Almond Chicken Soup

I made this soup for dinner tonight, which was nice because it's fast if you have the chicken pre-cooked and some rice in your fridge...

Almond Chicken Soup

• 4 c. chicken stock (1 box)
• 2 tsp. olive oil
• 1 small onion - chopped
• 2 small sweet potatoes (or 1 medium), peeled and chopped
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1/2 tsp. grated ginger
• 1 large cooked chicken breast, chopped into pieces
• 1 c. collared greens (or assorted "Southern Greens" from Trader Joe's)
• 1/2 c. smooth almond butter
• cooked brown rice (if desired)
• salt and pepper

1.   Heat the olive oil in the pot and add the onion and sweet potatoes.  Over medium heat, cook the onions and sweet potatoes for 5-7 min, stirring occasionally.  When you see a bunch of good brown fond (baked on stuff) on the bottom of the pan, add the garlic and ginger and cook for 1 min.

2.  Add the chicken stock to the pot and bring to a boil.  Use a whisk to scrape up all of the good browned bits off the bottom of the pan.  Boil for 5min.  Add chicken and collared greens and boil for 3min.  

3.  Ladle out 1 c. of the chicken stock into a bowl and add the almond butter.  Stir to a smooth paste.  Add the paste to the pot and stir.  Throw rice in the pot, if using.  Boil for 1-2min to thicken slightly.

4.  Ladle soup into bowls and add salt and pepper to taste.

Pretty hearty and really good!
 

Second Breakfast

Since January 1st, I have eaten second breakfast every day.  I eat at least five (usually six) meals a day now, which I find has really helped to curb my crankiness throughout the day.  I have breakfast around 7:30a, second breakfast around 10:30a, lunch at 12:30 (or 1ish, depending), mid-afternoon snack/meal at 3:00p, post-work food (nuts or something else small) around 5:30p and dinner somewhere between 8-11p.

I think my favorite meal of the day is definitely second breakfast.  I'm not sure why.  It might be because it's the first substantial food I eat all day (breakfast is generally a fruit smoothie).  It might be because I like to include eggs.  Who knows.

Today, second breakfast was a mini-pita served open-faced with goat cheese, avocado, roasted tomatoes and two poached eggs.  Here's how I made it:

• 1 whole grain mini-pita (I buy them in bulk at CostCo and keep them in my freezer)
• 1 mini package of goat cheese (from Trader Joe's - I think it's a 1oz portion) - softened
• 1 small, ripe avocado
• 1 c. assorted mini tomatoes (I had red and yellow)
• 2 eggs
• 1 lemon
• 1 tsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. table salt
• Salt, pepper and parsley to taste

1.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Line a small pan with foil, throw in the tomatoes.  Toss tomatoes with 1tsp olive oil, salt and pepper.  Roast tomatoes for 20min in the oven.

2.  15min after you put your tomatoes in, fill a small saucepan with water (2in-ish or whatever will cover the eggs).  Add the juice of the whole lemon and the teaspoon of table salt to the water.  Cover the pan and bring to a boil.  (The salt helps to season your eggs and the lemon juice keeps the whites together.  Don't skip the lemon juice!)

3.  Take your pita and spread 1/2 of the goat cheese on each half.  Halve the avocado and remove the pit.  Scoop out each half and divide amongst the pitas.  Squish a little and smear to create a good layer.

4.  Take your tomatoes out of the oven and place 1/2 on each pita.

5.  Crack your eggs into two separate, small dishes.  Turn off the heat under your boiling water, tilt the eggs into the pan, and cover.  Set a timer for 4min for medium eggs.

6.  Remove your eggs with a spoon (try to drain off a little of the water) and place one on each pita half.  Top with salt, pepper, and parsley to taste.

Really tasty and worth the effort. 

This Morning's Smoothie

Oh man, this was a good one:

• 1 small pear 
• 1 kiwi
• 1 banana
• 1 c. sugar free vanilla almond milk (I like the Trader Joe's brand)
• 2 ice cubes
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. honey

Blend everything together.  So delicious.  Also, I thought it tasted sortof "delicate," but that seems like an odd descriptive term for a smoothie.  

Planning for post-Diverticulitis Surgery

Not that I think anyone is going to read this now, but perhaps some day this portion of my blog will help someone else who is looking for recipes to take care of someone recovering from intestinal surgery in the future...

I'm going home from Baltimore to Chicago in three weeks to take care of my mother who is having surgery to remove a portion of her colon that is plagued by diverticulitis.  (In case you don't know what that is, WebMD says: Diverticulosis happens when pouches (diverticula ) form in the wall of the colon . If these pouches get inflamed or infected, it is called diverticulitis. http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/tc/diverticulitis-topic-overview)  She has a pretty bad case of it and has for a while.  SO, she'll have the nasty bits removed and go back to living a nice digestive life filled with nuts, seeds, and other previously aggitation/aggrivation/inflammation-causing foods.

My job, as it has been assigned to me, is to come up with a battery of culinary delights that fit into her post-op diet, make them, and keep her from going insane as a result of not being allowed to eat solid foods for at least a week or two.  I have accepted this challenge! 

I have already started researching recipes and will definitely post them here.  I'm hoping (since I won't have a whole lot else to do while I'm home and caring for her) that I'll be able to catalog the foods as I make them as well.  I'm thinking daily menus and such...

At any rate, that's a project that's in the works too.  I'm also actually going to get in the habit of posting new recipes that I am eating as a part of my revamped way of eating, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.  Until next time...

My new favorite smoothie

I tried this smoothie the other day and was a bit skeptical because I haven't had tremendous success with "green" smoothies before.  I only have a mini-food processor to blend my smoothies, and chunky things like kale and collards were just not getting smooth enough for me to want to "drink."  When the recipe I found for this one involved baby spinach, I was intrigued.  The recipe also suggested adding chocolate syrup "in case it turns out a little too green," but I think that defeats the point of my trying to make a healthy smoothie...  Here's my recipe:

• 1 large bunch of baby spinach leaves (enough to fill the mini-food processor bowl pretty well)
• 1 large-ish banana
• 1 c. unsweetened almond milk
• 2 Tbsp cocoa powder - unsweetened
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 ice cubes
• 1 tsp honey (or some Splenda)

Put everything together and blend.  Definitely try and serve this one in an opaque glass if possible because it is not a pretty color at the end.  It tasted pretty awesome though, and you really don't feel like you're drinking greens.  You can also throw some peanut butter in to make a peanut butter-banana-chocolate smoothie.

I'm considering that whole "posting pictures" thing on this blog, but you really don't want to see a picture of this one anyway.  It's tasty, I promise.

Some thoughts about the food I eat

There are several criteria that I have for foods that I'm eating right now and some principles that I have always had.  Here they are (in part, because I don't feel like typing forever right now):

•  I don't believe in "fake desserts."  I don't want to eat low fat cheesecake or sugar free cookies.  I want to eat real fat and real sugar and white flour.  I would rather not eat dessert than eat something that doesn't taste as good just because it's low calorie.  That said, I am not opposed to desserts that happen to be lighter or lower in sugar, IN GENERAL, than say, a slab of rich chocolate cake a la mode.

• I don't believe in "fake food that is named after other food to try and trick you that it is, in fact, the other food."  Eggplant lasagne made without noodles is NOT lasagne.  It's eggplant layered with sauce and cheese.  Chocolate mousse made with avocado and tofu is not chocolate mousse.  It might be a whipped chocolate dessert of some kind, but it is NOT chocolate mousse.  You get the idea... Again, I would rather not eat food like this than eat it to try and "fake myself out."  

• I really love Splenda.  I put it in my coffee, on my strawberries, and in my oatmeal.  Someday, it will probably give me cancer or make me spawn a second head.  It isn't natural or organic.  I won't bake with it because the properties I like about it do not make up for the fact that it makes things soggy, doesn't react very well with flour, and is generally lacking in all of the things sugar can do except be sweet.  It might, however, be the only processed food that I will never give up. 

• That said, I like recipes that feature all of its ingredients in the best way possible with minimal butter, cream, assorted fats and excess starch/white flour.  I like all of that stuff very much, but (with this lifestyle change) in great limitation.  And when I do cook with those things, watch out!

• I am actually trying to limit the amount of sugar, animal fat, processed foods and caffeine in my daily life.  I would add alcohol to that list too, but I don't drink much or often as it is.  I also don't drink anything carbonated, so that helps too.

• I eat meat of all kinds.  period.

• If I'm going to cheat and eat something "bad' - e.g. full of fat or sugar - it's going to be something really good and very likely hand-made.  I won't eat bagels at Panera, but I'll definitely eat them in New York at a tiny, Jewish mom-and-pop deli (with lox and cream cheese and capers and tomatoes).  If I'm going to eat a pastry, it had better well be coming to me from a real French bakery and be crazy fresh.

• If I'm going to cheat and eat something "bad" (see above for the definition of this), it's going to be:

• 1) well-planned for ahead of time or 
• 2) so spontaneously amazing and fitting of the above description that I might die if I don't eat it

                AND

• 3) not anywhere near the last time I cheated - because otherwise that's habit forming instead of indulging a craving/seizing the culinary moment.

That's all I've got for now on this, but I'm sure to think of more.

Why a blog?

Why am I doing this?  I'm not a terribly huge "share with the world" kind of person.  However, it's almost February and I'm doing really well at sticking to my new goals to eat cleanly as part of a "lifestyle revamp" that I've undertaken.  I started this lifestyle change in January - not really as a resolution, because I know that I just break resolutions - because trying to eat exclusively clean and healthy between Thanksgiving and New Year's is just stupid.  

I haven't told too many people about this new change (other than the b/f, the handful of friends I have, and my immediate coworkers - all of whom eat with me regularly) because I feel like that sets up goals and expectations in/with/related to other people that I am just not interested in maintaining.  It might be nice if other people read this someday, but it's not necessary because I plan to keep posting things anyway.

January was awesome and full of that "woohoo, let's do this," and I'd like to keep it going.  I think that chronicling how I'm continuing to eat well (with lots of new recipes and foods) is a great idea because it seems like a fun and motivational thing to do. 

Additionally, I understand that I could use something like Pintrest to keep track of all of the neat links and things I find online, but I think that will probably just suck time out of my life that I'm not willing to give up in mass quantities (a la, YouTube).  I have decided to stay away from Pintrest for as long as possible for that very reason.  Also, this will be a good place for rants (food related and otherwise).

So, that's why I've decided to start a blog.  We'll see how long this lasts...