Tonight I tried another recipe, this one called for 2 cups of tuna, but noted that other fist would work fine, too. Tuna is just fine, but wild salmon contains less mercury, so when I saw cans of it, I grabbed a few! (I also always worry about getting, say, snowed in with no power. Cans of fish will keep for longer than the meat in the freezer...)
There are many differences between canned tuna and canned salmon, but tonight I discovered the only one I really cared about.
Canned salmon has BONES in it. Ew.
Ew. Ew. EW.
Not just a few virtually-nonexistent ribs, either. VERTEBRAE.
Now, I used to be a vegetarian because I didn't like the idea of eating things with spinal columns. Yes, I pulled them all out, but... ew.
It took me an hour after I took my finished fish patties out of the oven to actually eat them. And then I could only manage one. The rest will go into the freezer for some time when I'm less grossed out.
Ew.
I'm telling you - the greatest glory of civilization is that we don't have to eat the icky bits. Or at least, we don't have to *know* that we're eating the icky bits!!!
Monday, November 12, 2007
Breakfast Granola
I mentioned a few posts ago that breakfast first thing was MANDATORY. And that I'm not trusted around sharp knives or hot things in the morning. Now, if you've gone looking recently, you know that there's a real lack of sugar-free, corn-free cereals. Mostly, my options are oatmeal (not really enough "stick with"-ness") or mini-shredded wheats. So, I try to usually make my own granola. It involves an oven, but only in the evening!
Kat's Granola
2 c. old-fashioned oats
2 c. puffed rice
2 c. puffed millet, or any other handy puffed cereal (wheat, etc.)
2 T. of each"small stuff" - flax seeds, wheat germ, wheat bran, hemp protien, for example)
2 t. of cinnamon, and possibly maple syrup if I'm feeling decadent
~ 2 T. sugar-sweetness equivilant of stevia
~1/2 t. of nutmeg
a dash of ground clove
1/2 c. water
1/4 c. oil
Mix together. Spread on a cookie sheet so that it's no more than 1" deep, put in a 350F oven for 30 mins, stirring half way through. Let cool before storing - best if stored in the fridge.
I really do mix in whatever's handy, too - the end of a box of "Woven Wheats", matzo crumbs, cereal I tried but didn't like - it all goes in the mixing bowl!
Kat's Granola
2 c. old-fashioned oats
2 c. puffed rice
2 c. puffed millet, or any other handy puffed cereal (wheat, etc.)
2 T. of each"small stuff" - flax seeds, wheat germ, wheat bran, hemp protien, for example)
2 t. of cinnamon, and possibly maple syrup if I'm feeling decadent
~ 2 T. sugar-sweetness equivilant of stevia
~1/2 t. of nutmeg
a dash of ground clove
1/2 c. water
1/4 c. oil
Mix together. Spread on a cookie sheet so that it's no more than 1" deep, put in a 350F oven for 30 mins, stirring half way through. Let cool before storing - best if stored in the fridge.
I really do mix in whatever's handy, too - the end of a box of "Woven Wheats", matzo crumbs, cereal I tried but didn't like - it all goes in the mixing bowl!
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Treats - fluffy Ginger-maple banana muffins
Some cravings are harder than others to ignore. Sweets I've mostly stopped craving, partly because my palate has shifted a bit, and partially because I've got sugar-free Wether's for when they get bad (yes, sugar-free stuff generally has crap in it that's worse than sugar in many, many ways. But sometimes, it's that or a coke....). The cravings that really get me are pizza (?) and fluffy pastries. The Fluffy Pastry's modern incarnation owes much of it's texture to bleached white flour, white sugar, and soy shortenings - all forbidden foods. This weekend's food experiment was to create a Fluffy Baked Good with none of those things.
Fluffy (Ginger-Maple) Banana Muffins
2 bananas (my freezer is full of the damn things..)
1/4 c. canola oil
1/4 c. (that's 1/2 stick) of butter
3 eggs
1/2 c. water
1 c. of unbleached, unenriched whole wheat four
1/2 c. of unbleached, unenriched whole oat flour
1/2 c. of unbleached, unenriched white wheat flour (yes, it's cheating. A little.)
2 t. Trader Joe's stevia-lactose blend (sweetness ~ 2 T sugar)
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
(1 T. of minced ginger)
(1 T. of real maple syrup, also a small cheat)
Pre-heat your oven to 325F. Put muffin cup liners in 12 muffin cups (I like the "If You Care" brand. The muffins never stick to them!).
Thaw your bananas, if they're frozen. Peel and mash the bananas. Melt the butter - if your bananas are still very cold, heat both (and maybe the water and oil) in the microwave or in your pre-heating oven. Use a blender to mix these and the eggs all together - don't worry if some of the butter re-solidifies, as long as it's flecks all throughout and not one big clump. If you are adding the ginger and the maple syrup, do that now, too.
Add the dry ingredients. I recommend blending in no more than 1 cup of flour at a time, and saving the baking powder and baking soda for last (their chemical reaction causes some of the fluffy - but it's only temporary. You want that reaction to peak as close to when the oven starts to solidify the mix as possible!) .
Pour/scoop your mix into your waiting muffin tin. I have to admit that I filled the cups all the way, and almost had extra! You could probably even use this recipe to make a few more muffins, but you'd need more muffin tins because you don't want to wait for the first batch to come out before cooking the second - remember that chemical reaction!
Bake at 325F for about 30 mins, or until the tops are slightly brown + a toothpick comes out clean.
Fluffy (Ginger-Maple) Banana Muffins
2 bananas (my freezer is full of the damn things..)
1/4 c. canola oil
1/4 c. (that's 1/2 stick) of butter
3 eggs
1/2 c. water
1 c. of unbleached, unenriched whole wheat four
1/2 c. of unbleached, unenriched whole oat flour
1/2 c. of unbleached, unenriched white wheat flour (yes, it's cheating. A little.)
2 t. Trader Joe's stevia-lactose blend (sweetness ~ 2 T sugar)
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
(1 T. of minced ginger)
(1 T. of real maple syrup, also a small cheat)
Pre-heat your oven to 325F. Put muffin cup liners in 12 muffin cups (I like the "If You Care" brand. The muffins never stick to them!).
Thaw your bananas, if they're frozen. Peel and mash the bananas. Melt the butter - if your bananas are still very cold, heat both (and maybe the water and oil) in the microwave or in your pre-heating oven. Use a blender to mix these and the eggs all together - don't worry if some of the butter re-solidifies, as long as it's flecks all throughout and not one big clump. If you are adding the ginger and the maple syrup, do that now, too.
Add the dry ingredients. I recommend blending in no more than 1 cup of flour at a time, and saving the baking powder and baking soda for last (their chemical reaction causes some of the fluffy - but it's only temporary. You want that reaction to peak as close to when the oven starts to solidify the mix as possible!) .
Pour/scoop your mix into your waiting muffin tin. I have to admit that I filled the cups all the way, and almost had extra! You could probably even use this recipe to make a few more muffins, but you'd need more muffin tins because you don't want to wait for the first batch to come out before cooking the second - remember that chemical reaction!
Bake at 325F for about 30 mins, or until the tops are slightly brown + a toothpick comes out clean.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Old friends are new again - tuna fish
As a teen, I remember making a can of tuna into salad and just eating the entire thing. I wasn't at all into fish, but tuna was different...
In the intervening years, I've gotten to like (some) cooked fish. And raw fish. But with that my palate was less and less interested in tuna-from-a-can.
Friday, however, I got stuck out and a little desperate. I was leaving for the whole weekend, and all I had with me were wraps, rice cakes, matzo, hummus and butter. This wasn't going to work on my low-carb diet.
Not only that, but I was getting hungry already. And late. I still needed to drive for two hours, and by then my blood sugar would no doubt have dropped past any reasonable point for me to be driving!
In desperation, I searched Walmart's aisles for *anything* I could eat. All I could find were little single-serve shelf-stable tubs of (plain) tuna and salmon. I looked for the "kits" (you know, the ones with mayo, relish, crackers + a breath mint?) before I realized that I couldn't eat them.
At that point, I would've eaten the dog food if I wasn't allergic to it.
So I munched down the (plain) salmon on some Triskits (a bit of a cheat, probably, but the Trader Joe's and Nature's Promise ones are just wheat and salt!).. not easy in the car (and the cats did love me when I arrived!), but possible.
For lunch I had a hummus and tuna wrap. It wasn't half bad!
Tonight I had another tuna wrap, with a little lemon instead of the hummus. It did leave me grumbling about how even ATKINS let you have CHEESE, but it was pretty good.
I think I need to remember these!
(In other news, we located a chinese restaurant right near my husband's house that not only *said* they'd bring me steamed chicken + veggies with no sauce, but actually DID! I was thrilled. I ate it twice that weekend. )
(ETA: Canned tuna usually contains soy. Luckily, I'm not so allergic that I need to avoid these trace amounts. )
In the intervening years, I've gotten to like (some) cooked fish. And raw fish. But with that my palate was less and less interested in tuna-from-a-can.
Friday, however, I got stuck out and a little desperate. I was leaving for the whole weekend, and all I had with me were wraps, rice cakes, matzo, hummus and butter. This wasn't going to work on my low-carb diet.
Not only that, but I was getting hungry already. And late. I still needed to drive for two hours, and by then my blood sugar would no doubt have dropped past any reasonable point for me to be driving!
In desperation, I searched Walmart's aisles for *anything* I could eat. All I could find were little single-serve shelf-stable tubs of (plain) tuna and salmon. I looked for the "kits" (you know, the ones with mayo, relish, crackers + a breath mint?) before I realized that I couldn't eat them.
At that point, I would've eaten the dog food if I wasn't allergic to it.
So I munched down the (plain) salmon on some Triskits (a bit of a cheat, probably, but the Trader Joe's and Nature's Promise ones are just wheat and salt!).. not easy in the car (and the cats did love me when I arrived!), but possible.
For lunch I had a hummus and tuna wrap. It wasn't half bad!
Tonight I had another tuna wrap, with a little lemon instead of the hummus. It did leave me grumbling about how even ATKINS let you have CHEESE, but it was pretty good.
I think I need to remember these!
(In other news, we located a chinese restaurant right near my husband's house that not only *said* they'd bring me steamed chicken + veggies with no sauce, but actually DID! I was thrilled. I ate it twice that weekend. )
(ETA: Canned tuna usually contains soy. Luckily, I'm not so allergic that I need to avoid these trace amounts. )
Sunday, October 21, 2007
A different lesson in care and feeding of Kats...
The Morning is crucial.
I'm super stupid in the morning. So stupid that I recently ate almost an entire bowl of granola before realizing that it tasted like sour cream. That kind of stupid. Sometimes people suggest I make eggs for breakfast for the protein. These are never the people who've seen me first thing in the AM - people who've seen KNOW that I can't be trusted with hot things (or knives) early in the AM!.
I have to eat FIRST THING. Alright.. I can pee first. But that is IT. I get up, pour a bowl of non-sugared cereal (usually bite size shredded wheat or granola), and eat.
If there's adrenaline involved (if I say, wake up 15 mins before I'm supposed to be AT work..), I can get away with a bit more, but I'll still feel "off" all day.
I usually get up around 7 am. Today my housemate woke me up at 12:40, because she knew I needed to eat. I'd needed the sleep, and my body would have gladly slept another 2 hours (I'd already slept at least 10..), but I got up. And it was already too late. I had shredded wheat immediately, struggled to open a window, then HAD to make myself eggs because I could already feel the blood sugar plummeting. Two hours later, I was overdue for food again.
So, in addition to losing several hours to "over" sleeping, I lost about 3 to the general fatigue etc. of low blood sugar.
I suppose it's a bit of a blessing that I have to be out of the house by 10 tomorrow AM - It's already late enough that I suspect I'd gladly (if stupidly) sleep until noon again!
I'm super stupid in the morning. So stupid that I recently ate almost an entire bowl of granola before realizing that it tasted like sour cream. That kind of stupid. Sometimes people suggest I make eggs for breakfast for the protein. These are never the people who've seen me first thing in the AM - people who've seen KNOW that I can't be trusted with hot things (or knives) early in the AM!.
I have to eat FIRST THING. Alright.. I can pee first. But that is IT. I get up, pour a bowl of non-sugared cereal (usually bite size shredded wheat or granola), and eat.
If there's adrenaline involved (if I say, wake up 15 mins before I'm supposed to be AT work..), I can get away with a bit more, but I'll still feel "off" all day.
I usually get up around 7 am. Today my housemate woke me up at 12:40, because she knew I needed to eat. I'd needed the sleep, and my body would have gladly slept another 2 hours (I'd already slept at least 10..), but I got up. And it was already too late. I had shredded wheat immediately, struggled to open a window, then HAD to make myself eggs because I could already feel the blood sugar plummeting. Two hours later, I was overdue for food again.
So, in addition to losing several hours to "over" sleeping, I lost about 3 to the general fatigue etc. of low blood sugar.
I suppose it's a bit of a blessing that I have to be out of the house by 10 tomorrow AM - It's already late enough that I suspect I'd gladly (if stupidly) sleep until noon again!
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Adventures in Mexican
Wednesday is my "off" day during the week, so I try to do more than just microwave dinner. Tonight's attempt was Mexican, sans cheese, pepper (black and bell) and corn.
I really should have done more research first, but I think "tacos" was one of The Meals that my Dad deemed workable in high school. You fried some ground beef with The Seasonings, chopped up a tomato, opened some salsa, pulled out some cheese and lettuce and you were golden. Maybe some sour cream, if you'd remembered while at the store.
No Seasoning Packet. No cheese, no sour cream. No taco shells. (and no lettuce, but that was purely because I don't eat it fast enough to keep around)
Mexican not-tacos.
1.3# ground turkey
2 pods of onion& garlic in bacon fat (or some chopped onion and garlic and oil)
cumin
salt
1 tomato
Melt pods of onion + garlic in pan over med heat, add turkey. Add spices. Move turkey around in pan until brown. Add chopped tomato.
1 can Azuki beans (organic! Already cooked w/ the kombu in them!)
1 cup rice (from the freezer, I made rice on Saturday and froze to use whenever)
cumin
Put in pot together. Cook over low/med until warm.
Makes 4 servings
1 Food for Life brown rice tortilla per serving.
Each serving was about 490 calories, 37 grams of protein and about 50 g. carbs. The brown rice tortilla is about half that, and I actually would have been OK without it.. they taste a lot like corn (if you haven't had it in years) , but they crumble too much to actually use as wraps. I meant to try to make corn-free corn muffins from millet, which seems to have a similar consistency.
Other notes - 1.3# of ground turkey should either be thawed for more than 12 hours in the fridge OR cooked in a larger frying pan OR covered. Hard to split it apart and flip it in my standard cast-iron fryer.
Two onion/garlic pods were maybe not enough.
What else is in "Mexican Seasoning", anyway?
Cardamom... not really right.
Azuki may be a little sweet for this application
Overall... I think it came out pretty good, if a little bland (er, which translates to VERY bland for the rest of you..). I'll have to try it again sometime.
I really should have done more research first, but I think "tacos" was one of The Meals that my Dad deemed workable in high school. You fried some ground beef with The Seasonings, chopped up a tomato, opened some salsa, pulled out some cheese and lettuce and you were golden. Maybe some sour cream, if you'd remembered while at the store.
No Seasoning Packet. No cheese, no sour cream. No taco shells. (and no lettuce, but that was purely because I don't eat it fast enough to keep around)
Mexican not-tacos.
1.3# ground turkey
2 pods of onion& garlic in bacon fat (or some chopped onion and garlic and oil)
cumin
salt
1 tomato
Melt pods of onion + garlic in pan over med heat, add turkey. Add spices. Move turkey around in pan until brown. Add chopped tomato.
1 can Azuki beans (organic! Already cooked w/ the kombu in them!)
1 cup rice (from the freezer, I made rice on Saturday and froze to use whenever)
cumin
Put in pot together. Cook over low/med until warm.
Makes 4 servings
1 Food for Life brown rice tortilla per serving.
Each serving was about 490 calories, 37 grams of protein and about 50 g. carbs. The brown rice tortilla is about half that, and I actually would have been OK without it.. they taste a lot like corn (if you haven't had it in years) , but they crumble too much to actually use as wraps. I meant to try to make corn-free corn muffins from millet, which seems to have a similar consistency.
Other notes - 1.3# of ground turkey should either be thawed for more than 12 hours in the fridge OR cooked in a larger frying pan OR covered. Hard to split it apart and flip it in my standard cast-iron fryer.
Two onion/garlic pods were maybe not enough.
What else is in "Mexican Seasoning", anyway?
Cardamom... not really right.
Azuki may be a little sweet for this application
Overall... I think it came out pretty good, if a little bland (er, which translates to VERY bland for the rest of you..). I'll have to try it again sometime.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
The problem with corn.
The problem with corn is it's ubiquitousness. Between 2000 and 2006 it had re-insinuated itself into my diet so successfully that I was surprised when it showed up on a test. It was so hard to avoid that I just...stopped.
If you've ever tried to avoid corn, you have an inkling how hard it is. If you aren't allergic, it's damn near impossible...mostly because it's impossible to tell when you've failed. Corn goes beyond "high fructose corn syrup" and into things like "food starch" or "sugar" (and I bet you thought "sugar" meant it was from sugar cane, didn't you?)
Driving home from dance class tonight, I heard a bit on the radio about a movie called King Corn. Which is yet more about how ubiquitous corn is. Here's the scary part though:
CHENEY: Yeah, Steve Macko is a professor at the University of Virginia and he had been testing his students and coming up with some pretty startling results. And we sent him some of our baby hair and some of our adult hair and he noticed a difference, actually, between those two samples. He noticed that our adult hair was made out of carbon that seemed to be coming from corn. Corn—the way it photosynthesizes carbon—leaves a kind of a signature that he could trace with his maspectrometer.
Creepy, huh?
If you've ever tried to avoid corn, you have an inkling how hard it is. If you aren't allergic, it's damn near impossible...mostly because it's impossible to tell when you've failed. Corn goes beyond "high fructose corn syrup" and into things like "food starch" or "sugar" (and I bet you thought "sugar" meant it was from sugar cane, didn't you?)
Driving home from dance class tonight, I heard a bit on the radio about a movie called King Corn. Which is yet more about how ubiquitous corn is. Here's the scary part though:
CHENEY: Yeah, Steve Macko is a professor at the University of Virginia and he had been testing his students and coming up with some pretty startling results. And we sent him some of our baby hair and some of our adult hair and he noticed a difference, actually, between those two samples. He noticed that our adult hair was made out of carbon that seemed to be coming from corn. Corn—the way it photosynthesizes carbon—leaves a kind of a signature that he could trace with his maspectrometer.
Creepy, huh?
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