Eating Out

You know what I forgot? Those sodium- and preservative-packed lunches actually make it pretty easy for me to get in that workout at lunchtime on weekdays. Today was my day off from walking, but it took me a good 10 minutes to assemble my lunch in the kitchen at work. That's going to be tough to pull off the rest of this week when I've only got about 20 minutes to eat... It also took me long enough to make my vintage lunch this morning that my whole sense of timing was thrown off and I actually had to leave the house without my bed made and with dirty dishes in the sink. Eek! Just one little change and everything's a mess. Here's the menu I adapted from the original:

Organic Creamy Broccoli Soup
Open-faced Egg Salad Sandwich on Whole-grain Bread with Lettuce and Tomatoes
Green Pepper Strips
Fruit Salad (Apple, Strawberries, Blueberries)

First, I'll have to say that it was a yummy, filling meal. Even without the Crackers, a second slice of bread, and the Cup Cake. What I might have eaten for lunch today without this mission in place is an Amy's Broccoli Pot Pie with some fruit for dessert. So let's do some basic nutritional comparisons of the non-raw fruit/veggie components of these lunch menus:

Typical pre-mission lunch
Calories: 430
Fat: 22g
Sodium: 630mg
Carbohydrates: 46g
Protein: 11g

Vintage lunch, adapted
Calories: 260
Fat: 19.5g
Sodium: 690mg
Carbohydrates: 32g
Protein: 14g

Interesting... My vintage lunch was better in every respect except for sodium. Boy, that soup sure packs a wallop! I'd bet if I was making the soup from scratch with a low sodium broth, I could make a difference there. I'm loving the drop in the number of calories. Will my lower calorie lunch make a difference in my ability to resist the temptation to snack tonight? It didn't make any difference this afternoon.

I'm sure I'll get better at packing these lunches. It'd help ginormously if I actually owned some good lunch-packing equipment. The American Woman's Cook Book (1945) has some serviceable sounding suggestions on preparing and packing lunches.

Sandwich-making tips:

• Whole grain breads should be used for sandwiches. Graham, whole wheat, oatmeal, brown, raisin, and nut bread are excellent. [I guess they hold up better to sandwich fillings!]
  
  
• Pack lettuce separately, to be added just before eating.
  
  
• Fillings for sandwiches may be packed in small jars and buttered bread in waxed paper included for spreading just before eating.
  

Adding a hot or cold dish:

• Special vacuum containers make it possible to include hot cocoa or hot soup in the lunch, also a creamed vegetable, a hot pudding, or other hot food. The containers should never be filled the night before the lunch is prepared.
  
  
• In the winter have something hot and invigorating in the thermos bottle: Hot soup, coffee, tea, baked beans, hot chocolate, or stew. Something cool and refreshing in the summertime, such as lemonade, tomato juice, fruit juices, chocolate milk shake, milk, iced tea or iced coffee, canned fruit juices.
  

General packing advice:

• Stewed or canned fruits may be carried in any small screw-top container. Cold puddings, custards or similar desserts may also be carried in this manner.
  
  
• All foods not in containers should be wrapped separately in waxed paper before being placed in the box. The neatly wrapped articles should be placed, so far as is possible, in the order in which the lunch will be eaten, so that those found first may be eaten first without disturbing the remainder. The heaviest foods, however, should be placed at the bottom of the box.
  
  
• Articles should be packed compactly in order to prevent the food from shaking about.
  
  
• Lunch boxes should be washed, scalded and aired daily. Those made of lightweight metal are best. Many attractive boxes are now made with a vacuum bottle which fits the box.

It is a bit hard to imagine toting one of those old-fashioned black metal lunchboxes to work with me everyday. (Imagine if I ran into Curly with one of those in my hand!) And yet most of the soft-sided lunch bags I see out there these days don't provide much support for items wrapped in wax paper. The only tools I've got right now are a few plastic sandwich-sized containers and some custard cups with lids. Usually I just toss a few things in my tote bag --- but they're frozen, so no big deal. That arrangement isn't going to cut it when I've got soup to carry along! I'd like to find something that doesn't really look like a lunch box, but provides the same protection to my noonday meal. Any ideas?

Meal Plan

Raise your hand if you know how easy it is to make homemade Scalloped Potatoes...

Scalloped Potatoes
Buttered Beets
Carrot Strips
Baked Apple Stuffed with Dates

I was completely caught off-guard when I started preparing my vintage dinner last Sunday evening. I thought Scalloped Potatoes would be one of the tougher potato recipes in my cookbook. Wrong! It's one of the few potato dishes that don't involve having to boil or even parboil the potatoes beforehand. It took me maybe 15 minutes from start to finish, then the oven did the rest of the work. My mom's a wonderful cook, but the only Scalloped Potatoes we ever ate were the rubbery kind that came in a box.

And I think I've discovered the trick to Beets. Boil them in as large a pot as you can find in your cupboard. A five- or six-quart Dutch oven should do the job. Make sure you've got a lid for the pot that fits tightly and don't boil them at too high a temperature. If I don't do any one of these things, I'll end up with pink water stains all over my stovetop! The Baked Apple Stuffed with Dates was quite good, too. But what I love most about it was that I was able to make it in a single serving size. No leftover sweets hanging about this week.

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SCALLOPED POTATOES

6 medium-sized potatoes [I cut this recipe in thirds.]
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons butter
Milk

Pare raw potatoes and cut them into thin slices. Place in a baking dish a layer of the potato one inch deep, season with salt and pepper, sprinkle a portion of the flour over each layer, add a part of the butter in bits. Repeat and continue until required amount is used. It is best not to have more than two or three layers because of difficulty in cooking. Add milk until it can be seen between the slices of potato, cover and bake (350-400 degrees F.) until potatoes are tender with a fork (1 - 1 1/2 hours). Remove the cover during the last fifteen minutes to brown the top. Serve from the baking-dish.

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My transition to healthier snacks (fruits or veggies plus protein) is going pretty well. I'm measuring out the proper serving sizes for now, but hoping to be able just to eyeball them soon.

Hummus = 2 tablespoons
Low-fat Organic Cottage Cheese = 1/2 cup
Almonds = 25 nuts (This seems a bit much. I could probably do just fine with half that or less.)

The only thing that really frustrates me is that I keep forgetting to pack a snack so I can get that late afternoon pick-me-up while I'm still at work instead of being ravenous when I get home at 5:30. I've got to try and remember this tomorrow. Pack both lunch and snack. I'd rather eat a snack at 3:30 or so and not be in such a rush to eat something as soon as I get home.

One of the things I'm rapidly discovering about reducing is how important planning can be. A couple weeks ago, a friend asked me to lunch. I accepted - and then remembered my rule of thumb: "No eating anything I haven't purchased at the grocery store." Well, I did promise myself some exceptions for social occasions, but I had to do some planning so I could enjoy the experience without feeling guilty. I added 30 extra minutes to my walk the day before so I wouldn't miss out on my workout. And I also suggested we hit a restaurant where I knew I could get a yummy salad. This Friday, I'm meeting up with a group for drinks after work. I rarely drink sodas, so I think a diet soda would be treat enough for me. I may not be home 'til late, so maybe I'll check the menu ahead of time and find out if there's something resembling healthy which I might be able to consider dinner.

Here's an example of poor planning. I had promised to babysit my nieces one evening after work. It's tough to cook anything there for yourself with a toddler and baby to mind, so - without even thinking - I figured I'd "pick something up" on the way to their house. That afternoon, I suddenly remembered my then-new rule of thumb. Eek! What would I do? Well, I ended up stopping at a sub shop to pick up a veggie sandwich. It could've been worse, but it could've been better. Next time, I'll pack a dinner from home - something I can heat up quickly.

I'll wrap up this post - which somehow became entirely about food! - with a dilemma facing me for this weekend's vintage dinner. The salad course is a Molded Salad of Cranberry Sauce (canned), Chopped Celery and Apples. I never make molded salads as gelatin is an animal by-product, but do any of you know if it would be possible to mold something using the jellied cranberry sauce that's sold in the can? It certainly starts out molded... I was wondering if it'd be possible to fold the celery and apples into the jelly, then form it into some sort of shape. Any advice?

The Rewards of Minimalism

My breakfast menus for the last two days were published in November 1943 by Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co. in a booklet titled Meal Planning Guide. It was probably one of those giveaway-type things you send for with a self-addressed stamped envelope and a dime. Thursday's menu was super simple:

Tomato Juice

Ready-prepared Whole Grain Cereal

I tried the Weetabix again that I bought last month when I was looking for a whole-grain cereal I could serve hot. It's much, much better cold! Today's menu:

Applesauce

Corn Meal Griddle Cakes

Syrup

The Griddle Cakes were a little tricky. It was a very leisurely kind of recipe, with lots of stop and go. After boiling water, you poured it over a bowl of Corn Meal and set that to one side to wait for it to "swell." Then you added milk to the mixture and waited for it to cool down. Finally, it was time to add your dry goods, and - just before pouring it onto the griddle - fold a beaten egg into the batter. Corn Meal Griddle Cakes also took a bit longer on the griddle than did your plain ol' everyday Griddle Cakes. Like I said, a leisurely recipe. By the time my first batch was finished, it was almost time to leave for work. I think I must have inhaled my breakfast... I hardly remember what they tasted like! Well, I've got plenty of leftovers, so I'll take my time to enjoy them tomorrow morning.

Cleaning the bedroom last night was surprisingly easy. Yep, you heard it here first --- easy! I followed the steps recommended by the manual to a tee. You can kind of break the routine down into five parts. 1) Emptying the room out - hanging the bed covers outside to air, removing the sheets, bringing all the bric-a-brac out to the kitchen for dusting. 2) Bringing equipment into the room - vacuum cleaner, cleaning basket, clean linens. 3) Doing up the bed. 4) Dusting and vacumming. 5) Bringing the bric-a-brac back into the room and giving things a final straightening.

Not so bad. Of course it helps that I don't have very many things in the way of furnishings to clean. I moved cross-country two years ago and didn't bring anything that I couldn't fit in my car. So my apartment isn't exactly overstuffed these days. The manual attends to all kinds of items I didn't have to dust or brush or polish last night: no lamps, no dresser scarves, no draperies, no woodwork, no radiators, no baseboard, no upholstered furniture, no glass table tops, no shades, no curtains, no ash trays. That certainly made things easier. (And to think how much time I've spent wishing I could afford to have my stuff shipped out here!)

My bedroom doesn't feel all that much cleaner than normal, but the sheets have been changed, the carpet's been vacuumed, and the dust has been shooed back into the corners. And just doing that much every week - week in and week out - will be a big improvement. I think I'm going to add one or two of those "if necessarys" next Thursday, though, and step this up a notch.

Week's End

I got to play with my new popover pan this morning!

Hot Baked Apple

Popovers

The recipe in the cookbook for Hot Baked Apples wasn't very detailed. It tells me to bake the fruit in a moderate oven (350-375 degrees F), but doesn't tell me how long to bake it:

Sour apples cook more quickly than sweet ones, and summer or fall apples take less time to cook than winter apples.

Thank goodness for the internet. Advice like that would've been meaningful for somebody who'd grown up baking apples, but for me --- not so helpful. (Boy, you skip one generation when it comes to passing down traditional knowledge about cookery and the information is practically lost!) Recipes online suggest baking the fruit for 40 to 65 minutes. With a little research, I was able to find out that Braeburn apples - the kind in my fruit bowl - are a winter variety, so I figured one of those would take at least an hour.

I realized the other night that my closet has become a little segregated. The clothes I've hung up in there since I started ironing my clean laundry on Tuesdays are all neatly hanging on one side of the closet. Wrinkle-free, by the way, even after a week in some cases. That still suprises me! I've been so fearful that the wrinkle-free will be contaminated by The Others - all those wrinkled clothes I haven't cleaned since the days when I only ironed things on my way out the door. So they each have their own sides of the closet. And I'm hoping that the wrinkle-free side will just get bigger and bigger until it takes over the whole place someday...

One of the things that's taken me by surprise lately is just how much I like being in my own home. How much more I genuinely enjoy being here when it's not as messy as it used to be. It's certainly not clean by any stretch of the imagination, but the living room and bedroom are tidy. There aren't dirty dishes all over the kitchen counters and stovetop. My clean clothes are all put away, and the dirty laundry is in its place. There's something about a neat(er) home that makes me want to spend some time here. Fancy that! It's no wonder I always felt kinda antsy at home before this. Who can relax in a messy place?

Thrift 1 / Curiosity 0

Yipes! I realized this morning that I haven't blogged about my breakfasts in a couple days. Lest you think the Fried Mush incident scared me out of the kitchen for good, I'll get caught up now. My tastebuds did recover. Tuesday's menu:

Orange Slices

Scrambled Eggs and Toast

Coffee

Nothing wrong with a meal like that one. Here's the menu for today:

Applesauce

Graham Muffins

Hard-cooked Egg

I substituted some of my Graham Muffins - they've been in the freezer since last week - for the Oatmeal Gems that were actually on today's menu. I was curious as can be to try the new recipe, but thrift won out and I decided to eat up some of my leftovers instead. As far as I can tell, the Oatmeal Gems are a biscuity type of muffin with oats sprinkled inside. I haven't noticed any differences in these menus at the front of my cookbook except that there are more baked goods in these menus. Which makes sense. The author is trying to interest her readers in some of her recipes. The very next menu features a whole new recipe altogether! I think I'll stick with today's menu one more time and try to free up some space in the freezer.

Once I've finished experimenting with this first run through the menus, I'm going to revisit that "reducing" plan I found in a '40s magazine. I'll save the baked goods for an occasional treat - once a month instead of once a week! - and take up those vintage serving sizes more rigorously. It'd be loverly if The Experiment had some benefits for my waistline, too!