Stew's up

Made a couple yummy soups this week.  They came from this cookbook, which is excellent, and was a gift from my friend Christy years ago.  It's  got a soup recipe for every day of the year.  I've probably made 20 and they've all been good




Parmesan Broth with Lemon, Chicken and Spinach
 Poach a few chicken breasts by covering with cold water, bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, until cooked through. Let cool then shred.

 Chop one small onion and saute in olive oil with 3 cloves minced garlic.

Add a 1-2 inch piece of parmesan cheese rind, 6 cups of chicken broth and juice of one lemon.
Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes.

 Wash and trim two bunches of spinach.  Add to the pot with the chicken and simmer until spinach wilts.  Remove the rind and season with salt & pepper.  

 Serve with some parmesan shavings.

Curried Cauliflower & Chicken Stew    

A little more complicated but really yummy.

 In a blender, combine 1 Tbs. water with

1 small yellow onion, coarsely chopped
2 Tbs. chopped fresh ginger
3 garlic cloves, chopped

and process until a paste forms. 

In a small bowl, stir together 1 TBSP curry powder and 1/2 tsp. salt.

 

Heat a large fry pan over high heat until very hot and add 2 TBSP corn oil. Add the onion-garlic paste and sauté just until it begins to brown, about 5 minutes. Stir in the spice mixture and sauté until fragrant, about 10 seconds.
 

Add 1 can diced tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to break down, about 5 minutes. Stir in 1 can coconut milk and 1/2 cup water.    

Bring to a simmer and stir in 1 lb boneless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces. Cover, reduce the heat to low and simmer until the stew thickens, about 20 minutes.

Uncover and stir in 1 head cauliflower florets and 1/2 lb green beans, cut into 2 inch pieces. 

Re-cover and continue to cook until the vegetables are tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Season with salt. Serve the stew with steamed rice. Serves 4.

Weeknight Pantry/Fridge Raid

And last night I pulled this one right out of my rear.  Well, not really, but you get the idea.  

I arrived home at 6pm with no plan and searched to see what was there.  

I came up with; a head of broccoli, a 1/2 stick pepperoni and a small package of frozen tortellini.  Boom - dinner.  

Chop the pepperoni.  Floret the broccoli and boil it up with the tortellini for about 8 minutes.  Drain and cool a bit.  Throw in a bowl with the pepperoni, chop up some pepperoncini and toss with italian dressing and season with salt & pepper. 

YUM, y'all.

Sugar Detax

I am a Halloween grinch.  I hate it.  I hate dressing up, I hate the scary ghoulish crap everywhere, and I hate the constant sugar gorge.  My kids think I am super lame, and it's true.  But if being lame means never having to look at bloody ghouls on my front yard, I'm fine with it.  I just find it all so bizarre and icky.

And then there's the candy.

My sister Julie and I both have three kids, but, despite being only a year older, she got a six-year head start on parenthood.  So she, and my sister-in-law Sue, have always been my mom harbingers, my Dr Spock sit-ins, my go-to girls in parental panic moments.

Many, many years ago, when our kids were still wee ones, I remember a conversation with Julie around Halloween.  Both of us were dreading the sugar gorge yet remembering, due to the limited sweets available in the Corey house growing up, how epic that one night of excess was.  And we were both determined to let our kids enjoy that same overindulgence on Halloween.   Julie said she'd been telling her kids they could eat all they want that night, and even that week, but after that?  Sugar detox. Which Joey, who was probably 4,  kept calling "Sugar DeTax."

So here I am, grown up kids. This might be the first Halloween I have no trick-or-treaters heading out (side note:  I told Dylan that when you get to high school it is no longer called Trick-or-Treating, it's called Begging.  Jacquie called bullshit and said if they dress up, they can go as long as they want.  Thoughts?).  At minimum, this is the first Halloween for which there was no school party, no SJA parade, no crap to send to school.  So now all the crap is at home. 

See, the problem is that I love candy.  I do!  I love sweets of all sorts.  It's ridiculous. It's embarrassing!  None of my sisters seem to have this Achilles heel.  Weirdos.  But I love and adore all manner of cookie and chocolate and I feed that beast regularly.

Because I am an obsessive diligent exerciser, I don't think of it as that big a problem, but I do feel sort of generally bad about it. And occasionally, I feel badly enough to do something about it.   Concurrently, CrossFit people, as you know, are often extremists and tend to be sort of weirdos conscientious about carbs and sugar and food in general, and my box has undertaken a "No Sugar November" challenge.
AKA - SUGAR DETAX.

The challenge actually started on October 24th. I didn't officially sign up, mind you, because that involved committing to a 100,000 meter row, which was never on God's green earth gonna happen, but also because I have a teensy problem with these sorts of exercises in denial, no pun intended. So on Monday morning I simply set out to not eat any sugar.  (The challenge officially includes any sort of carbs/simple sugars, but I thought I'd ease in and just focus on no actual sweets.)  And I lasted approximately 7 hours, until that lunch meeting, which included Jimmy John's and chocolate chip cookies.  Boom.

I maintain that the reason I usually don't do this sort of thing is I have a weird, food version of an anti-authority streak. With myself.  I go from, wow that looks good, too bad I can't eat it to, well at least I shouldn't eat it to, why the hell shouldn't I?  I did 35 handstand pushups this morning? to - DON'T TELL ME I CAN'T EAT THAT I AM A GROWN WOMAN AND CAN EAT WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT.

Do you see my problem?  It's crowded in this crazy head of mine. 
 
And so I'm back to the drawing board.  Maybe sugar detax isn't in the cards for me this year.  Or maybe I simply try to cut out those candy bars that are soon to erupt from their lovely, benign packaging in a couple days.  Or maybe not.  Moderation, that's the key!  Everything in moderation, right?

Including moderation.

Happy Halloween.  Eat your heart out.  It's not even November yet! 

And lest you think I have no heart, what I do love?  And miss?  This:

Cheating

A couple months ago I was on a plane on my way to New York and sat next to a lovely woman named Allison.  Our plane was late to take off and she was fretting that she might miss her NYC flight to London.  It was going to be tight.  So I tried to keep her distracted.  Two hours passed very quickly, talking about our kids, our towns, our jobs - it was one of those super easy stranger interactions.  At one point I said to her, if you lived in my town we would definitely be friends.

(She later wrote: "I can't thank you enough for being so supportive on the plane ride. I think I may have lost it if I didn't have you to talk to." Did I mention we would totally be friends if she was here?)

Food was definitely a common passion.  We traded tips and tricks and the names of favorite cookbooks, then she asked me if I'd ever used Blue Apron.  I had never heard of it.  So when she returned from London (she made the flight!), she sent me a coupon for a free order.

It's been a pretty fun experiment.   It's a fantastic concept and the company is hot - Under Armour's CFO just jumped ship from UA to BA.  The concept is simple and brilliant:  The Blue Apron food whizzes secure fresh, seasonal food from their sources, package it up perfectly, print up their original recipes with step-by-step instructions, and ship you your food in an insulated container.  Every single food item you need is included and pre-measured- all you need are the pots and pans.  So it's cooking, but it's all thought out, shopped and measured for you.  And it's pretty reasonable.  I did two shipments, each with two meals for a family of four (sob), and they were about $60/shipment.

So here's how it goes.  The doorbell rings, and this is on your stoop.  It's like StitchFix with food!

Which has this inside

which has this inside.  

Included are all the ingredients plus all two recipe cards.  Plus one card that contains interesting tidbits about some seasonal food. This one's for Julie:

 The recipe cards are gorgeous.

 So is the packaging.  And there is zero waste.  All these adorable little containers and labels are fantastic.

 Then you just follow the step-by-step instructions. 

 

Week one's meals were Chicken Tetrazzini and Seared Cod with Pickled Grapes.

The tettrazini was delicious. Doug literally had fifths. 

I thought the cod was ok, but Noah literally spit it out. 

 This week's menus were Cajun shrimp and cheesy grits, then a weeknight Bolognese   

Both were outstanding. 

 So it's been an interesting experiment.  Here are my observations:

The ingredients were gorgeous.  Fresh, beautifully packaged, and seasonally appropriate.  And the recipes were extremely healthy, limiting fat and sodium.  The packaging was pleasing, and it was very very convenient.

The cons?  A bit pricey, although not unreasonably so.  When I think of how much I spend at the grocery store every week, 30/meal for a family of four isn't bad.  And it's free shipping anywhere in the country.  It definitely got me cooking meals I had never tried before.  But a couple of the recipes were a bit bland unless they were zealously salted, and, fun as it was to try new things, they were all a bit labor intensive!   So although I appreciated the convenience of literally opening the box and following instructions, a coupe of the meals took longer than I'd normally spend on a weeknight meal.

The bottom line is, for people who like to cook and value fresh meals and ingredients  but find the hunting and menu-planing part of cooking a drag, this is an outstanding option.  For me, it was a fun experiement but at the end of the day it felt a little like cheating and, as it turns out, I like the planning and the shopping.  I"ll definitely try it again, just not every week.

But for some of you this might be a dream come true!  Thanks for the tip, Allison!