How possibilities can change ...

It has been over a year since I've updated this blog, but I think about it regularly. It's hard to find time to post, yes, and even harder to find adequate time to take good photos of the things I cook (even when there is time to cook). But, I invented a recipe this morning that I'd like to share, and I have some thoughts, in any case.

When I began this blog, nearly four years ago, it was my assumption that my body type was pretty much set for life, whatever changes I might make in my habits. But last summer, I decided I wasn't happy enough with my habits and needed to make more lasting changes.

I was exercising too little, eating too much, too frequently, too unhealthily. I had lost the habit of going a few days between servings of sweets, and of cooking up good food that I could grab for a meal when I was in a hurry. I needed better motivation. So, I decided to try Wii Fit.

It was a significant initial investment, so I saved my money by quitting my YMCA membership and using my second-hand exercise bike for exercise for a few months until I had enough money for the Wii and the Wii Fit. I quickly discovered that I don't like the Wii Fit's reliance on the BMI as the only measure of the user's health, and the fat-shaming it gives you if you're outside the "normal" range. And was I outside the "normal" range? Oh yeah, I was "obese." Which is just a lovely thing to be told every morning.

But, I did like the activities themselves, and found it cathartic to yell at the Wii when it called me "obese" or "unbalanced." After all, it is a gaming system, so I made it a game. I decided to stick with it, did different combinations of exercises every day that added up to 30 minutes, and built up my will power to skip desserts and bring my portion sizes back down.

And, lo and behold, and really at least somewhat to my surprise, I actually did start to lose weight. And kept losing it. And losing it. I went from a BMI of something like 32.25 to my current 24.75. That's nearly 40 lbs, on my 5'2" frame, and puts me within the "normal" range for the first time in over half my life. More importantly, I have more energy than ever, and I can actually run. I'm planning to participate in a 5K race in June.

Today is the fourth Sunday in Lent, and I have started observing Lent much more, well, observantly in the past few years. I've decided that my health is a gift, and I should show my thanks by adhering strictly to my healthiest habits during Lent: 30 min aerobic exercise every day; meals made up of small portions of healthy foods like plain, nonfat yogurt, whole grains, vegetables, beans, and the occasional natural peanut butter and unsweetened jelly; no coffee or tea (except herbal); no alcohol; no sweets at all; no snacks. I also give up shopping for anything I could live without until Easter, so I end up doing a lot of creative cooking and rummaging through my pantry and freezer. I've eaten a LOT of various kinds of beans with brown rice.

And today, I made up a muffin recipe, thanks to the mashed roasted peaches I found in the freezer. (Note: I totally don't remember how I roasted the peaches and am too lazy this evening to find that recipe. If you don't want to try faking it, you can probably get the same effect by buying a can of peaches packed in juice without sugar and mashing them up with a potato masher.) This recipe is actually vegan! And decently tasty, although the muffins break pretty easily. But they contain no fat other than flaxseeds, are sweetened with brown rice syrup (Lundberg Farms is GF), and probably have at least a little protein in them.

I used Annalise Roberts's Gluten-Free Baking Classics as a guide for some of the quantities.

PEACH GINGER MUFFINS (GF/Vegan)

Dry ingredients:

3/4 c. ground flaxseed meal

1 c. millet flour

1 c. garfava flour

3/4 tsp. xanthan gum

1 Tbs. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

Wet ingredients:

5/6 c. brown rice syrup

3/4 c. mashed, cooked peaches, in liquid

1/2 tsp. vanilla

In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients, whisking to combine thoroughly.

In a smaller bowl, combine the wet ingredients and stir well. The syrup is heavy, so you will need to stir thoroughly.

[The above steps can be done the night before, if you want to be able to make fresh muffins quickly in the morning—although, I actually was able to do this whole process pretty fast. Just close each container well and store in the fridge.]

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375°F. Grease 12 muffin cups with olive oil (I use a set of silicone baking cups arranged on a cookie sheet; if using a metal muffin tin, I'd suggest lining with paper).

Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients until well incorporated, then spoon into muffin cups, distributing evenly. The batter will not quite fill the cups.

Bake about 22 minutes, or until firm and slightly golden on top. Turn out onto a wire rack and cool. The first one was tasty when cooled just slightly.

I've frozen the rest for future breakfasts. Hoping they reheat well!

Indulgence, within 'limits'

So many people who really love food, who love to make truly gourmet meals, appear to hold the opinion that meat is necessary for a truly rich gastronomic experience. One of my favorite cousins, the sommelier, has said to me on a couple of occasions that he wishes I'd eat meat, so that I could taste something he thinks is an especial treat. A friend of mine from college, who has the wonderful initials A.Z., said to me at our last reunion that, "I really just feel that you're missing out."

My response? That I think he is, too. Not that he shuns vegetarian cuisine nor the panoply of fruits, vegetables and grains it offers, but that I have heard it said that eating meat reduces the tastebuds' capacity for appreciating the subtleties of flavor that vegetarian meals can provide.

Hey, maybe I'm biased.

It is a challenge, however, as someone who really adores good food, to convince friends and restauranteurs that exquisite meals can be had from vegetables, fruits, grains, dairy and eggs. Even more so, now that wheat, rye, oats and barley have to be crossed off the grains list.

I suppose that's one of my reasons behind this blog. I hope that my cooking and my photography make the food look appealing enough that someone who reads this who can eat gluten and who does love meat will still look at one or more of my dishes and say ... I've gotta try that.

I think it's possible. If I may boast a little, I can at least say that my dinner guests never have complaints. :-)

Sometimes, you gotta have starch

One of my very favorite foods is fusilli al pesto. I just love the spring of the twisty noodles and the perfection of basil, garlic and olive oil. Having bought a new brand of rice pasta at Spezia the other day, I decided last night that it was time to try it. I also pulled out a couple of the "garlic knots" that I'd bought, frozen, at Risotteria last February. I was sadly disappointed by th garlic knots ... they were supposed to be baked for 10-15 minutes, but after 30 minutes were still unpleasantly doughy.

This is one of the shortfalls of saving heavier foods for "treats." Sometimes they ... aren't.

But, the pasta was delicious. I really like this brand, and will buy it again. Eventually. My next pasta, though, will be of my own making. (I mean, other than the pasta already in my pantry, which I may eat before I get around to trying my hand at homemade GF pasta.)

I feel an ode to my Kitchen Aid mixer forthcoming. I seriously love that thing.

When portion control meets the race against the rot

Tonight, for dinner, I had three large salads. That is, I had the same type of large salad three times. I just had too many greens to finish, and the farmers' market is tomorrow morning, again, already! I think it was still decently healthy because I used apple cider vinegar for "dressing" (which is what I usually use), and kept the scattering of almonds and shavings of reduced-fat cheddar to a minimum.

I hope this isn't rationalization. I hope that eating three servings of mixed salad greens is actually a good thing.

As expected, I haven't noticed any difference in my waistline. But, I remind myself, that wasn't supposed to be the point.

My friend N. left me a bar-cookie or cake-like sweet thing she'd baked, when she left the GF beer bread. I think it will go nicely with a glass of milk, as a bedtime snack.



(I'm trying not to eat dessert every night, but I feel like separating it from dinner is a good move, somehow, so I've been sticking to something small, if anything, at the very end of the evening.)

Salads ... and salads.

A few weeks ago, my parents and I drove from Massachusetts/Rhode Island to the Florida panhandle for our annual family reunion. For me, the trip means two main things: (1) a valuable opportunity to keep in touch with my cousins, most of whom live more than a thousand miles from me, and (2) very few good food options. It starts, of course, on the road, where lunch tended to consist of a Wendy's side salad and a plain baked potato. Don't get me wrong: Wendy's salads tend to be decently fresh and crisp, but they also tend to consist mostly of that tasteless, nutrient-lean, pale-green stuff known as iceberg lettuce.

When I make a salad for myself, the story is quite different:



I like to buy a mix of different lettuces/greens, then adorn them simply, in this case with a few shaves of that 75%-reduced-fat cheddar I've been enjoying so much, a smattering of walnuts, a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, and a sprinkling of sea salt and freshly ground pepper.



It looked so good, even my cat wanted to check it out!

Hey, Charcoal: what do you think about becoming a vegetarian?



... yeah, that's what I thought you'd say.

Well, to quote my dad, "More for me!"

A little bit of junk-ish food

One of the keys to making this healthier-eating plan a possible one is that I never tell myself, "you can't eat that ever again." Unless it's, you know, meat or gluten. I can still enjoy barbeque-flavored kettle corn from Popcorn, Indiana, but now I'm trying to eat it kernel by kernel, not handful by handful.



Luckily, I already prefer 100% juice blends (like Apple & Eve berry punch) to cokes. Actually, after all the water I've been drinking this week, I was afraid the punch would taste too sugary. It was mostly just nice, though.

A little popcorn, a little juice, a little TiVo. A nice way to take a break from a hot, sticky afternoon.

How do you like your brown rice?

When my friends J&J and I all lived in Chicago, they had me over for dinner one night and introduced me to the wonder that is brown rice. Before that evening, I'd never really liked it before. But at their house, it was served family-style, where we could each help ourselves to a scoopful or two, and surrounding the bowl were plates of cheese cubes, chopped tomatoes, probably some salad greens, herbs, and other summertime delicacies.

Clearly, this was the way to enjoy brown rice. Not as an apologetic stand-in for white rice, under a stir-fry, but as a centerpiece all its own, paired with crisp, fresh flavors that complement it.



Dinner tonight is a plateful of color, with brown rice, fresh spinach topped with shaves of that 75%-reduced-fat cheddar I mentioned (Cabot), and a fresh farmstand tomato, all sprinkled with sea salt and drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil.

So pretty! And so yummy.

Eating Treats Possibly

I'm lucky enough to live in a place where there are some WONDERFUL gluten-free treat options. One of my favorites is Ursula's European Pastries in Cranston, RI, for the cakes-and-pastries type of treat. Twist on Angell is excellent for the pizza-and-beer (or pasta) type of treat. I used to frequent both, well, frequently, partly because of the novelty of having such an abundance of options, and partly out of a desire to keep GF-friendly businesses doing GF-friendly business.

Since moving into my new house, and since the summer started, I've been spending a lot less time at both. Partly, they're not cheap, and partly, those are some rich/caloric/high-fat treats. Staying on a gluten-free diet, it's very tempting to try every new product that comes along, to reconnect with old "friends" that have been lost to me because of the evil grains they contain (I say, tongue firmly in cheek). Until about a month ago, I was living on cheese and starch, eating ice cream and cookies and cakes at least daily, which I knew was not a pattern I should be preserving.

As I develop my "possible eating" philosophy, my question for myself becomes this: how do I see the role of treats in my diet? As I try to get away from my emotional eating habits, I want to stop thinking about treats as something I "earn," but I still want to enjoy them on special occasions. I am serious about not wanting to deny myself these treats entirely; the solution seems to be, in fact, the word "treat." I want to divorce cakes and cookies and pizzas from the value judgements of "bad" or "good" and from loaded words like "indulgence," that make them sound like a surrender. I can eat rich, sugar-and-butter-laden baked goods, and still be eating, overall, in a healthy manner. The key, I think, will be frequency and quantity. I am ready to pass by gluten-free goodies in the market, knowing I can try some later. "Moderation in all things," as a friend of mine from the Catholic choir at my university said, "including abstinence."

So, how do I feel about my plan to stop at Ursula's this afternoon being thwarted by their two-week summer vacation? Was I saved from my temptation to 'cheat'? I don't think so. I haven't been there in over a month. Plus, by getting off the bus at that point, I ended up having to walk the mile-plus home from there.

I had stopped earlier at Spezia market on Federal Hill, which has a decent selection of gluten-free products, some of which I hadn't seen before. I bought three items I haven't found elsewhere: Orgran amaretti-style cookies (very low percent of calories from fat, I discovered to my delight, and the sugars are unrefined), Scotti Pasta Riso fusilli (a brand I've been curious to try), and a sliver of Pecorino Toscano (D.O.P.) cheese. Once I discovered Ursula's to be closed, I decided to enjoy a couple of the amaretti on the walk home.

A good compromise, I think. And quite a tasty treat.

Introduction

I love to cook.

I grew up cooking, because my mother invited my sister and me into the kitchen with her, and when I became a vegetarian at age almost-14, she 'invited' me to cook all my own meals, if I wasn't going to have what she and Dad were having. (My sister was in college by then.)

When I was 25, I was diagnosed with a mild resistance to wheat; I changed my diet somewhat, but really kept 'cheating' by eating cookies, cake, fresh-baked bread, Krispy Kremes … Within the past few years, I've reduced my gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats) intake dramatically, and finally entirely, as my sensitivity has increased.

I enjoy walking, swimming, and riding my bike; all three of these tend to take back-seat to my other favorite activities of reading, watching my TiVo/Netflix entertainment, and LiveJournaling. And have I mentioned cooking?

First, a little (more) about me: I'm 32, as of this writing, and I recently bought a house in Rhode Island. I'm single and live alone, and carry the mortgage alone. I've been playing the oboe for nearly 25 years, and currently freelance professionally and give private lessons, in addition to teaching at a girls' independent school, mostly in the high-school division.

I have never had an eating disorder. I am neither thin nor extremely heavy, although I am definitely on the high side of what the BMI considers my "ideal" weight. I may even be quite a bit on the high side, depending whom you ask: some charts would classify me as "overweight," others as "obese." But if you happen to spot me on the street while I'm waiting for my bus, my nose in a book or an NPR podcast in my earphones, you'd be more likely to think of me as pudgy, or maybe stocky. Oh, and short. :-)

To me, this is beside the point. I'm trying to love the way I look, because I'm pretty much stuck with it. Despite what popular culture would have us believe, I might start exercising 30-60 minutes every day, eat perfectly balanced and portioned meals with only small, healthy snacks between, and never lose a pound. The point is, I know I've been eating unhealthy foods in unhealthy quantities, and spending too much time on the couch.

There is nothing dramatic or angst-ridden here. I refuse to flagellate myself over a slice of cake, or to deny myself all the foods I find yummiest. I'm simply a (relatively) normal person, with the (relatively) normal food issues that one tends to have, having grown up in the Western world.

And I've got a few habits I'd like to change.

***

Let's review: I'm a new, single homeowner, living on the schedule and salary of an almost-but-not-quite-full-time private school teacher plus freelance oboist/teacher, so budget and time are huge issues. I have a diet restricted by choice (vegetarian, ovo-lacto) and by health (gluten intolerance). Time is much less of an issue during summer, and it is no accident that I'm starting this now. I also find a new home to be a good opportunity for new habits.

Therefore, my eating goals need to be:
1. staying within my dietary restrictions
2. keeping my grocery budget reasonable
3. eating more naturally gluten-free foods, and fewer gluten-free substitutes (like pasta and bread), which seem to have a less-healthy effect on my diet and are very expensive
4. eating out as infrequently as possible while still having a social life

I'm also interested in:
5. getting as much of my food from local sources as possible
6. cooking from scratch as often as possible
7. experimenting more with baking gluten-free foods from scratch, understanding that this will create sweet/rich treats in the house and the above-mentioned gluten-free substitutes, so sharing and portion-control will be key
8. eventually growing some of my own produce
9. composting (note: most of it would have to go elsewhere; my backyard is about 1/8 acre, or 1/20 ha)

Psychologically, I'd like to:
10. train myself to enjoy fresh, healthy foods as much as I enjoy sweets and processed snacks
11. break the habit of emotional eating
12. develop a non-adversarial relationship with food, including occasional sweets and processed snacks
13. get comfortable enough with all of the above that I spend less time thinking about food

Also, there is the all-important:
14. get into the habit of getting more exercise, more regularly

***

What will be here? Mostly recipes/accounts of foods I have eaten and enjoyed. Other food-related topics will also probably appear, and hopefully exercise as I get into it. My approach is to understand that I need to change gradually if I'm going to stick with it, which may mean attacking only one or two goals at a time.

Wish me luck!