Raw Food Diet

During the last month, I was so busy, I don’t remember much other than working, writing and not leaving the house for days at a time. This meant that cooking was put on the back burner and I indulged in things such as hot pockets and frozen Salisbury steak meals. Not the most extravagant thing out there and come to find out, veerrry bad for you. My stomach indicated so when I thought I was going to lose my midsection. I checked the sodium content of the said items and was shocked. Guess I should have done so before buying them. On top of that, I neglected my watering duties (watering myself that is) and my system was all messed up. I had to do damage control quickly. Like every person who vows to get healthy, I decided to eat nothing but fruits and veggies for a while, and by day two, I gave up. I was starving and craving melted cheese with more melted cheese. I did research as much as possible the raw food diet and learned some things. Animal products are generally not that good for you, but sometimes you do need them. Of course, it’s a give and take. You make the choices you feel are right for you when the time comes. I educated myself sufficiently to know what I should be eating in order for me not to turn into Mr. Hyde or was it Jekyll?
Anyways, I am snacking on carrots which are sweet and curb my sugar cravings, although I also eat berries and add honey to the oatmeal I started preparing. I make quinoa almost daily and mix it with cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, celery and carrots, or omit the last two. Either way is fine. In fact, I mix pretty much everything with quinoa, it’s great.
I make veggie soups when I want something warm and drink lots of water throughout the day.
Having said that, this only happened over the last week. I’m sure I can’t keep it up forever and neither would I want to. It’s boring to say the least, when I love snacking on prosciutto and fancy cheese. But, for the time being, my stomach is feeling better and I am thankful for it.
In the future, I will try to incorporate more raw fruits and veggies into my diet and watch the sodium that apparently is hidden everywhere. If you don’t worry about those things, dig in and enjoy everything.

Take Out at Home

I don’t know about you but living in NYC, I find eating out quite expensive. When we first moved here, it was a common occurrence, to the horror of our wallets. After the first couple of months, we realized that the restaurants will continue to operate even if we frequent them less frequently. So now we go out to dinner maybe once or twice a week, so to compensate for the cutback, I make takeout or restaurant food at home. Turns out to be much cheaper.
Think of your favorite takeout/delivery/restaurant foods and try making one of those dishes at home. Start by doing that once a week and seeing how you like it. Next week, try a different meal from your favorite place at home. So for example, you can make pizza very easily at home with store-bought pizza dough (about 3 bucks), top it with tomato sauce or not, cheese and whatever else you want. I’d throw ham and mushrooms on there. With one pizza dough, you can probably make two individual-sized pizzas, plus toppings, your cost will be about 5 bucks or so. Plus you can reuse the left over toppings for another meal, which saves money yet again.
Let’s see, what else can you make at home? Mexican food? Check. Get some tortillas, stuff them with rice, beans and chicken strips and you got a burrito. Be creative, you can make tacos with other toppings too.
Chinese food? Check. Buy a couple of those Top Ramen packages, add extra broth, veggies and some meat if you’d like and you have something the place around my corner charges $12 for. You can make stir-frys very easily as well. Chop up veggies and one chicken breast, sauté together, throw in some Hoisin sauce and dinner’s ready.
The possibilities are endless. You can make burgers at home, udon noodle soups, fries, crepes, etc..
Just this week I made a glass noodle stir-fry and carne asada chips, which hit the spot just when I needed it.

Lighten up Foods

I am seeing lots of tips online lately for how to eat foods that will help you lose all the lovely holiday pounds you accumulated. The dreaded diets after the new year… I don’t swear by a particular type of diet because every type can usually be just followed temporarily and you don’t want to start, stop, start, and stop again. The cycle will drive you insane. Instead, if you make choices that are better for you in the long run, you don’t have to worry about indulging in whatever you want every now and then. That’s what I do. This means I eat pizza, cakes, and carne asada fries until I’m a happy camper, but I also make smart food choices for my other meals.
Here are some substitutions I use when I shop or cook:

-       Buy nonfat milk and cheese if available – I still use regular cheese but get the nonfat milk

-       Buy medium size eggs instead of jumbo or large as it helps keep your cholesterol down if you eat less of them (if that is even an issue for you)

-       Instead of thickening soups or sauces with heavy cream, use a mixture of flour and water instead, or flour and whatever soup you are making; works like a charm

-       Cut back on meat by making stir-frys and using lots of veggies with a few strips of meat thrown in

-       For lunches, make thick soups that are filling but are full of vegetables (blend stock with veggies – no need to add any kind of thickener)

-       If you crave sugar, have a cake but don’t go crazy with the whip cream or ice cream; eat ice cream on its own later instead of doubling up on calories in one sitting

-       Try to go for fruity desserts instead of heavy, sugary ones – example, apple pie instead of bread pudding or chocolate cake (alternate if you like the chocolate, one time this, one time that)

-       Cook shrimp and scallops instead of expensive and heavy to digest steaks (I can’t cook a good steak to save my life so I don’t make it at home, but I’ll order it sometimes at restaurants)

-       Substitute grains in traditional dishes that are “by the book” – I use brown rice to make risotto and it works out just fine (traditional risotto recipes call for Arborio rice, oh well)

Make one change at a time and you won’t even notice the effort of changing.

Puff Pastry

For the last couple of days I’ve been playing with puff pastry. I have used it before with moderate success and thought I’d try my hand at some dessert stuff. I attempted chocolate croissants, which really are a no brainer but I managed to make them look like something a 3 year old created. They were still tasty though. And I also tried to make apple turnovers. Again moderately decent. I don’t remember having had this much trouble with the damn thing before so I’m not sure what I did wrong this time. Could be the new oven, my desire to go with the flow instead of following the recipes I had to a T or the brand of pastry itself. I bought some organic type from a local market that came in unusual dimensions. Don’t you know it, the darn thing threw me all off. I needed squares for the croissants and got rectangles instead. I tried to roll it out and stretch it but to no avail. My croissants came out like an evil claw, short on one side and terrifying on the other.
The stuffings I used were cheese in one just for the heck of it, and chocolate squares, Nutella and marzipan, all separately of course. The Nutella had the best flavor followed by the marzipan, which turned out pretty good.
I think I rolled my pieces too much and ended up with lots of dough and just a bit of stuffing, so beware if you attempt this as well.
Other than that, the apple filling for the turnovers was not sweet enough and the apple pieces were too small cause I chopped them ninja-style. If you make apples for a strudel or turnover, know that you have to add much more sugar than seems naturally healthy, otherwise you’ll have bland warm apples in a blanket.
That’s about all the wisdom I could muster on my puff pastry experiments of this week. And here's a pic of the only ones that were photogenic.

Soup Time

So it’s been cold here in NYC but we’ve had no snow. Very disappointing. The cold weather however has given rise to the week of the soups, at least for the last week. After spending the holiday month in San Diego and pigging out on holiday carbs, we felt in need of some greenery, so I’ve made a different soup every day for the last week. Chicken soup, veggie soup, ribollita (Italian bread soup), zucchini soup and today for lunch we had celery soup, cause I had so much darn celery left over I didn’t know what the heck to make with it. If in doubt, I turn it into soup, so there you go.
Topped it off with some fried sausage bits and voila, a light yet satisfyingly salty lunch was ready. Here’s the basic formula for my super quick and to my thinking, healthy soups.
 

2 cups of chopped veggies (whatever type you want, so celery if you want celery soup, carrot if you want carrot soup, etc.)

1 garlic glove chopped
1 ½ cups of chicken stock (low sodium)
½ - 1 teaspoon of salt (start with less and add more if necessary)
½ teaspoon of oil

Heat the oil over medium heat and sauté the veggies and garlic until translucent or soft. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Lower the heat once boiling and simmer for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat, let cool and blend in a blender or food processor. Reheat the soup and serve with garnishes or as is.

This is a fool-proof formula and has worked for me for pretty much anything. Here are a couple of pix from this week, and yes, they are both green.

Zucchini Soup

Celery Soup 

Euro Goodies

So last time I remarked on the excellent food to be found in Barcelona. Today I’ll review the temptations along the rest of the Mediterranean.In addition to Barcelona, we saw Monaco, Italy, Greece and Turkey, all beautiful in their own way. The food was good everywhere but we didn’t have as much time to explore local cuisine as in Barcelona. Thus we had what I would call an intro to goodies from the South, which sounds promising…

In Monaco, everyone was eating salad of course, to be expected. We saw ritzy people everywhere stuffing themselves with somewhat substantial salads. I ordered one that I eyed on my neighbor’s table and was not disappointed – butter lettuce, lots and lots of deli meat, eggs, cheese, tomato and a ridiculous amount of mayo dressing, without the actual funky mayo texture or taste.

In Turkey we enjoyed on-the-run gyros (good but not as delicious as in Athens), Turkish tea and mouth watering rice puddings at the Grand Bazaar, and for a tangy yet refreshing pick-me-up, pomegranate juice which is widely available from street vendors. In addition to the perfumed jiggly milk desserts, we also had small yet rich baklava, probably the best I ever had.

Speaking of the gyros in Athens, we had that ‘til we could eat no more and then we had fresh coconut water and coconut from yet another street vendor (they are everywhere).

In Italy, we did major sightseeing and not as much eating. In Sorrento we enjoyed delicious lemon cookies (Sorrento is known for its lemons and limoncello) and a good meal overlooking the Mediterranean. The meal was not as memorable but the views were. In Venice, the food in the touristy areas was oversalted and overpriced, but the desserts picked up at local bakeries and cafes were extraordinary. Their cakes are different than the cakes you get in the US. There is no cream or double-deckers, meaning you get one small layer of something like coffee cake, usually made with nuts or fruity jams. I highly recommend the sugar-balanced sweets in Venice, which are great with a cup of tea or coffee. And if you can’t get enough of them, you can stock up on cookies in your suitcase to enjoy later at home.

Salad in Monaco

 Pomegranate juice from street vendors in Istanbul, Turkey

 Enjoying Turkish tea at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul

Share the Baklava - it's very sweet

 Dried chilis in Sorrento, which is actually known for its lemons

 Pastries in Venice - lots of jam and nuts

 The selections are fantastic

 Souvenirs to take home

Barcelona Culinary Tour

I had the incredible pleasure of going on a tour of the Mediterranean recently that swept me from the Western porky delicacies to the custardy gelatos and ended with the Eastern perfumed rice puddings. If I had had more time, I would have done nothing but eat, eat, eat. I was however on a mission to see half of Europe with a large group in tow and very limited time in every location.

The most amount of time was spent in Barcelona, which I am happy to concur is as fun as people claimed and as delicious.

We indulged in surprisingly good pastries (I am always surprised when pastries are good outside of Paris or Vienna), tapas (Spanish appetizers or small bites), sandwiches and plenty of seafood.

My mission was to eat seafood paella, however the paella never made it in front of me, and I enjoyed the succulent shrimp, fish and octopus without its starchy counterpart. The octopus! Let me tell you about the best octopus on this planet. We ordered a dish called Galician-style octopus, which is a plate of small octopus pieces served with boiled potatoes, olive oil and paprika. Not sure what the heck they do to that octopus but it’s tender and melts in your mouth.

The shrimp, fish, langoustines and razor clams were all delicious as well, although the clams were a bit sandy.

We also had a fair share of pork, in the form of ribs, sausage and iberico ham.

The main and very popular market called La Boqueria is a sight to behold with every color fruit, vegetable and meat represented. It’s a feast for the eyes and the mouth. Besides buying fresh produce, you can stop at a food vendor and order tapas, seafood or whatever else they are serving for lunch or dinner. Expect the food to be good but the wait times and service to be infuriating.

Unfortunately my culinary exploration of Barcelona was not nearly long enough, which means I will have to go back for more.

At La Boqueria

No explanation needed - get on my plate! 

Gummy candy 

Very fresh eggs 

Biggest bone I've ever seen 

Soup time 

Tongue and balls 

Meat on a stick? Yes please! 

Sandwiches usually consist of bread rubbed with tomatoes and stuffed with Iberico ham 

The said Iberico ham 

Which you can buy at the market 

One of the many seafood dishes  

Having lunch at the market