Archive for January, 2008

Diet anyone? Low Carb, Low Fat, Low Life?

Published on January 10, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I know a lot of people whose weight never seems to fluctuate. I am not one of those people. I love food and I love really good food and I am surrounded by really good food all day long.  When my life is under control (well reasonably) I excercise 4 or 5 times a week. Activity, along with common sense eating keeps my weight within one clothing size. As soon as a hectic work load comes along with it’s baggage of stress, long hours and missed meals I gain weight.

This Christmas cooking season, along with plantar fasciatis (no running) has the scale showing me numbers make me cringe. I have one pair of pants that fit comfortably and I have a gala event at the end of February.

I have a dress that I’d like to wear to the gala. It is in my closet. It looks about 2 sizes too small for me. I have a problem.

But for every problem there is a solution. Mine is to go back to low carb eating. No sugar, no flour, no potatoes no gratuitious starches. Back to green high fibre vegetables and home cooked meat and fish. Back to Shirataki  (konnyaku) noodles, tofu noodles  and tons of herbal tea.

The good thing about low carb diets is that the food tastes good and is filling and apart from the week or so of sugar withdrawal I feel great.

So what’s on the menu for this week.  Last night was beef bourguignon with mock mashed potatoes (cauliflower) and green beans. Tonight is pancetta, shiitake mushrooms and asiago stuffed chicken breasts. Tomorrow is gourmet shepherd’s pie.

Breakfast is usually boiled eggs, lunch is usually tuna salad with some greens. I don’t mind eating a boring  lunch if I know that there is a really great dinner coming.

Are you on a diet? A low carb one? Let me know, share your menu ideas with me  as I post mine. No frankenfoods in this house. That means no manufactured weird low carb stuff, I don’t trust it and it’s too hard to get anyways.

TTFN

Winter is about slow food!

Published on January 9, 2008 in Family, Recipes and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

 There is nothing I enjoy more than slow food. Tender, juicy, warm, filling and flavourful, it epitomizes winter cooking and comfort food.

There is nothing that shows that you love your family more than tantelizing aromas wafting through your house all day (from a chef’s perspective anyways).

I love rouladen. It’s a great way to make outside round tender. First a filling. While I know a ton of people who stuff their rouladen with pickles, ham and Eastern European delicacies I prefer Spinach, Romano Cheese, Sauteed Onion and garlic and Pine Nuts.

I lay out my slice of outside round and pound it thin if it’s too thick. I place my filling down then centre, then roll it up.

Sometimes I skewer them shut with toothpicks but today I just handled them carefully. I seared then in a hot frying pan.

Then I made a nice simmering sauce for them.

In the frying pan I sauteed some garlic, onion, deglazed the pine with white wine and some home made tomato sauce. Then I added chopped black olives and poured the whole mixture over top of the rouladen which I had neatly laid out in an oven safe dish.

Now we just cover and pop the whole thing into a slow oven (300) for about an hour and a half. This dish is ideal for the freezer. It could also be made in a slow cooker. My slow cooker was too narrow and I would have had to pile the rouladen ontop of each other and given that I didn’t secure them I didn’t want them to fall apart.