Cooking: Karma

The menu of my week is always best made when I am hungry.

We ate very badly all weekend and I am feeling the effects of going off the tracks. 

Too much  Mexican/pretzels/donuts... I mean really bad.

Steve apparently is feeling the same way, as his request for today is kale. 

We are both so sensitive in our diets now. Old age is going to be a treat.

Ellie requested tortilla soup. Steve requested no ground beef.

I am baking two chickens ala Nigella Lawson.

 

Casa Swann No Ground Beef Menu

• Tortilla soup with baked pulled chicken
• Baked chicken/ kale quinoa salad/ roasted zucchini
• Baked Sweet Potatoes with black beans and egg
• Pork tenderloin/ red beans,/sauteed spinach
• Chili or soup

Cooking: Why eat out?

I always have a million blog posts running through my mind. 

Things I want to preach about...(people taking responsibility for how their kids behave, what they eat, how they shop, Monsanto), things I want to learn about...(how to have a better attitude, how to pray better, how to raise successful teenagers) and things that I do and find surprisingly good.

This past week, I made two really great meals. Well, three if you count what I ate and not the boring tacos I made for my family. Steve and I have gotten to the point that we rarely eat out. When we do it is often anticlimactic, as we find that most of the foods we love to eat, which are higher end at restaurants, I make at home. 

We eat better than a lot of our peers, mostly because we are cheap and we love food.

I lucked into two great deals on seafood these past 10 days and we have had Red Royal Shrimp (a treat if you ever can get them) and wild Alaskan salmon. Both were half price at Earthfare, which has wonderful meat and seafood. (I am not being paid to say that, I wish I was..ahem, Earthfare, ahem). 

This week we had tacos, shrimp and salmon.

I made my own shrimp boil and it was absolutely delicious. I usually use Zataran's shrimp boil, but as I am sure it has MSG in it, have ceased buying it.  I tweaked a recipe I found online and even Mr. Hard-to-Impress was indeed, impressed.

For the salmon, I threw three ingredients together and marinated the fish for about 45 minutes.  We love horseradish, so I mixed equal parts mustard, horseradish and Stubb's BBQ sauce (no cornsyrup) together. A little salt and pepper, and the salmon grilled up nicely. Delaney oohed and aahed over it, as well. Succeess.

Cooking is not hard, it just takes a little forethought. As a country with so many health problems caused from affluence, we could all use a little more home cooked, not out of a box meals.

Here is the recipe for the shrimp boil  I made. Try it once and you won't go back.

Happy Eating.

Shrimp Boil for 2 pounds of shrimp

• 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbl. peppercorns
• 1 1/2 tsp. mustard seed
• 1 1/2 tsp. celery seed
• 1 1/2 tsp. cumin
• 1/4 tsp. cloves
• 1/4 cayenne pepper
• 1/8 cup kosher salt
• 4-6 bay leaves

To boil shrimp, bring 8 cups of water to boil, add spices. Add shrimp and cook til done. If cooking Royal Reds reduce cook time to half.
Rinse shrimp under cool water to cease cooking.
Serve with sauce of choice. We recommend Louisiana Hot Sauce brand cocktail sauce

Cooking: A new way to balance your diet

Well Kids, I missed a whole week of blogging. 

Yep, I basically had writers block. 

I hardly read any either. Instead, I drove over 400 miles taking my children to practice, conditioning, camp, swim meets (two) and several social events. Oh, and I worked every day this past week, putting me up to 5 whole hours of catering. Very busy week. 

This past week was a game changer for me. First, it was my favorite week of the year. The kick off for summer and I was outside as much as possible. I ran or walked every day, worked in my yard and spread two truck loads of mulch. I felt great.

Second, I ate mostly fruit all week. Cantaloupe, grapes, and watermelon were what I craved and I ate them with a slice of cheese and on Tuesday, a piece of sour dough toast. I felt great all week, and lost 5 pounds. Yesterday I read an article about eating that turned on a light bulb for me. The article, in Vogue magazine of all places, was about a spa that people attend which  basically resets the body. Detox and rewiring what one eats is involved. Now, I am not interested in that, but the article explained that most people eat too much acid and their body uses their own minerals to survive. Hence we are always tired, run down, etc.  LIGHT BULB! The doctor also said our metabolism slows down as the day goes on and we should not eat anything raw after 4pm. LIGHT BULB! 

I got up this morning and researched acid vs.alkaline and found a lot of  science behind the doctor in the article's recommendations. The main offenders of a high acid diet are meat, fish, poultry, dairy, eggs, grains, and legumes. A balance is 60/40 = alkaline/ acid. The imbalance can lead to fatigue, gas, weight gain, osteoporosis, cancer and general poor health.

As a vegetarian, I struggle to eat sometimes. My family eats mostly paleo, but vegetarians don't really do paleo well. So, I eat a lot of salads. I also have a lot of stomach issues. Hence the light bulb.  Lucky for me,there are not a lot of changes I need to make to my own diet. My family's diet could be another story. I am happy to discover that because I buy hormone free meat, we are getting the least alkaline of the most alkaline food we eat.  Combining meat with vegetable in a 1:3 ratio (Meat: veggie) is the best way to consume meat.  Family, get ready to eat more veggies.

The biggest change for my family will be crackers and snacks. My family loves crackers. Saltines to be exact. I had already made a pact with my husband that the two main offenders in our kids' diets would not enter our house this summer. Crackers and ice cream. He was happy to keep the crackers out as he eats them himself and  we agreed to only eat ice cream out. 

Armed with my new found info, here is the menu of the week. 

Casa Swann 60/40 Menu

• Grilled cider vinegar marinated chicken/ grilled zucchini/ steamed green beans with garlic/sauteed kale
• Chicken Stew/ Tuscan tomato kale soup
• Kale frittata/ grilled sweet potatoes/roasted turnips
• chicken tacos/ veggie tacos/ watermelon salsa 
• Bunless burgers/ roasted potatoes/ sauteed spinach

Happy SUMMER!

Here is how my family and I started our summer kick off a week ago at Midsummer Music and Food festival in the ATL. The Soul Rebels  is a band from New Orleans and Steve and I saw them at Track29 here in Chattanooga in the Spring. Needless to say, they were AWESOME!

Cooking: We can solve it all

I have written before about how I think it is ridiculous that we are an obese society.

Monday, while I was clicking around on one of my favorite blogs, I found an old post that added another layer to my thinking about how cooking can fix our country's problem.

Dirt: I am a snob

* This is a post that has been sitting in my edit box for months and I have been adding to it as thoughts occur to me. It's a little preachy. Be warned.*

I am a snob. There I said it. 

I am. People get my nerves. 

Before you get all crazy, let me explain.

I mean, people who pass the buck on their own personal responsibility.

That is not saying that I think I am perfect, far from it actually.

I am deeply flawed, but I am a work in progress.

I am a grass roots kind of girl. 

I think a lot of what is wrong with our country can be solved at home. Everyone who has a brain and a computer can figure most of this stuff out.  

Eating less chemicals, spanking our kids, suffering consequences
and putting our money where our mouth is.

Boom! Solved all our problems.

Eating is a big thing for me. I had an obese mother and I swore early in my life that I would never be fat. I have battled staying fit and I have had to lose a significant amount of weight (by my standards) three times (baby, baby, marathon).  I have spent a lot of time reading and learning about what makes us unhealthy via what we eat. Basically, I have educated myself.  I have read studies on eating chemicals and what they do to our brains and our bodies.


 

Based on that, I have made sure my family eats healthy foods that are either local, organic or hormone free as much as possible. We rarely eat fast food, soda is an occasional treat and my kids have never had a Twinkie. Ever.