Tastespotting.com

My obsession with food blogs started with Tastespotting.com.

I stumbled across it one day and soon was addicted to its food porn! It would consume my entire day! I would plan out whole menus for pretend dinner parties, BBQs, cocktail parties, birthday celebrations, luncheons, teddy bear picnics, whatever! It was getting a little out of hand. I had to cut myself off. Who the hell plans luncheons?! What am I, an 80 years old Southern woman?!

I had visions of one day having my own food website and then I could submit my own food porn pics to Tastespotting.com. Hey now! Lookie here! I have a food blog! But, as with any at-home pornographer, I soon learned the dream is much harder to attain. I'm assuming. My regular pornography has never been a problem -- haha, just kidding Mom. 

Understanding that my pictures aren't awesome, I did think a few were good enough to submit to the website. After my submissions, I excitedly waited for my notification of publication. I checked my account and clicked on the Published tab. Nope, none there. Maybe in the Pending tab? Nope, none there either. Then, I clicked on the Declined tab. And there they were. All three of my submissions! Whan Whan Whaaaaaaa! Maybe it's the diabetes? Maybe Tastespotting.com is an anti-diabetes website?! Fuckers!

Dejected, but not giving up, this picture is going to be published! I just feel it!!!!!

I'll let you know how it goes!

Open-faced Italian Tuna Melts


Sandwich Ingredients
1 can tuna fish
1/4 c - 1/3 c prepared or homemade pesto
1/4 small red onion, chopped
Bread of your choice (whole wheat English Muffin pictured)
1 tomato, sliced
1 roasted red pepper, cut into strips
1/4 c shredded mozzarella cheese


Pesto Ingredients
1 large handful basil leaves
1 - 2 garlic cloves
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tbsp parmesan cheese
1/4 c nuts (I used almonds)
1/4 c olive oil
veggie broth used to reach desired consistency
1 tsp sweetner of your choice (optional, but mine definitely needed it)
Zest of one small lemon (optional)
salt and pepper


Method for Pesto
1. Add garlic cloves to blender or food processor and chop to small pieces - I hate having large chunks of garlic in my pesto.
2. Add the rest of your ingredients, except the oil, to the blender. Pulse for about 30 second.
3. Leaving the blender running, slowly add your olive oil until well incorporated and desired consistency. You can use more oil to achieve that consistency, or if you prefer a lighter pesto, you can use veggie broth.

Method of Tuna Melt
1. Preheat your broiler. Toast your bread/english muffin.
2. Mix your tuna, pesto and onions all together, being sure to salt and pepper the tuna as you go.
3. Take your bread and place tuna slice, scoop of tuna, and roasted red pepper on top. Place shredded or sliced mozzarella cheese on top.
4. Place melt under the broiler to melt the cheese and heat up the pepper. Watch it carefully as it can burn quickly. Sprinkle with dried oregano.

For You

Break-ups suck. There's really no way around it. They're hard. They're painful. They may make you want to consume large amounts of ice cream, plates of Rocky Road Brownies, and numerous bottles of wine.

Or break-ups, on the other hand, cause something to happen that NEVER EVER happens! It's really quite shocking! You lose your appetite! GASPS! You? A fat kid? Lose your appetite? I know. It's crazy. Even when you're deathly ill and can barely keep food down, you still have the urge to stuff your face with saltine crackers and chicken soup! But when you're sad, nothing seems appealing.

And while the "break-up diet" is great for dropping those pesky few pounds, it is not so great with that pesky diabetes. With diabetes, you HAVE to eat. It's not really a choice, unless you want to keep an IV of apple juice strapped to your arm. And when you eat, it's probably best not feed that sadness sugary treats. During this time, you need something that you want to eat (besides spoonfuls of peanut butter straight from the jar) and not make your blood sugar go crazy.  Like stocking up on your favorite granola bars, making yourself a large pot of tomato sauce, and having plenty of good friends who make sure you always have dinner plans.

And while surrounding yourself in the foods you enjoy takes care of the subsistence side of things, there is still the emotional. Because, really, isn't that the purpose of food any way when you're sad? Whether you're distracting yourself by cooking, forgetting by baking, giving yourself too much or not enough, it is because you're trying to find some way to dull that ache in your chest.

There's no easy way to get past this point. It will take some time. And, maybe, remembering to be grateful for all that person added to your life, sad they're not there right now, and hopeful your paths may cross again one day can help too.

And, obviously, when I say "you" and "your," I really mean "I" and "my."

Animal, Vegetable, Soapbox?

Just give me a second while I hoist myself onto my soapbox. Ok, good! Are you ready?

I recently read the nonfiction book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (thanks Tom!), which is the true story of author Barbara Kingsolver and her family's one year pledge to eat only what they were able to grow themselves or purchase from other farmers in their community. At the beginning of the book, the family moves from Tuscon, AZ to a restored farm house in Appalachia, VA, where they farm everything from fruit and veggies to poultry and eggs. Through the family's story, you begin to see how far removed we are from the production of our food. As a nation and as consumers, we remain rather detached from knowing where our food actually comes from. When was the last time you thought about where your avocado came from, who grew them, and how did they get to your supermarket?

Inter-spliced with the families' stories of how they managed this venture are also essays on the state of agricultural affairs in the US and around the world. Basically, what these essays show the reader is that the business of agricultural is a mess. Large corporations are under-cutting and eliminating smaller local farmers while slowly poisoning our food with pesticides, herbicides, genetically modified mutations, etc. while ruining the environment and our health. Obviously, it was a light read.

While this book has definitely changed the way I view food and increased my awareness of the social and environmental impact of how I shop, there were times when I found myself getting defensive while reading. This defensiveness primarily occurred when Barbara Kingsolver suggests that eating organic, local produce is within most people's means, but we make the excuse not to out of convenience.

As a broke-ass social worker, I took a bit of offense to it. If I have to provide myself with food for a week and I can get 5 conventional, not locally grown apples as opposed to the 2 organic, local apples, guess which one my limited budget is buying? Not because I don't appreciate the health benefits, the environmental benefits, and the benefits to local farmers, but because I need to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. What are you suggesting, Barb? That I'm cheap? Lazy? Entitled?

I realized the answer to all those questions are yes, yes, and yes. I was feeling defensive because she was right. I would love to live the way the Kingsolvers do, but get overwhelmed by the amount of time, money, energy, and sacrifice it would take. It's much easier to buy produce that has been shipped across the country (or world) because it's cheaper and I want it NOW! But if I considered the amount of money I waste in vegetables gone bad at the bottom of my fridge, it's hard to claim that I can't afford to support my local farmers.

While I don't have the means to pick up, move to Appalachia, and live off the land, I am able to be more conscious of my buying and eating patterns. I may not have the opportunity to "get to know my farmers," but I can definitely be more mindful of local and seasonal buying. I am making a resolution to utilize farmer's markets more for my produce, share recipes using locally farmed ingredients, and even consider having a container garden for my own veggies next spring. You saw how well the peppers worked out!

I'm putting it in writing. I hope you hold me to it.

All the Rage!

Baby hands. It's the newest food craze! Saute them with butter and garlic! Stir-fry them with srichacha and ginger! Or simply roast them with salt and pepper!

Excellent on the blood sugar. Requires hardly any insulin at all.

I'll resist the urge to share any Dead Baby jokes.

I'm sorry. This picture was just way too creepy to not share. Google Images has the craziest shit!

Real post to come soon!

Breakfast Cake

Cake for breakfast? My mother's so disappointed. 

Don't worry, Mom. It's a healthy breakfast cake! I promise!

Sure, it looks like a muffin, but it definitely taste like cake with a slightly custard-y texture.

The way I figured it, this breakfast custard cake thing has about 24g of carbohydrates. Given what a normal piece of cake would be, that's not too shabby. Plus, it's good for you since it's made out of oat bran, little sugar, and no artificial flavors, colors, preservatives, etc. With this and a glass of milk, I only insulin for 34 grams of carbs (which for me is 2.2 units of insulin).

Vanilla Breakfast Cake

Ingredients

1/3 c oat bran 
2 tbsp unsweetened applesauce
3 tbsp milk
1 large egg
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 - 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp sweetener of your choice (Brown sugar adds a nice flavor, but I usually opt for the truvia!)
pinch of salt

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a small ramekin.
2. In a small bowl, whisk the egg.
3. Whisk in applesauce, vanilla, and milk.
4. Mix in oat bran, sweetener, salt and baking powder until just combined.
5. Pour into well-greased baking dish, spread evenly, and bake for 32-36min, until a toothpick comes out almost clean.
6. Slide a knife around the edge and flip out onto a plate. 


For interesting variations, you can replace the applesauce with pureed pumpkin and add the usual pumpkin pie spices. Or you can stick to the original recipe, but add a tablespoon of cocoa powder. 

Green Thumb!

Most of you probably don't know that I am an AWESOME gardener!

Check out these peppers!

I grew those! On my deck! In a pot! All by myself!!

How did I do it, you must be asking? How did I manage to cultivate the world's most perfect green pepper in a pot, on my deck, all by myself?

I actually have no idea! I stopped watering that plant in JUNE! But those little peppers persevered through the summer heat, Not-a-Hurriance Irene, and Jackson's incessant digging into my potted plants (fucker)! I'm so glad they made it so I can now chop them up into little pieces and eat them for lunch! Whahahahah! -- evil laugh, did you get it?

Summer Meets Fall

Some people shoe shop. Others clothes shop. I food shop! I love to go food shopping, but my eyes are bigger then my actual time to cook. I have this notorious habit of letting produce go bad in my fridge. It usually results in swampy puddles at the bottom of my veggie drawer.

That's usually when kitchen sink cooking comes into play. I try to hurry up and cook all the usable produce in my fridge, in one pot if I'm feeling particularly talented...or adventurous. Sometimes it works. Sometimes, it really doesn't. The broccoli rabe and cilantro soup wasn't exactly a shining moment of cooking for me. However, this recipe worked out quite well. In fact, they came out so good, Jackson decided to help himself to one while I as at the gym. Naughty kitty.

I needed to use the rest of my farmer's market zucchini before it made soup in the bottom of my fridge. Plus, I had some newly purchased sweet potatoes from Goshen, NY.  I'd like to think of this recipe as the seasons (summer squash, fall sweet potatoes) colliding. Isn't that very Martha Stewart of me?

Zucchini-Sweet Potato Muffins

Ingredients
2 c whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 c brown sugar (you can definitely add more sugar, but I don't because of the obvious....)
1/2 c apple sauce
1 tbsp canola oil
1/3 c milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 c shredded zucchini
1 c shredded sweet potato

Method
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Shred the zucchini and sweet potato on a box grater.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together, making sure there are no lumps of flour, etc.
3. Add all the wet ingredients with the exception of shredded veggies.
4. Once all the wet ingredients are mixed, then add the shredded veggies, making sure to incorporate them throughout.
5. Add batter to a greased muffin pan.
6. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until lightly golden and spring back at the touch.