Good Food, Good Health

I love food. 

You too? I love the caramelized onions with red potatoes that we had for dinner the other day, a perfectly runny egg with sausage for breakfast, and that berry spinach smoothie I made yesterday afternoon. I like food. I like the smell of dinner cooking when I open the door at night, I like the juices dripping off the coconut chicken so that it dribbles down my chin, I like crisp crunch of a Fuji apple in the middle of the afternoon. 

Food is fun. It tastes good, it brings people together, it is an endless source of variation, interest and conversation. 

Yummy food! Blessed food! Good food!

I'm planning on sharing more recipes here, more of my thoughts on food and just more about my love of all things regarding health, nutrition and food.

For now listen to this excellent talk by Robyn O'Brien--a food analyst who once saw food only as a commodity and now sees it as a pathway to health. One of her four kids had a major allergic reaction to breakfast one morning and Ms. O'Brien's whole life changed. She talks about what is in our food and why she had to change what her family ate once she realized food's impact on them.

Enjoy!

Foodie Weekend

One of my friends came to town this weekend for a conference and we made a three-day affair out of the event. Amy got to attend her conference and Katy and I got to cook for her and all hang out together. These two love to talk about food, plan food and especially enjoy food. They both have some food allergies so it makes it even more fun to cook together because we get to discover food in new ways.

This is the menu from this weekend. Hopefully it sounds as good as it tasted.

Thursday

Dinner: Penne pasta with a garlic, veggie, ground turkey tomato sauce

Friday

Breakfast: Katy's Breakfast Burritos (eggs wrapped in a brown rice tortilla w/ almond mozzarella cheese, avocado and salsa)

Lunch: Hot, fresh gluten-free bread with almond butter and jam

Dinner: Brazilian night (black beans, garlic jasmine rice, kale sauteed in olive oil, lemon and garlic)

Saturday

Breakfast: Blueberry smoothies and eggs

Lunch [Brown bag while attending the conference): Salmon salad sandwich with avocado mayo, apples & carrots

Snacks: Trail mix, cashews, almonds, blackberries

Dinner: Pad Thai w/ asparagus at Noodles & Co.

Dessert: Cherry amaretto coconut ice cream

Sunday

Breakfast: Egg and toast

Lunch: Veggie tacos with fresh cilantro and feta

Snacks: Maple raspberry scones

Dinner: Garlic baked salmon with an avocado remoulade sauce, asparagus sauteed in olive oil, garlic & salt, spinach salad with chopped almonds, apples, blackberries with a citrus vinaigrette, zucchini and yellow squash veggie medley and crash hot potatoes

Dessert: Cookie dough coconut ice cream w/ 2 chocolate chip cookies

Monday

Breakfast: Tuscan Baked Eggs

Lunch: Hummus & Barbecue Onion Wrap

Thanks to several great food bloggers for sharing their excellent recipes. One not featured in this list is Elana at elanaspantry.com. We didn't have time to make her chocolate chip cookies or some of her other great recipes, but I utilize her recipes weekly in my daily cooking. It is such fun to be connected across the Internet to great people who cook well. I had my computer in the kitchen most of the weekend as I was referencing recipes and I realized with the iPad in existence, we are just steps away from having permanent computer screens in our kitchens so we can pull up any recipe in our collection of virtual recipes. Can't you see the iPad installed on the front of your kitchen cabinet so all of your recipes are eye level for you? That will be fun!

As far as pictures of all the food are concerned, I didn't snap a single photo. I think I get so absorbed in the cooking that I entirely forget (or I am too tired) to chronicle the event in photos. I will continue to work on incorporating more photos.

Also, after typing out this menu, I realize we consumed a lot garlic this weekend. I think staples in any kitchen include garlic, salt, lemons and olive oil. Those were used in abundance and they made everything taste yummy!

In addition to all of the good food, I pick up little tips and tricks from friends as we cook and experiment together. From Katy, I learned about the art of compiling her breakfast burritos and the way to warm a brown rice tortilla to perfection. From Amy, I learned about adventure as she experimented with several citrus vinaigrettes inspired by the ingredients available to her. From both, I get a delight in good food shared among friends.

Good friends and good food make for a great time.

The Thanksgiving Cooking Experiment

I have not a single photo from Thanksgiving this year. My mind was a bit preoccupied with the menu. If I can scavenge some photos from my family I will post them. In the meantime, if you want to check out our LOVELY Thanksgiving table take a look at my sister-in-law Michelle's post on her blog regarding all of her hard work.

My November had been filled to overflowing with school, school, school and applications for graduate school and the GRE and work that I had barely a moment to breathe. But I promised myself a whole day of cooking for Thanksgiving. Since my allergy-free diet, I don't eat wheat or gluten and that was going to put a big cramp in any major dining at the table since stuffing, rolls, pie and often the turkey have gluten in them. So, I was going to create an entire Thanksgiving meal that was gluten-free.

We didn't actually have our dinner until the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend so that gave me all day Thursday to cook and bake. It was a good thing too because I needed all that time.

The menu included:

Balsamic roasted turkey with apple stuffing from elanaspantry.com

Cranberry, almond, apple spinach salad

Ground turkey and mushroom stuffing (my riff on my Grandma J's classic stuffing)

Mashed red potatoes

Gluten-free gravy from glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com

Gluten-free dinner rolls from glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com

Pumpkin pie with almond flour crust from The Gluten-free Almond Flour Cookbook

It was a little bit insane. Mostly because every recipe but the salad and the potatoes was brand-new for me. Eeek! What was I thinking? Not to mention, I started the whole shebang out with making my own chicken stock too--another first! I needed a great chicken stock as the base for my gravy and stuffing and I had frozen several chicken bones from past roasted chickens and I decided to turn them into a chicken stock. I cobbled together a chicken stock recipe by pulling bits and pieces from some of my favorite cooks and started simmering a huge stockpot on my tiny white oven. It made enough chicken stock not only for Thanksgiving recipes but I also froze several packages of it as well to use in later recipes.

The stock turned out great and smelled so good as it simmered on the stove. It totally put me in the mood for a day of cooking and baking. Good thing too because that mood was going to get stretched a bit thin. The turkey turned out well, the salad was good, the potatoes were a bit dry b/c I didn't mix them until right before dinner and I was kind of harried at that point. The gravy, stuffing, rolls and pie were each pretty time intensive and here's why:

Gravy: I made this very, very last right before dinner was served. What I didn't realize was that I would spend about a half an hour over the stove experimenting with the thickness and trying to get it just right. I was completely bushwhacked at this point so that is likely my memory could be elongating the time it took. The consistency turned out fine but I think to kick it up a notch next time, I will add a bit more seasoning and salt in the beginning so that it zings more.

Stuffing: The stuffing actually turned out much better than I imagined and was probably the biggest success of my adventure. For the bread base, I used a mix from Pamela's that was expensive but worth every penny in the end because the bread was good and spongey and soaked up the chicken stock and flavors from the mushrooms, turkey and seasoning very well.

Rolls: The rolls were good especially for my first real attempt at rolls from scratch and using a mixture of gluten-free flours that would have quelled me with fright a few months ago. I actually ended up making two batches of these though because I needed more than a single batch and didn't realize this until they came out of the oven. Also, the texture of the rolls is a bit more biscuit-like. They were not light, airy dinner rolls so while the taste was excellent, I would prefer to find a roll that more closely mimics my idea of a soft, fluffy dinner roll.

Pumpkin pie: This recipe needed the most finessing as my crust burned on my first attempt. I tried it again and this time, I cut the baking time in half, cooked the pumpkin mixture mostly on the stove and then covered the almond flour crust with aluminum foil when I put the two together and back in the oven. This time the pumpkin pie was much better. I still need some work on perfecting that almond flour crust but all in all it was an admirable pie for another first.

So, you can see why taking photos was the last thing on my mind with all that cooking. The problem is that I need to take photos of what I am cooking though too. It helps my memory of the event and it makes it more fun to blog about too. Maybe that can be one of resolutions for the new year? Take food photos!

I took all of my food over to my parents' house for Thanksgiving where my mother served 52 people--bless her heart! I had one cousin at dinner who is gluten-free as well so she got to enjoy my food too and of course, I put it out for everyone else to taste and try as well. Michelle put together a fabulous table that stretched out to incorporate all the adults and teenagers. The nearly 20 children had their own tables that she decorated as well out in the garage.

All in all it felt like a spectacular Thanksgiving with the best people, the best food and lots of thankful hearts.

This is My Kind of Ice Cream

I found an ice cream to love.

I have never been an ice cream fanatic. This I have admitted and shared before. Yet, many of you are big fans of this dairy wonderland. A coworker and I were discussing ice cream the other day and he mentioned that growing up his mom always had ice cream in the freezer. They didn't have a lot of other treats in the house but they always had ice cream. And every night she would pull out the ice cream and bowls and spoons and everyone would gather around and eat ice cream together as they laughed and talked. His mom died when he was in high school but he says he still loves to have a bowl of ice cream each night.

That definitely tugged the old heart strings a little.

I think part of the reason that ice cream didn't appeal to me was I had an inkling pretty early on that I might have some food issues with dairy. I just didn't seem to respond to it well. I was never a big milk drinker and I had pretty much cut it out of my life by high school and I think ice cream just went down the same road. That doesn't mean I don't like it or it doesn't taste amazing. I just didn't want to hassle with it especially when things like brownies or cake or cookies could satiate my sweet tooth very well. 

In college, I lived with two like-minded friends who couldn't or didn't do dairy either. Our fridge was a wonderland of soy milk and rice milk and we had many a late night raid of a local grocery store that carried our favorite So Delicious soy ice cream. This got us through the minute dissection of every cute boy, potential prospect and dating relationship that crossed our threshold. It even helped us wade through the a broken engagement or two. So, yes I get the appeal. 

Yet, I found that with some of my food sensitivities that soy milk and rice milk were not really options so that ice cream fell by the wayside as well. 

And then I happened across a recommendation on Elana's site for coconut milk ice cream. 

When I was out visiting Amy a couple of months ago we experimented and made a fruit smoothie with coconut milk and pineapple. It was tropical and yummy and we made it every day after that. Then I came home and spread the love of coconut milk smoothies and I've had at least a couple a week since then. So, my love of all things coconut has really moved up the roster. 

 
Ingredients: organic coconut milk, organic agave syrup, chicory root extract, organic dried coconut, carob bean gum, guar gum, natural flavors

I just had no idea that coconut milk ice cream existed. When I heard about it, I went out that night and bought my first little pint of Purely Decadent's Coconut flavor. Yummy, yummy, yummy, yummy. 

via wholesomegoodness.net

Ingredients: organic coconut milk (organic coconut, water, guar gum), organic agave syrup, organic fair trade cocoa, organic hazelnuts, organic chocolate fudge (organic agave syrup, water, organic fair trade cocoa, organic fair trade vanilla extract), organic fair trade vanilla extract

Then I went out the next night I tried another brand called Coconut Bliss. They had a flavor called Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Fudge. Ummm, I became an immediate convert. Immediate. 

I think one of the things I like about coconut milk ice cream compared to soy milk ice cream or rice milk ice cream is that it is thick and creamy and full of texture. It isn't ice-y like a sorbet. It is full of fat which only makes it super good and thus super good for you. 

So, for all of my ice cream friends out there, give it a whirl. I'll even come share it with you, if you give me a call.

That's just the kind of friend I am. 

Cooking Up a Storm

The last few days have been filled with food, food, and more food. I have been cooking and I've been having a blast. I've been cooking for a variety of reasons but the best part of it is I've been cooking for others. I love experimenting in the kitchen and trying out different foods but once I've run through a recipe a couple of times, I want to try it out and see if it is a success for others too. 

Let me acknowledge once again in all of my cooking now how much of a debt of gratitude I owe to my favorite food blogger, Elana, at elanaspantry.com. Nearly 90% of these recipes come from her site with a few modifications here and there by me. She got me excited again about cooking and eating because she taught me through her blog that I could make food that was delicious and appetizing even with my food sensitivities. I owe her much for sharing all of her scrumptious recipes. She's got a great gluten-free cookbook coming out this summer that you can pre-order if you like, so check it out. I can't wait to get my copy. 

Monday I cooked because my sweet, multi-talented brother Adam came and put up three curtain rods and a towel rod for me. He keeps telling me that if I get a great drill I could do it myself. I keep telling him I would miss seeing his face. :) So, Adam and Michelle brought their little girl and Michelle's sister and we did dinner and FHE together. Of course, we girls chatted up a storm while Adam did the work but I think everyone had a good evening and we got to pull my table out from the wall and put it to good use. 

Menu for Monday night was 

• BBQ chicken
  
• crash hot potatoes
  
• spring salad with chopped almonds and apples and Elana's awesome ranch dressing
• asparagus sauteed in olive oil
• fresh strawberries and pineapple
• vanilla cupcakes

Tuesday was our monthly supper club with a group of friends where we each cook a dish around a theme and bring it to supper club and then eat and chat the night away. I was hosting for the month of May and since it was gluten-free night and most people are not gluten-free, I did a little extra cooking just so everyone could try out a variety of dishes. We had a great turn out, several people brought some excellent recipes and my favorite patio was put to good use. 

Menu for Tuesday night

• Rosemary apple chicken
• roasted veggies
• fresh strawberries
• Elana's chocolate chip cookies
• vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting
• blueberry muffins

Then last night I had to use some ground turkey I had had in the fridge for a few days and I made spinach turkey burgers. In all of my cooking, my mom and my sister are my ad hoc test kitchen so I will run food over to them to taste and try together. Despite all of that testing, I had not ever made my spinach turkey burgers or my special sauce for Meg, so I wanted her to try them both. She's a very receptive audience to all of my cooking attempts so I wanted to get her reaction to them. Then she had been asking for smoked paprika almonds again, so I whipped up a batch of those too. 

While I was cooking, Mom stopped by to try the leftovers from supper club. I love talking food with both of them because Mom had a few ideas for tweaking the blueberry muffins a bit and I had figured out a way I wanted to modify the cookies a bit and Meg had made the ranch dressing herself twice and we could compare notes. Cooking is always a collaborative effort whether it is over the stove or at the table and it is fun to experiment and try things together. 

Katy came by one night when I was knee-deep in cupcake batter and loving every second of it. She tasted and tried and even ran to the store for a last-minute item that I needed. In the midst of the hustle bustle she stopped and said, "Isn't cooking fun? It feels like an art to me some days like here is my oil painting or this is my watercolor" and I had to agree. That feeling isn't there every night but on the nights it does descend on me in the kitchen--well, it's pure magic. 

What kind of magic have you created in your kitchen lately? 

Dinner Plate Photo

Katy and I had dinner last night before heading off to hike Stewart Falls. Katy is another foodie friend (and Amy's sister) who happens to have celiac disease and some other food sensitivities so our diets are very similar and we talk about food often. Katy has been doing this a lot longer than I have though so it inspires me to hear what she is making and we share favorite recipes with each other.


I love to cook for her because we have such fun talking and experimenting together. And it is thanks to Katy that we have a photo of dinner. She styled the plates and took photos. I likely would have forgotten until the meal was over and then I would have wished I had remembered to pull out the camera.


Menu:
Spinach turkey burgers with almond mozzarella cheese
Spring salad with chopped almonds and apples and Elana's awesome ranch dressing
Zucchini and yellow squash sauteed in olive oil
Strawberry and pineapple salad


Any of this look yummy to you?

Food Friday

via funwallpaper.blogspot.com

Are you all tired of hearing about my allergy-free diet? I got the most comments on the photos from my recent trip to Massachusetts so it makes me wonder if I'm boring you to tears when I talk about all things health. I've got to admit that besides school and work, the other topic that consumes my mind endlessly is health, my health, your health, our health and how to get healthier.

So much to learn. So little time it seems.

I'm starting my fifth month on the allergy-free diet. All that really means is that I'm eating more of the things that are good for me and less of the things that I've long suspected give me a bit of trouble. Slowly over the last several weeks, I've felt my energy build and build and build to a point that I feel more alive and whole than I've felt in a long, long time. Not to overstate the case but I feel like I've discovered a secret long hidden and long wondered about in my life--what it means to feel good on a daily basis.

Is this how the rest of you live life on a regular, daily basis? Because I've got to tell you that having energy like this feels like a rock star life. And the universe has been holding out on me for far too long. I could get addicted to feeling this way each and every day of my life.

Now, I'm human and I know that I'm going to experiment, test the boundaries and generally push my own buttons to confirm what I've learned so far. I know that just because I feel spectacular for one day or even for many days in a row does not guarantee that this feeling will continue unabated ad infinitum. I'm just going to be okay with the process wherever it leads and whatever I learn from it.

And for now, that means the allergy-free diet is staying.

At some point in the future, whether in three weeks or three months or three years, I'm going to do the second phase of the allergy diet which means challenging each of the foods that I have a sensitivity to and trying them each one by one for a twenty-four period and then waiting three days to see if I experience any negative consequences from that particular food item. For now though, I mostly want to focus on feeling good and not worry about the second phase just yet.

I went to the doctor today and confirmed that this lifestyle change is having a marvelous effect on my overall health as well as my particular health issues. Yeah! Take that metabolic syndrome and PCOS! I've finally found a secret weapon. And it tastes goooood.

On my trip to MA, Amy and I spent a lot of time being foodie friends and discussing all things yummy and tantalizing. I'm continually surprised by Amy and her sister Kate's natural, intuitive leanings toward not only good health but good food too. Good food is fun with them. And good food is really, really yummy with them.

So, in the spirit of simple, warm, yummy food here is a very easy recipe for roasted veggies that Amy made one day. I've done a version of this recipe before but Amy has a magical touch and these veggies and potatoes came out tasting so yummy that I've made this simple dish at least twice since I've been home. Pair it with roasted chicken or spinach turkey burgers and a big salad and you've got a spectacular meal.

RECIPE: Roasted Veggies and Potatoes

1 yam or sweet potato

2-3 red potatoes

1 large Vidalia or sweet onion

1 red pepper

light or virgin olive oil

extra virgin olive oil (only used after veggies are cooked)

sea salt or kosher salt

Slice and quarter the yam and red potatoes. Slice the onion into long, thin strips. Slice the red pepper after removing the seeds and stem. Put everything in a bowl and toss with regular or light virgin olive oil until veggies are well coated. Layer in a 9x13 glass baking dish and salt then bake at 350 degrees for one hour. Pull out pan once during baking process and turn all veggies. After an hour the veggies should be soft. If not, you may want to bake a little longer. Pull them from the oven and let cool for five minutes and then garnish with extra virgin olive oil and salt if necessary.

Makes a warm, hearty dish.

I'd love to hear any great recipes from you. Also, have you made any health changes that have significantly improved your energy? And are you still doing those things? Let's chat.

A Taste of Jam

This is the jam table from one day of our trip to Denmark. (A day that hasn't been published yet--keep dreaming folks. I will eventually complete the ENTIRE trip.) We found this table on the side of the road across the street from a tiny church located in tiny town on a tiny island. It was early in the morning and we saw very few people out and about in this little town. But the jam was there and for sale. And the payment was the honor system. You pick your bottle of jam, deposit the correct amount of money in the little glass jar and go merrily on your way.

I purchased raspberry lemon jam. Hmmmmm. I carried it back from Denmark in my already overstuffed carryon bag and I wrapped it carefully amid the clothes and shoes because most of all I wanted to bring a taste of Denmark back home with me. I spooned it on toast with almond butter and let its summery goodness glide down my throat. It did remind me of that beautiful morning and the smell of the ocean and the view of the verdant summer fields on that island.

The flag of Denmark is red and my jam was red as well. I know that today is St. Patrick's Day and I'm wearing green to celebrate the Irish-American heritage of our great country, but I must admit that on this day I bleed more Danish red than Irish green. I hope the Irish ancestors of America don't take offense because in remembering to honor them and their sacrifices and contributions to our land, my soul has been stolen by the beautiful isles of Denmark and the way they worked their magic into my heart . . . and stomach.

My bet is in the big picture, it mostly matters that we remember, whether we bleed red, blue or green, that many of the blessings we enjoy today have come because of the sacrifice and choices of so many before us.

And to that I say: Thank you.

How Sweet It Is

I've been trying to get this entry done for a week. I have so much to say about this topic that I find myself writing too much and trying to fit all of my opinions and experiences in to one little post. So, I did my best to stick to the point of the benefits of low-glycemic eating.  

I read a couple of articles the other day from the December 2007 O, The Oprah magazine that I wish had been written when I was a teenager going through the first throes of a body image horror. Not that I would want to promote diet mentality or further push myself into self-loathing, but simply so that as a young girl I could biologically understand MY BODY and why it was so different than everyone around me. 

The articles deal with low-glycemic eating, what it is and how it affects people who are high-insulin responders. 

The first article, "How Sweet It Is" by Nancy Gottesman  shares the example of a woman who started to put on weight when she hit puberty. Insulin is a hormone and as the hormone stew takes off in puberty, high-insulin responders can have a reaction that includes piling on the pounds.

When LeeAnn Henn turned 12, extra pounds almost magically appeared on her frame. "I was always a little chunky," she says, "but right around puberty I put on a lot more. . . Though she tried to cut calories and fat on a number of different diets over the years, the numbers on the scale just kept going up. "I'd eat less, exercise more, get frustrated, then quit," recalls Henn, now 28. "I could never lose much, and over time, I just got heavier."

I was always a little chunky too and found that when puberty hit my weight took off as well. I spent most of my teenage years wishing for a different body. That never happened and gradually I began to learn how to work with the body I was given. 

Also, I REALLY liked the article because of this quote below. I used to get mad when I was younger and people would say that losing weight was as easy as a calorie in and a calorie out. Yet, this was not my experience. I felt like I put on weight whenever I just looked at food compared to someone like my brother Adam who seemed to be able to eat anything and everything and store it in his hollow leg without gaining an ounce. What I didn't know at the time was I was high-insulin responder comparing myself to low-insulin responders. When I ate things like bread, pasta, crackers and fruit juice, I really was putting on weight because of the way my body responded to such foods. Which is why I agree with the statement below. 

[Dr. David Ludwig] is one of a handful of researchers trying to prove that all calories are not, in fact, equal; some of us are genetically programmed to pile on pounds much faster when we eat the wrong type of food, even foods we think of as healthy.

I knew from long experience that a calorie in and a calorie out theory didn't work which is why I would get upset when I heard it repeated over and over. It is so comforting to have that innate belief backed up by hard data. 

An easy way to gauge if you are a high-insulin responder is the example below.

"High-insulin secretors tend to be apples, with more fat around the middle," maintains Ludwig. "Low-insulin secretors tend to be pears."

I never developed broad hips, but I've always had a tummy. And that tummy is the last thing to go when I do lose weight. So, I'm an apple shape for sure. 

The accompanying article then gives some guidelines for what to eat on a low-glycemic diet. First though there is an explanation of the glycemic index. 

The glycemic index (GI) is a ranking of carbohydrate-containing foods on a scale of 0 to 100. The higher the number, the more quickly you'll digest the food and trigger extreme fluctuations in blood sugar. Low scores (55 and lower) mean the food is digested slowly and produces only gradual changes in blood sugar. . . . Ludwig advises that you avoid "eating by the numbers" and instead follow these simple guidelines.

The guidelines are:

1. Eat plenty of fiber-rich vegetables (dark leafy greens—good; corn—not so good), beans (all of them), and fruit (apples, pears, peaches, and berries have a lower GI than tropical fruits, like papaya and mangoes).

2. Limit potatoes to small side dishes.

3. Choose grains in their least processed states. For example, replace refined and white breads with stone-ground whole wheat, sourdough, or pumpernickel. Swap jasmine and arborio rice for basmati, brown, or long grain. Instead of processed cereals like cornflakes and instant oatmeal, stick with old-fashioned oats or cold cereals that have at least four grams of fiber per serving. Ration white-flour sweets like doughnuts and cookies for the occasional treat—there are no healthy substitutes for these!

4. Avoid sugar-sweetened beverages, and drink no more than one cup of 100 percent fruit juice daily.

5. Consume protein and fat at most meals and snacks. Eating a balance of nutrients will help keep your blood sugar steady and your hunger in check. Vegetable and lean animal sources (including dairy) are your best options for protein. Olive oil, nuts, avocados, seeds, and nut butters are healthy fats. Cut back on saturated fats, and banish trans fats completely.

My perception of eating healthy as a young girl was to not eat a lot of treats and to eat less food at each meal. What this led to was a constant battle with hunger and the feeling that if I didn't control my hunger better I was somehow a bad person. Now I understand that when I was eating potatoes and bread and cereals that those foods tend to make me more hungry because they spike my blood sugar--especially when they are eaten alone or without accompanying good fats and lean meats. 

It has been such a relief over the last few years to discover that hunger is a normal, natural state and that feeding that hunger with foods that are low-glycemic is one of the best ways to eat for my body. This is not about depriving my body of any foods--this simply is about learning the balance and learning that eating lean meats, fruits and veggies, and good fats like olive oil and raw nuts as well as whole grains or complex carbs like brown rice, sweet potatoes or butternut squash makes my body feel its very best.

And now, my stomach is grumbling and I wish I'd started dinner an hour ago. At least I know exactly what to eat.  

Cooking Like a Star

My mom loves to cook. She loves it. My whole life I've watched her in the kitchen working her magic making dishes and treats and snacks that wow the taste buds, lift the heart and make you come back for more and more and more.

My mom loves to cook so much that she takes classes, tries new recipes and discusses food a lot. She also cooks incredible food and feeds her whole family every Sunday. That means seven of her eight children and five of their spouses, plus 16 grandchildren. That's 30 people every week. That's a lot of people to cook food for each week. When my baby brother is in town with his family our numbers bump up to 33 at dinner.

A couple of months ago, Mom took a class by a girl named Kelsey Nixon who is a minor celebrity around here for having competed on The Next Food Network Star reality show last year. Ms. Nixon is young--only 24 years old--but she is bubbly and cute and full of energy. And she likes to cook and talk about it.

Well, I was invited with some of my family to attend a cooking class with Ms. Nixon the other night. We got to watch her cook some amazing food and we got to talk about food. A lot. We chatted about knives and knife sharpening and how to cut an onion and how to let meat rest when you pull it out of the oven. We talked about culinary school and the Food Network show Kelsey was on. We had a great time. She made Greek grilled veggie panini sandwiches, a roast pork, a veggie orzo salad, and a lemon curd and berry dessert. Good food.

The amazing thing to me was that Kelsey could cook and talk for the whole two hours. I think I would have poured lemon curd into the pork roast and put berries in the panini sandwiches if I was up there. She didn't have problem though and chatted away merrily throughout the class. 

And then we got to partake of her labors. Yummy. It was all food that we call "girl food" around our house and all the girls thoroughly enjoyed it. I even saw my dad and my brother sneak in and steal some bites of each dish. 

Mostly, just a fun night that reminded me that I really like food and it is a lot of fun to talk about it with a group of like-minded women. 

RECIPE: Goddess Divine

I really have to start taking photos of food when I cook. I think it would help me explain why I love certain recipes so much. Then we could drool over that recipe together.

In the meantime, I found a picture of an avocado. Hmmmmm. Avocados. I LOVE THEM. If I could have avocados fed to me intravenously, I would do it. If I could grow avocados where I live, I would do it. Avocado trees in my backyard might even convince me to move to California. Have I mentioned that I like avocados? Avocados are the reason I like this next recipe so much.

It is an absolutely gorgeous salad dressing called Green Goddess Dressing and I got it from elanaspantry.com--you know, my favorite food blogger.

This dressing is so scrumptious. I made it last week for the first time and took it to Sunday family dinner with a chef salad made of romaine lettuce, chopped, hard-boiled eggs, crumbled bacon, toasted sliced almonds, garden cherry tomatoes and cucumbers. The dressing was the perfect finish.

There was enough dressing left over that I took it home and proceeded to eat it every day for the next five days. I had a bunch of fresh spinach so I threw together a salad every single day just so I could see if the Green Goddess Dressing would still taste as spectacular and you know what? It did!


I've never been much of a salad dressing fan (or a salad fan--I mean, let's be honest) once I discovered that drowning my salad in ranch dressing was not necessarily a healthy habit. So, when ranch dressing flew the coop, so did most of my salad fantasies (has any one ever put those two words together? salad and fantasy?) But now all of my salad dreams have come true again! Because this week I've been eating more salad than ever and liberally applying this new dressing and you know what the best part is? I don't even feel guilty about it.


Yeah, yeah, you go ahead and tell me how much fat there is in avocados and olive oil. I say pffffffft. It's healthy fat. Or at least healthier fat than buying deep-fat fried french fries drowned in fried mustard dressing and coated with melted cheese and and onions. Which is likely what I would be eating if I couldn't get my fix with this dressing.


So, go ahead, my friends, read, make and ENJOY. And don't blame me if your own salad fantasies start to take over your brain.

RECIPE: Green Goddess Dressing
from Elana's Pantry


1 avocado
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon herbes de provence
1/2 teaspoon celtic sea salt
3-5 drops stevia
1 cup water

1. Place all ingredients in a Vitamix
2. Process on high speed until smooth and creamy
3. Pour over your favorite salad greens
4. Store remaining dressing in a glass jar in fridge
5. Keeps for up to 5 days (if it lasts that long)

Recipe: BBQ Sauce or BBQ Chicken

My mind seems to flit from topic to topic every day. Sometimes, I want this blog to be a food blog, other times an interior decorating blog, sometimes a personal confession blog and still other times a friends/family/fun blog. You get a view of all of these favorite topics of mine depending on the mood I am in.

And today, it's food. Good food. Food that makes you tingle in your very fingertips it hits the spot so well. I have a recipe for food like that. I haven't raved about her yet, but one of my favorite food bloggers is Elana over at elanaspantry.com. I love her food, her recipes, her diet and her philosophies. I count it as great good luck that I miraculously found Elana just when I needed to find her. (Thanks for this goes to Elise at simplyrecipes.com and her entry on Chicken Piccata. She linked to Elana's gluten-free version of Chicken Piccata. And thanks, goes to my sister Megan for trying out Elise's Chicken Piccata recipe which started this whole finding process!)

Anyway, I've loved Elana's site ever since that fateful day last spring and I've returned to it repeatedly for yummy, fun, healthy recipes. And one of the yummiest in my opinion is her bbq sauce. Hmmmmmm. I've made this recipe several times and I have yet to be disappointed.

And when it comes to barbecue, I'm hard to please. I've never been much of a spicy barbecue fan. I'm always hunting down more of a sweet, tomato-y barbecue sauce and no matter the extent of my searching, I have yet to find a bbq chicken that really hits the spot for me. But this recipe fits the bill to perfection for me. Last time I made it, I even substituted the freshly-squeezed orange juice for agave nectar and the recipe still came out a stunning success.

It's pretty easy to make as well. So, if you are still in the mood for barbecue, check it out.

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. 

Dinner Party Menu

My very dear, good friend is getting married tomorrow. In her honor and as a last hurrah, we had a little dinner party at my house the other night. This is a friendship that has been built on food, discussions of food, theories about food, and experimentation with food. We are friends by great good luck and food is our favorite friendship currency. 

So, this was the menu put together by four cooks:

Wild salmon with lemon herb

Barbecue chicken

Spinach salad with roasted pistachios, dried cranberries and a mustard vinaigrette dressing

Wild rice

Lime-sweetened honeydew 

Fresh blueberries

Baby peas sauteed with pine nuts and pearl onions

Fresh-squeezed lemonade

Herbal iced tea

Vanilla coconut cupcakes with dark chocolate frosting

It was a night to remember. 

Outsourcing Food

I happened across this report this morning that was on the Nightline website on outsourcing our food. (Watch it and listen carefully for an old commercial on Twinkies and how the announcer pronounces the word "protein." Who does that?)

A Nightline reporter interviews author Michael Pollan on his latest book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. Pollan's call to action—"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."—is something I actually try to do. At least when I'm not stuffing my face with fast food or bad chocolate. :(

Pollan calls most of what we eat "edible, food-like substances" which are items that we have created in the last 5o years that look like food, smell like food, and may even taste like food, but really are not whole foods that are real. Eat the things that your great-grandmother ate 100 years ago. I love the discussion in the video on margarine. It is an example of edible, food-like substance.

It is rather interesting to do an informal survey--how much of what I ate today is real food? Things like meat, milk, fruits and vegetables--whole, unprocessed, unpackaged. Then how much of it is packaged and processed?

I agree wholeheartedly with Pollan's conclusion that in order for us to really eat healthier we may have to do unpopular things like spend more money on food. (Pssst! Don't tell my sister. This will give her a heart attack.)

We are in a crazy social situation at this time where the cheapest food is making our bodies sick. In my opinion, we need to reconnect with healthy, local food sources to nourish our bodies with whole foods. I think that is one reason why I like this author's conclusions so much.

I'm going to read Pollan's book. And I'd love to hear what you think about this report or the book.

(Update: I wrote most of this a week ago and then didn't publish it. So, I'm putting it up now with its date from last week. Hope you enjoy it anyway.)

Foods that Make Me Go Mmmmmmm!

I love listening to Dr. Mehmet Oz. He and Dr. Christiane Northrup, Dr. Nicholas Perricone, Dr. Mark Hyman, Jonny Bowden and others are my favorite nutritional/health gurus.

Dr. Mehmet Oz has a great list of foods that have made his Hall of Shame and his Hall of Fame. I have thought about this list and looked it up repeatedly, so I'm going to make a permanent note with a link to each list. They are from a show that Dr. Oz did on Oprah.

Hall of Shame Foods
Sugar
High fructose corn syrup
Enriched wheat flour (white flour)
Saturated fat (like lard that is solid at room temperature)
Hydrogenated oil

Hall of Fame Foods
Olive oil
Garlic
Tomatoes (eat with a little olive oil or raw nuts to digest the lycopene better)
Spinach
Raw nuts
Pomegranates

So, eat the foods on the Hall of Fame list and abstain as much as possible from the foods on the Hall of Shame list. That's what I have to remind myself all the time.

I live on the extremes when it comes to food in my life. I'm either eating only foods that are detrimental to my health or I'm eating only foods that support good health. I'm constantly trying to tone down the extremes and meet somewhere in the middle. (And, let's be real here, I err more frequently on the "detrimental" side).

That is where lists like the Hall of Fame list from above come in. When I'm inspired by good food, it is much easier to walk the road of health rather than either extreme.

For example, the other day I ate a Kashi cookie for breakfast. See, somewhere in between. A cookie, but made from whole grains with seeds and nuts and dried fruit. Okay, okay so it's still a cookie. I'm not debating, just sharing that I'm trying. (By the way, they are extremely delicious when coated with Nutella. Mmmmmmm. You see there I go erring again!)

So, I'm adding some other foods that inspire me to eat healthy and yummy dishes.

Blueberries
Who can resist the small explosion of delight that is an organic, fresh blueberry? They taste amazing. I've seen little kids tuck into blueberries with abandon and consume an entire box in short order. I'd love to go blueberry picking sometime in my life. One of my favorite breakfasts is a blueberry smoothie with frozen blueberries, almond milk, and honey.

Ginger
Ginger just seems to be a part of great food. It smells pretty and tastes better. I especially love it with lime to season chicken.

Onions
I may be my Grandmother's favorite when I note this one. She always seemed to like eating a raw, sliced, garden onion on her salads and sandwiches. I don't yet have the love for raw onions, but sweet, carmelized cooked onions? Mmmmmm. They make me feel better just thinking about them.

Cinnamon
This spice makes me warm and fuzzy. I like to think of it paired with honey sprinkled over a bowl of hot steel-cut oatmeal with baked apples.

Lemons/limes
I can't account for my obsession with lemons and limes. All I know is every few weeks I get this hankering for anything lime or lemon. This spring it has been especially bad. I've gotten a lime cherry slush (not as good as it sounds) and coveted Simply Limeade every time I've walked by it in the grocery store. But I know from past experience that drinking juice like this is akin to sending myself into diabetic shock. Headaches and illness ensue. So, I buy limes and lemons every time I'm in the grocery store and I sprinkle the juice with abandon on nearly every veggie I make, any marinade I come up with, and I include them in a variety of concotions in freshly-made vinagrettes or salad dressings. They just ratchet up the yum factor.

Grapefruit
I love ruby red grapefruit. It glistens when you cut it open and it combines sweetness and tang in just the right amounts for me. I just feel unaccountably better after I eat one.

Apples
This humble little fruit is like manna to me. I probably eat too many of them. (Can you do that?) My favorite is Fuji organic apples (none of that nasty wax or pesticide aftertaste). I pair them with peanut butter, almond butter, nuts, string cheese, or Laughing Cow cheese wedges. I'm shaped like an apple too, so maybe that is why I like them so much? Whatever it is, they do something good to me.

Broccoli
Really, I'm including broccoli in a good-faith attempt. I buy broccoli, I plan on eating it, I contemplate what to pair it with, I think how good I feel after eating it, and then once I've done all of this I go to the fridge only to discover I've spent so much time thinking about broccoli that I've done very little eating of it and now it's gone bad. So, new resolve: eat it within 24 hours of purchase. Or don't purchase it.

Salmon
There is something sooooooo good about perfect salmon. My taste buds have to be re-inspired every once in a while if I've eaten too much mediocre salmon. The first time I ate baked, wild-caught salmon it was so light and tender that it literally just disintegrated on my tongue. Hmmmmm. Every time I eat great salmon I feel the same way. I ate some a couple of nights ago again when I had seared salmon with pickled ginger beurre blanc and now I'm craving salmon again. I think I will just have to splurge and eat some more.

This is the kind of list that inspires me to new and healthier meals. Now if I can just build a weekly menu that surrounds them.

Mmmmmmmm goooooood.

I Swooned at Dinner

I got to go to a corporate event with my dad the other night and the food was so scrumptious that I had to post the menu. Even the words that describe the menu are yummy! So, drool a bit with me.

Spinach salad with carmelized walnuts, dried pears, gorgonzola cheese and strawberry-balsamic vinagrette
The walnuts and pear really made this salad.

Tomato salad with torn basil leaves and a balsamic reduction with extra virgin olive oil
This doesn't even begin to describe how delicious these tomatoes looked!

Carved marinated shoulder roast with aegean vinaigrette, portabella mushrooms and veal reduction
This was good too, just a little too much on the red side for me.

Seared salmon with scallops and shrimp served with pickled ginger beurre blanc with chive straws
Yummy, yummy, yummy, yummy--I love salmon and shrimp and scallops and to have all THREE, well couldn't get any better for me.

Yukon gold gratin potatoes
This dish had some serious pungent cheese on it that made this old standby into a real star.

Fresh spring vegetable sautee
Okay, this dish to me was the star of the evening. I've very rarely had so many delicious vegetables at once--baby carrots, dark green broccoli, yellow squash, spring onions--I wanted to go back for seconds and thirds and fourths. I've got to learn how to put together a vegetable dish this yummy.

Raspberry lemonade
I almost never drink raspberry lemonade--it gives me a headache because it is so sweet. This drink though almost tasted peach to me. The flavoring was very light and the juice thicker--like they had pureed the raspberries and added them to the drink. It was the best raspberry lemonade I've ever had.

Dark chocolate banana creme brulee
Really the only disappointment of the night. My pudding was mostly banana while my dad's had a lovely layer of dark chocolate on top of the banana pudding. But I still ate all of mine!

The food wasn't the only highlight of the evening, but it sure was a star. Now, if I could only replicate all these dishes in my own kitchen. Wouldn't you want to come for dinner?

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.

Reading: Gluten-Free Girl

I finished reading this book, Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found Food That Loves Me Back . . . And How You Can Too, over a month ago. It comes from one of the first websites I happened across a few years ago when I really started getting interested in blogs. The blog and the book are by a woman named Shauna James Ahern. She was diagnosed with celiac disease when she was in her mid-thirties and writes that learning to eat gluten free revolutionized her life.

Always a cook, Ms. Ahern really pulled out all the stops once she was diagnosed with celiac disease and had to learn to eat in an entirely different way. That is how her very popular blog Gluten-free Girl began. She would spend hours in the kitchen each night cooking and baking delicious, succulent, yummy food that was free from gluten and that made her fall in love with food all over again. Then she photographed and wrote about it on her blog.

In the space of three years, Shauna's health improved dramatically as she ate gluten-free, her blog became well-known, she changed jobs, she was given her first book deal, she met a man who is a chef and who she refers to as "Chef" on her website, she married Chef, and now she is expecting her first child at the age of 41. It has been quite a ride for her and she has blogged about it all.

I find Shauna's blog writing is thick with descriptions of tantalizing, amazing food. Sometimes I get hungry just reading her words. She is also a romantic in her writing--which isn't a bad thing, it just wears a bit thin at times for me when everything she does is inspiring and beautiful and chock full of meaning.

Her book is a bit different than the blog. She doesn't just compile a bunch of her blog entries into a book which is what other bloggers have essentially done with their book deals. Shauna instead writes a sort of "food history" of her life: what she typically ate growing up (white bread and packaged foods), how her food tastes changed as a young adult (she experimented with all kinds cuisines: ethnic, vegetarian, organic, etc.), how certain foods ultimately made her very, very ill (the symptoms of celiac disease), and how she experienced her own food revolution when she cooked and ate gluten-free. I really enjoyed this part of the book as opposed to some of her other reviewers who found this part a bit tedious. In fact, I was so inspired by Shauna's writing that I wrote a food history of my own.

Shauna also delves deeply into the challenges of eating gluten-free: the shopping, the investigating, the limitations, and the triumphs. I think what I like best about her book though is her attitude. She does not feel deprived by eating gluten-free. In fact, she feels like it is a great blessing because it has given her her health again.

So, pick it up and give it a perusal the next time you are at the bookstore. You might find her journey as interesting as I did.