the great low-carb experiment

are you on reddit? it's the "front page of the internet" and my husband is on it a lot. i mean, A LOT. they have threads on every topic under the sun. it's like the beyond of bed, bath & beyond.

well, phil kept talking about keto. he read the threads and kept saying "i want to try keto." it's an extremely low-carb diet where you train your body to use fat for energy, rather than carbs. it is common in the body building world (oh, you know, totally us) and also used to treat epilepsy. i had seen several reviews of the "wheat belly diet" book and decided to read it. i LOVE diet books. i don't usually follow them, but i started reading them in early high school (dr. weil). i love the idea of detox and cleansing, too, so i agreed to try the wheat-free, sugar-free thing and see how i felt. i had done the clean cleanse a couple of years ago and felt great, but it was hard to maintain alone. if phil is doing it, i can certainly succeed! i had one last hurrah: maple fest : ) i ate maple until i was sick, but it was so worth it!

so three weeks ago we took the plunge. this is not a cheap endeavor. i did some menu planning (i follow several natural food blogs and supplemented with pinterest, reddit and low carb friends) and made a B-I-G whole foods run. many of the foods are no different than what we typically eat: lots of green veggies, cheeses, grass-fed beef, chicken, milk from grass-fed cows (dairy and meat from the milk delivery). however, i bake. we eat pasta a fair amount. one of our sides at dinner typically includes potatoes, sweet potatoes, quinoa, beans, or rice in some form. i had to find stevia, coconut oil, almond flour, garbanzo bean (gram) flour, unsweetened cocoa... expensive staples to re-stock a keto-friendly kitchen. i'm trying not to go too crazy, but it is fun to experiment. i do love wandering the grocery store. and ordering off amazon : )

the first week, i stuck to safer recipes. salads for lunch (with leftover meat from the night before on top) or a chipotle burrito bowl/salad if i went out. for dinner, i made a lot of hashes. that's where i basically cut up lots of veggies and a meat (say, spicy sausage, kale, onions, squash, garlic) and brown them all in a big skillet. then i put a poached egg on top. we also ate lettuce-wrapped burgers at five guys. one night, i made pecan-crusted chicken with kale and mashed cauliflower. not a huge fan of the cauliflower.

by day five, i felt horrible. i was really weak and couldn't keep down food. i assume it was the change in diet, but i had also gone to a work event the night before and had wine without a real dinner (very few low-carb options). i broke down and had a slice of toast and orange juice. but i went back to my low-carb diet the next meal. i also learned that i need to eat meals and try to get to my calorie goal every day. i'm struggling with not being hungry (never thought i'd say that!).

the next week, phil felt bad. he felt sluggy and tired. and he had a stuffy nose (this one actually hasn't really gone away). but we got a little more adventurous with our meals. i learned how to make chickpea flour batter and used it to make wraps, tortillas, and flatbreads. very good! we upped our fat intake and started feeling much better. we have switched to whole milk and eat lots of avocados. i also eat olives and phil eats nuts.

i was able to make turkey, avocado and bacon wraps for lunch with this great recipe. a single serving wrap is 2 tablespoons flour to 2 tablespoons water and i don't use nutritional yeast, because i don't ever have it. i made a couple extra wraps and they kept pretty well for lunch the next day. not as good as hot off the skillet, but totally passable. especially with some mashed avocado : )

we tried a taco night with ground beef (which became taco salad the next day). same chickpea flour batter, poured thin to make tortillas.

lazy night was a flaxseed meal foccacia eggs benedict. the flatbread holds together well and even goes in the toaster! i topped a couple of slices with bacon, a poached egg and a sprinkle of cheese. then a quick salad on the side: spinach, red onion and clementine slices. yes, i know that fruit is not low-carb. but i LOVE it. and a tiny clementine isn't that bad : )

and we even had pizza! phil found this great recipe and i topped it with a tiny bit of tomato sauce (look out for added sugar), fresh mozzarella, parmesan, salami, prosciutto, lots of spinach, and basil. it does not taste like pizza, but it's good.

will we stick with it? maybe a bit longer. the greatest thing is that it has re-set my palette. i don't crave m&m's and coke in the afternoon now. fruit is sweet enough to satisfy my sweet tooth. but i think my body functions best with a few more carbs. i'll try to stay with complex carbs and not slip back into bad habits. i did feel amazing on my last run - super light on my feet. we'll see...

pasta experiment two

the other night, i got the pasta out again... i had never made any for phil, and i knew he would love it. i decided to make a carbonara pasta. i had some bacon and veggies, and like i said, i just go with what's in the fridge : )

i made the same pasta dough but experimented with substituting a little whole wheat flour. i then put it through the press. i rolled it through the different settings, ending with a 5 or 6. it was as thin as i felt comfortable. as i rolled each piece, i folded it to prepare for cutting - dust with LOTS of flour. so sticky!

i cut the folded pasta dough into strips. not really sure what "shape" this is - fettucine or tagliatelle? eh. oh well. while i was cutting the dough strips, i browned some bacon i had cut into bits.

i also roasted some tomatoes. did you know i prefer just about everything roasted? broccoli, potatoes, chicken, squash, peaches... seriously. mmmm. so when i have veggies on their way out (like the cherry tomatoes i had that started out SERIOUSLY out of season), i douse them in olive oil and spices and roast at 425 or 450. for tomatoes, i use salt, pepper, oregano (dried), rosemary (either), and basil (fresh). anyway, that's another thing i wanted to use in the pasta. and when i roast tomatoes, i make extra. they're wonderful in salads, egg dishes, etc. 

i also had some swiss chard. i love swiss chard. actually, i like all greens. i tend to buy random bunches at the grocery store - it's something i usually have in the fridge. i do love them roasted (helloooo, kale chips), but for this dish i threw it in with the bacon as it was about done. just to wilt it. and turn a gorgeous deep green! i pulled out the roasted tomatoes, turned off the heat on the bacon and chard, and threw the pasta into boiling, salted water. fresh pasta cooks VERY quickly. i tossed the pasta into the skillet with the bacon and chard. added the tomatoes and a bit of pasta water, along with olive oil. i tossed it all with my tongs and then topped it with parmesan, of course. about an hour, start to finish. the pasta pressing took longer than expected. 

super yummy!! the wheat made the pasta a little gummy after the first dinner. because you know i ate it for a couple of lunches : ) but i added some water when i reheated it in the microwave and it helped.

full disclosure: i left a tupperware in the fridge for about two weeks (oops!). the pasta turned a WEIRD brown color. not cool. right down the disposal with that! so, fresh pasta that has been cooked needs to be eaten within a week. preferably sooner. also, i should learn to not keep leftovers until they make me gag.

simple weeknight meals

i love to cook. i also tend to work late. these two things do not lend to early dinners : ) so that we don't eat at 9.30 every night, i've had to develop a system. i take stock of the fridge, freezer and pantry in the morning when i grab my lunch and then think about it all day. on the bus ride home, i google the random ingredients i remember and see what pops up. if it looks like it takes less than 45 minutes, it wins!! haha. bonus if there are leftovers for work lunches : )

this night, i googled chicken + swiss chard + mushrooms. we ended up with a quick braised chicken breast with mushrooms and chard (chopped stems and leaves). i'd never braised before, and i'm not sure i did it correctly. but it was quick and only used one pan! this made one lunch of the same meal and one lunch of a salad with chopped chicken. 

this search was ground turkey + jalapeno. it became turkey chili. i didn't even thaw the meat - i put the entire frozen block straight from my milk delivery box into a pot. no joke. then i added garlic and the chopped jalapeno, followed by a random beer from the fridge to get the little browned bits, and whatever beans and tomato cans i had in the pantry. no chips, so i took the end of a package of tortillas and made crispy strips in the oven. this made two lunches! 

other nights, i have an idea of what i want to make, but want to switch it up. again, the bus is a great time to brush up on familiar recipes. i've made taco ring for years and years. but i knew that we were out of crescent rolls in the fridge, so i learned how to make my own dough between k street and dupont circle. while the ground beef was browning, i made up my own dough and then made a taco ring like i usually do and served it with store-bought salsa. there was enough dough to make rolls for breakfast the next morning, too : ) 

and some nights i just don't feel like cooking. this night i made quick nachos under the broiler. bag of chips, refried beans, veggies, and ends of random cheeses from the cheese drawer. and i may have had a pre-dinner snack of refried beans. i'm sure no one else has nights like that... : )

i'm always open to new quick, weeknight dinners - send me your suggestions!

christmas pasta

my sweet sisters-in-law gave me the kitchenaid pasta roller attachment for christmas! phil's aunt gave us the mixer as a wedding present and it has been the greatest. i use it all the time, but the greatest gift is that every time i use it, i think of aunt pam : ) so i'm looking forward to thinking of catherine and leslie whenever i make my own pasta. the gift was from their entire families, but if they're anything like my little family, the wives are the ones in charge of gift-buying : )

after spending time with phil's family, we drove out to west texas to stay with my sister. she and her husband just had a precious baby boy, so it was easier for us to come to them to celebrate christmas this year. and sarah got a mixer as a christmas present! we decided to play with the pasta roller one afternoon as tiny baby everett napped. and i decided to do a post about it, in the spirit of one of my favorite blogs, citrus & spice!

i've never made fresh pasta, so i did a little searching for a recipe and found this helpful thread on chowhound. we used the "poor man's pasta" recipe suggested in one of the posts:

2 cups flour
2 eggs
3 tablespoons water
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 pinches of sea salt (i added this - i love salt!)

then we mixed it in the kitchenaid with the flat beater just until the motor started to struggle - it's a strong dough! then i turned it out onto a floured cutting board and kneaded for about 4-5 minutes. the dough turned smooth and elastic. then i let it rest about 30 minutes in the bowl (most recipes suggested this period to let the gluten "relax").

next, i divided it into small pieces and turned on the mixer with the roller attachment. i set the roller to its widest attachment (the 1 setting) and rolled the piece through. i folded it in half and rolled it through again - i did this about three or four times before turning it to the 2 setting. i passed the dough through on 2 a couple of times and then on 3. i left the dough fairly thick (the roller goes to 8!) because i was nervous about the filling coming out of the really thin dough.

i set each rolled out piece on wax paper to wait for the filling. i *should* have floured the wax paper. lesson learned.

i mixed up some filling based on this recipe. i altered it for our tastes and the amount of dough i had made:

1 egg
1 1/2 cups part-skim ricotta cheese
2 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons italian seasoning
salt and pepper

i would have used fresh herbs, but my sister's garden is in winter mode. next time, i will add much more seasoning. first, i brushed an eggwash (just quickly whisk one egg) over the dough strips, to help create a seal when i made the little purses. i spooned globs of filling onto the sheet at regular intervals and then laid another eggwashed sheet on top. i cut in between each filling pocket and sealed each ravioli. kind of ugly, and too large.

i changed my strategy. since i didn't have a ravioli cutter (or the patience to do it perfectly), i had irregularly shaped dough sheets. they weren't matching up and i had a lot of weird edges. so i put a glob  of filling on one side of the pasta sheet, cut it into wide strips, and folded over to create my ravioli. i like these better! we had some leftover chopped mushroom from making quiche the day before, so i sprinkled some of that into a few of the ravioli.

i took each completed ravioli and pinched the edges together. it took awhile to find my groove in the correct filling amount - i tended to overfill and then make a mess when pinching edges. i separated the ravioli and dusted them with flour. i let them air-dry for about 45 minutes, then put them into containers for the fridge.

at dinner time, i boiled a pot of water with olive oil and salt. the ravioli stuck together in the containers, so next time i may try individually freezing on a cookie sheet (kind of like i did here) and then transferring into the container. hopefully, that would solve the sticking issue. anyway, i boiled them in an uncrowded pot until they started to float (about 4 minutes, max, since they were used the same day - i assume longer if straight from the freezer). i used a slotted spoon to put them in AND take them out of the water. they didn't all burst!! i was shocked. they seemed so fragile.

we didn't have any home-made sauce, so after the ravioli were done cooking (it took several batches), i poured out most of the pasta water. i kept a bit in the pot and added store-bought marinara, olive oil, and seasoning. i heated it through and then poured it over the ravioli and sprinkled freshly grated parmesan. seriously, i do NOT understand people using the already grated parmesan. i know i'm a snob, but yuck. it's like using minced garlic in a jar. the taste is different to me. is it really that hard to use a little zester over your finished plate? a block of parm will keep in your fridge FOREVER.

anyway, successful experiment!

i found a lot of good resources in my googling. did you know that ravioli is a typical christmas food for italian and italian-american families? i did not - i'm so timely : ) this post is incredibly detailed and helpful for the pasta rolling process. i looked through these photos on making the ravioli. i'm excited to keep trying and experimenting; i want to stock up my freezer with all kinds of ravioli! next try: whole wheat pasta and veggie filling.

guests & projects

so my mom and sister just left. which makes me very sad. after the wedding in houston last weekend, they came out to see the house, visit, and work on projects at the house. my sister is pregnant, so we didn't do anything too crazy : ) i miss them already!

my mom is a landscape designer. which means she drew up plans for our gardens! i have big dreams of a bountiful kitchen garden and robust cutting garden, and she helped me figure out what to put where. our front yard will be a wonderful oasis of lush flowers that bloom throughout the year against an evergreen backdrop. and she recommended we add a bit of physical structure to help provide focus and framework to the cottage garden look i'm after. she also suggested a kitchen garden in the front! shhh - don't tell phil. he's not too sure about edibles in the front, but her plan will be beautiful, if i can execute it correctly : ) she confirmed our suspicions about the tree in the tiny "backyard," too... it's dying. we'll have to figure out if the city or utility company will help cover the cost of removing it. but then we'll have another parking space! she suggested a structure on the back patio to provide shade and privacy, and then a vertical garden for more edibles. and an evergreen rosemary as a green wall between us and the next-door neighbor. smart lady!

we cooked at the house for most of our meals. sarah is pregnant, which means restricted diet - and cravings. and my mom follows a FODMAP diet. which is very restrictive. no garlic and onions! that makes it difficult to eat at restaurants without special ordering like crazy. plus, i had dairy delivery on tuesday and farm share on wednesday, so we had plenty of options for cooking fresh, seasonal food.

my favorite meal was a roasted chicken. i ordered a whole roasting chicken from south mountain, so it was delivered to the house on tuesday. it was already cleaned (hooray!!), with a bag of innards in the cavity. i followed the recipe from my favorite martha book, with butter and rosemary under the skin.

we used some olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted the livers in the same pan. we put potatoes and a couple of garlic cloves around it. my mom can't eat the garlic, but still likes the flavor, so we left it in big pieces so we could pick it out after. i also chopped chives all over it. it roasted at 450 for about an hour... 

and came out gorgeous and crispy! the potatoes weren't as crispy as i like them, but they still tasted good. we ate it with steamed green beans from the farm share, because that is something sarah craves. weird. but healthy! she is trying to eat as many different foods as possible to expose baby's palette to lots of healthy foods. the best part of roasting a chicken is having leftover roasted chicken : )

like for nachos at lunch the next day. mmmmmmmmm. we finished a few projects... cleaning up and organizing the back room into a study and work room, putting together the dining room, making blackout roman shades for the den's french doors, and putting the final coat of poly on the dresser. those posts are coming, but i'm up to my eyeballs studying for an architectural registration exam, so i'll have to write them on procrastination breaks. 

i have loved spending an entire week with my mom and sister : ) and next time i see them, i'll have a new nephew! 

blueberry buckle

we have gotten a lot of blueberries in our farm share this year. tons and tons. i have eaten them in my yogurt, juiced, or frozen most of them, but we were still having a hard time finishing them before they started to go bad. so i pulled out one of my favorite cookbooks, the family baker, to inspire me. i'm not sure if it's in print now, but i have always had excellent success with the recipes and they are super easy to follow. each entry includes other ideas for variations, entertaining tips, substitutions, and a little history of where the recipe originated. so i decided on a blueberry buckle to take to a backyard barbecue we had on sunday afternoon : )

it's basically cake batter with blueberries on top. a sweet, slightly lemon-y cake batter and farm-fresh blueberries!

then you dab the rest of the batter on top. it doesn't matter if it's ugly, or uneven. i think it's kind of supposed to be like that. 

then a super yummy crumb topping goes all over the top (and maybe the counter...).  so it's kind of like a breakfast-y coffee cake. but we ate it with ice cream and it was a hit! 

not only did tony dress to match the blueberries, but he had seconds! the best part of cooking and baking is having people to enjoy it. 

...oh and having home-made baked goodies for breakfast monday morning was a plus, too : )