Daily Menu for September 7

We've been eating up the frozen meals this week - eggplant and pork, moussaka, and bean soup - and tonight we're having meatloaf from the freezer. I'm grateful that I made these in advance! Still trying to get in all the 8 good health guidelines but it's more of a struggle right now, since I don't want to be in the hot kitchen any more than I have to, and I'm too tired to cook!

Daily Menu

Breakast (a OneLocalSummer meal)
Eggs with zucchini, bell peppers, and onion
Honeydew melon

Eggs from Sonoma, zucchini and peppers from the front yard, onion and melon from Full Belly Farm

Lunch
Veggie burger with 2 slices whole wheat toast (2 pts), 1/2 oz. smoked cheddar (1.5 pts.)
Tomato slices, lettuce, onion, pickles
Apple
1 c. milk

Dinner
Meatloaf
Sliced cucumbers
bulgur, corn and pepper salad
2 c. milk

WPA (Weekly Points Allowance) points used today: 3.5
WPA points available: 33.5
Activity points today: 2 (Walk Away the Pounds)
Activity points this week: 2

Daily 8 - the 8 Healthy Guidelines
1. Fruits and veggies (8) - 8
2. Whole grains - bulgur
3. Milk (3) - 3
4. Healthy oil (3) - 3
5. Protein - yes
6. Limit sugar and alcohol - yes
7. Water - 8+
8. Multivitamin - yes

Back in the Saddle

I returned to my Weight Watchers meeting yesterday and was pleasantly surprised by my weigh in, just .2 lb. above my last weigh in weight. After a modest gain during pregnancy, I wasn't expecting to be so close to my starting weight so soon. Very encouraging, especially since I've not been as consistent on my plan the past few weeks. I'm hopeful that with a closer eye toward what I'm eating, I'll continue to lose.

Dinner tonight is a One Local Summer meal, with all ingredients grown locally. The beans, Dapple Gray, were grown at Phipps Country Store in Pescadero. Onion, shallot, garlic (lots of it!), and sweet peppers are from Full Belly Farm. Home grown herbs (oregano and thyme) round out the flavor - cumin, salt and pepper are the only non-local ingredients. It's in the crockpot for a very simple and healthy dinner. Corn on the cob is from Full Belly, and the green salad with cucumbers are from our garden as well. Olive oil and vinegar both are from Hare Hollow in Healdsburg, and Clover milk is from Sonoma/Mendocino.

Breakfast:
Oatmeal
2 c. milk
1 c. cherries
multivitamin

Lunch:
Salmon salad (2 Points for 2 t. mayo)
bulgur
Tomato wedges, 1 t. olive oil

Dinner:
Bean soup
Corn on the cob
Green salad with cucumbers, 2 t. olive oil and vinegar
1 c. milk

WPA (Weekly Points Allowance) points used today: 2
WPA points available: 35
Activity points today: 2 (Walk Away the Pounds)
Activity points this week: 2

Daily 8 - the 8 Healthy Guidelines
1. Fruits and veggies (8) - 8
2. Whole grains - oatmeal, bulgur
3. Milk (3) - 3
4. Healthy oil (3) - 3
5. Protein - yes
6. Limit sugar and alcohol - yes
7. Water - 8+
8. Multivitamin - yes

Lucy has made her debut!

I'm thrilled to announce that our baby girl, Lucy, was born on Tuesday night after a very manageable labor and only five minutes of pushing! She's healthy and is fitting right into our family - loud voice, lots of snuggling, and a huge appetite. Big brother Jax keeps asking to hold and kiss her, and is trying to share all of his toys - I'm appreciating it while it lasts.

Thanks for the kind e-mails asking about us.

One Local Summer: Week 11, part 2 - Cherry Oats

I have whole oats in my pantry from the grain CSA and have not known quite what to do with them. Rolled oats are familiar; even steel cut oats have their found crockpot love from me. But the whole grain, well, I wasn't sure where to start. I found the liquid:grain ratio and cooking time on the pressure cooker and figured I'd make them like I would steel cut oats - milk, fruit, cinnamon, vanilla - and see how that works.

Well let me tell you, they smell fantastic and taste even better! With local oats, cherries, and milk, this is another local meal this week. This makes a HUGE batch - I wanted to have it available for quick breakfasts this week.

Whole Oats with Cherries

2 c. whole oats, rinsed and drained
6 c. water or milk, or a combination of the two
2 c. frozen cherries (ours were frozen earlier in the year from a local cherry orchard)
1 t. each cinnamon and ground ginger
1/2 t. nutmeg
2 t. vanilla
1/2 c. brown sugar (optional)

Pour all the ingredients into pressure cooker and stir to combine. Cook over high pressure for 18 minutes or until grains are tender and liquid absorbed.

The baby's still cooking and so am I - One Local Summer: Week 11

Despite a due date that has come and gone, and with every effort made on my part to bring this baby on, she has still not made her appearance into the world. I'm hopeful that it will happen in the next few days, since I'm so darned uncomfortable, but in the meantime I'm cooking away!

I've got a pot of soup on the stove that smells fantastic. Using tomatoes, corn, onions, garlic, and basil from my CSA box, zucchini from the front yard garden, barley from our grain CSA, and some of the meatballs that I froze from our Chileno Ranch beef, this is a very local soup.

Summer Vegetable and Barley Soup with meatballs

1 T olive oil
1 red onion, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 medium zucchinis, diced
5-6 LARGE tomatoes, diced, seeded and drained or 10-12 medium
2 c. fresh corn
2 quarts vegetable stock
1 t salt
1/2 t crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 c basil, bay leaf, and a sprig of thyme (I did this like a bouquet garni, tied up to be removed from the pot)
2 c. barley, soaked and drained
1 lb. cooked meatballs
Basil and parmesan cheese to sprinkle on top of the finished soup

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil. Add zucchini, tomatoes, salt, pepper, herbs, and barley. Bring to a boil and reduce heat; simmer for 1 hr. 15 minutes or until barley is tender. Add meatballs and simmer until they're just heated through. Remove bouquet garni and serve with basil and parmesan cheese on top.

One Local Summer: Week 10 - Steak, corn, and cucumbers

Tonight's dinner was very simple and very tasty! Grilled steaks from Chileno Valley Ranch, red corn on the cob from our veggie box, and cucumber slices out of our garden. I'd never had red corn before - it tasted just the same as white sweet corn, very nice on the grill.

I got huge heirloom tomatoes in this week's veggie box this week and I'm the only one in the house that likes them. The tomatoes have been lovely for raw salads the past few days, and I made a salmon salad with canned wild salmon to stuff in one of the huge beefsteak tomatoes for lunch today. It was another simple, delicious meal.

With the eggplants in this week's box, I'm making chickpeas with eggplant-tahini sauce in the pressure cooker. I have chickpeas from the grain CSA and the recipe, from a Lorna Sass cookbook, was a favorite last summer. Chickpeas are soaking now for dinner tomorrow night, another One Local Summer meal - unless I go into labor before then!

Bring-on-the-baby foods

I made a menu full of foods that are supposed to bring on labor last night, but as you can see by the post right now, I am not yet in labor! Still, it was a very tasty day.

I made spicy eggplant and pork (local eggplant and pork) with udon noodles (not local), and a pineapple smoothie, washed down by liberal amounts of red raspberry leaf tea. Today I'll be having some Thai green papaya salad with more spicy eggplant. I don't know if it's helping, but it is quite tasty!

And this baby is bound to come out sooner or later, but sooner would make me a happy lady.

Meatballs by the dozens... and dozens... and dozens

In a stock-the-freezer fit, I've made meatball mix that stretched out to about 8 dozen meatballs, two meatloaves, and a big pot of Pumpkin chili, currently in the crockpot. The mix made really delicious, although not 100% Core, meatballs and we'll have them ready for easy meals throughout late summer and fall. The bread crumbs and cheese are not Core, but only add less than a point per serving.

Here's the recipe I used (and be warned, this is a LOT of meat - you'll need a REALLY big bowl. You can easily halve or quarter it for a more reasonable quantity!)

Millions of Meatballs
8 eggs, lightly beaten
3 c. fresh whole wheat bread crumbs
1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese (I used Spring Hill's Old World Portuguese)
1/2 c. chopped parsley
15 oz. can tomato sauce
3 T Worcestershire sauce
1 t each dried basil, oregano, thyme, and marjoram
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper
6 lb. ground lean beef
2 lb. ground lean pork

Mix together all the ingredients except for the meats and combine well. Gently combine with the meats, taking care not to over mix. Roll mixture into balls about
1" across (1 T mixture) and bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes or until cooked through.

This mixture works well as meatloaf, too, but you'll need to bake it longer and you might want a sauce on the top. I added shredded zucchini to the mix for meatloaves.

One for dinner, one more for the freezer

Tonight we're having another of my endless variations on beans and grains, Spanish-style barley with Scarlett Runners, and with that mixture I'm stuffing bell peppers for another freezer-friendly post-baby dinner.

The barley is from our grain CSA, beans from Phipps, and various vegetables from Full Belly. Served tonight with green beans from our CSA box, we've got a local dinner for now, and stuffed into peppers from Happy Quail, topped with a little cheese from Spring hill, we've got a local meal later. This recipe makes a HUGE batch of the barley and beans, but they freeze well and would make a great lunch.

Spanish-style barley with Scarlett Runner beans

1 T olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 zucchini, diced
1 T chili powder
1 1/2 t cumin
1 t oregano
1 t salt
1 t paprika
1/2 t red pepper flakes
1 canned chipotle chile pepper and 1 t. adobo sauce
2 c. whole barley
2 c. crushed tomatoes (I used the tomato sauce that I made earlier in the week)
4 c. vegetable broth
2 c. Scarlett Runner beans, soaked overnight and drained
1 T oil
2 c. corn (fresh, frozen, or canned)
2 tomatoes, diced
1 big handful of green beans, cut into 1/2" pieces
1-2 scallions, diced

Saute onion, celery, carrot, zucchini, and garlic in olive oil. Add spices and saute another minute. Add barley and stir to coat with the onion and spice mixture. Add crushed tomatoes and vegetable broth. Cover, bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 1 hr. 15 minutes, or until liquid is absorbed.

Meanwhile, cook soaked beans in the pressure cooker. Cover the beans by 2 inches with water and add 1 T oil to prevent foaming. Cook under high pressure for 12-14 minutes.

Once the barley is cooked, add the beans, corn, green beans, tomatoes, and scallions; stir gently to combine.

***

I now have a moussaka, tamale pie, 3 quarts of tomato sauce, 1 quart of tomato-bean soup made from the tomato sauce, and the stuffed peppers in the freezer. I'll be doing my big batch of meatballs later in the week and the turkey early next week, baby willing, and hopefully will have 15-20 dinners ready to go.

When life (or your mother-in-law) hands you tomatoes...

My mother-in-law was the fortunate recipient of a large box of fresh tomatoes at the end of the farmer's market on Sunday, and not having a use for 10 lb. of fresh tomatoes, she passed them along to me. And how better to use all those wonderful tomatoes than to make an enormous pot of sauce, ready to freeze for easy post-baby meals? The whole house smells incredible, like an Italian restaurant with that tomato, garlic, olive oil, and basil simmering away. I've made a similar sauce before but not quite in this quantity! And don't worry, at least a quart is going back to my mother-in-law for her generous tomato contribution!

BIG batch of spaghetti sauce with fresh tomatoes
(makes about 6-7 quarts)

30-35 fresh medium sized tomatoes (about tennis ball sized)
3 onions, diced
3 bell peppers, diced
3 carrots, diced
6 stalks celery, diced
12 cloves garlic, minced (more or less to taste)
1/4 c. olive oil
3/4 c. fresh basil, or 1/4 c. dried
3 T fresh parsley, or 1 T dried
3 T fresh oregano, or 1 T dried
1 T fresh sage, or 1 t dried
3 bay leaves
1 t dried fennel seeds
1 T salt
1 1/2 t pepper
1 t red pepper flakes
1 small can tomato paste

In a very large stock pot, saute the onion, bell pepper, carrot, celery, and garlic in the olive oil. It will take a while to saute them all; you might want to work in batches. Meanwhile, dice all the tomatoes. When the veggies are all sauteed, add the tomatoes and other ingredients. Stir well. Bring to a boil, reduce, and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 3 hours or until reduced and slightly thickened. Drain out a bit of the watery broth and pull out the bay leaves; puree the sauce in batches. Add back the watery broth to make it the consistency you'd like. Adjust seasonings and enjoy.

Package in quart sized freezer bags and stack flat in your freezer for a stock of deeelicious sauce ready anytime you want it!

One Local Summer: Week 8 - Moussaka

Tonight's meal, Moussaka, is Core except for the bechamel on top, and at just 2 points per serving the bechamel doesn't make this too extravagent for as indulgent as it tastes. Jax ate a full serving and asked for seconds, and he's usually not an eggplant fan!

It's also completely local except for the cheese and spices. The vegetables are from Full Belly Farm, beef is from Chileno in Petaluma, milk and butter are from Clover in Mendocino, and flour is from our grain share. The recipe below has it baked in a 9"x13" pan, but I made it in two 8"x8" pans with one frozen for after the baby arrives. One more meal ready for the freezer, and one very tasty meal for this evening!

Moussaka
Serves 12

1 large eggplant, diced, salted for 30 minutes, and rinsed thoroughly
about 2 lb. potatoes, diced and boiled to al dente (not quite soft - they'll finish cooking in the oven)
1 T olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 medium zucchinis, diced
1 lb. lean ground beef (lamb would also be good)
salt and pepper to taste
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. nutmeg
1 T dry oregano
5 ripe tomatoes, diced

Bechamel Sauce
3 T butter
3 T flour
1 1/2 c. milk, heated
salt and pepper
1 c. parmesan cheese, divided

In a Dutch oven over medium-high heat, saute onion, garlic, bell pepper, and zucchinis until softened. Remove from the pan and cook ground beef until browned. Add the vegetables, spices, and tomatoes to the beef and simmer for 10 minutes or so for the flavors to combine.

While the beef mixture simmers, melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until the paste cooks and bubbles a bit, but don't let it brown — about 2 minutes. Add the hot milk, continuing to stir as the sauce thickens. Bring it to a boil. Add salt and pepper to taste, lower the heat, and cook, stirring for 2 to 3 minutes more. Remove from the heat. Add 1/2 c. parmesan cheese and stir to combine.

In an oiled 9"x13" pan, layer eggplant, potatoes, beef mixture, and bechamel. Top with remaining parmesan cheese. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until the top is golden. Rest for 5-10 minutes and serve.

One Local Summer: Week 7 (a tad bit late) and Week 8

Last night we enjoyed another local dinner, fresh from the farmer's market and absolutely delicious. I grilled eggplant slices and topped them with goat's milk brie from Spring Hill Cheese, grilled red onion, fresh tomato slices, and basil, all from our CSA veggie box, and sprinkled with olive oil and blackberry fig balsamic vinegar from Hare Hollow. Corn on the cob on the side completed the meal. So colorful and flavorful! It was a different take on the eggplant stacks that I made last summer out of Cooking Light magazine, with brie instead of goat cheese and more of a salad than a stack. Both versions are delicious with fresh summer vegetables.

This morning, for my 30th birthday (!!) Mr.M made me breakfast in bed and it is a local meal as well, the first for week 8. He made omelettes with Glaum eggs, Spring Hill cheese, and peppers from Happy Quail Farm in E. Palo Alto; bacon from TLC Ranch in Watsonville; and slices of watermelon from Full Belly.

One Local Summer: Week 6 - Daily Menu

I've really been slacking on the blog lately! I've got to get back in the daily menu habit before the baby gets here so it's not so hard to switch gears back into Weight Watchers. Plus, it was all over the news yesterday that people who keep a food diary lose more than those who don't. I'm surprised that this is news - I've been hearing this for ages - but it is as good a reason as any to start tracking or keep it up if you're trying to lose weight.

So here's a One Local Summer daily menu. Everything on here has been locally grown except for the smoked trout at lunch.

Breakfast
Purslane omelette - purslane from Full Belly Farm, eggs from Glaum, and a bit of smoked sharp cheddar cheese* (my favorite!) from Spring Hill Cheese
1 c. apple juice* from Sonoma

Lunch
Kamut-barley berry slaw with smoked trout (recipe from "Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way" by Lorna Sass)
Kamut and barley from Windborne Farm CSA, cabbage and carrot from Full Belly farm, dressing from a neighborhood lemon and Hare Hollow olive oil

Snack
Yogurt-peach-plum smoothie - yogurt from Wallaby in Napa, peaches and plums from a neighborhood tree (with permission)

Dinner
Chicken in apricot-plum sauce - chicken thighs from Soul Food Farm in Vacaville (not much left of those chickens), apricots and plums from neighbors' trees (with permission), apples from our tree, balsamic vinegar from Hare Hollow in Healdsburg (omitting butter, using olive oil)
Roasted new potatoes with rosemary - potatoes from Full Belly, rosemary from a neighbor's bush (with permission)
Steamed green beans


* Points for those on Core

One Local Summer: Week 4 - Carrot Potato Soup

I've been slacking on the blog lately! I'm catching up with housework, laundry, getting stuff ready for the new baby (just 5 more weeks!), spending time with Jax, and napping, and blogging has just taken a back seat lately. I'm still eating, but I'm not paying nearly as much attention to writing it down right now.

Last night I made a pot of delicious soup - carrots, potatoes, and chipotle peppers, with a little cheese and plain yogurt mixed in to mellow the peppers and give it a fuller flavor. I wish I'd written down the exact recipe, but I kind of made it up as I went along, adding things to taste as I thought they were needed. I thought there would be leftovers, but even Jax ate secodns

I did use all local ingredients, though, so it fits our One Local Summer plan. Onion, garlic, carrot, and potato all came from Full Belly Farm. I used sharp smoked cheddar from Spring Hill Cheese in Petaluma and Wallaby yogurt from Napa. The only non-local ingredients were the spices.

Millions of Peaches, Peaches for me... and Apricots and Figs, too!

A friend e-mailed me yesterday to tell me that her peach tree was full of ripe peaches if we'd like some, and a neighbor offered her all the apricots off of their tree. Plus, she found a fig tree in a parking lot near her house. So Jax and I will be picking fruit this week to freeze for smoothies and fruit crisps throughout the year. Yum!!

Another local dinner last night was delicious but not especially photogenic. Last fall I froze a meal of chickpeas and barley in eggplant sauce with spinach (with chickpeas from Phipp's Country Store, barley from the grain CSA, and eggplant and spinach from Full Belly Farm.) Last night we ate that in pita bread with fresh basil from this week's CSA box and feta cheese from Spring Hill Cheese. So tasty! I served it with sauteed zucchini squash out of this week's CSA box as well. The pita was not from local wheat, but is from a local independent bakery. I'm looking forward to the leftovers for lunch.

One Local Summer: Week 3 - and Meatless Monday, and a recipe too!

For yet another One Local Summer menu, and a Meatless Monday one at that, I made a delicious bean and potato soup. This was one of those dinners that just hit the right balance of hearty and soul satisfying without being too heavy. I served it with cabbage and tomatoes.

Gigantes bean soup with potatoes
1-2 T olive oil
1 onion, coarsely chopped (again from Full Belly)
2-3 carrots, coarsely chopped (Full Belly, of course!)
1-2 celery stalks, coarsely chopped (from the farmer's market)
5-6 cloves garlic, crushed and coarsely chopped (from Gilroy)
4 c. cooked Gigantes beans (any mild white beans would work here; mine were left over from the polenta lasagna and were cooked with onion, garlic, bay leaf, oregano, and thyme)
6 starchy potatoes, like Yukon Gold, chopped coarsely (mine were from Full Belly Farm)
4 c. vegetable or chicken stock (homemade chicken stock from Vacaville chickens)
2 t. thyme
1/2 t. marjoram
1/2 t. sage
1-2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
water to cover potatoes if needed

In a large Dutch oven, saute the onion, carrots, celery until the onion is translucent. Add garlic and saute another minute or two, or until fragrant. Add beans, potatoes, spices, and stock. If the stock doesn't cover the vegetables, add water so that everything is covered. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes or until the vegetables are softened. Remove the bay leaves. Puree to a smooth consistency, adjust seasonings to taste, and serve with chopped parsley on top.


***

Yesterday, Mr.M, his mom, Jax and I drove out to Half Moon Bay and Pescadero to celebrate Father's Day with fresh, locally caught fish and a trip to Phipp's Country Store for beans. At Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, I ordered a halibut entree with halibut caught not 100 yards from the table (yum!)

Phipp's was busier than usual with U-Pick olallieberries, baby chickens in the farm area, and my favorite, the beans! I stocked up on five varieties of beans and you'll be sure to see them featured here over the next few months. Overall, a lovely day by the coast!

Trying something new

Our veggie box this week includes:
Carrots
Salad Mix
Cabbage
Onions
Potatoes
Summer Squash
Mibuna

I've never heard of mibuna before, so I Googled it to find that this Japanese green leafy veggie has a nice, mildly sharp taste for mixed salads and light cooking. I'll make a salad with them one day this week and will post a photo.

The carrots from Full Belly are the best I've ever eaten - so sweet and completely flavorful in a way that grocery store carrots just aren't. And I'm not sure that I reported back on the fresh vs. stored onion flavor: they're pretty much the same in recipes. I can't tell the difference, anyway.

One Local Summer: Week 2 - Polenta Lasagna, and Daily Menu for June 13

We had Polenta lasagna for dinner tonight, and although it has quite a few ingredients, they're all local! I'm using a recipe I found on the web with a few adjustments; namely, I'm adding beans to make it a higher protein meal. I love Gigantes beans - they're huge as the name might suggest, but smooth and creamy, almost like potatoes, but with a delicious mellow flavor. They blended right in with the polenta, vegetables, and feta cheese. (I used just the feta cheese and skipped romano. I didn't have any rosemary so I skipped that.)

Cornmeal from my grain CSA has been cooked and chilled in the fridge in preparation of tonight's lasagna. I'm using the tomato sauce that I made and froze last fall from farmer's market tomatoes, and Gigantes beans from Phipps Country Store in Pescadero. Onion, garlic, carrot, and kale are all from Full Belly Farm, and Feta cheese is from Spring Hill Cheese.

This recipe was FANTASTIC! It didn't come out pretty so I won't be posting a photo, but it was delicious. The polenta and beans were creamy together and I didn't miss the extra cheese. Kale and olives gave it a bit more texture and interesting flavors. I'll definitely make this one again.

Breakfast
2 slices toast, 1 t. butter
2 eggs

Snack
Yogurt and berry smoothie with 1 t. flaxseed oil

Lunch
Carrot sticks and pita bread with Gigantes bean puree (like hummus made with Gigantes beans and olive oil)
1 c. vegetable juice

Snack
Cottage cheese and pineapple

Dinner
Polenta lasagna with Gigantes beans
zucchini

Daily Menu for June 12

I'm trying to follow the rules for gestational diabetes given to me by the dietitian. Here's my menu incorporating those rules; hopefully the shifts will get easier as I get used to them. I'm struggling with getting in the recommended amounts of protein at each meal and snack - I just discovered that milk counts as both a protein and a carbohydrate, so that will help to fill in the snacks - I'm not a big snacker, but I shouldn't go more than 3 hours without eating, so hopefully that's enough.

I'm also struggling with avoiding milk and fruit for breakfast, as those are my staples! Cheese and nuts were suggested protein alternatives, but I don't want to get into high-fat habits that will be hard to break when the baby arrives. Suggestions of meat free, dairy free breakfasts that are high in protein would be welcome! I think I'll make quinoa for breakfast tomorrow - it's the only grain that is a complete protein, and it's delicious.

Breakfast
1/2 c. Mashed potatoes with sauteed kale and onion
1 T peanut butter (all by itself so I get the protein requirement!)

Snack
1 c. yogurt with fresh berries

Lunch
Big green salad with smoked trout
1 t. olive oil in a vinaigrette
2 slices whole wheat toast

Snack
1 c. milk

Dinner
Huevos Rancheros (tomato sauce, poached eggs, and beans over polenta)
Mexican style cole slaw with carrots and radishes
1 t. olive oil in polenta

Snack
1 c. milk

One Local Summer: Week 2 - Grilled Snapper

I made a delicious and very simple (and colorful!) dinner last night: grilled snapper, corn on the cob, steamed carrots, and strawberries. The snapper was dressed very, very lightly with lime juice, chili powder, salt and pepper, and grilled on aluminum foil "boats" because we don't have a fish grill pan. It worked out very nicely - the fish was cooked through and had the smoky flavor, and it didn't fall through the grates. Topped with cilantro and served with a lime wedge, this was light and fresh, perfect for a hot day.

Corn on the cob is great grilled, and I served that with lime wedges and dusted them dusted with chili powder. I read the idea on a blog about Indian food and thought it would be a nice change of pace from the standard butter, salt and pepper - boy is it! Tangy, spicy, and sweet, with a smoky grilled background flavor, this was a fantastic way to enjoy fresh sweet corn.

The fish was caught around Half Moon Bay, about 25 miles away. Corn on the cob came from Brentwood, 65 miles away. Carrots and strawberries were grown by my faithful CSA, Full Belly Farm, 128 miles away. And the lime was picked off a neighbor's tree (with permission, of course.) Only the chili powder, salt and pepper were not locally grown.

***

Adjustments to My Diet

I met with a dietitian this morning to go over the adjustments I need to make for my not-quite-diabetes elevated blood sugar levels. The biggest change for me is that I'll need to count, weigh, and measure all of my food until the end of my pregnancy (10 more weeks!) I'll also need to eat on a schedule - every 3 hours, and no longer than 10 hours between an evening snack and breakfast.

Since discovering Core, I've learned how to pay attention my body's hunger cues, eating mindfully when hungry and stopping when satisfied. For whatever reason, I am unable to do this while counting Points, carbs, calories, whatever. The mindset is just different for me in a way that I am not sure how to explain. I have worked hard to revoke my Clean Plate Club membership, and counting puts me right back into the mindset of "must eat what's counted" whether or not I'm physically hungry. I'm concerned that eating a prescribed amount on a schedule will not be a positive habit for me to reacquire, but I want to do what is healthiest for the baby, so I'll have to work with these rules to find a balance that works for me.