Souvlaki Hirina/Tzatziki

This recipe originated in Saveur (#111, p.39), actually the only recipe that I've managed to pull out of Saveur that I much liked, but I've tweaked it a tiny bit (as usual) and added some suggestions. It's really just a classic Cyprus pork souvlaki (souvlaki, FYI, derives from the word for skewer, so it's just skewered meat, essentially).

This consists of two things, the marinade for the meat, and the classic tzatziki (cucumber-mint) sauce.

For the marinade:
About 2 cups red wine
2 t. dried oregano
2 t. ground cumin (if possible, grind the seeds yourself; they're much better freshly ground)
2 t. kosher salt (or to taste)
1 t. dried thyme
1/2 t. ground cinnamon
6 cloves garlic, pressed or finely chopped
freshly ground black pepper

The above makes more than enough marinade for 2 lbs. of pork (probably enough for 4 lbs.). Pork shoulder is good, and a fattier cut tastes better grilled than a leaner cut. Cut into 1-1/2" inch cubes; the idea is to get this as even as possible because it helps with even cooking.

Mix all the ingredients, cover, and let marinate for 2 hours at room temperature or overnight in the refrigerator. This is better the longer you marinate it, and if you have a tough cut of meat, you want to leave it a long time, as the red wine will tenderize it.

For the Tzatziki:
1 cucumber (use the English/seedless kind)
1-1/2 c. greek yogurt, like Fage (you can use a different yogurt, but greek-style is FAR better, and also lower carb. Regardless, it should be a full-fat yogurt)
1/2 c. fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
2. T olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste (many do not add pepper to tzatziki; I like the little bit of bite, but go easy on it, and it's better to use white pepper if you put much in)

Peel and seed the cucumber and chop very finely. Stir in all the other ingredients; cover and refrigerate if not serving immediately. Tzatziki can be made up to a day in advance, but it's better the fresher it is. If you've never had really fresh tzatziki, it's amazingly good, and nothing like the premade stuff from the store. It's just kind of a nuisance to chop the cucumber! (Maybe I just need more practice...)

Cooking the souvlaki: Skewer the meat, season with salt and pepper, and then grill or broil. The original recipe suggested 20-25 minutes; this is far too long. On my huge Weber gas grill (on pretty low heat), this took maybe 15 minutes, and I thought that they were slightly overcooked. In the oven under a broiler, this would probably take a little longer, but I think 25 minutes would cremate them. Heat the remaining marinade in a saucepan and use to baste the meat while cooking (this is optional, really, although it increases the moistness).

Traditionally, this is served with pita or rice; it's fine all by itself. Sprinkle with chopped scallions and chopped flat-leaf parsley if desired. I usually make green beans with pine nuts as a complement to this dish.

Carbs? Nothing in the pork really; Fage yogurt is 8 carbs/cup, so you have to eat a lot of the sauce to get many carbs at all. More if you use a different yogurt, but a lot of people argue that the carbs in yogurt are overstated, anyway (still, go easy on the sauce in induction). Gluten-free, wheat-free.

Friday worries

It's a bright, sunshiny cool morning here, I have some pretty medieval music on the stereo, and I'm trying to get some work done, but really I'm just tired and fretting about everything. It's really quiet this morning... Michael's gone back to bed after spending all night sleeping in the recliner because he kept getting leg cramps... which meant that he didn't sleep well, and neither did I with only my stuffed sheep for company. Mint Julep and I don't much like sleeping alone!

The leg cramps are the one thing that we forgot to ask the doctor about, which figures. They are becoming a huge issue, very painful... we've tried all sorts of combinations of things with no particular conclusion, unfortunately. I think it's mostly a hydration issue, but it takes a couple of days to really kick in, so it's hard to prove whether I'm anything like right.

My weight loss is sluggish at best, I feel like eating far too often, and I'm just worrying about that... not really worrying, I guess, but it would be nice to have the scale go down and actually stay there, instead of this up/down pattern. I really think that I'm just eating too much; I've been hungry all the time lately... or, more truthfully, maybe it's that I'm bored, and because I'm home all day (since school is out) and 5 feet from the kitchen, food just seems like a good diversion. I don't know.

And I'm so worried about my mother. She's starting this new round of chemotherapy, and she actually sounds ok, but I know she's scared. We all are. I have a terrible feeling about all of this, and the worst thing of all is that she's mostly alone there; my sister isn't there enough, and I just don't know what I can do. I'm going to try to go for a few days next week... but even that is difficult.

Ok. Stop it. This is not particularly helpful to anything (and, no, it doesn't make for an entertaining blog, either). Get back to work. Make some tea. Weed something.

What's for dinner? Hm. Chicken with chorizo? Or whatever is most in need of cooking, I think!

Back to the Doctors + Lab Work

Tuesday, we spent all day either at a doctors office or phoning doctors offices, trying to arrange appointments. Or it seems that way anyway, even with a lovely break to go to the Enormous Garden Store. Not it's name, but it might as well be. Anyway, after nearly eight months of doctor hiatus, we're back in the system! Oh joy... Next week we have two more appointments, and one the following week, and so on. And so on.

The good news x 2... the first part is the doctor (GP) doesn't think that there's any major structural issue with Michael's leg, which is very good, and referred us back to the sports medicine guy, who will undoubtedly send him back for physical therapy, which is all good. We did a round of physical therapy at that place before, and it was ok, all things considered, but at the time, Michael's head was a lot less into really working on this stuff, so with the hassle of driving back and forth and not a lot of dedication about doing the exercises at home, we quit. This time might be different, although the endless problem is trying to find a physical therapist who understands that doing exercises on a 500 lb. body is not the same as doing exercise on a 200 lb. body. But at any rate, Michael feels better for getting a little input on it and having someone say it's ok, and so now, we work on the process of getting it better.

The other good news is cholesterol tests, which were the first ones since we started eating low carb. What you'd have to call the typical low-carb result... LDL about the same, HDL fractionally higher, and triglycerides drop like a rock... from 327 to 73. Amazingly good, especially if you believe that triglycerides are the main issue, not LDL. The doctor didn't say much about it, because he was focused on a lot of other things. He's an LDL guy, but we are definitely not going back to any medication on this, so if he wants that, what I really want to see is a particle size test; I forget what that's called, so I have to research that.

Anyway, all good really, and now I have to plant the ton of stuff that I bought at the garden place!

Stats, Week of May 26th

Michael: +1.32 lbs, 494.5, total loss since January: 48.84 lbs.
Nina: -0.66 lbs, 279.8, total loss since January: 22.4 lbs.

Not a stellar week, as predicted, although I'm down very slightly. We were both down more... mid-week for Michael, yesterday for me, but I'd knew I ate too much junk yesterday, and Michael... well, let's just say that processing stuff out has been difficult. Nothing to worry about, and it's a cyclical thing; we lose for a few weeks, and then there's a flat week.

Making the Right Choices/Body Images

It's been one of those days, for a few days now. Just rough, in various ways. After two days of loving care, Michael's knee pain has gone down to a little more tolerable, which is a really good thing... but it's all been just hard for him, as it is every day. You don't gain a great deal of weight without a certain disconnection from the reality of your body, I think, and for him, the process of undoing that is in part reconnecting with his body... but that's not an easy thing, especially when your body won't do what you want it to, and when you're in pain a great deal of the time.

I don't think that this is like this for everyone (is it?) but for me, there's always been some degree of disconnect, disassociation, between my mind and my body. I think that the best example of this is photographs... ok, I am the least photogenic person in the world (really!), and the camera adds weight, and the flatness of photo images is deceptive... but for most of my life, I've never looked at a photograph of myself and had much sense of recognition. I don't look like I do in my mind... I'm a lot fatter, for one thing, but I also just look... different. And Michael's the extreme example of this, someone who literally gained hundreds of pounds without any true awareness that he was doing it or that it was having any impact on his body... and then, bang, you wake up, and here you are in a world that you can't even figure out how you got to. It's not so simple and clean as that, and there are a lot of other factors... family and stress and depression and so on... but the details are almost unimportant compared to that wake-up reality.

And it's hard to live in your body all the time, to make conscious and mindful choices, to make the best choices 24/7. After a day of eating really well, I just sat down and ate a bunch of pork rinds and sour cream and a sugar-free chocolate... ok, not really the stuff that binges are made of, but the reality of it was that I just had a moment of not caring, of wanting to turn off my head more than I cared about anything else (including the weight low that I hit this morning, and that I've been kind of happy about all day). And now I'm a little annoyed. It is so damn hard to make the right choice all the time, to keep that iron determination not for a day or a week but years on end, and to do it in the face of too many other life problems. I feel like I've been complaining all the time lately, but really... we spend a lot of time affirming the positive, giving support and positive encouragement and so on. And every so often, I think you just need a time out, a reality check, a moment when you get to say, this is just difficult. And I'm tired.

And then, of course, you have to pick up and do the next thing on your list. Back to the regularly scheduled program.

What's for dinner? Chicken and chorizo with vegetable medley.

Salmon with Lentils/Variants

This is a fantastically good recipe that that I found in Gourmet. The only catch about it is that it uses lentils, which could be ok if you're on a low-carb diet (in moderation), but it's definitely not induction friendly, because you will use up all your carbs in one meal! So I'm giving you my version of the original recipe, but also some suggestions for making it lower carb if desired.

You will need:
1 cup lentils (French green are suggested, but any lentils are really ok)
4 cups water
about 8 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons wholegrain mustard
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh chives
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh tarragon (must be fresh)
2 leeks
4 salmon fillets, about 6 oz. each

Put the lentils, water, and about 1 tsp. salt in a medium saucepan, cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 20-25 minutes, until just tender. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid, and drain.

While the lentils are cooking, make herb butter. Use 5 T. butter, softened, the mustard, the chives, the tarragon, and the lemon juice. Set aside. Then finely chop the lentils (white and pale green parts only) and rinse to remove any dirt. Sauté the leeks in 1 T. butter until soft.

Add the lentils to the leeks, and add about 3 T of the herb butter. Taste; add salt, freshly-ground pepper, and more lemon juice as needed.

In a nonstick pan, melt the remaining (plain) butter. Pan-fry the salmon, turning once, 3-4 minutes on each side, depending on thickness. (Don't overcook. Overcooked salmon is dry and not so great.) Spread with remaining herb butter, and serve (with the lentils).

Serves 4; takes about 35 minutes if you are efficient!

Modifications:

• For more or fewer people: Lentils require about 1/4 cup (uncooked) per person, and about 1 cup water for each 1/4 cup of lentils. Thus you can easily cook more or less; just add a little extra to the herb butter for more.
• To reduce carbs: Skip the lentils. Use green beans instead, but reduce the mustard by 1/2, or omit it completely. (Steam the green beans, which should probably be sliced, and then add to the lentil mix.) Summer savory is a nice substitute for the tarragon if you're using green beans.
• Different herb butters: The taste of this dish really depends on what's in the herb butter. As written, it's lemony and mustardy... but if you omit the mustard, you get just lemony, with that anise taste of tarragon. Or try a completely different combination... for example, omit the tarragon and mustard and add a little curry powder (not too much!). Or keep the tarragon, omit the mustard, and add a little chipotle chili powder or some finely diced jalapenos. Totally different dish.
  

Carbs: about 20 (net) with lentils, trace without (or depends on what vegetables you choose). Wheat-free, gluten-free

The Way Forward

On one hand, I'm feeling pretty good about things. We're losing weight (although I'm thinking that this isn't going to be a stellar week). That's the main thing, the ultimate solution. I think we've got a formula down that pretty much works for us, that's sustainable most of the time. That doesn't mean that it doesn't need fine-tuning... there's always more that you can do, more variety of foods, better meals, keeping a hawk-like eye on portion size (I am especially bad about loading up on the protein foods, because I love them, and yeah, they are low carb, but you can't just pile them on and really lose much weight.)

On the other hand, and this is the big issue... Michael's knees are getting worse, not better. Whatever he did to his right leg a couple of months ago has in no way resolved, and in part because he's had to transfer more weight to his left leg, the existing meniscal tear has probably worsened and/or something else has happened, as the pain has become intense and constant. We see the doctor on Tuesday, but I just don't know how much help he's going to be. The bottom line on all of this stuff is that the real fix is get weight off (and have the surgery for the tear), but that is of course not an overnight thing. We are doing the best we can. But there must be things that we can do in the meantime to help strengthen the leg muscles, to help reduce the pain. On top of everything else, it's going to be a long summer if he can't get in and out of the car (no Maine trip, either), and I'm thinking at this point that there's simply no reason to open the pool because he can't get in and out of it. I want desperately to get a hot tub, because it's one of the few things that I think might help with the muscles aches, but cost aside, I'm just not sure if he can get in and out of something like that, either. It's hard not to feel a little miserable and desperate about this. It would be nice if something would actually get better. Not better-but-this-other-thing-is-worse, just better. He's discouraged, and living with chronic pain is one of the hardest things that you can do. He feels like he's losing weight but overall actually getting less mobile... and what can I say? There's some truth to that.

I really, really wish that I could find some story of someone who had these problems and came back from them... and what s/he did. All of the "huge weight loss" stories I know start out with immobility and usually diabetes and heart problems/blood pressure issues, things like that, and typically you exercise slowly and lose weight, and things get better. But I've never read a story with this degree of knee issues and what exactly they did. It would mean a great deal to find something like that.

But we go on. I will read some books. I will find some more exercises. Somehow, we'll figure out how to get through this, to find the way forward. But any suggestions would sure be appreciated.

The Fat Tax

Since there's nothing else going on my world, really, I'd like to take this moment to complain. Being fat is expensive, being super-fat is really, really expensive, and losing weight is expensive.

Being just kind of fat is not nearly as expensive as it used to be... or as inconvenient. When I was a chubby kid, there were no clothes options, really... and I wasn't that chubby, really. Now it's far, far easier to get plus-size clothes that actually look good (and, by the way, a great blog about plus-sized clothes is The Pretty Pear), at least in a certain range. And they're cheaper than they once were, although there are still so many companies that charge extra for a women's size. I don't for a second believe that you have to buy, say, another yard of fabric when you go from an XL to a 1X, sizes that are virtually the same in most cuts. But we pay it, don't we? Because there's little other choice when you get right down to it.

It's far worse when you're super obese. Everything becomes unbelievably expensive very fast, and the quality, a lot of the time, is atrocious. My best example: the lift chair that I bought before Michael moved here. Cost about $1800, and while it does in fact lift a lot of weight, it is probably the least comfortable chair that you could imagine. I'm more than willing to believe that there is more cost involved in putting in a better motor, etc., but does that mean that the chair itself has to be poorly constructed and terribly uncomfortably upholstered? We would never have bought this chair if there had been any other choice. (Also, never buy anything from a company called SpinLife. You will never, ever be able to get off their email list, no matter how many times you try.) Actually, Laz-Boy now makes what looks like a terrific chair with about the same weight capacity... about the same price, too, and I'm willing to bet that it's a considerably more comfortable chair. If I were willing to spend another $1800... which, mostly, I'd just as soon skip.

And so, well, we all feel a little like we shouldn't complain, right? Mustn't grumble, after all, it's our fault that we gained the weight and all that... well, ok, but you want to lose weight, buy healthy food, and so on. Expect your (already-rising) food bill to increase rapidly, whether you're on a low fat or low carb diet. Whole foods are expensive, and the more that you care about what you put into your body, the more it's going to cost you (especially on a low carb diet, since you just eliminated the cheap staples like pasta and rice). Sure, there are ways of getting around that, ways of making things better... but they all cost time, and time is often just as expensive as the convenience cost of just paying whatever the supermarket asks.

Some days it's a little frustrating. And, really, I shouldn't complain; a lot of people are considerably worse off financially than we are, and financial options have a tendency to shrink with weight, too. But it's like an enormous pit, and that you have to spend every second trying to claw your way out.

Roasted Dijon Chicken

Most of this recipe is from Gourmet magazine (March 2008, p.80), but I made a few modifications although, for once, not many. This is a great way to make some slightly different sort of chicken, and I always think that anything with a sauce looks like you've made a fuss, even if it's simple! It takes about 45 minutes, but most of that is cooking time, not prep time.

You will need:
3 lbs chicken, cut into parts (I used all thighs)
olive oil (or cooking oil of your choice)
2 small shallots, thinly sliced
3/4 c. dry white wine (I use Chardonnay)
3/4 c. chicken stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons prepared Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon finely chopped chives
salt and pepper to taste
Optional: thyme, smoked paprika

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees, put rack in the center.
• Trim chicken of excess fat and skin. Yes, it's low carb, and we don't care about fat, but a lot of excess will just make your sauce greasy. And supermarket chickens tend to come with a LOT of excess fat these days. Pat chicken dry, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. (Optional: if you just use salt and pepper, the chicken is nice but has no particular flavor. Try using some dried thyme or a little smoked paprika, too. Thyme is more... French, I suppose. Paprika adds a little heat and depth of flavor.
• Heat oil in an ovenproof skillet. The original recipe calls for 1 tablespoon; this is not really enough, but you don't want a ton, either, because it will become part of the sauce, so if you end up with excess, drain it off before you roast the chicken (see below). Important: you are going to roast the chicken in the skillet, so pick on that's big enough to lay out all the chicken in one layer. If you don't have one large enough, it's not the end of the world, but all of your chicken will probably not be done at the same time, so you'll have to be careful about this and possibly return some chicken to the oven in a different pan to cook a little longer. Or roast in two pans.
• Brown the chicken in the oil, skin side down first, turning once. It is better to do this in two batches because if you put too much in the pan at once, it steams rather than browning (I have learned the lesson of patience when browning the hard way, sigh!). This takes about 6 minutes, about 3 minutes per side.
• Return all chicken to the pan, skin side up, in one layer if possible (see above). Place in oven and roast until done, about 15-20 minutes. (Invest in a digital meat probe if you don't have one; well worth it!)
• Put chicken on a plate. (Cover if you want to keep it piping hot.)
• Deglaze the pan with the wine (that is, pour in the wine and use it to scrape all the little brown crunchy bits off the bottom). Then add the chicken broth and the shallots, bring to a boil, and simmer until reduced by about half (about 5 minutes depending on how juicy the chicken was).
• Add cream and boil until slightly thickened.
• Strain sauce through a sieve (into a bowl), and whisk in the mustard and chives. TASTE. Add salt and pepper if needed, but a lot of salt comes through from the chicken seasoning, so you probably will not need it. This sauce tastes quite mustardy by itself, but is great on chicken and vegetables.
  
• Serve chicken (with sauce).

This is very good with cauliflower mash and/or vegetables that are good with gravy, like Brussels sprouts.

Carbs: depends on the amount of sauce, but maybe 2 (from the cream and wine). Induction-friendly. Wheat and gluten free.

Good News All Around

After a couple of really lousy days, too much bad stuff going on, a morning of really good things. Michael's weight is down to 488; mine is down below 280 (if only fractionally), and my publishing contact is supposed to call me today sometime about a bunch of new contract work. Now, if I can get everything planted in my garden and figure out why the outside tap is leaking without having to call the plumber, life will be momentarily semi-perfect. Whew.

The last few days, which have been pretty emotionally lousy, have made me think a lot more than I have in some time about emotional eating and the ways in which we habitually sabotage ourselves. They say that it's harder to lose weight when you're over 40, and I suppose that there are probably metabolic truths to that, but I wonder sometimes whether it isn't just as much about breaking lifetimes of really ingrained habits. Food is such a part of life, such an aspect of so many things we do (and this is even more true if you're the designated cook in the house) that it's hard to separate it from all the little rituals of the rest of the day. And with a lifetime of rituals behind you, creating new ones, losing old ones, is more difficult, through sheer habit and inertia. Even when you think that you've broken something, it's still there, lurking in the recesses of your mind, just like all those old TV commercials and useless factoids that are stored there!

When we were eating low fat (and I'd just like to throw in here that our life is unimaginably better, as is our marriage, since we stopped obsessing about every gram of fat and extra calorie), I tried very, very hard to break myself of what I call the spoon habit. I'd like to think that everyone does this, but it's probably not true... you spoon out the sour cream or whatever, measure it carefully, and then you lick all the excess off the spoon, thus about doubling what you actually counted. It's the "broken cookies and anything that you eat while you're standing up doesn't count" theory of diet. Admittedly, this is not such a huge issue on a low-carb diet, but metabolic advantage or not, at some point the quantity of food really does count, and if you cook and you lick every spoon or whatever, you are ending up with a fairly significant amount of extra intake. I'd gotten just wonderfully good for a while about eliminating this, but I noticed the other day that it's back, one of those habits that just creep right in when you're not looking. Bad habits require constant vigilance; that's the hard part. Just like I still look longingly at cigarettes even though I quit years ago and would probably throw up if I actually smoked. But in some part of my brain, it still looks good. The funny thing is that the pasta and so forth actually don't look so good any more... I occasionally wish I could eat a little rice, mainly as a complement to other foods, or, this time of year, new potatoes... but it's a passing whim, more of a cooking thing than an eating thing.

But that longing for comfort is still there. Food used to be my... oh, I can't even think of the right word. Everything I pick seems wrong. Friend? No. Comfort? No. Opiate. That's a lot closer to the truth. I used to sit down with food and a book, and that combination of mental and physical engagement just made the world go away. (On a tangential note, I've often thought that if I had never gotten into the habit of reading and eating, I would never have gained so much weight.) These days... well, there's nothing that really does that, not in that kind of way. Racquetball, a little. But there's nothing else that gives me that ability to just shut off all the things that nag at me, not in that kind of way. And we wonder why this thing is so hard to give up... Everyone always says things like, "nothing tastes as good as thin feels." Well, sure. But that's not what it's all about, is it? Not all of it, anyhow. It's easy to find substitutes for the pleasure of taste. It's a lot harder to find substitutes for comfort.

What's for dinner? Roasted chicken with Dijon sauce, if I have any white wine. Cauliflower mash, and maybe a few Brussels sprouts.

This Week + Angst

Michael: -3.3 lbs, 493.2, total loss since January: 50.2 lbs., (overall loss since 2006, 120.7)
Nina: +0.22 lbs, 280.5, total loss since January: 21.7 lbs.

Not a bad week really. I essentially broke even (but lost a lot last week, so that's ok); Michael did well.
_____________________

I have a confession to make, in this semi-public place. I did something today that I haven't done in a long time, sat down with a book and at least twice as much food as I needed and tried to tune the world out. Yes, it was low carb (excess meat mostly). No, it wasn't what one would call a binge. Yes, it was comfort eating. Was it the biggest deal in the universe? No. But does it kind of feel that way... yeah, although it's that kind of day; everything feels like the end of the world.

I could sit here and tell you why I did this... and I did it with perfect knowledge of what I was doing. One of those days, and all that; a bunch of things that just kicked off some deep miserable stuff. But there are always things like this; life is just like this, for me anyway. And I kind of thought that I'd gotten to the point where this wasn't the thing that I looked for; that food and zoning out of this reality wasn't something that I saw as a solution. Sometimes you get to look at just how thin the line is between new behaviors and old, between the person you believe yourself to be now and the person you used to be. It just doesn't take much to slide right back there.

The fact of the matter is that that these days, I think that everything is mostly fine with the way that I eat, but it's a tightrope act. I'm kept in balance by one very powerful force, loving someone who needs to lose weight even more that I do, by the fact that my heart is in my throat half the time because I get so worried about him. And that forces me to make the right choices for me, too. It's a good thing, but it's not stable, you know? I mean, what I do is propped up by him in some sense, like the safety net that's under the tightrope. It's not a bad thing that the net is there, but at the same time, you wish you were brave enough not to need it. Something like that. It's easy to make the right choices for someone you love. It's a lot harder to make the right choices for you. I don't think that's the way it's supposed to be, but for me, at this point in time, it seems to be the way that it is.

What's for dinner? Steak, I think, unless I can get it together and go to the store for some fish, which I'd much prefer.

Busy Sunday

We've been scurrying around today trying to get a lot of things done... it's my favorite kind of day, really, when we start with a list and try to get everything done by the end of the day. It's not going to happen, but it's coming along.

The big thing I did today is plant tomatoes. We had tomatoes two years ago, and last year we had sort of a leftover "volunteer" tomato that sprouted on its own and actually generated quite a few cherry tomatoes. This year we thought we'd try some heirloom varieties... I have a dear friend who unfortunately lives too far away for garden overflow, but is greatly into heirlooms... but of course in my usual way I didn't think about this early enough to order from any of the places that he recommends. So I discovered that White Flower Farm has a heirloom package... six varieties of different sorts. Not cheap. I've drooled over their catalogs for years, but never actually ordered anything from them... their packaging is great but I can't say that I'm thrilled with the quality of the plants that arrived. Three of them were a little moldy on the leaves, and the leaves were also pretty sparse on two of them. But ... well, I've planted them in containers and we'll see how it goes. The big thing is that this requires me to actually have my act together for the whole summer and water them every day. This is hard. I am a great starter of things and then something goes wrong and I don't follow through. So I'm making my tomato pledge, here, in writing... I will tend to these things every day this summer. And we'll see how it goes. I mean, at some point in your life, you have to learn some follow-through, don't you? Not everything can be about the enthusiasm of the moment.

(And this "tending to them" is going to have to require putting them in the garage tonight, too... it's unexpectedly cool here at the moment, supposed to get down to 39 tonight.... not a frost, but I don't really want to take any chances.)

What's for dinner? Lamb marinated in garlic and fresh mint, grilled; zucchini sauteed in garlic, and a few lima beans.

"Tuscan" Gorgonzola Spread

Wegmans (local grocery chain) makes a cheese... spread, I guess you'd call it, sort of a lumpy dip really. They call it Tuscan Gorgonzola Spread, although I have no idea if the Tuscan is because there really is some standard local recipe like this or whether it just sounds like something that would sell. As far as I can tell, it's the latter... anything that has cheese and olives in it and looks kind of like Italian peasant food. Anyway, we love it, but it's expensive, about $11 if you fill up a tub at the olive bar, and I keep thinking that I might be able to make a version that's both better and a little cheaper.

1 large tub cream cheese (not the whipped kind)
About 1/4 cup pitted black olives (go easy on the olives, even if you like them a lot)
1 roasted red pepper
1 tub crumbled Gorgonzola (I'll check the weight on this later.)
olive oil
heavy cream
cayenne pepper
smoked paprika

I think that this is one of those recipes that's going to go through a few iterations to get it right. Mince the red pepper and the olives in a food processor. You want these to be as fine as possible; if you drizzle a little olive oil in, it will make it easier to mince finely. Add about 1/2 teaspoon each of the cayenne and paprika (less if you want a less spicy spread), and then the cream cheese. Drizzle in a little olive oil and heavy cream until you get a texture that you like (thicker for a spread, creamier for a dip). What I actually did at this point was add the cheese and process; this made a very smooth spread, very nice for what we usually use this for (dipping raw vegetables or spreading on meat), but what I think I should have done is just fold the cheese in. This would have given a little more texture.

The verdict? Well, Michael may just be being nice, but his vote was, "just as good as the Wegmans stuff but different." Definitely spicier. But good, and has that same Gorgonzola/olive/roasted pepper flavor. (By the way... I would really go easy on the red pepper and the olives. Resist the temptation to put in more. Both have strong flavors, and can easily be far too much.)

Was it less expensive? A little, but probably not a lot. However, if I'd bought a can of olive instead of some from the olive bar, same thing with the roasted pepper, and bought regular instead of tub cream cheese, I think it might have been about half the price. I'll check this out more later.

Carb content? Well, a whole cup of cream cheese has only 8 carbs, so per serving, this is minimal, and there's very little in the Gorgonzola cheese. 1 large black olive = about 1 net carb (or 2 - 1 fiber carb), and there's less than 1 olive per serving here... and only a trace of the roasted pepper. Overall, this is a very low carb spread.

Hanging in there

Some days, it's hard. Not staying with the food, which is pretty easy for me these days, just life. Michael got up this morning looking like thunderclouds; he'd had another night of leg cramps and the trouble is... well, everything you'd think. Doesn't sleep well, so exhausted, and no one does well when tired. Plus spending a lot of the night in a considerable amount of pain does not make anyone a happy bunny. It all adds up. You can deal with the normal stuff if there aren't a lot of add-ons, but the add-ons make everything harder to handle. Impossible to handle, some days.

I don't know what the story is with the leg cramp thing. It's intermittent. We've tried potassium supplements; that's what everyone recommends... but I don't think it has much effect, too much makes him feel awful, and we're eating a pretty balanced diet right now; it's not very likely that he's deficient in potassium. There's a host of other possible culprits... not enough water, some other deficiency, not enough activity (that one seems kind of likely to me), and so on. But no one seems to know exactly what causes them, or how to really cure them, although there are lots of things you can try. Anyway, he's having a rotten day, and it's all a little much, and I don't blame him for feeling that way. Yes, a lot of these things are probably direct results of being too fat for too long. We know that. But knowing it doesn't help. We are trying like hell to do whatever we can.

I just wish that things would get a little better and stay that way, rather than this current cycle of some new issue every day. I try not to complain, because what good does it really do? But we could certainly use a little bit of a break.

What's for dinner? Grilled chicken with cauliflower-leek mash, and a few lima beans.

Food and habit

This is my total favorite thing that I've read lately, a post on Cranky Fitness about entitlement. An absolute must-read if you're thinking about the whys of weight loss... as in why did I do this stupid thing that wasn't really good for me? Which everybody does. And which is either the first step on the road to a lot more bad choices, or it's just one of those things, and you shrug and try to make your next choice better.

It partly just makes me think about how much my eating habits have really changed... most of the time anyway... because for me, that first slip into the "wrong" food meant, ok, you screwed up today, that means that you have to start over again tomorrow... but hey, since today is already a writeoff, let's have more pizza and chocolate. It is amazing how many calories you can pack in on this line of logic. Even more if you say, I've screwed up this week... I don't need to restart until Monday. And of course, before Monday, it's time for a big Farewell to Food because after Monday I'll be perfect forever, so I'd better buy all the things I love to eat Sunday... and my eyes were bigger than my stomach even then, so they would be leftovers on Monday... and, yeah, you know this story, right?

Which in turn makes me think about how much of eating is about habit and familiarity. There's an appallingly bad UK show (which you can see on BBC America) called You Are What You Eat. The very irritating host goes into to the home of the unfortunate fat person, humiliates them for a while (including putting everything they eat for a week on a table), gives a lot of advice that will make you cringe if you eat low-carb (although she does push whole foods), and examines their poop like an ancient Greek reading chicken entrails. Then she puts them on a diet of things that look revolting, badgers them into exercise, and in 8 weeks, wow, they're perfect! Well, actually, they're not, but they do in fact look a lot healthier for leaving off the chips and eating whole foods and so on. But the thing that is actually interesting and kind of amazing is that these people invariably start out as "we never eat fruit and veg because we don't like it/can't be bothered/don't know how to cook it." And then they spend eight weeks bitching and moaning about how horrible it is to have to (1) actually prepare things in the kitchen, and (2) eat something that they're not used to. But at the end, two miraculous things happen... they learn that when you prep stuff in the kitchen all the time, you get good at it, and that you can acclimate yourself to just about any kind of diet and learn to like it. But you have to put in the legwork to do it, and changing habits takes time.

I have so many thoughts about this that I don't know how to wrap this post into something neat, and one of the things that I wanted to talk about is the ways in which people are different when it comes to dealing with food... and how useless it is to try to impose your way on someone else. But to try to keep to a theme, let's just think habits. And practice. Over the last two+ years, I've gone from cooking very little most of the time to cooking 2-3 meals per day. And, wow, am I fast. I can whip up a meal that looks like you spent hours on it in about 30 minutes tops. That's practice. But what I fight with more than anything is habit, particularly the notion that there should be three things on my plate... you know, meat, starch, veg. That's been the hardest thing for me with low carb, and the related thing to that is portion size. After all these years, my eyes are still bigger than my stomach, and I still think that I "need" more food than I really do. I am working on this. But it's a hard, hard habit to break.

On today's agenda... try to get ourself back on the exercise that we skipped for the last two days. And a delightful trip to the dentist (sigh), which will also give me a chance to run to the grocery store that's farther away a stock up on cheaper meat.

What's for dinner? Probably steak with an apricot-soy glaze, and cauliflower mash with sauteed leeks.

Crispy Low-Carb Tilapia/Marie Rose Sauce

This recipe makes a pan-fried tilapia that's crispy but virtually zero carb (just a trace for the eggs and cream). And, in case you're wondering, even though it uses pork rinds for a coating, the result does not taste anything like pork. This isn't a really original recipe, but I couldn't find a low carb one when I was searching that really told me what I wanted to know, so here's my take on this (and there's a bonus sauce at the end). Note that this is (obviously, but not all "breaded" fish recipes are) wheat free and gluten free.

Note: This also reheats very well. 400 degrees in a toaster oven for about 10 minutes.

You will need:
Tilapia or other white fish (cod or haddock would be fine)
1 bag pork rinds (4 oz.)
eggs (1 is plenty unless you have a lot of fish)
cream (about 1/4 cup)
salt and pepper
oil for frying

The only trick to this is to process the pork rinds in a large food processor until they are very fine, like bread crumbs. Processed pork rinds look just like bread crumbs, but they're more dense. Mix the egg and cream (use 2 eggs if you have a lot of fish) and season with salt and pepper (you could also add cayenne or some herbs).

Heat oil in a large frying or saute pan. I used olive oil; I know it's not the greatest for high heat, but I don't like peanut oil, and I try to avoid grain oils. Vegetable oil might be ok, I suppose. You want it to be quite hot before you put the fish in, or it won't be crispy.

Pat the tilapia with a paper towel so that it's really dry, and then dip in the egg/cream mixture. Roll lightly in the pork rind crumbs. Really lightly, because as I said, these are dense, and you can use practically the whole batch on one piece of fish if you're not careful. I stretched one bag to 7 pieces of fish (alternately, if you want really crispy, you could just make double the pork rinds). Fry the fish in the hot oil, about 2 minutes per side.

If you're making a lot, so that you need to do more than one batch, you can put the cooked ones on a cookie sheet (or other large flat pan) in the oven at about 300 degrees to keep warm. Don't stack them or they'll lose their crisp.

I served these on a bed of field greens, which was really nice. A great alternative to tartar sauce is Marie Rose sauce, common in the UK but not so common in the US. The way I make it is like this:

Marie Rose Sauce

1 cup Hellman's or other mayonnaise
Heinz 1-carb ketchup ( you can really use any ketchup because you need hardly any)
lemon juice
Worcestershire sauce
pepper or cayenne

Put the mayonnaise in a small bowl, and blend in just enough ketchup to make it pink. You don't want it to taste like ketchup, so go easy. Then add the juice of about 1/4 lemon, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, and pepper to taste. Again, go easy on everything... it's easier to add more than to try to compensate for putting too much in. A dash of Tabasco or other hot sauce is also good. Carbs on this depend completely on the carbs in your mayonnaise, but are minimal.

Setting Goals

A terrific post this morning from Merry at Cranky Fitness, about positive self-talk. Which makes the world go around really, or at least stops your head from spinning yourself into fits of anxiety and negativity. On a good day anyway, although I am just an expert at spinning myself into misery. Last night I managed to worry so much about this "why am I not getting any contract work" thing that I went to bed just about panicking. I think trying to put a lid on that would be a very good thing. I'm not thinking about it until next week, and then I'll email Doug and ask him to phone me, and either way, this will be fine. It's not like it wouldn't be a damn good thing if I spent some time doing work I need to do rather than work I get paid extra for. Anyway, let's just let this go for a moment, think about it next week, and in the meantime, get on with the billion other things I need to do.

Addendum: If you're going to try to break repetitive thought patterns, make sure no one else is listening! I went to the office this morning to drop off an exam, after I wrote the above, in the middle of being just furious because I couldn't get something stupid to work right. So I'm heading back to my car, thinking all this really negative miserable crap, and then thinking, no, you can't DO this. So I started trying to break this thought pattern, and the next thing to come out of my mouth is various unprintable words and phrases (however I may seem here, after years off and on in the UK, my daily language is, shall we say, a little colorful. No one swears like the English.). Which would have been ok had I not been walking past the open window of a car with someone in it... something I noticed only afterwards. So of course you cough and splutter and try to pretend that you were really doing something sensible rather than swearing out loud and to yourself. This, by the way, never works.

Last night, we were talking about setting goals. Our weights as of yesterday were roughly 492 and 282 (and I'm fluctuating around again, sigh; what's it going to take to get below 280?). Where would we like to be by the end of next month? By the end of the year?

So, some goals.
By the end of June: Michael, 475, Nina, 270 (yeah, that would be a bit of a stretch for me, but you never know)
By the end of the year: Michael: 400, Nina 240. Both of those numbers are what I'd call stretch goals... If Michael lost 2 lbs/week, he'd be 428 roughly; if I lost 1 lb/week, I'd be 250. So the stretch goals require trying a little harder and things going right, but they're not completely out of the question by any means, not really unrealistic.

What's for dinner? Crunchy tilapia experiment, I think.

Summertime... and the living is... easy?

It's the last day of the regular semester for me; I just have to give one exam today. And then grade of course. But, yay. Summer. Three whole months in which no one will ask me to explain something that they would have known if they had actually come to class. Three months in which I don't have to try to sell anyone on why statistics is interesting. Three months in which I will not have to hear any imaginary (or real) reasons why assignments haven't been done. Except from my son, of course. Don't get me wrong, teaching college is absolutely the best job in the universe as far as I'm concerned, and most aspect of it I just love and feel incredibly lucky to be allowed to do, but on the other hand, every job has its tedious aspects. For me... #1 is grading. #2 is explaining things to people who didn't bother to do what they were supposed to (not to be confused with people who tried but really didn't understand, a different category altogether). #3 is a lot of college administrative crap.

And so the summer kind of stretches before me. This partly is a very anxiety-inducing thing because last summer I was kept busy with a lot of contract work that paid really, really well, allowing us to work on the house and do a lot of things without worrying about money too much. Now it seems to have totally dried up, but in a weird way... every time I talk to the publisher's rep, he says, oh, this will be coming up, this will be coming up... and then I hear nothing. So I can't figure out if it's me (I don't think so) or them (probably, but how has this gone from work all the time to zero so very fast). I'm going to have one more shot at talking to this guy in the next couple of days and see if I can extract any information (it's not pushy, is it, to follow up on things that you've been told will happen, right?). But on the assumption that I'm not going to be so busy with that this summer, what am I going to do? There are some specific school things, and I need to get my finances in order (deep, anxious sigh), but mostly I think, I need to spend some real time working on getting into shape. Working on figuring out how best to strengthen and increase flexibility for both of us, given the limitations.

My epiphany of a while ago (see here) is that the trouble with trying hard to lose weight is that you can only spend so many hours a day working on it, and the rest is a waiting game. So I figure that part of the goal is to spend more time on the "actively working to lose weight" hours. So... what can those be? Well, I consider this blog part of that, and the time I spend every morning and some evenings checking to see what other people have written. That's time thinking about weight issues. Then it's a rare day that Michael and I don't spend some time discussing weight in some way or another. So that's time talking about weight issues. (Aside: one day, I think it would be nice if this did not have to be a daily topic of conversation.) We try to do some kind of exercise most days... this is, I guess, active time devoted to weight loss. And I suppose cooking and meal planning kind of falls into that category, too, though it's marginal. So the goal should be to increase those active hours, and how can we best do that, all things considered? I don't know yet. But with more time, we can (1) increase the intensity of the seated workout, (2) try the chair aerobics DVD I got in the mail yesterday, and maybe (3) do more stretching and deep breathing exercises.

What's for dinner? Green salad with sauteed squid and heirloom tomatoes.

Spicy Grilled Marlin with Cucumber-Avocado Relish

For the fish:
Marlin steaks (swordfish would be good, too) (as many as you need)
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Cayenne pepper
Chipotle chili powder
Salt and freshly-ground pepper
1 large clove garlic, finely minced or crushed (if you're not a garlic fan, you could omit this, but it's great)

For the relish:
1 cucumber, seeded and diced finely (I prefer English [seedless] cucumber, although you do still need to seed it.)
1 avocado, diced
rice vinegar (I used Nakano Red Pepper Rice Vinegar)
fresh Italian parsley, about 2 tablespoons diced finely
Salt and freshly-ground pepper

Start by making the marinade for the fish. The amounts that you want depend on how many marlin steaks you're cooking; I cooked 3, and I used about 1/2 cup olive oil, 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, a sprinkling of cayenne and chili powder (a little goes a long way on both), 1 very fat clove of garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. If you don't like spicy, I'd omit the cayenne but not the chili powder; just use hardly any. Marinate the fish for at least a half hour, but 2-3 hours would be fine, too.

In the meantime, make the relish. Dice the cucumber and avocado, add the rice vinegar, and then add the fresh parsley (if you only have dried parsley, it would be better to omit it. Cilantro would be good, too, but Michael hates it). Add salt and pepper to taste. Chill. (You could make this relish spicier by adding jalapenos or onion, but I wanted a cool complement to the marlin marinade.)

Grill the marlin, and this is the tricky part because marlin gets both dry and tough if you overcook it. I grilled it 4 minutes/side on medium heat, and that was too much (we have a huge Weber grill, so this would really depend on what you're grilling on plus the thickness of the steaks... these were a good 1.5 inches, I think). Next time I'll try 3 minutes; they would be better.

I served these on a bed of greens and drizzled a little of the marinade over the top; you could also use it as a dipping sauce (especially if you overcook the marlin!). Put the relish on the side. We also had brussels sprouts and a few lima beans; lovely plate in shades of green. I really should have taken a picture.

Hand Day

We've been out of the doctor loop for a while... after last year, when it seemed like we had some sort of doctor appointment EVERY week, we just kind of took a break for a while. So now we're trying to catch up. Last week we had cardiologist day; today it was the hand guy; next week it's the eye guy; the following week, it's the general guy. Oh, and I have a dentist's appointment on Friday. I am remembering why we took a break from this, sigh!

Anyway, Michael broke the thin bone in his forearm last year in the car accident... I alway forget which bone that is, the ulna? I should know; it's such a common crossword puzzle word. It didn't heal properly... more accurately, it didn't heal at all, probably because he has to put too much weight on his forearm getting up. So in theory he could have surgery for this, but there's no point to that until he loses enough weight that he's not putting weight on his forearm getting up... and so on. So right now, we're just on the "check back in 6 months" cycle, which is ok because we get to see the hand doctor, who I like a lot although he was a little brusque today. (Actually, I suppose that he's the arm doctor. The hand doctor, unbelievably, is named Dr. Mitten.) But the real issue is insurance. I have a feeling that we should really get a lawyer; this accident was not our fault, and the other guy's insurance company would like to settle this and be done with it... and I just don't know what to do really.

The good things, though, are that a lot of the new seated workout stuff came in the mail today, so after I get through the last exam I have to give (tomorrow), I can start working on expanding our exercise routine, which really is helping. And I have marlin for dinner, which I have no idea how to cook, so if I figure out some wonderful recipe, I'll post it! And I'm in the middle of musing about what I really want to talk about... why do we crave food like mad sometimes, and other times not at all? But I need a little more time to really think that into something coherent.