I realize it's been over two months since I left this blog hanging, and found myself way too busy (or lazy, whichever you prefer) to copy down the recipes I'd tried and relay them here. A few technical difficulties have manifested themselves as well, namely the sudden death of my camera. I don't feel completely right continuing on writing without sharing photos of the food (aren't 90% of your tastebuds in your eyeballs?), but I will for the time being. We'll see how long I last...
When I last left you, I was a few months into my vegetarianism. I'm glad to report that I am still a vegetarian, and have only indulged in meat a few times: two bites of my mom's creutons, a slice of her Christmas meat lasagna, and a grain-fed free-range chicken breast, all over the break. Not bad. I've been pretty good on my own, still eating fish however. A long discussion with a vegetarian friend of mine a few weeks ago reminded me that I still know nothing about the fishing industry when it comes to food sustainability and manufacturing. It seems I still have some homework to do before I can make an informed decision about consuming fish.
In the meantime, I have expanded my cooking skills, my pantry and my equipment. My grandfather built a spice rack for me, with room for 18 full-sized bottles of my best spices and herbs. I made little labels for each bottle, complete with pencil drawings of the plant or spice as best I could render them. My aunt also got me a second kitchen timer, in the shape of a fat pink piglet. I'm quite pleased with the result; my kitchen finally looks like someone cooks real food in it! My parents got me my very first set of Corningwear for Christmas, as well as a small 3.3L dutch oven. I still plan on cooking bigger dishes in my grandmother's Le Creuset, whose enamel is worn down to the cast iron and which my mother now refuses to cook in. Somehow, even as a biochemist with the knowledge that cooking directly on untreated iron isn't the best idea, I love firing up onions and butter in the very pot that my grandmother and my mother cooked every stew, every pate, every roast and every turkey in for the last 50 years. I can't throw a pot like that away. I am determined to rearrange my bookshelf to find a cozy spot for it, since I will be using it less and less (mom's orders). I still need to fix up my tiny cupboard space to make space for my new pots too!
Along with the Corningwear and my own dutch oven that perhaps my grandchildren will hold onto and covet one day, I also came into possession of the great The Joy of Cooking for the first time this Christmas. It's about time I got myself a copy of this book! Next on my "essentials" cookbooks are works by Julia Child, Martha Stewart and Ina Garten. Perhaps Emeril's cookbook is out there somewhere too. Either way, I've decided that there's no use having this brick of a book on my shelf if I'm not going to use it to its full advantage and actually read it. For those of you who aren't familiar, The Joy of Cooking isn't just a cookbook. It's an instruction manual, an encyclopedia of food. Why give you the recipe for pan-friend chicken and chicken a la king when the book can spend 10 pages explaining what a chicken is, how to break it down, how to best cook each part, and what to serve it with? I have spent many hours already pouring over it, happy to discover that while it contains aspic and souffle and all kinds of challenging recipes, that it also contains recipes for grilled cheese and homemade soda crackers! I can't wait to dive in.
Tomorrow is my prep day for the countdown to New Year's Eve. Like last year, I'm celebrating at a house party here in Kingston along with some of my closest friends, including Lisa and a few buddies from Bands who are making the trip in from out of province and country. I haven't seen many of them in a while, and I've decided to greet them with hot artichoke dip (my first recipe in the new Corningwear!) and bean and cheese quinoa quesadillas, from a quinoa cookbook my mom offered me for Christmas. I went entirely too dressed up last year, with my sparkly flowy top and my false lashes. This year, I've decided on a bottle of wine, jeans and a pretty top, along with a cute ponytail or something. None of the girls from work are back yet, and I have a feeling I'll miss them come midnight on Friday :(
My parents generously gifted Ernie with a nylon cat tunnel as his present, of course made of the same crinkly material as some baby toys. He's also been crying for the last half hour because his momma forgot to pack the cat food from home this morning, and all we have are cans of wet food and cat cookies. Tomorrow morning I head out first thing after a stiff cup of coffee, to get groceries for this week and food for my hungry kitten.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Easy Spinach Soup
Quickly, I just made this after work in under 10 minutes. Healthy, delicious and affordable!
Easy Spinach Soup
I can Campbell's mushroom soup, prepared
1 package baby spinach
While the soup is heating and cooking, steam the spinach. Add about a quarter cup of water to a package of spinach, place in a saucepan with a lid and heat until all the spinach has wilted down.
Using a food processor or Magic Bullet, puree the spinach. Don't throw out the boiling liquid! Throw that into the food processor too to ease the blending process.
Whisk your spinach into the mushroom soup, stir thoroughly and enjoy!
Has great bright green colour and is also great with croutons!
Easy Spinach Soup
I can Campbell's mushroom soup, prepared
1 package baby spinach
While the soup is heating and cooking, steam the spinach. Add about a quarter cup of water to a package of spinach, place in a saucepan with a lid and heat until all the spinach has wilted down.
Using a food processor or Magic Bullet, puree the spinach. Don't throw out the boiling liquid! Throw that into the food processor too to ease the blending process.
Whisk your spinach into the mushroom soup, stir thoroughly and enjoy!
Has great bright green colour and is also great with croutons!
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Pumpkins and diamond rings
Before I share this awesome Martha Stewart recipe, can I please say something? Two of my favourite couples in the universe got engaged in the last two weeks! First Smitty and Sarah get engaged while on vacation in Italy, and we all knew they'd end up together, and then Rob pops the question to Michelle on their 1-year anniversary, a wonderful surprise! Sigh. It seems that everyone is either starting exciting new relationships, that older relationships are starting to grow roots, or that weddings are already in the works! I'm a bridesmaid for my friend Laura in August, and two Bands weddings are in the works now! My lovely beautiful friends, you're growing up so fast!
To do my part for the universe, I'm spending my super single Sunday night nursing a 4-day migraine and baking pumpkin cupcakes for my coworkers, staying true to Martha's recipe, circa 2004:
Pumpkin Cupcakes
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice; set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and eggs. Add dry ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in pumpkin puree.
Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about halfway. Bake until tops spring back when touched, and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pans once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.
Decorate with candy and special Halloween frosting!
Enjoy and congratulations again to all my wonderful engaged friends!
To do my part for the universe, I'm spending my super single Sunday night nursing a 4-day migraine and baking pumpkin cupcakes for my coworkers, staying true to Martha's recipe, circa 2004:
Pumpkin Cupcakes
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice; set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and eggs. Add dry ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in pumpkin puree.
Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about halfway. Bake until tops spring back when touched, and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pans once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.
Decorate with candy and special Halloween frosting!
Enjoy and congratulations again to all my wonderful engaged friends!
Thursday, October 14, 2010
But why "midnight"?
Hi all,
Here's a recipe I pulled from the Runner's World website. Enjoy!
Shrimp and Tofu Stir Fry
1/2 pound firm to extra-firm tofu, blotted dry
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 cup mushrooms, stemmed, cleaned, and sliced
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
1 red pepper, sliced
1 head of broccoli, cut into florets
1/2 pound medium shrimp, peeled, deveined, rinsed, and dried
1/4 cup white wine or sherry
1/2 cup vegetable stock or water
2 tablespoons soy sauce
Cut tofu into one-inch cubes. Put one tablespoon of the oil in a large skillet or wok over high heat. When hot, add mushrooms and cook, stirring, until browned and almost crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon; set aside. Add remaining oil to pan, then the garlic and ginger; cook, stirring, for 10 seconds; add pepper and broccoli and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the broccoli turns bright green and softens, about 10 minutes. Add tofu and shrimp and cook, stirring occasionally, until shrimp turns pink, a few minutes. Add wine and stock; cook, stirring, until about half evaporates; return mushrooms to the pan and cook, stirring, for a minute to reheat. Add soy sauce; cook, stirring, until veggies becomes glossy, about 30 seconds.
You can also add rice as a carbohydrate base, which I've done in the past. Unfortunately I'm all out of rice, so this will be a nice low-carb alternative. I have a John Orr dress to fit into, yo.
Also, here is the recipe for the sexy chocolate cookies I mentioned a few days ago:
Midnight Chocolate Cookies
1/2 cup butter, room temp
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 cup flour, sifted
1/3 cup cocao powder, sifted
1/2 tsp baking soda, sifted
Preheat oven to 350degF. Prepare cookie sheets with parchment paper, and non-stick cooking spray.
Beat the butter, sugar, vanilla and egg together until light and fluffy. Sift dry ingredients together and mix thoroughly in a separate bowl. Slowly mix the dry ingredients in with the butter/sugar mixture until it is well-mixed.
With WET hands, make little dough balls no bigger than a walnut or large marble. Place them on the baking sheets, well apart from each other. Bake each batch for exactly 10 minutes. Cool on the baking pan for a few minutes and then until cool completely on baking racks.
Decorating options:
- Melt 1/2 cup chocolate chips or peanut butter chips (or both!) in strong Ziploc bags (seal and soak in warm water until the chips have melted. do NOT microwave Ziploc bags...). Cut a little corner off the bag and pipe chocolate patterns onto the cookies
- Add sprinkles to the chocolate while it's hot if you like.
Hope everyone is having a good week...the holiday Monday totally threw me off and I keep thinking it's Tuesday for some reason. I'm at home today all day for the first time in a while, since I am watching my sick cat and nursing a headache of my own. For those of you wondering, Ernie found an ibuprofen liquigel on the floor and proceeded to eat it, resulting in a $400 vet bill and 3 separate trips to see Dr. Hanna for blood work, charcoal and gastroprotectants. Silly animals.
Here's a recipe I pulled from the Runner's World website. Enjoy!
Shrimp and Tofu Stir Fry
1/2 pound firm to extra-firm tofu, blotted dry
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 cup mushrooms, stemmed, cleaned, and sliced
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
1 red pepper, sliced
1 head of broccoli, cut into florets
1/2 pound medium shrimp, peeled, deveined, rinsed, and dried
1/4 cup white wine or sherry
1/2 cup vegetable stock or water
2 tablespoons soy sauce
Cut tofu into one-inch cubes. Put one tablespoon of the oil in a large skillet or wok over high heat. When hot, add mushrooms and cook, stirring, until browned and almost crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon; set aside. Add remaining oil to pan, then the garlic and ginger; cook, stirring, for 10 seconds; add pepper and broccoli and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the broccoli turns bright green and softens, about 10 minutes. Add tofu and shrimp and cook, stirring occasionally, until shrimp turns pink, a few minutes. Add wine and stock; cook, stirring, until about half evaporates; return mushrooms to the pan and cook, stirring, for a minute to reheat. Add soy sauce; cook, stirring, until veggies becomes glossy, about 30 seconds.
You can also add rice as a carbohydrate base, which I've done in the past. Unfortunately I'm all out of rice, so this will be a nice low-carb alternative. I have a John Orr dress to fit into, yo.
Also, here is the recipe for the sexy chocolate cookies I mentioned a few days ago:
Midnight Chocolate Cookies
1/2 cup butter, room temp
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 cup flour, sifted
1/3 cup cocao powder, sifted
1/2 tsp baking soda, sifted
Preheat oven to 350degF. Prepare cookie sheets with parchment paper, and non-stick cooking spray.
Beat the butter, sugar, vanilla and egg together until light and fluffy. Sift dry ingredients together and mix thoroughly in a separate bowl. Slowly mix the dry ingredients in with the butter/sugar mixture until it is well-mixed.
With WET hands, make little dough balls no bigger than a walnut or large marble. Place them on the baking sheets, well apart from each other. Bake each batch for exactly 10 minutes. Cool on the baking pan for a few minutes and then until cool completely on baking racks.
Decorating options:
- Melt 1/2 cup chocolate chips or peanut butter chips (or both!) in strong Ziploc bags (seal and soak in warm water until the chips have melted. do NOT microwave Ziploc bags...). Cut a little corner off the bag and pipe chocolate patterns onto the cookies
- Add sprinkles to the chocolate while it's hot if you like.
Hope everyone is having a good week...the holiday Monday totally threw me off and I keep thinking it's Tuesday for some reason. I'm at home today all day for the first time in a while, since I am watching my sick cat and nursing a headache of my own. For those of you wondering, Ernie found an ibuprofen liquigel on the floor and proceeded to eat it, resulting in a $400 vet bill and 3 separate trips to see Dr. Hanna for blood work, charcoal and gastroprotectants. Silly animals.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Alive and full of turkey
I haven't been posting diligently at all. To all (four) of you following, sincere apologies. I know at least a few of you guys check this thing periodically and 25 Things must have gotten pretty boring about 1/4 of the way through the first read-through.
Anyhow, so a few weeks later here I am! I just got back from a vacation back home in the DR with my family. My brother and I drove up Friday and I packed us some sweet sandwiches and snacks for the trip. Let it be known that I never forced vegetarianism on my brother, deciding instead to pack his sandwich FULL of roast beef and gladly hand it over.
A few food discoveries from the last few weeks:
1. Mustard. Obviously I already knew about mustard and its awesomeness, but in a recent attempt to make a tzatziki sandwich with a not-so-perfect tzatziki and boring vegetables, I stood in front of the fridge at work wondering what I could use to zip up this sandwich and make it tasty. Answer = mustard. I had lettuce, tomato, avocado and peppers in there, and let me tell you: it was so good that I finished it up and brought my leftover peppers the next day to just dip in a huge vat of mustard. My love of mustard has been renewed.
2. Organic local free-range Thanksgiving turkey. Need I say more? My mom was awesome and found a farmer outside of Barry's Bay who raises turkeys and chickens and he was delivering some sheep to Pembroke last week (ahah! oh Ottawa valley) and dropped the bird off for my mom to pick up. It was all cleaned up inside, no fat, really juicy and lovely. It didn't taste any different from "regular" turkey but I felt way better knowing this bird had a full happy life clucking away at whatever it found in its nice big airy field (that's right: grass-fed). Also, I was half expecting my body to freak out over this mysterious "meat" entering the mix, but so far so good.
3. Harvey's veggie burger. Originally on the way back the plan for Simon and I was to stop at the Subway in Smiths Falls for some supper, but unfortunately it was closed. I didn't feel like a heavy and possibly sketchy egg salad at Timmie's and I was about to get a salad or fries when I spotted this thing on the menu and thought, why not? Turns out this burger is super yummy and juicy and doesn't have that gross fake tofu taste that some veggie burgers do. I loaded up on the lettuce, tomato, pickles, hot peppers, ketchup and obviously mustard, and on a whole wheat bun it wasn't bad. I'm not used to the fast food since the closest I've had in the last while is a Subway veggie sub, but despite being veggie the Harvey's burger is a burger nonetheless and sat like a brick in my stomach for the rest of the trip.
My mom sent me back with a ton of turkey leftovers, as well as the bones and neck so I can make soup. I might upload some recipes on this front, and someone kick me if I don't put up this awesome recipe for these sexy dark "midnight" chocolate cookies I made last week.
julie
PS. My hair is back to its natural colour for the first time in ... oh man ... 5 years? and it feels really nice. Eating well, being almost back to my old self, doing shittons of yoga and looking forward to a protein structure in my near future and a fancy dinner with my awesome sexy friends in November. Now if only I could replenish my supply of red pens...
Anyhow, so a few weeks later here I am! I just got back from a vacation back home in the DR with my family. My brother and I drove up Friday and I packed us some sweet sandwiches and snacks for the trip. Let it be known that I never forced vegetarianism on my brother, deciding instead to pack his sandwich FULL of roast beef and gladly hand it over.
A few food discoveries from the last few weeks:
1. Mustard. Obviously I already knew about mustard and its awesomeness, but in a recent attempt to make a tzatziki sandwich with a not-so-perfect tzatziki and boring vegetables, I stood in front of the fridge at work wondering what I could use to zip up this sandwich and make it tasty. Answer = mustard. I had lettuce, tomato, avocado and peppers in there, and let me tell you: it was so good that I finished it up and brought my leftover peppers the next day to just dip in a huge vat of mustard. My love of mustard has been renewed.
2. Organic local free-range Thanksgiving turkey. Need I say more? My mom was awesome and found a farmer outside of Barry's Bay who raises turkeys and chickens and he was delivering some sheep to Pembroke last week (ahah! oh Ottawa valley) and dropped the bird off for my mom to pick up. It was all cleaned up inside, no fat, really juicy and lovely. It didn't taste any different from "regular" turkey but I felt way better knowing this bird had a full happy life clucking away at whatever it found in its nice big airy field (that's right: grass-fed). Also, I was half expecting my body to freak out over this mysterious "meat" entering the mix, but so far so good.
3. Harvey's veggie burger. Originally on the way back the plan for Simon and I was to stop at the Subway in Smiths Falls for some supper, but unfortunately it was closed. I didn't feel like a heavy and possibly sketchy egg salad at Timmie's and I was about to get a salad or fries when I spotted this thing on the menu and thought, why not? Turns out this burger is super yummy and juicy and doesn't have that gross fake tofu taste that some veggie burgers do. I loaded up on the lettuce, tomato, pickles, hot peppers, ketchup and obviously mustard, and on a whole wheat bun it wasn't bad. I'm not used to the fast food since the closest I've had in the last while is a Subway veggie sub, but despite being veggie the Harvey's burger is a burger nonetheless and sat like a brick in my stomach for the rest of the trip.
My mom sent me back with a ton of turkey leftovers, as well as the bones and neck so I can make soup. I might upload some recipes on this front, and someone kick me if I don't put up this awesome recipe for these sexy dark "midnight" chocolate cookies I made last week.
julie
PS. My hair is back to its natural colour for the first time in ... oh man ... 5 years? and it feels really nice. Eating well, being almost back to my old self, doing shittons of yoga and looking forward to a protein structure in my near future and a fancy dinner with my awesome sexy friends in November. Now if only I could replenish my supply of red pens...
Sunday, September 19, 2010
25 Things
You all know this Facebook note that was popular a few years ago: write 25 things about yourself that nobody knows. I did this note on February 4, 2009. Many things have changed since then in my life. I'm inspired to do this after reading a friend's and learning things about her, and also after watching a few episodes of If You Really Knew Me. I agree that you may not care about these things, but one of my new years resolutions was to live honestly and openly. Read on if you want, and if not, that's ok.
If You Really Knew Me, You'd Know That...
1. I am single and have been for close to 18 months. I'm a relationship person for sure, but for 6 months now I think I've found my groove and am content on my own. However, I always think fondly of past relationships and wonder if anything as awesome will ever happen again. In short, I accept.
2. I'm recently vegetarian and despite how much I get made fun of for it by coworkers and some family members, I'm happy with my new lifestyle. I feel more balanced, healthier and more knowledgable about what I eat.
3. I don't own a TV, but instead shamelessly stream and download the following TV shows from the internet: Glee, ANTM, House, Top Chef, Next Food Network Star, HIMYM and Jersey Shore. When the season airs, I watch The Bachelorette with one of my girlfriends every week.
4. If I wasn't in grad school for biochemistry, I'd be in culinary school.
5. I've been practicing yoga for 8 months and it has changed my life. If under a year I can achieve what I've achieved, I can't imagine what I'll be able to do in the years to come. This challenge both intimidates and excites me.
6. Despite my best meditative efforts, the same thoughts run through my head on a regular basis: Do I look ok? What do people think of me? Did I eat all my vegetables today? Did I exercise today? Did I forget to do anything in the lab? Did I miss any appointments today? When I can I go yoga next and am I improving? Am I really happy with what I've learned over the last few years?
7. I am slowly coming to terms with the way my body was made and will always be, but I have two sore points that I am constantly checking in the mirror. My stomach is flat for the top "4-pack" but bulges out funny at the bottom, such that shirts look funny on me and pants don't quite fit me right. My breasts are too big for my figure, and I get stared at a lot and it makes me uncomfortable. I have seriously considered breast reduction surgery.
8. My favourite parts of my body are my eyes and smile, my calves, the top of my stomach and my shoulders. I get lots of compliments on my smile and it makes me happy.
9. I have no idea what I'm going to do after my grad studies are over, so much so that I'm staying in Kingston for a few more years to complete a PhD. Ideally, I'd like to find a job that will pay well enough to sustain a comfortable lifestyle, and I'd like to become a mother one day. If I can do this and produce happy children, then I'll be happy too.
10. I sometimes feel that my world moves more slowly than the world of others around me. Many friends of mine are out travelling, working abroad, starting "real" jobs and getting married. I believe it's "grad school syndrome" but I feel I have achieved none of those things in the same amount of time. I feel much less accomplished than I did in high school, which I realize now meant very little in the grand scheme of things.
11. I miss my violin. I used to play in concert halls...with orchestras...I used to teach...work on the grandest pieces. My violin is under my bed, and I have my memories.
12. I am proud that I've managed to remain friends with almost everyone I've had shortcomings with. Relationships, "relationships," fall-outs with friends, unfortunate misunderstandings with groups of friends... the common thread is that I initiated conversations in an attempt to apologize and heal the situation, I emailed and called, and I lost sleep over the potential loss of my friendships. I am grateful that 95% of misunderstandings have smoothed themselves out, and I am slowly realizing that the other 5% were never meant to. I am proud of myself for not giving up on my relationships and wanting their memories to endure in a positive way for everyone involved.
13. I wish I was a better dancer. If I had realized how much I love to dance earlier in life I would have taken lessons. I want to take a hip-hop class this semester, and I not-so-secretly love those silly Step Up-type movies.
14. I have dance parties alone at home all the time. I put on my favourite tunes and pretend I'm in a dance movie and or a Beyonce music video. I'm not embarrassed.
15. I know I will have cancer some day. I've started to mentally prepare myself for what is to come. This is part of the reason I have recently started taking good care of myself and my body. This body will not be healthy forever, so I'm nurturing it now.
16. I feel that my life would be rendered meaningless if I found out I was reproductively challenged and could not have children. I would lovingly adopt but I am in awe of the female body and what it can do, and I want to be able to make life in this way.
17. I would love to be able to complete one of those intense solo survival expeditions as part of a character-building outdoor camp. This would be a great accomplishment for me.
18. If I could play any instrument other than the violin, it would be the cello or the double-bass. Yo-Yo Ma is exceptional and his music makes me super emotional.
19. I am terrified to TA my first lab tomorrow. I love to teach and would adore for the students to want to learn from me and ask me exciting questions.
20. I'm a passionate foodie, but I'm not great at making a lot of recipes (especially gnocchi. I've failed twice at making it now). For Christmas I'd like a copy of The Joy of Cooking so I can learn basic skills. I want to be like one of those wonderful Italian mothers who cooks everything from scratch and derives the most joy from feeding her family.
21. I am a work in progress. I think I'm on the right path towards who I will become, but I am in a transition phase right now. There is no better word to describe how I feel about a lot of things these days than "limbo."
22. For lunch tomorrow I really want an avocado, roasted pepper, and tzatziki pita. I fear this may not be possible since my avocados are refusing to ripen. Dinner will likely be perogies and salad.
23. My sleep patterns have dramatically changed over the summer. It's 10pm and I will be asleep within the hour, and I have set my alarm for the comfortable hour of 6:30am. Most days I wake up by 6:00am. In undergrad and last year, I wasn't in bed until at least midnight and was up around 7:30am, sometimes 8:00am. Yesterday I got to sleep in comfortably until 8:30am, but only after I got up at 4:30am to feed my crying kitten.
24. If I could choose the colour of my bedroom walls, I would pain them light asparagus green. Accent colours would be white and black. There would be black and white photography on the walls and beautiful candles and vases everywhere. I would have a white duvet and 500 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. The floors would be hardwood and I would have a nook near a bright window for reading.
25. My biggest dreams for the foreseeable and attainable future:
- complete my first unassisted free-standing headstand in hot practice. no walls. no help.
- properly write up and defend my mini-MSc and pass my PhD comp exam
- walk up on stage in 4 years wearing that beautiful red silk robe...ahhh that magical red PhD robe from the university that I love. It is prize upon which I've set my eyes on and its vision is what gets me up every morning.
If You Really Knew Me, You'd Know That...
1. I am single and have been for close to 18 months. I'm a relationship person for sure, but for 6 months now I think I've found my groove and am content on my own. However, I always think fondly of past relationships and wonder if anything as awesome will ever happen again. In short, I accept.
2. I'm recently vegetarian and despite how much I get made fun of for it by coworkers and some family members, I'm happy with my new lifestyle. I feel more balanced, healthier and more knowledgable about what I eat.
3. I don't own a TV, but instead shamelessly stream and download the following TV shows from the internet: Glee, ANTM, House, Top Chef, Next Food Network Star, HIMYM and Jersey Shore. When the season airs, I watch The Bachelorette with one of my girlfriends every week.
4. If I wasn't in grad school for biochemistry, I'd be in culinary school.
5. I've been practicing yoga for 8 months and it has changed my life. If under a year I can achieve what I've achieved, I can't imagine what I'll be able to do in the years to come. This challenge both intimidates and excites me.
6. Despite my best meditative efforts, the same thoughts run through my head on a regular basis: Do I look ok? What do people think of me? Did I eat all my vegetables today? Did I exercise today? Did I forget to do anything in the lab? Did I miss any appointments today? When I can I go yoga next and am I improving? Am I really happy with what I've learned over the last few years?
7. I am slowly coming to terms with the way my body was made and will always be, but I have two sore points that I am constantly checking in the mirror. My stomach is flat for the top "4-pack" but bulges out funny at the bottom, such that shirts look funny on me and pants don't quite fit me right. My breasts are too big for my figure, and I get stared at a lot and it makes me uncomfortable. I have seriously considered breast reduction surgery.
8. My favourite parts of my body are my eyes and smile, my calves, the top of my stomach and my shoulders. I get lots of compliments on my smile and it makes me happy.
9. I have no idea what I'm going to do after my grad studies are over, so much so that I'm staying in Kingston for a few more years to complete a PhD. Ideally, I'd like to find a job that will pay well enough to sustain a comfortable lifestyle, and I'd like to become a mother one day. If I can do this and produce happy children, then I'll be happy too.
10. I sometimes feel that my world moves more slowly than the world of others around me. Many friends of mine are out travelling, working abroad, starting "real" jobs and getting married. I believe it's "grad school syndrome" but I feel I have achieved none of those things in the same amount of time. I feel much less accomplished than I did in high school, which I realize now meant very little in the grand scheme of things.
11. I miss my violin. I used to play in concert halls...with orchestras...I used to teach...work on the grandest pieces. My violin is under my bed, and I have my memories.
12. I am proud that I've managed to remain friends with almost everyone I've had shortcomings with. Relationships, "relationships," fall-outs with friends, unfortunate misunderstandings with groups of friends... the common thread is that I initiated conversations in an attempt to apologize and heal the situation, I emailed and called, and I lost sleep over the potential loss of my friendships. I am grateful that 95% of misunderstandings have smoothed themselves out, and I am slowly realizing that the other 5% were never meant to. I am proud of myself for not giving up on my relationships and wanting their memories to endure in a positive way for everyone involved.
13. I wish I was a better dancer. If I had realized how much I love to dance earlier in life I would have taken lessons. I want to take a hip-hop class this semester, and I not-so-secretly love those silly Step Up-type movies.
14. I have dance parties alone at home all the time. I put on my favourite tunes and pretend I'm in a dance movie and or a Beyonce music video. I'm not embarrassed.
15. I know I will have cancer some day. I've started to mentally prepare myself for what is to come. This is part of the reason I have recently started taking good care of myself and my body. This body will not be healthy forever, so I'm nurturing it now.
16. I feel that my life would be rendered meaningless if I found out I was reproductively challenged and could not have children. I would lovingly adopt but I am in awe of the female body and what it can do, and I want to be able to make life in this way.
17. I would love to be able to complete one of those intense solo survival expeditions as part of a character-building outdoor camp. This would be a great accomplishment for me.
18. If I could play any instrument other than the violin, it would be the cello or the double-bass. Yo-Yo Ma is exceptional and his music makes me super emotional.
19. I am terrified to TA my first lab tomorrow. I love to teach and would adore for the students to want to learn from me and ask me exciting questions.
20. I'm a passionate foodie, but I'm not great at making a lot of recipes (especially gnocchi. I've failed twice at making it now). For Christmas I'd like a copy of The Joy of Cooking so I can learn basic skills. I want to be like one of those wonderful Italian mothers who cooks everything from scratch and derives the most joy from feeding her family.
21. I am a work in progress. I think I'm on the right path towards who I will become, but I am in a transition phase right now. There is no better word to describe how I feel about a lot of things these days than "limbo."
22. For lunch tomorrow I really want an avocado, roasted pepper, and tzatziki pita. I fear this may not be possible since my avocados are refusing to ripen. Dinner will likely be perogies and salad.
23. My sleep patterns have dramatically changed over the summer. It's 10pm and I will be asleep within the hour, and I have set my alarm for the comfortable hour of 6:30am. Most days I wake up by 6:00am. In undergrad and last year, I wasn't in bed until at least midnight and was up around 7:30am, sometimes 8:00am. Yesterday I got to sleep in comfortably until 8:30am, but only after I got up at 4:30am to feed my crying kitten.
24. If I could choose the colour of my bedroom walls, I would pain them light asparagus green. Accent colours would be white and black. There would be black and white photography on the walls and beautiful candles and vases everywhere. I would have a white duvet and 500 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. The floors would be hardwood and I would have a nook near a bright window for reading.
25. My biggest dreams for the foreseeable and attainable future:
- complete my first unassisted free-standing headstand in hot practice. no walls. no help.
- properly write up and defend my mini-MSc and pass my PhD comp exam
- walk up on stage in 4 years wearing that beautiful red silk robe...ahhh that magical red PhD robe from the university that I love. It is prize upon which I've set my eyes on and its vision is what gets me up every morning.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Drowning in work but never forgetting you all
I'm alive! Yes it's true...I haven't posted in a long time, but alas, "school" has started back up. I'm TAing a lab, my supervisor is demanding perfect prompt yields and the students back in town exhaust me. For those of you who might understand, I share this gem:
That being said, on with the food! I've made a buttload of new things over the last little while, but unfortunately my camera is not always on hand and I'm not always able to write things down. On that note, here are a few recent successes I'd like to share!
Otsu
1 small piece of grated ginger (about a cubic inch)
1 tbsp honey
1/4 tsp cayenne
3/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 c. vinegar
1/3 c. soy sauce
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp sesame oil
12 oz dried soba noodles or whole-wheat spaghetti
12 oz firm tofu
1/4 c. chopped cilantro
1/2 cucumber, thinly sliced
1/4 c. sesame seeds
1. Cook the noodles until al dente. Drain. Set aside.
2. Drain and dry the tofu thoroughly, then slice into pieces about the size of a small post-it.
3. Cook the tofu in a tsp of oil for roughly 3 minutes on either side, until golden. Remove from heat and set aside.
4. In a small blender, combine and blend the ingredients for the dressing (from ginger to sesame oil).
5. Combine cooked pasta, cooked tofu, dressing, cucumber, cilantro and sesame seeds in a large bowl and toss.
Serve cold for a refreshing and filling snack or meal based on the traditional Japanese cold noodle dish..
Yves Veggie Products - A Review
Recently I was invited to my first BBQ as a vegetarian and I opted for veggie dogs. I love hot dogs, didn't have enough time to make sweet grilled veggie sandwiches, etc., so I went on a search for yummy veggie options. I came across Yves, which I'd been told is a great brand with lots of tasty stuff.
For those of you out there (including my pre-veggie self) who think that the only alternative to meat is tofu, you are wrong! This company has a whole line of meat-less products, including cool stuff like meat-less lunch meat, meat-less stuffed chicken, meat-less italian sausages, and meat-less pizza pepperoni.
So far I'm rather impressed with these products! I've tried the tofu dogs and the pizza pepperoni...
The dogs are GREAT! I'm impressed that for a product with ingredients like tofu, wheat, etc. that Yves managed to retain the flavour and most of the texture. Yes, the texture is a bit unlike meat (aka. a tad chewier, and these dogs are oddly flexible...), but you'd never know by looking at it that it wasn't a regular hotdog. PLUS, these things have a fraction of the fat and garbage that regular hot dogs do, so you can feel decent about having a few. They're also great on their own dipped in mustard, but that's just me.
The pepperoni takes some adjusting to. While the taste and overall look of these little slices is pretty close, the texture of this pepperoni is WAY off. While regular pepperoni is chewy and oily, this stuff is gritty and falls apart pretty easily. I ripped a few pieces trying to get them apart and they look pretty dry compared to their meat counterparts. Clearly they are WAY healthier, but unlike the dogs, here you are definitely sacrificing taste for nutrition.
I used these on pizza and while the taste was great, I missed the ridiculous salty oil that normal pepperoni brings to a slice of cheesy pizza. As the photo hopefully shows, one immediately noticeable difference between meat and meat-less pepperoni is that this stuff really dries out in the oven (this isn't surprising since cooked tofu is slightly crumbly and dry). So while my pizza tastes absolutely delicious, the texture just isn't right, leaving Yves pizza "pepperoni" a bit lacklustre, literally.
A few other random things:
- Work is picking up hardcore so please be patient with me on updates. I'll be posting as often as I can but with the little time I have left to myself after work I always find things to do (I chose to write this instead of cleaning my bathroom)
- Happy Birthday Michelle, the most amazing yoga instructor ever <3
- I'm taking a really healthy veggie approach to solving the issue of an ensuing cold. I don't usually believe in herbal supplements and things of the like (it's like they published studies on their efficacy in important scientific journals or something!) but I'm all about ginger tea and echinacea, plus antioxidants like strawberries, raspberries and cranberries. Regular vitamin C and unfathomable quantities of water and veggies never hurt anyone either. Updates on whether this works or not later...
That being said, on with the food! I've made a buttload of new things over the last little while, but unfortunately my camera is not always on hand and I'm not always able to write things down. On that note, here are a few recent successes I'd like to share!
Otsu
1 small piece of grated ginger (about a cubic inch)
1 tbsp honey
1/4 tsp cayenne
3/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 c. vinegar
1/3 c. soy sauce
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp sesame oil
12 oz dried soba noodles or whole-wheat spaghetti
12 oz firm tofu
1/4 c. chopped cilantro
1/2 cucumber, thinly sliced
1/4 c. sesame seeds
1. Cook the noodles until al dente. Drain. Set aside.
2. Drain and dry the tofu thoroughly, then slice into pieces about the size of a small post-it.
3. Cook the tofu in a tsp of oil for roughly 3 minutes on either side, until golden. Remove from heat and set aside.
4. In a small blender, combine and blend the ingredients for the dressing (from ginger to sesame oil).
5. Combine cooked pasta, cooked tofu, dressing, cucumber, cilantro and sesame seeds in a large bowl and toss.
Serve cold for a refreshing and filling snack or meal based on the traditional Japanese cold noodle dish..
Yves Veggie Products - A Review
Recently I was invited to my first BBQ as a vegetarian and I opted for veggie dogs. I love hot dogs, didn't have enough time to make sweet grilled veggie sandwiches, etc., so I went on a search for yummy veggie options. I came across Yves, which I'd been told is a great brand with lots of tasty stuff.
For those of you out there (including my pre-veggie self) who think that the only alternative to meat is tofu, you are wrong! This company has a whole line of meat-less products, including cool stuff like meat-less lunch meat, meat-less stuffed chicken, meat-less italian sausages, and meat-less pizza pepperoni.
So far I'm rather impressed with these products! I've tried the tofu dogs and the pizza pepperoni...
The dogs are GREAT! I'm impressed that for a product with ingredients like tofu, wheat, etc. that Yves managed to retain the flavour and most of the texture. Yes, the texture is a bit unlike meat (aka. a tad chewier, and these dogs are oddly flexible...), but you'd never know by looking at it that it wasn't a regular hotdog. PLUS, these things have a fraction of the fat and garbage that regular hot dogs do, so you can feel decent about having a few. They're also great on their own dipped in mustard, but that's just me.
The pepperoni takes some adjusting to. While the taste and overall look of these little slices is pretty close, the texture of this pepperoni is WAY off. While regular pepperoni is chewy and oily, this stuff is gritty and falls apart pretty easily. I ripped a few pieces trying to get them apart and they look pretty dry compared to their meat counterparts. Clearly they are WAY healthier, but unlike the dogs, here you are definitely sacrificing taste for nutrition.
I used these on pizza and while the taste was great, I missed the ridiculous salty oil that normal pepperoni brings to a slice of cheesy pizza. As the photo hopefully shows, one immediately noticeable difference between meat and meat-less pepperoni is that this stuff really dries out in the oven (this isn't surprising since cooked tofu is slightly crumbly and dry). So while my pizza tastes absolutely delicious, the texture just isn't right, leaving Yves pizza "pepperoni" a bit lacklustre, literally.
A few other random things:
- Work is picking up hardcore so please be patient with me on updates. I'll be posting as often as I can but with the little time I have left to myself after work I always find things to do (I chose to write this instead of cleaning my bathroom)
- Happy Birthday Michelle, the most amazing yoga instructor ever <3
- I'm taking a really healthy veggie approach to solving the issue of an ensuing cold. I don't usually believe in herbal supplements and things of the like (it's like they published studies on their efficacy in important scientific journals or something!) but I'm all about ginger tea and echinacea, plus antioxidants like strawberries, raspberries and cranberries. Regular vitamin C and unfathomable quantities of water and veggies never hurt anyone either. Updates on whether this works or not later...
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Christmas in September
I'm feeling very homey and warm and cozy today. I had a wonderful quiet peaceful yoga practice later in the evening, enjoyed some mint chocolate chip frozen yogurt watching a bit of House, and I'm about to sit down and make the veggie lasagna for a special dinner guest tomorrow night. You can find the recipe for this lasagna in "I Can't Believe It's Not Beef" on August 12th's post.
I am also feeling Christmasy all of a sudden. It's been cooler out, very windy and dark, and I felt the rush of special dinner preparations today while I was buying lasagna supplies. The switch to almond spice body wash didn't help (I ran out of papaya whatever-it-was-called and this was the only one left...purchased on a whim last winter during a huge sale). I decided to bust out my extra special Christmas-only lotion and rub a little bit on. The Body Shop makes this wonderful vanilla spice body butter that I am utterly in love with. I got a tub of it a few years ago and have been rationing it out carefully ever since. I'm going to last until this year, but thought I'd indulge a bit tonight as I unwind on this one day to myself this week.
Listening to Frank Sinatra's Christmas carols pushed tonight's baking into the holiday cookies realm. I got some beautiful juicy pears at Metro earlier and thought I'd try using this fruit in a baked concoction. I make a killer cobbler with pear and/or peach, but I'd never attempted a delicate fruit cookie. I therefore propose the following:
Spicy Pear Cookies
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 pear - peeled, cored and diced
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1. Preheat oven to 350degF.
2. In large bowl, beat butter and sugar untill smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and ginger; mix into batter. Stir in chopped pears, chopped nuts and raisins.
3. Drop about two inches apart by rounded tablespoonfuls onto baking sheets and bake 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown and center springs back when lightly touched. Remove to wire racks to cool.
4. Combine confectioners' sugar and lemon juice and mix until smooth. Spoon icing over cookies.
Love these cookies! They're super soft and tender, and they have the right combination of sweetness and spice. The pears make them moist and lightly flavoured for that perfect sweet-but-not-sickening bite. I really recommend these as an alternate to your traditional chocolate chip or fudge cookie.
I forgot to take a picture and after bringing these to work, I'm certain there won't be any leftover for the photo shoot...
I am also feeling Christmasy all of a sudden. It's been cooler out, very windy and dark, and I felt the rush of special dinner preparations today while I was buying lasagna supplies. The switch to almond spice body wash didn't help (I ran out of papaya whatever-it-was-called and this was the only one left...purchased on a whim last winter during a huge sale). I decided to bust out my extra special Christmas-only lotion and rub a little bit on. The Body Shop makes this wonderful vanilla spice body butter that I am utterly in love with. I got a tub of it a few years ago and have been rationing it out carefully ever since. I'm going to last until this year, but thought I'd indulge a bit tonight as I unwind on this one day to myself this week.
Listening to Frank Sinatra's Christmas carols pushed tonight's baking into the holiday cookies realm. I got some beautiful juicy pears at Metro earlier and thought I'd try using this fruit in a baked concoction. I make a killer cobbler with pear and/or peach, but I'd never attempted a delicate fruit cookie. I therefore propose the following:
Spicy Pear Cookies
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 pear - peeled, cored and diced
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1. Preheat oven to 350degF.
2. In large bowl, beat butter and sugar untill smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and ginger; mix into batter. Stir in chopped pears, chopped nuts and raisins.
3. Drop about two inches apart by rounded tablespoonfuls onto baking sheets and bake 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown and center springs back when lightly touched. Remove to wire racks to cool.
4. Combine confectioners' sugar and lemon juice and mix until smooth. Spoon icing over cookies.
Love these cookies! They're super soft and tender, and they have the right combination of sweetness and spice. The pears make them moist and lightly flavoured for that perfect sweet-but-not-sickening bite. I really recommend these as an alternate to your traditional chocolate chip or fudge cookie.
I forgot to take a picture and after bringing these to work, I'm certain there won't be any leftover for the photo shoot...
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Cravings
I'm having an off week. I'm exhausted, I'm stressed, I'm fighting a migraine and I'm always hungry. This has resulted in an unfortunate week of food, despite not really having strayed from a good diet with lots of balance and loads of veggies. I would rephrase "unfortunate" by the following : CRAVINGS!!
I realized that as a result of stress, my body freaks out and commands me to stuff my face with all kinds of stuff. Today walking home from work, I knew I had salad and homemade pizza lined up, but had this unbelievable craving for a BK Whopper. Why after 4 weeks of being a vegetarian I'm now craving the worst possible beef product out there is beyond me. Thankfully I got home and stifled my hunger with a hearty salad and pizza chock-full of all kinds of vegetables. Take that, evil burger! You will not convince me despite your ridiculously yummy smelling beef patty, melty cheese product and sesame bun!
I continued to tame my food cravings with the chocolate chip banana bread I made last week - thank god for air tight leftovers. I've been pretty good with my diet otherwise, and since last week I bought tons of veggies and have plans to make the following:
- another pizza (I buy those kits with the dough and sauce, comes with two sets of everything)
- vegetable lasagna for dinner next week
- falafel with tzatziki
- greek salad
- otsu (japanese cold noodles)
- vegetable korma
- potato leek soup
I've tried all of these before except the korma, but the sauce is in a jar (after my miserable curry failure a few weeks ago) so I'm not worried.
Oh yeah, another observation with respect to this new diet. I have found myself to be hypersensitive to anything alcoholic, anything overly sweet or processed and sleep aids. I went out for two beers with a friend who got back from the west coast last week and felt completely nauseous and had to go to bed early. Usually two beers don't affect me whatsoever, except maybe take the edge off. The sweet food thing isn't surprising - I think exhaustion + sweet food is a combination for disaster, as it triggers my migraines, but this time around I bounce off the walls with every small dose! As for the sleep aid, I occasionally take melatonin to make me sleep more soundly if I've been stressed and have been having a rough week with little sleep. I took one last night and was a wreck today! I woke up with a migraine that has been coming and going, and usually these things last 2 to 3 days. I'm slowly realizing that after cutting the shit and filler out of my diet, and filling my body with nothing but homemade, nutritionally dense food, that I'm not reacting to stimulants and medicine the same way as I used to. It's almost as if my body used to be so full of garbage that these things took longer to reach my nervous system and affect me. With my body clear and functioning more smoothly, the slightest upset sends me flying in every which direction. Gotta be careful...
I realized that as a result of stress, my body freaks out and commands me to stuff my face with all kinds of stuff. Today walking home from work, I knew I had salad and homemade pizza lined up, but had this unbelievable craving for a BK Whopper. Why after 4 weeks of being a vegetarian I'm now craving the worst possible beef product out there is beyond me. Thankfully I got home and stifled my hunger with a hearty salad and pizza chock-full of all kinds of vegetables. Take that, evil burger! You will not convince me despite your ridiculously yummy smelling beef patty, melty cheese product and sesame bun!
I continued to tame my food cravings with the chocolate chip banana bread I made last week - thank god for air tight leftovers. I've been pretty good with my diet otherwise, and since last week I bought tons of veggies and have plans to make the following:
- another pizza (I buy those kits with the dough and sauce, comes with two sets of everything)
- vegetable lasagna for dinner next week
- falafel with tzatziki
- greek salad
- otsu (japanese cold noodles)
- vegetable korma
- potato leek soup
I've tried all of these before except the korma, but the sauce is in a jar (after my miserable curry failure a few weeks ago) so I'm not worried.
Oh yeah, another observation with respect to this new diet. I have found myself to be hypersensitive to anything alcoholic, anything overly sweet or processed and sleep aids. I went out for two beers with a friend who got back from the west coast last week and felt completely nauseous and had to go to bed early. Usually two beers don't affect me whatsoever, except maybe take the edge off. The sweet food thing isn't surprising - I think exhaustion + sweet food is a combination for disaster, as it triggers my migraines, but this time around I bounce off the walls with every small dose! As for the sleep aid, I occasionally take melatonin to make me sleep more soundly if I've been stressed and have been having a rough week with little sleep. I took one last night and was a wreck today! I woke up with a migraine that has been coming and going, and usually these things last 2 to 3 days. I'm slowly realizing that after cutting the shit and filler out of my diet, and filling my body with nothing but homemade, nutritionally dense food, that I'm not reacting to stimulants and medicine the same way as I used to. It's almost as if my body used to be so full of garbage that these things took longer to reach my nervous system and affect me. With my body clear and functioning more smoothly, the slightest upset sends me flying in every which direction. Gotta be careful...
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The 3 in 1 Experiment
Tonight I decided I would have salmon. I came to the conclusion during a discussion with Lisa that I'd probably be a sometimes-fish-eating vegetarian (I'm going to drop the quotation marks because they're getting redundant and annoying to keep using, but you all know what I mean). I have salmon fillets and haddock fillets in the freezer, so I should eat them seeing as I am on a tighter budget and can't afford to just throw food out.
I decided that I'm a huge fan of all-in-one dishes (and using lots of hyphens and brackets apparently) instead of protein, veg and grain all being separate on the plate. There is always the possibility of turning the latter into the former when you want to make a dish that can be heated back up all at once and will meld the flavours all together. Some people choose to eat one component at a time, while some people like to take bits of each part on the fork at once and eat that way. For these second types of eaters I hope that the ingredients all work together, otherwise there are some serious flavour combo disasters waiting to happen.
But let's say that you can indeed theoretically combine all three things you want to eat separately into one dish. Let's say I wanted to eat chicken with carrots and couscous. Couldn't I just cook each component and mix them together to make a chicken and carrot couscous? This is the logic I used when I didn't feel like having leftovers of any one component and came up with this concoction that is surprisingly (or not) really delicious!
Salmon and Asparagus Wild Rice Salad
1 c. wild rice blend
2 c. vegetable broth
1 tsp margarine or butter
pinch salt
6-8 asparagus stems
2 salmon fillets (I used frozen, you can use fresh)
1 1/2 tbsp sour cream
1 tbsp dill weed
pepper
garlic powder
To make the rice:
Mix ingredients together in a saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and cook covered for 50 minutes until all but a teaspoon or so of the liquid is gone. Do not drain.*
To cook the asparagus:
Rid the stems of any knobby ends near the white ends and wash the stems thoroughly. Taking each stem at either end, gently bend the stem until it snaps. The point at which this happens is exactly where the stem stops being tough and starts being tender. Discard tough bits and dice the tender ends in 1/2 inch pieces.
Cook pieces in boiling water until they are bright green, about 2-3 minutes. Immediately soak them in an ice water bath to stop the cooking process. Drain and set aside.
To cook the salmon:
Preheat the oven to 450degF. Place the fillets on a pan covered in greased aluminum foil. In a small bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients, seasoning to taste. Spread the sauce over the fillets and cook for 20 minutes. Chop cooked fillets and set aside.
To bring salad together, mix all ingredients in a bowl. Dress with a light dressing of dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Mix well and season to taste with garlic powder, salt and lots of freshly cracked black pepper.
*If you get rid of all the liquid, the rice will be dry. Wild rice tends to be a bit crunchier than white or brown rice, but this particular variety also thickens the broth such that the resulting rice is a bit creamy. Getting rid of the last little bit of broth would ruin it.
If you don't want a vinigrette-type dressing, feel free to omit and dress with lots of cracked pepper. This particular rice blend has lots of body and tastes great on its own. You could also play up the dill in the salmon and make more of the dill sauce used with the salmon to bind the salad.
Also awesome:
Ultimate Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 bananas
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 cup chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350degF. Combine all ingredients in a bowl, paying special attention to make sure the bananas are properly mushed and incorporated into this gloopy mix. Spread evenly into a greased bread pan. Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out dry. Cool for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
I have a picture but I think my uploader is as tired as I am.
Also, as a note, when making chocolate pudding, it boils really gently so don't wait for it to boil as obviously as you thought it would before you remove it from the heat and try to get it to set...
I decided that I'm a huge fan of all-in-one dishes (and using lots of hyphens and brackets apparently) instead of protein, veg and grain all being separate on the plate. There is always the possibility of turning the latter into the former when you want to make a dish that can be heated back up all at once and will meld the flavours all together. Some people choose to eat one component at a time, while some people like to take bits of each part on the fork at once and eat that way. For these second types of eaters I hope that the ingredients all work together, otherwise there are some serious flavour combo disasters waiting to happen.
But let's say that you can indeed theoretically combine all three things you want to eat separately into one dish. Let's say I wanted to eat chicken with carrots and couscous. Couldn't I just cook each component and mix them together to make a chicken and carrot couscous? This is the logic I used when I didn't feel like having leftovers of any one component and came up with this concoction that is surprisingly (or not) really delicious!
Salmon and Asparagus Wild Rice Salad
1 c. wild rice blend
2 c. vegetable broth
1 tsp margarine or butter
pinch salt
6-8 asparagus stems
2 salmon fillets (I used frozen, you can use fresh)
1 1/2 tbsp sour cream
1 tbsp dill weed
pepper
garlic powder
To make the rice:
Mix ingredients together in a saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and cook covered for 50 minutes until all but a teaspoon or so of the liquid is gone. Do not drain.*
To cook the asparagus:
Rid the stems of any knobby ends near the white ends and wash the stems thoroughly. Taking each stem at either end, gently bend the stem until it snaps. The point at which this happens is exactly where the stem stops being tough and starts being tender. Discard tough bits and dice the tender ends in 1/2 inch pieces.
Cook pieces in boiling water until they are bright green, about 2-3 minutes. Immediately soak them in an ice water bath to stop the cooking process. Drain and set aside.
To cook the salmon:
Preheat the oven to 450degF. Place the fillets on a pan covered in greased aluminum foil. In a small bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients, seasoning to taste. Spread the sauce over the fillets and cook for 20 minutes. Chop cooked fillets and set aside.
To bring salad together, mix all ingredients in a bowl. Dress with a light dressing of dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Mix well and season to taste with garlic powder, salt and lots of freshly cracked black pepper.
*If you get rid of all the liquid, the rice will be dry. Wild rice tends to be a bit crunchier than white or brown rice, but this particular variety also thickens the broth such that the resulting rice is a bit creamy. Getting rid of the last little bit of broth would ruin it.
If you don't want a vinigrette-type dressing, feel free to omit and dress with lots of cracked pepper. This particular rice blend has lots of body and tastes great on its own. You could also play up the dill in the salmon and make more of the dill sauce used with the salmon to bind the salad.
Also awesome:
Ultimate Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 bananas
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 cup chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350degF. Combine all ingredients in a bowl, paying special attention to make sure the bananas are properly mushed and incorporated into this gloopy mix. Spread evenly into a greased bread pan. Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out dry. Cool for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
I have a picture but I think my uploader is as tired as I am.
Also, as a note, when making chocolate pudding, it boils really gently so don't wait for it to boil as obviously as you thought it would before you remove it from the heat and try to get it to set...
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Coming Out
I shared my fears about addressing my new dietary lifestyle with my parents a few posts back and as promised, here is the update on how it all went.
As it turns out (and as I had feared), my mom welcomed my suggesting that I might be a vegetarian with a nice creamy dollop of sarcasm. I don't have any kids, but something tells me that if my kids ever came out with a big announcement about their religious, sexual or dietary choices, being sarcastic and dismissive is not the first thing I'll hit back with. The conversation with her wasn't ideal but I didn't have a way to bring it up randomly...until we had to stop to eat on the way home on Friday.
[pulling up to the Kanata Centrum, trying to pick a place to eat]
Mom: What about Montana's? A nice steak?
Me: Hmm, I don't know mom, how about someplace else?
Mom: Why?
Me: Well....(long pause)....I don't know if there'd be much on the menu I'd eat there. Maybe some pasta or salad?
Mom: You're not becoming all vegetarian on me now, are you?
Me: .....Would it be a problem if I was?
Mom: Well, I'm not going to change my food just for you. I'm only going to be making one meal so you'll have to just deal with it.
Me, devastated. Until we decided on Boston Pizza and sat down and I ordered, there was this awful tension and uncomfortable silence. I ordered a custom-built veggie pizza, and my mom and I shared the spinach dip to start. She had salad with bacon on it and offered me some. At this point I just dropped it and we talked about something else, but eventually the conversation steered towards the topic of acceptance and I just brought it back up.
It took some time for me to explain to her why I made this choice. I find it interesting that in some families (like mine) where Roman Catholicism is the norm, we hold our ground on some moral issues like abortion, premarital sex or same-sex rights, and it's ok to do so because this is part of a group of convictions and morals we were brought up with. On the other hand, upholding morals and opinions on some things like eating meat or believing in certain powers, for example, because of newfound groups of convictions is always labeled as "not ok," and I don't entirely understand why. In my life I've made a choice not to eat meat because of moral conviction. In her life my mother has made a choice to go to church on Sundays because of moral conviction. How are these things different in her head, I wonder?
In the end, I had a long discussion with my mom and convinced her that I'm not nuts. I explained that this was an educated decision, and that I'm not being careless with respect to getting the right vitamins, enough protein etc. She was pretty cool about splitting veg pizza again on our way back to Kingston on Sunday, and didn't make fun of me all weekend when I didn't eat the meat. I have a feeling she talked to my dad and brother about it too and told them I was actually serious and educated about this, and they didn't say a word.
Not eating the meat I had shoved in my face all weekend also wasn't a problem. My mom served hot dogs and curried lamb, and I told myself that I'd had both of them before and that I'd live. The smell of burger wafts from the 2-3 burger places I pass on the way home from work every day, and that's killer haha! In the last 3 weeks, I haven't craved meat, but know that my weakness will be sushi. Another place opened on Division this week, and I haven't decided how I feel about eating fish yet. I have salmon, tuna and haddock in my freezer that was there 4 weeks ago and it would be a shame to just throw out given my budget. I think I'll concede to fish every so often, but not make it a regular protein source.
I have a lack of vegetables in my fridge but loads of random grains in my pantry, so expect some creative cooking with limited fresh ingredients in the next week or so. Should be interesting :)
As it turns out (and as I had feared), my mom welcomed my suggesting that I might be a vegetarian with a nice creamy dollop of sarcasm. I don't have any kids, but something tells me that if my kids ever came out with a big announcement about their religious, sexual or dietary choices, being sarcastic and dismissive is not the first thing I'll hit back with. The conversation with her wasn't ideal but I didn't have a way to bring it up randomly...until we had to stop to eat on the way home on Friday.
[pulling up to the Kanata Centrum, trying to pick a place to eat]
Mom: What about Montana's? A nice steak?
Me: Hmm, I don't know mom, how about someplace else?
Mom: Why?
Me: Well....(long pause)....I don't know if there'd be much on the menu I'd eat there. Maybe some pasta or salad?
Mom: You're not becoming all vegetarian on me now, are you?
Me: .....Would it be a problem if I was?
Mom: Well, I'm not going to change my food just for you. I'm only going to be making one meal so you'll have to just deal with it.
Me, devastated. Until we decided on Boston Pizza and sat down and I ordered, there was this awful tension and uncomfortable silence. I ordered a custom-built veggie pizza, and my mom and I shared the spinach dip to start. She had salad with bacon on it and offered me some. At this point I just dropped it and we talked about something else, but eventually the conversation steered towards the topic of acceptance and I just brought it back up.
It took some time for me to explain to her why I made this choice. I find it interesting that in some families (like mine) where Roman Catholicism is the norm, we hold our ground on some moral issues like abortion, premarital sex or same-sex rights, and it's ok to do so because this is part of a group of convictions and morals we were brought up with. On the other hand, upholding morals and opinions on some things like eating meat or believing in certain powers, for example, because of newfound groups of convictions is always labeled as "not ok," and I don't entirely understand why. In my life I've made a choice not to eat meat because of moral conviction. In her life my mother has made a choice to go to church on Sundays because of moral conviction. How are these things different in her head, I wonder?
In the end, I had a long discussion with my mom and convinced her that I'm not nuts. I explained that this was an educated decision, and that I'm not being careless with respect to getting the right vitamins, enough protein etc. She was pretty cool about splitting veg pizza again on our way back to Kingston on Sunday, and didn't make fun of me all weekend when I didn't eat the meat. I have a feeling she talked to my dad and brother about it too and told them I was actually serious and educated about this, and they didn't say a word.
Not eating the meat I had shoved in my face all weekend also wasn't a problem. My mom served hot dogs and curried lamb, and I told myself that I'd had both of them before and that I'd live. The smell of burger wafts from the 2-3 burger places I pass on the way home from work every day, and that's killer haha! In the last 3 weeks, I haven't craved meat, but know that my weakness will be sushi. Another place opened on Division this week, and I haven't decided how I feel about eating fish yet. I have salmon, tuna and haddock in my freezer that was there 4 weeks ago and it would be a shame to just throw out given my budget. I think I'll concede to fish every so often, but not make it a regular protein source.
I have a lack of vegetables in my fridge but loads of random grains in my pantry, so expect some creative cooking with limited fresh ingredients in the next week or so. Should be interesting :)
Monday, August 23, 2010
Pictures!
So I finally got my butt in gear and bought myself one of these fancy USB card readers, so I've gone back and added photos to all the posts I said I'd post pictures for. There are some continuity problems, be warned: I forgot to take pictures of a few of the recipes, and also took a picture and never posted the recipe (oops), so here it is:
Jalapeno-Cheddar Bread
I found this recipe on another blog: http://pinkparsleycatering.blogspot.com. Awesome recipe!!
3 3/4 cups (18 3/4 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the work surface
2 tsp salt
1 cup cold buttermilk
1/3 cup water
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
3 tbsp honey
1 envelope (about 2 1/4 tsp) instant yeast
2-3 jalapenos, seeds and ribs removed, diced
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (the sharper, the better)
1. Adjust one oven rack to the lowest position, and another to the middle position. Heat the oven to 200 degrees. When it is preheated, maintain the tempeature for 10 minutes, then turn off the oven.
2. Toss the jalapeno and cheddar with 1 tbsp of flour in a small bowl. *
3. Bring the water to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and add the cold buttermilk and stir to combine.
4. Mix 3 1/2 cups of the flour andthe salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the buttermilk/water mixture, butter, honey, and yeast to a liquid measuring cup. Turn the mixer on low, and add the liquid in a slow stream, increasing the speed of the mixer as you go to medium. Continue mixing until the dough is smooth and satiny, stopping to scrape the dough from the hook as needed.
5. After about 2-3 minutes add the jalapeno-cheese mixture, and continue to knead about 10 minutes total, adding flour 1 tbsp at a time, as necessary to keep the dough from sticking to the sides of the bowl.
6. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead to form a smooth ball, about 15 seconds.
7. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, rubbing the dough around the bowl to coat with the oil. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place the bowl in the oven until the dough doubles in size, 50-60 minutes.
8. Turn out onto the floured surface and gently press the dough into a rectangle that is 1 inch thick and 9 inches long. With the long side facing you, roll the dough firmly into a cylinder, pressing with your fingers as you roll to make sure the dough sticks to itself. Turn the dough seam-side up and pinch it closed.
9. Place the dough seam-side down in a greased 9x5 inch loaf pan, and press it gently to make sure it touches all four sides of the pan. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and allow to rise in a warm spot until the dough almost doubles in size, 20-30 minutes.**
10. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake about 40-50 minutes, or until top is golden brown.
11. Remove the bread from the pan and cool to room temperature on a wire rack. Slice and serve.
* As an option, save a handful of this cheese-pepper mixture and coat the loaf at the ** step, before topping with the towel.
This recipe was an experiment as a result of some I-need-a-break-from-data stroll onto my favourite food porn, www.tastespotting.com. I can't eat the whole loaf but like to make it fairly often, so I've brought leftovers to work, to my grandparents' house and home in DR. My family goes BONKERS for this bread and my brother requests it now whenever I'm going to see him.
Speaking of my family, I definitely need to relay how my parents took my "vegetarianism." But for now, catching up with friends at Fanatics, and we'll see if other people eating burgers in my face will make me go crazy or not!
Jalapeno-Cheddar Bread
I found this recipe on another blog: http://pinkparsleycatering.blogspot.com. Awesome recipe!!
3 3/4 cups (18 3/4 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the work surface
2 tsp salt
1 cup cold buttermilk
1/3 cup water
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
3 tbsp honey
1 envelope (about 2 1/4 tsp) instant yeast
2-3 jalapenos, seeds and ribs removed, diced
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (the sharper, the better)
1. Adjust one oven rack to the lowest position, and another to the middle position. Heat the oven to 200 degrees. When it is preheated, maintain the tempeature for 10 minutes, then turn off the oven.
2. Toss the jalapeno and cheddar with 1 tbsp of flour in a small bowl. *
3. Bring the water to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and add the cold buttermilk and stir to combine.
4. Mix 3 1/2 cups of the flour andthe salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the buttermilk/water mixture, butter, honey, and yeast to a liquid measuring cup. Turn the mixer on low, and add the liquid in a slow stream, increasing the speed of the mixer as you go to medium. Continue mixing until the dough is smooth and satiny, stopping to scrape the dough from the hook as needed.
5. After about 2-3 minutes add the jalapeno-cheese mixture, and continue to knead about 10 minutes total, adding flour 1 tbsp at a time, as necessary to keep the dough from sticking to the sides of the bowl.
6. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead to form a smooth ball, about 15 seconds.
7. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, rubbing the dough around the bowl to coat with the oil. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place the bowl in the oven until the dough doubles in size, 50-60 minutes.
8. Turn out onto the floured surface and gently press the dough into a rectangle that is 1 inch thick and 9 inches long. With the long side facing you, roll the dough firmly into a cylinder, pressing with your fingers as you roll to make sure the dough sticks to itself. Turn the dough seam-side up and pinch it closed.
9. Place the dough seam-side down in a greased 9x5 inch loaf pan, and press it gently to make sure it touches all four sides of the pan. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and allow to rise in a warm spot until the dough almost doubles in size, 20-30 minutes.**
10. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake about 40-50 minutes, or until top is golden brown.
11. Remove the bread from the pan and cool to room temperature on a wire rack. Slice and serve.
* As an option, save a handful of this cheese-pepper mixture and coat the loaf at the ** step, before topping with the towel.
This recipe was an experiment as a result of some I-need-a-break-from-data stroll onto my favourite food porn, www.tastespotting.com. I can't eat the whole loaf but like to make it fairly often, so I've brought leftovers to work, to my grandparents' house and home in DR. My family goes BONKERS for this bread and my brother requests it now whenever I'm going to see him.
Speaking of my family, I definitely need to relay how my parents took my "vegetarianism." But for now, catching up with friends at Fanatics, and we'll see if other people eating burgers in my face will make me go crazy or not!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Review: Eat Pray Love
Dearest followers,
I'm fresh from the theatre, having just seen Eat Pray Love. Herein lies its review. If you have not seen the book, or seen the movie, and want to, please don't read on. Allow yourself to fall in love with the book, the journey, the food and do it on your own time. Reserve judgement until you've experienced it for yourself.
I'm writing this review with a deep sense of calm, because this is what Elizabeth Gilbert's story has done to me. I found a lot of myself in her, which is why I was able to get into the book so quickly and so deeply. Her story of starting fresh after heartbreak and emptiness resonated with me, and much in the same way as she dove first into pleasure, then into prayer, and finally landing on a balance of these two, I have embarked on this journey.
I didn't realize this until I was already in Rome with Liz, admiring the artichokes and the hum of the language. This I have always loved, but with more time on your hands once you are alone, you tend to find small things to make you happy: the colour of the roasted pepper and the softness of its flesh as you peel away the skin, the aroma of garlic as it prepares the pan for the onions, and so forth. Small things like this, like Liz's love affairs with her food, are sometimes what get you by, what allow you to smile for the fragment of time it takes you to peel yourself off the floor of your mind's desperation. My heart hums with delight when I am bent over a hearty plate of food, enjoying each bite and offering gratitude for the opportunity to recognize this pleasure, gratitude towards myself for being able to cook, and gratitude towards the earth for its bounty and how lucky we are to have a choice in what we feed our bodies.
In India, I am moved and shaken to the core of myself. I have been practicing yoga for 8 months. This is a millisecond compared to the time some yogis have devoted to this practice, this lifestyle of calm and surrender. I was born a Roman Catholic, baptized and confirmed as such. Slowly I have lost my way with respect to this religion, but I have faith. The faith I have is inexplicable. Like Liz, it takes time to find out that the strength you need to change, really change, to grow, to mature, to appreciate, and to let go, is all in yourself. It is buried under layers of muck...worries, pains, thoughts, hurt piled years and years onto that little person lodged deep inside yourself. That person is you...but wiser. Sometimes when I meditate, I visit her. She is me, and she takes me on long walks and we talk. She is calm, smiles "from the liver" as Ketut said, and she advises me. I know she is right. It doesn't make sense to many people to visit yourself, talk to yourself and find the answer. Why then wouldn't you just know? If it's you, then you should be ok and your decisions are your own. But it's like Richard from Texas said in the film: "If you could only just get into your mind, bulldoze all that .. stuff out of the way you'd find a doorway. Opening that doorway lets God in. He floods in but only if the way is clear." The hurt that is piled in my heart is still heavy. I have not fixed this problem yet. But my inner self helps.
This all goes to say that I found the India part of this book, and to a certain extent the film as well, very moving. I sobbed during the scene in the film on the rooftop. Liz forgives. She sees into herself. I need to do the same, and as the book makes clear (much more than the film), this takes considerable time and commitment. I'm getting there.
This brings us to Bali, where Liz searches for herself, a self that is balanced between enjoying herself doing nothing and indulging in little pleasures, and between the deep time-consuming journey inwards to find her wise self. This section of the film left me slightly disappointed, but not for lack of beautiful scenery and poignant plot points, but in the difference between the novel and the book. The book ends with a closing meditative journey upon which Liz essentially shipwrecks herself on a small Balinese island, in total silence. In this time she learns a great deal and comes to terms with herself in her balance. I found this section of the book magical and important. The filmmakers chose to skip this part and instead create a quasi-break up between Felipe and Liz, in true Hollywood fashion, which ended in Liz's out-of-nowhere realization of her balance and subsequent romantic grand gesture towards her lover. I hope that moviegoers will first read the book so they can understand the sobering importance of the balance in Liz's life and the final steps in her journey as she finds this balance.
Eat Pray Love was beautiful, real, sensory and transformative. This book inspired me to continue searching. I hope no matter who you are...a devout yogi, a cook, recently single, in mourning... that you pick up this book and take the time to read it. After all, aren't we all recovering from something?
I'm fresh from the theatre, having just seen Eat Pray Love. Herein lies its review. If you have not seen the book, or seen the movie, and want to, please don't read on. Allow yourself to fall in love with the book, the journey, the food and do it on your own time. Reserve judgement until you've experienced it for yourself.
I'm writing this review with a deep sense of calm, because this is what Elizabeth Gilbert's story has done to me. I found a lot of myself in her, which is why I was able to get into the book so quickly and so deeply. Her story of starting fresh after heartbreak and emptiness resonated with me, and much in the same way as she dove first into pleasure, then into prayer, and finally landing on a balance of these two, I have embarked on this journey.
I didn't realize this until I was already in Rome with Liz, admiring the artichokes and the hum of the language. This I have always loved, but with more time on your hands once you are alone, you tend to find small things to make you happy: the colour of the roasted pepper and the softness of its flesh as you peel away the skin, the aroma of garlic as it prepares the pan for the onions, and so forth. Small things like this, like Liz's love affairs with her food, are sometimes what get you by, what allow you to smile for the fragment of time it takes you to peel yourself off the floor of your mind's desperation. My heart hums with delight when I am bent over a hearty plate of food, enjoying each bite and offering gratitude for the opportunity to recognize this pleasure, gratitude towards myself for being able to cook, and gratitude towards the earth for its bounty and how lucky we are to have a choice in what we feed our bodies.
In India, I am moved and shaken to the core of myself. I have been practicing yoga for 8 months. This is a millisecond compared to the time some yogis have devoted to this practice, this lifestyle of calm and surrender. I was born a Roman Catholic, baptized and confirmed as such. Slowly I have lost my way with respect to this religion, but I have faith. The faith I have is inexplicable. Like Liz, it takes time to find out that the strength you need to change, really change, to grow, to mature, to appreciate, and to let go, is all in yourself. It is buried under layers of muck...worries, pains, thoughts, hurt piled years and years onto that little person lodged deep inside yourself. That person is you...but wiser. Sometimes when I meditate, I visit her. She is me, and she takes me on long walks and we talk. She is calm, smiles "from the liver" as Ketut said, and she advises me. I know she is right. It doesn't make sense to many people to visit yourself, talk to yourself and find the answer. Why then wouldn't you just know? If it's you, then you should be ok and your decisions are your own. But it's like Richard from Texas said in the film: "If you could only just get into your mind, bulldoze all that .. stuff out of the way you'd find a doorway. Opening that doorway lets God in. He floods in but only if the way is clear." The hurt that is piled in my heart is still heavy. I have not fixed this problem yet. But my inner self helps.
This all goes to say that I found the India part of this book, and to a certain extent the film as well, very moving. I sobbed during the scene in the film on the rooftop. Liz forgives. She sees into herself. I need to do the same, and as the book makes clear (much more than the film), this takes considerable time and commitment. I'm getting there.
This brings us to Bali, where Liz searches for herself, a self that is balanced between enjoying herself doing nothing and indulging in little pleasures, and between the deep time-consuming journey inwards to find her wise self. This section of the film left me slightly disappointed, but not for lack of beautiful scenery and poignant plot points, but in the difference between the novel and the book. The book ends with a closing meditative journey upon which Liz essentially shipwrecks herself on a small Balinese island, in total silence. In this time she learns a great deal and comes to terms with herself in her balance. I found this section of the book magical and important. The filmmakers chose to skip this part and instead create a quasi-break up between Felipe and Liz, in true Hollywood fashion, which ended in Liz's out-of-nowhere realization of her balance and subsequent romantic grand gesture towards her lover. I hope that moviegoers will first read the book so they can understand the sobering importance of the balance in Liz's life and the final steps in her journey as she finds this balance.
Eat Pray Love was beautiful, real, sensory and transformative. This book inspired me to continue searching. I hope no matter who you are...a devout yogi, a cook, recently single, in mourning... that you pick up this book and take the time to read it. After all, aren't we all recovering from something?
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Heatup, cooldown
I promised that this post would be about food, and here we are.
First of all, I'd like to admit that I was in a REALLY bad mood yesterday. I'd been watching House so I was grumpy and sarcastic, I had a bad day at work resulting in my general moodiness, and I don't want to tell you what's going on in my head but rest assured that there are many complicated sauces and soups boiling away up there.
Today I did some decent work at the lab and then Laura and Scott graciously took me to Loblaws, as promised. I decided to take the lazy vegetarian route this time around (as opposed to the do-everything-yourself-from-scratch-forever-and-always route that I'll probably resume shortly). By my definition, the lazy vegetarian means I got stuff like frozen cheese cannelloni, frozen cheese pizza (that I'll later decorate with lots of cool veggies), canned tomato sauces for different kinds of dried pastas I got, canned curry sauces (my curry experiment isn't sitting well with me or my tastebuds), etc. Hopefully in moderation these things will be healthy as well. We just won't talk about the chips that were on sale...that I bought. As a treat.
Reasons for being lazy:
1. I'm overloaded at the lab and will likely be spending a solid chunk of time at work during overtime hours. Barely any time for yoga, and definitely not enough time to cook everything from scratch.
2. I just finished a long few weeks of doing everything myself and it's really tiring, so I'm taking a break.
3. I can't stock my fridge with too many fresh ingredients because I'll be back in the DR for the better part of the weekend. Nothing more frustrating that spending dough on fruit and veggies that then rot in the fridge while you're away eating mom's food.
Speaking of which, I haven't told my parents yet about my "vegetarianism." I know why, too. I'm scared. I'm scared that my dad will make fun of me for suddenly becoming all "granola" with the yoga and the pro-gay-marriage and the tofu and the outrage at production farming. I'm scared that my mom will sigh a great big exacerbated sigh of annoyance as she complains about having to come up with "alternate" food for me to eat while they all mow down on steak. I'm scared that my brother will make fun of me and knowing him, he'll never ever give it up. I'm scared that my parents will be insulted that I'm coming home for the week, and that I've chosen NOT to eat all the luscious expensive meats they bought especially for my visit. I'm scared that they'll think I've gone mental. I'm scared at what they'll think of me going back on my old ideas of "never ever becoming a vegetarian ever ever ever." I'm scared they'll try to talk me out of it. I'm scared they won't take me seriously and shove a great big steak under my nose and say "It's this or no dinner at all. Make yourself some toast or something if you don't eat real food anymore."
The alternative is obviously not to tell them. This would inevitably mean that I'll be eating meat this weekend, and I know for a fact it's from Valu-Mart or Costco, and I know for a fact that neither of those places sell farm-raised free-range meat in bulk or for cheap. My parents just don't care. "Things happen on this earth that you won't be happy with, Julie. You have to live with them, you have to just accept it and move on. We're not going to get crazy here and stop eating our protein or start paying $8 for one chicken breast. If you think that's going to happen, I'm sorry but you're going to be very dissappionted." I can just hear my mom shaking her head and lecturing me on this as she's taking the pork chops out of the fridge and out of their 4lb. saran-wrap frozen packaging. I'd like to make clear that I'm not at all trying to impose my diet on my parents, force them to keep all the meat hidden away while I'm at home and eat salad all weekend, talking about responsible farming while doing yoga. NOT AT ALL. I'm simply hoping for some respect and acceptance from them that this is my choice and shouldn't at all change the way they eat, unless they're moved and feel inclined to do so.
I know that 48 hours of eating meat isn't going to kill me, and honestly, it'll just be a mental thing and it'll nag at me all weekend. Reminder: it doesn't gross me out to eat meat, but over the last 3 weeks I've been accustomed to think in a veggie way (if that makes sense) and I have no problems working around it. I just feel guilty and like a cheater if I'm too much of a scrotum to tell my parents about my new diet so that I can stick to my convictions.
I have to decide soon. My mom probably has every meal figured out for the weekend, since she has to budget for 4 people eating. If I tell her, she'll want to change her menu around. Could I just tell her, and say I'll just eat the sides?
Anyone have any advice?
For the cooldown part of this hot day, and this hot topic in my head, I found a recipe to help me get rid of some kiwis that are rapidly going bad on me.
Kiwi Sorbet
1 3/4 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup lime juice (juice of about 4 limes)
4 kiwis
1. Make the simple syrup by mixing 1 cup of sugar with 1 cup of the water in a small saucepan, and heating until just boiling. Set aside.
2. Cut the ends off the kiwis and peel them. Cut them in half, and using a sharp knife, remove the green flesh from the white seedy centres. Discard the white centres and the seeds.
3. In a blender, liquify the kiwi meat.
4. In a large bowl, combine the kiwi, lime juice, 3/4 cup of the simple syrup and the remaining 3/4 cup of water.
5. Pour into a plastic bowl or container, seal, and freeze for at least 6 hours.
Alternatively, you can use the exact same recipe and make popsicles, but I didn't have popsicle sticks or the plastic popsicle molds, so I decided on shaved ice/sorbet.
First of all, I'd like to admit that I was in a REALLY bad mood yesterday. I'd been watching House so I was grumpy and sarcastic, I had a bad day at work resulting in my general moodiness, and I don't want to tell you what's going on in my head but rest assured that there are many complicated sauces and soups boiling away up there.
Today I did some decent work at the lab and then Laura and Scott graciously took me to Loblaws, as promised. I decided to take the lazy vegetarian route this time around (as opposed to the do-everything-yourself-from-scratch-forever-and-always route that I'll probably resume shortly). By my definition, the lazy vegetarian means I got stuff like frozen cheese cannelloni, frozen cheese pizza (that I'll later decorate with lots of cool veggies), canned tomato sauces for different kinds of dried pastas I got, canned curry sauces (my curry experiment isn't sitting well with me or my tastebuds), etc. Hopefully in moderation these things will be healthy as well. We just won't talk about the chips that were on sale...that I bought. As a treat.
Reasons for being lazy:
1. I'm overloaded at the lab and will likely be spending a solid chunk of time at work during overtime hours. Barely any time for yoga, and definitely not enough time to cook everything from scratch.
2. I just finished a long few weeks of doing everything myself and it's really tiring, so I'm taking a break.
3. I can't stock my fridge with too many fresh ingredients because I'll be back in the DR for the better part of the weekend. Nothing more frustrating that spending dough on fruit and veggies that then rot in the fridge while you're away eating mom's food.
Speaking of which, I haven't told my parents yet about my "vegetarianism." I know why, too. I'm scared. I'm scared that my dad will make fun of me for suddenly becoming all "granola" with the yoga and the pro-gay-marriage and the tofu and the outrage at production farming. I'm scared that my mom will sigh a great big exacerbated sigh of annoyance as she complains about having to come up with "alternate" food for me to eat while they all mow down on steak. I'm scared that my brother will make fun of me and knowing him, he'll never ever give it up. I'm scared that my parents will be insulted that I'm coming home for the week, and that I've chosen NOT to eat all the luscious expensive meats they bought especially for my visit. I'm scared that they'll think I've gone mental. I'm scared at what they'll think of me going back on my old ideas of "never ever becoming a vegetarian ever ever ever." I'm scared they'll try to talk me out of it. I'm scared they won't take me seriously and shove a great big steak under my nose and say "It's this or no dinner at all. Make yourself some toast or something if you don't eat real food anymore."
The alternative is obviously not to tell them. This would inevitably mean that I'll be eating meat this weekend, and I know for a fact it's from Valu-Mart or Costco, and I know for a fact that neither of those places sell farm-raised free-range meat in bulk or for cheap. My parents just don't care. "Things happen on this earth that you won't be happy with, Julie. You have to live with them, you have to just accept it and move on. We're not going to get crazy here and stop eating our protein or start paying $8 for one chicken breast. If you think that's going to happen, I'm sorry but you're going to be very dissappionted." I can just hear my mom shaking her head and lecturing me on this as she's taking the pork chops out of the fridge and out of their 4lb. saran-wrap frozen packaging. I'd like to make clear that I'm not at all trying to impose my diet on my parents, force them to keep all the meat hidden away while I'm at home and eat salad all weekend, talking about responsible farming while doing yoga. NOT AT ALL. I'm simply hoping for some respect and acceptance from them that this is my choice and shouldn't at all change the way they eat, unless they're moved and feel inclined to do so.
I know that 48 hours of eating meat isn't going to kill me, and honestly, it'll just be a mental thing and it'll nag at me all weekend. Reminder: it doesn't gross me out to eat meat, but over the last 3 weeks I've been accustomed to think in a veggie way (if that makes sense) and I have no problems working around it. I just feel guilty and like a cheater if I'm too much of a scrotum to tell my parents about my new diet so that I can stick to my convictions.
I have to decide soon. My mom probably has every meal figured out for the weekend, since she has to budget for 4 people eating. If I tell her, she'll want to change her menu around. Could I just tell her, and say I'll just eat the sides?
Anyone have any advice?
For the cooldown part of this hot day, and this hot topic in my head, I found a recipe to help me get rid of some kiwis that are rapidly going bad on me.
Kiwi Sorbet
1 3/4 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup lime juice (juice of about 4 limes)
4 kiwis
1. Make the simple syrup by mixing 1 cup of sugar with 1 cup of the water in a small saucepan, and heating until just boiling. Set aside.
2. Cut the ends off the kiwis and peel them. Cut them in half, and using a sharp knife, remove the green flesh from the white seedy centres. Discard the white centres and the seeds.
3. In a blender, liquify the kiwi meat.
4. In a large bowl, combine the kiwi, lime juice, 3/4 cup of the simple syrup and the remaining 3/4 cup of water.
5. Pour into a plastic bowl or container, seal, and freeze for at least 6 hours.
Alternatively, you can use the exact same recipe and make popsicles, but I didn't have popsicle sticks or the plastic popsicle molds, so I decided on shaved ice/sorbet.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Deep and profound brain things inside my head
I was writing myself a note: BRING GROCERY LIST TO WORK. Tomorrow, I am being treated to a rare ride out to Loblaws, which means: GROCERIES! Laura and Scott have the luxury of a car and have graciously let me climb aboard to go buy food tomorrow. I know they go right before supper, which means I'll have to be ready immediately after work. So I don't forget and freestyle buying groceries (we all know this ends badly, especially right before dinner...), I decided to write myself a reminder note and stick it to my fridge. In an attempt to grab a magnet, I smashed the locker mirror I have on my freezer door. Great.
Normally I wouldn't post about smashing a mirror because naturally I'm not really suspicious. I am a scientist and so I believe in natural causation: science is freaky sometimes and weird coincidences happen. Yes, I believe in karma, but in some ways I believe that treating everyone the way you want to be treated is rewarding not because of the good treatment you will receive from others in return but rather the good treatment you will receive from yourself. Isn't it a nice concept, to think that we do good deeds in life to feel good about ourselves? Isn't that reward enough? Surely if you feel good about yourself it doesn't matter if others treat you unfairly or cruelly, because your compassion towards yourself overcomes any mistreatment from others?
Regardless, I smashed a mirror. This should result in seven years of bad luck for me. This is about the length of a combined MSc-PhD program. Coincidence? Hmm...
I realize that this blog is turning more into a personal blog about what's going on in my brain than what it was originally intended for: to share my thoughts on food. A line from Eat Pray Love springs to mind: "Say it like you eat it," the notion of describing things simply even though they may be complex. In much the same way as I spare you the stupid details about the flavour balance in the food I eat, and lately the descriptions altogether, I am trying desperately to spare you the details of all the shit going on in my head, and laying it all out.
Unfortunately, this isn't going over so well. Either I haven't got one simple idea in my head, and am describing to you with great accuracy the complexity of the brain-jumble occuring in my mind, or, my ideas are very simple and I'm overdescribing them. I cannot decide which is worse.
Come to think of it, I think the mirror, if it were to represent anything, would represent that grad school is not only going to be long, but is going to feel long as well. Further contemplation of the phrase tells me that, indeed, I should learn to parla come magni. The next post will be about food, I swear.
PS. Everyone should watch Madagascar. Just sayin.
Normally I wouldn't post about smashing a mirror because naturally I'm not really suspicious. I am a scientist and so I believe in natural causation: science is freaky sometimes and weird coincidences happen. Yes, I believe in karma, but in some ways I believe that treating everyone the way you want to be treated is rewarding not because of the good treatment you will receive from others in return but rather the good treatment you will receive from yourself. Isn't it a nice concept, to think that we do good deeds in life to feel good about ourselves? Isn't that reward enough? Surely if you feel good about yourself it doesn't matter if others treat you unfairly or cruelly, because your compassion towards yourself overcomes any mistreatment from others?
Regardless, I smashed a mirror. This should result in seven years of bad luck for me. This is about the length of a combined MSc-PhD program. Coincidence? Hmm...
I realize that this blog is turning more into a personal blog about what's going on in my brain than what it was originally intended for: to share my thoughts on food. A line from Eat Pray Love springs to mind: "Say it like you eat it," the notion of describing things simply even though they may be complex. In much the same way as I spare you the stupid details about the flavour balance in the food I eat, and lately the descriptions altogether, I am trying desperately to spare you the details of all the shit going on in my head, and laying it all out.
Unfortunately, this isn't going over so well. Either I haven't got one simple idea in my head, and am describing to you with great accuracy the complexity of the brain-jumble occuring in my mind, or, my ideas are very simple and I'm overdescribing them. I cannot decide which is worse.
Come to think of it, I think the mirror, if it were to represent anything, would represent that grad school is not only going to be long, but is going to feel long as well. Further contemplation of the phrase tells me that, indeed, I should learn to parla come magni. The next post will be about food, I swear.
PS. Everyone should watch Madagascar. Just sayin.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
The Possimpible
This weekend I had a healthy dose of awesome girlfriends two ways: Lisa and Leslie. To mark the occasion, I decided on a menu for Lisa and I. I normally come up with some sort of new meal for when guests come over, and this time I had the pleasure of exposing my victim to my new diet. Fortunately for me, Lisa is aware of my quasi-vegginess, and is also health-conscious. This means that she doesn’t mind (at least, I think she doesn’t mind…) trying new veggie dishes with me and skipping the meat for 24 hours or so. Meat-eating friends of mine, rest assured; if I knew you were coming over and would die before you tried TVP I’d be glad to cook you some meat and would gladly enjoy it with you. Thought I’d make that clear before 95% of you never came over ever again…
Anyway, I made 4 new dishes while Lisa was here. Two were desserts, one was a main course, and one was a breakfast item. All four were a first for me, two were completely successful, one was decent and one was a huge flop. I’ll leave it up to you to guess which ones are which after you read the recipes…(Lisa, no cheating).
Vegetable Curry
2 cups baby carrots, chopped
1 medium zucchini, chopped
1 medium onion, diced
4 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
1 can green beans, drained and rinsed
1 can chick peas, drained and rinsed
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
4 tbsp corn starch
3 tbsp garam masala
½ tsp salt
2 cups vegetable stock
1 small can diced tomatoes, with liquid
2 cups spinach, chopped
In a large slow-cooker, combine all ingredients except for tomatoes and spinach. Cook on low for 7-9 hours or until vegetables are tender. Add tomatoes and spinach, cover for 5 minutes and serve over cooked couscous or basmati rice.
Also great with a dollop of sour cream and fresh cilantro, as well as fresh papadums.
Easy Strawberry Mousse Pie
For the crust:
1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs
¼ cup sugar
6 tbsp melted butter
Combine ingredients until crumbs are moistened. Press into a greased pie plate. Bake at 375degF for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Set aside to cool completely.
For the filling:
1 tub CoolWhip
1 pkg strawberry Jell-O
1 cup chopped strawberries
Combine ingredients, stirring well to completely incorporate Jell-O powder.
To finish pie, spread filling into cooled pie crust and refrigerate.
Caramel Oatmeal Squares (recipe courtesy of Lisa Kileeg)
1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup icing sugar
¾ cup cold butter, cubed
½ cup rolled oats
pinch of salt
1 pkg Skor chips
½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1. Preheat oven to 375degF. Grease an 8x8 square pan, set aside.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, oats, icing sugar and salt. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut the butter into the mixture until the mix resembles coarse crumbs. Press all but ½ cup of the flour mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake for 10 minutes until pale golden.
3. Mix the Skor bits and chocolate chips. Spread them on top of the base and sprinkle remaining flour mixture over the chips.
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes until bubbly and golden brown.
5. Cool completely.
Eggs Florentine (for two people)
2 English muffins, halved
4 eggs + 2 egg yolks
2 cups spinach, chopped
1 cup unsalted butter + 1 tbsp
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 ½ tbsp water
green onion (or chive if desired) chopped
For the hollandaise sauce:
1. Melt 1 cup butter. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.
2. In the top of a double boiler containing barely boiling water, whisk the yolks, water and lemon juice until mixture is light and fluffy, about 4 minutes.
3. Remove pot containing the yolk mixture from the double boiler. Slowly, and while whisking constantly, add the melted butter to the yolk mixture. Continue whisking briskly for about 5 minutes. Add a pinch of salt.
For spinach mixture:
1. Melt 1 tbsp butter in a frying pan.
2. Once melted, add spinach and sweat down, about 1 minute.
To finish:
1. Toast English muffins.
2. Top each half of muffin with a spoonful of spinach mixture, then one poached egg (see Wed., Aug 11th post entitled “Awesome Breakfast” for directions on poaching eggs), then a tbsp of hollandaise. Garnish with green onions or chives.
It was a long weekend, despite being quite productive. Lisa arrived Saturday around 2:30pm, and before that, I spent my Friday night and Saturday morning in yoga (both days…I’m glad to report that Michelle is feeling much better and taught the best core stability class I’ve been to yet. Order is restored to my chakras…) and reading Eat Pray Love. I’m about half way through the book, fyi. I’ll refrain from commenting until I’ve finished the whole thing. I also finally finished organizing my “office,” otherwise known as the one wall of my living room that somehow contains all my work/school stuff, awesomely spread out in boxes, binders, little plastic organizational drawer sets and modular shelving. Even though I won’t be doing much writing this semester, other than (hopefully) marking undergraduate labs, there’s something soothing and hopeful about an organized office space…like somehow the work you’ll be doing there will be fulfilling and effortless. For as long as I can remember I’ve loved those few weeks leading up to September, when the binders are new and full of blank loose leaf. Back when the binders have neat stickers on their sides that still say “BCHM 432” and “BCHM 411.” Only around mid-October do those labels no longer seem accurate but instead mentally translate to “goddamn this is a lot of memorizing/best mark of my university career…how did that happen!?” and “wow if only Mueller’s notes were in chronological order…/I hope I never have to TA this course.”
Anyways, I digress. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, what I did this weekend. I also helped my friend Leslie move into her place, which is a basement like mine except newly renovated. I am immediately jealous of her dishwasher and stacked washer/dryer, but also not jealous of the crack-your-face-open death-stairs leading down into her place. Of course, I’m going to be so busy in the upcoming months that I won’t ever be intoxicated and at her place, so I’m likely never to have to worry about those stairs. Watch, now that I’ve said that she’ll need me to come rescue her one night and I’ll forget about the steps, bail and nom some concrete on every step on the way down. Hopefully someone will have almost done so and wisely lined the wall at the bottom of the stairs with toilet paper or that insane-person wall padding.
I digress again. … Ok now I’m just rambling. I’ve been watching too much House and my brain is stumbling on a few things. I know this blog isn’t meant as a place to vent and expose my sad little feelings to everyone, so I’ll spare you the gory details and keep it brief:
1. One of my best friends is moving away for two years very soon and I’m having an impossible time dealing.
2. I have a scary meeting with Steve (my supervisor) tomorrow, where he’s going to help me kick my data analysis into overdrive, but that also means I have to be up to speed on my NMR theory. I did some today but with Steve you never know.
3. I have a HUGE semester/year coming up of which I am terrified…solving this structure, TAing BCHM 317 (hopefully), taking a time-consuming writing and analysis course come January (the prof for it says it will take up two full days a week to get a comparable handle on…there go my weekends) and gearing up for my friend Laura’s wedding, which I am a bridesmaid in.
I’m also going into my first year of no-Bands, which will be a huge adjustment. I have a million things going on in my head. It’s interesting how the rest of the world is spinning at a hundred miles an hour, people are leaving and experiencing and meeting each other. Grad school and the single life move at the pace that grass grows, it seems.
Also, this is completely and utterly unrelated to today’s entry, but it made me giggle so here it is.
NB. With Lisa around I sort of forgot to take pictures of anything but the first thing we ate (curry). Apologies!
Anyway, I made 4 new dishes while Lisa was here. Two were desserts, one was a main course, and one was a breakfast item. All four were a first for me, two were completely successful, one was decent and one was a huge flop. I’ll leave it up to you to guess which ones are which after you read the recipes…(Lisa, no cheating).
Vegetable Curry
2 cups baby carrots, chopped
1 medium zucchini, chopped
1 medium onion, diced
4 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
1 can green beans, drained and rinsed
1 can chick peas, drained and rinsed
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
4 tbsp corn starch
3 tbsp garam masala
½ tsp salt
2 cups vegetable stock
1 small can diced tomatoes, with liquid
2 cups spinach, chopped
In a large slow-cooker, combine all ingredients except for tomatoes and spinach. Cook on low for 7-9 hours or until vegetables are tender. Add tomatoes and spinach, cover for 5 minutes and serve over cooked couscous or basmati rice.
Also great with a dollop of sour cream and fresh cilantro, as well as fresh papadums.
Easy Strawberry Mousse Pie
For the crust:
1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs
¼ cup sugar
6 tbsp melted butter
Combine ingredients until crumbs are moistened. Press into a greased pie plate. Bake at 375degF for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Set aside to cool completely.
For the filling:
1 tub CoolWhip
1 pkg strawberry Jell-O
1 cup chopped strawberries
Combine ingredients, stirring well to completely incorporate Jell-O powder.
To finish pie, spread filling into cooled pie crust and refrigerate.
Caramel Oatmeal Squares (recipe courtesy of Lisa Kileeg)
1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup icing sugar
¾ cup cold butter, cubed
½ cup rolled oats
pinch of salt
1 pkg Skor chips
½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1. Preheat oven to 375degF. Grease an 8x8 square pan, set aside.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, oats, icing sugar and salt. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut the butter into the mixture until the mix resembles coarse crumbs. Press all but ½ cup of the flour mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake for 10 minutes until pale golden.
3. Mix the Skor bits and chocolate chips. Spread them on top of the base and sprinkle remaining flour mixture over the chips.
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes until bubbly and golden brown.
5. Cool completely.
Eggs Florentine (for two people)
2 English muffins, halved
4 eggs + 2 egg yolks
2 cups spinach, chopped
1 cup unsalted butter + 1 tbsp
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 ½ tbsp water
green onion (or chive if desired) chopped
For the hollandaise sauce:
1. Melt 1 cup butter. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.
2. In the top of a double boiler containing barely boiling water, whisk the yolks, water and lemon juice until mixture is light and fluffy, about 4 minutes.
3. Remove pot containing the yolk mixture from the double boiler. Slowly, and while whisking constantly, add the melted butter to the yolk mixture. Continue whisking briskly for about 5 minutes. Add a pinch of salt.
For spinach mixture:
1. Melt 1 tbsp butter in a frying pan.
2. Once melted, add spinach and sweat down, about 1 minute.
To finish:
1. Toast English muffins.
2. Top each half of muffin with a spoonful of spinach mixture, then one poached egg (see Wed., Aug 11th post entitled “Awesome Breakfast” for directions on poaching eggs), then a tbsp of hollandaise. Garnish with green onions or chives.
It was a long weekend, despite being quite productive. Lisa arrived Saturday around 2:30pm, and before that, I spent my Friday night and Saturday morning in yoga (both days…I’m glad to report that Michelle is feeling much better and taught the best core stability class I’ve been to yet. Order is restored to my chakras…) and reading Eat Pray Love. I’m about half way through the book, fyi. I’ll refrain from commenting until I’ve finished the whole thing. I also finally finished organizing my “office,” otherwise known as the one wall of my living room that somehow contains all my work/school stuff, awesomely spread out in boxes, binders, little plastic organizational drawer sets and modular shelving. Even though I won’t be doing much writing this semester, other than (hopefully) marking undergraduate labs, there’s something soothing and hopeful about an organized office space…like somehow the work you’ll be doing there will be fulfilling and effortless. For as long as I can remember I’ve loved those few weeks leading up to September, when the binders are new and full of blank loose leaf. Back when the binders have neat stickers on their sides that still say “BCHM 432” and “BCHM 411.” Only around mid-October do those labels no longer seem accurate but instead mentally translate to “goddamn this is a lot of memorizing/best mark of my university career…how did that happen!?” and “wow if only Mueller’s notes were in chronological order…/I hope I never have to TA this course.”
Anyways, I digress. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, what I did this weekend. I also helped my friend Leslie move into her place, which is a basement like mine except newly renovated. I am immediately jealous of her dishwasher and stacked washer/dryer, but also not jealous of the crack-your-face-open death-stairs leading down into her place. Of course, I’m going to be so busy in the upcoming months that I won’t ever be intoxicated and at her place, so I’m likely never to have to worry about those stairs. Watch, now that I’ve said that she’ll need me to come rescue her one night and I’ll forget about the steps, bail and nom some concrete on every step on the way down. Hopefully someone will have almost done so and wisely lined the wall at the bottom of the stairs with toilet paper or that insane-person wall padding.
I digress again. … Ok now I’m just rambling. I’ve been watching too much House and my brain is stumbling on a few things. I know this blog isn’t meant as a place to vent and expose my sad little feelings to everyone, so I’ll spare you the gory details and keep it brief:
1. One of my best friends is moving away for two years very soon and I’m having an impossible time dealing.
2. I have a scary meeting with Steve (my supervisor) tomorrow, where he’s going to help me kick my data analysis into overdrive, but that also means I have to be up to speed on my NMR theory. I did some today but with Steve you never know.
3. I have a HUGE semester/year coming up of which I am terrified…solving this structure, TAing BCHM 317 (hopefully), taking a time-consuming writing and analysis course come January (the prof for it says it will take up two full days a week to get a comparable handle on…there go my weekends) and gearing up for my friend Laura’s wedding, which I am a bridesmaid in.
I’m also going into my first year of no-Bands, which will be a huge adjustment. I have a million things going on in my head. It’s interesting how the rest of the world is spinning at a hundred miles an hour, people are leaving and experiencing and meeting each other. Grad school and the single life move at the pace that grass grows, it seems.
Also, this is completely and utterly unrelated to today’s entry, but it made me giggle so here it is.
NB. With Lisa around I sort of forgot to take pictures of anything but the first thing we ate (curry). Apologies!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
I can't believe it's not beef!
One of my favourite vegetarian recipes comes from my friend Alison's "low-fat cooking" cookbook, one that sat in our house in undergrad on the kitchen shelf (the one with all the unused coffee mugs accumulated from everyone's respective grandmothers' basement storage bins). It's a very simple recipe for vegetable lasagna, and it goes like this:
Vegetable Lasagna
1 medium zucchini, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and grated
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup mushrooms, chopped
1 pkg fresh spinach, washed and coarsely chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
4 cups canned pasta sauce
1 pkg lasagna noodles (not oven ready!)
1 large tub cottage cheese
4 cups shredded mozzarella (I usually just use the whole brick because I'm addicted to cheese like that)
Preheat oven to 350F.
1. Boil water and cook the lasagna noodles. Drain and drizzle with some oil so they don't stick. Set aside.
2. In a large skillet, heat the oil. Cook the onion, carrot and zucchini until the onion is translucent.
3. Add the mushrooms, cook until sweated down.
4. Handful by handful, add the spinach, mixing well to wilt down the spinach.
5. Add the tub of cottage cheese, mixing well and cooking until cheese has melted.
6. Grease a 9x13 baking dish. Coat it with a thin layer of tomato sauce.
7. On top of the sauce, lay down ingredients in layers in the following order: noodles, vegetable/cottage mixture, some shredded mozzarella, sauce.
8. Finish lasagna off with a final layer of noodles, followed by the rest of the mozzarella.
9. Cover loosely in aluminum foil and bake for about 40 minutes. Remove foil and broil until cheese is golden and bubbly.
Variation: TVP :)
Reconstitute 1 cup TVP according to package directions. Add to tomato sauce before using.
This is my first experience with TVP (textured vegetable protein) so let me tell you a little bit about it. TVP is made from defatted soy flour. It has a protein content equal to that of meat and is fat-free. Reconstituted, it smells like corn flakes, and has the approximate texture of some hybrid of crumbled cooked ground beef and squishy fresh curd cheese. Like tofu, you can make it taste like whatever you want, but really it tastes a lot like what bland chewy ground beef would taste like. This batch of lasagna was made using TVP in the sauce.
I'm bringing the last piece of this lasagna for lunch tomorrow. One of my coworkers is the biggest meat-eater on the planet. He claims that salad is "what real food eats." I know full well that using TVP doesn't replace meat in a good hearty meat lasagna. Beef and/or pork fat is impossible to duplicate. However, this lasagna tastes great and has the texture of a meat lasagna, so my challenge is the following: have Craig taste this lasagna and see if he can tell that I haven't used ground beef. This is a pretty tall order, but I'm fairly confident I can pull it off.
Regardless, this is a wonderful lasagna and is one of the rare vegetable pasta dishes I've tried that doesn't taste like a forced vegetable dish (you know, packed with every part of every plant possible, and completely flavourless..) and that doesn't leave you uncomfortably full. I guarantee you'll like this fresh, light, nutritious lasagna and quickly adopt it into your weeknight repertoire!
Vegetable Lasagna
1 medium zucchini, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and grated
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup mushrooms, chopped
1 pkg fresh spinach, washed and coarsely chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
4 cups canned pasta sauce
1 pkg lasagna noodles (not oven ready!)
1 large tub cottage cheese
4 cups shredded mozzarella (I usually just use the whole brick because I'm addicted to cheese like that)
Preheat oven to 350F.
1. Boil water and cook the lasagna noodles. Drain and drizzle with some oil so they don't stick. Set aside.
2. In a large skillet, heat the oil. Cook the onion, carrot and zucchini until the onion is translucent.
3. Add the mushrooms, cook until sweated down.
4. Handful by handful, add the spinach, mixing well to wilt down the spinach.
5. Add the tub of cottage cheese, mixing well and cooking until cheese has melted.
6. Grease a 9x13 baking dish. Coat it with a thin layer of tomato sauce.
7. On top of the sauce, lay down ingredients in layers in the following order: noodles, vegetable/cottage mixture, some shredded mozzarella, sauce.
8. Finish lasagna off with a final layer of noodles, followed by the rest of the mozzarella.
9. Cover loosely in aluminum foil and bake for about 40 minutes. Remove foil and broil until cheese is golden and bubbly.
Variation: TVP :)
Reconstitute 1 cup TVP according to package directions. Add to tomato sauce before using.
This is my first experience with TVP (textured vegetable protein) so let me tell you a little bit about it. TVP is made from defatted soy flour. It has a protein content equal to that of meat and is fat-free. Reconstituted, it smells like corn flakes, and has the approximate texture of some hybrid of crumbled cooked ground beef and squishy fresh curd cheese. Like tofu, you can make it taste like whatever you want, but really it tastes a lot like what bland chewy ground beef would taste like. This batch of lasagna was made using TVP in the sauce.
I'm bringing the last piece of this lasagna for lunch tomorrow. One of my coworkers is the biggest meat-eater on the planet. He claims that salad is "what real food eats." I know full well that using TVP doesn't replace meat in a good hearty meat lasagna. Beef and/or pork fat is impossible to duplicate. However, this lasagna tastes great and has the texture of a meat lasagna, so my challenge is the following: have Craig taste this lasagna and see if he can tell that I haven't used ground beef. This is a pretty tall order, but I'm fairly confident I can pull it off.
Regardless, this is a wonderful lasagna and is one of the rare vegetable pasta dishes I've tried that doesn't taste like a forced vegetable dish (you know, packed with every part of every plant possible, and completely flavourless..) and that doesn't leave you uncomfortably full. I guarantee you'll like this fresh, light, nutritious lasagna and quickly adopt it into your weeknight repertoire!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Shanti shanti shanti
Having someone replace Michelle for Wednesday 5:45pm Peace at my yoga studio has to have been the most disappointing part of my day. I'm not feeling well, I'm headachey, my emotions are all over the place, I just feel like crying for no good reason, I had a really bad day at work where nothing is working, and that got me stressed out even more about my MSc (which, after a year's work is nowhere near where it should be in terms of progress...). Needless to say, I was really looking forward to this class.
I go every week, and it's my favourite class. I've been doing yoga for 8 months now, and this is the only class that is successful every single time. Michelle, the instructor, is a godsend. This woman is gentle, compassionate, kind, and humble. She is generous in class and has the most beautiful voice of any woman I've ever had the pleasure of listening to for an hour. Her classes flow gently and with purpose, she doesn't explain anything in detail but instead lets you experience the poses on your own and to your degree, she offers support and adjustment when it is needed. She is one of the most peaceful people I've ever known, as well as the best yoga instructor I've come across. Many instructors will impose themselves on your hour of restoration, explain too much about why you do certain poses, show you how bendy they are for no reason, speak with command in a class meant to de-stress...but not Michelle. One of her best qualities is her consistency; Michelle varies the poses but always begins and ends the class in the exact same way. Her endings are my favourite. Resting shivasana...music is turned off, temperature down to cool calm, the dark room illuminated by dozens of tealights only. And when you just start drifting into your peaceful away place, she beings to sing in Sanskrit.. something short and without ceremony, a sort of lullaby for the resting but mindful. We then begin to deepen our breaths, noticing how we feel, knowing that this is who we are. We curl up onto one side, and give thanks for the space, the teachers (positive and not so positive) and to ourselves for the space we have created in this hour. We sit up, take the mudra of her choice (usually anjali mudra or the mudra of kindness, hands resting in the lap) and dedicate our practice to someone we love and to someone we have some trouble loving in our lives. Om shanti shanti shanti...peace peace peace.
One becomes used to these kinds of rituals as a sort of mid-week cleansing. Now I feel like I didn't get it. The girl who replaced Michelle wasn't bad, don't get me wrong. But Michelle is to Wednesday Peace like my mom's tarte au sucre is to my vacations home. It's the same every time, delicious and perfect in every way, and you look forward to it just as it is. But when the recipe is changed, it is a soul-crusher. I would liken this feeling to the way I used to feel when my mother tucked me in at night as a kid. I would look forward to her rhymes and her gentle hand on my back while she spoke softly to me, but one day she had a babysitter come in because her and dad were going out and I didn't get my nightly ritual.
It's amazing how dependent I am on this class. I hope Michelle gets her voice back soon, so she can sing me to back to life on the days I need it most.
I go every week, and it's my favourite class. I've been doing yoga for 8 months now, and this is the only class that is successful every single time. Michelle, the instructor, is a godsend. This woman is gentle, compassionate, kind, and humble. She is generous in class and has the most beautiful voice of any woman I've ever had the pleasure of listening to for an hour. Her classes flow gently and with purpose, she doesn't explain anything in detail but instead lets you experience the poses on your own and to your degree, she offers support and adjustment when it is needed. She is one of the most peaceful people I've ever known, as well as the best yoga instructor I've come across. Many instructors will impose themselves on your hour of restoration, explain too much about why you do certain poses, show you how bendy they are for no reason, speak with command in a class meant to de-stress...but not Michelle. One of her best qualities is her consistency; Michelle varies the poses but always begins and ends the class in the exact same way. Her endings are my favourite. Resting shivasana...music is turned off, temperature down to cool calm, the dark room illuminated by dozens of tealights only. And when you just start drifting into your peaceful away place, she beings to sing in Sanskrit.. something short and without ceremony, a sort of lullaby for the resting but mindful. We then begin to deepen our breaths, noticing how we feel, knowing that this is who we are. We curl up onto one side, and give thanks for the space, the teachers (positive and not so positive) and to ourselves for the space we have created in this hour. We sit up, take the mudra of her choice (usually anjali mudra or the mudra of kindness, hands resting in the lap) and dedicate our practice to someone we love and to someone we have some trouble loving in our lives. Om shanti shanti shanti...peace peace peace.
One becomes used to these kinds of rituals as a sort of mid-week cleansing. Now I feel like I didn't get it. The girl who replaced Michelle wasn't bad, don't get me wrong. But Michelle is to Wednesday Peace like my mom's tarte au sucre is to my vacations home. It's the same every time, delicious and perfect in every way, and you look forward to it just as it is. But when the recipe is changed, it is a soul-crusher. I would liken this feeling to the way I used to feel when my mother tucked me in at night as a kid. I would look forward to her rhymes and her gentle hand on my back while she spoke softly to me, but one day she had a babysitter come in because her and dad were going out and I didn't get my nightly ritual.
It's amazing how dependent I am on this class. I hope Michelle gets her voice back soon, so she can sing me to back to life on the days I need it most.
Awesome breakfast
Hi everyone!
I'm sorry for the lack of posting recently. I was in Montreal for a weekend with family and before that, was getting turned around and back on my feet after this apartment thing. I have so much to post! I have to tell you all about my first week or so as a "vegetarian" and share with you some recipes I've made up/discovered.
I have to head to work pretty soon, so I'll stick with my adventures in cumin-tomato-cilantro-avocado land.
My brother for Christmas one year gave me the Williams-Sonoma cookbook and I instantly fell in love. I've made all kinds of recipes from this book and each one better than the last. This recipe is one I've made twice now, once with chicken breast and with nothing to blend the soup but a coffee grinder (tablespoon by miserable tablespoon), and second with some ground chicken and a magic bullet blender.
Williams-Sonoma Tortilla Soup with Chicken & Avocado
1/2 c. + 2 tbsp canola oil
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic
1/4 c. cilantro, chopped
1 c. drained canned plum tomatoes
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
4 c. chicken stock
1 skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces (or as much ground chicken as you feel like)
salt & pepper
4 corn tortillas
1 ancho chile, seeded (optional)
1 avocado, pitted, peeled and diced
1/4 c. shredded jack cheese
2 tsp fresh lime juice (optional)
1. Fry onion, garlic and 2 tsp of cilantro in a frying pan over medium heat, until golden brown, about 10 minutes.
2. Combine onion mix and tomatoes in food processor. Blend until smooth.
3. Return mixture to frying pan and continue to cook in the other tbsp of oil. Add the cumin and cook until darkened, 5-6 minutes.
4. Transfer to a large saucepan over medium-low heat and add the stock. Cover partially and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the soup has thickened slightly, about 20 minutes. Add the chicken and simmer until they are just opaque, 2-3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Garnishes:
- cut tortillas into thin strips, and fry in 1/2 c. canola oil, barely 20-30 seconds until golden
- toast the chile in a dry frying pan until fragrant, around 7 minutes, shaking pan often so chile does not burn. cool, crumble and set aside.
6. To serve, ladle soup into warmed bowls. Top with tortilla strips, crumbled chile, remaining cilantro, avocado, cheese and lime juice. Serve immediately. (Image from www.williams-sonoma.com/recipes/tortilla-soup.html. You'll notice that the recipes are slightly different, so pick whichever variation you like best I suppose...cookbook and internet didn't do the same thing!)
This soup has a lovely fragrance, especially my portions, which are heavy on the cilantro. This soup keeps well in the fridge (without all the toppings on it of course) and I'd say the only downside to a bowl of this light southwestern gem is that preparing the toppings for a single bowl of soup can be time consuming. When I have this recipe on the go in my fridge I usually have a container of chopped cilantro, chopped avocado and shredded cheese at the ready. I often omit the tortillas since I don't always have time to clean up oil spatter.
Everyone hates leftovers. I had a lightbulb moment yesterday morning while deciding on breakfast. I had the idea for a bagel with cream cheese, then I wanted a bowl of this soup, then I wanted a poached egg on toast. I decided to combine all three for a yummy breakfast treat that is quick and easy if you have all the ingredients ready from your soup handy (or take a lazy morning and prepare them all!)
Southwest Bagel with Poached Egg and Cilantro
1/2 bagel, toasted
1 egg
2 tbsp salsa
1 tbsp shredded cheese
1 tbsp diced avocado
cilantro
1. While the bagel half is toasting, poach the egg:
- Get some water boiling in a medium saucepan. Add a sprinkling of salt and a tsp white vinegar. Once the water is boiling vigorously, turn down the heat to medium until just barely boiling. Using a slotted spoon, make a whirlpool in the centre of the boiling water. Gently slip the egg in (best to crack it in advance into a little bowl so you don't destroy the yolk). It will swirl around but should stay intact. After 10 seconds, use spoon to gently move the egg in the saucepan just to make sure it hasn't stuck to the bottom.
2. Top toasted bagel with half the cheese, then the salsa, then the avocado, then the remaining cheese.
3. After about 90 seconds of poaching, the egg should be ready. Carefully remove it from the water with the slotted spoon, gently shaking off any excess water. Top the bagel with the egg.
4. Garnish with as much cilantro as you want.
Enjoy :)
I'm sorry for the lack of posting recently. I was in Montreal for a weekend with family and before that, was getting turned around and back on my feet after this apartment thing. I have so much to post! I have to tell you all about my first week or so as a "vegetarian" and share with you some recipes I've made up/discovered.
I have to head to work pretty soon, so I'll stick with my adventures in cumin-tomato-cilantro-avocado land.
My brother for Christmas one year gave me the Williams-Sonoma cookbook and I instantly fell in love. I've made all kinds of recipes from this book and each one better than the last. This recipe is one I've made twice now, once with chicken breast and with nothing to blend the soup but a coffee grinder (tablespoon by miserable tablespoon), and second with some ground chicken and a magic bullet blender.
Williams-Sonoma Tortilla Soup with Chicken & Avocado
1/2 c. + 2 tbsp canola oil
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic
1/4 c. cilantro, chopped
1 c. drained canned plum tomatoes
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
4 c. chicken stock
1 skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces (or as much ground chicken as you feel like)
salt & pepper
4 corn tortillas
1 ancho chile, seeded (optional)
1 avocado, pitted, peeled and diced
1/4 c. shredded jack cheese
2 tsp fresh lime juice (optional)
1. Fry onion, garlic and 2 tsp of cilantro in a frying pan over medium heat, until golden brown, about 10 minutes.
2. Combine onion mix and tomatoes in food processor. Blend until smooth.
3. Return mixture to frying pan and continue to cook in the other tbsp of oil. Add the cumin and cook until darkened, 5-6 minutes.
4. Transfer to a large saucepan over medium-low heat and add the stock. Cover partially and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the soup has thickened slightly, about 20 minutes. Add the chicken and simmer until they are just opaque, 2-3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Garnishes:
- cut tortillas into thin strips, and fry in 1/2 c. canola oil, barely 20-30 seconds until golden
- toast the chile in a dry frying pan until fragrant, around 7 minutes, shaking pan often so chile does not burn. cool, crumble and set aside.
6. To serve, ladle soup into warmed bowls. Top with tortilla strips, crumbled chile, remaining cilantro, avocado, cheese and lime juice. Serve immediately. (Image from www.williams-sonoma.com/recipes/tortilla-soup.html. You'll notice that the recipes are slightly different, so pick whichever variation you like best I suppose...cookbook and internet didn't do the same thing!)
This soup has a lovely fragrance, especially my portions, which are heavy on the cilantro. This soup keeps well in the fridge (without all the toppings on it of course) and I'd say the only downside to a bowl of this light southwestern gem is that preparing the toppings for a single bowl of soup can be time consuming. When I have this recipe on the go in my fridge I usually have a container of chopped cilantro, chopped avocado and shredded cheese at the ready. I often omit the tortillas since I don't always have time to clean up oil spatter.
Everyone hates leftovers. I had a lightbulb moment yesterday morning while deciding on breakfast. I had the idea for a bagel with cream cheese, then I wanted a bowl of this soup, then I wanted a poached egg on toast. I decided to combine all three for a yummy breakfast treat that is quick and easy if you have all the ingredients ready from your soup handy (or take a lazy morning and prepare them all!)
Southwest Bagel with Poached Egg and Cilantro
1/2 bagel, toasted
1 egg
2 tbsp salsa
1 tbsp shredded cheese
1 tbsp diced avocado
cilantro
1. While the bagel half is toasting, poach the egg:
- Get some water boiling in a medium saucepan. Add a sprinkling of salt and a tsp white vinegar. Once the water is boiling vigorously, turn down the heat to medium until just barely boiling. Using a slotted spoon, make a whirlpool in the centre of the boiling water. Gently slip the egg in (best to crack it in advance into a little bowl so you don't destroy the yolk). It will swirl around but should stay intact. After 10 seconds, use spoon to gently move the egg in the saucepan just to make sure it hasn't stuck to the bottom.
2. Top toasted bagel with half the cheese, then the salsa, then the avocado, then the remaining cheese.
3. After about 90 seconds of poaching, the egg should be ready. Carefully remove it from the water with the slotted spoon, gently shaking off any excess water. Top the bagel with the egg.
4. Garnish with as much cilantro as you want.
Enjoy :)
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Announcement
So this huge grocery...
I have never ever spent over $200 in one day at the grocery store on my own before. Ever. Until yesterday. When the nice cheap awesome Loblaws is a 10 minute drive away and the most expensive grocery store in Ontario (Metro) is 2 blocks away, it's not surprising that when I have a car, as I did this weekend, I hurry to the better of the two and spend some dollar on some nice food.
A selection of what I got that I loved and can't wait to work with: couscous, quinoa, TVP, falafel mix, salmon fillets, peaches, zucchini, tomatoes, ginger, leeks, potatoes, avocados, marinades, artichokes, roasted red peppers.....etc etc etc.
You might have noticed upon reading this list that I have made a slight adjustment to my diet. After a few days of thought and consideration for my body and how it's changing and the changes I've made in my life, I've decided to lead a mostly vegetarian lifestyle. I remember myself saying not all that long ago that I could never ever ever in a hundred million years become a vegetarian because I love meat so much, and it's sort of funny to hear myself think the opposite on this day. I want to make a few things clear here before you all freak out: I won't stop eating meat. I'm just going to cut way back and eat as vegetarian as I can. If I'm invited over to someone's house and they're serving BBQ or a nice roast or something, I'm not going to refuse to eat it. If I'm having company over, I would probably make something with meat it in to accommodate the fact that most people aren't into strictly vegetarian cuisine.
A few points to explain myself in fewer words (it's late...and I have a potato soup to make in the morning):
- I will do my best to stick to vegetarian protein sources aka. quinoa and TVP instead of hamburger or chicken
- I will eat WAY more vegetables. WAY MORE.
- I will still be eating the odd meat, especially when I'm out and about.
- I will not refer to myself as a vegetarian, but rather someone who prefers not to eat meat when given the choice. If any of you followed my facebook veggie-for-a-week adventure, you'll note that I mentioned my frustration at "vegetarians who eat meat."
- I will not cut out processed foods. Sometimes things happen and that box of KD has to come out, or you're out with friends and it's poutine time. I'm just going to be careful and conscious.
- I will not be switching to organic foods, for a few reasons...a) I can't afford it and b) within reason, it's not sustainable for our global family to eat organic always all the time. If everyone were equal and lived next to wholesome farms and raised their own lifestock, life would be way healthier. But realistically, we're going through a food crisis in our time, and we can't responsibly ALL eat organic foods.
I feel strongly after what Alex told me last week and after the thinking I've done, that being veggie is a lifestyle. I live alone and I can therefore choose exactly what I feed my body (perhaps this will change one day once I'm not alone anymore, who knows). I practice yoga regularly, if not every day whenever possible, and I hate to sound like a tree-hugging cliche but it really works wonders on one's sense of self-awareness, health (physical, mental and emotional) and faith. My decision to stick to vegetarian sources of protein is one that reflects my current single working lifestyle, as well as my yoga practice, all in addition to my opinions on the food manufacturing industries. I believe that what we feed our bodies ultimately feeds our minds, so it makes sense to me to consume vegetables and nutrient-dense meat substitutes in an effort to maintain my mental and emotional health.
It's been a roller-coaster of a year. I'm in the best physical shape of my life and I want so much to bring my mental, spiritual and emotional health up to speed to match it and continue to make me a more well-rounded, mellowed, pleasant, decent person. I feel good about myself when I feed myself well, and I want to continue on this journey in a positive way by being careful with what I fuel my body with.
I'd love to hear your opinions on this. I'd like to emphasize that I have absolutely nothing against those who choose a different lifestyle as this one, but am making this choice for me and what I feel I need in my life. This is fluid and my ideals are going to change as I continue to grow. I urge you all to re-evaulate a little and make sure your lifestyle fits what you'd like to experience in your life.
I have never ever spent over $200 in one day at the grocery store on my own before. Ever. Until yesterday. When the nice cheap awesome Loblaws is a 10 minute drive away and the most expensive grocery store in Ontario (Metro) is 2 blocks away, it's not surprising that when I have a car, as I did this weekend, I hurry to the better of the two and spend some dollar on some nice food.
A selection of what I got that I loved and can't wait to work with: couscous, quinoa, TVP, falafel mix, salmon fillets, peaches, zucchini, tomatoes, ginger, leeks, potatoes, avocados, marinades, artichokes, roasted red peppers.....etc etc etc.
You might have noticed upon reading this list that I have made a slight adjustment to my diet. After a few days of thought and consideration for my body and how it's changing and the changes I've made in my life, I've decided to lead a mostly vegetarian lifestyle. I remember myself saying not all that long ago that I could never ever ever in a hundred million years become a vegetarian because I love meat so much, and it's sort of funny to hear myself think the opposite on this day. I want to make a few things clear here before you all freak out: I won't stop eating meat. I'm just going to cut way back and eat as vegetarian as I can. If I'm invited over to someone's house and they're serving BBQ or a nice roast or something, I'm not going to refuse to eat it. If I'm having company over, I would probably make something with meat it in to accommodate the fact that most people aren't into strictly vegetarian cuisine.
A few points to explain myself in fewer words (it's late...and I have a potato soup to make in the morning):
- I will do my best to stick to vegetarian protein sources aka. quinoa and TVP instead of hamburger or chicken
- I will eat WAY more vegetables. WAY MORE.
- I will still be eating the odd meat, especially when I'm out and about.
- I will not refer to myself as a vegetarian, but rather someone who prefers not to eat meat when given the choice. If any of you followed my facebook veggie-for-a-week adventure, you'll note that I mentioned my frustration at "vegetarians who eat meat."
- I will not cut out processed foods. Sometimes things happen and that box of KD has to come out, or you're out with friends and it's poutine time. I'm just going to be careful and conscious.
- I will not be switching to organic foods, for a few reasons...a) I can't afford it and b) within reason, it's not sustainable for our global family to eat organic always all the time. If everyone were equal and lived next to wholesome farms and raised their own lifestock, life would be way healthier. But realistically, we're going through a food crisis in our time, and we can't responsibly ALL eat organic foods.
I feel strongly after what Alex told me last week and after the thinking I've done, that being veggie is a lifestyle. I live alone and I can therefore choose exactly what I feed my body (perhaps this will change one day once I'm not alone anymore, who knows). I practice yoga regularly, if not every day whenever possible, and I hate to sound like a tree-hugging cliche but it really works wonders on one's sense of self-awareness, health (physical, mental and emotional) and faith. My decision to stick to vegetarian sources of protein is one that reflects my current single working lifestyle, as well as my yoga practice, all in addition to my opinions on the food manufacturing industries. I believe that what we feed our bodies ultimately feeds our minds, so it makes sense to me to consume vegetables and nutrient-dense meat substitutes in an effort to maintain my mental and emotional health.
It's been a roller-coaster of a year. I'm in the best physical shape of my life and I want so much to bring my mental, spiritual and emotional health up to speed to match it and continue to make me a more well-rounded, mellowed, pleasant, decent person. I feel good about myself when I feed myself well, and I want to continue on this journey in a positive way by being careful with what I fuel my body with.
I'd love to hear your opinions on this. I'd like to emphasize that I have absolutely nothing against those who choose a different lifestyle as this one, but am making this choice for me and what I feel I need in my life. This is fluid and my ideals are going to change as I continue to grow. I urge you all to re-evaulate a little and make sure your lifestyle fits what you'd like to experience in your life.
Quickly before I head to work...
Happy August 3rd everybody! (all 2 of you reading this...)
I have a few minutes to update before I head to work so I'll keep it brief.
1. I had a WONDERFUL weekend!!
2. My apartment is now mold-free and immaculate and organized and smells great and is awesome. Therefore, my stress level has dramatically decreased. Winner.
3. Congratulations to the Queen's University Pipe Band, who scored 3rd place in the grade 4 march medley contest at the Glengarry Highland Games this past Saturday! Congratulations also to any and all solo contest winners cause I'm sure you're out there guys! Wish I had been there to see it! :)
Oh yah, I did the biggest, most expensive, most inspiring grocery shop of my life yesterday since my fridge was completely vacant when I left. Update on that later...
I have a few minutes to update before I head to work so I'll keep it brief.
1. I had a WONDERFUL weekend!!
2. My apartment is now mold-free and immaculate and organized and smells great and is awesome. Therefore, my stress level has dramatically decreased. Winner.
3. Congratulations to the Queen's University Pipe Band, who scored 3rd place in the grade 4 march medley contest at the Glengarry Highland Games this past Saturday! Congratulations also to any and all solo contest winners cause I'm sure you're out there guys! Wish I had been there to see it! :)
Oh yah, I did the biggest, most expensive, most inspiring grocery shop of my life yesterday since my fridge was completely vacant when I left. Update on that later...
Friday, July 30, 2010
Home for a rest
In just over an hour I'm going to be cruising the 401 on my way up north to Deep River, where my parents have been living for 22 years. This town of just over 4000 people was built as a housing community for the scientists recruited to Chalk River when Atomic Energy of Canada Limited was created by the government in 1952. (This cold-war nuclear research project was set up as a way to study peaceful nuclear energy. Despite promoting peaceful use of nuclear energy, between 1955-1976, the labs in Chalk River provided 250kg of spent reactor fuel (aka. plutonium) to the US Department of Energy, which then went on to make nuclear bombs, including the one dropped on Nagasaki, which contained 6.4kg of this plutonium.)
Needless to say, Deep River is a nerd town. Almost everyone who lives there works for AECL in some way. My dad is a chemist and oversees nuclear waste management in a way that is as environmentally friendly as possible. Once named Canada's highest concentration of PhD holders per capita, the population is aging and my generation has now gone off and graduated from university, with a vast majority of kids undertaking studies in engineering or science. My brother and I are covering both of these bases: Simon is at Queen's taking mechanical engineering and I got my BScH in biochemistry last year. Go nerd family!
Despite feeling extra nerdy and therefore extra awesome when I go back home, there is another purpose to this visit. Every two years, my town puts on the immensely popular Summerfest, which is basically a huge gong-show weekend in August that includes live music, dragon boat races, vendors, a triathlon and (perhaps most importantly), a huge beer tent. I'm taking Caroline up this weekend with me to experience it and to meet and hang out with my super french-canadian family. The big acts under the main stage this year are The Planet Smashers (a ska band from Montreal) and K'Naan (a Somali-born Torontonian rapper/poet, recently popularized by the FIFA anthem Wavin' Flag). The population of our town nearly triples as everyone flocks to see the bands and to visit again with all our townie friends from high school. I'm beyond excited to see everyone again, including my high school teachers who will surely be in attendance with their families.
So the point of this post, then, is this: I won't be blogging much this weekend. They're calling for fabulous weather up in Deep, and with Caroline and my family all together (a rare treat) I won't be spending much time glued to screens of any sort. I'm going to be taking some notes on my mom's cooking though, since I want to make it my life goal to pass along my family's rich tradition in the form of food. My grandmother's ragou d'pates de cochon, tourtiere, tarte au sucre...my dad's spaghetti sauce with family secret ingredient, my other grandmother's potato salad and tourtiere du Lac-St-Jean. ... ok I'm drooling on my keyboard.
Ok I better pack and go get the car. I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend and enjoys the weather wherever you are! Special shoutout to the Queen's University Pipe Band, home of all my best friends and pipe band family, who is competing at the Glengarry Highland Games this weekend in Maxville. It's their first year as a grade 4 band, and last year we tied for 1st in this North American Pipe Band Championship/shitshow weekend! GO GET 'EM GUYS!!
Needless to say, Deep River is a nerd town. Almost everyone who lives there works for AECL in some way. My dad is a chemist and oversees nuclear waste management in a way that is as environmentally friendly as possible. Once named Canada's highest concentration of PhD holders per capita, the population is aging and my generation has now gone off and graduated from university, with a vast majority of kids undertaking studies in engineering or science. My brother and I are covering both of these bases: Simon is at Queen's taking mechanical engineering and I got my BScH in biochemistry last year. Go nerd family!
Despite feeling extra nerdy and therefore extra awesome when I go back home, there is another purpose to this visit. Every two years, my town puts on the immensely popular Summerfest, which is basically a huge gong-show weekend in August that includes live music, dragon boat races, vendors, a triathlon and (perhaps most importantly), a huge beer tent. I'm taking Caroline up this weekend with me to experience it and to meet and hang out with my super french-canadian family. The big acts under the main stage this year are The Planet Smashers (a ska band from Montreal) and K'Naan (a Somali-born Torontonian rapper/poet, recently popularized by the FIFA anthem Wavin' Flag). The population of our town nearly triples as everyone flocks to see the bands and to visit again with all our townie friends from high school. I'm beyond excited to see everyone again, including my high school teachers who will surely be in attendance with their families.
So the point of this post, then, is this: I won't be blogging much this weekend. They're calling for fabulous weather up in Deep, and with Caroline and my family all together (a rare treat) I won't be spending much time glued to screens of any sort. I'm going to be taking some notes on my mom's cooking though, since I want to make it my life goal to pass along my family's rich tradition in the form of food. My grandmother's ragou d'pates de cochon, tourtiere, tarte au sucre...my dad's spaghetti sauce with family secret ingredient, my other grandmother's potato salad and tourtiere du Lac-St-Jean. ... ok I'm drooling on my keyboard.
Ok I better pack and go get the car. I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend and enjoys the weather wherever you are! Special shoutout to the Queen's University Pipe Band, home of all my best friends and pipe band family, who is competing at the Glengarry Highland Games this weekend in Maxville. It's their first year as a grade 4 band, and last year we tied for 1st in this North American Pipe Band Championship/shitshow weekend! GO GET 'EM GUYS!!
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Julie discovers a new food
Last night Alex (Caroline's housemate) and I had a long chat about nutrition, including but not limited to her vegetarian lifestyle. I was completely floored and amazed at how well she feeds herself. Alex eats organic, unprocessed foods and chooses to do so, if I understood correctly, due to the negative impact that commercial food processing has on our environment. Furthermore, she explained to me that she opts out of eating meat for the same reasons I do (when I omit meat, which is often): commercial farming and livestock raising practices are atrocious and completely cruel. Alex, not unlike myself, will gladly eat meat of which she knows the origin, such as a steak from a local farm. She tells me that she gets seafood and steak cravings often, but really commits herself to her lifestyle. To paraphrase a snippet of her reasoning: being a vegetarian isn't a diet, it's a lifestyle. If you don't go to yoga on one day even though you're someone who practices yoga daily, no one would argue that you shouldn't call yourself a yogi. It's the same with being a vegetarian. Sometimes I do allow myself to eat meat because I simply feel like it. It doesn't not make me a vegetarian. This is an interesting and valid take on vegetarianism. A few months ago I sampled different types of vegetarian diets, including "flexitarian," which basically means you sometimes eat meat. After having sausage in my pasta on that one day, I felt like I was cheating on my vegetarian diet. Is that what Alex refers to, except she doesn't feel guilty about it? What do you think?
Aside from really getting me thinking and digesting the thought of perhaps making a switch to a more organic vegetarian diet myself, Alex also introduced me to a new food, quinoa.
Turns out, quinoa is a superfood. A distant cousin of spinach and tumbleweed this pseudocereal is not a grain and not a rice. It is rather the edible seed of a genus of plants called Chenopodium. Different species of this genus produce different varieties of quinoa. This tiny seed has an inherent nutty flavour. It can be used as a direct substitute for rice, pasta or cousous and is mad easy to prepare. But the ultimately cool thing about quinoa that people should really pay attention to is that it is one of the rare "grains" that counts as a complete protein, meaning that it contains an ideal balance of a human's daily required dose of the 20 amino acids. As soon as I read this, I got pretty excited. I can name off all twenty of these protein building blocks since they are the bread and butter of my research (I'm currently working with data on these molecules that will utilize the unique magnetic properties of each atom in each different amino acid to help me solve the structure of a bacterial protein. Anyways enough about that...).
For comparison...
Rice: 7.5% protein, millet: 9.9% protein, wheat: 14% protein and quinoa... 16.2% protein. Some varieties even have up to 20%! Quinoa is rich in methionine, cysteine and lysine, whereas most grains are quite low in lysine and soy can be really weak in methionine and cysteine.
I took Alex's advice and made up my very first quinoa recipe, using a 1/2 cup of organic quinoa she graciously gave me to try out:
Mediterranean Quinoa Salad
1/2 cup quinoa
1 cup chicken stock
1 medium zucchini
3 small tomatoes, on the vine
1/4 cup chopped feta cheese
1 tsp chopped garlic
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper
garlic powder
sugar
Greek salad dressing
1. Quinoa cooks exactly like rice, so put chicken stock and quinoa in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce, cover and simmer until all the liquid is gone, about 12-15 minutes. Let sit for 3 minutes, then fluff with a fork like you would couscous.
2. Dice zucchini into small pieces. Sprinkle generously with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Sautee in olive oil for about 5 minutes to desired tenderness. Set aside.
3. Dice tomatoes, removing the caviar. Drizzle in a bit of balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Sautee in the same pan as the zucchini for 3 minutes along with the chopped garlic and a pinch of sugar. Remove from heat and add to zucchini.
4. Mix feta in with vegetables. Add the fluffed quinoa and drizzle with a bit of Greek salad dressing until moist. Do not overdress.
And there you have it! I strongly suggest that everyone give quinoa a try. Alex tells me that you can make a sweet version as well, adding apple cider vinegar, chopped apples and walnuts. You can also mix in with your oatmeal in the morning to add a bit of protein. Enjoy!
Aside from really getting me thinking and digesting the thought of perhaps making a switch to a more organic vegetarian diet myself, Alex also introduced me to a new food, quinoa.
Turns out, quinoa is a superfood. A distant cousin of spinach and tumbleweed this pseudocereal is not a grain and not a rice. It is rather the edible seed of a genus of plants called Chenopodium. Different species of this genus produce different varieties of quinoa. This tiny seed has an inherent nutty flavour. It can be used as a direct substitute for rice, pasta or cousous and is mad easy to prepare. But the ultimately cool thing about quinoa that people should really pay attention to is that it is one of the rare "grains" that counts as a complete protein, meaning that it contains an ideal balance of a human's daily required dose of the 20 amino acids. As soon as I read this, I got pretty excited. I can name off all twenty of these protein building blocks since they are the bread and butter of my research (I'm currently working with data on these molecules that will utilize the unique magnetic properties of each atom in each different amino acid to help me solve the structure of a bacterial protein. Anyways enough about that...).
For comparison...
Rice: 7.5% protein, millet: 9.9% protein, wheat: 14% protein and quinoa... 16.2% protein. Some varieties even have up to 20%! Quinoa is rich in methionine, cysteine and lysine, whereas most grains are quite low in lysine and soy can be really weak in methionine and cysteine.
I took Alex's advice and made up my very first quinoa recipe, using a 1/2 cup of organic quinoa she graciously gave me to try out:
Mediterranean Quinoa Salad
1/2 cup quinoa
1 cup chicken stock
1 medium zucchini
3 small tomatoes, on the vine
1/4 cup chopped feta cheese
1 tsp chopped garlic
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper
garlic powder
sugar
Greek salad dressing
1. Quinoa cooks exactly like rice, so put chicken stock and quinoa in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce, cover and simmer until all the liquid is gone, about 12-15 minutes. Let sit for 3 minutes, then fluff with a fork like you would couscous.
2. Dice zucchini into small pieces. Sprinkle generously with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Sautee in olive oil for about 5 minutes to desired tenderness. Set aside.
3. Dice tomatoes, removing the caviar. Drizzle in a bit of balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Sautee in the same pan as the zucchini for 3 minutes along with the chopped garlic and a pinch of sugar. Remove from heat and add to zucchini.
4. Mix feta in with vegetables. Add the fluffed quinoa and drizzle with a bit of Greek salad dressing until moist. Do not overdress.
And there you have it! I strongly suggest that everyone give quinoa a try. Alex tells me that you can make a sweet version as well, adding apple cider vinegar, chopped apples and walnuts. You can also mix in with your oatmeal in the morning to add a bit of protein. Enjoy!
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