Strufoli

Strufoli (often pronounced "strew-fulls" by my family)  was a special treat from my childhood.  My mother made these every Christmas.  In fact, it was a group project.  It's an Italian sweet made with an egg rich dough that is cut into small balls, fried and then coated in honey and decorated with sprinkles.  When she could, my mother bought the honey from an old lady in town who kept some hives in her back yard.  Believe it or not, I found a picture online (Isn't the internet a remarkable thing?):

I've never made them myself, but was starting to wish I could taste them again and was considered trying to recreate this memory.  Imagine my delight when son #1 showed up at Thanksgiving with some!!  He had found them in an Italian bakery and remembered them from his childhood visits to his Nana.  I was SO excited.  In fact, I may have eaten the entire package over several days. 

Tribute to Baked Oats

I'm not sure where baked oats originated.  I've been told that it is an Amish dish, but I was first introducted to it years ago when a co-worker brought some to a morning staff meeting as our "refreshments".  (You can read that as, "a distraction to make a boring meeting more tolerable and improve attendance.")   Not only did this seem like a tasty, healthy dish, but I was intrigued by the fact that a dish with an almost cake-like texture was created without ANY flour. For a finer textured end product you would use a finer cut of oatmeal such as instant or quick oats. The original recipe used a fair amount of oil and sugar, so I played with it a bit and came up with a more healthy combination of ingredients that still tasted good.  Sometimes I make it plain and add fruit on top, but more often I bake fruit right into the dish.  This also changes the texture somewhat depending on the water content of the added fruit.  My favorite is a combination of blueberries and strawberries.  I've also used apples (unpeeled), pears, peaches or a combination depending on what I have on hand.  And I've used fresh, frozen and occasionally canned fruit, although the canned fruit works best when added on top of plain baked oats. One recipe makes four servings and when I was working I appreciated the availability of a quick healthy breakfast on the three mornings after the original baking.

My mother used to say that she cooked "because it came with the job."  And I'm sort of in the same category, but nonetheless, I thought I would share my version of my very favorite breakfast.

Mix together:
1 egg
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp oil

Add:
2 cups of oatmeal. (I've used instant, quick and old fashion.  They all work, although each creates a different texture in the end.) 
1/2 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 Tbsp cinnamon
3/4 cup milk.

Mix well.  Add the fruit of your choice if desired.  Spread in a greased baking pan.  I use a glass 9 inch pie pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes in a regular oven (or 325 degrees for 30 minutes in a convection oven.)

Sometimes I put the fruit on the bottom and spread the oat mixture on top sort of like a cobbler.  This works best with apples and pears.  The berries get a bit runny when placed on the bottom like that.  By my figuring, the calorie count comes in at 300/serving without the fruit.  I would estimate that the fruit would add another 30-50 depending on the fruit of your choice and the amount you add. 

Enjoy.

Uh-oh!

Well, for the first time since I started this blog and my quest to reach a healthier weight, I've gone a bit in the wrong direction.  It's only a pound or two, but nonetheless, I need to nip this in the bud.  I want to blame a new prescription I started a few weeks ago - a statin drug to tame my unruly cholesterol, but I think that might be a bit of a cop out.  I've avoided these drugs for about ten years now but statistics being what they are, my age now adds to my risk factors and makes cholesterol control more important to my doctor.  For me, high cholesterol is more genetic than dietary. And given that fact, I wonder if it doesn't serve some yet undiscovered purpose in our bodies.  But, I finally caved to the urgings of my doctor that I would avoid trouble later on if I controled it now.  Here's the thing.....my appitite seems to be different.  I get hungry more often, I crave carbs, and I want to eat more.  So, which is healthier: a skinny me with a high cholesterol or an overweight me with a low cholesterol?  I would vote for the skinny me every time because there are so many other benefits to the low weight.  But first I need to see if I can indeed turn this around and lose weight while still on the medication.  If not, I guess I need to exercise my "patient's rights". 

More About Vegetables

In my continuing quest to add more vegetables to my diet, I've come across some interesting things recently.

First, while "half watching" Dr. Oz the other day while I was sewing the fractal quilt (and more about that soon!) I heard him talking with A.J. Jacobs.  This man decided to try a variety of diets to try to lose weight and improve his health.  You can read about him here.  He had some interesting comments about making vegetables more appealing.  In fact he voiced something that I've thought for a long time.  He advocates adding a small amount of sugar to a dish of vegetables.  He feels that it is a small "price" to pay to get more healthy vegetables into your diet and the disadvantages of the sugar are far outweighed by the advantages of the vegetables.  On that same note, he shared that we tend to like crunchy foods and even has a recipe for adding Cheetos to a vegetable dish (you read that right.....Cheetos!) to make it taste better.  I haven't tried either of these ideas, but they are both worth considering.  Back in my children days I remember trying to get the boys to eat raw carrots.  My strategy was to put peanut butter (something they all loved) on them.  They fell for it hard and now carrots with peanut butter is one of their favorite "dishes" from the old days.

Second, I came across this recipe for a salad made of corn and asparagus.  It's really good and low calorie.  You serve it cold so it is great to take to a picnic or covered dish meal.  I DOES have some sugar in it but like we said above - not a big nutritional price to pay for that amount of nutritional goodness.  It also stays nicely in the refrigerator providing a quick vegetable option for a few days.

Third, I stumbled upon a great combination at home.  I cooks a few slices of bacon, then cooked some sliced mushrooms in the same pan.  I cut up the bacon and threw it back into the pan and put some fresh spinach on top and let it all cook together.  Then I put some cheese on top and placed it in a hot oven to melt the cheese.  The flavors all blended nicely, although I think if I do it again I would add some onion.  But as an added bonus, the leftovers went great with eggs for a second meal.

And lastly....a none vegetable food comment....an old lunch choice has become my new breakfast favorite.  Toast with a thin layer of peanut butter, sliced banana and honey sprinkled on top.  One slice is a perfect breakfast size for me.  I get fruit, whole grain and a bit of protien.  It's been a nice chance from my usual oatmeal with fruit or toast.

Ok...back to sewing.

The Purpose of Food Shows

I have come to realize that food shows serve a beneficial purpose in my life.  They inspire me to cook more and eat better.  With just my husband and me at home, we often default to sandwiches, salads or quick cook options.  It's difficult to cook small amounts and we get tired of eating the same thing over and over.  But the cooking shows often show me new options or flavor combinations and since some of them are forced to prepare courses in a limited time, they are usually "quick to fix" ideas.  Now, granted, I"m not going to use quail eggs or goat meat but when I look at those things I consider ways I can create similar combinations out of more common ingredients.  It's not too lasting though.  Once we have taken a break from food TV we slide back into our old habits.  Our options are getting healthier all the time (more fruit, less sweets) but food group balance is a constant battle.....there's that word again!

Winter Fruits and Vegetables

No, this isn't about acorn squash and yams.  I've mentioned before that I have trouble maintaining an adequate amount of vegetables in the colder months because I have no desire for a cold salad when the weather is so cold outside.  And I also mentioned my re-discovery of cooked greens to help with that.  And that's all good, but I've come across a few other ways to get fruits and vegetables into my diet when all I really want is something hot and fattening.

Vegetables:  I mentioned greens and I can expand that to point out that spinach is a great green.  You can buy it in a bag already cleaned (supposedly - you can decide how much additional prep you want to provide).  It steams quickly or it can be added raw to things like eggs, pizza, pasta or casseroles.  One caution - if you are trying to determine amount, a six ounce bag which is the size commonly found in the bagged salad section will cook down to two medium sized portions.  Soup is also a good medium for vegetables.  I used to avoid making soup because I made SO much and was sick of it by the end, but now I take out a smaller pot and I don't try to add tons to things.  I do though have a lot of "pieces" to the amount of broth since often a lot of broth just sits in the bottom of the bowl and travels down the drain at the end.  For soups I've been using a combination of fresh and frozen vegetables.  A lot of frozen vegetables come with resealable bags so you can just take out the amount you want and put the rest back in the freezer.

Fruits:  These are a little easier for me in the winter, but still not the first thing I'm attracted to when the weather is cold.  It helps if I leave a couple of pieces on the counter to warm up before I eat them. I also usually put fruit in my oatmeal and of course there temperature is no issue.  Oddly, though buying fruit already cut up in those little cups helps too.  The fruit is still cold when I eat it, but I haven't had to handle the cold fruit in order to prepare it and somehow that makes it better to me.  But, my biggest discovery this winter has been baked apples!  They only take four minutes in the microwave and provide a nice warm treat at the end of a meal or as a snack.  I core the apple with my nifty apple corer that I found in the back of my kitchen utensil drawer.  Then I fill the middle with a teaspoon or so of brown sugar and a bit of cinnamon.  It doesn't take much sugar and I think it goes for a good cause.  Then I put one of those plastic splatter covers over it and microwave it for four minutes.  I've noticed that there is a big difference in apple variety.  So far I've tried Fuji and Gala.  The Fuji were a lot creamier in final texture.  On my next trip to the grocery store I'm going to buy a few other varieties and experiment.

While diet is about food choices, other aspects have to be considered - like mental perceptions and the particular context of the meal (warm or cold weather, living alone or feeding many, how much you tolerate leftovers).  Sometimes it helps to change the way the food is consumed as much as what food is consumed.  I guess that's the psychology of dieting.  Hmm....sounds like a good topic for someone's thesis.

A Winter Alternative to Salad

I had commented in a previous post that I find it difficult to eat a lot of salads in the winter.  When the weather is cold, I want warm food.  And without salads my vegetable intake really declines.  Well, quite by accident I stumbled upon a great winter substitute: greens.  When I was growing up my mother made greens for most holiday meals.  They had an Italian twist both in the type of greens that she choose and the meat she used to flavor it with.  She used the shank bone from a prosciutto that she would buy from an Italian deli.  Although that cold cut is still made, they no longer use a piece of meat with the bone included.  The prosciutto you buy today in your local supermarket is make of a boneless piece of meat that will easily slice on their machines.

 My mother's greens were also sort of polorizing.  There were those in the family - immediate and extended who loved the dish and couldn't get enough.  And there were those who wouldn't touch the stuff.  Interestingly that was repeated New Year's day when I presented my twist of greens.  Son #2 wouldn't touch them, son #1 tried a small bite and then went back for more, son #3 wasn't present, but I can tell you with certainty that he would NOT have tried them and probably wouldn't even want the serving bowl near him!

The dish started out this way: my husband wanted boiled cabbage, another family member suggested collard greens (something I never even heard of until I moved "south").  I saw this as an opportunity to try to recreate a bit of my old Italian holiday meals.  So, I made cabbage with collard greens using bacon and onion as the flavoring.  The result was surprisingly tasty!  I could see experimenting with other greens that are readily available here.  You can pack a lot of vegetable servings in a moderate sized bowl of greens!  And since I didn't boil them - they were steamed in the water that sticks to the leaves when you rinse them - most of the nutrients stayed intact. 

I had to look up on the internet how to use collard greens.  So, if anyone is interested:  you don't use the middle vein or stem. They should be rinsed to remove dirt, although mine were pretty clean straight from the store.  They have a lot of flavor and blended well with the more mild cabbage.  A medium head of cabbage and one bunch of collards fed five people.  I would put the recipe here, but instead I'm going to suggest that if indeed there are any readers out there interested - comment or email me and I'll send it to you.

Diet Check In

Well, with the year 5/6ths over, it's time to evaluate my diet.  The weight is still coming off, but very slowly now.  I love my digital scale.  It's not only more accurate, but I can see progress in smaller steps.  For instance, I haven't seen the number "136" for many weeks.  And I'm seeing "134" more and more often.  In between there I see 135 and change.  I know that weight fluctuates during each day but as long as the higher numbers become less frequent and the lower ones more common, I figure I'm still headed in the right direction.  The first time the number 133 shows up, I'm going to be excited.  I'm not sure that I will reach my goal by the end of the year but the change in scales (remember my old scale measured 4 pounds light) makes it a bit hard to determine.  In any case, though, I will end the year in better health than I started it.

The pretty fall days have been good for increasing my exercise.  I've taken my dog out on afternoon walks at some local parks in addition to our regular morning walk.  I wish I could have gotten out on some hiking trails with him this fall, but I didn't accomplish that.  We do have some nice local parks and a lake near town with a trail around it that we visited recently.  We also tried a trail around our new hospital.  They have been advertising it as a "park like" setting.  It's totally oversold.  It's just a sidewalk around the hospital...not very park like to me.

Food choices are always a challenge.  I've learned that salads and fruit are important to keep me on track.  They're filling but low in calories.  They also seem to control my carb and sweet cravings fairly well.  I've also noticed that being involved in as activity - even a sedentary one like my sewing - helps simply because I don't think about eating when I'm concentrating on something else.  I'm also much more aware of portion size, particularly for calorie dense foods and try to limit my servings of them.  I've also learned to notice when I feel full and to leave the rest on the plate.

So, I"m already thinking about 2012 and goals to set there.  If I had to give myself a grade for 2011 I think it would be a solid "B".

Dieting Pitfalls

I've been cruising along pretty good on my diet resolutions until this past week.  I've read that some foods have an addictive combination of salt, fat and sugar that make it more difficult for us to resist.  I think I may have found that combination recently in a Domino's pizza.  My preference is a plain cheese pizza or maybe some veggie toppings.  I dislike the meat toppings, so that is in my favor.  My husband and I ordered a half meatza/half cheese pizza but I inadvertently ordered a thin crust.  This turned out to be in my favor, diet-wise since I ate way too much!  AND I found myself going back a few hours later to eat still more.  My husband was not thrilled with the meatza side in the thin crust so a few pieces from that half are still in the frig waiting to be thrown away.

I followed that diet indiscretion two days latter with an indulgent choice at a local restaurant.  I'm not a fan of regular french fries, but this place makes the most awesome sweet potato fries.  The plate came piled with fries, pulled pork, coleslaw and sauteed zucchini.  Everything was great and while I didn't clean my plate, I did eat way more than my usual portions of all.  To make it worse, we ordered appetizers and the calamari was also hard to resist.  I kept the beverage to water, so maybe I should give myself points for that.

So, now I'm trying to get back on course.  I cooked some chicken breasts at lunch today and ate it over a modest salad.  I guess that's a start towards re-balancing.  I'm almost afraid to check my weight on the scale after my recent disappointment at the doctor's office.  My goals have been modest and to stay on course I need to weight 135 by June 30.   One real challenge to that goal will be a cruise that I'm taking with my sister in mid June!  Hopefully all the walking during our excursions will balance the glut of food that I hear so much about.  And really, I believe that for a diet to be successful, the lifestyle changes have to be sustainable.  It's not uncommon to eat more in certain situations as long as they do not occur on a regular basis.  Life would be sort of boring without awesome sweet potatoe fries, pizza and the splurg of a meal out.

Balance, balance, balance!!

Diet Low Spot

Yesterday was my doctor's appointment for my yearly check up.  I decided to try a different doctor this time.  I've had some problems with the office management at my former doctor's office so yesterday I went to my husband's doctor.  He practices a bit differently than my old doctor and his office is much simpler with the older equipment.  I was hoping to make this a "weigh in" check point for my dieting.  But somehow, the difference between my scale at home and my weight in the office was 7 pounds!  I could understand a few pounds but 7 puts me right back where I was two months ago and I just can't deal with that.  I know I've lost weight because my scale at home has gone down and my clothes fit better, so presumably I would have weighed a lot more if I had climbed on his scale two months ago.  I want to blame it on his old equipment since the scale was sort of rickety.  But, it any case it was pretty depressing.

He did think that perhaps my blood pressure has been overtreated and has asked me to stop the medicine and continue to monitor my pressure daily.  If it goes up I'm to call for more medication.  He doesn't want to see me for a year.  He encouraged me to lose weight to prevent the onset of my familial Type II diabetes.  I told him I was trying but weight has always been a struggle.  He told me to join Weight Watchers or to just eat once a day.  He claims to eat only once a day.  I'm not so sure I believe that.

In preparing for this visit I went over some old medical records of mine that I have at home.  My weight gain has mostly occurred over the past 10 years and I've weighed about this same weight (varying up and down by about 5 pounds) for that whole time.  If you go by my scale, I'm now about 141.  I should be 125.  And I WAS 125 about 10 years ago. 

The doctor reminded me that 100 calories extra/day equals 1 pound/month.  I'm choosing to reverse that and remembering instead that 100 calories LESS/day equals a loss of 1 pound/month.  100 calories is not much.  It's 2 pieces of chocolate, 1 slice of bread, 1/3 of a bagel or donut, 2 small cookies or a few breath mints.  It's also a walk with the dog, a bit of yoga or some gardening.

So still, it all comes back to balance.

Breakfast Ponderings

I've always been a breakfast eater - not a big breakfast eater, but I always have eaten something in the morning.  I think this was my mother's urgings during my growing up years.  Now, the funny thing to me is that when I eat a "good" breakfast (usually oatmeal with fruit or baked oats) I consume more calories than a less good breakfast (usually toast with Laughing Cow cheese or an english muffin) and the good breakfast doesn't seem to have any additional benefit throughout the morning.  I'm no less hungry by 11am, no perkier, no nothing.  I've just used up more of my calorie allotment and maybe feel a bet better about my nutrition.  Supposedly the oats are lowering my cholesterol, but I think I've maxed out on that benefit.

Maybe we just file that under "mysteries of dieting" and move on with life.