What's for Dinner Now?

I'm doing an allergy-elimination diet for the next two months on my doctor's recommendation. I got tested for some food allergies/intolerances and it came up with a long and lovely list of potential baddies that I get to now abstain from for the next several weeks. The doc said to try it for two to six months but I say let's begin at the beginning and see where I land after eight or nine weeks.

That list of baddies includes: wheat, oats, soy, corn, peanuts, cane sugar, beet sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, MSG, preservatives and all dairy--you know, milk, cheese,  yogurt and the like.  

My response to all the good news? 

Is water the only thing left? 

I've done deprivation before and deprivation and I, well, we don't tango. I cry "uncle" when the going gets tough. I just don't like the restrictions. You even mention the word diet around here and I plunge myself head first into a vat of milk chocolate and swim for my life. 

So, here am I. Holding myself back from the edge of chocolate nirvana and attempting to eliminate all these foods for a few weeks. 

At the end of two months, I get to pick one eliminated food item and add it back into my diet for a day and then I get to wait three more days to see if I have any negative reactions to it. If not, then the food is considered okay. If I do have a reaction to it, then that food stays on the baddie list. Then I repeat that cycle for each food item. 

So, excuse me if I moan and whine and kick the floor a bit as I do this thing for the next few weeks. It's really not so bad, right? I get to eat as many veggies as I want. I get to eat almost every fruit on the planet. And chicken, fish, turkey and steak are all just fine. It's really just anything that comes in a box, bag, package, wrapper, container, can, bottle or drive-thru window that I need to stay away from. Which is really what I should be doing anyway. 

So good bye for now pb&j sandwiches, popcorn, tortillas, cheese, yogurt, chips, candy, dessert, bread, pasta, crackers, soymilk and oatmeal. Parting is such sweet sorrow. May it be but a short separation. Or if not, may I take it with good grace and a smile. 

Or if not, can I least figure out what to make for dinner and may it be goooooood. 

Hot Potato

I made something the other night that turned out so well, that eight-year-old Sam, my blueberry muffin skeptic and later convert, asked me for the recipe. Do you get asked often for recipes by an 8-year-old? Neither do I, so it immediately put this recipe high on my favorites list.

They are called Crash Hot Potatoes and they looked so good from the photos that I couldn't wait to try them. When I made them the other night for the eight-and-under crowd I got a thumbs up all around.

I've got Ree at Pioneer Woman to thank for this recipe. Ree has an excellent website that centers on her life as a rancher's wife in the Midwest. She plays constantly to the fish-out-of-water aspect of this life as she was city-born and -bred and never expected to live on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. She's got some great recipes, four kids that she homeschools, excellent photography skills, and a rather hysterical love story called Black Heels to Tractor Wheels. She has a no-holds-barred style of writing and the stories to back it up, so peruse her site and enjoy. 

I boiled enough potatoes to make two large pans of this recipe because I wanted to try my own variation on it. I've had one particular hankering for the last, oh, six months. This hankering seems to come upon me late at night when nothing else will satisfy me. It is the one thing I seem to want ate least once a week and some weeks once a day: oven fries.

On the second batch of potatoes, instead of mashing them with a potato masher, I cut the potatoes in slices, like french fries. Then I brushed them with olive oil and sprinkled them with sea salt and freshly-ground pepper just as the recipe states. And I baked them at 450 degrees for 20-25 minutes. They turned out just as I imagined: hot, crispy and satisfying. And way better than these oven fries that got me started on this hankering several months ago. 

Now, if you really, really want to make this variation of oven fries low-calorie and low-fat, you can make a little homemade fry sauce to dip them in. The cast of characters includes ketchup, mayonnaise, and a little mustard. You mix a 2Tbsps. of the ketchup and 2Tbsps. of mayonnaise together with 1 tsp. of the mustard and you will get this magical mixture that goes perfectly with oven fries. And if you are really gutsy, make the fry sauce with the exact brand of ingredients that I listed for the best results. 

If you aren't up to my variation of the recipe though, I can guarantee you that Ree's recipe is perfection in and of itself without my additions. It has been rather hot here lately so I haven't been in the mood for potatoes for several weeks, but the night I made this recipe the temperature outside did not affect my enjoyment of these delicious little creations.  You might just find that to be the case at your own house.

RECIPE: Crash Hot Potatoes
from The Pioneer Woman

12 whole new potatoes (or other small, round potatoes)
3 tablespoons olive oil
kosher salt to taste
black pepper to taste
rosemary (or other herbs of choice) to taste

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add in as many potatoes as you wish to make and cook them until they are fork-tender.

On a sheet pan, generously drizzle olive oil. Place tender potatoes on the cookie sheet leaving plenty of room between each potato.

With potato masher, gently press down each potato until it slightly mashes, rotate the potato masher 90 degrees and mash again. Brush the tops of each crushed potato generously with more olive oil.

Sprinkle potatoes with kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper and fresh chopped rosemary (or chives or thyme or whatever herb you have available).

Bake in a 450 degree oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. 

Hmmmmmm, Good.

Guess who ate every last one of my blueberry muffins? 

Chocolate Choices

My sister posted an incredible chocolate cake recipe today and I'm CRAVING the cake. I had it for the first time a few months ago after we got the recipe from our friend Sam. Sam is one of those unfortunate people who has creativity flowing from his very fingertips. He can't control the beautiful, intricate, gorgeous work that he does. It just comes to him.

I hate that.

But I love Sam. Simply, because he introduced me to a chocolate cake that has got to be as CLOSE TO NIRVANA as anything I've ever tasted. Hmmmmm. It is that good.

And really, if I'm truthful, it isn't just the cake. It is the icing. That icing made me coo the first time I tasted it. Yes, like a bird. And yes, I sounded ridiculous. But after my first bite of this cake and this frosting, I knew I had found it. The thing I had been searching for--subconsciously--my entire life:

The Perfect Icing.

You see the people of the world can be divided into two very important categories: Those Who Love Icing and Those Who Hate Icing. And I am a long-time, card-carrying member of the first group. I've always judged a cake by its icing. As a kid, I ate the icing first and tasted the cake after.

I also was wise. I cozied up to the members of the Hate Icing group in my family and benefitted from their dislike by relieving them of the nasty, icky, oh-so-awful icing on their plates so they could enjoy their cake. I was doing them a service. Really. I even would go so far as to trade my cake for their icing.

And this cake, this cake of Sam's? It has the best frosting I have ever tasted in my life. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I might do illegal acts if this frosting were the pay off.

So, look at this recipe and its lovely pictures (thanks, Meg) and dream of this kind of chocolate nirvana in your future.

Just don't touch the icing. It's mine.

The After-Easter Sale

How much chocolate is too much chocolate? I mean, really. Two bags? Four? Eight?

I'm even burping chocolate. (Note to self: marshmallow bunnies don't taste better the second time around.)

Healthier Fast Food Options

photo © Filippo Lodi for openphoto.net

I was thinking about healthier fast food options in regards to a health challenge my family is undertaking for our trip to Denmark this summer. Many of us want to feel strong and healthy for this big trip and so we are working on some goals together--goals like exercising, eating more fruits and veggies, staying away from refined carbs and sugar, and drinking lots of water.

I've found in my past attempts at improving my health that unless I walk out the door with a bag packed full of good food and some water, then I will likely make some mistake with my eating that day. Meaning usually that I won't eat until 3:00 or 4:00 pm in my work day when my body is screaming for food and then I will eat the first thing that I can lay my hands on--Snickers, bagels, yogurt, nasty dried-out sandwiches from the vending machines, candy on a co-worker's desk. Just something or anything.

In an attempt to find a middle ground between always packing a bag of food or eating only chocolate all day long, I've come up with a few healthier options for eating out. Now, mind you, I say "healthier" with caution. I know this isn't ideal food. It isn't home-cooked where I can control the additives and oils added to my food. But it is a nice way station on my trip to healthier lifestyle.

1. Subway--you can order any sandwich on whole wheat bread with lots of veggies or you can order any sandwich as a salad. If you go light on the mayo and sauces, you end up with something relatively healthy that will give you lots of veggies. I like the oven-roasted chicken breast on whole wheat--then toast it to up the yum factor. They have several sandwiches under there list of 6 grams of fat or less that you can see by clicking on the Subway link above.

2. Carl's Jr.--They have something that's either called low-carb style or protein style where you can order any sandwich and ask for it low carb and they will wrap the whole sandwich--meat, veggies, cheese--in lettuce leaves rather than the bun. I'm sure this isn't the healthiest thing out there to eat, but it could help you if you are in a bind one day. My favorite is their grilled chicken club.

3. Cafe Rio--has great salads and tortillas with lots of fresh veggies. They also offer stone-ground wheat tortillas! As long as you don't overdo it on the rice at a place like this, this turns out to be very healthy meal. Because they are so packed with people usually, you can call ahead with your order and pick it up a few minutes later without having to wait in line. No brown rice here.

4. Bajios--they have great salads too. They have one--their Chicken Green Chile salad--that doesn't have rice and is yummy with the mango chutney. They also offer small whole wheat tortillas if you want to use them (that means they don't have large whole wheat tortillas that would come with their big salads or their enchiladas, but you can just have most of their salads without the tortilla if you want to). As long as you go light on the rice and the tortillas, you can have a great meal. No brown rice here either.

5. Taco Time--has a chicken and black bean burrito that is pretty good if you are in a pinch. I just ask them to hold the rice and ask for a whole wheat tortilla and you come away with an okay lunch. You can order a whole wheat tortilla on any of their items.

I can hope that with foods like this to help me in a pinch or a bind so that on a bad day I can keep up with this health challenge and actually make baby steps towards a healthier lifestyle.

To Health!