What's the Deal with Artichokes?

Really.  I mean, what's the deal with them?  Have you ever tried to just cook an artichoke?  I'm not talking gooey, creamy artichoke dip with artichoke hearts from a fancy little bottle.  I mean, go steam an artichoke and see what happens.  A whole lotta nothin', that's what.  Are the leaves merely dipping devices?  Do they serve any other purpose?  I thought it was supposed to have some kind of umph to it.  

This tilapia, on the other hand,  was pretty good.  In a food processor, I chopped up almonds, fresh rosemary, thyme and sage and sprinkled it on top of the fish with some olive oil.  Broiled on high for a few minutes and bam,  tilapia.  Something normal.   

I even got a little fruity sauce going.  I had half a peach left over from a snack sitting in some truvia in the fridge, so I blended that with the left over ground almond and herbs and some lemon olive oil and ate it with the fish.  Well, mostly I just spooned it into my mouth because it tasted like dessert.  But it was good with the fish, too.

Rotation is getting a little easier, now.  Especially with the discovery that I'm not allergic to goat's milk.  READ:  I can eat goat cheese.  Yes, I get excited over little things, like eggs, goat cheese and bacon.  And frozen cherries.

What's that?  How do I feel, you ask?  After avoiding all the wonderful treats that I'm allergic to?  I feel fantastic.  It's just like when I stopped eating dairy and eggs for the first time.  All these things/symptoms that I thought were from something else went away.  Dizziness, acne, being tired all the time, the inability to lose weight.  All gone.

For example, a symptom of food allergies is inflammation.  For the past few months, I've had a knee issue.  I couldn't run.  I went to a physical therapist three times a week and we couldn't fix it.  I was just about to go get a shot in my knee as a last resort, or give up running all together thinking my body just wasn't built for it.  Two weeks into this diet, and my knee feels fine after every mile.  I know, it's hokey.  When I get back up to three mile runs, I'll revisit this issue, but for now, I'm a believer.

Stuffed Pepper with Squash

 

Finally, a success! A yellow submarine success!  If I had planned for this meal, I would have used a different color pepper rather than yellow, like a green bell pepper or a poblano pepper (like last time).  I've made a few stuffed peppers (three, to be exact) and started thinking that stuffed peppers would be my go to dish for beef day.  

But this idea of a "go to dish" negates the theme of variety, which is very important here.  I think it's just that I haven't learned a variety of dishes to cook yet, and that being said, it's just easier to reheat frozen leftovers from last week and add a few fresh things to the mix than figure out something totally new.  

So back to my pepper.  It was good, and you can probably make it even better with the food additions of a non allergic person, although I didn't even think about food allergies while I was eating dinner tonight.  The "I can't haves" didn't even cross my mind.

I also made a little pumpkin dessert, with just canned pumpkin, chopped hazelnuts, agave nectar, nutmeg and salt.  It was okay, not great, but I have a plan for how to make it great next time.

Stuffed Pepper with Squash (Makes four servings)
(Rotation Diet, Day One)

Serve over rice.

4 fresh peppers

1 lb. beef, or ground meat of your choice

1 package frozen spinach, thawed and drained

1 cup chopped bell peppers (I used frozen)

salt and pepper to taste.

4 yellow squash (or 2 yellow squash and 2 zucchini) 

2 cup  Organic Creamy Butternut Squash Soup (Brand name is Imagine) (Also, this is a bit of a cheat because it is a premade soup with additional seasonings, but I'm okay with that, nothing I'm already allergic to)

2 tsp. Safflower Oil (this is the oil I can use for Day One; you can use any oil if you're not on rotation diet)

2 cups ketchup (no HFCS) (That means high fructose corn syrup

1/2 tsp. marjoram and 1/2 tsp. thyme 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cut tops off whole peppers and clean, removing seeds.  Set aside. Brown ground beef with frozen bell peppers (do not thaw before), sprinkling with salt and pepper to taste.  Meanwhile, thaw and drain spinach according to package instructions.  Mix spinach in with cooked meat and peppers.  Add ketchup. Fill peppers with meat mixture, brush with 1 tsp. oil and place in baking dish.  Slice squash, coat with marjoram, thyme and remaining 1 tsp. oil.  I actually used squash I sliced and froze last week, putting it in the baking dish frozen.  Place squash around peppers in baking dish.  Add butternut squash soup (I added this after 40 minutes, but I am sure it would be good from the start). Bake for 1 hour, or until pepper is tender.  Serve with rice, perfect to soak up all the juice.

Oh, and if you're not allergic to wheat, try some breadcrumbs and more veggies in the meat mixture please and let me know how that goes.  

Expressiones!

And here we start another new faucet of Fan Club, picture stories, in which I give you a little story about one of my pictures.  This one was taken on the day I married my perfect husband five and a half years ago, and yes, I like to think I still look exactly like that.  I treated the bridal party to brunch that morning and the group of us went to a fancy dancy salon to get our hair all fixed up.  

My hair was half way finish, it still needed pinning with about 75 bobby pins and to be adorned with white orchids (It's nice to use words like adorned when your talking about yourself).  I took a little break to survey the bridal party (survey is another good choice for personal verbage).  I walked up behind my friend here and when she saw my reflection in the mirror, she gasped and made this "oh my gosh you're getting married" noise.  It started a chain reaction of expressions, my smile, the stylists' surprise when he looked up mid sentence, although I think he was disapproving of that one fly away piece that needed pinning back, and the other stylist in the background, thinking "What the...?"  

A Postcard From the Rotation Diet

It's been one week so far, and things are definitely looking up.  Two days ago, I realized I could eat omelettes again.  Yesterday, I had a baked sweet potato with sauteed onions, bacon and chives.  Tonight,  I made stuffed bell peppers (stuffed with ground beef, spinach and chopped bell peppers) with a poblano mushroom sauce and cherry tomatoes and a side of roasted eggplant.  this is the first meal I ate that was pretty good, although the mushroom sauce doesn't look appetizing at all, it was good.

Pictured above, we have lentil soup (gross), squash with a pine nut crust, crab with edamame and spinach, chicken breast with okra and squash (I didn't eat the squash though, I wanted a second helping of the okra), broiled halibut with brussel sprouts (gross), omelette with oatmeal and cantaloupe (oatmeal sweetened with maple syrup and rhubarb jam), baked sweet potato with onions, bacon, chives and soy sour cream and a stuff pepper roasted with eggplant.

the only thing I've tried from the new cookbook was the rhubarb jam, which as I said before turned out more like baby food.  I think it has something to do with, well, the recipe, but also that I used frozen rhubarb rather than fresh.  Also, I'm freezing lots of leftovers and made a big pot of chicken with carrots, so I'll have lunch for day 3 for about a month.  

It's still challenging, but I think I have a more positive attitude.  Actually, I would describe this more as "realizing that it sucks, but accepting that it's something I have to do right now" and "finding new cooking options every time I make a meal."

This weekend, I'm planning to purchase some wheat substitutes and different types of oil (because I can't use olive oil everyday) and cook another dish from my book, most likely a dessert.

And I think I may be losing weight.  Although I did eat 5 pieces of bacon for dinner and a double order of sweet potato fries for lunch today.  I mean, come on, I think they get cancelled out with everything else that I'm not eating.

Book Review: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Hello reader.  No, this book isn't something I cooked from my new rotation diet!  That would be the Rhubarb jam I made last night that seemed more like Rhubarb baby food, but not this book.  Yes, it IS part of the new content plan for the Food Fan Club. No... I don't want to change the title of my blog.  I'm still a food fan, just one in search of variety.

This is my first book review.  They will only get better from here... Enjoy!

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Addicting" is right. "Couldn't put it down" would be even more right.

I recommended Hunger Games for a book club. Now, this is a very young book club, only having read one book before The Hunger Games. The first book, The Heretic's Daughter, was intense. I thought Hunger Games would be a lighter read.

I read about three pages and suddenly found a very familiar feeling, the same one I had when I started reading Twilight. Oh, this main character is young. I wonder how much older she gets throughout the series. Oh. OH! It's a young adult book! A YA BOOK!

I have no beef with the YA books, besides the fact that they always seem to suck me in before I realize they actually are YA books, but I started to feel somewhat embarrassed by my book selection. I purposely picked something less intense than The Heretic's Daughter, but this was totally different. I didn't know if the other people would like it at all. I envisioned them slowly nudging me out of the book club, maybe skipping my turn to pick books at first and then just not returning my phone calls, all because I picked a book they didn't like. The next morning, I emailed the book club, letting them know it was in fact a YA book and that if they wanted to pick a different book, that was fine with me. I was secretly still planning to read it.

The messages I got in return really surprised me though, because one girl said, "I've started reading it and it is addicting! Fun read for the beginning of the school year when things are crazy." Another said, "Randi said it was addicting so I don't think anyone minds :) I'm going to borrow her copy when she's done to take on my trip to New Mexico next weekend and I can't wait to start it!"

With my book club's go ahead, I sat down that night to read a few more chapters before bed. And I kept reading. And kept reading. And then it was morning and I couldn't stop thinking about Katniss and Petta, about The Hunger Games. The next weekend, I zoomed through both books 2(Catching Fire) and 3 (Mocking Jay) from the series. I was addicted to the plot. I wanted to know more about the characters. I was swept away with the chain of events.

By the time the book club met, me and one other person had read all three books, two others had finished book one and two and one was starting on book three. Everyone liked it, although we all admitted it had some flaws. First, the third book seems to have a "lazy" ending. All that time spent on those two main characters and at the end, they get summed up in a few nice, neat pages. Second, there are several pieces of summary that cover moments I would like to listen in on. We all agreed that those summary moments seemed like good montage moments for a movie. And then we moved on to the potential movie and who would play what role, etc. Of course, we would all go see the movies if they ever made them.

Another thing I noticed about this book, and maybe it was because of the neatly packaged ending, I don't find myself craving these characters anymore, not like with other series books where I want to know what happens next even after I've read the last book in the series.

That said, I still read the series in a span of two days. I still stayed up all night to finish The Hunger Games. I still enjoyed reading these books and would recommend them to most people.