Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Low carb. No wheat! Spinach/Pesto Frittata

Two eggs, tons of fresh spinach,  a little feta and pesto. Yum! Good for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
I'm reading a book that's pushing me beyond low-carb nutrition toward life without wheat. (I know that some friends who have endured my ravings about carbs will now be girding their loins against coming assaults on wheat. Don't worry. I'm low on the learning curve, but it IS looking like wheat-free reinforces all the low carb premises—and promises. And then some.*)


The book is Wheat Belly by cardiologist William Davis, MD and published by Rodale. It was a NY Times bestseller in 2011, but it escaped my attention. Now, however, it has me seriously thinking. There's a lot of obnoxious hype on some sites trying to sell this book. It is, after all, promising weight loss. I'm a lot more interested in the longterm health implications*, although, of course, I could stand to lose a few pounds. 


The way of eating proposed by Dr. Davis differs from the low-carb life I adopted almost 10 years ago in that it is WAY more low-carb. In my "maintenance" state, I've fudged on grains by eating low-carb tortillas made from oat fiber, wheat, soy, almond meal and sesame flour.  Only 4 net carbs and 7 grams of fiber. Virtuous! They've been a mainstay. I have also become accustomed to toasted organic sprouted grain bread, net 13 carbs, a few times a week. Although I adopted numerous other breakfasts, I never quite got over toast slathered with peanut butter and cream cheese.  I'm going to have to get over it after reading this damn book. A dear friend, recently reconnected via Facebook, turned me on to "no wheat" and essentially no grains. She wrote:
Turns out the oats and oat bran I was eating every morning (1/2 cup) were the carb that was causing me to have huge blood sugar spikes resulting in debilitating episodes of hypoglycemia every day for the past 20 years. No oats=no spikes. I don't eat any grains anymore, either. After reading 'Wheat Belly' I will never eat wheat again. Coming from someone who was a pastry chef and avid baker of things wheat for 40 years, that's saying a mouthful.
A super-creative cook, Grace also mentioned some of the great creations she uses to replace the oats. I'm hoping she'll share recipes to pass along. How about that homemade sausage using garden herbs, Grace? And the egg cups lined with prosciutto  and filled with asparagus, cream and goat cheese? We're waiting.


In the meantime, the Wheat Belly book sparked an idea for something easy and delicious using frozen pesto cubes,* which happen to be in abundance in my freezer.  This recipe is for one person. Adjust for however many you're feeding.


If you're using pesto with cheese already in it, don't add it until the spinach is wilted and the eggs are nearly cooked. Directions for using prepared pesto are in red.


Spinach, Pesto and Feta Frittata

1 pesto cube* without cheese, thawed, or a tablespoon of prepared pesto 
2-3 eggs
2-3 generous handfuls of fresh spinach
feta cheese to taste
1 tbsp olive oil (if using pesto with cheese)


Over medium heat in a nonstick skillet, add the spinach and cover until wilted. If using a pesto cube,  mix with the wilted spinach.
If using pesto with cheese already in it, add olive oil to the spinach and mix.
Crack eggs over the spinach/pesto and break yolks. Season with salt and pepper. Stir gently  to cook the eggs. 
When eggs are nearly done, add prepared pesto, if using, and mix gently.
 Sprinkle feta over the egg, spinach, pesto mix and cover. Remove from heat until feta is warmed through. It never hurts to add a sprinkle of hot pepper flakes and a dash of smoked paprika. 


*Health benefits of wheat-free diet 

*Making pesto cubes at home

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Taking Stock. Making Soup.

Creamy soup made with last summer's canned  tomatoes,  a pesto "cube" etc.
Simple and delicious recipe below.
I had a reality check recently as my dwindling list of rainy-day activities led me to take stock of what remains from the 2011 harvest. In a word: plenty. We have a small chest freezer, and its bottom quarter has not seen daylight for months. Ditto the pantry, where home-canned and dried goods are stashed, along with a box of still-perfect onions (!) a few heads of deteriorating garlic, and bags and boxes of fragrant richly colored dried peppers. More than enough. Ridiculous excess!

In a world with so much hunger and need, this is embarrassing. Two people—it seems we could feed the world, or at least the neighborhood. We need to share more and also get a grip on garden quantity, unless we decide to supply our larger community. In the meantime, we are loaded with everything tomato and enough beets to supply an army of borscht-starved Ukrainians. Thus I developed a menu plan to plumb the depths of our stores during the coming weeks (days?) when the Adventuring Son will be home for a visit. I shall strive to replenish any caloric deficit that he may have developed during his four months in Africa and a couple weeks in Brazil.

I think he goes to sleep hungry sometimes, not that that would be unusual for the native people in the far-away and exotic and sometimes dangerous places he finds himself. (Do you know anybody who has illegally camped, unprotected, on a river beach in a tiger reserve in India alongside huge paw prints? I do.)
Chris and his exploring/adventuring/risk-taking pals sometimes go for days with only what they can carry in their kayaks, and villages along the waterways don't always have food to share or sell. I know he's gotten by on candy bars and skinny dried fish, full of bones. So big mama here enjoys cooking up a storm when he occasionally alights on home turf.

Coming soon, all including remains of the 2011 harvest:
  • Jambalaya
  • Chili
  • Lasagne
  • Eggplant Parmesan
  • Rama Shower - Thai curry dish, which uses a huge amount of spinach plus the peanut sauce in the freezer
  • Borscht (beets, beets, beets!)

Then: young beets happy in the sun and soil.
Now: frozen beets wondering what the hell?
And there I go again, anthropomorphizing food!
I'm sure I'll revisit the simple tomato soup I made in a big hurry after I discovered how many canned tomatoes we have! I'd call it tomato bisque, but I've learned that "bisque" applies primarily to fish-based creamy soups. (Dang it, Wikipedia!) So instead, let's call this—ta da!


Creamy Tomato Delight Soup
1 quart canned whole tomatoes, preferably home-grown
1 medium onion, cut into quarters
1 large celery stalk, cut into 2-inch lengths
4 ounces cream cheese or sour cream (or more)
1 heaping Tbsp pesto (one pesto cube)*
salt and pepper to taste
ground pepper flakes to taste
Top with grated Parmesan cheese or dollop of sour cream, if desired.

Liquify the canned tomatoes in food processor and dump into a sauce pan. Add cut-up onion and celery. Cover, bring to a boil, then simmer for 30-45 minutes til onion and celery are soft. With a slotted spoon, remove onion and celery. Reduce the soup if it seems too watery. Add the basil cube, or pesto. Add the cream cheese. (May substitute sour cream). Mix with an immersion blender til smooth. Do not boil after cream cheese or pesto is added, if the pesto includes cheese.
Season. Serve with grated cheese and pepper flakes.

*About pesto cubes below.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

The low-carb breakfast? No Problem!

Berries, cream, instant flax/almond cereal, and Stevia—breakfast with a low-carb count.
Forget the corn flakes, the Wheaties, the typical oatmeal-based granola and the toast and jam. Avoid the pancake-pushing restaurants and the carb-clown muffins. Instead, bring on the eggs, the sausage, the bacon, the cheese—the real goods. You're not counting calories now, but carbs, so just get over it about the fat, ok? But when you tire of eggs and breakfast meats, consider these tasty and easy alternatives. Most require advance prep, but are so good! They also work for vegetarians. They include:
  • Instant dry flax/almond cereal to reconstitute with boiling water
  • Low-carb granola heavy on nuts and seeds—and great taste
  • Low-carb tortillas with melted cheese and/or eggs etc. etc.
  • Sprouted-grain bread with nut butter and/or cream cheese (maintenance program)


Half and half is good, but you could also use plain yogurt in the
flax/almond cereal with berries..

Flax/Almond Hot Cereal

From Dana Carpender's 500 Low-Carb Recipes 
Did you used to love cooked oatmeal and cinnamon? Try this. It actually tastes better, and contains lots of protein and healthy fat. 


Ingredients
1 cup ground flaxseeds (pre-ground or grind your own)
1 cup ground almonds (I use my Cuisinart. Any food processor will do. It's noisy but effective.)
1/2 cup oat bran
1 1/2 cups wheat bran
1/2 cup vanilla flavored whey protein powder
2 tsp cinnamon


I grind flaxseeds in a dedicated coffee grinder, but they can be purchased pre-ground. I process whole raw almonds in my Cuisinart and stop short of pulverizing to mealy. This mix should be refrigerated due to the ground flaxseeds and almonds.
To prepare:  Boil a cup of water, add as needed to 1/3 to 3/4 cup dry cereal mix. Leave room to add some cream and berries sweetened with Stevia or Splenda. (I'm moving toward Stevia as sweetener of choice, although it doesn't work for baking.) 
Sorry this is blurry. My hands tremble when I'm near
this stuff—flax granola!

Flax granola

Adapted from Dana Carpender’s Every Calorie Counts cookbook.

This granola is high in fiber, protein, and healthy fat, but low in carbs. It is great with fruit and yogurt, sprinkled atop cottage cheese, or eaten alone as a healthy snack. It has a lot of ingredients and takes a couple hours to make, (mostly baking time) but a little bit goes a long way. Not at all like oatmeal-based carb-heavy granolas.


Ingredients
2 cups flax seed meal (I buy seeds in bulk and grind them in a dedicated coffee grinder, store in the refrigerator.)
’1/2 cup oat bran
3/4 cup vanilla whey protein powder
1/2 c Splenda
1/2 cup sesame seeds
3/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 tsp, cinnamon
pinch of salt
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted (it’s expensive! Use unrefined. It tastes way better than refined.)
1/3 cup real maple syrup (or sugar-free pancake syrup for lower-cal, lower-carb.)
1/4 cup water
1 cup chopped pecans (or walnuts) 
3/4 cup sunflower seeds
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds, roasted (or not. Doesn’t seem to matter.)
1/2 cup sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 250
In large bowl combine flax meal, oat bran, protein powder, Splenda, sesame seeds, shredded coconut,  cinnamon, and salt. Mix well.

Melt the coconut oil and stir together with the syrup and water. Pour this mixture over the stuff in the mixing bowl and mix until it’s evenly dampened.

Spray a big roasting pan or jelly roll pan with cooking spray, or rub with coconut oil,  and turn the flax mixture into it. Press it gently into an even layer. Bake for an hour.

Pull it from oven  and after loosening with a spatula, break the mix into bite-sized clumps. Then stir the pecans, sunflower seeds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and sliced almonds into the clumps. Return the whole thing back to the oven  for another 40 – 60 minutes, stirring once or twice, It should be lightly browned. Remove from oven and cool. Break up larger clumps. Store in a tightly lidded container in a cool place.


Sprouted grain products include bread, tortillas, English muffins, and who knows what else! The theory goes that since the grains are sprouted, they will hit the bloodstream more slowly than refined grains. Also, these products are generally higher fiber, and fiber also slows the glucose effect. One slice of Alvarado St. Bakery sprouted multi-grain bread has 13 net g carbs (after counting 2 g of fiber). This is OK for maintenance, but take it easy if you're in weight-loss mode. The low-carb tortillas are a lot better if you are being super strict about carbs.


Several brands of low-carb tortillas are available. I like Tumaros Gourmet Tortillas, 5 g net carbs and 6 g fiber. Use them like any tortilla, and expect an adjustment period if you're keen on those white gummy flour tortillas that torpedo many a Mexican meal. 



Friday, March 9, 2012

Hitting the Slopes with Diehards

This is Steve, grand poohbah of our recent ski trip to the Grand Tetons and powder-snow maniac in chief. He's the one who says. "Visibility is way over-rated," and "You can just let your skis go and feel your way down the mountain." Which is what HE does. Me?  Not. I was the odd-person-out in my group because I believe in seeing with skiing,  and visibility was iffy most of the time. 
If you ask any of my five companions about our recent five-day ski vacation at the wonderful Grand Targhee ski resort in western Wyoming, each would enthuse, "It was great!!!!"
Ask me? I would say I had a good time but was disappointed. Why? The weather sucked. The visibility, except for day one, was, uh, compromised. Snow and wind blasted atop the peaks, and clouds slouched upon the crests. What is wrong with these people? PK and two other couples, people I love and admire, chose to ignore these facts.  
Here's what was right behind our resort lodging. The magnificent Teton Mountains.
I copied this photo from the Internet. We never saw this scene. 
Grand Targhee is incredible. I hope to go back, even though weather could wreck another trip for me.
But not for THEM! The weather-and-visibility deniers. Unfortunately, their rosy attitude
wasn't contagious enough to liberate me from vision dependance. 
The morning view from our slope-side lodging.
Sadly, this is what we saw much of the time. Well, sadly for ME.
The visibility situation didn't seem to matter in the least to my companions. Nor did the wind or the blowing snow. Steve, grand leader LIKED that snow was falling because that meant POWDER, light fluffy stuff you see in all those incredible ski photos. I didn't take any photos on the mountain as I didn't want to expose my camera to the elements. 

Wow. This looks great! Deep powder and blue sky! I could get into this big time. I copied this photo from the
Grand Targhee website.  I only skied powder up to my thighs, as I mostly stuck to "groomed" runs and lower elevations.  THEY had it flowing over their heads! And loved it, loved it. Even though they couldn't see it.

Here are the poor-visibility and bad-weather deniers. One of them exclaimed "Carpe Diem" several times a day.
 I am so with her! Seize the day, dammit. But for me and skiing, it's carpe diem the day you don't have to intuit your way down the mountain. I have lots of friends who would be with me on this. They just didn't happen to be there.

On the other hand, we drove almost 1,800 miles roundtrip. You can't gamble that you'll be able to see where you're going, or that the weather will be good. You're there and you just go. If powder snow is the objective, as it was, that is the best attitude. I know this was their thinking, and, I admire it. I just couldn't muster it.
I'm not saying I didn't have a good time. I did, even though I spent maybe only a total of eight hours in four days headed downhill on my new Dynastar skies, guaranteed to pump me up to the next level.

The first day was cloudy but not socked in, and I joined a guided tour-the-mountain trip and met a bunch of people with a Road Scholar group. Thanks to this, I saw and skied much of Grand Targhee.

The next day, which was blizzard-like, I took a lesson and ended up in a group of four frisky skiers with whom I'd toured the mountain the day before when visibility was decent and the snow was inches deep rather than thigh high. (My companions, meanwhile, were blasting through powder pockets in ungroomed terrain.) The frisky guys encouraged me to join them with the understanding that we were the "top dogs." I liked the top-dog idea, and foolishly fell into this ego trap. However, with limited visibility and my first experience skiing in deep powder, I floundered. I was right on their heels the day before, but was holding them back today, and I dropped out of the group.

That was good. For the next hour, I had to myself a 23-year-old instructor, Corey, who I followed like a baby ducky through the thick ridge-top fog. I could make out his yellow jacket 10 feet ahead as we slipped and turned  on a steep slope through the wonderful fluff. He taught me how to handle the deep powder—not really all that difficult, as it's virtually weightless. I fantasized about a clear day. I longed for it.

But conditions deteriorated. The next morning lifts were delayed opening because the chairs were encased with ice. Visibility was worse than ever. Winds howled. Snow swirled. I didn't even buy a lift ticket. As usual, the gang hit the slopes with good cheer. By unspoken agreement, comments on how ugly it was were not uttered, although I did hear a few remarks later in the day indicating conditions were less than ideal. I kept my mouth shut.

This has been a tough post to write. I was a wuss—and also the least skilled skier/boarder in our group. The experience provides insight into the angst of the slowest person on a bike ride, the dancer who can't feel the rhythm, or the runner who comes in last.  Is it wrong to want to see to ski? Am I really a loser? And then I think of how fortunate I am to have been there to do what I could do. My bruised little ego can just go to hell. Carpe diem. Next time. Maybe.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Bad Cat? Or Sad Cat?


Koko on his back porch throne. It's warmish and dry there, and he has a cat door to come and go as he pleases.  

But he much prefers to be inside lounging in
front of the wood fire or the gas stove or snuggling with PK or me. The problem? 
He's taken to marking his territory, which includes inside our house. 

Koko is not really our cat. We started caring for him part time a few years ago when his "other mother" goes away for a week or two, which she often does. Like me, she has an elderly mom to tend to. We'd noticed him skulking around, and thinking he was feral, put out a cardboard box lined with warm stuff and tucked it under the eaves hoping he'd shelter. He did. We quickly learned he was friendly and needy and we invited him in. Eventually we learned that he had another home.

He wasn't really other mother's cat either, but "belonged"to neighbors who apparently mistreated him. Other mother reports that he plastered himself against a wall behind a bush, ears back and eyes narrowed, whenever he saw the mean-neighbor's truck heading down the driveway. (To their credit, the mean neighbors had him neutered and presumably immunized.)

Other mother adopted him, but he fended for himself when she had to leave. Then he found us. We've had a back-and-forth relationship with him and other mother ever since.
Koko loves the hunt, and he is most often successful.
He prefers other mother. He sleeps in her bed and loves to lick her hair and face, which she apparently enjoys. She also gets up several times a night (no cat door) to let him in or out and indulge his predatory night behavior.
Koko's food dish is always supplied, but he prefers his natural rodent diet, plentiful most months of the year.
Of course, he also prefers to devour his prey in the safety of our porch, sullying the mat on a regular basis.
He usually leaves the gall bladder for our viewing pleasure. 
At our house, he sleeps in the closeed-off heated living room in cold months, and during warm weather, in the back porch. We're not into cat catering at night, although I do admit to preparing chicken to augment his diet of mice and Meow Mix. When other mother's times away coincide with ours, we pay somebody to look in on him and make sure he's fed.
When we're away, and he's here alone, the cat door is always open to give him access to food, water, and warmth. Trouble is, other critters also enjoy the chow. We know that a feral cat comes in to dine and probably to spray. Either way, the stress of nobody home and the other cat are likely what's been causing the trouble.
Koko is proud when he kills a rat, but he never eats them.
A few times, he killed rats that had slipped into the house, chalking up big brownie points. 
Koko is the only cat that comes into the house, where we have lately found cat spray on many vertical surfaces. We've also scoured cat piss from walls and cupboards on the back porch. Not fun.

As I write, Koko is curled up on my office armchair, sound asleep. He looked so pitiful peering through the glass door in the chilly porch. I caved. I've closed the cat door to keep feral cat out and will try making Koko feel safe and loved and see what happens. Hopefully, no spraying.
If you've had a cat-spraying problem and resolved it, please advise.