Day 63: Let's Talk About FOOD

It's been a while since I blogged about what I'm eating. I've made a couple of new discoveries in the PCP food world that have been making me VERY happy, so I thought I'd share!

First, kale chips. YUM.
Now, that might look like just a bowl of fresh kale, but in fact it's a bowl of crispy roasted kale chips - a FABULOUS replacement for any other kind of chip, if that's what you're craving. Or, you might look as this as the absolute EASIEST way to eat a big bunch of kale (possibly in one sitting!).

Here's how to make them:

1 big bunch of green or red kale - the curly kind works better than the lacinato kind
1 Tbsp (or less) olive oil
1 Tbsp (or slightly more) vinegar

Heat oven to 350. Wash kale, and while you're doing so, tear the leaves from the stems (discard stems) and tear leaves into chip-sized pieces. Dry thoroughly (salad spinner works best). Place dry kale leaves in a big bowl and add oil and vinegar. Mix it up with your hands so that all the leaves are coated in the oil/vinegar. Place in single layer on baking sheet and bake for 10ish minutes. Check on them at 8 min or so - maybe stir/flip them. Depending on how crispy you want them, keep them in a little longer. They're done when they are crispy and dark green. Take them out and eat them right off the pan! Or, keep them in an airtight container.

Bonus - when kale is roasted like this, it becomes almost weightless - so you could hypothetically eat a TON of kale chips as part of your veggie alotment. Because of the oil, I've been trying to eat them sparingly or as a PCP-ified snack. I supposed you could try to roast them without any oil - let me know how that comes out!

Next, baked tilapia. Sadly, I have no pictures of this. But I've experimented with different ways to bake this fish, and I think by now I've perfected it - at least for my tastebuds!

1 - 2 tilapia fillets
2 - 4 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 lemon
cracked pepper
tiny amt. olive oil

Heat oven to 350. Brush bottom of baking dish with oil. Place fillets in dish. Rub crushed, juicy garlic onto the fillets - the more the better. Squeeze lemon over the whole thing, and sprinkle liberally with cracked pepper. Bake for 20ish minutes, until the edges of the fish start to brown and the flesh flakes in big chunks. (I realized that I had been undercooking my fish so that it came out a little too soggy - so now I err on the side of a few more minutes in the oven. It won't dry out because of all the lemon juice.) Enjoy right out of the oven - also makes good leftovers.

Hey, here's a bonafide PCP dessert: banana smoothie-cream. I think someone else (maybe Elena?) blogged about this a while ago, but MAN does it deserve a re-post! I discovered this the night we got back from Fire Island - cupboards & fridge totally bare, but hiding in the back of the freezer? Frozen bananas!

Overripe frozen bananas (PERFECT way to use up those brown ones)
Plain yogurt
Splash of milk

If you've got a fruit/yogurt snack on your diet sheet, measure out the appropriate grams of bananas & yogurt and throw 'em in the blender. Blend until smooth. Experiment with texture/thickness - if needed, toss in a splash of milk to make it a little thinner/creamier. Pour into a tall glass and FREAK OUT over how the gods are smiling on you with this delicious treat. I might even go so far as to say that this is BETTER THAN ICE CREAM.

Last but not least, a new way to prepare eggs - poached in the microwave! My friend Sara and I experimented with this on vacation. If you like poached eggs but hate the mess/time it takes to prepare them, this is definitely a quick and easy method.

Crack an egg into a mug. Add 1/3 cup water and a splash of vinegar (to help keep the egg together in the water). Place in microwave and cover with a saucer. Cook at 80% power for 1 minute. If the white still looks undercooked, cook again at 80% for intervals of 10 secs. (Requires a little experimenting with your microwave to get it just right. Biggest difference between this and a stovetop method is that microwaves cook from the inside out, so the yolk might be on the firm side.) Drain and enjoy!

As a post-script to this post, I gotta say that the PCP has completely revolutionized the way I cook! I've had a similar experience to Tara - before PCP, I cooked either from recipes (which always seemed to require special ingredients like obscure spices or oils that I didn't have in the pantry - thus, the glut of one-time-used items hanging around in the back of my pantry) or not at all. Looking back, I don't even know WHAT I was eating half the time. Frozen Trader Joe's? Crappy prepared food from our local market? Leftover food from the kids' dinner? Yes, yes and yes.

Now, like Tara, like all of you, I shop for fresh foods without worrying about how I'm going to prepare them. No recipes, no random jars of spices that I'll only use once. I buy TONS of vegetables and marvel at how quickly I go through them - and, at how many ways there are to eat them: roasted, steamed, sauteed, grilled, raw, combined or on their own. I buy fish and chicken knowing that I can prepare them in delicious ways. I have a new appreciation for simple, cooked whole grains like quinoa, brown rice - and eat them with raw veggies on salads as often as I do in warm bowls of cooked veggies.

The best part of the PCP diet for me is that I have finally become more confident in the kitchen merely because I've been forced to experiment. The mysteries of the kitchen are finally being de-mystified simply because I'm IN there all the time! I can't tell you how happy this makes me.

Also - having previously adopted bad eating habits out of pure laziness and bad planning, I now see the beauty and EASE of thinking ahead just a little bit to plan my meals. It's not nearly so hard and so time-consuming as I always assumed it would be! Planning ahead AND knowing that it really doesn't take long to whip up a batch of roasted brussell sprouts, now that I've done it so many times. This knowledge will take me FAR beyond the end of this project, that's for sure.

Happy eating, PCP comrades!