Cleansing

[Well, crap. Blogger just ate most of a post. Grrrr. Redoing. Sigh.]

Warning: girly talk ahead.

Cleansing diets seem to be all the rage these days. From lifestyle changes to three-week detoxes to elimination diets to pinpoint food sensitivities, everyone seems to be cleansing.

Cleanses fall into two broad categories to me: 1. Can't hurt, might help, and 2. Stuff white people like. (I've not seen cleansing diets on that site, and I don't follow that site closely, but it seems like cleanses would be a good candidate for inclusion.) My friends who have cleansed for the most part find the experience rough, but worth it, purporting to feel healthier and, uh, less toxic when it's over.

Part of me wants to jump on the bandwagon. I could eat better, for sure. I do OK with fresh fruits and veggies, but I also do OK with chocolate, ice cream, and an "occasional" bowl of chips with a glass of wine at the end of the day. I've weighed less in my adult life; I've also weighed more, but I don't like the effort it takes to button many of my pants, it's true. After years of being migraine-free, I've been getting them again over the past few months. And I like a food reward. I don't care what the New Age gurus say: ice cream makes me feel better at the end of certain bad days, better than herbal tea and better than going to bed early and better than doing yoga. I'm old-fashioned like that, but I know that's also just a habit that I've not been interested in breaking.

The real question is will the cleanse help get rid of the migraines, make me feel more energetic, help my pants fit better, and help me find a better reward system for myself? Seems like a tall order. Also, my friends in real life are probably quaking in their boots at the idea of me doing a cleansing diet because oooooooh, boy, I am not fun when I'm hungry, and I think any of the cleansing diets are going to involve some level of hunger or feeling of deprivation.

I think that what I should probably consider is giving up soda (I drink a good-sized diet soda four or five times/week), cutting back on the junk food, and being good about going to bed on time. A moderate approach rather than a radical, if brief, regime. But maybe there's something to the cleansing that makes a radical approach worth it?

Who out there has cleansed? Which cleanse did you do? Why did you do it and how did it make you feel? Help me out, Internets. I know you have experience and opinions, and I want to hear them.

Ruminations on Habits

General Thoughts.

Habits are tricky. Good ones are so hard to establish, bad ones so temptingly comfortable.

I don't think I'm that unusual in that when I establish a good habit or correct a bad one—working out regularly, going to bed at a reasonable hour, not eating an entire bag of chips every night—one little slip-up can get me right back to that familiar comfort zone. Missed a day at the gym? Guess I'll stop going altogether. I know this about myself, and thus can be a little manic about maintaining the habits I work hard to establish. The idea of months of effort being undone by one day off the wagon is just too much to bear.

I'm trying to be more mindful of finding middle ground in these efforts, in not being so black and white. Working out once in a week is better than nothing. Eating a handful of chips is better than eating the whole bag. A lifetime's worth of struggle with perfectionism comes out in all kinds of ways, habits not excluded from that list.

The Habit of Writing.

Writing is, for me, like any other good habit I managed to get into place. Doing it regularly takes effort, but it's effort that's well worth it. One missed day, though, can so easily become two or three or five, and then the excuses come in and it's back to almost nothing.

I'm happy to have made this month NaBloMoreThanItHadBeenMo. It's not perfection, but it's more than I've been doing, and that has been good.

The Habit of Eating.

I'm a comfort eater, and I like to reward myself with food. I enjoy the rituals around food, I love the way food tastes, and I get great pleasure out of the wonderful way food can bring friends and family together. I do try to eat in moderation and to eat a variety of healthy food, but it's easy for me to get into bad habits around what goes into my mouth.

In the craziness of moving away from Boston, starting a new job, and settling into a new house, I had established lots of poor eating habits. Serving sizes were at an all-time high, I often ate dinner twice (with the kids and after they went to bed), plus some kind of snack and a glass or two of wine once the twins were asleep. I was exercising more—which I continue to do—but not enough to offset my consumption.

It finally got to the point that my pants no longer buttoned without significant effort. My hatred of shopping and my cheapness were enough for that to be the straw that broke the camel's back. And so, for the past three weeks, I've been doing Weight Watchers again.

And I've lost five pounds! Additionally, I've been eating tons more fruit and veggies, and so have the kids. So it's all good. I want to lose about five more pounds—the pants now button, but they are still giving me the squeeze at the end of the day. It feels good to have good food habits in place again, though, and to just have a more realistic gauge of what a serving is. This will be the second time that I've been seriously doing WW over the holidays, though. It's a blessing and a curse. Trying to focus on the blessing part.

The Habit of Self-Care.

I started this post about six hours ago. Six hours, one trip to the doctor with Maddie (she's fine), one evening of dinner/bath/stories/etc., one hour spent cleaning the house, and two glasses of wine ago. I'd typed in the heading "The Habit of Self-Care" before hitting the save button, but now that I'm back to the post, I have no idea what I was going to write about. Huh. Guess my thoughts on self-care will have to wait for another day.

Holiday Habits.

For a bunch of logistical reasons, John and I got into the habit of spending Thanksgiving with his parents and Christmas with mine. The twins and I have kept this up. If memory serves, we missed the first Thanksgiving after John died—I'd have to look back in my archives to see what we did that year—but the following year we headed to Michigan and this year we'll do the same again.

I'm truly looking forward to the trip. I find hosting my parents-in-law quite stressful (although less so the past few times), but being at their house is a real pleasure for me. They take excellent care of me and the twins, and my mother-in-law is an amazing Korean cook. While my family can get carried away with plans and togetherness and FUN, John's family knows how to capital-R Relax. I'm planning to see a few of John's friends, and my sister-in-law has already laid in some wine. It should be a good trip.

Much to my surprise, I find myself wanting to go to John's grave site. The idea occurred to me just today. I've been fearful of feeling pressured to go to the site on past visits, but this time, I find myself ambivalent at worst and interested at best. I don't plan to push the issue, but if it comes up, I'm open to it. There are a lot of other things going on—Thanksgiving dinner, visits with friends, yoga, a family portrait—but we'll see. It's an immense relief not to feel dread at the idea of the grave site visit; I was so turned off by the idea of it as to not want to go to Michigan at all in years past. Progress.

Bleargh

Kids were better today, but I came home sick from work. Of course, did I relax and rest when I got home? No! I ran around with Maddie and Riley! Still, it was nice to be home and not giving my computer at work an addled, blank stare.

Unrelated to illness, although perhaps no less dull, is that I've been doing Weight Watchers again for a week and a half now. I'm not going to meetings or even doing the online version, so by "doing Weight Watchers" I simply mean that I'm diligently counting points and writing down everything that goes into my mouth. The good news? It's totally working. I lost two pounds my first week, and I've been eating more healthfully than I have in months, perhaps years. This program really works for me, and once I get through the first week of "Holy shit, you're kidding me, right? That's a serving of rice?" I get back in the groove and feel better, lose the weight, etc.

But tonight I totally had a fall-off-the-wagon moment. I've been dealing with sick kids and sick me off and on for almost a week now, and it's starting to get to me. So when my best friend told me that the salted brown butter crispy treats over at smitten kitchen were as good—no, better—than I even thought they sounded, I could not resist. I love Rice Krispy treats to begin with, and what Deb over at the SK says is true: just the simple step of five extra minutes to brown the butter along with the addition of some salt is the difference between nostalgic yum and true magic. Make them. Or don't, if, perhaps, you don't want to eat an entire stick of butter, six cups of Rice Krispies, and 10 oz. of marshmallows all by yourself.

Kids are in bed, I'm headed that way myself. We're all on the mend, I think. What better medicine than butter and sugar, right?

Sunday

First breakfast in pajamas.
Second breakfast fetched by Ba and Maddie from the coffee shop up the street. There's nothing like latte delivery.
Pajamas 'til noon.
Cooking: lasagna, vegetable soup (plus lemon-dill salmon, sweet potatoes with chard, and apple crisp yesterday!)
Lots and lots and lots of stories (and having someone with whom to share reading duties).
Getting my iPod Touch fixed during nap (and surviving the frenzy of the Apple store. I. Hate. Malls.)
Taking care of some much-neglected housework.
Surprise b-day dinner for Ba at Moo's house.
Kids so tired they needed to be carried from the couch to bed after stories.

Riley is holding his own. He slept hard and long, and was barely feverish this morning (never over 100°F unmedicated). Then he took a three-hour nap. Post-nap, he stayed cool and his energy level was normal. I'm cautiously optimistic.

My Week at the Movies: Film 2: Milk

Great movie. Sean Penn was fantastic, as was the rest of the cast. And surprise! James Franco has a big supporting role in the film! I love James Franco, and had no idea he was in the movie, so that was a bonus.

Before the movie, my friend and I ate dinner at an east African place in Waltham called Karibu. Evidently, the owners, Ugandans themselves, opened the restaurant to cater to Ugandan expats living in the area. When my friend and I walked in, we were the only non-Africans in the place. There were no menus, just a buffet table, staffed by a sweet woman who explained what everything was, took our order, and then brought us plates heaped with food. The food was good, although not fantastic, hearty and clearly authentic. Some was similar to food I ate in Gabon, some not. 

I loved that the whole scene was straight out of a little cafeteria that could have been anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa (but was instead in a Boston suburb). The Ugandan men were all sitting around the tables, chatting, and would occasionally get up to serve themselves something from the buffet. They conducted business on cell phones and grabbed sodas from the fridge. Two women shuttled back and forth between the buffet and the kitchen. A few fantastic t-shirts picturing the Obama family hung from the walls, along with art that I'm sure was imported from the homeland. It all brought back a lot of memories.

Rice

I didn't eat much rice growing up. My parents are from the midwest, and rice was a little . . . exotic. We were more about the bread and the noodles. I ate more rice once I left home and when I was living in various locations around the globe, but it was never a staple for me.

Then I married an Asian man, which took my rice consumption to a whole new level. We had the ubiquitous Zojirushi rice cooker on the counter, and hot white rice was always available for eating at our house. I grew to really love rice. It's so comforting. Whenever I had one of those vague "I'm not sure what I want to eat but I want to eat something" kinds of cravings, I could always satisfy it with rice. 

John was totally grossed out by my two favorite ways to eat rice. Method #1 is a big bowl of rice topped with steamed broccoli, soy sauce, and gochugang or  siracha (also known as "cock sauce" at our house). Method #2 is Rice Goes Western, in which I mix my rice with copious amounts of grated cheese (any kind will do) and fresh black pepper. It's like instant mac'n'cheese, only . . . better somehow.

When John died, I put the rice cooker away. The twins have never been big fans of rice (probably in part because I stopped cooking it very often), and I fell into the White Rice is Evil! trap. When I did make rice, I would make brown rice on the stove top; I could never get the rice cooker to turn out decent brown rice. John hated brown rice; he probably hexed the rice cooker to keep me from feeding our children the bad stuff once he was gone.

Sometimes, though, only white rice will do. When I made that sake-steamed sea bass on Saturday, I had to serve white rice with it. It was so good. I snacked on it all day Sunday, and the kids ate some, too. Yum, yum, and yum. I didn't realize how much I'd missed it. I think I'm going to leave the rice cooker out on the counter for a while.

Date #5b: Tonight

So Date #5 got postponed, which actually works out great because I was EXHAUSTED last night and fell asleep in front of the presidential debate around 9:30 p.m. I might have fallen asleep even if I hadn't been exhausted as that debate was a total snoozer. Wow. So boring!

But I digress.

Date #5b will find me in the kitchen, making sake-steamed sea bass. A few of you expressed interest in the recipe, so as a prelude to the date, here it is. My notes in [square brackets].

SAKE-STEAMED SEA BASS WITH GINGER AND GREEN ONIONS
from Bon Appétit, April 2003

3/4 c. sake [or whatever white wine you plan to drink with the meal]
3/4 c. bottled clam juice [or extra wine or broth, although the clam juice really does make the stock deliciously flavorful, despite the fact that the words clam and juice sound totally vile together]
1 T. minced, peeled ginger
1 clove garlic, cut into a few large chunks
4 5-oz. sea bass filets [or halibut steaks, or some other firm, white fish]
2 green onions, chopped
4 t. soy sauce
1 t. sesame oil [or a bit more; I love sesame oil]
3 T. chopped fresh cilantro
2 t. toasted sesame seeds [a mix of black and white look really pretty]

1. Combine sake, clam juice, ginger, and garlic in the bottom of a large skillet that can accommodate a steamer rack. Bring liquid to a boil; reduce heat and simmer for 5 min.
2. Arrange fish on steamer rack; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place rack in skillet. Top fish with onions, then drizzle with soy sauce and sesame oil.
3. Cover skillet and steam fish until opaque in center, about 5 min. for fresh fish. [I have made this with frozen fish and it works fine, it just takes a bit of extra time.] Remove steamer rack from pan.
4. Mix cilantro with juices in skillet.
5. Serve fish over steamed rice, topped with juices from skillet and sesame seeds.

So easy! So delicious! So impressive for company! If you and your company like fish, that is. I'm serving it with edamame and a green salad with a soy/ginger dressing.

It's Asian Theme Day at our house; in addition to the dinner that's on tap, we met friends for dim sum this morning. John and I used to go to dim sum at least twice a month, and we took the twins all the time when they were babies. It's a great meal for kids of all ages because as soon as you sit down, food starts to arrive, so you can be in and out quickly. I had only taken Maddie and Riley once or twice since they started eating real food, and they had never loved it but had always gotten by. Today, they found lots of thing appealing: conjee, shrimp rolls, pork buns, shrimp in taro root, tea, sesame balls, and straight-up soy sauce. Yum!

Rediscovered

1. Toast with butter. So simple! So delicious! Toast with butter, why did I ever stop eating you?

2. Synchronized swimming. Um, WOW.

Getting Dinner on the Table

Like most parents, dinnertime is a struggle for me. By the time I pick the twins up from daycare and we make our way home, it's at least 5:15. It's hard to fit in dinner, some playtime, maybe a bath, and our bedtime routine before lights-out at 7:15. Sometimes I have something prepared in advance for Maddie and Riley to eat, sometimes not. I never wanted Maddie and Riley to be Those Kids, the ones who will only eat mac'n'cheese and chicken fingers. I had always imagined that I would feed them whatever I was eating; they're not going to starve, and if you offer them good food, they will eat it, right?

While this is a good theory, here's where it falls apart in practice, at least lately: I eat crap for dinner. OK, sometimes it's not crap, but it's usually not something that qualifies as a meal for my toddlers. I might have a bowl of cereal and a banana. Or a piece of toast with sunflower seed butter. Or some microwave popcorn and some ice cream. Or a bowl of chips and some baby carrots. Those kinds of dinners are fine for the kiddos on occasion, but I don't want them to think that dinner is always like that. 

Our typical eating pattern is like this. We eat a good breakfast together: fresh fruit (always) plus oatmeal, whole grain toast with sunflower seed butter, bagels with cream cheese, egg sandwiches, pancakes, or whatever. The twins always have a hearty lunch at daycare; I pack all their lunches for the week on Sunday night, and they get a main course, fresh fruit, yogurt, no-sugar applesauce, and some kind of crunchy snack. I pack my own lunch for work and try to make it something hearty and healthy. 

When dinnertime rolls around, we've all had our big meal of the day, we're tired, and we're pressed for time. In theory, I want us to all eat as a family, but in practice, I'm not ready for dinner at 5:30 or 5:45, and the twins still require enough management while eating that I don't really get to enjoy my meal when we all eat together. I have a laundry list of twin-friendly dinner foods (yes, that includes mac'n'cheese!) that I can cobble together quickly, and I usually just serve them an old standby. I eat a little snack with them so that we're at least sitting down together to eat, and I can help them as needed. Then I eat my craptastic dinner after Maddie and Riley go to bed.

I actually love to cook. In our pre-kid, pre-cancer lives, John's and my relationship revolved around food. We ate out a lot—dining out was by far our biggest entertainment expense—but we also cooked elaborate meals at home. Despite my documented hatred of Christopher Kimball, I am a whore for Cook's Illustrated. It used to be that when my new issue would arrive, I would pore over it, selecting the item I was going to prepare first, making my grocery list as I went along. John and I had complimentary skills and worked really well together in the kitchen, and I have many wonderful memories of meals we created together. Even when I was single, I would spent weekends in the kitchen, cooking gourmet meals just for myself and friends.

It's precisely because I love to cook that I haven't been doing it anymore. The truth is that I'm a snob when it comes to food and cooking. Since I no longer have the energy to make the time-consuming, gourmet meals that I used to make, I just don't bother to make much of anything at all. Add to that the fact that grief has sent me into serious comfort-eating mode, and you have a recipe for dining disaster.

In the past week or so, I've started pulling myself out of the rut. Between getting a bit more sleep and feeling emotionally lighter after my anger realization, I have had a bit more energy to deal with all aspects of my life, eating included. I've long shunned (remember: snob!) those types of books that promise family-friendly meals in less than 30 minutes with no more than six ingredients . . . and yet I'm starting to realize that those kinds of books are exactly what I need. I need to readjust my idea of what cooking is and focus on what is really important here: getting healthy, tasty food on the table rather than martyring myself for not being able to work full-time, take care of two kids on my own, and cook gourmet meals to boot.

After reading through the comments on Moxie's post on this very subject, I decided yesterday to order The Six O'Clock Scramble. We'll see how I like it. I also printed some recipes off of the very excellent A Year of Crockpotting. I'm putting together a grocery list for next week. My pattern has been to cook at least one leftover-friendly meal each weekend; that's where my lunch comes from. If I can cook one more such meal, plus find some recipes that I can make after work without feeling too harried, I think we'll be much closer to being able to truly have family dinners. 

If y'all have any favorite quick (vegetarian, please) recipes that you want to share in comments or via e-mail, please feel free. If my motivation continues and I find some good meals,  I'll share them here at the blog if there's interest.

*************************************

Random aside: I finally got my BlogHer Ads approval! Sweet. Ads should be up soon. I apologize to those who find ads offensive, but after careful consideration, I've decided to go for it. Please pardon my shameless commerce.

Craving

I spent all evening yesterday wandering to and from the kitchen, looking for the right thing to eat. I had an unspecified craving. I knew I wanted something, but just could not figure out what it was.

I tried lots of things:

cookie

crackers

cheese

sorbet

fruit salad

Nope.

I'm pretty sure that what I wanted was something rich in umami, like Korean food, or a pixie stick filled with MSG. Sadly, most of what I had around that was easy to snack on was sweet, so I never really felt satisfied. I distracted myself with some e-mail and some TV and some exercise, but between activities, I'd stare pitifully into my fridge and cabinets and feel empty. (My life! So sad, right?!) I finally made myself a decaf latte, drank it, and went to bed.

The Indian leftovers I ate for lunch today helped, but I still feel unsatisfied. Does anyone else ever get those cravings? How do you figure out what you want? Do you have a craving cure-all?

Chicago, Friday Night

We went out for Korean food in K-town, straight from the airport.

Kalbi, soon doo boo, and another soup, a spicy broth with brisket. More banchan than I've ever seen, at least twenty little dishes covering the table.

Smoke filled the air as we grilled our kalbi. The soon doo boo bubbled in its clay pot. I had to ask for more kochujang; I put it on everything, in great quantity.

I miss this food. We ate all the kalbi, most of the soup and the banchan. I could smell the smoky aroma of kalbi on my hair when I went to bed that night. I ate the bit of leftover soon doo boo for breakfast the next day. When I unpacked on Sunday, the scent of the grill lingered in the shirt I'd been wearing at the restaurant.

Train of Thought

Today's rounds in the blog world led me to Deb's post about dulce de leche ice cream.

Which made me remember that I own an ice cream maker.

And then I looked out the window and was reminded that after a cold, rainy weekend, the weather has turned warm and sunny again.

And now I want ice cream, dulce de leche ice cream.

But the bowl on my ice cream maker needs to freeze.*

And I don't have cream. Or dulce de leche.

So I will put the bowl in the freezer tonight and add cream to my milk delivery order, so that by Wednesday, when the milk is delivered, everything will be in place. Well, except the dulce de leche part, but after I post this I will read about how to make my own.

And if I decide I can't wait until Wednesday, there's always Häagen-Dazs.

Aside: I don't use my ice cream maker much, mostly because I'm dismayed by how much cream is in ice cream. Seems elementary, no? But when I actually make it myself, it's SO DISTURBING. When I buy the ice cream already made, I can pretend all that cream is not really in there. Or I can buy the slow-churned kind that is quite good and not all that high in fat. My own attempts to make low(er)-fat ice cream in my machine have not gone well. It's good right out of the ice cream maker, but gets rock hard and icy when stored in the freezer.

*I have a chest freezer in the basement; why I don't keep the bowl in there is a mystery, and a habit that will change as of tonight. 

Potato-Leek Soup

At Cass's request. This is so simple, but so tasty. It's adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.

POTATO-LEEK SOUP
some potatoes (I used five smallish russets)
some leeks, an equal number to the potatoes (I actually only had three, but they were large)
veggie or chicken stock
salt and pepper
sour cream (I used Cabot's Light; you could also use plain yogurt or milk/cream)

Peel and dice potatoes. Thinly slice white and light green parts of leeks. Sauté potatoes and leeks in a medium-large stockpot in a bit of olive oil or butter for a couple of minutes, just to wilt the leeks—do not let veggies brown. Generously salt and pepper, then add stock to about an inch above level of veggies. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer until veggies are very tender, about 20 min.

Off heat, use immersion blender or food processor to purée soup. Add sour cream (or yogurt or milk) to taste (I used about 3/4 c.) and blend until well mixed.

Garnish with fresh parsley or dill or whatever else strikes your fancy and you have in your fridge. If you're me, eat with a reheated piece of naan from your work send-off lunch.

I am That Person.

I am That Person. Yes, me, Snickollet. I am the one who makes you roll your eyes when you are in line at Starbucks. Hell, I annoy myself when I hear this order come out of my mouth:

"I'd like a tall, decaf, nonfat, no whip, two-pump Peppermint Mocha, please."

(Shameful PS: I'd like to add "extra-hot" to the list, but I just can't bring myself to do it.)

Chipotle Update

First of all, Diana (no blog to link to, sorry!) pointed out in my comments that Chipotle is no longer owned by McD's. So one less thing to guilt about.

Also, their nutritional info can be downloaded from their website, which I did not discover until I got back to the office after lunch. I ended up having a vegetarian fajita bowl, no cheese, but with a drizzle of sour cream and a spoonful of guacamole. I estimated it at 12 points, and lo and behold, I was correct. With careful planning, I can do that. Next time I think I'd get the salad version instead and then I could subtract four points for the rice. Eight points is very doable for a lunch or dinner. But this could be bad, bad news for my wallet. (Not that it's expensive, but I could really see myself eating there a lot . . . )

OK, I will stop boring you all with my Chipotle and WW ramblings.

Finally, some good news!

Small good, but good nonetheless.

I was reading Emmie's latest entry, which mentions her taking her boys to lunch at Chipotle. I love Chipotle. A lot. So much I feel a little guilty about it, seeing as they are owned by McDonald's an all. But as far as I knew, they had no restaurants in greater Boston, so I only ever got to eat there when I was traveling. On a whim, I decided to check their website and see if they'd made any inroads into this area.

THREE RESTAURANTS IN STRIKING DISTANCE!!!

OMG, OMG, OMG!!!

Of course I find this out just as I start Weight Watchers again. I'm off to their website again to check nutrition info and see what I can have for lunch today.

Back in the Saddle, and Musings on Weight

As of today, I'm counting Weight Watchers points again. I'm just not happy with the way I feel, and for whatever reason, this was the morning that I said, "I've had it, enough, I'm going to take control of this situation."

For those of you familiar with the WW system, I went to the store at lunchtime and bought the fixings for vegetable soup (no points!), some 2-point organic yogurts, and some microwave popcorn. I just had an afternoon snack, which put me at 13 points so far today, so I have about 7 points left for dinner. Not bad.

I had great success with WW in 2003/4, and I'm hoping that it will work for me again. I think part of the reason I did so well with it last time was that I exercised 5-6 days a week at that time. I'm trying to keep up with the running, but since the race my motivation has been low and I've had a hard time getting out there. I was hoping to go running after work today, but my jog stroller is trapped in my garage behind the lumber needed to finish my deck project, so I think I'll take the twins to the park instead and at least enjoy the gorgeous weather.

This time around, I'm too cheap to pay to go to WW meetings, so I'm going to try to do this on my own. We'll see. The weekly weigh-ins were a big motivator for me, and I actually don't own a scale and might need to get one. I can gauge my weight fairly accurately by the fit of my clothes, but I think being able to see the number go down before I notice the fit of my pants will be important to me this time around. Based on the physical I had a few weeks ago, I'd like to drop about 15 pounds.

I don't like owning a scale. If I still belonged to a gym, I wouldn't bother and I'd just weigh myself there, but no dice right now. I don't want the kids to see me on and off the scale or hear me talk about dieting. I think I'll just keep the scale in my closet and bust it out once a week for my weigh-ins. With the twins still so little, I focus on offering them good, healthy food, eating well in front of them, and only letting them have sweets on special occasions (at a party, for example). I want them to have a good relationship with food and their bodies. I hope I can model that behavior for them.

Mac'n'Cheese Recipe

At Mar's request, here is my recipe for green mac'n'cheese. The measurements in here are total guesses, but it's pretty forgiving. I know that some people feel very passionate about the baked v. cheese-sauce-poured-over-macaroni methods. This recipe is of the latter variety.

SNICK'S GREEN MAC'N'CHEESE

1/2 lb. macaroni, cooked and drained (as I mentioned in my comments, I'm fond of Barilla Pasta Plus)

2-3 T. butter
2 T. flour
1-2 c. milk
2 c. grated cheese(s) of your choice
1/2 lb. green veggies, steamed until soft, then pureed very fine (I like to use the Trader Joe's frozen Greens with Envy)

Melt butter over medium heat in medium saucepan. Add flour and whisk. The next step is the important part! Add the milk in 1/4 c. or so increments, whisking like mad as you add so as to avoid lumps. Once all the milk in, you should have a thick, creamy white sauce. Stir in the cheese in batches; how much cheese you add will depend on your own taste buds. Stir in pureed veggies. Pour it all over the pasta and mix well.

As I said in my comments, I will freeze the final product in muffin tins. Once frozen, you can store the "muffins" in zip-top freezer bags. Each portion is about a meal (one "muffin" per kid" if they are in the mood to eat well. They take about a minute to defrost in the microwave.

Enjoy!

Menstruation and Tofu Dogs

Do I have your attention now?

I never thought I'd be telling the Internet about my period, but hey, here I am. Hi, Internet! I'm going to tell you about my period now. I wouldn't bother, because really boring, right? And gross. Think of this more as a public service announcement. In fact, it's not really about my period specifically, just something period-related. Here's the thing: you all need to know about the DivaCup. My best friend, Erk (alas, no blog to link to), got one and was all up in my grille about getting one. I finally caved, and holy fucking cow what took me so long? It's awesome. I'm using it for the first time today. I'd go on about it, but just read about it on the website. And trust me: it's not as icky as you might think. The insertion is nothing, and the removal is manageable. You need to be comfortable with your girl parts, but shouldn't we all feel comfortable with our girl parts?

Check it out. Trust me on this.

(FYI, I was a committed OB tampon user prior to switching to the Diva.)

*****************************
What about the tofu dogs? you ask. Well, let me tell you. I'll even make a transition from the DivaCup to Smart Dogs. Here goes: The DivaCup is something I thought might be gross, but wasn't. The Smart Dog is something I thought would be good, but was gross.

Ugh. I should have known better. The phrase tofu hot dog really doesn't inspire confidence, does it?

Here's what happened. I went grocery shopping at Stop'N'Shop, a local store that I hate, but to which I have a bunch of gift cards given to me by my generous coworkers. As I'm cruising the aisles, I happen by the meatless meat section, and the dogs catch my eye. The twins and I eat veggie at home (although we eat meat out, which I guess makes us flexitarians, which sounds pretentious and makes me feel a little lame, but whatever), and I thought, "Hey! Smart Dogs! Easy way to get (overprocessed) protein (and salt salt salt) into the twins!"

So tonight I included tofu dog rounds with their meal. I didn't taste them first, and whooooo boy, if I had, the twins never would have. I try not to let my own food biases get in the way of what the twins eat. I feed them papaya, for example, even though I think it tastes like vomit. But I won't feed them anything that's just not fit for human consumption, and these dogs fit the bill. GROSS. Awful taste, awful texture. Awful. Never again! Consider yourself warned.

Best. Recipe. Ever!

I love Indian food. One of my favorite dishes is Mutter (or Mattar or Mutter or etc.) Paneer, a pea curry with paneer cheese. I've often wondered about making it at home, but not in a serious enough way to do anything about it. Yesterday, I was doing some serious Web surfing, linking from here to there to everywhere, when I stumbled upon this recipe.

And the heavens opened and angels sang.

I made it last night and it was deeeeelicious. I did not put in the cashews since I plan to feed it to the twins and I am waiting until they are two to give them nuts. Also, I was out of garlic. Huh? I am never out of garlic, but I was last night, so I used a bit of Penzey's granulated garlic instead.

It was still good. And easy and fast. Two thumbs up. We'll see what the twins think tonight.

Random aside: Why does everyone love Flickr? For a number of boring reasons, I have created an account, and I've also looked at other people's Flickr photos before. I find the interface to be really clunky and confusing. Am I missing something?