Weekend meal recap

See the avocado? I'll use any excuse to include it in a meal.

Last Saturday I made an Eggplant enchilada casserole for dinner.
Again!
It was yummy.
Again!

I've blogged about this recipe before but this time I did it a little different. I like to mix things up. It keeps things fresh. And it is not because I'm too lazy to run to the store if I'm out of something so I make something out of whatever I have on hand.

Mixing it up turned out to be;
black beans
brown rice
a variety of chopped veggies
jalapeno (we like spicy food. If a meal makes my nose run than it is all good for me. Too graphic?)
a variety of Mexican spices

and of course
eggplant.

I use eggplant as the tortillas since I try to keep my carb count fairly low, not to mention the wheat factor. This last time instead of making individual servings I made this in a 12" x 12" casserole dish. Making for plenty of leftovers. Of which we have been eating topped with poached eggs.

Youza! It is good with poached eggs.
I mean it was good before but the addition of a creamy poached egg just takes this to a whole other level.

Tonight will be stuffed green peppers, Mediterranean style.
Why Mediterranean?
Because I have a bunch of kalamato olives that need to be used.
Why stuffed green peppers?
Because green peppers were on sale for 3 for a $1.00.

See how this works for me? Do you plan meals? Or are you like me and use whatever you have on hand? Or as I like to say; fly by the seat of my pants.

Have a terrific week everyone. Happy eating!

Love,
M

Eggs baked in tomato cups

I've been traveling a lot in the last three weeks so fancy cooking or really any cooking has been kept to a minimum. Since I have no travel planned until April there will be some cooking going on at the Dog's Life household.

JR and I love tomatoes. Green or red, cooked or raw, makes no difference to us. It's all good. We eat them cooked, raw, stuffed with salads and eaten raw or stuffed with other stuff and cooked, sliced topped with parmesan cheese and broiled as a side dish, or chopped to top on ANYTHING! So when we go to the farmer's market or Coscto or the grocery store we buy tomatoes by the dozen. When I do this I try to buy them a little under ripe knowing that they will ripen on the counter very quickly in our weather.

As many of you know, tomatoes trucked up from god knows where never taste as good as ones grown in a small garden with rich composted soil but I've found that if I buy them a little under-ripe and cook them they develop a flavor profile that JR and I like.

Friends, please never put you tomatoes in the refrigerator. It stops the ripening process and they just won't have any flavor at all. If your tomatoes are getting over-ripe on the counter then eat them pronto. That's what I needed to do with my last batch.

So, like most of my cooking this recipe was born of the necessity of breakfast, the need to use up the tomatoes on my counter and the fact that I was exhausted from traveling.

Eggs baked in tomato cups

Ingredients

4 eggs
2 firm tomatoes
2 teaspoons olive oil
4 tablespoons basil pesto
Parmesan cheese, optional
breadcrumbs, optional
salt and pepper


Instructions

Preheat broiler. Prepare baking dishes by smearing a little olive oil around bottom and sides.

Cut tomatoes in half across the middle. Remove the stem from one of the halves. With a small paring knife cut out the seeds and membranes of each tomato half, leaving the meat around the outside, to make a cup.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Smear a scant teaspoon of pesto around the inside of the tomato cup. Place in the prepared baking dish. Broil for about 5 minutes or until the a fork goes smoothly through the tomato.

Take tomatoes out of the oven. Take a spoon and push the tomato from the middle to the sides to extenuate the cup. You'll want to do this so the egg yolk doesn't want to slide off the tomato. Sure, a little of the white will but you want the yolk to sit inside the tomato, all pretty like. Break one egg into each cup. Sprinkle with a tiny bit of parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs if you want. Place back under the broiler for about 3 to 4 minutes or until the whites are set. I prefer my yolk runny so I usually bake for the shorter time.

Top with remaining pesto and let them set for a minute or two. They are HOT, HOT, HOT! But, so yummy. And easy, so very very easy.They would make a great meatless breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Love,
M

PS: tomorrow is JR and my 30th wedding anniversary. Not sure what we'll be doing but I do know that JR deserves a prize for putting up with me.

Low-carb vegetarian diet does not mean "no-food" diet

As most of you know I was forced encouraged by my doctor to give up cut back on the number of carbohydrates that I eat per day. As a vegetarian this seemed like a daunting task. What was I supposed to eat? How would I get enough protein at every meal to ensure that I wasn't starving when my only high protein choices are soy and eggs?

After a couple of weeks of whining my creative cooking juices began to flow. Here are a few meals that I have prepared without grains, sugar, potatoes or any of those other bad white stuff. 

Fried green tomatoes on a bed of zucchini and yellow squash noodles drizzled with a balsamic vinegar reduction. It was yummy. JR loved the reduction so much that he wants it on everything. I think I'll try a port or Pinot Noir reduction next. I used almond flour to bread the tomatoes though soy flour would have worked well enough. I find I don't like to use soy flour all that often so almond flour works well.

Veggie eggs Benedict on a bed of veggie bacon sauteed spinach and grape tomatoes. This was a Saturday morning brunch thing. Very good. Really! How can you go wrong with homemade hollandaise sauce?

Portabella mushrooms stuffed pizza style. I was craving pizza one night. This satisfied. 

Cream of wild mushroom soup. Arrowroot my friends. Learn to embrace it. 

Cheese souffle stuffed mushroom caps. We had these on Wednesday night. They were awesome! I'm going to work on this recipe a bit before I share it. The taste was perfect but the presentation was a little wonky. I also want to work on the mushroom to souffle ratio.

All in all we've had some very wonderful food lately without all the carbs. Though the 'proof will be in the pudding' when I go into the doctor's to have my glucose levels checked again. I will tell you that I have lost 15 of those 20 ugly pounds that I gained since moving to Texas. That made me very happy. I also don't feel deprived of food. I'm getting more than enough protein and haven't succumbed to lethargy.

I think the one thing that I proved was that lowering your carbs will let you lose weight and that vegetarians can safely go on a low-carb diet. It may take a bit more ingenuity but it can be done. 

Love,
M

It may be a sign that I am finally settling in

We moved to Texas just over a year ago. In that time I have crossed the country several times, traveled around the eastern part of the state at least monthly (sometimes more), and visited some of the local hot spots. We've started trying some of the thousands of restaurants in Houston. Found a few favorites, though by no means are we done. I've attended thousands of meetings, seminars, workshops, and working lunches.

Generally, I've sat on my ass and ate.

Oh and to add insult to injury I went totally menopausal. Poof! No metabolism!

You can imagine what that does to your body?

I've gained 18 pounds (I'm calling this the Texas 20). My finger nails all broke off then wouldn't grow. It was really hot with all that long hair so I cut it off. With all that weight gone my curls sprang up. Add humidity to those curls and they've gone from wavy to down right unruly but worse than that it didn't grow and was getting all brittle. (you would think that the humidity would make me all dewy but noooo...) I could go on but you get the idea. I'm a hot Texas mess.

Or I was.....

About month ago I decided to take a bit of control of the situation. I put the brakes on all the travel I do (it's down to once a month). I started to get more exercise. And when I say more, I mean I walk the stairs, don't use the motorized walking path thingy at the airports, and now carry my own bags to my room (the poor bell boys aren't getting any tip money but my not looking like a jiggling wreck should be tip enough. Guys? You can thank me later).

I also started tracking my food/calorie intake using MyPyramid Tracker. This website has really been helpful. It keeps me on the straight and narrow. I can track how many calories and nutrients I'm getting throughout the day. Then when evening comes I know what I need nutrient wise, how many calories I can eat before I hit my magic number (approx. 1000 in my case) and most importantly if I can afford that glass of wine. It keeps me accountable. It helps me make good food choices. (have the 120 empty calories of wine and fresh veggie sticks or that 140 calorie for 9 tortilla chips with salsa, sour cream, guacamole? You DO know which one I'd pick, right?)

Using this system has helped a lot! My finger nails are growing (to the point that I now have to keep them trimmed so I can type), my curls are bouncy not just frizzy, and I've lost 8 pounds. That is just over 2 pounds a week.

I have no expectations that this system will work for long. (as my most eloquent friend Julie would say; I am dancing in the ballroom of lowered expectations.) I do think that if I up my exercise and stay with this system I will be back down to my pre-Texas weight. It's like the last of the baby weight.

My biggest downfall is the travel and the weekends. I fall off the wagon and my old knees just don't want to get me back up. We don't even want to talk about my travel next week. I'm taking bags of carrots and apples, soy yogurt and Kashi cereal so I won't be eating hashbrowns smothered in butter, waffles, burgers, and pasta (Mmmmmm.....pasta). Pasta is the fall back food of every restaurant menu for vegetarians in a meat eating town.

So wish me luck.

Love,
M

I was totally freaked out!

Can you see why I was freaked out?
My average per day visits = 58
I'm always happy when I get over 70 visits in one day.
I feel loved when I hit 70.
I feel validated.
I feel at the top of my game.


Then I opened up my sitemeter last night to find.....

What the.....?
314?
Where did all those hits come from?
392 page views?
I'm just not that interesting.
Seriously, I'm not.
They are only staying for a minute.

This graph looks like my program on the elliptical.
It's a killer program.
30 minutes of up and down like that makes my old lady heart race.
Oh sorry, back to my freak out session.

Turns out I am now on Stumbleupon.
So if someone is stumbling food/cooking
they may come up with the Pioneer Woman Cooks,
Bakerella, AllRecipes or
Me.
ME!
How odd is that?

Does that define me as a food blogger?
Do I want to be defined?
I guess if I have to be defined.
I'd want it to be about food/cooking
It could be worse.
I could be defined by my totally misspent youth.

Love,
M