my head, and “huuuh?” became an automatic response, followed closely by a blank stare.  My moods were also a little less than stable. I snapped at a couple of people (my apologies, you know who you are), cried over silly things like the people dying at the end of Saw 3, and did a lot of pouting.

Back to week 5. I am feeling great. There are still a few little moments were I regress into the angry Golum like creature that I was last week, but those times are growing few and far between. I have been putting six dollars away per day of not smoking and am spending a lot of time drooling over what I could buy with that money in the not so distant future (a new knife, a crock pot, a juicer, an espresso machine, a dehydrater, and skydiving). Also, because of the not smoking thing, I have not cheated at all this past week.

That’s right people… last week I could name all of the ingredients (and chemicals… I had some regular milk in a couple of lattes) of everything that I ingested. I am considering this a big giant win.

I spent the week munching tons of vegetables (I was on a little bit of a bell pepper kick), home-made, super crumbly granola bars, loads of fruit, free range eggs, coconut macaroons, and much, much more. The highlight of the week was by far Friday.

Friday after work I wanted to curl up in a ball and disappear for a day. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, cook anything or be seen. I wanted to watch something good and trashy, like Toddlers and Tiaras, or ancient episodes of The Bachelor, eat take out pizza and stuff my face with soy lecithin and vegetable oil laden peanut butter cups. Problem is, I had a commitment, so that plan was out (plus I would have to confess the pizza and peanut butter cups, and I was already full of pride about the not smoking thing and wanted to blog about my 100% cheat free week).

Friday I had agreed to cook Cornish game hens for some friends. The challenge was to cook a meal that a friend of mine, who pretty much can’t eat 80% of anything could eat and enjoy. The dinner was to be held at another friends place where her 1 year old daughter would provide the entertainment for the evening (and did!!).

I arrived, groceries in hand and holding back tears of not-Bachelor-watching-in-my-PJ’s. The hens were still frozen (figures), so they had to bathe for a couple of hours. In the meantime we played, and danced, and giggled. I forgot all about being a huge pain and a super grumpy houseguest, and got my giggle on too. It really is amazing how cute kids can bring out the fun crazy in people. Needless to say, my mood improved about a million fold, and it was time to cook.

I mixed up some lemon juice, butter, paprika, garlic and salt and slathered the hens with half of it. Then I shoved some rosemary up their tiny bums and threw them in the oven.I added the rest of the lemon butter stuff about half way through it all.

Then I threw together a simple salad of spinach, strawberries, avocado, cucumber and nuts (roasted in egg white, sugar, cinnamon and salt). Peppers were chopped, drizzled with olive oil, lightly salted and roasted. Rice was put on to cook and asparagus was prepped for steaming.

It went pretty well. I had never cooked hens before, and I think they turned out alright, though next time probably won’t cook one per person. It was a lot of meat. It was also gluten free, contained no red meat, and if you are one of those people who don’t include better in the whole “dairy free” thing, it counts as dairy free too.

A huge thank you to Sharon for the use of her beautiful kitchen, for washing all the dishes, and for letting me throw her daughter around. Thanks too to Gillian for the challenge, and a hundred thanks to you both for getting me out of my funk. What are we cooking next???

Saturday morning I went to the Farmers Market near Nat Bailey Stadium. The beef bacon lady wasn’t there, but I did find some really delicious sausages…without casings!! A friend later pointed out another vendor who was selling sausages cased in seaweed… definitely something to check out next time. I also picked up some apples, potatos, carrots, eggs, and salmon. Being that it was a gorgeous day and all, people were out in droves. This meant that line ups were a little on the long side, but it was great to see so many people buying local and enjoying the market.

That pretty much wraps up week 5… No smoking, no unknown ingredients, lots of veg, cooking/shopping with friends, finding new and exciting options, eating, talking about eating, writing about eating, and taking pictures of what I am eating. I have tons of energy, my waistline is slowly shrinking, and I am getting my brain back as my body adjusts to the not smoking thing. Life is good.

I started this whole Eat Write Play thing to further develop my love for food, my love for writing (and to develop the skills that go with it), and to re-find that incredible sense of play that you see in the eyes of a small child when they are flying through the air, headed for a mud puddle and wearing their good shoes and nice clothes.

Here I am at the end of week five (yeah, yeah, I know I’m actually into week 6, but humour me please people – I’m about to have a moment), and I am realizing that what I had before for food was a high school crush. It was fun, it was fleeting, and I really had no clue what to do with it all. I’m not saying I have mastered anything food, but the torrid love affair I now have with what I eat is much deeper than it was when I started out. By taking the time to learn what is in my food, trying something new,  giving my body more balanced meals and not over-processed gak, and sitting down to eat (as much as I can), I have developed a whole new appreciation for the things that I eat, as well as noticed the difference that eating good food can make. I am so glad that I am doing this.

Thank you so much to the people who put up with me talking about food all the time, and a HUGE to all of the people who I had food adventures with this week. Thanks to you too, for reading, and I hope to hear your thoughts, insights, suggestions, recipes and what you ate last night in the comments (I wish I was joking about the “what you ate” part…. but really, I would love to know).

Eat well, and check back soon for an update. This week I have no idea what I am making, but hopefully it turns out. If not I get to write about it and you can laugh at me. It’s win win really.

Week Four in Review

Wow People.. 28 days ago I started something a little on the crazy side, and, despite my bad habit of abandoning projects, am still going strong. In fact, this week may just be the best yet…

Since the last week in review I have managed to eat something leafy and green every day. Win! This was mostly bok choy or spinach, either in stir-fry or salad form… kind of boring. I also managed to make a tiny batch of edible lefse. I got new milk and started something else a little crazy..

I used to really enjoy a kale-spinach-fruit smoothies in the mornings, as it was a super easy way to incorporate fresh (and raw) leafy greens into my daily diet. Lately though, there have been no smoothies. My schedule has fallen into a blissful Monday through Friday and either 6am-1pm or 8am-2pm kind of deal. Don’t get me wrong: I love it, and will very, very, greatly miss it when the theatre things rolls around again (in two short weeks: eep!). Problem is: I have roomies. Ones that, I’m sure, would not appreciate the blender running at 4:45am, or even at 7am. Easy solution: use the blender at work! This next week I will be making some smoothie packs to bring to work: all of the ingredients ready to go (chopped, mixed and frozen) so alls I have to do is chuck them in the blender and add a little water.

This week had a few yummy  meals. Chicken parmesan, chicken wings, stir fry, meatballs, and one lazy lazy day where no dinner was cooked (I have a semi-valid excuse for this one though…more later).

I also attempted to bake twice, and failed, saw a garden, got some milk, and did something that right now has me a little twitchy.

LEFSE:

Thursday night I attempted the Lefse, a Norwegian flatbread made with potato (basically it looks like a tortilla, but because the Norwegians are a brilliant people they found a way to add the yummy potato and make it even more yummy) which is spelled “l-e-f-s-e” not “”l-e-f-s-a” although it is pronounced “Lefsaaaaaaaaaa”, unless you have attempted to make it at home, with a recipe that wasn’t quite right, in which case you pronounce it “F%@!&@$@ Lefsa!” while tossing half of the recipe into the garbage.

If you haven’t gathered yet, this didn’t quite go well.

I got the lefse recipe from my Grandma, who makes it wonderfully and usually I get a pack or two a year. It went a little something like this:

-Make a medium sized pot of mashed potatoes

-Add some butter and salt

-Mix in flour until it turns into a dough

-Roll it out into circles on a floured surface

-Fry in an ungreased pan until brown spots appear

Please note the complete absence of measurements (I guess this is where I get it from..).

Also note the lack of cream (which my Mom found on a bunch of lefse recipes while talking me through my angry mixing of dough phase that came later on).

Last, but not least.. ohhhhhhh…. definitely not least, note the complete lack of the direction: cool your potatoes completely until stiff before adding the flour. DO NOT ADD THE FLOUR WHILE THE POTATOES ARE STILL WARM. EVER. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE.

As this last missed direction was, well, missing, I started adding flour after mashing my potatoes. Then I added more flour, and another cup, and some more flour. I noticed that my mixture was not really turning into a nice workable dough, more like a chunky paste. I was on the phone with my poor Mom at the time, so she got to hear my colourful language at this point, as well as some interesting descriptions, and my complete joy at the fact the my Grandma had forgot to mention this one little step of cooling the potatoes. All in all my potatoes ate 6 cups of flour before my mom suggested I chuck out half my recipe and go from there. At this point it was looking and smelling like a really bad batch of home-made play dough. The halved recipe ate about another two cups during the rolling process.

The bottom is the abandoned half, the top was what I tried to save..

After I rolled out about 18 or so lefse I started the frying process. The little potato tortillas of death started doing something strange. When I put them on the hot pan they stared doing this weird thing where they would grow giant bubbly tumours, then the bubbles would move around and expand until they sprung a leak and a geyser of steam would rush out. I think it was due to the extreme amounts of flour that had been incorporated.. the mix had become almost elastic when raw. Whatever it was, it was weird, kind of creepy, and nothing that food should be doing.When taken off the pan though, they actually looked like lefse.

After cooking a few I decided to try it.. I smothered one in butter and rolled it up (it was like a butter filled potato taquito from Norway): not too too bad. In fact, it even tasted like lefse!! The night was finally looking up!

(By the way: this is what I look like tired, after being really grumpy about things not working, in my PJs and stuffing my face with butter soaked lefse)

I got half way through frying my pre-rolled stack when something happened. I guess my dough could have used some more flour (greedy, greedy dough), because suddenly halfway through the stack I went to pick up my next little round, and they all were stuck together. They were stuck together to the point that no matter how carefully I tried, they were not un-stickable.

Imagine if you were to take a stack of potentially yummy pancakes. Now separate the stack and add super glue to the top and bottom of each pancake and reassemble your stack. Now, take a can of varnish, a large can of varnish (yes the whole thing), and pour it over your pancake stack, making sure to completely cover all of your pancake stack. Put the varnish-covered super-glued delicious looking pancake stack somewhere well ventilated and wait 12-24 hours. Then go back, and try to separate those pancakes. That’s where I was at with my lefse at ohhh… about 10:30 Thursday night. Please note that I had put the potatoes on to boil probably around 6:30pm, spent about 2 and a bit hours trying to make a dough out of the stuff, and spent what felt like forever rolling out this precious little stack.

The last face the lost lefse saw

“Then I did something that I almost never do when baking or cooking. I gave up. I threw the half stack of stuck into the garbage (along with the failed half of my original amount). I did learn a couple of things  however:

1) When making lefse, chill your f^(#ing potatoes until they’re stiff.

2) It never hurts to look at more than one recipe when trying something new.

 

GRANOLA BARS:

Friday I felt like I had to redeem myself a little, so I decided to make granola bars because really, how can that go wrong? I mixed up some oats with some melted butter, trail mix, holy crap cereal, coconut and whatever else granola bar additive yummy stuff I could find as well as some sweetened condensed milk.

I like my granola bars chewy, so baked them for about 20 minutes until the edges just started to brown. I pulled them out and turned the pan upside down onto the cooling rack where the whole tray crumbled and fell apart.

I tried to fix this by squashing it all back into the pan and baking it longer. Please note that this doesn’t work. They will kind of stick together, but will still be super crumbly and will fall apart when touched and not be chewy at all. Basically you will end up with slightly bar shaped logs of something that simply turns into crunchy granola when touched. Maybe this is what you’re looking for, in which case, leave a comment and I will tell you how to screw up granola bars.

THE GARDEN:

On a much happier note, I also took a peek at a garden yesterday!!

A while ago I had emailed a woman about taking on a plot in a community garden near my house. Last week she got back to me and explained that she had a wait list of 100 names, and had stopped adding names after that. She suggested I try again late in the spring. Community gardens are a great idea, they use space in unused lots, parks, boulevards for food, flowers or whatever else those people who are lucky enough to have them wish to grow. Usually though the plots are fairly small, very open, very close to the next persons plot and cost about $15.oo a year (which really isn’t a lot).

I was a little bit down about not getting this little patch of Earth, and was telling T about it. While I was being grumpy, he did something wonderful. He looked up a yaardshare program, found one near my house, and even made contact with the woman. Thank you thank you thank you!

As last week was a bit of a weather nightmare in the lower mainland, I waited until yesterday to walk by and take a peek at the space.

I am excited! The woman had mentioned that she doesn’t allow the use of pesticides or chemical fertilizers (Win!). There are a couple of girls who used the garden last year who might come back, but there is lots of space for everyone, and it also means that we can take turns watering, as well as share whatever we grow (Win!). There is an odd-looking, but neat pyramid structure for peas and climbing beans, and a small raspberry patch (Win!). She even has a kiwi plant growing! (exciting win!).

I didn’t take any photos yesterday, because, well, I had kind of snuck into the backyard (she did say to come by whenever), and it does need a little work. There is a lot of weeding, soil turning and things that have to happen before anything can be planted. Parsley has more or less taken over one large patch, and there is a fair bit of hay covering another patch. You may think this would deter me a little, but pretty much the opposite. I can’t wait to get in there and dig stuff up. If it weren’t so cold and wet out there I might even be doing that right now. In honesty, it will have to wait a few weeks, but it is something that I look forward to!

MILK:

I got new milk this week, and haven’t died. Yay!

A GRUMPY NEW UNDERTAKING:

Something odd happened yesterday. I got back from the garden and doing a little grocery shopping, had just made some granola crumbly stuff and was outside on the fire escape smoking the last smoke out of my pack. I was thinking to myself “probably should have picked up another pack when I got the groceries. Too bad. I really don’t want to go out again”.

That thought morphed into “I don’t have to go out again. I wonder how long I could go without a smoke”.

A couple of miles down the track and the thought train was speeding along from “Well, I’m two hours in, I think I could do this” to “I must have at least one cigarette in this house somewhere” and back to “three hours.. three hours thirty seconds…”

I have looked up some cheesy videos made with the idea that they will help you appreciate the decision to not smoke. They are cheesy little attempted pats on the back that one minute feel like they are helping a little, and the next make me want to punch the guy who made them because there is no way that he can know what this feels like, then I feel guilty for wanting to punch him because he is, after all just trying to help, and probably made the videos because he himself had trouble quitting and really does know the weird half there state my brain is currently in. I have also downloaded this annoying counter thing that tells me how long it has been since my last smoke, how much money I have saved by not smoking, how many cigarettes I would have smoked in the time since I have quit (though this is flawed because it averages them out over the day, not the hours that I am awake), and how much time I have added to my lifespan since stopping. I love and hate this thing alternatively. I like knowing how much money I have saved, how much longer I am apparently going to live, and how many less cigarette buts there are in the world, but the clock is driving me nuts. It even counts seconds (though isn’t quite accurate because I found it two and a bit hours after stopping and guessed the exact time I took my last puff).

As I type this it has been 22hr., 3min, and 28 seconds (29, 30, 31….)

I have saved $5.85

I have not smoked 13 cigarettes (reminder: flawed because of the all day average thing)

I will live 1 hour,  5 minutes longer.

Also, Ihave about half the brain capacity that I had yesterday morning when I was still smoking. I have managed to misplace two of my bowls (probably containing some sort of life saving snack), I can’t stop wiggling my toes, have an attention span of about 7 minutes and I am sooo grateful that I can keep my fingers busy typing this blog entry (which currently sits at 2,411 words).

Thank you for putting up with this massive post, as well as the mood swings, which I am sure are apparent in this monster of a post. Thank you also for continuing to read (or scan, sorry guys, I know this is a long one), and for taking the time to think a little bit about what it is you are putting into your mouth (or not putting in your mouth, as the case may be).

Keep on reading, let me know what you think!

USEFUL LINKS:

Yardshare: http://www.sharingbackyards.com/browse/Vancouver,BC&welcome_box=3

Lefse: http://visualrecipes.com/recipe-details/recipe_id/113/Lefse/

Non Smoking Stuff: http://ffn.yuku.com/topic/12886/Video-guide-for-those-just-starting-their-quits#.TyRc7YEtvaF

(the counter thingies are called “quit meters”)

 

P.S. : something increduble: I have ZERO things to add to the cheat list this week: WIN!

The Little Things in life

I went into this whole Eat thing knowing that I would have to ask questions, and most likely turn down a lot of the foods that I enjoy. I knew that eating out of my home would be a nightmare, and that lots of foods would be staring me down and screaming “why won’t you just eat me!?!”

Today I had a different experience.

Today I was on Granville Island wandering around before seeing a show (if you get a chance, see “Do You Want What I have Got? – A Craigslist Cantata”.. it was so good I cried tears of laughter). I was wandering aimlessly and the delicious aromas of the market were taunting me. Patricularly the Mexican place. I went outside and the smell of double butter croissants slapped me in the face.

I love double butter croissants. I love them fresh out of the oven, when they are in their prime flaky outside-moist buttery inside prime. I went into La Baguette to get a better whiff and could feel the flaky pastry melt on my toungue.

The girl at the counter asked me if I needed help, and the words “I have a bunch of annoying questions” spewed out before I could even stop them. I really did mean to say “Just smelling, thanks”, but that isn’t what happened. Instead I asked her what was in the croissants. She answered (even looking it up to make sure she was corrent).

“White unbleached flour, butter, salt, sugar and yeast”

The words were almost music to my ears.. just one note was off… the “butter” needed a little more explaining. I asked another annoying question, she asked the baker and returned with the gleefull answer that the butter was, in fact, completely free of colour.

Even before the whole Eat thing these croissants were something to be excited about. I am sure, however, that the poor girl behind the counter never had anyone actually hop up and down a little and clap over them. I ordered one. Then I changed it to two. I thanked her profusely and told her that she had just made my day, and quite possibly my whole year (I had explained a little about the Eat thing when I asked for the ingredients). She smiled like I was a crazy person who might rob her or something if she didn’t smile and nod, and she bagged me two croissants.

I stuffed one into my mouth right away (not the whole thing , they’re too big for that, but I did take rather large bites) and decided that I would eat the second a little more like a human being, and a little less like a starving heyena.

I picked up a coffee at The Blue Parrot, circled like a vulture until a seat opened up and sat with my coffee and my croissant near a window. It was bliss. I even took the time before cramming it into my face to take a photo:

Sometimes it’s the little, simple things that brighten your day, like the light bouncing off the buttery, flaky pastry as you sit with a coffee watching the boats go by.

Mooving Forward in the World of Dairy

I am not a huge dairy eater/drinker, but will admit that over the last year or so I have upped my intake a little. I have switched from the hot water and cheap hot chocolate mix to the milk and real chocolate hot chocolate mix, or sometimes just melt chocolate into my milk. I cook with more cheeses (please note that Kraft Singles are not to be considered cheese under any circumstance). I have started drinking lattes and mochas on a much more regular basis. The idea of drinking a glass of milk on it’s own still makes me cringe a little though, and I will not go near yogurt or most unmelted cheeses with a ten foot pole (in the case of cheese it’s a texture thing, and in the case of yogurt, well, it smells kinda gross and I’m picky). I’m getting better though, and yesterday was another big step up.

Yesterday I got something new. Something that I’m pretty pumped about.

Hint: it’s white, liquidy and contains no additives whatsoever.

Yup.. I got milk.

I took this new item home and tried it in some coffee. While I couldn’t really taste the difference, the fact that I knew my coffee contained four simple things (coffee beans, water, milk and organic cane sugar) made me a little giddy.

The next problem was what to do with the bottle of milk that I still had left over. I was craving something sweet (and really, when am I not craving something sweet?) so, I made pudding for the first time ever.

It was easy too! Take 2 and a half cups of milk, a third of a cup of sugar, three tablespoons of corn starch, half a teaspoon of salt and throw it in a pot.

Heat it over medium heat until it thickens (about 10 minutes), then stir in a whole bunch of vanilla. How much vanilla you ask? I don’t measure it, so I really couldn’t tell you. I added a little bit, smelled the stuff and added more. Then you put the pudding into a conatiner and pop it in the fridge. Lick the spoon, clean up, and you’re done.

When I got home from work this afternoon I was soaked and cold. I threw on my slippers and a hoody, and made myself a snack. A wonderful dairy filled snack.

I used the exciting new milk for a hot chocolate. While that was warming up I chopped up some strawberries and a banana, threw them in a bowl with some blueberries and scooped a bunch of vanilla pudding on top. Please note that this is a non-yogurt eaters version of a yogurt parfait.. just with creamy, sweet vanilla pudding instead of weird smelly yogurt.

MMMmmmmm Yummy!

I noticed a difference in the hot chocolate. It was creamier, and the taste was, well, different. I wouldn’t say it was worse or better, just a little different.

I was about three quarters through this delightful dairy-fest when the thought that I often get a little gugley when I eat too much dairy popped into my head. I’m the kind of girl who works well on one scoop of icecream, but two scoops  kind of puts me over the edge a little. Funny thing: it’s now three hours later and I’m feeling fine.  I can’t say for sure that it has anything to do with the new milk, because the pudding was made with the other stuff, but I am curious.

All in all, I’m considering ths a win.

Week Two In Review

I have to be honest here, and week 2 was a little rough. I stuck to my guns, but went through what I can only refer to as Junk Food Withdrawal.

Everywhere I looked were delicious delectables begging for me to just put them in my mouth.. whispering softly into my ear that nobody was around, nobody but me would know: dessert squares at the coffee shop where I work, cookies at other coffee shops, the mountain of chips and crackers at the front of the grocery store, chocolate bars at tills. Everything with soy lecithin, maltodextrin, and loads of other ingredients I cannot identify (or can identify, but am refusing to eat).

Saturday night I wanted something sweet, so I made brownies. Win for me! I knew all of the ingredients and my taste buds were satisfied.

Sunday also went really well. I got up early for a tubing adventure, had some breakfast at home (where thanks to the great purge all is edible) and had an amazing picnic on the mountain of fruit, Holy Crap cereal, veggies, cracker with avocado and tuna. This was also the first time that I ate tuna from a can. It was the flavoured stuff, with all happy ingredients and it was so yummy that I went out and bought a couple of cans for myself.

Early in the week the cravings set in and I scoured the chip shelves at Whole Foods, reading just about every ingredient out there. I caved. I bought a bag of Ms. Palmer’s Panty Pita Chips, containing: pita bread (flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar), balsamic vinegar, white vinegar, butter, canola oil, sea salt, seasonings, spices. Doesn’t look that bad right? That’s what I thought in my initial “I’m hungry, and I want to eat it” rampage. Here are the problems (yes, more than one..). What kind of flour? What is in the balsamic vinegar? (I will admit that at first I thought this was an innocent ingredient, until Debra mentioned it and I remembered that just a week before I had to get rid of my own balsamic vinegar because of maltodextrin). Same goes for the white vinegar. Does the butter that they used say the words I have come to dread “may contain butter” on the wrapper? I don’t like the fact that canola oil was in there, but that’s another post. Which seasonings and spices did they use? They might as well have put those other dreaded words “natural flavours” on the list.

Tuesday night I made a chicken stir fry over volcano rice, using the stir fry sauce that I picked up at the Farmer’s Market (made with Saskatoon berries, salal berries, blueberries, huckleberries, onion, garlic, carrot, celery, sugar, lemon juice, salt, lime leaves and chili paste – double yum!).

Wednesday I made tacos. Yummy! I still think that I could have rolled my tortillas out a little bit thinner, but I am thrilled with what I got and will be repeating this again.

Thursday and Friday were leftover days and nights, with no fail.

Saturday I attended an event where food was provided. Though others have cooked for me this year (thanks!) this is the first time this year where I ate food that was prepared without first scanning the ingredients. Not to say that the options weren’t very healthy. In fact it all looked amazing and the smell of it made me drool. There were homemade chillies, ciabatta buns, rice, potatoes, salad, and pie for dessert. Unfortunately I had to assume that the beans in the chilli weren’t checked for EDTA and that the tomatoes in it were from cans, not jars, so chilli was out. The salad was predressed, so no go there and though the pie looked fantastic there was no way to tell if it was butter or margarine in the crust, and even if it was butter, if it was colour free. I still had an amazing lunch though of rice, potato, fresh chopped tomato, peas, and green onions. For a light dinner there was soup, buns and fruit salad. I skipped the soup and bun and went for the fruit salad. After wolfing down the first few bites I spotted the tell-tale cherry implying that the salad was the same kind that you get in your lunch when you’re a kid.Thinking that this was probably a cheat, I looked it up on the Dole website. To my happy amazement, the cherry mixed fruit is made with fruit, and packed in 100% juice! Turns out what I thought was a maybe cheat, actually wasn’t. There were also added bananas, grapes and kiwis. Yum!!

After the event we had a delicious veggie stir fry over rice and quinoa too. Considering that it was the first eating out experience of this whole thing, I am quite pleased. It was all healthy, ingredient happy, and now that I look back on it, it was also a vegetarian day (though I will never give up meat entirely, leaning towards more veg and less meat is something that I have been thinking a lot about lately).

That wraps up Week #2!

Two weeks, one cheat: not too bad!

This week I want to make some lefsa. I am sure that I spelled that wrong, but it’s one of my grandmas specialties. It’s actually a lot like a tortilla, but made with mashed potatoes, flour, butter and a pinch of salt, rolled thin and fried on a non-greased pan. What makes it better than a tortilla isn’t just the fact that it’s inspired by Grandma. It’s also incredibly yummy, and very versatile. I like rolling mine and dipping them in butter melted with sugar and cinnamon for something sweet, but they are also good just spread with butter, or when you drizzle lemon juice on them and sprinkle them with sugar.

I also want to try making a fully vegetarian meal, something new and inspired by a recipe off the Vegetarian Times site (which was forwarded to me by a lady at work – Thanks!).

Other highlights of the week include procuring a new top secret thing (I was supposed to procure said top secret thing yesterday, but there was snow and the delivery was cancelled) that will eliminate certain vitamin A palmitate and Vitamin D3 in my everyday life. Don’t worry, I will still be getting vitamin A, though not attached to palm oil derivatives, and my vitamin D will be coming from eggs instead of sheep’s wool. I am also in the works of securing some garden space for the spring, and after a 75$ Whole Foods shopping trip will be looking for a cheaper way to make this food thing work.

Stay tuned folks, and thank for reading!

Taco Night!!!!

Yup. Tonight I had taco’s for dinner.

Usually I pick up the El Del Paso Tako Kit, and that’s that.. just chemically seasoned meat and a hard, salty corn shell, but tonight was a little bit different. Tonight I made EVERYTHING from scratch.

First I made the tortillas (yeah, I made tortillas.. no biggie). I threw together some flour, butter, salt and baking soda (cutting the butter into the dry stuff until it looked like coarse cornmeal), then added about a cup and 4 tablespoons of water. Then it had to sit for 15 minutes before I divided it all up (I made 24), and rolled it into little balls (later to be flattened and rolled out with a rolling pin).

After they were all rolled out (this took some time) I threw them one by one into an ungreased frying pan until they got sort of brown and tortilla-looking. YAY! Next time I think I will try to roll them out a little bit thinner, as the are a tiny bit tough to fold into tacos, but overall I’m considering it a win (and, for the record: they also taste great warm with a little bit of butter).

While the tortillas were being paraded into the pans I started chopping for my salsa. Tomato, red onion and cilantro. Simple, easy and extremely tasty. I have used this one before for easy party dishes, and it’s also really yummy if you add some fresh pineapple. If you are going to whip this one up you should know that while it tastes great right away, it’ even better if you can do it the day before serving it.. it just gives all the juices a chance to mingle a little.

I also squicked some avacado, lime and black pepper for some guacamole. gain, this is a super easy party dish, and even better if you add some finely chopped fresh mango (I know, sounds weird, but trust me on that one).

Then came the meat. I found a recipe online for taco seasoning, but I didn’t have all of the spices, everything else was ready and I didn’t want to have to go out, buy the stuff, then come back.. dinner prep was already approaching the two hour mark and I was getting hungry. So I made do with what I had: chili flakes, cajun spice, paprika, onion powder and garlic powder. In retrospect (actually, as of first bite) I think I put in too much chili flakes, but I am also a bit of a wuss when it comes to spice things.

I assembled it all, paused just long enough to take a photo or two, and wolfed it down. So yummy!!!!!

Two Things That Make Fast Food Worse

I was browsing Facebook this morning after breakfast, and found a link to the Darth Vader Burger (below). Then I did a little more clicking on the CBC site, and found something even more disturbing about Mountain Dew and a current claim about them…

The Burger:

We all know that fast food chains like McD’s have teemed up over the years with companies like Disney, Hotwheels and the like to make eating their food seem fun and exciting. Most of us think to ourselves “That’s unfair! Of course kids will want to eat there. There’s playgrounds and they get toys!”.

Advertising movies through food is also nothing particularly new. Commemorative cups and fun movie-inspired names for food can be interesting, like when 7-11 introduced the Homer Simpson donut (yeah, I ate one).

I was browsing Facebook this morning and saw something that may be taking it a little too far.. Quicks (a fast food company in Belgium and France) has announced their release of the new Darth Vader Burger to mark the release of the 3D  Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.

It’s a burger, almost like any other burger, but with a black bun (not just kind of black.. BLACK black).

When I first saw it, I laughed and thought that it was a funky idea. Then my food brain kicked in. Darth Vader and the Star Wars people are just after an extra buck, and are willing to taint the already terrible fast food burger with loads of food colouring to make it cool, and to help promote their movie. I bake. I’ve decorated cookies. I know how much black food colouring you would have to add to the bread dough to make that bun as black as it is, and trust me, it’s gross. Not to mention that that amount of food colouring is bound to leave that food colouring taste in your newly dyed mouth (even if you do get the good quality colouring, there would still have to be some taste to it).

The person who posted the link to the article (you can read the article for yourself here) posted it with the comment “Finally!!”. It turns my stomach a little to think of the amount of people who will pay for, and ingest, this thing without so much as a thought as to what makes that burger so black…

What about you guys? Would you eat that thing?

The Mountain Dew:

So, a guy in Illinois is suing Pepsi because he said that he found a mouse in his can of Mountain Dew. That in itself it disgusting. Even more so was Pepsi’s resonse: that it wouldn’t be possible to find a mouse in your can of Mountain Dew because the acids in the pop would have dissolved it.

Yeah… I kinda threw up a little in my mouth over that one too… not “we are a mouse free environment” or anything like that.. they claim that their pop has so much acid in it that it will dissolve AN ENTIRE MOUSE, and they still want you to drink the stuff.

The article (which can be read here) goes on to talk about what is in Mountain Dew, and whether scientists believe that it could really dissolve a mouse or not. I recommend reading it (it’s stuff like this that is going to keep me on track this year), but maybe don’t eat first, and definitely don’t read while drinking a soda.

Why Is This In My Food?: Vitamin A Palmitate and Vitamin D3 in Milk

I am in serious ramp up mode for the new year and on a recent grocery shop tried to buy 2% milk with no additives. Good luck if you try!

Even the organic milks (yes, I’ve started to make the switch, at least with milk, bananas and apples) had Vitamin A Palmitate and Vitamin D3 in them. I bought the milk, and sent myself a text reminding myself to investigate.

I Wikipediad Vitamin A Palmitate, and after clicking on three or four more links to try to decipher all of the science talk, this is what I came up with: Vitamin A palmitate (also known as Retinyl palmitate) is added to low-fat milk products to make up for the vitamin A lost in fat reduction, and also acts as an antioxidant. Palmitate is attached to retinol (part of Vitamin A) to make the vitamin stable in milk. Palmitate is a major part of palm oil, and you get it by treating palm oil/ fats with really, really hot water (more than 200 degrees celsius) and distilling the whole thing. The World Health Organization puts palmitate in the same grouping as trans fatty acids, and say there is “convincing” evidence that consuming palmitic acids increases the risk of cardiovascular disease (although there were no direct links in the study between the intake of palmitate and patient outcome). Hmmmm… interesting, and kind of confusing.

If I boil that all down into words that even I can understand (and I may have this wrong) they take the natural fat out of milk, and the vitamin A goes with it, so they take new vitamin A, mash it together with an acid from palm oil to make it bind better and put it back in the milk.

Then I Wikipediad Vitamin D3: This was even more confusing than the vitamin A thing.. As milk doesn’t naturally have any vitamin D* it’s not like they add it to make up for something they lost. Vitamin D3 helps with calcium absorption. Your body can produce it’s own vitamin D3 from the sun, but the stuff in milk is ” produced industrially by the irradiation of 7-dehydrocholesterol extracted from lanolin found in sheep’s wool.” I am wearing my giant wool sweater while looking and typing all of this up, and that somehow strikes me as funny. I read somewhere else (but didn’t book mark the page and have lost it), that it can also be somehow extracted from fish.

I also found out on the Wikipedia page that “Vitamin D might support the emergence of allergies and adulterate already existing allergies and autoimmune diseases”. You can read for yourself by clicking the link at the beginning of the previous paragraph. This makes me wonder if the fact that so many people are now allergic to something (peanuts, dairy, wheat, etc) has something to do with the fact that we are messing with our food. I’m sure it does, but I also think there’s more to it than just the vitamin D3 in milk.

 

I am really starting to realize that I have opened Pandora’s grocery bag.  My options as far as milk goes are these:

1) I can completely strop drinking milk. I really don’t drink a lot of it anyway, but really enjoy milk with my hot chocolate and some baking just plain needs it (oatmeal cookies are very hard to make chewy unless you add about a tablespoon of the stuff).

2) I can accept that there is milk, palm oil derivatives, and things sucked out of sheep’s wool in my milk and live with it.

3) I can compromise. I looked at the Dairyland website, and their homogenized milk has no added vitamin A palmitate as enough of the natural fat and vitamin A are still in there. It still contains the vitamin D3 though (by law Canadian milk has to be fortified with vitamin D).

I’m thinking option #3

All is not depressing and über scientific though! I thought that I was doing a great thing for myself by switching to the expensive organic stuff to try to avoid hormones and antibiotics. As it turns out, Canada has strict regulations as far as this is concerned. Even normal (cheaper) milk is not allowed to contain growth hormones or antibiotics. If a cow is sick and is given antibiotics it must have a “withdrawal” period in which it’s milk is not used for human consumption. In the case of organic milk, that cow is never allowed to produce milk for human consumption again. This means that I can look up which milk producers treat their animals the nicest and go from there, organic or not.

 

*Many sites that I visited say that milk does not naturally contain Vitamin D, although the Dairyland website says that it does,and, like the vitamin A, it is reduced during processing. Because I am not a scientist, I am trusting the nutritionists websites over the one that sells the milk.. again I could be wrong.