Dressing

One of the challenges I have with the Forks over Knives (FOK) diet is the no oil. I love salads and usually liberally pour over straight olive oil and balsamic vinegar before I tuck in. Yummy. So when I read that oil is considered a no-no on this I was a little taken aback. 

After reading further I understand. Oil, no matter what its form is highly processed and contains just the fat and nothing but the fat. High in calories, which it know because I enter things into the recipe analysis app for the recipes I do I see that to be true. Their research has shown that oil does not  help the reversal of the arteries as the plant based whole foods do.

However, I was happy to find this link:  https://sites.google.com/site/hgkprintablerecipes/big-list-of-no-oil-salad-dressings that has all kinds of dressings. Not all of them are FOK approved, but there are some really good ones. In addition I found an oil free mayo that uses tofu,lemon juice, and some others stuff that sounds good on the blog Cooking With Plants. All of these are well worth the trip.

Adventures in Cooking

So today I experimented in making my own sushi.  There are a ton of videos on the web on how to do it and all the materials are at the grocery store, it is just a matter of getting everything and trying it.

Technically, it is really easy, but as most things you see on YouTube, it is harder than it seems.  My biggest issue was the rolling and every one I did came out a little lopsided with the fillings pushing themselves toward the side rather than staying in the middle.  But I guess with anything, with practice it should get better.

My first attempt at a filling was avocado, roasted red pepper, and cucumber.  With the sushi rice and the wasabi sauce and ginger it tasted quite good.   I made the mistake of getting the sauce rather than the paste, but the taste is still there, albeit a little subdued.  The other thing I found is that the sticky rice is really sticky and sticks to the pot.  I do not have a rice cooker and I wasn't going to buy one just for this, so I did it on the stove top.  It really makes quite a mess and is hard to clean up.  I might try experimenting with this a little as I saw it can be steamed.  Anyway, it was tasty and I will definitely add this to my repertoire.

Hurt Finger PIzza

Several of you know that last week, while trying to make pizza from scratch, I cut my finger badly on the blade of my mandolin slicer. I decided that I wanted to make pizza again and this time I was unwilling to wait for it to rise.  Besides I have been trying to find fool proof recipe for flat bread pizza so I thought this would be a good opportunity to experiment.  I looked through various cookbooks to find a flat bread without yeast and found one that just had flour, salt, and water.  Since my finger is still in the bandage, not to mention sensitive to touching things, I was somewhat unable knead the dough.  What to do?  Ah, the Kitchen Aid mixer with the dough hook to the rescue!  The resulting dough was very sticky but it seemed to work out pretty well.

I cooked the toppings for the pizza because I didn't want too much moisture from the tomatoes on the crust.  Besides, I have read that cooking tomatoes reduced the natural acids in them and helps with digestion.  I also don't like raw-ish veggies on pizza.  I sliced up one plum tomato and one regular tomato because that's what I had, one yellow onion, diced one large clove of garlic, and segmented one slice of roasted red pepper and cooked them in a little oil until the onion was translucent and then spooned it out onto the crust. I added some fresh basil leaves and slices of fresh mozzarella to the top.  You can use anything you want for the toppings.  I usually use what I have left over in the fridge.

Anyway, here is the recipe for the crust:

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup water
olive oil

Preheat the oven to 420 degrees.

Put all the ingredients into the mixer and fit it with the dough hook.  Mix until the dough is coming away from the bowl.  You may need to add a little more flour.

Coat a pizza stone with olive oil and also two rubber scrapers.  Turn the dough out from the bowl onto the stone and spread it to a thin circle leaving at least 1/2 inch of a boarder on the stone.  You may need to put more oil on the scrapers as the dough is very sticky.

Bake for about 20 minutes until the flat bread is somewhat brown on the edges.  Remove the stone with the dough and add your pizza toppings and put back in until the cheese is melted and slightly browned.  Let cool after removing for about 5 minutes before cutting.

Injury

On Friday night I was making pizza for dinner and I could not find my sifter for the flour.  I rummaged around the cabinet and all of a sudden I found my mandolin slicer!  Or rather my finger found it.  Blood was everywhere! I wrapped it in a paper towel figuring it would stop bleeding soon but no, it bleed, and bleed, and bleed.  I finally got my husband to wrap a paper towel around it and secure it with electrical tape so that there was constant pressure on the wound in hope it would finally stop enough that I could survey the damage.

Undaunted, I went on to knead the pizza dough with my uninjured hand.  Not an easy feat.  By this time the yeast was so bloomed I thought it would be no good. The pizza turned out okay but the dough was a little tough.  With all this going on, it was getting later and later and I really didn't have time to have it rise.  But I discovered that regardless, the crust was quite flat  - a little thick, but flat never the less.  It was supposed to be a flat bread pizza after all!

Having an injured index finger on your dominant hand is annoying.  One soon learns how many things are a challenge with that finger out of commission.  Take typing for just one example  A lot of mistakes for sure. But it is teaching me to slow down a bit and be careful where I place my hands.  The human brain is a wonderful thing, even mine which I am sure is short a few dozen neurons, and after a while, typing gets better.  One learns to adapt.  That's the moral of this story that all things heal and we find ways to do things that need to be doing.  For me, I found a recipe for pizza dough with no yeast.  It's much quicker.  I also found a new place for my mandolin - out of the way of delicate fingers.

Tasty Eating

I made a Tempeh Reuben from a recipe I found in two places the other night and served it with a side salad and a glass of red wine.  One step, draining the sauerkraut, was suggested in the other recipe, and I found it really helped with this one.  As usual my husband and I dined in the kitchen with the candles lit.  It was a delightful meal and the sandwich was really delicious.  My husband took one bite and was very surprised that he was finding it tasting so good.

When I first started this type of eating lifestyle, my husband balked and just shook his head and said "well, just make it taste good".  I think I have met that challenge.  Vegetarian cooking is not bland, it does not taste bad, and it is not restrictive.  Rather it is opening up a whole new world of ingredients I have never used before and endless possibilities with which to explore.

Give it a try.  I did not use vegan cheese or mayo with this, but I had all the other ingredients and it took very little time to make.  The results were delicious.  You don't have to go hog wild either and go totally vegan first time out.  Replace one meal with a vegetarian entree once a week to start.  Before long you just may find you are feeling better about it.

Cooking Fresh

I made pizza from scratch last night for dinner.  I followed a recipe that I found on Allrecipes.com which I had made actually about two weeks ago and froze because I wasn't going to use it immediately. I had separated it into three balls of dough before freezing so I could easily use as needed.  Well that was the idea anyway.  I should have rolled them and made circles from them instead of putting them into a slight blob shapes and freezing, but it worked out okay after I defrosted one.

Why go to all that trouble you ask?  Well it really doesn't take that much work and it was so much better than store bought. I put some precooked some sliced tomatoes, red onion slices, and three sliced porta bella mushrooms in a pan with sliced garlic and a little oil before putting them on top.  Then I covered the vegetables with mozzarella cheese and baked as recommended.  It turned out pretty good.  I have a pizza stone that I got a while ago and I think that really makes a difference because the base of it comes out nice and crisp.

If you have the skills to cook, you really should cook as much from scratch as you can.  It is healthier, tastier, and you get to control what you want in the dish. Combine that with cooking fresh from the garden and you have a system that can't be beat. Maybe I am just a food snob, but I don't care.

Simply Delicious

For the past few months, I have decided that I am not going to eat meat.  I am not calling myself a vegetarian, as I still eat meat, but I have just chosen not to.  When I approached my husband about this, he being the meat and potatoes kind of guy was quite reluctant.  However he said as long as I made it taste good he was willing to eat that way. So as a result I have been doing a lot in trying to make this new eating plan work for both of us.

I went to Wegman’s to get some things the other day and ran across their Natural Selections section.  They have refrigerated section with all manner of soy products including a product called Smart Cutlets from Lightlife.  The cutlets are made to look like grilled chicken and they suggest sautéing it in a pan with some olive oil for about 2 minutes on high and then reducing the temperature, cooking it in the microwave, or grilling them.  I chose the skillet method but since my stove has only one setting, high, it was cooked on high for more than the two suggested minutes (whole new blog entry on that issue).  I basically browned them and then served them with some basic pesto.  They were absolutely delicious!  My husband raved about it all through dinner.  I served them with roasted asparagus with garlic and corn on the cob.  He was in heaven.

I usually don’t like a lot of processed foods, but this doesn’t have a whole lot of fake stuff in it.  It did resemble chicken and I think tasted more or less like chicken, but it was not as dry as a chicken cutlet can turn out to be. The product line for Lightlife has several flavors of these cutlets and you can go to the website to see them.  They also made vegetarian hot dogs and beef-like patties for BBQs along with a large amount of tempehs and texture proteins in a ground beef like product. If you are a long time vegetarian, I am sure you know all about these people.  Otherwise, give the cutlets a try and see if you like eating meatless for a meal or two.

Garden Gone Wild

 

This is my garden recently.  It has gone absolutely wild with all my lettuces bolting and the tomatoes getting big.  Lettuce is a cool weather crop so it naturally will bolt with the summer heat.  Although it hasn't been that hot, I guess it is hot enough to make it do that.  That's okay because some of it I am letting go to seed so that it will self sow for a fall harvest. the little flowers you see there are marigolds which are reportedly planted to keep away tomato hook worms and groundhogs.  I am not sure about the later but I haven't seen any worms so maybe they are working.  They look pretty anyway.

The tomatoes are fruiting and I can't wait until they do because I just love fresh tomatoes from the garden with mozzarella, basil and a little olive oil.  I just hope my basil doesn't bolt and lasts that long.  I am pinching it and drying what I have left over so I am hoping that the bolting will be suspended until after the tomatoes ripen.  It really is a game having to play to make sure you get what you need when you want it.  I am learning slowly how to play that game.

I love my garden.  I get a great sense of satisfaction to see things "growing on" and being able to go out there and pick greens to serve with dinner. I am anxious about the fall planting and making the cold frame so that I can work to harvest all winter long.  Because of that plan I have put the majority of lettuces in the center bed so that I can plop the cold frame over them and work from that.  Of course I have to work with my husand to get it built and that is always a challenge.  Almost as much of a challenge as the garden! 

Lemon Tree

Lemon tree very pretty

And the lemon flower is sweet

But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

I have had this song running through my head for several days now since I have received my lemon tree.  I ordered a Meyers Lemon from Fast Growing Tees a few weeks ago and it was at the door Friday when I got home from work.  It was very timely because I had time over the weekend to get the container and soil I wanted to put it in.  It is currently in my dining room awaiting the warmer weather so it can go out on the patio.  I am very excited because when it arrived it had several tiny lemons and many buds on it already.  I can’t wait to see them get ripe so I can use them.

The Meyer Lemon is actually native to China and thought to be a cross between a true lemon another fruit. The Meyer lemon is commonly grown in China in garden pots as an ornamental tree but became popular as a food item in America during the California Cuisine revolution. I have read some articles saying that Meyer lemons are actually sweeter than regular lemons on some of the blogs that I have read.  I am anxious to try it.  The Meyer variety is relatively hardy, can withstand colder temperatures, and is fast growing.  In addition it is very suitable for container growing which means I can bring it in during winter and have it on my patio during the summer.

For some reason I have always wanted a lemon tree.  Maybe it’s because of that crazy song, but I think more importantly now is that lemons are expensive at the store and if I grow my own then I can save a little money along with the money I will be saving overall with my vegetable garden.  I am looking forward to my first harvest from the new tree.

Comfort Food

The other day I was craving some comfort food, which always means pasta of some sort to me.  This time I didn’t have much time on my hands to cook something cheesy, hot and gooey, so I settled for some really simple chicken noodle soup but I made it with Rotini.  It’s fast and easy and something you can do for a quick lunch or when you are feeling a cold coming on.  After making this my husband said the house smelled like a restaurant.

Really Simple and Quick Chicken Soup

Serves 2

EVOO

½ white onion, chopped

1 medium carrot, peeled and sliced into coins

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 can cooked chicken. drained

8 oz prepared chicken broth

1 cup cooked pasta, any type

Salt and pepper to taste

If you do not have cooked pasta, now is the time to do it.  Prepare as directed on the box, drain and set aside.

Drizzle some olive oil into a Dutch oven or large pot and heat.  Add the onion, celery, and carrot, and cook until the carrots and celery are tender and the onions transparent.  Add the chicken and season to taste.  Heat through and add the chicken broth, about 2 oz of water, and the pasta and bring to a simmer for a minute or two. 

Serve and enjoy.

McCormick

The spice company, McCormick, has a relatively new line of combined spices that has caught my eye.  They are called Recipe Inspirations and come with pre-measured spices and a recipe card that shows you everything you need for a particular dish.  I have tried two of their packages; Asian Sesame Salmon and Chicken Marsala.  Both were easy to prepare and very tasty.  They have quite a few types, but the store I go to only carried a few. 

Since I generally have quite a few spices on hand, I primarily bought them for the recipe at first.  I really consider them waste because of the excess packaging that is involved, but these can be really useful if you are a new cook and not used to cooking with spices, have no more than the obligatory salt and pepper on hand, or want to try something new.  If you have a large spice collection then after the first go-round you can just use the recipe card and do the meal again.  Unfortunately they don’t have the recipes online but I can rationalize buying the package just for the recipe knowing that if it does not turn out the way I like, I can always not use the card again, or make small adjustments to the recipe as I see fit and I don't have a lot of excess stuff around. 

Overall I give this product a big thumbs up.  It helps new cooks experiment with different ways to prepare meals, it encourages the use of fresh ingredients, and it is quick and easy to use.

Summer Squash Torta

What do you do with those really big zucchini that you forget in the garden?   A friend of mine passed along this recipe which is really good.

5 eggs

½ cup chopped onion

1 glove of garlic, minced

1/3 cup chopped parsley

1tsp marjoram

½ tsp dried thyme

¾ grated parmesan cheese

½ cup oil

5 cups of grated zucchini or summer squash

Salt and pepper

1 cup Bisquick

Peel skin of zucchini, peel skin, if desired then remove tem and trim blossom end, slice lengthwise in quarters and discard any large seeds, the grate the rest.  Place squash in a colander and allow to drain for no less than an hour or overnight in the refrigerator to get as much of the moisture out of the squash as possible before adding to other ingredients.

In a large board, beat eggs.  Add the rest of ingredients, blend well and pour into a 9x13 buttered casserole.  Can be made ahead and refrigerated, but don’t add Bisquick until right before you are going to bake it.

Sprinkle the top with 1/2 grated parmesan cheese and paprika

Bake at 350 for approximately 50 minutes, or until golden brown and firm to the touch.

Serves 10-12.

Chicken and Spinach

Tried something new tonight and it came out pretty good.  I was watching Rachel Ray at the Dr's office and she was doing this thing with shallots cooked in olive oil, duck sauce, and soy sauce and then cooking that down and adding spinach and I thought about doing a similar thing.  

EVVO

4 chicken thighs

1/2 bottle of Marsala cooking wine

Half a bag of baby spinach - washed

Put about three rotations of EVVO in a skillet.  Season the chicken with salt and pepper and brown until crisp on a  high heat.  Turn the heat to medium and pour in the cooking wine and cover.  Cook until done and the wine is very reduced.  At the very last minute put the spinanch and just before it is totally wilted, serve.

I served with spaghetti with a little olive oil on it.

Chicken with Sweet Potatoes

I just threw this together and my husband raved. So I thought i would share 

1 tsp hot sesame oil
1 tbl EEVO
1 medium yellow onion chopped
3 boneless skinless chicken thighs cut into 1 inch chunks
1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into large chunks
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup red wine
1 sweet red pepper, sliced
Fresh ground black pepper (optional)

Put the oils in a skillet and heat on medium high heat. Throw the onions and garlic in and cook until soft. Add the chicken and the potatoes and cook until the meat is browned. Add the red wine, lower the heat a bit and cover until the potatoes are soft - about 5-10 minutes. Add the red pepper and take off the lid, turn up the heat and cook until the wine is reduced to almost nothing. Serve with a grinding of black pepper, if desired.

Some Sort of Chili

Made this up when we got home from bike riding one night. My husband loved it. 

approx 1 tsp EVOO 
1 large white onion, chopped 
2 carrots, peeled and shredded 
1 lb ground beef 
1 large tomato, chopped 
approx 2 tsp chilli powder 
approx 1 tsp cayenne pepper 
approx 1 tsp cumin 
1 can of black beans, rinsed 
shedded cheddar cheese, if desired 
Hot sauce, if desired 

Pour the EVOO in a skillet and heat. Add the onion and the carrot and cook until soft. Add the ground beef and cook until no longer pink. Add tomato and cook until soft. Season to taste. Rinse the beans and add. Serve with cheese and hot sauce if you like it hot. You can serve with rice if you wish or maybe hunks of a great bread or tortillas. I recommend Tapatio brand hot sauce.

A Quick Meal

I found the most wonderful product the other day at Wal-Mart’s. I found a package of “restaurant quality” fajita beef in the freezer section. You just have to add the fresh onions and peppers and after a while it’s all there. I have tried many times before seasoning the meat to get that taste, but have not been able to duplicate it. This is just so easy and simple, which makes it a great meal for those nights when I am rushed to get something on the table.

I really kind of hate using packaged things to make dinner, but I don’t always have the time to cook fresh, and the fajita beef is one of the few processed things that I will use. Generally my family eats fairly well, save my son who eats junk. But he basically still a kid. I try to make meals from scratch most every night and it can be a rush situation after work and bike riding. I hate to leave the dinner thing up to my husband who just goes out and buys hoagies or cheesesteaks. He is not much of a cook, content to make buttered noodles as a meal, so making sure I get home and get dinner cooked is paramount in my mind to making sure my family gets good quality food.

I really do love to cook – I love to eat too, as many who know me already have surmised. But I don’t always have the time to do it. I especially love the challenge of coming home and grabbing what I can out of the ‘fridge and pantry and making something up right there on the spot. A lot of those dishes have gotten rave reviews from my little family, but I am hard pressed to replicate it as I rarely measure or keep track of what’s in the creation.

Recently I have started creating a weekly menu and writing the main dish on a white board in the kitchen. It does help with the shopping and I hope it will end up saving money as so things won’t go to waste. But things come up and sometimes I don’t get to the meal I have intended to cook and then forget to put the meat in the freezer. Or maybe I do get it in the freezer but then it stays there and gets freezer burn and I have to throw it out anyway. At any rate the menu thing is working out pretty well and I would recommend it to anyone.

So give the frozen meat from Wal-Mart a try. It is called John Soules Food Beef Fajitas.  It is really quite quick and tasty. Make things easy on yourself once in a while.

Layered Tortilla Stack

The other night I made another throw together concoction that my husband raved about. He insisted I even take a picture of it and write the recipe up and post it on my FaceBook. I can't believe what a fuss me made about the dish, but he used his favorite phrases, "killer" and "gut bomb" when describing it licking his lips the whole time.
I had remembered a recipe some time back where you used tortillas in the place of lasagna noodles and there was some mixture close to taco seasoning for ground beef. While we are trying to stay away from beef as much as possible I started with a chopped yellow onion and then browned a pound of ground turkey. I went to the cupboard to find out what else I could throw in there and I found a jar of black beans, a can of chopped jalapenos, and a can of enchilada sauce. In the 'fridge I found some shredded cheese and tortillas and started cooking away.

I tried to spice the turkey with seasonings that were similar to tacos so of course chili powder and cumin were a must. I added those spices to taste.  To that I added garlic powder, ancho power, and cayenne pepper. I added a little cinnamon too as I have used that in chili recipe in the past. I dumped in the beans after rinsing them, enchilada sauce and the chopped jalapenos.  After cooking it and adjusting for the spices, I layered it with cheese between medium tortillas in a casserole dish. On went aluminium foil and popped it into a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes until the cheese melted. Since we were on the taco idea here, I chopped up some lettuce and put sour cream and salsa on the top when served.

It's always a relief when something turns out well.