The challenge continues.

As I open up the blog and check my last entry, I notice that I was then doing 140 burpees a day. Today I have 240 burpees to do. 240 burpees seemed impossible in the past, absolutely impossible. The thought of doing that many push ups and jumps every day, increasing one a day for a whole year, up to 365, seemed absurd. But it is not. The secret is to break it down.

The same holds true for food. The secret to eating well is merely breaking it down to many tiny tasks, instead of one overwhelming chunk of time that no one, including me at the moment, seems to have, or even want to have. I don't blame anyone. Why spend hours toiling in the kitchen when one can be outside enjoying the end of summer? Or studying, which is more like my own reality right now. 

But eating well is essential to keeping good health, and to not gain weight, which is another reality I face as a 42-year-old woman. There is no way around it. It does not matter how much I may exercise, if I don't eat well I will get sick, and/or gain weight, and break out into pimples on top of it. I say it, because I have experienced it. When I don't eat well, my face becomes oily, and I break out. Simple. I start to eat better, my face becomes clearer/cleaner, no pimples. And I fit into my pants. Easy to maintain, hard to fix. 

So how do I break down food? Cook in the morning. In the evening I am too tired to deal with anything except for what is absolutely necessary, which means the exam of the day that I am freaking about. Use the mornings! While I make coffee, I make brown rice. Or cook beans... or roast beets, eggplants, sweet potatoes, squash, cauliflower, garlic, onions... any hardy vegetable that I can coat with olive oil and sea salt, I will roast. I roast in my cast iron pan, so that way I don't have to worry about clean up and scrubbing. Just wipe it down with a paper towel when done cooking- courtesy tip from a climber who camps and cooks in his camper. And yes HE cooks. Don't have to be a woman to cook, or a housewife to cook- anyone can cook. A lot of it has to do with just getting into a habit, so that there is no thinking involved. Just doing...

What about all the chopping? The chopping... I do it while I heat up the food that I precooked in the morning. It takes about 5 to 15 minutes to heat up anything, so I use that time to chop: cabbage, red onions, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, parsley, cilantro, celery, tomatoes, green onions, peppers... any vegetable that can be eaten fresh. Or sautéed... kale, collards, chard, spinach, chinese cabbage, onions, mustard greens, turnip greens... 

I usually chop a little extra, so that I have some left over for the next day- call it a bonus. Have enough containers, even if they are yogurt containers, to keep the left overs. Good storage is important for eating well. Because there is always something in the fridge or freezer waiting for me at the end of the day... even if I am completely wiped out from a long school day, and don't feel like doing any extra work other than opening a beer. And studying some more, of course. 

But why go through all that trouble anyway? Cooking , chopping , storing... because I want to feel good everyday, because I want to have energy everyday. Because I want to stay lean and look good, and because I don't like to get sick. Simple. 

It is so easy, especially here in the south, to go and buy fried chicken, fried food, barbecue, go to Chick-fil-A... people: Chick-fil-A is JUNK FOOD!!!! eat chips, a cold cut sandwich, a snack, a bar... but remember, our bodies don't magically make vitamins. We need to eat them to have them. And we need to eat them in real food, not vitamin complexes that we buy at the store. That is processed food at its best. Eat food. Eat clean- less animal food, more grains, vegetables, beans, fruit, nuts, seeds. 

You will thank yourself years from now, when you are still active and well, instead of... insert your own future dream image of yourself, and how you want to look and live when you are older... and live to fulfill that dream.

2013 Food Challenge: Parsley and Cilantro

Parsley and Cilantro

I have not been doing too well with the 2013 Food Challenge, and I apologize. With the last stages of divorce unfolding, injury, loss of job, looking for job, getting ready for school and my 13-year-old to remind me daily of how bad I am just-in-case-I-forgot among other life events, a food challenge was not something I thought I could keep up with any longer.

But I was wrong. If I can keep up with a fucking burpee challenge as I travel across the country, getting on my hands and jumping around on filthy gas station grounds from Florida to Colorado to Florida in 9 days, then I can certainly keep up with my own food challenge.

And that was the challenge this week. Living in a hotel for 6 days with a hot plate, a microwave and the bathroom sink. True to the principles I learned at the Climbers Ranch, I had a cooler-full of ready-made foods like soup and beans, and a cast iron pan at hand. Eggs, garlic, broccoli, butter, kale, parsley and cilantro.

Why parsley and cilantro? Just like kale, those two incredible greens need no knife in order to be eaten. Hold them by the stem, and pluck the leaves out using the same technique used for kale: take two fingers, and run them through the stem. Wherever the stem breaks, that means the part that is left with the leaves is soft enough to be eaten. Then I can decide: eat the leaves whole, or chop them up as finely or coarsely as I wish.

Use them on eggs, meat, soups, pasta, beans, quesadillas... such an easy way to add freshness to a meal. Color, vitamins, life. Just sprinkle at the end of cooking, on top or on the side, and watch a monochrome meal come to life. Or sautée it with garlic, salt, olive oil or butter, and add it to pasta or polenta, with or without tomatoes, with or without onions. Cheap, simple, beautiful.

Keep the unused parsley and/or cilantro on a glass with water on the kitchen counter, and notice how it enlivens the kitchen as well. They give freshness in the spring and summer, and life during fall and winter.

2013 Food Challenge: Black Beans

Beans????

Why beans??? Isn't that super-hard to make??? Can't I just open a can???

If you are reading this post, you are probably trying to figure out how to eat better, and how to cook. So then why settle for mediocre with a can, when you can achieve greatness from scratch?

Canned beans have no flavor, and are usually too hard and watery. They are old (no nutrients), and most contain the BPA that leaches from the can lining. More on BPA and cans in this post: http://www.freshfoodunderground.com/2010/03/just-say-no-to-cans.html

To get the most nutrients out of your beans, make them fresh, from scratch. Go to the supermarket, or natural food store, and look for the organic beans in bins (bulk) when possible. When you buy in bulk, the price for organic beans is minimally higher than that of regular beans. And when you choose organic, you choose beans that are free of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and radiation. Those 3 facts alone will make you not even blink about your couple extra dollars.

Why black beans? Because they are so practical. Once you have a pot of beans at hand, you can serve them with rice, or put them on top of a corn or wheat tortilla with melted cheese and /or chicken, meat, pork, fish... make burritos, tacos, eat them with fried eggs, with corn bread, with tomatoes, cabbage, any kind of greens, throw them on top of tortilla chips and make nachos, use them for soup... you can eat beans in a different way each day of the week. And if you finally are completely sick of them, you can toss them in the freezer, as they freeze beautifully. Finally, beans are a great source of iron- important for us women who tend to become anemic during pregnancy, or stressful times in life. I have found them to be an effective way to obtain iron without having to resort to pills, an excessive amount of meat, or bags and bags of spinach.

Think of beans just as brown rice with a little added soaking time, and you are set to cook them. This is a post that I made for a dear friend who wanted to learn how to make beans from scratch, and has since mastered the technique:  http://www.freshfoodunderground.com/2012/04/beans.html.

My New Iron BFF.

Sweet potato greens.

I had previously written about how I borrowed my friend's cast iron pan over this summer in order to keep my sanity. I mean, cook.
When I arrived back in Jacksonville and found my own place, I realized that keeping my sanity not only served me well, it was actually quite enjoyable. So I decided to keep on cooking- with my own cast iron pan. A simple 8 inch pan.
My cast iron pan stays on top on my stove. I don't ever put it away, as I use it for pretty much everything I cook. Bacon for the beans, eggs, spanish tortilla, mexican tortillas, granola in the oven,  meat, corn bread, roasted chicken, vegetables, greens... all I need to do, when done cooking, is rinse it, without soap, and put it on the hot burner for half a minute for it to dry. Done. It goes hand in hand with living simply, using my time efficiently, and eating well. Good, wholesome, tasty food that is nourishing, fresh, and free of crap- pesticides, hormones, antibiotics. Food that is not processed.

Roasted chicken.

My challenge living alone, or even when I have my children with me, is to eat a broad, good-quality variety of food, especially when it comes to vegetables. It is so easy to say to myself ''oh, this is so complicated to make, it takes so long, I don't have the time, I need to study, I want to go climb, I just want to go ride or run, I am too tired to deal...''  I don't want to commit to hours in the kitchen. I already must wash all dishes by hand, mine and my kids'- that takes time. I don't want to toil all day in the kitchen, I am done with that part of my life. But I still want, and need for my own and my children's health, to eat well. Bling! Along comes my BFF!

Portabello in coconut oil.

My BFF can cook anything in minutes. Baby spinach that is about to go bad because the package is too goddamn big for me to eat it all as salad? Throw it in the cast iron with butter. Sweet potato greens from the local farm that only last a few days before turning brown? Cast iron with olive oil. Left over mushrooms that my son asked me to buy and never ate? Cast iron with butter. My daughter doesn't want to eat anything for breakfast? Throw her in the cast iron. Just kidding, throw some eggs in the cast iron, and let her cook them. Zucchini, peppers, eggplants, onions, garlic... sautée them with the fat of choice on high heat, and no matter what kind of vegetables they may be, simple or complicated, they are ready to eat in a few minutes. Serve over, or with, quinoa, roasted potatoes, farro salad, rice, chicken, meat, pasta... the choices are infinite.
Thank you, cast iron, for being there for me. Your companionship and loyalty is deeply appreciated. Even if you burn me sometimes- I understand.

Small cooler camping.

Breakfast in Alabama

Went camping and climbing with my children this weekend, and last. We traveled a ways (8+ hours each way to get to mountains), and camped for 2 days. 

I did not want to spend a lot of money eating out, or a lot of time cooking at camp, which is time away from precious, limited climb time. So I brought food with us. 

This is where it gets tricky. I have a Toyota Yaris, and have 2 children, one big dog, camp and climb gear, food, water, snacks and books (kids school homework) to fit into the car. That definitely precludes a big cooler. Which means that I need to be efficient. 

Last weekend I was too careful about space, and ended up with not enough food for the drive back. Yes, there are a gazillion fast-food chains on the highway, but I don't want to spend my money on that crap.  

So of course I brought more food this time. Obvious solution, except I needed to actually fit my "cold" food into a 12x7 box. 

For drinking, I brought Parmalat-style small chocolate milk containers, orange/apple juice in thermoses, and lots of water- some of it frozen to serve as the ice for the cooler. And beer of course. 

For food, I got burritos to go and stuck them in the cooler, along with baby carrots, a small ziploc sandwich bag of spinach, and some left-over quinoa salad. Outside the cooler I had chicken/spinach/mustard sandwiches I made from left-over roasted chicken, bananas, tangerines, peanut butter, jelly, sandwich bread, pop-tarts, potato chips (for salt), M&M's (they don't melt in the heat), and whole-wheat choc-oat-chip cookies I'd made that morning. No nuts this time, I ran out of them. 

I forgot the instant oatmeal, so the kids had to make do with pop-tarts... they didn't complain. Miles also ate bananas smeared with peanut butter. I opted for quinoa salad with spinach- not great with coffee, but what the hell.

Climbing at Sand Rock (AL), we shared burritos, along with clementines, M&M'S, and lots of water... gave the cookies to Johnny Arms, who had helped us, along with anyone who'd ask him, to find routes, set anchors and belay. And was surprised to receive, in turn, muscatine grapes! which I love... I promptly scarfed them down- they were fresh from the garden, so delicious. 

Chickamauga Creek, TN

Energy renewed, I took the kids to Lupi's pizza (in Chattanooga) for dinner. We ordered a whole pizza, and saved the left-overs for a picnic. I am not really a fan of cold pizza, but after hanging/playing in the river this morning, the roasted garlic/mushroom/red onion slice tasted great- and it kept just fine in the car, outside the cooler. 

Driving back, we shared the last burrito, more spinach, and polished the quinoa salad. 

Lesson learned? Keep it simple to save time and energy. Making fires and cooking at camp is great;  but if I need to drive, set up/clean up camp, pack, unpack, sleep, and actually enjoy myself and the kids, than I must be efficient. 

There are so many choices out there for no-cook, good quality food. Hummus, hard-boiled eggs, yogurt, granola, scones, pasta salads, bean salads, cheese, salami, home-made popcorn,  all kinds of sandwiches... bagels, muffins, donuts... the car may be my limit, but that does not preclude fun, good meals with those I choose to share my time with. Here is to efficient, great eating on the road!

Beans

This post is dedicated to all of us who need a little video help here and there in order to learn...

The ingredients...

1 cup organic dry beans

4 cups filtered water

1 bay leaf

1 stamp-size piece of seaweed 

The steps...

Tips and tricks...

Black beans, white beans, pinto beans, chick peas, black-eyed peas... are all hardy beans that cook much the same way. In this video I use dry white (also called navy) beans. 

I measure the beans, pour them on the counter, and pass my hand through them. I look for stones so that when I eat my own cooked beans I don't break a tooth or, worse yet, break a friend's tooth. 

I put the sifted beans in a bowl of cold water, gently stir, and discard the water by pouring it through a colander. I throw the used water, whenever possible, in the vegetable garden. If the beans happen to have a lot of dirt in them, I give them a second rinse.

I usually make the beans sort of last minute, so most of the time I ''quick soak'' them. That means that, instead of soaking them in cold, filtered water for about 8 hours, I throw them in boiling water, turn off the heat, and let them soak for 30 minutes. This softens them so I don't have to cook them for endless hours... and makes their nutrients more digestible for my body. I use enough water to cover the beans by about 2 inches so that it allows for them to expand as they soak. 


I add the bay leaf and seaweed to the soaked beans to give them fragrance and minerals. I keep the size of the seaweed small, so as not to overdo the sodium content and make the beans hard.

I cook the beans in the same water that I soak them, so they don't lose their nutrients.  I use a pressure cooker, and cook them anywhere from 15 to 17 minutes, depending on how soft I want them to be; softer for rice and beans, a bit harder for soups. I bring the pressure to ''high'' (2 lines on my pressure cooker, and a hissing sound), then lower flame to ''low'' and simmer for the desired amount of time. I turn off heat, and let the pressure subside before I open the lid so I don't burn myself with the hot vapor, or see a lid flying to the ceiling.


When I don't have access to a pressure cooker, I use the heaviest/thickest pot I can find, and cook (simmer) the beans, partially covered, until I achieve the desired softness- about 1 hour. Some batches of beans do take longer than others... it's nature. 


When I use a regular pot, I check the water level throughout the cooking to make sure the beans don't burn- it is easy to happen, trust me. When the beans are fully cooked and soft, I add salt. This is very important, as adding salt to uncooked beans will make them tooth-breakingly hard.

A note on black beans: at the end of their cooking time I sauté (local, nitrite-free) bacon, and/or a few cloves of garlic in olive oil, and mix it in with the beans, along with sea salt. Then I let the beans simmer (low heat) to the desired consistency. I serve them with rice, collards, mustard or turnip greens, chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, finely chopped cabbage, sautéed zucchini... they are so delicious and fulfilling, any time or day of the year.


Where to purchase beans, sea salt, olive oil, bacon and vegetables: Grassroots Market.