Cooking Light(er)

When I recently topped my highest-ever weight, I sort of freaked out, so I've been trying to cook a bit lighter and have been staying away from ice cream for the most part. I also bought a Pilates reformer, which is a wondrous thing. I've always like weight work, but now that I don't go "out" to work, I rarely get to the gym. I have a fairly high-end treadmill, and I used to have a Bow-Flex, but it was unstable and difficult to use, so I rarely used it. The reformer, on the other hand, is smooth and steady, and my poor blown knees love that I'm not adding stress to them. So, I'm down six pounds this month, and hoping for another 10 or so. Probably wishful thinking, but at least I'm getting more toned.

I'm not much of a believer in dieting; whenever I gain weight it's always because I've gone into slug mode and stopped exercising. But I am trying to save the higher calorie meals for weekends and for eating out. Since I've had quite a few nice meals out this month, my cooking at home has been pretty subdued, which explains the dearth of posting here.

I'm still not giving up on the ice cream machine, but for now I'm trying to do more sorbet than ice cream. I had four Meyer lemons left on my tree, and picked up eight more at Trader Joe's, and made a nice slightly tart sorbet on Saturday that I'll have if I get a craving for frozen dessert during the week.

Yesterday I went to Farmer's Market for the first time in a month, and there were wondrous things to be had. Blood oranges, spring garlic, lovely brassicas, tiny baby turnips, and baby carrots, to name a few. I was planning to make an oxtail soup anyway, so I was inspired to make it with some of these lovelies. It was well worth the time and effort - after four hours of simmering and stirring, I had a robust winter soup of thick oxtail broth, baby turnips, carrots, and potatoes, laced with some medium-dry sherry (Amontillado, to be precise).

As always, I bought WAY too many veggies for two people to use in a week, so I'm going to have to do more cooking this week than I'd intended. I have a perfectly gorgeous head of cauliflower and two wondrous cabbages to use. The cabbages will be easy - I have a corned beef brisket in the freezer that keeps calling to me (which was supposed to be for a traditional New Year's Day dinner that never happened). Not sure what to do with the cauliflower at this point.

Well, anyway, I wanted to eat dinner at a reasonable hour last night, and the soup wasn't going to be done until after 8, so I tore up some butter lettuce and made a nice white balsamic/herb vinaigrette, and then pan sauteed some nice fresh snapper fillets (dredged in seasoned flour) with whole baby carrots, which were finished with a light squeeze of lemon and a sprinkle of lemon-thyme and chives. Yes, I'm guilty of using butter to saute, but as I said, I don't really DIET. It was still what I'd consider a "light" dinner, for me at least. It was pretty tasty, and I left room to have a tiny scoop of coffee ice cream.

Tonight I'm doing my Paper Chef entry and can't wait to tackle the lovely calves' liver I picked up at Lunardi's Market. I also got some nice bacon, which is definitely going into the recipe. I haven't decided on which of the several cheeses I'm considering, so you'll have to wait for tomorrow. Stay tuned!