Tag Archives: food

How to Calculate Nutritional Information for a Recipe

Posted on by
2

And why you might want to do it.

As the folks who know me well or follow my blog know, I’m dieting again.

Back in 2012, I lost 45 pounds in four months and regained both my health and my self-esteem. Although I’ve managed to keep most of the weight off since then, it’s been creeping up slowly. I want to nip that in the bud so I’ve gone back on the same diet that helped me lose so much weight so fast nearly three years ago. I expect that two months of serious dieting should be enough to get back down where I was in September 2012.

Nutritional Info Example
Calculating the nutritional info for an easy and yummy looking biscuit recipe a friend shared on Facebook makes it clear that this is something I need to avoid. (In case you’re wondering, this recipe’s ingredients are 4 cups Bisquick, 1 cup sour cream, 1 cup 7Up soda, and 1/2 cup butter.)

I know the reason I gained that weight back, which is important to prevent it from happening again:

  • Portion control. Although the diet I was on basically “shrunk my stomach” so I couldn’t eat those big portions, over time, I stretched it back out by eating more and more. What can I say? I like to eat. And when you put a big plate of food I really like in front of me, I want to eat as much as I can. This is something I need to control once I’m back down to my goal weight again.
  • Bad food choices. In general, I eat very well. Lots of fresh foods — not prepared foods — cooked simply. I grill or smoke most meats, I eat salads and fresh vegetables. But occasionally I make bad choices — usually at restaurants — that include fried or high-carb (or both!) foods. And every once in a while a friend will share a recipe online that looks too good to pass up and I’ll make it.

I believe that if you’re at a good, healthy weight and keep relatively active, short forays into the realm of bad food choices should be okay. Sure — enjoy a piece of pie or a flaky biscuit or a plate of pasta once in a while. But remember that portion control! And don’t do it every day.

That’s what I’ve learned over the past two years. Now if only I could remember that when you place my favorite food in front of me!

But how do you determine what’s a good food choice and what’s a bad food choice when it comes to preparing recipes? That’s where nutritional calculators come in handy. The one I use is on a site called SparkRecipes, but there are plenty of others. You enter the ingredients for the recipe along with the quantity of each item, indicate how many servings it creates, and click a Calculate Info button. The result is a display like you see here, which I calculated this morning for a four-ingredient biscuit recipe a friend shared. The numbers make it clear just how healthy — or unhealthy — a food choice the recipe can be.

I began doing these calculations for all the recipes I share on my blog. I recently learned that by omitting part of a recipe — for example, the dumplings in the chicken and dumplings recipe I recently shared — or substituting one healthier ingredient for another, you can make a recipe healthier without sacrificing flavor. This can help you cook healthier meals for yourself and your family — something that’s especially important when weight-related health problems such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes is an issue.

Is calculating nutritional information like this worth the effort? What do you think? Isn’t your health worth a few minutes of time in front of a computer so you can make an informed decision?

Rosemary Chicken with Dumplings

Posted on by
4

One of my favorite recipes for a cold winter day.

A few times over the past year, I had an urge to make Rosemary Chicken with Dumplings. This is one of my favorite one-pot recipes, an extremely flavorful root vegetable stew that I distinctly recall making at least once in my big dutch oven up at my vacation property in northern Arizona.

Trouble was, I couldn’t remember exactly how to make it. The few times I tried to make it from memory, the flavor fell far short of what it should taste like. I needed the recipe.

Of course, the recipe was in one of my cookbooks. And my cookbooks were still packed, waiting for my new home’s kitchen to be done.

The other day, I could resist no longer. I went to the designated book box storage place in the garage (between my truck and Honda, if you’re curious), and went through the pile of boxes. The Cookbooks box was on the bottom (of course). I dug it out, cut open the tape holding it closed, and began to go through the cookbooks.

What's Cooking Chicken
I finally found the recipe in this cookbook. Like most of my cookbooks, it’s heavy on photos.

It would have been helpful if I could remember what book it was in.

In all, it took about 20 minutes to find the recipe. I brought it inside, made a shopping list, and picked up the ingredients the next time I was in town. Earlier this week, I finally made it. Although I was tempted to put it in my crock pot, I made it on the stove instead. Since one of my Facebook friends asked, here’s my version of the recipe.

Ingredients:

  • 8-10 boneless, skinless chicken thighs. I also trim off excess fat, which Penny gets to eat for dinner with her kibbles. The original recipe called for 4 chicken quarters.
  • 2 tablespoons safflower oil. I didn’t have any of that and although I usually use olive oil, I suspect that the oil I have might be somewhat rancid. So I used a tiny amount of vegetable oil.
  • 2 medium leeks, cleaned and chopped. The ones I wound up with were huge.
  • 2 large carrots, chopped. My local supermarket sells them loose! Don’t buy the baby carrots; they will likely turn to mush.
  • 2 large parsnips, chopped. I had to tell the checkout girl what this was.
  • 2 small turnips, chopped. I actually used one large one because I didn’t want to have to peel two.
  • 2-1/2 cups chicken stock. I normally use canned, but this time I used chicken bouillon dissolved in boiling water.
  • 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce. Of course I had that on hand. After all, I do occasionally make bloody marys.
  • 2 springs fresh rosemary. Back in Arizona, this grew in the yard. It’s on my list of houseplants for next year.
  • Salt and Pepper. I omitted the salt. You can always add it later, but you can never take it away.
  • 2 cups Bisquick. The original recipe called for self-rising flour and lard (of all things). This is a lot quicker and easier.
  • 1 tablespoon chopped rosemary leaves. Fresh is best.
  • 2/3 cup milk. I used 2%, because that’s what I have. Skim or whole would work, too. Heck, water would probably even work; that’s what the original recipe called for.

Instructions:

  1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan or stew pot and fry the chicken until golden brown all over. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside. Drain off any fat left in the pan.
  2. Add the leeks, carrots, parsnips, and turnips to the pan and cook for 5-10 minutes, until lightly colored.

  3. Chicken and dumplings
    Here’s what it might look like right after putting all of the ingredients in the pan.

    Return the chicken to the pan.

  4. Add the chicken stock, Worcestershire sauce, rosemary sprigs, salt, and pepper and bring to a boil.
  5. Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for about 50-60 minutes, or until the chicken and vegetables are fully cooked.
  6. In a bowl, mix the Bisquick, rosemary leaves, and milk until well blended. You should have a firm dough.
  7. Form the dough into 8 small balls and place on top of the chicken and vegetables. Cover and simmer another 10-12 minutes, until the dumplings have risen.

Serve hot.

If you follow this recipe as shown here, it’ll make 4 extremely flavorful servings of healthy root vegetables and chicken. The nutritional information I calculated indicates high calories but also high vitamins and minerals. If you skip the dumplings, you’ll bring the calorie and sodium counts way down for an even healthier meal.

This is a huge hit at potluck suppers — which we have a lot of up here in Washington state. Double the recipe and stir in some cooked egg noodles instead of the dumplings just before serving to make it easier to serve.

If you make it, let me know how it goes!

Ham and Swiss Cheese Quiche

Posted on by
4

When you have a never-ending supply of eggs, you make quiche (among other things).

I have chickens. Six of them. They started laying eggs about 2 months ago and they haven’t stopped. At the peak of the laying season, I was getting about 3 dozen a week. Now I’m getting about 2 dozen a week. They don’t seem to mind the cold or the short days. They just keep laying eggs.

I can’t possibly eat 2 dozen eggs a week. But I’m trying. And I’m also giving away fresh eggs to anyone who gives me an empty egg carton.

Quiche
Hot from the oven.

On Thursday, a friend who got a carton of 18 eggs from me on Wednesday dropped off about two pounds of sliced cooked ham. By that time, I already had 4 fresh eggs from my girls — and I hadn’t even collected 5 more from that day. With 9 eggs and 2 pounds of ham, it seemed like it was only natural to make a ham and swiss cheese quiche.

Later today, I’ll bring him half of it.

Ingredients:

  • 6 eggs
  • 1 cup half and half (heavy cream will work, too)
  • 1 cup diced ham
  • 1/2 cup sliced scallions
  • 1 cup shredded swiss cheese
  • 1 frozen 9-in deep dish pie crust, unbaked

Instructions

  1. In a bowl, beat together the eggs and half and half.
  2. Place the ham, scallions, and swiss cheese in the pie crust.
  3. Pour the egg mixture over the ham mixture.
  4. Bake in a 400°F oven for 45 – 60 minutes or until set.

Yields: 8 slices

Nutritional Information: 250 calories per slice. This recipe is low in carbs and high in sodium (because of the ham), potassium, calcium, phosphorus, and riboflavin. You can get complete nutritional information for this recipe here.

Getting the Facts Straight on Honey

Posted on by
4

A beekeeper ought to know, right?

I started keeping bees in June 2013. So, yes, it hasn’t been that long and no, I’m not an “expert” (yet). But I do know some things about bees and beekeeping and honey.

Maria the Beekeeper
This is me last year, examining a honey frame in one of my hives. Can’t believe how clean my gloves still were!

I posted a status update on Facebook yesterday that mentioned snacking on a piece of honeycomb from my beehives. The comments I got from my friends made me realize that there are some misconceptions — or simply knowledge gaps — out there about honey. I thought I’d take a few moments to clear things up.

Nature’s Perfect Food

I like to think of honey as nature’s perfect food. It’s created by nature, requires no refrigeration to preserve, and it doesn’t go bad. Smithsonian’s “The Science Behind Honey’s Eternal Shelf Life” elaborates on this. It mentions that the bees “regurgitate the nectar from their mouths into the combs combs to make honey.” But no, honey is not bee vomit.

Beeswax

Extracting Honey
In this shot, I’m scraping the wax caps off a honey frame before putting it into the extractor to the left.

Bees store honey in wax honeycomb they create. Most beekeepers use Langstroth hives that provide their bees with frames specially designed for them to create nice, neat honeycombs. This makes it easy to extract the honey using centrifugal force in a honey extractor.

Some beekeepers prefer more natural hives, such as top-bar hives, which allow the bees to create comb as they might in the wild. (I don’t know how they extract honey from natural comb. Maybe they just sell the honey in the comb.)

Bad Comb
This photo shows some natural comb made on a Langstroth frame. This is not normal. I think it was a result of the frame’s plastic surface not being properly coated with beeswax by the manufacturer. I won’t be buying my frames there anymore.

Beeswax is edible. If you buy comb honey, you can eat the entire thing. I occasionally have comb honey that I get from removing unwanted natural comb from my Langstroth hives. I eat it with a spoon, chewing it gently until the honey is gone from the wax. The wax does not stick to my teeth. It ends up as a little wax ball that I spit out (like gum). Swallowing it would not hurt me, but I don’t think there’s any reason to.

Buying Honey

The absolute best place to buy honey is at a farmer’s market. A real farmer’s market. Chances are, you’ll be buying the honey from the beekeeper.

And if you don’t think there’s a difference between store-bought honey and fresh honey from a beekeeper, think again. The first time I tasted my own honey, I threw away all the store-bought crap I had in my cabinets. Then I gave away too much of my honey and had to ration the last jar so it would last a whole year. (It didn’t.)

Raw honey is best. Don’t buy the flavored crap. Who knows what they added?

Creamed honey is honey that has been processed to control crystallization. Nothing is added. It’s just been stirred or whipped at a specific temperature.

Spending a lot of money for honey does not mean you’ll get better honey. It just means that someone’s marketing scheme worked on you.

Honey sold in glass jars is not necessarily any better than honey sold in plastic jars. In fact, many beekeepers package their honey in plastic containers — even the bear squeeze containers! — for sale because they’re cost effective, they’re lightweight, and they don’t break. Do you think it’s a good idea to shlep heavy cases of glass jars around from one farmer’s market to the next?

Storing Honey

Store honey in the container you got it in. I generally put my honey comb in plastic containers so that’s what I store it in. When I extract honey, I usually put it in quart-sized glass mason jars so that’s what I store it in.

If you’re refrigerating your honey, take it out of the refrigerator now. It doesn’t belong there. Refrigerating it can hasten crystallization. While crystallization doesn’t make the honey taste bad, it does ruin its nice, smooth texture.

If your honey gets crystalized, you can heat it to dissolve the crystals. You can do this in the microwave if you like or by putting the honey container in a bath of warm water. They crystals will come back when the honey cools.

Beekeeping Costs

The main cost of producing honey is buying the equipment: hive boxes, frames, bottoms and tops, beekeeper suit, etc. My initial investment was about $500. I’ve since spent about $1,000 more — I really do know how to throw money at a hobby — but now have what I need for six hives. You can save money by building your own bee boxes and frames.

All of the equipment is reusable, so once you’ve made the investment, the only thing you’ll spend to keep bees and make honey is your time. This year, I was neglectful — my new home under construction kept me very busy — but my bees didn’t seem to care. They did their thing — including keeping my vegetable garden pollinated — and I pulled another 6 frames of honey out of my hives. That’ll probably yield about 2-1/2 gallons.

And yes, I do hope to sell some of it. In glass jars with fancy packaging. In roadside fruit stands that cater to tourists from Seattle.

Heck, if a fancy jar and high price tag makes people think they’re getting something extra special, why not play the game?

A $500 Hamburger

Posted on by
8

A friend takes me out for lunch…and I provide transportation.

I’m not blogging much about flying lately. That might be because I’m not doing much flying. Although cherry season rains kept me pretty busy the last week of June, dry weather leaves my helicopter idle. I don’t promote my charter or wine tour services during the summer because I’d hate to have to cancel a flight if the weather got iffy. Cherries always come first during cherry season.

But people do find me. I got a call on Saturday about doing a birthday flight on Sunday. They have a summer home at Crescent Bar and wanted to tour the river between the Gorge Amphitheater and Orondo. It was a nice day with no rain in the forecast, so I booked it for 11 AM.

Happy Passengers
I like happy passengers — and these folks were happy!

The passengers were lucky, although I don’t think they realized it. I have a 1-hour minimum for all of my charter flights and that’s what I charged them for. But I bet we were out for at least 15 minutes more. Not only did we tour the areas they wanted to see, but we happened to pass by the Appleyard just as one of the fire helicopters was descending to dip for the Skyline Drive fire. I maneuvered to stay out of his way, then turned so my passengers could watch him dip from the air. Cool.

Blustery's
Blustery’s. Drive-in or fly in. Whatever works.

Meanwhile, I figured that while I had the helicopter out and about, I might as well do a little pleasure flight. I’d called my friend Bob at about 10 AM and had asked him what he was doing for lunch. When he said he didn’t know, I told him I knew: he was buying me a burger at Blustery’s in Vantage and we’d go there by helicopter. He should meet me at the airport at 12:30 PM.

He arrived at 12:30 sharp, just as my passengers were driving off for the rest of their birthday activities. Because of the heat, I told him I wanted to take off my door and asked if he wanted his off, too. “Sure!” was his enthusiastic reply.

A short while later, we were taking off into the wind, then turning a right downwind to meet up with the river at Rock Island. Bob was loving the flight — he hadn’t been aboard a helicopter in years. We crossed over the power lines near the mouth of Lower Moses Coulee — the road to Palisades, as the locals refer to it — and dropped down lower over the river. The water was low because of the repairs in progress downriver at the Wanapum Dam. All of the river access had been closed between the Wanapum and Rock Island Dams and PUD security crews were patrolling by boat and jet ski. (Talk about a dream job: being paid to ride a jet ski up and down the Columbia River all day.) Of course, since we weren’t on the water surface or shore, it wasn’t closed to us. We got a good look at the land that’s usually under water, including formerly submerged roads, building foundations, and orchards.

We went all the way down to the dam and made a wide arc past it. Bob wanted to know if the folks on the ground could get in touch with me. I explained that they couldn’t without looking up my N-number, which is large enough to see from the ground. But we didn’t pose a security risk. We were flying too far from the dam and our pattern was clearly that of a tourist. Bob knew about a friend of mine who’d gotten in trouble with the NSA when he did a photo shoot over a train yard. I explained how our flight was different. Now if we’d been loitering without calling ahead — well that would have been a big mistake.

We headed up the west side of the river. I circled my intended landing zone — a large paved parking area on the southwest side of Blustery’s — and made my approach from the east. I touched down as gently as I could on the rough pavement, noting the slight slope. Only one or two people seemed to notice a helicopter landing back there — it really doesn’t make all that much noise when it’s on the ground idling. I gave it an extra minute to cool down — it was running very hot — and killed the engine.

I shot a quick photo before we went inside.

At Blustery's in Vantage
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve driven past or flown over this LZ before I finally landed here. It was perfect!

I’m not sure if the girls at the counter inside knew we’d arrived by helicopter. They had a drive-in window that faced it so they must have seen it out there. But they played it cool.

I ordered a burger and a shake. Bob ordered a chicken sandwich. We took a table by the window and spent an hour just eating and talking.

It was about 2 PM when we finally climbed back on board. I wasn’t in any hurry to get back, so we took a scenic route up Frenchman’s Coulee, past Cave B and the Gorge Amphitheater, over Quincy Lakes, past the Coluckum Ridge Golf course where two pilot friends are staying, past Beaumont Cellars, and over Crescent Bar. When I shot out over the Babcock Ridge, I think I spooked Bob a bit; he asked, “Don’t you feel it in your gut when the ground just falls away like that?” I told him I’d done it so many times that it didn’t bother me anymore.

I took a shortcut over the wheat fields to Lower Moses Coulee, where Bob and I had gone motorcycling on Friday. The road was straighter and flatter than where I usually like to ride, but it was a good outing together — a great way to learn more about the kind of riding he likes to do. (I’m wondering if he’ll be able to keep up with me on the twisties and hope to make a ride up the Entiat with him soon. My last riding companion there lost me after the first mile.)

I cut up Douglas Canyon, following the creek instead of the road up to Waterville. Once up on the plateau, I poked around, exploring deserted homestead sites and abandoned farm equipment from the air. Then I steered us over Badger Mountain. The earth fell away again when I came over the cliffs just 4 miles north of Wenatchee Airport and we started a 1300 feet per minute descent, keeping a sharp lookout for gliders.

We’d flown a total of 1.6 hours.

I really needed a fun day out in the helicopter — anything other than hovering over cherries trees for hours on end — and Bob enjoyed it, too. He was still talking about it today when I stopped by his place to pick up some tools he had for me. I really enjoy flying with a companion — especially one who appreciates the novelty of a fly-in lunch and exploring a well-known path from the air.

As for Blustery’s — well, just as I offered “The Hamburger in the Middle of Nowhere” when I lived in Arizona, I’m thinking of offering “The $500 Hamburger” here in Washington. I’m willing to bet the folks at Bustery’s will appreciate me dropping in again.