food – Page 8 – The Daily EO

The Daily EO: May 19th, 2012

This is my 100th post – I can’t believe it!

What has happened to the farmer’s markets in Muskoka? Farmer’s Market. This implies that either a farmer owns the market, or it is a market for farmers’ items. And a market that one would go to get items that FARMERS sell. I made the mistake of getting caught up in the romance of a farmer’s market again this year and attended Bracebridge’s Farmer’s Market this long weekend.

Do I want gluten-free baked goods (3 booths!)? How about buckwheat heating pads? Or perhaps to have my face painted? No. What about wooden crafts? Aprons and other items made with colourful fabrics? No, No, NO! I was Ontario Fresh Asparagus. I want organic spinach. I wanted rhubarb! (well, no, I didn’t, but I wanted to see it being sold). And maybe even some early cherries or strawberries? Okay – I’ll buy a pie or cookies from a farmer, but please people! This is not a craft show. It is a FARMER’S market. Things that grow – or things that eat things that grow. Please leave your “I’ve-already-seen-it-1000-times” stuff at home. Or haul it to the craft shows. Or rename this Farmer’s Market to Craft Market.

There were two vendors selling vegetables at the farmers market (out of 30+ booths). One was a real farm that was selling seedlings and rhubarb. Good work, guys! I can’t garden (really – I can’t – I kill plants with my aura) and I don’t like rhubarb much. No matter, I was proud to see this local farm selling obviously farm grown items. The other is an outfit that has duped tourists for years. What was the first hint today? It was the 15″ long celery for sale. Celery is available in Ontario in July and home-grown celery does not look like what you buy in the grocery store. It is May! Ontario Farm grown celery is normally shorter and with more leafy greens than the standard from the supermarket. Anderson Produce – you know I’m talking to you! Please stop selling vegetables at the farmer’s market – at premium prices I must add – that you know and I know you purchased from the food terminal in Toronto. Yes, the tourists from Toronto don’t know any better, but the locals know your game.

There were a couple of places selling meat and fish. I wasn’t particularly looking for either, but glad to see a couple of places selling such items. One was trout from Milford Bay. Considering my aversion to anything fishy, I didn’t even linger, but good and local!

The smart farmers have given up these wastes of time markets and instead started selling CSA shares. That’s when you purchase a part of the farm’s bounty at the beginning of the season and you share in what is produced. I’d suggest you’d better get a share because the farmer’s markets doesn’t seem much of source of any local food!

May 19th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Beginning of this season’s boycott of the Muskoka farmer’s markets. Thank goodness I have another source for farm fresh asparagus – even if I have to import it from Tilsonberg!

Maintenance May Day 19:
Found away to discuss our future options with Emile in way that we could both hear each other. (career, connection, soul)

The Daily EO: May 17th, 2012

I was asked today to help a friend create vegan cocktail snacks for her catering job next weekend. Just 10 people. She has the harder part – to make regular food for 90 people. So, sure no problem. Last weekend I had to make a Vegan cake for my meat-eating vegan nephew who is allergic to dairy and eggs. We have to consider his allergies for all meals there. For a month in January, I made vegan meals all the time for us. I try to continuely incorporate other proteins than meat into our diet. But does that make me a Vegan Expert? No, but I suppose around here, it’s pretty good darn. And I work for cheap.

May 17th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Recognition for my “expertise” in veganism.

Maintenance May Day 17:
Purchased 3 lottery tickets from the Lions Club at The Independent. (soul)
Tried a rock climbing wall for the first time – despite my general nervousness of heights and looking like a fool. (body)

The Daily EO: May 12th, 2012

Alcohol is poison. It takes a large dose to kill us but nonetheless it is poisonous. It slows your reactions, impairs our judgement, affects our metabolism and pushes our liver to process out the toxins. But yet, we wrap it up in fancy bottles and talk about strawberry undertones and food pairings.

The detrimental effects of processing alcohol on my body was obvious than when I ran Saturday morning. (see how committed we are?) After consuming about 10 ozs of wine on Friday with delicious food pairings, I ate a healthy, low-calorie healthy dinner and went to bed at a reasonable time. We drove to an area of vineyards near Emile’s parent’s house (read: nice and flat) and started out. The flatness of the area had that dessert oasis effect where things seem much closer than they are. I ran and I ran and I ran and when I finally made it to my goal – a cross street – I checked my GPS and found I had run . . . . . 7/10 kms. Huh? This is not possible! And the worse part? The car was now .7 kms away.

I managed to sprint, stumble, and drag myself 3.3 kms, but it wasn’t gazelle-like nor inspiring. Emile, of course, dug deep and managed to get in 5.0 kms. I walked another 1 km and collapsed by the car.

This is how I know alcohol is poison. Because it couldn’t be my will that is weak.

May 12th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Visiting 18 Niagara-on-the-Lake wineries today despite the first-hand knowledge of the impacts of alcohol on my body. Food, wine, summer weather, and good company. Who cares what tomorrow brings?

Maintenance May Day 12:
A day with Emile’s parents – a nice break for two extremely hard-working people (Family)
Baked a vegan chocolate cake that the who family could eat (vegan due to allergies) for my sister-in-law’s birthday on Sunday. (Body/Connection)
Did not steal extra Bergamont Cupcakes at the final winery of the day despite an overwhelming desire of the delicious orange frosting and moist interior despite the host’s back being turned. (Soul)

The Daily EO: May 5th, 2012

We found ourselves in Gravenhurst today and I thought for fun we would head to Sobey’s to do our grocery shopping as it is the only one in Muskoka. The shoulder seasons are pretty quiet around here. You make your own excitement.

I like grocery shopping and I like shopping at different places that offer different things. It’s fun in the US especially because they get all of those crazy products that you really shouldn’t eat in the first place. Sobey’s isn’t that much different from the other stores in the area – but I did find a nice tube of fresh roasted garlic purée.

My husband is Dutch – he was born in Canada about 2 years after his parents immigrated from Holland. So, although raised in Canada, he also was raised in a Dutch home. As we were strolling down the aisles of Sobey’s, the following sign caught my eye:

Dutch? I mean, you get the Asian section, the Mexican section, and usually the “International” section, but I have never seen a Dutch section. Especially in a small town grocery store. Even in St. Catharines (where Emile grew up) if you want Dutch treats you head over the Dutch store, not the grocery store.

We headed over to check this section out. It was a doozy!

May 5th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Stroop Waffles, Double Salted Licorice, King Peppermints, Windmill Cookies and all sorts of Dutch treats at the grocery store.

Maintenance May Day 5: Donated needed supplies to a friend who greatly appreciated it. (Friendship)

The Daily EO: May 4th, 2012

I received my exam results today. I didn’t study much, although did a lot of cramming for it in April. It was was kind of like an IQ test – a lot of it depended on my DNA and upbringing. But as I listened to the exam results, I felt relief, then pride. After all, didn’t I just do swimmingly?

When I run, I start finding it difficult around the 1 km mark. I have often wondered, “Do other people have the same problems and they are mentally strong enough to will their bodies to carry on?” Or is there something wrong with me? Am I just not built for running? Between pain in my calves and my lungs feeling like they are not getting enough oxygen, I then think that people who are endurance runners are completely crazy and the mentally strongest people on earth. But maybe they have better bodies than me?

For those of you who have followed a Couch to 5K officially program, you know they usually start you out on something like walk 1 minute, run 5 minutes, walk 1 minute etc. When I first saw these instructions, I thought “Who can run 5 minutes?”. Really? There are people who are sitting on the couch who can just get up and run 5 minutes? Wow, I am quite unfit.

But back to acing my exam – except for 1 aspect. Everything else – cholesterol, triglycerides, vitamins, platelets, White Blood Cell Count, Albumin, Creatinine, CK, Glucose Serum Fasting, you name it – exactly where it should be! My blood pressure was 85/40. Alas, the iron ruined my perfect result. My ferritin levels are 12: “Iron Deficient”. (the lowest category on the scale). Interestingly, iron carries oxygen on the red blood cells to the muscles in the body – hmmm.

Did you know that Iron absorption in the body is hindered by some items? Polyphenols in tea; Phytate in legumes, soybeans and whole grains; Oxalate in spinach, chard, kale, and sweet potatoes; vegetable proteins and calcium? Um, is that not my diet right now? I live on tea, I always eat whole grains, I eschew white rice for quinoa, I eat kale and spinach in smoothies, etc? And these things – though required and good for me too – actually help to block iron absorption? No wonder there are so many diet books out there – this stuff is complicated.

My calf pain also may have a cause – Chromic Exertional Compartment Syndrome (CECS). Doesn’t that sound terrible? It basically means that when your muscles expand during exercise they are trying to expand beyond the “muscle compartment”. As you can imagine, this causes pain. But we’ll see about that – I am going to get a referral to a sports doctor to confirm.

May 4th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: It’s not my fault! I am mentally strong! It’s the iron and the potential CECS! I knew it!

Maintenance May Day 4:
Visit to the Nurse Practitioner (NPs in Canada can do anything a doctor can except prescribe narcotics) for a full review of my health. And they actually spend time talking to you. And the appointments start on time. (body)
Consultation with a Registered Dietician with Emile to review our diets and fitness regimes. (body)
Updated my immunizations for Tetanus, Whooping Cough and Diphtheria. (body)
Visit to the spa to get a pedicure. Hello beautiful blue toes! (body).

PS Yes, I have already added a iron supplement to my vitamin intake.

The Daily EO: May 2nd, 2012

In my kitchen growing up, there were three main food preparation areas. One is to the left of the kitchen sink that is covered by a wooden cutting board. This area – even now – is by far the busiest area. Food is chopped on the cutting board, dirty dishes sit here awaiting the dishwasher unload (which was my chore growing up, so some times there was a bit of a wait), and quick meals are eaten from it. It is constantly wiped and cleaned. Over the dishwasher is the second area where the electric frying pan is plugged in when it is time for grilled cheese and the toaster and coffee maker. I distinctly remember making Easter Nests and Baklava with my mother at this spot. Who makes baklava with their non-greek mother? I did. I called the layers dirt, paper and glue (the nuts, the phyllo and the butter/honey mixture).

The other space that is not really there any more, is to the left of the fridge. It’s there obviously, but now is taken up by the microwave. It is where I remember my dad kneading bread, rolling pastry and for some reason I remember clearly – making Tomato Pinwheels from the Fleischman’s Bread Baking Cookbook. I remember so well because he was so frustrated rolling out the dough. You needed to roll it to certain dimensions, cut it, and then create the pinwheels. But it kept shrinking. And he was getting upset. I don’t remember if they tasted good or not, I just remember thinking “How is it possible that my dad can’t do something?”

Today I thought of home and these memories and wanted to bake. But baking does not really fit with the lifestyle changes we have made. So, I took to the internet and found myself a low-carb and low-calorie recipe for Pumpkin Coconut Muffins. The flour used was coconut flour – what the heck is that? – apparently it’s made from ground coconut meat and is also defatted to remove much of the coconut oil and milk. I wonder if the Bulk Barn carries it? And my lucky day – in the huge gluten-free section – they did. It smelled pleasingly like suntan lotion and it was cream coloured. Not too expensive either.

May 2nd, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Mini yummy muffins that only have 31 calories each with 1 grams of fibre and 2 grams of protein in each. Though, I would not recommend using rock salt instead of kosher salt – makes for a some unexpected saltiness at times. I like this coconut flour stuff.

Maintenance May Day 2:
$25 Micro-loan via Kiva to Folly Loko in Togo, Africa to purchase a washing machine and iron for his laundry business. Emile’s choice. (Soul)
$25 Micro-loan via Kiva to Adama in Mali to purchase scrap metal to support his metal working business. He is a married father of two in his thirties – like my dad was when he died. (Family)
Supported Hariyo Chowk via kickstarter.com with $25 to help create an urban green space in Katmandu. Reward is my Dad’s name on a hand painted mural in the park once completed. (Family)
Supported Flyover Farm via kickstarter.com with $10 to help create a rooftop garden in Mumbai, India to help provide organic produce in a low-income area. Reward is my Dad’s name on their facebook page as a donor. (Connection)

The Daily EO: April 30th, 2012 (Fit April Results)

Any opportunity to catalogue my life, efforts and results is interesting to me. To be able to take the chaos of life reduce it to a graph or chart makes me feel good – I have it under control. So, this is bliss for me – I’ve been waiting to write this particular entry for weeks.

It was 5 weeks ago that I decided that I needed to deal with my Shrunken Shorts Syndrome and my husband needed to look at his Ski Jump Shirt diagnosis. We committed ourselves to a month of exercise, healthy restricted calories and a 5K race at the end of it. I’ll admit, we cheated a bit – we started in the last week of March. We did consider having a binge instead, but we thought it would be too hard of a transition – and my pants were already too tight. It became a common sight to see me in workout clothes and weighting out food on our scale.

I had challenges – a bag of marshmallows disappeared quickly at a campfire one night (and even the raw ones on subsequent days). The Kitchener Food Show dessert samples slowed things. Emile faced and won numerous food challenges at work – functions with chef made cookies, pizza and butter tarts. There were days I just wanted to eat macaroni and cheese and be done with it. And sometimes we indulged, other times we held out. And we’re feeling pretty proud of ourselves.

So, if you want to a month of fitness (that will hopefully lead to another), here is my advice:

1. Be obsessive about it – every calorie gets logged, every minute of exercise, and every day you weight yourself (with a digital scale). Plan your days around food and exercise
2. Brag about it – tell everyone you know this is what you are doing, so you have to deal with social shame if you don’t follow through
3. Create an outside force – sign up for a class, a race, or target a wedding, or something to keep you focused for the short-term until your results are motivation enough.
4. Find someone more committed than you are to share the challenge – my husband fit the bill perfectly
5. Compete only with yourself. You’ll always find someone healthy, fitter, eating more wheatgrass, but who cares about them. This is about you!

And here is what we did in Fit April:

	Susan	Emile
Calories Consumed	31995	24516
Calories Burned	9008	9572
Distance Moved (km)	93.8	112.2
Fitness Minutes	1012	888

April 30th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary:

Susan Loss: 10.2 lbs (Goal!) Emile Loss: 21.2 lbs (What the hell?)

The Daily EO: April 22nd, 2012

5 Days a week I make Emile’s lunches. It is not a chore for me really, in fact, I find it a bit of a challenge for myself to include variety, low calories, high fibre, protein, interest and bulk. That is difficult. I have a friend – who will remain nameless so she can avoid persecution – that refuses to make her husband’s lunches. She doesn’t want him to become dependant on her for food. She manages the rest of the house and the family – he can figure out eating breakfast and lunch. That’s fair I think – and frankly if I had less time on my hands, I too would probably expect that we would take turns.

Today’s lunch (to eat on Monday) I am pretty proud of. It has homemade broccoli & bean soup with added ground flax seeds and nutritional yeast flakes; two romaine lettuce sandwiches featuring homemade pesto (like I couldn’t make that again), sodium nitrate free turkey breast from Well Fed, and light Havarti cheese; low-fat yogurt with 1 tbsp Holy Crap cereal; and a couple of pecan halves. I’ve learned that Emile likes his lunches when they good for grazing. He can have the yogurt in the morning, eat the “sandwiches” atlunch, and nibble on the pecans in the afternoon. He doesn’t really want last night’s leftovers because he just eats them all at once and there is nothing left for the afternoon when he gets hungry.

Nutritionally, it’s a pretty good lunch. A touch high in fat – but for the most part the “good fats”:

April 22, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Making a lunch to be proud of – like millions of Moms, Dads and spouses across Canada.

Update: Updated to show correct EO Date of April 22nd, 2012

The Daily EO: April 20th, 2012

Emile and I rarely go out for dinner as of late. We are on a loose budget and we are working hard to make April as Fit as possible. In general, those two things do not mesh well with dining out. After work today, Emile and I met up at the Summit Center for a run. I had already done two – TWO! – bouts of exercise that day for a total of 1 hour and 40 minutes, plus working around the house (painting and sanding, etc). So, then on top of that I went running for 3k.

My shins hurt, I was tired and I simply could not face going home to have a vegetable stir fry with riced cauliflower and meatless crispy tenders. Emile said he would make it, but I wasn’t buying. I wanted to go out for dinner and I had the calories to spare!

I suggested we head to 3 Guys and a Stove. Emile agreed as he hadn’t been there in years. Off we went – but he turned left when he should have turned right. Turns out what I say out loud and what I am thinking are two different things. So, we ended up at Tall Trees instead – because that is what I said – even if it wasn’t what I was thinking.

It was no sacrifice – believe me.

April 20th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Some else made me a perfect Filet Mignon with delightfully cooked vegetables. Presumably they even washed up.

The Daily EO: April 18th, 2012

There are some nights when dinner is tremendously unsatisfying. And there are those special nights that you create something that is so fantastic that you can barely believe that you are a Materials Manager and not a celebrated chef.

Last night was such a night. I made pizza. But not just any pizza. This pizza started two nights ago when I was craving pesto. But your average pesto has pine nuts, olive oil, and parmesan cheese, and that usually adds up to 250 calories for a 1/4 cup. More than we could afford in Fit April. Undaunted, I hit the internet for some ideas. When I typed in “oil-free pesto” I got thousands of hits. Weirdly, most of the top results were Vegan oil-free pesto. I guess the vegans don’t want oil either.

Anyways, reading a whole bunch of recipes on-line I came up with the following mish-mash of them all (and a nod to Oh She Glows particularly) – absolutely delicious pesto:

1/2 avocado
3/4 cup of white kidney beans
1/2 cup of basil (the entire PC herb container)
1/2 cup cilantro
3 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes (a weird vegan friendly item that I had left from Vegan January. It adds a creamy cheesy taste with fewer calories and fat than cheese.)
2 tbsp lemon juice
20 g pine nuts (about 40)
6 walnut halves
and cilantro seasoning (a tube of cilantro paste with other seasonings that I had lying around – don’t know how much it added to it, but glad to be using it up).
salt and pepper, of course

Just throw everything in your food processor. Done. Serves about four.

The first night we had the pesto on Tofu Shirataki noodles and steamed broccoli coleslaw (all tossed together). I sprinkled some parmesan cheese on mine, Emile went without. It was delicious and the total dinner was 250 calories.

But now I had this 1/2 recipe of pesto in the fridge. What could I do? Well, I made pesto pizza. I had some left over tofu which I marinated with balsamic glaze and dried oregano, 1 chicken breast cooked in a spicy tomato based sauce, red peppers, low-calorie pita bread cut in half (to make 2 rounds, not pockets), parmesan cheese, red onions, and of course, mushrooms and tomatoes for the boy. Put them together, broil for 3 minutes and hello! We ate it so fast that I couldn’t have taken a picture of it even if I had thought of it. Two pizzas each and only about 350 calories total. I am so good. Want some now. Sigh. . . no left overs.

Last time I bought mushrooms, it must have been from the oompa-loompas because they were gigantic. In fact, for Emile’s two pizzas, he only used 1 mushroom. That left just one mushroom which I threw into the fridge. I was reviewing our calories intake for the day and noticed that with Emile’s low-calorie lunch and dinner coupled with his 5k run, he had not consumed enough calories for the day. I told him he should eat something else. He was annoyed by this. Well, actually he was annoyed by this because I told him twice.. . well. . . maybe three times. He said he would get something to eat later.

Later that night, Emile pulled out that lonely mushroom, removed the stem, put probably .25 ounces of old cheddar cheese in it, turned on the broiler (apologized to me for wasting energy), and broiled his single – albeit large – stuffed mushroom. Um, yeah, 28 calories wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, honey.

April 18th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Making the pizza of my life. Watching my husband’s single-mindedness focus on Fit April.