Tuesday Night Dinners

During the week my food schedule gets a little crazy. I’m a full time student and I intern 16 hours a week, which means I pick classes that are long, meet once a week (if I’m lucky), and interfere with my work schedule as little as possible. That leaves me with a lot of seminar classes at night, which range from three to four hours apiece. By the time I get home (at either 9 or 10:15 p.m.) I want to watch Downton Abbey and fall asleep. Cooking is the last thing on my mind.

By some stroke of luck, on Tuesday I have just one hour-and-fifteen minute class in the middle of the day. No late classes. No internship. I like to think of it as my food day. During my class (titled “Food and Identity” coincidently) I think of what I want to cook that night for my boyfriend and I, and immediately following class I hit the grocery store. (If I get in at TJ’s at two, I can get out in a half hour.) I use this time to make things I won’t normally think of during the week. Roast chickens, briskets, desserts. Things that take time and should be enjoyed.

My boyfriend and I started doing these dinners in September as a way to see one another during the week. He used to go to work at 7 pm and we both had some extra time after class. It began with simple stuff (pasta and rice dishes), but as I found more time and my curiosity for food grew, our meals got more elaborate. It’s super domestic, I know, but it’s the only real opportunity I have to make a meal or follow a recipe. When I’m making dinner for one, I’ll brown up a chicken breast or put together a salad. Not necessarily the stuff you salivate over. But these Tuesday dinners let me try recipes that I oogle over in magazines or cookbooks. Add some diversity into my diet. And, let’s be honest, making pretty food is fun.

This week our Tuesday night dinner got moved to the streets. Didrik asked if I wanted to go to a last minute play at his old acting studio and eagerly accepted. (I love those things!) My dinner plans for the evening seemed pretty portable so I packed it up in my favorite Rubbermaids and we ate in the Madison Square Park (under the Shack Shack heating lamps) after the show. As promised, I’ve tackled cabbage.

Sauteed Cod on Snow Peas and Cabbage with Miso Sesame Vinaigrette adapted from the July 2002 issue of Gourmet



For vinaigrette
2 tablespoons white vinegar
3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons miso paste
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons grated ginger
2 tablespoons sesame oil
4 teaspoons sesame seeds

For cabbage
2 tablespoons extra virgin coconut oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped (or garlic paste if you have it)
12 oz. (or ¾ of a bag) coleslaw mix (I used cabbage and carrot)
1/4 lb snow peas, very thinly sliced lengthwise
2 tablespoons sesame oil

For fish
2 tablespoons extra virgin coconut oil
4 (5-oz) pieces cod fillet (3/4 to 1 inch thick)

Preparation
Grate a large lump of fresh ginger on a microplane. Place in a small bowl or glass measuring cup and add miso paste, sugar, and sesame seeds. Mix with a fork until well incorporated. Then add vinegar, water, and sesame oil. Mix until smooth.

In a large pan heat coconut oil over moderately high heat. Add garlic, then throw coleslaw mix and snow peas on top. Add cabbages and snow peas and a little salt. Sauté until cabbages are a little brown on the edges. While the cabbage is cooking, heat coconut oil in a large pan, then cook the cod. (About 4 minutes on the first side and 2 minutes on the other side). Add a little salt, pepper, and pepper flake. The fish should be a flaky and a little golden brown when it’s done.

I plated the cabbage on a bed of short grain brown rice and placed the fish on top with a little dressing. Didrik end up mixing it all together with some extra sauce, sort of like a fried rice. The flavors really mix well together.

Apple Crisp with Quinoa

Day one of the Elimination Diet. This morning was rough. I haven’t swapped out my bread yet, so I didn’t make my useful boiled egg, toast, and arugula (more on that later). I took a tip from one of my bosses and made a yummy quinoa, steel cut oat cereal this morning instead. Soupy oatmeal is my favorite, so I prepared mine with a good helping of soy milk and honey. I made a huge pot, which means I’ll have lots more for the week.

My boyfriend (being a dear) invited me over for dinner. We have an unspoken argeement that whoever doesn’t cook dinner brings over dessert and washes dishes. Because he had taken on the main dish for the evening, that left me with the sweet stuff. In the past, we’d done baked goods. Cupcakes, mini cheesecakes, pies. Basically all things that were now off limits. As I said earlier post, I’m not about crazy substitutes. I really don’t want to drop a ton of money on ingredients that will probably go bad before I can ever use them all.

Using what I had on hand, I tweaked this tasty recipe from Harris Whole Health. Instead of the grain flours, I used some of my oatmeal combo from this morning. The cooked grains mixed with the brown sugar were just as crunchy as a flour crumble but way more earthy. It was so good, that when my boyfriend’s roommates came home and finished up the leftovers straight out of the pan.



Apple Crisp adapted from Harris Whole Health

Topping:
1 cup cooked steel cut oats
½ cup cooked quinoa
½ cup chopped nuts (I used slivered almonds and pecans)
1/2 tsp salt
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup walnut oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
dash of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg

Extra brown sugar and cinnamon for very top

Filling:
4 large Granny Smith apples
1 cup (8 oz.) frozen berry medley (I like Trader Joe's Very Cherry Berry Blend)
½ cup sugar
zest of a lemon
1 ½ tablespoons corn starch
½ teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease 8X8 pan with oil.
Peel and core apples. Cut into thick slices. Mix all filling ingredients together and add to pan. In another bowl, combine the topping ingredients and sprinkle over the fruit. Bake for 20 minutes until bubbling. Switch to broil and cook for another another 15 minutes until golden brown.

*** Next time I’ll make this with a big scoop of good soy or coconut ice cream.

Conquering Cabbage

My first order of business is to find a cabbage that I deem edible. My earliest memories of cabbage involve my mother serving it on St. Patrick’s Day (every year growing up) along side corned beef and boiled potatoes. It wasn’t a terrible dish, just really blah. My second cabbage memory is really bad coleslaw that came with my tuna sandwich at a cheap diner in Oregon. I remember it vividly. Vinegary and mayonaisey. Not my favorite flavors.

My naturopath said cabbage is really good for supporting liver health. Cabbage and other cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, brussel sprouts, and dark leafy greens are packed with folate (which my medicine depletes), Vitamin C, and phytochemicals (which help fight disease and support healthy immune function).

I look forward to making this recipe: Sauteed Cod on Snow Peas and Cabbage with Miso Sesame Vinaigrette from the July 2002 issue of Gourmet. I crave miso soup all the time and I'm betting it will be a deliciously salty spin on the cabbage. Also, the cod will have some omega-3s, which the body primarily gets from seafood. This is be an excellent dinner for a post-President's Day travels. Mmmm I can hardly wait.

Here's My Spiel

Welcome to RA Eats! I’m a 20 year-old food magazine intern and I like cooking and eating real food. Chemicals and diet foods make me sad. I prefer using whole, natural ingredients that are packed with flavor.

Recently diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. My doctor put me on an aggressive medication (methotrexate) to rapidly decrease the inflammation in my two index fingers. Because of the medication, I’ve made some large adjustments to my life, removing alcohol almost completely, taking a medley of supplements everyday, incorporating strange canned fish into my diet, and researching all the time for new studies that could make me better.

After trying the medication for two months and not experiencing any relief (I just got more achy if I missed my morning Advil) I sought the advice of a naturopath. Our one hour consultation resulted in two more supplements being added to my morning medley, a recommended probiotic that I (still) need to pick up at Whole Foods, and a one month “Elimination Diet” exercise.

The Elimination Diet removes all potentially inflammatory foods from the body. This includes but is not limited to gluten (wheat, bread, pasta, baked goods), dairy (butter, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, did I mention cheese?!), nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, eggplant), and usually eggs (but I lobbied hard against that one).

When she handed me the list of all my off limits foods my first instinct was to ball up and cry. Essentially all of the foods that I love had become forbidden territory. All my life I was proud to announce that I had no food allergies and no major dislikes. I could eat adventurously and without restraint. But now I would be one of those label checkers, scanning the backs of jars and cans for “Contains Wheat and Dairy.” Examining prepackaged salads at Argo Tea and Whole Foods to see if tomatoes and bell peppers had been thrown into the mix.

My naturopath assured me that it would be fine. Eating a better diet would help fight against the inflammation from my arthritis and hopefully make me less dependant on the medication. Also, it would give me an opportunity to experiment with new ingredients and incorporate better foods into my diet. I’m all for that. What scares me are all of these substitutions that the vegan and gluten-free products at the grocery store are using. The recipes are even worse. I don’t know a single person that stocks garbanzo bean flour, amaranth flour, tapioca flour, and xanthan gum in their pantry and readily whips them out for every cooking opportunity. That’s just nonsensical.

In this blog, I hope to feature my experiments with this Elimination Diet. I aim to not only stay away from the forbidden foods (tear) but also stay away from crazy, outlandish ingredients that you need a co-op membership to purchase. Food in RA Eats will be accessible, tasty (fingers crossed) and support low inflammation so we can feel better with arthritis. Who knows, this might last more than a month. For my sake, I hope that bread and cheese can become a “sometimes” food. But with any luck I might find something I like even more that’s ultimately better for me.