Tootie Fruitie

At last, fruit season is upon us.

For breakfast today, I had half a cantaloupe and a handful of strawberries. The cantaloupe, while possibly a little overripe, was flavorful and juicy. The strawberries, sweet and tart.

It's so much easier to be healthy this time of year.

I like to blame my eating habits on the season. In the fall, the only fruits that are really kicking are apples and pears, most of which seem to end up in pies or tarts (my pear tartlets are to die for). The colder it gets, the less cold food one wants to eat. Why eat cold cereal when you can have oatmeal with brown sugar? Why have salad when you can have soup? Why have anything raw when you can have it browned, sauteed, or casseroled?

But now it's getting warmer. Now warm food puts us off. Now we don't like cooking too much because it heats up the house. In certain ways, it's great for us.

Of course, there's always ice cream and sugar soda and such to cool us down. There's always an excuse for unhealthy eating. But give me a fridge full of fruit and I'm good to go. Maybe some sorbet if it gets really hot out. Something light. Something refreshing. Who needs a stomach full of cheese and bread when it's hot outside? It just makes you feel heavier, hotter, more lethargic.

OK--I'm trying to convince myself of this as much as you. As you might have guessed by my lack of postings lately, I'm dieting again. And I haven't been cooking much at all--lots of yogurt and fresh fruit and veg. It's a great way to shed the pounds and it definitely makes me feel healthier, but I'm starting to miss cooking. Real cooking. The kind where you don't have to worry about how many calories are in each ingredient, measuring and weighing everything you eat.

So I'm trying to luxuriate in fruit. It would be, if we humans hadn't gotten all tricky about our food, one of life's greatest pleasures. Imagine if we hadn't refined sugar or figured out how to manipulate the cacao bean. A strawberry might be the ultimate gustatory pleasure. A slice of watermelon. A ripe, juicy pear.

Sweet Onion and Jalapeno Jelly, Attempt #3

Yeah, I left out attempt #2. Sorry about that.

This time, I decided that my jelly-making skills just weren't up to snuff, and went for more of a chutney style. Two medium sweet onions, diced, and four jalapenos, diced, went into 2 tbsp olive oil on medium-low heat for about three hours. Plus a few tablespoons full of sugar to help the caramelization process along. It's sticky, sweet, and spicy. Amazing on crackers or crostini with cream cheese or goat cheese.

The best thing, I think, about today's attempt, is that I didn't burn myself with the jalapenos. In the past, no matter how hard I've tried, I've missed some trace of jalapeno juice on my hands, blown my nose (to relieve my runny nose and watery onion eyes), and ended up with some some part of my face burning and stinging for the rest of the day. It is relieved, I've found, by the application of heavy cream (the fat absorbs the acids) but it is so much better when the burning is prevented. This time, my husband made sure I had a rubber surgical glove to hold the jalapenos as I diced them, so no more burning.

Hurray for team work!

Sweet Onion and Pepper Jelly: Attempt #1

Today I took a recipe from my Better Homes & Garden cookbook and tweaked it. It's in the canning section: pepper jelly. Only I made it into sweet onion and jalapeno jelly. And I replaced cranberry juice with apple juice (it's all I had) and used apple cider vinegar where the recipe just called for vinegar (I assumed the lack of description meant I could choose my own). Now, with the jelly cooling in the fridge (I realized only too late that I needed special canning equipment to make the stuff last unrefrigerated), I can the anticipation is heating up. There was a lot of vinegar in this particular recipe and the house smells vinegary (also of Pine Sol since I got sticky jelly on the floor) and I'm hoping the vinegar doesn't overpower the important flavors. I did run the whole mess through the blender before straining out the juices and adding the sugar and pectin, so I'm hoping the onion and jalapeno will shine through.

I hope.

My New Favorite Thing

This weekend, the hubby and I drove out to Pasco for a wedding reception. Now, between Pasco and Pullman (much closer to Pasco) there is this amazing farm stand/specialty food/gift shop where we stop whenever we make the trip (which I have to admit is rarely). Last trip, we discovered little puffs of corn that are a cross between corn pops and churros. This trip, we discovered sweet onion jalapeno jelly.

I have to learn how to make this stuff. It's kind of sweet, mostly savory, with a little bit of spice. We had it on sourdough bread (toasted up crostini style) with goat cheese. I ate so much I didn't end up wanting dinner (Julia Child-style chicken breasts that were wonderfully moist but tasted too much like chicken--a flavor I've been lately abhorring).

I'm imagining applications for this delightful green goo as fast as I can. On a bagel with cream cheese. Sandwiches of all sorts. On crackers, chips, pretzels. Baby carrots? Who knows. I have yet to try. I also have yet to try to make the stuff, but that will be remedied shortly. As soon as I'm back in my own kitchen. Maybe tomorrow.

Fit or Fat?

I've been thinking a lot lately about food--mainly because I'm trying to cut back on it--and more importantly, the portioning of food, the times of day we eat food, the way we purchase and store food, and so forth. So I'm not just sitting around daydreaming about ice cream. Well, sometimes I am. But that's not the point.

I've often thought that meal planning would be the key to weight loss--for me, anyway. I've never really had a firm meal schedule and I tend to eat whenever the heck I want to. When on diets, I try to control my mealtimes, and usually I push breakfast as late as I can stand it, lunch well after noon, a small afternoon snack, and dinner around six. Granted, all of these meals, on a diet, are small. But the main strategy here is to eat as often as possible. To keep less time between my meals, however small they might be, so I don't have as much time between meals to sit around watching the clock. And I do watch the clock. I tell myself, you can have a granola bar at three. So I try to occupy myself. But every five to ten minutes, unless what I'm doing is incredibly engaging, my eye wanders to the clock. It's ridiculous. It's obsessive. But that's what dieting is.

I've never had a healthy relationship with food. We've been somewhat codependent, really. I don't just rely on food for nutrition and energy, but for pleasure--and while I do think that food should be enjoyed, I know that it should be enjoyed in small doses and only when needed. But it's hard to reconcile what I know with what I do. So I try to plan. I try to tell myself: breakfast at eight, lunch at one, dinner at six. I try to tell myself: eat like a king in the morning, a prince at noon, and a pauper at night. I try to tell myself: you can have x, y, and z food items and you can eat them whenever you like, but when you've finished them, that's it. I try to tell myself a lot of things.

Part of the reason I've been thinking about this is that I've gained a few pounds in the last couple of months. Pounds I only recently lost, unfortunately. And I don't want to be a yo-yo dieter. I want to learn healthy eating habits, and from that and exercise I assume weight loss will come. Yes, I would like to have the body of a supermodel, but I am not willing to starve. Nor am I willing to give into food and let my body do what it will. I'm between a rock and a hard place, people. And that hard place is probably a box of fudge.

I like me some garlic.

I've discovered an amazing new way to make mashed potatoes. I've also discovered I need to save it for the holidays.

Last night, Ian and I made the most beautiful pork chops I've ever seen, thanks to Julia Child. I'd only ever seen that kind of color on pork in the movies or on Food Network. It came with a lovely sauce (basically just vermouth, deglazing the pork pan--plus I added some heavy cream at the end because I'm super indulgent). Alongside that, we made garlic mashed potatoes, but not just any garlic mashed potatoes--puree de pommes de terre a l'ail (which is to say garlic mashed potatoes in French).

Now, I realize that garlic mash is fairly mundane. It comes with pretty much any steak you've ever ordered, maybe the pork chops too, and even chicken at some restaurants. It's one of those dishes that kitchens stock in giant metal containers, waiting under a heat lamp to be slopped onto the customer's plate. It's low maintenance. But that garlic mash isn't this garlic mash.

Julia's potatoes start interestingly enough--you separate the cloves of garlic from two whole heads, toss them in boiling water for a couple of minutes, and then peel them. This is the one process in the recipe I would change--I would try, next time, simply peeling them as I normally do (smash with knife, peel) and then move to the next step: saute in butter. You see, Julia says, "Two whole heads of garlic will seem like a horrifying amount if you have not made this type of recipe before. But if less is used, you will regret it, for the long cooking of the garlic removes all of its harsh strength, leaving just a pleasant flavor." Amen, Julia. But--boiling it might take out too much of the harsh strength for my taste. I like me some garlic.

Back to the process--after you saute the garlic cloves in butter until they are tender but not brown, you make a thin roux with some flour, salt, and pepper, then pour in a cup of boiling milk (I used nonfat and it still turned out deliciously--I can't imagine the delight of the full-fat result) and make a white sauce, which then goes into the blender (or you can painstakingly mash the garlic cloves with a sieve and a wooden spoon--I went with the blender). What comes out, and quickly too, is a delightful garlic white sauce that you then stir into the potatoes that have been boiled, run through the food mill, and thinned with some butter and heavy cream. It has the perfect, velvety texture that is so difficult to find in mashed potatoes and absolutely no lumps (thank you, food mill), plus the lovely garlicky taste (which I would be willing to ramp up even more). All in all, the best mashed potatoes ever. Incredibly fattening, but still, best ever. This might become a Christmas dish.

Warning: Do Not Substitute

Ian had a sweet tooth tonight and decided to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies. He read through the recipe and thought we had all the ingredients, but when he double checked (after the butter and sugar were creamed, etc.) he discovered we were out of eggs. No problem, I said--for each egg, substitute one tablespoon of flax and three tablespoons of water. That was verified by the flax packaging. So he did.

The cookies were beautiful and smelled lovely, but they tasted distinctly of flax. Not a pleasant bite when you're expecting something sweet. I've substituted flax for eggs in many recipes, mostly muffins, and it's been fine. Until now.

When making cookies, do not substitute flax for eggs. Unless you're vegan and you're used to that kind of thing. Even so, I would up the vanilla and sugar to mask the flavor. Yuck.