I thought this info from the Good Eats "Live and Let Diet" episode was right on the mark. It's AB's guide to healthy eating/living. I wonder if I can follow this...
Daily
Fruits
Whole grains
Leafy greens
Nuts
Carrots
Green tea
3 time/week
Oily fish
Yogurt
Broccoli
Sweet potato
Avocado
1 time/week
Red meat
Pasta
Dessert
Alcohol
Never
Fast food
Soda
Processed meals
Canned soup
“Diet” anything
Smoothie Talker
I hate to eat breakfast, but I go to the gym and/or run in the morning and obviously need some sort of fortification prior. I am a faithful follower of Good Eats and was pleased to recently catch the episode, “Live and Let Diet.” In this show, Alton Brown made smoothies. Now, I have attempted to make them before and they are usually pretty good, but AB presented a fool-proof formula for smoothie excellence. His recipe uses four ounces each of juice and soy milk, four ounces of frozen banana, and four ounces each of three different kinds of frozen fruit. There before me was my solution – I would start my day with a fortified fruit frappé.
I went to my favorite, Trader Joe’s, and filled my cart with frozen mango, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, organic bananas, organic soy milk (vanilla!), and Blackberry Crush 100% juice blend. When I returned home with my treasures, my kids descended upon the reusable shopping bags like flying monkeys from Oz tearing apart the scarecrow. “Smoothies!” they both shouted. “Are those for our breakfasts?!” Although it is wintertime and I prefer to send them off to school with a warm breakfast, I thought, why not.I adapted the recipe to get about 3-10oz servings from each. Thus far, we have indulged in these two delights:
Orange-Mango
• 8 oz vanilla soy milk
• 8 oz orange juice (with calcium)
• 2 small frozen bananas (about 6oz)
• 8 oz frozen mango
Mixed Berry
• 6 oz vanilla soy milk
• 6 oz Blackberry Crush
• 2 small frozen bananas (about 6oz)
• 6 oz frozen strawberries
• 6 oz frozen blueberries
Nutritious and delicious! I wonder what other combinations I can whirl up. I’m gonna need a bigger blender!
Parchment paper - not just for the Magna Carta
I may have just entered into a whole new realm of cooking. I saw a minute of a cooking show yesterday featuring salmon fillets cooked in parchment paper and was intrigued as I tend to occasionally - albeit slightly - overcook fish. The theory is all the moisture stays inside the packet steaming the food. I may have heard about this supposedly foolproof method for cooking fish before but never paid it any mind. Tonight I did.
Did I mention cleanup is also a cinch? I'm sold!
Photo by Susan Wenzel
I bought four nice wild-caught Pacific salmon fillets (only wild will do) and began to consider my options. The tv chef I watched had topped the salmon with salt, pepper, haricot vert (fancy talk for real skinny French green beans. Haricot is French for “bean” and vert is French for – you guessed it – “green”) and some other stuff. I had the beans in the freezer, and a couple of my own ideas.
I tore off four big pieces of parchment paper and coated each piece of salmon on both sides with about ½ T olive oil. I put one fillet per piece of paper and sprinkled on a little Fumee de Sel Chardonnay Oak Smoked Sea Salt (from The Spice House) and a few grinds of Tellicherry peppercorns (my new favorite). I topped each with about a dozen of the whole green beans and a few super thin round slices of sweet onion (done with my Benriner Japanese Mandolin Slicer ® that does an awesome job on fingers too – but that’s another story).
I folded together the middles of each parchment and twisted shut the ends then popped all four fillets in the oven on a cookie sheet at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.
I folded together the middles of each parchment and twisted shut the ends then popped all four fillets in the oven on a cookie sheet at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.
The finished product was attractive, moist and, more importantly, delicious. I can only imagine the possibilities for parchment cooking. Probably almost any kind of fish (whole or fillet), shrimp, even scallops would work – and the topping choices would be endless – fresh or dried herbs, sundried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, lemon slices, garlic, capers, spicy mustard, chives, cilantro, lemon grass, Thai chilies...yum.
P.S. Check out this cool way to fold the parchment. (Although my method worked just as well.) http://cookingfortwo.about.com/od/maindishes/ss/enpapillote.htm Did I mention cleanup is also a cinch? I'm sold!
Yellow Flag!
I cry foul! Taco Bell gets penalty flag from me! Today I saw a commercial for the Taco Bell Drive-Through Diet ®. Initially I thought it was a Saturday Night Live skit; sadly, it is real. Fast food has its place, and an occasional taco isn’t going to kill anyone…I’m no Taco Bell hater…but a whole DIET based on eating crap?! Come on.
If one wants to lose weight, eating Taco Bell is certainly not the best way to go. They suggest this is a valid diet because the items on the “diet” menu have “less than 9 grams of fat.” Go ahead. Check out the rest of the “nutrition” information for the “taco diet”: http://www.tacobell.com/fresco/nutritionGuide.html
Let’s examine the “Fresco Crunchy Taco.” It only has 7 grams of fat (the selling point) and 150 calories! Wait – let’s do the math. 9 calories per gram of fat x 7 grams of fat = 63 calories from fat (Taco Bell’s information states 70 calories from fat). According to this, 47% of the calories from this “diet” food is from fat. (Oh, and did I mention 13 grams of carbs, 20mg of cholesterol and 350mg of sodium?)
Stop the presses!! I just read the disclaimer on the bottom of the page. And, I quote:
“DRIVE-THRU-DIET® IS NOT A WEIGHT-LOSS PROGRAM. FOR A HEALTHIER LIFESTYLE, PAY ATTENTION TO TOTAL CALORIE AND FAT INTAKE AND REGULAR EXERCISE. TACO BELL'S FRESCO MENU CAN HELP WITH CALORIE REDUCTIONS OF 20 TO 100 PER ITEM COMPARED TO CORRESPONDING PRODUCTS ON OUR REGULAR MENU. NOT A LOW CALORIE FOOD.”
Those sly dogs! They did say “diet” and not “weight loss program” in their ad, didn’t they? Diet, by definition, can mean the following: food or feed habitually eaten or provided.
Well, bust my britches! (pun intended) I guess I have to take it all back. Technically speaking, eating primarily Taco Bell can be called a diet! Hells Bells - I’m going to market the Twinkie ® diet! They also have 150 calories and only 4.5 grams of fat!!
If one wants to lose weight, eating Taco Bell is certainly not the best way to go. They suggest this is a valid diet because the items on the “diet” menu have “less than 9 grams of fat.” Go ahead. Check out the rest of the “nutrition” information for the “taco diet”: http://www.tacobell.com/fresco/nutritionGuide.html
Let’s examine the “Fresco Crunchy Taco.” It only has 7 grams of fat (the selling point) and 150 calories! Wait – let’s do the math. 9 calories per gram of fat x 7 grams of fat = 63 calories from fat (Taco Bell’s information states 70 calories from fat). According to this, 47% of the calories from this “diet” food is from fat. (Oh, and did I mention 13 grams of carbs, 20mg of cholesterol and 350mg of sodium?)
Stop the presses!! I just read the disclaimer on the bottom of the page. And, I quote:
“DRIVE-THRU-DIET® IS NOT A WEIGHT-LOSS PROGRAM. FOR A HEALTHIER LIFESTYLE, PAY ATTENTION TO TOTAL CALORIE AND FAT INTAKE AND REGULAR EXERCISE. TACO BELL'S FRESCO MENU CAN HELP WITH CALORIE REDUCTIONS OF 20 TO 100 PER ITEM COMPARED TO CORRESPONDING PRODUCTS ON OUR REGULAR MENU. NOT A LOW CALORIE FOOD.”
Those sly dogs! They did say “diet” and not “weight loss program” in their ad, didn’t they? Diet, by definition, can mean the following: food or feed habitually eaten or provided.
Well, bust my britches! (pun intended) I guess I have to take it all back. Technically speaking, eating primarily Taco Bell can be called a diet! Hells Bells - I’m going to market the Twinkie ® diet! They also have 150 calories and only 4.5 grams of fat!!
Yeah, right
http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/sku6572820/?pkey=cmixing-bowls-measuring-cups%7Cbkwmixbow
Ghosts of Christmas Past
My kitchen is haunted with ghosts of Christmas past. On the counter are five kinds of cookies, candy canes, assorted chocolates, a third of a German stollen, half of a really good homemade rum cake, and most of a fruit basket. There are even more in the refrigerator: half a ham, three kinds of cheese, part of a vegetable tray, salami, and a bunch of goodies left from our New Year’s Eve antipasto platter. The holidays may be gone but their leftovers are not.
Normally, I do not have a problem dealing with leftovers – a large pot of soup is a good way to get rid of all kinds of things. I am the Queen of Srevotfel, as my husband would say. (That’s leftovers spelled backwards). But, an army couldn’t finish all of these. I made an Alton Brown style quiche for dinner with some of the ham, heavy cream, fresh mushrooms and cherry tomatoes from the veggie tray, shredded “English cheddar with caramelized onions,” and a bit of nutmeg (from whole nutmeg grated with my NEW Microplane ® grater – thank you Santa). (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/refrigerator-pie-recipe/index.html)
I sealed up the rest of the ham and it’s bone separately and froze them for dinners future and the girls can have the fresh fruit, veggies and cheese and crackers in this week’s lunches (I always pack their lunches, as I think school lunches are overprocessed, overpriced, salty, fatty, non-nutritious trays of crap)
Now, I haven’t a clue what to do with all these cookies. Can I put them in a quiche?
Duck!
For New Year’s day I made roast duck, twice-baked potatoes (baked, split and through the ricer then mixed with roast garlic, Amish butter, heavy cream and aged cheddar and topped with a dollop of sour cream), stuffing (I cheated - Pepperidge Farm herbed but with stock I made from the duck neck and guts the day before) and maple glazed baby carrots (steamed carrots tossed with a T of Amish butter and a T of maple syrup from our friends in Highland County, VA).
I am not intimidated by a different or difficult recipe and even once made real Peking Duck (bicycle pump and all – thank God no one came over when it was hanging on a hanger in my kitchen all day and night. All the work was worth it, as it was absolutely delectable!). So, I was recently intrigued by Alton Brown's roast duck recipe (as follows): http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/roast-duck-with-oyster-dressing-recipe/index.html
This recipe involves “koshering” the duck prior to roasting. Silly me – I always thought the salt was called kosher because it is, indeed, kosher. I learned from AB it is called “kosher salt” because it is used to prepare meats in the kosher method draining the blood in accordance with Jewish law. The flaky form of kosher salt coats the surface of the meat unlike the cubes of table salt which dissolve more readily and draw out too much moisture. (Speaking of salt, as a treat, I purchased a little bag of very expensive smoked fleur de sel – $17.95 for 6oz - from The Spice House. I ration it carefully, but is absolutely delicious sprinkled on a perfectly grilled filet mignon.) http://www.thespicehouse.com/spices/fumee-de-sel-chardonnay-oak-smoked-sea-salt
The duck was tender and juicy with a wonderful, rich flavor and the family loved it (proof positive - there are no leftovers) I doubt I will make it again, though, as I found it to be a little on the salty side. But, I am my own worst critic.
(P.S. I had coffee this morning topped with perfectly frothed milk. I got an aerolatte ® milk frother in my stocking. I absolutely love it! Please note, don’t turn it on before you put it in the milk. Waahoo!)
AFTER I planned the duck dinner, I realized January 1st was also the day Ohio State (my team from birth) was scheduled to play the Oregon DUCKS in the Rose Bowl. Of course, the jokes soon ensued. As we know now, the Oregon Ducks went the way of our dinner - duly roasted and consumed. But, I digress.
I am not intimidated by a different or difficult recipe and even once made real Peking Duck (bicycle pump and all – thank God no one came over when it was hanging on a hanger in my kitchen all day and night. All the work was worth it, as it was absolutely delectable!). So, I was recently intrigued by Alton Brown's roast duck recipe (as follows): http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/roast-duck-with-oyster-dressing-recipe/index.html
This recipe involves “koshering” the duck prior to roasting. Silly me – I always thought the salt was called kosher because it is, indeed, kosher. I learned from AB it is called “kosher salt” because it is used to prepare meats in the kosher method draining the blood in accordance with Jewish law. The flaky form of kosher salt coats the surface of the meat unlike the cubes of table salt which dissolve more readily and draw out too much moisture. (Speaking of salt, as a treat, I purchased a little bag of very expensive smoked fleur de sel – $17.95 for 6oz - from The Spice House. I ration it carefully, but is absolutely delicious sprinkled on a perfectly grilled filet mignon.) http://www.thespicehouse.com/spices/fumee-de-sel-chardonnay-oak-smoked-sea-salt
The duck was tender and juicy with a wonderful, rich flavor and the family loved it (proof positive - there are no leftovers) I doubt I will make it again, though, as I found it to be a little on the salty side. But, I am my own worst critic.
(P.S. I had coffee this morning topped with perfectly frothed milk. I got an aerolatte ® milk frother in my stocking. I absolutely love it! Please note, don’t turn it on before you put it in the milk. Waahoo!)
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