There's Never Enough Topping

In my haphazard quest to find low fat alternatives to my favorite dishes, I figured I'd give fruit crisp a shot this morning. The usual recipe comprises fruit, tossed with maple syrup or sugar, and the critical part, topping. To me, fruit is just a crumb topping delivery system. There's brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg, sometimes cloves if I'm in the mood, and a stick of butter. There have been times when a small jackhammer would have been nice to reach the bottom, because the topping was twice the depth of the fruit. That's wrong, isn't it.

Today I figured I'd go easy on the butter, cutting it down to 2 tablespoons, and adding a 1/4 cup of maple syrup to the topping to bind it. I also added oats, since they're supposedly good for you. For the fruit I used a frozen 4 berry blend that I got at the market. Yeah, I should have been out there this summer picking berries and freezing them, but I was too busy. The brand I used was Europe's Best a misnomer since the fruit is from Chile, and the distributor in Montreal.
I used maple syrup from Quebec that I got as barter for a sofa. I thought they got the raw end of the deal after I tasted it. I'm usually not a fan of Grade A fancy, but this had a delicate, floral taste that's a nice alternative to the rough and tumble lower grade I typically use.

Here's the breakdown:

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a square pan - I used pyrex.
Toss one bag of berries with 1/4 cup of maple syrup and spread them in the pan.

Mix together 1/2 cup oats, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg, then blend in 2 tablespoons of maple syrup and 2 tablespoons of butter.

Spread mixture over the fruit and bake for 30 minutes.

Does this look like enough topping to you? I didn't think so. Next time, I'll double the topping.

Pragmatic About Ice Cream

I'm not a huge fan of low fat ice cream or frozen yogurt, but as I get older it has become a fact of life. Here are some tolerable choices in order of preference:

Gifford's Cappuccino Frozen Yogurt It's got little chocolate covered crunchy bits in it, and doesn't tast yogurty at all. It weighs in at about 110 calories per half cup (I don't have a quart in front of me to check, dammit) They are a regional ice cream company out of Skowhegan, Maine.

Easier to find is Edy's Slow Churned Light Ice Cream It's pretty tasty and is of the same caloric caliber as Gifford's.

Even though it's 60 calories more per half cup than the others, I have to mention Starbucks low fat Latte, because it's really tasty - coffee is my favorite ice cream flavor.

I approach my trip to New Orleans with trepidation....

I'm heading to NOLA this coming weekend and needless to say, Geoff made dinner reservations weeks ahead. Last week I spoke to my dietitian at Fat Girl Class about how to enjoy the New Orleans culinary experience without pulling the calorie ripcord. She said that I should eat everything that I want. The good news is that the restaurants we go to, with the exception of Marisol, have small portions; I always feel like a python that just consumed a small goat after dining there. No, I suppose don't need to order double appetizers and dessert, but it's so good....

So yes, the dietitian said that I should have what I want, but you know there's a catch - I can have one beignet instead of a full order, I have to leave some food on my plate if it's a huge portion, and I should just skip dessert altogether. I'll have to curtail my morning walks to Croissant D'Or on Ursulines Street to load up on pastries. Or I can have one pastry after I run a few miles. Thankfully, I loathe most huge cocktails like Hurricanes - but then again, the Blacksmith Shop does have a drink aptly named Voodoo, composed of grape soda, bourbon and everclear. Bring me a go cup.

More Food Hell

Chapter 2. Mac and Cheese Desecration



My assignment from the dietitian last week was to take a favorite fat filled recipe and modify it so that it no longer guarantees a trip to Portsmouth Hospital for an emergency angioplasty. Talk about taking all the fun out of life.

Surprisingly, I've never been a big fettucine alfredo fan, however if you took that bowl of noodles and baked them in the oven with a cracker topping, you might get my attention. Macaroni and cheese is my fat, starchy weapon of choice. I believe that it, like the crocodile, shark and fiddlehead fern, has not evolved for millions of years because it is a perfect species.

How could I do this to my most beloved of recipes, renamed "Bobaroni" and cheese for my friend Robert Croall, who refuses to come over for dinner unless I prepare it?

Then again, I do like a challenge, and the Weightwatchers frozen mac and cheese is virtually inedible. It makes Kraft Dinner look like the Chariot des Fromages at the Georges V.

So here's my old recipe, basic but beautiful:

Heat water for 1 pound of macaroni - I like shells, or penne, or elbows, or spirals, or those wheelie shapes, you get the idea.
Melt 4 T butter in a medium saucepan
Add 4 T flour and heat for 2 minutes
Add 2 cups of hot whole milk and 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of salt
Heat mixture, stirring continually, until thickened
Add at least 1 cup of shredded sharp cheddar or gruyere. My Dad, a mac and cheese meister, likes Cabot's extra sharp or hunter's cheese, or the aged cheddar from the Old Country Store in Moultonboro (which is actually Cabot that they age for a few extra epochs)
Stir until cheese is melted and sauce is smooth. When the macaroni is just barely done, drain it, put it back in the pan you boiled it in, and add the sauce to it. Stir the sauce and pasta together with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula (don't want to bruise the little darlings) and pour it into a 9 x 13 pan - I like pyrex or ceramic. Sprinkle a fistful (or more - if some is good, more is better) of crushed ritz crackers and some additional shredded cheese over the top. Bake in a 450 degree oven for about 20 minutes - the pan is shallow, the heat is high, so the top gets crunchy quickly, and I'm often wildly impatient by this point. Long enough that the cheese is bubbly and the top is brown. Macaroni and cheese that is too gooey, or unbaked, is vile.

This recipe makes 8 servings at 470 calories each.

I made the following modifications: I kept the butter and flour, but changed the milk to skim and used Cabot 75% less fat cheddar that Deb found for me. I omitted the Ritz cracker topping. The macaroni can't be changed.

Calories per serving go down to 335...that means I can have an extra helping!

Food Hell

Chapter 1: Six Meals A Day is Not Enough

One can't always eat extravagant meals like batter-fried cornish game hens and expect to fit into last summer's dresses. No matter how much I exercise, I always manage to consume more calories than I burn, and the "only eating fun food on weekends" approach to eating is no longer effective. Not one for "dieting" I decided to see a registered dietitian. After all, I already have a personal trainer, why not go one step closer to movie stardom and increase my entourage? It's a six-week program: during the first visit she grilled (pun pardon) me about my eating and exercise habits, what time I ate meals and times of day when I was most hungry (late afternoon for me). At the second meeting last week we worked out a structured meal plan consisting of 3 meals and 3 snacks. I'm happy to say that I've lost 3 pounds, but it hasn't been easy. Food journal (ugh!) portion control, and no chocolates.

Here's a typical day from my food journal:

7 am Breakky: 6 oz Stonyfield blueberry yogurt and 1 cup of Total cereal
10:30 Snack: Mini Babybel Cheese (It's freakin' microscopic!) and a piece of fruit
12:30 Lunchy: a piece of turkey the size of a deck of cards (I prefer roullette table size), more cheese (see above) and a head of romaine lettuce, all hacked up
3 pm Snack: another fruit and a handful of nuts (who eats a handful, I'd like to know)
5 pm Snack: a mini popcorn - they now have 100 calorie bags of microwave popcorn
8 pm Dinner: Grilled tuna with a couple tablespoons of pesto - Geoff usually makes a cool wasabi and green onion sauce, but sometimes one has to eat what's handy; Chinese broccoli, or broccolini

I also had a Dunky's latte made with skim milk.

Hopefully this will modify my behavior somewhat. The worst case is that I lose enough weight to zip up my skirt, then go back to my evil ways. After all, I'm going to New Orleans next month.....

Maybe I'll Just Get a New Fridge....

I play racquetball. I work out with a trainer. I ski at least a couple of days a week. It's not enough. Maybe if I get a 5 inch icebox I can exercise more portion control. Maybe I should just get my jaw wired shut. Take this weekend for example: Friday started out ok with a bowl of cereal and yogurt; scrambled eggs and a small dish of yogurt for lunch after I came back from skiing; steak, baked potato and salad for dinner, with two diet cokes and a beer. No dessert. Saturday rolls around and the skiing blows because Friday's mush turned into Saturday's death cookies (see, I even compare snow to food) and we come home early. I get bored, and the caloric shit hits the fan. It starts out pretty tame - I start the brisket for a traditional New England boiled dinner and then think about lunch, a nice, simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I forgot to bring the bread, so I make a batch of biscuits, and we devour the entire batch with butter and blueberry jam. Then I make peach cobbler for dessert that night and have leftover crumb topping (mmmmmm...crumb topping....can't waste that) so I make a quick coffee cake from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook for Sunday breakfast. After a movie I finish preparing the boiled dinner, eat that and devour 1/4 of a huge pan of peach cobbler with Ben and Jerry's Vanilla. Hey, it's Vermont. I didn't have any New Hampshire Ice cream on hand.

Sunday Morning it's pouring rain, but we decide to go out for a few runs anyway, thanks to gore tex. But not before consuming half of the entire coffee cake. Lunch was leftover brisket, peach cobbler for a snack, too full to eat dinner, then Geoff makes a batch of peanut butter cookies. I ate a bunch of them. Yep. My name is Evelyn, and I'm compulsive in every way.

Maybe it's not the fridge...it's the damned oven.