eG Foodblog: mizducky - The tightwad gourmand shapes up

[mizducky]

I've truly been enjoying your blog, MizD. I swear, you do more in a week than I do in an entire month!

What about summer borscht for the beet greens?

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Glad you liked it! I must confess, my weeks are usually not quite this busy. For one thing, while I do shop for fresh produce pretty frequently, I'm usually a little more efficient about it than this week. I was kind of spreading it around a little more so I could show you all more. Now, as a matter of fact, I think I'm a good candidate for that Use what you have, cook from the pantry topic that's recently sprung up.

That's another weird side-benefit of my new regimen, by the way. You wouldn't believe how much my grocery and dining-out bills have shrunk now that I'm no longer inhaling mass quantities of food, especially mass quantities of meat. Volume-wise, though, I'm still bringing home large quantities of food, which amuses the hell out of me because now it's mostly bales of roughage.

Meanwhile, I've been plotting out what to do with my beans 'n' greens. The idea of a summer borscht is nice ... I'm not sure, though, that I have enough other items to make a viable soup out of it. Let me contemplate ...

Meanwhile: I need some suggestions on how to dry the remainder of the epazote I won't be using on the beans today. Hang 'em all in a bunch? In several smaller bunches? Dry 'em in the oven? What temperature? All assistance appreciated here.

[mizducky]

You would think, if I had been talking up cooking beans since yesterday, that I would have remembered to soak the durned things, wouldn't you? Oh well--a brief pause while the beans go through the one-hour "cheater's" soak (pressure-cooker variant, in which you bring them just up to pressure, then take the cooker off the heat and let sit covered for an hour).

By the way, I notice it's been a little quiet in here today in terms of audience participation. Y'all have any questions about any of the stuff I've been rapping about in here? I'm home from now until 6pm PDT. Anyone want to "come out to play-i-ay"? ... (extra points for guessing gratuitous movie reference ).

[Chufi]

Hi mizducky, I have been reading along during my busy workweek, sneaking peeks into your blog while at the office

I loved the pictures of the picnic, and yes, sitting on a blanket makes my body ache all over too!

I also really enjoyed the pictures of those huge Asian markets. They make me insanely jealous. Nothing like that exists over here... I think 100 of my little Asian markets would fit into your big one!

Edited June 12, 2006 by Chufi (log)

[Kouign Aman]

Gas oven? Separate the epazote as much as reasonable, and arrange on rack in over. Put cookie sheet down low to catch bits that fall off. Leave in over over night. The pilot ought to be enough to get it dry. Leave longer if necessary. Now I confess - I have never so much as seen epazote. But this worked for parsley and basil.

Or, since you are in-land a tad, if you have a sunny balcony, lay the herb on paper towels to dry.

Another option - wash it, and freeze it. Lay it out on cookie sheet to freeze then transfer into zipbags for sane storage. Biggest challenge in this is remembering you have it all stashed away hidden-like.

Beet greens - so far all greens are ok in our house if steamed to acceptably-soft (our definitions vary) then sauteed briefly in olive oil with onions and garlic. I have no idea how this would work for beet greens (never having eaten one), nor how it would be with cooking spray (I do have olive-oil PAM, perhaps I'll try it one day).

Ok, That was two+ paragraphs from fantasy-land. Is that playful enough?

Thank you for blogging. Was much fun. I enjoy the way you write and your perspective on things.

[MarketStEl]

Haven't been able to come up with any ideas for the veggies that I think are worth sharing, which is to say, I haven't come up with any ideas at all.

As for soreness despite lack of physical exertion: I've been walking with a pronounced limp since yesterday evening. My feet--or more accurately, my ankle joints--are in open rebellion against my commands for them to propel me forward at my usual pace, thanks largely, I suspect, to having stood (mostly) in dress shoes (for about 11 hours) and walked (in Airwalks for about 3 hours) for the better part of 14 hours on Saturday and another 9 hours on Sunday. I don't think I'm developing gout or anything remotely close to it, and my joints don't appear swollen, but the pain is agonizing, especially descending stairs. I suspect that an icepack will get rid of this, and I won't need to resort to dietary modification, but should I find out otherwise, you will be hearing from me.

This has been a great blog, with nice Steely Dan lyric selections to boot. Good luck with your dietary regimen.

[Kouign Aman]

From another thread, in answer to an earlier Q:

What I do is freeze a whole "hand" of ginger root and grate as much as I need while it's still frozen. If the frozen root is allowed to thaw out, it goes horribly mushy, so I pop it back into the freezer as soon as the grating is done. The ginger lasts a year frozen with no noticeable deterioration of flavor.

Miriam

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[petite tête de chou]

You would think, if I had been talking up cooking beans since yesterday, that I would have remembered to soak the durned things, wouldn't you? Oh well--a brief pause while the beans go through the one-hour "cheater's" soak (pressure-cooker variant, in which you bring them just up to pressure, then take the cooker off the heat and let sit covered for an hour).

By the way, I notice it's been a little quiet in here today in terms of audience participation. Y'all have any questions about any of the stuff I've been rapping about in here? I'm home from now until 6pm PDT. Anyone want to "come out to play-i-ay"? ... (extra points for guessing gratuitous movie reference ).

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Hmm. I believe the movie in question is "The Warriors." The quote was provided by David Patrick Kelly's character, Luther. He said it while banging beer bottles together that were stuck on his fingers. Or am I completely delusional?

[mizducky]

Where the sailor spend his hard-earned pay

Red beans and rice for a quarter

--Steely Dan, "Pearl of the Quarter," Countdown to Ecstasy, 1973

Here's what's been happening with the beans and greens:

Earlier, I had done in the last of the goat meat as a mid-day meal, along with some romaine and a little of the daikon, when it struck me that I had all that savory broth also left from that project. And I also had a whole bunch of spinach available for use. Aha! A braise of the beet greens and spinach together, with Asian-flavored pot liquor!

But before I started on the greens, I wanted to get the beans going, which had completed their preliminary soak. So I turned my attention to the epazote:

Wow, that stuff has an interesting odor! Kind of resinous. Recipes I looked up on the net tended to do two springs for a pound of beans. I had started with about 1-1/2 cups of beans, so I went with a single sprig. I also chucked a single dried red chile in with the beans:

Now for the greens. Washing all the dirt and silt off the spinach (this is the second washing; the first produced some very muddy water):

Prepping the beet greens (I love to include the stems, so I cut them into smaller segments so that they'll cook more quickly):

Trimming up the spinach (I do leave the stems on, but I'm trimming off the roots on these because they're too hard and will be nasty cooked):

Meanwhile, here's the goat broth, defatted and heating up in one of the stars of my Disreputable Cookware Collection (yes, I know that hacked-up teflon coatings are not the best for one's health ... I just haven't gotten around to replacing this bugger ):

The broth hit the boil, so in went the greens--I love the magic trick wherein they wilt as soon as they hit the broth, so that you can just keep loading more and more in:

Everything lidded and steaming away:

By the way, I love playing with my pressure cooker. This one is made by Manttra, a company based in India. I think I paid less than $35 for it in a local Target, and I couldn't be happier with it.

Stand by for the reveal ...

[mizducky]

Anyone want to "come out to play-i-ay"? ... (extra points for guessing gratuitous movie reference ).

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Hmm. I believe the movie in question is "The Warriors." The quote was provided by David Patrick Kelly's character, Luther. He said it while banging beer bottles together that were stuck on his fingers. Or am I completely delusional?

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Well, you may or may not be delusional, but you got the right movie. One of the stranger films ever made, I think, but a helluva lot of fun. (Some of those gangs are pretty damn lame though--like the ones dressed up in baseball uniforms. And wasn't there one gang who dressed as mimes? Ooooh, I'm so scared! )

Okay, I'm off to dish up some of the fruits ... erm, I mean vegetables ... of my labors.

[Rebecca263]

Yummy blogging, as usual, kudos to you!

And, wow, you're saving money now? That's a great bonus, are you actually putting aside the extra do-re-mi?

Finally, THANK YOU!

[mizducky]

After the beans finished their allotted time under pressure, I depressurized the cooker, and let the beans simmer with the lid ajar until the liquid was significantly reduced. The resulting product:

Boy, it's hard to make black beans show up under flash! But come to think of it, these black beans stayed a lot blacker than when I usually cook them. I wonder if that's partly due to the epazote? Anyway, I'm looking forward to eating these over the next few days. My food plan, by the way, counts beans as both starch and protein--that is, one half cup of beans equals one unit of protein exchange plus one unit of starch exchange. When I was brand new on this regimen, I was really unwilling to take that double hit on my daily food allowance. By this point, though, I have relaxed a lot about that old diet-think fear of not getting enough food to eat, and am now happy to have beans be both my starch and protein for a meal.

Meanwhile ... braised greens are admittedly not the most photogenic dish in the world, but I like the looks (and the taste) of these babies:

I am enjoying these as my early-evening snack as I type this.

[mizducky]

Off to my business meeting. I'll be on here later tonight with my wrapup and farewell. Cheers!

[Smithy]

Meanwhile, here's the goat broth, defatted and heating up in one of the stars of my Disreputable Cookware Collection (yes, I know that hacked-up teflon coatings are not the best for one's health ... I just haven't gotten around to replacing this bugger ):

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FWIW, I don't think you have to worry too much about the Teflon ™ or its variants. I know it's getting a big smear campaign lately, but if you listen to the fine print (so to speak), they're saying 2 very distinct things: (1) don't overheat it, because if you go too far you may release poisonous fumes as breakdown products, and (2) at lower temperatures you may lose chips from a damaged surface, but any flakes that come off will pass right through you, because it's chemically inert at the non-fuming temperatures. What you're doing isn't going anywhere near the overheat range. The flakes aren't a problem.

I have that on my mind lately, because one of my favorite cooking-show hosts is clearly an excellent cook and host but a bit (no, a LOT) weak on science. I just heard her err, yet again, on the side of egregious overcaution this last weekend. I think DuPont (or is it Dow?) is getting a bad rap, and I hate to see a good product scuttled on the basis of pseudoscience scare tactics.

All that aside, I want to thank you for a terrific blog. I've been away most of the weekend, and back to work this week, and only able to peek in now and again. Every time I peeked, I found interesting thoughts, theories, discussions about food and philosophy, and ingredients I didn't know! Couldn't help you a bit with the suggestions, but I've enjoyed reading along.

Thank you, Ma'am Ducky, and well done.

[mizducky]

Yummy blogging, as usual, kudos to you!

And, wow, you're saving money now? That's a great bonus, are you actually putting aside the extra do-re-mi?

Finally, THANK YOU!

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You're very welcome!

Alas, most of the money I've been saving on groceries so far has gotten eaten up by soaring SoCal gasoline prices. But I have been able to buy tickets to a few more rock shows than I used to be able to afford!

[mizducky]

Chinese music always sets me free

Angular banjoes

Sound good to me

Aja

When all my dime dancin' is through

I run to you

--Steely Dan, "Aja," from the album of the same name (1977)

So, a few final thoughts:

I suppose one could look at my current intense focus on this whole health regimen thing and wonder about obsessive-compulsive disorder. But as the instructor of my health class over at my HMO is fond of saying, folks like me have ingrained all sorts of counterproductive food and health habits over years and decades of reinforcement; it's only logical that it would take an equal amount of effort to deprogram all those behaviors and replace them with healthier ones. Besides, as a foodie I was already spending tons of time thinking about food anyway, so, nu, like this is so different?

The plain fact of the matter is that "will power" alone--i.e. reliance solely on conscious commitment to be healthier--can only take one so far in behavioral change. It doesn't address the behaviors deeply ingrained at an unconscious level. The unconscious is a very patient part of the human psyche. Conscious attention wavers due to all sorts of circumstances (fatigue, stress, distraction, etc.), and the unconscious just waits for those moments of inattention and then swoops in and takes over.

Have you ever started off driving to a certain place, gotten distracted by a conversation with your passenger, and then suddenly realized your brain had gone on autopilot and you have just made the turn-off to your workplace, instead of continuing on to the movie theater or wherever you intended to go? You turned just a slight bit of your attention away, and unconscious habit just slid on into the driver's seat. If even a lively conversation is enough distraction for this to happen, just think how easily the unconscious can pull a fast one on the much more challenging commitment of sticking to a "diet."

But of course, even though commitment is insufficient in itself, IMO it is most definitely a necessary foundation. It takes major commitment to put in the full amount of work necessary to change behaviors that affect every phase of one's life. Especially in a society in which virtually every social, familial, business, celebratory, and even religious occasion revolves around food in one way or another, and so much of that food involves quantities and qualities that are hazardous to those of us with metabolisms geared to gain weight easily and lose it only grudgingly.

Another bugaboo I had to deal with as a lover of food, as well as a battle-scarred veteran of the dieting wars, was the dreaded specter of deprivation--that I might never again be "allowed" to eat the foods I had grown to love in the ways to which I had grown accustomed. To battle this specter, I found it useful to remember one of those silly little motivational quips that float around the Internet: "Yes, you can have it all ... you just can't have it all right now." I can still enjoy rich and fatty foods of all sorts--I just can't eat them in huge quantities every single day anymore.

And in fact, I had to admit to myself that even I was beginning to actually get bored with that unending influx of the rich stuff. I really was doing it more out of force of habit than anything else. I appreciate those rich, calorie-dense foods a whole lot more now that they're a special treat rather than the daily usual. And I'm also now much more choosy about those special treats--if I'm going to allow myself one of my occasional preplanned splurges, I sure as hell ain't gonna waste it on a lowly fast food burger and fries.

Ultimately, I keep on coming back to that concept of balance. Balance still doesn't seem to get a whole lot of respect in modern Western culture--certainly there are exceptions, but so much in our culture still seems more geared towards endless optimistic expansion onward and upward forever--bigger better faster richer grow grow grow the one with the most stuff wins. Again this is a raging overgeneralization, but balance seems to have much more tradition and standing in Eastern cultures, where the yin/yang harmony of the Tao touches on everything from spirituality to breakfast.

And so, I find my love of Asian culture and food coming back around again to support me now, as I seek to heal my body, and through that my mind and spirit. Just as those self-confessed masters of cynicism, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, admitted in a rare moment of musical candor, I find that all my dime-dancing about outrageous excess is through. And look what I wind up coming home to, and how well I get fed and taken care of when I get there!

Many thanks to all of you who have offered your kind words of support during this blog. I'll be poking my head in for the remainder of the evening until I turn in ... and then tomorrow is Tuesday, and I'm back to my HMO class once again. Another week, another weigh in. And so it goes, again.

Peace out,

/the duck

[Pan]

A most eloquent statement, Ellen!

It looks like I will be making a similar journey, as will many of us. I am discovering (maybe "being hit over the head with the fact" is more like it) that growing older means having to beware the consequences of heedless excess and become more aware of my body's actual needs and limitations. Because when I don't pay attention, my body attacks me mercilessly. I suspect I will continue to lean on you from time to time as I deal with, or rather, am thrust headlong into confronting my problems before they make it even tougher on me. Have courage and continue to enjoy your life!

[hzrt8w]

Great blog, Ellen! Thank you for letting me be a part of it, and led me to have a glimpse of how Chinese cooking has blended into the American culture.

Go and let yourself loose in 99 Ranch more often! By your next blog I want to see more bottles and jars of Chinese sauces whose names you cannot pronounce in your cupboard and you asking "hmm, what do I do with this?".

[MarketStEl]

This thing's still open?

Well, let me say that I greatly enjoyed sitting in on your week full of leafy green things and goat meat. That was a beautiful coda you put on the whole affair; it spawned some thoughts in my mind that would be wildly off-topic even by the relaxed standards applied to eG foodblogs--if you'd like to hear them, let me know.

I'm going to try my hand at cooking black beans for the first time later this week. No pressure cooker; I assume a Crock-Pot would be an inappropriate vehicle for this effort. Their ultimate destination is a mixed veggie salad I'm making for the PGMC end-of-year party. You don't soak your beans first, right? Or wrong?

I'll see you in various places around here in any case. Take care, and stay well...

On that train of graphite and glitter

Undersea by rail

Ninety minutes from New York to Paris

By '76 we'll be A-OK

What a beautiful world this will be

What a glorious time to be free...

--Donald Fagen, "I.G.Y.", from The Nightfly (1999)

[*Deborah*]

Cheers, Miz Ducky! always a pleasure.

[racheld]

Ducky, Dear,

Much enjoyment, much enlightenment, much fun all round. From yin/yang to gout to rockin' picnics---what a ride!!! In any circumstance of your life, you just go to the market and make something wonderful of whatever you find there.

It's been terrific---I loved all the little references, the pictures, the inside music/movie remarks (woo, Luther!!! He and James Remar are two unsung greats), and all the little tidbits of food and health and life that you tossed in.

A tip of my own feathered hat (red) and a hearty thank you for all the fun.

rachel

PS I run from mimes. And clowns.

[dockhl]

Thanks for the insight, mizducky. I'll PM you when I am next in SD and maybe we can grab a bowl of pho !

Sandy~

I've done dried beans in the crockpot and they are fine! (Not quite as good as the oven but acceptable.)

Try this:

CROCKPOT BLACK BEANS

[ed davis]

Thanks for sharing all your adventures. It's been fun!

[divalasvegas]

Just wanted to squeeze in my heartfelt thanks and kudos for this fantastic blog mizducky. Like you and many here, weight/dieting has been an issue in my life for quite some time. A few random thoughts/questions on your blog:

1) First of all, the diet industry gurus would be quaking in their shoes if your approach to a healthy lifestyle made it to the masses. The approach you've chosen completely trashes what they've been repackaging and selling to us for decades in various combinations: there are good foods and bad foods, guilt, deprivation, fat is evil, carbs are evil, meat is evil, you can never, ever eat (fill in the blank) again, programs where you have to purchase their mutant snacks, treats, and entrees, and the bottomless pit of nutritionally bankrupt "diet" foods (Snackwells anyone?). Thankfully your approach--I love your nine point outline--provides an antidote to all of that nonsense with delicious food and common sense.

2) About Ba Ren restaurant, I was curious to know about ordering from the more interesting menu written in Chinese and not being relegated to those dumbed down Americanized dishes. How did you navigate the Chinese menu? Would one have to speak/read Chinese or do they have staff on hand to assist? Also, the cold appetizer bar looked delicious, however I've heard on more than one occasion that the Chinese do not eat salads so my question is, are these consider salads and are they considered part of traditional Szechuan cooking?

3) Incorporating goat meat into your diet: fantastic. As I said before, I love goat meat but never knew about making it Asian style. Perhaps you've single-handedly moved folks to considering this delicious alternative to lamb and beef. And you're abosolutely right, it has its own unique taste. Maybe someone can start a thread (or revive one?) on different preparations for goat meat.

4) Finally, I think you've shown that one of the answers to eating more healthily is to eat dishes from cuisines that pack a lot of flavor and variety, like the various Asian cuisines you rely heavily on, but also, at least for me, dishes from the Mediterranean, Middle East, North Africa, etc.

I would say good luck mizducky but I'm confident that with the well thought out path you've chosen, you're current and continued success will not have to rely on random chance.

Cheers.

[Susan in FL]

I'll be closing this eG foodblog at approximately 5 PM eastern time, 2 PM mizducky time. If she isn't able to get public replies to the questions posted before that time, I'm sure she'll be happy to respond via PM. Thanks for the feedback and interest.

[kalypso]

2) About Ba Ren restaurant, I was curious to know about ordering from the more interesting menu written in Chinese and not being relegated to those dumbed down Americanized dishes.  How did you navigate the Chinese menu?  Would one have to speak/read Chinese or do they have staff on hand to assist?  Also, the cold appetizer bar looked delicious, however I've heard on more than one occasion that the Chinese do not eat salads so my question is, are these consider salads and are they considered part of traditional Szechuan cooking?

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Hopefully, I'm getting this in right under the wire

Yes, you would need to have someone in your party that is able to read Chinese to order off the table tent Chinese menu. Thankfully, at Ba Ren the menu is anything but dumbed down and ordering off the regular menu provides a wealth of wonderful dishes.