Stuff, Feb 15

My leafy sprouts were ready this morning so I put them into the fridge. 

 

I also received some Lady Cream peas and some soybeans, which I'll be happy to add into my Sprout repertoire!

 

Now, back to bed to try to fight off this cold I seem to have picked up. Sigh. 

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My Onion Jam

Edited to add: This is a scheduled post, written a few days ago and scheduled to post now. 😀

In a previous post, I promised to share my onion jam recipe, so here it is! It's an amalgamation of a couple of different recipes I found on the internet. I've suggested substitutions or variations for some of the items.

• 2 lbs onions
• You can also use leeks or shallots, or any combination of them. 
• Using Vidalia onions will make the jam a lot sweeter, so maybe cut back on the honey if you do.
• 0.5 tsp butter 
• this is optional, but useful if you're not using a nonstick pan
• 1.5 c cider vinegar 
• You could also use really sour kombucha instead of vinegar
• 2 tsp fresh minced garlic
• 1 tsp salt
• 0.5 tsp black pepper 
• 1 c honey
• 0.5 c brown sugar
• If I'm out of brown sugar, I just use regular granulated white sugar with no problem.

Peel and slice the onions to your preferred size. Put onions in a large pot over medium heat (with butter, if using) until they start to "sweat" & brown, stirring as necessary to keep from sticking to pan. Add vinegar, garlic, salt, & pepper to pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer, stirring as necessary to keep from sticking, until onions are completely caramelized. Add honey & sugar and take it back up to a full boil. Let it boil for a full minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

I can it at this point, but you don't have to. It will keep for 2-3 months in the fridge as-is.

If you want to can it to store unrefrigerated, follow standard canning procedures: ladle it into sterilized hot jars, leaving a quarter inch headspace. Wipe rims, attach lids & bands, then place in water bath canner or steam canner. (I use a steam canner because it uses so much less water!) Process jars for 10 minutes (after canner is at full boil), adjusting for altitude. Turn off heat, let jars cool in canner for approx 10 minutes, then remove to a towel-lined surface away from drafts to cool for 24 hours. Check your seals and store well-sealed jars in a cool dark place. If any jars did not seal, store in fridge and use within 2-3 months.

Uses:

• My favorite use: it's incredibly delicious on pork chops or chicken! Would probably be great on ham, too. Seafood? Haven't tried it, but maybe shrimp? Try it and let me know!
• Awesome as a condiment on a chicken salad sandwich.
• Serve with creamy herbed cheese on fancy crackers.  
• Mix into sour cream or Greek yogurt for a tasty chip dip
• Use instead of tomato sauce on Gorgonzola & pear pizza. 
• Eat it straight from the jar - just kidding though I have been sorely tempted to do so!

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Morning weight, Feb 15

Woke up all stuffed up, my face tingling from the pressure. I don't have time to be sick! 🤧

 

Dinner, etc., Feb 14

On Tuesday nights we have rehearsal in Pasadena, so we usually leave the house early enough to avoid the worst of the LA traffic & eat close to the rehearsal venue. Rehearsal was canceled tonight, though, so I had to figure out what to make for dinner at home. I didn't have any meat thawed because I wasn't planning to eat at home!  😳

Fortunately I had 2 pieces of frozen fish left in the package from CostCo:

 

So I put them in a baking pan and spooned some of the dill and oil mix I made last night over them. I had to spoon it because the oil hadn't frozen yet, even though it had been in the freezer overnight. It had thickened considerably but wasn't frozen. 

 I also put some fresh ground salt and pepper on them and then remembered that I had some Sale di Mari so I put some of that on them too. 

This is a mix of sea salt (85%), juniper, pink pepper, rosemary, cinnamon, & Bay leaves. The package says "This special mix works beautifully as the finishing touch to meats, chicken, sea food, and vegetables." I'm not a big fan of cinnamon myself, but used in moderation as it is in this mix, it added just a nice pop of taste. 

Don't eat it if you have a tree nut allergy, though, because pink pepper is not really pepper but is instead a member of the cashew family and can cause anaphylaxis in those allergic to cashews!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_peppercorn

 

After baking them until they were cooked through, I reheated the leftover veggies from Sunday night & dinner was served!

 

After dinner, I took my lentils and mung beans out of their sprouting trays and into a container for the fridge. Two 1/4 cups of dried beans yielded 8 oz of sprouted beans! 

 

The white and speckled beans were done this morning, so I put them into the fridge then. I'm pretty well stocked for the rest of the week as far as beans go!

I also watered my leafy greens. They're probably big enough that I could harvest them to the fridge, too, but I decided to let them grow for another night and harvest them in the morning. 

 

I finished all the prepared tea I had with dinner so I started another quart of tea and made a liter of fizzy water in our SodaStream machine. 

 

I like the SodaStream because it's so easy to make as much fizzy water as we want for much less money than buying bottles of it from the store. Not to mention far less waste! The places that sell the SodaStream machines also have an exchange program for the gas cylinders, so when we turn in our old empty cylinder, we get a discount on a new full one. Nice!

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Morning weight pic, Feb 14

 

Other stuff, Feb 13

Wow! Three posts in one day! What is the world coming to? But, I had a few food-related things to take care of this afternoon, so I decided to blog about them too. 

A couple of days ago, a good friend gave me a bunch of fresh basil and some fresh dill, so I asked my Facebook friends what to do with it. The overwhelming favorite for the basil was to make pesto, so that's what I did. 

Here's what I started with:

 

And I ended up with three 1/2 cup containers of pesto perfect for freezing:

 

I used this recipe from Food Network because I had all the stuff on hand: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/basil-pesto-recipe2

The dill I just put in one of my smoothie cups with some oil and blended it up:

 

And as soon as my ice cube trays get out of the dishwasher, I will make dill ice cubes to use when cooking fish or whatever. 

I had a big #10 can of diced tomatoes from CostCo that was taking up counter space, so I opened it up and divided it into eleven 1 cup portions to freeze and use later:

 

I also rinsed & dried my sprouted garbanzo beans and put them into the fridge:

 

I rinsed the mixed white and speckled beans and set them to soak for another night. They should be ready to go into the fridge tomorrow morning. 

 

I rinsed the lentils and mung beans and put them into the sprouting trays. They'll probably be ready tomorrow evening or Wednesday morning at the latest. 

 

(The bottom layer is leafy green sprouts for use in salads and sandwiches this week.)

Not bad for an evening's work! 

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Lunch, Feb 13

Several times over the past couple of weeks I've had to pack my lunch when going somewhere (such as day-long rehearsals), so here's what I've done:

I take a low-carb tortilla and spread cream cheese on it. I then add sliced turkey and/or ham and top it off with green leafy sprouts. 

 

Fold it in half and it makes a great sandwich! You could add other flavors by adding mustard or a flavored mayo, or even flavored cream cheese. Of course, you can use whatever deli meat you want!

I've been using store-bought large low-carb tortillas which have about 6g net carbs. I buy them in a 20-pack (way cheaper!) and then divide them into 4 one-gallon ziplock bags (5 tortillas each) and freeze them. I do this because I never can seem to use up all 20 before they get stale or slimy. This seems to work for me!

Today, I found this recipe for an almost ZERO carb tortilla. I'm looking forward to trying it after I run out of the store-bought ones. 

http://www.lowcarbmaven.com/almost-zero-carb-wraps-tortillas-gluten-free-keto/

I'm also looking forward to perusing that website to see what other things I might learn. 

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Good morning, Feb 13

This morning I got dressed before I weighed myself and didn't feel like getting undressed to weigh myself again (and then REdressed after!), so this is me fully clothed:

 

Not bad considering I indulged a bit this weekend. I had a beer with dinner Saturday night and a couple glasses of dry red wine after dinner, so I expect to be "stalled" for a couple of days. No matter, ya gotta live. 

After my breakfast smoothie, I took care of my bean sprouts. What a difference! Here's the pic from last night:

 

And here's the pic from this morning:

 

They've really absorbed a lot of water! After taking this pic, I drained and rinsed the beans and am soaking them for another day. I think I might start soaking them in water kefir soon (at least for their first soak), as it looks like I'll have more than I can use just in my smoothies and for soaking chia & flax seeds. We'll see. 

My tea was also done steeping this morning:

 

So I put that into the fridge. Then I watered my green leafy sprouts (not pictured) and now we're off to class. Brianne & I are taking a Technical Theatre class (Light & Sound) at our local Community College and today's the first day of classes. Should be fun!

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Dinner tonight, etc.

I spent the night at a friend's house last night because I played Special Music at Westchester United Methodist Church this morning and since we were in Lake Elsinore all day yesterday, we didn't feel like getting up at even earlier o'dark-thirty than we already had to. All of that is to explain why I don't have a weigh-in pic today; I didn't have my scale with me! 

I also didn't have my Ninja blender with me, so I didn't have my breakfast smoothie, which makes me sad. (I love my smoothie!) Instead, we stopped at McDonald's and I had an Egg McMuffin with no muffin. So, basically just an egg covered with cheese and some bacon. Not awesome, but hey, I made do. 

After we got home - and after a nap! - I made dinner. I had a couple of chicken breasts thawed in the fridge, so I rinsed and dried them, then seasoned them with salt and pepper, and baked them at 450° for 20 minutes. 

Meanwhile, I sautéed some onions in a pan, added a crushed clove of garlic and once they were translucent, added some homemade chicken broth. I brought that to a boil and then added my sprouted white beans & speckled pinto beans. I covered the pan and let it cook for 5 minutes. While it was cooking, I used my Ninja food processor to slice up a small zucchini and a carrot. 

I have no commercial interest in Ninja, which is a shame because I love the blender/food processor/smoothie cup combo thingy we got last year at Costco! Every time I use it, I love it more! It's so well-designed, easy to use, easy to clean, sturdy, and super powerful. I am a happy Ninja customer! 👍

After slicing the veggies, I added my sprouted mung beans and lentils to the pan, covered it, and let it cook for a few minutes. 

When the timer for the chicken went off, I took it out of the oven and spooned about a teaspoon of my yummy Onion Jam onto each piece. No, my jam is not low-carb, which is why I use just a smidgen of it for flavor. I covered the chicken with a piece of foil and let it rest for about 10 minutes. I'll post my recipe in a future post. 

Back to the veggies! I added the zucchini and carrot to the pan, along with some salt and pepper, some marjoram, and some savory, stirred, covered the pan and cooked it for a couple of minutes, then added some frozen green onions I had on hand. Covered, and let cook on low until the chicken finished resting. 

Here's the result:

 

My dinner beverage was cold tea, a mix of green tea and Earl Grey. I have 2 quart-sized mason jars that I use to steep tea. I fill the jar with water - sometimes I use cold, other times hot, but I can't tell the difference so I'll probably just use cold from now on - and let it steep overnight. I finished my jar with dinner, so I started a new one:

 

Tomorrow morning, I'll take out the tea bags (and throw them into the compost bin) and put the jar in the fridge. 

See that lid on the jar? That's a "recap" lid from a Kickstarter campaign I sponsored a few years ago. They come in both regular and wide-mouth sizes and I have a few of each. I use them for my tea and also when I ferment stuff in jars (with the addition of a rubber cork and a water trap - more on that in another post). 

Since I used up all my sprouted beans making dinner, I also started some new sprouts:

 

Left to right is garbanzo beans, a mix of white beans and speckled pinto beans, and a mix of green lentils and mung beans. I put about 1/3 cup of each bean in a jar and then cover them with water. I'll let them sit overnight and in the morning, I'll pour out the water, rinse the beans in a mesh strainer, and fill the jars with more water and let them sit for the day tomorrow, too. 

By that time, the garbanzo beans should be finished, so I'll rinse them and dry them and put them in the fridge to use this week. The lentils and mung beans (after rinsing) will go into my tray sprouter for another day. The pinto and white beans will probably need to soak overnight again. They are bigger and harder than the other beans, so take longer to soak - I soak them until none of them are wrinkly anymore. 

Another advantage to sprouting these beans before using them is that sprouting greatly reduces the amount of the sugars in the beans, which is great for those doing low carb, but also eliminates the flatulence associated with eating beans. Any amount of soaking is good for beans, but soaking them for 2 days seems to work best for me! 

Here's an interesting article I found about soaking beans:

http://www.squawkfox.com/how-to-soak-and-cook-dried-beans/

And an article from Whole Foods which lists different types of beans:

http://m.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/food-guides/beans

One word of caution: while most soaked & sprouted beans are ok to eat raw in salads or just by the handful, kidney beans contain a substance that can really upset your stomach if eaten raw, so be sure to cook them before eating. Here's an article about that:

http://www.living-foods.com/articles/largebeans.html

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Morning smoothie

Every morning I have a smoothie for breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!  👍 Here's what I put in it:

Of course I start off with ice, then I put in 1/4 cup of hydrated mixed chia and flax seeds and 1/4 cup of Greek yogurt. 

 

What do I mean by "hydrated mixed chia and flax seeds"?  I put 1 Tbsp of dry chia seeds and 1 Tbsp of dry flax seeds into a jar and add one cup of water. Since I've started making water kefir (not pictured), I'm now using that for the hydrating liquid. 

What's water kefir? It's a probiotic food. Kefir is a mix of bacteria and yeast that eats sugar, and its waste products flavor the water and make it good for your gut. I make a quart at a time, using 2 Tbsp of plain white sugar and 1/2 Tbsp of brown sugar (for the added minerals), plus the water kefir grains. I let this sit at room temperature for 3 days then put the grains into a new jar of sugar water and let the previous batch sit out for another 2 days to finish fermenting. For more info about water kefir, go read here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibicos

Why hydrate the seeds? Chia and flax seeds are mucilagenous, which means that when they get wet, they surround themselves with a gel sack. They do this to keep the water close by so they can grow, but it's advantageous for us because it makes them good as a bulking fiber, which is good for your gut! 

Here's a pic of a chia seed with a gel sack:

 

Next comes the protein powders. 

 

I chose the EAS AdvantEDGE powder because not only is it low in carbs, but it's also got a ton of other vitamins in it than most other protein powders have. 

 

Ask check out the way some smart engineer designed to store the scoop so it's not buried in the powder! It's stored  in the lid!

 

The MCT in MCT oil powder stands for Multi-Chain Triglycerides and this powder helps make sure I get "good fats". 

The final two ingredients are cocoa and fiber. 

 

I only use 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of the cocoa powder. It adds some nice flavor and is low carb, too, especially since I don't use a full "serving" size. 

 

The Benefiber is nice because it's not gritty and non-bulking (which means it doesn't swell up when wet like the chia and flax seeds do), plus it's flavorless. It can be added to anything, but this works for me. 

Finally, I top up the blender cup to the fill line with water kefir and blend! 

It's yummy and keeps me feeling full for several hours and makes sure I get adequate nutrition, so win-win!

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Starting over

It's been a couple of years since I blogged here. Many things have happened since then, but the main reason I'm back is because I've been on a "diet" and have lost 11.5 pounds since January 10th. Yay!  

Several friends on Facebook have asked me for specifics about what I've been doing so I figured since I already have this blog in place, I'll post that stuff here. 

I'll try to post at least a little something every day, even if it's just my daily weigh-in pic. Speaking of which... 

Here's my weight pic from January 10:

 

And from February 10:

 

Woo-hoo!