ridiculousness

The problem with a cleanse month is always when there is no control over a menu.  At least with our local favourite places, I know what I can eat in order to meet the restrictions that I have set on myself.  A work function at the college?  Not so easy.

Yesterday was Opening Day, and for the first time in a handful of years, we were all live and in person, enjoying the buffet lunch and celebration in one of the gyms.  I attended because I thought it would be a good to be visible, especially with a new librarian in tow.  I knew that I wouldn't have great choices for lunch, and I was right.  So here you have it:  my lunch.  Roasted summer squash.  A bit of a mango salsa.  A serving of spinach salad that probably had some sugar in the dressing, but I decided to get it for a little substance (and eat around the bits of feta).

Sigh.

Day 19 today.  A little less than two weeks to go.  Some days it's just boring eating, right?

cleanse, day 30

Thirty days. Thirty days without consciously consuming caffeine, red meat or poultry, sugar (or honey or agave or maple syrup or the like), refined flour, dairy, or alcohol.

A few days in and I thought to myself how very daunting it would be. A week or more in, and I was expressing dismay with the beaniness of it all. At every meal shared with friends, I apologized profusely for being such a nuisance, such a bore. Still, I stuck with it. And now, tomorrow morning after I do my gym and swim, I will be free to ease back into a less-restricted diet. Frankly, I have reservations about how much I want to reintroduce. And given that Conrad is out of town for work, I may just stick close to the cleanse diet a day or two more.

You know, I've cooked many things, many meals in my life. I have never, so far as my sieve-y memory can recall, cooked tofu. Heck, I generally avoided eating it until Medgar offered me crispy fried squares of it when we lived in Montreal. I rather like it now, though as with many things, it also depends. Tonight? I liked it.

I started out by sauteing sliced onion and shallot with chopped garlic and ginger in a bit of vegetable oil. Along with the vegetables I cooked some green curry paste to remove the rawness. After the vegetables had softened, I added a can of light coconut milk, then let that simmer to develop the flavour. I can think of other things I would have added if I had them on hand, but some salt was all the seasoning I gave it.

I had pressed the tofu for about an hour to remove excess moisture, then I cut it into rectangular pieces, frying each a bit to lend some colour and bit of a crust to each piece. I added these to the green curry, then added in asparagus I'd cut up. Plump pieces - it's the season (though I'm not as mad for asparagus as I have been in past years). When the asparagus was just tender, I added a chopped tomato, stirred it to heat the tomato, then served it around a mound of basmati rice.



This, happily, was an occasion when my dinner pleased me, the harsh critic of my own cooking.

Also happily: leftovers!

A month of interesting dining and cooking ends, but the habits won't, not entirely. And by gosh, I think I may cook with tofu once again some day.

cleanse, day 26

Oh so close to the end of this self-imposed diet, and funnily enough, I don't crave things. Oh, I wouldn't mind being able to have a sweet treat, and I think a glass of wine would be good, definitely. On the other hand, I doubt that, come Wednesday, I'll settle down to a big piece of red meat topped with cheese and served with a big wedge of cake for dessert and a martini to wash it all down.

Oh, wait, maybe I should give that a try...

Yesterday was a simple meal as usual, a one pan dish. Sort of a black bean chili, but I decided on a milder approach. I sauteed some cumin, oregano, salt, and chipotle powder to take some of the rawness out of the spices, then added chopped onion and carrot. Once I'd sweated that a little, I added two cans of black beans (mostly drained of their liquid), stirred, then added in some leftover roasted tomatillo sauce from the night before when I'd had our neighbour Jeff up for dinner. After letting this simmer a while, I added some chopped yellow squash and corn cut from a cob. Some water to thin it, some salt to season it, and I let it simmer until the vegetables were tender.

And then Conrad and I went for a walk to enjoy a fine (and finally!) spring late afternoon.




Once home, I set to work setting up dinner. Bowls heated. A simple salad of arugula tossed together with a dressing of olive oil, gently browned garlic, salt, and sherry vinegar. I chopped an avocado up for garnish on the stew, and we were soon eating. Best of all? Leftovers that will be great for lunch on Monday!

cleanse, day 24

Wow, am I really embarking on my last week of this? Can I lose another pound or two? Can I move from this effort into a sustained, healthier way of eating? So many questions.

One thing is clear: the cleanse has not affected how fundamentally lazy I can be when it comes to preparing meals for myself. Salad tonight. Sorry: "salad".

I do this often when Conrad isn't home (he won't be back until tomorrow night, and he has more work travel next week). Usually eggs aren't involved, but often smoked salmon or some other similar protein is. Just so long as I don't need to cook, or barely cook anything. I've been known to make a big salad in a stainless steel bowl and just sit, eating out of that same bowl. Yes, I am bad.



A few veggies and the eggs tonight, drizzled with a little truffle oil (yes, mock me for that - it was a gift, and it tastes good!), seasoned with salt and pepper. Nothing too major. Besides, I'm still reeling from last night's abysmal effort at cookies (I salvaged some of the second type, but I'm not happy with them).

Last week of the cleanse, then. I'm saving the tofu for the end meal. ;-)

cleanse, day 14

Sitting here on Monday evening, writing this halfway through this self-imposed cleanse, I realize that the toughest part of this process is not relinquishing the many foods (and wine) I love. No, the toughest part is the burden I feel it places on others to accommodate me, indulge me, humour me, enjoy a meal with me.

Frank invited us to dinner yesterday, and it took a lot of negotiation to set up. Poor Frank. I am sure he thought he could share a good chicken pie with us as he has before. No, no. I had to make it tricky. Ultimately we agreed that he would provide a salad and some berries for dessert (with ice cream for Conrad) and even some cold poached salmon to go on the salad in case he and Conrad wanted something more. Yes, I am eating fish, but I opted not to last night. Instead, I brought along a main course for all of us - they'd partake as they saw fit.

I actually spent much of a sunny and cold Sunday in the kitchen. I'd downloaded the most recent Harry Potter film and set to work on cookies for Josh (more on that in another post - Josh, that is, not the cookies, which were NOT my best batch ever) and dinner for me. I'd had some barley with black cod the night before at Sola, and that made me think to make a barley risotto and then fashion it into cakes for frying.

I infused vegetable broth with dried morel and porcini mushrooms and kept that on a low heat, close at hand. The barley I sauteed some with a bit of shallot in olive oil, then began stirring in the broth. At the end of the process, when the barley was tender but had bite and was in its own thick, starchy sauce, I added in diced trumpet mushrooms and more shallots that I'd sauteed and seasoned together.

Now then, people who know me well will know that I have a rule of mushrooms: the more expensive the mushroom, the better it tastes. Button mushrooms revolt me. Few other foods do. The mushroom broth and trumpet mushrooms yesterday? Added depth and meatiness to the barley. Yum!

I let the barley chill and firm up, then stirred in some coarse grain cornmeal to help bind it. I coated the cakes in more cornmeal, then sauteed them in olive oil. I think flour (not permitted on the cleanse, at least not white flour) and egg may have helped bind them more, but I wasn't displeased with the result.

I debated a sauce, but still really needed a protein. I had also considered adding fava beans to the risotto (none available at Whole Foods) or peas, but settled on a pea puree to act as a sauce and protein both. That was easily prepared, and two parts were done. The last bit, some fat asparagus spears, I brought to Frank's, and he cooked them for all of us. He cooks his more than I usually cook mine, to be honest, but I still like asparagus in any case.

Puree down on the plate first, the cakes atop, the asparagus atop/between. I thought it was pretty satisfying.



Best of all? leftovers for a convenient dinner tonight. I popped two cakes on some puree in the toaster oven to reheat gently and partnered them with some broccoli. In all likelihood, tomorrow dinner will be the same!

cleanse, day 11

I am sure that there is little that a Moroccan would recognize or consider authentic about this one-dish meal, but the inspiration for it does come from that corner of the world somewhat. Not that I've ever been to Morocco - ah, to have gone to World Masters there in 1998... - but it does draw on the recollection of a vegetarian couscous I ate in London in 1994 and, more directly, on a recent browse through a Paula Wolfert cookbook. Our meal was a stew of chickpeas, cauliflower, carrots, and rutabaga with Moroccan spices, almonds, and apricots.



I was working at home Thursday, so after lunch I was able to get this cooking fairly easily and let it gently simmer a good while until the vegetables were tender. Here's the outline of the dish:

I sauteed a mix of paprika, true cinnamon stick, saffron, cumin, salt, and pepper to remove some of the rawness of the spices. To this I added diced white onion, then some slivered almonds and sliced unsulphured dried apricot. Next came the chickpeas and large chunks of cauliflower, carrot, and rutabaga. These were coated in the spice mix, then I added a can of diced tomato and some water. I brought the mix to a low boil then reduced to a low simmer, covered, and ignored for a while. Every do often I'd come back and stir and bit, but that was about it. The sauce picked up real sweetness from the apricots, so close to serving, I adjusted the seasoning with salt and pepper. The crowning touch was a bit of fresh cilantro chopped up and sprinkled on top of the bowls of stew.

It made for good leftovers for lunch on Friday, and there's enough left for one more lunch this weekend some time.

cleanse, day 9

It may not come as a surprise to people, but I spend a lot of time thinking about food. There was I, swimming a good 3.5 miles this morning, and keeping me company were thoughts of what to make for dinner. Throughout the day I thought of it from time to time, and on the bus ride home, I was still undecided. All I knew was I wanted to use what I had in the fridge, not buy more stuff.

Well, mission accomplished. A few disparate ideas pulled together, and I ended up serving us a fairly simple meal of four things that worked well together, or so I thought.



I got home and set to work. A can of cannelini beans, opened and drained. Four large garlic cloves, skins on, charred on each side in a hot, dry pan. Rosemary chopped. Put it all in a food processor, and a smooth puree was ready to anchor the plate.

I had some nice little grape tomatoes, so I tossed them with a little olive oil and salt, put them in a pie dish, and let them rest a bit in the toaster oven. Once they'd hit a certain point, I turned down the heat a good bit so as not to char them.

Half a cauliflower and a shallot went into a pan with some olive oil, salt, and pepper to caramelize lightly.

I washed a bunch of red chard, de-stemmed it, and tore it into large pieces. Close to time for plating, I put the still-wet chard into a hot pan and covered it with the lid to steam to tenderness.

I think the flavours worked well together. I also liked the variety on the plate and that I didn't resort to a curry or some vaguely East Asian stir-fry. We ate, pleasurably, and watched an episode of Coupling. When the dinner was done, I had a nice ripe mango for us to share. And so the cleanse continues....

cleanse, day 6

A day on which I allowed myself fish.

All along I'd said that I would permit fish in the cleanse. I suppose I could be more rigorous, but I'm giving up quite enough, and really, how on earth do vegetarians not tire of the beaniness of it all? I'd had some fish as part of my meal earlier in the week at a benefit dinner at Yoshi's anyway, so last night wasn't a step too far.

In fact, it was a light meal, and one to revisit with some tweaking. I marinated halibut with miso, and it was the addition of a scant amount of sesame oil to the marinade that accounted for most of the added fat to the meal beyond what the ingredients might have. Come time to cook the fish, I lined a steamer basket with some Napa cabbage leaves and placed the fish atop the leaves with some broccoli and sliced shitake mushrooms alongside. I thought that sauteing or roasting the mushrooms might make them too strong, hence the steaming.

While those steamed I was reducing balsamic vinegar. Here's the other thing I miss on this cleanse - sweetness. It's a tough thing to incorporate sometimes, especially if I don't want the other flavours of fruits or things that might lend food the sugars I seek. Reducing the vinegar to syrup, I smeared each plate with a streak, then plated the fish atop along the with the broccoli, the mushrooms, and some crispy onion bits. A simple meal.



If I do this again - I should - I think I'd do two things differently. First, I'd start the broccoli before the fish. It was still a little crunchy. Healthier that way, perhaps, but some greater tenderness would have been good. I also might have poached the mushrooms in a miso broth for evennness of cooking. The fish, though, flaked apart delightfully yet wasn't overcooked. A reasonably successful idea, and one to revisit for sure.

cleanse, day 5

Backtracking a quick moment (is there a non-quick moment? I suppose there is when I start rambling), I should note that cleanse day 3 was a benefit dinner at Yoshi's that I may yet blog. I behaved as best I could. Cleanse day 4 was leftover eggplant and green pea curry - for lunch and dinner. On to Friday!

Cool, grey, wet outside, and the notion of soup was most appealing. I'd made the Greek lentil soup recipe from the Rebar cookbook. Ah, Rebar - I miss Victoria.

Anyway, it's a fairly easy soup to make and carries a nice little punch of chile flake and some zing from lemon zest and juice. The asparagus was unnecessary, and in hindsight I think it detracts from the purity of the bowl. On the other hand, I really do love asparagus, and I thought it a nice way to add extra green to the meal.

Conrad and I sat in the kitchen enjoying our bowls along with a simple salad and some fresh berries. Out of season, I know, and they tasted it - especially the blueberries. Ah well.

Tomorrow night I will make us some fish!

cleanse, day 2

Dinner number two on the cleanse, and I learned afterward from MG that I should have gone with brown basmati instead of white. Ah well, no sense making a fuss over things. In principle, it was a meal to meet the intention of the cleanse.

I learned this recipe at the restaurant years back from Megan. It actually makes a lovely side dish for lamb, I find, and perhaps for some chicken or fish preparations. On its own, it fills a roti quite nicely, or sits with rice well, too.

The curry starts with sesame seeds, mustard seeds, and cumin seeds. These are sauteed in oil until the mustard seeds just start to pop. At this point I added turmeric, salt, and cayenne and sauteed the spices a little more. Next came chopped onion, and once that had softened a bit I added cubes of eggplant. Not too large, mind you. The eggplant gets sauteed with the mix to coat it well and begin cooking, and then water is added. In fact, I added water a few times so that it was never too soupy but always had a nice nit of liquid for braising the eggplant to tenderness. Near the end of that process I added the frozen peas and let them cook to tenderness. Yes, frozen - it's April, for goodness' sake!

As for the rice, little adornment - I added some green cardamom pods when I cooked it for a bit of scent, but that's it.



In other times, I might have used some yogurt with this as a garnish, and perhaps a homemade chutney. Not last night. Still, it made for a satisfying dinner, and one that gives me some leftovers for a couple of days ahead.

cleanse, day 1

So this is a little crazy and odd of me, I admit: I'm doing a month-long cleanse of sorts. Let's call it the MG cleanse in honour of Martin, who was undertaking it in January.

Why? Well, truthfully, Conrad and I live a life of overindulgent dining. And wining. And for some time now I've been feeling kind of off on a regular basis. I'd like to get rid of that feeling. I'd like to get back to a certain equilibrium. And once I regain that, then I can balance fun eating with a healthier approach. For a month, though, it's tipped to healthier.

A month, then, of

• no caffeine
• no dairy
• no alcohol
• no meat (but I will allow fish during the cleanse)
• no refined carbs (sugar and white flour)

The downside of this all is finding snacking at home. Also, the morning ritual of getting coffee is a certain comfort. And arranging proper food at work is a little tricky, too. On the plus side, it is fun to try out some other recipes, some other cooking.

Monday was the first day of the cleanse. Dinner? Simple. Two eggs poached with some deliciously plump asparagus and a sprinkling of black pepper and wild mushroom salt.



It worked out quite nicely, and not having Conrad home made it easier for me to cook and eat what I wanted when I wanted.