Cooking prep — chili and zucchini cakes

Oh man.

This weekend has been a lesson in frustration.

Friday, the doctor told me I might have a stress fracture in my foot.

Words every girl wants to hear.

That means no jogging or long walks outside (waaaah). No standing in the kitchen cooking for long periods at a time. And I have to park near things downtown instead of parking at my office and walking. I also sat at the table to do my cooking prep instead of standing at the counter.

Hrmpfh.

But, if I keep up my regular routine, then my foot will probably get worse.

Silver lining? It’s warm outside, so I can swim for exercise.

Anyway… I did a good bit of cooking prep this afternoon because this is the last week of the Florida Legislature’s 2013 session. That translates into a lot of long days this week for Gray and me.

So, I tried to stock up on some easy meals for the week.

No. 1: My mom’s Chili

 

2. Zucchini cakes

I also stocked up on edamame, almonds, fruit, turkey burger patties and frozen fish filets.  Hopefully this will keep us eating healthy during this chaotic week of work.

My life lately — Instagram style

My week…

A stealthy cat trying to play/hide…

The view from my seat in the House gallery.

What I do all day… Cover  Florida government for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

What’s going on? Oh, the doctor thinks I may have a stress fracture.

But at least a sore foot doesn’t stop me from doing this!

Lunch time confessions

I haven’t posted anything in a week and a half and I’m feeling a tad guilty.

I am mostly going to blame work. Toward the end of Florida’s legislative session, I am just tired and I don’t want to go anywhere near my kitchen. I hate that, but it’s true. As a result, my eating is kind of haphazard and snack like (cheese, fruit, crackers, etc). Today, I ate my lunch at 10 a.m. because I was starving.  Needed food.

I’m trying to do a little better this week though (a whole chicken is currently defrosting and will go in the crockpot tomorrow.) But, that doesn’t really solve the blog post problem as I have not cooked anything or done anything new and exciting. So, I figured I’d do a little lunch time confessional/random update post.

So, here we go.

* I am terrible at returning library books. Luckily, I did get “Salt, Sugar, Fat” back on time, but I am frequently paying late fees.  I once kept a book (accidentally) for more than a year. Oops.

* I made that sweet potato-leek soup and liked it at first taste. However, upon eating a whole bowl of it, I decided it was too sweet for me and I wound up throwing out most of it because it sat in my fridge for about two weeks.  Yes, that makes me feel like a bad, wasteful person.

* Though I like my house to be neat/organized, my desk at work is a wreck. There are tons of papers, pens, notepads, a mug and an advil bottle taking up space

*  I haven’t regularly worked out in about a month.  I did manage to get a short gym trip in Saturday and a walk on Sunday. Somehow, I have managed to lose about 10 pounds since Christmas.  I think this has more to do with stress and opting to go to bed instead of making a full dinner on some nights. But, I feel kind of crappy since the weight didn’t come off from exercise/healthy eating combo.

* I have had multiple people think I’m a vegetarian. I just like vegetables,  people! I see nothing wrong with ordering a pressed veggie sandwich or making butternut squash pizza.

* I’m addicted to my new phone. I upgraded to the GalaxyS3 and can’t stop playing with it. Nerd alert. My favorite app is for our local public radio station. I don’t have a radio anymore, so this morning while I was putting together my lunch and doing other home things, I just used the app to listen to WFSU.

 

Sweet potato and leek soup

Happy Friday!

Anyone else seriously ready to collapse at the end of the day? Because this girl is.

I forgot to post this soup I made Sunday.

It’s sweet potato and leek soup. (Confession: I’d never bought or made anything with leeks before.)

I came across the recipe on the site Fat Free Vegan, which my friend Meg had sent me when I requested her recipe for spicy yellow dal that she’d made at our last book club meeting.

I did attempt the dal Wednesday morning to take to lunch with me (it was not a great success), but  more importantly, the site lead me to this soup.

I have never made regular potato and leek soup, so I’m not sure how that tastes.  But I’m generally a fan of this version.

It kind of looks pumpkin-y here in the photo and it’s certainly better for fall than spring, but I really can eat soup all the time, so it doesn’t matter.

Head here for the recipe.

Classic lasagna

I have accomplished one of my goals for my 28th year.

I made lasagna last night.

Lasagna is seriously one of my favorite foods. My mom makes it every Christmas Eve and also any time I come home to visit. She has this awesome deep casserole dish that she uses for it, so the lasagna has so many layers. My mom joked the other day that most children fight over money, but Sarah and I will be fighting over that casserole dish.

But for whatever reason, I have never attempted to make a good ol’ fashioned lasagna. Maybe I just didn’t want to mess with mom’s recipe. I don’t know. It just seemed intimidating. I tried spinach lasagna rolls one time and a butternut squash lasagna. But not the classic meat and cheese kind.

It was time to end this fear. I even took a bigger risk by choosing to make it on the night a friend was coming over for dinner. (I had made some sweet potato and leek soup earlier in the week that was in storage just in case)

But luckily for me  (and Gray and my friend) it tasted like mom’s, just without so many layers.

Here’s her recipe, which she so kindly emailed me a week or so ago:

Ingredients:1 pound ground meat,1 1/2 jars spaghetti sauce, garlic powder, oregano,basil, 12 lasagna noodles-not whole wheat. 15-16 oz ricotta, mozzarella

Kathleen’s adjustments: Given that my pan was much smaller than what she uses, I only used 1 jar of sauce, nine noodles and probably about 4-5 oz ricotta. I also used slices of mozzarella cheese, but shredded is just as easy.

Directions: Brown ground meat and drain. Add sauce and seasonings. Simmer for at least 1/2 hour. Boil noodles and drain.

Spray 9 x 12 pan w/ Pam. Put a layer of sauce, then 3 noodles length wise. Top with dollops of ricotta and spread over the noodles and then another layer of sauce. Keep repeating until noodles are used up. On top layer after the ricotta and sauce layer the mozzarella.

Tip:make sure the sauce is covering all the noodles so they don’t dry out. If you want more layers increase the noodles and sauce. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 1/2 hour or more if you make ahead and refrigerate

Book Review: Salt Sugar Fat

This has been on my nightstand lately.

I first heard about  Michael Moss’ book through an NPR show I was listening to in the car. Moss was discussing the food industry’s marketing practices, focusing on how Coca-Cola used terms synonymous with addicts such as “heavy users” to describe their consumers.

It peaked my interest, so I requested the book from the library.

The 352-page book offers an in-depth look at the processed food industry and how it uses three key ingredients — salt, sugar and fat — to achieve “bliss points” in several of our country’s most recognizable grocery store brands to hook us. These foods with their bliss points, of course, are hazardous to your health if eaten in large quantities.

The book is a slow read, but interesting, with tidbits of information on every page from industry insiders about their strategies to get Americans to eat more and more convenient, yet bad, foods.

Moss clearly put in a huge amount of time and research into this book based on the number of interviews and stories he cites in the book.

A few interesting takeaways:

* Moss became obsessed with asking food executives about their diets and found many didn’t eat the stuff their companies made. (Reminiscent of tobacco company execs not smoking)

* Lawyers for a food company researched the food industry’s vulnerability to obesity lawsuits that would be comparable to the ones facing the tobacco industry

* The industry’s top execs met in 1999 to discuss the obesity epidemic, but dismissed it.

I will say there were a few holes in the book. One is that it really made no mention, aside from Michael Bloomberg’s war on soda, on the massive anti-obesity campaign that many public figures (we’re looking at you Michelle Obama) have begun. And continuing on that thread, it has no mention if the sales are beginning to decline for these giant food companies because of the intense focus on the country’s obesity problems.  It almost feels like this book would have been edgier/more interesting if it had been written four to five years ago.

That all being said, I thought it was an interesting read and it gave me a greater appreciation for how careful my Mom was about limiting our intake of processed food. We didn’t have a lot of soda in the house — if we did, it was diet.  She rarely let us have lunchables — something Moss spends a lot of time on in the book.

And we always had veggies with our dinner.

Balsamic chicken breasts

Another day and another Spark recipe that I’m loving.

We didn’t do a big Easter dinner here, so I tried out a new chicken recipe I’d been eying on Spark.

It was super easy. Basically, you mix all the of the ingredients together and let the chicken marinate for a half hour. Then you throw it on the grill or into the oven. The recipe says to grill it, but we opted for the oven.

Other than that, my only changes were I left out the onion flakes and I used springs of thyme instead of sprinkling a few teaspoons over the chicken.  (I also forgot to add ground mustard, but I just realized that as I was looking t the recipe again now.)

Gray says I should feel free to make this any time I want to.

Note: I’ve scaled down the recipe for two people. The original recipe is here.

Ingredients:  2 chicken breasts, 1/2 cup water, 1/4 cup olive oil, 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar, 1.5 tsp Italian seasoning, 6 springs of thyme, salt and pepper to taste

Directions: Mix together water, oil, balsamic vinegar and Italian seasoning in bowl. Pour over chicken in baking dish and let sit for at least a half hour before cooking. Place thyme on top of the chicken.  Heat oven to 350 degrees and cook 30-35 minutes.

Serve with veggies and rice.

Enjoy!