Are You Interested or Committed?

The distinction between interest and commitment is what I believe separates people who are able to reach their health goals and those who do not. I have avoided talking about this for a while because I knew that those who haven’t yet made it to commitment may find my comments to be upsetting. Since I don’t like to upset people I avoided this topic. However it occurred to me yesterday that by avoiding this topic I was doing exactly what frustrates me when other people do it. How many times have you heard me get upset by doctors who won’t advocate a diet like ours to their patients because they knew the patients wouldn’t do it? Well isn’t my avoiding this topic similar to what those doctors don't do? *sigh* Oh well at least I figured it out eventually.

When you read this please try to do so with an open mind. Ask yourself are you interested or are you committed.  If you fall into the interested category starting thinking about what you can do to move toward commitment. I will be giving you concrete ideas for that during the month of January. However I wanted to introduce the concept now so that we can all be thinking about it for a few days before my “31 Days to Better Health” starts January 1st. *woo hoo*

People often tell me that they would “love to be able to do what we have done” as if relates to our health. They seem to be genuinely interested in our weight loss, Dan’s dramatic drop in cholesterol and blood pressure, and the fact that neither of us seems to pick up colds or flu now. But often in the next breath they usually tell me why they can’t do what we do themselves. It usually goes something like this: “My husband would never eat like you and Dan, I don’t have time to cook, my kids would revolt, and my personal favorite I need to entertain clients for work.” Are all of these true? On some level I am sure they are true. However these are also problems which have solutions. The difference between their life and mine literally comes down to this, they are interested in better health but they are not committed to better health. Let me explain what I mean.

For years I wanted to lose weight and to feel like I did when I was in my 20’s but I had every excuse in the book why it didn’t happen. I would try a new diet at least once a year, frequently more often. As long as I was enjoying the results of this new diet I stuck with it, after all who doesn’t like results? However if I hit a weight plateau I dropped the diet like a hot potato and always returned to my old habits and in short order and my weight was back where it was before I began the diet. The reason I was so quick to go back to my old habits is that I was interested in losing weight, but I was not committed to improving my health. Back in the day I thought that weight loss was synonymous with better health. Isn’t it amazing how far I have come? LOL

However a funny thing happened when I decided that my focus was my health not my weight. Now I had something much bigger in mind. Instead of being interested in a short term result (like weight loss) I saw the big picture and I was committed to achieving the best health that was possible now. Do you see the difference? The things that I do now are just part of my life rather than temporary changes until I reach some arbitrary number on the scale.

Now when I encounter a challenging situation, like going out to dinner with Dan I know that isn’t going to derail my healthy behavior. I have a very simple rule that I follow. I make the best choice that I can in that moment and this changes based on what is available, who I am with and my mood. Let’s look at dinner on Monday night as an example so you see what I mean.

Dan wanted to go out to dinner and having the night off from kitchen duty sounded very appealing to me so we went out to eat. While I love Asian food (particularly veggie sushi) but I also know that comes with white rice and too much sodium. However I also know that we both enjoy it and that getting pleasure in life is good for the soul. I gently encouraged my hubby to order a veggie dish of napa cabbage, carrots and mushrooms with brown rice which would have been much healthier than the faux duck which was what he really wanted. In the end we went with the faux duck which at least came with a variety of veggies. Since the faux duck in tofu based, and not fried, it wasn’t a bad choice just not the optimal one from a nutritional perspective. However the faux duck made Dan happy and this is also important. In the end our dinner was healthier than what I was seeing people around us order, we both enjoyed it and we left the restaurant feeling satisfied but not stuffed since we split our entree entrée.

Now I am sure some of you are thinking that it is much easier for me to eat this way since my husband goes along with it and yours won’t. I will agree with you that it does make my life a little easier, but I also have a solution to that challenge. If my husband insisted on eating meat I would make dishes that would work for both of us. For example I would make veggie lo mein and add some shrimp or chicken to his portion. What about pasta with tomato veggie sauce for you with meatballs and/or cheese added to his plate? Do you see how that could work? The same things could apply to your children. Another plan would be to find veggie dishes that the entire family likes and work those into your meal rotation. Coexisting with meat eaters doesn’t have to mean two entirely different meals. However you will need to be a little creative until this way of cooking becomes second nature to you. Please know that in a few short weeks you will get the hang of making meals that can be both vegan and omni with a few tweaks. If you need suggestions feel free to ask, I am happy to help.

What about the "I don’t have time to cook problem"? If you aren’t willing to make time to cook what that tells me is that you aren’t committed to your health. We all have to eat, it isn’t an optional activity. When we buy packaged food or take out all the time we have given the task of feeding us over to someone whose motivation is to make money. These people are not interested in our health they are interested in their profits. They prepare what sells, and what sells is food that is harming all of us. As you can tell I really don’t think anyone can be optimally healthy unless they are willing to get into the kitchen and prepare the vast majority of their meals. Sure if you have a big pile of money you can hire a personal chef, eat a lot of salads with the dressing on the side, or spend a lot of time at your local juice bar. But for most people that is going to be cost prohibitive and other than the personal chef it is going to be more time consuming than getting into the kitchen to cook.

You may think that I spend a lot of time cooking but I actually don’t. Every other day I pressure cook 2 cups of dried beans. Those beans are used to make soup and some of them are saved to add to salads. While the beans are cooking I typically make some sort of whole grain to either add to the soup, salad or to serve under cooked veggies for a main dish. While the beans and whole grains are cooking I am often roasting mushrooms and onions to add to our salads since mushrooms and onions are so healthy. We either have green smoothies or oatmeal for breakfast, a soup or veggie and grain entrée for lunch, and frequently a salad for dinner. I spend on average 30 minutes cooking per day or less. Can’t we all find 30 minutes to spend in the kitchen cooking healthy food for ourselves and our families?

In my mind the difference between being interested and committing comes down to “would you like to be healthy, or are you going to be healthy”. Dan and I don’t want to be as healthy as we can be; we are going to be as healthy as we can be! The difference between interest and commitment is literally all in our minds and our attitudes. Any of us can achieve our best health possible if that is what we decide is most important. So, are you ready to commit to having your healthiest year ever? I hope so! :-)

Tuesday:

Today we were back to our usual routine. *sigh* My morning was spent making breakfast for Dan (a big chocolate cherry and kale smoothie), packing his lunch (split pea soup, salad, roasted seaweed, Brazil nuts, and dried Asian pears), and making green tea with grapefruit and cinnamon for us both.

I had planned to get outside early in the morning to get my cardio in before the rain started but the weather people were wrong. It was raining by a little after 9am so cardio had to be inside affair today. I really prefer exercising outside, even when it is cold, but cold rain is enough to keep my inside. Thank goodness we have exercise equipment at home so I don’t need to run to the gym on days like this.

Once Dan left for work I did my morning reading in “The Book of Awakening”, checked in with some friends by text and started cleaning. Wow … do I have a lot of cleaning to do. Things really get backed up when you just skim the surface for a month. I don’t know why my cats aren’t bald given all the cat hair I have to clean up. ;-) I am not sure that I am going to be finished by Friday afternoon but that is still my goal.

I started another batch of pizza nuts in the dehydrator. This time I added ground flaxseed to the mix to see what that does to the texture of the finished nuts. I know it will add nutrition so I am hoping we like what it is does to the coating. *fingers crossed*

It became very clear to me that I had too much dinner Monday night when I didn’t get hungry for breakfast until almost 11am. I made a pot of quinoa (some for my breakfast and leftovers for tomorrow) and topped that with a Mexican-spiced red bean and tomato soup. After breakfast it was back to cleaning. This is the going to be the story of my life this week.

I also made time to listen to some audio recordings on nutrition and health while I cleaned. You probably guessed that I am prone to multitasking didn’t you? ;-)

So that I wasn’t wasting time I also starting soaking some dried mushrooms during the afternoon so that they would be ready to make a nice mushroom sauce as part of dinner tonight. Dried mushrooms are very handy to have because they are easy to rehydrate and don’t require any attention while they are doing so. I love low maintenance food. While I haven’t mentioned it recently I do make it a point to consume mushrooms often, and preferably every day. Mushrooms are not only delicious and low in calories but they help to stimulate the immune system. Also they are wonderful cooked and added cold to salad, or incorporated into hot dishes.

Our friend Louis bought us some wonderful fresh Italian truffles for Christmas. Louis knows that I adore truffles and since they are available this time of you he splurges in the spirit of the holiday season. For dinner I made a mushroom sauce of the dried mushrooms, the mushroom soaking liquid, ground walnuts, onions, nutritional yeast and just enough arrowroot to tighten the sauce. I served this over cauliflower and a little quinoa and topped it with shavings of fresh truffle. Heaven! Thanks Louis. :-)

After dinner Dan wanted to watch a movie which is why I didn’t get this post up last night. It was probably for the best since having extra time is the reason that I added the section on interested or committed to this post.

Happy Thoughts:

Life Tuesday was very odd with the all day rain and being home by myself for the first time in a month. The house was beyond very quiet. However being by myself also meant that I was able to focus on getting some things accomplished which makes me happy.

• It was nice to have some time to check in on my friends by text. A few of my friends aren’t feeling well so I wanted to make certain that they knew I cared. It is always good to let those you are important to you know that. As my grandmother used to say if you want more love in your life you need to be more loving to others. My grandmother was a wise woman wasn’t she? ;-)

• I am very excited to see how my revised pizza nuts turn out with the addition of ground flaxseeds. I am hopeful that this nutritionally improved version will be just as good as the original. *fingers crossed*

• Today I have been thinking a lot about my intentions for 2012. I have a number of areas that I want to improve next year. I prefer to think of my plans as intentions rather than resolutions since those never seem to come to pass. I have some exciting plans for the year (well I think they are exciting) which I will be sharing with you. :-) Have you starting thinking about your plans for next year?

• I believe in coincidence/premonition. Out of the blue I decided to check my library account to make certain the dozen items I returned Monday night were off my account and for the first time ever one of them was still there. I called the library right away; they located the item, apologized and removed it from my account. What made me confirm the books were all properly recorded as returned I have no idea. It wasn’t as though this had ever happened before. Isn’t it odd how these little coincidences creep into our lives? I wish I knew how and why they happened. But it is a good reminder to me that life isn’t always just the things we see and understand. ;-)

• We had a delicious dinner at home last night with fresh truffles which was such a treat. Since we don’t have truffles at home often I really relish them when we have them. You are the best Louis. :-)

• After dinner we watched an older movie “Big Night” which is about two Italian brothers who come to America to open a restaurant. If you know about Italian culture you will enjoy this movie. When one of the brothers calls a customer a criminal for ordering risotto with a side of pasta I could not stop laughing. We thought it was a good movie, but we also understood why most people wouldn’t enjoy it.

• I am very excited about my “31 Days to Better Health” which will start January first. I have been working on the topics for a few days and I think it is going to be a great month for all of us. I hope many of you will be in the mood to join me in making some healthy changes next month. We will be working on defining success, setting goals, changing our attitudes about food and other fun things. Of course there will also be healthy food in our month too.

Signing out:

What a great Wednesday so far! I have been very productive so far today which always feels wonderful. While I miss having my hubby at home I am also enjoying crossing items off my to-do list. I have really been enjoying working on my month of posts for January which I am going to get back to now. I hope your week is going well and that you are looking forward to another long holiday weekend. Let’s all make 2012 our happiest and healthiest year yet. :-)  If you have any suggestions on areas we should work on next month please either comment here or send me an email. Talk with you again tomorrow!

Monday = The Rice Diet …What?

Before I get started on the details I wanted to explain the reason for The Rice Diet. A friend of mine mentioned that they were thinking about trying The Rice Diet so I wanted to know more about it. I picked up the book at the library this weekend, along with the cookbook. Today I decided to not only read the book but give the diet a go for a week. My thought was by doing the diet I would get firsthand experience and then could discuss it in more depth. You will not be surprised to hear that I added items to the first meal of the diet to make it more nutritious. Something tells me that isn’t the best sign but we will see how it goes.

I must have been exhausted last night because I slept almost 12 hours last night. That or the grey rainy weather (no sunlight this morning) caused my body to think it was earlier, or it could have been the thunder last night disturbed my sleep. Either way we did not get up at 5am to head to the gym. There wasn’t time to exercise together this morning either. So much for my morning and evening exercise plan if we didn’t make it to the gym. Oh well, there is always tomorrow. The good news is that half of the 2 pounds is gone, only one more to go. I am going to drink extra water today in the hope that this will help to flush out any excess sodium that is still lurking around.

This morning Dan had a green smoothie before he left for work. The smoothie contained: kale, frozen bananas, walnuts, freshly ground flaxseeds, wheat germ, cinnamon, powdered ginger, stevia and water. I make him an extremely large amount of smoothie which was two large glasses like the one pictured about.

After Dan went to work I knocked out my exercise at home and then decided to give The Rice Diet a try for a few days. The first day of the diet is only grain and fruit which I wasn’t too sure about but we will see how it works after all it is only one day.

My breakfast this morning was: ½ cup oatmeal cooked in 1 cup water. I also added ½ teaspoon cinnamon for flavor and antioxidants. Additionally I decided to add 1 tablespoon freshly ground flaxseeds (for the omega 3’s) and 2 tablespoons wheat germ (for the vitamin E). I topped this with 2 cups of fresh sliced strawberries. Except for the flaxseeds and wheat germ this followed the guidelines for the diet. Surprisingly I was quite full after this meal and didn’t miss the nuts that I usually put on top of my fruity oatmeal.

Then it was time to finish reading the book so that I knew more about the diet. I am going to review the book once I have been on the diet a few days. Overall I would describe the plan as low calorie, low salt and low fat. It differs from how I usually eat by including more grain, less fat and having structure. Typically I don’t like to be required to eat anything specific, example 2 starches and 2 fruits for a meal but maybe it won’t be that bad. Time will tell right?

Lunch was another 2 starches and 2 fruits. Boring! Since one starch was defined as 1/3 cup of cooked grain I opted for quinoa (since it is a complete protein) which I topped with diced tomato (since it is fruit) and I seasoned that with no salt seasoning. My lunch was 2 cups of no salt diced tomatoes topped with 2/3 cup quinoa and flavored with no salt seasoning. Clearly I could not eat this way long term. It was filling but it was also beyond dull.

After lunch I decided to go for a walk to get outside and get some fresh air. While I was out I took a few pictures to share with you.

Here are a few pictures of some of the different houses in the neighborhood. I love that they are all different.

Here are a few blooms from my yard. I love looking at the flowers in the spring.

Guess what dinner is supposed to be on day 1 of this diet? If you guessed 2 starches and 2 fruits you would be right. OMG really? Thank goodness this is only one day a week because I can already tell you that I don’t think this is something that I could not do more than one day a week.

I knew earlier that the entire day would be eating grains so I made extra quinoa at lunch time. I decided to make a salad with equal parts of quinoa and lentils which I flavored with turmeric, black pepper, no-salt seasoning, cumin, fresh grated garlic, fresh grated ginger, julienned carrot, green onions and cilantro. It would have been much better with a few seeds or nuts. I had an orange and a few prunes to accompany the grain and legume salad.

For Dan’s dinner I made a pot of red lentil and tomato soup which I flavored with Indian spices. I made a big pot of soup that Dan can eat for a few days and I will freeze some of it if I have to since I am trying to stay on this diet for a few days.

Speaking of the diet I can safely say that I am starving. I realize it is only my first day on this diet but I am not feeling it at the moment if you know what I mean. Since I don’t typically eat that much I can’t imagine how the average American would feel on this diet.

Happy thoughts:

Why does it seem that no matter what week it is that Monday is always hectic? I can’t tell you everything that I did today but I can tell you all the things that I didn’t get to. *sigh* Oh well, there is always tomorrow to get back to my to-do list. Here are my happy thoughts at the moment.

• It was nice that the rain stopped this morning since the weather people were calling for it to rain all day. I was very happy to be able to get outside after lunch to get a little fresh air.

• I was proud of myself for sticking to day 1 of the Rice Diet, particularly since I was ready to bail on it by lunch time. ;-) I can’t say how long I can keep this up. Initially I intended to stay on it until Friday but I am already mentally backing out. We will see how long I can do it. I now hope to make it at least 3 days so I can tell you more about it.

• Dan was giving me computer lessons this weekend which was nice. As odd as this sound I really am not great with technology. I am very lucky to have my very patient husband to help me with technology.

• I love that spring is in full bloom. There is something about flowering bulbs that always makes me smile. Also the blooming forsythia always reminds me of my maternal grandmother.

Signing out:

It is time for me to wind down and get ready to turn in. I hope that Monday treated you well. Talk to you again tomorrow.

Simple Supper Saturday and Intentional Leftovers

Saturday is always my favorite day of the week. Like usual we slept in until our bodies thought it was time to wake up. I love getting extra sleep on Saturday.

For breakfast we had oatmeal with mixed wild berries, cinnamon, powdered ginger, freshly ground flaxseed, sliced banana and walnuts. Like usual my oatmeal was made with water and to Dan’s I added stevia.

After breakfast we started talking about what I would make for the meal with my parents. This becomes more difficult each week. Since my parents are omnivores and eat processed food their diet is very different from ours. I could easily make unhealthy vegan food and they would love that but I don’t want to feed that to Dan and me. In the end I went with very simple food.

We started the meal with a simple lunch salad of red wine marinated thinly sliced cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, grape tomatoes, artichokes, hearts of palm, yellow bell pepper, seasoned with zatar and sumac over mesclun greens. Since my father loves marinated veggies he enjoyed this and I didn’t even need to add oil to his. ;-)

The lunch entrée was a quick dish of quinoa topped with mixed veggies, southern Italian tomato sauce with golden raisins added and topped with sliced almonds. I was in a Sicilian mood and this is what I made. By adding raisins to the sauce it took the sauce in a Sicilian direction.

After the meal with my parents we decided to run to the health food store in Towson (The Health Concern) to pick up a few things. I wanted to get herbs to add to my tea collection since I have started making different tea blends on the fly.

Here is a small sample of the bulk herbs they carry at the store. I picked up: lemon balm, licorice root, dandelion root, calendula, astragalus, bilberry, and echinacea. Dan got some sencha and gunpowder green tea to add to his office tea collection. I will be writing a tea post soon and will outline the benefits of the ingredients I picked up on Saturday.

They also have a nice bulk food area at the health food store. The prices on the bulk food are excellent in general particularly the organic beans.

However the item that stood out to me as a super bargain were the organic raw cashew pieces at $4.99 per pound. The organic raw whole cashews were $7.99 here and $8.99 at Whole Foods today. If you have a local health food store and use raw cashews for a cream substitute you should see if your store carries raw cashew pieces. This is the best price I have seen on these. As soon as I am low I will be buying my cashews here from now on.

I also bought organic kamut and millet to add to my grain stash. My pantry is like a little grocery store. I need to share that with you sometime. I probably have 30+ pounds of beans on hand at all time and another 20+ pounds of whole grains. Dan teases me that if “the shit goes down” we will have food for months. He may have a point, LOL. I guess I need to find a local chapter of “food hoarders anonymous”. ;-)

Next we headed to Whole Foods because we were out of kale and I prefer organic which is why we shop here. Can you imagine running out of kale? Dan was seriously missing his green smoothie option for breakfast meaning we needed to rectify the kale shortage by purchasing four bunches. ;-) We should have enough kale to last us the week now.

A few other items jumped into the cart like 4 pounds of tofu, unsulfured organic Turkish apricots and macadamia nuts (for nut cheese).

I stopped at the prepared food area to see what they had interesting. I noticed these lentil veggie burgers. However at $7.99 a pound I will be making a version of my own instead. Since I know Sheila and Troy like these I am going to use the ingredients as a starting off point for the next batch of veggie burgers I make. The ingredients are simple enough that I should be able to come up with something similar.

Once we got home I wasn’t really in the mood to cook. Dinner ended up being leftover soup Mexican flavored soup topped with quinoa, cilantro and raw pumpkin seeds. Are you starting to notice how much I rely on my intentional leftovers? We would not be able to eat only home cooked food without the intentional leftovers.

We had an orange and Brazil nuts (for the selenium) for our evening snack.

Like usual Dan had strawberry banana soft serve for dessert.

Intentional Leftovers:

I wanted to cover this again for those of you that are new to the blog. My definition of intentional leftovers is that I cook once and we eat two or three times. Whenever I cook I intentionally make enough food for multiple meals.

Examples of this are that I always cook a pound of beans even if I only need two cups, or I make a gallon of tomato sauce though I need 4 cups, or that I cook a cup and half of brown rice when we only need a half cup for a meal. By doing things like this I can cook once but we eat more than once. I do the same thing when I make veggie burgers or seitan for the freezer. Additionally when I make soup I always make 6 or 8 servings so we have more for later.

If I didn’t cook extra food it would be difficult to avoid packaged and processed food. While I like to cook I also don’t want to spend hours every day in the kitchen. By making intentional leftovers I give myself some time out of the kitchen but we still eat homemade food.

Also I try to make food that can be used in many different ways so that while the food is leftover it isn’t the same every time we consume it. I assume most of you have noticed how I change things by adding different condiments, fresh herbs, nuts, or grains to dishes. That is one of the secrets to making leftovers work. I hope that helps you to understand how and why I cook what I do.

I do this so we can avoid eating processed food. Food that has been treated with chemicals and preservatives is not something I want my family consuming. I am convinced that chemically treated food is at the very least not as nutritious as fresh or frozen whole food and at worst is harmful. That is the reason you don’t see any commercial products like commercial faux dairy or meat analogs on my blog.

Happy Thoughts:

I just love the weekend and have many happy things to share today. Here are my happy thoughts:

• Dan spent most of the weekend with me, only taking a little time to work in his office from home. We had a good weekend together doing a whole lot of nothing special other than spending time together.

• We both enjoyed watching “The Future of Food” on Saturday. If you haven’t seen it I recommend it. We watched it on Netflix streaming. It is all about genetic engineering of food. If you don’t currently try to buy organic you will after seeing this.

• My cute little Binky boy woke me up this morning by crawling up on my back and gently licking my ear. He can be such a little angel when he wants to be. We are very lucky to have such sweet little babies in our family.

• Our weather this weekend was nicer than it has been. With temperatures back to our normal mid 40’s the snow is starting to melt which is nice.

• The scale has been friendly to me this weekend. The mystery pounds disappeared and took an additional 1.5 pounds with them. *happy dance* LOL, I know I get too happy about these things.

• I did something absolutely shocking on Saturday. I went to the health food store and Whole Foods without makeup. I know this may not sound like a big deal to most of you but I used to wear makeup to the gym so for me this is huge. If you haven’t tried it you should it felt very liberating in a weird way. ;-)

Signing out:

Time for me to wind down before turning in. I hope you had a great weekend. Talk to you again tomorrow.

Vegan Mofo 7.1: Busy, Busy Sunday

Farmers’ Market:

As usual we started our day at the farmers’ market. It was nice to arrive and have the sun up for a change. At least this week I didn’t pick up mustard greens thinking it was kale. That was a bit of a surprise last week, LOL. I guess that is what happens when you shop in the dark. ;-)

Today we picked up another mountain of produce. You are shocked right? Today’s haul included: cauliflower, poblanos, sweet potatoes, chanterelle mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, cilantro, dill, parsley, basil, fresh ginger, red cabbage, spicy greens (tatsoi, mizuna, and arugula mix), and other things I have forgotten that are crammed into my refrigerator. Like always you would be lucky to anything into my refrigerator right now. We may have to have a green smoothie or fresh veggie and fruit juice later today just to make some room. ;-)

We overslept this morning so I had to grab clothes quickly, brush my hair and teeth and run out the door. It was very cold this morning and not a good day for flats without socks and bare hands. Hopefully next week I am better prepared. When we got home from the market I felt like a human popsicle but had no one to blame but myself. I think it took me two hours to warm up.

Errands:

For breakfast we had leftover chili from last night since I was frozen and needed to make room in the refrigerator. Next we ran a few errands stopping at the library, Petsmart, and Costco. We picked up some canned cat food since we have two more feline patients scheduled for dental procedures soon. After reading all the labels I ended up picking up Wellness and Blue Buffalo brands. Neca, thanks for the tip on the Wellness brand I might have missed it had you not pointed me in that direction.

Does anyone else go into Costco for 10 things and somehow spend $350 or is it just us? That seems to happen every time we go in. I did pick up some adorable Christmas decorating items though. ;-) I will share those in another post soon probably next week when we aren’t “officially Mofo’ing”. Costco was a zoo today you would have thought they were giving stuff away. We ended up spending far too much time there and didn’t get home until after 1pm. Since we eat with my parents at 3pm arriving home that late was a bit of an issue in terms of prep time. I went with something fairly simple but didn’t have time to measure today. I will explain verbally what I did.

Lunch/Mid day meal with the omnis:

The first thing that had to happen was roasting 2 acorn squash. I cut them in half scooped out the seeds and baked them for an hour cut side down at 350 degrees. They are done when you can easily slide a paring knife through the skin and flesh. Don’t forget to clean the seeds and bake them at the same time.

While the squash was baking I started a simple southern Italian tomato sauce with was flavored with fennel seed, Italian seasoning, crushed red pepper flakes, fresh rosemary, garlic and onions. I got this simmering early so it had time to reduce and concentrate.

Next I started a simple fruit and nut filling for the squash halves. I decided given my time constraints it made more sense to make the components separately so neither was over or under cooked. The filling contained diced apple, fresh cranberries, dried apricot, dried pear, walnuts, lemon zest, lemon juice, cardamom, powdered ginger, cinnamon and a touch of stevia.

Thirty minutes before dinner I started quinoa to go under the tomato sauce. At the same time I added fresh green beans and diced cauliflower to the tomato sauce.

To serve, fill the squash halves with the fruit and nut filling. Serve the tomato sauce and veggies over the quinoa and top with sliced almonds. In the end it was a simple meal that cooked mostly on its own while I put away the things we bought today Costco and straighten up. Yes this did take a while to cook but most of the time I wasn’t even in the kitchen so it wasn’t exactly difficult or even time consuming.

My father really enjoyed the stuffed squash and said I could make that again any time. Both father and Dan thought the squash was almost sweet enough to be dessert. Who are these men? My mother was busy watching the Ravens play football so we sent a doggie bag home for her with my father. I did add a touch of unfiltered extra virgin olive oil to my parent’s veggie and tomato sauce topped quinoa. But other than that change their food was the same as ours. I can safely say my father enjoyed his meal and with his usual meat and potatoes diet that always surprises to me.

Signing out:

I am going to relax a little before I clean the kitchen. At the moment I am stuffed so I have no idea what we will be eating later today for dinner. If I make something fun I will be back to let you know what I came up with. Talk to you all again soon.

Oyster Mushroom Quinotto

Late last night I was catching up on my food reading and came across this video at chow dot com about quinotto. My immediate reaction was “oh, something new”. While they didn’t give a recipe I thought how hard could this be?

As an Italian I love, love, love risotto. I was always very picky about my risotto. Instead of arborio I always used carnaroli rice because the texture was better. While I also make barley in the risotto style, and brown rice risotto, the idea of quinoa risotto was too appealing to pass up.

Once I got the kitchen cleaned up from breakfast I started making mushroom broth. Whenever we buy organic shitake mushrooms I always save the stems in a zip top bag in the freezer to make stock later. I had to quart bag full of stems and added them to water to simmer for an hour to make the stock. I also added about a cup of leek trimmings, a few garlic cloves, two bay leaves and a dozen whole peppercorns so the broth would have a more complex flavor. Strain this mixture through a very fine wire strainer or one lined with cheese cloth or damp paper towel. Now you have the cooking liquid for the quinotto. Keep this liquid warm in a separate pot on the stove.

Here is the remainder of the recipe:

Oyster Mushroom Quinotto
Makes 6 big servings

Ingredients:

2 cups quinoa
1 leek, white and light green portion finely sliced and soaked to remove grit
7 cups mushroom stock (technique described above) add water if you don’t have enough stock
¼ pound fresh mushrooms (I used oyster mushrooms torn into shreds)
1 tablespoon no salt seasoning
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup walnuts, soaked 30 minutes to reduce tannins and soften
1 cup water
sea salt and black pepper to taste

Directions:

Combine the walnuts and enough water to soak while you make the quinoa and set them aside.

Add the quinoa to a dry pan and toast for a few minutes to develop a somewhat “nutty” flavor. Now add the leeks and a ladle of hot mushroom stock and cook while stirring. Add the no salt seasoning and thyme and continue to cook until the water is mostly absorbed. Continue to add mushroom stock a ladle at the time until you have added the seven cups of liquid. Put the lid on the pan and turn down the heat and simmer for 5 minutes so the liquid will all be absorbed.

While the quinoa is continuing to cook drain the walnuts of the soaking liquid and place the walnuts in your blender. Add 1 cup of water to the blender and process until the entire mixture is smooth. Stir the walnut mixture into the quinoa so that it gets evenly distributed. The walnut mixture is needed to achieve a quinoa risotto with a creamy texture. Without the walnut mixture the dish is just quinoa it does not give up any starch during the cooking and stirring process like rice or barley does. Taste for seasonings and adjust before serving or refrigerating.

To serve, top the quinotto with fresh herbs, sun dried tomatoes, fresh tomatoes and/or a dollop of cashew crème fraiche.

Nutritional information (without optional garnish):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 349.91
Calories From Fat (40%) - 138.38

Total Fat - 16.28g
Saturated Fat - 1.62g
Cholesterol-  0mg
Sodium - 16.74mg
Potassium - 496.89mg
Total Carbohydrates - 41.9g
Fiber - 5.82g
Sugar - 1.4g
Protein - 11.8g

Comments:

I was really hoping this would work and get creamy without fat like rice or barley but no luck. Needless to say I was a tad disappointed with the lack of creaminess. However I knew I could rectify the problem with walnut cream and it worked perfectly. I chose walnuts because the taste works so well with mushrooms. The end result is very tasty but has more fat than I had anticipated. However this dish is good enough that it will show up again when I have planned for it in our fat budget. I had to get the quinotto into the refrigerator after it was finished cooking before I nibbled away at far too much of it. It is creamy and very tasty. ;-)

Being a grain based dish this is not a powerhouse of nutrition. Each serving contains approximately 270IU of vitamin A, 2mg of vitamin C, 69mg of calcium, 3.8mg of iron, 1.7mg of vitamin E, 0.4mg of vitamin B6, 136mg of folate, 348mg of phosphorus, 152mg of magnesium, and 7.7mcg of selenium. Those low numbers are not typos. This is a good example of why we focus more on veggies and fruit and less on grains.

Unrelated notes:

To increase the nutrition of dinner we had our quinotto with a green salad on the side that contained curried hummus. The salad added vitamins and minerals as well as protein from the beans.

Today has been another one of those gray bleary days. Nothing terrible just enough gray weather to make a blah day overall. However, I am not complaining. Generally things at our house are going fairly well. In the past I have found it too easy to get down or depressed. I think age makes it easier for me to put things into perspective. At least that is my story and I am sticking to it. I am very thankful to be married to my best friend and love him just as much, if not more, than I did decades ago.

Tomorrow is supposed to be another gray rainy day. I am planning to take advantage of the weather to spend more time cooking, I still to make those seitan sausages that my hubby loves.

I hope you all had a wonderful Tuesday. I will chat with you again soon.

Southern Italian Green Beans over Quinoa

For some unknown reason I decided to clean out my closet this morning. You wouldn’t think I would have anything left to purge but somehow I found another three big trash bags worth of clothes to donate since the last purge. Even though I have only lost three pounds over the last few months I have lost two inches on my waist. (Yay exercise!) That makes an enormous difference in how your clothes fit. Needless to say, the big clothes are going out. I don’t want any fat clothes to fall back on. But now my closet is looking really bare. There may be a shopping expedition in my future. Darn it, LOL! ;-)

When I have no idea what I am going to make I frequently turn to some variation of this meal. We like the light yet flavorful tomato sauce. It is good with any number of veggies, beans, or even tofu. In the past I would serve this tossed with al dente whole wheat pasta. But since we are trying to keep our flour consumption to a dull roar I serve this dish over quinoa more often now. Quinoa has the added benefit of containing all 8 essential amino acids as well as being a whole unprocessed grain. Here is what I did.

Southern Italian Green Beans over Quinoa
Serves 3 (or two servings for Dan and one for me)

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups yellow onion, peeled and thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled (allow to stand 10 minutes so the allicin can develop before cooking)
¼ cup water for sautéing the aromatics
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
14 ounces canned diced tomato, no salt added
2 cups fresh green beans, tipped
½ tablespoon of fresh lemon juice or red wine vinegar
fresh basil, julienned for garnish (approximately 9 leaves)
sliced almonds, for garnish (approximately 1 ½ tablespoons)
1 ½ cups cooked quinoa to serve under the beans (if using previously cooked quinoa it reheats well in the microwave)

Directions:

Water sauté the onions and garlic until tender, about 3 minutes on high. Add the seasonings and tomatoes and cook for approximately 7 – 8 minutes so the flavors con develop. Add the green beans and cook for another 5 minutes until the beans are just starting to soften but are still bright green. Finish with a ½ tablespoon of fresh lemon juice or red wine vinegar to brighten the flavor. Add salt and pepper if desired.

To serve top the quinoa with the bean and tomato mixture. Add a sprinkle of sliced almonds and basil.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 225.83
Calories From Fat (18%) - 39.98

Total Fat - 4.65g
Saturated Fat - 0.27g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 22.78mg
Potassium - 864mg
Total Carbohydrates - 40.87g
Fiber - 9.61g
Sugar - 8.23g
Protein - 8.91g

Comments:

This dish makes a nice light meal. Served with a green salad you have a complete healthy meal that is ready in less than 20 minutes. If you are in the mood for heat this is also great with a little hot crushed peppers (wet hots) added to the tomatoes at the end.

Each serving of this dish contains approximately 1,800IU of vitamin A, 140mg of calcium, 55mcg of vitamin K, 260mg of phosphorus, and 125 mg of magnesium. Not too shabby for so little time and effort.

Unrelated note:

Today is going to be a little more hectic than normal. I hope to be back later today with another post, but I have a lot on my plate so there is a good chance I may run out of time. I hope you are having a good Wednesday. Talk to again as soon as I can.