Posts Tagged ‘cooking and baking’

Still going on about food . . . .

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

Is anyone else tired of hearing me talk about food yet?

So I went home last night and had a broccoli stir fry mix from a bag mixed up in my wok (Pam-ed instead of oiled) and with some of the left over spaghetti squash thrown in.  And it was really yummy.  And then I stood there and figured out how to peal a grapefruit like Erica taught me and boiled up half a dozen eggs so I could have one for breakfast and Justin could use the others for egg salad (I’m only supposed to have 2 per week) and chatted with Justin’s grandma while she got herself sorted out in the living room.

I’ve realized that now that I’m not supposed to eat carbs, I have no idea how to cook.  Can’t make up a pot of pasta or rice.  Can’t make a grilled cheese sandwich.  Can’t have pizza.  Can’t have corn dogs.  Can’t have pancakes.  Can’t have baked potatoes.  No oatmeal or cereal.  I’ve just described most of the contents of our pantry and freezer.

Do you know how hard it is to find recipes that are carb, sugar, soy, and dairy free?  Ridiculously hard. 

But really, this is about complaining.  It’s a cry for help. :)   Please!  Send me food ideas!  I need breakfast ideas that are prepare-ahead or fast or make-at-workable.  I need meal ideas!  I’m building a new repertoire here and I’m looking for ideas.

I spent time over my lunch hour digging through AllRecipes.com looking for ideas.  When I get home, I’m climbing up on the counter in our kitchen and pulling down the cookbooks to look up there for ideas.  Because I’m really starting from scratch and I’ve got a lot of learning to do.

Other news!

I tried making a loaf of bread last night using a new all wheat recipe and it didn’t work at all.  It didn’t cook all the way and ended up falling in on itself.  Just a little more mass and we could have had a black hole in our kitchen.  Unfortunate, but I still ate a little bit of it anyway.  And that, my friends, is the depth of my addiction.  *Sigh*  Also, I have been drinking so much water today to make up for that.

Justin went with his grandma to pick up his mom from the airport this morning.  As far as we know, she’s still not planning to stay at our house.  In fact, our impression, given her farewell as she and his grandma set out for Charleston for the afternoon, was that she doesn’t intend to see him the rest of the time she’s in town.  We’re just rolling with it.  Whatever happens, happens.

We bought me a nice new pair of headphones for me to use at work since I work in a noisy environment and it’s hard to concentrate on my work with all the noise.  They arrived yesterday and I’ve been wearing them all morning.  I’m not sure I’ve ever really listened to recorded music before!  These things sound amazing!  I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back to regular little headphones ever again.

I brushed and flossed my teeth after lunch today and now I’m afraid to eat the grapefruit I brought for snack.  My gums are sore and bleeding.  That’s not a good combination with citrus.  But it’s definitely helping me avoid the mindless snacking.  I figured when my mouth feels clean, and doesn’t taste like food, then I don’t think about food so much.  That’s the theory, anyway. I’m working on proving it.

And that’s enough of all that!  Please, send me food ideas!  I’m looking for fast, easy, delicious, soy-, dairy-, carb-, and sugar-free.  Can’t be that hard, right?!

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Adventures in Baking!

Monday, April 25th, 2011

I made spaghetti squash for the first time last night.  It was not at all like I expected, but just exactly as described.

For the sake of anyone who hasn’t tried this yet and might want to in the future, here’s what I did:

  1. I got a spaghetti squash from the grocery store.  They’re yellow and oval and about 12 inches long.
  2. I took it home, washed the outside of it, and then stick it with a skewer every couple of inches to, apparently, “stop it from bursting” (according to the online directions I found).
  3. I stuck it in the oven at 375* for an hour.  (This is the step that I might change next time – I think I should have cooked it for longer.)
  4. After that hour was up, I took it out and let it sit on the counter for 30 minutes to cool.  (Trust me, this wasn’t quite long enough.)
  5. After 30 minutes, I cut it in half lengthwise with a serrated knife.  I took a spoon and scooped out the seeds.
  6. And here’s the spot that always got me in the instructions:  I took a fork and gently loosened the fibers. 

I didn’t understand how this squash had “fibers” when all the other squash I’ve eaten was more of a pulp.  But nope!  As soon as you cut this thing open, you’ll see that it’ll separate into thick fibers that do look extraordinarily like spaghetti. You just scrape it away from the skin of the squash.

We ate half the squash last night.  Justin ate some, and he doesn’t eat squash, so that’s saying something right there.  And I went back for a big bowl of seconds because I was really hungry.  And we still have half a squash left.  You get a lot of spaghetti from one squash.

Now, it didn’t really turn out exactly like spaghetti because it was crunchy.  It’s hard to pretend you’re eating spaghetti when it’s crunchy.  But I think I probably should have left it in the oven for longer than an hour.  It’ll be interesting to see if the leftovers soften up when I reheat them.

But I can’t eat them tonight because the other half of the meal was meat and tomatoes and I can’t have tomatoes today.  So we’re going out and buying me a steak tonight.  I’m really looking forward to that steak.

I’ll have more to say about my day and my diet later, but this is long enough for right now.

And, Erica, the thicker the slices on the zucchini, the better.  I’d aim for about a quarter-inch thick.  Enjoy!

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Friends, thunderstorms, and food

Monday, March 28th, 2011

I’m writing this on my lunch break, trying to recapture the glow that I had over the weekend. I had an amazing three days, and in only the span of a morning, I’ve already fallen from the great heights of relaxation I had achieved down to this grumbling, mumbling, irritated stoop.

I didn’t work any overtime last week.  In fact, on both Tuesday and Thursday, I left at 3:30, taking vacation hours to fill in that lost time instead of working those hours to fill them in.  When I left on Thursday, I left for the weekend.  I left for a doctor appointment where she told me that my blood sugar, triglycerides, and good/bad cholesterol levels are all only points away from being perfectly healthy.  So apart from being about 100 pounds overweight, I’m the pinacle of health!

Friday, we had plans with a friend to come over for dinner, but she rescheduled to Saturday, so instead we went out to see a movie with a couple other friends.  The movie was awful, but the company was enjoyable.  We went to Outback afterward and sat around until they closed and kicked us out.

Saturday, after sleeping in for the second day in a row, we did yardwork and got the house tidied for company.  And then we grilled corn and hamburgers on the grill.  The food was delicious and the conversation was delightful and we all stayed up much later than we should have on a night before having to get up for church.  A racoon walked up to the patio door while we sat inside on the couch.  He sniffed around with his tiny nose before scampering back to the woods.

I didn’t sleep well that night, between allergies and the thunderstorm that woke me, shouting and shaking, as thunder and lightening and pounding rain rattled the house and my nerves.  But the next morning, everything was washed clear of pollen and the air smelled clean and fresh.  After Justin went to help with set-up, I sat on the rug inside the open front door eating my breakfast and drinking coffee.  He came back to get me for church, which was wonderful, and then we helped with clean-up before heading home again.  We decided to nap, making up for the restless night, sleeping longer than expected, waking when another thunderstorm rumbled through, with hail bouncing and water pouring over the roof like a waterfall.  And then we slept some more, snuggling back into sleep by the sound of rain on the roof.

Today is colder than expected and I’d rather be at home, extending my weekend, than reading drawings under florescent lights.  The seeds I planted Saturday have probably all washed away, and the grill, now filled with soggy ashes, is sulking on the back porch.  But my lunch break is over, so I’ll stop complaining.  Time to get back to work.

EDITED TO ADD:

Sometimes there’s noise that only Rachmaninov can silence.

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Wishing I was home

Monday, February 7th, 2011

It took until today, but I’m finally not sore anymore!  Yesterday, I was still feeling it in my legs some.  Saturday, it hurt to sit down, but everything else was easier.  But today?  All better!  Which means I can go home tonight and do something painful, I guess.

It’s going to be a busy week for me.  Work is trying to get a lot accomplished with a bunch of people out of the office this week, so it’s going to be interesting.  Plus, we’re going to be moving from one part of the building to another (amusingly, back near where I was before they moved us last time) and we’re not sure when that’s going to happen.  Any time before the end of the month, is the rumor.

Outside of work, I’ll probably be at the gym late on Wednesday (Raid Night for Justin), I’m hoping to have a friend over Thursday to watch a movie (Girl’s Night), Friday is Game Night with friends online, Saturday we’ll be helping Habitat for Humanity (ServeFest with the church) . . . and I just realized that I can’t have Girl’s Night on Thursday because I’ve got band practice (unless it’s canceled and it is so often) so I can sing on Sunday morning at church.  And then Sunday afternoon, I’m helping someone clean out her closet while Justin works on her mom’s computer and we’re getting paid in Puerto Rican dinner.

It should all be fun, though.  Just a little hectic.

Today is gloomy and rainy and I really didn’t want to get out of bed so early.  I wanted to stay home, wrapped up in blankets on a pile of pillows reading a book or watching TV.  Or baking.  Baking would be fun, too.  But instead I’m at work, reformatting documents for people who don’t understand Word heading formats very well and trying to decide if I can just cancel the 5S meeting for today because I haven’t had a chance to prepare for it.

Upside:  For lunch, I had shredded turkey (frozen after Thanksgiving) with cuscus (leftovers from Friday) and mixed veggies (also leftovers).  All mixed together in a bowl, it makes a very satisfying and colorful meal.

All said, though, I think I’d rather be at home.

P.S.  I forgot to write about Justin’s meeting with the Dean last week.  It turns out that the professor that Justin didn’t get along with is no longer with the school, so the dean was someone he actually liked!  And it went really well.  He had to send a letter to admissions stating his intention to return and his reasons for leaving.  Later this week, he’ll get back in touch with the dean (and/or his advisor, I can’t remember which) and they’ll go over the changes to his major since he was last in school and what matches up with what he’s already taken and what he’ll need to take in order to finish.  And after that, I guess, they’ll figure out how exactly he’s going to go about getting those classes in — the whole long-distance thing.  So it’s good news!  And  hopefully we’ll have more good news again soon.  Thanks for praying!  Please keep it up!

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Right! Write!

Monday, January 10th, 2011

Okay, so this whole work-ten-hours-for-four-days thing is going to take a little more getting used to than I expected.  The pace of my workday and my evenings and how it effects my weekends are all subtly different, and it managed to throw me off all week.

It wasn’t a bad week, though.  I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole three-day weekend thing.

  • Monday, when I wrote last, we went running and I was tired.
  • Tuesday, nothing much happened.
  • Wednesday, we went running again and had a pleasant evening. 
  • Thursday!  Thursday evening was band practice and I had the opportunity to sing with two ladies who are either hoping to join the band or just wanted the opportunity to sing along with practice, I’m not sure which.  One of them has a similar history to me, with a family who would go out singing in different places, complete with microphones and everything.  She was really good at finding harmonies to compliment the harmonies I was singing.  It was a lot of fun!
  • Friday kept confusing me because I didn’t get up to go to work.  I slept in.  I poked around the house.  I can’t even remember what I did with my day, other than go to the chiropractor’s office.  And we tried to play games with the guys online that evening, but the program that we use had a major hissy-fit, so we ended up just playing games on our own while sitting on Skype and chatting at each other.  And I made cookies.
  • Saturday was the best day of the week.  We got up and did a rush job at cleaning the house and making a pan of brownies.  And then, with a piping hot pan of brownies and a bowl of cookies, we went to a book club meeting to talk about Ender’s Game for an hour and a half.  At the end, we set up dinner plans with one of the guys from the book club (and his wife) for a couple weeks from now. 

After the book club meeting, we went back home to finish cleaning the house so it’d be ready for our friend who was coming for dinner and Munchkin.  She arrived and we made meatloaf, potatoes, and broccoli (and broccoflower) and sat around chatting for a while before playing an exciting game of Munchkin Impossible while waiting for the food to finish.  We had a delicious meal and sat around talking for a while longer before she had to head home.

We had a *great* time and I really enjoyed it.  I’m hoping to hang out with her some more.  I feel badly about part of the evening because I asked a question that brought up something that made her cry and I really didn’t mean to make her sad.  And she (along with the three other girls I’ve made friends with lately) is thinking of moving away from here, which is a bummer, but completely understandable.  Anyway, I hope to hang out with her again really soon.

  • And Sunday morning was church, and I was there early for band practice and there late to clean up and Justin was stuck at home because his car wouldn’t start, which stinks because it was a good service.  The afternoon was spent relaxing and getting little projects done, fixing seams in my pants and buttons that had come loose while watching Justin fight battles with the Zerg on his StarCraft II game. (“Science hurts!”  “Need some triage?”  “Base is under attack.”  “You gonna give me orders?”  “Mineral field depleated.”)

And now we’re back to Monday and this morning was rough.  I didn’t want to get up as early as I had to, and we need to do laundry, so I’m wearing a fairly lightweight skirt in a day that’s unexpectedly chilly and windy and rainy.  And I spilled coffee on my lap while driving to work, so I arrived at my desk cold, wet, and scalded.  Fortunately, I had a cloth napkin in the car to help soak up the coffee and the skirt is the color of cappuccino already so it doesn’t show.  But it made for an exceptionally grumpy morning.  Add onto that calling different medical offices to ask about paperwork that we’ve received and all the hassle that comes with that.  I’ve been ready to go home since about 8:00 this morning.

Five and a half more hours to go….

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