The Luxury of No Choice

I have alot of luxuries in my life, or maybe I just see my life as a luxury? I don't define my life by the things I own, but by how often I experience beauty.



What is beauty? Love, of course, I've been married to the love of my life for over 20 years now, and we are expecting our first grandchild this summer (a girl!). Moving my body, sweating, breathing, training like an athlete is beautiful.....good Lord how lucky am I to be able to swing a kettlebell for a few minutes a few times a week, go to yoga as often as I feel, and walk for miles? Food & wine, the abundance, the variety, the taste....I could keep going.... Where I live is beautiful....the sea, the mountains, the weather. Friends....although I don't have many, the one I do have (lol), accept me the way that I am, and still like me, lol! Beauty is owning a washing machine, having garbage service, finding the exact change in your pocket and never being in a hurry. Beauty and luxury is having choices.



I have many choices in my life, but one of the choices I don't have is my training. I haven't missed a workout in forever, it's not a choice....I show up no matter what I feel like. And it doesn't get easier, necessarily. In fact I think I have too much choice, which makes training a little harder, because I can put it off and easily fall into skipping it all together. For instance I'm sitting here writing this blogpost, it's 7:00am, so I've chosen to not go to the 7:15am yoga class, which means I'll go to 9:15am yoga.....unless I get busy, or lazy, or tired, or hungry....in that case I might decide to catch the 12 noon class, but knowing Mark and I are going to the 4:30pm class later today, I may decide to skip the idea of a "double" today, because afterall do I really need to go twice in one day?



And I can't tell you how many times....yes I can....every week....I want to skip or postpone our Wednesday, 1:00pm, Max v02 because Tuesday is my "all I can cook, (and drink, lol), day" I'm always nursing some sort of hangover on Wednesday, but I never miss an "am" yoga class, many times practicing once in the morning, training Max @ 1:00pm and then going back for a 4:30 practice....is that hardcore or what? I don't mess around when it comes to my workouts, that's what it takes. Besides, in your whole life, it's such a little amount of time, really.



I understand why people don't workout....been there, done that....many times and for many years. Let's see....I didn't work out for many years because why? It was uncomfortable....I didn't want to feel how "out of shape" I was. It was "time consuming", good Lord I already had so much to do....kids, job, watching my favorite TV show. It was inconvenient, it takes 10 minutes to drive to the gym....good Lord that's 20 minutes there and back...do you know what I could do with 20 minutes? I was too tired......eating junk and not exercising regularly, how could I not be? It was boring.....God forbid it's boring!



What's the alternative? Especially as we get older, we get sicker, fatter, less physical, less mobile. Those are the alternatives. I know the dangers of disconnecting from my body, and no matter how hungover I am (drinking is a choice), no matter how much weight I gain (overeating is a choice), no matter how tired I am, or how little time I make, missing my workouts is not a choice.



Life is good, beautiful and luxurious. What are the beautiful, luxurious choices you have in your life?

Stocking Up

My pressure cooker has turned me into a stock making crazy woman....seriously! Every scrap of onion, celery and carrot goes into the freezer for chicken or veg stock, and I have alot of scraps since I cook everyday. And now that Spring has sprung and the Market is loaded with freshness, I'm buying tons of veggies, forgetting that I can only eat so much, good Lord I can cook way more than I can....should....eat. In fact I just told Mark the other day that I should go into the "stock making and selling" business, lol!

I still, sometimes, make chicken and meat stocks the "old fashioned" way, because I've tasted the difference long, slow, simmers make, but if I'm going to use the stock for soup purees, risottos, rices and grains, polentas, or any dish that doesn't rely on that depth of flavor, then without a doubt making stock, in minutes, in my pressure cooker, especially using veggies that would of ended up in the trash, adds not only flavor, but, how could it not add a boost of nutrition too?

The basic difference between the two is visible by the color and gelatinous texture of the long simmering stock, which means much more flavor. I use at least 4-6lbs of bones in a 12qt stockpot that will only yield less than 3 qts of dark rich stock, and I'll simmer it overnight on my gas stove for at least 8 hours. I use these extra rich stocks primarily for my base veg soup, and extra special pasta sauces (for fresh pasta), and dishes I may want that "something special" for. Whereas I can use the bones of one chicken with some scrap veggies and get 3 qts of "light" stock in the PC in less than 30 minutes!

Most recently I've been making asparagus stock using the bits of asparagus you snap off the ends....the parts that are too tough to eat, and pea stock from the discarded pods of fesh peas. With this asparagus stock I've made my risotto, and what else? Soup, of course.....Asparagus and Leek soup. Last year I made corn stock for my squash soups, and to make quinoa and other grains for salads that also had roasted corn in them, but how yummy to make corn chower using it! This year I'll add mushroom stock (you can use the stems which you might normally remove and throw out), shrimp stock....this occured to me as I was peeling them for my risotto last week (I now have a "scrap" shrimp shell collection in my frezzer, lol), and who knows what else! I do know, however, from cookbooks that I've read that cabbage, and anything in the cabbage family, are not good to be made into stocks....FYI.

Life is good, food is joy, and adding beautiful nutritious, homemade stock to your already beautiful, fresh, homemade foods is such a lovely thing.

PS If you're a vegetarian and you do not own, and use, a pressure cooker then you're crazy!

Risotto with Asparagus and Prawns

Risotto had been one of my "go to" meals for quite sometime because all you need are some basic ingredients and the variety is endless. But then I got caught up in the "low carb" craze and avoided any meals that focused on rice.....but I'm over that now, lol!

If you own and know how to use your pressure cooker and you don't make risotto on a regular basis then you're crazy, because using your pressure cooker, adds speed, convenience and ease, not to mention nutritious meals that taste yummy......how could it get any better?

Basic risotto ingredients

2 T. butter and/or oil (olive of course)

1 onion diced

1 1/2 c. aborio rice

1/2 - 1 c. wine (optional)

4- 6 c. stock (or broth)

1/2- 1 c. parmesan cheese

Technique.....the old fashioned way

Heat butter (and/or oil), saute onion until translucent. Add rice and coat with fat. Add wine, if using, stirring constantly until it is absorbed into rice. Turn heat to a med. level and add stock (or broth) 1 cup at a time until absorbed....again stirring constantly until all liquid has been added, 20- 25 minutes, and rice is cooked through and creamy. Turn off heat, add cheese....voila!

Good Lord! All that time standing by the pot and constantly stirring......enter the pressure cooker!

Technique.....the new pressure cooker way

Heat pan, add 2 T. butter (and/or oil), saute onion until translucent.

Add 1 1/2 c. rice to coat with fat.

Add 1/2 c. wine, if using, stir until absorbed.

Add 4 c. stock, 1 t. salt, lock lid, bring pressure to high, cook for 6 min., let pressure come down naturally and open lid. It may look liquidy, but just stir and it will come together.

Stir in cheese....voila!

To make my Asparagus and Prawn Risotto I added the cut up asparagus once I opened my cooker, replaced the lid and brought the pressure back up to high, and then quick released the pressure (it only takes a couple of minutes). I then stirred in my peeled and deveined prawns to cook in the residual heat. (once shrimp turns from grey to pink you know they're done)

If your risotto is too liquidy once you've opened the lid, then simply turn the heat up to high and stir until the excess liquid is absorbed. Note the amout of rice to liquid you used and change it next time! I've had to tweak mine a little here and there.

And Then What? Delusions of Kirstie Alley

Mark and I were watching Oprah yesterday and Kirstie Alley was one of the guests talking about, what else but, her recent "fall off the wagon" and weight gain....or should I say weight re-gain? Sure she was light hearted about of it, poking fun at certain aspects of it, but still so delusional about what it really takes to not be fat, and/or to never be fat again. I missed the first part of the show, but I conclude that she had recently lost 20lbs (in the last month), was bragging about it, and was talking as if she's going to lose the weight again, but this time she wasn't going to lose her focus and not only get the weight off, but keep it off......like we all think we'll do when we're feeling motivated, lol. But then what?

The part where she expresses delusions is when Oprah asked her what her goal was and her reply was......ready? "To be ripped by November!" Are you kidding? Do you know what it's like to be "ripped", much less what it takes to get "ripped"? Now I know she was half joking, but was she really? Good Lord! For two years I knew what it's like to have 17% bodyfat, after weighing over 250lbs, so I've lived the comparison.....and let me tell you, it's nothing short of a miracle! And although I've maintained my weightloss, I haven't maintained a 17% bodyfat level! Why? Because I'm not sure I want to live that way......what "way" is that? The way of restriction, the way of judgement, the way of "diet deathwatch", lol ("diet deathwatch" is a term Mark used to describe what it was like to live me last year.....not fun, lol!)

Kirstie Alley can get get ripped.....I believe that. I can get ripped.....I not only believe that, but I know it to be true. But then what? That's the part she screwed up last time! that's the part we all screw up when we think there's and end point. There's no end point.

All this talk about changing your "lifestyle".....good Lord I'm almost sick of hearing that phrase....but there's no better way of putting it. If you cannot change and adopt a healthy life, permanently, then there will be no permanent change.....period. I don't want to "maintain", I want to permanently be healthy and fit. I want to be permanently free of physical restrictions and food restrictions also! Life is supposed to be good.

I can't take credit for the title of this blogpost "And then what?" that credit belongs to Mark, because that's the he question he had after hearing Kirstie's answer about what her goal was. And I thought those words and the question were brilliant! Because the answer to that question is what will set us all free from this craziness of dieting, this craziness of thinking we can change our lives without truly changing our lives! I had a best friend once, Linda, and I remeber her saying to me one time, and I still think about these words....."How can you expect your life to change if YOU don't change?"

You can change some things for a while......and then what?

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Pressure Cooking Pasta?




As I mentioned breifly, in a previous blogpost, I've been pressure cooking pasta, but only in my soups and stews....so far, lol! I love, love, love using shell shaped dry pastas in soups that have beans and small veggies bits that get cradled in the pasta! (I puposely cut veggies in a smaller dice just for this reason. One of my favorites is a Lamb stew w/orrechietti and garbanzo beans).









Since it only take 1-2 minutes to cook dry pasta in a pressure cooker (once it comes to full pressure) I usually "quick release" the pressure once my soup or stew is done, add 1/2 box (1/2lb.) of dry pasta, lock lid, bring pressure back up to high, cook for 1-2 min., and then let the pressure come down naturally. Make sure you soup or stew is highly seasoned with salt before adding pasta (the pasta will absorb much of it), and also that you have enough liquid for the pasta to cook in (see above photo compared to photo at left).

OK.....I Lied

Food and eating does run my life, LOL!

OK, it doesn'r run my life, but it's a big part of my life in a postive way, how can it not be? It's what I do. What is it, exactly that I do? I am so committed to understanding what makes us fat when, I believe, it's not our true nature. Sure I believe it's our nature to survive....how do we survive without eating? We can't, of course, and I believe, and it's my experience that maintaining health....and health means a healthy bodyweight in addition to some level of physical fitness as well as a body free of disease.....is so multi-dimensional that there is no ONE answer.

The "answers" are the same and different for everybody. Why do we get fat? We eat too much food our bodies don't need. The question that everyone has to answer for themselves is why do I eat too much food, what am I going to do about it and how do I find the motivation to do what I say I want to do? That's were I come in......

I am fascinated with the subject because I have to be. I refuse to ever be so overweight and out of shape as I once experienced, but I also refuse to accept any idea that my life has to be any less than I want it to be by restricting, or feeling like I'm restricting, one of the joys of that this physical life offers......food and eating. I am always looking for answers and I am always finding them, and that's why I know I'll never weigh 250lbs again. And anyone that talks with me can hear my excitement and passion for the hope and belief I have for all of us that have had, or is having, the experience of being fat to make the changes, permanently, so we can live to our physical potential.....which is our true nature. Everybody knows how to diet, but how do we live a healthy life without ever having to diet? That's really the goal, isn't it?

I am in my 3rd year of maintaining a healthy bodyweight and I don't see that changing, but, even though, I consider cooking as my favorite hobby, which keeps food constantly on my mind, I do believe there will be a day when I don't "react" to food in unhealthy ways. Food is art to me, I love it, I love everything about it, but as I've mentioned many times before, food is not the emeny.....our eating habits and behaviors are. We can change our habits and behaviors. I've changed many of mine and that is the key to my success, and that's no lie.

Misery Loves Company

It does and doesn't surprise me that the biggest responses I get to any blogpost I write comes after a "binge confession", or some sort of "admission of defeat". I suppose it's because we can all relate to the crazy emotional drives that lead us to act in ways that have become judged as "shameful"....good Lord, shouldn't we be ashamed of ourselves.....we can be such pigs! (you know I'm being sarcastic, don't you?, lol)..... And I don't mind telling anyone that I'm capable of eating a whole pint of ice cream, a whole bag of cookies, or a whole pound of candy.......as a "starter", lol....but I will not wallow in misery, or ask anyone to wallow with me because of it, nor do I expect anyone else to wallow in misery over their crazy habits or behaviors.

Good God.....I train my ass off, I show up to every stinkin' workout....without fail! Food, eating doesn't run my stinkin' life, and it never will! So what, I overeat sometimes....so what, I act compulsively sometimes.....but I'm in control of my life. No one makes me do anything I don't want to do....period.

I'm freakin' sick of all the "victims" wallowing in defeat and expecting the rest of us to go along for the ride...... and I have alot more to say about it.....but no time....why? Because I've got to get to double yoga class this morning, that's why.

My life is great! How's yours?

'Tis the Season

Good Lord....finally! Freshness, warm weather and more choices than ever. Next week is the start of most weekday farmers markets, (I love Wednesday and Friday markets because the weekends are just too busy for me these days), and although I've lightened up a great deal about buying exclusively from FM's and even "organic", there's nothing like being reminded of what's "in season", and that's what's fun for me.

There's rarely a day that goes by that I don't use my pressure cooker for something! Polenta in about 15 minutes (total time), risotto in the same amont of time, braised shoulder cuts of meat, plenty, plenty of beans and bean dishes, tons of chilis and stews, especially lamb these days....good Lord, although I grilled a butterflied leg of lamb and made a salad of grilled lamb, and then I grilled the veggies, chard, red bell & red onions w/farro (farro is my new favorite grain these days, made in the PC, of course!), there was plenty of olive oil on the grilled veggies, so a squeeze of lemon was all I dressed it with. I could go on and on....(oh, and I've been adding pasta into many of my soups and stews, cooking it also in the pressure cooker!)

But back to what's "in season". Eating and cooking with seasonal ingredients along with buying from local growers is what Farmers market shopping is all about for me. And although I've been poaching pears, (in the PC with white wine a little bit of sugar, and finely diced fresh ginger, eating it over yogurt), whose "season" is over......but they're still in the grocery stores, lol.....I finally made it to the market on Sunday to see what's really in season.

I didn't buy much, mostly because I'm trying to cook less these days.....by "less" I mean at one time, lol, I still cook daily, but smaller portions (my 4 qt PC, surprisingly, is the one I use the most these days!). Along with staples of chard, spinach, cabbage and celery, I've been buying more fresh herbs, asparagus, and my "seasonal" buy was kumkwats.

Kumkwats are very small orange citrus that looks about the size of a large olive......I didn't like them! I looked up some recipes using them, and mostly they're used for jams, chutneys or marmalade, but I did find some savory dishes but nothing inspired me. So, I decided to just throw a couple of them in one of my yogurt smoothies to get an idea of their flavor and......bitter! (you're supposed to be able to eat the skin and the fruit) I couldn't get the taste out of my mouth all day! Oh well!

I decided not to join CSA again for the simple reason that I have all the time in the world to shop farmers markets during the week and because most CSA services have a waiting list I thought I would give another family the luxury of local organic veggies. The organic farm that I did get my CSA box from last year sells daily at a roadside stand in Watsonville, so Friday, Mark and I may go and see if they've got agretti!

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Lamb goes on sale after Easter so I always take advantage and buy a whole leg, have the butcher bone it for me (I need the bone to make stock!).....I could do it myself, but that's his job, lol....... divide the leg in two, grilling the "upper half" and using the lower half in a braised dish.

Grilled leg of Lamb and Farro Salad

farro
cured, grilled sliced lamb (spice rub recipe follows)
grilled red bell, chard, and red onions
squeeze of lemon

I left the red bell and chard leaves in large pieces, tossed them in olive oil, s & p, before grilling, and then sliced the red bell into smaller strips for the salad. I cut the onions in 1/4 inch slices and brushed them with oil keeping the slices intact while grilling.


Spice rub for lamb

1/4 c. kosher salt
2 T. sugar
1 T. freshly ground black pepper
2 T. chopped fresh herbs like rosemary, sage, thyme, or combination of

Rub meat with mixture (you may not use it all, store leftovers sealed in fridge for up to 2 weeks). Cure the lamb for 12-24 hours in the refrigerator, wash off the salt and let come to room temp before brushing it with olive oil and then grilling. Grill meat for 8-10 minutes, each side or until the internal temp reaches 130-135 degrees. Let sit 10 minutes before slicing aganist the grain.

Farro

Follow instructions on the package, but I used my pressure cooker.

1 c. farro
1 1/2 c. water or stock ( I used lamb stock of course, lol)
1 t. kosher salt

Bring pressure to high, cook for 10-15 min, let pressure come down naturally.....that's it.