What's Your Food Journey?

I was watching this TED Talk from Jamie Oliver (my main man...besides my husband, who is actually my main man) the other day, and it got me thinking about my own food journey.

Not too long ago, I, like many people, believed that "low fat," "fat free," "sugar-free," and other "add chemical taste here" products were the only and most correct way to eat. Fat-free sugar-free yogurt? Yes, please. Sugar-free candy? Sure! Splenda? Yep, because sugar is surely Satan's cousin. I was really only concerned with three areas on the nutrition label: calories, fat, and sugars. I didn't take any other nutrient into account except, most naively at that point, protein. Blissfully, I'd fill my grocery cart up with "healthy" yogurts, "healthy" protein bars, and other "healthy" chemical-laden atrocities that seemed, by all accounts, to be what every good, healthy, and satisfied person was supposed to eat, plus a few random fruits and veggies.

It really wasn't until a health crisis knocked me off my feet and literally made me reteach myself how to eat that I realized that the only way I felt good, healthy, and satisfied was if I ate...wait for it...food. Real food. Not processed, additive-filled junk. Real food.

It was a long journey, and by no means an easy one.

I'd grown up watching my mom cook in the kitchen. A contract attorney with three kids, a stressful job and a hefty volunteer schedule, my mom always made it a point to cook us dinner. Oftentimes, it was the only chance we'd have all day to talk with each other, since we always seemed to be running from appointment to appointment. Not every meal was a masterpiece--as none ever are for anyone--but she never made us feel like she didn't have the time or energy to cook us a hot meal. I only recently realized how amazing all this is, and I'll never forget it as long as I live. Thanks to Mom's example, I learned early on that the kitchen is an important place for a family.

I started my own cooking journey off with breads; when my mom and dad went to Husker football games, I'd stay home and bake bread literally all day, finding pride in wrists and forearms sore from kneading and hands caked with flecks of dried dough. Baking bread is a labor of love, and I really did love it.

But somewhere along the line, in all the hustle and bustle of life, I forgot how much I loved being in the kitchen, and traded handmade dough for prepackaged bricks of energy and sugar deceptively dubbed "protein bars" and the monstrosity of "45-calorie-a-slice bread."

That time is five years gone now, and I've come a long way.

I'm not going to launch into some soapbox speech about diet or health or whatnot, because my belief in real food comes mostly from the fact that real food tastes better and it makes me feel better. I've dived head-first back into the world of cooking because preparing foods that my family enjoys makes me happy and because learning about ingredients and preparing meals that respect the integrity of those ingredients means something to me.

That was a little soapbox-y, wasn't it? Sorry.

Anyway, what got me thinking about all of this was a review for Michael Pollan's new book, Cooked, that I read in a magazine recently. This book poses serious questions: Where along the line did Americans lose our love of cooking? Since when did cooking become less of a thing "everyone does" and more of a field relegated to celebrity chefs? And why do we seem to spend more time watching other people cook than cooking in our own kitchens?

I picked it up, and have just begun getting into it. So far, so good. Plus, it's gotten me thinking about my food journey. What's yours?

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Living in Two Places at Once

Today was an interesting day.

It started out by me waking up late and in complete confusion. Since we moved our beds (and pretty much everything else we own) to Springfield this past weekend, Matt and I have created a makeshift cot on the floor in our bedroom made out of layers of blankets, sheets, and pillows. So I guess it's like a nest, kind of like the ones you see on that show about hoarding.

Your humble author, looking super jazzed about her current sleeping arrangements.

Anyway, I woke up late, wondering how I ended up on the floor, and after realizing that I was indeed late, I uttered some obscenities and scrambled into the shower. Having completed my morning regimen, I checked on Matt, who had picked up whatever gross-flu-death-bug I got this weekend.

"How you are you feeling this morning?"

"Grrrbhrrr."

In Matthewian, that means "Not a damn bit better than yesterday, thank you very much."

I had a good day at work, and in the few free moments I had at my desk I wondered what state Matt would be in when I returned. And, as does usually occupy my thoughts, I also contemplated what would I would make for dinner.

Matt was not doing much better, as it turned out.

He'd taken some NyQuil around 3 p.m., and so when I returned at around 4 p.m. he was behaving not all that much differently than someone who'd just loaded up on whisky and bad decisions. NyQuil does make you pretty...interesting. After several nearly unintelligible slurs of "Gosh, Betsey, you are just so nice, you're like the nicest person ever" and a few random (strange, albeit kind of sweet) pats to my head, Matt settled back down and got some sleep. Lesson learned, kids: It's called NyQuil for a reason. Don't take it in the daytime unless you want to totally weird out your family with your behavior.

When suppertime rolled around, I thought hard about what I'd make with a sick husband to feed. About 90% of my belongings are now in Springfield, and that applies to my kitchen as well: cookbooks, pots, pans, and all. It's pretty strange living in two places at once, and I don't think I'll miss it much (because let's face it, sleeping on the floor is fun for, like, one night, but then the slumber party-ness of it wears off reeeeeally fast). But thanks to a basic recipe I adapted from a diabetes prevention cookbook (random, huh?), I made sweet and sour chicken, topped with the Heidrick favorite of a massive mound of Sriracha, nature's very own decongestant. We always end up adding about four times the instructed amount of Sriracha to our food. Observe the progression from tonight's dinner:

Sweet and Sour Chicken
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook times: 20 minutes
Makes 2-4 servings, depending on how hungry everyone is

Ingredients:

• As many fresh stir fry veggies of your choice, washed and prepped (my faves are broccoli, carrots, and snap peas). Tonight, all we had was a bag of frozen stir fry veggies, and the result is always the same: soggy and bland. Seriously, why do I ever even buy frozen veggies?!
• 1 T canola oil
• 1 clove fresh garlic, minced
• 1 tsp powered ginger
• 2 T rice wine vinegar, plus 1/2 T for the rice
• 2 T chili sauce or Sriracha (and if your family is like ours, you'd probably just better keep the bottle out on the counter). My suggestion is to buy or make the actual chili sauce (the good, chunky kind with the hot chili seeds and everything in it) and then keep the Sriracha for topping.
• 2 T light brown sugar
• 1 T corn starch (it'll help bring it all the ingredients together, trust me)
• 1 cup chicken broth (go for the low sodium kind)
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, chopped into small, bite-sized pieces
• 1 T soy sauce, if desired
• Chopped green onions, if desired
• 1-2 c. instant white or brown rice
• 1-2 c. water

Directions

1.  Heat the oil in a medium wok or large pan over medium heat. Throw in your garlic and cook--but DO NOT let the garlic burn or brown! It'll cook fast, about 2 minutes. Your goal here is basically to take the bite off of the garlic, because we all like garlic, but we don't want it to punch us in the face.
2. Add the 2 T of rice wine vinegar, chili sauce, brown sugar, and powdered ginger to the pan and stir, letting simmer.
3. Meanwhile, bring 1-2 cups (one cup for two people, two cups for four people) water to a boil in a separate pot and add the rice (again, 1 cup for two people, two cups for four people). Once you've added the rice, add in 1/2 T rice wine vinegar, immediately remove the pot from the burner, cover, and let sit.
4. In a bowl, combine the corn starch and chicken broth. Add this mixture to the pan and crank it up to high heat, letting the ingredients in the pan come to a boil.
5. Lower your heat back to medium and throw in your chicken (well don't throw it, because that's just messy) and cook until the chicken is no longer pink, about 7 minutes.
6. Add in your veggies and cover the pan, letting everything hang out and simmer for about 3 minutes. You don't want to kill your veggies and make them mushy, but you do want to make them what culinary folk call "crisp-tender," meaning crisp, but not too crisp. I know that sounds ridiculous, but just spear a veggie with a fork after a few minutes and see if you like the way it's cooked. Too crispy? Let the veggies hang out in the sauna a little longer. If you think your veggies are getting to the point of mush, remove the pan from the heat STAT!
7. If you like, add in the soy sauce. My experience has been that it actually tastes better without the soy sauce, but see what tickles your fancy.
8. Serve with the rice, top with green onions, and enjoy!

 

 

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