Peter's Cooking Diary #23

So I want to start off this weeks blog by mentioning how much awesome produce I have received from the mom. I get a wide variety of things from her during the growing months, and also something things during the long winter as well. She has provided me with a lot of home grown and home made tomato sauce, with all sorts of different greens from  mixed salad greens to dried greens like the bok choy I used in this week's cooking. She uses her food dehydrator to make dried apples, banana chips, and even fruit leather. There are numerous of things like garlic that I have used in many different dishes in my cooking. This blog is a tribute to the things my mom gives me that contribute to my cooking.

We are starting off with most of the ingredients being put into my sausage and bean stew. The bags of dried greens that I received from my mom, I had 3 different types of beans in my cabinet that I wanted to use up, some chicken stock, an onion and some garlic. I was going to put celery in the dish, but I just left it in the fridge when I was preparing everything. I also get my absent mindedness from my mom. There was also a yogurt container filled with my mom's tomato sauce going into this.

I am a bit of a bargain hunter at the grocery store, I love the extra discounted meats at Festival foods. Its the meats that are approaching the date they can no longer be sold, and they sell them at a great discount. I do make sure to use it within a day of buying it, or I will stick it right into the freezer. I came across these mild sausages in the that section and though they could be fun to cook with.

The issue with them being in casings and going into the soup is that its just much easier to brown them off without the casings on so I just sliced the casing and pretty easily removed the vast majority of the meat from the casing.

I started the tomatoes in the crock pot, putting it on low, letting it come up to temperature, before adding more.

I added the dried bok choy to the pot with the tomatoes, and some chicken stock letting them start to reconstitute in the pot. I also added a little salt for the tomatoes.

I put the sausages in the pan with a little bit of vegetable oil over medium high heat. I used a spatula to chop the sausage up into smaller bit to cook faster, and also I would want them in smaller bits in the stew.

This was when the sausage had finished cooking, I used a slotted spoon to get the sausage out of the pan and into the crock put, I didn't dump all of the grease out so I could use it.

Wish the sausage grease left in the pan I added the onion and garlic to the pan and spent a lot of time scraping up and of the sausage bits left in the pant.

I added some thyme, oregano, and red pepper flake to the pan as well as some flour to help thicken the soup.

After the flour had been cooked into the onion, garlic, and spice mixture, I then added the remaining chicken stock to the pan, and stirred it all together, once again making sure I got everything off the bottom of the pan.

This is the soup as I was about to put the lid on, and let it simmer for about 4 hours.

After the soup had been cooking for about 4 hours, I shut the heat off and let it cool down. I then removed some of the fat that settled towards the top as well as the bay leaves. I then added the 3 kinds of beans to the pot. I didn't cook the beans with everything else  I just stirred them in and let it all sit overnight before having some for lunch today.

This is the finished dish. I really like the different colors of beans in the dish, it really looks cool to me like this. This same dish could easily be made with ground pork, ground turkey, ground chicken, or many other things. It was quite good for lunch, and quite filling.

This is the start for my version of puttanesca sauce that I first saw made by Rachel Ray, but of course I had to do my own take on it. Starts with some olive oil, and some onion and garlic as well as a little salt to help them sweat.

I added some tomato paste to the pan and stirred it in. I would have also added some anchovy paste to the pan, but for whatever reason I just forgot that in the cabinet, it is actually one of the traditional ingredients in this sauce.

I added another container of my mom's tomato sauce, and stirred it all together and let it cook for just a few minutes.

I added a few handfuls of kalamata olives as well as the red wine vinegar that they are sitting in. I gently squeezed the olives when adding them to the sauce pan to get a little bit more of the liquid out. It will provide some nice acidity to the dish.

I chopped up some fresh basil and added it along with some dried oregano, and some red pepper flake. I stilled all of the ingredients together again, and gave it a few more minutes to cook together.

I flaked out a few cans of white tuna to make sure it was broken up into small pieces.

I added the tuna and stirred it all together. I brought the sauce to a simmer, and let it simmer on low heat with the lid on for about 30 minutes.

This is the finished sauce. I like it over some kind of curly noodle, or a tube, it is ok with any kind of strand, but the chunks work better for me with something else.

Peter's Cooking Diary #22

So this was was a great week of cooking, I actually made 3 different things, A pizza, some mexican style brown rice, and some pinto beans. I think that these dished could easily be made vegetarian and are also great for someone on a budget. Beans and rice are both extremely cheap, and some of the things can be easily substituted to make the recipes even cheaper.

The cooking started with 2 onions and 2 heads of garlic. I decided it would be easier to just chop up the onions and mince the garlic all at once to save myself some prep time.

Chopped onion and garlic one I had finished with them.

This recipe called for coating the interior of the crock pot with cooking spray, which is easier said than done. I actually found it easier to do by lifting the insert out and holding it on its side and spraying the can inside.

After I was satisfied with the spraying, this is what it looked like.

On top of the spraying, this recipe called for adding some butter in to the crock pot to add some flavor and a little bit more fat.

Into the pot with the butter I added, 2 cups of brown rice, some Mexican style chile powder, and some salt to the pot.

The recipe called for bringing 3 cups of water to a boil, then whisking in 3 cloves of garlic and 3 tablespoons of tomato paste. Once the tomato paste was distributed in the water, I added the mixture to the crock pot and stirred to combine everything.

After cooking for 2 hours on high, the rice was perfectly cooked. I stirred in some lime juice and some cilantro. This was a great recipe and I plan to make it more in the future.

After cleaning out the crock pot it was time to start the second recipe and the food that would go along with the finished rice. To start I added one pound of pinto beans, a few bay leaves, and some ham hocks to the cooker. I actually added no salt to the beans, the hocks on their own will add plenty of salt to the dish on their own.

Once the beans are cooked through I turned the cooker off, and removed the ham hocks from the crock pot to cool. Once they were cooked I removed the meat from them.

I chopped the meat up into small pieces and set it aside.

I sauteed some onions and garlic in bacon grease, because why not add a little more pork fat to this dish right?

After the onions and garlic had some time to cook I added a large can of fire roasted mild green chiles, I love using these whenever I can because they add great flavor to anything. The recipe actually called for a bell pepper but I decided to use the canned peppers instead.

I added some oregano and cumin to the pan and let the veggies cook together a bit to kind of marry the flavors.

This is the onion, pepper, and garlic as well as a few scoops of the beans from the crock pot.

The combination was then mashed together to help the flavors all meld together.

Combined the rest of the beans, the meat, and the previous mixture together along with some cilantro and lime juice and stirred them together. By mashing the stuff up in the previous picture the final combination has a consistency of refried beans which kind of holds is all together instead of it being loose beans.

The final thing I made was a tuna pizza, but it start with more onion and garlic betting cooked down on bacon grease.

I cooked the onion and garlic down until they were soft and translucent.

I drained and flaked out a large can of tuna, once the onion and garlic was done cooking I added that combination to the tuna and mixed it all together.

I stretched out some store bought whole wheat crust on a pan that I had sprayed with some cooking spray. I then topped with with plain tomato sauce.

On top of the sauce I added some dried oregano and some fresh basil I really love the flavor of fresh basil in pizza, I think it is one of my favorite flavors in the world.

I topped the pizza with the tuna onion and garlic mixture, and added some parmesan cheese, and some shredded cheese to the top.

The finished cooked pizza, it was amazing! There was probably a little bit too much  onion on the pizza, but its hard to complain, I really liked it.

My New Diet Plan

I've always been weak willed when it comes to resisting foods. I have spent plenty of time thinking about where I have gone wrong in the past. I can name several of my food weaknesses.

Sweets are by far the worst food addiction that I have. I really need to work on eliminating sweets from my world. Actually I think carbs in general have always been a big comfort to me, but I really need to work on limiting what types of carbs I eat. Pop has never been an issue, I grew up without it really around, so I only have it on occasion, and I am most likely going to cut both regular and diet pops out of my diet completely. I can find an alternative, like something along the lines of crystal light, or unsweetened iced tea.

Fast food has been an issue because its just so convenient, and with my weak willedness I have given in from time to time and eaten fast food. Even if I am on my way home from work, I can talk myself into stopping for some fast food. I need to stop being lazy, and I need to be more concerned with what I am eating if I want to make a change in myself. This blog really helped me work through my depression a lot, and this is the next step of what I would like to change in myself.

I think I am also addicted to dairy products, from what I have been reading in the diet book, lactose is horrible for your insulin production, and skim milk causes a large insulin spike. I think that some dairy products are ok, but I listened to a podcast with the writer of this book on it, and he said if you had to cut one  thing out of your diet he would recommend cutting skim milk out first.

I need to work on eating smaller amounts of food. The diet I am reading the book for is not about portion control, but I have not doubt that controlling my portions could be very helpful as well.

Well I am still currently reading my way through my diet book, but I would like to at the very least implement some changes right now.

I am going to need to try to cook more often, and maybe try to make some new types of things. I am always open to new ideas from people. I am trying to think of new ways to incorporate vegetables in my life, so that they don't get boring. I don't think I will be able to eat just raw vegetables every meal of every day. I already do oven roasted vegetables, which are good, but variety is always good. I am also looking for more ways to work beans and lentils into my diet. One of the lessons I have taken from the book so far, is that lean protein is the best way to stay full, as well as eliminating carbohydrates from the diet. I guess I shouldn't say eliminating, but limiting carbohydrates.

My breakfast will consist of some sort of veggie and bean mixture, right now its roasted onions, roasted red peppers, corn, and black beans. Most of those things I had as leftovers. I also mix in some turkey sausage of some kind, and some eggs. I like to make the vegetable mixture ahead of time, and then put it into daily sized containers. I think it will be pretty easy for me to cook one week's worth of this mixture on a Sunday and then  eat it throughout the week. I am also planning on having a glass of grapefruit juice, which when combined with caffeine in tea is supposed to help burn fat in your body faster. I know it sounds like some sort of scam, but this book is deeply researched, and I trust the findings in it. Grapefruit juice tastes like ass...I just needed to share that.

Lunch and dinner are some meals that still need some more work on planning for me. I have been enjoying salads with some sort of lunch meat on it, and some sort of vinaigrette. I need to learn to make some new low fat meat dishes that don't require firing up the grill. I guess I can just cook on the foreman grill.

The diet actually plans in a cheat day every week. The logic is that if you can indulge in foods that would cause you to break the diet once a week, you will be much more likely to stay on the diet for longer. I think lots of people have a habit of being on a diet and then after only a few weeks or a month they cheat on the diet, and that causes them to throw in the towel, rather than continuing the diet after indulging.

I really have liked the book so far, it takes a very scientific and investigative look at dieting in general, as well as disproving some diet myths that are out there. I really like what I have learned and look forward to learning more from it. I will probably share more details as i work my way deeper into the book.

I have been looking through all of my cookbooks to find recipes that fit in well with this diet plan. I need to incorporate more beans and lentils into my diet. I have found some great curry lentil recipes in one of the books I have. I think just adding some chipotle sauce or chili garlic sauce will make just plain beans more delicious.

There is a bit of a learning curve with this diet. I actually need to eat more in volume to make up for all of the actual calories that I am cutting out. The writer of this book actually advises having 4 meals a day, if they are 60%-70% vegetables, that will still be quite low in calories. For breakfast just today, I ate 3 fried eggs, turkey sausage, and a whole can of green beans. I rinsed the green beans to remove some extra sodium. I am still feeling a bit hungry, but I will have some black beans with breakfast tomorrow, I did not have any on hand and had forgotten to buy some last night. The book recommends having at least 20 grams of protein with each  meal, including at least 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up to keep your metabolism

Recipe Ideas:
Mashed white beans to take the place of mashed potatoes or other starches
Mashed cauliflower can serve the same purpose, and I thing both can be delicious
My normal chili recipe is all vegetables and chicken, I would just need to cut out the cheese and sour cream
Curried vegetables, with or without chicken, or with some beans
I could have a nice bean and tuna salad with some other vegetables mixed in, and some light dressing
In the summer grilled meats will be good to have, in the winter there might be more soups/stews
I am thinking that shrimp, and fish would be good to bring into the diet, lean protein is good stuff

For lunch today I am going to burrachos, and I will be having a burrito bowl with no rice, I will ask if I can have extra beans in there, I will either get chicken or carnitas(pork) I will get 2 different kinds of salsa in the bowl. The diet book also says that avocados are one of the few fruits that I can eat, along with tomatoes.

Another idea that I had was instead of having rice with Chinese food, I am going to put some raw shredded cabbage and carrots (cole slaw mix) underneath and use that to soak up the sauce. I am going to make some peanut chicken for dinner tonight, with a lot of broccoli in it and have it on top of the cabbage. I am also going to try this with some stir fry at a later time, its a sad thing that I can not include pineapple in my stir fry though.

I am sure that I will be sharing many more food ideas as I move on further with this diet, but I think that this a good start for me. I am always open to suggestions for new things to cook.

By the way I have not mentioned the name of the book have I?

The book is The 4 Hour Body by Tim Ferriss

If you have struggled with dieting like I have in the past, this book is a really great solution. I think that this book takes a unique approach to dieting, and really was helpful in understanding the reasoning behind the different restrictions and suggestions that the book makes. I have only this far read the dieting sections of the book. I am not sure if I will read any of the other sections, but I will have them available to me.

I would have written about my starting weight, but I don't have access to a scale that can measure my massive weight, and right now my budget does not really allow for me to go anywhere to get any kind of body analysis. I have take measurements of my different body parts as suggested in the book. The book recommended measuring both arms mid bicep(for some reason measuring the left one was much easier than measuring the right), it says the waist and around the navel(but that is not really my waist), around the hips at the widest point, and finally both legs mid thigh. If I mention losing inches from my measurements this is what I am referring to.

If anyone else out there has any experiences with this book, and would like to offer me some suggestions, please let me know.

If anyone wants to discuss dieting stuff with me let me know. I am always up for a good discussion.

PS: I have ordered a scale online, but it wont be here for like a week.