Kitchen Haiku: Chicken Fake 'N Bake - A Photo Tutorial

One of the challenges of dieting with a Husband on board is that, since men are essentially children, it is sometimes necessary to create dishes that appeal to the under-10 demographic.  The kitchen haiku limitations make this even more fun.

Husband is quite fond of Shake 'N Bake.  So, I set out to create a dish that would evoke the crispy outside texture and juicy inside, while complying with the parameters of kitchen haiku.

I serve it with a light salad on the side, or sometimes topped with a simple marinara, for a mock Chicken Parmigiana.

Makes 2 servings:

2 100-gram portions of skinless boneless chicken breast
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 grissino breadsticks
1/2-1 teaspoon no-sugar poultry rub

Preheat oven to 400º Fahrenheit.  I use a toaster oven for this dish.

Brush the chicken with the Dijon mustard:

In a zipper bag, crumble the breadsticks and the poultry rub, mixing well.  I use a rolling pin:

Toss the chicken pieces in the bag, coating well.  Place coated chicken on a baking tray.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, turning over once.

Slice, and serve.

Kitchen Haiku: French Onion Soup

Anyone who doesn't love French Onion soup is crazy.  It's that simple.  The combination of savory beef broth and sweet onions is both comforting and sophisticated.  And it is an awesome addition to the kitchen haiku rotation.  Even without the cheese and floating crouton, the flavor brings me back to quiet dinners at French bistros, and it makes either for a very filling side dish, or as a main meal in itself, with the addition of ground or shredded beef or chicken.  

This recipe calls only for two ingredients: no-sugar beef broth and onions.  I tried adding garlic, and the strong fragrance of the garlic detracted from the subtle sweet flavor of the onions.

Makes 4 servings:

2 medium to large onions, cut in 1/4" slices

1 quart no-sugar beef broth

Preheat oven to 200º Fahrenheit

In a heavy, oven-proof stockpot, bring the onions and the broth to a boil.  Bring the heat down to medium, and simmer for 5 minutes, until the onions begin to soften and become translucent.  DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP.  I had to throw away one batch that had perpetually tough onions, because I didn't pre-boil them.  This will have the same effect that sautéeing the onions would in a traditional recipe.

Cover the stockpot, place in the oven, and cook at 200º F for 12 hours or overnight. 

You can also use the crockpot on low for this, but you still MUST pre-boil the onions and broth.

Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Here it is served a side dish to some steak.

Bon appétit!

Why Diet? Because it Enhances the Awesome

Why diet?

This is a question that I've been asked from time to time since I started my current weight loss journey.  I actually have had to ask this of myself as well.

When I started this blog nearly a year and a half ago, I swore that I would never diet again.  I was embracing dietary freedom and variety, sensory awareness of genuine hunger/satiety signals, and eschewing emotional eating.  I was learning to navigate life without constantly striving to reduce my body size, which had been my default mode for most of my 40+ years.

Why, if restrictive eating plans had failed me throughout my life, did I feel inclined to try again?  Isn't the definition of insanity to do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result?

What changed?

I'm not entirely sure that I can really answer completely in a way that will be fully comprehensible to others.  I'm not sure that I fully understand the reasons on a conscious level, myself.

Some of the reasons that I can identify are directly related to issues that I explored in this blog early on.  The skills and ideas that I explored in posts like  Eat Only When Hungry, Food Is Not Your Dog, and The Zen of Eating showed me that, for someone like me, who has waged a lifelong battle with weight and eating, these things were actually hard work.  Learning to operate my body as though I were naturally lean takes focus and determination.  And, living inside a body that did not reflect my inner reality made me feel insufficiently rewarded for my dedication.  I felt as though I had been spending a year working really hard to declutter the inside of my house, but then realized that, in order for the effort to be worthwhile, I also wanted to repair the siding and give the outside of the house a fresh paint job.

Going back to my old habits was not an option.  But continuing to live in a way where I felt that my outside and my inside were at odds with each other was no longer an option, either.

The irony of the matter is that I was not unhappy, not with myself, not with my life, not with my relationship with food or my body.  I was in a place of contentment, where I was ready to embrace the joy in every moment, regardless of my appearance or body size.  I have always been healthy and able to do active things, so it's not as if my physical size was an impediment in any way for the things that really matter in life.  I have an unconditionally devoted Husband, who doesn't give a flyin' flip whether I wear a size 2 or 20, so it's not as if I felt that I needed to do this to please him.  I felt really good about ME.  My self-esteem wasn't staked on the number on the scale or the tag of my jeans.

My life was seriously full of awesome.  And I was fully basking in all this awesome, avidly imbibing my sense of contentment with myself and my life, when I began pondering the possibility of changing my external appearance.  The way I saw it, I had already worked on the issues which, when not addressed, lead dieters to regain the weight before they even reach their goal.  I had already fixed the tendency to eat outside of hunger, eat to mask emotional issues, or eat mindlessly.  I had also stopped the perpetual yo-yo cycle.  Every person who has ever dieted knows how to be in "lose mode" or "don't care (gain) mode."  But hardly anyone with a weight issue knows how to MAINTAIN.

Serendipitously, I came across a weight loss method that was radically different from anything that I had encountered before.  The physiology of the method resonated with me, and the psychology behind the process presented the most logical approach I have encountered in my 30+ years of dieting.

I thought "I can do this. I already know how not to gain.  If I can give my body a push to lose the weight, I can maintain out the other side without too much drama."

So, I decided to try it.  Because it would be a fun experiment, and not getting the expected results wasn't going to crush me or diminish my sense of myself as entirely awesome.

I do not regret one minute of it.

The one heartfelt piece of advice that I would give anyone who is in despair over his or her weight is to step back from the dieting game for a good long time.  Learn to live with yourself, and embrace the joy in life as if weight and size weren't an issue.  Come to a place of peace with yourself, and learn to love yourself unconditionally.  Abandon the self-hatred; it's never done you any good.  Only when you are ready to embrace a life full of awesome, just as you are, will you be ready to make the big changes for yourself.

FOR YOURSELF.

Kitchen Haiku: Italian Wedding Soup with Meatballs

It's winter, and winter calls for soup.  One of my favorites, since I discovered its existence some 20 years ago, is Italian wedding soup with meatballs.  Now, the original calls for some sort of pasta (I have seen it made with both farfalle and orzo), but pasta is not included within the limited parameters of the kitchen haiku phase.

Makes 4 servings.

INGREDIENTS:

400g lean ground beef

4 5-gram grissino breadsticks or Melba toasts, crumbled

No-sugar dry rub to taste

1 quart no-sugar chicken stock or broth

4-6 large garlic cloves, sliced thin or crushed

1 pound frozen spinach 

Salt and pepper to taste

Combine the beef, crumbled breadsticks, and dry rub, and form into mini-meatballs.  I say the smaller, the better, although making 5-gram meatballs turns out to be quite time-consuming.  In a nonstick skillet over medium high heat, toss the meatballs and brown the outside.

In a medium sized stockpot, bring the chicken stock and garlic to a boil, and simmer for 2-3 minutes until garlic is cooked.  Add the spinach and the meatballs, bring back to a boil, and simmer for 5 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

This recipe turned out to be quite hearty, savory in a comfortingly uncomplicated way, and perfect for a winter day.

Kitchen Haiku: Curried Chicken Celery Apple Salad

As I mentioned in my previous post, An Introduction to Kitchen Haiku, I am currently in a phase that challenges my culinary wherewithal, because I have to stay within a very narrow scope of quantity and selection.

One of my favorites in this phase is the Curried Chicken Celery Apple Salad.  It is a simple recipe, which yields a fantastically satisfying meal.  Crunchy, sweet, and with the bold flavors from your favorite curry powder, this one will remain a favorite, even when I am no longer in kitchen haiku phase.

3 oz cooked chicken, diced
2-3 stalks celery, diced
1 medium apple, diced

Make a vinaigrette with:
1 tablespoon vinegar (apple cider vinegar works very well in this)
1 tablespoon water or chicken broth
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon curry powder

Toss it all together and serve.

This salad travels very well, it is perfect for bringing to work, or when on the road.

Enjoy!

An Introduction to Kitchen Haiku

"Howdcha get so thin?"
"A little help from faeries,
and kitchen haiku."

For the past 9 months, I have spent periods of 6-8 consecutive weeks during which my eating and cooking have been contained to a very narrow set of parameters.  Portions of foods from a very short list are carefully measured, and administered twice daily.

Each meal consists of

• 100 grams of lean beef, chicken, shrimp, crab, white fish, or lobster, weighed before cooking.
• One generous serving of ONE of the following vegetables: Lettuce, spinach, asparagus, chard, radishes, tomatoes, onions, cabbage, celery, cucumber.
• One serving of fruit: 1 orange, 1 apple, 1/2 grapefruit or a "handful" of strawberries (I weigh out about 6-7 oz of hulled strawberries).
• One Melba toast or grissino breadstick (about 5 grams or 20 calories)

I can also use seasonings like garlic, herbs, mustard, vinegar, no-sugar dry rubs, horseradish, the juice of 1 lemon per day, and up to 1 cup of no-sugar broth or stock.  In addition, I drink water, black coffee, tea, and seltzer, often with the aid of a noncaloric sweetener.

I may use no oils or fats of any kind, nor sugars.

I may break up the elements so as to be able to eat more frequently throughout the day.  I normally eat a piece of fruit and one of the breads for breakfast, along with at least 2 cups of coffee.  Lunch is a serving of protein and vegetable.  Dinner usually is all four elements in one meal.  I may not combine two fruits, two veggies, two proteins, or two breads in the same meal.

You can see how it is a challenge to my culinary creativity, to combine so few elements in such limited quantities, and still produce meals that are appealing enough for a person to comply with the plan.  There will be the times when slapping a piece of chicken in the George Foreman Grill and slicing half a cucumber will get me by.  But, more often than not, I make the effort to turn these meager supplies into meals worth eating.  Having the Husband following the program with me is also a motivator to make food that not only follows the rules, but that is satisfying to the senses.

And yet, part of the balancing act for me is to respect the simplicity of the plan.  I try to keep my recipes as uncomplicated as possible.  Minimal ingredients, maximum effect.

We have several favorites, which make the rotation often around here.  Chili, French onion soup, chicken "Fake 'N Bake," curried chicken salad, shrimp cocktail, chicken Greek salad.

Since I will be in this mode over the next several weeks, I will be posting pictures of some of my mainstays, along with the recipes.

The first installment: 

CHILI CON CARNE:

• 100 grams lean ground beef.  I use either 94/6% ground beef from Trader Joe's, or grind my own lean top round or eye of round in the grinder attachment for the KitchenAid mixer.
• 1 cup POMI ITALIAN CHOPPED TOMATOES
• Chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.

In a nonstick skillet over medium high heat, brown the beef.  Add the chili powder, cumin, and garlic powder, and mix well.  Stir over the heat for a minute, to let the spice flavors develop.  Add the tomatoes, and let them come to a high simmer.  Turn the heat down to medium low, cover the pan, and let it simmer for 5-10 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with a breadstick (if you haven't already eaten it earlier in the day).

SHE'S BAAAACK!!!!!!! The Return of the Prodigal Blogger

I've been a friggin' blogging deadbeat.  It's been over a year since I last posted on here.  I have to confess that it partly has to do with simply losing momentum in the blogging process.  We all go through that.  I see more blogs than not, sitting abandoned and forlorn a mere few months after they showed great promise.

So, I'm just another typical blogger, who starts out with a lot of enthusiasm and lets things peter out, without so much as a by-your-leave.  I've never said that I was much different from anyone else...

But the main reason for my having taken a step back from writing this food-based blog is that, for the past 9 months, I have essentially taken a step back from food in general.  I embarked on a journey to shed excess fat, which has taken a lot of my mental focus and emotional energy.  It also has required me to follow a very ascetic and limited culinary path, akin to kitchen haiku.

The results have been astounding so far.  I have shed 50 out of 70 pounds, and am working on the last 20.  At this stage of the game, as I prepare to go into long-term maintenance, I feel not only mentally ready to ponder food and eating again, but I am eager to explore more of how my relationship with food is a reflection of my relationship with the Universe in general.

So, hang tight!  There's more excitement to come...