How and Why I Started Cooking for Myself

I know for a lot of people, cooking can simply be a pain, even if it’s better or healthier for you. Most will simply say they just don’t have the time, especially the average college student who may also have a part-time job (see Ramen box below).

Of course since the economic downturn was officially acknowledge, back in 2008, the NYTimes did report that about 60 percent of Americans surveyed in July by Mintel International, a market research firm, said they were cooking more often and dining out less frequently.

Before the economic downturn, according to Science Daily in 2007, a journalistic site that reports on the latest research news, Americans had reported that they ate out approximately five times a week in 2006.

In the NYTimes article I just mentioned, the Times profiled Sandy and Chris Dawes; Sandy was a new lawyer and Chris was studying for his Ph.D. Before rising gas prices and student loans and car payments zapping their budget, they also ate out approximately four times week.

“We needed to cut back, and that was the easiest thing to cut,” said Ms. Dawes, who lives in Cardiff by the Sea, Calif. “It takes a little more motivation to cook at home — more planning, keeping the refrigerator full to be ready to cook dinner — but it doesn’t take more time than going out to dinner.”

Science Daily listed the researches findings as to why people ate out:

Ease, convenience and cost were among the top reasons respondents ordered value/combo meals at fast-food restaurants.

I would think about if all that applies to you. I would say it really did and at times even now applies to me. When my friends and I finally moved into large dorms with spacious, up-to-date kitchens, we were all excited to cook, especially as girls who mentioned how we wanted to look this way or that way. I was cooking, but my parents still wanted me to “use the school” and go to the dining hall–which gave way-too-large portions, tasted bland, and somewhere you might end up wasting hours in chatting it up when you had a paper due.

I didn’t have the budget to keep it up and so my cooking was sporadic. I definitely began cooking in my off-campus apartment seriously after when going to a certain pizza place on Huntington for chicken Cesar salads, I would sometimes get the wrong dressing, or have the dressing already put onto my salad, encouraging it to become soggy or there wasn’t enough dressing on it at all. One time I had to come back between classes because I just couldn’t eat my Cesar salad with this strange vinaigrette, and since an older gentleman was in at this time rather than the young employee I dealt with, he tried to charge me 60 cents for a spoonful of dressing.

Now that probably doesn’t seem like much, but I’d already paid. I had to go and retrieve my salad to show him I’d been there earlier. The younger guy backed me and the older gentleman felt a little embarrassed when I’d kept my promise and returned with my proof and apologized. Incident 1.

The second time, at this said establishment, I had gotten a salad with the dressing already put on it (this seemed to be dependent upon who made the salad) and there was so little it was basically dry. I came back this time, salad in hand, next day, speaking to the older guy again who had been the one to ring me up just the afternoon before. Yes, he remembered me, but he said quote, “Yeah you got that salad, but that was yesterday. 2 dollars.”

For a spoonful of dressing? And last time I thought it was 60 cents? Again, I was indignant. I told him but I’d paid and I hadn’t really had any dressing, but then I stopped myself, said thank you I understood and left. I left thinking, ‘You know what, I can MAKE this, what the heck!’

And I have ever since and have not been back since. I’ve applied that same logic to a majority of the stuff I found myself buying that I could make myself. A friend of mine who asked me what I’d been eating as I’d lost weight, I explain to her that it was Cesar salads and described to her how to make it. Next time I visited her, she was making her own with egg. I inwardly smiled.

Chicken Cesar Salad

First, you simply need a head of lettuce. It is about a dollar, $1.50 tops from Shaw’s. I personally like to tear off the leaves rather than cut it.

Before that of course, you should have defrosted your chicken breast. I simply let it sit in my fridge overnight, as it is healthier to defrost that way then have it sit in heat or be blasted in the microwave. If you forget, just let the pack sit in cool water. It defrosts quickly.

I personally season it with Goya’s Adobo All Purpose Seasoning (Fish, Beef, Chicken, and Pork) as recommended by my mother. It’s available in the “World foods” or whatever section.  Again, season it how you wish, you don’t need much.

I previously bought a grilling pan just so I could do my own grilling–Foreman grills work too.

Chop it up.

I personally use this cheese on my salad, which I simply tear up to toss on the salad, along with some of that previously cut up chicken:

Next add some croutons and drizzle on your Cesar dressing:

I like sauces/dressings etc, so perhaps I put on too much, but the suggested amount should work and is not much calories. I use Kraft’s Cesar salad:

Bon appetit!

-Lucia

P.S. I had this for dessert! Yes, I made my own sundae. Do.Not.Recommend!

Reversing the Downward Spiral

Okay, so the last post, I wrote basically all of that Thursday. I edited it slightly and posted it tonight with Friday’s food conclusion.

It’s getting tough to eat right, even for someone like me trying to prove there is and should be time to do it.

I think the major reasons behind why last week got so bad was the following:

1. Not Buying Groceries: I did not buy groceries when I ran out of my own food right away (and haven’t sufficiently grocery shopped yet)

Consequently: I’ve had to rely on buying outside foods which becomes a “nutrition mystery”

2. Not Making Time to Eat: You have to make time for your meals in the same way you make time for work.

Consequently: I’m missing breakfast and taking dinners at random hours, and many times end up eating two heavy meals in a row because I’m ravenous–and all I’m doing is sitting at my desk for the next 4 hours. Guess what happens to that? It becomes stored as fat.

3. Eating Whatever Is Offered: I like to give away food, especially when I can’t finish it or I enjoy cooking for people and my friends like to do the same.

Consequently: I end up eating too many extra snacks and as your mother always told you–“ruining my dinner”

But I can’t blame myself. I got caught in a quick downpour on my way home tonight from club duties, arriving at a little after 9;30PM. It’s begun to rain again and it’s kind of comforting as I write this. I’ve been feeling pretty tired and wasn’t sure if I could write all the things I want to say sufficiently and still get to my other work. I have two exams coming up on Wednesday.

I must say, I’ve found an immense amount of serendipitous material for this blog through just discussing it with friends or mentioning how I need to “detox,” code for getting back into eating right. I’ve found that many people are like, “Oh me too!” or simply just ask about what I’m doing to do it, some foods to try, etc. They’re pretty much my friends generally, but it’s nice and I feel encouraged that I’m not a nut and people think about this too–both men and women.

I’m actually in my pursuit to “reverse the downward spiral” of my food life and working with helping a few of my friends to do the same. I’ve neurotically said to them in my conversations, “This is so going in my health blog” so hopefully they won’t be surprised (or want to claw my eyes out) if I mention them by their first names and future posts.

I was itching to run last week, this week, not-so-much. I must congratulate myself on one achievement however, last Saturday I went to cook a group of my guy friends–Ryan, his friend Malcolm (now mine), and Juan–dinner somewhat accidentally. I ended up buying groceries for beef stew and lemon squares (which I didn’t get to) all for about $22 dollars. I was able to buy fresh potatoes, cubed beef, a bell pepper, an onion, and since there was no fresh carrots or string beans to be had without getting an unnecessary amount, I bought two little cans of unsalted, pre-cut carrots and one can of unsalted string beans.

I called my Mom for some tips on how to make Beef Stew how she makes it (not generally the American recipe as you know it). It was a bit nerve wracking to be cooking out a recipe I was trying out for the first time for other people:

1 Bell Pepper (chopped)

1 Onion (chopped)

Note: Chop as much as you need. I did not use all of the onion or pepper.

• Saute the chopped onions and peppers in a somewhat deeper frying pan

Tip: If you don’t want to deal with the transferring later, or the pan isn’t really deep, simply use a pot

1 pack of cubed beef

• Season it how you wish; I would normally use a light amount of Adobe Seasoning. Yes, it contains salt, but it also contains . I ended up using my friend Ryan’s Southern Seasoning.

Tip: Season it well the first time. I think I’m always nervous about overseasoning the meat, but you only will end up trying to add spice later or for some, salt, which is worse. My tastes are more bland than mosts however.

• Add it to the sauteing peppers and onions to help build the flavor
• Slowly add water after the vegetables have slightly browned and the beef looks mostly cooked (cook your meat how you like it; Juan and Ryan prefer medium rare for instance)

• I don’t have a specific amount of cups to add; I felt like I needed more water later as there was so much meat and vegetables so “guestimate” to whatever you see as fit.

I next transferred the beef and onions into a pot to add the carrots and string beans and allowing to slowly come to boil.

• Almost forgot, add about a spoonful of tomato paste for color

3 Potatoes (I only used 2 if I remember)

• I almost forgot the potatoes, but it was easy enough to skin and chopped them, and add them to the pot after lowering the heat. They don’t take as long to boil to softness as a whole potato just as a point of reference.

As a side dish, I just decided to buy a little eight count can of Pillsbury Biscuits. They ended up being delish.

• I added butter to my biscuit, but Ryan suggested honey, which I’ve used before, which is a healthier–and maybe yummier–alternative. Anyway, this is what the finished meal looked like:

I think it was all fairly simple, event being done mostly from scratch. The guys liked it and so did I. I also felt a little better about my week and knew exactly what I was eating.

Chow,

-Lucia

I Totally Dropped the Ball Last Week

Let’s go through Lucia’s eating schedule last week–which was supposed to be my detox week:

Monday:

Au Bon Pain Bread Bowl (Cheese and Broccoli soup)

Calories: Unknown

Pad Thai from Pho & i

Calories: Unknown

Whole Food’s Mini Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake

Calories: Unknown

Tuesday:

Homemade Chicken Caesar Salad, 3 Mini White Fudge Chewy Cookies from Chips Ahoy, 1 Pack of Toy Story Fruit Snacks

Calories of Cookies and Fruit Snacks: 240

1 Slice of Whole Food’s Feta White Pizza

Calories: Unknown

50 cent Bag of Candy Corn

Calories: Unknown

Wednesday:

Chicken Quesadilla, Slice of Flat Bread Cheese Pizza, Cream tea at International Village Dining Hall

Calories: Unknown

Homemade Kielbasa Mashed Potatoes dish

Calories: Unknown

JP Licks Sundae

Calories: Unknown

Thursday:

Homemade Chicken Caesar Salad

Calories: Unknown

Snickers Bar

Calories: About 271

Cream Tea at function and piece of cake

Calories: Unknown

Soul Food at AAI Open House

Calories: Unknown

As you can see, I snowballed  a bit this week. My most shameful day was Thursday, and I 9PM I wasn’t done eating yet; I had the following:

A Burger King Small Fries, Hamburger, and Small Vanilla Milk Shake (But I had about 6 sips of that)

Calories: About 770 Calories

Basically, I have no idea about how much of what is going into my body and I totally dropped the ball this week. I haven’t run in let’s say…2 weeks, going on 3? So basically I am taking in way more calories than I am burning.

Not to forget Friday:

Carnation Drinkable Breakfast (Vanilla)

Calories: 250

Homemade chicken caesar salad

Calories: Unknown

Indian food (Chapati, Lamb Korma, Mango Laisse)

Calories: Unknown

The funny things is, I’ve been trying to find a sensible source on the internet, such as WebMD or the Women’s Health magazine website, for what the average woman in her 20s or person in general should be taking in calorie-wise and it’s proven nearly impossible. So where can the average person find out this information? Are we resigned to our once a year doctor’s visits? I’ll have more on this later.

Moving back on topic, have you ever noticed that when you fall off the wagon in the slightest, it suddenly feels like you’ve tumbled down a cliff? It’s so hard to go back into healthy eating once you’ve started throwing back those cafe lattes and hamburgers. Now when you even pass those places or smell those aromas, you suddenly find yourself wandering over to the nearest Starbucks or McDonald’s without a second thought.

From past experience, it’s going to take me a week minimum to detox myself off of this stuff. I’m so happy that I’ve been absolutely itching to run. The worse wagon to fall off of is a habitual exercising schedule. Food is more of a mental battle and obviously exercise is the physical battle to staying healthy. Maybe for some of us it is easy enough to pass on a bag of chips, but to get up at 7AM and run the Fens can seem like a nightmare.

What’s probably surprising to some that have seen me lately is the fact that I have apparently lost weight and seem pretty fit. I did. I was running probably 5-8 miles a week preparing for soccer. I was addicted to chicken caesar salads I made myself (and I’ll explain how I got into cooking for myself). I lost about 10 pounds. One thing I will say is that if you have done some kind of physical activity in your life before, it is much easier to get back into shape. And if you were a competitive athlete, it’s much easier to find that discipline to get up and go run on your own. I really need to find mine.

Chow,

-Lucia

Why This Blog, Why This Topic

So I am writing this blog essentially for my online journalism class. I’ll be writing on it, for what is supposed to be everyday, for the minimum of a semester.

But I really enjoy health in general. Before I became a journalism/ English double major with a tag-a-long French minor, I was doing biochemistry. I really loved was I was doing. I thought at first I’d be a cancer research scientist, but by the time I was taking the level 1 and 2 biology courses I realized at the end of the day the human body fascinated me–how we worked, how we became sick, what essentially could make us well and keep us that way.

I was most interested in epidemiology at that point and thought I’d become an epidemiologist who was destined to fight the parasite problem back home in West Africa (my family is Sierra Leonean) after one particularly interesting video we watched in my bio lab. Long story short, that’s not what I’m studying now but I still love to read about it. If anything, I can always return to science and medicine in graduate school or in my career.

Personally, I also enjoy exercise and sports. I feel lucky that my parents got us into activities early on and were active with us, walking and running at the park or playing soccer, tennis, badminton, basketball, ballet and tap. My brother was in martial arts, something I joined in on later in my life (sparring frightened me at the time). Of course, you also probably end up liking most what you’re good at and I’m good at sports. I don’t play competitively right now and so I exercise for me, not in preparation for any season.

I’m also a picky eater. My siblings know I infamously hated most things people loved, and still dislike some of them: cheese, macaroni and cheese, yogurt, milk, apple juice, orange juice, bacon, BBQ sauce, etc. Some of it I simply disliked because it made me sick, and it wasn’t until I was older that I knew that I needed average amount of any dairy product and any excess made me sick. I was odd and loved things like carrots, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli.

When my mother and father were both diagnosed or at risk for high blood pressure that gave me further incentive to watch what I ate. Salt was no longer in our dishes and some highly salted meats went out as well. And everything still tasted fantastic. I find it baffling now the knee-jerk reaction to add salt to anything when there’s so many other kinds of seasonings available to create a great tasting, not-drab-at-all, and healthy dish.

I’ve also seen some people in my life affected by diabetes and I’ve felt coffee give me an instant headache and my mother felt palpitations from cappuccino. I’ve never been a fan of coffee and prefer tea. I apparently at an early age came home declaring to my mother that caffeine was a drug and no one should be eating it in our house after learning about addictive additives in elementary school.

I’ve learned to know my body really can’t tolerate high-processed foods or high in sugar or salt content foods either. My family doesn’t drink soda and lives for a bottle of water. I know even if I eat badly for too long, I literally can just feel terrible for days. So all in all, I’ve paid attention to my body and what goes into it either by force or by preference.

If you hate going to the gym, I’d say start small; walk and see how you feel afterward. Boston is a walkable city, so even if you’ve strolled to the Fens and back, consider how you feel. I was lucky that even when I couldn’t do much as I explained in my first entry, I still had the luxury of being able to walk where I needed to go because I am in Boston.

If you detest leafy greens or water is just “too tasteless” I’d say give it a week. A friend of mine named Evelyn actually stopped to speak to me and another friend in Centennial Common (a quad at my school) and tell us how she dropped soda and juice a few months ago and she feels great.

None of this is impossible.

Chow,

-Lucia

Hello World

I’m happy to finally make the time to write something. For my first post, I guess there isn’t much to say. I’ll explain why I chose to blog about this topic–health and food.

I know most people are extremely busy out there, especially the average college student who may only simply be enrolled in classes. I myself am overloading with 5 courses this semester, have a part-time, unpaid internship, am advertising manager for a student organization, write for my school paper, am an editor for a growing online campus fashion magazine, and still have to make time to eat, sleep, exercise, and breath.

Last fall, I did yoga. I had actually kept up with my New Year’s committment to begin exercising more in January 2008, but because of years of soccer finally catching up with me, I was having problems with one knee, then the other, and couldn’t run, let alone go up and down the stairs quickly.

I took a few months worth of physical therapy and went on co-op in the late summer. By then, unable to exercise, I found myself also sitting most of the time at home or in a newsroom for my co-op part-time jobs. I ended up screwing up my back as well.

This first post may sound like a bit of a downer–or a huge complaint–but I’m actually prety happy and pretty grateful. The therapists were all very kind and considerate and I quickly realized even if I wanted to escape the required workouts they gave me, my body wasn’t going let me get away with it, as I would regress or my progress with stagnate.

I really started to pay attention to my body. I felt accomplished when I simply biked for ten minutes, or moved on to leg presses, and then started to walk and lightly jog for a short period of time.

Yoga made me really trust my body again–especially my knees. Besides that fact that your instructor can ask you to try out some pretty daring maneuvers and you feel like you just climbed Mt. Everest if you can actually do one, all in all it was equal parts building my strength and clearing my mind.

The back came after all that, but in short, I was lucky a lot of that was during the summer; you’re taking two classes tops and are off on Fridays. I was on co-op during the fall and you do have a lot of down time. Though I was SGA Rep. for another organization at the time–and running from yoga to an e-board meeting did make me the butt of a few jokes–it was more feasible to keep up with it all.

I’m doing way more this semester and admit I’ve slipped. I can feel my body regressing and especially after not making club soccer–which seems like it was for the best, truly–I’ve declared it’s “eat-whatever-you-feel-like-week.”

But that was last week, it’s a Monday night and I have to finish a paper, but I’m also going to hopefully return to taking care of me.

Chow (ciao)

-Lucia

P.S. If you couldn’t tell, I like plays on words