Monday, April 4, 2016

I Don't Know Where The Time Goes


I guess I've just had nothing to say -- or maybe nothing to cook.
We've been traveling far and wide and probably not taking the care and attention of each other or our dinners as we usually do or should.
2016 has been a madhouse, working between four continents and more timezones and then there's the diet.
I've been feeling at odds with my weight and James, who has always been thin, thought if we ate more thoughtfully we could just feel better. He started reading (actually re-reading) Dr. Joel Fuhrman's Eat To Live and one day, kind of off the cuff said . . . Let's try it.
There we were, overnight vegans.
Furhman's plan celebrates plant based nutrition: beans, fruits, nuts, vegetables (cooked and raw), limited grains. No sugar, no meats, no eggs, no dairy, no processed foods, minimal grains and oils.
Of course, we decided to start with the hard core, most restrictive plan.
Suddenly I didn't know how to cook anymore. All of the flavor crutches I've used for years (cheese, bacon, olive oil, butter) were taken away. I had to start thinking about every dish and every bite.
Lentils, tofu, beans, brown rice, buckwheat, raw cashews.
For the first couple weeks it was salads, soups and bean burgers. Not exactly photogenic.
Now I am starting to branch out. Tonight's dinner which looks remarkably like our pre-Fuhrman dinner of three months ago: Brown rice risotto.
If I'd had short grain rice I would have used it but basically I cooked regular risotto with brown instead of white rice. The cooking took longer and more stock but otherwise the process is exactly the same. Start with chopped onions and garlic sautéed, in this case, in barely a shimmer of olive oil (sprayed on), add in the raw rice and toss with the barely there oil, add in some wine and when that cooks away start added stock 1/2 - 3/4 cup at a time until the rice is tender. For extra flavor I soaked some dried porcini mushrooms and used the soaking liquid as part of the liquid and added the chopped reconstituted mushrooms midway through cooking the rice. I pan roasted some king oyster mushrooms to mix in and grilled portobellos to lay on top along with some crisped collard greens.
James said it was the best meal we've had since we started, and that seemed worth posting.



No comments:

Post a Comment