Autumnal pleasures

I love the autumn season. I love the crisp mornings, the way the sunlight is golden and bright. I love fall foods: apples, pumpkin, turkey. The smoke of  distant fires. Huddling in woolen sweaters and blue jeans. Scarves. Even those grey days when the chill gets into your bones and you long to curl up with a cup of hot spiced apple cider and a book.

It is not quite yet fall, but with the school year looming and the already shortening days, I felt a need for something that brings that autumnal nostalgia near.

And what says “autumn” any louder than pumpkin pie?

Nothing, in my opinion.

Now it is not yet pumpkin season, and although squash is a frequently used substitute for that vegetable, I chose to take the ingredient road even less followed than squash.

What then, you may ask, is the orange in the pie below?

It’s a secret.

One that I will tell you, however. And it’s not sweet potato, either. . .

It’s carrots!!

Yes, surprisingly enough, carrots can stand in for pumpkin or squash in your traditional  “pumpkin” pie.

And apparently, in places where they cannot grow pumpkins, this is done quite frequently. Who knew?

So without any more ado, here is the recipe.

Crustless “Pumpkin” (Carrot) Pie

• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp cardamom (you can omit this if it is not in your spice collection.)
• 1/8 tsp cloves
• 2 cups cooked mashed carrot  (blend in food processor with some to all of the cooking water till the consistency of canned pumpkin)
• 11oz sweetened condensed milk (recipe below)
• (optional) top with Cinnamon Streusel Topping (recipe below)

Preheat oven to 375F.

Beat eggs lightly in medium bowl. Add and mix in the rest of the ingredients in order given.

Pour into a lightly sprayed 8″x8″ pan, and bake for 15-20 min. Turn down the oven to 300-325F and bake for another 15-20 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Let cool to room temperature. When eaten warm, the pie does have a slight carrot taste, but once cooled and/or chilled in the refrigerator, it is difficult to detect the impersonator.

When cut into 12 squares, each square is 3WWP+. (This is without the streusel topping.)

Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk

• 3T margarine
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/3 cup milk powder
• 1/2 cup boiling water

Place first three ingredients in a medium bowl. Pour over boiling water and stir together. Makes about 11-14oz. (I used all of this in my pie filling.)

Cinnamon Streusel Topping

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Blend together all ingredients in a food processor. Sprinkle evenly over pie or use to top muffins, etc.

Happy Pre-Autumn!!

Tuna-Quinoa Salad

Well in keeping with my minor experiment with lowering the amount of carbs in my diet/ upping the amount of protein, I decided to share the following serendipitous recipe, discovered while cleaning out leftover quinoa from my fridge.

I never ate quinoa before I started WW. I had seen and heard of it through my (health nut enthusiast) grandmother, who included it in her daily porridge of quinoa, amaranth, and who-knows-what-else, and I was not interested. It was just weird. Plus when it cooked up, it looked like it had all little worms in it (the germ of the seed). I was not ever going to try it. It was bad enough that when I lived with her during university, I had to eat kamut and spelt pasta and *shudder* boiled sweet potatoes.

Two and a half years after she passed away, lo and behold I have begun eating “weird” stuff like she did. My family (I am pretty sure) thinks that I have crossed over to the “crunchy” side in her (very unique) foot steps.

Oh well.

I really am not that crunchy, but I have begun branching out from the traditional meat-and-potatoes meals of my childhood.

On the search to find alternatives, I took a second look at some of the “health food store” foods at which I had turned up my nose in the past.

Spinach in my smoothie? Weird. But hey, I’ll try it. (Cocoa and blue berries disguise the green.) Check.

Sweet potato fries? Crispy and delicious. Check. Baked in their jackets too? Check.

Quinoa? Oh, so it has lots of protein in it. I’ll try that. Check.

Brown Rice flour? Hmm. Maybe I could sub that in my pizzelles in place of wheat flour. Check.

Etc.  You get the picture.

Perhaps it’s all the health and food blogs I’ve been reading over the last few years, but I’m not as quick to say no to the “weird” stuff anymore.

Anyway, as I was saying, I was cleaning out my fridge and decided to experiment.

The result was pure deliciousness.

Tuna-Quinoa Salad: Serves 2 (8 points WWP+ each)

• 120gm white tuna canned in water (basically a regular can, drained)
• 1 cup cooked quinoa, cold (quick and easy instructions to follow)
• 4 T zesty Italian Dressing (recipe to follow)
• Diced vegies of your choice. Peppers in red, orange, green, yellow would be lovely, as would freshly-grated carrot, diced tomatoes, etc.
• Pepper and salt to taste.
• freshly grated Parmesan would also be good, but optional.

Drain the tuna. In a medium-sized bowl, combine quinoa and tuna with a fork, breaking up the tuna into flakes. Drizzle Italian dressing over and blend together. Add your diced vegies {I didn’t have any at the time, so I just had it without.} Add pepper to taste. {Personally I didn’t find it needed any extra salt.}

Serve with (or without) fresh cut vegies on the side (carrots sticks, cucumber, etc.).

No-Fuss Slow Cooker Quinoa

• 1 cup quinoa, rinsed in a sieve (this is to rinse away the bitter taste caused by the saponins which cover the seed)
• 1 3/4 cup water (I found that when I cooked it in the slow cooker, I didn’t need quite all of the 2 cups that the directions on my package called for)

Combine in a small slow cooker (mine is a 4 cupper), and cook on HIGH for about an hour to an hour and a half (it depends on the humidity, power of your slow cooker, etc). You don’t need to stir this at all while it is cooking. Fluff with a fork and serve. (Or chill if you want to make the cold salad outlined above.)

Makes about 3 cups of cooked quinoa. (1 cup Quinoa = 5 WWP+)

Zesty Italian Dressing (slightly adapted from Penniless Parenting)

• 1 cup white vinegar
• 1/2 cup garlic olive oil (You can use regular olive oil and add garlic powder)
• 1/2 cup safflower oil
• (1/2 TB garlic powder: if you don’t have garlic olive oil)
• 1/2 TB  onion powder
• 1/2 TB  white sugar
• 1 TB  dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 1/2 TB dried parsley 
• 1 tsp sea salt (I cut the salt down from 1 TB–I just didn’t think it needed that much)

Pour ingredients into a glass jar or bottle with a cover. (I use my Tupperware Shaker bottle). Cover and shake well. Use, or refrigerate for up to 90 days. Enjoy!

Makes about 2 cups of dressing.

1 T = 1 points WWP+

A Bit of “Lite” Reading

I’ve been doing some reading in preparation for the coming school year (I teach a high school foods class), and ran across the following articles/blog posts, which have reconfirmed some of my own ideas about the connection between weight loss and the type of food I eat. (I am currently reading  Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food, which mentions Gary Taubes, so I decided to look up his website.)

Here are links to the two articles I read as well as an excerpt from each which I found particularly thought-provoking.

Article #1: Taubes discusses the connection between high-carb diets and the amount of insulin in our systems, which he says, “puts fat in fat cells.” He suggests that perhaps changing the kind of carbs and not the amount is not enough for certain people to lose weight.

What I’m arguing is that for many of us who run to fat, cutting down on the refined carbs and starchy carbs (potatoes, for instance) and on the added sugars will help, but it probably won’t help enough. The dose of carb-restriction won’t be sufficient to deal with the problem. We may stay fat. We may even get fatter. A blanket recommendation to eat fruits and vegetables and whole grains, as Oz prescribes and now Weight Watchers and the U.S. Dietary Guidelines, ignores this aspect of human variability completely. It assumes that people who are predisposed to fatten can tolerate the same foods and benefit from the same very mild dose of carb-restriction that the naturally lean can.

http://www.garytaubes.com/2011/03/dose-of-intervention-land-of-dr-oz/

 

Article # 2 In this post, he talks about looking at why we lose weight on different diets, positing that perhaps the real reason we lose is because we are re-configuring/re-setting the way our bodies metabolize fat, connecting this change to the total amount of carbohydrates we eat.

So here’s the lesson, the moral of this story: before we assume that low-carbohydrate diets are just one tool in the dietary arsenal against overweight and obesity, and before we assume that everyone is different and that some of us lose weight and keep it off because we eat less fat (and more carbohydrates) and some because we cut carbs (and so eat maybe more fat),  we should make an effort to understand the concept of controlling variables and look to see which variables are really changing and by how much. Because it’s quite possible that the only meaningful way to lose fat is to change the regulation of the fat tissue, and the science of fat metabolism strongly implies that the best way to do that, if not the only meaningful way, is by reducing the amount of carbohydrates consumed and/or improving the quality of those carbs we do consume. http://www.garytaubes.com/2010/12/calories-fat-or-carbohydrates/

 

What I find interesting about Taubes’ arguments is that he doesn’t automatically point the finger at carbohydrates as “the bad guy” in the body, but rather looks at how the body metabolizes different kinds of foods (protein, carbohydrates, fat) and puts forward his ideas based on that. He doesn’t just jump on the “miracle food/miracle diet” bandwagon.

When I started on Weight Watchers, I cut wheat and refined sugar (white and brown)  almost completely out of my diet, subbing in other carbohydrates, such as rice and fruit and vegies, and using agave nectar and stevia in place of other sweeteners. It made a big difference, as far as I could tell, and I lost quite a bit of weight over the next 2 months.  I found that protein was important for me to have in each meal: it kept me full, longer, particularly if I ate it at breakfast. (I talked about this is in my  blog post The Cave Woman Diet.)

Lately I have not been as consistent in getting a lot of protein in every meal, have been eating more carbs in general (more fruit, which equals more sugar, albeit natural sugar), and I haven’t been losing as much weight the last few weeks. Hmm. Could there be a connection?

It could simply be that I’ve gotten to a small plateau in my weight loss. I’ve lost quite a bit and haven’t been at this weight in a while so my body may be reconfiguring its rate of metabolism, etc. But I wonder if I consciously reduce extra carbs and up the protein, if there will be a difference.

I am definitely going to do some more reading on this subject, do a minor experiment in my own diet, and see how things go.

Black Bean Brownies –Quick

Ready for some yummy flourless chocolate goodness?

Would you like that goodness fast and exceptionally easy?

Check out these babies.

(Quick) Black Bean Brownies  (slightly altered from Allrecipes.com)

• 1 1/2 cups or 1 (15.5 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 3 eggs
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/4 t sea salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon instant coffee (optional)

Lightly grease an 8×8 square microwave-safe baking dish {Silicon muffin pans or loaf pans or 8×8 pans are great.}

Combine the black beans, eggs, oil, cocoa powder, salt, vanilla extract, sugar, and instant coffee in a food processor; blend until smooth {as smooth as possible}; pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish(es).

Microwave on High for 4-6 minutes.* Turn out onto a wire rack to cool {I lined my racks with parchment paper to avoid stickiness} or leave in your pan to cool on a wire rack. If you are impatient, you don’t need to wait for these to cool. They are yummy warm from the microwave. Would be lovely with vanilla ice cream or freshly whipped cream, too.

{I microwaved this in two batches: half in my silicon muffin pan (3-4 minutes), half in my silicon loaf pan (4-6 minutes). You will have to judge for yourself how long your particular baking dish and microwave need. One thing to note, however: the top of your brownies will look like they are not done, but that’s just because of the properties of microwave baking.}

Makes 12-16 brownies depending on what containers you chose to bake these. 🙂

*Traditional Baking Instructions:

Bake in preheated 350F oven until the top is dry and the edges start to pull away from the sides of the pan, about 30 minutes.

Black Bean Tortilla Casserole

Oh, people, you have to try this.

Imagine it: gooey cheddar cheese, spicy salsa, tender black beans . . . it really is the simplest dish, but oh, so delicious. And it is great (!!) as leftovers, too.

A great dish for Meatless Mondays or whenever you just feel like it.

{Sorry no pics. We were too hungry . . . }

Black Bean Tortilla Casserole (slightly altered from Martha Stewart.com)

• 1 1/2 cups black beans, prepared and rinsed ( or one 15.5 ounce can)
• 1 cup chopped mushrooms {I love cremini or portabello because they stay nice and meaty.}
• 1 clove garlic (minced)
• 2-3 t oil

• 1 1/2 cup salsa, heat of your choice {hot and spicy is the best! 🙂 }
• 1 cup grated cheddar or other sharp cheese of your choice {About 1/4 cup per layer, but you can decide how generous you want to be with the cheese . . .}
• 3-1/2 large tortilla wraps cut into halves

Preheat your oven to 400F.

In 1 T oil, saute minced garlic, then add mushrooms and saute until browning. Add black beans and cook until warmed through.

In the bottom of a loaf pan, lay two tortilla halves. {I laid mine cut edges out so that the bottom of the pan was completely covered.} Spoon about a 1/4-1/3 of your black bean mixture and spread out over the tortillas. Spoon about 1/3-1/2 cup {Your choice} of salsa over the beans and spread out with a spoon. Sprinkle with a layer of cheese. Add another two tortilla halves and repeat with beans, salsa, cheese. Repeat for a third layer. Top with last tortilla half, a thin layer of salsa and remaining cheese.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 min. Remove foil and bake another 15-20 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and beginning to brown. Remove from oven and let sit for a few minutes. Slice into 5-6 servings (about 1 cup each) with a sharp knife.

You could serve this topped with sour cream, diced tomatoes, etc. or with your favourite vegie on the side, but it really is fine as a meal on its own.

WWP+: 7 points per slice (casserole sliced into 6) (I used PC White Tortillas and that’s where most of the points come from–it’s absolutely crazy!)

Walking through sand

Well, it’s been slow going this week in regards to weight loss.*

I’ve been doing my best to get more active and get my metabolism going, but the last few weeks have felt like walking through sand–sliding backwards when I’m actually doing more.

So far since I started WW, I’ve been a bit lax when it has come to actually getting up and doing exercise on purpose. It’s not that I have spent all day, every day on my backside, but I haven’t established a routine or gone out of my way to get moving. I have always had “sedentary tendencies”—all my hobbies are sedentary ones: reading, writing, baking, cooking, photography, watching movies, etc. {and now blogging}–and I would rather spend my rare free time during the school year {I teach high school} on those things, than exercising. {And if I exercised, I would rather lift weights than walk. . .}

Well. {And yes, I say “Well” a lot–that’s just me.} As I said, the last few weeks, I’ve felt like I’m struggling more to shed the pounds. The first two months all I had to do to lose between 1.5-2 lbs a week was stay within my daily points (eating lots of fruits and vegies, lean protein and dairy–cutting out most refined grain) and drink enough water and I was golden. Although I wasn’t shedding the pounds quite as rapidly as The Paris Chick was, I was fine with losing almost 2 lbs a week, every week.

The first month on WW, I was finishing up teaching for the year and was crazy busy. {Crazy. Busy. Late nights, VERY early mornings, working all the time. Making exams and marking is a killer.} But things went well, even though I was highly stressed and not getting enough sleep, which is usually when I tend to hang on to weight {conservation of resources}. Of course, I had made a big change in my eating habits and begun being more conscientious about drinking enough water.

Now I’ve been doing this for 2 1/2 months, and maybe it’s just hormonal flux, but it feels like I’m hitting a plateau. So the last few weeks I’ve been extra careful with my daily points: eating enough protein, not eating when I am not hungry even if I have points left at the end of the day, etc. I’ve also been making more of an effort to get active, walking, doing my ballet elements video {talk about killer lower body workout–the fronts of my thighs ached for 3 days!}, and just this week I started doing step aerobics as well, which I am loving. I don’t have a lot of floor space for aerobics videos, but the step aerobics is high intensity and I now have something to get my heart rate up–something I can continue to do into the winter. Yay!

However, despite the fact that I’ve been extra good, things just aren’t going as quickly as they have been up until now.

Ho hum.

So, although I am kind of disappointed in the number on the scale, I decided to start tracking measurements today, just to see if the step aerobics makes a difference {it should}. Muscle takes up less room than fat, but the conversion may not be noticeable on the scale. At least, if I track my measurements every couple weeks, I will {hopefully} have something to mark progress by, even if the scale is not being my friend.

*I won’t be posting any specific info on my weekly weigh in–only when I hit one of my targets on the way to my major goal. 🙂

(W8), there’s more . . .

Well.

Yesterday I decided to do a little online research about what would be a healthy weight for me.  So I did something simple. I looked at a BMI chart. Now I was rather silly when I started this process and didn’t clue in to the fact that I had the same information in my WW weight tracker. Hello! So I did my work twice. But that’s okay because it made me re-evaluate my final weight loss goal.

I had been erring on the side of “less intimidating” when I set my major goal at losing 60 lbs. It’s been a very long time since I was anywhere near that weight so I figured that it would be less scary to aim at something that would already be a big change.

However, what with looking at my healthy BMI and being reminded in my weight tracker, I decided to change my goal to 80 lbs. It is a pretty scary number. Approximately the last time I weighed in at that figure I was probably 14. That was half a life time ago. Yikes.

Pretty intimidating.

Already I’m having thoughts like: Will I still feel like me?

I’ve been overweight for so long, it is hard to imagine what Me -80 lbs will be like. My size has (somehow) made me feel less vulnerable. It has felt safe.

But it isn’t comfortable. It never has been.

I’ve been apathetic about it for so long, figuring that there was nothing I could really do about. (I tried exercise in the past, but it didn’t seem to do much. And I liked just eating what I liked too much to give it up.) I was resigned to my “fate” as the fat one.

However,  now being overweight is getting on my nerves.

Chairs that only barely fit. Chafing. Sore knees and hips. Bounce and jiggle.

Clothes shopping? Ha.

So it was time for a change.

And I thank God for The Paris Chick, who also decided that it was time for a change and invited me to come along. I might not have challenged myself to do this if she hadn’t initiated it. It was truly a blessing.

Now at 2 1/2 months in, I feel so much more empowered. I’m a quarter of the way there already. I can do this. I look at other people’s weight loss blogs and see that it is possible. Every time I see a new number on the scale and feel the way my clothes are fitting*, I think to myself  I can do this. It will take time, but that’s okay. I need the time to get adjusted to this new me.

*My favourite jeans are longer now. They actually brush the floor (again). I had thought they had shrunk in the wash, but it was me who had grown. 

Mini Zucchini Casseroles

Casseroles have to be almost the epitome of comfort food. The smell alone emanating from the oven (or the crock pot) satisfies the senses.

Simple ingredients, simple construction, but a good casserole creates magic: the flavours percolate through each other to create a dish that speaks love to our taste buds.

I was in the mood for casserole, but didn’t want to wait for an hour to eat. So I came up with a simple combination of ingredients which would satisfy my yearning in record time.

Mini Zucchini Casseroles

Makes 6 mini casseroles; Serves 2

• 1 cup grated zucchini
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan

• 200g uncooked extra lean ground beef
• 3-4 TB ketchup
• 1/4 cup onion, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper

• 6 TB salsa (heat of your choice)
• grated parmesan or cheddar cheese to top

Stir together zucchini and parmesan. Press mixture evenly into 6 muffin tins.

Combine ground beef, ketchup, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Mold into six small patties and place on top of the zucchini in the muffin tins.

Spoon 1 TB salsa on top of the ground beef patties.

Bake at 350F for 25-30 minutes or until meat is cooked.

Remove from the oven and (optional) let sit for 5 minutes or so, so the liquids in the bottom of the pan begin to reabsorb into the casserole.

Top with the cheese of your choice and serve as desired. You could easily pair this with mashed/baked potatoes or a salad. {I just ate it as it was and it was great.}

Each mini casserole is 2 WWP+.

NOTE: These also reheat very well in the microwave. 

Back to My Roots

A horrible thing has happened.

Something right out of The Little Shop of Horrors. . . . . . . . . . Okay, so it’s not that dramatic. My sweet potato sprouted. Warm, humid weather does that to potatoes. It makes them yearn for the deep dark earth and starts them wanting to be fruitful and multiply.

Yes.

Or reach for the  sky like some kind of magic beans. There’s only one way we can control this rampaging root. . . . . . It’s time to cut it down to size.

This unruly vegetable is going under the knife.

Chop chop.

It’s French Fry Time!

—

Sweet Potato Fries

Take one large sweet potato {Approx. 400 g.}.

Wash and cut out the eyes {and the tendrils}.

Chop into fries of small-to-medium thickness.

Place chopped sweet potato in cold water and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. {You can also soak them overnight.}

N.B. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP. Soaking the fries in water results in CRISPY fries, rather than soggy fries.

Once the fries have soaked for at least 1 hour, take them out of the water and blot them dry with paper towel or an old tea towel.

Then throw 2 tablespoons potato starch (or corn starch) and 1/4 tsp chili powder {I like chipotle pepper} in a large ziploc bag.

Shake gently till blended.

Add sweet potatoes, zip closed, and shake vigorously to cover fries. Dump {yes, dump: invert that ziploc bag over the tray and let the fries fall where they may} starch-covered fries on a (parchment-lined) baking sheet and drizzle with 4 tsp oil {The kind is up to you. I use safflower oil, but olive oil or vegetable oil would also be fine.}

Turn the fries over to coat them evenly with the oil.  {With your hands, of course–cooking gets you dirty, suck it up, princess.}

Spread ’em out so air can circulate freely about the fries.

{You’ll notice, of course, that I failed to follow my own directions. It’s not my fault–it’s the rebellious sweet potato!! Get away from each other, you naughty fries.}

Place fries in a preheated 400F oven. {Guess I should have told you that before. Oops.}

Bake for 20 minutes.

Flip. {Not with your fingers this time, unless you have asbestos fingers. And if you do, you shouldn’t be touching food–asbestos is dangerous, doncha know. Use a spatula.}

Bake for another 20 or so minutes–or until browned to your satisfaction. {It will depend on your oven.}

Sprinkle with sea salt. {Freshly ground is THE BEST!}

Serve piping hot with Chipotle Mayo (1/8 tsp chipotle chili pepper & 3 TB mayo: stir) OR Sriracha Mayo (1/2 tsp Sriracha Sauce and 3 TB mayo: stir).

Makes 2 servings. Each serving is 8 WWP+.

Recipe adapted from The Art of Doing Stuff.

Oh, by the way: if you would like to cut down on the calories a bit, you can substitute carrots for the sweet potato. The taste is very similar, though not quite the same. They are also very good. OH, do NOT skip the soaking step if you decide to use this alternative. It also makes a difference. You may want to soak them longer than 1 hour, however. Also you will want to use new carrots, not those which have been sitting in your fridge for almost a month {guilty}, since old carrots can be rather bitter.

Disclaimer: For those of you who are perhaps worried about me eating a sprouted potato, sweet potatoes are not in the same family as regular potatoes, despite the fact that they have the same name. Regular potatoes are from the Nightshade family, and green potatoes or potatoes that have green spots can be toxic because of the increased amount of solanine in them. See Potato-Toxicity. Sweet potatoes are from the Morning Glory family {Who knew?!} and are not toxic if sprouted, etc.

Rice Flour Pizzelles

I love these cookies. They are light and crispy and just plain good. Pair them with coffee or tea, use them to make ice cream sandwiches, crumble them in your yogurt–whatever you choose to do, these cookies are delicious. They are gluten-free and as an added plus, they are low in fat–bonus!

Rice Flour Pizzelles (Adapted from THIS recipe)

• 3/4 cup brown rice flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 4 tsp vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup water
• oil spray (for the pizzelle maker)

Sift together dry ingredients. Whisk together wet ingredients in a separate bowl, then add to dry ingredients. Stir until blended. Onto a heated and greased (oil spray) pizzelle maker, drop 1 1/2-2 tablespoons batter, close, and bake for 2-3 minutes. Remove and cool on a wire rack or shape as desired (around a wooden dowel for “taco” or cannoli shapes).

Makes 10 cookies (2 WWP+ each).

Enjoy!