Yay, it is Thursday, wonderful Thursday, over the hump, and through the woods! And this weekend is a three-day weekend, all the more reason to celebrate! Yes, I've been bad this week, haven't kept up on my blogs, but the eating has been good. Not always the most creative, but survivable. Here's a quick summary...
Sunday, I made my pumpkin bread, at long last! I should have omitted the water the recipe called for, since the pumpkin I roasted still held a lot of water, much more than most canned varieties. But, the bread ended up quite moist, still held together, and it was quite delicious. I played a mean trick on Hubby - when after a day at the office, he came home, he said, wow, the house smells great! What is it that I'm cooking? To which, I replied, oh nothing, I just sprayed the house down with air freshener. Ha! He wasn't fooled, not for a second. But, seriously, the pumpkin bread was baking in the oven (2 loaves), and I had the left-over vegetable soup from the previous weekend cooking on the stove, with some sliced chicken breast in it, along with some pasta, for home-made chicken noodle soup.
Monday - breakfast was a slice of my yummy pumpkin bread, had a wonderful egg salad and OJ for lunch. Dinnertime rolled around with baked salmon on pasta with cream sauce. The cream sauce - ach, what a saga! I started it off with an olive-oil roux (equal parts olive oil, heated, with flour), and then tempered some cream before adding in the cream off the heat. My big mistake was to violate my own rule: I salted the sauce in the beginning. HUGE mistake! Sure enough, with some evaporation of the sauce as I was heating it, the sauce was much too salty, and I also salted the pasta water. Luckily, I left the salmon mostly unseasoned, so it helped to balance the pasta - but we had to couple one with the other in each bite. Bleaaach!
Tuesday - breakfast was a slice of my pumpkin bread, had a gyro for lunch, in between meetings; and after my evening yoga, got together with my good friend Jenelle for a quick bite at a bakery around the corner, for some peach smoothie and a basil/mozzarella/tomato sandwich.
Wednesday - I had cereal for breakfast, and I couldn't stay away from the gyro at lunchtime. Dinner I baked up a frozen organic pizza with a side of salad.
Tonight, Hubby starts his teaching engagement at a local university, so I am left to my devices (wha ha ha ha ha ha!). I gave it extensive thought this morning, that I would be able to have my beloved Ethiopian food, but I decided there would be future opportunities for when I'm REALLY craving it. So, I've got a steak defrosting in the refrigerator, and I plan to enjoy it with a baked potato.
Until tomorrow!
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Breakdown Saturday
This time of year is bittersweet, as days begin their shortening trend and as the air begins a turn towards cooler temperatures – or, at least, in theory. The day really was not any cooler than any other day, and the only sign that perhaps the belly of this summer has passed is the fact that the humidity has dropped minutely. With the awakening of the morning, I headed off, without much ado, to our local farmers’ market early in the morning to inspect the available wares available. I picked up a batch of what would probably be the last of the apricots for the year, a couple of peppers, a couple of raisin rolls, and a jar of local wildflower honey. My wonderful neighbor with her sweet dog greeted me, upon my departure from the stands – so I stopped to catch up with her and to chat with some of our fellow neighbors.
Some lamentations of the mosquito problems, neighborhood squirrel populations decimating our tomato crops, and expressions of equal amazement at the farmer-squirrel volunteers in setting to plant some corn and pumpkins in various yards around the neighborhood later, we arrived back at our doorstep to end our neighbor-exchange morning. I brought in the trophies of my gathering expedition, and started off my morning at home.
Breakfast wasn’t all too different from normal – thanks to my good friend who brought me some crispy Indian snacks, I’ve been downing our plain yogurt like it’s going out of fashion. I enjoy making a mixture, to which both she and Hubby raise an eyebrow: some plain yogurt, mixed with an equal part of the crispy spicy Indian snacks, for this wonderful sour, salty, spicy, sweet mix. Hey, I like it, and I’m getting calcium – it’s not bad, really! And the prenatal vitamin I tried this morning sat well with me throughout the day, thanks in part to the cover the yogurt gave it – so that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!
I brought in our pumpkin from our yard, an early pumpkin, and decided that I would make pumpkin bread. I also partook in one of the raisin rolls – yum! Except… and this is where the day took a down turn. I had other errands to run, and Hubby had some work to do at the office, so off we went. Some bike gear to pick up and return, and some cooking utensils to get, and some groceries to pick up. The trip to the grocery store started out innocently enough, and I even ate an apple beforehand to make sure I didn’t completely take everything off the shelves. I started through the vegetables, as I usually do, worked my way through the meats, and ended up in the dairy case – and typically, from there, I start heading back out. At the end of the dairy case, however, was the frozen food section. I thought to myself, you know, I haven’t gone through and taken a look at this stuff in a while, and hmm, I wonder if we need some ice cream. Before I knew it, I was salivating like some rabid raccoon in the appetizers section of the freezers, darting back and forth between the pierogis, mini cheeseburgers, mini pizza bagels, potato knishes, latkes, and spanakopitas. Someone walking by may have assumed that I was hosting a cocktail party – and all I wanted to do was to down a box of whatever it was that I could get my hands on. In the end, some level of reason did win over my rabid mind, and I picked up a bag of latkes, a box of mini cheeseburgers, and a box of mini soy-cheese pizza bites. And with those treats in hand, I picked up one last item, unsweetened applesauce to enjoy with the latkes, and I made my way to the register and surrendered my credit card to the cashier before I could do more damage.
Upon my return home, while I stashed everything into the fridge and freezer, I had 2 little latkes toasting in the oven, and a plate with applesauce and sour cream all ready to go. The latkes - ach, they were all right, and I have to say, I have made better, with at least some seasoning. But, they did satisfy my snack tooth this afternoon, and the applesauce was phenomenal - no sugar, no high fructose corn syrup, no artificial sweetener. This bite was just enough to carry me over into the dinner portion of the day.
Chicken Thighs w/Swiss Chard
Defrosted 2 chicken thighs, and I sliced up some Swiss chard. I stuffed the Swiss chard under the skin of the thigh, and coated each piece with pre-made Chimichurri sauce (it’s a sour salty sauce). Simple enough… baked for 40 minutes, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hubby, not as much to his liking, but he did very much like…
Cheesy Rice Bake with Broccoli
As I was wandering my way through the supermarket this afternoon, I thought up some ideas. One that popped into my head, and you’ll laugh at this, is a dish that I enjoyed via our dining halls back in school. Edible food from the dining halls? Yes, this was one of those few dishes I actually enjoyed. It was a simple casserole bake, probably with left over rice, left over broccoli, and no doubt left over cheese.
My variation – and I apologize for not including specific amounts, but as with most of my cooking, in contrast to baking mind you, I leave measuring cups and measuring spoons in the drawer where they belong. I used some left over brown rice, to which I added some heavy cream and shredded cheddar cheese. I cut up a small head of broccoli for the crowns, and stirred it in. The mixture is pretty dry, but the cream does lightly coat the rice. This mixture, I tossed into the oven for the last 15 minutes of baking, and it really was very good. Left over brown rice now has a new purpose, outside of my usual dirty rice recipe!
So that was my day, a minor breakdown in the freezer aisle of our local supermarket, but otherwise, relatively damage-free. The pumpkin has been split, awaiting baking tomorrow morning before carving out for the bread, and I even have some pumpkin seeds waiting for toasting. I had some fruit cups that we purchased a while ago, and I thought up a great way to enjoy them without as much of the sugar syrup – I made some unflavored gelatin, and poured it into a mold with 2 of the small cups of fruits. Another snack in place, albeit a shorter-living one than those in the freezer, but another snack nonetheless. Now, if I can just keep this up, I’ll have snacks left and right – and hopefully healthy ones – when that ravaging rabid time raises its ugly head again!
Some lamentations of the mosquito problems, neighborhood squirrel populations decimating our tomato crops, and expressions of equal amazement at the farmer-squirrel volunteers in setting to plant some corn and pumpkins in various yards around the neighborhood later, we arrived back at our doorstep to end our neighbor-exchange morning. I brought in the trophies of my gathering expedition, and started off my morning at home.
Breakfast wasn’t all too different from normal – thanks to my good friend who brought me some crispy Indian snacks, I’ve been downing our plain yogurt like it’s going out of fashion. I enjoy making a mixture, to which both she and Hubby raise an eyebrow: some plain yogurt, mixed with an equal part of the crispy spicy Indian snacks, for this wonderful sour, salty, spicy, sweet mix. Hey, I like it, and I’m getting calcium – it’s not bad, really! And the prenatal vitamin I tried this morning sat well with me throughout the day, thanks in part to the cover the yogurt gave it – so that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!
I brought in our pumpkin from our yard, an early pumpkin, and decided that I would make pumpkin bread. I also partook in one of the raisin rolls – yum! Except… and this is where the day took a down turn. I had other errands to run, and Hubby had some work to do at the office, so off we went. Some bike gear to pick up and return, and some cooking utensils to get, and some groceries to pick up. The trip to the grocery store started out innocently enough, and I even ate an apple beforehand to make sure I didn’t completely take everything off the shelves. I started through the vegetables, as I usually do, worked my way through the meats, and ended up in the dairy case – and typically, from there, I start heading back out. At the end of the dairy case, however, was the frozen food section. I thought to myself, you know, I haven’t gone through and taken a look at this stuff in a while, and hmm, I wonder if we need some ice cream. Before I knew it, I was salivating like some rabid raccoon in the appetizers section of the freezers, darting back and forth between the pierogis, mini cheeseburgers, mini pizza bagels, potato knishes, latkes, and spanakopitas. Someone walking by may have assumed that I was hosting a cocktail party – and all I wanted to do was to down a box of whatever it was that I could get my hands on. In the end, some level of reason did win over my rabid mind, and I picked up a bag of latkes, a box of mini cheeseburgers, and a box of mini soy-cheese pizza bites. And with those treats in hand, I picked up one last item, unsweetened applesauce to enjoy with the latkes, and I made my way to the register and surrendered my credit card to the cashier before I could do more damage.
Upon my return home, while I stashed everything into the fridge and freezer, I had 2 little latkes toasting in the oven, and a plate with applesauce and sour cream all ready to go. The latkes - ach, they were all right, and I have to say, I have made better, with at least some seasoning. But, they did satisfy my snack tooth this afternoon, and the applesauce was phenomenal - no sugar, no high fructose corn syrup, no artificial sweetener. This bite was just enough to carry me over into the dinner portion of the day.
Chicken Thighs w/Swiss Chard
Defrosted 2 chicken thighs, and I sliced up some Swiss chard. I stuffed the Swiss chard under the skin of the thigh, and coated each piece with pre-made Chimichurri sauce (it’s a sour salty sauce). Simple enough… baked for 40 minutes, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hubby, not as much to his liking, but he did very much like…
Cheesy Rice Bake with Broccoli
As I was wandering my way through the supermarket this afternoon, I thought up some ideas. One that popped into my head, and you’ll laugh at this, is a dish that I enjoyed via our dining halls back in school. Edible food from the dining halls? Yes, this was one of those few dishes I actually enjoyed. It was a simple casserole bake, probably with left over rice, left over broccoli, and no doubt left over cheese.
My variation – and I apologize for not including specific amounts, but as with most of my cooking, in contrast to baking mind you, I leave measuring cups and measuring spoons in the drawer where they belong. I used some left over brown rice, to which I added some heavy cream and shredded cheddar cheese. I cut up a small head of broccoli for the crowns, and stirred it in. The mixture is pretty dry, but the cream does lightly coat the rice. This mixture, I tossed into the oven for the last 15 minutes of baking, and it really was very good. Left over brown rice now has a new purpose, outside of my usual dirty rice recipe!
So that was my day, a minor breakdown in the freezer aisle of our local supermarket, but otherwise, relatively damage-free. The pumpkin has been split, awaiting baking tomorrow morning before carving out for the bread, and I even have some pumpkin seeds waiting for toasting. I had some fruit cups that we purchased a while ago, and I thought up a great way to enjoy them without as much of the sugar syrup – I made some unflavored gelatin, and poured it into a mold with 2 of the small cups of fruits. Another snack in place, albeit a shorter-living one than those in the freezer, but another snack nonetheless. Now, if I can just keep this up, I’ll have snacks left and right – and hopefully healthy ones – when that ravaging rabid time raises its ugly head again!
Friday, August 25, 2006
An end to a tumultuous week!
Wow - it's been quite a while since my last post. Not that much happened this week - work was pretty much the same, except that I had the exceptional joy of having to haul my ass down to the permit office because our expediter isn't doing his job in getting the permits for our projects. While I welcomed the *somewhat* different scenery, the fact was I was getting stuck at a place, doing someone else's job, and my own projects were suffering because of my displacement. In the end though, I did get a permit for a project we had submitted back in May (yes, that long ago!), which the permit office had the opportunity to misplace; and to which we had to resubmit into the whole belaboured process yet again. But the work was done - and mind you, I'm not getting paid any more than my regular salary for this additional work!
With that said, this week was not too eventful foodwise. After movie Monday, Tuesday was pretty quiet, and the cooking was relatively basic - I baked a couple of my potato lumpia snacks, and I made some pav bhaji. OK, I cheated - it was a pre-made pav bhaji, which I just heated up in a small pot and served with some toasted potato rolls and naan - but it was pav bhaji nonetheless. The flavor was OK - it was much more tomato-ey than I prefer, but it was still spicy and tasty. If you'd like to try making it...
Pav Bhaji
Potatoes - boil them, and then peal them, preferably baking potatoes since these mash better. Then, yes, mash them up, and set them aside while sauteeing some finely minced garlic and ginger, and chopped onions in a wide pan, in some butter (basic proportion of 2x potatoes to 1x onions and 1/8x garlic/ginger). Saute until the onions are translucent, and then add in some tomatoes (about proportionate to the onions). You can also add some carrots and peas if you'd like. Add in your potatoes . Sprinkle on some pav bhaji masala (I just purchase this at our local Indian grocer, and you can also order it via the web) - or, if you'd like to make your own -
Toast in a hot skillet equal parts red chili and coriander seads; half the first measurements of cumin seads, black pepper, cinnamon, dry mango powder, and cloves; and some black cardamom seeds and fennel seeds (about half the second proportion each). Once all spices are fragrant, remove from heat and let cool. Grind to a fine powder this mixture of spices, and mix in some tumeric, about the same amount as the measurement of either the cardamom or fennel seeds.
Once you're tossed the pav bhaji masala into your mixture, stir in until well mixed. Cover, and simmer the mixture for about 15-20 minutes - take care not to let all the liquid evaporate. Add in a pat of butter, a squeeze of lemon, and some salt to taste. I also sprinkle on some cilantro leaves shortly before serving - and once you're ready to serve, toast some bread, brush on a bit of butter, and eat away! It is such a delicious dish, and relatively easy to make.
So that was Tuesday - Wednesday brought a concert in the evening, and Thursday, I heated up some of the left-over vegetable soup with some sauteed chicken breast, which I served with noodles. And this evening, we went to our local Mexican restaurant for some really good grub.
What's online for this weekend? It seems that I do have cravings, but weekly, not hourly or daily. There were a couple of weeks when I craved tomatoes, so I would eat them whole, like fruit, as one of my daily snacks. Then, of course, there was that famous chocolate cake infatuation (to which I did satisfy with a small sample of some chocolate cake with chocolate ganache at a local bakery this week). I did have a palate for sour flavors, though these aren't too far out of my usual palate given that I love lemon honey water during the summer, and I've had ongoing cravings for Ethiopian food (and specifically injera) since I can't even remember when. This past week, it seems that my body was asking for Vitamin C, so it was OJ on a daily basis. So, back to this weekend... most likely, I'll be satisfying a taste for coconut, initiated today with a walk past a local bakery which whips up the most amazing coconut muffins I've ever tasted; as well as by a virgin pina colada this evening with dinner. Perhaps I will be making some coconut muffins for the week. And at the pleading request of Hubby, I will not substitute any portion of the recipe's flour with wheat flour, lest we end up, again, with a bunch of baked goods sent out the way to the local raccoons. To their joy, to my chagrin.
With that said, this week was not too eventful foodwise. After movie Monday, Tuesday was pretty quiet, and the cooking was relatively basic - I baked a couple of my potato lumpia snacks, and I made some pav bhaji. OK, I cheated - it was a pre-made pav bhaji, which I just heated up in a small pot and served with some toasted potato rolls and naan - but it was pav bhaji nonetheless. The flavor was OK - it was much more tomato-ey than I prefer, but it was still spicy and tasty. If you'd like to try making it...
Pav Bhaji
Potatoes - boil them, and then peal them, preferably baking potatoes since these mash better. Then, yes, mash them up, and set them aside while sauteeing some finely minced garlic and ginger, and chopped onions in a wide pan, in some butter (basic proportion of 2x potatoes to 1x onions and 1/8x garlic/ginger). Saute until the onions are translucent, and then add in some tomatoes (about proportionate to the onions). You can also add some carrots and peas if you'd like. Add in your potatoes . Sprinkle on some pav bhaji masala (I just purchase this at our local Indian grocer, and you can also order it via the web) - or, if you'd like to make your own -
Toast in a hot skillet equal parts red chili and coriander seads; half the first measurements of cumin seads, black pepper, cinnamon, dry mango powder, and cloves; and some black cardamom seeds and fennel seeds (about half the second proportion each). Once all spices are fragrant, remove from heat and let cool. Grind to a fine powder this mixture of spices, and mix in some tumeric, about the same amount as the measurement of either the cardamom or fennel seeds.
Once you're tossed the pav bhaji masala into your mixture, stir in until well mixed. Cover, and simmer the mixture for about 15-20 minutes - take care not to let all the liquid evaporate. Add in a pat of butter, a squeeze of lemon, and some salt to taste. I also sprinkle on some cilantro leaves shortly before serving - and once you're ready to serve, toast some bread, brush on a bit of butter, and eat away! It is such a delicious dish, and relatively easy to make.
So that was Tuesday - Wednesday brought a concert in the evening, and Thursday, I heated up some of the left-over vegetable soup with some sauteed chicken breast, which I served with noodles. And this evening, we went to our local Mexican restaurant for some really good grub.
What's online for this weekend? It seems that I do have cravings, but weekly, not hourly or daily. There were a couple of weeks when I craved tomatoes, so I would eat them whole, like fruit, as one of my daily snacks. Then, of course, there was that famous chocolate cake infatuation (to which I did satisfy with a small sample of some chocolate cake with chocolate ganache at a local bakery this week). I did have a palate for sour flavors, though these aren't too far out of my usual palate given that I love lemon honey water during the summer, and I've had ongoing cravings for Ethiopian food (and specifically injera) since I can't even remember when. This past week, it seems that my body was asking for Vitamin C, so it was OJ on a daily basis. So, back to this weekend... most likely, I'll be satisfying a taste for coconut, initiated today with a walk past a local bakery which whips up the most amazing coconut muffins I've ever tasted; as well as by a virgin pina colada this evening with dinner. Perhaps I will be making some coconut muffins for the week. And at the pleading request of Hubby, I will not substitute any portion of the recipe's flour with wheat flour, lest we end up, again, with a bunch of baked goods sent out the way to the local raccoons. To their joy, to my chagrin.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Movie Monday
My oatmeal cookies came out all right last night - actually, I had dreamt last night, that they were way too salty. They *luckily* weren't, but they also didn't end up as soft and gooey as I would have liked - but alas, they are oatmeal cookies nonetheless, and I'll enjoy them for this week. Today coughed up to be a day I didn't quite expect, as I found myself as the support for a friend in need - more for just a listening ear than for any physical help. We discussed some of her worries over lunch, though I did bring some left-over pizza and wings (probably better that I had a lunch different from what I packed) - enjoyed three wonderful tea sandwiches with some mineral water and a fruit tart, and rediscovered my love of egg salad. Dinner, I had a slice of pizza with chips on top. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you read that right: I put potato chips on top of my pizza. Call it a whim, call it a fancy, it was a habit I picked up from fellow kids in my grade school days, and the habit hasn't left me. Hubby never ceases to ask that I refrain from eating like a 12 year old; but, then I remind him, he doesn't look a day over 13, to justify my regression. So HA!
Not the best food day, but I did complement my meals with my usual assortment of fruits - donut peach, pluot, cherries - and I brought today one of my oatmeal cookies. Funny, it didn't taste as salty as it did in my dream...
Not the best food day, but I did complement my meals with my usual assortment of fruits - donut peach, pluot, cherries - and I brought today one of my oatmeal cookies. Funny, it didn't taste as salty as it did in my dream...
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Surprise visit for the weekend!
So on Friday, I got a quick email exchange with a friend of mine from out of town, who had some extra time on her hands. Would I have time to hang out? This weekend wasn't packed full, so we opened our doors to our impromptu visitor. It's been quite a while since I've seen her or talked with her, so it was an excellent opportunity to be able to do both. We had a very quick touch-base conversation Friday night to nail down her ETA - and during the course of the conversation, she asked the magic question. She and her mother were on their way to an Indian store, and would I be in need of anything? Can I tell you the glee I felt with that question? Really, if anyone wanted to see me jumping up and down for joy, Friday night when she asked me this really was it! Granted, perhaps I shouldn't have been doing it while whielding a chef's knife in one hand and Chinese cabbage in the other; but hey, the beauty of speakerphones really do free up those hands for other tasks. My requests: a small pack of garam masala (which she brought but I was floored at how big it was!), and some Indian snacks (so wonderfully enjoyed with some plain yogurt.
After my Saturday morning volunteer stint at a local kitchen to help prepare meals for delivery to home-bound terminally ill residents in our metropolitan area, I picked up (and this is bad) a quick fast food meal. Yes, it was a bad move - but it was so close to the kitchen, and I had (another bad decision) skipped breakfast in getting my butt down to volunteer as quickly as I could. A cheeseburger, orange juice, and some fries later, I was on my way home, and I called Hubby to see if he would like a fast food treat all the same? Another bad decision, but boy, they taste so good. So the answer was yes - another stop on the way home to pick up the same meal for him, but with vanilla milkshakes, and I think I really hit my fast-food limit for this month. Feeling bloated, stuffed, and fit to be Thanksgiving turkey, I hit the road again to go pick up my friend, Sonali, from the train station. Lots of hugs later, we were on our way back - poor girl had not yet had lunch, and it being almost three o'clock, she was starving. A quick stop at a local diner yielded a veggie sub for her, and cereal with banana for me (trying to be good and not leave her eating solo). And then, we were off to get some groceries for the dinner menu.
She's a veggie, so while laying in bed Friday night, I started thinking up all the possibilities. One dish she definitely requested was some stir-fried broccoli. The Chinese really do it best - a quick saute yields crispy, bright green, lush, and flavorful broccoli, not the soggy, dead green variety often found in those pre-packaged frozen containers. I really do wonder sometimes - the food I've seen as "stereotypical examples" of American cooking, it really is no wonder children refuse to eat their vegetables. With vegetables left limp, lifeless, and tasteless, I wouldn't touch that stuff with a ten foot pole, much less force any child to like or eat it. So the broccoli dish was a definite, and, given that I had never, in the 14 years I've known her, prepared a Chinese meal for her, I figured to do just that Saturday night. So off we hopped to the local organic market, to pick up some vegetables and tofu, and to home we headed to start preparations for our dinner.
A quick note - some snacks in the afternoon of watermelon, and the late lunch we had ended up packing our stomachs quite full for dinner. Much pity to yield, then, to hungry Hubby who had only the fast food burger for lunch, and that we didn't finish cooking until almost 10! With this meal, we had brown basmati rice as the main starch.
Salad
OK, on this, I cheated. I didn't make my own dressing - we used a premade ginger dressing, but it worked just as well. Mixed dark leafy greens, with a side of beet matchsticks - the sweetness of the ginger dressing with the beets can't be beat. (thank you, thank you, please tip your wonderful waitstaff.)
Stir-fried Broccoli
It seems so simple, but just a minute too long would leave you with broccoli limp enough to compete with spaghetti. We chopped up some garlic, and both of us girls garlic lovers, we cut in about 3 cloves of garlic with one stalk of broccoli. Pealed and sliced the broccoli, and heated up the pan. A tablespoon of olive oil, dropped in the garlic until fragrant, and the broccoli went into the pan, with about a 1/4 cup of water to steam. Covered the pan, for 2 minutes - the broccoli came out vibrant green and still crisp. 3 minutes may be better to just soften it a bit. A dash of salt at the end - I've taken to adding salt at the end so that, in the case of liquid evaporation, we're not left with the Dead Sea as the main course.
Gluten rolls with Vegetables
Typically, my mother would have made this dish with a variety of vegetables. Variation tonight, since we had many other vegetable dishes, and I didn't want to repeat a veggie in one dish or another, so for this dish, we only had sliced carrots. So, gluten rolls - they're an interesting item, found typically in Asian grocery stores in the freezer case. It's just flour and water, rolled into layers. When put in a stir-fry dish, they substitute meat fairly well, though the texture does not pretend to be meat at any level. So for this dish - we stir fried the carrots in a tablespoon of oil first, then tossed in the gluten rolls, sliced, with some slivers of ginger. A quick stir fry, a little salt and pepper at the end, and the dish is done.
Tofu with Mushrooms
For this dish - I would suggest getting the largest pan possible, so that all the slices of tofu would have contact with the pan. You'll need about 3 tablespoons of oil, since the tofu seems to soak it up pretty quickly; and you want to make sure to get a nice crust on the tofu. During the afternoon, we soaked 2 Chinese mushrooms to reconstitute, and sliced up the tofu into 1x1 squares. Heated up the oil in the pan, and laid the tofu onto the oil. Without use of a non-stick pan, I have yet to be able to get it to not stick to stainless steel pans (having read about the hazards of non-stick in high-temperature situations, I've stayed away from using pans with non-stick coating). So alas, yes, the tofu did stick, but I was able to get just a bit of crust on the slices. Took them out of the pan, and tossed in the mushrooms with some 1" pieces of scallion. Stir fried this mixture with about 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, and once heated and fragrant, I tossed the tofu back in, with a small mixture of corn starch and water as a thickening agent. This cooked for the duration of our enjoyment of the salad course, which took about 10 minutes.
Soup
Simple soup, though it took a couple of steps. I made a vegetarian stock, with leeks, onions, carrots, criminis, and a Chinese mushroom. This stock simmered for about 3 hours while we did the rest of our veggie prep. Strained out the stock and then added in some chopped cabbage, diced tomatoes, and chopped spinach. Brought this mixture to a simmer, enough to let the leafed veggies soften and to give up some of their water content. Then, I added some sea salt and some white pepper to taste, and took this soup off the stove. Its residual heat did the rest of the cooking, and the soup, though we were too full to be able to have full bowls of it, really was very tasty. I'm looking forward to enjoying this soup some more come this week, once it's had a chance to let the flavors meld (a la Dad's chicken soup).
So that was it for our cooking weekend! It was a load of fun to have a good friend come into town, to hang out, and share in the joy of our newfound little news, and to be able to cook together and catch up. Sharing time in the kitchen with our friends is one of the ways I always remember home life growing up; and I don't think it's changed much. My girlfriends here still ask when I will have another dumpling wrapping party, and our most wonderful exchanges with friends and family have been in the kitchen, whether ours or others'. When you're working with a medium as flexible and forgiving as food, what's not to dream and create?
OK - I've got some oatmeal cookies waiting for my hands - a continuation of my firm desire to just make the things I want to eat, instead of going out and buying them. If I put some effort into it, at the least, I'll know what I'm eating, and I will appreciate it more. Now about that chocolate cake....!
After my Saturday morning volunteer stint at a local kitchen to help prepare meals for delivery to home-bound terminally ill residents in our metropolitan area, I picked up (and this is bad) a quick fast food meal. Yes, it was a bad move - but it was so close to the kitchen, and I had (another bad decision) skipped breakfast in getting my butt down to volunteer as quickly as I could. A cheeseburger, orange juice, and some fries later, I was on my way home, and I called Hubby to see if he would like a fast food treat all the same? Another bad decision, but boy, they taste so good. So the answer was yes - another stop on the way home to pick up the same meal for him, but with vanilla milkshakes, and I think I really hit my fast-food limit for this month. Feeling bloated, stuffed, and fit to be Thanksgiving turkey, I hit the road again to go pick up my friend, Sonali, from the train station. Lots of hugs later, we were on our way back - poor girl had not yet had lunch, and it being almost three o'clock, she was starving. A quick stop at a local diner yielded a veggie sub for her, and cereal with banana for me (trying to be good and not leave her eating solo). And then, we were off to get some groceries for the dinner menu.
She's a veggie, so while laying in bed Friday night, I started thinking up all the possibilities. One dish she definitely requested was some stir-fried broccoli. The Chinese really do it best - a quick saute yields crispy, bright green, lush, and flavorful broccoli, not the soggy, dead green variety often found in those pre-packaged frozen containers. I really do wonder sometimes - the food I've seen as "stereotypical examples" of American cooking, it really is no wonder children refuse to eat their vegetables. With vegetables left limp, lifeless, and tasteless, I wouldn't touch that stuff with a ten foot pole, much less force any child to like or eat it. So the broccoli dish was a definite, and, given that I had never, in the 14 years I've known her, prepared a Chinese meal for her, I figured to do just that Saturday night. So off we hopped to the local organic market, to pick up some vegetables and tofu, and to home we headed to start preparations for our dinner.
A quick note - some snacks in the afternoon of watermelon, and the late lunch we had ended up packing our stomachs quite full for dinner. Much pity to yield, then, to hungry Hubby who had only the fast food burger for lunch, and that we didn't finish cooking until almost 10! With this meal, we had brown basmati rice as the main starch.
Salad
OK, on this, I cheated. I didn't make my own dressing - we used a premade ginger dressing, but it worked just as well. Mixed dark leafy greens, with a side of beet matchsticks - the sweetness of the ginger dressing with the beets can't be beat. (thank you, thank you, please tip your wonderful waitstaff.)
Stir-fried Broccoli
It seems so simple, but just a minute too long would leave you with broccoli limp enough to compete with spaghetti. We chopped up some garlic, and both of us girls garlic lovers, we cut in about 3 cloves of garlic with one stalk of broccoli. Pealed and sliced the broccoli, and heated up the pan. A tablespoon of olive oil, dropped in the garlic until fragrant, and the broccoli went into the pan, with about a 1/4 cup of water to steam. Covered the pan, for 2 minutes - the broccoli came out vibrant green and still crisp. 3 minutes may be better to just soften it a bit. A dash of salt at the end - I've taken to adding salt at the end so that, in the case of liquid evaporation, we're not left with the Dead Sea as the main course.
Gluten rolls with Vegetables
Typically, my mother would have made this dish with a variety of vegetables. Variation tonight, since we had many other vegetable dishes, and I didn't want to repeat a veggie in one dish or another, so for this dish, we only had sliced carrots. So, gluten rolls - they're an interesting item, found typically in Asian grocery stores in the freezer case. It's just flour and water, rolled into layers. When put in a stir-fry dish, they substitute meat fairly well, though the texture does not pretend to be meat at any level. So for this dish - we stir fried the carrots in a tablespoon of oil first, then tossed in the gluten rolls, sliced, with some slivers of ginger. A quick stir fry, a little salt and pepper at the end, and the dish is done.
Tofu with Mushrooms
For this dish - I would suggest getting the largest pan possible, so that all the slices of tofu would have contact with the pan. You'll need about 3 tablespoons of oil, since the tofu seems to soak it up pretty quickly; and you want to make sure to get a nice crust on the tofu. During the afternoon, we soaked 2 Chinese mushrooms to reconstitute, and sliced up the tofu into 1x1 squares. Heated up the oil in the pan, and laid the tofu onto the oil. Without use of a non-stick pan, I have yet to be able to get it to not stick to stainless steel pans (having read about the hazards of non-stick in high-temperature situations, I've stayed away from using pans with non-stick coating). So alas, yes, the tofu did stick, but I was able to get just a bit of crust on the slices. Took them out of the pan, and tossed in the mushrooms with some 1" pieces of scallion. Stir fried this mixture with about 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, and once heated and fragrant, I tossed the tofu back in, with a small mixture of corn starch and water as a thickening agent. This cooked for the duration of our enjoyment of the salad course, which took about 10 minutes.
Soup
Simple soup, though it took a couple of steps. I made a vegetarian stock, with leeks, onions, carrots, criminis, and a Chinese mushroom. This stock simmered for about 3 hours while we did the rest of our veggie prep. Strained out the stock and then added in some chopped cabbage, diced tomatoes, and chopped spinach. Brought this mixture to a simmer, enough to let the leafed veggies soften and to give up some of their water content. Then, I added some sea salt and some white pepper to taste, and took this soup off the stove. Its residual heat did the rest of the cooking, and the soup, though we were too full to be able to have full bowls of it, really was very tasty. I'm looking forward to enjoying this soup some more come this week, once it's had a chance to let the flavors meld (a la Dad's chicken soup).
So that was it for our cooking weekend! It was a load of fun to have a good friend come into town, to hang out, and share in the joy of our newfound little news, and to be able to cook together and catch up. Sharing time in the kitchen with our friends is one of the ways I always remember home life growing up; and I don't think it's changed much. My girlfriends here still ask when I will have another dumpling wrapping party, and our most wonderful exchanges with friends and family have been in the kitchen, whether ours or others'. When you're working with a medium as flexible and forgiving as food, what's not to dream and create?
OK - I've got some oatmeal cookies waiting for my hands - a continuation of my firm desire to just make the things I want to eat, instead of going out and buying them. If I put some effort into it, at the least, I'll know what I'm eating, and I will appreciate it more. Now about that chocolate cake....!
Friday, August 18, 2006
End of the week
Yeah OK, so I got a little lazy. The past 2 days, not much cooking in the house, and a lot more eating out. Not the best option, but still just as tasty. Wednesday entailed an evening out with the ladies, and I won a free drink from the bartender - a virgin version of their Melon Mojito. It really wasn't all that tasty, since they usually have wine with the soda water and the watermelon, and minus the wine, well, there isn't that much flavor to soda water even with the watermelon. We then segued to another restaurant, for munchies, and I had myself a Peking duck egg roll. That was it, nothing else for dinner - though I did have some good snacks throughout the day, enough for sustainance. Daytime eats entailed my yogurt and donut peach breakfast, followed by a lychee in midmorning, then a lunch out with one of our product reps, of a roast beef sandwich with some delicious fries, a wonton soup present from one of my colleagues on his way back from a meeting (we used to work at the same firm in the burbs, and now, every time either of us has a meeting out that way, we bring each other the soup back as a treat), and another donut peach in the afternoon. Not a bad lineup if you ask me!
Yesterday, breakfast was 2 bowls of cereal, with a donut peach for a mid-morning snack, and I just couldn't fight off those oatmeal cookies staring at me - I had one, and it was so good. All this before lunch! I spent part of the morning running EMT for a colleague who wasn't feeling up to par, and then met up with a friend for lunch downtown. Lunch, oh lunch - it was so good, a wonderful basic vegetable soup with cabbage, followed by pork scallopini with a mushroom sauce, and dessert was a lemon sorbetto. So good! The evening, I just felt like pizza, and luckily, Hubby conceded - so we had good ole pizza, and I had myself some buffalo wings to boot. Two days of eating out, and I think my body has salted itself quite aplenty.
Today being the day leading into the weekend, I tried to get myself back on track. Breakfast was cereal with a donut peach, with a midmorning snack of a lychee. Lunch, I got some baked ziti, though outside of just the ziti this dish bore no resemblence to baked ziti. For $9 - you'd expect at least some mix of ricotta in there, but no, just ziti, tomato sauce, and mozzarella. I venture to say, I will most likely try making some baked ziti this weekend, WITH some ricotta, since my ziti experience today was such a blah. After lunch, I had to down some 4 glasses of water, and hold it - any of you preggies out there will know, this is preparation for a sonogram. We had our first - and it was quite exciting! Heartbeat, visuals, and all - the little bugger is growing. About just 2 and a half centimeters so far, but it's there! It even kicked its legs a little, like riding a bike - we definitely have ourselves a cyclist. Both Hubby and I were very excited, and upon returning to the office, I just couldn't hold it in anymore - I broke the news to everyone. No doubt, excitement, some "I knew it!"'s, and more comments that no longer will I be able to savor my beloved stinky cheeses. Oh cheeses - how I miss you so!
So dinner is cooking right now, and with the oncoming weekend, time is growing a bit for me, more than it does during the week. I made a Japanese dish, oden - bonito flakes, boiled in water for about half an hour, to extract its flavor; addition of some soy sauce for added flavor; and an assortment of additional ingredients for substance. In my oden, I have carrots, Chinese radish, and a red potato, waxy enough to pick up flavor without falling apart in this soup dish. Right before I turn off the heat this evening, I'll add some fish dumplings as well. Light enough and hands-free enough for the summer; filling enough for dinner. A variation I've made in the past was to boil up some soba noodles, to add upon serving. The soup mixture should boil at a minimum of 3 hours in the purist fashion, so that the flavors may meld; however, I have gotten away with boiling everything for about an hour and a half, usually enough time, when I bike, for me to get everything into the pot, get it cooking, and go pop in the shower and clean off.
So that's the food twist for today. I'm intent on trying to make good of my resolution last week - if there is anything I'm craving or wanting to eat, I will at least try to make it myself first before just going out and buying it. I may push that tomorrow morning, with some oatmeal cookies!
(of course, I'm trying not to think about how easy it is to make chocolate cake...)
Yesterday, breakfast was 2 bowls of cereal, with a donut peach for a mid-morning snack, and I just couldn't fight off those oatmeal cookies staring at me - I had one, and it was so good. All this before lunch! I spent part of the morning running EMT for a colleague who wasn't feeling up to par, and then met up with a friend for lunch downtown. Lunch, oh lunch - it was so good, a wonderful basic vegetable soup with cabbage, followed by pork scallopini with a mushroom sauce, and dessert was a lemon sorbetto. So good! The evening, I just felt like pizza, and luckily, Hubby conceded - so we had good ole pizza, and I had myself some buffalo wings to boot. Two days of eating out, and I think my body has salted itself quite aplenty.
Today being the day leading into the weekend, I tried to get myself back on track. Breakfast was cereal with a donut peach, with a midmorning snack of a lychee. Lunch, I got some baked ziti, though outside of just the ziti this dish bore no resemblence to baked ziti. For $9 - you'd expect at least some mix of ricotta in there, but no, just ziti, tomato sauce, and mozzarella. I venture to say, I will most likely try making some baked ziti this weekend, WITH some ricotta, since my ziti experience today was such a blah. After lunch, I had to down some 4 glasses of water, and hold it - any of you preggies out there will know, this is preparation for a sonogram. We had our first - and it was quite exciting! Heartbeat, visuals, and all - the little bugger is growing. About just 2 and a half centimeters so far, but it's there! It even kicked its legs a little, like riding a bike - we definitely have ourselves a cyclist. Both Hubby and I were very excited, and upon returning to the office, I just couldn't hold it in anymore - I broke the news to everyone. No doubt, excitement, some "I knew it!"'s, and more comments that no longer will I be able to savor my beloved stinky cheeses. Oh cheeses - how I miss you so!
So dinner is cooking right now, and with the oncoming weekend, time is growing a bit for me, more than it does during the week. I made a Japanese dish, oden - bonito flakes, boiled in water for about half an hour, to extract its flavor; addition of some soy sauce for added flavor; and an assortment of additional ingredients for substance. In my oden, I have carrots, Chinese radish, and a red potato, waxy enough to pick up flavor without falling apart in this soup dish. Right before I turn off the heat this evening, I'll add some fish dumplings as well. Light enough and hands-free enough for the summer; filling enough for dinner. A variation I've made in the past was to boil up some soba noodles, to add upon serving. The soup mixture should boil at a minimum of 3 hours in the purist fashion, so that the flavors may meld; however, I have gotten away with boiling everything for about an hour and a half, usually enough time, when I bike, for me to get everything into the pot, get it cooking, and go pop in the shower and clean off.
So that's the food twist for today. I'm intent on trying to make good of my resolution last week - if there is anything I'm craving or wanting to eat, I will at least try to make it myself first before just going out and buying it. I may push that tomorrow morning, with some oatmeal cookies!
(of course, I'm trying not to think about how easy it is to make chocolate cake...)
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
New Restaurant Week!
So today started off like any other day - yogurt, though I forgot my banana this morning (gotta remember, I'll have a banananana in just a bit) and a donut peach. My day ended up being packed with issues and fires to put out on a project, so I didn't get to enjoy a lunch at noon - true, it was a bad thing. Lunchtime for me didn't come until almost 3:30, but I did have a lychee fruit while sitting at my desk in the afternoon. I picked up a chicken tikka sandwich, with mint chutney - not all too interesting, but it definitely filled the void.
This evening, as part of Restaurant Week, many area restaurants offer set 3-course meals at *sometimes* lower prices. I dragged Hubby to a new local vegetarian restaurant, and while he didn't raise an eyebrow when I first suggested the restaurant, I know he was making a carnivore's sacrifice for love. Cheesy, yes - I can already hear those groans of pain out there - but hey, he does so much for us! So there we went - the carnivore and quasi-vegetarian, off to the restaurant. At first, when we got there, there weren't many people, but boy, it filled up quickly. We started off with some of their specialty non-alcoholic drinks - I had their home-made ginger ale, and Hubby had their limeade. WOW - what an infusion of flavor! The ginger ale was really gingery, and his limeade was, well, quite a good squeeze of lime! He started off with some herbed risotto croquettes - out of this world! And not that greasy! I had the habanero melon soup - interesting indeed. Sweet and spicy, quite a match for the spicy ginger ale I also had.
Hubby finished his limeade, and switched to the strawberry lemonade - so good! I definitely have to get a batch of frozen strawberries to make some smoothies soon. Then came our main courses - Hubby ordered a goat cheese tart (basically a goat cheese mixture between puff pastry shells), and I had some sesame-crusted tofu with quinoa. The tofu was wonderful, but I didn't realize until the very last block that the blocks had a different textures! The wonderful variation - it kept the dish new and fresh with each bite, but through subtle texture, not flavor. Even Hubby conceded, my dish was pretty good.
Dessert - he had a warm chocolate cake with vanilla gelato; I had their home-made ice cream sandwich, vanilla ice cream between molasses cookies. Oh so yummy - it really was a good meal all together. The flavors, from beginning to end, kept our taste buds interested - and all vegetarian! At the end, we were talking about the concept of the restaurant - and the fact that, as in design, when one is faced with a more limited set of constraints, one finds more possibilities. This place was definitely one where they found a multitude of possibilities with a limited palette - and we happily partook in those constraints.
This evening, as part of Restaurant Week, many area restaurants offer set 3-course meals at *sometimes* lower prices. I dragged Hubby to a new local vegetarian restaurant, and while he didn't raise an eyebrow when I first suggested the restaurant, I know he was making a carnivore's sacrifice for love. Cheesy, yes - I can already hear those groans of pain out there - but hey, he does so much for us! So there we went - the carnivore and quasi-vegetarian, off to the restaurant. At first, when we got there, there weren't many people, but boy, it filled up quickly. We started off with some of their specialty non-alcoholic drinks - I had their home-made ginger ale, and Hubby had their limeade. WOW - what an infusion of flavor! The ginger ale was really gingery, and his limeade was, well, quite a good squeeze of lime! He started off with some herbed risotto croquettes - out of this world! And not that greasy! I had the habanero melon soup - interesting indeed. Sweet and spicy, quite a match for the spicy ginger ale I also had.
Hubby finished his limeade, and switched to the strawberry lemonade - so good! I definitely have to get a batch of frozen strawberries to make some smoothies soon. Then came our main courses - Hubby ordered a goat cheese tart (basically a goat cheese mixture between puff pastry shells), and I had some sesame-crusted tofu with quinoa. The tofu was wonderful, but I didn't realize until the very last block that the blocks had a different textures! The wonderful variation - it kept the dish new and fresh with each bite, but through subtle texture, not flavor. Even Hubby conceded, my dish was pretty good.
Dessert - he had a warm chocolate cake with vanilla gelato; I had their home-made ice cream sandwich, vanilla ice cream between molasses cookies. Oh so yummy - it really was a good meal all together. The flavors, from beginning to end, kept our taste buds interested - and all vegetarian! At the end, we were talking about the concept of the restaurant - and the fact that, as in design, when one is faced with a more limited set of constraints, one finds more possibilities. This place was definitely one where they found a multitude of possibilities with a limited palette - and we happily partook in those constraints.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Cease Fire Monday
Today's food reflection... not much out of the ordinary. Breakfast started off with yogurt, a banana, and a little lychee fruit. Off to meetings, and before I knew it, my stomach was grumbing away for some lunch. A quick stop for an Italian sub, some chips, and water, and hunger was staved away. I even enjoyed a dessert of a crispy, juicy donut peach! Afternoon, cranking away on work, and I decided to take a little fruit break - cherries, blueberries, and an apricot - and catch up with my colleagues. I also packed a small baggie of pretzel sticks as an afternoon snack, but didn't feel a pang for it. Note to self - an extra snack I don't have to lug for tomorrow!
Dinner - I let Hubby make the call. He asked for stir fry, something healthy (and actually, stir fry really is healthy the way we do it in our family - just a touch of oil, some salt, pepper, and garlic, and that's it - keeping it simple!), with chicken, some broccoli, and carrots, but having made Chinese for most of our meals this weekend, I decided to take the same ingredients and toss in a little variation. So...
Stuffed Chicken Logs
Pounded 2 chicken breasts between the cutting board and some plastic wrap until thin. Seasoned the breasts lightly with salt and pepper, and set it aside. Then, I heated up the frying pan with a tablespoon of olive oil, and while the pan was warming up, I cut 2 carrots and the stalk of 1 broccoli into sticks and tossed them into the pan to soften. In the mean time, with the carrots and broccoli on the stove, I sliced up some red kale. 3 minutes later, the carrots and broccoli were out of the pan, and the kale was taking its 3 minute turn, with some garlic. On each of the flattened, thinned chicken breasts went the softened kale, carrots, and broccoli along one side. Rolled up the breast around the vegetables, and with a foil tent cover, the chicken logs baked in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.
A quick sauce for the chicken. Just chicken stock to deglaze the same veggie pan, with some extra oregano and basil for added flavor. I mixed a little corn starch with some water, as a thickener for the the sauce, stirred it into the stock just before taking the pan off the burner, and poured a little stock sauce over each serving of the chicken logs before serving.
Sides
While that was baking, I also sliced up some patty pan squash and an orange bell pepper, mixed it with a tablespoon of olive oil, ground in some black pepper and sea salt. I wrapped this mixture up in a foil bowl, and stuck it into the oven for the final 15 minutes of baking with the chicken.
I also cut up 4 plum tomatoes and boiled a 1/2" (about 1 serving's worth) diameter worth of angel hair pasta, and in the pan where the other veggies took their turn, I tossed in the chopped plum tomatoes with some oregano, basil, garlic, salt, and pepper, and sauteed this mixture for 15 minutes to soften the tomatoes. The chicken was ready, as was the veggie side, as was the fresh tomato sauce and pasta. A quick toss of the pasta in the tomatoes, and all was ready for serving.
That was the food agenda for today. Not too much out of the ordinary, and I tried to balance the veggies with protein. I still had my fill of fruits during the day, and as August is quickening to fall, I will savor each little fruit I find.
I had this quick revelation after having to go to the bathroom for millionth odd time every day, as I'm sure some of you preggies out there have already experienced. People have a common misconception - they think preggies don't want to go out because they're "settling" into some tried-and-true all dictated figment of "family" life. Actually, the truth lies not in a nontangible idea of life changes, but in a very simple rule of physics: No two objects can occupy the same space at the same time. I'm sure most people would love to be out with their friends, doing all kinds of great stuff - but damn if I'm not within a 12-step range of the bathroom since my bladder's space is quickly being borrowed away. My sister in law told me, as one gets pregnant, everything grows faster - if only the bladder would also grow proportionately!
Dinner - I let Hubby make the call. He asked for stir fry, something healthy (and actually, stir fry really is healthy the way we do it in our family - just a touch of oil, some salt, pepper, and garlic, and that's it - keeping it simple!), with chicken, some broccoli, and carrots, but having made Chinese for most of our meals this weekend, I decided to take the same ingredients and toss in a little variation. So...
Stuffed Chicken Logs
Pounded 2 chicken breasts between the cutting board and some plastic wrap until thin. Seasoned the breasts lightly with salt and pepper, and set it aside. Then, I heated up the frying pan with a tablespoon of olive oil, and while the pan was warming up, I cut 2 carrots and the stalk of 1 broccoli into sticks and tossed them into the pan to soften. In the mean time, with the carrots and broccoli on the stove, I sliced up some red kale. 3 minutes later, the carrots and broccoli were out of the pan, and the kale was taking its 3 minute turn, with some garlic. On each of the flattened, thinned chicken breasts went the softened kale, carrots, and broccoli along one side. Rolled up the breast around the vegetables, and with a foil tent cover, the chicken logs baked in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.
A quick sauce for the chicken. Just chicken stock to deglaze the same veggie pan, with some extra oregano and basil for added flavor. I mixed a little corn starch with some water, as a thickener for the the sauce, stirred it into the stock just before taking the pan off the burner, and poured a little stock sauce over each serving of the chicken logs before serving.
Sides
While that was baking, I also sliced up some patty pan squash and an orange bell pepper, mixed it with a tablespoon of olive oil, ground in some black pepper and sea salt. I wrapped this mixture up in a foil bowl, and stuck it into the oven for the final 15 minutes of baking with the chicken.
I also cut up 4 plum tomatoes and boiled a 1/2" (about 1 serving's worth) diameter worth of angel hair pasta, and in the pan where the other veggies took their turn, I tossed in the chopped plum tomatoes with some oregano, basil, garlic, salt, and pepper, and sauteed this mixture for 15 minutes to soften the tomatoes. The chicken was ready, as was the veggie side, as was the fresh tomato sauce and pasta. A quick toss of the pasta in the tomatoes, and all was ready for serving.
That was the food agenda for today. Not too much out of the ordinary, and I tried to balance the veggies with protein. I still had my fill of fruits during the day, and as August is quickening to fall, I will savor each little fruit I find.
I had this quick revelation after having to go to the bathroom for millionth odd time every day, as I'm sure some of you preggies out there have already experienced. People have a common misconception - they think preggies don't want to go out because they're "settling" into some tried-and-true all dictated figment of "family" life. Actually, the truth lies not in a nontangible idea of life changes, but in a very simple rule of physics: No two objects can occupy the same space at the same time. I'm sure most people would love to be out with their friends, doing all kinds of great stuff - but damn if I'm not within a 12-step range of the bathroom since my bladder's space is quickly being borrowed away. My sister in law told me, as one gets pregnant, everything grows faster - if only the bladder would also grow proportionately!
Weekend, 8.12.06
Saturday's lineup - I woke up to the wonderful banging of our new next-door neighbor's construction crew at 7am, intermittent enough to leave me wide-eyed and bushy tailed. Luckily, a shut eye and pulling the covers over my head won me a couple more hours of sleep. When after my combined 9-hour slumber I did finally awake, I found refreshed, enough so to get moving and to think about this weekend's lineup. The heat wave of a week ago was still fresh in my mind, and the thought of my not wanting to prepare dinner those 2 weeks was also immediately unappealing. With my renewed kitchen energy, and with Hubby finally being roused from his slumber, we made our way down to the local farmers' market to pick up a fresh supply of fruits to stock up. We still had cherries and berries aplenty, and I still had a fresh stock of apricots - so all we picked up were some donut peaches to replenish. We also picked up a apple/cherry bread, as well as a fresh French baguette. I made up my mind to use as much of my energy this weekend to cook and store as much as possible, so that in the case I end up losing my appetite again, poor Hubby wouldn't go hungry.
Upon our return home, we dove into the baguette - Hubby enjoyed some with butter and salami, and I dipped mine in wonderful olive oil with salt and pepper. A simple enough snack, and I also supplemented with 2 of the fresh donut peaches, a small yogurt, and some OJ. Yum!
Pineapples
The Saturday afternoon lineup... a pineapple tart tatin looked wonderfully appealing in a cookbook I was browsing while waiting for Hubby prior to the market trip, so I decided to make a variation. In Chinese cuisine, we have little red-bean snack bars, so I decided to make these same snack bars, but filled with crushed canned pineapples instead of red-bean paste. Another quick trip to the market to get some butter for the pastry dough, and we were ready to roll. Or so I thought.
I replaced the usual all-purpose flour that my recipe called for with an alternate wheat flour. What a failure! The pastry dough was too bready, and too wheaty for this sweet snack. The pineapples, unsweetened, were much more sour than I would have hoped. The batch of pineapple bars went into the trash with sadness, and I decided to go back to the pineapple tart tatin recipe instead, which did call for wheat flour - and achieved it with success! Double yum!
Chinese Dumplings
I also had round dumpling wrappers and ground turkey (actually I got the wrong thing - I meant to get ground chicken, but picked up the wrong package, but no worries - ground turkey or ground chicken both work just fine, as does any ground meat) defrosting in the fridge from the night before. In the morning, before our market trip, I also thinly sliced some Chinese cabbage, and mixed the cabbage with some salt in a colander to drain. The cabbage would reduce by about 1/3 in this mixture - not a lot of salt is necessary - this step is necessary, as too much water inside a dumpling makes them fall apart. While the pineapple tart tatin was baking, I got underway making the filling for the dumplings.
I mixed the ground turkey with some cilantro, the reduced Chinese cabbage, a reconstituted dried Chinese mushroom, some soy sauce, sesame oil, salt, white pepper, and corn starch as a binding agent. Alternate added ingredients to the ground meat include finely minced water chestnut, scallions (which I forgot in the mix yesterday!), more mushrooms, carrots... the list is endless. You can pretty much put in anything you'd like, but do as I do - steam just a bit of the filling first to taste, and to make sure everything stays together and doesn't yield too much water. Nothing like making a whole bunch of dumplings just to find your filling, and dumplings, completely fallen apart upon cooking - or not tasting quite right!
I had a dumpling wrapping party shortly before I got married, and one of the attendees to the party was a veggie - I made sure to have a veggie variation of my family's dumplings. Instead of using the ground meat - use EXTRA FIRM tofu, pressed overnight in the fridge on a pan (to collect the excess water) with a weight (a brick wrapped in foil, or a wood cutting board) to allow any excess water to escape. Though I haven't tried it myself, you can also freeze and thaw a block of firm tofu, and then break it into small chunks - apparently, from what I've read, this yields a grain-sized breakdown of tofu, which would give you more surface area for the spices. Reduce the Chinese cabbage as described above, and mix with any assortment of spices you might like. One item I would recommend not omitting is the corn starch, as the binding agent - though I've had just as good veggie dumplings sans binding agent.
Once I had the filling ready, I set up my dumpling-wrapping station. Freezable trays with corn starch (to prevent sticking by the wrappers), a small bowl of water for the dumpling edges, a set of chopsticks to pick up the filling, and my clean hands. My dumpling wrapping technique - I like to pleat the edges, since, with a round dumpling wrapper, you can pleat one edge and the other side, the continuous edge, reduces in size to accommodate. Yes, I am talking in circles, literally - you math and physics peeps out there know what I'm describing. Just trust me - if you want to try a bunch of pleats, which results in a bunch dumplings looking like cute little purses: lay your dumpling wrapper flat in your hand, put a bit of filling in the middle, wet the edges of the wrapper, and fold the bottom half onto the top. As you fold, starting from one side (left or right) of the top half of the wrapper, start pleating your way to the other side (right or left). I make a bunch of pleats, and then tightly pinch the front and back halfs of the wrapper together to seal.
Freeze these guys right away in the freezable tray - otherwise, if you just let them sit, they'll all stick together into a dumpling mess! Once they're frozen (I set mine in the freezer overnight just to be safe), you can bag them up the next day, making sure to squeeze out as much air as possible. The dumplings hold their own up to 6 months - or at the least, I've personally have had them up to that time without colorful cases of botulism.
So that was Saturday...
Sunday started off with the same food zeal. During my breakfast of a donut peach, some yogurt, and a slice of my pineapple tart, I decided my Sunday itinerary would be to make some cha sao bao (chinese buns, filled with marinated baked pork), the baked variety. I also had some potatoes in the fridge, and wanting to get those used up, I decided upon a dinner of steak and potatoes, as well as to make some Indian potato treats my friend Sapna's mother made for me once.
Cha Sao Bao
The pork - I first defrosted this, and marinated it in soy, hoisin, and sugar, in the fridge. While it was marinating, I got to working on the dough for the buns. Not wanting to make the same wheat/white mistake, I made over to our local organic supermarket and picked up some all purpose flour, and with that done, the dough was well under way. After about an hour, I put the pork into the oven to bake.
During the dough's rising time, I cooked the potatoes for the Indian potato treats in the microwave and brought out lumpia wrappers to thaw. I felt a hunkering for a snack, so I fixed myself a Taiwanese snack of shao bing (flat bread),yo tiao (deep fried dough strip), both available in the local Asian store and, conveniently, in my freezer. These items, when made into a little sandwich, go great with the soy milk we have, so there I was, little snack in place, and two premade snacks in process.
The dough, having risen twice and been punched down twice, were ready for forming and wrapping. I cut the pork into little pieces, and chopped up some scallions as well. With Hubby's help, we rolled out the dough into flat discs, wrapped up some scallions as well as some pork in each, sealed the opening, and inverted them onto a greased baking pan. This we did for 15 of these buns, each about 3" in diameter raw. Into the oven they went, for 20 minutes. More snacks and meals ready!
Indian potato-filled lumpia snacks
Yes, this is a long title for this snack, but I don't know if there is any other name for it. The lumpia wrappers (available in Asian grocery stores) were defrosting, and the potatoes were cooking in the nuker. Once the potatoes were done, I peeled them and added to the naked potatoes some tumeric, ground coriander, ground cumin, salt, and ground fenugreek. I let this sit for a little while, to let the potatoes cool a bit and to let the tumeric settle in (or mostly just to finish my little shao bing yo tiao snack). I mashed up the potatoes well, and started wrapping the little snacks. A bit of water was all I needed to seal the edge, and I rolled them up like little egg rolls. With a whole batch of these complete, I put them into a freezer bag and into the freezer they went, for future devouring! (I plan on baking them, with a brush of butter on them)
Weekend's revelations
So I had some extra energy... having remembered not wanting to cook, and not wanting to worry about getting meals ready in the future, I put my energy to good use, to prepare for those such days in the future. Wheat flour and white flour are not interchangeable - and all for wanting healthy food, sometimes white flours is just the right thing to use, nothing else. We are all capable of a lot more than we think we can do, and sometimes, by just taking initiative, we get our energy moving and are able to get things done.
Last foodie thought for the night - last weekend, when my father came to visit, we made a very basic chicken soup for the three of us - sliced chicken breast, fried shallots, scallions, sliced Chinese cabbage, Chinese mushroom, dried lilly buds, salt and pepper. OK, so maybe not that basic, but for Chinese cooking, pretty basic. I found that some dishes, in particular soups and noodle soups, by having the ingredients you need on hand, you can put it all together, and just let it go - no need to stand at the stove minute after minute. We did just that - sauteed the shallots and scallions, added the chicken slices, added water as well as the Chinese cabbage, Chinese mushroom, lilly buds, and just let it all cook together for about an hour. The flavors really melded, and when all was ready, I added some salt and pepper to taste. We cooked up some noodles, and there we had it - instant meal! We had a bowl of the soup left over from the weekend, and I had some just last night. WOW - letting a soup sit for a week in the fridge really just gets the flavors popping out and melding together! Reheating, I added only some more chicken stock and some more Chinese cabbage, and again, an instant meal. Sometimes, chicken soup is just the thing - and if you have the energy and stomach for it, just make some soup, and store it away in the fridge or freezer. It'll come in handy later on.
Upon our return home, we dove into the baguette - Hubby enjoyed some with butter and salami, and I dipped mine in wonderful olive oil with salt and pepper. A simple enough snack, and I also supplemented with 2 of the fresh donut peaches, a small yogurt, and some OJ. Yum!
Pineapples
The Saturday afternoon lineup... a pineapple tart tatin looked wonderfully appealing in a cookbook I was browsing while waiting for Hubby prior to the market trip, so I decided to make a variation. In Chinese cuisine, we have little red-bean snack bars, so I decided to make these same snack bars, but filled with crushed canned pineapples instead of red-bean paste. Another quick trip to the market to get some butter for the pastry dough, and we were ready to roll. Or so I thought.
I replaced the usual all-purpose flour that my recipe called for with an alternate wheat flour. What a failure! The pastry dough was too bready, and too wheaty for this sweet snack. The pineapples, unsweetened, were much more sour than I would have hoped. The batch of pineapple bars went into the trash with sadness, and I decided to go back to the pineapple tart tatin recipe instead, which did call for wheat flour - and achieved it with success! Double yum!
Chinese Dumplings
I also had round dumpling wrappers and ground turkey (actually I got the wrong thing - I meant to get ground chicken, but picked up the wrong package, but no worries - ground turkey or ground chicken both work just fine, as does any ground meat) defrosting in the fridge from the night before. In the morning, before our market trip, I also thinly sliced some Chinese cabbage, and mixed the cabbage with some salt in a colander to drain. The cabbage would reduce by about 1/3 in this mixture - not a lot of salt is necessary - this step is necessary, as too much water inside a dumpling makes them fall apart. While the pineapple tart tatin was baking, I got underway making the filling for the dumplings.
I mixed the ground turkey with some cilantro, the reduced Chinese cabbage, a reconstituted dried Chinese mushroom, some soy sauce, sesame oil, salt, white pepper, and corn starch as a binding agent. Alternate added ingredients to the ground meat include finely minced water chestnut, scallions (which I forgot in the mix yesterday!), more mushrooms, carrots... the list is endless. You can pretty much put in anything you'd like, but do as I do - steam just a bit of the filling first to taste, and to make sure everything stays together and doesn't yield too much water. Nothing like making a whole bunch of dumplings just to find your filling, and dumplings, completely fallen apart upon cooking - or not tasting quite right!
I had a dumpling wrapping party shortly before I got married, and one of the attendees to the party was a veggie - I made sure to have a veggie variation of my family's dumplings. Instead of using the ground meat - use EXTRA FIRM tofu, pressed overnight in the fridge on a pan (to collect the excess water) with a weight (a brick wrapped in foil, or a wood cutting board) to allow any excess water to escape. Though I haven't tried it myself, you can also freeze and thaw a block of firm tofu, and then break it into small chunks - apparently, from what I've read, this yields a grain-sized breakdown of tofu, which would give you more surface area for the spices. Reduce the Chinese cabbage as described above, and mix with any assortment of spices you might like. One item I would recommend not omitting is the corn starch, as the binding agent - though I've had just as good veggie dumplings sans binding agent.
Once I had the filling ready, I set up my dumpling-wrapping station. Freezable trays with corn starch (to prevent sticking by the wrappers), a small bowl of water for the dumpling edges, a set of chopsticks to pick up the filling, and my clean hands. My dumpling wrapping technique - I like to pleat the edges, since, with a round dumpling wrapper, you can pleat one edge and the other side, the continuous edge, reduces in size to accommodate. Yes, I am talking in circles, literally - you math and physics peeps out there know what I'm describing. Just trust me - if you want to try a bunch of pleats, which results in a bunch dumplings looking like cute little purses: lay your dumpling wrapper flat in your hand, put a bit of filling in the middle, wet the edges of the wrapper, and fold the bottom half onto the top. As you fold, starting from one side (left or right) of the top half of the wrapper, start pleating your way to the other side (right or left). I make a bunch of pleats, and then tightly pinch the front and back halfs of the wrapper together to seal.
Freeze these guys right away in the freezable tray - otherwise, if you just let them sit, they'll all stick together into a dumpling mess! Once they're frozen (I set mine in the freezer overnight just to be safe), you can bag them up the next day, making sure to squeeze out as much air as possible. The dumplings hold their own up to 6 months - or at the least, I've personally have had them up to that time without colorful cases of botulism.
So that was Saturday...
Sunday started off with the same food zeal. During my breakfast of a donut peach, some yogurt, and a slice of my pineapple tart, I decided my Sunday itinerary would be to make some cha sao bao (chinese buns, filled with marinated baked pork), the baked variety. I also had some potatoes in the fridge, and wanting to get those used up, I decided upon a dinner of steak and potatoes, as well as to make some Indian potato treats my friend Sapna's mother made for me once.
Cha Sao Bao
The pork - I first defrosted this, and marinated it in soy, hoisin, and sugar, in the fridge. While it was marinating, I got to working on the dough for the buns. Not wanting to make the same wheat/white mistake, I made over to our local organic supermarket and picked up some all purpose flour, and with that done, the dough was well under way. After about an hour, I put the pork into the oven to bake.
During the dough's rising time, I cooked the potatoes for the Indian potato treats in the microwave and brought out lumpia wrappers to thaw. I felt a hunkering for a snack, so I fixed myself a Taiwanese snack of shao bing (flat bread),yo tiao (deep fried dough strip), both available in the local Asian store and, conveniently, in my freezer. These items, when made into a little sandwich, go great with the soy milk we have, so there I was, little snack in place, and two premade snacks in process.
The dough, having risen twice and been punched down twice, were ready for forming and wrapping. I cut the pork into little pieces, and chopped up some scallions as well. With Hubby's help, we rolled out the dough into flat discs, wrapped up some scallions as well as some pork in each, sealed the opening, and inverted them onto a greased baking pan. This we did for 15 of these buns, each about 3" in diameter raw. Into the oven they went, for 20 minutes. More snacks and meals ready!
Indian potato-filled lumpia snacks
Yes, this is a long title for this snack, but I don't know if there is any other name for it. The lumpia wrappers (available in Asian grocery stores) were defrosting, and the potatoes were cooking in the nuker. Once the potatoes were done, I peeled them and added to the naked potatoes some tumeric, ground coriander, ground cumin, salt, and ground fenugreek. I let this sit for a little while, to let the potatoes cool a bit and to let the tumeric settle in (or mostly just to finish my little shao bing yo tiao snack). I mashed up the potatoes well, and started wrapping the little snacks. A bit of water was all I needed to seal the edge, and I rolled them up like little egg rolls. With a whole batch of these complete, I put them into a freezer bag and into the freezer they went, for future devouring! (I plan on baking them, with a brush of butter on them)
Weekend's revelations
So I had some extra energy... having remembered not wanting to cook, and not wanting to worry about getting meals ready in the future, I put my energy to good use, to prepare for those such days in the future. Wheat flour and white flour are not interchangeable - and all for wanting healthy food, sometimes white flours is just the right thing to use, nothing else. We are all capable of a lot more than we think we can do, and sometimes, by just taking initiative, we get our energy moving and are able to get things done.
Last foodie thought for the night - last weekend, when my father came to visit, we made a very basic chicken soup for the three of us - sliced chicken breast, fried shallots, scallions, sliced Chinese cabbage, Chinese mushroom, dried lilly buds, salt and pepper. OK, so maybe not that basic, but for Chinese cooking, pretty basic. I found that some dishes, in particular soups and noodle soups, by having the ingredients you need on hand, you can put it all together, and just let it go - no need to stand at the stove minute after minute. We did just that - sauteed the shallots and scallions, added the chicken slices, added water as well as the Chinese cabbage, Chinese mushroom, lilly buds, and just let it all cook together for about an hour. The flavors really melded, and when all was ready, I added some salt and pepper to taste. We cooked up some noodles, and there we had it - instant meal! We had a bowl of the soup left over from the weekend, and I had some just last night. WOW - letting a soup sit for a week in the fridge really just gets the flavors popping out and melding together! Reheating, I added only some more chicken stock and some more Chinese cabbage, and again, an instant meal. Sometimes, chicken soup is just the thing - and if you have the energy and stomach for it, just make some soup, and store it away in the fridge or freezer. It'll come in handy later on.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
The start of a new journey
Summary of the last month.5: since being pregnant isn't always so obvious, i took some early signs as just whims of appetite, not as signs that something new might be happening in my body. It all started the Friday before the July 4th weekend. A little trip to our local mega-supermarket resulted in my mass infatuation with the chocolate cakes on display at the very front of the store. Some may say, "big deal, chocolate cake, who wouldn't be drawn by it?" But then, you have to understand - I'm not that much of a chocolate person. This cake looked to me like the world, and I should have taken that little hint as a sign of something new. Even Hubby raised an eyebrow. That weekend was filled with my immediate desire to eat every sample of junk food we had around the house - from plantain chips, to potato chips, to sweet cheese danishes. And not once during the weekend did any thought of that wonderful chocolate cake leave my mind! (though we spared ourselves the torture by not buying the cake in the first place) Boy, I can still picture that cake - hm!
Things were moving along smoothly in the following weeks, without any flag or hiccup, and still I noticed nothing out of the ordinary. I had *luckily* no washes of morning sickness, nor of nausea - and I am hoping, that from this point forward, that I still will be able to keep my food down. When I finally realized that, yes, I may have something going on in my body, it was well into July, after dinner parties, nights out with the ladies, and a general laissez faire attitude, which I attributed to the wonderful humid heat of this area. Cravings? No. Nausea? No. Growing belly and chest? Well, that's what gave it away. Not to mention, I'm a back sleeper, and somehow in the mornings, I was always on my side. I guess the body knows just what to do at times.
So I told Hubby, "you know, I think I may be pregnant." He's like, "well, let's just wait and make sure." Girl is on monthly time like the Swiss clocks, and I knew I needed no waiting to make sure. A quick trip to the drugstore, and sure enough, an at-home test confirmed what I had suspected. Our 2 were soon to be a 3.
What pity, then, the next day we were to meet up with two of our very good friends, Bonnie and Andrew, whom we've coined "Bondrew" much to their amusement and chagrin, for dinner out. Andrew, as a wine merchant, delivers any meal like a journey through the best vineyards, whether home-prepared or out at restaurants. Coughing it up to a sore in my mouth (which I legitimately got from not being able to get a full-nights' sleep for the past 3 weeks without having to get up and use the bathroom in the middle of the night, and which made it nearly impossible to be able to carry on a decent conversation with our good friends), I made a somewhat clean get-away from having alcohol that evening, though all looked so wonderful. Nevertheless, the dinner was enjoyable, and the company was wonderful. I poutingly resigned myself to the role of designated driver for the next 9 months, but Hubby was kind enough to surrender alcohol consumption around me during the course of this pregnancy.
A week ago ended a 2-week heat wave here, during which temperatures went above 100 degrees, and I really had no appetite (but during summertime, I usually don't have much of an appetite anyway) nor desire to be in the kitchen. During that time, I kept up my usual intake of water and fruits, and I definitely upped my water on the days I biked to and from work. I normally enjoy the full bounty of summer fruits, so getting those fruits and veggies into my diet weren't as much of a concern as getting enough protein (again, my usual summertime reaction to the surrounding heat and humdity). I kept my energy up by eating smaller meals throughout the day (some of which are as simple as just a piece of fruit), so that I don't hit a wall of hunger at meal times, and so that I can help keep nutrients moving around in my body. This "smaller meals" approach is one I'm still doing now and hope to continue through the pregnancy.
Other-activity-wise...The jury's out on so many other issues, that, like both Hubby and Doc both have said, " don't do anything different from what you may normally do, but, now, really do listen to your body." So, I still bike to and from work, though now I allot a bit more time instead of trying to compete time-trial-style in a race to cut down my daily commute to and from the office. Yoga is still a part of my day, but I've decided to stay away from poses that put pressure on my stomach, since it's readily uncomfortable. And as yoga has already taught me, I listen more heartily to my body, to really see what is or is not comfortable, to adjust to make room for a growing belly, and to really breathe through each pose.
Are we surprised? Oh yeah. Excited? Getting there. We're still not in the safe zone. I've quickly gotten up to Internet speed on what in the world is going on in my body. What to eat. What to avoid. What to do day by day. And after reading everything, all I can say is, "blah hoopla." Yes, I'm avoiding them big fish, and I'm avoiding sushi (tuna, spicy tuna, salmon, and whitetail - how I miss you so!). I normally don't drink soda and coffee, so that isn't as much of a loss in my diet. And like I said, chocolate isn't high on my taste-bud list, so no caffeine worries there either. Alcohol consumption is also off my list, but I will enjoy a taste with meals (taste, meaning savoring a tongue's touch, but not enough to swallow). I now make sure I always carry around a bottle of water with me, to stave off dehydration. But otherwise, I'm trying as best I can to progress without making such a big deal out of everything. The mass of information available to everyone now seems to make everyone instant experts on all kinds of things, especially in the area of judgment. I would like to try as best I can to stay humble through this experience, in hopes that I will pass along some thought of non-judgment to our new addition. I say this now, as much a message to go out, as also a message for me to remember as I embark on this new journey.
I start this post, to other preggies out there, who may be struggling in the kitchen, who may have at one time loved to cook but now find no enjoyment in this daily dance around the fire. I intend to keep it up from here on out, of my daily kitchen routine, in hopes that somethings I make or do will help others. With that said...
Things were moving along smoothly in the following weeks, without any flag or hiccup, and still I noticed nothing out of the ordinary. I had *luckily* no washes of morning sickness, nor of nausea - and I am hoping, that from this point forward, that I still will be able to keep my food down. When I finally realized that, yes, I may have something going on in my body, it was well into July, after dinner parties, nights out with the ladies, and a general laissez faire attitude, which I attributed to the wonderful humid heat of this area. Cravings? No. Nausea? No. Growing belly and chest? Well, that's what gave it away. Not to mention, I'm a back sleeper, and somehow in the mornings, I was always on my side. I guess the body knows just what to do at times.
So I told Hubby, "you know, I think I may be pregnant." He's like, "well, let's just wait and make sure." Girl is on monthly time like the Swiss clocks, and I knew I needed no waiting to make sure. A quick trip to the drugstore, and sure enough, an at-home test confirmed what I had suspected. Our 2 were soon to be a 3.
What pity, then, the next day we were to meet up with two of our very good friends, Bonnie and Andrew, whom we've coined "Bondrew" much to their amusement and chagrin, for dinner out. Andrew, as a wine merchant, delivers any meal like a journey through the best vineyards, whether home-prepared or out at restaurants. Coughing it up to a sore in my mouth (which I legitimately got from not being able to get a full-nights' sleep for the past 3 weeks without having to get up and use the bathroom in the middle of the night, and which made it nearly impossible to be able to carry on a decent conversation with our good friends), I made a somewhat clean get-away from having alcohol that evening, though all looked so wonderful. Nevertheless, the dinner was enjoyable, and the company was wonderful. I poutingly resigned myself to the role of designated driver for the next 9 months, but Hubby was kind enough to surrender alcohol consumption around me during the course of this pregnancy.
A week ago ended a 2-week heat wave here, during which temperatures went above 100 degrees, and I really had no appetite (but during summertime, I usually don't have much of an appetite anyway) nor desire to be in the kitchen. During that time, I kept up my usual intake of water and fruits, and I definitely upped my water on the days I biked to and from work. I normally enjoy the full bounty of summer fruits, so getting those fruits and veggies into my diet weren't as much of a concern as getting enough protein (again, my usual summertime reaction to the surrounding heat and humdity). I kept my energy up by eating smaller meals throughout the day (some of which are as simple as just a piece of fruit), so that I don't hit a wall of hunger at meal times, and so that I can help keep nutrients moving around in my body. This "smaller meals" approach is one I'm still doing now and hope to continue through the pregnancy.
Other-activity-wise...The jury's out on so many other issues, that, like both Hubby and Doc both have said, " don't do anything different from what you may normally do, but, now, really do listen to your body." So, I still bike to and from work, though now I allot a bit more time instead of trying to compete time-trial-style in a race to cut down my daily commute to and from the office. Yoga is still a part of my day, but I've decided to stay away from poses that put pressure on my stomach, since it's readily uncomfortable. And as yoga has already taught me, I listen more heartily to my body, to really see what is or is not comfortable, to adjust to make room for a growing belly, and to really breathe through each pose.
Are we surprised? Oh yeah. Excited? Getting there. We're still not in the safe zone. I've quickly gotten up to Internet speed on what in the world is going on in my body. What to eat. What to avoid. What to do day by day. And after reading everything, all I can say is, "blah hoopla." Yes, I'm avoiding them big fish, and I'm avoiding sushi (tuna, spicy tuna, salmon, and whitetail - how I miss you so!). I normally don't drink soda and coffee, so that isn't as much of a loss in my diet. And like I said, chocolate isn't high on my taste-bud list, so no caffeine worries there either. Alcohol consumption is also off my list, but I will enjoy a taste with meals (taste, meaning savoring a tongue's touch, but not enough to swallow). I now make sure I always carry around a bottle of water with me, to stave off dehydration. But otherwise, I'm trying as best I can to progress without making such a big deal out of everything. The mass of information available to everyone now seems to make everyone instant experts on all kinds of things, especially in the area of judgment. I would like to try as best I can to stay humble through this experience, in hopes that I will pass along some thought of non-judgment to our new addition. I say this now, as much a message to go out, as also a message for me to remember as I embark on this new journey.
I start this post, to other preggies out there, who may be struggling in the kitchen, who may have at one time loved to cook but now find no enjoyment in this daily dance around the fire. I intend to keep it up from here on out, of my daily kitchen routine, in hopes that somethings I make or do will help others. With that said...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)