Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Tuesday's 2-4-1 Slow Cooker Broccoli, Guinness, and Cheddar Soup




Tuesday is crockpot day.  


 

Popeye has done the Tuesday night road ride for years.  So did I. 

Until I got a job in a bike shop. 

Silly bike shop - closing at 6pm in Merritt Island - making it impossible to be all the way down in Palm Bay for a 6pm ride. 

But the bike shop did one thing right, and that was the awesome Trek discount.  With which I bought an awesome Superfly 100.  (The previously awesome road bike went to the attic, and hasn't come down yet.)

Leaving the bike shop eventually led back to Palm Bay on Tuesday nights.  Only now, Killer the Superfly and I go there for the Tuesday Night Beer Can Scramble at Turkey Creek.  

Tuesday =  Two rides.  Two riders.  Home late.  Hungry.  

Tuesday = Crockpot day.

See how the universe just falls together? 

The favorite slow cooker meal around here is Ribs According to Kurt.  2nd is chili - in just about any form. 

But when Publix has a triple BOGO and the stars align for something a little different?  Well, who am I to argue with the universe?



OK, so I've never made broccoli cheddar soup in the crockpot before.  But how hard could it be?

I check all my favorite recipe websites, and read at least five blogger versions.  None of them quite suit me.  Either they require mid day attention to the crockpot (not likely to happen) or some form of condensed soup or frozen packages of broccoli.  Not what I am looking for.

OK, so just wing it.  How hard could it be? 

Tuesday's 2-4-1 Slow Cooker Broccoli, Guinness, and Cheddar Soup

2 heads broccoli 
1 c. onion (about 1/3 of a large Vidalia)
1 1/2 c. sliced carrots
1 1/2 c. golden potatoes, cut in chunks
1 clove garlic, chopped fine
1 1/2 c. ham, diced

4 T. butter
5 T. flour
2 c. Swanson's Tuscany Chicken broth
3 c. Swanson's Chicken broth
1 c. Guinness  (or a 6th cup of broth if Guinness doesn't appeal)

2 blocks of seriously sharp cheddar, grated.  (To stir in just before eating.)




(OK, so the Guinness was an afterthought.  Not a terrible one, I hope.  And the flavored broth was something new.  No doubt why it was 2 for 1 at the store.  Swanson's Tuscany Chicken broth.  I poured in about two cups and it absolutely reeked of rosemary, so the other three cups were regular old chicken broth, thanks to other half of the BOGO.  Also why there are no other spices or herbs, like rosemary, added.)

Make a roux from the butter and flour.  On medium, melt the butter in a pan and stir in the flour to make a paste.  Cook, whisking, for a couple minutes until light brown.

Gradually pour in 2 or 3 cups of the broth and whisk.  Cook for a couple more minutes.  Keep whisking. 

Here's where the idea of Guinness popped into my head.  Suddenly a choice had to be made.  Use my new power tool, a supercool immersion blender, for a creamy-milky-cheesy soup?  Or forego the fun of blending for a chunky-vegetably-beery clear soup?  

With only a brief pang of regret over the blender, I pop the Guinness and stir a cupful into the broth.  




Put the chopped vegetables, garlic, and diced ham into the crockpot.  Pour in the broth/Guinness mixture.  Add 2 more cups broth to the pot.  Stir, then cover.




Cook on low for 8 hours. 

Grate the cheddar and store it in the fridge so it's ready when you get home hungry. 

Cross your fingers.  Go for a muddy, fun ride.


 
Hooray! 
The bridge that was under water last week has reappeared. 
 

When you walk in the door the aroma will hit you.  Wow!  That crossed fingers thing really works!

Scoop it out.  Pile on the cheese. 




Oh yeah.  Gotta love Tuesdays.


Tuesday, October 7, 2014

100 Days of Doing.

June 30, 2014

Do you cringe when people declare in a blog that they are embarking on a weight loss attempt?   Aren't you just afraid for them that they will have to slink off the radar in a few weeks after an epic fail?  

Weight loss attempts fail all the time.  I always root for things to be different, though.  I sincerely want everyone who diets to succeed.  I also want them to share every twist and turn of their weight loss path. Anything that might help me find my way too! 

I like overeating.  Love overeating, actually.  Not a lot.  Just a little.  A few extra bites.  A little every day.  It is a primal force from within.  Get. Yourself.  Full.  Plus a few bites more. 

There is probably some anthropological explanation for this drive to go one step beyond just-full-enough.  No doubt the habit helped cave men survive an extra crucial day of starvation or something.  OK, so I am the descendant of genetically blessed Paleolithic survivors.  At least there's an explanation for all that refrigerator gazing.   

What do you think of when you think of dieting?  Not-doing, right? 

Not eating.  Not indulging.  Not having seconds.  Not having birthday cake.  

Ugh.  Not-doing.  What a crummy way to spend the day.  And certainly a crummy way to spend your life.

I want to DO stuff.  I want to take action.  I want to get yesterday's fat off me - like yesterday.  If only!  No, time is the prime ingredient.  Nobody would be fat, if fat would come off in a day. 

Numerically well intended news segments, blogs, and books always catch my eye.  The 100 Thing Challenge.  The 30 Day Detox.  30 Days in the Zone.  Today, the news has twice mentioned 100 Days of Happy.  

100 days.  Wow.  Now that seems like a good long time.  

I add it up.  100 days.  100 days stretches from tomorrow, July 1st, until Oct 8, in fact.  That's like, forever.  Or at least an entire hurricane season.  I can lose the 5 lbs. that has crept back on since my last diet in far less time than that.  (IF I do not overeat, of course.)

But no, dammit, that's back to not-doing.  

(Uh oh.  I feel a rebellion coming on.)

I want to DO something.  Something to help myself.  Every day. And, as a bonus piece of pie-in-the-sky, I also want this doing something to be effortless.  Happy, even.

Dieting is hard.  But so is being fat.  (So pick one, right?)

The thing about diets is that they really do work.  

Sticking to a plan.  Paying attention.  Being stubborn.  If you can make that mental shift, diets work just fine.  I know this for an absolute certainty.  I spent a fair hunk of last year doing exactly that.

But maintenance.  Whew.  That's been a bear.  And to think I was looking forward to it, that I thought it would be easier than a diet. 

How does one DO maintenance?  How do you open the door of indulgence a crack without releasing the floodgate?

There's gotta be a hundred ways, right? 

100 ways.  100 Days.  Doing has to be easier than not-doing.  Especially if you are facing an endless sentence of repeating a diet of not-doing, over and over, again and again.  

I have no idea what could happen over the next 100 days.  After all, I have dedicated myself to many diets, only to fall apart at the sight of say, an Oreo cookie at a sag stop in the rain. 

So, first and foremost, this is not a diet.  (No need to cringe.)  It's a gathering of tools.  A growing of the arsenal.   A search for a hundred things to do instead of the emptiness of not-doing.

Tonight is the Beer Can Scramble, thank goodness.  It's not a lot, usually about 12 miles on sandy trails.  But it's something.  Check off Day #1. 

Oh, and take a light beer. 

Postscript:  October 7, 2014.

100 Days of Doing.  July 1 - Oct 8.  Fast forward.  Day #99.  

Wow.  For someone who thinks of herself as a persistent failure, it is weird to have it in writing.  I am not as idle or lame as I thought.  I actually did do something - found out something - wrote something - every single day.  AND I maintained my weight within the four pound range I set for myself! 

Been thinking about what the overall conclusion might be from this 100 day project.  What started out to be weight maintenance turned into a mission to accomplish that little bit of something extra each and every day.  To live a little extra.  Ride a little extra.  Enjoy a little extra.

Scribbling notes down by hand kept me involved in enriching my own life.  There was focus.  In a way that just going through each day unrecorded could never do.  And I think, after recording the highlights, that not only do I normally do more than I ever thought I did, but that to add just a little bit, some lagniappe, is easier than I ever thought as well. 

I just realized something.  I am not just some happy go lucky total loser after all.  

Then again, I am not a gainer either. 

(And, I've got that in writing.)










I am a cockroach of the road.

Ok, I just like saying it.   I am a cockroach of the road. A year or two ago an Austrailian study came out where over 50% of drivers sai...