Sunday, March 07, 2010

MY EXPERIMENTS WITH LUNCH RECIPES


Right now I'm between jobs and unfortunately have plenty of time to fuss over things like cooking. In the past two months or so I've done a lot of experimenting with lunches. I was looking for something that would allow me to lose weight, but which would be tasty and sustainable; something which would form the centerpiece of my lunches for years to come, regardless of deviations. I was anxious to make my peace with vegetables too, so they had to be in there. After trying a bunch of foods I came up with what I think is a clear cut winner, which I'll reveal at the end of the post. I think it'll surprise you...but first I want to tell you about some of the meals I tried.



Well, the first thing I tried was the complicated vinaigrette salad that I call "The Parallel Universe Salad," after the physicist friend who turned me on to it. I put up the recipe in a post about two years ago. I ate it four times a week for several weeks, and it was so delicious and so filling that I sometimes skipped dinner afterward, without missing it. A success, you say? Mmmm, not exactly.

The problem was that I ate so much of it that I began to get tired of it. You can get too much of a good thing. Not only that, but it sometimes left me with a craving for ice-cream a few hours later, making me wonder if the salad was really satisfying my need for fat. It was delicious, but I felt I had to move on.



After that, I tried frozen Marie Calendar pot pies. I microwaved them for 15 minutes as per the instructions on the box, then when they came out, and were still intensely hot inside, I stuffed them with half-cooked veggies. By veggies I mean mushrooms cooked in a little olive oil and bacon fat, and slightly cooked diced celery, walnuts, onion, and any vegetable I had in the refrigerator that could take the heat. It was great. the problem was, that these pies and veggies tasted so good that I ate nothing else for a week, and then grew tired of them, at least for a while.



Next I tried soups. Soups make good lunches, and are good repositories for veggies. I'd heat up Campbell's Chicken Broth, throw in some of those tangled bean noodles that look like birds nests, throw in spinach and Japanese pre-cooked fish or shrimp, and at the very end, toss in some hard-boiled egg slices. Delicious! Campbell's makes a good mushroom soup too, and into that I poured my usual mushrooms, veggies, fettuccini, and some cut-up boiled ham slices.

[I found it handy to always have mushrooms, celery, walnuts, ham slices, and fettucini around. They're good for adding bulk to almost anything you cook. I always have alfredo handy, too. Alfredo is fattening, so I only use it in small quantities, usually to ease the pain of eating vegetables that I don't like.]



Oh, and I took a liking to fennel (above). If you don't know what that is, it's the ugly white and green bagpipe of a vegetable that you always pass by in the supermarket because it looks so alien. It's a real Frankenstein monster of grafted elements: mild white onion-type mass on the bottom, celery-type stalks in the middle, and delicate little dill-type leaves at the top. I know that doesn't sound appetizing but, trust me, it tastes better than it looks.

How does it taste? Well, it's like a sweet, slightly licorice-flavored, extremely mild onion. It's not really an onion, but it looks and feels that way. It's very cheery and eager-to-please, and makes good filler in a recipe that requires bulk. I cooked it with mushrooms and shallots and added it to other things. It was great, but once again I ate so much of it that I couldn't bear to look at it for a while.



This brings me to the grand finale, where I reveal the most successful lunch recipe I tried during that time. Which recipe got the top spot? I hate to say it, but none of them. They were all too doggone tasty and fattening. I ended up gaining weight instead of losing it.

The only lunch I ate during those few weeks that was consistently delicious, dietetic, healthy and sustainable was.....drum beat, please.....good old American peanut butter and jam on bread or muffin, served with milk. Yep, that and nothing else. A popular hippie book called "Diet for a Small Planet" also recommends it. It's nutritious and you never get tired of it. Something in the chemistry of it makes it ever-green for your taste buds. It doesn't go with vegetables, though. I guess I'll have to save those for dinner.



So that's it for now...but I'll put on my mad scientist cap and keep experimenting.



11 comments:

Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea said...

Great post, Fitzgerald! I like the visual aids you use. You're very interesting to read. Even your name is funny. I wish I knew people like you in person. Everyone I know is firmly rooted in pink plastic modern pop culture.

Adam Tavares said...

One of my favorite recipes is Portuguese kale soup. It's a good lunch soup, it's filling, it reheats well, and is super easy to make.

Get a big pot, dutch oven sized at least. Mince 6 or 7 cloves of garlic and chop a big onion. Add olive oil to the pot and brown the garlic and onion. Then chop up a package of spicy chourizo into bite sized bits and add that to the pot. Cook that well. Cut up four or five potatoes. Add two cans of chicken stock. Add the chopped potatoes and a can of cannellini beans and add water to cover the potatoes. Boil the potatoes until they're soft. Cut the kale into two inch strips and add that. Lower the heat and simmer. Once the kale is soft enough you're set. Season that with a little salt and pepper to taste. You won't need much because the spicy chourizo flavor leaks into everything.

Oh and if you want to satisfy your fat urge without eating something terrible for you eat an avocado.

Hans Flagon said...

I find if I start eating sandwiches at all, I have to eat at least one everyday, else the bread go stale.

As far as weight loss, I find a lot of different theories on dieting, if you venn diagram them, actually overlap in the area of salads with a small bit of lean protein.

But Laziness and available time often overtake what we actually end up eating. It is too easy to want to keep the menu the same everyday for simplicitys sake.

So maybe you should take the school cafeteria approach, of some sort of structured variety, a revolving menu, but of items cheap and easy to prepare.

But again, if you are feeding only one person with said lunches, like the loaf of bread in the first paragraph, you run into an issue of not using up your supplies before they go stale, so it is actually difficult to eat 'fresh', which is probably healthier, and keep variety in the diet.

Finding a nice deli within walking distance can help, but cooking for yourself, I think you are going to have to deal with leftovers and multiple dinings with the same meal.

deniseletter said...

Hi Eddie,sorry my writing is not related with lunch! Bernard Herman is one of my favorites touching composers,I'm happy to read in your previous post you know and like his music! You're right his music sheet are not easy to find!

But I found some sheets already written for piano,in these sites see rightside they also recommend more sheet music titles to check:

The Cellar from Psycho http://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtdVPE.asp?ppn=MN0059724

The City from Psycho
http://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtdVPE.asp?ppn=MN0059723

Marnie:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2360531/Bernard-Herrmann-Sheet-Music-Marnie

Vertigo Theme:
http://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtdVPE.asp?ppn=MN0059617

Here some piano songs you can hear and to copy the notes you see the musician is playing and by ear the others you don't see.Here some links:

Vertigo scene d'amour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQH36ze1z9I

A little of Psycho, The Exorcist...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmKC1Su5bFE&feature=related

Fahrenheit 451 Love Theme (Adaptation for Piano)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQIfIzIR7sY&feature=related

twisted nerve on synthesia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsVqLneCptw&feature=related

Plus this with a long list:

http://www.pianofiles.com/browse/artist/bernard+herrmann

Hope these links will be useful for you

Steven M. said...

PP & J!? SON OF A FUNGUS-DILE!!!

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Denise: What!? WHAAATTT!!!!???? You found herrmann sheet music!!!?? I can't wait to try these links! Thanks a million for telling me about them!

Adam: I'm rushed now, but I promise to study that recipe. Many thanks!

Unca Jeffy said...

I gotta tell ya, on work days my favorite breakfast is PB&J. Satisfying and tasty just as you say.

Take along tip: I often take it with me to eat while I'm beginning my day so, my "traveling sandwich" tip for the PB&J is to spread peanut butter on both slices of bread to create an oil-based water-proofing of the bread so the jam/jelly/preserves won't soak through and saturate the bread.

Use it in good eating!

Long live the memory of George Washington Carver for the glory of the heavenly butter of the peanut!!!

Codyssey said...

you should give peanut butter and banana sandwiches a shot. theyre a lunch time staple of mine

Jennifer said...

The chicken soup sounds so scrummy! I may make that myself and try it with rice noodles and skip the boiled eggs - it'll almost be like a chow fun soup.

PB&J is always good. It tastes even better on rice or tapioca bread - almost like a dessert. (I can't eat gluten.)

PB and banana is really good, like Codyssey suggested. That's a really good sandwich to eat after a serious workout.

You're a Philly boy, so you would probably know about these super sweet, high calorie treat - fluffernutters and stuffernutters!

Jack G. said...

By veggies I mean mushrooms...

Mushrooms are a fungus!
It's not in the vegetable category at all.

I like peanut butter & jelly.
I have it a couple times a week.

Anonymous said...

I sure hope that you're going for the sugarfree and no-added-oil peanut butter, or else you're deluding yourself that it's diet-y.
Not sure what your vegetable tolerance is, but raw celery, carrot or apple is fantastically tasty with peanut butter. Banana also, like Codyssey mentioned. I suggest that you leave out the jelly if you try these combos, though.
Good luck.