Happy Birthday Ken

I haven't written lately because I've really been having problems with my LPR. The treatment doesn't seem to be working, and to be honest, I've been very blue. I miss cooking and exploring new foods. The food in the LPR cookbook I got just sort of disgusted me. I don't even take pleasure in the irony of a bland-food cookbook.

Today, my voice was really bad even though I have been VERY good and sticking to the diet. Today is my friend Ken's birthday, and it's been a tradition with us to go out for supper on his birthday. After cajoling him several weeks ago, he finally relented and agreed to go to La Chiesa with me. I figured what the hell, my voice is already screwed up. What would it matter if I enjoyed some good food for once.

And it was sooooo good. Ken had "Forever Roasted Pork." Apparently Jeremy roasted it for like 12 hours. It was served with pumpkin polenta and pear compote. I would have ordered that myself, but I've tried to make polenta for myself in the past, and frankly, it sucked. Well, I sampled Ken's pumpkin polenta, and it was divine!! I'm going to have to wheedle Jeremy and see if he can share some of his secrets for good polenta. I didn't sample the pork, but Ken said it was really good. And I did sample the pear compote and it was a really lovely addition.

I had the rigatoni with sautéed shrimp, Yukon potatoes, spinach, and spicy chili oil. I'm a sucker for seafood. And it had just the right flavor and warm spiciness to fill that void that's been there so long.

We wrapped it up by sharing a pumpkin Brulee. Tomorrow, I might be entirely mute, but it was so worth it. I left the restaurant feeling content and satisfied. It wasn't just the delicious food. I also fed my soul again for the first time in a long time.

We also had excellent service at La Chiesa as well. But then, I'm a bit partial. Our waitress just happened to be one of my former students, Ryanne. She steered us through the menu beautifully and it was fun catching up with her.

By the way, Ken is converted. He's already talking about going again soon. Probably for my birthday which is next month.

On Tuesday I'm seeing my otologist and I am going to see if it's possible to have the surgery that'll fix my condition. I can live with eating my meals through a straw for even a couple of a weeks, as long as I know, eventually, I can be who I am, someone who enjoys eating and cooking good interesting foods. I was apprehensive about signing up for Jeremy's Holiday cooking class on the November 20th because of my LPR...it felt futile. But when Ryanne told me that there were only 3 spots left, I jumped on it.

The Perfect Storm

This summer, I experienced a lot of health issues that seemed to revolve around my asthma. My asthma seemed to take a radical turn for the worse. My allergist was beside himself. Figuring out the cause for the problem was especially a concern for me. It seemed as though the summer was an example of a perfect storm. The long, wet winter and wet spring resulted in a lot of molds to which I'm severely allergic, and it turns out that in my attempt to get fit, I was actually making myself worse. The chemicals in the pool were affecting my breathing as well. And although we had licked most of these problems with a lot of medications (Let me tell, you prednisone is a very interesting drug.), I was still having problems with my voice.

As a teacher, you can imagine how difficult it is to teach several large classes a day when your voice is constantly failing. One minute it would get "froggy" as Mari describes it, and the next it would be fine, and in the next it would be virtually nonexistant. It's been very frustrating. Well, finally, my allergist sent me to an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor...I'm sure they have some sort of "-ist" name, but I'm not bothering to look it up. So, a couple of days ago I had a laryngoscope (a camera put down into my larynx). Nothing nasty was spotted and given the information I gave him, he diagnosed my problem as Laryngopharyngeal reflux or LPR. Basically what that means is that stomach acids get up into my larynx and cause damage there. The surprising thing is that I usually don't experience any heart burn pain.

I guess there is a surgery for worst case situations, which is, frankly, looking more and more appealing every day. The standard treatment is medication and diet, and boy, what a diet. It's so restrictive, but in ways that I'm not accustomed to being restricted. Nothing acidic: What you'd expect, oranges, pineapples, etc. but also tomatoes and onions! How can I live without tomatoes and onions?! Also, no dairy, or fried foods, or caffeine, or alcohol, or chocolate, or, or, or. Today, I learned that butter is excluded as well. Ok, I figured all along that it was out, but I was pretending to be dumb. But seriously, if you can't have anything else, how can they take away butter too.

It's been a couple of days now. I stewed all through the weekend. Yes, I'll undoubtedly lose weight, but at what cost? Part of me wants to say screw it and go around with a raspy voice forever, but then I learned that this is a condition that could lead to cancer. So before I demand the surgery, I'm going to give it the old college try. But there's no way that I can commit 100%. I'll try to make efforts to be good, and so far, except for the butter, I've done very well. I've even given up caffeine completely, which might also account for my buzzing head this weekend. I've ordered a cookbook, and I'm simply trying to figure out how to survive this thing, which by the way, is probably permanent.

Gnocchi

I'm afraid my cameras aren't really working well (of course it could be the photographer) so I stole a similar picture off the Internet. Ok, my gnocchi didn't look quite that good and I didn't put any great effort into the sauce, but still I thought it turned out quite well, but damn it took work. I remember watching Jeremy Neppl make gnocchi last spring at La Chiesa and he made it look so easy. Jeremy, if you're reading this, OMG!

Gnocchi (pronounced somewhat like neyah kee) is an Italian potato pasta. By the way, this is not a diet recipe! The gnocchi are rolled out on a little ridged board with your thumb. This allows the sauce to well in the thumb hole and catch in the outer ridges. Rolling the gnocchi out was the easiest part. It was milling or ricing the cooked potatoes that wore me out. However, I think a lot of my exhaustion is due to the cheap ass food mill I bought. Kneading the dough was fun. It was very sticky. I suspect I'll be washing potato dough off my fingers for about a week. Although I learned a tremendous amount from Jeremy, I used the recipe I found on page 56 in the September 2010 edition of Everyday Food. I didn't get Jeremy's recipe written down. I was too enthralled in watching the process.

The sauce I used was a sauce I make for homemade pizza. I just throw together onion, garlic, basil, oregano, and tomatoes in my food processor. For tonight's dish, I added a little olive oil and some salt and pepper. I heard somewhere that when you have homemade pasta, you should use less sauce, and think that held true for this evening.

I made the full recipe and froze 3/4 of it. And although I made two servings,and it was really good, but it was very filling. Half of it went into the fridge. I've heard that you can fry gnocchi. That excites me. I think I have to try it.

Although the gnocchi was easy to roll out, I did have problems with the size of my pastry mat and my counter. It says to divide the dough into 8 portions and to roll out. I should have divided it into 16. I had to reroll some of them to get them closer to the proper proportions.

By the way, my kitchen is a disaster area, and I'll have to clean it up pronto. Tomorrow my friend Ken is coming over for lunch and I'm trying something different. I'm going to grill split chicken breasts, but I've already poached them first, so I won't have to cook them so long that they'll dry out on the grill. I don't know why I keep subjecting Ken to these new things. He isn't fond of culinary experimentation.

The gnocchi recipe is as follows:

Ingredients
2.5 pounds russet potatoes (about 5 small) (I used my dad's home grown Kennebec potatoes)
coarse salt
1.75 cups of all-purpose flour plus more for dusting (a lot for dusting!!!)
1 large egg

Preparation
1. In a large pot, bring potatoes to a boil in salted water(I think Jeremy baked his); reduce to a rapid simmer and cook until potatoes are tender when pierced with a knife, 35 to 40 minutes. Lightly dust two parchment-lined rimmed baking sheets with flour; set aside. Drain potatoes and peel while still hot with a paring knife (use a think, dry kitchen towel or pot holder to hold them). Immediately pass potatoes through a ricer onto a work surface. Let cool completely.
2. Sprinkle potatoes with flour and 2 teaspoons salt, then top with egg. With your hands, work flour and egg into a dough.
3. Knead dough until smooth but not elastic, dusting with flour if it becomes too sticky, 4 minutes. Do not overwork dough.
4. Divide dough into 8 portions. Roll each portion into a rope (.5 inch thick and 24 inches long). Cut each rope into .5-inch pieces.
5. Gently roll each dough piece against the back of a fork to make ridges(I think the gnocchi board was a lot slicker and it only cost $5), then arrange in a single layer on prepared baking sheets.
6. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. In batches, add a few handfuls of gnocchi and cook until most have floated top, 2 minutes. With a wire mesh spider or a slotted spoon, transfer gnocchi immediately to the sauce.

Makes 8 servings. I'm not even going to bother with the calorie count etc.

One Stewed Chicken

The men in my family and a few good friends would cry if they knew how I misused good bourbon this weekend. I tried to smoke a chicken that was brined in a Jack Daniels laced concoction. I said "tried" because I don't think I quite smoked it as much as baked it on the grill. I had a hell of a time maintaining the lower temperature that was called for. And despite that, the chicken was wonderful. There were just enough hints of the Jack Daniels and smoke. I could still detect these flavors tonight when I made chicken noodle soup for myself with what was left over.

I decided to try this daring epicurean feat (at least it was for me) after reading how you can smoke foods on small charcoal grills in the August 2011 edition of Cooking Light The recipe that captured my imagination was Fantastic Bourbon Smoked Chicken on page 124. I learned that the tricky part is keeping the temperature in the grill low, around 275°. Most of the time I had the temperature at around 350°, and it really wanted to be in the 400° range. I think a big part of the problem was that I was impatient. I put the chicken on far too early. I should have let the coals burn down further instead.

What had happened was that I had planned on smoking the chicken Sunday night. But I've been fighting a respiratory infection for a while, and it got much worse Sunday morning. I barely had the energy to get out of bed, much less tackle this extravaganza. (I'm a terrible baby when I'm sick.) So, we (my friend Ken and I) decided to put it off until Monday evening. Which meant the chicken was kept in the brine about 36 hours rather than the minimum 18. Anyway, I also had an all day workshop on Monday so I couldn't start smoking until after 4:00. I didn't want to be cooking until 9:00, so I put the chicken on too early. By the way, the chicken is supposed to smoke for about 2 hours.

How it's done is that you pile the hot coals on one side of the grill and have a pan of water under the chicken on the other side. The smoking happens when you put different wood chips that have been soaked in water on to the coals. In this case you use apple wood. So, in theory it's easy enough. I do think I'll be able to pull this off eventually, but there's definitely a learning curve.

So, here's the recipe:

Ingredients
2 quarts water
9 tablespoons bourbon, divided
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons kosher salt
2 quarts ice water
1 tablespoon black pepper corns
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
3 bay leaves
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1 small onion quartered
1 small Fuji apple, cored and quartered
1 lemon, quartered
1 (4-pound) whole chicken
1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
Cooking spray
1 tablespoon butter, melted

Preparation
1. Combine 2 quarts water, 1/2 cup bourbon, sugar, and kosher salt in a large Dutch oven, and bring to a boil, stirring until the salt and sugar dissolve. Ad ice water and next ingredients (through lemon), and cool to room temperature. Add chicken to brine; cover and refrigerate 18 hours, turning chicken occasionally.
2. Soak wood chips in water for 1 hour; drain.
3. Remove the chicken from brine; pat chicken dry with paper towels. Strain brine through a sieve; discard brine and reserve 2 apple quarters, 2 lemon quarters, 2 onion quarters, and garlic. Discard remaining solids. Sprinkle chicken cavity with pepper; add reserved solids to chicken cavity. Lift wing tips up and over back; tuck under chicken. Tie legs.
4. Remove the grill rack, and set aside. prepare the grill for indirect grilling, heating one side to high and leaving side with no heat. [....] Place [a] disposable aluminum foil pan [...] on unheated side of grill. Pour 2 cups of water in pan. Let chips stand for 15 minutes or until smoking; reduce heat to medium-low. Maintain temperature at 275°.
5. Coat the grill rack with cooking spray; place on grill. Place chicken, breast side up, on grill rack over foil pan on unheated side. Combine the remaining 1 tablespoon bourbon and butter; baste chicken with the bourbon mixture. Close lid, and cook for 2 hours at 275° or until thermometer inserted into meaty part of thigh registers 165°. Add remaining 1 cup wood chips halfway through cooking time. Place chicken on a platter; cover with foil. Let stand for 15 minutes. Discard the skin before serving.

Bacon-Corn Chowder with Shrimp

Today, it's too hot to do anything. I'm staying indoors with the A/C, reading, watching movies, and knitting or crocheting...oh, I'll probably do some laundry too. Stay cool and dry.

I wasn't terribly pleased with the recipe I tried last night. The chowder didn't turn out nearly as creamy as I'd hoped. Perhaps, if rather than following the recipe if I had creamed the portion of the chowder with the half-and-half rather than adding it later it might have come out with a better texture. Actually, I think it might have turned out better without the bacon. The bacon seemed to overwhelm the corn and shrimp flavors. Oh well, when you're trying out new recipes, your going to end up with a few losers. This came from the August 2011 issue of Cooking Light, which sort of surprises me because they almost always have great recipes.

So, if you'd like to try the Bacon-Corn Chowder with Shrimp yourself, here's the recipe.

Ingredients

6 slices center-cut bacon chopped
1 cup prechopped onion
1/2 cup prechopped celery
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1 garlic clove, minced
4 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels, thawed
2 cups fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth
3/4 pound peeled and deveined medium shrimp
1/3 cup half-and-half
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt

Preparation
1. Heat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add bacon to pan; sauté 4 minutes or until the bacon begins to brown. Remove 2 slices bacon. Drain on paper towels. Add onion and next 3 ingredients (through minced garlic) to pan, and sauté for 2 minutes. Add corn, and cook 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add broth; bring to a boil, and cook for 4 minutes.

2. Place 2 cups of corn mixture in a blender. Removed the center piece of of blender lid (to allow steam to escape), and secure lid on blender. Place a clean towel over opening in the blender lid (to avoid splatters). Blend until smooth. Return pureed corn mixture to pan. Stir in shrimp; cook 2 minutes or until shrimp are done. Stir in half-and-half, pepper and salt. Crumble reserved bacon over soup. Yield: 4 servings (serving size: about 1 2/3 cups).

Calories 294; Fat 7grams; Protein 26.8 grams; Carbs 34.8 grams; Fiber 4.3 grams;

Time Swimming by

I'm sorry that I haven't written for months and months. To be honest, I haven't been cooking that much either. I have been doing a lot of swimming this summer. I try to swim at least 4 times a week an hour at a time. I've also been working on some other projects. I've been knitting and crocheting, and I've been working on a longer piece of fiction. It's been a busy though not especially remarkable summer. My garden is doing well, and I'm really looking forward to a lot of fresh garden tomatoes.

Once the weather cools off and my schedule gets back to normal, I'm sure I'll get back to trying new recipes and getting back on the blog on a more regular basis. It may not be every day or even once a week, but I don't think so many months will pass before I get back to it. Actually, I think I'll try a new recipe tonight, but I won't write about it until tomorrow.

Sorry for the long absence.

Wine Diet

In my last entry, I mentioned Mari's "Wine-d Down" parties. They are a lot of fun, but I really overdid it on Saturday. I know it's not a good idea to overindulge like that on a regular basis, but I think every once in a while everyone should blow off some steam. Believe it or not, my job is pretty intense. I have students communicating with me constantly. So, in a way, this is a good occasional occurrence.

However, one unforeseen consequence of this hell raising has been that it's affected my appetite. Only now, 3 days later, am I finding myself hungry in the least. But, by this time, I've grown comfortable again with a slight gnawing in my stomach. So, I've been eating very small meals. In addition, I've been walking a lot! I walk to and from school which is a little over a mile one way, and then I walk Joey twice a day. I don't know how far our regular route is, but I've guesstimated that I've been walking about 3.5 miles a day, and sometimes farther if I run an errand in the process. In addition, I've been starting to work on the yard...which looks like a long process. My lilacs really took a beating this winter. I have a lot of dead wood to clear. So, if it's not apparent, I'm burning off far more calories than I'm consuming. I expect the weight is dropping off. But I haven't been weighing either. I'm going to base my progress based on how my clothes fit.

For now, I've given up the "diets." I'm just going to try to eat light and exercise more. If I find myself drifting into my old bad habits, I might need to put myself back into a more regimented program, but I'd like to try this for a while.

Wish me luck, or maybe "Cheers!"

House Cleansing

A week ago last Saturday, my friend Mari had a house cleansing. She had a rather tempestuous break up and divorce. She brought family members and friends together to help cleanse her house emotionally. I think it was a great success. The peals of laughter virtually shook the roof and those bad feelings were forced out through the cracks...this is despite the fact that Mari does not know what direction counterclockwise is. For those of you who don't understand the reference. When cleansing a space, you use a smudge stick (a bundle of burning herbs, mostly sage)and walk around the space counterclockwise and go around any openings counterclockwise. The great thing about this kind and gentle type of witchery, the spirits are very understanding and aren't demanding task masters.

So wine flowed and food was consumed...that's where I come in. Mari asked me to make something for the occasion. We chose the menu because of it's light spring-like nature. We chose Chicken Oscar. I've had Chicken Oscar several times, and I love it. I attempted to find a good recipe, but none of them seemed on the mark to me. A Chicken Oscar is primarily made up of chicken breast, English muffins, crab meat, asparagus, and Hollandaise sauce. Not too hard. I think most restaurants grill their chicken, I'm not the slickest griller. But I do a bang up poached chicken. Real crab is very expensive out here in the plains. Besides, we don't get enough the real stuff to know the difference, so we settled on faux crab. The English muffins and the asparagus were no big deal. So, I made everything except toasting the muffins and the Hollandaise sauce before I got there. It was a little busier than I expected when I was cooking for anywhere between 9 and 12 people.

So, for a Hollandaise sauce I just went to The Better Homes and Garden Cookbook, on page 450 of the 1996 edition.

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
3 beaten egg yolks
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Dash of salt
Dash of white pepper

Preparation
1. Cut the butter into thirds and bring it to room temperature.
2. In the top of a double boiler combine egg yolks, water, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Add a piece of butter. Place over boiling water (upper pan should not touch water). Cook, stirring rapidly with a whisk, till butter melts and sauce begins to thicken. Add remaining butter, a piece at t time, stirring constantly till melted. Continue to cook and stir till sauce thickens (about 2 minutes more). Immediately remove from heat. If sauce is too thick or curdles immediately whisk in 1 to 2 tablespoons hot water.

We're not even going to discuss nutrients of this stuff. In this case, who cares? I felt really good about the sauce. I had been told by someone in the La Chiesa cooking class that I had to worry about it separating. I've made it a couple times now, and it's never separated. That includes the night of the cleansing when I prepared a triple batch.

I think one of the things that helped with that success is that I have a really nice whisk with which I whipped the hell out of it, and rather than a small little double boiler that doesn't really allow me to whisk well, I used a big aluminum pan set on top of a pan of boiling water. It worked beautifully. It tasted good too.

As a matter of fact, I've found that it's an easy meal to make on the spur of the moment, but then I always have these ingredients around. When I make it for myself, I cut way back on the Hollandaise, although it is soooo good.

I should add that Mari's friend Barb brought this delicious salad with spinach, pecans, and strawberries. It was lovely. And Mari made these beautiful cheesecakes for dessert. We had the leftovers at the party we had last Saturday night. Mari calls these parties "Wine-d Down parties." The name is very applicable, and they are a lot of fun. :)

Dessert at La Chiesa

This afternoon was the last class of the series at La Chiesa. Today, Jeremy tackled desserts. He made creme brulee, biscotti, a chocolate tart, and chocolate panna cotta with a coffee foam. They were all fabulous, and this was the lesson with which I was probably most comfortable. None of it was too terribly new for me except the foam thing. I've learned from this lesson, that I can tackle a creme brulee and plan on doing so sometime in the near future.

I was so happy when Jeremy said he's looking at doing another series this coming fall. I really hope he does, and if you are any kind of foodie, you must consider this great pleasure. And if you are just looking for some really good food that's not zapped or just thawed and warmed, check out La Chiesa, and tell Jeremy that I sent you. :) Oh, and the house wine is great!

Bitchy

I now know the true meaning of the word bitchy. Joey and I have started back in our routine of taking a walk early in the morning and when I come home from work. When I come home from work, she just gives me hell if I do anything other than taking her out for her walk immediately. Yesterday, after walking to and from school in the relative cold, she didn't even want to let me warm up for a few brief minutes.

However, I guess I shouldn't bitch about my little bitch. I probably wouldn't do much walking if I didn't have to consider her needs.

As I said, I have begun to walk to and from work, which is a little over a mile one direction. I was able to do it Tuesday and Wednesday. I wanted to walk today, but it was too cold out to wear a skirt out walking, and I didn't have any clean pants to wear. I suppose I could have worn my snow pants with the dress, but that seems a little overdressed for the weather we have, and I would have felt really stupid with snow pants on the walk home this afternoon.

It seems as if I'm ready for one extreme or the other, but not this mild stuff in between. Now that winter clothes are on sale, I bought myself some good, low, subzero boots, a face mask, a full-head stocking cap (can we call it that if it's not clearly knit?) and some thermal gloves. I'm set for next winter. If we have school, I should be able to walk regardless of the weather. Now, if it'll warm up a little more, I'd be walking to school EVERY day.

Damn Mandolin

It was two weeks ago Saturday that a lot of things began to play out. First of all, Mari and I were going to try a new dish. Her birthday was just two days prior so, we had a little birthday party. I was going to be making Lobster Risotto. The risotto itself turned out well, but the lobster was disappointingly tough. Later, I e-mailed my chef friend Jeremy Nepple and he said it was probably because I either cooked it too long, or the temperature was too high while it cooked. I give you the recipe down below, but there was so much more to this story.

That same day, I had bought Mari's gift, I found a mandolin slicer. Jeremy had recommended that we get one. He did, however, warn us to be careful. Well, Sunday, the next day, I decided to try out my new Mandolin. I decided I'd fry up some potato chips. At the beginning it was difficult to slice the potatoes using the protective guard. And, of course, I thought that my hand would be far enough away from the slicer itself, that I would be ok putting the potato through without the guard. WRONG! I sliced off a good hunk of my thumb. Oh my God, blood spurted and although I wrapped a towel around it tightly, I couldn't get it to stop bleeding enough to bandage it. So, I got in the car and drove to the emergency room. Since I was driving with one hand, I put pressure on my thumb with the same hand and by pushing it up against my chin. It was as I was driving along that I realized that the towel I was using was the same towel I had used while preparing the lobster. It had a distinctly fishy smell. When I was finally settled down and getting it bandaged, I told the nurse working on me about the towel and the smell. She listened politely...but then a few minutes later, she came around to my side and she said it was a good thing I had told her about the towel, otherwise, she wouldn't know what to think when she smelled that smell. We both enjoyed the joke. So obviously it wasn't so bad that I couldn't share some dirty insinuations.

My thumb is healing quite well now. You can still see that it took no only skin, but also a small piece of muscle as well. And I've faced my demon. I've since used the mandolin successfully. However, I will always give it the respect it deserves. My friend Dennis has called me Julia Child, which of course was a reference Dan Aykroyd's comedic portrayal of Julia Child. (You can watch Dan Aykroyd by clicking on the highlighted name.)

Things seem to have come full circle. I began this blog after watching the movie Julie and Julia, which was in part, about Julia Child.

Well, and here is the Lobster Risotto recipe. I got it from page 184of the Jan/Feb 2011 edition of Cooking Light.

Directions
Bring 4 cups broth and 1.5 cups water to a boil in a saucepan. Add 3 (5-ounce) lobster tails; cover and cook for 4 minutes. Remove lobster from pan; cool for 5 minutes. Remove meat from cooked lobster tails, reserving shells. Chop meat. Place shells in a large zip-top plastic bag. Coarsely crush shells using a meat mallet or heavy skillet. Return crushed shells to the broth mixture. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and cook for 20 minutes. Strain shell mixture through a sieve over a bowl, reserving broth; discard solids. Return broth mixture to saucepan; keep warm over low heat. Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add 1 cup uncooked Arborio rice to pan; cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in 1 cup broth mixture, and cook for 5 minutes or until liquid is nearly absorbed, stirring constantly until each portion is absorbed before adding the next (about 22 minutes total). Remove from heat, and stir in lobster, the reserved 2 tablespoons broth mixture, 2 tablespoons butter, and 3/4 cup frozen green peas. Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 cup)

Nutrition:
374 calories; 10.7 grams fat; 24.7 grams protein; 44.4 grams carbs; 4.1 grams fiber
Weight Watchers points plus value: 10

La Chiesa II

Tonight, I went on the second of three culinary adventures put on by Arts on Grand and La Chiesa restaurant, both of Spencer.

It was,again, MARVELOUS. Not only is it good food, but I feel as though I'm learning so much. Tonight Chef Jeremy Neppl made a pork loin with an Italian bacon, but the name escapes me. It wasn't prosciutto, but something similar to that. He also made potato gnocchi (a pasta-like dumpling) and Bolognese sauce, a layered potato dish, green beans, and Brussels sprouts. They were all so good, and it was a lot of fun watching him cook. By the way, I know that at some point, I am going to make the gnocchi.

I should have been writing over the last few weeks all that I learned last time. But it's not very interesting reading about how to bread something without breading your fingers in the process. I learned a lot of neat tricks like that. I've also made chicken stock from scratch, blended olive oil and canola oil for some things in the kitchen, etc. They're small things, but significant if you spend any time in the kitchen.

Tonight Jeremy really surprised me. He told me that he read my blog... to be honest I was a bit embarrassed. I felt sort of like a food critic wannabe. I don't feel I know nearly enough about food for that role, but then I got thinking. I'm entirely comfortable with the role as literary critic. Actually, I thrive in that role. And like I tell my students, "critic" does not mean negative. It means to be analytical, interpretive. But then, even with that definition, I don't feel as though I know enough about food to really analyze it or interpret it, but I do feel as though I'm getting there. My palate is strengthening. Now, when I eat something I would have found acceptable in the past, I realize how bad it really is. Hell, take out pizza no longer cuts it for me. So now I find myself in a quandary. I have to cook more even if I'm tired or I don't want to cook in order to be satisfied.

I don't want to be a chef like Jeremy (the hours would kill me). I want to be a good cook and I want to know about all the different foods out there. Here in Northwest Iowa, we have so few opportunities to experience foods from different cultures. Sometimes our only option is to make them ourselves. So Jeremy, if you're reading this. I need to learn more about cooking. Can you point me in the right direction? By the way, the pictures I took of you with my cell phone tonight didn't turn out well, so I borrowed one from your website. And I told my boyfriend that we have to eat at your restaurant SOON. Thank you for everything, and I can't wait until next month.

"Whore's spaghetti"

I haven't been dieting well or even exercising well lately. Frequently, I've been coming home exhausted. I've been trying to at least avoid junk food and eating home made food even if that food isn't necessarily the most dietary of foods. It's been a rough couple of weeks because I've been teaching 4 sections of Composition II how to correctly use NoodleTools, a program that generates works cited pages. I've been doing this in a computer lab, which means I run around hour after hour during the day, but it isn't healthy running around. It's not aerobic. I rush from one side of a room to the other to stop a couple of minutes each place. It's taking its toll on me.

On Friday I spent the day with Mari and Brian, at a state conference between community colleges and the regents (the public state universities). The day was interesting, but long. The upside is that we went down to Newton for the meeting on Thursday. Thursday night we unwound with some drinks and soaking in the hot tub. I haven't been that warm and relaxed in MONTHS!!! I'm definitely going to have to get a whirlpool tub. Those drinks and that soaking was more rejuvenating than sleeping a week straight.

I was so refreshed and the day was so nice today that I took Joey for a walk on our fair-weather route. It was great! I'm hoping to take her again this afternoon.

So, anyway, right now, I'm more interested in exploring cooking more so than dieting. When I came home I found 3 new cooking magazines in the mail box. I had to try one of the recipes today: Spaghetti alla Puttanesca. Not knowing what puttanesca meant, I just did a quick search and learned from Wikipedia that it literally means "whore's style spaghetti." I've been called worse things.

I was intrigued by this recipe because it's made mostly of ingredients that can be kept in the pantry and not in the fridge. In other words, I can keep the ingredients on hand for a long time and when I'm tired or I don't want to go to the store, I can still whip up something that's good rather than going through a fast food drive-through. Also, it has a lot of ingredients with which I've had little to no experience, so I was challenged by it.

I don't know if this recipe is for everyone, but I really enjoyed it. This is a very oily spaghetti. It especially has a lot of olive oil. But there's also anchovies in it, so it also has omega-3 fish oil. The Kalamata olives and capers made it nice and tangy as well. So, if your idea of spaghetti is Chef Boyardee, or Kraft, this may not be for you.

The one ingredient I didn't use was grape tomatoes. I looked at them in the store and they just looked hard and woody. So, instead I used a big can of diced tomatoes. I drained them slightly, but when it called to add the additional spaghetti water, I didn't need to because there was plenty of sauce. Besides, I've read where canned tomatoes are even richer in the healthy antioxident, lycopene, than fresh tomatoes.

I found this recipe on page 91 of the March 2011 edition of Everyday Food.

Ingredients
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/5 cups grape tomatoes, quartered lengthwise
2 tablespoons capers, rinsed, dranied, and coarsely chopped.
3 anchovy fillets, minced
1/3 cup pitted Kalamata or other brined black olives, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves minced
1.5 cups tomato purée (from a 15-ounce can)
coarse salt and ground pepper
1 pound spaghetti

Preparation
1. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high. Add grape tomatoes, capers, anchovies, olives, and garlic and cook until fragrant and tomatoes soften, about 5 minutes. Add tomato purée and season with salt and pepper; cook 2 minutes (sauce will be separated)
2. Meanwhile, in a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta until al dente. Reserve 1 cup pasta water; drain pasta and add to sauce tossing to combine and adding enough pasta water to create a thin sauce that coats pasta. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve immediately. Serves 6.

Nutrition:
420 calories; 13 grams fat; 12 grams protein; 63 grams carbs; 4 grams fiber. Totals 11 points plus weight watcher's points.

Risotto

Although it's far from being dietary, I wanted to try to make risotto as I learned to make it Sunday night at La Chiesa, and at the same time, I wanted to make the broiled tilapia that I made a couple of weeks ago for Mari again. So, I went ahead and made the two together. The flavors went together very well. And although there aren't a lot of flavorings added to the risotto, it was very tasty.

I thought I knew how to make risotto until Sunday night. There I discovered that I was using the wrong kind of rice. You need to use Arborio, or similar rice in which the starches are on the outside of the grain rather than on the inside where most rice stores the starch. You also need to roast the rice before you add it to liquid. Although I don't have an official recipe, I can give you the general run down without specific amounts.

First, you need to heat a little olive oil and butter together in a skillet. Add finely chopped shallots and Arborio rice. Roast, stirring until the shallots begin to brown. I'd say about 5 minutes will do it. Then add stock about a cup at a time. I made chicken stock last night. That's something else I learned Sunday night. You need to make chicken or veal stock around. You just need to simmer the bones along with some carrots and onions. I also threw in some celery. You can freeze it and have it around as you need it. So, anyway, you keep adding the stock as it cooks away and is absorbed. Test the rice by tasting a grain once in awhile. Once it's done, add Parmesan and salt and pepper.

I really was impressed with how tasty the risotto was. But the tilapia was again really good. :)

La Chiesa

I'm completely reinvigorated. Tonight, I went to the first of 3 cooking schools given by the chef and owner Jeremy Neppl of La Chiesa, a new Italian restaurant in Spencer. I have to admit, I haven't eaten there yet...I'm just going to have to get pushy and insist on going there sometime.

I learned so much tonight. I'm worried I've already forgotten a lot of it. These workshops are a month apart. Tonight we did hors d'oeuvres. Next month we'll do entrees and in March deserts. I especially want to try making some of the different kinds of bruchette we had tonight. I loved the carmelized onion with gorganzola. The carmelized mushrooms with goat cheese was also awesome.

I stopped at the grocery store on the way home tonight. I had to stop myself from buying some of these ingredients spontaneously. I've learned from past experience, I need to have a plan made as far as when and making sure I have all the ingredients at one time before, I start buying things. I've boughten some really expensive ingredients in the past that have gone bad because I wasn't able to get to them in a timely manner.

By the way, if anyone wants poached tuna steak. I think I now know how to do it. :)

Homemade Sushi

Mari and I did it! We made sushi last night. To be more specific, we made California roll last night. It may not have been expertly done, and as you can see in the picture, it was a little sloppy and loose, but we even improved with the second one. I think if we had had enough rice and enough room in our stomachs, we would have done even better in the third one. Mari came up with the key. You really have pack it tight, like a snow ball. We are going to get even more experimental and next time we go to Mankato, we're going to sit at the sushi bar and watch how it's all done.

Despite it being loose, the flavors were great. I do think, however, I need to find a different kind of sushi nori (the seaweed wrapping). This one was really tough to bite through and I frequently felt as if part of it was going down my throat while the rest was still in my mouth. It was an uncomfortable feeling, but still the flavors were great.

I'm tired tonight. For the last two days, I've been taking students down to the library and getting them into the stacks. They really are unfamiliar with how a library works, so I made them answer questions on a worksheet that required they find specific books and answer rather strange and obscure questions. It was actually sort of fun, but as I said tiring. Tomorrow I start in showing them how to look stuff up on databases, which is also strange to them, and even to people my age who didn't grow up with these things. That'll be tiring too, but satisfying. It feels good when you know your students are actually learning something knew...That is, if they show up.

So, I came home tired tonight. It wasn't even 5:00 and I decided to go upstairs and change into my nightgown. The idea was to get my bra off. It was rubbing and irritating me. So, I went upstairs followed of course by Joey. I was about to put my nightgown on, and I saw Joey heading for the stairs with one of my new socks. I wanted to chase after her, but you see, I envision these horrible headlines and they frequently stop me from doing stupid things. For example: "Naked, local English professor falls to her death in home: With a sock in its mouth, her loyal dog remained beside her." Is that weird or does everyone do that?

Beef Tagine with Butternut Squash and Scallion Couscous

This last week has been very busy. I had to wrap up the Christmas break fast track class, and of course, the weather wouldn't let us slip by without disruptions. We had to make up a class, and so, I'm still waiting for final exams and essays to be submitted. In addition, we started the spring semester. I've got 4 sections of Composition II and 2 sections of Composition I. It's going to be a very busy semester. Fortunately, we have a long weekend. We're taking off Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And I'm happy to say that I have NO papers to grade. So, I'm going to try to kick back, relax, and fit in some fun activities.

Sometime, in the next couple of days Mari and I are going to make sushi....or at least California rolls. It wasn't easy, but I found the ingredients I need. When we had it in Mankato, the California roll had an orange roe (fish eggs) on it. Mari said that's actually a LA roll. I really liked that, but couldn't find any. The recipe I found called for black sesame seeds, that's the one thing I couldn't find, but I suspect it's not going to make a major difference on the flavor. And besides, this is our first attempt. I think we'll be lucky if any of it holds together. If this works out, we're going to try different kinds and then, maybe eventually have a sushi party. I'll definitely write about our adventure.

Tonight, I decided to try two new recipes that struck my fancy. They're both on page 80 of the January/February edition of Cooking Light. They are Beef Tagine with Butternut Squash and Scallion Couscous.

The Beef Tagine is very spicy and yet very hearty. I've been meaning to try couscous for a long time, and I'm glad that I finally did. If you haven't tried it before, it's sort of like rice, but small and pearl like. Think small tapioca. It is a great winter food that sticks to your ribs. And despite the fact that it's really quite healthy, the serving size is generous. I'll definitely eat this again. There are a lot of ingredients. Mari, it goes well past your limit of 5, but most of the ingredients are spices, and I had no trouble at all finding them, except the beef. The recipe calls for a shoulder roast. I had to settle for a rump roast, which worked well, except it was a bit tougher than I would have liked. I probably should have simmered it a lot longer than the recipe calls for.

This dish is worth it if for no other reason than to experience the aroma as you cook the spice-coated beef. It is heavenly, and it makes you feel as if you've been transported to somewhere exotic like Marrakesh.

I also screwed up. I was supposed to toss the beef in the spices, which I did, but I forgot to include the ground ginger. I realized this after I added the squash. So, I went ahead and added the ginger to the whole dish. I have no idea if that affected the taste or not. I guess I won't know until I make it again.

Ingredients
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 (1-pound) beef shoulder roast cut into 1-inch cubes
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 shallots, quartered
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 cup fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth
1 (14.5-ounce) can no-salt-added diced tomatoes, undrained
3 cups (1-inch)cubed peeled butternut squash (about 1 pound)
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Preparation

1. Combine first 6 ingredients in a medium bowl. Add beef; toss well to coat.
2. Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add beef and shallots; cook 4 minutes or until browned, stirring occasionally. Add garlic; cook 1 minute, stirring frequently. Stir in broth and tomatoes; bring to a boil. Cook 5 minutes. Add squash; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes or until squash is tender. Sprinkle with cilantro. Yield: 4 serving (serving size: 1.5 cups)

Nutrition
Calories 283; Fat 9.5 grams; Protein 25.6 grams; Carbs 25.7 grams; Fiber 4.8 grams.
10 Weight Watcher's plus points

Scallion Couscous

Bring 3/4 cup fat-free, lower sodium chicken broth and 1/2 cup water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Gradually stir in 1 cup uncooked couscous. Remove from heat; cover and let stand 5 minutes. Fluff couscous with a fork. Stir in 1/3 cup chopped green onions. Yield: 4 servings

Nutrition
Calories 169; Fat 0.3 grams; Sodium 80 mg.
4 Weight Watcher's plus points

Sushi!!

I've been wanting to try sushi for years, but no body I knew was adventurous enough to try it. In my conversations with Mari I learned that she loved sushi, but then we didn't get anywhere to eat it until yesterday. It was purely happenstance that we found this restaurant in Mankato. I have to say, I love sushi. I've already ordered a cook book and I plan on trying to make my own. And most sushi really does stand up to my dietary restrictions. So, keep watching the blog because I will undoubtedly share my experiences with you, and maybe you'll get invited to a sushi party. :)

Anyone Can Make This

I know I've been rather silent for awhile again, but between the holidays, and the fast track I'm teaching, I just haven't focused on one thought long enough to actually get it posted.

As I expected, I ate too much during the holidays, and I'm working at taking it off again. I've gotten back into the diet and I've been walking, albeit not as regularly as I'd like, at the wellness center. And I think through the early months of the year, I'll really be able to establish good habits. I just hope we don't have too many snow days. I'm too close to the refrigerator on snow days.

I know some of you were interested in my efforts to pull up the carpet in my living room and dining room. I got the last of the carpet pulled up last week. There are still some tack strips and a few staples left (I got cold and achy down on the floor after awhile), but they'll be easy enough to pull up a bit at a time. Although the living room and dining room are essentially one single room, the floor in the living room has a higher finish. It's sort of weird. I do plan on refinishing them to a certain extent this coming summer, but isn't really going to take much.

Last night, I had Mari over for supper. She was game for playing the guinea pig with a new recipe. I was a bit anxious about it because it could have been a real dog of a recipe. Happily, I can say that it turned out very good. As we talked about it between our groans of pleasure with each bite, I kept on reassuring Mari, who claims to be not much of a cook, that she could easily make this. After saying "Anyone could make this" about 3 times, she suggested that that's the title I should give my cook book Anyone Can Make This. I don't know about the cook book idea, but it's true, if you can read directions, and sensibly make changes, anyone can make most of the dishes.

So anyway, the dish I made was Broiled Tilapia with Frisée-Apple Salad and Mustard-Parsley Sauce found on page 48 in the December 10, 2010 Best of Cooking Light: Fast Healthy Meals in 30 Minutes or Less. I wasn't able to acquire the arugula and frisée. For some reason, greens aren't as well accepted in this part of the country. Considering this is grassland, you'd think it would be a natural. So instead, I substituted my beloved spinach. I'm glad I could find the mint leaves. They made a real difference in the salad. The recipe makes 6 servings, so I halved it. Once we dug into it, we both wished I had made a full recipe.

Ingredients
1 cup water
4 teaspoons salt divided
1 teaspoon sugar
6 (6 ounce) tilapia fillets.
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Cooking spray
8 cups arugula
6 cups trimmed frisée
1/2 cup mint leaves
2 Gala apples, cored and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 tablespoon whole-grain Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon water

Preparation
1. Combine 1 cup water, 1 tablespoon salt, and sugar in a shallow dish. Add fillets; let stand 15 minutes. Remove fillets from brine; pat dry. Discard brine. Brush fillets with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper.
2. Preheat broiler
3. Place fillets on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray; broil 7 minutes or until desired degree of doneness.
4. Combine arugula, frisée, and mint in a large bowl. Combine apple and 1 tablespoon oil; toss well. Add apple mixture and 1/4 teaspoon salt to arugula mixture, and toss gently.
5. Combine remaining 1 tablespoon oil, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, chopped parsley, and remaining ingredients, stirring with a whisk until blended. Divide arugula mixture evenly among 6 plates; top each with 1 fillet. Drizzle about 1 tablespoon sour cream mixture over each serving.

Yields 6 servings

Nutritional information:
Calories 294
Fat 11.5 grams
Protein 35.4 grams
Carbs 15.2 grams
Fiver 4.1 grams

All of which equals 8 weight watcher points plus value points