Low Fat versus Low Carb

Ye gods, what with having company for a month (vegetarian high starch diet) and a trip to the Berkshires (pecan pie bars and lots and lots of food), the scale crept up.  And up.  And up.  Now, Grapeshot never met a fat gram she didn't like, and drastic methods were called for, so we went back on a modified South Beach Diet/Dr. Atkins Diet, the only "diets" I've ever lost weight on except for starvation, and I gained that back so fast your head would swim.

The South Beach Diet has some really tasty recipes.  We love the lone dessert, the veggie-egg cups for breakfast and some of the main dish salads and entrees.  I have some low carb recipes  I alternate with these dishes, and we eat a lot of grilled chicken, veggies and fruit.  Of course with ripe tomatoes, there's a boundless supply of Insalata Caprese.   In 4 days I lost the accumulation of 7 weeks.  Not bad.  We allow modest treats occasionally, and work out.  I intend to keep this up until an October vacation, and I'll be posting occasionally to report progress or a lack thereof.

Next on the menu are roast beef sandwiches on rye crisp, tuna salad and then fajitas (no sour cream) with steak and shrimp.  We use corn tortillas instead of flour.  Flour tortillas lack fiber and do have fat, whereas corn is a low cal treat with fiber.  And it actually tastes like something.  Oils from avocado are good.  Just don't overdo it.  We make one avocado last for 2 meals, which means one is eating 1/4 of an avocado.  So delicious.  So satisfying.  I flunked out of Weight Watchers 4 times because of the stringent lipophobic menus.  Weight Watchers is for carb lovers.  I can take carbs or leave them.  Naturally, fresh fries, garlic mashed, baked potatoes with the works are wonderful lovey foods, but I can say goodbye to them for long periods of time.  

Summer makes for easy dieting because of the grill, fresh produce, wonderful main dish shrimp and chicken salads, and hot weather.  No need for pot roast or chili con carne or those darned baked potatoes in summer.  Actually, I knew someone who could eat a baked potato plain, and another woman who liked it with non-fat yogurt.   Ecch!   Non-fat anything to me tastes like chalk.  Once we bought non-fat cottage cheese by mistake and it was almost inedible.

Years ago, I ate some Weight Watchers macaroni and cheese and it tasted like detergent.  This was a while back, and I hope they fixed the recipe in the meantime.  But you get the idea.  Some people will eat chalk and detergent if they can just get to those carbs underneath, but not me.  To each her own diet.

It costs more at the grocery store, because produce and lean meat are expensive, and carbs (pasta, rice and beans) are cheap.  Not that you can't add a few black beans to the fajitas.  Or to a salad.  Moderation in all things.

In the meantime, we discovered grilled fennel, grilled portobellos and other exotic grilled veg.  We will also be doing grilled peaches and grilled plums.

Yup!  In the good old summertime, dieting isn't such an ordeal.

Grapeshot

Summer at our House

"Low key" describes our summer routines. Gardening, reading and drinking (everything from lemonade to margaritas) on the deck. Bird feeding, bird watching (see photo) grilling, informal cooking (see photo), swimming (eventually), writing, entertaining, houseguests, trips to New England sights. Lately, we have had soccer, golf, hockey, basketball, baseball on television.  Sports overload.

I watched the season finale of Treme last night. Very moving. What a great show. The actors are so fine.

At last I'm getting into I-Bank, which I have bought to replace Money 2002, after a not-so-good experience with an Intuit product which did not have the functionality I have come to expect. You wouldn't think home finances would be so difficult. Why Microsoft didn't just sell Money continues to mystify me.

My soul loves working in the garden, but my back and knees don't. What to do? Leftovers from grilling tonight: chicken breast, zucchini, peppers. We have a salad of tomatoes and avocado with lettuces from the garden. Black beans (cooked with onion and garlic) are garnished with Mexican cheese and cilantro and basil from the garden. I love those three little words "from the garden."

We grilled corn in its husks yesterday, a first for me, and it came out with an excellent smokey taste.  Now back to writing and associated tasks.  There are a lot of "associated tasks" that go with writing.  Who knew?

Grapeshot

Smoking

We broke out the smoker on Friday, and smoked a nice hunk of salmon. Easy as pie, just start a fire, dump 1/2 cup whiskey into the water and put the salmon on. Two hours later, it was done, perfectly moist and tender, incredibly tasty.

Today I took it to a meeting with paper thin slices of red onion, capers, dill (lots of dill) and a cream cheese spread made with chives, scallions and yes, dill! Served with rye bread and lemon wedges. Looked beautiful, tasted better.

The best part? There was just enough left for our dinner. What a treat. Love them capers.

We'll do some kielbasa and maybe a turkey breast if we can get started early enough. Smoking isn't like throwing some burgers on the grill. You have to check the fire, check the progress, add more charcoal. It's a process. Of course the salmon, smoking quickly, was easy.

I wasn't sure what would chips I was using, because the bag had lost its label. Maybe apple or alder. Whatever it was, it went perfect with the salmon. A mild smokey flavor, not overkill.

So, here's to a summer of activity on the grill and with the smoker. Maybe I'll try to smoke some mozzarella. Now, there's a thought.

Grapeshot

Begonias

This is the opposite of my last post. This is about beauty and taking care of plants and loving them. My begonias, especially this color, go crazy every summer. The red one never compares with the peachy yellow.

This morning I cut the dead sage blossoms so the heirloom beets could get more sun. We're eating the dill in the cucumbers and the rosemary in the steak sauce.

Corn on the cob, creamed spinach, steak with parmesan-smoked paprika sauce, dilled cucumber salad. With family.

The hummingbird was back. Lots of birdsong in the woods.

Nothing better.

Halibut with Indian Rub and Corn Salsa

The halibut recipe has been languishing in my "grill" cookbook for two years. Roche Brothers here in the Boston area had halibut advertised (one doesn't always see it) and with a nice weather forecast, I got out my put-together-by-me grilling/smoking binder. Turned to fish, and this was the first recipe. Looked good, and all I needed to buy besides the fish was a cob of fresh corn and a bit of fresh ginger.

Kids, this was a terrific recipe, and far greater than the sum of it's parts. Highly recommend. 4 forks!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/23/dining/233grex.html

We grill over charcoal and simply followed the instructions in the recipe. Fish was perfect. Spices perfect. Corn salsa out of this world. What the hell? Five forks!
Most of the spices came from Penzey's mail order spices. Tumeric is something you won't ordinarily use a lot of, and you can order the small small size. Perfect.
http://www.penzeys.com/

It's fun to make your own rubs. Spices are the spice of life. Beautiful day in Boston.

We stopped at Ocean State Job Lot for suet cakes for the feeders. No luck, but I found lots of other stuff cheap. It was instructive that the pasta section, formerly two thirds of a big rack had shrunk to almost nothing, and part of that nothing was noodles that one could get cheaper at the supermarket. The denizens of my town have seen the prices of anything with wheat escalating and bought out the pasta aisle. I found granola at a good price, and Columbian chocolate (no it's really chocolate, not a drug) along with reasonably priced panko and a few other goodies. I used to think of going to the Job Lot as slumming, and now I think of it as smart.

Onward,

Grapeshot

Grapeshot