something new to try: swiss chard

I visited the neighbor's farm stand this weekend and stocked up on some veggies.  They'll be away next weekend and therefore won't be open.  I bought some eggplant for a recipe I want to try.  It's kind of like eggplant parm without the sauce.  I also bought more tomatoes to make sauce, four heads of garlic, and some Swiss Chard.  

I have to say, I was quite shocked at how large the Swiss Chard leaves are.  I didn't think the guys would be able to get the bunch in the little bag for me, but they did.  They take up half a shelf in the fridge! I've never cooked with Swiss Chard before, but I'm told they cook down to almost nothing, similar to spinach.

My neighbors have been making samples with the Chard and it's delicious.  They make these awesome Swiss Chard grilled cheeses on ciabatta bread.  This weekend they used 9-grain bread and it was even better.  (I purposely walk down there for the samples, although I do buy something while I'm there.)  They also invented two desserts:  Swiss Chard Tarts and Swiss Chard Mini Pies.  So delicious!  You would never know it's made with a leafy green.  It's got brown sugar, raisins, and other yummy stuff.

So, they've convinced me that I need to make the grilled cheeses at home for some company I'm having next weekend.  I can't wait!  I'll be sure to post a pic of the finished product.

Lily's No Sugar Added chocolate

Lily's has become my new go-to chocolate when I'm craving something sweet.  It's rare that I crave sweets nowadays, but it does happen occasionally.  

I'm one of the post-ops that can have sugar in small doses.  It's not totally off limits, but I can't eat as much of it as others can.  I'm somewhere in the middle.  Two bites of [insert sugary dessert here] and I'm done.  One more and it's usually too much.  I start dumping:  my stomach feels a little queasy and I get tired.  Four bites?  Forget it!  I did that twice and I won't do that again.  I felt nauseous, dizzy, very lethargic, and I wasn't sure if I was going to pass out or throw up.  It lasted about 20 minutes and then I was fine.  I guess if I'm willing to go through that for an extra bite of dessert I could, but who wants to feel like that for the sake of 30 seconds of pleasure?

Although I've found some low sugar or no sugar treats, I still have to be careful because there's often sugar alcohols, which can cause diarrhea and such.  But I don't have to worry about that with Lily's.  It's sweetened with Stevia, so any sugar alcohols are kept to a minimum.  Even though I don't have to worry as much about dumping, I still don't go overboard.  Three squares is about it for me.  It satisfies my craving with a minimum of calories.

The price tends to be abound $4.00 a bar.  I don't mind paying that, though, since it lasts me a long time.  I buy mine at Whole Foods.  

This chocolate tastes great and it's smooth.  I feel that it tastes the same as regular chocolate, but some people think it's a slightly different taste.  Could be.  Depends on your palate, I guess.  I think the texture is the same, too.  It's not crumbly or grainy.  It's nice and smooth like regular chocolate.

homemade tomato sauce

Last weekend I went to the farm stand up the street and bought some rather large heirloom tomatoes.  At first I was going to make some sort of dish in an effort to make raw tomatoes appeal to me, but then I decided to make homemade tomato sauce.  It's something I've always wanted to try.

I started looking at recipes online and quickly realized there are many different ways to make tomato sauce.  Some say to blanch the tomatoes and then peel them.  Some say just chop up the tomatoes and throw them in the pot.  Some say to puree the cooked tomatoes, others don't.  I even found one that said to roast the tomatoes in the oven.  Aside from the different cooking methods, how do I know which one has the taste I'm looking for?  I decided that I would take the elements I like from different recipes and make it my own.  One recipe had the seasoning I was looking for, while another had the cooking method I wanted.

The sauce came out really good, although I might reduce the oregano next time.  It just seemed a bit much.  But it might be fine for someone else.

Here are the pics:
(recipe follows)

My ingredients (not the bananas!).  Three heirloom tomatoes weighed more than three pounds!

After the tomatoes have been blanched, peeled, and chopped.  Look at that color!  

These tomatoes are the Kellogg's Breakfast heirloom variety.  I know, weird name.

Tomatoes, onion, garlic, pepper, and cooked Italian sausage.

The cooked sauce.

Bob's dinner.

My dinner.  I didn't have the pasta.  I spooned the sauce over some ricotta cheese.  Yum!

Homemade Tomato Sauce

3 pounds tomatoes (whatever kind you like; I know nothing about tomato varieties)
1 pound cooked Italian sausage (or ground beef)
1/2 large onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 6 oz. cans tomato paste
3 TB dried oregano
1 1/2 TB dried basil
3 bay leaves
salt to taste

1. Brown the sausage or ground beef, then drain the excess fat.  Hold aside.
2. Blanch and peel the tomatoes:  Cut an X in the bottom of each tomato.  Put into boiling water for about 45 seconds.  Pull them out with a slotted spoon and immediately put them into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking.  Peel the skins off.  Very easy!
3. Chop the tomatoes, removing any of the tough white parts.  This can get messy so make sure you use a big cutting board.  Put chopped tomatoes in a large pot along with the cooked meat, diced onion, pepper, and garlic cloves and cook on medium heat for about 15 minutes.
4. Add the tomato paste to the cooked tomatoes and stir to incorporate.
5. Add the seasonings and stir.
6. Turn burner to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 1 1/2 hours.  This is to incorporate all the flavors into the sauce.
7. Adjust seasoning, if necessary.
8. Pull out the bay leaves.
9. Sauce is finished!

garlic chicken rigatoni

I recently subscribed to Taste of Home magazine.  All of the recipes in it are submitted by home cooks, which means they're usually pretty easy and don't require a lot of fancy ingedients.

I tried Garlic Chicken Rigatoni for dinner the other night.  The only ingredient I would consider "fancy" is the sun-dried tomatoes.  It's not something I keep on hand, but they're easy enough to buy and aren't expensive.  I got a big package at Stew Leonard's for $2.99 and I have plenty left over for another recipe.  The fresh parsley, too, is something I don't keep on hand, but it's cheap.  I think I paid 79 cents for a bunch.  Fresh garlic isn't something I normally have, but there's a farm stand four houses down from us and I bought three heads last weekend.

The only changes I made to recipe were to omit the mushrooms (Bob is a mushroom-hater) and I used all chicken broth instead of part broth and part white wine.  I didn't have any wine in the house and wasn't going to buy bottle only to use half a cup.

We enjoyed this, although we're used to having some kind of sauce on our pasta; this had none.  I'm guessing you could probably make a sauce by increasing the broth and wine, but it wouldn't be thick.

For anyone saying, "Wait, you're not supposed to be eating pasta!!", relax.  Notice there's only three pieces of pasta on the plate.  I concentrated on the chicken.

today's lunch

I really need to get better about checking to make sure I have ingredients before I cook.  I planned to make Hamburger Helper Stroganoff for lunch for Bob and AFTER I put the ground chicken (I sometimes use turkey or chicken instead of beef) in the pan I decided to check and make sure I had the two cups of milk I needed.  Nope.  Only one cup and Bob needs that for coffee until I go to the store later.  I didn't think it would taste right if I used all water so I abandoned the Hamburger Helper.

So, what to make?  I was out of pasta sauce, which is unusual for me.  I didn't have the right ingredients to make my mom's Ranch Beans.  I checked the cupboard and found some Lipton Onion Soup Mix, so I logged into their website and found a recipe I had most of the ingredients for:  All-American Skillet Casserole.  Of course, I had no cheddar cheese so had to use mozzarella cheese.  No big deal, though.

It was really fast and easy to make, and tasted pretty good, too, although I might stick with cheddar cheese and ground beef next time.

something i always wanted to do: karate

I've always wanted to try Karate.  For years I said, "Once I lose the weight, I'll try it out."  That was a LONG time ago.  But when I had my weight loss surgery last year, I said it again.  And actually meant it this time. (I'm not always good at following through on things.)  So, when a Groupon came up while browsing for something else, I decided to buy it.  It was $85.00 for two months of unlimited classes at New England Rendokan in Rocky Hill (here's the Groupon if you're interested:  New England Rendokan).  At this particular place, that meant I could take three classes a week if I wanted to.  And it was good up to four months from the time of purchase so I had plenty of time to take care of the move, get my mind into the idea of doing something physical, and to lose a few more pounds.

I took my first class the other night, and boy, was I sore afterwards!  Surprisingly it wasn't my legs or back that hurt, although that would come the next day.  It was my ankles and wrists.  My ankles because of the stance while doing certain moves.  And my wrists because of the punches.

It started about with about 15-20 minutes of warm-ups:  stretches, kicks, sit-ups, and (UGH!!) push-ups!  And not just a set of 10 push-ups.  It was one push-up, stand up, two push-ups, stand up, and on, until we got to ten push-ups.  Then it counted down.  So that was a total of 100 push-ups!  Holy crap!!  Needless to say, I did like one and that was it.  That sounds like I chickened out, or am so out of shape I could only do one.  But I did one.  A whole one.  The RIGHT WAY.  I've never before in my life done a push-up.  I wasn't able to.  I've always been too heavy.  343 pounds is a lot of weight on the wrists.  But now I'm 125 pounds lighter and that enabled me to do one.

After the warm-ups were done it was on to some simple repetitions.  Well, simple for the other students who had been there for a couple years.  I was able to do them, but I felt very uncoordinated and off balance, which is very unlike me.  I took dance for seven years as a child and I typically catch on very fast whenever I'm learning something new, so I figured this would be like anything I had tried and mastered.  Nope.  I felt like a fish out of water.  Some things were easier than others, but I found my balance wasn't the best and my retention of what I had learned was awful.  I kept getting stuck at certain points during a sequence, like I had a brain block or something.  I'm sure it's just because it's new and there was a lot of different moves to learn.

Overall, I enjoyed it.  It's quite a workout and that's what I'm looking for.  I was sore the next day, but that's to be expected.  I haven't exercised my whole body like that in a long time.

I learned something, too.  Like how to kick someone in the groin if they attack, how to dodge a knife, and how to kick someone in the side of the knee to take them down.  This is over simplified, of course.  There's a lot more to Karate than kicking someone in the balls.  It's about confidence, respect, and discipline.

today's breakfast and lunch

I've been eating more lunch meat lately.  I've discovered that meat containing nitrates bothers my stomach, so I've been buying the Applegate Farms brand.  It's good, but it's not cheap.  That doesn't matter much, though, because one package gives me about 3 meals.

However, after having lunch meat quite a bit over the last few weeks, I've decided that it doesn't really appeal to me the way it used to (many old favorites don't appeal to me anymore).  Maybe because I'm not eating bologna, which I love, or maybe because its rolled up with cheese and it's not on bread or a roll.  Just as well, I guess, since lunch meat tends to be pretty salty.

So, today for lunch I had Applegate Farms uncured ham rolled up with Pepper jack cheese, some pineapple, and some cheese.  For breakfast it was Greek yogurt with peanuts mixed in.

today's breakfast and lunch

Bob and I took our first trip to Stew Leonard's the other night.  We've been to Stew's before, but not to this location.  We now live within 10 minutes of one!  : )  The purpose was to get some dinner from the hot bar, but of course we ended up buying a bunch of stuff.  Not junk food like we used to buy, but definitely nothing that falls into the "needs" category.

One of the things I got from the hot bar was BBQ pulled pork.  Yummy!  That's what I brought for lunch today.  I added some crackers on the side.

I also bought some fresh pineapple, which was also yummy.  I've decided to start adding some fruit, although I find that the fruits I used to like just don't appeal all that much to me anymore.  It's a texture thing.

I had a Greek yogurt (not shown) with peanuts mixed in for breakfast, as usual.

german beer cheese--need i say more??

I've been trying to figure out what to do with all the leftover extra sharp cheese from my house warming party.  We ate the rest of the cheese that was left, but we just couldn't finish the cheddar.

Unless you're someone who really has a love for extra sharp cheddar, it's tough to find a use for it.  But I did!  I was flipping through an issue of Taste of Home and found a recipe for German Beer Cheese Spread. It looked pretty easy and I had all the ingredients (for once!), so I decided to make it.

I had this once at our favorite German place, the East Side Restaurant, but then they stopped making it for some reason.  I loved it.  It had a strong, sharp cheddar taste with a hint of beer. I hate beer, but I like it when it's used for cooking.

This was very quick and easy.  In fact, I made this while cooking the shells for stuffed shells.  The timer was set for 14 minute and that's about how long it took.  And that's only because I didn't have everything ready to go.  I had to measure the ingredients and mince up some fresh garlic.  If I had it all ready to go it would have taken maybe 5 or 6 minutes to do this.

This recipe made A LOT!  If you're having a party, great.  But if you're going to keep this in the fridge for snacking, you and whoever else is there had better really like German beer cheese.

How did it taste?  Very strong because of the extra sharp cheddar.  And it had a lot of beer flavor, which surprised me.  Many times when a recipe calls for alcohol it's not really discernible in the flavor.  But the beer definitely came through in this.

Here's the recipe if you want to try it:  German Beer Cheese Spread

Note:  I used Yuengling Premium beer because that's what we had on hand.  Bob LOVES Yuengling.

veggies!

One of the things I love about living in the new house is that my neighbors four houses down grow their own veggies and set up a form stand on the weekends.   They have their own green houses and a big garden.  If you're ever up this way check them out.  Here's a link to their website:  Atkins Barnes Farm and Homestead.  And here's a link to their Facebook page:  Atkins Barnes Farm and Homestead.

I'm not big on veggies and neither is Bob.  I always have good intentions when I buy veggies.  (The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, right?)  I see them in the store and it makes me want to go home, whip out all the pots and pans, drizzle olive oil everywhere, and start cooking my heart out. While pushing my cart I have visions of gorgeous veggies transformed into delicious dishes that we just can't get enough of.  (This is especially true at Whole Foods.  Their produce section is a food porn addict's fantasy with all those bright, gleaming veggies!) But the reality is this:  I get way too ambitious.  I buy too many varieties, I bring them home, wash them, and they sit in the fridge or on the counter until I'm forced to either cook them all or throw them away.  Every time I walk in the kitchen or open the fridge I see them sitting there, just waiting for me to do something with them.  I then proceed to get what I went in there for while trying not to make eye contact with the peppers or broccoli, then close the fridge and go about my business, as if the veggies didn't exist.  It's a sad existence for them, really, and they'd be better off going home with someone else.

Well, now that I have a farm stand four houses down from me, I can buy just a little to try and not feel like I have to make the most of my shopping trip.  And the bonus is getting to know my neighbors and seeing their old house; it was built in 1730, which is five years old than ours.  Also, the samples.  Oh, the yummy samples.   This morning it was grilled cheese and Swiss chard on ciabatta bread.  Last week it was Swiss chard with chorizo sausage on mini toasts and a few other things.

This is what I bought this morning and it only cost me $5.00.  Lettuce, 2 heirloom tomatoes, 4 shallots, garlic, and a cucumber.  I'm a raw tomato hater so I'll need to figure out what to use them for.  I'm thinking of stuffing them and then baking them.  Anyone have any other ideas?