Notes From the Cleanse (Day 10)

I'm on day 10 of the Conscious Cleanse based on the book of the same title by Jo Schaalman and Jules Peláez. So far, I feel great and am feeding myself and my family healthier than I ever have. Life without sugar, dairy, and gluten (plus a bunch of other stuff) has been easier than I thought it would be.

And . . . I've decided to start easing off of it 5 days early.

The funny thing is, when I first decided to stop, I couldn't quite figure out what food I would add back in, or how. (I guess this shows that I'm not giving in to cravings for one particular food.) I have a menu all planned out through the end of the cleanse, and I was mostly happy with it until the last 2 days when I'd already decided I wasn't going to attempt an all-liquid purification.  But I knew that Ben and I needed to cut it shorter than 2 weeks. Here's why:

• I started this cleanse because I needed a kick in the pants to get me back on track with eating healthier. My snacking was out of control and I had zero willpower when it came to portion control. I wasn't technically overweight, but I'd gained 5 pounds in the past year, all in my belly.
• After a week, I figured out that the issue for me is sugar and salt. Cutting sugar, and my go-to salty snack foods (it's really hard to find crackers that don't contain processed sugar, soy, potatoes, or corn) took care of the compulsive snacking.
• I also figured out that I need to double up on the veggies for every meal. Make it a habit to fix two kinds of veg plus salad. When my family isn't filling up on carbs, they actually will eat the veg! (I'd gotten into the habit of basing meals on the pasta/bread/potatoes/etc. because those and meat were the foods my family could all agree on. We can't afford to fill up on meat, so dinner was often pasta or rice mixed with meat and some vegetables).
• Doubling up on veggies is harder if you have to be super vigilant about what you can add to them. The cleanse started to feel counterproductive.
• Eating healthier feels great, and is something both Ben and I want to continue. But, eliminating foods--except for sugar--isn't much more than an inconvenience for us. We don't feel any different, better or worse.
• We're starting to tire of salads. I've been making fabulous salads with homemade dressing for lunch every day. Ben went from a boy who barely touched his salad to an enthusiastic salad eater. As the days wear on, though, no matter how much I change up the ingredients, salad is starting to feel ho-hum to me. If we're looking at making lifelong changes, we need to start adding more variety before we both feel like we never want to look at another salad again.

So, we added wheat back in yesterday. It was not very dramatic. We had multi-grain cooked cereal for breakfast (well, kind of lunch, I guess, after our breakfast of blueberry green smoothie), with coconut milk, walnuts, and maple syrup. Think I'll make pasta (I have rice pasta, so I'll probably mix that with regular) with pesto and lots of veggies for dinner tonight. Ben also cheated (for the first time!) with some popcorn yesterday at the movies, so I'll probably add corn to my diet tomorrow.

Then we'll add back dairy, soy, or nightshade vegetables (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant) on Saturday--I'm going to let Ben decide, since he'll be at a party/sleepover Saturday and I know there'll be something there to tempt him. (We both agree that sugar needs to wait until the end). He's just going to have to text me and let me know what I can eat! And then, something else on Monday, which brings us to the end of the 14-day cleanse on Tuesday.

So far, the cleanse--even this amended version of it--has been really worthwhile. I'm thrilled to see my whole family eating more healthy foods (though Evan still runs on a large amount of pb & j and grilled cheese sandwiches) and I'm inspired to keep it up. Many of the recipes in the book are keepers. I'm totally sold on the green smoothies (I should do a post just on that--in fact, I just took some pictures of my smoothie-making process, so let's call that a plan).

Oh, and incidentally, yes I did lose that 5 pounds.

See my report from Day 2 of the Cleanse here.
Check out the Conscious Cleanse website or their Facebook page.

Books to Drool Over, Revived

I'd like to welcome back an old Worducopia series, Books to Drool Over, in which I write about the cookbooks that have caught my eye recently. Wow, it's been nearly two years since the last post in this series!

I used to say I liked to cook, but after sixteen years of feeding a family I now admit the truth: I like to eat, and I can't afford to eat out/buy take-out all the time. I also like to read cookbooks because they inspire me to be more creative in the kitchen and I get tired of my own cooking.

My 12 year old son isn't a picky eater but he's not enthralled with trying new recipes--he doesn't particularly enjoy going out to eat--it took me years to comprehend this--because he prefers to know what to expect when his plate arrives. He'd be happy with a regular rotation of grilled cheese and tomato soup, bean burritos, and spaghetti and meatballs, with a few fruits and vegetables thrown in for variety. My 16 year old doesn't much like beans and isn't crazy about tomato-based sauces. He'd survive quite well on a diet of Thai food and sushi, heavily supplemented with chips and salsa, Skittles, and Chewy Spree. Lunches are a challenge for this young man who will order a club sandwich in a restaurant but shuns a cold sandwich in his lunch bag.

I took Erin Chase's $5 Dinner Mom's Breakfast and Lunch Cookbook off the library shelf, hoping for some good ideas that would entice my family. The budget focus was an added bonus, although I soon realized that Erin's grocery price estimates aren't at all realistic for this century. (I don't care how many sales and coupons you use, unless you find a dead cow at the side of the road you will not bring home 3/4 pound of ground beef for $1.04! At least, not in Portland).

Will I use it? I immediately found recipes I wanted to try. For Christmas brunch I made an egg dish inspired by her Fiesta Breakfast Casserole, which was delicious. I also tried her Cream Cheese-Stuffed French Toast recipe that morning, which wasn't as successful. None of us really liked the combination of mashed bananas and cream cheese in the filling. I've rarely fixed a recipe that nobody in my family would finish off the next day, but this was definitely a throw-away-the-leftovers situation.

Ben requested waffles for his birthday breakfast last week, so I decided to try Erin's recipe for Buttermilk Waffles.

Buttermilk Waffles

• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 2 Tbs. brown sugar
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 3/4 cups buttermilk (I use Waco buttermilk powder, since it's easier to keep on hand)

Combine dry ingredients (I included the buttermilk powder with these). Add eggs, oil, and buttermilk (water in my case, since I used the buttermilk powder). Whisk until a smooth batter forms. Pour one cup of batter onto hot waffle iron and cook until done according to waffle iron instructions.

This one was definitely a hit. We loved the addition of cinnamon and brown sugar to the waffle batter, and they cooked up just right. 

Encore? Two out of the three recipes I tried were keepers, and there are plenty more that look good. I went back to the library for Erin's other cookbooks, so I am hoping to try some of her dinner ideas soon. Erin Chase blogs at 5dollardinners.com and I look forward to trying some of the recipes on her website as well.

 Weekend Cooking, hosted by Beth Fish Reads is a weekly collection of food-related blog posts. If you have a blog and an interest in food, feel free to join in.

Books to Drool Over: The Pioneer Woman Cooks

The recipes in the The Pioneer Woman Cooks look pretty good, but to me they're secondary to the rest of the book. The magic is in the photos (all taken by the author) and the stories behind them.

Ree Drummond was a city girl who fell in love with a cowboy and moved to his family ranch, where she now homeschools their four children and takes gorgeous photos of her family and friends. Her cookbook includes photo essays on the horses, the men who work the cattle, and the women who keep each other company out on the lonely plains. I like to think of Ree as living my alternate universe life--you know, the one I'd be living had my dear one been the type to major in Ag Sci in college instead of Art History? The cookbook, and her blog The Pioneer Woman, allow me to visit that alternate universe for a few minutes at a time, without having to get all muddy.

But, what about the recipes? They strike a balance in style, between Drummond's meat-and-potatoes husband and her oh-how-I-miss-sushi-takeout self, and they look delicious. She also generally cooks with a lot of butter and cream. As in, she probably uses more in one day than I use in a week. A week in which I baked a batch of cookies, even.

So, I'll have to adapt her recipes to my family's lifestyle, which doesn't involve roping cattle or building fences, much. I haven't gotten around to doing that yet (adapting the recipes, that is. Although the same could be said for building fences) but I loved the book regardless, for its personal touch and its straightforward portrayal of modern ranching life.

By Alison Jakel

Find more Weekend Cooking posts at Beth Fish Reads

Books to Drool Over, September edition

Books to Drool Over is a semi-monthly feature in which I discuss cookbooks that have crossed my path over the past month or so. This month I'm excited about two cookbooks.

I found The Whole Foods Market Cookbook at the Multnomah County Library's used bookstore, The Title Wave. A bargain at $3, it left room in the $25 gift certificate I won from Reading Local: Portland for a library t-shirt, a book bag, and a Portland Thomas Guide. (Thanks, Gabe!)

This cookbook, subtitled A Guide to Natural Foods with 350 Recipes, was put out in 2002 by Whole Foods, a natural grocery store chain with aspirations of taking over the world. Seeing as Whole Foods has fabulous deli dishes, I thought the book was worth a try.

Will I Use It? Here's a good indication: I've already fixed Baked Felafel Balls, the first recipe in the book. These Middle Eastern yummies are usually deep fried, or I've bought the dry mix and pan fried them, but I've never made them from scratch before. This was super easy to whip up in the food processor, starting with a can of garbanzo beans and some soaked bulgur. The end result was tastier and a nicer texture than any of the versions I've had. Definitely a keeper.

There are so many recipes in here that I want to try, including Orange-Glazed Sweet Potato Oven Fries, Wheatberry Waldorf Salad, and Sonoma Chicken Salad. And the Maple Butterscotch Macadamia Blondies.

From the library this week, I brought home Rustic Fruit Desserts, by Portland chef Cory Schreiber and baker Julie Richardson. It's chock-full of fruit crisps and bread puddings and cobblers and the like, organized by season, with beautiful tempting pictures. And if you've ever wondered about the difference between a grunt, a slump, and a pandowdy, this is your source.

Will I use it? The fall rains have arrived so I'm guessing I'll test out at least one of these before it has to go back to the library. Maybe the Apple Cranberry Oat Crumble or the Maple Apple Dumpling?

Books to Drool Over, July edition

I was really excited about Paula Nguyen's Secrets of the Red Lantern: Stories and Vietnamese Recipes From the Heart, when I found it at the library. It's a 342-paged combination of Vietnamese recipes and memoir. The essays start in Vietnam and detail the family's escape and eventual settling in Australia.

This is a beautiful book, with photographs of both food and family, as well as other artwork, interspersed among the recipes. The pages are thick, and it has one of those silk bookmarks attached to it. I love those things.

Will I use it? The trouble is, it's too big to carry around to read as a memoir, and even as a cookbook it's unwieldy. I wish Andrews McNeel had published it as either a memoir with a few recipes at the end of each chapter, or a cookbook with brief memories, and not both.

The pictures of the food made me want to go to Nguyen's restaurant, they looked so delicious. But these aren't, for the most part, recipes I'm going to fix at home for my family, what with the pork bellies and the dried mushroom strips and the pennywort, and all. I might make the Ca Rot Chua (pickled carrots), since we've gotten more carrots from our CSA than we can munch through, and it looks delicious and simple. You're supposed to put them into Banh Mi Thit (Vietnamese Pork Rolls), but I think I'd either use them in tortilla roll-ups or lettuce wraps, or just toss them into a green salad. Here are the basics:

Bring to a boil, then cool:
1 1/2 cups rice vinegar
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. salt
Grate 3 large carrots and place in a jar, cover with vinegar mixture, let sit overnight.

There are probably more recipes as doable as this one, but between the size of the book and the number of recipes with ingredients that would be hard to come by, I got overwhelmed and found myself just gazing at the pictures, getting hungry for take-out Vietnamese or Thai food.

Publication Info: Andrews McNeel, 2007, ISBN:978-0-7407-7743-1

Books to Drool Over, May edition

Welcome to Books to Drool Over, in which I share the cookbooks that have caught my interest over the past month. I have two to share with you this month.

Elsie's Turkey Tacos and Arroz Con Pollo (2007), by Elsie Ramos, is subtitled Latin-flavored Great-tasting Recipes for Working Moms. I've never understood the concept of cookbooks for "working moms"--as if we stay-at-home moms were spending our days kneading bread and making our own granola. I so admire working parents for all the balls they juggle, but I'm generally throwing dinner together at six o'clock right along with them. This looked like a good source of quick, stress-free recipes for all of us.

I don't watch cooking shows, so I had no idea who Elsie Ramos is (she was on the first season of Hell's Kitchen). Ramos is of Puerto Rican descent, so the recipes are different from the Latin-influenced food we're used to, and sounded tasty. No pictures, though.

Will I use it? A lot of these aren't doable for me, unless someone knows of a source of calabaza (a kind of West Indian pumpkin) and dried codfish in Portland. There are seriously a LOT of recipes with dried codfish, and no recommended substitutions. It also puts me off when cookbooks use another recipe (sofrito, for example) as an ingredient. I'm not going to make up a big batch of sofrito to have on hand. Please list the ingredients within the recipe so I can make my shopping list. Thank you.

I did mark several recipes to try, but after a month the only one I got around to making was Platanos Dulces, which is fried plantains. I've never made plantains that I liked before, and these were delish! Normally they're too starchy for my tastes. The key was to let the plantain ripen until there were lots of black spots on the skin.

Rachael Ray's Yum-O Family Cookbook (2008). Did I mention I don't watch cooking shows? I knew nothing about Rachael Ray except that my friend Glenda had one of her cookbooks. I grabbed this book off the library shelf at the beginning of May because it said "family cookbook" and I needed another book to feature. When I first skimmed through it I immediately started marking pages, and then I stopped because, what's the point in marking pages if you mark every other page? These recipes looked so good, healthy, and different from my usual fare without being any harder to make. Enticing color pictures, and tips on how kidlets can help, add to the book's appeal.

Will I use it? I used it all month long! I made Greek Goulash and my own variation of Ground Meat Goulash with Macaroni (I was on a goulash kick apparently. They were more different than they sound, I promise). I made Jerk Chicken With Roasted Vegetables and Pineapple, and then used the leftovers as instructed to make Sweet and Spicy Sesame Noodles with Shredded Chicken. (Rachael Ray has yet another recipe to make with that chicken but I didn't have enough leftovers to do both). This was a big hit with everyone in my family and super easy to make.

Rachael Ray has a Yum-O website dedicated to empowering kids and their families to develop healthy relationships with food and cooking. A lot of the recipes in this book are on the website, but I'll be keeping the book around for further inspiration in the months to come.

Books to Drool Over

Welcome to Books to Drool Over, in which I share the cookbooks that have struck my fancy over the past month.

This month I'm going to share some of our favorite kid cookbooks, one that we own, and two that we've gotten out of the library again and again. But first, I have to show you this one so I can take it back to the library:

The Ex-Boyfriend Cook Book: They Came, They Cooked, They Left. I've never really had an ex-boyfriend so I have no idea why this book appealed to me--I guess because I like the social aspect of sharing recipes. The stories in it are funny and at times a little disturbing, and the pictures are quirky.

Will I use it? Some of the recipes looked yummy . . . until I read the stories behind them. Frankly, reading about Donald's shroom incident and the cat giving birth on the author's stomach turned my stomach enough that I'm surprised she could ever eat enchiladas again, much less his recipe. So, back to the library this one goes, untested.

My mother-in-law got Kids Can Cook for my oldest son a few years ago. She's legally blind, and I don't think she even noticed it was a vegetarian cook book. My son (who is a big fan of the carnivorous fare) hardly notices, either.

Do we use it? There are recipes for cookies in here he makes over and over again, and he's enjoyed making some of the other things, too. The recipes are clear enough for him to follow with no help from me, and let me tell you, there's nothing sweeter than a cookie that starts with "Can I make cookies?" and ends with, "Here, Mom. Want one?" with very little work in between. We haven't tried the recipe for vegan cheese sauce, but I think we will because both boys love the Mac & Chreese they get at their vegan friend's house. Best of all, anything in this cookbook is healthy enough that I feel good about our family eating the results of his labors. Cookies included.

Okay, these Star Wars cookbooks are silly, and we first checked them out because Ben was a Star Wars fan who wasn't allowed to watch any of the movies because he was five and we were mean like that. But I'm here to tell you that Yoda Soda is one of the most delicious drinks we've ever made (it has lime sherbet, lime juice, and Ginger Ale, among other things). The pictures are hilarious, complete with Star Wars action figures rappelling off the food, although they can occasionally be misleading. Evan was very excited to make Opee Sea Crunch, until he realized the picture was showing fried fish instead of a cookie or bear claw. And the Darth Double Dogs are cool-looking (like a double light saber) but two foot-long hot dogs for each biscuit center? Who's going to eat all that?

Do we use it? From the first Star Wars cookbook, we made the Yoda Soda, Greedo's Burritos (which were quite good if I remember right), Tie-Fighter Ties, and the Skywalker Smoothie. From Star Wars cookbook two we have plans to make Pit Droid Pizza, Protocol Droid Pasta (with a bread topping that looks like C3PO!) and possibly the Nabooli Forest (it's basically tabouli, with celery stalks sticking straight up out of it to make trees).

Books to Drool Over

I never review cookbooks. To me, a full cookbook review would require actually making enough of the recipes to be able to vouch for their success. Not just using the recipes to inspire a meal, but ensuring that I use the exact ingredients, with no substitutions and precise measurements. I just don't cook that way.

So, welcome to my new feature: Books to Drool Over in which I share my latest cookbook finds or perhaps an old favorite or two. Look for this feature at the end of every month. (If I'm on top of things, you'll find it.)

First up this month is Caprial and John's Kitchen: Recipes for Cooking Together, by Caprial and John Pence (2003). Caprial (rhymes with, uh...schlemiel) and John Pence are local celebrities in Portland--they have a TV cooking show, run a fabulous restaurant, have published several cookbooks, and manage to be normal people with kids in their spare time. The hook of this cookbook is that the menus are laid out for two people to work together in the kitchen to make a memorable meal. Gorgeous pictures, not most people's everyday fare but sometimes you want something special. Something Caprial and John might whip up for the kids on a weeknight.

Will I use it? My husband and I actually did try this out over the weekend. We made the Sweet-and-Spicy Curry-Grilled Tuna steaks and Gingered Vegetable-Rice Noodle Slaw. Caprial and John's suggested steps were counter-intuitive for us, so we monkeyed with them a little, and we used half the noodles in the recipe because it called for a pound and I'd gotten a ½ pound box (but it was perfect--are you sure you meant a whole pound of rice noodles, guys? Because I'm not sure we have a bowl that big) but I did make a special trip to the store for things like Mirin (Japanese cooking wine) and orange oil, so no substitutions.

It took us about 2 hours to make a dinner that probably takes Caprial and John half an hour to throw together, but it was fun to cook together and the results were divine.

Encore? I'd repeat the recipes we made, and hope to try new ones. Definitely not returning it to the library yet.

Food Adventures: Introducing your child to flavors from around the world, by Elisabeth Luard and Frances Boswell (2006). The picture of a toddler on the front of this book is misleading--many of these recipes would take all but the most adventurous kids out of their comfort zone. My kids like a variety of foods, so Indonesian Satay, Paella, and Lamb Goulash would be hits in my family, but I know very few kids who would greet a steaming bowl of mussels with joy worthy of the expense. The food pictures are inspiring, however, and I love the chapter called The Restaurant Table, that takes readers on a tour of not just the foods of different regions of the world, but also their table manners. There's also a section of foods to cook together, and advice for getting that toddler on the cover off to an adventurous start.

Will I use it? Probably not, but not because of the ingredients. It's because every recipe says it serves "2 adults and 2 children" and if I'm going to cook I want to feed 2 adults and 2 hungry kids with plenty leftover for lunch the next day. For anyone wanting just a taste of something different to add to a usual diet of macaroni and cheese and fish sticks, though, the portions would probably be perfect.

Lastly, I have Read It and Eat It: A month-by-month guide to scintillating book club selections and mouthwatering menus, by Sarah Gardner (2005). Gardner publishes a newsletter about book clubs and cooking, called The Literary Gathering. This book has four book selections per month with accompanying menus, plus four bonus chapters. Most of the books are classics (Gone With the Wind in February, Dracula in October), which ironically keeps the book from getting hopelessly outdated. But even if your book club's taste in books didn't match Gardner's, many of the menu themes of the book (Brides in June, Banned Books Week in September) could still match books of your choosing for each season.

Will I use it? Seeing as I don't have a book group, probably not. Sometimes my choir-mates and I throw together a summer book club, but the chances of me making a special menu to go along with the book vs. picking up chips and dip and baking brownies from a mix are pretty slim. There are also no pictures to get my mouth watering. Still, it was fun to read through, and for people more organized and theme-oriented than me, this might be just the ticket to spice up a book group or other gathering of literary-minded folks.

Diets for Healthy Healing--Linda Page

I offered to review naturopath Linda Page's Diets for Healthy Healing for Mini Book Expo because we've made some changes to our family's diet since my husband was diagnosed with high cholesterol a few years ago, and I was interested to see what information a naturopath would have that might be different from what we've gained from Chris' doctor and The New American Diet Cookbook he recommended.

Dr. Page certainly does have information, and she's got a boatload of products to sell along with it. I have no interest in buying Detox Blood Purifier or Energy Green Renewal, but fortunately Crystal Star Herbs are just one of many strategies she suggests for getting on top of physical health.

The book is divided into sections based on health needs such as Allergies & Asthma, Digestive Disorders, Women's Imbalances (menopause, fibroids, and endometriosis). Each section has information about probable causes and symptoms, suggested natural remedies, and recipes that address the health problem. Some of the recipes call for Crystal Star herbal products, but there are plenty that don't. In the Diabetes and Hypoglycemia section, for example, non-brand-name recipes include Hot Potato Salad, Black Bean Tortilla Wrap, Low-Fat Chinese Chicken Salad, low-sugar Double Ginger Molasses Cookies and Lemon-Lime Pie, among others. The recipes look tasty, simple to prepare, without too many "weird" ingredients. Like each of the chapters, this one contains appealing recipes that I may try even though I don't cook for anyone with those health issues.

In the back of the book is a section called Cooking Tips and Secrets, which contains information about sugar substitutes, cultured foods, replacements for dairy products, and sources of important minerals. Like the rest of the book, there's enough useful information to make it worth skimming past the parts that aren't my cup of tea. Or, my cup of A.M.-P.M. Fiber Drink, as the case may be.

Soundtrack: For this book, I got rebellious with my song choice: Junk Food Junkie, sung by Harry Groce.