Couscous, etc December 7, 2009

Note to self: Avoid sitting on flimsy desks or you’re going to end up on the floor with a desk on top of you.

And that is painful.

Seriously!

Look at the pretty pomegranate seeds!

Fruity, Nutty and Cheesy Couscous

• couscous
• pomegranate seeds (so worth the trouble)
• goat cheese, crumbled
• pumpkin seeds, toasted of course
• FRESH cilantro and/or mint, chopped
• lime juice, preferably fresh
• pomegranate molasses or, if you have no idea what the hell that is, just use balsamic vinegar (see UPDATE)
• olive oil if you’re a “put olive oil in your dressing” sort of person, which I, being fat phobic am most obviously not

→Prepare couscous as directed on package (for an extra kick, use veggie stock in place of water). Fluff with fork after prepared.
Once couscous is ready, stir in dressing*
Add the cilantro/mint, pumpkin seeds, pomegranate seeds and goat cheese (no substitutions on the goat cheese!)
Stir until well combined.
Chill because this tastes horrible warm.

*NOTE: For every 1/2c of dry couscous, make a dressing of about 1/2T lime juice and 1/2T balsamic vinegar. I have no idea how much oil you would add seeing as how I try to avoid the stuff as much as I can.

The amounts of the other ingredients are relative to the flavor you want. For about 1/2c. dry couscous, I used about half a pomegranate, 4oz of goat cheese and 1-2T pumpkin seeds.

UPDATE (12/12/09): Something was off with this recipe so I tried adding some pineapple juice. It helped, but not all the way. You need something to offset the sour, orange juice perhaps?

Quinoa Cereal (with cooked quinoa) September 12, 2009

As unfortunate as it sounds, I don’t really have any clever banter today. I do, but it’s fairly depressing and self-pitying so I thought I’d spare anyone who happens upon this blog.

I did come up with this recipe a while back, though. I was waiting to post it until I HAD some non-self-pitying clever banter, but a week is probably too long to wait anyway.

Quinoa Cereal

Quinoa Cereal

• Quinoa, cooked (SEE NOTE)
• Yogurt (preferably of the thick variety, I used kroger carbsmart vanilla)
• fruits of choice (pineapple, strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, kiwi…for me)

→Put cooked quinoa in a bowl. Add yogurt. Stir. Top with chopped fruit. Yum.

NOTE (To cook quinoa): Rinse. RINSE WELL. If you don’t rinse it well enough (generally till the water’s clear), it’ll be bitter. If you’re unsure, just keep rinsing it till you feel like you’ve gone mad rinsing and that should be enough.
Put it in a pot. 1 part quinoa to 2 parts water (1.5 parts water if you like crunchier quinoa).
Bring to a boil. Put a lid on top of the pot. Then, reduce to a simmer and simmer for 15-20 minutes.
Enjoy.
***You can also replace the water with stock or juice or water + flavoring.

Zen #4: The Zen of Baking August 17, 2009

I think this is number four; I honestly lost count somewhere along the way. Isn’t it funny how life seems to be ruled by numbers? There’s the numbers on the scale (or your BMI), your cholesterol numbers, your bank account numbers, your GPA numbers, your SAT numbers, and so on.

It has always astounded me that someone would actually CHOOSE a career in which most of what they do is add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers. Yes, I know math is a lot more than that and, yes, I do actually enjoy discrete mathematics and fractal planes and different dimensions and what not, but that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is sitting around all day adding and subtracting numbers. I would shoot myself. Or give my kitty a cyanide pill and then take another myself. That’s the way the great men die, right?

Okay, no, this post is not going to talk about Hitler, although I do seem to have this ongoing obsession with the psychology of deranged (yet brilliant) figures in history. This post is more about the “funks” you get yourself into, and how to get out of them. Yes, I admit it, I was in a funk, and still am, but at least now I know I have to work on it.

I’ve been eating mostly processed foods because of the insane amount of work that goes along with taking 20 credits. And then I’ve been beating myself up, counting calories, and the like. That’s a funk. That’s not how you achieve balance. BALANCE comes from moderation. Things that should be common sense like: don’t exercise if you have the flu or don’t starve yourself because you overate or don’t procrastinate when you have a paper due in a few hours (ahem, me right now, ahem). Basically, I’d been feeling bad for being really inactive because I was focusing on WRITING 20 PAPERS!!!! Yes, I counted, with the wonderful invention that is numerology.

So I felt like some muffins the other day (I know, why crave homemade spinach (saag) when you can have muffins, right?) and decided I would try to make some. I looked in the fridge and realized I probably had most of the wet ingredients, but then, looking in the pantry, I realized I had none of the try. So I invented (yes, WITHOUT exact measurements) a blueberry muffin recipe that is actually quite delicious (although, I must say it could use a little more punch, and a little more sugar).

Blueberry Muffins (a.k.a. Craving + Creativity = Food!)

2 weeks of blueberry season, and I make muffins!

• 2 cups oat bran cereal or oat flour or combination of the two (I ran out of the bran after about 1 1/2 cups so used 1/2c. of flour)
• 1/3 c. splenda (or brown sugar or white sugar or whatever)
• 2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t baking soda
• 2 t. spice (cinammon, cardamom, pumpkin pie, allspice, etc)
• 1/2 c. sweetened yogurt (non-fat, low-fat, full-fat, homemade, self-sweetened, whatever)
• 1/2 c. of something to temper the sweetness (think orange or pineapple juice, a little tang but still sweet)
• 1/2 c. egg substitute (or whole eggs beaten but NOT only egg whites because they have no binder in them)
• a tablespoon or two or mild oil (or applesauce or melted butter MIGHT work, but just use a healthy oil)
• 1 c. fruit or chocolate chips or peanut butter chips or chopped nuts or anything else you crave (I made blueberry)

→Freeze the blueberries (or you’ll have a blueberry puddle on the bottom of each muffin).
Preheat oven to 350*F and coat a 12 regular size muffin tin with cooking spray.
Mix dry ingredients (not blueberries).
Mix wet ingredients separately (not blueberries).
Add wet to dry and stir well.
Fold in frozen blueberries.
Spread the mixture evenly between the 12 sections of the muffin tin.
Bake for about 15 minutes (until you can break one open and it’s not soggy anymore.
Enjoy.

Thank you, Alton Brown, for your food science.

Another Banana Split (and homemade ice-cream) August 1, 2009

I’m in posting deprivation! Well, to be honest, it’s more like cooking deprivation due to excessive procrastination of the academic nature. Hopefully, I’ll make some progress in the food invention field when my summer classes are over.

I made this last night for dinner when I couldn’t think of anything else. I went out for a walk, not realizing it was 80 degrees outside (in Michigan?!!), and came back dying for something cold, creamy, juicy and cold. I swear if I had the 90-calorie/scoop brownie fudge ice cream from Wal-Mart in my freezer I would have just dug right in to that with my index finger. (I have modified the Weight Watchers core plan to include ice cream provided it has roughly the same nutritional content of prepared sugar-free/fat-free Jell-O pudding and some other food items that hard-core dieters would abhor me for….more on that later). To be fair, I didn’t actually end up eating it till midnight because I realized that I hadn’t taken my online exam which was due AT MIDNIGHT, but it was even better then.

This recipe has two parts: the first is the ice cream and the second is the banana split. I wish I would have taken a picture of the ice cream part because, in the final picture, it got covered up with all the delicious chopped fruit (as did the banana). Ah well, just use your “i-ma-gin-a-tion” (mental image of Spongebob Squarepants drawing a rainbow over his head) to see the three big scoops of vanilla “ice cream” that are under all the delicious fruit.

No room for cereal....

Banana Split (Part II)

See recipe notes for amounts.

• Fruit of choice: banana (obviously), strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, kiwi….yes, I’m a tropical fruit gal
• Cereal of choice (optional)
• Yogurt (I made vanilla ice cream so I used vanilla yogurt)
• Jell-O pudding mix (always sugar free/fat free), flavor of choice (mine was vanilla again)
• Milk (to make the Jell-O)

→Make the “ice cream”:
First, make the pudding (just follow the package).
Add yogurt to the prepared pudding (NOTE: the yogurt is optional…I dumped it in to add nutrition and bulk for fewer calories. Think about how much you want here: mine was a meal, so I used 6oz of yogurt and 2 servings of pudding, which was A LOT).
Stir the two together vigorously until well blended.
Put it in an ice cream maker or use the freeze-mix-freeze method described earlier.
Construct your banana split once the ice cream is ready:
Cut the banana in half lengthwise, so you end up with two strips. Put them in a dish and glob the ice cream in between.
Top with the toppings. Yummy!

Side Note: I know I tagged this with “quick” (even though it took ME 4 hours to make it). If you have an ice cream maker that you can figure out how to work, it’ll take less than 15-20 minutes. Plus, the hands-on time is really only about 5-10 minutes (depending on your chopping dexterity).

The Best Breakfast Ever July 21, 2009

Other than being extremely joyous over the return of my internet connection, I don’t really have any interesting news. The past few days have been getting by and realizing how pathetically dependent I am on the world wide web.

Here are the following things I realized that were really disturbing:
1) Not having internet makes me cranky….abnormally so.
2) There are certain people I should NOT (never ever ever ever EVER) turn to in my times of need
3) There are certain people with whom my relationship has been purely take and those people give no indication (upon ASKING) that they will ever want something in return. These people are the few in the world who make me believe there is something good about me that I deserve them in my life.
4) There are VERY few people who I enjoy talking to and/or would go out of my way to talk to (i.e. sitting in my car outside of Kroger at midnight simply to talk to said people).
5) I am absurdly reliant on the internet to conduct my daily life and find there is NOTHING I can do without it (NOTHING, not even cook, since most of my good recipes are stored on this blog).

So in the spirit of now once again having access to the wonderfulness that encompasses this vital piece of technology, I am going to post the one breakfast/snack recipe simple enough that I could remember it with confidence (and make it).

Why ever have cooked oatmeal?

Overnight Oatmeal Bowl

• Oatmeal (2/3c. old fashioned oats)
• Yogurt (I use one vanilla kroger carb master)
• Fruit of choice (blueberries are perfect for this, especially in this time of year when they’re such good ones)
• Milk (I use 8th continent light original)
• Cereal (Fiber One original)

→Okay, pretty simple. The night before, put the oatmeal in a bowl. Add yogurt and stir well. And milk gradually (stirring after each tablespoon or so and stopping when the consistency is that of regular cooked oatmeal). Cover with a plate and put in the fridge. In the morning, add more milk using the same process as before (it will probably be much thicker than oatmeal by now and will need some thinning). Handful of blueberries, handful of cereal and you have…..

dun dun da…..

BREAKFAST!

Copycat Panera Fruit Salad (but better!) July 9, 2009

My dad likes to come visit me every Thursday since he works close to where I live. It’s kind of nice: we eat lunch (sometimes, aka when his blood sugar’s okay); we talk about my future and how my little brother is doing; if I’m lucky, we’ll even take a short walk around wherever we go to eat.

Unfortunately, his schedule (and my sparse knowledge of restaurants), usually means we end up going somewhere either really expensive (i.e. Panera) or somewhere really unhealthy/bad (i.e. this World Buffet place we found while driving around looking for Ponderosa).

On this particular day, we chose Panera, mostly because it was conveniently located. My dad got a sandwich and I, who really wasn’t in the mood for my usual “Vegetarian Vegetable [sodium loaded] Soup,” jumped when I saw the big sign that said It’s Back! Try our Strawberry Poppyseed Salad!
“Well, what do you want Mehak?” I could tell my dad was getting annoyed holding up the line at Panera Bread.
“Ummmmm,” I looked at the price. My god, $6.95! For a HALF salad?!! “Is the new strawberry salad good?” I asked the lady at the counter, hoping to buy myself some time.
“It has romaine lettuce, strawberries, blueberries, mandarin oranges, pineapple, pecans and our special recipe strawberry poppyseed dressing, made from real poppyseeds.” I could tell she’d been taught that line and the monotone didn’t help either.
I looked at my dad. He looked increasingly pissed. “Okay, fine,” I blurted, “I guess I’ll just have that. Can I have the pecans and the dressing on the side?”

When I finally received my order, what I got was a) about a half serving of lettuce artfully arranged on a plate, b) a handful of canned pineapple and mandarin oranges, c) five blueberries, and d) 6 perfectly cut strawberry halves. My dad was not impressed. And, quite frankly, neither was I.
“That’s pretty expensive,” he said while looking at the receipt and my salad.
I stuffed a bite into my mouth. “At least it’s good.” It wasn’t.
“You know,” my dad stared at it again, “you could make that at home”.

And so, I did. Only better.

Now that's a fruit salad!

Fruit Salad (with actual fruit)

• Lettuce of choice (I used Dole’s Italian Blend)
• Chopped strawberries (I used 5-7)
• Blueberries (just go crazy, it’ll still be cheaper than Panera)
• Canned pineapple (or fresh–even better!)
• Chopped kiwi
• Raspberries and/or blackberries (if you have them, which I didn’t)
• Any other fruit you desire!
• Dressing of choice (I settled on my calorie-free Walden Farms Raspberry Vinaigrette)
• Morningstar Veggie Chick’n Strips (or real chicken if you must; beans would work too, and be better than real chicken at least)

→Mix it all together or, if you’re OCD like me, mix the fruit separately, add it into the salad blend and mix those two together, pour the dressing on top, keep this whole thing chilled while you meticulously prepare the protein of choice, take the chilled salad out of the fridge and put the protein on top and then eat it before the salad gets warm and the fake chicken gets cold.
Really, mixing it all together in the first place would just be simpler.

This one goes out to my good friends at Rec(ession)ipes!

Mangoes: like better bananas (and an Indian drink recipe) June 20, 2009

A recent statistic I read somewhere stated that the U.S. population eats a startlingly large amount of bananas each year (yes, I read a lot of random (and usually pointless) “statistics” and what not), which kind of bothers me because, well, I’m not really too fond of them. Although I do think one of the doctors I know makes up for the whole lot of us that aren’t particularly fond of the fruit.

It’s not really so much that I don’t like the taste, or the texture but it’s really more of a calorie/water content thing. When I think of fruit, I think of something that is a) water in chewable form (yes, I do love to eat plain crushed ice) and b) something that is sweet and filling, with hardly any calories for the amount of fullness. Bananas, because of their starchiness, are more like bread to me and, therefore, I always considered them more of a treat than a fruit.

Enter the mango: just as sweet as the banana but more refreshing, more colorful and, unfortunately, so much more messy. Equally saddening is the fact that, while bananas are available in abundance year round for a fairly cheap price, mangoes are a much rarer commodity but most definitely worth the hunt. So, in the spirit of the hunt (or, in most cases wait), I bring you my favorite mango smoothie, straight from India.

Mango Lassi Ice Cream

Mango Lassi pronounced la(like the note)-si (spanish)

• Mangoes (I used three medium ones, which gave me about 3 cups cubed)
• 1 cup plain yogurt (I used fat-free)
• 1/2 cup milk (I used 8th continent light soymilk)
• sugar to taste (about 3-4 splendas) *see note*

→Put all of the ingredients in a blender and blend on high until smooth. I used my Vita-Mix so I didn’t need to do anything to get it going, but if you’re using a regular blender, you might want to puree the mangoes in a food processor first.
 

Note: The proportion of sugar/splenda can be varied according to taste. I wanted a more mango-y flavor to my drink (because I love those mangoes oh so much), but you could easily increase the sugar and use less mango. The typical Indian drink uses close to 6T sugar (depending on who’s making it). If you’re not to fond of mangoes (is it possible?), you can eliminate the mangoes all together and make plain LASSI, but that will require quite a bit of sugar.

ALSO, don’t even think about using sweetened yogurt. Part of the charm of this drink is the sweet goodness playing off of the tang of the yogurt. Dare I reference a certain frozen yogurt chain in California….

Ice Cream-less Banana Split (with a cherry on top) June 16, 2009

So I came home from work yesterday (around 8:30) and, the moment I stepped in the door, I had this incredible urge to be thin and binge all at the same time (I used to have these a lot when I was really overweight). It’s a strange feeling to stand there, with a million things on your mind, and be able to think about nothing more than being thin and eating a cookie.

I realized pretty early on in my life that “being thin” was never going to come easy for me. I figured that, school was easy and I was smart and creative, skinny being easy would just make life too boring.

The reason I tell this story, now (and here), is because a) it really was the feeling I experienced as I walked in the door and b) it is what led to the creation of what was to later become the first “like-substance” (I never thought to call them that originally). And. following the eternally cyclical form of the natural world, led to the creation of this one (which is highly adaptable).

Sadly, I didn’t have any cherries (I used all my no sugar added cherry pie filling on the Cherry Cheesecake “Jell(at)-o” I made awhile back, but I would have most definitely put a cherry on top had I had one (because it was just that kind of day).

 

Banana Split (without the cream)

 

Banana + Yogurt + Mmmmmm
1 banana (sliced lengthwise)
Yogurt/thickener of choice (see note)
Toppings (I used sugar free chocolate sauce and Fiber One)
1 cherry
→Put the banana in a dish. Blend the yogurt and thickener (see note) and, using an ice cream scoop (or spoon) glob a few scoops of that in between the two halves of the banana. Top as desired.

Note: This is highly personalize-able. I didn’t have very much on hand, so I mixed some Greek yogurt with Spiru-tein protein powder (cookies and cream flavor). It came out okay, but not the best, so I added one container of pre-made Jell-o sugar free pudding (for the middle two scoops) which helped a little. There are really two “best ways” to make this dessert and still have it be nutritious enough to count as a protein/dairy serving instead of a sugar serving (which would be the case with ANY type of store bought “low-calorie ice cream”:
1. If you have time: instead of the filling above, take any flavor of “light” yogurt (whatever you think sounds good in a banana split) and dump at least two to three 6oz cartons into a fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth (you can usually find most of these at the local grocery store or mega-mart). Place the sieve (or cheesecloth) over a container so there’s something to catch the drippings and put the whole thing in the fridge (covered) for a few hours to overnight (depending on how thin your yogurt is). If you do this with plain yogurt, it’ll actually be cheaper, homemade “Greek yogurt”. Advantage: all you need ingredient-wise is the yogurt. Disadvantage: unless you start keeping this stuff around (which I might start doing), it takes a long time to get to the yumminess.

2. Find an extremely thick variety of yogurt (preferably a healthy one) and pick three flavors you like (they can all be the same or any combination). Freeze them just a little bit (unopened, in the carton) until you hear a tiny bit of cracking when you squeeze the outside of the containers (as if there’s a ring of frozen yogurt around the inside of the container). Open the yogurts, hold them upside down over the dish with the banana halves in them and squeeze gently. The entire container of yogurt should fall out at once, forming a container shaped mound. If you do it with all three, you’ll have three “scoops” of frozen yogurt.

You could also make your own yogurt from scratch, but that’s a whole different post.

Easy Freezy “JELLatO” May 30, 2009

Now that that’s taken care of, on to the recipe of the day. Apparently, heat waves don’t spur great ice cream renovations in the kitchen, “cold waves” do. It was most definitely noticeably colder yesterday, and…I discovered the perfect fat-free, sugar-free ice cream recipe. Well, okay, TECHNICALLY, there’s no such thing as “fat-free, sugar-free ice cream,” because ice cream is defined at being high in sugar and fat (some etymological thing). Who cares, though, right?

So, as I was cleaning (yes, I know, I know…me? cleaning?!) my pantry yesterday, I found a bag full of evaporated milk cans lying on the floor. I must have gone a little “evaporated milk happy” last Thanksgiving when I first discovered the plethora of uses for the stuff. I pick one up: “Best if used by 6/09/09″. Oh great, there’s like *counts* FIVE cans of this stuff. And most baking recipes call for only half a can if even that. So the itty bitty wheels in my head start turning, albeit slowly, and I move from evaporated milk to refrigerated milk to yogurt/cheeses to creamy substances in general to ICE CREAM. Yay. It’s summertime too and the Blue Bunny ones at Wal-Mart are getting expensive.

Yadda, yadda, yadda. Add other ingredients: stabilizer, thinner, flavor….would it work? My god! It did!!!!

Just so you know, I gave up on my ice cream maker after wasting an entire half gallon of soymilk and half a container of peanut butter ($3.50-$4.00 worth of ingredients!) on a very botched batch of peanut butter gelato. Not to mention the huge mess I had to deal with afterward as I tried to salvage the doomed treat. So, from now on (unless I somehow acquire a semi-decent ice cream maker (does such a thing exist?)), all my “ice cream” recipes will be made using the “mix, freeze for awhile, mix again, freeze again, mix again and so on” method. I’m sure it would be better if you had an actual functioning ice cream maker that doesn’t annoy the shit out of you, so………..(I forgot what my point was), uh, always keep that in mind? I guess.

I’m beginning to think there may have been some brain damage in that car accident….
Anyway, on to the recipe whose secret ingredient, as I’m sure you’ve already deduced, is JELL-O!!!! pudding. Yay!!!!!

Cheery Cherry Cheesecake

Basic Recipe
1. 1.4 oz container JELL-O sf/ff instant pudding and pie filling mix
2. 1 cup milk
3. 1 12oz can evaporated fat free milk (NOT CONDENSED MILK)
4. sweetners to taste (for the basic vanilla, use about 2T of sugar and 2T of sugar substitute…the real sugar will help eliminate ice crystals and give it a better mouth feel).
→Simple: Mix well, chill and freeze by following your ice-cream maker’s directions or using the “freeze/mix/freeze/mix…” method described above.

Some Flavor Suggestions
1. Cherry Cheesecake: use cheesecake flavored pudding mix and stir in about half a can of no sugar added cherry pie filling (only 105 calories for 1 cup) before you began the freezing process.

2. Chocoberry: use chocolate fudge (or white chocolate) pudding mix and stir in some sugar free berry flavored jam as close to the end of the freezing process as you can (so it makes swirls). This one works a little better with an ice cream maker because you can add the jam in while the machine is turning.

3. (Orange) Chocolate Chip: use vanilla pudding mix and stir in sugar-free chocolate chips (the same way as in the chocoberry). Or, for an orange version, mix in some sf orange drink mix with the pudding mix.

4. I don’t know! I’m all out of ideas. But I bet you could turn any of your favorite Ben and Jerry’s flavors into a “Ben and Jerry’s like substance”!

Another Frozen Delight (Plus Fruit!) May 17, 2009

Here’s another one for the ice cream maker, designed for personalization. It’s actually frozen yogurt instead of ice cream, but since it seems probiotics are the new rage…why not?

I broke out my ice cream maker to make the peanut butter gelato and, annoying piece of crap that it is, I figured that I might as well make another recipe while I was at it. (I have one of the old fashioned ice and rock salt makers so it’s a pain to clean out the rock salt and takes up a ton of room in the sink).

I opened the fridge to see what I had left that could be turned into ice cream. Soymilk? No, generally too hard to improvise with due to lack of fat and consistency. Cottage cheese? No, I’d have to blenderize it first, meaning I’d have to clean the blender. And then there it was, the answer: My Kroger Carbsmart yogurts.

Now what to add? I could always make vanilla, but that would be boring. Anything chocolate chip has too many calories. Baby food! My new addiction has come to some culinary use…

Fruity Fro-yo Makes 1 Quart
1. 8 oz. yogurt of choice
2. 1 cup pureed fruit (I used about four containers of baby food)
3. sweetener (if you need it…taste the mix–it should be sweeter than you want it to be when it’s done)
4. a pinch of xanthan or guar gum (this is optional, but will give the fro-yo a creamier mouth feel when it’s done)
5. a tablespoon of vegetable glycerin or liquor (also optional but it will keep the ice cream from freezing up too hard if you want to store it for later)
→Mix it all together, chill it and churn it up in the ice cream maker. Yummy…

I know the liquor might be a problem for some who are opposed to alcohol. Keep in mind it’s only a tablespoon but, if you’re under 21, try to find the vegetable glycerin or just make enough so that you and whoever else is around can it it within a few hours.