Colorful Stir-Fry and First Harvest and Seeds

Last night, my daughter and I made stir-fry for dinner. When I'm cooking, I love the ingredients, and how they look, and working with them, almost more than the cooking itself or the ultimate meal. Last night's stir fry was especially colorful, and therefore delightful. I separately blanched some collard greens, to add at the end - I always like to include something "cabbagey". Then the broccoli, including pieces of peeled stem, and carrots went into the pan:

Next came the softer vegetables: red and yellow sweet peppers, and a zucchini I found in the back of the refrigerator:

Finally some onions and garlic; then everything went back into the pan with a little toasted sesame oil and some soy sauce. Instead of serving it over rice, we used soba noodles - I'm getting very fond of their nutty buckwheat taste:

We ended up with a pretty delicious meal, with some fresh strawberries for desert:

* * * * *

Today I had my first small harvest from my garden - some chives to use in stuffed baked potatoes that will be for dinner. I also planted my first seeds - although there was frost on the ground this morning we're supposed to have much warmer temperatures by the end of the week. So far I've planted some radishes - Plum Purple; a row of Arugula; some leeks next to a row that has overwintered and is now greening up - Blue Solaize - I've never direct seeded leeks before and we'll see how they do; chard - Five Color Silverbeet; and 6 varieties of lettuce - Green Oakleaf, Sanguine Ameliore, Bronze Arrowhead, Forellenschuss, Grandpa Admire's and Merveille des Quatres Saisons. All of these seeds (Seed Savers Exchange, one of my favorite sources of open-pollinated and heirloom seeds) are from last year, so we'll have to see how they do germinating. I'll keep reseeding a number of these through April for a staggered harvest. Although it was chilly, it felt great to be out working in the garden!

The Starbucks Diet

I've recently fallen into the habit of visiting a local Starbucks on a frequent basis to have a drink and a pastry. Although I enjoy having a tasty treat, I also have been noticing that I've been feeling pretty draggy and tired lately, and my clothes seem a tad tighter than they used to be. Hmm. I suspected a combination of excessive caffeine, together with blood sugar highs and lows brought on by a sugary snack, together with just plain too many calories. So I checked out the Starbucks site for some nutrition information. Here's what I found - I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was.

A 12-oz (tall) mocha without whipped cream and using 2% milk - the way I usually have it - has 200 calories, 6 grams of fat of which 3.5 grams are saturated fat, and 31 grams of carbohydrate, of which 24 grams are sugars, and 95 milligrams of caffeine. A tall (12 oz) cappuccino with 2% milk, which I also like, has only 90 calories, 3.5 grams of fat (2 grams saturated) and 9 grams of carbohydrates (8 grams of which are sugars), as well as 75 milligrams of caffeine. I usually add one packet of sugar (4 grams) to a cappuccino, which ups the carbohydrates to 13 grams and the sugars to 12 grams. That's a lot better than the mocha.

Now for the interesting part - I always knew scones were "pricey" from a dietary point of view, but I had no idea of how expensive they were. My favorite scone, the cranberry orange one, has 470 calories, 17 grams of fat (9 saturated), 69 grams of carbohydrates (27 grams of sugars), and also has 460 milligrams of sodium. That's 26% of the % daily values for a 2,000-calorie diet for fats, 45% of the daily values for saturated fat, and 24% of the daily values for carbohydrates as well as 20% of the daily values for sodium - all in one scone. The blueberry scone is even higher in fat, although slightly lower in carbohydrates.

No wonder my clothes were starting to get tight! If I had a mocha and a cranberry orange scone, that would be 670 calories (33.5% of a 2,000-calorie diet), 23 grams of fat (35%), including 12.5 grams of saturated fat (63%), 100 grams of carbohydrate (35%) including 51 grams of sugars (the equivalent of almost 13 teaspoons of sugar) and 24% of a daily maximum for sodium. Not the best building blocks for a healthy diet!

I think I'll try to go out for coffee less often - I don't need that much caffeine on top of my daily morning coffees at home and tea in the afternoon - and when I do I'll stick to the cappuccino and give the mocha and scone a pass, except on a rare occasion as a treat.

Starting the Gardening Year

I went to my community garden plot this morning - it's about 12' x 24' - and did a little preparation for the year. My chives are making new shoots, some over-wintered leeks are greening up and the garlic is also sprouting. I do almost no tilling - just dump several inches of compost on top of the beds each fall and spring and let the earthworms do the tilling for me - so there were only a few weeds to remove. I need to order some more weed barrier to lay down on the pathways.

I've decided not to grow tomatoes, eggplants, peppers or potatoes in my plot this year - we had a bad attack of late blight everywhere in our area last year and the soil is undoubtedly contaminated. I think I'll get some of these growing bags from Gardener's Supply and grow tomatoes, eggplants and peppers on my back patio instead. I'm going to skip the potatoes this year. I still have some plant and seed ordering to do - I'm mostly going to use seeds from last year and just see how they do. One advantage of moving some of the plants to my house is that there's more room for beans - I'd like to grow some additional varieties this year and they take a lot of space. I'm also planning to plant some lettuce, arugula and radish seeds soon, as it seems spring is finally on the way!

First Sock!

I finished my first sock yesterday, in a wonderful self-striping yarn (the lovely purple yarn in the upper left corner of the first photo is for one of my next sock projects - who could resist that color?):


The second sock is well on the way, so soon I can wear them around!

Knitting Socks

Since this blog is supposed to also (occasionally) be about more than food and cooking, and to cover other "life crafts", as I call them, a word about knitting. I took up knitting a couple of years ago - it always intrigued me as I love knitted things and working with my hands and intense, beautiful colors. I like the "worry-bead" aspect of knitting, and the fact that you can (usually, unless the pattern's more complex) can talk to people while you do it. I have a number of knitting projects going - a sweater, a long-sleeved dressy top, an afghan (I took a year-long afghan project class and almost finished) - but I've always wanted to learn to knit socks.

Our local, wonderful, knitting and crochet store offered a 4-session beginning sock knitting class, and I signed up. Tonight's the last session, and I hope to have a photo of a finished sock soon - it's in a beautiful self-striping yarn. The second sock is well on its way, and I'm planning to pick out a new pattern tonight. I've already got my eye on a lovely purple multi-toned yarn for my next pair!

Orange Pan-Glazed Tempeh

I made a wonderful meal recently, using a recipe from one of my favorite cooking blogs, 101 Cookbooks - Orange Pan-glazed Tempeh. It's a quick and simple recipe, and a great way to incorporate tempeh into your diet - it's a great introduction to tempeh for those who haven't eaten it before. It uses freshly squeezed orange juice, ginger, mirin (I substituted brown sugar since I couldn't find a mirin that wasn't based on high fructose corn syrup), maple syrup and ground coriander to make a delicious sauce. We had sliced green pepper as a side, and the dish was garnished with lime and cilantro:

I served it over kamut - a wonderful variety of wheat that cooks up nutty and slightly crunchy - the only downside to kamut is that it takes a very long time to cook - our batch took about an hour and a quarter of simmering to get done - here it is before cooking - it's very pretty stuff:

The way the tempeh is prepared really adds to the appeal - it's sauteed in olive oil until brown on both sides before the sauce is added and reduced - I can see this browned tempeh as the base for lots of recipes using different sauces:

Very pretty, and delicious - and it made a great left-over:

I Love Broccoli Rabe

I haven't done too much cooking lately, but my husband's using one of my favorite ingredients tonight - broccoli rabe. I love the texture - the stems are just as good as the leaves and flower heads, and it has such a wonderful, slightly bitter flavor. I just love the way it looks, too - there's nothing not to like about it!

Last night, we had it as part of a bulgar with garlicy greens dish, and tonight it'll be simply sauteed, perhaps with a squeeze of lemon.