How we got here, pt 2 (now with less depressing!)

So I started digging through cookbooks (actually back issues of Eating Well magazine are my absolute go-tos). And because I was wanting to cook, but also to keep my diet under control, I was gravitating towards less meat or pasta/starch focused things. Which meant I very quickly ran into a slice of reality – if this was ever going to work I needed to break free of the baby carrots – green beans – broccoli ghetto I’d lived in basically my entire adult life.

I started getting hard core about trying new and different vegetables, and new and different ways of doing them. Cauliflower, roasted in olive oil in the oven, was one of my first successes, and remains one of my all time faves. I remembered liking (meaty, greasy, bad for you) greens when I lived in the south so I started playing with them. Zucchini were pretty cheap at the time for some reason so I started playing with that. (Winter squashes were not as successful. I’ve found some preparations where butternut is okay. The spaghetti squash was decent, but a little sweet. Acorn is just a no. Surprising, because I do love me some pumpkin.)

Eventually a sort of process or mindset developed which really became the key. First – I mentally started each meal with the main vegetable. So, instead of saying “I have pasta, what should I have with that?” I’d say “I have broccoli and collards, what should I have with that?” And it turns out that the direction that leads you is pretty different, in proportion if not in kind. I also tried to ask myself on everything “is there another vegetable I could add to this”. This meant that most of the meals I ended up with were a) heavier on veggies than on starches or meats; b) pretty varied in taste and composition and c) bigger – adding a half a zucchini or another handful of peas can make your plate a lot fuller and more satisfying without appreciably increasing calories.

Second – I started really paying attention when I add to which pieces of the meal were really doing it for me. When I found myself chasing around the bowl for the last of the greens while a bunch of pasta was pushed to the side, I made a mental note that next time I should use more greens and less pasta. When I realized I wasn’t really tasting the handful of cheese, I tried to remember next time to leave it out or use something more flavorful. And I tried to break away from the “automatic starch with every meal” thing – the spicy Chinese stir-fry is damn tasty and satisfying without the noodles, so why bother? The salmon and broccoli curry goes great on top of a pile of that roasted cauliflower instead of a big mound of rice. Zucchini pancakes can be nearly as awesome as the potato kind, and I can eat more! Gradually, a lot of things like rice, pasta, cheese, bread became smaller and smaller components of my meals. And since I was following my tastes and instincts, it isn’t a deprivation. Rather, it all seems to snowball – if I don’t have some good veggies with a meal, I feel the lack. I miss it. (That sound you hear is my mother rolling over in her grave, by the way. For serious.)

Third was more of a defensive game – I tried to notice when I was an wasn’t wanting various things and noted two things. I sometimes had instant oatmeal at my desk in the morning, and I started adding a handful of Fiber One cereal to it to give it some crunch. (The Fiber One is an acquired taste, but I’ve gotten to like it. It’s probably the most sticks-and-twigs-like of the sticks-and-twigs cliché of health food.) Other days I’d have a granola bar or a yogurt or something. And I found that on days when I didn’t do the oatmeal/cereal thing, I was much more likely to be wanting/eating things from the unhealthier end of the scale as the day went on. So now that’s an everyday thing, almost without exception. I also know that when I first get home from work, I’m usually hungry, and it’s really easy to convince myself I need something more indulgent or that doesn’t take the time to cook. So I made sure to always have something quick and proteiny that I could scarf down right then to take the edge off and give myself some mental space to actually plan out something more ambitious. Some turkey slices, or a handful of walnuts or something like that.

I also take a slightly different tack on indulgences. In my fridge I have a big chunk of expensive aged parmesan and a wedge of Castello Blue. What I don’t have is the blah supermarket cheese that’s so easy to add to everything and yet doesn’t really add to anything. I have some outrageously expensive small farm bacon in the freezer, but no Easy Mac. I’ve learned to (mostly) save my indulgences for things that are actually, you know, indulgent. Or that give you the bang for the buck – I’ll cook with sausage that gives you a lot of flavor in a little package rather than ground beef that is generally kind of so-so.

A few last points. On substitutes – I generally use egg sub instead of real eggs, though that’s partly because eggs tend to freeze at the temp I keep my fridge. I use Almond Breeze almond milk instead of regular – once again, it’s shelf stable so I can have it on hand, and I’ve never been that huge a fan of real milk. I’ve found a veggie Italian sausage that I actually like, and I try out a lot of veggie burger style things, some better and some worse. A crumbled up Morningstar spicy black bean burger makes an awesome taco. And I’ve always preferred fat-free sour cream to the real stuff, so that’s easy. But I tend not to go there with things like all the 100-calorie packs and things that are intended to mimic snack foods or cakes or what have you. They’re just never satisfying.

There are some things I have to take a hard line on. I’m not a good cereal eater. I fill my bowl, add the milk, eat the cereal – but then there’s all that milk left over! So then you have to add more cereal to use it up. But then it’s not milky enough so….yeah. I know this is what I do, so cereal (aside from the FO stuff) is not something I usually toy with. Crackers, ditto – I only buy crackers I don’t especially like – wheat thins have no place in my house because I know I can’t be trusted with them.

And when I eat out, I eat out. I tend to gravitate to seafood and veggie-centric stuff anyway, but overall I don’t sweat it. I’m not swearing off of a damn thing, at least not intentionally.