Control

"Everything's fine. Look, I made a lot of martinis. That's all anybody every drinks at these things. You know, martinis?" Spencer Tracy, "Father of the Bride", MGM, 1950

In the movie, "Father of the Bride", Spencer Tracy (the father) is continually trying to regain control of an uncontrollable situation... A wedding. In one scene in particular, Tracy is put in charge of serving drinks at the reception, a responsibility he's been given simply because (unbeknownst to him) those truly in charge want him safely out of the way. He uses the opportunity to try to take control yet again, though, mixing up pitcher after pitcher of the only drink he thinks anyone will want... A martini. And, when the guests proceed to order anything but martinis, he is 'forced' to drink them himself.

The reception scene from MGM's classic film is both humorous and cautionary. As someone who's spent quite a bit of time "Searching for the Perfect Martini" (both metaphorically and literally), I can certainly empathize with the movie father's approach to controlling the uncontrollable... while appreciating the humor of his failure. Many a heroic tale has taught us that Tracy's character should have been able to rise to the occasion and find the ideal solution, becoming the savior of the moment... versus the comic relief.   

As a Weight Watchers member, though, I've learned to appreciate that 'uncontrollable situations' and 'ideal solutions' are simply examples of all-or-none thinking. By focusing on incremental goals and smaller (and therefore more achievable) solutions, we can overcome obstacles over time that, previously, might have seemed insurmountable.

Case in point? Old favorite recipes......

Many of us have special recipes we once enjoyed but have since given up on, perhaps because we're embracing healthier lifestyles or avoiding particular foods (e.g. foods high in sugar, saturated fats, etc.). Changing such recipes would be impossible, after all, as the changed recipe wouldn't taste as good as the original, or would fail to live up to our memories. We simply need to find entirely new recipes that are healthier... albeit less delicious... right?

Perhaps... Or perhaps not... As the original recipe above and the 'tweaked' recipe below recently proved.

A WEIGHT WATCHER'S FRIENDLY PEACH COBBLER

Ingredients:

• 6 medium peaches, peeled and sliced
• Butter-flavored cooking spray
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup Splenda
• 1/2 cup Brummel & Brown spread (w/yogurt)
• 1 egg

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 9x13 pan with butter-flavored cooking spray. Cover the bottom of the prepared pan with sliced peaches, spray with butter-flavored cooking spray, sprinkle with cinnamon and set aside.

Pulse rolled oats in a blender or food processor until the consistency of flour. Combine the oat 'flour' with the Splenda. Place the Brummel & Brown spread in a microwave-safe bowl, cover, and melt in the microwave for 15-30 seconds (in 10-15 second increments). Add the melted spread and egg to the oat 'flour' and Splenda mixture, combine to make a batter, and spoon the batter evenly over the peaches.

Bake for 45-50 minutes. Serve warm. Top with 1/4 cup Halo Top Vanilla Bean Light Ice Cream or fat-free whipped topping.

Serves 8, 4 WeightWatchers Smartpoints per serving (5 Smartpoints with light ice cream or fat-free whipped topping).

A note to social media users: Here is a sample tweet you can use to share this recipe: 

• A few thoughts on #control, accompanied by a @WeightWatchers-friendly #peachcobbler #recipe: http://bit.ly/2xDEDND #foodblog @Splenda

Taco Wednesday

In a recent post, I shared a few thoughts about change. With the vernal equinox mere days past, signs of spring -- including new families of whitetail deer -- serve as reminders of the natural constancy of change.

The seasons and Mother Nature aside though, change is something I think many of us struggle with on a number of levels. For example, as a [relatively]new Weight Watchers leader, I'm often challenged to find fresh ways to present core concepts like mindfulness, activity/fitness, asking for help, etc. By thinking that I need to come up with an entirely new and unique approach to a topic, I allow myself to get overwhelmed by the challenge, forgetting something I sometimes share with fellow Weight Watchers members...... How to eat an elephant.

It's easy to get overwhelmed when you dwell on the end goal versus the journey. Focusing on each step (or 'bite') not only breaks down the [seemingly]insurmountable into the achievable, it forces us to live in the moment, allowing us to savor -- and learn from -- our experiences. Letting go of all-or-nothing thoughts like "How am I going to put a fresh spin on activity/fitness" and, instead, remembering the whitetail deer encountered on a recent Spring walk, can bring to bear new perspectives that enable surprising results.

Recipes can also benefit from small changes or tweaks. For example, I recently made my first taco salad (believe it or not), a dish I've always avoided because "it's unhealthy". Breaking a recipe down to its foundations though, allows you to apply what you've learned from past cooking experiences... Like using ground turkey instead of ground beef, baking your own tortilla chips, or leveraging reduced-fat (or calorie-free) ingredients.

I hope you enjoy the results of such little changes as much as I did!

GUILTLESS TACO SALAD

Ingredients:

Baked Chips & Salsa

• 4 small corn tortillas
• Olive oil spray
• Sea salt
• Salsa, fat-free

Taco Salad

• 1 lb. ground turkey (93% lean)
• 1 packet taco seasoning
• 1 8 oz. bag of shredded lettuce
• 1 14.5 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 c. Grape tomatoes, sliced in half
• 1/4 c. Reduced-fat Mexican-style cheese, shredded
• 1/4 c. Calorie-free chipotle ranch dressing

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a cookie sheet with olive oil. Cut tortillas into sixths using a sharp knife or a pizza cutter. Arrange cut tortilla pieces on the prepared cookie sheet, spray with olive oil and sprinkle sea salt on both sides, and bake for 10 minutes or until crisp.

Cook taco filling per seasoning packet, setting aside/freezing half (i.e. (2) 3 oz., cooked portions) for future salads. Separate shredded lettuce onto two plates. Distribute the rest of the ingredients onto each plate, crumbling six of the baked tortilla chips on top of each salad and serving the additional chips on the side, with salsa.

Serves 2, 12 Weight Watchers SmartPoints per serving.

A note to social media users: Here is a sample tweet you can use to share this recipe: 

• Avoiding Taco Tuesday? Enjoy a @WeightWatchers-friendly Taco Wednesday instead: http://bit.ly/2mUNdOU #tacosalad #RecipeOfTheDay #recipe #foodblog

Additional acknowledgements: Portions of the above recipe were adapted from Slender Kitchen's Baked Tortilla Chips recipe

Seasons

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven...” - Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, RSV

I walked by a budding pussy willow tree the other day. The snow and ice have melted, song birds are singing in the [still baren]trees, and the boisterous calls of Sandhill Cranes are wafting on the blustery winds. Hints of Spring... harbingers of change.

Change can be thought of in many ways... As disruptive and dangerous, healing and hopeful, frightening and fractious. The results of change are seldom predictable, inspiring uncertainty in some, trepidation in others. Change is seldom entirely new or alien, though. An evolution of what was, a rebirth into what is, a rebalancing of life... Not necessarily for good or bad, but because life is dynamic and ever changing. To quote from the Tao by Lao Tzu:

“As it acts in the world, the Tao is like the bending of a bow.
The top is bent downward; the bottom is bent up.
It adjusts excess and deficiency so that there is perfect balance.
It takes from what is too much and gives to what isn't enough.”

While I embrace such ideas, I find myself constantly challenged to bend without breaking... to find and recognize the good and the positive in life... to save and cherish such finds so that they can be used as needed to balance out the bad and the negative. Sometimes, when the winds of change are blowing especially hard and life seems particularly overwhelming, the thought of breaking can seem almost comforting.

And then the boisterous calls of the Sandhill Cranes return to the blustery winds, reminding me that, for everything, there is a season... A thought that partially inspired the following recipe; a balancing of my favorite season, Autumn, with my current season, that of a Weight Watchers member (and Leader) continually in search of yummy food. Enjoy!

TIM'S BREAKFAST ALA MODE

Ingredients:

• 3 honeycrisp apples, medium, diced
• Butter-flavored spray
• 2 tbsp. uncooked oatmeal
• 2 tsp. unpacked brown sugar
• 4 tsp. Splenda
• ½ tsp. ground cinnamon
• 2 individual containers of Fit & Active non-fat vanilla yogurt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425F.

Combine all ingredients except the yogurt in a mixing bowl. Separate the combined ingredients into two oven-safe ramekins. Cover ramekins in foil and bake ~30 to 40 minutes, until the apples are nicely baked and a little caramelized. Serve with chilled non-fat vanilla yogurt.

Serves 2, 5 Weight Watchers SmartPoints per serving (Note: Substituting a 2 SmartPoint vanilla yogurt will reduce the SmartPoints to 3 per serving).

A note to social media users: Here is a sample tweet you can use to share this recipe: 

• Missing #Autumn? Try this @WeightWatchers-friendly #breakfast: http://bit.ly/2nahxGB #RecipeOfTheDay #recipe #foodblog #apples @AldiUSA

Additional acknowledgements: Portions of the above recipe were adapted from ”Mom's Apple Crisp” recipe on Food.com

Stockton Deliciousness

If you're a regular user of Facebook and like to cook as much as I do, I'm guessing I'm about to describe a frustration you've experienced. Specifically, you come across a totally delicious looking and sounding recipe that ends with the words "Share this on your wall to save it." You do as instructed but, when you finally find the time to try said recipe, you're unable to find it again on your Facebook wall. To compound the frustration, even if you do find the recipe, you realize there's no way to print it!

In hindsight, it's pretty obvious to me (and to you as well, I'm guessing) that such tactics are simply a questionably ethical way to promote yourself on Facebook. Each delectably-enticing dish inspires shares and 'likes', followed by more shares and 'likes', followed by... Well, you get the picture.

Which brings me to tonight and my own little recipe. Being a native of Stockton, California (albeit an ex-pat living in exile in America's heartland), I grew up loving a Mexican dish called "Chili Verde." Chili Verde is a delicious main course made from tomatillos, green chilies, onions, lean pork or chicken, and spices, usually served with flour tortillas, refried beans and rice. Sound good? That's because it is! Unfortunately, it's also practically impossible to find west of the Rockies (e.g. I've yet to find a single restaurant here in the Chicago area that serves it). My chili verde cravings often cause me to cook up huge batches from scratch. Other times, though, I'm simply inspired to replicate that scrumptious chili verde flavor in new ways... Like tonight's chicken salad, a delicious chili verde-inspired concoction I hope you enjoy as much as I do... And which I'm posting to my blog and then sharing, so you can conveniently bookmark said recipe for future use or even print it off if you wish. Enjoy!


A Stocktonian's Chili Verde Chicken Salad

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 c. Reduced-fat olive oil mayo
4 tsp. green chili powder (orderable from Spice Traveler in Prescott, AZ, if you don't live in the southwestern US)
2 small (4.5 oz.) cans chopped green chilies
2 tbsp. Costco Kirkland-brand dried, minced onion
1 tsp. Costco Kirkland-brand salt-free seasoning
2 12.5 oz. cans of Costco Kirkland-brand chicken, well drained

DIRECTIONS:
Open two small cans of diced green chilies (note: do not drain!), add one tbsp. dried minced onion to each can, gently combine in-can to re-constitute the dried onions and soak up the green chili juice, set aside. Measure one half cup of mayo into a mixing bowl, add four tsp. green chili powder, one tsp. salt-free seasoning (i.e. generic Mrs. Dash's) and the contents of the green chili cans, stir to combine. Add the well-drained canned chicken and flake chicken with a large fork while stirring to combine. After fully combining ingredients, divide into six equal portions and serve.

SERVING SUGGESTIONS:
On whole wheat thins with fresh spinach as a sandwich, on flatbread as a wrap, on Triscuits as hors d'ouvers, as a dip for celery.

NOTE TO READERS: If you'd like to share this blog and recipe via social media, here's a sample tweet:

• Craving quick & easy #southwestern deliciousness? Try 1 #Stocktonian's #ChiliVerde #ChickenSalad: http://bit.ly/1lB6cLI  #recipe #InStockton

Someplace special

A recent work-related conference placed me within an hour's flight of my hometown of Stockton, California. As the base airfare was less than $40 and opportunities to visit my parents and sister only arise once or twice a year, I jumped at the opportunity.

Some who are familiar with my hometown's many challenges might wonder why I'd bother. Not being a 'Stockton apologist', I recognize said problems and have even sung the blues about them. Problems aside though, there's a lot to like about Stockton that many (read “Forbes Magazine”, among others) either refuse to acknowledge or gloss over. After spending an extended weekend in the nation's easternmost Pacific seaport, I'd like to rectify that oversight.

Valley deliciousness

My first stop upon landing at Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK) was Chuck's Hamburgers, a family-run eatery dating back more than forty years. Though Chuck's menu includes a range of delectable options (e.g. milkshakes served up in the metal can, pancakes so large they're nicknamed 'manhole covers', etc.), this trip included two of my longtime favorites: A completely loaded club sandwich on sourdough and a half-order of onion rings. Yum!

The visit and related proximity to childhood memories also inspired me to make sopas (a traditionalPortuguese dish often served on or around Easter) for my parents and sister. Sopas made with fresh-baked multigrain sourdough bread from Stockton's Boudin Bakery made for yet another delicious Stockton memory.

Music and the arts

Second stop on this year's spring vacation to Stockton was the Haggin Museum. My parents and I enjoyed wine tasting, hors d'oeuvres and the blues, made possible by Friends of the Haggin (who organized the refreshments) and Ms. Lizzy and Her Cadillac Kings, the evening's talented performers. Sipping delicious, locally grown and produced red zinfandel wine accompanied by fresh California strawberries, all while listening to classics like “Sweet Home, Chicago” (a song about where I now live) made for yet another memorable moment.

The weekend's entertainment didn't end with that first night at the Haggin though. On Friday night, my parents and I enjoyed listening to local band “Bad Habits” while dining on delicious tri-tip sandwiches at Royce's BBQ. My mom and I then headed out to the Elks Lodge to listen to the classic rock n' roll stylings of “RB/X”.

[More]BBQ and Baseball

Yet another Stockton claim to fame is Banner Island Ballpark (aka 'The BIB', a minor league venue once recognized as one of the nation's finest ballparks). A quick stroll around The BIB quickly illustrates why it's a Stockton gem. Nestled alongside the headwaters of the San Joaquin River, just across the water from Stockton's downtown marina, with a host of children's activities and blessed with cool delta breezes and a plethora of dining options (I enjoyed a BBQ'd chicken salad and deep fried Stockton asparagus), I can't think of a better place to enjoy a ballgame... Which is no mean compliment coming from someone who's personally enjoyed 'The Friendly Confines' on a number of occasions.

Far away home, far away port

Watching the Stockton Ports' batters slam doubles and triples, seeing ocean-bound freighters loading up on molasses and concrete, enjoying warm sun and clear skies... Good times. Does any of that eradicate the specter of bankruptcy, high crime or Stockton's other challenges? No, of course not. That said though, I'd like to remind Stockton's many naysayers that, while the city's challenges are great, a thousand miles of sun-drenched waterways, countless acres of verdant farmland and plentiful vineyards all translate into someplace that, challenges aside, is still pretty dammed special.

Sopas

NOTE: This blog was originally posted to Xanga.com on July 12, 2005, a little more than four years ago. I'm re-posting it here because it's about what I'm cooking tomorrow, in celebration of the first day of the second decade of the new millennium.

Sopas Because sometimes it takes a village to feed a village I sometimes joke that my family's lineage is like a Steinbeck novel (or two Steinbeck novels, actually). You see, my mother's parents drove to California in an old black Ford, strait out of the dustbowl and the pages of "The Grapes of Wrath". A few years earlier, using both legal and, er, 'less than legal' means, my father's great-grandparents arrived from the Azores and found jobs in Monterey, California, on "Cannery Row". Though I think of myself mostly as an 'okie boy', having grown up in the unincorporated 'Okieville' neighborhood of Stockton, California, I also have plenty of childhood memories of my Portuguese heritage , one of which was the attending of my first festa. Festas are held throughout Northern California every year, are sponsored by the local Portuguese Club and Catholic parish, and are a custom leftover from 'the old country'. In the Azores, a group of islands more than nine hundred miles from Portugal, festas were held each year for one very important reason... To ensure that, for one day out of the year, no one in the village went hungry. For poor Azorian villages, feeding all and sundry was probably a very daunting task, and inspired the creation of a dish called "Sopas" (or, as we pronounced it in my family, "soupish"). Sopas relied on one village patron to donate an animal, which was then cooked up in such a fashion as to maximize the number of people that could be fed. Traditional sopas consists of, at a minimum, the most inexpensive cut of beef and a pot of water and spices, all of which are cooked up together (sometimes for days), until a palatable, soup-like mixture is achieved. Trays are then arranged with thick slices of bread topped with mint leaves, upon which the soup-like mixture is then ladled onto before serving. There are a number of common variations to the 'recipe', sometimes in the area of the spices used, sometimes with additional ingredients such as onions, tomatoes, or possibly even cabbage added to the mix. When one arrives at a festa, one is first expected to pay tribute to The Holy Mother and local parish with a donation, paid at a shrine at the festa's entrance (only those who can pay are expected to, and, as a kid being raised in a Baptist church, that shrine was like nothing I'd ever seen before, let me tell you). All are then ushered into a large hall where everyone is fed. In the early days of Portuguese immigration to California's Central Valley, the local Portuguese Clubs would advertise their festas in the local papers, in an effort to continue the tradition of attempting to 'feed the entire village'. I believe this practice has diminished over the years, however, though festas still vary from the most modest of affairs (as described herein) to more elaborate events that host 'bloodless bullfights' and other activities. The history of the festa aside, sopas has become a cherished tradition in our family, one I perpetuated just this past Sunday for a visitor from Alaska. The recipe I cook up these days is a little more elaborate than you'd probably find at a festa (and is mostly the work of my Aunt Pricilla [who is Portuguese] and my mother [who is not], though she cooks like she is (smile)), but its lineage can still be traced back to a poor little village on an Azorean island called "Pico". Here it is, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do: Recipe for Sopas: Assemble in a pot one lean round roast (approx. 2.5 lbs), two sliced yellow onions, the contents of a small jar of pickling spices securely tied up in cheesecloth, two 32oz. cans of crushed tomatoes, a half to a full 32oz can of extra water, a 1.5 liter bottle (or two 750ml bottles) of burgundy, between two to four extra bay leaves, and a dash of cumin. Bring to a boil and then lower flame to a low simmer. Cook for six to eight hours until the meat of the roast falls apart (after around five hours, you can help the 'falling apart process' with a spoon, the final goal being that the meat is as evenly represented throughout as possible). When the pot is ready, take several loaves of fresh baked bread (I used sourdough back in California but, now that I've moved to Illinois, I often use Vienna loaves instead), slice the loaves into pieces that are approximately an inch and a half thick, arrange the pieces of bread in large pans (I use the bottom of broiler pans, though lasagna pans or other large pans should work just fine), place several fresh mint leaves on top of each piece of bread, ladle the soupy meat mixture over the trays of bread and serve (YUM!!!). 2012 addendum: I've been enjoying a healthier version of sopas for several years now, where I've substituted a boneless turkey breast roast (sans skin or extra fat) for the beef roast, up to 64oz of water (versus 16-32oz) and fresh-baked whole-grain loaves for the Vienna or sourdough loaves (on the unhealthy side, I also sometimes add a dash of fresh-ground sea salt to taste). I think it tastes just as good, if not better, and it's definitely lower in fat and higher in whole grains. Enjoy!