Embarking on a new "Diet"

Let me preface with: I HATE diets. I hate diets because they mean deprivation. But what I am in favor of, especially more recently, is changing some of the things I eat in order to not only be a little healthier but just plain stop putting crap in my body. It's so scary how people just grab stuff that tastes good with no regard to the ingredient panel on the side. Forget the nutrition information, what about the ingredients? I maintain, if I can't pronounce it, why should I be eating it? Additionally, if it contains stuff I studied in high school chemistry, why should I be eating it?

It's like, someone asked me the other day why I refuse to eat yellow cheddar cheese.... and my response was, UH, BECAUSE MILK IS NOT ORANGE? How do they get it that color? They put food coloring in it LOL. Even if it's made from natural ingredients or vegetable extract or something, it's still completely unnecessary and purely cosmetic.

So with all this in mind, I purchased a used copy of Michel Montignac's "Eat Yourself Slim" - to make a long story short he focuses on good carbs and good fats and not calories or even really fat or portion control. Interesting idea, even if I am a bit skeptical since I almost eat that way anyway. But I thought, while I am working and making enough to afford this stuff, I might as well give it all a try, no? So I went to town in Fresh and Easy and Trader Joe's and bought all kinds of good stuff (not pictured, raw turbinado sugar):



Of course, I don't even know what I'm going to do with the flour. All that stuff in addition to the brown jasmine rice and Barilla's 51% whole grain spaghetti (which unlike other kinds actually tastes good, and as the whole point of this blog points out, I am picky ;)), drinking freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice, and a few other changes here and there, we will see what happens. If all a good attempt requires is a few little changes here and there, mainly to breakfast, how can I not try, right?!

The next step will be ridding my apartment of the crap I already have, mostly snack foods and white breads............... and potatoes....... i don't think i can give up potatoes :( I'm gonna go out with a bang tonight (post on that forthcoming), and start it all up tomorrow. We'll see what happens! If nothing else it'll give me interesting material to blog about I suppose :) Wish me luck!

Pizza again

Made a pepperoni pizza the other night. I used the Fresh & Easy dough instead of TJ's and I think I prefer it a bit better. Not sure why or even how to explain it but it seems to be a little more pliable or softer or something. Maybe less gluten developed? Anyway, used up half of the precious TJ's Italian Starter Sauce that I have remaining and my preferred whole milk mozzarella that I sliced as thin as I could. To try to avoid disaster, instead of trying to get the raw pizza right on the stone, I made it on the back of a cookie sheet, put the cookie sheet in the oven for a minute, which helped the crust start to cook, and then slid it onto the cookie sheet for the remaining time.

Meanwhile, I toasted the pepperoni on a separate pan and dabbed off most of the grease from it, cut the slices in half and put them on the pizza halfway through cooking. I prefer to do it this way because it seriously cuts down on the grease the pepperoni leaves on the pizza and also it prevents the pepperoni from burning. Of course, I overcooked the pizza by maybe 30 seconds, so as you see in the pic the crust around the edges is a bit charred, but it was fine and nicely brown underneath.

All in all a very tasty personal-sized pizza and that's all that matters :) I use about 3 ounces of dough stretched as thin as possible, about 4 spoons full of sauce and about 3 ounces of cheese, sliced really thin and placed evenly over the sauce. It's just right for a filling but not excessive dinner and cooks up in about 7 minutes at the oven's hottest temp. Still on the quest for a perfect pizza but I feel like I'm getting closer. Next thing I'm gonna try is making my own sauce with canned San Marzano tomatoes.

Skirt Steak with Homemade Chimichurri

Made some homemade chimichurri sauce a few days ago. a little red wine vinegar from TJ's, fresh flat leaf parsley, a little hot pepper flakes, several cloves of garlic, a bit of salt, lime juice (it's what I had), and lots of nice extra virgin olive oil. All the recipes I found called for oregano too, but I couldn't find any, so just parsley it is.



Seared up a nice piece of skirt steak in the cast iron pan to my desired doneness (for me, medium rare to rare), and spooned the chimichurri on top. Would've been nice with some corn, but alas I forgot to buy another bag in TJ's this weekend so I made up my last box of Near East pilaf.

The chimichurri wasn't as flavorful as I would've hoped. It may have been from the missing oregano and it definitely needs salt, but otherwise, not bad!



[update: unfortunately, Fresh & Easy's product line might be as fickle as TJ's, they don't have skirt steak anymore :( ]

Homemade Tortilla Chips

This past weekend, I bought some mini corn tortillas at Fresh & Easy for half off (as you can see, a whopping 66 cents!). I was excited to marinate and grill up some chicken breast for homemade mini-tacos. But much to my dismay, the tortillas were kinda nasty in texture.



I wasn't sure if it was because they were near their expiration date or what, but I decided to toast them - so I cut each tortilla into 4 'chips' and then mixed up a little olive and canola oil, chipotle pepper powder, garlic powder, and paprika, with a sprinkle of sea salt, and drizzled a few drops on each side of each 'chip' and baked for about 8 minutes.



Not much else to say but HELLO DELICIOUSNESS!

[update: I later found that heating the tortillas helps a lot in terms of texture - I successfully made my mini-tacos! Good to know.]