Worst Promise Ever

So we did again make the Kimchi Soup and I did again forget to take pictures. I also made Gluten Free Matzo and Matzo ball soup. It was my second time making it and for some reason the recipe I used for the Matzo didn't work quite as well as before.

I have been trying to get my hands on Cybele Pascal's book from the Library again, but every time I look for it it's at another branch. A conspiracy I wonder!

We had a 'shrimp boil' of sorts by cooking shrimp and fish in a metal pan on the grill the other night. To which I added a roasted root vegetable medley. I have never roasted beets before, but we had some from our last CSA pick up a few weeks ago that I wanted to use so they wouldn't go bad. So I cut up six beets, ten short carrots (just slightly longer than my middle finger), a sweet potato, two Japanese yams, and a white potato, drizzled them will olive oil and sprinkled on pepper, garlic, and Bell's seasoning. I baked them in the oven at 375 deg F for 45 minutes. At about 35 minutes I drizzled them with more oil and mixed them around to make sure they baked evenly. The Japanese yams got dark spots on them as they oxidize almost immediately after peeling, so next time I think I would try to leave the peel on. But I wasn't sure how well I could scrub them.

This got me thinking and inspired me to get out into our 'garden.' Spring and summer are coming, I planted a head of garlic that was happily growing in the kitchen, an onion that we let sit too long (I don't know if it will make it, but I'm hoping), and spruced up our pepper plants. Our basil looks half dead and half ready to go wild so we will see what happens with that as well. I'm looking forward to finding some ways to use up the last of our Kimchi. After which I am going to experiment with making whole cabbage Kimchi. I couldn't do this before because our container wasn't the proper size to do so, but now we have a specific one.

I'm looking forward to coming up with some other things to do with spring and summer crops. I'm really hoping that by my birthday I'll be able to treat myself to an Excalibur Dehydrator and a Vitamix blender. Not that we honestly need more kitchen appliances (seriously, our kitchen is tiny) but I want these to make fruit jerky, smoothies, cashew cheese, and other raw food applications.

I have a theory that Summer in Florida is a good time for raw food. Simple, low heated foods that don't add to the insane heat of the scorching sun. But theories are just that!

Today marks the beginning of my work week, so it's likely the kitchen finesse will not be happening again until next weekend, but we will see!

Amazing Food Everywhere!

So while I have been slacking off in posting, I have not been slacking off in the kitchen. We have been cooking up a storm of gluten and dairy free amazingness that I am going to try to explain to you. The sad thing is I keep forgetting to take pictures!

So first up - GF/DF Fudge

We needed a sweet treat that was going to satisfy my intense need for chocolate. Something I sadly had been having to do without because almost all chocolate you buy in the store has dairy in it, unless it's for baking. Enter Trader Joe's (Thank goodness!) who sell dairy free chocolate chips and delicious dark chocolate bars that are both cheap and dairy free. So inspired by this I again consulted Pinterest (which seems to house a lot of inspiration).

I found this pin from the Once a Month Mom that was for fudge. As always I didn't have exactly what was needed (really the only thing I didn't have was a conventional sifter and an 8 x 8 pan) so I made it in an eight inch round cake pan. We used this tea strainer we have as a sifter, which takes longer but worked just as well. I have since purchased a nifty three cup sifter which I will be using today to make another batch of fudge. I used carton coconut milk and found it to work surprisingly well. This fudge was amazing. We kept it in the fridge and it lasted a long time because one or two pieces is dark and rich enough to satisfy even the strongest craving.

I am still on a mission to find a more natural replacement for powdered sugar. I killed our blender attempting to make coconut powdered sugar for a cake several months ago and haven't tried a second attempt since then. I'm sure a good hour on the internet will solve that problem!

I also made another Allergy Free Red Velvet Cake using Cybele Pascale's recipe. I used a "rice beverage" as opposed to Rice Milk and I'm not sure it didn't negatively effect the cake (Logician says it was the best yet, so there is that). I also only have one eight inch round pan so I ended up using two springform pans. Which resulted in a thicker layer that caved in a bit while it settled. Since I had a new surprising indent I put some Trader Joe's Monticello Cherries in the middle, which was quite tasty. Again this is another recipe where I would love to substitute the powdered sugar with something else, but the coconut 'powdered' sugar gave the icing a strong molasses flavor that the vanilla extract then made too strong. So adaptation in progress!

That same night we also tried out a new Korean Dish - Kimchi Soup (Kimchiguk) made by Maangchi. Who by the way - if you haven't tried her food. Do it. It's incredible! We've only had one recipe Logician and I didn't agree on and we had to use different ingredients (I'll explain a bit further down!).

We started making her Easy Kimchi sometime last summer. The first batch we made was okay but we increased the spiciness and added more vegetables and such the second time and it's so much better! Logician first discovered Maangchi on YouTube watching one of her BBQ Pork videos, which got me hooked. So we turned to her when we made the kimchi. We had finished off almost all the old kimchi but had bought a new container specifically for making kimchi (plastic, not the beautiful clay pots. That comes next) so we made a new batch. So sitting lonely in the back of the fridge was this older, more sour kimchi. So I decided to make Kimchi Soup after seeing one of her newer videos (Recipe and Video here).

It was delicious! I picked up a new type of tofu which turned out to be really weird to me (Logician found that it grew on him) and it was my first experience cooking with pork belly on my own. But the soup was incredible. We had company so I made a double recipe which allowed me to use all the remaining older kimchi and some of the newer batch. It was so good we decided to make it again this week.

However, as we were on our way to the more Chinese based market to pick up what we needed, Logician became inspired by a different recipe for Braised Saury. I knew we had seen this canned fish somewhere before so we set off to find it in the market. As it turns out that particular market does not stock Saury so we opted to try Jack Mackerel instead. The recipe looked and smelled beautiful but was way too fishy for me! I couldn't eat it. I went to the Korean/Japanese influenced market this morning and found the exact brand she used in the video. So I am thinking in the next two weeks or so, we'll try it again.

Maangchi has so many recipes I want to try, but I am absolutely addicted to her Kimchi recipes! I want to get a clay pot (I saw a smaller one today for about $20.00) and make whole cabbage kimchi. But only time will tell if I get to!

One thing we have discovered is that the more Asian influenced food we cook, the less likely we are to run into Dairy and Wheat, our two biggest foes. However this does leave some room for GMO soy, MSG, and other nasty chemical things. However, it seems like the more we read labels the more we find out that there are less of these chemical bad guys in the things that are imported! Seriously! It seems awfully odd to me, but it does make me very happy.

I promise to take some step by step pictures of the Kimchi Guk tonight and a finished picture. It's going to be awesome. I will likely make a one and one half time recipe of it, since I have such awesome looking pork I want to have stewed in the broth and I also bought some Enoki mushrooms to place into the pot! I'm looking forward to dinner so much I'm hungry now!

Happy Eating!

Rebooting/Hard Truths

So the Reboot sort of tapered off as you might have noticed. Basically I learned one very important thing.

Rebooting isn't going to work for me. Doing a juicing fast/cleanse for a short period of time has the effect of creating a negative mindset for me. It got me back to the point where I am so desperate for 'normal' that I begin to pick up old behaviors I thought I had banished.

I'm sort of food soul searching right now. Trying to come to a place where I eat healthier, more locally, and more ethically. I just finished watching a Documentary called Vegucated. It was an interesting documentary that showed me a lot more than I thought I was getting in to.

The fact of the matter is this - I'm almost thirty and I hate my relationship with food and my body. It's that simple. However, the more I look around and try to find information on what will work best, what's a more mindful diet - there are so many information sources that I have no idea what to try or what will work.

I know the most important thing for me right now is to STOP CONSUMING DAIRY! Especially Cow's milk. I seem to have a better time with Goat's milk, but I can't let that become a crutch. Otherwise I'll end up in just as much trouble. I know what I need to do, but I am having trouble making those steps because of any list of excuses I'll call reasons.

1) Not enough money - this one is the hardest to fight right now. It's so much 'cheaper' to go buy two dollar menu hamburgers than it is to go buy a salad. Yes I know all the reasons this logic is wrong. In the long run it's not cheaper, the nutrients are better from the salad, etc. But when you have four dollars in your hand, it makes a difference.

2) Time - this is a personal lie I keep telling myself. That I'm so busy. It's been working on me for exercise lately too.

3) I need protein - this one is hardest for me because I can feel my body craving animal based protein. Though I have turned away from red meat and am trying to find alternative sources. But this hints at a bigger problem I am facing.

- My body is programmed to need carbs (especially bread/potatoes) and meat (chicken is a big one). Especially to need them in improper ways like processed freeze dried instant potatoes and chicken fingers.

I am fairly certain I have had a dairy allergy my entire life. I can remember symptoms going as far back as when I was four years old and cream cheese gave me horrible headaches. But I grew up with parents who grew up in an era where drinking milk with dinner and clearing your plate were important concepts. I was kept well fed, never hungry, and am not complaining.

I can remember how sometimes the kids in the neighborhood would ruin our appetites for dinner by eating the citrus fruit off the trees that were abundant around us. Oranges, white and red grapefruit, kumquats, cherries, tangerines, and the list goes on. But something shifted as I got older and I moved into this dietary place I am now.

Fast food, processed packaged foods, and a generally hate/hate relationship with food and my body.

Now don't get me wrong, things have gotten much better over the course of the last few years. Thanks in no small part to Logician. I came to this college town from living with someone whose diet mainly consisted of Pepsi, red meat, fast food, and potatoes. A diet I easy adopted and had trouble breaking.

So things I really want to change (Or Goals for the next 3 months) -
1) Consume less meat - I want to consume less store bought, inhumanely gotten meat. I know sometimes this isn't the easiest thing to change. $3/lb for chicken versus the $1/lb is hard when crunching numbers.

2) No more soda - at all, zero. I've gotten myself to this place where clear soda is acceptable. It's time to nix that idea.

3) Have juice at least three days a week alongside or in place of breakfast.

4) Educate myself on how to get protein and nutrients from FRESH food - I see all these processed replacements for 'normal' food, veggie burgers, tofurky, etc. I want to learn to make my own options from the actual foods themselves. Dried, canned, or more enjoyably fresh.

5) Get outside - more often. I need to, period.

6) Cut down the food budget.

Thoughts on how to do this?

1) 'Chili' Sunday - With Logician's help (and really at his suggestion) begin preparing things to be cooked through out the week on Sunday. I can remember Dad and I doing this when I was younger. The entire stove would be covered with pots and pans preparing all sorts of things. A huge vat of tomato sauce that would then be divided to be spiced with Spanish spices for Stuffed Peppers and Italian spices for Spaghetti; goulash, etc. This will also help us beef up our freezer with option to cook for lunches and the like.

2) Meatless Monday - this is a trend that I am seeing all over the place, but I enjoy seeing the recipes Reboot With Joe comes up with each week. Monday nights are a good night for us to do this, especially if we prep some of the ingredients on Sunday.

3) Leftover nights built into our schedule - this will help keep us from going out to eat. We've cut back a lot on our dining out, especially in the last month; and usually when I do convince us to go out we end up regretting it. So this will provide quick and easy nights where we don't have to worry about what to cook.

4) What's on Hand Thursday - I had this great idea, did it for two weeks and flopped out. Now I want to make it a habit. This will allow Logician and I to get back in the kitchen together and take prepared things (from Sunday), leftovers, and whatever else we might have on hand and flex our kitchen abilities to make something delicious.

5) Start using my library card to its' full potential - I live in an amazingly educated and read city. The libraries have an amazing variety of books. So I need to start actually reading the ones I check out, and checking out more.

So grand plans aside here's how I'm really going to try to get this going -

I want to start April 1st. A clean month.

I plan to start having some of these things now, like Chili Sundays. Then in April what I will do is start collecting our food receipts (all of them, even the ones from me at work) while trying to make healthier choices. This will give me a baseline to go from.

This also gives me time to build up a bigger collection of Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free recipes. I have some good ones but I need more. That way we can get clear of allergies in this house!

What are your grand plans for Spring?

Reboot 2013 #1 Day 6 & 7

Unfortunately no pictures today. We had a very interesting day yesterday as we ran all of our errands in the morning (going to the Farmer's Market, shopping, etc.) and then I came home and needed to prepare some of the food we needed for dinner yesterday.

Yes dinner. We've adjusted our meal plan to include a solid meal a day for both of us and allowed it to include protein. We both found we needed the nutrition of having some meat based protein and allowing ourselves more freedom with our solid meal.

So yesterday we didn't really eat (time got away from us) until dinner time. Where we had homemade Kimchi and Hot Pot. It was amazing and delicious.

So far today we have not had our breakfast juice, but we opted to have a solid meal for lunch. So likely we'll make a juice around dinner time. I'm thinking something with grapefruit and cucumber. We'll see!

Reboot 2013 #1 Days 4 & 5

We're feeling a bit better today but I think part of that is because we had to make a switch to our Reboot plan. We've switched to Juicing and Eating, where our one solid meal is a bit more flexible. I had to do this as I was simply too hungry and I felt like junk.

I also weighed myself yesterday and hadn't lost anything yet. Which makes it hard to want to continue. I wasn't feeling better, I didn't have less cravings, and I wasn't losing weight. Arg! Enter an idea and dinner with friends.

We went to Jason's Deli - which has an amazing salad bar for dinner. During which time we discussed that this juicing three times a day for him, and two times (three when working but I bought store bought juice) and eating once just didn't feel right for our bodies. We're a lot more active now than we were during the last Reboot and I felt like my body was starving.

So Day 4 - we're still fasting but we're amending it to include a healthy meal. This didn't go great this morning as I slept in and we went shopping before we made our breakfast juice. But first things first - Day 4.

Yesterday was Logician's last day of school for the week and my early day at work. Which shifted our schedule quite a bit! So we again made enough juice at breakfast to have enough for his lunch juice. I decided I would by a store bought for my work lunch. We had decided to go to dinner with friends so I was saving my solid meal for that.

The night before we had both been pretty hungry at the end of the night so we went for a smoothie and I got a veggie wrap. I felt a bit guilty for doing it but I had been very tired from working and felt pretty bad. So I felt like I needed some more solid food. Our juice for breakfast yesterday was another hodge podge of what we have at home.


We used Papaya, Carrots, Kale, apples, ginger, celery, and of course some orange juice. It was very tasty.



Logician had this for lunch as well and I had a Bolthouse Blue Goodness. Then we both had salad and soup from Jason's.

Then this morning we again went through what we had and put together a brunch juice. I did pick up some cucumbers, apples, grapefruit, and oranges yesterday. But we didn't use much of those.


As you can see it was a bit greenish yellow and the glass came out the same way. But it was still tasty. So tonight we're having either a juice or another solid meal, we haven't yet decided. Then tomorrow it's juicing and hot pot!

Reboot #1 2013 - Day 3

Today sucks.

Plain and simple. I have a huge headache, my body is angry at me for doing this, and I am really tired. Even Logician is feeling a bit sore and tired today (though he isn't sure it's the reboot that's doing it). Today is the type of day you want to curl up in bed and stay there.

But there were things to get done. Logician has class today and since getting up early immediately following my latest night at work isn't always easy, he opted to make a "Quick Juice" this morning. Essentially it is store bought Green Juice (in this case Trader Joe's Green Juice), with Rice Protein powder, and Amazing Greens powder mixed in. We try not to make these too often but it's nice to have a fall back item in case we're tired, busy, or both. As he has a very busy day at school he also will have a second one for lunch.

Since I have the morning here at home I decided to invent some juices for myself. I usually prefer recipes as I have no idea how to make enough juice for a serving just by guessing. I ALWAYS end up adding something after the picture is snapped.

Reboot #1 2013 - Day 2

Today is rough for me. I'm feeling really tired and sapped of energy, my skin feels like it's staging a coup, and I am just in general feeling achy. Logician seems to be having a better time with this, but he always does. Juicing seems to make his body happier more than anything else.

Lucky bugger.

So last night for dinner I got to have my solid meal for the day. I did 'cheat' a bit as I had white rice, but it was left over and didn't want to waste it. He invented himself a juice out of what we had available, since we try to leave room in our meal planner to use up our fresh veggies and fruits.

He created a concoction using cranberries, two carrots, papaya, sweet potato, butternut squash, and a variety of choy. He said it was too sweet (likely because of my addition of the potato) but it made just about 20 oz of juice so it was perfectly sized for his dinner. He was having a wonderful time and really enjoying having only liquid food yesterday. Meanwhile just about dinner time I started to slump. My body was confused and wondering just what in the heck I was doing to it.