I've Got 99 Cookbooks and Rachel Ray Ain't One

99.

I have 99 cookbooks in my house.

This number does not include the cooking magazines or binders of recipes that have been passed down or collected from relatives.

99!!!

I knew I had a lot, but I had never counted them before.

Something needs to be done with these books, and I think I have come up with an idea.

There are quite a few of these books that I go back to on a regular basis, but the majority of them have not been touched in years. I need to pare them down somehow.

In order to do that, I am going to cook a recipe from each one of those 98 books at least once a week. Ideally, I would like to knock all 99 off before the year is out but I don't know if I can pull it off in 52 weeks or not. I can certainly try though.

My goal is to cook the healthiest and most 17 Day Diet compliant recipes I can find in each book.

Some books will be impossible to find healthy in, like:

Some are going to be ridiculous, like :

Some are going to be challenging, like:

Quite a few are going to be very ethnic:

I've got multiples from Ina, Martha, Julia Child, New York Times and Williams Sonoma. I have loads of Moosewood books that came with my husband when we got together. There are loads of Jewish cookbooks that I have collected, pop-culture cookery from the Sopranos, Star Wars, and Orange Is the New Black. There's Giada and Gwyneth, and all of Oprah's personal chefs. A tattered copy of the original Silver Palate Cookbook and huge bibles from Bon Appetit and Gourmet. My first cookbook from Betty Crocker and my second book that I can remember buying after college...The Joy of Cooking. There is something for everyone in my collection.

After this experiment I hope to be able to purge a few books without feeling too guilty about it. I'm pretty sure no one needs this many cookbooks. Whatever happens, it will hopefully be a fun challenge to complete! 

The Devil, The Angel, and Pinterest

Most of the recipes that I have found over the past year and a half have come from Pinterest.

I have a HUGE collection of cookbooks and they've gone mostly untouched. I have a plan for those at some point in the near future, but for now the bulk of them are on the built-in shelves in the office downstairs. A select few are permanently in the kitchen. Among them are ALL of the Auntie Ina books of course. Even the stupid Barefoot in Paris one that I never seem to touch.

Pinterest is the absolute embodiment of the Angel and Devil for me.

On one shoulder, whispering in my ear is the Angel.

Oooh, cauliflower! Look at all of the yummy and healthy cauliflower recipes!

On the other shoulder is the Devil…

Mmmm, Ho-Ho Cake. Chocolate. (Drool)

For every quinoa, chicken breast, or cabbage recipe there is a giant cinnamon roll, cheese ball or crumb cake.

The trick is to dodge the calorie bombs, and save them for a special occasion.

This time of year is probably the hardest. Once Halloween rolls around it has the potential to be all downhill until January. 

Well, January is literally around the corner and it is time to kick the Devil to the curb.

Tomorrow night is New Year's Eve and I am going to dance with that Pinterest Devil one last time in the form of 

and

and assorted other delicious yet unhealthy snacks.

Then on January first, I will be back to focusing on the Angels of Pinterest in the form of eggplant, broccoli, fish and chicken.

I wish you ALL a happy and healthy New Year, and I hope that you stick with me in 2015!

Breakfast. It's What's For Dinner.

Once a week in my house we have breakfast for dinner.

I'm not sure when the tradition started, but its a favorite of everyone's.

The three of us all have different diets. Mine is for weight loss. The husband is a Vegetarian. The kid is a picky pain in the ass.

Breakfast covers all of the bases for us.

There are ALWAYS at least three components. Eggs, breakfast meat, and some sort of breakfast bread.

The meat is typically bacon, either turkey bacon or the new Applegate Farms Good Morning Bacon that has 60% less fat than regular bacon.

Once in a blue moon I'll bust out a ham steak. Trader Joe's used to have a really good one from Niman Ranch.

The meat is eaten by me (the dieter) and the PITA (pain in the you know what).

Then comes the breakfast bread.

As much as I love to cook with whole ingredients, I find that not only is it easier to use a mix for pancake, it tastes better too. I usually go with Krusteaz brand. Sometimes Trader Joe's.

If it's a Sunday and they really want it, we bust out the waffle maker. This only happens a few times a year.

If my mother-in-law has visited and has brought her umpteenth loaf of Red, White and Blue Bread from Wegman's I will turn that sucker into french toast.

It has blueberries and cranberries and is covered with sugar on the outside. It's good. Trust me.

All of those delicious sounding bread items? Waffles, pancakes, french toast? I don't eat them. Those are for the Vegetarian and the PITA.

Now we get to the eggs.

If I am totally short on time they get scrambled or over hard. If I am trying to comfort my husband they get made into Toad in the Hole.

Most of the time I make a frittata, or egg pie. I eat this one, and so does the Vegetarian. The PITA hates eggs, so this one is out for him.

Egg pie involves taking whatever vegetables I have laying around, sautéing them, and then mixing with egg and low-fat cheese and baking it in the oven.

When I was younger I insisted on using my frittata pan and cooking it first on top of the stove and then into the oven.

Now that I am older and wiser and shorter on time, I just mix everything and throw it into a Pyrex baking dish.

Here's a basic recipe…and amounts are not exact. It's a true mish-mash type of thing.

Sautee vegetables in some olive oil and season with salt and pepper. (Mushrooms, onion, spinach, artichoke hearts, broccoli, asparagus, peppers, etc)

Scramble 8 eggs, and add the vegetables.

Pour in a splash of milk or water. Add some low-fat cheese. I love to use the low-fat feta from Trader Joe's, but you can do any kind of shredded or crumbled cheese. Season with salt and pepper.

Bake at 350 in a 8 inch square or round dish for about 30 minutes.

That's it. Easy, right?

This is the one I made tonight:

Mine had mushrooms, fresh spinach and feta.

You really can't go wrong with this one, and its delish hot or cold.

Sometimes there are hash browns for the Veg and the PITA, and fresh fruit. For some reason tonight the PITA wanted cucumber salad with his, and who am I to argue with a healthy choice like that?

Try breakfast for dinner for a change…it will fit the bill for everyone in your home!

Gas Be Damned!

Apparently, cabbage is one of the gassiest foods a person can eat.

I can vouch for that.

Despite this fact, it also happens to be very good for you.

One cup of chopped cabbage has just 22 calories, and it's loaded with valuable nutrients. At the top of the list is sulforaphane, a chemical that increases your body's production of enzymes that disarm cell-damaging free radicals and reduce your rise of cancer. In fact, Stanford University scientists determined that sulforaphane boosts your levels of these cancer-fighting enzymes higher than any other plant chemical!

Translation?

It is low-calorie, nutritious, and is the best cancer-fighting vegetable out there.

Also? It makes you fart.

Last year at this time I was obsessed with Cabbage Soup.

I ate it all of the time, and between Thanksgiving and Christmas I ended up losing 11 pounds! Crazy, right?

Well…after too much indulging over the past couple of months I have buckled down and found my old friend cabbage.

I went on Pinterest and looked for some 17 Day Diet compliant cabbage recipes and immediately found one that caught my eye.

Balsamic Roasted Cabbage

Let me tell you…this was SO easy and SO good!

All you need is a head of red cabbage, a red onion, garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar and you're in business. The only change I made to the original recipe on that site was adding a packet of Truvia to it. That was it.

So go make some cabbage. Lose weight. Fight cancer. Fart. Like Auntie Ina says…."How bad can that be?"

I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie

When I taught Elementary School, one of my favorite books to read at Thanksgiving was I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie by Alison Jackson. Obviously it's a take-off on the Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly…but with Thanksgiving foods instead of spiders and cats and horses. My kind of gal.

I hadn't thought about this book in a few years…probably since my own son has gotten too old to read it at the holiday and the kids I work with now are all under the age of three.

Wouldn't you know it? The old bag popped into my head as I was getting ready to return home from a Thanksgiving vacation in Florida. Specifically this page:

In where said "Lady" has eaten so much that she becomes a balloon in the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

I was feeling pretty balloon-ish myself.

Maybe it was the Carvel cake before we left for Florida. Or the stuffing and potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner. It could have been the brisket and carnitas tacos at our favorite Mexican place, El Jefe Luchador. Possibly the two different stops at Menchie's Frozen Yogurt where some incredible genius has invented Cinnabon-flavored yogurt and Cream Cheese Frosting as a squirtable topping. Then there was the night I actually drank…a rarity for me. I had a Strawberry-Rhubarb mojito. And I liked it. A few bialys here, some handfuls of Target Monster Trail Mix there. You get the picture.

By the time I was sitting in the airport waiting for my departing plane, I couldn't even squeeze in my usual "flying chocolate" with my requisite People magazine. It wasn't the big photo of Bill Cosby on the cover making me nauseous…it was all of that food I had over the past week. I made it through the flight without the candy…but somehow made room for the free Popcorners that they passed out.

When I got up the next morning I faced the scale and owned that number on it. I had earned it. Now it was time to make it disappear. I was never so excited to have some cottage cheese and fruit in my whole entire life!

Two days later I have rid myself of two of the (cough-cough) pounds I have seemed to find somewhere between Halloween and Thanksgiving-time. I need to get rid of them before the next holiday rolls around. Ugh, I said rolls.

Unfortunately I have picked up the nasty cold that my husband and son both had last week. I managed to find enough energy to make a pot of my favorite Cycle 1 Italian Egg Drop Soup with Chicken Meatballs. I also had some Eggplant Plop in the freezer and that made the transition to home easier for me. Tomorrow I need to make a turkey breast that I have defrosted, and I was thinking of trying out a new recipe for Balsamic Red Cabbage. I will let you know how it goes, and share it with you over the weekend.

Hopefully I will continue to be the Old Lady Who Swallowed a 17 Day Diet Compliant Fat-Free Unflavored Greek Yogurt. There's a story in there somewhere, right?