Month 3 Check In

I've been at this for 3 months now...I had really hoped to have lost the initial 20 pounds by now. I can't say one way or another if I have as right at this moment I am in Florida (Visiting my sister) and I do not have access to "my" scale. And as I've complained before all scales seem to be different for each other and even from themselves sometimes.

I don't think I have finished the first 20 pounds yet. In fact I would not be the least bit surprised if I gained some of the lost weight back this month.

What is up? Well, I've gotten even lazier this month. I only cooked a handfull of times, I skipped the gym a bunch and I ate poorly a bunch of times. I'm not going to appologise or give up because of these things. Maybe I've fallen off the wagon, as they say ,but that does not mean I can't get back on.

I have been spending far too much time "working" at my job with Eric and not actually doing anything. This is the biggest problem. This time waste is causing me to be unable to cook and exercise on those days. This is going to be April's project. I'm going to actually work when I go to Eric's and not just mope about.

Ironically it been stres about money that kept me too out of it to work and therefore make money. But next month I will work everytime I go to Eric's and this will ensure that I will have the time and the money I need to work out and cook.

I will have the official weigh-in when I return from Florida on Tuesday.

Plan for April:

Acutally work when I show up at Eric's. Cook every Monday night. Exercise after work at the Nat on Monday's and Fridays. Exercise with Eric at Supreme Tuesday Mornings, Wednesday Mornings, Thursday Mornings, Saturday monrings and Sunday Mornings. Shop every other Monday. try to lay off on the soda some as I surmise an over abundance of high fructose corn syrup has something to do with my voluminous waist, Diary my food intake everyday.

Hardly a tall order right?! Nothing I'm suggesting here is all that difficult but I still need to write it down and make it happen.

Frittata: First Draft

Cooking is a lot like writing/reading a novel. The ingredients are like the characters and the steps are the story lines. When you don’t have a recipe you are writing your own stories. When you have a recipe to follow you are reading someone else’s finished product.

I think one of the reasons that people don’t cook something new is perhaps they think that the recipes that they have used sprouted fully formed from some master chef’s imagination. Well, somehow I doubt that that is the case. It takes many drafts before the recipe is ready to be published.

I didn’t want to put any recipes on this blog for people to read that I myself had not put through a stringent drafting process, and had several very tasty and consistent final drafts. However I realize that this is the wrong way to think about this. I would be habitualizing the same problem that I am railing against if I did that.

Since I’ve decided that you all deserve to see the whole processes I will walk through the steps I took last night to make a frittata. The end resulting dinner was fine tasting but not nothing special and the visual appearance was less wonderful than I was hoping for.

So without further ado…Spring Vegetable Frittata – Take One:

Frittata is kind of like a quiche, kind of like an omelet, and kind of like a German pancake. It is also one of the easier foods to make...in my opinion. It is certainly easier than all of the afore mentioned food items that it is similar to.

One of the great things about frittatas is that you don’t really need to plan them into your week. As long as you have eggs you have everything you need to make a frittata…guaranteed. This is true because you can put basically anything into a frittata. Some good combinations are: Bacon pieces-green onions-Swiss cheese, Pees-cooked chicken-cheddar, spaghetti noodles-cooked hamburger-peppers-mozzarella, Feta-Black Olives-Capers-Diced cooked potatoes. Just open your fridge and look to see what you have available. Any starch veggie and cooked meat will work fine. All cheeses are good, though some are better than others.

For this frittata I decided to use some angel hair noodles, Asparagus spears, diced ham, chopped onion, artichoke hearts, mozzarella, feta cheese, garlic, oil, and some spices. And of course, eggs.

I turned my oven on to 250 degrees because I figured that eggs are pretty easy to cook and didn’t need to have a high temp.

I did not have any leftover noodles in my fridge, so I made some to start off. While I was waiting for the noodle water to boil in my large pasta pot, I chopped up an Onion and then sautéed it in a small frying pan/sauté pan with some Garlic in Olive Oil.

Then I added the Noodles to the boiling water and cooked them until they were fully cooked. And then I drained them fully and added some Olive Oil to the drained noodles to keep them from caking together.

Then I cracked 6 Eggs and scrambled them in a bowl. To the eggs I added some leftover Artichoke Hearts, some leftover Diced Ham, some fresh Asparagus Spears snapped into 2 inch pieces, and the sautéed onion/garlic mixture. I also added some spices and herbs to the egg mixture: Marjoram, Paprika, Salt, Pepper, Oregano.

Note: You don’t need a knife to prepare asparagus for the dinner pot. If you hold the asparagus in both hands near the cut –off end you can break off the woody end and the remaining spear should be fairly tender. For this meal I just snapped the remaining stalks into bite sized pieces using the same technique all the way up the spears.

The oven is ready and now so are all of the ingredients. I took out my cast iron skillet and placed the noodles in the bottom of it to act as a kind of base. Then I poured the egg mix over the noodles and finally I added the Cheeses to the top. At this point I realized that there was not enough egg as the whole thing looked fairly dry so I quickly scrambled 2 more Eggs and poured those on top and placed the whole thing in the oven.

After 25 minutes I checked the frittata and it really wasn’t cooking to I turned up the oven to 350. After an additional 20 minutes the frittata still wasn’t done so I put the oven put to 400. Then it cooked. It was done about 10 minutes later.

The result was stuck in the pan, when it should be easily plated as you turn the pan upside down with a plate on the top like a lid. It did eventually come out with only a little that stuck into my skillet – this may have only been because my skillet is not well seasoned.

Joe and I ate the frittata. It was good but as I said earlier not great and required some condiments. Joe added hot sauce and I used mayo – my favorite condiment.

I will work on this until I think it is just how I would serve it to the people on the Food Network's: Nest Food network Star.

The frittata servings have:

P.S. Food journal for yesterday: Breakfast-Banana and Red Bull. Lunch-Chicken Pot Pie from Pinkus and Pepsi. After work Snack- BLT from the Library. Dinner-1 Serving for Frittata and Red Bull.

Exercise: Nope-missed my workout time and had to get to the grocery store. I promise to go today.

What is healthy...Exactly?

I’m doing this whole Blog thing because I heard it will help me lose weight. I want to lose weight. Ideally I want to lose the weight much the same way I gained it – unconsciously. Since that won’t happen, I want to lose the weight in as healthy a way as possible.

But what is healthy? I can think of a bunch of things that aren’t healthy weight loss plans – Anorexia, bulimia, eating only yellow foods, etc. But these are all extreme examples. (for some more extreme examples check out this Daily Mail Article)

American’s are health obsessed and some of the least healthy people on the planet. Is too much information as bad as too little when it comes to health knowledge? There are as many health myths out there in cyberspace as there are sites with good solid advice about health and it is nearly impossible to distinguish the difference. Even if all we are talking here is weight loss and not health in general (health in general being one of the main reasons I’m on this expedition to begin with).

I sit down at my computer to find out the best things I can do to help myself lose this weight. I wonder if: Eating late at night makes you fat? Low-fat foods help you lose weight? Pasta makes you fat? Drink 8 8oz glasses of water a day is really the way to go? I look at the RDI (Recommended Daily Intake) and wonder what on earth constitutes a serving?!

I am no health expert. My degree is in Psychology, not nutrition. So how am I supposed to figure all this out? For instance…When I started my new job on campus I found an article that laid the whole 8 glasses of water thing on the table. (I don’t still have the article or I would cite it…I’m looking for it again so I can tell you all where I got this) According to what I read the 64 fluid ounces of water came from the Surgeon General’s recommendations in 1969. The whole thing came from 1 study that ascertained that the average human body loses 64 ounces of liquid in digestion and respiration, and therefore that would be the amount of liquid that the body would need to replace to keep the body running smoothly. The Surgeon General then went on to state that this liquid was found in the food that we eat and that therefore much less was needed to be taken-in in the form of water and other beverages. So from what I read the 8-8oz glasses of water thing is a myth. But then my overly active brain goes into analysis mode…Did all this come from 1 study? Have these findings been replicated? Who were the study’s participants? Are they representative of me or even the average American today? (Let us not forget that the study that gave us the average age of puberty onset and the normal body temperature of people came from a study at an orphanage, where most of the children were underweight and had low grade infections.) Were these people active? What was the water content in the 1960s of the average diet in comparison to today? And on and on…

If I go over every aspect of my diet with as much mental energy as the water question I will be so mentally exhausted I will probably lose weight because I have no energy left to eat. And these questions don’t even begin to scratch the surface. To me healthy also includes social and environmental questions like: Is organic the healthier way to go not just for nutrients but for the world? Can I afford to be a locavore? Is it even possible to get enough meat to satisfy my protein needs without eating corn-fed animals? Is it possible to cut high-fructose corn syrup and trans fats out of my diet?

My brain hurts. Yours probably does too.

Cooking Basics 2

I got a bunch of response regarding what cooking basics are. Most of these were not on-line.

So here, I think, is a nice list of the basics that everyone over they age of 10 needs to know how to cook...unless they are rich and will always be that way but as the song said “Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.”

Coffee -even if you don't drink it- Why? Because according to the NCA Coffee Drinking Trends Survey 2000, 54% of the adult population of the United States drinks coffee everyday and an additional 25% drink it occasionally. Therefore you are likely to have a coffee drinker in your place at some point in your near future.

Eggs – Why? Because estimates show that the average American will eat 259 eggs a year. This data does not include my sister who won't touch eggs but my brother more than makes up for her avoidance.

An Entre/Meal – This was suggested by Mary on the comment section. I have to agree and up it to an entire meal because just because you know how to make meatloaf does not mean you should serve it unless you also have mashed potatoes and peas (for instance). Why? Because you need something to wow the new boyfriend with or to serve you parents when they come to visit, before you ask them for some money.

Cookies – Suggested by Joe. Why? Because you've been asked to bring something to the meeting, you are trying to sell your house, or you want to impress your date.

Hamburger and Chicken – recommended by my Boss Cindy. Why? These are staples of the American diet. It is important to know when they are done cooking and how to make the most of them.

Rice and Pasta – The typical American meal seems to consist of (as Eric once told me) “A slab of meat and 2 side dishes.” Often one of these side dishes is either rice or pasta so it is a good idea to know how to make these.

If you can think of anything else please drop me a line.

**Important Note** The statistics cited above are taken from sources that have reason to encourage people to consume more of the product studied. Please keep these numbers in mind as only guidelines which are likely inflated.

Cooking Basics Are What Exactly?

I'm reading this great book called Cooking and Castle Building by Emma Ewing. It was written in 1880. It is just fantastic. I'm only into the 3rd chapter but I am hooked. It is a memoir following 3 wealthy American ladies as they decide that they need to learn how to cook. Their logic for doing this is wonderful. They want their husbands to stop drinking and instead of becoming militant in their involvement with the Temperance movement they have decided that harmonious living is all that is needed to keep their men from drinking. And harmonious living can not be attained if one does not cook well.

These women, wealthy as they were, did not cook at home. They had servants to cook for them. However, they decided that there was no better way to assure good food than to do it themselves. So, they headed off to the country where their mistakes may not be remembered by their peers while they learned.

I have not read all of the book so I don't know how it will turn out or what all they will learn to cook, but they start out the book learning to cook bread. They chose bread because it was the staple of the diet of the time. Bread was eaten in some form or another at every meal and so was necessary to have whether you baked it yourself or ordered it from a baker.

These women have the right idea. Even 100 years later so many of the country's problems could probably be related back to the fact that people don't cook, especially the obesity epidemic. I would like to cover the same concept as the ones in Cooking and Castle Building here on the Blog but I have a small problem. People don't eat bread nearly as much as they did in the 1800's. So what are the basics of cooking for the modern day?

I asked the girls I work with and we came up with Coffee and and eggs are things that everyone needs to know how to make and most people don't know.

What other things are basics that people need to know? Post your thoughts.