Getting My Kicks

These days, it's pizza.

First, there's the Really Easy Pizza Crust, which I forgot to take a picture of. But you know, it's just yeast in a little warm milk, with olive oil, salt, and flour thrown in. Knead it for a few minutes, and let it rise for about thirty.

6 tbsp warm milk
pinch sugar
1 1/4 tsp yeast

Stir together for a few minutes, so the yeast dissolves (actually, it just gets soft and lumpy. That's good enough).

Then add:

1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp salt

Mix it up, knead it, cover it, and let it rise. Thirty minutes is enough, longer if you want.

What do you want to put on it? Tonight was sausage-and-mushroom-and-chard night.

Prep your ingredients. In this case, I browned the sausage:
 

 Then I sauteed the mushrooms and chard:

 

I also minced some garlic and let it marinate in a tbsp of olive oil:

 

And I grated the mozzarella. Didn't get a picture of it, though.

  

Place your pizza stone in the oven (you DO have a pizza stone, don't you? I'll wait while you get one).

Preheat to 500 degrees.

Sprinkle some cornmeal on the pizza paddle (you'll need to get one when you get the pizza stone). Roll out the dough and place it on the paddle. Crimp the edges to make a rim.

Brush on the olive oil and garlic. Then add these:

 

First the tomato sauce, then the herbs, in whatever amount you're into. I like lots. If it were summer, I'd have fresh herbs.

Sprinkle on the rest of the toppings, saving the cheese for last.

Transfer to the hot stone in the oven. You'll quickly learn the sharp jerk that perfectly slides the uncooked pizza from the paddle to the stone. It's such a feeling of accomplishment.

I was talking to my daughter on the phone while putting the pizza together and sliding it into the oven. So I don't have any pictures of that process. 

But here's the finished deal, about ten minutes later:

 

A lovely dinner, along with the great Argentinian wine - Norton Barrel Select, Malbec 2006.

Vacation Results

 We just returned home from a visit to children and grandchildren in the midwest.

I gained weight.

That's to be expected - these trips invariably involve doing an awful lot of NOTHING. When I'm home, I have my Wii Fit to do, and I guess I do a lot more moving around than I realize. I know this, because when visiting family, I end up in pain from sitting. It's the arthritis - lack of movement causes everything to stiffen up. I sit so much on these trips, that sometimes I end up in tears at night, at just the thought of laying in bed for several hours.

Sleep is out of the question. And the plane ride home is a nightmare.

We did take a walk one day, but with snow, and temps in the teens or lower, outside activities didn't happen much.

But it's over, and I'm on the road to recovery. And back to eating vegetables and other Real Food. I did have some vegetables on this trip, because I ordered a veggie omelet for breakfast twice. That was my vegetable allotment for the day, except for the day I cooked spaghetti for everyone, and steamed a big batch of spinach. When we got home yesterday, we had a bowl of homemade potato soup loaded with greens: spinach and kale torn into little pieces and simmered in the soup.

Then we celebrated a late Valentine's Day by having a bit of chocolate cheesecake, followed by a glass of absinthe, properly diluted with ice water until it was cloudy.

It all works out.

Coca-cola?

Another entry in the cola wars. I am simply astonished that people actually drink this stuff, and pay a fortune to do it. I don't talk about it much - I figure my attitude is not good and I'll just make people mad.

But anyway, it's an interesting article.

A Low-Cal Dessert

It's a little weird, but it's good...

Chocolate Cottage Cheese

Look at it this way - it can't hurt, can it?

I put 2 teaspoons of dark cocoa powder (the real stuff, not chocolate milk mix,)

and

1 or 2 teaspoons of sugar in 1/2 cup of lowfat cottage cheese.

I know, I know. Sugar. Is. Bad.

I know. So use the smaller amount. If you're like me, you like your chocolate dark and sort of bitter, anyway.

For fun, throw in some vanilla, or rum extract. Or heck, if it's a fancy dessert, throw in rum. Or Kahlua or Amaretto. Just half a teaspoon or so.

I ran the numbers, and this dessert comes to:

128 calories
16 g. protein
2 g. fat
12 g. carbohydrates
2 g. fiber

I think that's great for a dessert. And a real boost to your protein for the day, if you need that.

If you want to be really good, have just 1/4 cup in a fancy glass. You'll halve the calories.

The Weight Battle Continues

I spent Saturday lost in the joys of creating a spreadsheet. My husband, the Excel King, was quite helpful with formulas and suggestions, and the thing works splendidly.

I always have trouble keeping track of what I eat, largely because I cook nearly everything from scratch, so I have to look up the nutrition data online and then add it all up. That's a real hassle and I've never been organized about it, so I can never find a recipe when I want it again.

But NOW - ah, now I have a SS where I can figure the nutrition data for a recipe, move the total per serving into a "LIST," and then, in another table, I can LOOKUP the recipe (or food item) from the LIST. And the data is automatically entered into the table where I'm keeping track of what I ate that day!

It adds it up, and I can see where I'm at on calories, fat, protein... all the usual stuff. Best of all, I can use it to plan my day, which just may help me keep within my allotted calories.

So tomorrow, for instance, I can have Oatmeal-with-Peanut-Butter (and a little honey & cream) for breakfast. Lunch is leftover fish, served in a spicy tomato sauce with garlic and capers. Dinner is a carrot soup (carrots from last week's CSA box), with a salad of lettuce, steamed romanesco, and a tablespoon of olive oil over it.

Not only that, but sometime during the day, I also get a few of my favorite whole wheat crackers and an orange. And after dinner, I get dessert - this great chocolate-cottage-cheese thingy I made up. I added that because I'm also tracking my husband's food, and I've discovered that he doesn't get enough protein. So I'm going to work on ways to add it to his diet. Tomorrow, he gets some tuna with his salad, and the cottage cheese for dessert. That brings him up to 98 grams of protein for the day.

My total calories for the day: An even 1100. Protein clocks in at 60, Fat at 38 grams, Carbs are 127, and Fiber is 22.

Pretty darn good. Add in some exercise (yoga and strength, for sure, and some aerobics, assuming I've slept reasonably well), and my weight is slowly beginning to respond. *crosses fingers*

My Favorite Coleslaw

Still trying to use up weekly vegetables, and I'm enjoying every minute! Today, I made this:

It's called Fusion Coleslaw. It's a variation on the recipe found in Earthbound Farm's Food to Live By. Too simple for words:

1 head of cabbage, sliced thin (hopefully a small one)
3 scallions, chopped
1 jalapeno, diced
2 carrots, grated

The sauce:
3 tbsp sesame oil
3 tbsp rice vinegar (unseasoned)
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp chile garlic sauce (or is it garlic chile sauce?)
1/2 tsp salt

whisk the sauce together and pour over the veggies, mixing it all up. Add chopped peanuts before serving, and some golden raisins, if you like them.

This makes a big bowlful, and it tastes so good, I have it for snacks!

Holiday Cooking

I make a serious rum cake, and I know to stand well back when opening the oven door. But today, I forgot. I still have my eyebrows. But I'll pay a visit to Supercuts, to get all the singed hair trimmed away.

I sit at my desk and occasionally stop and say, "What is that charred smell?"