Reset

Good morning to all of you who said over the weekend, "I'll start [that good habit] on Monday."

It's Monday!

You should be more excited.

What will you be starting today?

I've been slacking about tracking my food intake, so I'm resolved to log every single bite in MyFitnessPal app. 

And, after watching Anthony Bourdain hang out foraging, fermenting and cooking with best-restaurant-in-the-world chef René Redzepi last night, I'm once again inspired to get some healthy Nordic cuisine going in my kitchen (as well as research Danish immigration policies). This is good timing because the New Nordic Diet course on Coursera starts in two weeks! And I need to finish Ann Patchett's State of Wonder, an excellent novel partially set in Minnesota, the Scandinavian center of the U.S. Isn't it amazing how sometimes the universe seems to be sending a message? The message I'm getting is either, "start that rye bread sourdough," or "move to Copenhagen." Well, one of those things I can do today.

Delicious Scandinavian cuisine from FIKA at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. This was a light, healthy, fabulous day-after-Thanksgiving lunch last year.

Sauced

An easy and time-saving way to pack lots of flavor into simple vegetable dishes is make a batch of a delicious sauce once a week and use it profusely.

As I had a large supply of red bell peppers from the CSA box this week, I made nearly a quart of romesco sauce yesterday, and that became the flavoring agent for the main dish at last night's fitness support dinner.

I adapted Deborah Madison's recipe in Vegetable Literacy (again, I can't stop recommending this book), using what I had on hand. I roasted the peppers by putting them directly on a low flame on my gas stovetop burner, turning them with tongs until mostly charred all around, then letting them sit in a Pyrex bowl with cover on for 15 minutes or so before peeling. I'm not very good at roasting peppers and chilies, and I don't like doing it on the stovetop, but the good news is it doesn't have to be perfect.

The recipe:

Romesco Sauce

Romesco sauce (left); roasted veggies and lentils (right)

1 slice of good bread, preferably sourdough, toasted in 1 tbsp olive oil in a pan
1/2 cup toasted walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, or a combination
3 or 4 cloves of peeled garlic
2 red bell peppers, roasted, peeled and seeded
4 roasted Roma tomatoes, or 1 can of Muir Glen diced roasted tomatoes with chilies
handful of parsley
few sprigs of fresh thyme
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 cup sherry vinegar
1/3 to 1/2 cup olive oil
salt to taste

In a food processor, pulse the nuts, bread and garlic until finely minced. Add the peppers, tomatoes, parsley, thyme, paprika and a teaspoon or so of salt and blend. With the motor running, drizzle in the vinegar, then the olive oil. Taste and adjust as necessary.

Last night, the sauce was a terrific addition to a dish of French lentils and roasted veggies. Today, I'm thinking I'll make some hummus and use it in place of some of the olive oil.

Romesco is an extremely delicious and versatile sauce, but roasting peppers isn't fast, so you may want to plan this one on the weekend. For an instant "secret sauce" that can be used as a dressing on a tossed salad or added to cooked vegetables, grains and legumes, I give you my 30-second vinaigrette:

Honey-Mustard Balsamic Dressing

1 tbsp honey mustard
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
pinch of salt

Add all ingredients to a small jar and shake. It's that easy. I never measure the ingredients when I'm making it, so this is approximate. Scale it up if you need more.

If you live in northern Michigan or like to order online, I implore you to buy Food for Thought's cherry honey mustard for this dressing. I use this mustard in almost every recipe calling for mustard, and I also use it to make mayonnaise.

More on walking

What a lovely day for a walk in northern Michigan!

In case you need more incentive to get out and take a stroll, check out this article listing eight ways walking can benefit your health. Some of these may be new to you.

I know that I'm particularly blessed to live in a spot friendly for walkers. My neighborhood has sidewalks, pleasant tree-lined streets, and trails by several bodies of water within a couple of blocks of my house: Grand Traverse Bay, Boardman Lake and the Boardman River. I can also walk to downtown shops, the best movie theater in the world, and numerous excellent local eateries. The only downside is winter, when the sidewalks are clogged with ice and snow and walking can be hazardous. Then, I put cleats on my boots and slow down a little.

Hopefully, your neighborhood is conducive to walking, but if not, check out local parks or trail systems. If all else fails, pacing around your house is better than sitting all day. Even with my walk-friendly neighborhood, I resort to this sometimes when the weather is bad, and I always pace when I'm on the phone.

For anyone contemplating relocation, you can use this nifty website to scout out your proposed new home's walkability.

Meetings with friends and food!

Now that I've deposited one child at college and established the other in another year of high school, my schedule is settled enough to begin the dinner/lunch meetings promised in the welcome post.

The dinner meeting already has been happening with a couple of test subjects for a few weeks. The time for that is set at 6:30 p.m. on Mondays at my house. I have room for two or three more, so let me know if you're interested in that.

For those who prefer a lunch gathering, I'm thinking Tuesdays at noon may be a good time, but if another day or time would be better, let me know. It would be a quick, express lunch chat and we could start on Sept. 24.

Food will be light, nutritious, and nearly always vegetarian.

Obviously, this is a hyper-local event. I'm a decent cook, but I'm not good enough to warrant a trip from Russia! Distant readers, I'll post menus, recipes and all of the good suggestions from the meetings.

Portion control

Of all the potential villains to blame for humanity's expanding waistlines, restaurants have so far been pretty low on the totem pole, with the exception of the universally reviled fast-food chains.

Restaurants can be fabulous and worthy of their high approval ratings. Eating out is fun and relaxing. The food may be expertly prepared, and someone else will be doing the work, including the clean-up. What's not to like?

Yet, with more and more meals being eaten in restaurants, we should probably consider what's on those plates. The short answer: way too much.

Restaurant owners say they serve gigantic portions because customers believe large portions offer more value. If a table of four people were to split one restaurant serving, that might be true. Certainly I've been served plates in restaurants that could've come pretty close to feeding my family of four. But usually, few diners are splitting plates with their table mates.

I've tried to get in the habit of bringing my own take-out container when dining at a restaurant, and when I remember to do this, I immediately put about half of my food in it as soon as it's served. When I'm not prepared, I have to rely on restraint, which can be challenging with tasty food before me.

What are your strategies for eating out?

Striiv to walk more

Never underestimate the power of peer pressure. Sometimes you can harness this pressure as the wind in your fitness sail.

I've been using the Striiv device and mobile app for several months, but recent updates to the system have increased its effectiveness, largely due to the motivation of not disappointing strangers in cyberspace.

The new "Relay" feature is simply ingenious. It's an optional mini-game that has two people walk a total of 200 steps, passing a "baton" between them after each 50. So, I start a relay race, walk 50 steps, and the app passes the baton to my partner, who walks 50 steps and passes it back to me. The partner can be a pre-existing friend or, lacking that, it can be a "wildcard" -- a random Striiv user.

What this boils down to is that sometimes I'm sitting on the sofa reading and I get a message on my phone that someone is passing me the baton. So in the middle of a paragraph, I get up and walk 50 steps because "Lou A", whoever that may be, is waiting on me.

If Dr. James Levine is correct, these little interruptions to my sedentary ways may turn out to be the magical cattle prod of weight loss. Dr. Levine, a professor of medicine at the famed Mayo Clinic and author of Move a Little, Lose a Lot, suggests the crucial factor in weight management and other fitness markers is how often a person moves, rather than intensity of exercise. In other words, it may be that simply staying out of the chair for most of the day is more effective than an hour on the treadmill.

I'll experiment with this theory and report back later. Gotta go. Pam is waiting for me to grab the baton.

See you in September

This blog will be on hiatus for a few days while I pack my oldest off for another year of college and my youngest back to high school. Look for the next update soon after Labor Day.

My domesticity blog has a new post, if anyone wants to read it.

Enjoy your Labor Day weekend!