March 2011

You Would Never Guess it From This Recipe, But I’ve Been Eating Healthier

by MomGrind

lemon pound cake

Seriously. A former big fan of “Just eat whatever you want and keep portions in check,” I’ve recently started paying more attention to what I eat and making healthy recipes. You know the drill – lots of veggies and fruit, whole grains, minimizing white flour and sugar.

I’ll tell you all about it, and what prompted this change, in a future post. For now, let’s just say that this cake is a guilty pleasure – a high-sugar, high-fat exception to my new way of eating. It is so moist, so rich and good, and has such a pleasant lemony flavor that melts in your mouth, that each time I allow myself a slice, I sigh and remind myself that “you only live once” and that “being good 80 percent of the time is the goal.”

It all started with the abundance of lemons and oranges that our trees have been giving us this winter. I love eating oranges, and have enjoyed the healthy, low-sugar lemon muffins that I made the other day, but when I looked for more lemon-containing recipes, I found this one, and from the first glance it was obvious that I was going to make it, as is, butter and sugar and all, with no attempts whatsoever at making a healthified version.

Sigh. I do love to bake. I always have.

So here goes – a sweet, moist, buttery pound cake, flavored with a hint of lemon. Really amazing with a cup of strong, bitter coffee to balance out the sweetness of the cake.

Lemon Pound Cake

Adapted from The Best Recipe Cookbook
Makes one loaf cake, or 10 slices, about 400 calories per slice (don’t make me list the fat and sugar content, I really don’t want to know!)

Ingredients
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 + 1/3 cups sugar
3 large eggs + 3 large egg yolks + juice from half a large lemon (1 tablespoon), all mixed together
½ teaspoon salt
Zest of 3 large lemons
1.5 cups minus 2 TBS all purpose flour (recipe calls for cake flour which I didn’t have, and the Internet has advised me to use all purpose flour but subtract 2 TBS. It worked).

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease a 9 X 5 inch loaf pan and line it with foil. Lightly spray the foil with oil spray.
2. Beat the butter with an electric hand mixer. Gradually add the sugar and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg mixture, the salt and the zest.
3. Gently fold in the flour, a little at a time, with a spatula.
4. Transfer the batter to the pan, smoothing the top with the spatula. Bake about 70 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the top comes out clean. Allow to set in the pan for a few minutes, then invert onto a plate, and from the plate onto a wire rack. Cool to room temperature, dust with powdered sugar if desired and serve, or slice and freeze. When ready to eat, gently thaw in the microwave.

Please Don’t Tell Me I Look Like Her Sister

by MomGrind

I still remember, as a child, going shopping with my mom. I was 12. She was 38, a very attractive woman with long auburn hair and a petite, hourglass figure. She always wore short dresses and high heels. She looked great! I was so proud of her.

Male store clerks would often flatter her, looking at her, then at me, and asking me, “Is this your sister?” She always smiled politely. I always cringed a little, because even then, at the age of 12, a good 2-3 years before I became a feminist, on some level I knew that their “compliment” was in fact an insult.

It was an insult because they implied that a woman can’t be attractive unless she’s very young. And it was an insult because they stripped away her identity, the knowledge and wisdom she had gained through the years. Through their compliment, they implied that as a woman, she should aim to stay a child forever.

I am now about the same age my mother was back then. Today, at my 11-year-old daughter’s basketball game, one of the dads approached my husband, all smiles, and asked, gesturing towards me, “Is this your other daughter?” He was beaming, proud of himself for earning several brownie points with that one. I smiled politely (what can I say, politeness runs in the family), and when he left, turned to my husband, vexed, and said, “I don’t get it. This is exactly why I stopped coloring my hair. I don’t want this type of compliment! I don’t want people to think I’ll be grateful if they tell me I look younger than my age because (a) I don’t and (b) I’m not trying to!”

My husband thought it was a harmless compliment, the man’s way of letting me know he realizes I’m not young, but thinks I look good. To me, it still feels just like it felt back when I was 12: an insult to my intelligence.

Speaking of my husband, he had recently lost some weight and started exercising daily. He’s in his mid forties, and he looks – and feels – great. When a friend, who hadn’t seen him in a while, met him for lunch the other day, he told him “Wow, you look in top shape.” Now, THIS I consider a compliment. The friend was not implying that my husband looked younger than his age, that he SHOULD look younger, that he should WANT to look younger, or that the only way for him to look good is to appear younger than his age. In addition, “being in top shape” emphasizes health and fitness and not just looks.

If you want to pay me a compliment, please don’t tell me I look like my daughter’s sister. A simple “You look great” or “Wow, you obviously work out” will do.

In the photo: Vered DeLeeuw, female, age 39, looking in top shape. ;)

Nuts and Fruit Quick Bread – Plus a Giveaway

by MomGrind

quick bread

When the nice folks at Flanigan Farms offered to send me a package filled with goodies, it was the kind of offer you can’t refuse – and one of the nice perks of being a (OK I admit it!) mommy blogger. I asked them to include their Nuts and Fruit Mix, so that I could use it to make this quick bread recipe, adapting it a little because I didn’t feel like giving it a citrus flavor.

The result? A chewy, rich, flavorful bread, with a wonderful crunch from the nut mix and an interesting sweet-salty flavor that can go either way – I had it with a little butter and it was heavenly, but I can imagine having it with jam or honey, or – alternatively – with some Brie or Roquefort. You could probably use just half a cup sugar and one teaspoon salt to make the flavor more neutral, or leave the sugar at 3/4 cup and use less salt for a decidedly sweet bread. In fact, glancing at the nutrition information for this quick bread, I would say using less salt than the recipe calls for is probably a good idea – there’s quite a lot of sodium in there.

Flanigan Farms makes all-natural dried fruit and nut products that contain no added salt, sugar, oil or preservatives. Produced in small batches, their nuts and fruit/nut mixes are available in grocery stores on the west coast, or online – with free shipping for orders over $50.

Flanigan Farms would love to give one lucky reader their Gourmet Almond Gift Set, which includes gourmet almond oil, slivered almonds and sliced almonds, all nestled in natural excelsior and packed in gift packaging. If you’re a US resident over 18 years old and would like to receive the gift (shipped directly from Flanigan Farms to you) please email me vered (at) momgrind.com with your address. The first to email will get the gift. –> Gift has been taken. Sorry to anyone who was too late to email. Maybe next time. :)

OK, here’s the recipe.

Nuts and Fruit Quick Bread Recipe

Makes 1 loaf. Takes 10 minutes to mix and 1 hour to bake.

Ingredients
¾ cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp baking soda
½ tbsp salt
2 eggs
¾ cup 2% milk
1 tbsp melted unsalted butter plus more butter for greasing the pan
1 6oz package Flanigan Farms Nuts ‘N’ Fruit™

Directions
1. Stir together sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix in Nuts ‘N’ Fruit.
2. In a separate bowl, beat eggs; stir in milk and butter.
3. Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients and stir with a fork just until combined.
4. Turn into a greased 9×5 inch loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 1 hour, or until a knife inserted in center comes out clean. After 40 minutes, my loaf was nicely browned but not fully baked yet, so I covered it loosely with foil and baked for 20 more minutes.
5. Cool in pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool some more. Enjoy warm or at room temperature. Wrap leftovers in foil and store in refrigerator. Or slice and store in freezer.

Nutrition Per Serving (1/10 loaf)
Calories 262
Total Fat 7.8 g
Saturated Fat 2.2 g
Cholesterol 41.6 mg
Sodium 896.5 mg
Total Carbohydrate 43.0 g
Dietary Fiber 0.7 g
Sugars 15.9 g
Protein 6.8 g

I Know I Have Wrinkles. I Don’t Want to Remove Them.

by MomGrind

middle aged womanNot my words. This is from Virginia DeBolt, who recently said on her Facebook page:

Dear whoever places the ads on my Facebook page,

I know I have wrinkles. I don’t want to remove them. You can show me a different ad now – I’ve seen the wrinkle remover one 1000 times and haven’t been moved to click.

I am my wrinkles, my wrinkles are me.

Another woman I admire, The Israeli actress Orna Porat, was asked years ago, when she was still in her forties, why she does nothing to eliminate her wrinkles. Her response has been quoted countless times since: “Why should I? I worked hard for my wrinkles. I have earned them!”

I’m not quite there yet, but I’m working on it.

A news anchor at the local TV station, a beautiful woman in her forties with a classic, timeless beauty, used to be my hero. I loved the way her forehead would wrinkle as she read the news. “See?” I told my husband. “Here’s a gorgeous woman who allows these signs of aging to show – on camera! And she’s still beautiful, and still employed!”

Not long after that, her forehead became frozen and smooth. She had lost her wrinkles, I lost a hero, and although I can’t possibly blame her for succumbing to the pressure to look younger and using Botox, her choice made me so very sad.

A real-life friend and a reader of this blog recently asked me, over dinner, how come I’m so “preoccupied” with my looks. I was a bit surprised by her question, because I don’t think I’m more preoccupied with my looks than I am with my kids, with my work, with the economy or with politics (although I choose not to discuss the latter on this blog).

So I simply said that for many women, looking good brings social acceptance, maybe even social power, and the process of losing that power is something you have to deal with. I don’t know that I’m necessarily “preoccupied” with this topic. But I’m certainly thinking about it and trying to find my way.

As far as I can tell, the main two ways for dealing with the physical signs of aging are:
(1) Fighting them.
(2) Accepting them.

Since I suspect option (1) creates a full time job that I don’t have the time nor the energy for, and the older you get the more demanding that “job” becomes, I hope to be one of the women who choose option (2).

As I said, I’m not there yet – still struggling – although allowing my hair to go gray is, for me, an important step in the right direction.

The beauty industry, the fashion industry, the weight loss industry, even the health care industry – those have no incentive whatsoever to tell us to focus on being healthy and fit, to love how we look and accept ourselves. On the contrary, many modern industries are built on people being unhappy with how they look and trying to “improve” themselves.

I remember reading the story of a middle aged woman who said she hates to smile, because smiling emphasizes her wrinkles. It made me so sad to read that, and determined to smile as much and as often as I can, even if it crinkles the skin around my eyes, even if it brings out those crow’s feet, etching them into my face.

It is up to us to decide – at any age – if we are to buy into impossible beauty standards, or if we are to eat well, exercise in moderation, love and laugh and grow old and refuse to waste time, energy and money on trying to become some fantasy version of who we really are.

Reason #954,832 We’re Getting Fat

by MomGrind

Why America is fat

Recently at my local gas station, this sign was yelling at me in big colorful letters, trying to lure me into getting a “snack” – a quite affordable snack in terms of price, but when it comes to health, is it really affordable?

Let’s do the math.

King size M&Ms = 3.14 ounce = 446 calories, 19 grams fat, 57 grams sugar (about 4 tablespoons).
20oz soft drink = 240 calories, 65 grams sugar (about 4 tablespoons).

Total for this “snack”: 700 calories, 19 grams fat, 120 grams sugar (!), lots of artificial coloring and flavors, and not a whole lot of anything actually useful to the body.

I’m pretty sure anyone can do the math on this one.