TheTravelingZipperhead.com

A New Semester

Posted on September 9, 2013 by TravelingZipperhead

I start my fall semester tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to it, and dreading it. I dread for a couple reasons. First off, it’s a night class. I don’t do nights. I’m not particularly good at mornings either, but as I write this, it’s 9:12 and I’m ready for bed. I don’t know how I’ll be cooking until 10:30 at night. And they are notorious for letting us out late too. Which is annoying, but for a whole other reason. Another reason is, this is my pastry semester. I can’t eat anything I’ll be making, so I’ll have no idea if I’m on the right track. In fact, I have recently (today) given up all grains in an effort to feel better, but I’ll go into that when I talk about allergies later. (Spoiler alert: it will be sooner than later) this will be my most challenging semester. That is both exciting and nerve wracking. I firmly believe that when things get challenging, is when you learn the most, so I’m hoping to learn a lot, because I’m not that versed on baking. I know it’s chemistry, but that’s about it. Wish me luck!

Here are pictures from some of last semester’s graduation spread. There were a couple more tables I did not get a pic of, but here are a few.

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Deep Freeze 101

Posted on September 6, 2013 by TravelingZipperhead

I buy stuff in bulk. A lot, and that applies to meat. So to have roughly 35 frozen chicken breasts in there is not exactly unheard of. My parents got me a vacuum sealer for Christmas a few years ago, but I forget that I should not put them in the bottom of the freezer packed in like little sardines, and that putting things in the freezer, even when really cold, unless they are frozen, will bring up the temp of the freezer, causing condensation to form, drip, and re freeze on things packed like sardines in the bottom of my freezer.

After defrosting my beloved freezer, and getting the chicken block apart, I had to cook them. All of them. There are seven bags there that average 4 chicken breasts each. So I lined them up assembly line style.

And I started to play.

I had five pans and I seasoned them like this:
Pan 1
Orange zest
Orange juice
Nutmeg
Garlic
Ginger
Onion powder
Salt
Olive oil

Pan 2
Lime zest
Lime juice
Garlic
Cumin
Salt
Olive oil
Onion powder

Pan 3
Orange zest
Orange juice
Garlic
Salt
Olive oil
Celery seed
Onion powder
Cinnamon (I know, but go with me on this one here)

Pan 4
Lime juice
Salt
Celery seed
Nutmeg
Olive oil

Pan 5
Salt
Pepper
Garlic
Onion powder

We’re gonna need a bigger oven.

Now that these are fully cooked, I can freeze them again and use them anytime. Plus, since they are fully cooked, I can make all kinds of things at the drop of a hat. With minimal (sort of)dishes.

The first thing I made was a barbecue chicken pizza. When I was in college, in Stillwater, there was a place called Hideaway Pizza, and they made a BBQ chicken pizza that was awesome. Before this place, I had never had or heard of such a thing, but man was it good.

So I rolled out the new gf Pillsbury pizza crust, baked it for a few mins, then spread some barbecue sauce on it and sliced up fresh mozzarella cheese and half a red onion. I diced up 1/2 of a chicken breast from pan 1. Yeah I’m REALLY going to use up this chicken quickly if I’m using a half a boob a night huh? After the chicken was added I asked my munchkin helper what else it needed and as usual his answer was “BACON!!!” So I threw some chopped up bacon on it, a little more sauce, and stuck it back in the oven.

It was easy, the dishes were minimal, and it was delicious!

This next dish has a little more of a story. When I worked down town, on the way there, I would pass this place every day. It just had a sign over the door that said “PUPUSARIA”. I grew curious, and asked a coworker what that was, it could have been a laundromat for puppies for all I knew. Anyway, she didn’t know, so I googled it and found out that 1) it was gluten free -and this was back when I gave up gluten the first time 2) it was a stuffed corn tortilla from Central America, &3) I HAD to have one. The problem was, this place was in a part of town where it had bars on the windows, payday advance places on three corners, and a super pale white girl by herself who only speaks English, would stick out a little. I was, however, obsessed. I researched them like crazy, and tried to find another place that would sell them. Every day I drove by, and it mocked me, fueling my obsession. Then I had a baby, and didn’t go to work anymore and forgot about it. Cut to two weeks ago, durning my final, and I made fish tacos, I had all the masa mixed up already left over from the tortillas, and I thought, why not? I mean I had all my dishes in, the rest was just gravy, so lets swing from the rafters. I made my own interpretation of a pupusa. With chicken left over from another dish, I went for it. It wasn’t great, but my instructor was interested too. The masa was too thick, and the heat was too high on, so they were raw in the center. Chef sliced it open bc he wanted to see what the inside looked like, and I wanted to see too. This was my first attempt, and it had kinda failed, but only in a “I don’t know what I’m doing and have never done this before” kind of way. That means, it can only get better. And we threw it in the oven and baked it after that to finish it off. Btw, I got an A on my final for those wondering!
Here’s what I did the second time around:
I took a chicken breast from pan 4, diced it up small, and set it aside, then I melted two tablespoons of butter, and sautÃ©ed the other half of that red onion, a clove of garlic that I had minced, and 1/3 of a jalapeÃ±o, seeds and membrane removed and diced small.

Then, after these were softened, I threw in a little cumin and salt, then I added the chicken

Oh and a little tomato too. Again diced. You are supposed to throw all this in the blender here and make sort of a paste, but I had reached my limit on what I was willing to wash, and the blender is never a dish I feel like washing. So I just made sure my cuts were small to begin with. I’m not lazy, I say I’m practicing my knife skills!

While this was going, I made the masa.

I really have no idea what I’m doing here and making it up as I go along. So I took a couple cups of masa, grated a lime into it, added salt, and the juice of the lime then I added enough water to make it dough like. You want it to be wet enough that working with it, doesn’t make it crack, but still dry enough to form a tight ball.
When this is done, take a section of the dough and roll it into a ball. Then poke a hole into the ball, and press the inside back to make a hollow cavity inside the ball. Fill this with the chicken mixture, close up, and then press flat. You want to have it thin enough to cook through, and thick enough that the stuffing doesn’t poke out. Cook this on a griddle on medium low until it is cooked through.

Cook these low and slow. I grated some cheese, and then diced up two tomatillos and added them to the remaining chicken mixture and let that cook down for a min, then I topped my pupusa with the cheese and chicken/tomatillo mixture.

I think these could be better. Don’t get me wrong, they were tasty, and tomorrow morning I think I may have to put a fried egg on top for breakfast. But I will also keep playing with this!

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Combating Cancer

Posted on September 5, 2013 by TravelingZipperhead

This time around Stephanie and I are talking about cancer fighting foods. We all know someone affected by cancer, and for some of us it hits closer to home than for others. Cancer is also something that seems to be more and more prevalent now too. Now, there are a lot of theories, and some science as to why, I think it’s the world we are living in. The air we are breathing, the food we are eating, down to the containers we are eating and drinking from. Not to get all preachy, but think about it, take a look at the amount of chemicals, preservatives, pesticides, and other pollutants you take in on a given day. You can’t do much about the environment, I mean, some, but realistically, not that much. You CAN however, stop eating “food” that comes out of a can, a bag, or a box. And if you’ve ever seen someone fight cancer, you might take a step back and think, would it be THAT bad to maybe take some of these pollutants out of your system, and give your body a break?

There are also several foods out there that have cancer fighting properties. Stephanie can tell you more and go into more detail. My job is to come up with things you can make at home. Things that are not hard, and don’t take a long time. Nor do they take much to clean up. Hopefully, as you have tried some of these recipes at home, you’ve noticed, I am not getting all complicated on you here. And believe me, I hate doing dishes. Plus, you can get a couple meals out of most of these.

I’m going to start with a steamed beet salad….
Did I lose you? I know, nothing says delicious like steamed beets….

You CANNOT tell me that’s not pretty. And it was so easy.
First, you steam three beets.

Once these are done, (fork tender) slice the top and bottom off and peel. Don’t do this on your wood cutting board, it will look like a crime scene.
Now take a diced onion and sautÃ© in a tsp of olive oil. Then add a minced garlic clove. (FYI, if you cut up your garlic and let it rest for about 10 mins before you cook it, it will have more cancer fighting power). Once the onions are soft, add 2 tbls of balsamic vinegar, and let that cook down. While this is happening, wash you beet greens WELL. Then wash them again, and take the stems out, then slice. (The leaves, not the stems) when the onions and vinegar, have cooked down and reduced to the consistency you like, add the greens.

You don’t want to totally wilt the greens, but just coat them and heat them. Take everything off the heat while they are bright green.
Take a beet, slice it up, and put half the greens on top.

This will give you two salads and one beet left over. Fret not, I’ll figure something to do with it.

I also sprinkled a little blue cheese on top. You could use feta, or whatever you like. Or go without.

Next up, I did Brussels sprouts two ways. Yep, I have started a post off with beets, and then moved on to Brussels sprouts.
Is anyone still out there?

If you are, here is the first way I cooked them…..

Take about 12 ounces of Brussels sprouts, and quarter them. Then drizzle with a little olive oil and salt. Toss them around to coat then put in a 350 oven until they are roasted. However long it takes will depend on the size of the veg, where you are, how your oven cooks… What I’m saying is, I didn’t pay attention to how long it took, but it wasn’t long. Like 15 mins. Roughly.

While these are cooking, take a tablespoon of butter and melt it over low heat with a clove of garlic that has been minced.

When the garlic gets toasted, remove from the heat and toss with the cooked Brussels sprouts. You will have some butter left over, but use up all the garlic.

This is how I prefer my Brussels sprouts, but my husband likes them raw, so here’s another way:

Take 6 ounces of Brussels sprouts, and pull the leaves off.

Seriously, how pretty are those? You know you want to eat them….

Add to these 5 strawberries sliced thin and toss.

Next, mix up the dressing,

Mix together
Juice of 1 lime
1/8 c olive oil
2 tbs balsamic vinegar
1 clove of garlic minced
Pinch of salt

Whisk this all together

And toss about a tablespoon on the salad. You will have dressing left over, but you can out it on any salad.

Just a note here. I did not like beets, the one time I had tried them before. And that was roasted.
Sometimes, you think you don’t like something and it was really just how it was cooked. Go ahead and give them a try. Steaming will keep the nutrition inside the beet, boiling will cause it to leak out into the water. The Brussels sprouts I had not tried until I went to school. I’d always turned my nose up at them, but it turned out, they are pretty tasty little buggers.

So now I’ll move on to something a little less scary….
A berry yogurt.

Yes, I know you can get yogurt with fruit in it already, and you just have to open, stir, and shovel it in. But look on the back of it. Check out the ingredients and tell me what’s in it. How many things can you pronounce? How much sugar is in it?

Try this instead

That’s real fruit there…. Not fruit slurry.

Take three tablespoons of Greek yogurt
2 tsp honey
2 tsp cinnamon
And mix together

Take 1/4 cup of berries. Real ones, and use any ones you can find that are purple, blue, or dark red. You can even use frozen berries like I did here.

You can stir them all together, layer them, put them in two separate cups and eat them with two spoons in your mouth at the same time, whatever.

This is just as easy, better for you, and cheaper than the other option.

I saved this one for last because it was my favorite, and also because celery and parsley seem to be the super heroes of cancer fighting foods.

This is a pork tenderloin with a parsley pesto and a celery “spaghetti”. If you’re like me and you don’t like pasta, oooor, if you live in a place where it’s 147 degrees in the summer like I do, you don’t want to even think about a heavy pasta. Plus, this will fight cancer, and won’t make your pants shrink.

The pork on this plate is just a pork tenderloin that I salted and broiled, and it is not that important. You can use chicken too if you are so inclined.

To make the parsley pesto, take:
1/2 bunch of parsley
Juice of one lime
3/4 c olive oil
A clove of garlic
4 ounces of pine nuts
And salt

Throw all these in the blender and blend into a sauce.

This will go over your protein.

Next make the sauce for the spaghetti.

Take a tablespoon of the above pesto, (or, don’t wash you blender out before you make this – but only if you have JUST made the pesto. Don’t wait a couple days. That would be gross).
Then add:
1 clove of garlic
1 tomato
1 tbs olive oil
And a little more parsley
Blend this up in the blender and salt to taste.

The pasta takes a little patience, but not too much, and it’s much better to wash a vegetable peeler, than to wash a pot and a strainer.
Wash a stalk of celery, and use your vegetable peeler to make ribbons out of the celery.

Then spoon a spoonful of the tomato sauce over the celery.

I hope some f these have made you think twice about eating processed food, and maybe want to try real food, or maybe even made you think about trying a vegetable that has gotten a bad reputation over the years.

Now, make yourself something to eat and head over to 3squarenutrition.com to feel good about what you’re eating.

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Pillsbury Gluten Free Products

Posted on September 2, 2013 by TravelingZipperhead

Recently, there have been an influx of gluten free options on the market, which is both good and bad. It’s good because for people like myself, who cannot digest gluten, we now have more options. It’s bad because those of us who have a problem with gluten, have more options. We are no longer relegated to the safety of fruits, veggies, and meat. We have choices now that are just as processed and mass produced as everything else. Everything in moderation right?

Imagine my surprise the other day, when walking through the store, I see, in what looks like a butter tub, pie crust and chocolate chip cookie dough. Intrigued, I bought the pie crust, to see what I could make of it. I’m not a baker, and I’ve been intimidated to try making a gf pie crust, so I picked one up figuring I’d play with it.
The first thing I made was an apple pie. I picked up some apples at the farmers market, and they weren’t really pretty, so I decided a pie was the best place for them. I don’t really like apple pie as much as the others, but I had them, and figured what the heck.

I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. It was flaky and delicious. And the best part is, now to get a decent pie crust, I don’t have to drive clear over to Whole Foods in Arlington.

So what else will it do? I picked up another one the next time I was at the store, and had big plans for hand pies. The only problem was they moved things around on me, and instead of a pie crust, I brought home cookie dough. I’ve never been so disappointed to make cookies in my life. That being said, the cookies were pretty good, for a scoop and bake variety.

The next time I went to the store, I made SURE I picked up two pie crusts and hey, they make a pizza crust! Why not?

Remember those sweet potatoes I made the other night? Well, I made some for us the next night, along with an orange and garlic marinated pork tenderloin. So I took the leftover meat and diced it up, and mixed it with the potatoes for a filling. Then I took some of the pie crust and rolled it out, and filled it, then tried to fold the dough over and close it up. I remembered that gf dough, is not like regular dough in that it won’t stretch, and it doesn’t fold. It tears and breaks. So I had to top the crust with the filling, then top with more dough and brush with an egg wash.

I then baked them in a 425 degree oven and they turned out fantastic.

I’ve been gluten free for over two years now, and I truly don’t miss a lot. One thing I have missed however, is chicken pot pie. I even bought an extra large muffin pan to make them. I like the individual ones, and not just the ones with a topper. I like the whole thing to be contained.

Here’s what I did

I sautÃ©ed an onion (diced) and two cloves of garlic. (Also diced)
Then I sprinkled them with about one tbs of gf flour and after that cooked for a min, I added the chicken breasts. (3)

Then I topped with enough chicken broth to come 3/4 of the way up and about 1/8 cup milk. I also salt along the way. Each step, really, I throw in a little salt, but salt to your taste.
Once the chicken has cooked through, or mostly, dice it up and return it to the pot along with two cups frozen veggies. I had intended on sautÃ©ing carrots and celery in here, but I was out, so I just grabbed a bag of frozen mixed veggies out of my freezer.

I then made a slurry with corn starch and water and drizzled some in and let this go on the stove while I prepared the dough.

Again, I rolled it out and tucked it into my large muffin cups. I filled them up and topped with more crust. I think the whole tub of crust would have done all 12 of these, but I only wanted todo six in case it was a miserable failure.

Again I brushed with an egg wash and stuck it in the oven

While this was baking, I decided to hedge my bets a little and took the leftover chicken mixture and added the rest of the chicken stock (the kind that comes in the box that you can pour) and a couple cups of milk.

Now I have a cream of chicken soup too! If you haven’t noticed by now, I REALLY REALLY want fall to get here. I need fall food, and to wear boots. Tall boots, with straps and maybe some kind of fur.

So I pulled my pot pies out of the oven and they were beautiful!

Ok great, how do I get them out?

I inverted them on a baking sheet.

Doesn’t that look awesome?
Seriously, this made me so very very happy.

I could do the back stroke in that. Couldn’t you?

I like this crust. It’s tasty, and if you’re familiar with the quirks of working with gluten free dough, it’s very easy to work with.
I’ll let you know about the pizza crust, as soon as I’m done with loving this pie.

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Here and there

Posted on September 1, 2013 by TravelingZipperhead

The next blog Stephanie and I will be posting is about foods that fight cancer. As much as I love these recipes that will be coming out, and I can’t wait to share them with you, they are missing two things. Purple things. Potatoes and carrots to be exact. They say you have to eat the rainbow, (and they don’t mean skittles, I promise) but purple foods are just a little bit better for you. Stephanie will get in to all that, but I looked and looked, and could not find purple carrots or potatoes when I was doing the recipes. I am growing carrots and figured they were not in season yet bc mine haven’t matured. I kid you not, the day after I gave her my recipes for nutritional analysis, I found both purple carrots, and potatoes.

This is a pork tenderloin with a pesto that I’ll be posting soon and the carrots are washed well with the skin left on, I sliced them and sautÃ©ed them for a min before adding a little water, honey, cayenne and salt.

The purple potatoes are much easier to find. Unless you are looking.

I diced some garlic, and tossed the washed potatoes in the garlic and olive oil. Oh and salt always salt.
Then I roasted them in a 400 degree oven until they were fork tender. These guys are about the size of a large cherry tomato, so they will not take that long.

Now y’all know me, and you know I like to reinvent left overs, so the next day, you can take these taters, heat them up, and mash them with a little olive oil and you’ve got a totally new side dish the next day.

I love mashed potatoes. Like really love them, however I have two big problems as a lazy person.

1) you have to peel them first. And I hate peeling potatoes.
2) you have to boil them. That creates dishes to wash later, plus, any time you cook a vegetable in water like that, you are losing ALL the nutrition to the water. If you want to be healthier, so you eat more veggies, but you are boiling said veggies, you might as well eat air. It’s about the same nutritionally. Or you can drink the liquid that you have cooked in. You can get back the nutrition that way.

Recently, a friend of mine and her whole family came down with a stomach bug. Knowing how miserable that can be with NO ONE healthy enough to help out I decided to make them a big bowl of mashed sweet taters. When I’m sick, I crave salty mashed potatoes, and I figured they needed the vitamins in the sweet potatoes, plus I could add ginger and black strap molasses to help their stomachs. This is not a new recipe, it’s basically this recipe I just added a little more ginger. But I changed one big part of the process.
I baked the potatoes. Whole. Just threw them in a 400 degree oven until they were fork tender.

Not only did the meat cook, but the skins pulled away from the meat and pulled right off!

Yes, this takes a little longer, but what would you rather do? Spend your time peeling and chopping then washing extra dishes? Or not doing that at all? Plus all that tatery nutrition stays right there in the tater where you can eat it!

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

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Local goodness is all around

Posted on August 19, 2013 by TravelingZipperhead

I know, I’m always talking about buying local, and by now I’m sure you’ve looked around your home town at the farmers markets, and local bakeries, and seen what wonderful things are around you. I’m sure you’ve also developed a relationship with a farmer, a rancher, and you know where your products come from and who your money is supporting. Right? Good!

I’ve discovered a local gem here that I’m very excited about. Coyote Drive-In.

I know the drive in is nothing new. I’m not sure why they, like so many other things have gone nearly extinct, but I’m glad to see this one. Before this, I had only been to one other drive in; the one in Guthrie OK. You know the one in the movie Twister? Yep, and guess what I saw there. That was a very creepy experience.
Anyway, back to Coyote. This place is right next to downtown.

The unfortunate thing is the hot Texas summers, but once it cools off it will be even more amazing.
There is a large concession/bar area, and before the movies start, they have music, a playground for kiddos, and a couple food trucks.

To combat the heat, they do have a bunch of Big Ass Fans which is helpful too.

The only thing they don’t have is gluten free food, but I met the owner, and he said they have ordered some. I mentioned Local Oven but didn’t want to push. He was a friendly guy with a dog so sweet it was all I could do to not get down on the ground and hug him.
This place is dog friendly as well! Next time we will have to bring the gator.

I love places like this, where you can take your whole family, have a wonderful experience, and interact as much with or as little with the public as you want. Not to mention, where else can you take a two year old to see a movie? A double feature no less? -if they can last through two movies.

I want everyone in Fort Worth to support these guys. I love that places like this exist, and on a selfish note, I want them to stay around so I can continue to enjoy them.

In case you want a reminder of more of my favorite local gems:

http://www.burgundypasturebeef.com/public_home.php – the only place I will get meat. As well as some of the nicest people you will meet.

Localoven.com – they seem to share my thoughts that if more places offer allergy friendly foods, and take it seriously, the more places I can eat and not get sick.

https://www.localharvest.org/cowtown-farmers-market-M16695 – this will tell you where you can find a farmers market near YOU too!

I hope you’ll go out now and look around to see what your towns have to offer!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Shop local | 2 Comments | Leave a comment

It’s been forever!

Posted on August 16, 2013 by TravelingZipperhead

I know, it’s been a long time. Too long. I apologize.

We had a nasty cold run through the house, then it was little man’s birthday, and we had a celebration for that. Plus I’ve just not been feeling great.

Stephanie and I are struggling with summer time constraints, so our posts are spreading out for now, but we hope to get back into a routine soon.

We celebrated my little guy’s second birthday at the lake with family. I don’t do the big parties for little kiddos who don’t really have a bunch of friends. When he gets older and gets it more, then I can do those, but for now, his play group include the dog, and a sweet little girl a sweet behind us.
So, we went to hang with family. I made a couple pizzas, and it wasn’t my best work. The toppings were ok, but the crusts, were just not great. The dough was out of a box (gasp!!!) and it just didn’t work right.

Little man loves pirates right now. His favorite is Captain Hook, and I’m wondering if I should be concerned about that.

Anyway, I made him a pirate ship cake,

My nephew helped me decorate. He very painstakingly made the crabs, but we had fun.
That’s the fun thing about cooking. While the little guy was napping, I got to catch up with my nephew, and I have to say, if my little one grows up to be half the man he is turning out to be, I will be a proud momma.
Enough on that….

I made a few things lately that I will share.
The first was a chicken breast with squash and a chutney over them.

The chicken breast I just cooked off with some olive oil, but you could just as easily grill it.
The squash I sliced and sautÃ©ed in some olive oil and a little butter

Now for the chutney, this was an experiment I made in class one day, and it turned out pretty well, so I tweaked it and made it at home.

Take a pepper (in class I used a poblano, at home I wanted something red,) you can use whatever you like here. Even a bell pepper if you’re so inclined. Just FYI, I’m almost never inclined to use a bell pepper. Put it on your burner to char it -this works better if you have a gas stove, but as you can see, and electric burner works ok too.

Then stick it in a bag to sweat.
Meanwhile dice up an onion and about three tomatillos. Those are the ones with the green papery skin on them. Take the skin off and give them a quick rinse.

Take the sweaty pepper, and rub the skin off. Do not do this under water, you will wash all that charred flavor away. If some of the skin is still there, that’s ok.
Dice this up and mix everybody together with the juice from a lime and a dash of salt.

Then sautÃ© in a little butter or olive oil. Not much, this step brings out the juices in your sauce here, so you don’t need to do it for long either.

I even got a couple picky eaters to eat their vegetables with this one, and to be honest, I don’t really like squash, but I will make and eat this again!

Stay tuned, Stephanie and I will be discussing foods that fight cancer soon.

I promise I won’t go MIA for so long again. We discovered that my thyroid has gone on strike, so we are working on getting that fixed, and I’ll be back to my old self very soon!
I also have a final coming up on Tues, and then I will officially be at the half way point in school, and on to my pastry semester!

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Omega 3s -Yes! You CAN enjoy them! No, Really!

Posted on July 13, 2013 by TravelingZipperhead

This week, Stephanie and I are tackling a topic I’ve dreaded, omega 3s. I don’t specifically have anything against the little buggers, truly, it’s just that the primary ways of getting them is by eating fish. And I hate fish. I mean I HAAAAAAATE fish. I don’t know if I’ve told you about the diving chicken story, but my parents have been trying to get me to eat fish for years and I flat out refuse. The only exception I make is sushi. Yeah I know, I’m weird like that, but it’s a textural thing as well as a flavor thing. I’m convinced that 99% of the draw to sushi for me is the wasabi.
Anyway, I really hate fish, and Stephanie keeps trying to make me eat it because its good for you or something.

There are ways to get omega 3s without cooking up some fish

but they scare me.

And this is why. I don’t know if I want anchovy and sardine oil in my peanut butter, and I really don’t want to know what tilapia gelatin is.

Lets get the fish stuff out of the way first, shall we?

I made a salmon salad

I poached a 5.5 ounce salmon fillet

Then I flaked it up. No, not like how I normally flake, but with a fork like this…

By the way….. See all those wet spots on the fork there? See how shiny that meat is? That’s that “good fat” that’s all the rage.
Mix this with 1/2 – 1 tablespoon of mayo. You really don’t need much because of said fat.
Slice a green onion, and chop up a small sprig of dill and throw that in too and mix it up with a little salt to taste, and for fun, and because I love them, I throw in some flax seeds. Like about a teaspoon or two.
You can eat this as it, on crackers, or you can make a sandwich out of it.

I also made a tuna salad:

Take a 6 ounce tuna steak, dry it off, and sprinkle it with some salt. -have you noticed I don’t tend to use a lot of pepper? I don’t have anything against it, I’m just too lazy to grind, I guess. If you like pepper, go ahead and pepper whatever you want.
Ok back to the tuna… After you do this:

Drizzle a little oil- just a tiny bit in a pan and sear the fish.

Then flip it over.
Note, the longer you cook it, the fishier (totally making it a word) it will smell and taste.

Then slice it up and use it to top a salad that is made up of:

1 cup mixed greens
1 tbls feta
Small handful of walnuts
And a tablespoon of the lemon vinaigrette I made the other day. You will actually have enough tuna to make two salads.

I have to say, I really liked this salad a lot. Really, really liked it, even though it was nasty fish, and all, I would eat this again. Well, I WOULD have, except by the time I finished my salad, I noticed my lips were a little numb and swollen. Actually I noticed this before I finished, but hey, it was tasty, and I’m smart, so I kept on eating it. It’s healthy, right? By the time I finished, I was burning up, sweating, my lips were swollen and felt like rubber, and the sides of my face from my eyes, down my neck were itchy and blotchy, and swelling. I called the hubs, and told him to go ahead and make his way home, by the way, the itching was in my ear/throat now) he did, and the swelling went down. This was a perfect ending to a horrible day by the way. I thought about going to the ER, but I had already been that morning because my little guy decided to run away from me, and I had been blocking the stairs, but as I chased him, he saw an opening and went for it, and fell down the stairs. He is fine. I was more shaken up than he was I think. Anyway, I didn’t really want to go back and find out if they offered a frequent flyer card, or a two for one deal.
Long story longer, the meal was good. Even for fish that I’ve apparently developed an allergy to.

Ok, that’s enough fish for a while.

Y’all also know I like a smoothie. You can put a lot of nutrition in it, and no one is the wiser.

This one is easy just throw the following into a blender:
1/3 cup blueberries
1/4 cup raspberries
2 tsp flax seeds
1 tbs Greek yogurt
1tbs peanut butter (with or without anchovy oil and tilapia paste, that’s your call there)

Blend it all up, and enjoy!

Now for my favorite dish this time. I like nachos, who DOESN’T? But you can even add extra omega 3s to a dish like this, did you know?
Take a sheet tray lined with foil, and place about 30 tortilla chips on it. I used tortilla scoops here, but whatever is fine.

Then top with about 1 cup of shredded Colby jack cheese. Do yourself a favor, use real cheese and shred your own. Don’t buy the bag of already shredded cheese. Have you ever read the ingredients on a bag like that? It’s not all cheese, and to me, that’s a red flag.

Then bake them at 375 until the cheese melts.

Pull them out and top with:
8 oz kidney beans
1 tablespoon of flax seeds.
1 diced tomato
Two sliced green onions
Then pile them up

And top with a spoonful of guacamole and a spoonful of Greek yogurt. I use thus in place of sour cream, and no one is any the wiser.

I hope this has encouraged you to go out there and try something a little healthier. You can make small changes by adding just a few ingredients to meals you already eat, to make them work for you. Make your food work for you, not you for it. You can make bigger changes to ensure your food is working for you.

Now that you’re ready to add some omega 3 to your diet, and your fired up about it, go check out Stephanie’s page to see what Omega 3s do, any why you need them.

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Potato Love

Posted on July 11, 2013 by TravelingZipperhead

We did American regional cooking in school this week, and it was fun, but tough. I tend to stick with Mexican, grilling, and barbecue when it comes to food, and doing these has really broadened my horizons. I had to make chicken wings, deep dish pizza, and potato croquettes.
I’ve made pizza several times, but I’ve not made a home made crust in a long time and I’ve never made the sauce before, but I will from now on. It was delicious. And that along with the blue cheese dressing I made, were the only things I could taste. But I wanted to taste them all.
I love chicken wings, but I don’t deep fry, it scares me. I’ll be making the pizza this weekend, but the potato croquettes, I had to make right away.

I can’t stay away from potatoes. It’s the Irish in me I suppose, but I could live on potatoes. Especially if they are mashed, so I knew these were meant for me, and I couldn’t wait another day to try and make a gluten free version of this.

I’m assuming that you all know how to boil russet potatoes, right? And then mash them? I know you usually mash them with a lot of butter, salt, pepper, and cream, but don’t. That will make them not hold together.

I put some sliced up leeks, a couple tablespoons of butter, just a couple, some salt, and an egg white or two, depending on how many potatoes you used. I used two, and roughly half a bag of potatoes.
After this all comes together, form into a patty.

Ok form into several patties.
Then to bread them, dip in flour, then an egg wash and then breadcrumbs. I used all gluten free stuff here.

Let these chill out in the fridge for a while, then, fry them. I just pan fried them.

I have no idea where these have been all my life, but now that we’ve found each other, I hope we are never apart again. I may work on a sauce for them, or I may try to lighten them up a bit. I do know, that my little goober really liked them, so I can sneak more veggies in them. And yes, they do take some effort, but I froze half and will bet they will keep just fine frozen.

If you have an idea, let me know, or if you make something I post about on here, please tell me what you thought of it. I’d love to hear!

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My Garden is Suffering

Posted on July 10, 2013 by TravelingZipperhead

I decided at the beginning of the year that I wanted to grow some veggies, and so we made a garden. It is really the Fort Knox of gardens. It is wrapped in rat wire to keep the rodents in the back yard out, and then there are no less than three layers of landscape fabric and wire under it. This is to keep the weeds out and the rodents from burrowing under to get to my carrots. I even bought a praying mantis egg to help control the bug population, but there was one thing we never protected against. That would be me. Well, me and the fact that I don’t like to be out in the 140 degree Texas summer.
Like seriously hot. And I don’t do hot. I don’t really do cold either, is there someplace with perfect weather year round? I’d like to live there. Oh, and while I’m at it, can I request no bugs too? They are pretty annoying.
All my greens have bolted, my fennel looks a little iffy, well, the fennel that came up. My carrots look great from the surface, but when I checked them, they are still just a tiny root.

My poor little lime tree, I just don’t know what to do about him.

His name is Lorenzo.

I may not be cut out for this farming thing after all. Good thing I didn’t get chickens, they would be running around in the heat with super long necks and tiny feet!
I did harvest three onions this week.

They were small, but according to my great-aunt Winnie, if you stomp them, they will get bigger. So I took the little man out there and let him go for it. We will see how it works. It sounds kinda weird, but who am I to argue with 100 year old logic. (Not you Winnie, talking about your mom)

Yes, I did just throw shoes on him and let him come out in a diaper to do some yard work for me. Is that wrong?

Anyway, I took the onions, sliced them up, and caramelized them.

They were delicious. I fed some to my two year old and he kept coming back to the table where they were saying “onions!!! Onions!!” I can’t get the kid to eat fruit, or any other vegetable for that matter, but he loves his onions. I’m not going to lie, it makes me a little proud that he loves onions so much, but I can’t just feed him onions for dinner, so I grilled up a flank steak, and mashed up some black beans for him and put onions on both.
I had the flank steak, but I also bought a watermelon at the farmers market that was AMAZING. Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I had a watermelon this good. So I sliced it up, sprinkled a little feta cheese on it, and since I had that lemon dressing laying around, I put some lettuce under it, and a little bit of the dressing on top. I’m not sure what was better, the meat with the onions, or the watermelon.

This was all just stuff I had on hand. Tonight, I’ll take the leftover meat, make a barbecue sauce, and make these potato croquette things I made in class yesterday.
I’ll tell you all a out that after I do it.
And I’ll post some pics of the garden on this post too. If Winnie, or anyone else has any suggestions I’m all ears!

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