Wandering at the Shadows' Edge

exploring potential and possibility

Archive for the category “Cooking”

08 Nov 2019

New Adventures in Food

Part of the health and physical fitness journey I’m on is adjusting how I eat. I’m adjusting not only what I eat but when. It’s been interesting.

The easy part has been the when, but that’s because I’m currently prepping to teach and not on my regular work schedule. Since I’m not on phones, I can eat anytime I want to. It makes grazing through my day easy – and eating this way is about the only way I can eat the volume of food I need to.

I’m going to have to adjust somewhat while I’m actually teaching, since I can’t eat while I’m in front of the class instructing. But I have co-instructors so I won’t be in front of the class most of the time. It’s adjusting when class is over that I’m worried about. I’ll probably be going back to my day shift at that point and be back on the phones. I can’t eat while I’m taking calls and two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch aren’t terribly conducive to my eating plan. I’m worried about making the adjustment.

Now the adjustment to -what- I’m eating has been fun. It fits my appetite because most of the stuff is fruits and vegetables, nutes, legumes, and grains. There’s not a lot of cooking involved. There is some, but I can do most of it in one day and it only takes a couple of hours. If I decide to make something specific and on-the-spot, it’s generally fried or scrambled eggs, or a smoothie. Almost everything else can be cooked for multiple meals.

Cooking may be getting easier too. I got an Instant Pot on sale. The model I got can be used as a pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, and for sous vide, sauteing, and making yogurt. I haven’t done much with it yet, but I have two chicken carcasses in the freezer waiting ot be made into stock. And cooler weather is coming, so stews and chili will be in order. With the pressure cook option I won’t have to start them eight hours in advance. I’m excited to try making yogurt too. I wonder if you can start cheese in it?

What kind of experimentation are you doing with food?

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08 Oct 2019

Physical Shadows

One thing about roaming the shadows and not keeping track of where I’m going – I don’t keep track of other things, like my weight. And when I finally did step back into the light, I found I’d gained a fair amount of weight.

I was very unhappy with that discovery. And I decided to do something about it.

I joined 24 Hour Fitness and set up sessions with a trainer once a week. I started walking again and doing the lateral elliptical machine at the gym when it’s too hot or rainy to walk the hike and bike train behind my condo.

And I started eating better. Lots of fruits, vegetables, and such. Eggs and some cheese. I haven’t gone vegetarian. I eat some meat, poultry, and seafood. And I haven’t given up my beer. That’s not happening!

I tried Daily Harvest. I like the idea of having smoothie ingredients ready for immediate use. And they have dinner bowls, overnight oats, and snack bites. But I wasn’t fond of a lot of the flavors. Some of them were good, and I’m still ordering a limited number of them. I think I’ll be prepping ingredients myself and buying frozen fruits. That should make it quicker to fix smoothies and I can probably pre-mix the ingredients once I find the combinations I like best.

I’m just starting to lose some of the weight, but it is happening. I’m hopeful. We’ll see what happens.

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03 Jan 2018

The Wandering Plan for 2018

I started and ended 2017 pretty well here…. the middle was a bit of a mess. I don’t want that to happen again. So here’s the plan and how I intend to stick to it.

  • I’m committing to one post a week here.  I may, at times, post more often, but the commitment is once a week.
  • I’m scheduling craft, reading, and posting time every week. So I’ll have projects and books to post about.
  • I’m setting up drafts for posts 3 months at a time. In most cases they’re just titles and a few notes bit they are ready and waiting.

And what will I be posting about?

  • I’m bringing back the Spotlights
  • I’ll be sharing my favorite authors and books
  • I’ve set myself a goal to work on a crafting project every day and I’ll be posting  updates on my progress
  • The actual projects themselves… some calligraphy, iconography, weaving, sewing, costuming, needlework, bookbinding, crochet and other fiber arts… And who knows what else.

I’m planning on exploring a lot of the shadows in 2018 and recording what I discover. Come wander with me.

Posted in Book Reviews, Cooking, Fiber Arts, General Wandering, Modern, Paper Arts, SCA, Spotlight and tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment
20 Dec 2017

Cooking

I like to cook but I don’t do it as often as I should.  It’s a pain to cook for just one person and often it just doesn’t seem worth the effort. But I’ve been cooking more often over the last few months and it’s because of Blue Apron.

Every other week or so I get a box delivered. It has instructions and all the ingredients for three recipes and each recipe makes two servings.
Some of the recipes stretch to three servings, but whether they do or not I get the current meal and one serving of leftovers to take to work for lunch. That works out near perfectly for me.

I also get to try lots of different kinds of food without having to buy lots of specialty or hard to find ingredients.  If I like something a lot, I have the recipe and can go ahead and invest in the special items it may need.

Using the Blue Apron service helps my budget because I’m not wasting ingredients. It also expands my culinary experience and food palette. I’d recommend it if you’re interested in either.

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