New... Trish... Un? Newtrishun?

Apr 262010

I grew up in a home that didn’t really emphasize nutrition. Aside from telling me to eat a vegetable with my dinner every  night (usually consisting of canned corn or canned green beans), my parents were really hands off. Eating brownies for breakfast wasn’t unheard of. My childhood was every little kids dream. Ration halloween candy? Uhh.. try… Kids, go ahead and eat it for dinner.

So imagine the day that I learned about calories in my high school health class. And imagine my mother’s reaction when I came home and tried to talk about it with her. “HEAD HEAD, THAT’S STUPID. JUST DONT EAT TOO MUCH AND YOU DON’T GET FAT!” End discussion. Never to be brought up again. And from that day on, I thought of health class as a waste of my time.

Flash forward to today – I still know nothing about nutrition. Dietary Fiber? Magnesium? Gamma-linolenic Acid? If someone were to present me with some magical food with all of those things, I’d throw it on the floor and accuse them of poisoning me. Then I would run next door and order a cheeseburger and some fries. Extra oil please.

My ignorance regarding all things healthy really puts Dan in an unfortunate position. He wants to lose weight, but my diet won’t let him. I eat anything and everything — I have no regard for things that are healthy or good for you. “How about fried chicken tonight, pizza tomorrow, and maybe on Friday we’ll just eat an entire cake.” If he decides he doesn’t want to eat with me, I get all whiney because food doesn’t taste as good if I’m eating it alone. Isn’t eating regarded as a social activity on most occassions? And then I bat my eyelashes and he does my bidding (BWAH HA HA HA).

So a few days ago, Dan pleaded with me. He wants to be healthy and lose weight. He suggested buying his own groceries, but I had a better idea. How about we just stop eating out and learn to cook for ourselves every day. That in itself will save him tons of calories PLUS we won’t be wasting a miraculous amount of food by throwing away who-knows-how-many leftovers that we, as individuals, will not finish. After we get in the groove of cooking for ourselves every day, we can reevaluate our diets from there and get a better handle on our shopping list. He agreed.

So we decided to check out the food co-op – a grocery store with a lot of emphasis on local, organic products. I had suggested that we buy only a few fruits, milk, and beef there, but he wanted to do all of our grocery shopping there because it was convenient. Well… half a cart full and $90 later… our fridge looks something like this:

 

 

And no, not ALL of those things were bought at the co-op. I’m not sure that they make an organic version of Smirnoff Ice.

I like the idea of shopping organic, but seems so expensive at first glance. Our bill could have easily been around $50 had we gone to a typical grocery store with typical items and with typical prices. BUT… while I’d love to whine and bitch about the $90… I’m not sure that we got the raw end of the deal. We will easily save $40 on a single night by eating in and not going to the Indian restaurant nearby that we frequent almost weekly. And having good, quality food really inspires me to eat at home. I’m actually excited about it!

I had heard that every piece of plastic ever produced still exists today. That statement in itself pushed me to want to recycle. Recycling pushes me to wish to be more “natural”. Natural = natural food. I think you’re starting to understand my thinking patterns now. That’s good. Next time, when I’m talking about the plant on my desk and then, all of a sudden, I’m somehow on the topic of that time my step dad ran over a snapping turtle with his van, got out and beat it to death with a stick, and then took it home for us to eat turtle stew you’ll understand how I got there. Buuut… yeah… probably not.

 

who fails at deviled eggs?

Dec 212009

I have a love/hate relationship with company potlucks.  The great part is that there is food to my heart’s content, a huge variety of different things is available to me all at once, and, of course, it’s free.  Usually there is at least one dish that blows all of the rest away, and I eat plates and plates of it because I am a bit of a glutton.  The difficult part (for me) is the pressure to prepare a food that other people will want to eat.  I am always nervous that I will bring the one food that nobody ate.  And then, on my way out the door that evening, I will have to pick up my full platter and carry it home.  On my way, everyone will see that I was the one that brought the “____” that nobody liked and my reputation will be stained until the day that I die.

To avoid that very situation, I kept it simple this year and stuck with deviled eggs.  Everyone likes those, right?  I picked up 2.5 dozen eggs and spent over an hour peeling them because I forgot to put some salt into the boiling water, and now my shoulders and back are killing me since I was hunched over for so long.  Then, after mixing all of the ingredients, I discovered that I poured in a little too much salt.  Needless to say, this year I won’t be bringing that really good plate of food… but I figure that enough people like deviled eggs so they will at least give them a shot. 

I had planned to buy a pastry bag and decorating tip so I would at least have looks going for me, but my local grocer did not have the pastry bags and I didn’t have time to wander around another store in search of them.  I used a plastic bag instead and cut off the tip, and while it still looks acceptable, it’s not pretty by anybody’s standards.

 

While I am confident that my deviled eggs will be disappointing to many, because I slaved away at peeling all of those for over an hour, I don’t really care that much.  My sweat and tears are in those eggs.  Best of all, I bought two disposable trays so that I don’t have to pick them up afterward and nobody can find out that it was me who destroyed them. 

To be honest, I do think I’m being a little dramatic about this whole thing.  I will probably eat a few myself tomorrow. I’m just so disappointed that all of that salt fell in and they’re not perfect.  Deviled eggs are not hard to make and ending up with a bad tasting batch of deviled eggs is almost impossible.  I feel like, because the eggs are a little too salty, I’ve failed.  I am kind of a perfectionist.  Plus… I tried really, really hard on them.

Anyway, as far as my recipe goes, when this is made correctly it is my favorite version of deviled eggs.  I like to keep it simple and keep relish and jalapenos and practically everything else out of there.  I love eggs and prefer to keep this recipe basic.  I pretty much always do a google search for the recipe that Pinch My Salt has posted.

6 eggs, hard cooked and peeled
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon yellow mustard
3/4 teaspoon white wine vinegar
pinch of salt (optional)
fresh ground black pepper (optional)
smoked paparika (optional)

If you visit her site, you can see that her deviled eggs look to be a lot more presentable than mine.  Maybe next time I’ll have something a little more worthy, but at least it looks better than the Gingerbread house that Dan and I (kind of) put together.

thanksgiving - the food

Nov 272009

Dan and I were extremely proud of the food that we managed to make!  For a very first Thanksgiving, it wasn’t too bad (if I may say so myself).  Here are pictures of our dinner for two:

 

The whole shebang: 

 

Green Bean Casserole (Dan wanted his with cheese):

 

Cornish Hen stuffed with stuffing:

 

All of the sides (stuffing, mashed potatoes, and corn):

 

 

My plate of food!  I definitely didn’t finish it, but we each got our own cornish hen anyway:

 

The pumpkin pie I made!!

 

We had tons of leftovers and will certainly be eating some tonight.  Overall, we’re very proud of ourselves for not setting the whole place on fire or filling it with smoke.  And we’re also glad that nothing got screwed up and everything was edible – we weren’t sure if we were going to end up looking for a Denny’s!

I’d also like to bring up that, with the pumpkin  I made pumpkin puree with last month, I was able to make 6 loaves of pumpkin bread and 1 pumpkin pie.  Not bad for a small pumpkin!

Maybe in the future I’ll throw up the recipe to some of these things (like the pumpkin pie that was made with real maple syrup), but today is not that day.  I’m too tired from my black friday shopping.  I will probably write a little about that tomorrow – lets just say that I’m not quite done yet since a lot of the sales are carrying over into tomorrow. :)

this guy just rocked my world - how to eat a chicken wing

Nov 072009

I have wasted so much meat over the years! I am glad I have finally seen the error in my ways.

pumpkin bread for the soul

Oct 302009
So let me just start this with “OH MY JEEZUS, THIS PUMPKIN BREAD TASTES AMAZING!” As I said, I bought a pumpkin at the farmers’ market so I could try to make some pumpkin bread.  I have never made pumpkin bread before, but I found what looked like a good recipe given the 2,971 great reviews and 5 stars that it had.  It was called Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread.  You can click the link to see the original recipe, but I made a few changes based on a few of the reviews, and I am going to share the final recipe that I used.

 Ingredients for Bread:

  • 1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree
  • 4 eggs
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1/4 cup oil
  • 1/4 cup applesauce
  • 2/3 cup water
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 2 cups white sugar
  • 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/4 tsp ground ginger

 Directions:

  1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour three 7 x 3 inch loaf pans
  2. In large bowl, mix pumpkin puree, eggs, butter, oil, applesauce, water, brown and white sugar until well blended.  In a seperate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger.  Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended.  Pour into prepared pans.
  3. Bake for about 50 minutes in preheated oven.  Loaves are done when toothpick inserted comes out clean.

I waited all day for Dan to get home with the cloves and ginger that I needed, but then I realized I had a pumpkin, not pumpkin puree.  

Pumpkin  

  Thanks to the power of the internet, I figured that out pretty quick.  There’s not too much to it.  All you do is cut the pumpkin in half, remove all of the seeds and stringy stuff, and then put each side in a pan with 1 cup of water.  Then you bake it at 350 degrees F for about 90 minutes or until the pumpkin is very melty (not really the term I want, but it’s easy to scoop out with a spoon).  Then you scrape out the insides, stick them in a blender or food processor and puree, and wala!! You have pumpkin puree. 

Pumpkin Halves 

Puree 

 After I made the pumpkin puree, I called in my assistant to help me follow the recipe and mix all of the ingredients together.  She did a great job… watching from the floor… but she was especially helpful during cleanup.

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So all of the ingredients were mixed per the instructions and the batter looked and smelled delicious!  I admit that I had a small taste of it before it was in the oven — I couldn’t help it.  I had to keep the bread in the oven for longer than 50 minutes, but not too much longer and it gave me time to warm up my glaze.

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I made a glaze to put on top of the pumpkin bread.  It consisted of butter, cinnamon, and lots and lots of sugar.  I had a bit of the bread when it was done, and it is 100x better with a glaze than without.  My glaze was pretty crappy since I don’t really know how to make it and I didn’t take the time to look it up, but even though it was chunky, it still did the job.  Next time I’ll probably put a little more effort into it.

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The recipe made three loaves, and a lot of the reviews said that they froze very well.  I plan on sending Dan to U of M with one of the loaves, freezing one of them, and then we will continue picking at the one that we have already eaten over half of.  I’m assuming it will be gone by tomorrow afternoon.

Anyway, in conclusion, this is the best pumpkin bread I have ever had in my life.  It has to be.  I mean, I just stayed up until 2:15am ranting and raving about it.

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the saint paul farmers' market

Oct 252009
Dan and I are fortunate enough to live next door to one of the many Farmers’ Markets in the twin cities area.  We usually sleep in on weekends and don’t get up in time to get to the market, but today we made it over there at about 11:30am.  As we walked the aisles, we were inspired to make a beef stew.  Lucky us - this was probably going to be the last weekend for a lot of the vegetable vendors. 
 
We found carrots, onions, potatoes, and celery for our stew.  We also got a small pumpkin so we could make pumpkin bread and some wheat bread for us to use for sandwiches.  As with all of the Farmers’ Markets I’ve been to, there were at least 10 vendors with the same types of vegetables, and there were also 3 or 4 stands selling meat.  I got to talking to one vendor, and he alluded to a cheese stand being somewhere, but we never found it. 
 
Overall, the Farmers’ Market was pretty nice.  There wasn’t really anything unique or hard to find (except some cute decorations made in tiny pumpkins), but maybe all of the special stuff stays indoors when it’s 45 degrees out. 
 
Photo courtesy Saint Paul Farmers Market

Photo courtesy Saint Paul Farmers' Market

The stew we made turned out to be fantastic.  We’ve never done it before, but I am definitely glad that I kept the crockpot despite Dan’s whining about how unnecessary it is.  He’s right, we could get by without it, but it makes such delicious foods!  Aside from the vegetables and meat, I added water, beef stew seasoning, and beef broth. 

Our beef stew

Our beef stew

I’m excited to try to make some pumpkin bread! I hope it ends up tasting as good as I’ve been dreaming about.