mulberryshoots
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" ~ Mary Oliver
Month: September, 2016
September 11, 2016
bone broth diet: minus day one
It’s Sunday and my Instant Pot arrived from Amazon mid-morning. I’m going to open it up, rinse it out and read the directions for making beef bone broth.
But first, I read this great article which helped me to decide to ROAST the beef bones first before putting them with carrots, celery, onion, garlic and apple cider into the Instant Pot. So I took out a pack (about 3 lbs.) of beef marrow bones from the freezer which I bought yesterday and heated them up in the microwave to defrost them. Then, I put them into the oven and roasted them for about an hour, turning them over midway – smelled divine.
Then, I opened Dr. KellyAnn’s book, “Bone Broth Diet” which arrived in the same delivery as the Instant Pot. I decided the Instant Pot could wait until I read through the parts of the book that I needed to get started. I thought it was written well with lots of supporting nutritional information and anecdotes. The most important thing I noted is that her recipe for beef bone broth included beef short ribs in addition to the bones which would enrich the broth and enhance the flavor.
Since I also needed to buy carrots, I went to the grocery store and bought a pack of beef rib bones and some spring water to replenish our supply. Back home again, I turned on the oven from roasting the bones and put three pieces of beef rib bones in to roast for about 45 minutes.
With the beef bones/ribs roasting away in the oven, I sat down to read the manual for operating the Instant Pot. Looked pretty simple to me: open the lid, fill not too high, close the lid, push the right buttons to cook “soup.”
After waiting a half hour for some steam to come out, it didn’t look like the pot was heating up or building any pressure. I looked online at some Youtube videos about how to turn the pot on properly. Not much help. I then stopped the machine by pushing “cancel”, unplugged the pot and opened the lid. The liquid was barely warm. Baffled, I put the lid back on, plugged it in and pressed “soup” again. I then tried to add more minutes but suddenly, there were 3 beeps and the LED window showed “ON.” Well, that was an improvement. I then learned online from a very helpful guy that he NEVER uses any of the pre-programmed buttons like “soup” or “stew.” He just presses the manual button, adds on the time he wants and the machine beeps and turns on to what he’s programmed. Why wasn’t that obvious from reading the manual or watching the videos? Go figure.
Back to the diet book while waiting for the Instant Pot to act “instantly,” I also noted that in addition to making and mini-fasting with the bone broth two days a week, that this miracle diet requires you to do what every other diet in the world requires you to do:
- Drop gluten foods – breads, flour, pasta
- Drop glycemic vegetables – corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, kabocha squash
- Drop sugar, fast food and anything that we all know is bad for us.
DO eat high-quality protein meats (grass-fed beef, organic chicken, etc.)
DO eat lots of organic vegetables. Tons!
DO eat organic eggs with bacon (yep!)
DO NOT EAT english muffins, toast, sandwich bread, rolls with hamburgers, pizza crusts, (you get the picture.)
So, outside of the bone-broth twist, (because there have been 2-day mini-fast diets around too,) this seems like most diets out there: Paleo et al. that caution low carbs, non-gluten, no sugar etc.- including getting off the couch and getting some exercise even if it’s limited to walking every day or so.
Meanwhile, I am encouraged to report that the aroma alone of roasting beef bones and ribs in the oven almost justifies making the bone broth whether you’re on a diet or not. Can’t wait to taste it after it’s had its run in the Instant Pot pressure cooker, false starts and all! If it makes the 2-day a week mini-fast endurable, it might all be worth it!
[Maybe the glitches in getting the machine to work is due to Mercury still being in Retrograde until the 22nd, eleven more days from now.]
Note: Here’s a ‘bare bones’ recipe without all the editorializing above:
- Take 3 lbs. marrow bones and 2-3 pieces of beef ribs; roast in 425 degree oven for an hour, turning pieces halfway thru
- Cut up 3 organic carrots, 3 stalks of celery, a small whole vidalia onion and 1-2 cloves of peeled garlic (I used 1 cut in half)
- Place bones/meat/vegetables into cooker pot
- Add spring water to an inch lower than “maximum”
- Add 1 tablespoon Bragg’s apple cider vinegar and 1 teaspoon sea salt, 1 bay leaf
Turn on Instant Pot manually to 75 minutes. See if that’s long enough once the pot pressure has vented and you can take a look at the broth. Cook longer if desired. Cool, pour through a strainer; store in quart containers and freeze.
Honestly? the aroma of it smells like this beef bone broth could be an elixir for life! I’m glad that the ‘unseen hand of the Universe’ led me to it!
September 10, 2016
striped bass for dinner tonight . . .
We live in a working class town in Central Massachusetts with numerous Universities (Holy Cross, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Mass College of Pharmacy) and Hospitals (UmassMed, Memorial and a bunch of others.) There are also a couple of Vietnamese grocery stores in town (Mekong and Ha Tien.)
What both of these specialty asian food shops have are open bins of fresh whole fish of all stripes (large to small.) One of my favorite trips is to go on a Saturday morning before the crowds hit at midday and to buy two medium size whole striped bass. The guys behind the counter then trim, scale and clean them. Today’s ‘catch’ costs less than $12 for the two fish. And you can’t get fish much fresher than this unless you catch it yourself, it seems!
For dinner tonight, I’m going to steam the striped bass in a large skillet until they’re cooked through. When done, I’ll move them to a large platter and pour a sauce over them (sauteed garlic, ginger, scallions with soy, sherry cooking wine, oyster sauce, a little sweetener, thickened slightly with a cornstarch slurry.) The sauce is heated separately in a pan until it tastes just right (sampling as we go,) and is then poured gently over the fish just when we’re ready to sit down at the table to eat. Because the fish is so tender all by itself, I like to keep the sauce/glaze light and full of flavor but not so salty as to overpower the delectable fish itself.
As a side dish, I’m making Chinese string beans – an experiment to replicate some of those steaming piles of green beans at restaurants that are tender in the middle but still have a bite plus a spicy hot glaze that’s piquant but not overpowering. I looked at some recipes online and I think the secret to the texture/bite is to heat up an inch of of vegetable cooking oil in a covered pot until hot and deep fry the trimmed beans (that have been rinsed but are absolutely dry before putting in the oil) as part one of a two-step cooking process.
I just finished trimming the beans and what I noticed most of all is that these are not regular bean beans like the ones you see in the super market or at the farm stand. I picked these up at the Asian food market and they’re, well, an ASIAN variety of beans. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Anyhow, they are just gorgeous: unblemished, uniformly thin, crisp to the knife. They’re dark green but not as skinny as French haricots verts!
These are going to be great! I never bought string beans at the Asian market before because I thought that all string beans were created equal! Not anymore! So, after I rinsed the beans, I patted them dry with a paper towel before the next step of cooking them in hot oil to kind of par-fry them (as opposed to parboil.)
deep-fried beans (90 seconds) on bottom; raw ones on top
After 90 seconds frying in the oil, I removed them and drained them on kitchen towel to remove excess oil. THEN, in a skillet, I heated up some fresh oil and sauteed some crushed fresh garlic, minced ginger root, and chopped scallions. I stir-fried the beans quickly in a skillet large enough to move them around and then added some seasoning (a dab of Ohsawha soy sauce and a tiny bit of sugar (splenda).) Then, I sprinkle the cooked beans with a shake of red pepper flakes and tasted it: tender and flavorful. Here’s how they looked.
Both G. and I thought that the steamed fish and string beans were plenty for our dinner and that we didn’t want or need any cooked rice.
So that’s our dinner tonight. I would tag this one as a healthy “foodie pick” for a Saturday night meal. Sound good?
September 10, 2016
“feast or famine diet” . . .?
a FIESTA of dahlias from Fivefork Farms this a.m. . .
dahlias, majestic in a favorite vase . . .
So, if you read the last post, you’ll know that I’ve come across a 21 day diet that includes 2 days of fasting, drinking bone broth and eating regularly the rest of the time. I’ve refined this somewhat into what I call a “feast or famine” diet that includes:
- 2 days apart fasting – drinking juices and bone broth;
- 2 days of salad suppers – salads on a dinner plate with a serving of protein (teriyaki salmon, sliced steak, shrimp)
- 3 days left for foodie menus – pappardelle pasta with veal ragu, Peking duck, teriyaki chicken thighs on the grill, etc.
‘famine’ fixin’s for beef bone broth. . .
Anyhow, I’m going to try it out, starting tomorrow when the Instant Pot arrives and I make up some bone broth to store in the freezer.
Starting Monday, September 12th, I’ll start the 21-day diet clock. And on October 3rd, I’ll weigh in (couldn’t resist the pun) and see where things stand.
Meanwhile, here are more photos of the beautiful dahlias at the end of summer – and the beginning of our weekend!
September 10, 2016
the ‘unseen hand of the Universe’ today. . .
A friend from my college days wrote to me today that she didn’t understand how elements in my book, “Uncommon Hours” combined such concepts as transcendental values, the tarot, horoscopes and the “unseen hand of the Universe” as components of a consistent world or life-view. I, in turn, was baffled because it’s exactly how my life seems to perk along everyday.
For example, I spent quite a bit of time today in the local Bank of America office trying to sort out some accounting errors and to report fraudulent activity on my checking account. It took a long time because the Bank’s fraud department didn’t answer the phone even after an hour’s wait in the manager’s cubicle. After I went home to try the fraud line again, I returned to the bank to close out my account and open a new one. During this time, I had become friendly with the bank manager who helped me with these transactions. During our chitchat while waiting to connect with said fraud department, she told me about “Instant Pot” – an electric pressure cooker. I was delighted to hear about it because I’ve used a manual pressure cooker to cook brown rice macrobiotically but had stopped doing it because it took too long. She was enthusiastic about this kitchen gadget that would cook rice, make stock and stews as a pressure cooker (meaning fast) and could also be used as a slow cooker. When I went home, I read about it on Amazon, saving it in my checkout box.
Later this evening, I watched a chamber music special called “Simple Gifts,” a “Live from Lincoln Center” program about artist-led performances at the Shaker community in Kentucky, held in an incredible tobacco barn that was magical in its appearance with daylight showing between the slats and superior performances of artist-led chamber music. I thought it was an interesting concept not to have a conductor, but for various musicians leading the rest of the ensemble themselves, depending on whether/when they had the lead melody including wind instruments. It’s such a simple and basic concept but I had not seen it performed with such a large ensemble. I was also impressed by the co-directors, a husband-wife musician team who played the piano and cello: Wu Han and David Finckel who are also directors of the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center.
Directly after the special, the PBS station segued right into a healthy diet program featuring a Dr. KellyAnn somebody. She was a little grating so I turned it off but idly looked up her book online and read about her regimen to lose weight and turn your health around in 21 days because I had resolved to get in better shape just tonight after we had finished dinner. Her routine turned out to rely on two days of “fasting” and sipping homemade bone broth from beef bones or chicken bones, etc. simmering on the stove for six hours or so.
So if you’re still with me, of course, that brings my day full circle to the convo at the bank earlier where I learned about the Instant Pot which, (voila!,) is capable of making stock that takes hours on the stove in just a couple of hours in its electric pressure cooker mode. Get it? The unseen hand of the Universe, right?
But what about the horoscope part? I had read that Jupiter, a very powerful and positive planet, would enter G.’s birth sign today for the first time in twelve years, perhaps auguring good fortune. Lo and behold this afternoon, we received some good news from a Court ruling, giving us a small victory we had hoped for. Maybe we might even be turning the corner in this David vs. Goliath battle! See what I mean?
The opening question above also challenged the spiritual premise of my book and my first over-reaction was to ditch it, frustrated that yet another reader didn’t “get it” the way that I had intended. After today’s events though, I decided not to give up on it just because someone else could not imagine a life filled with so much serendipity and synchronicity.
Today has been a busy day and I feel the Universe has given me a good lesson (again!) Hallelujah! This is the way my life goes along, just about every day. I’m not kidding. Is it just following your intuition? Seems like more than that to me, doesn’t it?
Thank you Helpers!
Note: I ordered the “Instant Pot” to make bone broth per the 21 day diet plan. Will buy ingredients today at Mekong, a Vietnamese market in town and make a first batch of bone broth after the pot arrives and I figure out how to do it. Stay tuned.
September 8, 2016
a last ride . . .
Here is something from a website called “elderhelpers”. I started reading it and then found myself drawn into the description of a last ride taken through New York City. Here it is:
A sweet lesson on patience.
A NYC Taxi driver wrote:
I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I honked again. Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked.. ‘Just a minute’, answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.
After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90’s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940’s movie.
By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.
There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.
‘Would you carry my bag out to the car?’ she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.
She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.
She kept thanking me for my kindness. ‘It’s nothing’, I told her.. ‘I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.’
‘Oh, you’re such a good boy, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, ‘Could you drive
through downtown?’
‘It’s not the shortest way,’ I answered quickly..
‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.
I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. ‘I don’t have any family left,’ she continued in a soft voice..’The doctor says I don’t have very long.’ I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.
‘What route would you like me to take?’ I asked. For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.
Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.
As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, ‘I’m tired. Let’s go now’.
We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.
Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her.
I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.
‘How much do I owe you?’ She asked, reaching into her purse.
‘Nothing,’ I said
‘You have to make a living,’ she answered.
‘There are other passengers,’ I responded.
Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug.She held onto me tightly.
‘You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light.. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life..
I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk.What if that woman had gotten an angry driver,or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?
On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life.
We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments.
But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.
PLEASE SHARE THIS TOUCHING STORY
Volunteer on www.elderhelpers.org or get help for an elder: www.elderhelpers.org/start
September 7, 2016
the next time you crave ice cream . . .
Try this instead. Trader Joe’s organic goat’s milk yogurt (creamy and less thick than Greek yogurt) – add a swirl of honey and top with some glazed maple walnuts (for salads.)
The salty-sweet mix plus a little crunch from the nuts is very tasty. Plus it’s quick and easy. YUM!
September 6, 2016
tomatoes! . . .
G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S!!!! (enough said!)
September 5, 2016
marathons! . . .
my favorite scarf . . . lost for months, and now found!
Well, I have stuck to my guns and done some marathon cleaning out this Labor Day weekend. Along the way to my delight, I discovered that PBS was running a “Downton Abbey” marathon of clips from yesteryear. So, it’s kept me company while cleaning up – a very nice accompaniment, I must say – and I highly recommend it if you want to turn it on while it’s still running. It’s amazing all the plot lines and wonderful dramatizations – from Mr. Bates’s FIRST murder conviction (of his estranged wife) to Anna’s incarceration accused of killing Mr. Green? or was it Bates again? Finding the ticket in the coat and tracking down witnesses who finally free Anna by the pair downstairs (Mr. Moseley and Baxter, the seamstress lady) hasn’t come up yet but I’m hoping it will before the marathon runs out this weekend!
This morning, I’ve managed to go through re-sorting some of my wardrobe, reorganizing my shoes/boots and setting them on the shoe rack after vacuuming it out. Then, I put my two purple dresses and another plaid one into the long see-through wardrobe bag. Then, I was delighted to find the black plaid shirt that I’ve been looking for . . . and underneath it wound around the hanger were two scarves! I let out a little shriek of joy (that’s the only way to describe it) when I spied the Eileen Fisher ombre grey/blue scarf that I have been kicking myself for losing months ago. (I even searched on eBay to find an identical one but no luck, which as it turned out is probably a good thing!)
In any event, I washed a sweater in Ivory Snow and tucked the ombre scarf into the cool water. It’s now hung up on a towel to dry out on the back deck. And I am clicking my heels together with glee!
So here’s a happy note to cleaning things out – finding my favorite scarf is sparking joy all over the place!
Postscript: It’s two days later and even though we had a full day to the North Shore to see the ocean with Hermine off the coast, I managed to clean out the bathroom cupboards and shelves. And I have discovered the secret of cleaning out messes of lots of stuff pretty quickly:
a) take everything OUT, wipe it down and put stuff into cartons and take it into another room.
b)then sort “like with like”;
c) throw out everything you don’t want and won’t use again.
d) put it back in containers, “like to like”
Simple, right? I had everything unloaded on the kitchen table, sorted ‘like to like.’ What it made me realize was that outside of physical injuries (my broken ankle and George’s pulled back muscle,) that we haven’t been sick in years – no flu, no colds, no bronchitis, NADA.
Now that was worth cleaning out all the bathroom detritus once and for all! YAY!
September 5, 2016
bento box lunch prep ideas . . .
found on google bento box photos. . .
So here we are on Labor Day, the Monday before a full week of school for a lot of folks. One of the ideas I had for my daughter’s lunches (she teaches high school French) was to give her an insulated bento box that I found on Amazon (where else?) Along with it was a very cute recipe book to make rice cakes (onigiri) wrapped in nori and such. Very appealing but might be too much effort for busy people getting ready for school!
Today, I woke up thinking about (really) quick and easy ways to do a master prep to provide lunch food ahead of time, drawing from ready made dishes from Whole Foods or one’s local Chinese take-out or Trader Joe’s. So, here’s some ideas to simplify as well as to expand one’s way of thinking about making bento box lunches to take to work or school. The secret is that you don’t have to do everything yourself! YAY!
The idea is to make or buy a batch of something and divide it into serving sizes on your work table. Then, package a lunch up in a heavy duty Glad freezer bag and freeze them. Take them out in the morning, pop them into your bento box and by the time you’re ready to eat lunch (unless it’s at 10:30 in the morning because school starts so early,) it should be ready to go. Might have to nuke it a little to bring to room temp though I’m not sure about that. So here goes my imaginary lunch sous chef prep ideas:
- BUY from Whole Foods in small portions for the week: 1. salad bar yummy fare: edamame salad, pickled beets, cherry tomato salad, chick peas, etc. 2. barbecued chicken wings; 3. piece of cooked salmon; 4. avocado to ripen, cherry tomatoes, eggs
- BUY from your favorite Chinese carryout: fried rice, veggie lo mien, moo shu without the pancakes
- COOK: 1. boil up some frozen shrimp (16-25 size) or skillet cook with a little teriyaki sauce; 2. Trader Joe’s Thai shrimp dumplings; 3. hard boiled eggs; 4. cucumber/wakame salad (dress with Japanese vinegar, soy, sesame oil
With these ready-made, carry-out and home-cooked ingredients, then apportion combinations that will be appetizing and also avoid monotony. Pack up in freezer sandwich bags. Seal and you’re good to go. At least for a couple of weeks – then you can get pad thai from the Thai restaurant, chicken nuggets, and slaw or other veggies from Whole Foods.
And maybe somewhere along the line, try your hand at making rice balls. It seems labor intensive to me because the secret to delicious rice balls is the filling or condiments you add to it. There’s a little Japanese tea sandwich place in Brookline that makes a delicious rice ball. I have no idea what’s in it but the tastes are so subtle, I don’t think you just get it out of a jar.
In the meantime, here is a photoarray of bento box photos that might inspire you with new combinations – I find it useful to see visuals for ideas. And adding a couple of cherry tomatoes, some hard-boiled egg, avocado slices and a little fresh fruit goes a long way.
Hope these ideas are convenient enough to pull off. The idea of bento box lunches is to provide a concept for healthy and fun lunches – not to slave over how to prepare food for them all week, right?
Enjoy!
Footnote: Here are directions from the Food Network for boiling eggs:
Soft:
Bring a pot of water to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, then add your eggs and cook 4 to 5 minutes. Drain, cool in ice water and peel.
Medium:
Bring a pot of water to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, then add your eggs and cook 7 to 8 minutes. Drain, cool in ice water and peel.
Hard:
Place your eggs in a pot and cover with cold water by 1 inch. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then cover, remove from the heat and set aside 8 to 10 minutes. Drain, cool in ice water and peel.
mulberryshoots 