Food. Science. Religion. And the places where they meet each other.

what would i eat if i were single?

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:59:29 -0600

Being the only one who cooks in my family, I try to make things that everyone will eat. I don’t completely cater to my three-year-old’s tastes, since I think it’s my job to expand his palate. And I couldn’t stand living on only grilled cheese, mac-en-roni, bananas, cereal, popcorn, broccoli, and goldfish. But I do cater to my husband’s dietary eccentricities, since I figure if he won’t eat it, what’s the point?

So with him being out of town, I thought, now’s my chance to eat beans! I bought a can of vegetarian chili, tortilla chips, cheese, iceberg lettuce, and a tomato today and had what used to be one of my favorite meals - chips n’ chili. I ate this meal a lot in college. I used to make my meatless black bean chili in the crock pot, and live off of it for a whole week. I was super tight on grocery money back then, so I’d try to make it on about $20 a week for food. Beans fit that bill perfectly. The only expensive part of the meal was the cheese, but I remember my mom buying me a 3 lb brick of cheddar at the beginning of the semester and it lasting a couple of months.

My other staple was spaghetti with sauce from a jar and zucchini. I’d cook the zucchini with the pasta, pour the sauce on top, and call it a meal. I remember my room mate and I having this lots of times. Other than that, I have no recollection of how I fed myself in college. Especially not what I ate for lunch. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t afford to eat out much, but I also don’t remember packing lunches, so I’m at a loss as to what I ate.

Then when I got married during my senior year of college, I started making real food. For one thing, my husband had this fantastic TA gig where he got paid $14 an hour! That seemed like rock star pay at the time. So now I had virtually any ingredients at my disposal. I got a copy of Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything” and started trying things.

If I had only myself to cook for, I doubt I’d go to the trouble of making something that required a recipe very often. I’d like to think I wouldn’t start eating frozen pizza and cold cereal all the time, though. That’s what my son and I had for dinner last night, but hey! I’m on my own for a few nights, I’m going to take this chance and relax a bit. Tonight’s chips n’ chili was easy since the chili came out of a can. I would have much preferred my vegetarian black bean chili, but it seemed like too much trouble. Now, if I can’t feed something to at least 3 people and get leftovers out of it, it’s just not worth my time.

granola

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:35:42 -0600

I make home made granola pretty often, so I thought I’d share my recipe here. I got it from a woman in my ward. It makes a big batch, so you’ll need two large cookie sheets (with sides) to make this. My husband eats so much of it for breakfast that this 20-cup batch only lasts about a week. But if the list of cereal you’ll eat is longer than two things, this granola will probably last longer at your house. I leave sugar completely out of the mix, which means that the granola doesn’t form nice clusters, but it still tastes good. It’s filling, too. You can use any combo of fruits and nuts you want. I make it with walnuts, sliced almonds, raisins, and craisins.

Paige’s Heart-Beat Granola
A variation of Ginger’s famous granola

(Most of these ingredients are found in the whole food bins at the Health Food store)

#1 Dry Ingredients
10 C 6 Grain Oats (or regular rolled oats)
1 C Wheat Germ
1-2 cups Puffed Rice
½ Cup flax seeds (whole or ground)
1 Cup Raw Sunflower Seeds
1 Cup Sesame Seeds
1 Cup Chopped Almonds
1 Cup Chopped Walnuts or Pecans
Feel free to try adding other grains and nuts!

#2 Sauce:
11/2 cup Water
1 Cup Vegetable, Grape Seed or Walnut oil
½ Cup Honey
½ Cup Molasses
1 ½ Tsp Salt
2 tsp Cinnamon
3 Tb Vanilla
1 Cup Brown Sugar (varies depending on how sweet you want it)

#3 Put in last 10 minutes of cooking
1 Cup Dates (rolled or chopped)
½ Cup Figs
½ Cup Dried Cranberries or currants
1 Cup Raisins

Preheat oven to 300 F. IN a large bowl combine oats, #1/Dry Ingredients and blend well. In a large saucepan, combine #2, sauce ingredients. Heat until sugar is dissolved, but do not boil. Pour syrup over dry ingredients and stir until well coated. Spread into as many baking pans or cookie sheets with sides as you need to in order to lay out the raw granola evenly and about 1 inch thick. Bake about 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Bake 15 minutes longer for a crunchier texture. (Sometimes I take a sample out and let it cool to see how far along it is). About 10 minutes before it is finished, Add #3 ingredients. If you want them a bit crunchy you can add them earlier. When it is ready, let it cool and put in airtight containers. Store in a cool, dry place and use within 6 months.
Makes about 20 cups of Granola.

homeostasis

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:49:11 -0600

My little sister has started teaching dance again just 2 months after having a C-section, which I think is amazing. The human body has an impressive ability to restore itself to a baseline level of existence. If it’s cut, bruised, or invaded by bacteria, it knows just how to divide its cells, absorb dead bits, and gobble up foreign objects.

But this tendency toward homeostasis works against us in other ways. As anyone who has tried learning an instrument, doing an exercise program, or doing fine, dexterous work knows, if you slack in your practice, you lose your skills. After many years of piano practice, I’ll always have some ability to play, but after several years of rarely touching a piano, I can’t even play scales without making mistakes now. I’ve recently started practicing the organ during my lunch hour at work (which is quite different from playing the piano). I’m loving going into the incense-scented chapel at the Episcopal seminary across the street from my office three times a week and playing. I’m learning about 2 new hymns a month, but I’m finding that if I don’t go through my whole list of hymns I’ve learned at least once a week, I lose the ability to play the hard parts. It’s so hard to stay sharp. When my husband is getting ready for an organ recital, he plays about 7 hours a day; it’s the only way to keep difficult music in his hands and head.

The same goes for exercise, obviously. Just because I ran a half marathon once doesn’t mean I could do it now. The frustrating thing about exercise is that once I reach a certain level of fitness, it seems to take a doubling of effort to make a small amount of progress. Yet if I slack at all in my efforts, all that progress dissipates like air out of a balloon. For example, I have a few workout videos I do regularly. When they were new, they were hard! I was sore afterwards! But now, they’re easy. So easy I’m wondering if I get any benefit from them. To challenge myself at this point, I’ll have to switch my 30 minute Pilates for Dummies video for the hard core 60 minute Raquel Welch yoga workout. And I do not have time for that. Am I burning the same amount of calories doing my pilates workout now as I did when it was new and more difficult? Is fitness like business, you’re either growing of you’re dying?

The good news is that motor memory is on some level permanent. I know how to touch type and drive a manual transmission, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget how to do those things. And some of the yoga poses in the Raquel Welch yoga workout, like the “standing head to knee,” were virtually impossible when I first did that workout in the ‘90s, but when I did it again this winter I was able to do that pose on just the second try (not that it was easy, but I made it through). But, maintaining superior archery, dancing, or guitar playing “skilz” is a real battle against nature.