A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Oktoberfest All Week Long: Sweet Red Cabbage with Cardamom

This dish embodies the smell of Autum for me by combining the comforting fall scents of apples, honey, and cardamom.  The odor of this floating through the house mixed with the smoke from neighborhood fireplaces sneaking in through the one open window in the sunroom gives me a sense of all being right in the world.

Spaghetti Squash Casserole

 

A little something I took to work last week as a vegetarian (not vegan) recipe.  The protein comes from the dairy and I loaded it with a mix of mushrooms.  Like any casserole, it was creamy, but this was also deeply mushroomy with a little crunch from the buttered bread crumbs on top. Of course it would normally be a side dish but it's exaclty the kind of thing that lays gently on my stomach for the middle of the night lunches and makes a wonderful entree on its own.

Colleen, I thought of you when I made this:  no rind to peel or not peel!

Good & Good For You: Cucumber Salad with Boiled Dressing

 

Had a lovely dinner with cousin Ann and Aunti Miranda the other night.  We originally were supposed to meet at a restaurant but without remembering that fact, I started a pot of Anasazi beans in the crockpot AND THEN Gene said "Weren't you going out to dinner tonight?" Crap!  You know how it is. Memory's the second thing to go with age and who knows what the first thing is.  So that prompted a quick couple of emails... "Uh...wanna free meal?"

I really enjoy spending time with them and it was fun to have a little girls' dinner and hang out in the sunroom without a noisy restaurant of folks all around us. And yes, btw, we did let Gene eat but he had business in Marshfield and didn't get back until after we'd finished.

Good & Good For You: Gluten free Zucchini Crust Pizza

 

This nice little recipe was sent to me yesterday by  my fellow Springfield blogger, Sally, of Aunt Sally's Blog.  Being a friendly bunch of bloggers, she got it from Gluten Free Homemaker. The original recipe along with the original remarks can be found HERE:  Zucchini Crust Pizza 

The zucchini crust intrigued me and since I had all the ingredients on hand...I made it last night.

The original recipe, as I have reprinted it, is wheat free, however, I don't keep rice flour in the house and since we're not celiac or allergic to wheat, I used regular flour.

It does and it doesn't taste like pizza but Gene and I both liked it.  I halved the recipe (since it's just Gene and I) and made mine in an 8"x 8" casserole dish (instead of the jelly roll pan the directions call for) so it was thicker than pizza.  To us, in the pan I put it in, it's more of a zucchini/pizza casserole but we enjoyed it.  What we didn't eat I'm taking to work tonight so this one will probably pop up in my summer menus next year.

Sweet and Savory Yellow Squash

 

Greg, a friend at work, told me to give this one a try:  sweet AND savory yellow squash.  It's quite simple.  Saute a diced large yellow squash in a couple tablespoons of butter seasoned with a 1/2 teaspoon of Cavender's All Purpose Greek Seasoning (or other all purpose seasong blend), and then add 2 heaping tablespoons of brown sugar and cook down until the butter/sugar mixture is thick and syrupy.

When he first told me I was a bit skeptical. I liked the brown sugar part but I wasn't sure about the savory spices. I was wrong. It's very good and a little on the different side. I expected for it to be all sweet, but the herbs give it another dimension that adds a little palate appreciation here in the later part of the season when we're all wondering about our zucchinis and yellow squashes:  "What ELSE can I make with it?  There still so much of it!"

Good AND Good for you: Creamy Cucumber Dip

 

So simple and yet so rewarding, this is a summer constant in my work lunchbox and snack around the house. Only three ingredients that pack an all-out taste power punch:  creamy for the tongue, crunch for the teeth, and salty herby for the psyche pleasure zone.

We eat this primarily as a dip on good fibrous tough stuff crackers or I love it as a sandwich on wheat or rye bread. Middle-of-the-night Afternoon Tea, anyone?

An added pleasure is anytime the cukes come from your own garden. Sigh.  The best part of summer is the garden!

A Weekend's Worth of LunchBox Ideas that Equal Good Eatin'

I don't know about you, but one of my biggest problem areas for eating healthily is WORK.  It's just to easy to let the stress and middle-of-the-night caffeine jonesing take over and suddenly I've racked up 500 calories of nothing good.  Not to mention that the hospital crapeteria sucks.  Maybe during the day it's great but all nights gets is the leftovers warmed up, half a salad bar, and sandwiches.

I've recommitted myself to taking lunch and making sure I have plenty of healthy snacks available. Another of my weaknesses is my tummy. I have a really touchy stomach, especially after going eight or nine hours without food between leaving the house for work and lunch time at 2am.  Around 11pm or midnight is when the siren song of the vending machines usually stomp all my good intentions to the ground.

Below is the food from the last of the three nights worked and it is a winning combination.  I had the pasta with broccoli, vegetable juice, and fruit for lunch, but the other three I doled out to myself before and after lunch and , for once, avoided the middle of the night nausea and/or vomitting.  Yeah, I know. Vomitting isn't a pleasant subject on a food blog but it's a problem for me and I have more than a couple of times thrown up from acid stomach in the middle of the night and then gone back to whatever I was doing.  I'd like to stop that little game and this worked for me the other night so I'm going to continue with the good snacks.

 

Caprese Salad with Pickled Green Tomatoes

 

Auntie Miranda went with friends to The Keeter Center in Branson for dinner the night before last night.  The Keeter Center is the small hotel and dining room run by the Hospitality Dept of School of the Ozarks.  And run very well.  We have a respiratory conference down there that's dynamite as a conference and The Keeter Center as a venue is superb.

In the dining room, Auntie chose this Caprese salad with fresh red and pickled green tomatoes.  She said she took one bite, rolled her eyes in delight, and said to the waiter "Can I get one of these to go?"  I went to bed early that night but it was waiting for me in the fridge when i got up the next day. 

Wow. I don't know how much better it could have been fresh because it was still incredibly fresh, crispy, and wonderful the next day.  This is definitely a do at home thing too. I know you can buy green tomato pickles, or even better would be to can them from the garden.  I'm thinking even fresh green tomatoes mixed with red tomatoes and fresh mozzarella would be wonderful fresh out of the garden....maybe drizzle a little honey across the top with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar to add that sweetness from the pickling syrup.

Thanks Aunti Miranda! What a lovely and healthy lunch. We'll definitely be working on a home recipe for this one!

Breakfast Starts the Day off Right. Right? Right! Cornbread Frittata

 

One of the things I've been changing about the way I eat since I've been following the Mediterranean Diet path is the way I approach breakfast.  Like a lot of people I either tend to skip breakfast or eat all the wrong things.  For example, I work the night shift so when I get off shift in the morning I'm starving and ready to eat pretty much anything and everything. Technically, for nightshifters, the a.m. is our dinner time.  We eat breakfast when we get up around 4pm, lunch at 1am, and dinner for breakfast, but I've really been trying to get back into a more traditionally routine eating pattern even when I work, especially since working 12 hour shifts, we don't work a five day work week.

What I've found through experimentation is that when I choose wholesome whole grained foods for breakfast that also contain a serving of fruit and/or veggies I have a much better day over all whether I'm up or sleeping for the day.  We all know basic nutrition.  Whole grains and fresh produce last longer in our systems because they're nutritionally dense and take longer to break down, creating a more even supply of glucose instead of the normal sugar/caffeine high and low of Krispie Kremes, Cocoa Puffs, and Caramel Mocha Coffee.  Weight Watchers call these nutritionally dense foods simply "filling" foods.  I'm experimenting with a lot of different things but I'm finding, so far, that egg dishes with fresh veggies and cereals like Irish oatmeal or Grapenuts with a side of fruit hit the spot and last all morning.

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...