On the Menu: August 26-Sept 1

This is the vegetarian/piscean two weeks again, meaning no meat other than fish, and no dairy. This is also the week that Thadd went back to school, and I started some certification training on top of my other stuff; so, we knew we needed meals that would be reasonably quick, too.

In addition to all that, Thadd’s been having problems maintaining his weight with the two weeks of vegetarian foods (especially since we eat little in the way of simple carbs), and is pretty continually hungry.  The reality has been similar for me, and I’m not looking to lose weight. We don’t eat processed foods, we have to be careful on the soy because it interferes with my adrenal medications, and it kills me to not eat cheese. On the other hand, my abs look awesome; but, I have to be very careful to not to lose much weight (about 3% of my body weight) or it messes with my medication dosages.

I’ll be honest, this new diet two weeks a month is difficult, especially on limited time. We’re not sure how it’s going to go,  but, this is our stab at it for the first week of back-to-school and new work stuff. Wish us luck!

DINNERS: 

Sunday: Potato & Cauliflower Burritos, with sausage for Thadd. These have more carbs than I usually like, but it’s what we have time for tonight. And, they’re really yummy.

Monday: Slow cooker Thai Tempeh Coconut Curry.  Tempeh needs wet cooking, in my opinion, to be good. Dry tempeh is…well, dry. I have to be really, really careful about soy; but, I can treat myself once in a great while, and this is that treat.

Tuesday: Ban Mi Sandwiches.  Another tofu dish, but this one is okay. Non-GMO tofu locally processed at low temps by hand, which helps limit some of the things that interfere with the absorption of my medications.  This is a vegetarian take on a Vietnamese street food that I’ve been wanting to try forever.

Wednesday: Slow Cooker Lentil & Kale Stew, with Bratwurst for Thadd. This is a Cook’s Illustrated recipe, which bodes well. Again, a new one for us. While we eat a lot of meatless meals, we don’t tend to do a lot of meat-and-dairy-free meals, so I’ve been digging through recipes for the last few months.

Thursday: Slow Cooker Chickpea Curry. Indian is always one the top of my list of vegetarian foods to love!

Friday: Leftovers.

Saturday: Lentil Sloppy Joes with Slow Cooked Baked Beans and Veggies. A vegan (yes, vegan) take on sloppy joes.  I’ll see what I get for fresh veggies from the market, and I’ll make my own bakes beans in the slow cooker.

 Shawn

LUNCHES:  leftovers. Vegetarian salads with chickpeas for protein.  Tuna and egg salad.

BREAKFASTS:  eggs, egg and veggie breakfast burritos, steel cut oats, fruit.

SNACKS: hardboiled eggs, roasted chickpeas, nuts, raw vegetables, fruit, olives, almond butter.

Thadd

LUNCHES:  Leftovers. Meat, tuna, and egg salad wraps.  Frozen meals (we freeze lunch portions of leftovers, so we have some already in the freezer).

BREAKFAST:  Breakfast casserole, sausage breakfast burritos, steel cut oats, yogurt, fruit.

SNACKS: Smoothies, nuts, milk, yogurt, fruit, olives, peanut butter, cheese.

Related articles

• On the Menu, August 5-11th (eclecticedibles.wordpress.com)

What I Eat: February 8th, 2012

My day started off with a Food Challenge: No appetite.

When I get really stressed out, depressed, injured, or just about anything that puts serious stress on my adrenal glands, I lose my appetite. Now, this may seem like a great thing for those who want to lose weight, but it’s just not healthy. And, given that I have to teach a high-intensity class today (not to mention that I just need energy to keep going), it’s not ideal. It’s also self-perpetuating: I don’t eat because I am stressed, my blood sugar drops, I get more stressed/upset/depressed, so I want to eat less, etc.  This is actually a common thing in my family, and seemingly a physical reaction. I go so far as to get physically ill, which sounds like a total drama queen thing; but, it’s what happens. So, I try to address it by eating really nutritious foods with plenty of calories-per-ounce. Since I don’t care if I’m eating, it usually means I also don’t care what I am eating, and this tactic seems to generally work enough to get me through.

Breakfast: Jasmine green tea and a glass of raw milk (unskimmed).

Snacks: banana, raw milk cheese.

Lunch: homemade cream of tomato soup with croutons

Dinner: Chicken makhani w/greens & jasmine rice.

Other: water, as much as I could stomach. 2 real fruit pops.

Related articles

• On the Menu, Feb. 4th-11th (eclecticedibles.wordpress.com)
• What I Eat, Series Launch (eclecticedibles.wordpress.com)

How’s That Low-Grain Thing Going?

I’ve gotten this question a few times in the last couple of weeks, and the truth is that it’s a mixed bag. While I appreciate Paleo people’s commitment, my body prefers low meat and some grains. I have succeeded in cutting down on grains a good bit, but they’re not coming out of our diet completely. Why? Well..

1. My body doesn’t do the whole high-meat or high-protein thing and never has. I’ve tried a variety of different styles of eating, and it’s pretty clear that what my body wants is lots of vegetables, some quality meat, and a bit of whole grains. I was, indeed, eating too much grain this past year, but taking it out puts my body into fits.

2. It’s incredibly expensive. We prefer to eat quality meats (local, grass-fed, etc.), eggs, dairy, and vegetables (organic when possible). Grains can really help extend those things, because it’s just more than we can afford to do without them.

I have had some nice results from cutting down on grains in terms of visible musle mass, but I was also hungry ALL THE TIME, no matter how much I ate or what else I ate when I cut them out completely. I was tired and had a difficult time getting enough calories in to support my crazy lifestyle and workout schedule(when I did this with beans, cheese, nuts, etc., I just felt sick). I did do it for a while anyway, and sucked it up; but, in the long run, all the negatives weren’t worth it for us. Adding a bit of grain back in, but a lot less than we’ve been eating, seems to work well.

So, that’s where we’re at: small amounts of grains a few times a week, and almost never for breakfast or lunch for me (Thadd isn’t holding to this–he’s got a different body and metabolism). And, that’s how it’s going!

Gardening! It’s the Thought That Counts.

We are very lucky to have awesome landlords who let us till up (actually, helped us till up) about a third of our backyard for a garden. It happened late last year because they hadn’t realized we wanted a garden, and we hadn’t realized they’d be okay with us doing something so dramatic. This meant we didn’t have time to do our own starters, or even plan much, though it all turned out well in the end. Who can argue with fresh heirloom tomatoes right out of the backyard, right?

This year, we obviously know it’s coming and can be a bit more ambitious. This weekend, we put together our seed order from seedsavers.org, and I’ve started figuring out how much we can reasonably grow and put by. Our garden space isn’t big enough to feed us entirely, but it can go a long way towards supplementing our food budget and our health. This year, we also have access to a greenhouse with warming mats to start our seedlings! And, speaking of seedlings, it’s just about time to get some of them started. By the time our seeds arrive, it’ll be perfect.

So what are we growing, and why? I’m not going to go into the planting schedule yet, as I’m still working on the rotation schedules so we can garden in all seasons; but, here’s what we plan on harvesting in what season (obviously, some of these will start in one season and carry through to another, weather depending):

Spring: Greens (spinach, various lettuces), peas. With luck, blueberries from my potted plants!

Summer: tomatoes (several varieties), beets (these will be interval planted for continuous harvest), carrots, some greens (shade planting), leeks (late), radishes.

Fall: Beets, leeks, turnips, radishes, carrots, sunchokes, Australian Butter and Thelma Saunders squashes, kale, second planting of peas, fall crop of lettuces, tomatoes.

Overwinter in the ground or harvest late/cold storage: leeks, kale, carrots, spinach, squash, beets, turnips, green tomatoes, winter radishes, and sunchokes.

We’re doing all heirlooms, and as much organic as we can get our grubby little hands on. This is a far more ambitious undertaking than last year, but I think the payoff will be worth it. We elected to do high-yield varieties of squash and peas, and the sunchokes are also high-yield as a general rule. Our goal was to do a lot of fresh diversity in small quantities we can eat at harvest, and larger quantities of limited “staples” so we have enough to actually be usable for a good part of the winter. Some things, like squash, only get better with storage (to a point, obviously), and so we are really looking forward to these. Some things, like sunchokes, store just fine in the ground (and, in fact, are made better by freezing); so, we can have the produce without taking up all of our rather limited cold storage.

We’re also going to move some of our “cold storage” around next year. Squash prefer slightly warmer, drier temperatures than, say apples; so, we’re going to store them in another area. Our once concern is that our cold storage won’t be cold enough, which has actually been a problem this year. While I appreciate the warmer winter both from a personal stand point (I don’t like the cold much, hence I moved south) and a financial angle (our heating bills have been about half what they were the last few years), it is taking a toll on the apples. We’re going to have to sauce them out soon.

I spent a lot of this weekend going over two of my favorite books: Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables, and Independence Days: A Guide to Sustainable Food Storage and Preservation. There is a bit of modification that goes on for us, since both books (especially the latter book) is written with the general assumption of a colder climate than Virginia generally has. The hardest part of cellaring here isn’t, as in the north, the worry of freezing–it’s the worry of spoilage due to warmth.  But, both books are very useful for anyone who is interested in putting up food. The Root Cellaring book in particular is a great resource for cold storage methods (did you know hard squashes need to be cured before they get put into cold storage?), duration food can be expected to last, what you should and should not store together and why, and all kinds of other neat stuff.

I’ll be doing a layout and schedule soon, and I’ll post them here. I’d love to see your gardens, your planning methods, and your storage hopes and dreams, too!

On the Menu: Jan. 16-23

A quick On the Menu for this week!

DINNERS:

Sunday: Sausage, saurkraut, whipped potatoes. This is one of Thadd’s favorite meals, it’s quick, and we were busy.

Monday: Beef stroganoff over spaghetti squash. I‘m still working on cutting wheat, and most other grains, down. We don’t eat piles or anything, but I’d like to get down to only including them in dinners every other week or so. Hence, the spaghetti squash. This works well as noodles, and it adds a rich and complex flavor to the dish.

Tuesday: Bacon lentil soup. Thadd’s cooking on Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester, so this is his dish.

Wednesday: Pork Roast with roasted acorn squash and apple-onion hash. Crock pot for the main course. It’s a busy day for me.

Thursday: Thai peanut noodles with tofu. Thadd’s never made this before, and wants to give it a whirl. We’re using rice noodles, which we don’t do often because they’re expensive, but I’m looking forward to seeing how it comes out.

Friday: Leftovers. It’ll be time to clean out the refrigerator.

Saturday: Meatloaf with roasted potatoes and a veggie.

Don’t forget to check in for “What I Eat!” to see how our meal plan goes, and what m daily food lifestyle looks like from the inside!

Related articles

• On the Menu Oct. 30-Nov. 7th Edition (eclecticedibles.wordpress.com)
• On the Menu: Jan 7-13th (eclecticedibles.wordpress.com)
• On the Menu, Sept. 19th Edition (eclecticedibles.wordpress.com)

What I Eat, Series Launch

In the time I’ve been writing here, consulting with and cooking for clients, talking fitness nutrition at various gyms, and just interacting with people, it’s come to my attention that a lot of people haven’t ever really been exposed to what a “normal” food lifestyle really looks like. They see fad diet meal plans, or “dinner” on Food Network. They have no idea what a real, healthy person eats on a daily basis, and how it fits into overall life.

So, I am starting a new series: “What I Eat.” It won’t be every day, but it will be often. It’ll be short, there will be no recipes, but hopefully it will give readers an idea of what a day in my food-life looks like. Somedays there’ll be photos, some days it’ll just be me writing on the fly. Through this, I hope readers can get a better understanding of how cooking works, how food planning works, how it falls apart (and yes, it falls apart for us, too, sometimes), and how real food can fit into real life. On days I have challenges with food, I’ll try to note that, too, and how I dealt (or didn’t deal) with it.

I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this, and if it’s helpful for you.

Jan 10:

Breakfast: scrambled eggs, banana, glass of raw milk.

Snack: almond milk and peanut butter shake (using my Magic Bullet blender. God I love this thing).

Lunch: leftover roasted squash soup, grapes, hard boiled egg.

Random snacks: roasted almonds, a few slices of aged gouda, a grapefruit (I have no idea why, but since I’ve discovered I now like them, I can’t stop eating them), a glass of raw milk, lots of water (I have no idea how much),

Dinner: Salisbury steak w/lots of mushrooms, whipped potatoes with cream cheese and milk, roasted broccoli.

FOOD CHALLENGE: I am trying very hard to eat less grain, but today all I really wanted was a huge slab of Thadd’s homemade wheat bread. I didn’t do it, but it was difficult.

Related articles

• On the Menu: Jan 7-13th (eclecticedibles.wordpress.com)
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On the Menu: Jan 7-13th

The cookies, cakes, pies, and whatever else made it’s way onto my plate this past holiday season is all gone now. If you’ve been reading me for more than a little while, you’ve probably read a mention or two of how easily it is for me to become sugar addicted. It doesn’t take me long to break it anymore (typically about 3-4 days), and once I do I go totally off any interest in sugar for quite a while (which is good). So, you won’t see much in the way of sweets here (not, I suppose, that you ever really do except during holidays).

I’m also kicking my training up a notch, so you’ll see a bit more protein here than you sometimes do. My body isn’t a high-protein machine for whatever reason. In the past, its tended to make me feel pretty icky to up my protein intake as much as is recommended, no matter what form the protein took. I’m going to try some new things this time, to see if I can work in more protein and good fats, and less grains. I’ll still be eating my veggies, but I’m going to try to really ratchet down the grains (yes, even whole grains), and try to rely on mostly veggies for my carbohydrates. I’m not going paleo–Thadd bakes for a living, if nothing else–but, I think it’s worth a shot again. This time, I’m going to try more bio-available protein like egg whites, instead of increasing my dairy. Hopefully that, in conjunction with lots of vegetable fiber, will help my body process better.

So, here it is! The first On the Menu of 2012!

DINNERS

Sunday: Chicken Makhani, with spinach and brown rice. I’ll be eating very little of the rice, which is fine, since I love the chicken!

Monday: Catfish with cauliflower augratin.

Tuesday: Salisbury Steak, with whipped potatoes and broccoli. Lots of mushrooms make this one of my favorites dishes.

Wednesday: Tuscan white bean soup with kale. A great crockpot meal that also happens to be some of the best soup I’ve ever made. It’s hearty, healthy, and can be vegetarian or vegan.

Thursday: Ethiopian. Yep, this will have the concession of bread. We don’t do Ethiopian often. It’s time-consuming. But, it’s completely worth it. We’ll be having Doro Wat for sure, one of the lentil dishes, a potato dish, and a greens dish. And, of course, the yummy flatbread, injera.

Friday. Balsamic roasted chicken, with apple-and-onion hash and a vegetable.

LUNCHES: Egg and almond milk shakes for after workouts, leftovers.

BREAKFASTS: Scrambled eggs & egg cups, omelets, yogurt w/fruit and local honey.

SNACKS: fruit, cheese, cottage cheese, carrots & homemade dip,

Related articles

• On the Menu, Sept. 19th Edition (eclecticedibles.wordpress.com)
• On the Menu, Sept 10-18 (eclecticedibles.wordpress.com)
• On The Menu {week of Jan. 8} (easypaleo.com)
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What’s My Magic Diet?

I get asked quite a lot about my diet, and what I eat that keeps me energetic and healthy looking.  The truth is, it’s not any one thing. Heck, it’s not even all about the food. Yes, you read that right. As much as I go on and on about healthy food, just eating healthy alone isn’t really enough to keep someone at the top of their game (though it’s a considerable improvement on eating like crap, of course). It’s about all around lifestyle. Would I look and feel like this if I ate as I do now, but smoked? Or, didn’t exercise? Or, drank excessively? Probably not.

All of these things work together for me. Eating healthy gives me energy, good skin, boosts my immune system, and protects me from many illnesses. It also keeps me at a good weight (most people’s weight is 80-90% about what they eat, and only 10-20% about how active they are: you can’t out-train a bad diet). The energy I have makes being active fun and doable. Being active, in turn, generally keeps me more interested in healthy foods and cuts down on unhealthy cravings, and it keeps my metabolism boosted for calorie burning.

There is no magic bullet, no single thing that works for most people. It’s an over-all lifestyle that creates a cycle where good habits beget other good habits.  I’d love to read some of your thoughts on integral parts of your lifestyle that keep you healthy!

I’m a Chef, Not a Miracle Worker

Whenever someone new hears that I am a chef, I immediately get “I wish I lived at your house!” This is followed up by “I’d love to eat gourmet meals every night!” and “I’d be so much thinner/fitter/healthier if I lived with a chef, because you could make things I like healthier!”

Here’s the hard truth: I am a person with two jobs, both of which are fairly time-consuming. My fiance’ is a full-time student and works. And, I am a chef, not a magician.

What do these things mean? They mean that we largely eat simple meals we design to fit our schedules, not 4-course dinners. They mean that, just like pretty much everyone else in the world, I don’t have unlimited time to sit around preparing complicated food. They mean that we often eat things that are healthy, filling, and reasonably good, but not super-gourmet awesome. And, they mean that I cannot turn unhealthy food magically into healthy food, so living with me is unlikely to give anyone who has bad eating habits better ones  just because they eat at my table.

Each week, I post what we’re  eating at our house in my On the Menu series. Sometimes, you’ll see something super fun and fiddly, but about 98% of the time, you’ll see food. Healthy food, but not fancy food. Slow cookers, batch cooking, and planning ahead means that we cook 95% of our meals at home, and that we have reasonably good food to eat; but, we don’t have the time or budget for what most people consider gourmet food every night.  Can I cook gourmet food? Yes. I do it every week for my clients. Which, like most working stiffs, leaves me precious little time to cook it for us. Instead, I try to use the time and money we have wisely by planning basic, flavorful, SIMPLE meals that don’t take hours on end to make or the entirety of our paychecks to buy.

It also means we eat a lot of “weird” foods. These foods are not actually weird, they’re just not typically American.  And I certainly don’t spend the time I do have to plan, shop, and cook finding exotic ways to mimic unhealthy food with “healthier” options. We just eat healthier foods. Meaning that if someone doesn’t like vegetables and refuses to eat them, living with me isn’t going to make them magically eat vegetables. It’s just going to mean they go hungry and get pissed off a lot. We know, because we’ve dealt with this in former roommates. I don’t find ways to hide vegetables in cake, macaroni and cheese, or pizza. We just eat those unhealthy foods less often, and opt for things like lentil soup and crustless quiche far more frequently.

Could I figure out a way to make mac & cheese healthier? Yes. Actually, I don’t have to figure it out, because I already know how–and it’s incredibly time consuming (making a squash and yam puree isn’t quick, for example). There are some dishes that don’t take extra effort to make a lot healthier, like my meatloaf and lasagna, so of course I do that. I am just not going to go acres out of my way to do it when I could just opt for something that is naturally healthy and less work.

People need to stop looking for excuses as to why they eat poorly. Being a chef doesn’t change reality–either you make healthy meal preparation a priority or you don’t. If you have other priorities, that’s fine–we all have our own lives. But, me being a chef doesn’t mean that I somehow have less to do than other folks, or that I just walk into the kitchen and food transports itself in from some alternate food dimension and onto a china plate on my dinner table. I probably have some advantages in that I am faster at chopping vegetables because I do it more, and that I probably have more recipes at hand; but, the reality is that most of my more advanced cooking skills aren’t deployed at home all that regularly.  Almost anyone can read and execute a slow-cooker recipe. And no chef I know doubles as Houdini in the kitchen.

Related articles

• Crock Pots and Cooking Healthier Meals (superdoodadsblog.wordpress.com)

On the Menu

I am not going to bother backlogging my meal plans for the time my internet was down, so we’ll just pick up with this week’s. It’s August, so that means a lot of fresh produce and veggies!

Dinners:

Monday: Black Bean Chicken. This is a recipe from my friend, Bethany, that is great for days when you just don’t have time to cook. It’s done in the slow-cooker, is healthy, and makes a pile of leftovers (which is good for us, since Thadd’s taking his lunches to work).

Tuesday: Chickpea saag over brown rice. Thadd’s night to cook. He’s really perfected this Indian dish, and while it’s usually served as a side, it works great for us as a main course. And, talk about getting in your veggies!

Wednesday: Crustless quiche and tuna salad sandwhiches. A great meal for hot days, crustless quiche is fantastic served right out of the over, or cold. It’s also a great way to use up those little bits of leftover veggies, which we’ll be doing here. It’ll be sort of a Quiche Lorraine, since we have a lot of greens and tomatoes. Serving it with tuna salad on the bread Thadd made from our grain-CSA whole wheat (locally & organically grown whole wheat, freshly ground). I have to say, this stuff has totally converted me to using fresh-ground grains. It’s so much better than pre-ground that I don’t have words. He made tortillas out of it last week, and they were just spectacular.

Thursday: Lasagna with salad and garlic foccacia bread. The lasagna was made earlier this week, when I was running the over anyway. It’s got all kinds of goodies in it, from grass-fed beef to fresh tomatoes and greens. The bread is another one of Thadd’s latest creations using some flavored oils we made out of our dehydrated tomatoes and herbs. It’s so good.

Friday: Thai Peanut Noodles with Scallops. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it doesn’t leave a ton of leftovers. We’ll be swamped with leftovers by this point in the week. Scallops were on sale.

Saturday: Grilled fish, with sliced tomatoes and Some Other Veggie.  We’ve got rainbow trout to use up (be watching for the grilled trout recipe I did a while ago to show up in the next week or so!), tomatoes in abundances, and I am hitting the market Saturday.

Sunday: Leftovers.

Lunches: leftovers, sardine & tomato salad lettuce wraps for me, Greek yogurt with fruit. Breakfasts: eggs, oats with coconut milk, leftovers. Snacks: raw milk, fruit, nuts, cheeses, boiled eggs, veggies.

What’s on your menu?

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