[The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn), Weezer]
One of my greatest obstacles to losing weight is (over)eating unhealthy foods. The other one is exercise, go figure. Being that my back injury limits my ability to exercise, and the fact that I am increasingly convinced there is a stress fracture in my right foot, I can't do a whole lot about the exercise at the moment. I can, however, learn to eat... well, well.
Food is a very possessive thing to me. I'm not sure how much of it is rooted in the fact that I was raised in a "stay out of the cupboards" house, but it's pretty sad how territorial I get about food. Saturday I babysat for the family who is hiring me as a nanny (starting in 3 weeks) and before they left they told me that anything in the refrigerator / pantry was free game and to help myself. This is still unsettling to me, because I wasn't allowed to do so in my own home growing up and the thought of rifling through someone else's stock seems... wrong. Even if they permit it... I usually just decide to eat the first thing I see that doesn't sound revolting. I found myself wondering if I could so easily invite a babysitter to sample our pantry someday, particularly if she's obese because then I'll be expecting her to overeat "my" food.
Scary! It pretty much whacked me upside the head, in that moment-- and yes, I know many of you know this, so prepare to be completely underwhelmed-- I have a totally unhealthy relationship with food. Were it not necessary for living, I would quit food cold turkey and slap a patch on my arm. But, since the likelihood of this is about as realistic as me winning the Boston marathon in 9 months methinks I need to figure out a different solution. Granted, I can't "quit" food and I need to always enjoy it. Food should be enticing- I'd never want to look at Thanksgiving dinner, what with its juicy turkey, creamy mashed potatoes, fat olives, and delectable pumpkin pie and see a menu as droolworthy as cigarettes, "chew", homony (*shudder*), creamed corn, hard liquor and gushing fountains of a variety of teas (I'm pretty sure I just threw up). I can't hate good food.
How do I go about having a healthy relationship with the beast? When I see skinny people, particularly skinny women, on The Food Network, cooking up tasty stuff I sit there and wonder how in the heck they create incredible food and then don't get fat from stuffing it down their windpipe. Seriously, Cat Cora, what gives? I am not certain I have all of the answers yet (I know you can help me here, Darla!) but I think one piece I'm missing is the joy of cooking (sorry... so tacky, but I won't recreate the phrase on account of it being kind of cheesy), the artsy side of creating something fun and interesting that just so happens to be edible and delicious.
One way I am starting this is by menu-planning for the week (I talked about that in the previous post) and trying new recipes. Something that really helped was looking through cookbooks and online venues with pictures so that I could cater to a vision of what I wanted to create. Then, a stroke of genius hit me-- I should photograph some of these tasty meals! I'm an inventor when it comes to food- I never follow a recipe to a T unless it's baking, and even then I splash a little extra vanilla!- and I really enjoy discovering delicious foodstuffs that I made up all on my own. Taking pictures of my creations and posting them would help me to divert some energy away from cooking just to eat, and the process of concocting would be as valuable as the actual eating.
So, I'm not going to become crazy-lady-who-posts-pictures-of-every-single-meal, but I will try to photograph at least 1-3 meals a week. I'm intentionally cooking so that we have leftovers, so tomorrow night when I make tacosagna I'll post pics, but when we eat leftovers for the next two nights I won't subject you to photos :)
With all of that, prepare for a ten-picture journey through dinner this last weekend.
1: I created a marinade from about 1/2 container of some frozen OJ concentrate and approximately 1/3 of a bottle of Trader Joe's Spicy Peanut Vinaigrette- muy delicioso!
2: I did a quick chiffonade on 6 or so leaves of fresh basil (I have a plant growing in the window), mixed it all together and then slipped in some chunks of mahi mahi to marinade overnight. It smelled FANFREAKINGTASTIC!
3: When it was time to cook the fish, we grilled it for 15 or so minutes with this nifty grill tool for cooking fish specifically. They still get yummy, blackened grill marks without sticking to the grill and being impossible to turn over without falling apart. Props to the husband for this step of the process :)
4: We grilled some asparagus by making a tinfoil pouch, then putting a view slices of butter and freshly squeezed garlic with a splash of lemon juice and some freshly ground black pepper for a background hum inside-- then we popped 'er on the grill to steam inside the pouch.
We actually used frozen asparagus from Trader Joe's because a: it's cheaper and b: if it's a reputable brand and cooked right, studies have shown that frozen veggies can actually be better for you than "fresh" produce at the supermarket. These vegetables are picked at the peak of ripeness (aka heavily nutrient laden) and then frozen to "lock in" the vitamins and goodness. As long as you don't boil the heck out of them you retain the nutrients better than produce that has had time to lose quality in shipping and the time you hold onto it at home. That said, farmer's markets and straight from the farm is best, but we can't quite afford that jump yet. Ok, moving on! (This asparagus was DELICIOUS, by the way)
5: My personal favorite part of the meal- I created a kickass sauce that made the entire meal so full of saucy goodness! First, I used about 1/2 cup of mayo, 2 TB horseradish, about 1/4 of a lemon's worth of juice, and freshly ground black pepper. Then I squeezed in 3 cloves of garlic (1 big, 2 small- probably 2 large ones worth) straight into the mixture to get the juices in. Similarly, I sliced cherry tomatoes right over the bowl, intentionally letting the seeds and juice fall into the sauce. Finally, I did another chiffonade on some more fresh basil and whipped it all together. This was so good... my mouth is watering thinking about it! It was even better the second night when it had sat for 24 hours, with all of the flavors wrapping around one another. Yummy!
6: So this is the tortilla with sauce and broken up grilled fish on top. I have to clarify something here- the first night we used up some old-ish salmon patties that have been in the freezer forever, which is what you see here. They were still grilled, but the marinaded mahi mahi was the second night, though I didn't take pictures of this stage of the game the second night- it seemed redundant :)
7: After putting in a fresh piece of red and green(you can't really see the green) leaf lettuce, this is a picture of the full wrap. I wish I was eating it again right now! (I'm really hungry... describing the weekend's fantastic dinner isn't helping!! I want to get this posted though, so I'll eat afterward.)
8: We each had 2 wraps and 1/2 the asparagus, so here's the full meal. The second night we actually had Rice a Roni (processed food, I know... but we're on a budget and it's cheap and delicious. I am, however, inspired to learn to make my own risotto, as the kind we had was a creamy parmesan and it was AMAZING. A trick I use for creaminess is that we get nonfat milk- I know, die of shock, as many of you thought you'd never see the day. Costco's isn't so bad, and eventually we'll make the move to organic stuff, but, again, TIGHT budget until I get working again- and then I use slightly less milk than the recipe calls for and whip in about 1 TB of sour cream. It thickens it up, adding creaminess in texture and flavor. It works for me :)
9: So I always need to have some sort of snack after dinner. I'm getting better about eating less during actual dinner time, but then I get hungry 2 hours later. We recently starting making popcorn on the stove top- a few TB of super light olive oil, some organic popcorn kernels, a lid, and lots of shaking do the trick! I prefer mine buttery, but eating 2 TB of butter each isn't the best idea. Instead, I use about 1 TB of butter (for a hint of flavor) and then micrograte in some fresh parmigiano reggiano and pecorino romano cheeses. You can see our fancy storage system ala le ziploque. ;) After that I sprinkle in a pinch or two of kosher salt, and...
10: ...voila! This is the finished product, a big happy bowl of hot, fresh, salty goodness. Sometimes, as I mentioned in the last post, I forego the cheeses and put in a few peanut M&M's instead. It just depends on what we have and if I'm feeling the need for chocolate. I am in the habit of (usually) drinking water with dinner so that I can have a glass of milk with my popcorn. It's a fantastic snack and you can eat a ton without skyrocketing your calorie count... ice cream, not so much. I never met a pint of Ben and Jerry's that didn't beg me to eat it in its entirety in one sitting... popcorn is volumetrics friendly, thus not a gut buster.
So, there you have it! I have Community Group tonight, and dinner is served there, but I'll be sure to share when I make tacosagna tomorrow night, especially since I learned it from Rachael Ray and apparently other people did, too- I get a few hits a week from people who found me via Google search for her recipe. I guess I mentioned it one time or something.
For now, I am so hungry my stomach is in pain, and I've been hungry for over 2 hours, which is stupid. Hasta, kids!
This entry was posted
on Monday
at Monday, July 28, 2008
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food fotos,
foode creations,
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