I Tried a Dairy Free Panna Cotta!

This weekend I decided to try a new recipe for panna cotta.  I still plan on trying one that will be equivalent to homemade yogurt in terms of nutritional value but the recipe that I tried was perfect for using the almond milk that I had on hand as well as for finishing the amaretto and Kahlua I still had on hand.

I often find the need to adjust recipes based on the likes and dislikes of whoever I am feeding at the time.  When I am cooking and portioning meals, I keep the nutritional value of the meal in mind.  By keeping portions in mind when you are cooking you actually tackle a whole host of considerations.  To name a few, portioning meals/snacks helps you -

1. Maintain your food budget.
2. Keep your food portions in line with your nutritional goals.
3. Resist less healthful and more costly food choices.

The recipe I tried was the Toasted Almond Dream Panna Cotta from Garlic and Zest located at https://www.garlicandzest.com/toasted-almond-dream-panna-cotta/ 

I would recommend making sure that you take at least 15-20 minutes for step 2.  In my second batch of this recipe, I added the sugar in step 2 because I really wanted to ensure that the sugar was dissolved without adding additional time to the recipe.  Heating the almond milk on low and stirring occasionally to ensure that the gelatin and the sugar are both truly dissolved.  I topped my panna cottas with fresh berries that I quartered and chilled so that they created their own sweetly fresh sauce.  

Something to note is that this really was a nice dairy free creamy option for a dessert of snack.  I am looking forward to trying it with yogurt and coconut milk. 

Time for More

I have been away for much too long.  As I enter the home stretch of finishing my doctorate degree, I am looking forward to jumping into whatever the future holds.  During my absence I had my own experience with mortality, my father died, my sister died, a relationship ended, my furbaby died and life just continued in ways that were desired as well as undesired.

I am determined to get myself physically and mentally triathlon ready again.  Some great events include looking towards purchasing a new home, the retirement countdown, and the many wonderful people that are in my life that I call friends.

An unexpected upside of all the loss has been an opportunity to be open to new things.  Life will not look the way that I had thought but perhaps it will be better.

~Rosa

What's Planned for 2015

I’ll leave the magic bullet, ultra secret solutions to others because one thing I know with certainty is that there is not "1", there is no "magic", and it's really about each person finding a balance of strategies that work for them.  This year Nutrition for Better Health will focus on some great things.  

1.     Successful Lifestyle Management

2.     Eating Healthful Indulgent Meals Within a Budget

3.     Current Events and Legislative Activities Related To Nutrition

4.     Feeding Your Soul

5.     Tri Life – Triathlon Living

 Successful Lifestyle Management

It’s been a long road getting here but I am enjoying life in Santa Fe.  Finding a balance between competing demands in an ongoing endeavor.  Life- work, family, education, self – is full and while I live in an area of laid back life philosophy, I struggle to find that ideal balance that will allow success in so many areas of life to be accomplished.  Successful lifestyle management is about working on those priorities.  Living in a foodie’s dream city, I have to add the ability to indulge in great food while working within my budget. 

Eating Healthful Indulgent Meals within a Budget

A recently planned romantic weekend went amazingly well but my frugal minded guy was not impressed with the $86 tap that accompanied a meal of shared appetizer, entree, and dessert.  While I live in a foodie’s paradise, the price tag is often steep.  Meals should nourish our bodies and feed our souls.  I have received many ideas for recipes during my meals away from home but being mindful of our budget forces my household to be creative when cooking at home.  Nutrition for Better Health will be presenting many ideas for date nights, celebrations, and seasonal meal ideas to appeal to most.

Legislative Activities

While this is often a cyclical area of nutrition, Nutrition for Better Health seeks to inform consumers on legislation beyond the Farm Bill related to nutrition.  This is also an area where responses and information to current events may be found.

Feeding Your Soul

Because emotional eating is difficult to conquer and our food choices are reflective of much more than making food choices based on nutrient needs, Nutrition for Better Health accepts that there will be days and nights where a few pieces of high quality chocolate and a glass of wine may feed us more than an unlimited buffet. 

Tri Life- Triathlon Living

Triathlons have reentered my life and it’s a great way to get into great physical shape when combined with healthful eating.  Tri life encompasses more than swim, bike, run.  Tri life is about comprehensive fitness.  Perhaps the Retro Rio Grande Triathlon conflicts with my doctoral coursework schedule but the Santa Fe Century works out well with the schedule.  There are so many ways to get in that cardio and scheduled events may add motivation.   

Check in weekly for postings and feel free to send suggestions and questions.  I’m looking forward to an informative year. 

Love of Food

Temptation to eat away from home abounds in many of our lives.  Lent has inspired a friend of mine to remove “fast food” from their family routine.  As for myself, I simply love food.  This love doesn’t pair well with my mission to resume triathlon training or to return to a great level of physical health.  I could return to an effective routine of cooking to my heart’s content and then treating all those around me to the excess calories.  Unfortunately that solution is in conflict with my professional role.  What kind of dietitian would consciously derail the health goals of others?  We’ll save that discussion for another day.

 

Unlike other habits, eating is not a habit that we should remove from our lives.  I am becoming less and less of a fan of products that provide zero calorie savory or sweet through a creative combination of chemical mixtures not found in nature and with unknown effects on our health.  I want real food.  I want wonderfully presented food.  I am no fan of bacon but show me the real butter.  So my solution has been to combine my love of food with my love of planning meals, experimenting with recipes and cooking techniques and the knowledge of feeding a healthy body.  Science has increasingly demonstrated how little we really know about nutrition but many things are increasingly clear – eat more raw foods (unprocessed fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds), nature didn’t provide us with a calorie free sweetener that taste good, how much we eat of different foods may be more important than any specific food we consume (more details at a later date but just know that adding acai to a crappy diet ≠the magic bullet to health).

So my plan-I have been selecting 3-4 meals to prepare each week.  The meals planned become a balance of food sources, cost considerations but all are planned with the intent to promote variety for feeding the body as well as great taste to feed the soul.

The process:

1)      Be realistic about your schedule-don’t attempt a meal that takes over an hour to prepare if your cooking limit is at 20-30 minutes.  The crock pot/slow cooker, assigning a cooking day each week or dividing cooking tasks among your household members are all great strategies for managing the time associated with food preparation.

2)      Shop at home-take a look at items in your pantry, freezer, refrigerator to start planning your meals based on what items you already have on hand and might need to use quickly.  The pears and Coq au Vin are the direct result of the need to use of some pears and chicken that I have on hand.  What makes each special is the long desire to try poached pears and the soul nourishing concept of some Coq au Vin on a bed of fresh whipped garlic potatoes.

3)      Make a Plan-meal plans can be as simple as a list of the meals you plan to prepare for the week or as detailed as a daily plan for all meals, snacks and food preparation tasks.  I sometimes jot down a note to portion out my meals for lunches or quick dinners on non-cooking nights.  A plan might help you avoid planning chicken for dinner and then coming home to a 10 pound container of chicken that is frozen solid. 

This week Coq au Vin, Salmon Patties, Manicotti, Cheesecake Pancakes, Poached Pears and Homemade Pizza are on the menu.  Who’s coming to dinner?

Are Kitchens for Cooking?

Are Kitchens for Cooking?

 

I now call Santa Fe home.  One of the many benefits of being raised with a parent in the military is the transient concept of home.  I now call Santa Fe home- at least for the last two weeks.  The change of location and new job has been inspiring me to reengage in my life routine.  My love of great ingredients can be fed here.  While I do miss my garden and fresh herbs, I do have access to some great ingredients.  Just this weekend on my journey to the farmers market, I was able to buy some organic produce such as Asian greens, tomatoes and fingerling potatoes all ready to grace my table.  This brings me to my number two priority with this search for a place to call home.

 

My number one priority was a pet friendly home.  The number two priority was finding a place with a kitchen that would welcome some actual cooking.  Until I build my dream house, I will fantasize about the kitchen I left behind in my home in Las Cruces as it was perfectly suited to my style of cooking and entertaining.  The home I rented in Silver City was at best an exercise in frustration when it came to cooking.  So my new place, while an adjustment in space, had a great feel to it due to the feature of a kitchen island that lent some reasonable counter space that allowed viewing of the living space during food preparation. 

 

This brings me back to cooking.  Now we can’t always have access to an ideal space for cooking and most of us are called upon at one time or another to just make the space work.  With this in mind, finding inspiration or motivation is key.  Motivation for eating healthfully is just as important (sometimes more important) than extensive knowledge.  Starting with great ingredients from your local food system can lead to some amazing food discoveries.

Tug of War

I once read that a woman's dream wasn't to find the perfect man but to eat whatever she wanted without getting fat.  While I'm not one to scoff the value of great kisses, cuddling, companionship or spirited debates, I can relate to the battle of enjoying food while trying to manage your weight.   While today was a tug of war between my health goals and the tempting foods readily available, I feel that the win was largely in my favor.  I took my dog on a hike and we were joined by a friend.  I prepared a wonderful dinner of carrot ginger soup (heavy on the ginger please) with a fresh green salad.  This day even included a soak at the local hot springs.  I'm brushing aside the losses but keeping my motivators in mind and all in all - I'm on a great path.

Long Time No Blog

Best Body Plan:  Day 1 Food Preparation

It's a great day to live like you mean it.  I had a nice quiet afternoon once I got home from many days of being away from home.  I have taken a nap and feel refreshed for tackling another week but more importantly for taking the best care of this one and only body I have been gifted with in this world. 

What you see pictured represents a head start on a couple of meals and smart use of a heating oven.   One pan is filled with carrots and ginger for roasting before being used in my very favorite carrot ginger soup.  She second dish holds lean turkey Italian sausage, onions and bell peppers for roasting otherwise known as an example of a lazy day casserole which I have modified greatly in order to fit it into my weight loss goal.

Roasting brings out a delicious richness in vegetables that might otherwise present themselves unimpressively.  Onions, carrots, peppers are great examples of how depth in flavor can be added by the simple method of roasting vegetables with a light sprinkle of olive oil and salt in a 450 degree oven for 30-45 minutes.  I don't always roast my carrots before making carrot ginger soup but in light of the cut backs with unhealthful eating, I find the extra step worth the rich flavor I will be able to enjoy once the soup is prepared.  Healthful eating does not have to be boring or lack flavor.

Following the death of dear family member, I have been punishing by body with emotional eating and a lack of physical activity.  I am not inactive but it's a far cry from triathlon training at this point.  So here I am...once again.

I plan to post most days in order to engage in some self-monitoring which is a highly successful tool for modifying behaviors.  I will also be posting meal ideas, nutrition information and motivation tips.





Scale 1:  Me 0 otherwise known at 158.8.