Healthy Eating

Last week I went back to being a vegetarian. Except for Thursday, on Thursday I was a pescetarian....but when your eating with a big group of family members that you love, and fra diavalo is the request...well who am I to stand in its way? In any event, the holidays kicked my butt and I gained some weight, so I have been using my time away from here to get caught up on sleep, drink more water than ever before, and realign my eating habits...all very exciting stuff. Moving forward I'll be posting what we're eating, just as before.

But while the zeitgeist is all in favor of meat meat meat (google charcutepalooza...you'll see what im talking about) Im moving toward a veggie existence... Since the man loves veggies, and even eats tofu, the switch has been fairly easy, most of what you'll be seeing here will be...ahem, flexitarian...and will stay true to my desire to reduce the amount of processed food that we consume. I'm looking forward to our kitchen's fresh start! More...

Hiatus

I realized this weekend that I need to focus more on some other things Like my health, and the fact that my bathing suit is the worlds smallest scrap of fabric. Putting so much focus on food, making cooking and baking a hobby has left me a little uncomfortable in my dress pants, if you will...Im going on hiatus, while I figure out where Im headed. I switched over to eating lacto ovo vegetarian again, and Im giving up alcohol during the week. I'm hoping to revamp my diet and my favorite recipes to remain as natural as possible but I need to step away for a little while.

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Soup's On

Its been snowy. Snowy and cold. Part of the 'charm' of living in a cottage built in the 1800s, is the drafts that seep in through every window frame and door jamb. They seem to even seep through the walls. When your warm nest feels not so very warm you drink alot of tea, (alot) and then there's the soup. There has been a new soup each week since Christmas.

Each week we make a big bubbling pot that feeds us through the week, for lunches and for simple suppers. Each one packed into the freezer when there's just a little more than two bowlfuls left. Money in the bank, as they say.

Hot and Sour, Pho, Chicken Tortilla, and Vegetable Noodle; There is something about soup. Its restorative in a way that nothing else really is. Maybe its how a pot of soup can bubble on the stovetop and make everything feel like home. Soups make you warm inside, and out. Since we're in need of keeping warm in our little cottage and we've made and eaten quite a bit of soup in the last month, its felt a little bit like a joke to write about it here.

There's no real science to soup. Vegetables swim in broth and maybe they get accompanied by chicken, or noodles. Maybe you thicken it with bread....if you are feeling especially brave, you may even season it with coconut milk and fish sauce. In the end though, even though its just soup, I figure its worth sharing. 



Chicken Tortilla Soup

This soup differs from most others in that we used finely crushed tortilla chips (the leftover ends of the bag are perfect for this) to thicken the soup. I like to garnish it with some sliced avocado.


2 teaspoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium jalapeno pepper, chopped
1 medium green pepper
4 small boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 cups roasted corn
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
approx 32 ounces chicken
2 -14 ounce cans diced tomatoes
1 -16 ounce can of kitchen ready tomatoes
1 cup tortilla chips finely crushed
Sauté onion, garlic, jalapeño and green pepper with olive oil in a large dutch oven until soft.
Add all the rest of the ingredients to the large pot and bring to a boil. Poaching the chicken in the liquid for roughly 20 minutes, then remove the chicken breasts and shred. Return shredded chicken to the pot and simmer an additional 30 minutes, add the crushed tortillas to the soup and stir until the soup has thickened. More...

Resolutions

Maybe it was the winter blahs, the lack of an inspiring farmers market, the hectic holidays, or the new job that kept me away from here. Truth be told those same factors have seen me eating way out of my usual mostly-vegetables diet for the entire month…and I cant wait to get back to it

More than ever, this is a time of year to start lists, to visit gyms, to make fresh starts…well lets just say its been a long time since I felt the need to visit a gym just because of the new year but that doesn’t mean I don’t use the calendar as a benchmark. This year I’m recommitting to eating as healthfully, and locally as possible. I’m going to embrace the seasons, and spend time doing what I think is important for me. One of those things is being here…putting my thoughts on…er, virtual paper, and recording the history of our kitchen.

Over my month long hiatus I didn’t do a lot of cooking…I did a lot of heating and assembling…and ate take out far too often. I have started a new job, in a totally different industry, and just the amount of learning left me exhausted by the end of the day. I was eating the handiest thing, which was often crackers and cheese, or leftover lo mein then crawling toward the bed at night. I’m still learning so much, and I’m very happy in my new work, but I miss my kitchen and the creative outlet it provides me. I’m making a concerned effort to get back there, (and if you read this perhaps you will be inspired too?) So far, its been working.

We had a bit of a blizzard last Sunday here in Boston, and the man and I returned home from our holiday visits about 20 minutes after the snow began to fall. No groceries had been purchased for well over a week, and we were stuck in the house with whatever was in the pantry and the freezer. Thankfully we had more than enough to scratch out dinner. Out came the dutch oven (a Christmas gift from my parents) and into it went onions, peppers, cannellini beans and tomatoes. A single boneless breast of chicken-still frozen when I put it in- was poached in the liquid, then shredded. After some liberal seasoning we had a huge pot of chili to eat and after a little internet searching for a biscuit recipe made without milk, we had cheddar biscuits studded with some chopped cilantro I had frozen. They weren’t award winning, but they tender and crumbled almost perfectly. More importantly they were comforting, and it made for a very cozy blizzard to be cuddled on our little couch under a big quilt with a bowl of chili and a biscuit…

The next day as the roads were being cleared and the news people were urging us to stay in doors we put on the dutch oven again and made a tomato and roasted soup thickened with some crushed tortilla chips leftover from a party that were neglected at the back of the pantry. I was stuck inside with nowhere to go and nothing to do, so I went back to the kitchen, which is exactly where I wanted to be. I’m looking forward to many more nights in my favorite room More...

Long Time

No See. The combination of the holidays, a broken laptop, and a new job have meant quite alot of sandwiches and soup for dinner, and no photos, no writing, no nothing. Even my ambitions for holiday baing have fallen by the wayside. But I really miss the blog, and the readers, and the community I found here on the internet. Im working my way back, and Ill see you soon. More...

12 Cookies of Christmas

In my house, we celebrate Christmas.

This is not because its what the man and I decided that together or because the man has ever had a Christmas tree - or a menorah - in his home. I have lived and breathed for Christmas since I was a child. Its my mother's fault, really. She loved Christmas (even though she worked in retail!) and she would put on holiday records and wrap everything - even the stocking gifts until well after midnight every Christmas Eve, while the sounds of The Carpenters Sing Christmas lulled me to sleep from down the hall.

Somehow, even in the darkest, scariest of financial situations my parents managed to fill the house with food, music, love, and an awfully large load of presents under the tree. I still don't know how they pulled it off, (but I imagine they must have impeccable credit). Growing up in this environment (I have a friend who loves to remind me that I was blessed with the white whale of childhoods, and while it wasn't all rosy, it was damn fine) I carry a militant amount of Christmas cheer with me. At this time of year people are more pleasant, snow is beautiful (rather than 'godforsaken white $#@%, which is what I will call it after January fifth), and food - I swear - tastes better.

Christmas has undergone a makeover since the 'Great Recession' hit.  At least in my corner of the world, it has gone to a more traditional place, where the material (and, ahem, expensive) has given up center stage and turned it back over to the holiday heavy hitters: family, homemade treats and gifts, and perhaps most special - the gift of time. This year friends and I are planning days after Christmas to spend together, rather than exchanging gifts, because the most valuable thing that I think you can give someone, is your time, your attention, and (geez its getting corny - stick with me here, I'm about to come around to my point) your love. Cooking is one of my loves, and cookies are just about everyone's love, at one time or another. (whew! I knew I'd get there)

So this year, for my neighbors, my coworkers, my extended family, and for our friends, I will be making cookies. and in (yet another) Christmas tradition I have decided on not one, but twelve different varieties. You might think I'm crazy, and I think I already admitted to that in the first paragraph,  but with the modern convenience that is your freezer, you too could pull this off without too much sweat. Plus its always nice to bring over a tin of this and that, I think. So that the people that you care for can have a cookie suited to their mood, their taste, or you know...what they happen to be drinking.

Cookies making the roster this year are not the most traditional, but hey, even if I am cracked out on Christmas from the day after Thanksgiving until New Years Eve, I still hate those tasteless, rock hard sugar cookies with the too sweet icing. I'm not handing those foul things to the people I love.

The Twelve Cookies of Christmas (in no particular order)
1. Sesame Ginger Shortbread
2. Lime Melt-aways
3. Coconut Macaroons
4. Oatmeal with Chocolate Covered Raisins
5. Chocolate Coffee Crinkles
6. Cassis Crisps
7. Spicy Molasses Cookies with Orange Sugar
8. Rum Balls (not really a cookie, but a holiday staple!)
9. Nutella Thumbprints
10. Italian Anise Drops
11. Cherry Cornmeal Cookies
12. Pistachio Cardamom Drops

I'll be pre - mixing the dough and freezing up until a week before Christmas, so I'll post the recipes here as I make them and then devote a post to the finished product. Here's hoping I don't weigh in at 900 pounds by the time this is over....

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Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Recently here in the kitchen we experienced what I'm (still) calling the Sweet Potato Glut. No we didn't grow our own, but yes, I may have gone a little wild at the market. I had every intention of making these oven fries, to accompany some slow cooker 'pulled pork' sandwiches but never found the gumption, once my guests had arrived. So there I stood facing five rather large sweet potatoes, totally unwilling to let them go to waste. I roasted two of them last weekend, and made muffins with one (I actually made another batch of these this past weekend) and I found a way to stretch the other into dinner. Gnocchi had been something I had been interested in for a long time, and with the help of the man (its alot of work for only one set of hands!) we made a really pleasant dinner, that was both filling and reasonably healthy, (whole wheat flour and sweet potatoes keep me thinking that a bowl of potatoes, dressed in butter and a little thyme make a fairly healthy dinner...as opposed to a bowl of traditional gnocchi anyway) Gnocchi itself isn't very hard, really and if you maintain an organized level of chaos, its not too bad on ones kitchen either.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi
Adapted from Double Delicious, by Jessica Seinfeld


1 3/4 cups ricotta cheese
1/2 cup sweet potato puree
1 large egg, and 1 egg white
1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup of all purpose flour

In a mixing bowl combine ricotta cheese, potato puree, eggs,cheese, baking powder, and salt. In a smaller mixing bowl, combine both flours, and mix into wet mix all at the same time. Mix until the flour is incorporated and the color of the dough is uniform (no streaky orange)
Separate the dough into eight sections. Flour your work surface (I used more whole wheat flour) and roll the dough into foot long, inch high logs. Cut the dough with a fork into 1 inch by 1 inch morsels, lightly rolling the fork over one side of the pieces, creating a grooved side. Continue until you have no more dough.

At this point I seperated half of the gnocchi, froze them on a parchment lined baking sheet and later, transfered them to a freezer bag.


Fill a large pot with water, salt it generously and bring it up to a boil. Add the gnocchi, stirring very gently and cook until it just floats sim them off the top with a small mesh strainer, continuing to stir gingerly until all the gnocchi have come up to the surface and been skimmed out. We served these dressed in a little butter and sprinkled with thyme. Perfect comfort food. More...