Ho-kay. I’ve been diving down rabbit holes all over the place this morning as I try to come to some conclusions about these rather weird substances called “sugar alcohols” or “polyols,” with the most commonly used ones being sorbitol, xylitol, and erythritol. Can you just buy a bag of a powdered polyol and put it in the place of sugar in your pantry and your food? Is that change going to make you into the person of your dreams? Well, sigh, as is so often the case, the answer is no.
I’m not a vegan myself nor do I plan to ever become one, but it’s an interesting challenge to have a vegan guest for dinner. My friend Aubrey had made some vegan chocolate tartlets last year for our church Christmas party and I just about passed out when I ate one of them. Astonishing! I couldn’t believe that it didn’t have any butter or eggs in it. So I set out to reproduce this experience as part of our desserts for my sister-in-law’s birthday dinner on Dec. 30 since a vegan friend of hers was coming, and I found one online that sounded pretty good. The original was also gluten free, but I had no need for that and didn’t want to buy tapioca starch and sweet rice flour. I can’t stand being told that I need some specialty ingredient but only a small amount! The original called for only two tablespoons of the tapioca flour, so I’d be buying a whole bag that would then sit on my pantry shelf. But one item that the recipe does call for and which you should always have on hand is tahini, that is, sesame-seed paste. I’ve bought high-end tahini through the mail (and paid a pretty high-end price), but actually I like the stuff you can find at the grocery store just fine. Tahini and chocolate are an inspired combination.
I spent some time in my previous post talking about what it really means to respect food and its role in our lives. The topic of respect for people is much broader and somewhat beyond the scope of this blog, but since I plan to work on the concept for the year I’ll make a stab at it. Here are some brief thoughts:
For the main dish at the Cherry Creek Chorale’s Saturday-morning rehearsal breakfast, I’m making my old reliable Union Square Breakfast Casserole. I didn’t make enough of my Caramel-Apple French Toast casseroles last time; I think for this event I’ll make a six-fold batch. But . . . I have some nice ham on hand that I need to use up, so I’m just going to dice that up and use it instead of the Italian sausage called for, and I’m going to make 1/3 (so two panfuls) without the ham so it can be vegetarian/kosher. I won’t have to brown sausage, which is a whole step in the recipe. [Also, later update: I didn’t do the fresh mushrooms, nor did I cube the bread. The casseroles were pretty thrown together, but they tasted great.] You do need to follow the recipe for the egg/milk proportions and for the basic amount of bread, but beyond that you can do pretty much what you want. Which I did!
Well, this past Friday, Nov. 1, was supposed to be an encouraging day because I had scheduled an A1C re-test, using the second kit in the two-pack that my in-laws gave me for my birthday back in March. (As I’ve said before, the A1C test measures what percentage of your hemoglobin cells have glucose molecules stuck to them, and since those cells live for only three months your results are seen as a three-month view of your blood sugar rather than the one-time reading you get from a simple glucose monitor.) That March test had registered as a 5.3, which was super, super great–but I wasn’t completely sure that it was accurate. Although the brand I had (from Walgreen’s) is pretty well rated, I just didn’t think I could possibly have a score that low. There’s been one time that I hit 5.7, which is the threshold for what is called “pre-diabetes,” the yellow warning zone that comes before the red alert of 6.5 of higher. Once you hit 6.5 you’re considered to have full-blown diabetes. I’ve usually hovered in that 6.0-6.4 range, and as far as I know I’ve never hit 6.5 My doctor told me at one point that he didn’t think I would ever topple over into full-blown diabetes, and I sure hope he’s right.
This morning on the “Happier” podcast Gretchen Rubin gave a truly shocking statistic:
“Research suggests that Americans consume an astonishing 30% of their daily calories in the evening, after 8:00 p.m., and as the day wears on, we tend to choose increasingly unhealthy options.” (from the show notes for the 10/23/19 episode)
There’s some controversy about whether or not this evening snacking causes actual weight gain in and of itself; in other words, are calories consumed in the evening more likely to be stored as fat than those consumed during the day? According to Healthline, which I’ve found to be a pretty good online resource: “You won’t gain weight by merely eating later if you eat within your daily calorie needs. Still, studies show that nighttime eaters typically make poorer food choices and eat more calories, which can lead to weight gain.” As Gretch and Liz say in the podcast, you aren’t going to be eating celery sticks or scrambled eggs at 10:00 PM; you’ll be eating junk/snack/convenience food. (Liz mentions Cheez-Its.) Of course, one way to keep yourself from eating junk food at 10:00 PM is to not have the junk food in the house.
There have been quite a few temptations around here lately, especially the leftover lemon bars from the wedding. I love lemon bars! I’ve kept them in the upstairs garage freezer, but they’re still there. I’ve eaten some that were still frozen, and they’re not even very good that way. My brownies have only four grams of sugar in them, and I’m not all that into the butterscotch ones so their sugar content isn’t too relevant to me, but the lemon bars are 12-13 grams per tiny little tart. That’s not too bad, but only if I eat just one. Which is pretty well impossible.
I’ve decided that I will be making two pies a year from now on, the Brandied Butternut Squash Pie from the peerless Melissa Clark that I made for Thanksgiving last year and this apple pie for July 4th. (I don’t think pies count as “massive.”) While I’ve made apple pies in the past, and I liked them okay, there were problems:
1. The apples always seemed to be partly raw.
2. The crust tended to be soggy on the bottom.
But in spite of these drawbacks I wanted to make an apple pie sometime during the July 4th weekend. This desire was mainly fired by a Sally’s Baking Addiction post in which she demonstrated how
As I’ve been working on the chapter on bread in my planned forthcoming cookbook (when it will come forth is very much an open question), I got inspired to make a bread-machine loaf, something I don’t usually do. My breadmaking usually falls into much more controllable territory–rolls, pizza dough, breadsticks, and overnight bread baked as a round. I don’t have to worry about whether or not rolls are going to cave in, as they are baked outside of the machine. I can eyeball how far they’ve risen and adjust accordingly. But a big loaf is inherently much more unstable, and you can’t tweak the machine’s cycle after it has started. Here it is, though. I was reminded of a passage from Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins, in which the orphan Rose is raised by her Uncle Alec. She takes housekeeping lessons from one of her aunts as a part of her education, and here’s how her baking lessons come out:
What’m I making for this Friday, the last post-concert reception for the year? I’m so glad you asked! We have a very spring-y theme: “April Showers Bring May Flowers,” and I’m so excited about making adorable little cupcakes plus some savory cookies. The sweet items will be very small, made in my mini-cupcake tins (of which I have six). I’m not going to worry too much about the sugar content of anything, and I do plan to sample some. They are going to be so cute! And people love my Cheddar cookies. I will have a visual and textural contrast to those with some pepper-Parmesan biscotti, an item I’ve made before that went over well.