Midnight stomach pain

We’re back!!!, as we said. Most exactly, I’m back. Sorry if by any case you were expecting to read about me in the last two months…The only important thing is that I’m here again. The fact that I didn’t write doesn’t mean that I didn’t follow the last two diets….(ooops! I have to say that the scratch month didn’t go so well since I got operated from my tooth  – finally!- so I didn’t have that much energy to cook. During 2 weeks my only food was plain yogurth -of course not homemade- and other liquid/colloidal stuff that people gave me). Then we had exams, but now, I’m fully charged again!. I have to say theat I was losing motivation, may be it was the “post-exam” stress, or the third year pressure, but the girls, and I have to say “myself”, brought me up. 

From this month, I have to say, it has been 7 days, from which I’ve done just 3 exceptions, but I realized how our brain can condition us and that dieting effects have a very psicological impact. Why?. Because I was already used to eat early (OK, not that early, but also not late), and with this diet, I think I’m starving late in the night and when I wake up in the morning, and my  gastritis pain became so strong!. But I guess is something that my mind can control and will go away by the time I get used to it. Let’s see the positive aspects: my belly will get flatter, I guess;  I wanna clear that IT IS NOT MY GOAL THIS MONTH (altough it wouldn’t be bad; at least, that is what many food and fitness websites say – http://www.eatingwell.com/nutrition_health/nutrition_news_information/3_reasons_to_eat_dinner_early?page=2 – but actually I couldn’t find any scientific research about it, so let’s see if it’s true), but summer is coming, so it’s time to get ready for the bikini challenge!, I hope I’ll digest better and feel lighter. Let’s wait a few days more….

Changing subject, today I had a conversation with some classmates about the influence of blogs and social media on people’s minds. That conversation started because I was talking about” the diexploration” project, and I have to say that we love the fact that people is following us, but this is very subjective; of course, you are free to take in consideration what you think is useful, but this is about the way we feel and may be we can help somebody…We are glad with people’s critics, cause that actually makes us stronger, but personally, I’m feeling so well doing this and it is normal that sometimes my body and/or my mood can be up or down, since I’m concious that changing eating habits every month is not so good for our bodies.

Thanks for all the comments and I’ll tell you soon how my belly  is going!!!

 

***Maria José***

my new food family.

I’ve realized this morning that my whole breakfast consisted of 100% homemade food, until the very last crumble. thin slices of rye bread covered with creamy rosemary butter, a bowl of yoghurt with a slight acidity, mixed with pieces of orange and crunchy seeds (okay, those last ones are not homemade, but it’s a bit difficult to grow pumpkins and sunflowers on my balcony, release them from their seeds and wait an eternity to let them dry. forgive me.) I know that this month, e-ver-y-thing should be homemade, but I discovered that this is a straightway utopia. between classes, meetings, readings, cleaning, grocery shopping, sleeping, showering and a bit socializing, it is very difficult to provide all the food that you eat in a day from scratch. so I personally decided to turn this month into my personal experiment in order to produce as much as possible. here’s what you can find on my scratch-pantry until now:

• yogurt. I’m convinced that I won’t ever buy conventional yogurt again. It’s really fun to make, the flavor and consistency are perfect for my personal preferences and it literally only contains milk. no additives, no coagulants, no strange words that start with an E and end in a series of numbers. moreover, I know where my milk comes from. well, that is to say, I buy only the biological fresh pasteurized milk coming from the valley of cuneo. my quest for raw, local milk straight from the farmer is still going on, I’ll let you know when this piece of paradise opens up for me. 
• butter. clearly I’m into diary products, because also home-made butter ranks the top list. it has a consistency and texture that you can’t find in italian butters, and you can add any flavor that you want (until now: smoked salt, garlic and pepper, hot red pepper. up-coming: provencal herbs, onion, cinnamon). it takes around 10 min to produce a cute and delicious square of butter, and I can guarantee you that the smile on the face of your friends when you come around with a little confection of home-made butter is priceless.
• mozzarella. experiment done yesterday evening. failure. don’t want to take about it.
• rye bread. the carbohydrate world has always fascinated me (maybe because it’s the dark side, I don’t know), and bread represents the biggest continent. rye flour has been my alien enemy, but that battle finished yesterday evening. the oven gave birth to a beautiful, crunchy, chewy baby. both of her parents destroyed it in seconds.
• sourdough. well, that baby is still growing in the belly. It encountered some difficulties in the beginning, but I hope its on the right way now. I’m keeping a pregnancy diary, and I will publish it as soon as it’s used successfully.
• mustard. lemon-coriander mustard to be specific. I like this spicy, curious, tingling cream that adds a miraculous taste to every sandwich every invented. so I wanted to make my own. and I ended up with a huge batch of something that looks like mustard, smells like mustard, but is just not really want I’d imagined. improvement needed.
• vitamin C. this is still a work-in-progress. winter kicked ass in Bra and the weather now is very unstable (yesterday morning is was snowing as we where in Canada, followed by some hours of summer sunshine and talking walks in your t-shirt). so some vitamin C would be really welcome to help our immunity system. but most supplements that you can buy are made from gmo corn. and let that be just one thing I don’t want in my body. so I’ll make it myself. just save all your peels of oranges and lemons, cut them in thin strips and let dry. for consumption, make a tea of them or grind them into powder and mix with your fruit juice or yogurt. one teaspoon gives your more organic vitamin c, bioflavonoids, rutin and hesperidin than your body needs. and it contains enzymes that allow the vitamin to be 100% assimilated into your body. tss, who still wants those supplements?
• sprouts. seeds in water in a jar in a pantry. drain and wash and bath them every day, 5 days in a row. they start sprouting and turn green. mix with salad, yogurt, dressing, pasta. easy, tasty and homemade. currently on the menu: alfalfa, mustard seeds and fieno greco.

so I confess that I still eat pre-made stuff (those baci di dama in the vending machine are sometimes just really irresistible. and I don’t want to talk about focaccia), but most breakfasts and lunches are 100% made from scratch. I’m happy that this month brought me to finally start all these homemade-food-projects, and I’m convinced that more people should do this. it brings you closer to your food, its origins and production and it’s a whole lot of fun when making it together with your friends or family. but the satisfaction when you sit down at the table, eating your own food, is the real deal.

Tine.

belgian vs butter: 1-0

“if you’re afraid of butter, use cream.” – julia child.

this month couldn’t pass by without making my own butter. as probably everyone knows (and I’m sure my friends in the university make jokes behind my back for it), belgians eat butter. everywhere and always. it’s an indisputable fact that butter makes every dish just that little bit better. whenever you say that something taste delicious and heavenly, you can be sure there’s butter inside. there’s just one little detail: as good as italians are in making pizza, pasta, risotto and ice-cream, they just can’t make decent butter. I’m sorry guys, but that’s just the truth.

yesterday evening my dear swiss friend This invited me for a sandwich-beer-icecream-film night. being settled down in the couch with a plate full of crunchy and creamy gorgonzola-pear-rucola sandwiches and a one-kilo-box of icecream with 2 spoons in it (just for the record: hazelnut & cream), the title of ‘Julie & Julia’ appeared on the screen. anyway, I’m telling you this because this movie is the reason why I decided that the day had arrived to make my own home-made butter from scratch. the references in the movie about butter are countless, hilarious and irrefutably true. also, I fell in love with julia child. a woman who’s life-motto is “butter never hurts you”, is a woman to my heart. so I started looking for recipes and I bumped into this really easy and quick method. the only things you need are a electric mixer, a bowl and some cream with 35% butterfat content (more is preferable, less is absolutely forbidden).

• pour the cream into the bowl, set the electric mixer on medium, and blend.
• the cream will go through some phases: it will start as fluffy whipped cream, then form stiff peaks, followed by soft cottage-cheese-like curds. when the butter starts to stiffen and the watery milk gathers in the bottom of the bowl, the mixing time is over.
• pour of as much milk as possible and refrigerate it. this liquid can be used as buttermilk.
• press the butter with a spatula to squeeze out as much liquid as possible.
• add some ice water and use the spatula to press the butter and the water against the side of the bowl; pour of the cloudy liquid.
• repeat this step 3-4 times until the liquid is less cloudy. this step, called ‘washing’ prevents the butter from going rancid.
• continue kneading the butter until all the liquid has been pressed out.
• if wanted (and I strongly recommend this): add sea salt and knead. actually, you can add any flavor you want: rosemary, hot pepper, shallot,…
• wrap the butter in parchment, followed by plastic wrap or foil.
• refrigerate up to 1 week.

and this is the result. “Bon Appétit!”

the life of yogurt

making my own yogurt from scratch has been on my to-do list for a long time. it never happened as I was convinced that I needed to buy one of those expensive and highly technological machines in order to transform creamy, whole milk into a delicious and healthy breakfast. so having to deal with a student-budget (and with the laziness of having to actually go to the shop and adding that thing to my collection of useless kitchen stuff), the home-made yogurt remained an unachievable dream. with this month’s diet, I decided to follow the quote that is written on my favorite blankets and to make my dreams comes true. I would make yogurt from scratch. so after some research on the internet and asking around to my made-from-scratch obsessed university friends, it became clear to me how stupid and blind I’ve been. you don’t need a machine to make yogurt, you don’t even need technology! there are many simple and creative ways to put a bowl full of creamy white goodness on your breakfast table, and I decided to try out some of them. at the end I’ll make an evaluation of the different methods and rank them in order of organoleptic qualities.

so yesterday evening I started my first experiment: to make yogurt with a thermos.

here’s what you need to do:

• boil 0,5l of whole milk.
• reduce the heat and let simmer for 2 minutes. turn of the heat.
• let the milk cool down until 41-42°C. If you don’t have one of those fancy kitchen thermometers, here’s a little trick: put your finger into the warm milk (don’t touch the bottom – risk of burning!). the temperature is right when you can leave your finger 10 seconds in the milk without problems.
• remove the formed coating on the surface.
• dissolve 1 spoon of natural yogurt (with living lactic ferments) in a separate bowl with some spoons of the warm milk.
• add the remaining milk and mix good.
• pour everything in the thermos and close.
• wait 8 hours.
• open the thermos and pour the yogurt in a container.
• cover with plastic foil and put in the fridge.

when I came back from university this afternoon, the first thing I did (with my jacket still on and my scarf around my neck) was opening the fridge and grabbing my little jar. full of hope and excitement, I opened my secret treasure and there it was. the smell, taste and consistency of fresh, home-made yogurt is incredible. but the satisfaction is the real cherry on top. first experiment accomplished.

food & face masks.

the last week has been very busy, ’cause a party needed to be organized. and I know this is not an excuse, but I have to confess that the first week of the new diet didn’t go as it was supposed to. I had a lot of on-the-road lunches, snacks to fill my grumpy stomach and the nights were filled with the meeting-and-dinner combination. so I haven’t been making food from scratch (excepts some vegetable-based dishes and a few loaves of bread) and I accepted lots of food made by friends, but the next 3 weeks will be all around our diet goals. except for my week full of guilty eating habits, there was one thing that we made from scratch. facemasks. the night before the party, we organized a girl’s night, the full deal: nails, dresses, hair, food that girls can’t eat with men around, shoes, and of course facemasks. as my dear friend hannah prefers to avoid every unnecessary chemical in her life, she decided that it would be good to make our own mixtures and creams with healthy products. so she did some research and made us a list of all the stuff that we would put on our faces that night in order to make them soft and look as pretty as possible.

the girl’s night program:

• wash with warm water.
• scrub of sugar, lemon juice and coffee powder.
• steam with lemon peel, thyme and lavender for pore opening goodness.
• mask °1 of milk and gelatin. leave on your face until dry and peel it of.
• mask °2 of coffee powder, cocoa powder, yogurt and honey. smells delicious.
• warm lemon water rinse.
• moisturize.
• mask °3 with egg white, yogurt and honey.
• warm water rinse clean, followed by cool water to close pores.
• pat dry.

so although the food plan was not fulfilled this week, this night was all about applying our food bedevilment to other goals. with the little advantage of also fitting in our march diet. the result? fabulous. soft skins, slightly brightened, just amazing.

the plan for this week is to focus entirely on carbohydrate food. winter is coming to its end, so these are the last days in which we can use the season-excuse for eating delicious but oh-so-bad-for-your-morning-mood-when-getting-on-the-scale carbs. bread, pasta, cakes, cookies: get ready.

Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it…

unless of course we are talking about class a drugs, jumping in front of a moving train or any act that will almost certainly result in your death.don’t take drugs kids and stay in school.

anyway onto the subject of food, which is of course is what this blog is about.

my cravings for chocolate and not so much garlic were fulfilled. for Tine’s welcome-back-from-south-africa-you-lucky-lady dinner I made some garlic choc chip cookies. they were better than expected. a lot better. the first bite was taken tentatively and then at least 4 large cookies were consumed per person in less than 20 minutes. what did they taste like? well, why don’t you try making them and then you will know… ha! I’m being serious, the recipe is here. let us know how they turn out.

just to give you some encouragement it wasn’t just us three diexplorers who appreciated the garlicy sweet cookies. I left some on the side for my flatmates and woke up the next morning to find a third gone. I then had a few for breakfast and the last one went to my lovely flatmate Maham who also received a large share of garlic chocolate cookie love.

I just realised that the cookie making was the first time in a long while that I have used garlic in cooking. I am so used to eating it raw almost as if I am taking my daily meds that I haven’t wanted to cook with it this past month.

o another thing which I discovered a few days ago but did not think it was worth a post all to itself is that if you add a sprinkling of tumeric onto the chopped garlic and olive oil concotion then you do not smell of garlic at all! just a little bit of tumeric but this smell is easier to get rid of than garlic and is gone within a few minutes. I figured this out as I had heard that tumeric is good for colds and feeling a cold coming on I thought why not add it- and it worked. after one day of feeling ‘cold-like symptoms’, by the next afternoon the symptoms were more or less gone -three garlic cloves and a dusting of tumeric later. maybe this was a placebo effect and it was all in my mind.

actually maybe this whole month that I have been taking garlic and feeling a positive change in my well being, has been part placebo effect in the sense that I know raw garlic is good for you, so I  automatically feel healthier and think my body functions better. I think this is a half truth. there are small changes which I have felt in my body which I am 100% sure are due to the garlic. for example I know too much wheat is not good for me, after a few days of eating too much I feel sluggish, my knees start to hurt and I get small rashes on my arms, but after taking garlic I feel that my resistance has increased and I can consume more bread and pasta without the negative effects. up to a certain point.

the month is drawing to a close but I think  that I will continue to eat one garlic clove a day even after the 28th of february. I feel good on it, whether it is all in my mind or not. I feel good.

don’t take drugs kids, stay in school and eat garlic.

Zachi

Garlic and chocolate…?

oh happy days!! the garlic and olive oil combo is working…sort of. as opposed to being told I smelt of garlic after my morning dose, today I was told that I had a faint garlic aroma…not bad breath garlic, just a garlic aroma. no hint of Allium sativum would have been preferable, but this smell thing is a work in progress.

 

something I forgot about when we started this month’s diet, but remembered today during my very productive daily day dreaming session during sociology, was that I was interested to see if garlic would have an effect on my PMS ( premenstrual syndrome). for example I wondered if I would have less cramps, be less bitchy etc. so far no change which is not so much a surprise as I have never heard of garlic having an effect on hormones, but you never know right?

this train of thought then led me onto my next sub-challenge within this month of garlic (1st challenge is the odor omission). I want to try to make the best tasting garlic dessert. I am craving chocolate so much right now and am getting slightly bored with cooking at the moment so am looking for the perfect garlic and preferably chocolate recipe. has it ever been done in the history of man? most certainly yes. in the history of bra (yes, this is the name of the town where we live)? less likely. in the history of my dessert repertoire? never. challenge accepted. watch this space.

send us your garlic dessert recipes and also drop us a line if a) you want to try some of my garlic dessert creations and b) you live in bra.

Zachi

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eau d’aglio

how do you eat two cloves of raw garlic a day and not smell of it. I have been doing this for over two weeks now and let me tell you it is nigh impossible. there are ways to reduce the pungent odor and to minimize the length of time it decides to accompany you for but to avoid it completely is as difficult as trying to avoid gmo’s on  a trip to maccy d’s.

the cardinal rule of eating raw garlic is do not chew it. you will be smelling for hours if you do. also try not to eat it in the morning (chewed or not) then get back into bed, you will not be able to sleep neither will your boyfriend/girlfriend/ dog / cat ( delete as applicable). however this may be a wise move if you brought a vampire back with you after a night out and you are trying to not-so-subtly get them to leave.

so far the best method I have found is to chop it finely so that you can swallow it without choking.  allicin which is the active sulfur compound in garlic is only released when the clove is chopped, chewed or bruised. 1 milligram of allicin has a potency of 15 standard units of penicilin. aside from the allicin garlic also contains geranium (yes, I was surprised too) which has anti-cancer effects, protein, potassium, vitamins a, b, b2 and c, calcium and zinc, all of which give garlic its superfood status.

now back to my original question. how to ingest and get all of these benefits without the smell following you for a few hours like a faithful puppy? I guess I should have researched this at the beginning of the month but I thought my method was good until I stumbled across a few garlic articles today.

what I have been doing:

Zachi’s simple-but-not-so-effective garlic ingesting method

• cut two garlic cloves into small pieces.
• divide the chopped garlic into portions each about the size of half a teaspoon.
• take your 1/2tsp of chopped garlic and swallow. do not chew!!
• drink and/or eat something strong and palatable. preferably which contains fresh lemon or parsley- which help reduce the odor but do not eliminate it completely.
• brush your teeth.

* never eat garlic on an empty stomach on a regular basis it can burn the lining of your gut. once or twice is fine…

this has been my garlic eating routine for the past 16 days and it doesn’t get easier. I am however a very mind over matter type of girl so the swallowing has been slightly unpleasant but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be getting easier.

today I may have hit the jackpot though I found an article which said that ingesting chopped garlic in a spoonful of oil means no garlic breath (even slightly) and it is easier to swallow – this will be tried tomorrow. swallowing with a spoonful of honey seems to give similar results aswell – this will be tried on monday. fingers crossed one of them works and then I won ‘t have be so strategic with my garlic eating and trying to ensure it has as little effect on my social interactions as possible.

‘shallots are for babies; onions are for men; garlic is for heroes’

– quote unknown, but whoever you are i couldn’t agree more.

Zachi

flaxin’.

I’ve used them once, back in november, during the wheat-free month. I have no idea what I made with them, but the package was about 98% full and sat on the back of the shelf, a bit lost and forgotten behind the different packages of flour (oh Italy and its carbs…), I guess that now the moment had arrived to take advantage of them. during our quest for superfoods, this little brown seed turned out to delicious and also be extremely healthy! behold, the mighty, tiny flaxseeds. few carbohydrates, high fiber content, a wealth of healthy fats, the vitamin alphabet ranging from b to mg, the cache of unpronounceable words going from phytochemicas to alpha linolenic acid. all the good effects that mankind seeks for and anti-to-every-disease-that-comes-up-in-your-mind. but I was more interested in the negative consequences. the high fiber content can create laxative effects. well, in my perspective – leaving on stage next week and still bearing in mind the consequences of christmas, exams and alcoholic-after-exams-parties -, this actually turned out to be an extremely positive characteristic. the only annoying element is that they’re not that nice to chew on. whole spoonfuls of flaxseeds get stuck between your teeth and tease you until you desperately decide to floss. so I’m looking for alternative uses, how to add them to different recipes or even using them as alternative to flour. in fact, the flaxseed meal is more beneficial than the whole seeds, as grinding the difficult-to-digest kernel gives you all the good elements in a more readily available form. having a high fiber content, the meal provides good structural qualities. I’ll keep you up-dated about new recipes, the reaction of my belly and if the south-african authorities allowed these curious seeds into their magnificent (and full of zebra meat) country.

 

exams done and we’re back!…

I know, it has been very long since the last time I wrote…but when you are under exams, your life becomes a mess, and you don’t even have time to make your hair. this month for me  has been home-library-home; but I’m very proud of myself, cause I did it well!!…..

I also would like to extend my pride to my  self-control with this month’s diet with the exception of a plate of pizzocheri (a kind of pasta made with buckwheat and dressed with spinaches, potatoes,cabbage and lots of cheese) that I had last weekend that I couldn’t refuse as I was being hosted at my friend’s house…the reason?…I lost 3 kilos!….I can’t figure if it was because of a very strict dairy-free eating style or the fact that I’ve being studying too much (but not eating less).  anyway…that was the thing that made me happy!…..

now, It’s time to enjoy our deserved free afternoons as we have done it this week, after an exhausting exams period, and also…

loooking forward to a cheesy pizza and next challenge! 🙂

Maria José