"Chinese" Chicken Salad

I've put on a few holiday pounds that are kinda stressing me out, because it's not even cookie and fudge go-time yet. I haven't really felt much like cooking lately, or even eating, which is kind of weird. I was craving salad, however, and decided to make a healthier version of that awesomely trashy "Chinese" chicken salad . I'm using "airquotes" because, to my knowledge, this salad has never been consumed or prepared in China or by any Chinese person, ever (and those turncoat Panda Express employees don't count). It's "Chinese" because it has sesame seeds and those deliciously ghetto, trans fat-having chow mein noodles (which is redundant, since chow mein is already a type of noodle, and not a fried, crispity thingy that Chun King sells in cans like so much Pik-Nik - it's like saying "spaghetti pasta"). I guess if you were in a effort-y mood, you could use slice and fry wonton skins to use instead. It would probably be rather kickass if you did.

The salad wasn't even composed of Asian greens; rather, it was a mix of romaine and that bagged, shredded broccoli/carrot/red cabbage slaw. To make it extra "Chinese" I added scallions sliced thinly on the bias and juicy nuggets of satsuma oranges (no, not the canned mandarin oranges - I'm not that ironic), and dressed it in soy sauce (the thick, black kind), mirin, rice vinegar, orange juice, sesame oil and a little salt and sugar. I bought a half a lemon-pepper rotisserie chicken that Scott graciously shredded for me, then I tossed it in the dressing and sprinkled on some more sesame seeds for good measure. I slipped the last few inches of a hothouse cuke in there, too, sliced on the bias to make it extra Chinese.

I have some trout fillets and am thinking about a lemon balm beurre blanc. Whether or not I feel like making the effort remains to be seen, but at least I'm thinking about food again.

The Bitch is Back

Okay, I guess I'm ready to come off of blogging vacay, since it's been two weeks, I'm not in the field and living out of a hotel (seriously, those 50-60 hour work weeks were destroying my appetite for a hobby that consumes an additional 4 hours of my day), and I've been passing out those cute little blog business cards that Foodbuzz sent me. God forbid anyone should actually look at my blog and see what a fucking hack I am.

I'll post some food later today. As always, I have a fridge full of brassicas: baby kohlrabi (and their greens), broccoli rabe and some beet greens mixed with baby kale and swiss chard. I also have some amazing smoked sturgeon (thanks, Dad!) that made lovely little fish cakes with lemon-thyme aioli last week*. Now I'm brainstorming a way to use the last 10 ounces without resorting to flaking it into a pasta salad.

Thanks to everyone who gave a shit that I was gone. The guilt was definitely a factor in getting off my lazy ass.

*Pulse minced onion, celery and shallot in the magimix, add the flaked fish and pulse until a nice, fine flake is accomplished. Add chopped parsley and a little lemon zest, an egg, a little olive oil and fresh cracked pepper (won't need any salt - there's plenty on the smoked fish already). Coat in panko and either fry until golden or spritz with cooking spray (I use a Trader Joe's canned oil that is 100% canola oil and no silicone) and bake at 400 for about 10-15 minutes on each side. I baked mine because I'm finally getting around to trying to drop those 10 pounds of quitting smoking weight that have crept on since January.

The aioli was a bullshit fake because I had used the last egg in the cakes, so I had to use store-bought mayo (gasp!) and it was even low fat mayo to boot. Oh, don't look at me like that. Adding Greek yogurt, a squirt of lemon juice, some dijon mustard, fresh herbs and black pepper transformed it into a surprisingly decent accompaniment to the fish cakes. Was it even aioli any more? Fuck if I know.

Serve with a mixed green salad dressed simply in olive oil and lemon juice or white wine vinegar, and a sprightly Gewürztraminer such as a 2006 Thomas Fogarty. (Peter B. and Norm: I actually looked at the label this time - aren't you proud?)

So, I'm on a diet

Yeah, that's right. I'm watching the weight again.

Anyways, tonight I made a yummy diet-esque dinner, and since I've decided I'm not ashamed to admit I'm counting calories, I took a photo of the buffalo taco salad I made for dinner. And guess what, bitches? I'm giving you the (admittedly simplistic) recipe.


Insalate del Cibolero (I totally made this up. It means something like "buffalo hunter's salad", I think. But doesn't it sound Important and Amazing now?)

(Serves 2 quite comfortably, thankyouverymuch)

8 oz. ground buffalo
1/4 c diced onion
1/4 c diced each anaheim, poblano and sweet pepper (such as mini bell) (3/4 c total)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp ground cumin (fresh-ground if you can swing it)
1 tsp oregano (Mexican)
1 pinch cinnamon
S&P
4 tbsp salsa
1 corn tortilla, sliced into thin strips (1/4" thick)
cooking spray or olive oil
bag o' salad (I think that's like 4.5 cups per serving or something). I like butter lettuces.

Optional toppings: grated cheese, sour cream, fresh cilantro, lime wedge, avocado, etc. (I used low-fat and fat-free versions of the dairy, and tragically, didn't have any cilantro, lime or avocado on hand.)

Preheat oven to 350oF.

In a non-stick skillet (spritzed with cooking spray), brown buffalo over medium-high heat. There will not really be any fat to pour off, and besides, it's already included in the calorie count so live a little.

Add onions, chiles, garlic, cumin, oregano, cinnamon and S&P and saute until veg becomes glossy and slightly softened. Turn down to low and add salsa. Gratz, you just made chili con carne.

Spread tortilla strips on a baking sheet and give them a quick spritz of cooking spray and a pinch of salt. Toast in oven for 10 minutes until crispy and tortilla chip-like.

Plate your lettuce (a bag makes two huge plates). Top with meat and veg mix, the tortilla strips, and the other accoutrement that I sure hope you're treating yourself to since you're having a fucking salad for dinner.

If you feel like it, you could just say "fuck a salad" and eat the meat/veg mix in a tortilla, in which case you'd be eating a taco.

Bueno appetito!

480 calories (with 1 oz 2% milk cheese and 2 tbsp fat-free sour cream, and that was splurging) 23 g fat
37 g protein
5 g fiber (more if you have avocado)

Further Complaints on Being in the Field

I've been stuck out in the boondocks since Sunday night, and will be here until next Monday night. I intermittently entertain thoughts on how I would handle an intruder, should one happen upon my room. Since this place is only $58/night, the rooms all face out to the parking lot, and anyone can just drive in from the (immediately adjacent) freeway and waltz right up to your door. Last night I opted for leaving the window open while I showered because I figured the fork next to the sink by the bathroom door could gouge out an eye pretty easily. Usually I just think about channeling my freakish upper body strength to throw someone over the 2nd-story banister outside my room's door, but other scenarios include throat-kicking a dude with my steel-toed Frye boots or tearing out a trachea with my rock-hard talons.

Besides the obvious annoyance of living out of Shittown hotels (which is underscored by missing Scott terribly and the general isolation), the work is grueling and the food options are limited. Whenever I get home from the field I'm bloated, sunburned and my face is broken out.

My "healthy meal" options are usually limited to a microwavable Lean Cuisine or the odd bag o' salad (though fitting a bottle of low-fat ranch in the 1-cubic-foot fridge is a challenge), and if I'm hungry and out in the middle of nowhere, my penchant for Deli-Mart corndogs and jo-jos always wins. I'm not made of stone, y'know.

You'd think that I'd get enough exercise to burn off all the calories, but most of my day is spent driving terrifying dirt logging roads up in the mountains and I only end up walking about a mile or two a day. Today I had to hike through thick brush up a 20% slope (that's a gain of 1000 feet in elevation over only a mile of hike) in sleet and hail, and I slipped on a muddy slope and fell on an exposed root right on my hip bone so now I have a huge bruise up the side of my ass.

I always manage to put on enough sunscreen to clog my pores, but never enough to prevent sunburns.

Tonight I plan to get hammered and watch America's Next Top Model. I invented a drinking game for the show. It's called "Whenever a Bitch Cry, Drink". I can plow through a whole Maker's & Diet Coke in like, half an episode.

Correction!

My BMI is actually only 22.7 according to http://www.nutritiondata.com.

Best leftover turkey usage: Jambalaya-style risotto. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil over medium heat in pan with minced shallot, chopped celery and onion (I used leeks because I had leftover from my stuffing mise en place). When slightly softened, add chopped red and green bell pepper. Add arborio rice and saute until rice gets slightly shiny, with that white dot in the middle of each grain. Add 1 cup of tomato juice and 1 cup halved grape tomatoes. Toss in a sprig of thyme. Add 1/2 tsp. paprika, 1/4 tsp of celery salt, couple cracks of black pepper, fat pinch of chili flake, and a few fat drops of liquid smoke. Stir. Add 1 cup of hot chicken or turkey stock, stirring nearly always. When stock is absorbed, add another cup of hot stock. Keep doing this until rice is almost done. Add cooked, chunked turkey to risotto and stir in. Add fat pinch of kosher salt (to taste; my homemade stocks are never salted). When risotto is just shy of done (I like it a skosh softer than al dente), add final cup of stock, a handful of peeled prawns, and a handful of frozen chopped okra. Shoot a few dashed of Tabasco in there. Plate; top with grated sharp cheddar and chopped parsley.

Sassafras

God, has it already been a month? I feel kinda sassy today. And by sassy I mean cunty. No reason, really, I just have hit my "dealing with bullshit" threshold. I yelled at a chick from freecreditreport.com when she kept aggressively trying to talk me out of cancelling my membership. There are only so many no-thank-yous I can mutter before I have to tersely say "are you gonna let me quit or not?"

Scott and I joined 24 Hour Fitness a couple of weeks ago. Evidently, to reach my weight loss goal (of only 10 pounds) I should be shooting for 1580 calories a day, plus cardio and resistance training 3 times a week. Are you fucking kidding me?! I have a BMI of like, 25. I just want to get a little girl-cush off my middle so I can start a maintenance program and not put on more weight in my third year with Scott. I've been fastidiously keeping a food journal and hitting 1800-2000 calories a day which is probably a decrease of 500+ of my daily intake. Did you know that one chicken breast is actually two servings? Neither did I, until the Nutrition Facts Desk Reference became the Bible. I'm hitting about 150% of my RDA for fiber, which is great, and about 30g of fat fewer than the 65g recommended. But this topic is tired. After my hour-long workout, what I really wanna talk about is what I'm cooking for Thanksgiving:

• Turkey two ways (I feel like such a whore saying "two ways" - what is this, Top Chef?): legs confit (I bought a pound of duck fat to accomodate this Dyonesian dream I've been having) and roasted breast (brined overnight in white wine with oranges, for that perfect juicy tenderness)
  
• Mashed Yukon gold/roasted garlic potatoes with mushroom-shallot gravy
  
• Bruleed sweet potatoes with sage (I'm preparing a sage custard to pour over the sweet potatoes and will brulee the top with some brown sugar when they're done)
• Savory bread pudding (made from scraps of jalapeno cornbread and nutty artisanal bread heels that I've been stashing up in the freezer) with celery, mushrooms and lots of thyme
  
• Haricots verts au gratin (a fancy way of saying green bean casserole, made with homemade bechamel instead of canned cream of mushroom soup, and topped with toasted shallots and asiago instead of Funyons)
• Wilted spinach with bacon and orange zest
• Cranberry-ginger chutney made with triple-sec
• No room for dessert. We'll just have vodka and cran with a cigarette.

Oh, yeah, we got up at 5am on Sunday to get in line for a Wii. I was #17 in line for the only 18 units the store received. Needless to say, we got one! It has been hell of fun to create Miis for all our friends, and we even made a downie (Downie Sue) and a Chinaman (ChingChong) just for shits and giggles. Now we have a complete baseball team! Hooray!

Disaster averted!

This morning in pilates we were doing some move where you're on your back, kinda on your shoulders, and with your legs slightly spread and your arms on the floor, you lift your legs up so they're pointing up in the air. When I did this I sucked so much air into my vagina that I knew, I just *knew* I would have the hugest pussy-fart if I tried the rest of the move. I quickly got up and ran to the bathroom where I swear I queefed for like, 5 minutes.

Oh, don't look at me like that. You know you've been there.

Fwumpus

I feel like crap today. Yesterday I used my certificate for a free session with a personal trainer at the martial arts studio where I take kickboxing and pilates. I allowed the trainer to stack more weight than I really should've (i.e., I ended up leg pressing 280lbs), and did all those insane one-legged squats and bench presses and reclining/hanging pull-ups (like an upside-down push-up). I did this for an hour and a half, after a ten-minute warmup on the treadmill. I can't remember the last time I was in this much pain. Everything except my abs are excrutiated. That is precisely why I, with a Marine-like tenacity, decided I should suck it up and go to pilates this morning. Well, yep, now my abs are sore too. Good job, Heather. I popped three extra strength tylenol and tried to sleep it off, but woke up when I stretched my legs out and felt like burning knives were piercing my quads. To make matters worse, I have somehow managed to put on three more pounds, despite working out for four hours a week for the past month and a half. I skipped lunch today in an attempt to burn something off, but I just feel grumpy and my head is killing me. I'm halfway through my second non-fat latte of the day, which is oddly not helping. I just want to eat a big bowl of pho and pass out. I hope Scott didn't have Vietnamese for lunch today. There's leftover buffalo and chantrelle shepherd's pie, but I feel too fwumpy to have gravy again for dinner.

Watched "Our Song" on IFC today. It felt like a failed attempt to do Mi Vida Loca in the style of Spike Lee, and fell far short of being what it really could've. Kerry Washington is a compelling young actress, though, and made it somewhat bearable.

Yay, new OC tonight.

Weight Gain Battle

So, I've decided to start using speed. In other words, I've started upping my caffeine intake to battle the weight gain usually inevitable in smoking cessation. I'm drinking a can of Rockstar(TM) Energy Cola, which, in addition to extra caffeine, is loaded with all those herbal uppers. I'm all afidget and kinda twitchy, which better suits my personality than being all slow and sleepy, as the past week has been.

Unfortunately, ephedra is no longer legal in dietary supplements (you can always leave it up to some whiny cunt with a heart condition to go bitching to the FDA and ruin it for everybody), but I can still get it in bulk herb form at the hippie grocery store, I think. If not, maybe I'll just fucking drive to eastern Oregon and pick some. Benefit of being a botanist, I know how to identify all those lovely plants that get you high.

I was never one of those little bitches who obsesses over her weight. I was a very skinny kid and didn't even start growing tits 'til I was 18. I had a friend with an eating disorder in high school. She idealized my body as what she was striving for as she ate her half package of Nutter Butters, washed down with a bottle of ipecac. She landed herself in the hospital a couple of times, for attempted suicide I think. She started using smack to keep her weight down, and died of a self-inflicted overdose at age 17.

I didn't even start keeping track of my weight until a few years ago, when I noticed that a lifetime of being the skinny kid who out-ate her entire family was catching up with an aging metabolism. It had taken me ten years to put on the 30 pounds that started to show on my frame. It took only one month to lose it last spring, when the boyfriend of four years suddenly dumped me. When I found myself, all of a sudden, at my prime, teenaged weight, I started really paying attention to my body, because everyone else was.

Some of my friends said they were worried, but I think they were just shocked at how quickly I lost that much weight (my coworkers, who saw me every day, even noticed). I put 5 pounds back on at the end of the summer, and called it good. A little more than a year later, I've kept the weight off and goddamit, I intend to keep it that way. I weigh 135, give or take 1 or 2 pounds, depending on the time of day. Not bad on a 5'7" frame with a propensity for building muscle.

I will start exercising, and probably counting calories a little. I will try not to annoy Scott with this new obsession. Being a control freak at heart, I think it might help me a little when I'm battling cravings that I can't abate if I buckle down and focus on keeping this ball in my court. I'm eating turkey jerky and sugar-free gum for lunch today.

* * *

When I get home I will take a shot of vodka from the freezer and mow the lawn. Then I will consider making a very healthy dinner, but will ultimately decide on chili-cheese dogs with tater tots and mac 'n chee, or some other culinary delight. I will consume one TrimSpa fat-blocking pill before eating, take some vitamins after eating, then pace around the kitchen for an hour thinking about having a snack. I'll probably eat two or three spicy garlic dills, having recently discovered that pickles have only 5 calories and no fat. Then I'll either geek out with Scott or lay on the couch and watch VH-1 until I forget about how much I want to smoke.

Top things I wish I were doing instead.

Instead of gritting my teeth and clenching my fists, these are a few things I'd rather be doing (in no particular order):

1) Making homemade stock
2) Eating biscuits and gravy
3) Playing the new Zelda, even though it won't be released for like, 6 more months
4) Taking a hot bath that smells like lavender and rosemary
5) Having slow, cuddly sex with Scott
6) Planting my tomatoes
7) Drinking some wine
8) Watching Napoleon Dynamite for the Nth time
9) Eating nachos
10) Shopping for summer clothes

I wish I had powers like Sabrina the Teenage Witch so I could just swirl my finger and my work would be finished. I haven't gotten a damn thing done today.

Quitting is a drag.

Scott and I quit smoking. Today is Day 1. It fucking sucks. I've smoked for ten years, and this is the third time I've quit. I'm paranoid that I'm gonna get fat and turn into a raging bitch and that I'll drive Scott away. I've been eating only one meal a day for the last few months, but now it's hard to skip meals when I can't just bust a French. Ugh.

Stupid fucking cancer.