Onion Takeover

Right now, first thing in the morning, I smell onions.  I am not eating onions or cooking onions, but I still smell them.  There is no food anywhere near me, but the smell persists.  It isn't my breath. (Really, it isn't.  Okay, pass the mints.)  I am as far from the kitchen as I can be in my house, and I still smell onion.  The onions have taken over.

I have been cooking a lot of stews and soups.  The recipes always start with a sauteed onion.  Once the food is done cooking, some other smell takes over - the spice or the tomato.  I clean up the kitchen, change my clothes, even shower.  Yet, I can still smell cooked onion every where I go.  I don't know whether the smell has gotten into my skin or into my nose or just all around the house so everything in it just smells.

I am going to start wearing a sign: Warning - Being near me may cause and uncontrollable craving for onion rings.  Don't worry, I'll cook them.  No, I don't mind the smell.

You Know What Would Taste Good in Here - Spinach

I tried a recipe for chickpea tikka masala.  When we tried the result, my family and I decided it needed something.

"Salt?" Sarah suggested.
"Maybe some raisins?" Matt offered.

We added both and ate some more.  I got an idea. "You know what would taste good in here? Spinach."

"No, not spinach."  Matt answered flatly.
"Why not?" I asked.  "Don't you like spinach."
"I like spinach, just not in everything," he answered.
"I do not put spinach in everything," I grumbled.

Matt didn't answer.  He gave a look.  Every husband has this look.  It is the one that says "I know you're wrong, but I like being married to you, so I am keeping my mouth shut."  We finished dinner.

I thought back on what we had been eating the past couple of weeks.  We had lentil soup, with spinach.   I made a strata, with spinach.  I tried a Moroccan stew, with spinach.  Gnocchi soup - I substituted the unavailable escarole with spinach.  Vegetable calzones with tomato, peppers and ... spinach.  I used spinach instead of lettuce on sandwiches.  I ordered spinach on my pizza.  Good God, I was in full-blown Popeye mode!  Pretty soon, my biceps will start bulging and I will feel the need to rescue some super-skinny brunette.

Okay, Matt is right, I thought.  I will try and lay off the spinach for a few days.  Maybe I will try some kale.

The next day, I warmed up a bowl of the leftovers for lunch.  I added a little salt and some frozen spinach.  I tasted much better.

Rings Around the Kitchen

I love the Olympics - the overblown pageantry, the orchestrated music, the tearjerker back stories, the manufactured drama.  I don't stick around for just the figure skating either.  I watch biathlon and skeleton and curling.  For the past two weeks, I was in live-streaming snow sport heaven.  Part of the Olympic tradition in our house is cooking food from the host country.  For the past several Games this was easy:  London - fish & chips, Vancouver - steak, Beijing - stir fry, Torino - pizza wrapped in a shroud (just kidding, I wrapped myself in the sheet).  Sochi proved a bigger problem.  What do I know about Russian food?  Vodka and caviar.

So I did a little research.  What about borshch?  Beets, bleh.  I don't like a vegetable that bleeds all over the plate.  I found a recipe for mushroom stroganoff.  It was vegetarian but loaded with sour cream, too rich.  Blini?  Pirozhki?  Pelmeni?  Cabbage?  Too heavy, too complicated, too meaty and too smelly.  What is the Russian word for failure?

Tea!  Turns out, Russians love their tea.  So I made a cup of tea and watched some speed skating.  I think the US team could use a shot of vodka.

I'm Okay, You're Okay

As I mentioned yesterday, Sarah and I went out to lunch a couple of times this week.  When we were choosing where to eat, Sarah said she really wanted a hamburger.  "Is that okay?" she asked tentatively.  I enthusiastically told her it was fine, if she wanted a hamburger she should have one.  "Will it make you feel bad?"  she asked.  Feel bad?  "Because if I was trying not to eat meat, I would feel bad if someone ate a giant hamburger in front me."

I appreciated her sensitivity and praised her for her thoughtfulness, but I did feel bad.  Not because I wanted the hamburger (which she ordered and thoroughly enjoyed) but because I made my daughter feel guilty about food.  My relationship with food is not good or healthy and that is the last thing I want to pass on to my daughter.  Cutting meat from my diet is an effort to improve that relationship, not make it more difficult and certainly not make it more difficult for Sarah.  Food should be fun and life-sustaining, not painful and guilt-ridden.  Am I making things worse or better?

Two for Lunch

After several days of being trapped in the house by weather and my bum hand, Sarah and I needed a change of scenery.  Like any good mom-tween duo, we headed to the mall.  For Sarah, a shopping day is not complete without eating out.  Finding tasty, healthy food at the mall has always been a challenge. How would it go now?

We ate our first meal at P.F. Chang's.  What a delight!  The menu marked each of the vegetarian items with a prominent green symbol (I like to imagine it is the Chinese character for vegetable).  Lots of choices, though I was disappointed that there was not a vegetarian soup option.  I ordered spring rolls, vegetable dumplings and something call Buddha's Feast, which involved mixed vegetables and tofu.  I did not have to grill the waiter on ingredients, or have something special made, or do anything but just order and enjoy my meal.

On our next trip, we chose to have lunch at Ruby Tuesday.  Sarah was craving a hamburger (more on that tomorrow) and I thought there had to something on the menu I could work with.  I read the menu, then read it again, checked the specials, and then read the menu for a third time.  Nothing.  Not a single meal on the menu could be considered vegetarian.  I asked the waitress if I was missing anything.  She offered the salad bar or a veggie plate.  Now I love a good salad bar, and this one was fine, but it certainly was not a meal.  The Veggie Trio Combo is a combination of three side dishes - so my meal would consist of steam broccoli and french fries.  Bleh!  I invoked my "occasional fish" rule and ordered a crab cake and salad.  The crab cake was greasy.

Lesson learned - plan ahead.

Look Ma, No Hands!

Tomorrow I am having surgery on my dominant hand to relieve the pain from carpal tunnel syndrome.  The surgery is no big deal, but I will be unable to cook for a couple of weeks.  I had it done on my non-dominant hand in the fall and I was unprepared for how useless the hand was for several days after.  We ate a lot of take-out that week.  This time, I am determined to be more prepared.  All afternoon, I have been cooking and storing: lentil soup, vegetable calzones, savory bread pudding, chili-corn bread pie.  Of course, my family will probably take this opportunity to order out.  For the first couple days, all I will want is some ginger ale and toast.  Regardless, I am prepared.  No one can complain there is nothing to eat!  Except for dinner tonight.  I don't have anything for dinner tonight.

Savory Bread Pudding for One

I love eggs.  Anytime of day, I can eat eggs.  My family does not share my enthusiasm, so I am left to cook eggs just for myself.  Except the dog; if you are cracking a hard-boiled egg, Lucy will hear it from a mile away.  This is an easy recipe to scale up for more portions as well.

Savory Bread Pudding for One
1 mini-bagel, any variety without seeds
1 egg
1/3 cup skim milk
1 oz low-fat Monterrey jack cheese, shredded
1/2 cup frozen spinach
Tomato slices (optional)

Thaw and drain the spinach.  Cut the bagel into small cubes.  Spray a small oven-safe dish with non-stick spray.  Add bagel and spinach.  Beat eggs with milk.  Pour over bagel and spinach.  Stir gently to coat all the bagel with the egg mixture.  Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, until set and golden.  Top with tomato slices.

The Last Supper

If you knew it would be your last meal, what would you eat?  This is my favorite party-game question. Either because I am terribly morbid or because I love food, I have a detailed answer.  My last meal would be a hamburger on a kaiser roll topped with lettuce, tomato and Heinz ketchup, fat steak fries, corn on the cob, all washed down with a vanilla milkshake.  Oh yeah, I don't fool around.

A few things to notice about this meal:

• It hits all the major food groups - salt, sugar, fat and ketchup.
• If you weren't dying, this meal would kill you.
• The centerpiece of it all is meat.

This leads me to my real dilemma; can I imagine the rest of my life without meat?  When I decided to try cutting out meat, I did not think long term.  I thought of it as an experiment which implies a set time duration.  As I continue with this, I will have to really think about why I want to do this and if the changes can be permanent.

And yes, I do care about my brand of ketchup.

It comes out if you hit the "57" on the bottle

Tofu You

Tofu or dish sponge?

"What are your feelings on tofu?" I asked my family as I pored over the stack of cookbooks from the library.
"Neutral," Matt answered.
"Bleh!" Sarah answered.
Lucy did not answer.  She turned her head and stared at me, hoping I was offering her a treat.

"Well, we are going to give it a try.  Do want keep eating beans every night?"
"I'm okay with that," Matt answered.
"Bleh!" Sarah answered.

First, I made a tofu cacciatore.  Everyone agreed it was not very good.  "It needs chicken," Sarah suggested.

Then I tried a tofu mousse.  I did not even show that to the family.  The texture resembled wet paper towels.  Then, I used the leftover for an orange-glazed tofu with broccoli.  There was just enough for me, so I saved it for lunch.  Well, at least the broccoli part tasted good.

I guess I will try some different brands or types of tofu, but so far I am not enjoying it.  All the cookbooks claim tofu is so versatile.  "It has no flavor if its own so you can do anything with it!"  To which I say, why do I want to eat something that has no flavor?

Hockey Puck Filled With Mud

I tried Mark Bittman's recipe for Now and Later Vegan Burgers.  The recipe seemed simple enough - a bunch of vegetables mixed with some beans shaped into patties cooked in a skillet.  We like sandwiches and if you add enough ketchup to anything it will work, right?

I should have known I was in trouble by the mess in the kitchen.  The recipe required so many steps and bowls and tools.  I chopped, shredded, drained, mixed and pureed.  Sarah asked me if I was okay.  Matt offered to help.  I threw them out of the kitchen.  After one too many clanging pans, even Lucy ran away, her fear overwhelming her desire for floor crumbs.  Finally I had a patty to put in the pan that looked about as appetizing as mud.  Oh well, it will be better once it is cooked, I reasoned.

How can you tell when a veggie burger is cooked?  There is no guide, like slightly-pink-for-medium.  When these were cooked, they looked like hockey pucks.  They had a blackened, plastic like exterior.  I buried them in their buns, topped them with lettuce, tomato and a more than healthy dose of ketchup, and presented them with a flourish.

That first bite - one I broke through the, ahem, crisp outer layer, I was met with ooze.  It was not like the satisfying crunch of the candy coating of an M&M or the crackle as you break the sugar on a flan.  No, this was like biting a piece of birthday cake and finding a hunk of candle wax in your mouth.

"Maybe it needs more ketchup," Sarah suggested.