A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Photo Diet Diary: Bring on the Veggies & Fruit

 

For me, I thought, and am finding to be true, that dieting is all about the veggies and water.  It's not about focussing on odd foods, counting every carb and calorie, "tricks" or constantly denying myself. The key, for me, is lots of fruit/veggies and drinking lots of iced herbal tea, anything from Celestial Seasonings tastes just as good iced as hot and it's a great substitute for me for soda especially since I'm now keeping lemons and limes cut up in the fridge to get that "restaurant" taste.  Since starting this experiment three weeks ago, I've lost 2 lbs on the nose every single week. I can live with that.

Jordan's Flowers in the Making

 

For full tutorials, search "gumpaste flowers" at www.youtube.com.  There are some really nice videos up with step by step instructions.

Flowers like the roses and calla lilies I used for Jordan's cake start with a gumpaste center that is dried overnight and then petals added around it.  For roses, I like to complete one layer a day and let the previous layer dry, if I have the time.

Like buttercream drop flowers, gumpaste drop flowers are simple cutouts with dragee centers, great for fillers or to add a touch of whimsy to cupcakes.

A few pics of the process: 

Niece Jordan's Birthday Party

 

It might seem a little odd that most of the family parties are at my house but I think it's about me being the oldest of our five kids and our mom having passed away 20 years ago. I've become the matriarch of my little family, sort of Grandma by Proxy.  So for many years, the niece and nephews have all expected to have their birthday parties at "Aunt Gonnie's". 

Since I make the cakes and do most of the cooking, it's very convenient for me.  I've always felt a little guilty that I'm the one who learned to cook but, being the oldest, I was the sergeant-at-arms in my mother's kitchen for as long as I can remember, and my little sister, Jordan's mom, being six years younger was mostly kicked out to go play.  Lucky her in ways!  Not that she's a bad cook, she just didn't get the same experience I did in the large family/trial by fire way I did.

  

Jordan requested her menu, which is our tradition, Ziti "with pepperoni" and "strawberry cake with strawberry buttercream and blue roses".  I can dig it.  Ever since Jordan was a toddler her favorite meal has been spaghetti but as she's gotten older she's added the spicy pungency of pepperoni to her favorites and strawberry cake has won her heart since she was a baby.  That I bought strawberry cheesecake ice cream to go with it was like a strawberry sugar nirvana shared by all.

The menu board to the left is a little freebie bank whiteboard give-away we got years ago that's always been my little party cheat sheet. It's on the fridge so that I, and anyone in the kitchen helping me, can consult to avoid the common after dinner "Oh crap! We forgot the ___" moment.

 

I'll give the recipe below. We found the Ziti with Pepperoni to be an excellent choice for a crowd, easy to prepare in advance and a hit with everyone. 

It is also my entry in this week's Presto Pasta Nights, created by wonderful Ruth at Once Upon a Feastand hosted this week by Sara of I'm a Food Blog .  On Friday of this coming week, be sure to stop by to see all the pasta doings going on.

Additionally on the menu:

 

Basic spring salad of leaf lettuces, chunked zucchini, celery, spring onions, tomatoes, shredded carrots, and edible flowers from the garden:  Sweet William and Purslane.

Accompanying the salad was a host of bottled dressings for the timid and a home-made lemon vinaigrette for Auntie Miranda and I, made from lemon balm and parsley fresh from the garden.  The recipe for this also, is below.

Later this week a post a few pics of the "garden", not traditional rows or square foot, my garden is a fairly ambitious collection of pots on the back porch...I'll also write a separate post on the cake with more behind the scenes pics of making the gumpaste flowers.

Happy Birthday to my wonderful, vivacious, growing-up-way-too-fast, fabulous niece, Jordan!

David Leong & Springfield Cashew Chicken VOA Story

 

The rough cut of the Cashew Chicken report Suli Yi of Voice of America made is up on You Tube.

To view, click here:  Springfield-Style Cashew Chicken

(Thank you Suli!)

For more info on the interview itself and recipes, click here:  Voice of America Embraces Cashew Chicken

Photo Diet Diary: Pasta with a Side of Pasta, Please

 

Had a little pasta today. And then a little more pasta...but the good news is I got a lot of veggies in! (Ya gotta take the good where you can find it with this whole diet thing, ya know.)

For breakfast, had a Fiber One Bar. They're pretty good, actually, and a Coke. Having a hard time giving up that sugar/caffeine a.m. rush. I need to find something to replace it with.

Lunch was this SIMPLE pasta salad. All I did was cook some corkscrews, raid the vegetable drawer, and then liberally apply one of my favorite dressings:  Orange Vinaigrette from The Amish Country Store in Branson.

I had a snack of a very expensive hothouse vine-ripened tomato that I feel like I paid a wheelbarrow full of gold for at this time of year. Can't wait for the tomatoes to come in!  The plants are tall and sitting in my sunroom floor for a few more days before I feel comfortable putting them outside.

Dinner was a simple Paula Deen-ish casserole of egg noodles, chicken breasts, cream of celery soup, and frozen peas/carrots.  There really isn't a recipe. It's one of those throw together things I made on the fly. 

For beverages, I did have 2 12 oz Cokes but also a half a pitcher of unsweetened iced herbal tea.

Absinthe: The Green Fairy

I went to a party Friday night where a friend brought a bottle of Absinthe. I've always wanted to try it, more from the romantic writers' & painters notion, than loving licorice flavor. I don't.  However, it was very good which says something since I'm not a  big licorice fan.

 

To serve, you pour a jigger and a half into a glass, place the spoon with a sugar cube over the glass and pour cold water over the top.  The color changes from darker clear green to milky white pale green and smells/tastes of, but not overpoweringly, of licorice.

Absinthe was particularly popular in the 1800's with writers and artists in France but was banned in Europe and the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century becuase it was thought to be highly addictive and psychoactive, which later proved to be myth. Personally, I think the absinthe "fans" should have been taken into account on that one.  Any food or beverage you feed to crazy people won't take the crazy away, it will just make the beverage take the blame.

Europe lifted the ban in 2005, followed by the U.S. in 2007.

For more info, check out Wikipedia.

Photo Diet Diary: Pretty Pineapple Parfait

 

Super easy to put together, you can go the easy route and buy Greek yogurt or you can be like me and go the hard route:  buy Activia yogurt and strain it to get the same thick, rich texture. It was a matter of convenience. I can buy Greek yogurt in Springfield now but I would have had to go to a different store to do it so the work of straining it won.  The photo left shows how: simply cover the bottom of a colander with a layer or two of paper towel, put the colander over an empty bowl, dump the yogurt in the lined colander, and throw the whole thing into the fridge overnight. Voila: thick yogurt.  

For the parfait, I simply layered the yogurt with fresh pineapple, walnuts, and a tbsp drizzle of Melissa's Raspberry Dessert Sauce.  A word of warning though. I was surprised after I bought the sauce and then read the ingredients. From Melissa's, a brand name I trust for good wholesome foods in the produce department, I expected at least regular sugar, but nope, the first ingredient was high fructose corn syrup. Damn!  Oh well. I'll be using that sparingly for a very long time. The flavor is great but I expected real sugar and less of it from that brand name. My mistake.  I didn't see the ingredients of the other flavors but there was also chocolate, white chocolate, and caramel sauce.  I admit, though, the bottle and storage is very convenient.

I had gotten up late so I had the parfait as a combination breakfast/lunch, and then snacked on a couple of dates and a few walnuts before going to dinner with Auntie Miranda and Ann.  There I had this tuna, spinach, apple, & walnut salad...

 

...I'm lying.  Aunti ate this beautiful salad. I, being a creamsaucecrackwhore, ordered this:

Not quite at all good for me but it was very yummy. The only thing I have to say in my defense is that I only ate half and I didn't take the other half home. Sometimes wasting the leftovers by NOT taking them home is the best favor you can do yourself.

The rest of my day's imbibing was one 12 oz Coke, 3 glasses of water, and 3 tall glasses of iced tea with lemon.

Oh. And the one martini I had in the bar while waiting for Aunti and Ann to arrive where I learned something from a young prospective employee who came in to fill out a bartender application to the restaurant. This is sage advice:  DO NOT write "chick magnet" under the "special skills" section of the application.  The potential boss doesn't find it nearly as engaging and amusing as you do. (geesh, what a dumbass. :-))

Photo Diet Diary: The Chimichurri & Garlic Diet

 

Indulge me.  I've started a new diet. It's called the "Common Sense" Diet and it's of my own making.  Maybe I'll write my own book someday called "The Common Sense Diet:  Put Down the Bullshit Books and Use the Brain God Gave You by Glenna Anderson Muse."   (I like it.) 

I'm tired of reading books with complicated theories that promise that if only I will eat this and not that and take some special supplements and be a pain in the ass to every restaurant and friend's hospitality, THEN I'll be healthy, happy, and skinny. 

No, the uncomplicated truth is that if I eat good, real, fresh, unprocessed, unchemically saboutaged food then I'll be healhy(er).  Happy is up to me. No promises on skinny unless I put down the fork appropriately while getting off my ass at the same time, a complicated move here in Lazytown.  Sometimes I just need to remind myself that it's really NOT all that complicated. 

(Hmmm...I've said "ass" twice in two paragraphs. Perhaps I should have titled this the "ass" diet post.)

Here's a photo tour of my food intake from yesterday:  Gorgeous 4 oz filets with home-made  Chimichurri from parsley on the back porch. Equally beautiful 10/12 prawns sauteed in browned butter. Ceasar Salad.  Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes.  Wow.  The all garlic meal! But it was fabulous.

  

Lunch:  1/2 Price's Pimento Cheese Sandwich on Sara Lee White Wheat Bread & Musselman's No Sugar Added Applesauce

Snack:  Fiber One Oats & Caramel Bar (Really good. Too much sugar but a good alternative for other crap I could have eaten!)

Breakfast for Two:  Ham, Tomato, Potato, Green Pepper, & Onion Frittata.  This version with 4 eggs, 1/2 cup skim milk, a whole tomato, etc, and split by Gene and I, is 6 Weight Watchers points. 

By the way, I'm not much of a "meetings" person so I use weight watchers online to keep track of my food diary but I've only been to one meeting.  Ten years ago.  Never went back. I was too afraid from the gleams in the eyes and hands clasped to breasts that someone was going to speak in tongues and it just scared me a little.

That was my day with the exception of one 12 oz Coke, 2 glasses of water, and 4 glasses of iced herbal tea. 6 glasses of non-caffeinated beverages, five veggies, and having to pick fresh green stuff out of my teeth after dinner is a pretty good day in my book...

Doctor's Kitchen Monday: Glenna's All Day Spaghetti 3-Meat Sauce (Low & Slow w/Lots of Veggies)

 

In keeping with the goals I've mentioned before of dieting and reining things back in my life, I've been thinking I'm going to start posting more of my daily menus, of course hoping it will inspire me more and more to keep fighting the good fight when it comes to food. As in REAL food, not processed crap.  Sure, there will be days when I eat out or drive through a "thru" or screw up (translation: soda!)  but all in all I'm feeling pretty rejuvinated. It's amazing to me how many of our choices in life, bad choices in life, are made because we feel bad.  Do you know what I mean? I'm finally, after months of respiratory infections and fighting my asthma, starting to feel like myself again.  The odd thing to me is how much feeling better has perked me back up in terms of not only my attitude but in my food choices and what I'm physically able to do.  I'm not "living" on sugar and caffeine anymore.  Isn't it the ultimate irony that when the body feels crummy we tend to take the easiest way out and feed it crap from a box or a window when that's the most important time we should be concentrating on healthy, vibrant, nutritious foods?  Crazy but human. It's just too easy these days to grab bad food when we feel bad and save cooking for when we feel better.  Sad, but true.

But hey, I'm back, and today I made my new favorite all day spaghetti sauce that's actually packed with, yes three meats, but also tons of fresh veggies and isn't overloaded with fat.  This sauce is not your average hamburger and tomato sauce sauce. It has three meats:  sirloin (chunks and ground), pork chops, and Italian sausage.  It's finished out with five vegetables and a host of seasonings. Normally, I'm not a huge meat eater, not because I don't like the taste but because I don't like the texture. This one is different.  From being simmered so long, the meat has the softer texture of a really good slow-cooked chili or vegetable beef soup.  With about a 40 minute prep, if you can handle two pots at once, it's a great recipe to throw into the crockpot to finish simmering while you work during the day, or sleep to us nightshifters.

This is my entry for this week's Presto Pasta Nights, created by the very cool Ruth of Once Upon a Feast, and hosted this week by Patsy of Family, Friends, and Food.  Check out both blogs on Friday to see the round-up of great pasta dishes across the blogs this week.