Roast Cauliflower with Raisins, Pecans and Capers
Posted: September 3, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: capers, cauliflower, pecans, raisins Leave a comment
I love cauliflower, but the rest of my family thinks they do not, so I am always attempting to find ways they might change their minds. Unfortunately I made the calorie laden cauliflower au gratin once and so that is the high bar mark for a vegetable they would rather not have at all.
Today’s recipe is a much healthier use that also encompasses sweet, tart and salty flavors with a little crunch.
1 head of cauliflower broken into bite size florets
¼ c. golden raisins
2 T. capers drained of brine
2 T. chopped green herbs – I used chives, Italian parsley and thyme because that is what I had in the garden, but you could use any combo you like
2T. Sherry vinegar
Salt and pepper
¼ c. toasted pecans
Preheat the oven to 400º
Cover a cookie sheet with foil and spray with pam. Place the cauliflower in a single layer on the cookie sheet and place in the oven to roast for about 30 minutes it should get a little brown.
Mix everything else except the pecans together in a small bowl and let flavors marry together.
Roughly chop the toasted pecans.
When cauliflower is done. Place it on a platter and sprinkle the vinegar mixture over it and then the pecans. Serve.
You can also eat it cold, but save the pecans and put on right before you eat it.
It a Long Weekend- Sleep late
Posted: September 2, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: mutt, sleep Leave a commentThis is no news – the more and better quality sleep you get the better you are at either losing weight or maintaining your healthy weight. You don’t have to believe me, there are tons of medical articles on the subject.
I am a good sleeper. I don’t take this for granted. I come from a family full of bad sleepers and I am also married to one.
As a child my youngest sister Janet had the nickname inside our family of “Mutt.” She earned this unattractive name not because she was not cute, but because of her nightly sleeping ritual.
Long after everyone in the house had gone to sleep, Janet would drag her red Snoopy sleeping bag from her bed and walk the very long distance from her room down the hall, up the stairs through both the big and the little living rooms and into my parents bedroom. Silently she would curl up on the sleeping bag at the foot of my parent’s bed, much like a trusted family dog, thus the “Mutt” moniker.
In the night my parent’s bedspread usually fell to the floor covering my sister completely. My mother was already not sleeping well and my father’s snoring did not help.
My mother’s best sleep came after 4:30 when my father would get up to make his long commute to New York City. As he would try to silently leave their room he would invariably kick Janet at the foot of the bed, never learning that she was going to be there for many years.
My husband is a broken sleeper too. He starts in one bed and sleeps for about four hours then wakes up and spends about two or three hours awake and is sometimes able to fall back to sleep, usually in a different place in the house.
I am proof that just being a good sleeper will not make you thin. Russ, as a bad sleeper is thin so it is not making him fat. I think it helps that he does not eat when he is awake in the middle of the night. But if you are sleeping you can’t be eating. And being tired lowers your defenses against boredom or binge eating.
If you are hungry late at night, go to sleep rather than eat. It will keep you from eating that night and if you got a good night’s rest it might keep you from over eating the next day.
Weigh In Day
Posted: September 1, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: pounds lost, weigh in 8 Comments
May 13, 2012
Sept. 1, 2012- had to add the belt so you could see the change
Happy September! I love September, back to school, cooler evenings, both my sister’s birthdays. Two birthday cakes in the house must have sealed my love of September.
Since I have been off sugar for the last few months I really can say that I am honestly not interested in birthday cake. As long as I don’t have a bite and send my body back into sugar love.
I was worried that August was going to be a poor weight loss month. Not because of the heat, but because of the vacation. Russ took me to the Pacific Northwest and San Francisco for two weeks and we had a fabulous holiday.
But two weeks of living in hotels and eating every meal out had me worried. I was hoping that if I could just maintain my weight I would be happy. Especially when I was in Portland. Russ had planned the whole trip and when we woke up our first morning there I asked him what the Portland plan was. I kid you not; he looked right at me and said, “We came to Portland for the food.”
I know I made some kind of “What the…” face, then remembered he had started planning this trip long before I planned my weight loss challenge. We had some of the best food in Portland, so I suggest visiting it for your self.
Thanks to Russ for splitting dishes with me, eating a lot of seafood and hiking, making vacation was a huge success. My first morning home I got on the scale and I had lost 4 pounds!!
I was lucky that I had been on vacation on the half of the month that I usually lose weight. I have been a serial dieter enough of my life that I know there are weeks I lose and weeks I don’t even though all the inputs of calories and outputs of exercise are exactly the same. It is a hormonal fact of life. Even though I know this sometimes it can be discouraging to work and work and have no tangible scale success. But I keep persevering because the good week is coming.
So now for the number most people care about…how much weight have I lost in total? The answer is 40 pounds! August was a great month, losing 8 pounds. So the quest continues. I have until November 1 to lose as much as possible for this challenge.
My goal to raise $1,000 for every pound I lose still stands. I have pledges for $615.25 as of today. I want to thank all the people who increased their pledge. My plea now is that you spread the word for me. If you enjoy my blog please forward it on to anyone you think might also like it.
If you have not been reading it you missed some funny stories this month and a couple of good recipes. You can always subscribe to get it on e-mail. Just visit www.lessdana.com and on the right hand side halfway down is a place to “Follow blog via e-mail.” If you read nothing else two popular posts, according to the stats, were “No way to Lose Weight” and “Happy 100 to Julia.”
As always I love to hear from you. Any requests for recipes that you want me to lighten up or comments about stories are welcome. I like two-way conversations and blogging is a little too one way for me. Even if you just send me a “ha-ha” I love to know you are out there.
For the Love of Sleeves
Posted: August 31, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: sleeveless, sleeves 1 CommentThis is an open letter to all you fashion designers, clothing manufacturers, retail fashion buyers and fashion editors. You know who you are, the ones who decide what is going to be “in” each season.
Since fashion is decided months in advance I am begging you please to make women’s clothing with some sleeves for next spring and summer.
I know that I am not the only woman who does not like her arm fat to flap in the air. Even women who I consider to be very skinny sometimes have beautifully toned upper arms on one side and some chicken gobbler flab on the other side.
If you are having trouble picturing this hold your arm up in the air as if you are making a Popeye fist, upper arm perpendicular to your body, elbow bent at a right angle with your fist above your head level. While looking in the mirror, make a fist and look at your beautiful muscles on the top of your arm. Now shake that arm back and forth, did the bottom wobble at all?
I don’t mean to insinuate that your arms are anything but gorgeous. But mine are not. No matter how much I work out and diet only one side really improves. Not the end of the world. The answer is sleeves. They cover a multitude of issues, if I could find summer clothes with them.
My proof that I am not the only one looking for clothes with some semblance of sleeves is that all the summer clothes available in store now are sleeveless. Granted it is the end of the season, but even with prices slashed to 25% of their original cost most of the items are sleeveless and no one is buying them.
I asked a sales clerk in the dress department at Belk if she had any dresses with sleeves and I swear to God this is what she said, “Honey, if you wanted to sleeves you had to be here in March. All those dresses sell out fast.”
The pashmina has been the answer to so many women trying to find ways to cover those naked arms, but sometimes you don’t want to have an extra thing wrapped around you. So fashion deciders, vote yes for sleeves. Those dresses sell.
It’s Not My Hair
Posted: August 30, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: hair, marsha Brady, peggy lipton 1 CommentThe absolute worst thing anyone can say to a person who is trying to lose weight is, “Your hair looks great today.”
I have horrible hair, so you would think I should be happy if anyone thinks my hair looks great. Which I have to say is almost never. I have mousey brown, thin, lifeless hair. I am also a hairstyle moron. Meaning that I can hardly hold a round brush and a hairdryer at the same time without needing to revert to scissors to free myself from my appliances.
I grew up in the Marsha Brady era of straight hair, parted in the middle. I was thankful as a young teen that my lackluster, no style, no body hair just happened to be in Peggy-Lipton-Style back then. Alas, those hippie days only lasted long enough for me to get into the 80’s and be small hair styled in the big hair times.
But I digress. Today when someone I don’t see often runs into me and they say, “Wow, your hair looks great.” I want to say, “It’s not my hair. It’s the fact that my face is thinner thus making my hair look better on my head. But the hair it’s self, still not so great.”
Next time you see someone and think, did they change their lipstick color, don’t say that. Instead say, “You look great.” The person will either say, thank you or tell you what is different about themselves. If it is the lipstick, you can silently pat yourself on the back for being so observant.
There is nothing worse than not getting credit for hard work. I have been dieting like crazy. I would hate for someone to look at me and say, “You must have gotten a good night’s sleep last night.” That could be grounds for strangulation. I don’t want credit for lying in bed, but I do want credit for upping my intensitiy on the elliptical.
So if you really want to give someone a compliment and want them to love you for it, make it open ended and over the top. Now you can’t do that with me now, because I will just think you got the idea from my blog. So go ahead and compliment my hair and my wink back to you will let you know we are both in on the joke.
No Way To Lose Weight
Posted: August 29, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: CBN, Mail opening, OPEX, sick, Throwing up 2 CommentsMy great friend Lynn has had a terrible week. First she got food poisoning so bad that she had to go the emergency room where they kept her for six hours. Then last night her cat had a heart attack right in front of her and is now in kitty heaven.
Lynn is a world-class animal lover so she has taken this loss harder than the average pet owner and still being weak from the food poisoning has not helped.
To try and help her take her mind off her beloved cat I picked Lynn up and whisked her off to the place that makes her happier than anyplace on earth, Starbucks. While there enjoying her Venti Green tea latte, with two pumps and no foam (I know her order by heart, but don’t really know what it means) we got to discussing how much weight you lose when you are sick. Although Lynn has nary an ounce to spare, food poisoning can really do a number on your number on the scale.
This conversation brought back to mind the worst time I ever was sick. Back in the 80’s when I was selling mail opening and extracting machines, yes, reread that last thing, I sold machines that opened envelopes and took the contents out. So, back then I used to travel four states selling and then installing these big machines.
They were called OPEX machines and the kind of companies that bought them were ones who were getting lots of mail everyday full of money. Places you pay your bills to… think banks, utilities and mail order houses. My territory, being in the south, also had the majority of televangelists as clients too; Jerry Falwell, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker and Pat Robertson.
One week when I was about 25 years old I was spending four days at Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) campus installing twelve new OPEX machines. CBN needed so many machines because the 700 Club TV show received hundreds of thousands of envelopes a week all with money in them.
I will never forget the sweet woman Gail, who ran the donations department. She was a calm Christian woman who was one of my nicest clients.
Installing new equipment meant that I had to train her whole department of three shifts of workers how to run the machines. Running a mail-opening machine is about the easiest job on earth, but teaching people to do it day, evening and midnight shifts was not. My first day there went fine, but by the second day I was not feeling well, and I mean really rough.
Gail came out on the shop floor and could see by the gray color I had taken on that I was not well. I told her I thought I needed to go back to the hotel and she said she had a better place to take me first.
CBN was Christian Broadcasting Network University (Now known as Regent University), so I thought Gail was taking me to a nurse or the infirmary. Practically delirious with a fever she guided me down long hallways until she opened a door of a giant room that was bright and full of people. At first I thought I had died and this was heaven because there was beautiful music playing and the light was blinding.
Before I knew where I was Gail had led me down an aisle and up to a stage. When then music stopped I heard her voice, strangely amplified, ask someone to heal me that I was sick. I felt people touching me and just then I threw up all over the floor.
As horrible as it was to throw up I felt suddenly better for just a moment and in that brief second I realized I was not at an infirmary, but I was on a television set. Gail had brought me to be “healed” and I had thrown up on live TV. I saw the cameras and the audience and turned and ran, somehow finding my way out.
I have little memory of driving myself back to my Hampton Inn where I stayed holed up in my room for two days sick, as could be. I eventually improved enough to drive myself back home to Washington D.C. My service tech finished the install at CBN without me.
A month later I had to return to CBN and see Gail. She was said I looked much better. I asked her if I was the first to throw up on the TV show and she said yes, as far as she knew. I told her the only good part was that I had lost 9 pounds that week from being sick. We both agreed that it was the worst possible way to lose weight.
Balsamic Vinegar Peaches
Posted: August 28, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: balsamic vinegar, peaches 1 Comment
I bought some beautiful to look at, yet somewhat hard peaches at the Farmers Market. I left them on the counter to ripen and they did not quite get to that juicy peach stage I wanted. So to help them along I peeled them and sliced them and cooked them a few minutes. I love how this recipe turned out. Almost like having a peach pie, but easier and oh-so-much healthier.
5 peaches peeled and sliced
2 T. Balsamic vinegar
5 packets of Splenda
Breakfast cereal for garish – I used protein plus special K since that is all I ever have.
Put the peaches, vinegar and Splenda in a saucepan and heat on medium heat for five minutes, stirring every so often.
Good served warm or cold.
I put a few peaches in a ramekin and sprinkled a little cereal on top for crunch.
Dana’s Bra Strap Shortening Station
Posted: August 27, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bras 2 CommentsThis morning while at a meeting with a group of female friends we invariably got off subject and turned the discussion to bras. I know that you men will be thrilled to learn that women are sitting around talking about bras, but get your minds out of the gutter. We were not sitting around in only our bras talking.
The topic was the importance of the right bra and how it makes you look thinner and therefore younger. For those of us for whom support was an issue we quickly narrowed the conversation from bras in general to bra straps.
For those of you who either don’t wear a bra or are so young and nubile that your breasts are where you would like them here is a glimpse into the future.
Everyone who has ever seen “What not to wear” or “Oprah” has heard about the importance of the right fitting bra. No news there. So when you go to Nordstrom’s and shell out $70 for that perfect bra, fitted by an expert who exclaims that this four hook-underwire-molded cup model is just right you buy it and three or four of the same style in different colors.
All is good in the world. That is until that bra gets a little tired of hauling your girls up where they have not been in decades. The answer is to tighten those tired ‘ole straps a little more. This works until you reach the point that the little tightening do-hickey will not shorted anymore because your strap is at its shortest place.
The worst part about this happening is that by now you love this bra. It is has molded itself into your actual shape and other than it not lifting as the lift and separate company Playtex told us a bra should do, you would like to keep it.
After much female coffee-klatch discussion on this problem the solution came to me. A drive thru-bra-strap shortening station. You could just pull up in your car and a gruff Eastern European woman with a hand held sewing machine could just take those straps up an inch and you will be back at attention.
No more is your belt acting as a bra. People will notice you have an actual waist and you will not have to hell out multiple $70’s to get new bras whose straps have not given way.
So as soon as I invent the hand-held-bra-strap-sewing machine and hired a bunch of Ukrainians you will see Dana’s Bra Strap Shortening Stations popping up beside 7-11’s around the country.
My Wish – Fruit Cutting Super Power
Posted: August 26, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cutting, fruit, super power 1 Comment
Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight knows that fruit is one of the good things to eat. Not only is it yummy and usually sweet, but most fruit is juicy. Ok not bananas, but melons, peaches and pineapple are all wet chin inducing. And all that juiciness is somehow satisfying.
Weight Watchers finally woke up last year and changed their diet program to allow people to eat as much fruit as they wanted. In their old plan an apple was worth the same number of points as a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich, crazy huh? Everybody ate ice cream sandwiches and wondered why they were not losing very much weight.
If I had known about this change Weight Watchers was going to make I would have shorted Skinny Cow’s stock because not only was fruit a “free” food, but the Skinny Cows were now three points instead of two. A change they had to make to account for all this fruit everyone was going to be eating.
Not so fast. Buying, cleaning, peeling, cutting fruit is a huge pain in my proverbial A*&. Not to mention the cost. Although I am not going to Weight Watchers, I am so well versed in the program from years of sitting through meetings, that I still look at all food and count the point values in my head.
Long before Weight Watchers made fruit free I was choosing blueberries over a graham cracker slathered with cool whip because I knew that eating fruit helped me loose more weight.
But if I were a super hero and could have one super power, other than the ability to eat what ever I liked and be skinny, I would chose the ability to point at fruit and turn it into fruit salad.
No more cutting the ends off pineapples, then the skin, then coring and chopping it into bite sized pieces. Not another melon would need to be washed on the outside then dried thanks to Lysteria hysteria, then cut in half and had the seeds scooped out then the flesh scored into chunks and removed from the rind. I love eating it, just hate prepping it.
But as far as I know no one is granting me a super power. So if you ever get invited to my house for dinner and you want to ensure you will be invited back. Leave the bottle of wine at home. Bring me a fruit salad instead.
Cucumber Water – Are You Kidding Me?
Posted: August 25, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cucumber, water 2 CommentsI hate drinking my calories. It is one of the reasons I don’t drink alcohol, that and I still have not found those underpants I lost in Miami in 1984, the last time I drank too much.
To my mind and stomach drinks do not register as food, even thick drinks like smoothies. Well, maybe a milk shake might register, but I can’t figure that out now.
So I stick to non/low calories drinks, but not soda. I drink tea and now to really give me variation I make regular tea and ginger tea, which is just regular tea with a ginger root steeped in the water too. I also drink water, both regular tap water and San Pellegrino. That’s four big drinks.
This summer I discovered a new love, a taste so good that is practically feels like food, cucumber water. Yes, water that has s few big slices of cucumber floating in it. Actually I don’t even have the cucumber in my individual glass. I just fill up a pitcher with cold water and drop about five half inch slices of peeled cucumber in and put it in the fridge.
In no time at all the water has taken on a crisp taste that hardly resembles water at all. The best part…ZERO calories. How can something so good have zero calories and I know exactly what’s in it. In fact I grew what’s in it.
Drinking the cucumber water comes close to sipping a cool soup it’s that satisfying. Have I lost my mind? If you know me you know that this is a little out of character. I must be so calorie deprived that I have started hallucinating. There is no way that water and cucumber could bring me to such a state of nirvana. I don’t really even like cucumbers alone that much.
Perhaps I have stumbled on the next drug craze. The government is going to have to outlaw cucumbers because teenagers are going to sit around in groups drinking this and feeling some out of body experiences.
I guess I should have kept this secret to myself and just started bottling it. If I marketed it as the next great tasting diet inducing high I could easily charge $10 a bottle.
So make it yourself. Try it. If you hate it you are only out a quarter of a cucumber, but if you love it, send me $9. You get to keep $1 for buying your own cucumber.
The Garden is Over Flowing with Peppers- Stuffed Peppers
Posted: August 24, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: chili sauce, ground turkey, peppers Leave a comment
When I was a child my mother made four meals; hamburgers, spaghetti, baked chicken and stuffed peppers. Three of the four involved ground meat. I have to say the stuffed peppers were the best.
So now with my garden in full-on pepper production I thought I would revisit a taste of the 60’s.
4 large sweet peppers – or in my small pepper case, 8
1 lb of ground meat- I used whole food ground turkey thigh which has no skin ground into it
1 large yellow onion
1 cup of cherry tomatoes halved
2 eggs -beaten
½ c. Chili sauce (or ketchup)
3 T. Dijon mustard
1 t. salt
1 t. black pepper
Preheat oven to 350º.
Cut the peppers in half, lengthwise and scoop out the seeds and pull the stem off.
Mix all the other items together. Fill each half of pepper with meat mixture and place in a baking dish.
Bake for 45-mins to an hour depending on the size of your peppers. Do I need to say small peppers take less time?
If you like things spicier add a few chili flakes to the meat mixture. Serve with chili sauce. (It’s near the ketchup at the grocery store.)
It Is Great to NOT Get Recognized
Posted: August 23, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 7 CommentsOne of my major pet peeves is when someone introduces me to a person I have met many times before and the person acts like they have never seen me. You know how that conversation goes.
“Mary, have you met Dana?”
Mary (name has been changed) looks at me dead in the face and says, “No. Nice to meet you.”
What are you kidding me? We have met like 13 times before. I know you have three children, the last one who was a surprise, your husband hates his job and you walk the Duke trail Tuesdays and Thursdays.
My smiling response is “Nice to SEE you.” I am southern. I have met you before and if I responded “Nice to meet you,” it would imply I think it is the first time we have ever met.
Even if it really is the first time to meet someone I always say “Nice to see you” just in case I don’t remember meeting them. There is no way we can remember every person we ever meet, but after three or four introductions you are running out of excuses. If you are really bad with names just say, “I know we’ve met, but I am terrible with names.”
But now I have created a situation where people have the best excuse to not remember me. I have lost enough weight that this last week three different people did not know who I was.
I am not famous so there is no reason for people to know me, but I am talking about real friends and colleagues who when I walked right up to them they looked at me like they had no idea who I was. It was not until I spoke in my distinctively low, loud voice that tipped them off that they knew me.
One friend looked over my head and when I called her by name she said, “OMG, I was looking for Dana behind you.”
To me I have not changed that much, but I must look enough different to people who have not seen me all summer. So for a while I will be excited when people don’t recognize me. But if you ever get introduced to me just say, “Nice to SEE you.” Even if you don’t mean it.
Better Than a Snack in the Snack Bar
Posted: August 22, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: snack Leave a commentToday while playing Mah Jongg a friend of mine reminded of an interaction she had with her then six year-old son. Her son and my daughter Carter have been in school together their whole lives and now at thirteen would be horrified about this story.
My friend was taking her son to our club to go swimming. While in the car on the way there they had this conversation:
Mother: “Maybe some of your friends will be up at the pool.”
Son: “Maybe”
Mother: “Maybe some of your swim team mates will be up at the pool.”
Son: “Maybe”
Mother: “Maybe when we get there you can get a snack at the snack bar.”
Son: “Maybe.”
Pause
Son: “Maybe Carter Lange will be up at the pool and she is better than a snack at the snack bar.”
When my friend could get to a phone she called me and told me this word for word and we both roared because first of all our kids were six years old and second, nothing on earth is better than a snack in the snack bar to any kid. Except maybe to her son on that day.
It got me thinking about how much American’s snack. Everyday after school it’s the same question…Can I have a snack? The answer is almost always yes. But why? Do other cultures all snack after school?
I watch these commercials for weight loss plans that send you the food you are supposed to eat. They say things like, “We send you three meals plus two snacks a day.” Eat, eat, eat, all through the day.
I have to say that I have cut snacking out of my routine during this challenge and not only do I not eat as much at meals and I don’t think about food as much. I am just eating breakfast lunch and dinner and don’t eat anything after 8:00 unless I am at a party where they have not given me dinner until 8:00.
You can bet I don’t miss a meal, but I never have. I certainly have not changed personalities and become one of those people who just eats to live, but I also am not sitting around waiting for a snack because I know I am going to get a whole meal soon, not a snack. My friend’s son got part of the equation right. A meal is better than a snack in the snack bar anytime.
No Dill Gravalax
Posted: August 21, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: salmon Leave a comment
My mother started calling me Dana-feed-the-5000 long before I knew there was a biblical reference for that name. I have the affliction of making too much food whenever I cook. My reasoning was not just for larger portions, but also for efficiency. I still contend that leftovers are better than the first eating so let’s make enough to have leftovers.
For a while this summer there was just Russ and myself at home. My frugal nature caused me to still buy a side of salmon for the two of us. Even with leftovers a whole side of salmon is too much for two people. After grilling a portion I decided to cure the other half. This is an easy process, but it takes a couple of days. The result is salmon that will keep much longer to stretch out the enjoyment and not cause me to have to throw salmon away.
Gravlax is a Scandinavian salt cured salmon. Lox is now the generic term for smoked salmon. I could have made a smoked salmon but it is way more work. Traditionally Gravlax uses lots of dill. I have a dislike of dill that is a carryover from my mother’s love of dill in potato salad. You decide if you want to include it if you want.
Piece of skinless salmon fillet
2 T. kosher salt
2 T. brown Sugar
1 T. whole peppercorns
1 T. fennel seeds
Fresh dill is optional
Grind the peppercorns and fennel up. I use a mortar and pestle, but you can use a spice grinder or the bottom of a heavy frying pan. You want to crush them to a large grind. Add the salt and the sugar and mix the spices together.
Lay out a large sheet of plastic wrap on the counter. Sprinkle half the spice mixture on the plastic wrap as close to the size of the salmon as you can. If you like dill, lay fresh chopped dill on top of the spices here. Lay the salmon on top of the spices. Sprinkle the remaining spices on top of the salmon (And dill if you want) and then fold the plastic wrap up around it.
Place it in a plastic container that has a lid. Place in the refrigerator. Every 12 hours open the container and flip the plastic wrapped salmon over. Lots of liquid will accumulate in the container. After two day unwrap the salmon and discard the liquid and wrap. Wash any spice mixture still on the salmon off. The more you rinse the salmon the less salty it will be.
Slice it very thinly on the bias to serve it. I like it with scrambled eggs and tomatoes.
Grilled Japanese Eggplant Vietnamese Style
Posted: August 20, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: eggplant, green onions Leave a comment
Russ and I went to a fabulous Vietnamese restaurant in Palo Alto called Tamarine. I had this wonderful eggplant, which I have done my best to recreate and lighten up. It could not be easier and I think I came somewhat close to my memory of it. Even if I got it totally wrong, it is still yummy.
8 Japanese eggplants (They are the long skinny ones. You can use purple or white)
1 T. limejuice
1 T. Fish Sauce
2 t. Siracha (Chili garlic sauce)
2 T. canola oil
1 scallion – white and green parts cut into ½ inch pieces
Cut the stem end off the eggplant and place on a medium high grill. Cook on one side for five minutes and then flip them over and cook the other side for 3 minutes.
Remove from hear and piece the skins with a fork. Set on platter.
Mix the limejuice, fish sauce and Siracha together in a small bowl.
Put the canola oil in a small saucepan and heat up on medium high heat. When it is very hot put the scallions in the oil and stir them around, cooking for 2 minutes.
Slit the eggplant down the center and spoon the fish sauce mixture and the green onions with a little of the oil over them. Serve hot or cold. I think they are better after they have sat and had the flavors married together for a while.
The Scale is Your Friend – No Matter What It Says
Posted: August 19, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: scale 1 CommentWhen I was a kid we had the kind of bathroom scale most people had. It had a dial of numbers and a little black line in the window. When you stood on it the number circle would spin to the right and then sometimes swing back to the left a little until it settled on the final tally. Sometimes you could switch your stance and make the dial back down a pound or two.
The other feature of this scale was the adjustment dial. It was a little finger wheel you could roll to make sure that the black line was right on zero before you stood on the scale. Although I know this was to help make sure it was accurate, it also caused some doubt in my mind as to the validity of its measuring capability. My thinking went, if I have to tell the scale where zero is, then how can I be certain it is telling me exactly what I weigh. A built in excuse.
There was one thing about our family’s childhood scale which I am certain was unique to ours. Written in red nail polish, right on the dial above the numbers was the number 115 in one inch digits. This was the number my mother was always looking for.
I have a very skinny mother and I think that the 115 written right on the scale was an excellent reminder of what her goal was. I think that now, but as a younger person I could not imagine how she could not remember what the goal was without having it flash red at her everyday.
This morning at 2:00 AM my thirteen year-old daughter called me from Vancouver. She was two legs down on a four-leg trip home from Taiwan and I had not talked with her for the last three weeks while she was away at Chinese school living with a family I do not know. Normally I am not happy to be awoken from my sleep at any hour, but last night I was thrilled.
After talking for 20 minutes she had to get on her next flight leaving me home wide awake, so excited thinking about seeing her today. Since I was up I did my normal morning routine. I got on the scale as I do everyday. My scale today is so much more reliable than the one of my childhood. Giving my weight down to the tenth of a pound with no ability for me to adjust it either by finger wheel or shifting stance.
As I stood on the scale I was horrified that I was up a pound and a half. But was I? What exactly was yesterday’s number? It was not written in red nail polish on the scale for comparison purposes.
I decided I should force myself to go back to sleep since I had twelve hours to kill until we got to go to the airport. Sleep worked to pass the time and shed the pounds my body was using to keep me alive through the night. When I awoke at a more reasonable time this morning I went back to the scale. The same number as the morning before. Not down, as I would like it to be, but not up.
For me I know that I don’t lose weight evenly. I can go a week of good eating and exercise and not lose a pound, but then the next week lose 4 on the same regimen. Oh the joys of hormones.
What I do know is that weighing myself everyday is important for me. You would think I could have learned that earlier from my mother. The scale is the only true way to know how I am doing. Clothes stretch upon wearing and shrink upon washing, husbands who love you are not good recognizers of your actual weight, great friends are good liars, only your scale will tell you the truth.
Last of Summer Squash Curried Soup
Posted: August 18, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: curry, summer squash Leave a comment
Yesterday and today I pulled out much of my spring/summer garden. This always makes me sad because some plants look like they still might produce. These plants are like children to me throwing out fruit like grandchildren. I hate to give up on a still good-looking tomato plant even though I know any tomatoes it might give up will be small, may never ripen and will just be inferior to their preceding siblings.
The real reason to pull out the summer garden is to make room for the fall garden, which I planted today. So all you squash haters may like the fall palette of vegetables better.
I have sweet potatoes that have been growing for some time. The plants have be denuded of leaves twice by my deer foes, but they seem to grow back and hopefully the potatoes underground are not as bothered by the deer as I am. I planted arugula by seed and everything else by transplant, which includes: butter crunch, romaine and red leaf lettuces, Chinese and red cabbages, Kale and cauliflower. I mistakenly bought two flats of cauliflower when I wanted one of broccoli and one of cauliflower. I hope to get the broccoli later this week.
This will be the last summer squash recipe until next year. Farwell to my best bumper crop, I grew over a quarter ton of squash which sounds so much more impressive than 500 pounds.
1 big yellow onion- diced
2 medium yellow squash- diced
2 cups of chicken stock
2 t. curry powder
1t. Cumin
½ t. smoked paprika
1 cup of light coconut milk
Pam
Salt and pepper
Spray Pam in a big stockpot and add the onions. Cook on medium high for about five minutes, stirring every so often. Add the squash and continue cooking for one minute. Add the spices and cook another minute. Add the chicken stock and bring to boil and reduce to simmer. Cook until the squash is tender, about 8 minutes. Add the coconut milk and then puree with a stick blender. Taste and season with salt and pepper.
Friends and Family
Posted: August 17, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: friends and family Leave a commentMy Dad is one of the great marketers in America. Life as his child was always like ”Let’s Make a Deal.” He used to make my sisters and me work in his beloved yard raking leaves or picking up apples in the orchard. He would keep us entertained by telling us stories about his work at Avon Products.
One of my favorite schemes he dreamed up at Avon was called “Operation Smile.” The deal was that Avon would sell a customer a new lipstick for 5¢ if she would trade-in an old lipstick. I know my Dad had to have gotten the idea from the pile of bad lipstick colors my mother kept on her dresser but refused to throw away. The operations guys at Avon asked my Dad what in the world they were supposed to do with all the old lipsticks. I promise the response was, “S#*T, I don’t care what you do with the lipsticks.”
Operation Smile was the most successful campaign in Avon’s history. Millions of new customers were gained and so were their old lipsticks. I know this for a fact because the operations guys sent many of them to our house in Connecticut and dumped them right on my father’s beloved yard.
Another example of my Dad’s brilliant marketing mind was his invention of MCI’s Friends and Family. It was first big social marketing. If you are not at least 45 years old you might not remember this, so here is how it worked.
I grew up in the olden days of long distance. I can remember my North Carolina Grand Parents calling our house on Sunday afternoon, the cheapest calling time and when I answered the phone the first thing I heard was not “Hello.” My Grand Father would say, “Quick, run, go get your father. I’m calling long distance.” It never helped that my Dad was always way out in yard cutting the grass of cutting a tree down.
Since long distance was still a big ticket item in the late 80’s he came up with the idea that if your were a MCI customer you could create a “calling circle” of ten people. If any of those ten people were also MCI customers you would get something like 20% off the long distance calls you made to them. This of course had customers convincing their loved ones to switch long distance carriers to be MCI customers to save the 20% and thus social marketing was born.
I remember when my Dad came up with this plan. He called it “Friends and Family” as a code name, always worried about the AT&T spy lurking around him. He said that the normal vernacular was “Family and Friends” so by switching the order no one would think any thing about it. The code name stuck and became the product name. It changed the parlance in America. Everyone says friends and family now, not family and friends.
So in the marketing spirit that was bred into me I have a deal for you. I am trying to raise $1,000 for every pound I lose. Right now I am at $584.75. If you would consider raising your pledge by at least $2 per pound or passing my blog to anyone else that would pledge at least $2 per pound I will give you your choice of either a loaf of home-grown-Dana-made Zucchini bread or a quart of Dana-made gazpacho. I am sorry to say only local deliveries are available, but I really appreciate all you far-flung friends and family.
You can go to the pledge page and make another pledge and write me note upping your current pledge, send me an e-mail at Dana@onelangegroup.com, writing me a Facebook comment, Blog comment, or be really old fashioned and call me. If you pass on the information to your Friends and Family make sure they let me know you are the connection so you can get your free goodies.
If I have not said it enough, let me say it again. Thanks to all of you great Friends and Family who have supported me in this weight loss challenge and are thus feeding hungry people. You are the best.
Behind the Scenes at “Less Dana”
Posted: August 16, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: laughing 4 CommentsLaughing is my favorite thing to do. Amazingly I would rather laugh than eat and it is really hard to laugh and eat at the same time. My college dog Beau, (Yes, I mean a real dog and not my beau in college who was a dog) Beau was a really smart mutt I got from the pound. He was eternally grateful for being rescued and never forgot the feeling that he might not get another meal.
Beau used go and sit beside the person at the dinner table who was laughing the most in hopes of getting food that would fall out of their mouth while they were laughing…True Story. I am not admitting here to having food fall out of my mouth while laughing, but in college it could have happened one or two times.
I guess I really should admit that making people laugh is my favorite thing to do. If I could start over again I would try and be a stand up comic. By the time I realized that I had too big a mortgage so I just tell stories at dinner parties instead.
Writing a blog is a frustrating form of comedy for me because I really like a live audience. There is one form of feedback I get from this blog that brings me endless pleasure and now that I have completed 100 posts I thought I would share some of the funny stats with you.
Everyday I see how many times people have viewed the blog and exactly which posts they are reading. I can tell when a new person has stumbled upon it because something like 30-40 different posts are read that day and not just the new one that I posted. I take that as a good sign that they are laughing because they keep reading.
I also can see which countries people are in when they are reading the blog. I have actual friends in America, Canada and the UK so those places are a given for readers, but here is a partial list of some of the other countries logging in: Australia, India, Italy, Spain, United Arab Emirates, Ireland, Pakistan, New Zealand, Cyprus, Turkey, France, South Africa, Latvia, Indonesia, Estonia, Bahrain, Israel, Egypt, and 22 others so far.
One might ask how in the world any of these random people find my little known blog? Oh, the beauty of the Internet and the wonders of search terms. I get a list each day of what search terms people have entered into Google or Yahoo that led them to my blog which they amazingly then clicked on. Of course there are many variations on the words “Less” and “Dana” and “More” and “Good” – those searches were looking for me. My favorite of that variation was “Less Good, More Dana.”
But I am certain that all the people who typed into Google any of the following: “Underwear sizes 5 6 7”, “Ok to wear a padded bra TSA”, “If I wear a size 16 pants then what size underwear”, or “Panties less in street” were not looking to read my blog “The problem with underpants” or “Advice for dieting travelers” (both funny ones you might have missed.)
Then there are days when I see the search term “What you want independence from” and one of the countries listed that day was Bahrain or Pakistan. I am feeling like the State Department might come after me for causing some international incident because my humor does not translate well. In the case of these searches I am almost certain that those people who have been misdirected to my blog actually read it because I get the stats that show that someone in Bahrain viewed 9 or 10 different pages that day.
Here is my plea. When reading this blog think of laughing first. Please don’t be offended by anything you read here. It is light hearted except for the information I give you every once in a while about the hungry people who need to be fed not just here in North Carolina, but all around the world. Even though I always go for the joke, please don’t ever think I am glib about how much your reading my posts eventually will help raise money for the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina.
So to keep the theme of this blog going here is my diet tip for the day: Laugh loud and often – you can’t eat while doing it.
Happy 100 to Julia!
Posted: August 15, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Anne WIllan, eggs, Greenbrier, Julia Child 2 Comments
Here I am with Julia. Pictured from left to right Anne Willan, a famous cooking teacher herself, Julia Child, Riki Senn of the Greenbrier, some woman I can’t remember and ME in Pink.
If Julia Child were still alive today she would be 100 years old. She made it to 92 years old with great style. I was lucky enough to take a cooking course from her at the Greenbrier in 2000, which was one of her last classes she taught.
Even though she was 88 years old she was still sharp as a tack, according to the notes in my scrapbook. She came into the demonstration kitchen where twelve of us sat in rapt attention waiting to hear what fabulous thing she was going to teach us that day. She sat down at the counter and just started a conversation with us like she was an old friend in our home kitchen.
She said that she was going to teach us “EGGS.” We were all fairly accomplished cooks and one woman in the room made an audible sigh of disappointment. That was the last time anyone in the room felt dismay.
With the help of her assistant who just fetched things so Julia could stay seated while cooking, she was 88 for goodness sake; she made 15 egg dishes from soufflés to custards, talking all the while.
I have never learned so much about cooking so quickly. She answered questions and let us try to flip omelets one handed, which despite most peoples posturing about their cooking skills, they could not do. She never made anyone feel badly by telling us that if you don’t make mistakes in the kitchen you aren’t learning anything new.
One person asked Julia a question about eggs she did not know the answer to. It was, “If eggs are sold based on size, Jumbo, extra-large, large, etc. what does the grade, AA, A or B mean?”
Julia quickly said she had no idea. I raised my hand and she said, “Do you know?” Julia Child was asking me a question. I answered in my best not-always-correct-but-never-in-doubt voice that eggs are graded on the quality of the shell thickness and the yolk to white ratio that can be seen when holding eggs to a light.
“Wonderful,” Julia bellowed, “I learned something new about eggs today.”
I have never been so proud of my vault of often considered useless knowledge. I felt a little pat on my back as one of the other cooks whispered to me, “Wow, you taught Julia something.”
So today on her birthday I think back on what a thrill it was to meet her, learn from her and teach her too. I still may not be able to flip an omelet one-handed but I will keep practicing. I can always say that Julia encouraged me to make mistakes.
Dieter Food Club
Posted: August 14, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Arugula, Harris Teeter Leave a commentWhen you are doing your best to lose weight there are entire aisles of the grocery store you have no business visiting. In fact, you hardly ever go down any aisle in the middle of the store and tend to hug the outside walls hunting for exciting fruits and vegetables and maybe a new yogurt or fish.
Despite the many recipes as I create to keep the food boredom at bay and to have something new to post on this blog I still have a few standby foods that I eat often. For instance, when I am home I eat the same breakfast everyday, High Protein Special K with berries or peaches and skim milk from our local dairy Maple View Farms. The next most popular meal is Arugula salad with chicken, blue cheese and balsamic vinegar.
I am practically religious in my stocking of these food items in my kitchen. The Special K is usually not a problem because it goes on sale every 12 weeks like clockwork and I buy 8-10 boxes every time it does. All the other items are fresh foods which means I am doing a real balancing act to buy enough to have around and not too much that it goes bad before I can eat it. I can’t exactly eat more just because it will spoil soon.
So this week arugula was on sale at my local grocer, which meant that it has been sold out all week. I have visited the store everyday with no luck of finding any. The produce manager and I are practically dating since I am there so much discussing the delivery schedule from Earthbound Farms. Insider word is that the entire grocery chain is out of arugula and won’t be getting any before the sale is over.
At this point I don’t give a wink about the sale. I am just in need of my staple item. I think that dieters should be allowed to register 5 must-have foods with their store with the promise to always have them on hand if the dieter agrees to buy them every week.
The store can have a kind of secret backroom for these items, or a password the dieter would whisper over the deli counter. Maybe dieters could have a signal like Paul Newman gave Robert Redford in The Sting. One swipe on the side of your nose with your pointer finger means bring out my secret skim milk, even though you are sold out of it in the milk case.
It seems like the humane thing to offer. Its not like I can say, “What no chicken, I guess I’ll have pasta instead.”
If you own a grocery store, especially if your name is Harris Teeter, be the first to start the Dieters Food Club and ensure the calorie deprived among us get what little we are shopping for.
My Lightened Up Version Romesco Sauce
Posted: August 13, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: red peppers, Romesco, tomato 1 Comment
My favorite restaurant we went to in the Pacific Northwest was Toro Bravo in Portland. We had a Tortilla Española with Romesco sauce. Calling the Tortilla a Spanish potato omelet does not do it justice. My favorite part was the Romesco Sauce that was served with it, so I have recreated it with a lot less oil, nuts or bread to cut down on calories. I served it here on grilled salmon.
1 cup of canned fire roasted tomatoes
2 fire roasted red peppers (I used jarred ones)
1 head of garlic
1 slice of sour dough bread
1/3 c. almonds
5 Mexican red chilies (I used dried and rehydrated them in warm water)
2.T. sherry vinegar
1 T. olive oil
½ Smoked paprika
Salt and Pepper
Preheat the oven to 350º
Cut the top off the head of garlic to just reveal the cloves. Place the garlic in a piece of foil and drizzle the top of it with three drops of oil. Close the foil up around the garlic and place in the oven for 30 minutes. Place the piece of sour dough bread in the oven, placing it on the rack to toast for about 8 minutes. Spread the almonds on a cookie sheet and place in the oven just long enough for them to toast, about 4 minutes.
After the garlic is cooked, squish all the garlic cloves out of the head. Put all the ingredients in a cuisineart and pulse it on and off until it is well chopped, but stop before it turns into a complete paste.
This sauce is good on chicken, fish as pasta sauce on a frittata or as a dip.
Down Home Green Beans and Stewed Tomatoes
Posted: August 12, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: green beans, onions, stewed tomatoes Leave a comment
After traveling and eating in restaurants for two weeks straight it is great to make some down home healthy comfort food. I added a little twist of allspice, which was an idea that came from Russ’ Lebanese driver Sammy.
1 big sweet onion- sliced
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 lb. green beans washed and trimmed
3 garlic cloves minced
½ cup chicken broth
3 dashes of Allspice
Salt and Pepper
In a big pot put the canned tomatoes juice and all and add the onions and garlic and bring to a boil and cook for 3 minutes. Add the chicken both and green beans. Bring to boil and reduce to simmer with a lid on. Cook for about 15 minutes, stirring every few minutes. Add allspice, salt and pepper to taste. This recipe is good hot or cold.
Home Again
Posted: August 11, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: dog, home Leave a commentAfter a wonderful two week trip with nothing but fabulous memories there is still nothing better than coming home. And it is not the home that makes it the best, but coming home to our sweet dog Shay Shay.
As soon as we dropped our suitcases in the garage, Russ and I walked to our neighbor Mary’s house where Shay Shay had spent her own holiday blissfully playing with her other four-legged playmates. But as soon as she saw us she jumped into Russ’ arms and wiggled and kissed us for a good ten minutes without stop.
While Carter is still in Taiwan, Russ and I get to have Shay all to our selves. Such devotion and love is better than any trip could ever be.
So back to reality is not so bad. Back to arugula, roast chicken and home made pickles for dinner. Back to our own quiet house, with no trolley cars rumbling outside our window. Back to snuggling with our puppy, home again.
The Big Valley
Posted: August 11, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: artichokes, frye boots, The big Valley Leave a commentWhat do Barbara Stanwyck, Frye boots and artichokes have in common? Well probably nothing to you, but today I had flashbacks of my ten year old self as Russ and I left San Francisco and traveled down the Pacific Coast Highway to Monterey for dinner.
You see when I was ten my parents took their first big trip without the kids to San Francisco with their good friends John and Mary Anne. It was traumatic for my sisters and me because my grandparents came to take care of us. Granettes, my grandmother, was a notorious drinker and baby-sitting was not really her thing.
Proof of this was that one day when we were under her care my middle sister Margaret, who was seven years old, got off her school bus just as I was walking home from mine. I took one horrified look at her dressed in a pair of Danskin tights and a shirt and asked her where her skirt was?
She calmly replied that she did not have one on, that was what Granettes had dressed her in. This was long before the days of leggings or skinny jeans, when the crotch of tights came up only as high as the middle of your thighs, which made it a little difficult to walk and her big white cotton underpants stuck out the top of her tights for all the world to see.
My sisters and I awaited the return of our parents whiling away the hours watching Linda Evans as Audra Barkley dressed in her gauchos riding her horse on the dry brown hills of the Big Valley on TV.
When my parents finally did arrive home it was like Christmas all over again. They had brought purple paper parasols from Chinatown, and long necklaces of hippie beads, which were way ahead of their time in 1970 Wilton, Connecticut, for us kids.
For my mother they bought a case of giant artichokes that we cooked every night for dinner for days and days and still wanted more when they were all gone. I know that became the beginning of our family’s love affair for the green globes.
But the wildest items brought back from this very foreign land of California were the three items my father bought for himself. The first was a pair of Frye Boots, the same kind they make today, brown with a big heel, a squared off toe and a strap that ran across the front anchored by a large metal ring on the side of the ankle. Those boots were very cool and my sisters and I would stand our tiny feet inside them and shuffle around the playroom.
The second item was equally as cool and a little out there for my non-hippie, big bald southern father; a suede leather rust colored jacket with long fringe all around it. We knew it was hip because Mike Brady wore a similar on the Brady Bunch.
The last item was the most disturbing and something that made such an impression of wrong on me that I vowed to always think not just twice, but three times before I buy apparel or the like on vacation. Just because something looks good in it’s native land does not mean it will look good in yours. The thing my bald father bought was a hairpiece.
Now when I say hairpiece, I don’t mean just a little toupee. This was more like an auburn Little Lord Fauntleroy wig that was 1970’s long. It looked a lot like my hair with bangs. I think when my Dad put it on my sister Janet who was still a baby burst into tears and screamed until he took it off. The good news was it made my Dad so hot to have so much hair where none had been for the previous 15 years that he never wore it again.
So today Russ and I stopped in Half Moon Bay and I walked past a store selling Frye Boots in exactly the same style as my father had. We continued driving down the coast passing fields upon fields of beautiful artichokes growing right next to the road. I ordered one for dinner and it was so tender and sweet since it did not have to travel more than a mile from its birthplace. I know my mother will be furious that I did not bring an extra suit case to carry home some artichokes especially since I saw signs to buy them, 12 for a dollar.
After our artichoke and seafood dinner on the wharf of Monterey Bay we drove north to San Jose on the inland route of brown rolling hills with big valley’s of fruit trees and vegetable fields between the mountains. There were horses grazing on the sides of the hills and in the twilight of the evening I was almost sure that I saw Jarrod and Heath riding home to see their mother, Victoria just like on TV when I was ten.
The Blessing of Small Joys
Posted: August 9, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: blessings Leave a commentOne of the hardest things about loving food is that when it is time to dial it back you can feel deprived and then depressed and then you throw in the towel and eat the chocolate. No, I have not thrown in the towel nor eaten the chocolate, but yesterday I had a little epiphany. Something small, non-food related made me as happy as chocolate.
If you have never had any food addiction just stop reading now, because this really will sound ridiculous to you, but for anyone for whom food holds some power in your life continue on.
Yesterday Russ and I took a very long walk through a somewhat grungy part of San Francisco. We were on the quest to find the perfect incognito I-pad case for Russ. Russ is not very materialistic. We rarely do any shopping for him. If he mentions he likes something I always try and write it down because he certainly won’t buy it for himself and if you ask him what he would like for a gift occasion he says something like, just cook me some bacon.
So on this cold and windy August afternoon when Russ mentions there is a store, in the Mission district that might have something he wants I jump all over it. After all he had sat patiently on the men’s sofa of the needlepoint shop for what had to feel like a millennium while I looked at thousands of canvases.
After finding success at the I-pad accessories store, we headed back towards the hotel and passed what could only be described as a boutique liquor store. Russ loves really peaty, single malt scotch and the Alcohol Control Board of North Carolina is not made up of the best connoisseurs of such. We stopped in and got a great education on who was making the dirtiest scotch. Russ was happy.
Back out in the wind with a good distance still to go we walked back to the hotel. I felt very grimy and my feet were sore. I got undressed, turned the shower on very hot and got in. As the warm water rushed over me washing away all the city, my feet started to feel like when I was a kid again. It was right then that I realized that this shower, at that moment, was better than food.
Now I know there are a lot of things better than food. Like when your teenager hugs you and thanks you for something so minor or the way your puppy jumps up on it’s hind legs to greet you when you come home, but I don’t always accept those blessings as all that I need to feel satisfied. So the lesson of the day is to keep my eyes wide open for the little things that make me happy, especially if they make my feet feel good.
San FranBLOGcisco
Posted: August 8, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Aerobics, San Francisco Leave a commentToday we arrived in San Francisco so Russ could work and I could be in San Francisco. And why not, it is one of the best cities in the world. As we flew in one of my favorite stories came to mind so since it has just the slightest connection to dieting I thought I would share it with you.
Back in the mid 80’s my Dad got a job at the soon to become Sprint telephone company. It was the merger of two existing phone companies, one based in San Francisco the other head quartered in Kansas City.
Part of my Dad’s job was to assess where the new headquarters would be and who were the smartest people in the various Sales and Marketing teams from both companies. Not everyone was going to get to keep his or her jobs, a fact that seemed obvious to my Dad.
When getting to choose where to live in the “accessing stage” my Dad chose San Francisco, wouldn’t you? He arrived in his normal big personality way and called a meeting of all his direct reports for three o’clock that very day.
It was a request he did not feel was unreasonable since it was the first time for everyone to get a chance to make a good impression on the guy who was going to determine his or her fate. At about ten in the morning a very friendly man, let’s call him Kevin, who was like a senior director or higher came into my Dad’s new office and introduced himself.
After the normal how-do-you-dos, Kevin told my Dad that he was really sorry he was going to have to miss his three o’clock meeting because he had a “make-up aerobics class.”
My father had spent fourteen years working at Avon so his first question was, “Is that a class where you put on make-up quickly or is that an Aerobics class you are going to in place of one you missed?”
“It is a workout that if I don’t go to the three o’clock class I lose the $10 I pre-paid for it,” Kevin casually responded.
My Dad had never met anyone who told their boss they would leave work in the middle of the day for anything, especially not Aerobics. That was Kevin’s last day at that telephone company.
Eventually the two merged companies headquartered in Kansas City where the mid-western work ethic was strong. Very few San Franciscans made the journey East. I think they worried that aerobics had not made it there.
Why Hiking Has Got to Be the Best Form of Exercise
Posted: August 7, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: hikinh 1 CommentUpon the strong recommendation of my traveled-all-50-states by car friend Jan, Russ and I went out to the Columbia River Gorge this morning. Everyone needs a friend who has purposefully driven to each state to see every major attraction, like the St. Louis Arch or the Corn Palace and most minor ones like the Largest Ball of String or the Corn Palace because then no matter where you travel you have someone who can give you an unbiased and education opinion on what to see and what to skip.
Jan was right, as usual; the Gorge or whatever the locals call it is beautiful. One of the highlights is that it being a gorge and all it has very high mountains right beside the river with a number of fabulous waterfalls feeding the already giant river.
Sometime ago when some president was looking for shovel ready work, the government created these fabulous trails that lead up and down the mountains right to the various waterfalls. Many shovels were needed to move a bunch of boulders around to make switch back paths just wide enough for two hikers to pass each other going in opposite directions and not have one of them lose footing and slide thousands of feet down the steep banks of the mountains.
Russ and I drove out to the Multnomah Falls Lodge this morning and had breakfast practically in the mist of the second tallest year round running waterfall. After breakfast we hiked the quarter mile up to the bridge that was perched at the halfway point of the falls. It was not much of a hike to me since the path was paved. The trail continued what appeared to be straight up and I suggested we return to the car and go to the next trail head that had three different waterfalls on it.
Now, I know you think that I just did not want to climb straight up, and that certainly was part of my reasoning, but actually I just did not like the other multi-hundreds of people who were planning on making the climb. I really like my wilderness as a lonely exercise.
So off we headed to Horsetail, Upper Horsetail (referred to as pony tail) and Oneonta Falls. We had a fairly rudimentary trail map that showed some distances between major sights, but no information on elevation changes or levels of difficulty. Russ is a great hiker and I am, well middle-aged. He is good about checking with me if I want to continue or go back.
The first waterfall was right at the parking area so no exercise to see that one. The second was an incredibly steep ½ mile climb, but one that very few other hikers were taking so we did not have to hear any annoying chatter. Russ was sure I was going to say let’s turn around now, but I didn’t. The trail ahead was not as steep so I just kept going. The views were gorgeous, must be where the word came from and the temperature was perfect.
By the time we got to the third falls we had gone exactly half the distance of the almost three mile trail. No reason to turn back there, just keep going forward to complete the loop. Which we did.
The reason I consider hiking the practically perfect exercise is that once you are in the middle of it you have to keep going or decide to take up residence in the woods or die. You are usually going up or down, rarely flat for very long and your core is improving as you are balancing from one rock to the next.
But the best part about it is you get to enjoy the spectacular forest and mountains somehow preserved by fore thinking people. Calling it exercise is an insult to hiking. It is much closer to praying.
Food Pods, a Late Husband and Bird Poop
Posted: August 7, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bird poop, Food Pods Leave a commentFirst full day in Portland and Russ had to work for a few hours so I took the free streetcar around the city to get my bearings and see if there was anything interesting for me to visit. I really don’t like to shop because I basically have too much stuff already so I mostly look at the people an make up stories in my head about where they are from, if they like their spouse and what they had for breakfast. Please tell me you do that too.
Before I left in the morning I asked Russ what his plan was for our visit to Portland. He said we came here because of the food scene. I must have made a face at him that must have said, “What are you kidding me?” Then I realized he had been working on this trip for 5 months, long before I hatched the weight loss plan.
It is a good thing that I am fully committed to this program before I came to Portland because this place is all about food. Well, food and tattoos. I feel like there might be some kind of tax on people who don’t have tattoos here since they are so prevalent. When I am making up stories about people I see riding on the streetcar if they don’t have a tattoo and they are under 40 I think they must be from Kansas City or Hartford and they had pancakes for breakfast.
Portland is the center of the street food/food truck/food cart universe. This was something Russ wanted to experience so I researched where we might meet to get lunch when he was finished working. First, in Portland they have lots of places where many food stands are clustered together in a permanent flock of calorie-laden temptations. They call these grouping Food Pods.
There is one Food Pod I witnessed at 10th and Alder streets that had at least 40 vendors. As I passed by I looked at the menus, of Thai, Mexican, Salvadoran, pizza, burgers and the most tempting, the grilled cheese bus serving a grilled cheesus (rhymes with Jesus).
We planned to meet at the Food Pod by the University of Portland. It was an 18-vendor pod, which I thought was going to be plenty of choices. I got there right at the pre-planned time, which was an hour before Russ, which I should have known. So I had plenty of time to study every menu and look at all the food pictures. 18 trucks and there was not one thing I could find that would not throw me under the proverbial diet bus. That was until I saw a doctor walk by me with an open brown box full of salad.
I was too busy imagining where he was from and what is surely blond wife looked like to ask him where he got that salad. I studied the trucks with no luck in finding anyone holding a brown box. I waited and waited for Russ, feeling myself being drawn to the Bahn Mi sandwiches. As I was about to succumb to that Vietnamese delight I have been craving, a bird pooped on me. It had to be a wake up sign from god. That poop led me to the closest stand, The Portland Soup Company, to find a napkin. This was the only stand that was turned sideways so the menu was hidden from view. Ta-Da, the salad came from the soup company. It was not just any salad either. It was an arugula, apple, caramelized onion and Brie salad. All the things I love the most, salvation.
If Russ had been on time or the bird had not pooped on me I certainly would not have found that salad. So even while I am daydreaming up stories God is looking out for me. I just have to pay attention to the signals.
Pok Pok Portland Coconut Milk Corn
Posted: August 5, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: coconut milk, corn, limes Leave a comment
Russ and I got to Portland today and went to a restaurant that Russ had seen on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives called Pok Pok. It was a cross between Thai and Vietnamese and was as good as promised.
One thing we got which I got the recipe for is so simple, but just delicious, is the corn with coconut milk. It satisfies the sweet, sour and salty tastebuds.
Corn- shucked
Light coconut milk
Lime wedges
Heat your grill up to medium high and spray the grates with Pam. Grill the corn, turning it a quarter turn every five minutes. When it is done, brush each ear with light coconut milk and sprinkle salt on it. Serve with a wedge of lime.
The No Tattoo Diet
Posted: August 4, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: body art, tattoo Leave a commentHaving spent the last week in the Pacific Northwest I have been able to study all the latest trends in what younger people call body art. Some of the people I have observed are part of a subculture that used to be called grunge; those for whom hair washing was optional and multiple piercings were just the beginning. Tattoos were certainly an entry drug into the grunge segment.
Today tattooism has blossomed out of just grunge and spread like some sort of leprosy to every type of person, except those in utero. No longer are tattoos a sign that one was in the navy or perhaps got too drunk one night with some people they no longer consider friends. Although I do think that some first tattoos might have come about that way and once a person had been deflowered they continued the trend trying to fix their first mistake by adding to it.
Beauty certainly is in the eye of the beholder because I have been some sad for the young women I have seen with faces that could grace the covers of vogue with painted arms so full of body art that looks more like flocked wall paper of a London curry shop.
The first thing that comes to mind is, “Don’t you get tired of wearing the same shirt everyday?” because of the density of the tattoos covering so much skin.
Besides, my middle-aged mindset believes these youthful whims will someday be regretted. I worry about how the once young and tight skin will change and morph those beloved imagines into something more grotesque and deformed even if grotesque is what they were shooting for in the first place.
The major observation I had came when I looked at the arms of a tiny Asian woman on one of the many ferries we were riding. She had a grey tank top on and one of her arms was covered from collarbone to wrist with a giant colorful tattoo and the other arm was a pale virginal white. The colored arm looked to be twice the size of the blank canvas side.
While her back was turned I studied her arm anatomy to measure if perhaps she was a single arm body builder or did some other work that caused one arm to grow larger than the other, but no. In actuality both arms were the same size, just the tattooed one appeared much and I mean dramatically larger.
I have no idea if this tiny woman needed to appear bigger to cause some sort of intimidation in order to survive, but that would really be a stretch. I have a feeling that appearing larger was not her main reason for getting herself colored in as if she were a child’s drawing.
So my diet tip for the day is remain tattoo free. Unless you just cover yourself with vertical lines or add large dark swaths on the outside of your hips so while standing naked in a dark room they look thinner. All other art will appear larger than actual size, especially as you age.
How Slow Can You Go
Posted: August 3, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Ferry travel Leave a commentToday is a big travel day for Russ and me. Our total travel distance is only 104 miles. Seems like that should be small travel day unless we were going by covered wagon, which we are not since our horsewoman is not with us. But even with our rented Toyota Camry, with the unfortunate New Jersey plates the trip is taking ten hours, at the least.
I won’t know for another hour if the trip might actually take 13 hours. What time warp are we living in you ask? Welcome to the world of Washington State Ferry travel.
Before I continue this story I want to say that I love my husband. He has done all the work to plan this wonderful trip. I have lazily just tagged along. Trying my best to let go of all my planning genes and just let the journey flow over me. I am on the left coast and am trying to embrace it. It is hard.
Now back to the story. We left our friend’s house at 8:30 this morning and drove the 90 minutes to Point Townsend to catch the ferry to Coupeville on Fidalgo Island. The bad news came when Russ discovered last night that this was the one ferry out of 22 ferry lines that took reservations after reading all available ferry information for the last few months.
Add the no reservation to the full moon low tide cancellation of the first two ferries of the morning and we were screwed. We pulled into the ferry line at 9:50 and did not come close to boarding the 11:00 ferry. Russ was feeling anxious about our travels and my old self would have added to his guilt. But in my trying to be appreciative, look on the sunny side attitude I was working to affect I told him it will be what it will be. (Those of you who think you knew me can now pull your jaw off the floor.)
The good news was we were the fourth to the last car on the 11:50 ferry; A sunny short 30-minute ride to the next island. We arrived at the south end of the island and needed to get to the north end to catch the 3:50 ferry from Anacortes to travel to Orcas Island. It was only an hour drive from tail to toe to reach Anacortes, arriving at the ferry terminal two and a half hours before the scheduled departure. All the literature said get to the ferry two hours before hand in the summer. We were golden.
We approached the traffic controller hut where a lovely laid-back woman gave us a number and told us which lane to get in. The number was a new thing to us ferry virgins. Guess what our number was? It was our standby number, but at least we are standby number three. So here we sit in our Jersey car, no real food waiting to see if we get on the 3:50 ferry or have to wait until the 7:20 PM which would put us in our bed and breakfast at 10:00 pm, assuming we can find it.
I will report the outcome of this story tomorrow. But I think I am going back to my old, A-team, planning, knowing all the details self. It will be way less pressure on Russ.
Note: For those of you who just want recipes I won’t be cooking for another week.
Please get in contact with your inner hippie and go with the flow.
You Are Either Going Uphill or Down
Posted: August 2, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: climbing, huge hills, peeing Leave a commentToday Russ and I are visiting our friends Michelle and Richard at their beautiful home over looking Hood Canal in Seabeck, Washington. It seems nothing like any canal I have ever seen as I sit on the deck of their tree-house-like-home with a huge expanse of water in front of me surrounded by green covered mountains, wreaths of clouds encircling their tops. I certainly understand why Washington is called the Evergreen state.
Michelle and Richard are marrying in a month. So like me, they have been on their most healthy behavior in anticipation of the familiar historical record photographs that certainly will be taken as their friends and family celebrate their nuptials. This makes visiting them a positive moment in the challenge of the weight-loss challenge while traveling.
Just like the view across the canal, Michelle and Richard’s house is set at the foot of a mountain that is accessed by a quarter mile driveway with a 14 degree decent. I am taking Michelle’s word on the exact angle. She being a Doctor and scientist by training I would never doubt her on such a precise number as 14.
My personal assessment of the steepness of the drive came when Russ, Richard and I walked up it. I had to bend at my waist quite a bit so as not to fall backwards as I took each forward, or rather upward step equivalent to two stair-treads. I am not a steady climber, but one who goes in spurts, stopping to recover and then sprinting ahead.
As I sprint, I put my head down and motor forward as fast as I can until I realize I am a heavy middle-aged woman and I stop. Only in that pause do I take time to talk to my companions or look around at the ancient trees, branches covered in velvet like moss with a carpet of ferns below them.
During our walk at the summit we visit a beautiful garden in the cool of the Washington summer and during that stroll I realize that I am in need of the bathroom. Richard offers the entire great outdoors, but without paper; I decline.
So I depart my company and head back toward the steep driveway to their home, alone. Having only just emerged from the driveway half an hour before I was certain I knew which one it was. I started down the steep switch back drive alone and a good 80 feet down I stop. Is this the right driveway? This does not look familiar? Are these 85 trees the same ones I passed on the way up?
Suddenly I have a flash back to my earliest childhood memory. When I was three, my parents and I lived in a tiny house on a giant hill in Dayton, Ohio. My best friend Johnny Schlemer lived behind us at the bottom of the huge hill. One very snowy day my mother dressed me in my one-piece snowsuit that zipped from ankle to neck and sent me out of the tiny house to go visit him.
I started trudging through the snow, down the very steep hill. At about the halfway point I realized that I had to go to the bathroom. I looked up the hill; it was a long way back. I looked down the hill, much too far. So what did I do, but just sit right down in the snow in my giant zip-up snowsuit and pee right there.
After sobbing a while, the warmness of pee in my snowsuit started to cool down, I realized I was all-alone and no one was going to come save me. I eventually stood up and headed back home each step more difficult in my very wet outfit.
So much of life is about going up or down hill and both can be hard. But I learned a great lesson at three years old. If you are not sure which way to go sitting right down and peeing is not the answer. Go one-way or the other. Just go.
August 1- Weigh In Report
Posted: August 1, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 2 CommentsAs promised at the beginning of each month I am divulging how much I have lost since I started my program on May 8. But before I do that, and since I know some of you might stop reading after you know the number, I want to say thank you first.
As of today 190 people, couples, families or companies have pledged $571.75 per pound to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina. Please give yourself a hand if you are one of those wonderful people.
While you are reading this blog it can be easy to become distracted by all the witty repartee about my dieting adventures, but please don’t forget about those for whom dieting is not an option. I am lucky enough to be able to afford to pick the food I eat, when I eat it, how much I eat and where it comes from. I suspect you are too.
Through your generosity to me and my escapades to lose weight you are becoming a life-line to a hungry neighbor. You also keep me motivated to stay the course, which is a huge feat as I pass by each pain au chocolate, caramel gelato or gooey grilled cheese sandwich. So thank you from those you are giving food to and from me whom you are keeping the wrong foods from.
I am still sucking wind on trying to get to the $1,000 per pound lost goal. Of course I am preaching to the choir since you have probably already pledged. In case you have not, it is never too late to pledge. If you think you pledged and want to make sure I got it please look at the supporters tab on the blog. If your name is not there then go on and send me an e-mail of click on the pledge tab and make your intentions known.
I love feedback or comments on the blog, so don’t be shy. Let me know what you think. But now I won’t make you wait any longer, how much weight have I lost…32 pounds so far! July was a good month. I am hoping that my two weeks of travel in the Pacific Northwest will also make August a good month. You will have to stay tuned to find out.
Go forth today, knowing that you are my hero. You are making the world a better place and I love you.
The Eating World -Divided Up
Posted: July 31, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: foodies, Seattle 4 CommentsI hate the term Foodies. It implies that one considers themselves superior to normal calorie-in-taking humans. As far as I am concerned there are three basic types of people when it comes to food.
The first is the person who eats anything that is put in front of them with little concern for exactly what it is, where it came from and what it might do to their body, but they do like to eat. This makes up are large portion of the American population including most teenage boys and people who vacation in the Ozarks.
The second group is a very minority population of people who never think about food at all. Sometimes they are over heard saying things like, “Oh, it’s 4:00, I forgot to have lunch.” The skinniest upper east side ladies who lunch, despite having the word lunch in their moniker can be in this group as is Carter’s Godfather, David, who uses his oven as storage space for his tax records.
The third group is the rest of the world. People who love food, think about food, talk about food, read about food, watch it on TV, sometimes cook, sometimes can’t cook but eat in a lot of different restaurants, blah, blah, blah. Those who have the greatest affectation call themselves “Foodies” trying to raise the standings of their taste buds above the fray, but really who cares. This group lives to eat. It does not mean they live to eat too much, but that what they are eating is important to them.
My husband Russ and I are in the last group. I have always been a cook. My first memory of cooking something by myself was making scrambled eggs at age four. It was the 1960’s and my young parents still stayed out late on Fridays and Saturdays nights so I was often up alone for hours in the morning. Learning to fend for myself was key.
Russ had a mother who always provided a meal for him, but flavor was not often a key ingredient. Marrying me opened up a new world of culinary exploration that made Russ question whether he might have been adopted.
Today, Russ and I are in Seattle on vacation. Seattle has a world of good food at every turn, smoked salmon, cupcakes, unusual cheeses, bread galore. Normally we would take full advantage of such an opportunity and eat whatever tempted us from morning ‘til bedtime, savoring each new taste, Russ begging me to dissect new dishes in order to recreate them at home…but not today. I’m on my weight loss challenge.
So for this trip poor Russ has been pulled from his happy group of people who love food into the minority group of people who don’t think about food at all, very much against type. But he does not complain and he helps me pretend I am in the non-food-lover-society. That is just one of the many reason I love him and am so lucky that he asked me to marry him exactly 21 years ago today.
Smelly Food is Your Friend
Posted: July 30, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 1 Comment
Happy 20th Anniversary to my wonderful husband Russ. Ok, our actual anniversary was May 2nd, but today is the day we are off on our two-week trip to the cool Northwest to celebrate what seems like a blink of an eye.
We chose to go now because Carter is off in Taiwan going to Chinese language school and living with a family who I hope are not practicing their English on her. One of the tips for kids going on this program was to just smile and nod their head yes when anyone speaks to them, whether they understand or not. I practiced this with Carter before she left, saying things to her like, “Would you like to eat these smoked ox eyeballs for dinner?” and “I think a dragon tattoo would look nice on your face.” I don’t know how much nodding she will do.
Since Carter was five foot nine inches tall before she left I hope her Taiwanese family takes advantage of having her live with them and gets her to change any burned out light bulbs or sweep away cobwebs from the ceiling they can not reach.
Today’s dieting tip is less about an exact food, but more an airplane strategy since I am on a plane for six hours today. I know that I have already blogged about airline travel, but it seems that this summer I have spent more time flying than usual.
The tip I am about to reveal is one I learned from my father when we used to work together in Canada. For over a year we had an office in Ottawa, which was a two-leg flight for me and a three-leg one for my Dad. Every Friday we would come home to the US flying together to Baltimore where we usually would part and I would catch a flight to RDU and he would go on to Charlotte and change planes again to get to Pawley’s Island. It was a long trip so to keep the peace for the whole plane it was necessary to feed my father at some point.
The answer to the no food problem was the Bojangles. As we deplaned in Baltimore my Dad would make for the fried chicken counter, buy a box of chicken and high-tail it to his next flight. As soon as he got on the plane and sat in his regular seat in the front row aisle he would open his chicken, which would smell up the entire cabin. Our co-workers who flew with him described the looks on the faces of the other starving passengers as they boarded, wishing they had gotten chicken for themselves.
One week I flew with my Dad to Pawley’s Island and I partook in the chicken ritual. Here comes the airline strategy tip… when the other passengers got on the flight as we were eating our chicken, none of them wanted to sit near us. Perhaps they were afraid we might get some grease on their clothes, or that they did not have the will power to be so close to that delicious chicken without having any of it, whatever the reason we got to fly with empty seats beside us.
I have since tried this experiment with other foods and it works perfectly. Passengers will chose to make a scene and ask to be reseated just to not have to sit next to someone eating something smelly.
So today Russ and I have the exit row on Southwest, the only one with enough legroom for Russ to fit in, with no one sitting in the middle seat between us. Our flight stops in Nashville and then goes on to Seattle. As soon as we land and the new passengers begin to board I am opening up my salad with blue cheese and lots of vinegar just to see if we can keep this middle seat empty. I am doing everything possible to make sure Russ waits to eat his sandwich at the same time I eat to discourage anyone from thinking about sitting with us.
Bread and Butter Pickles- The Splenda Way
Posted: July 29, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: bread and butter pickles, cucumbers, vinegar 1 Comment
Today my friend Gerty came over to make Bread and Butter pickles with me. She had made hers last week the real southern way – lots of sugar. After making them she called and said she thought they could be done with Splenda and asked if I wanted to try them with her. Gerty, being a scientist, brought a jar of her sugar pickles as a control to compare to my Splenda version. Russ, as the official pickle taster, claimed the Splenda version to be equally delicious.
Since these are refrigerator pickles- meaning no canning is needed. Anybody can make them without fear of killing a loved one with botulism.
1 ½ c. White vinegar
2/3 c. apple cider vinegar
2 T. pickling spice (just buy a jar at the grocery store, rather than measuring out the mustard seeds, juniper berries, bay leaves, etc. yourself.
2 c. pourable Splenda (It measures the same as sugar)
2 ½ lbs of cucumbers
2 Vidalia onions
¼ c. kosher salt
In a sauce pan heat up the vinegars and when it reaches a boil add the Splenda, stir and remove from heat. Add the pickling spices and let sit for at least four hours. This can be done the day ahead.
Scrub the cucumbers clean and cut off one end. Using a mandoline, cut then using the wavy cutter. This gives you more surface to absorb the pickling vinegar. If you don’t have a mandoline, you can cut them with a regular ‘ole knife and just be sad.
Slice the onions into slivers with the mandoline too. Mix cucumbers and onions together in a large stainless steel bowl with the kosher salt. Cover the whole pile with a tea towel- that’s a clean non-terry cloth kitchen towel inside the bowl. On top of the tea towel fill the rest of the bowl with ice and put the whole contraption in the refrigerator to chill and let the cucumbers release a bunch of water.
After four hours, strain the pickling spices from the sweetened vinegar and heat it back up to a boil.
Using a slotted spoon so as not to get the cucumber water, fill clean glass jars with the cucumber-onion-salt mixture. Put a spoon in the jar to help divert the heat from the glass jar and pour the vinegar mixture over the cucumbers in the jar. Cap the jars with the top and place them in the refrigerator. Let chill for at least 6 hours before enjoying.
Roast Nectarine Frozen Yogurt
Posted: July 28, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: dessert, frozen, greek yogurt, nectarine Leave a comment
I was frugal long before the recession made it hip. It has to be genetic. My mother probably still has every dress she ever bought and my daughter Carter is thrilled to get used textbooks because they are so much cheaper.
Today’s recipe is an attempt to use up an unripe nectarine and some Greek yogurt before I go on vacation. The roasting is to pull as much flavor as I can get out of the fruit, which is not quite ready for consumption. If you have a beautifully ripe peach or nectarine you can make this without roasting, but I do like the flavor heating the fruit imparts.
1 nectarine – chopped up with the skin on. If you use a peach, peel it first.
1 ½ c. Greek Yogurt
1/3 c. skim milk
5 Splenda packets
½ t. almond extract
Pinch of cloves
2 pinches cinnamon
Pam
Heat a small nonstick fry pan up and spray with Pam. Put the fruit in the pan and cook on medium high, stirring often until the fruit begins to get to be a little brown. It will take about 5 minutes. Add cloves and cinnamon at the end and let the spices heat up on the fruit for one minute. Remove from heat and place in the freezer.
Mix the yogurt, milk, Splenda and almond extract together and pour into an ice cream maker. Run it in the ice cream maker as long as it takes to get it to start getting creamy. Add the fruit and continue running the ice cream machine for another 2 minutes.
Remove from the machine and place in the freezer to finish the freezing process.
Red Wine Vinegar Chicken
Posted: July 27, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: chicken, garlic, red wine vinegar, tomatoes 3 Comments
This is the worst picture of the best dish you will ever eat. To top it off it is easy to make. Don’t be shocked by the amount of vinegar, just go with it. The acid breaks down the chicken and gives it a tang that is addicting. You can make it with the skin on if you are a person who does not have to watch your figure, but honestly this version is so good you won’t even miss the skin.
10 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
10 minced garlic cloves
1 cup of red wine vinegar
1/2 cup of chicken stock
1 can of chopped tomatoes
Handful of fresh thyme- tied with a kitchen string
4 bay leaves
Salt & pepper
Pam
Heat a Dutch oven on the stove on medium high heat. (That’s a heavy cast iron pan with a tall straight sides and a lid. I use a Le Cruset.) Spray the inside of the pot with Pam and add half the chicken thighs in one layer.
Cook for about 4 minutes; you just want them to get a little color. Flip them over and repeat on the other side. Remove those thighs from the pan and keep on a plate on the side. The chicken is not cooked through yet. Spray the pot with more Pam and cook the other half of the chicken the same way.
After you have cooked all the chicken and it is out of the pot, add the garlic to the pan and cook for one minute, stirring often. Add your vinegar, keeping your face away from the pot when you do it so you don’t choke on the acidic cloud you will create. Add the tomatoes, stock, herbs and chicken back in the pot.
Cover and bring the contents to a boil and then reduce to simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pot the best you can, leaving everything else in there. Bring the liquid back up to a boil and reduce the sauce with the lid off. I like to mash it all down with a potato masher to break up the tomatoes. It will take about 15 minutes to reduce it to a sauce like consistency.
Pour the sauce over the chicken and serve.
It’s Hot…Let’s Run?
Posted: July 26, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Empower, sport, Tom Leave a commentLet’s face it, global warming is here today and it’s been here for the last couple of months. This morning while walking my dog it was already 91 degrees with a “feels like” temp of 101 according to the “weather bug” on my phone. I wish that I could input my weight and activity level to come up with a real “feels like” temp.
Shay Shay, our chocolate labradoodle is not much on hot weather. She stares at me as I drag her down the street with a look that says, “For god’s sake, why did we leave the air conditioning?” She certainly does not subscribe to the phrase the “dog days of summer.”
While walking the dog, trying to get in a little exercise before the weather wins claim on the outdoors I was passed by at least 4 different women, two on bikes and two on foot who have not heard that the Olympic trails are over. There might have been more who passed me, but I did blink once or twice.
One woman ran by me so fast that the hair on her ponytail slapped me in the face and almost cut my old dry skin. Of course she said a big ‘ole hello as she sprinted by. Another, well-past-the-middle aged woman rode her bike up the long hill of my street standing up while peddling, passing a car that was going in the same direction at the 25 mile per hour speed limit.
God Bless these Amazonian athletes who are unfazed by heat or hormones. I am not one of these women. Sport for me is taking a good friend’s quarters at Mah Jongg. Perhaps throw in a little badminton or my new found game of Pe’tanque, the French version of Boulles. I like a game that you can play with an iced tea in your hand.
Before any of you write me about the benefits of exercise let me tell you that I know. I spend my time working out with my friend Amy under the eagle eye of our trainer Tom at Empower.
I have been through three different gyms with Tom and he is just who I need to keep me laughing even as my face is turning white, which he told me on Monday was just the precursor to throwing up from working out too hard. I told him that I already knew I was about to throw up unless I stopped trying to lift my body off the ground with one arm.
The great thing is Tom knows I don’t run and never will, so he finds other ways to keep me moving. My new favorite is boxing. Getting to hit someone with out my mother screaming at me from the other room to stop is a childhood dream come true.
As the Olympics are just about to over take the world’s attention I know many people may be inspired to go out and try a new sport. I think I will pay extra attention to archery. Being good at standing still is a bonus in that sport.
Too Many Tomatoes Summer Soup
Posted: July 25, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: carrots, onions, pesto, soup, tomato 3 Comments
My first disclaimer is that I don’t have too many tomatoes despite the beautiful plants I have. There are a bunch of stupid squirrels who come and eat a bite out of each tomato and after deciding they don’t like that one they move on to the next one to see if it is better. UGH!! My next recipe might be low fat squirrel stew if I could just catch one.
Anyway, this is an easy soup that is good hot or cold. It really is easy if you have a stick blender. You can use a regular blender or food processor, but go to Target and get a stick blender and you will have so much less washing up to do because of it.
I am going to give you the recipe in a ratio so you can make any amount you want. The base recipe is enough for about two servings so at least double it.
1 big yellow onion – peeled and quartered
2 Tomatoes – stemmed and quartered
2 Carrots – peeled
1 cup of chicken or vegetable stock
1 T. Pesto
Salt and Pepper
Preheat the oven to 400º. Line a jelly roll pan with foil and spray with pam. Put the onions and the carrots on the foil and place the pan in the oven for 15 minutes. Add the tomatoes to the pan and continue cooking in the oven for 45 more minutes.
Dump all the vegetables from the pan into a stockpot and add the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce to simmer for 10 minutes. Using a stick blender, whirl everything up until pureed or pour everything in a blend and let it do its thing. Add the pesto and salt and pepper to taste. Summer in a cup and hardly a calorie in sight.
The $4.99 Full Body Lift
Posted: July 24, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Duct tape, Full body lift Leave a commentYesterday on Good Morning America I saw a feature on a $25 face lift in a Jar called the Bungee Lift. It only works on women who have enough long hair to make some really tight tiny braids by their face and then attach them to a small bungee cord that goes under their hair in the back. Voila, few crows feet.
$25 for a mini face left may sound like a steal, but I can go one better than that and give you a whole body lift for $4.99 with no cutting, dieting or exercising.
Many middle-aged and older women complain about their legs sagging above their knees. Some people I know, and I am not going to name you, have a tummy that droops down ever so slightly in the front. If you have breasts, and you know who you are if you do, you might be unhappy about the direction they are pointing. Lastly, is your rear quarters the penthouse, and by that I mean top floor, version, or the sub-basement type?
If you resemble any of the aforementioned descriptions then I have the solution for you. Just follow these cheep and easy, and no I’m not calling you cheep and easy, steps.
- Buy a roll of Duct tape. Now that it comes in so many shades and patterns I suggest flesh colored for this exercise.
- Get naked.
- Unroll a little tape leaving it attached to the roll and stick the sticky side on the, excuse my description, flab right above your knee with the roll facing up your body.
- Gently begin to unwind the Duct tape attaching it to your skin and pulling up at the same time. Lift any belly fat up before sticking the tape on.
- Continue to the optional breast area. Once again, lifting the bosom to a desired, perhaps once familiar place and then attaching the tape to it. If cleavage is desired tape around the outside of the breast rather than right up the middle.
- Now here is the key, when you get to the shoulders make sure you get a good stick because the shoulders are the key super structure to hold all the rest of the parts up. Think of everything now being cantilevered off the shoulders.
- Continue down the back, you may need assistance in this part, but lift the cheek up gently and attach the tape to the underside of the now J-lo like buttocks.
- Cut the tape there.
- Repeat on the other side.
I could put the Duct tape in a jar and charge you $50 for it, but some information is criminal to keep to myself.
Grilled Shrimp and Vegetable Salad
Posted: July 23, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: cherry tomatoes, corn, onions, peppers, pesto, Shrimp, Zucchini Leave a comment
Glad I was able to get all my grilling done for this yummy salad before the thunderstorms came. This is a wonderful way to use any vegetable you like. I used as many different things from my garden as I could and it was delicious. I think it made enough to feed six people as a main course.
1 ½ lb. large peeled and deveined raw shrimp
1 T. olive oil
3 ears of corn
2 zucchini – sliced the long way into ½ planks
1 red onion sliced into ½ inch rounds
4 different peppers- one sweet green, 2 mild banana, one Anaheim and one Poblano- cut in half and seeded
1 c. cherry tomatoes- halved
1 lemon – halved
1 t. white wine vinegar
2 T. pesto base- recipe follows
Salt and Pepper
Heat the grill to high and spray with Pam. Put the corn, onions, peppers, zucchini and lemon cut side down on the grill. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Turn the corn a quarter turn and flip the peppers. Close the cover and cook another 3 minutes. Once the zucchini and onions get grill marks flip them. Turn the corn again.
The peppers will cook fastest. One they are soft, remove them. You don’t want to cook everything too much, just until soft.
The lemon will be the next thing to come off, then the zucchini, onions and last the corn. Let everything cool enough so you can handle it. After it has cooled chop the peppers, onions and zucchini into ½ inch chunks. Cut the corn off the cob and put it all in a bowl.
Turn the grill down to medium. Cover the shrimp in olive oil and place on grill in ne layer. As soon as you get them all down turn them over and cook for no more then a minute. They will get pink very quickly; as soon as each side is pink remove them. There is nothing worse than over cooked shrimp.
Squeeze the grilled lemon on the shrimp and add the pesto base to them. Toss them together with the grilled vegetables and add the cherry tomatoes and vinegar, salt and pepper to taste.
Pesto Base
When my garden is producing an over abundance of basil I make this base of a pesto sauce and freeze it. If I want to add pine nuts and Parmesan cheese I can thaw a puck of base and add those things. But I also like to have just the base to add to recipes that use basil and garlic.
3 cups of Basil leaves- packed
7 cloves of garlic
1 T. olive oil
Put the garlic in a cuisine art and pulse until minced. Add the basil and olive oil and pulse until paste like.
Foot Weight Loss Was Not My Goal
Posted: July 22, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: shoes Leave a commentI pray for you that you are a person who has remained the same sensible clothing size for many years. I am not. My closets contain an array of sizes in everything from outerwear to underwear. Of course it is not organized by size, which would make life easier, but none-the-less a range of about six to seven sizes exists under one roof. That is in everything except shoes.
For the most part all my shoes are the same size in both length and width. Thank goodness that there is one item I can pull out of my closet without having to go to the mirror and ask, “Can I wear this out of the house or does it look like I am wearing pajamas?” I say this after a friend of my daughter’s who was too polite to tell me, told her mother that I looked bigger in my big clothes now that I was smaller.
She meant it in the nicest possible way, but it points out that I have to tackle the giant job of cleaning out all my closets and arranging my clothes by size. I am certainly not going to go out and buy any clothes for this hopefully temporary interim size, and I certainly must have a few things to wear from my last time on the way up to this weight. After my practically pants-on-the-floor trip to Texas I did find a couple of pairs of white pants in my closet that were the next two sizes down. The good news-bad news is that one of them is already too big and the smaller pair is just a little tight across the tummy. Why can’t I lose weight in perfect size increments?
For the most part, it does not really matter if I look like I might walk out of my skirt when I am just driving Carter back and forth to the barn, tending my garden or writing my blog. But this week I had an important meeting where I had to look somewhat professional, even in the 100-degree heat. I scoured the guest room closet and discovered a linen outfit that fit to a “T”. Just a little pressing and I was set to go. I grabbed a pair of cute squared toe flats and jumped in the car, barefoot for the drive to the meeting.
I got there just in time, slipping my feet into my shoes before running into the office building for the meeting. To my horror, just as I entered the conference room and walked forward to shake hands with my host I walked completely out of my shoes, leaving them by the door as the rest of me continued onward. I made some kind of joke that I thought we were holding a Japanese meeting as I retrieved my footwear.
So here I am doing everything possible to slim down my hips and thighs and what do I get…skinnier feet.
Smoked Pork Chop with Cherry Mustard Sauce
Posted: July 21, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cherry, mustard, smoked pork chops Leave a comment
Smoked pork chops are a meat which is already cooked, and if you can’t find them you can use a ham steak, but they are worth searching out. I get mine at the Durham Farmers market from Fickle Creek Farm. I shouldn’t tell you that because now I may never be able to get them again.
Smoked Pork Chops
Sauce
2/3 c. white wine or apple juice
4 T. good mustard- like Dijon – I used Swedish
3 T. dried cherries – you could also use cranberries – minced
1 T. fig preserves – or any jam like apricot or grape
1 t. honey
1 t. Worcestershire sauce
A couple of red pepper flakes — up to ¼ t. if you like it spicy
Put the wine in a saucepan and put on medium high heat and reduce by almost a half. Add the mustard and whisk together continuing to cook for one minute. Add the minced cherries, preserves, honey and Worcestershire sauce and cook another 2 minutes. Add the pepper flakes and remove the sauce from the heat. You can do this sauce in advance.
I like to grill the smoked pork chops, but you can also pan fry them. You are just heating them up.
With the grill on medium high I cook them until they have good grill marks and then flip them over.
When the chops are cooked put them on a plate and spoon sauce over the top and serve.
Potentially the World’s Greatest Invention
Posted: July 20, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: greatest invention, human dehumidifier Leave a commentRight now before you read any farther I want to alert you that I have copy righted this idea because it has the potential to be bigger than any device you are reading this on.
I am not a scientist, doctor, nor engineer, but I think that during this hottest of all summers I might have stumbled on to a world changing new product idea — The Human Dehumidifier!
As I was emptying my garage dehumidifier’s 2-gallon tank for the second time in a day it dawned on me, “this sucker is damn heavy.” I went to weigh it and it was 17 pounds. I know the human body is mostly water. According the always correct and very reliable Internet a body is between 45 and 79% water. And everyone says when he or she starts a diet that those first 5 pounds are just water weight.
Well if we don’t need the first five pounds of water, how about sucking out about twenty or thirty pounds with the help of a machine like the one in my garage? It’s such a brilliant idea I can’t believe no one has thought of it before.
It’s almost too fabulous and I can see how certain companies would be particularly unhappy if this machine existed, like all the weight loss businesses, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and Nutria system. They have made billions on having a constant stream of heavy people in need of ongoing and expensive services to help them loose weight.
If fat people could just plug themselves into The Human Dehumidifier and suck out all that excess water that’s really making them fat then why diet? Plus size clothing makers and retailers would also find this machine eating into their market share, as would the manufactures of elastic and Spanx.
But on the other hand certain businesses would find The Human Dehumidifier a huge asset. Imagine how McDonalds could market Double Quarter Pounders with Cheese. “Come on in and enjoy your burger while hooked up to our complimentary Mc Water Removal machine. For every half pound in one half pound comes out.”
So for all you engineer, doctor, science types, get to work. I gave you the idea now give me the machine.
Curried Mango and Chicken Salad
Posted: July 19, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: chicken, chicken salad, curry, mango Leave a comment
As a child, my sister Margaret would get stuck eating the same thing everyday. One whole year she had the same conversation with me everyday.
“Dana, what are we having for dinner?”
It did not matter what I replied, from burgers to spaghetti she would then say… “No thanks, I think I will just have cheese broccoli.” Which she made herself with a package of frozen broccoli and some sort of processed cheese, Velveeta being her favorite.
Sometime in her teenage years Margaret’s dish of choice became chicken salad, which lasted a very long time. I remember having a conversation with her sometime in her twenties about her idea for a chicken salad restaurant and if I thought it was viable.
Now I too have always loved chicken salad, but consider it a special occasion treat because I just don’t eat that much mayonnaise for thigh giggling reasons.
The sad part is that chicken salad is so easy to make these days if you use a grocery store rotisserie chicken. Since I am going to a ladies potluck tonight I decided it was a good day to make a healthy chicken salad. Too bad my sister is not here to eat it.
1 store bought rotisserie chicken
2 mangos – cubed
½ red onion- finely chopped
1 hot pepper minced
35 basil leaves- chiffonade – that means cut in tiny ribbons
Dressing
1 T. low fat mayonnaise
2/3 cup of fat free Greek yogurt
1 T. ketchup
1t. curry powder
1 t. lemon juice
2 packets of Splenda
1 t. salt
Pepper
Pull the meat off the chicken in shreds making sure you don’t get any of the skin. Put it in a large bowl and add the other ingredients down to the basil. Mix the dressing in a separate bowl and pour over the chicken mixture and gently stir it all together. It is better to get it refrigerate for at least an hour.
Things That Made Me Mad Today and Why Do They Make Me Want Cheese?
Posted: July 18, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cheese, mad 1 CommentFor the most part I had a pretty good day. I had my first one-on-one meeting as the new Board Chair of the Food Bank with our CEO, Peter, which was very positive. I won some great hands in Mah Jongg. Was able to move Carter hither and yon to riding camp were she is a counselor, a friend’s house and a baby sitting job all while fitting in an annual exam at the Vet’s for Shay Shay and a visit to the dog groomer.
I ate my regular high protein Special-K with raspberries for breakfast and the “Dana Lange salad” at the club for lunch so I was on track for an excellent day of healthy eating.
Despite all this positive news just a few little things can really throw a wrench in a day and make me want to eat a huge hunk of fresh mozzarella. Why is that?
I know that when I describe these very little things that made me so MAD, you will begin to question my sanity. That is of course unless you have greatly fluctuating estrogen levels, which might actually be the cause of my “rage and crave.”
The first incident was the discovery that all but one of my sweet potato plants that I had been lovingly cultivating in my garden for two months had been stripped of all their leaves by some plant loving varmint that I would like to catch and boil in a pot in the back yard, Fatal Attraction style. There on the brown dry earth of the garden were long vines with naked stems sticking off of them.
The second incident came just a half an hour later and was even more insignificant, but seemed to push me right to the edge. While printing out all of Carter’s back to school lists for supplies and books an error message come up on my computer announcing the need for me to physically get off my butt and go downstairs to the printer to attend to it’s needs. I assumed it was out of paper or was jammed up in some way, but nooooo! The message on the minute little screen I have to find reading glasses to decipher read, “Pink cartridge ink out of date.” Are you F#*&ing kidding me? HP already only puts 14 pages worth of ink in any of the 5 different color inks you must buy, but now you mean I have not printed enough Pink S#*t to use my ink up in the allotted 47 days before it goes bad. Who ever heard of ink going bad? This was a new low.
My body immediately said, “Give me cheese.” I went to the kitchen, but I stopped. I was able to keep my hand away from the refrigerator door. Instead I went back to the computer and started writing this blog. God taught me two lessons. One, I don’t have to let hormones, or my lack of control of them push me over the edge into a formage filled world and two there is always a diet lesson everyday as long as your eyes are open and need something to blog about.
You-Just-Thought-You-Hated-Okra Okra
Posted: July 17, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: Okra 2 Comments
I grew up a Yankee child of southern parents. It was not until I went to boarding school did I learn that I actually had a Southern accent despite living in Connecticut from the age of 4. My father taught me how to cook the way his mother had taught him so I was good at making things liked stewed tomatoes and fried chicken.
One purely southern thing my parents loved to eat was Okra, which was completely foreign in the northern climate. The only place they could find it was in the freezer section of the Village Market. Now frozen vegetables were a staple of our 1970’s kitchen. I actually thought that all vegetables grew in little frozen squares. Many frozen vegetables were okay, but not Okra. It becomes slimy when cooked, a texture none of the kids in my family could abide.
It was not until I ate fresh Okra that I discovered the difference and learned to love it. This recipe is so simple and healthy and not at all slimy.
As much fresh Okra as you can get your hands on (It is at the Durham farmer’s Market now through September)
Salt
Ground Coriander
Pam
Cut the big end off the okra and through it away. Then cut each pod into ½ in disks.
Heat a skillet on Med. high heat on the stove and spray with Pam. Put the okra in the pan and let it heat up for about 2 minutes before stirring it. Stir it and continue cooking for about 7 minutes total. You want the okra to start to get a little brown. As it browns sprinkle coriander all over it. Salt before serving.
A regular serving would be about 5 pods per person, make double. If you live someplace you can’t get Okra come visit.
Less Dana, More Good 