  I grew up appreciating a good meal. And I don’t mean a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with potato chips. I mean a filet mignon at La Vendon in Quebec or an authentic meal of Sukiyaki (pronounce Ski-yah-kee) prepared by one of the international students who stayed with us from time-to-time. While others my age were buying Villager clothes (remember those?), sporting around in new Corvettes and swooning over the latest Beatles album, I was being dragged all over the country in, first, a 1959 Nash Rambler station wagon, then a ’66 blue Plymouth station wagon (with a third seat that faced backwards! THAT was safe in a rear end collision) and then a ’71 Plymouth Satellite wagon, all of which could house two adults and four girls, plus suitcases, make-up cases, games, food, drinks, pillows, a grill and maps in relative comfort if we all pretended hard enough, all the while trying new foods like we were searching for gold treasure. In high school, while friends showed off their new Bass Weejun loafers, I, in my Buster Browns, wanted to yell, “Yeah? Well, WE just got a crate of live lobsters in from Maine and they are still waving their claws!” It was all about priorities: Appearance or stomach – decisions, decisions. And so, I have had a love affair with food that has been passed down from generation to generation (just look at my family cookbook at the website) and which has made it very difficult, as I grow older, to face the fact that ‘food’ and ‘older’ don’t necessarily mesh well. Having a thyroid condition hasn’t helped matters, either, and never mind that aerobics or walking is out of the question at this stage of two broken feet!! All of a sudden, I’ve had to start paying attention to Dr. Oz’s latest diet or researching the Paleo diet, the Fungus Connection, and the South Beach diet, Weight Watchers and, my favorite, Sparkpeople.com, in order to look forward to my twilight years as something slightly smaller than a Beluga Whale. In my research, I have discovered that a Boca Burger has nothing to do with a tasty treat at the sunny beaches of Boca Raton, Florida (can we say, “Ick?”) and that a low-fat, protein shake, no matter how masked by strawberry or chocolate flavoring, is still disgustingly similar to a barium cocktail at your local gastroenterologist. While I love a salad, a perpetual menu of spinach, kale, lettuce and tomatoes renders me boringly unable to carry on a conversation about world affairs because I’m too busy visualizing a sirloin steak with mushroom gravy and mashed potatoes. I have portion control down to a science – digital scale and all. I’m so efficient that if we eat out, I can divide my meal into halves or thirds or fourths and know exactly how many calories I’m NOT getting to enjoy. But with all of my careful calorie counting, organic and all-natural food purchasing, fat/carbohydrate/protein calculating and the purposeful attempt to drown myself in gallons of filtered water (I swear that when I walk, I sound like the tide rolling in at Boca Raton, Florida) I haven’t been able to lose a single pound. In fact, I’ve gained a few more. And I have a bigger problem. I like to snack. Life is not fair. Four weeks ago, my endocrinologist made a suggestion to try something called the 5/2 Fast. She told me to research it and that she thought it might jump-start my metabolism. I started it three weeks ago and I have to admit that I am feeling really good. AND I have lost three pounds. The kicker is that I’m not having to focus so much on my daily menu. That is really, really, really nice. On Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, I eat normal meals of 1250 to 1500 calories per day (totally lenient span there) and then on Tuesday and Thursday I do a semi-fast of 500 calories per day. That really isn’t as hard as you would think. On those two days, for breakfast, I have one egg, one piece of bacon and a half a piece of toast. For lunch I have an apple or orange and for dinner I have 3 oz of baked or grilled chicken, all of the steamed veggies I want and a small potato or 1/4 cup of mashed potatoes or 1/4 cup of rice. Knowing that I get to have normal food the next day, makes my ‘days of want’ easy to get through! My head feels clearer, although Mr. Fix-It may tell you THAT’S all in my imagination, and my insides feel better too. Really. As I said, I like to snack and so on my days of ‘fasting’ I’ve come up with a ‘snack’ that I can tolerate. I like crunchy stuff but popcorn, Cheetos and Cracker Jacks just don’t qualify as diet friendly foods. So, I’ve started cutting up celery, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots and any other veggie I have on hand and mix those pieces together in a closeable refrigerator dish.  Then, I add 1 tsp to 1 tbsp. of a dry dressing mix, like Hidden Valley Ranch, and toss it in with the veggies. I taste to see how much I want. Just a little is needed because as the mixture sits, it absorbs the flavor.  I keep this “Veggie Popcorn” (alright, I realize that popcorn IS a vegetable, but, heh) in the frig and when I get the ‘munchies’, I put some into a bowl or bag and carry it around with me. As great as I was at pretending that I was comfortable, all those years ago and packed into a car like a sardine, I’m still pretty good at pretending I’m snacking too!! I’ll keep you posted on how the 5/2 diet is working. Hopefully, by next time, I’ll be on the cover of Vogue in a svelt Villager dress and Bass Weejun loafers.  |
|
| |
|
Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
|
|
 |
|
|
Posts Tagged ‘vegetables’
It’s 105º And Soup?!
Wednesday, June 27th, 2012
 The good news is that my meds seem to be working and I don’t feel like I’m burning up from the inside out, with the accompanying clammy persperation from a metabolism gone haywire. And my eyes are a teeny tiny better and that is awesome. Thank you so much for your kind words, thoughts and prayers. But the bad news is that it is 105º outside. There was a roadrunner on the drive, carrying a frilly, little parasol to beat off the heat as she looked for a lizard. OK. So, I’m exaggerating a little. It was actually just a tiny fan.  I have to tell you about my adventure with our little Ellie-dog, our long-haired mini dachshund, in this heat. I was driving on the interstate, after having made some deliveries, and Ellie went along for the ride. She was in the front seat, panting from the very hot day and trying to get comfortable, when all of a sudden she jumped down to the floor. I told her to get back into the seat, but she dove under the car seat to the crackling and rustling of paper and plastic wrap. Backing out of her hideout, she jumped into the seat with a stale, partially eaten, chocolate cupcake. Chocolate can be deadly to dogs and I knew it. Just to give background: A few weeks ago, in a moment of absolute insanity, I had purchased a packaged “Super Chocolate” cupcake from a huge pile on a table at the grocery store. The pile was so inviting to a person who is supposed to be totally abstaining from such things and besides, there was a big, big sign that declared, “SALE!!”. They were on sale. That’s a siren song to this coupon shopper. I had to have one. So I did. When I got to the car, I opened the package, took one bite and thought, “Bleh! That’s awful!!” and put it back into its plastic wrapping, intending to toss it in the trash. That was a sale down the drain. I don’t know if my separation from such things made that cupcake taste bad or if it was just a sorry product, but whatever, my picky tastebuds saved me from myself. I placed the wrapped cupcake in a small bag and put it on the floor of the car, where I promptly forgot about it. I must have stopped fast or something, because that little bag rolled under the seat where it went to live in a cupcake no-man’s land. That is, until Ellie found it. As soon as she had grabbed that cupcake, she jumped onto the seat cushions on the passenger’s side of the car while, at the same time, my hand shot out to grab her nose. Now, remember that I am on the interstate going 70 mph. Ellie was trying with all her might to wolf down her treasure before I could pry her mouth open. Driving with my left hand, I stuck two fingers of my right into the back of her jaw, opened her mouth and scooped out wads of slobbery cupcake as Ellie tried valiantly to grab it back along with my fingers. I yelped. Using the elbow of my left arm, with hand on the wheel, I managed to get the window open partway in order to toss the offending cupcake onto the highway. I figured that it was so slobbery that it would decompose and that wouldn’t be considered littering? I managed to hold Ellie’s collar in such a way that she could not move to grab the chocolate pieces that had broken off and scattered all over the seat. And I mean ALL over the seat. Instead of heading back to work, I made a detour to the vet and plopped my silly puppy onto the table, stating rather foolishly, “She ate a chocolate cupcake. Not all of it, but some of it and it said that it’s a Super Chocolate cupcake!” The vet dubbed her Cupcake Dog and did an exam, using the name frequently. He determined that she was just going to have a really bad tummy ache because – yes, we read the ingredients on the cupcake package – there wasn’t even enough chocolate to call it just a Regular Chocolate cupcake, much less Super Chocolate. False advertising indeed. And so, Ellie, Cupcake Dog, did fine and I bandaged my fingers where she had been unable to distinguish between them and globby cupcake. No harm done. Better for you than preservative-filled, pretend chocolate cupcakes are the veggies in your garden. You do have a garden, right?! If not, then start thinking about next year! If you are like me, your garden is coming in all at once right now. It makes an overwhelming task to deal with mountains of tomatoes, potatoes, corn and every other kind of vitamin-filled vegetable that show up at this time of year. At the request of a reader, who asked what other kind of soups I process that use potatoes, I thought I’d share a recipe that my friend Janis invented and shared with me a number of years ago. She serves it every cold, Halloween night to volunteers who help with her community project. Her method of making this soup is the “dump” method and the ingredients include the “kitchen sink” but I put together a batch and measured what I did so that I could pass that on to you. The nice thing about this soup is that it makes so much that you are able to can it in the pre-meat stage and then cook up your meat prior to serving so that it is fresh tasting and delicious. The recipe makes about 8 pints of base soup. Of course, you can make this large batch for a crowd and add your meat at the end, without worrying about canning it. So here you go: 6 – 8 cups fresh tomatoes that have been blanched, skinned and quartered or chopped. (You can use canned tomaotes if you do not have fresh, one can being Rotel tomatoes) 1 can chicken broth 1/2 to 1 jalapeno pepper diced (not needed if using Rotel tomatoes) 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 3 medium new potatoes chopped with skin left on 3 carrots, chopped 1 cup corn (frozen is fine) 1 cup green beans (frozen is fine) 1 cup fresh or frozen peas (optional) 1 large onion chopped 1 1/2 cup cooked pinto beans or kidney beans or a can of drained Ranch Style Beans 1 26 oz can of your favorite brand of spaghetti sauce – I like Hunts To Serve Soup (For 1 quart) 1/2 lb hamburger 3 cloves garlic salt and pepper 1/3 cup shell pasta  Drop tomatoes, whole, into boiling water and watch for the skins to split. Remove to ice water when the skins split. Slip skins off of tomatoes and quarter or dice tomatoes and place into a large stock pot.  Add can of chicken stock to tomatoes and bring to a boil to stew.  Add jalapeno  Add chopped new potatoes and carrots. Continue to boil until carrots are tender.  Add chopped onion  And just a little hint. When using fresh tomatoes and cooking them, often they have a slightly bitter taste. If you make spaghetti sauce or even juice from fresh tomatoes, this can be a problem. The solution is to add about 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda to the tomatoes as they cook. They will foam up like the top of a volcano! But this cuts the bitterness totally and gives a more smooth, nice taste. If using commercially canned tomatoes, this step can also be necessary. Note: Do not add soda if you are going to can tomatoes only, using the waterbath canning method. This cuts the acidity and reduces the safety of using waterbath canning. For this particular recipe, we will be pressure canning it, so reducing the acid will be fine.  Add green beans, corn and peas (peas are optional). I am using frozen here, but fresh is great.  Add beans  Add spaghetti sauce  Put soup into jars, either pints or quarts, and process in a pressure canner on 10 lbs of pressure for 60 minutes for pints and 75 minutes for quarts.  To serve, open a jar or two of the soup base and put into a deep pan. Add one cup of water for one quart of soup base. For 1 quart of soup, cook 1/2 lb of hamburger or ground chuck with 3 cloves of pressed garlic, salt and pepper, until browned.  Add beef to the soup. I like to add pasta shells too. Boil until the pasta is tender and add more water as it cooks to thin if need be.  Serve hot with fresh cornbread. This is a wonderfully quick dinner on a cold, winter night. Also, just for information, this is great for camping. Dehydrated hamburger can be purchased at many hunting/camping stores, as well as at Costco. This meat can be rehydrated and cooked with the garlic and salt and pepper and then added to the soup. Great meal for around the campfire or when the electricity goes out!  |
|
|
Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
|
|
|
|
|
Canning Beef Stew
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
 How hot is it? It is so hot in Oklahoma the snakes are looking for air conditioning and they’re cold blooded!! It so hot here that the nectarines are going straight from the tree into jars as jam. It’s so hot that the Gila Monsters have moved to Oklahoma from the Mohave Desert because it’s warmer here! Yeah, we’re setting records. The disturbing news for the rest of you is what this is doing to part of your food supply. Grain and cotton crops have simply burned up, causing both to rise in price. As a result, grain is becoming cost prohibitive for ranchers for their livestock. Grass is gone and so many ranchers are having to resort to expensive hay as well. I just talked with a friend, in south-central Oklahoma, who owns a very large cattle ranch and she said they are preparing to sell their entire herd of cows. She said the cows are losing weight so fast that they must be sold this week or she and her family will take an even worse beating. There is no grass and there is no water. I see cheap beef in the grocery stores in the shortrun, from ranchers selling off herds, and a shortage of beef/high prices in the longrun, so plan accordingly!! One would think that in this furnace that is the midwest, one wouldn’t even think of hot meals. But planning ahead is the stuff that makes us prairie folk able to contend with the unexpected. Using garden staples that have managed to survive to can foods for the winter is a great way to use these days indoors. I have been finding beef on sale and so, I’ve been putting up a Fall and Winter supply of beef stew, a veritable meal in a jar! Just open a jar, heat the stew in a pot, mix up a batch of cornbread and you’ve got supper! And if the electricty goes out in one of our famous ice storms, the wood stove or the grill make perfect heat sources for a pot of stew accompanied by bread or crackers. So here is how I do my beef stew for Mr. Fix-It. He loves having this around because he can fix it himself! (carrots, celery, potatoes, onion, etc)
 Pat 10 lbs of meat dry with paper towel. I use either chuck roast or rump roast, depending on what’s on sale. Today I’m using chuck roast.  This is a rump roast. If you will notice, the chuck roast has more fat and more loss, but it is also more flaky.  Cut meat into cubes  Remove fat and membranes by lifting as you cut underneath. As you lift, this gives more area to slice under the membrane or fat and also helps to release them from the meat.  Lightly salt the meat  Add a little of the meat at a time to a very large stock pot that is on medium heat. Brown and add more meat until most meat cubes are lightly browned on at least one side. Juices will begin releasing.  Add 4 1/2 pounds of mixed veggies. I am using potatoes, carrots, onions and celery. You can use whatever amounts of each that you prefer and you can add other vegetables according to taste.  Add water to cover  Add garlic powder  Add thyme  Add bay leaf  Add beef bouillon  Mix package of brown gravy with 1/2 cup water and add to the stew, stirring. At this point, if you like wine or burgandy in your beef stew, add 1/2 cup. Mr. Fix-It likes his without.  Cover and allow to simmer vigorously 1 hour, adding water to keep at the same level and stirring occassionally to keep from sticking.  Mix 1/2 cup corn starch with one cup of cold water. I start out with this much and add more if I need more thickening. I usually wind up using 3/4 cup corn starch with 1 1/2 cup water, however, I like to start out with less and adding more if needed. Do not make the broth too thick. It can always be reduced after opening a jar and bringing to a boil. If you get your broth too thick, it will thicken more in the processing and will become way too thick.  Stir continually as you pour into boiling stew broth to keep from lumping.  Find and remove bay leaf. Place stew into jars, dividing broth evenly between jars. Leave 1″ headspace.  Using a canning spatula or knife, remove any air bubbles by running around the inside perimeter of the jars.  Wipe the rims of the jars to remove any juices or oils  Add lids that have been warming in a pan of nearly boiling water  Add rings, tightening and then backing off just a hair  Place jars into canner, cover and process for 1 hour 30 minutes for quarts and 1 hour 15 minutes for pints at 10 lbs of pressure  Meanwhile, place all the trimmings into a pot and cover with water. Boil until trimmings are cooked down to very tender, continually adding water as needed. Strain broth from the trimmings and add broth to pint jars. Add 1/2 tsp salt to each pint and process with any extra jars of beef stew to make canned beef broth.  Place trimmings, a carrot and about 1/4 cup oatmeal into food processor or blender and turn into a puree. You can put this into jars too, with extra water, leaving 1 inch of head space to can. Or you can freeze it. Use it as canned dog food! Nothing has been wasted. |
|
Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
|
|
|
Roses and Berries and Grapes – Oh My!
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
        |
|
Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
|
|
|
Creamy Chicken Veggie/Noodle Soup
Monday, May 2nd, 2011
 I don’t know about where you are, but here in Okie Land, it’s just downright cold. Last night, we had a low in the 30’s and it appears to be making a repeat performance tonight. A wonderful rain has continued the entire day, totally breaking the drought for sure. We even had a little pea-sized hail for good measure. The ground is soaked and that’s a good way to be!! A neighbor even burned trash this weekend – something that has been forbidden in these here parts. And so, though this is the first of May, and though we normally have warm weather by this time, I decided to “soup” up my basic chicken soup recipe and make a meal into which Mr. Fix-It could sink his teeth. By his third bowl, I figured that he liked the results. There’s leftovers for tomorrow too! Here is my new concoction! Soup Note: You can substitute dried veggies, canned chicken and canned milk if you want to try your hand at ‘sustainable’ cooking.  Pour one to two tbsp olive oil into a large stock pan or pot.  Add 1 tbsp flour and on medium heat, stir until flour is fully incorporated to make a light roue.  Add 2 quarts chicken broth and 1 bouillon cube and stir. Simmer on medium heat  In a skillet, add one tbsp olive oil and sauté 1/2 cup chopped onions until soft   Chop three large button mushrooms  Add chopped veggies to sautéd onions and toss  Pour vegetables into simmering broth  Add 1/8 tsp thyme  And 1/8 tsp sesame oil  Add chopped raw chicken breast  Add a fresh orange peel. We love this. It makes all the difference, but it is optional  Stir and cover. Simmer for 30 minutes and then remove orange peel  Add 1/2 cup chopped cabbage and simmer, covered, for 10 more minutes  Uncover and add 1/2 cup half and half and stir well  Bring to a boil and gently sprinkle in homemade noodles while stirring to keep from clumping. We much prefer the homemade noodles to packaged and they are so simple to make. They are much more tender, but you can use the packaged. Simmer until tender. The noodles will naturally thicken the soup, but if you want it to be any thicker, just add cornstarch that has been mixed with cold water. Note: If you plan to can this soup, leave out the noodles. Just open a jar of soup later and add noodles prior to serving. Noodles get mushy when canned.  |
|
Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
|
|
|
Homestead Revival
Paratus Familia
Rural Revolution