Evelyn > wrote:

: "Nicky" > wrote in message
: ...
: > On Fri, 2 Jan 2009 20:53:00 -0500, "Evelyn" >
: > wrote:
: >>For instance I will roast a chicken in the oven one day. Then after
: >>dinner
: >>I will take the meat off all the bones and put it away. Save the gravy
: >>too.
: >>
: >>Next day, peel a bunch of really nice fresh root vegetables and cook them
: >>in
: >>the gravy with a little water added. Usually carrots, celery, potato,
: >>small whole onions, and a parsnip if I have one on hand, and toss in a
: >>handful of frozen peas for color. Then when the vegetables are all
: >>cooked, I will add the chicken meat cut into nice bite sized chunks.
: >>Thicken the gravy and you have a nice chicken stew that doesn't even
: >>vaguely
: >>resemble the roaster you had the night before.
: >
: > Yup; you just described our meals for the last 2 days, except I got a
: > copy of Jennifer Eloff's Splendid Low Carbing for Christmas, and made
: > a cream sauce for the chicken and added a pie topping : ) Lovely, and
: > 1hr pp was 5.8. There's a small serve left over, that I'll have for
: > lunch. Half the stock in the fridge from the bones, too, for soup for
: > the kids' lunch; the rest in the freezer for another day.



: With the cost of food what it is, I think it is only smart to find ways to
: make food go further than one meal. A smart cook plans it that way if
: there is anything larger than what can be consumed at one meal.

: I also have another food-prep habit that I believe keeps us healthy. I
: almost NEVER use prepared foods. Other than things like ketchup and
: mustard and such, I make just about everything from scratch.

: I would sooner DIE than use frozen potatoes or prepare a casserole with a
: can of mushroom soup. Some vegetables come through the freezing process
: quite OK, like green beans, peas, but absolutely I buy broccoli fresh, and
: just about all the other vegetables I use are FRESH. We eat a lot of
: various kinds of squash, and all the root vegetables are also fresh. We
: eat seasonally that way. I don't buy corn very often in the winter,
: because in the summer we get the very best corn picked that very morning
: from the local farms.

: Now it isn't a solid rule for us to eat locally and seasonally, because it
: could get to be too restricting, but we try to take advantage of the local
: bounty, with sort of makes us eat locally and seasonally. I believe that
: it is better for you all around to do that, if it is at all possible.

: Needless to say, unlike Julies family, we have very few real hatreds of any
: foods. We like just about everything, but my husband absolutely won't eat
: lamb because he doesn't like the taste, and I absolutely won't eat veal,
: because of the cruelty in the way they are raised. We eat beef, chicken,
: pork, fish of several varieties, almost always fresh, but occasionally
: frozen.

: I am a very good cook (maybe too good) and I feel strongly about wasting
: food but I feel equally strongly about preparing things well, and taking
: best advantage of the item I spent my money to buy. Allan Watts, the
: famous Zen master said that if you cook a chicken badly, that chicken has
: died in vain!

: Now I bring this next item up because I noticed them being mentioned a few
: times......I NEVER would dream of buying chicken nuggets or other prepared
: items like that, because they are concocted from all sorts of horrible
: stuff, and I can't imagine it would be healthy for me or actually anyone.
: You have no idea when stuff like that was actually made. It could be that
: it was prepared 6 months ago and stored forever in the grocers freezer, with
: chemicals added to make their shape stay, and the flavor stay, and all of
: that. I don't think I have eaten prepared stuff like that willfully in
: many a year.

: Instead I would buy chicken breasts, cut them into small nuggets, and make a
: nice coating then fry them myself. Cheaper, more healthy, and you know
: what is in it.

: Now that is just a part of my food philosophy.

: For what it is worth, everyone says my husband and myself don't look our
: age, they take us for as much as 20 years younger. We both have diabetes,
: he was diagnosed only recently, but we do look and feel pretty decent. I
: attribute it to eating locally, seasonally, and avoiding processed foods.

: --
: --
: Best Regards,
: Evelyn

Evelyn,

I am 100 with you on this. And we, certainly, get fabulous local
vegetbles in season! I grow a large planter of cherry tomatoes which are
fun to have and easier on my back to work with. Fun for snacking, but not
enough. Every Fall I get, quite inexpensively, a half abushel of plum
tomatoes adn dr some in the cheap drier I bougt some years ago and then
make a great big pot of stewed tomatoes with green peppers, onions, and
fresh basil and garlic, etc. this I freeze after puring off some of the
liquid adn it is a taste of summer whenever you drfrost and heat a
container. the liquid I serve us for soup for dinner the night I make the
tomatoes. I have also mentioned making my own no sugar added jam using
the special pectins for no sugar added. We pick our own blackberries ,
but no longer can go to the u-pick places for other berries. I do get
bluberries when they are on gret pspecial and make jam with them too. If
I can get local strawberries I do them too, although that comes ut qite
expensive. Ufortunatly, I cannot find local raspberries which, in my
opinion, make the best jam.

Ou local, NYC Fairway sells loose beets in the winter for a good price. I
like to get a pressure cooker full and have them for days. I could roast
them, but we find the taste so intense that we prefer the boiled ones.

Recently, I have been doing stuffed peppers. We get three generous meals
for the two of us for a pound of ground turkey or beef. Next time I am
going to try a Hungarian version, using sweet and hot paprika. I found
htat the Arnold Bakery Carb Counting multigrain bread(6 grams net carbs)
makes good bread crumbs for these chopped meat dishes. I use 2-3 slices
with the pound of meat and thqt goes for 6 portions, so at most 1 1/2
grams carb added.

Oh well, enough rant!

Wendy