Recipes

Like I said in my first post, I hope to post a lot of recipes here on my blog. Again, I don't consider myself a super fabulous cook, but I enjoy cooking and am getting better all the time. It was Sunday night's dinner that rated an 8 out of 10 from my hubby (a level that he has descibred as "I wouldn't mind paying for this at a restaurant") that inspired me to finally start writing a blog.

But just to add to the suspense a bit more, I felt it was necessary to make a pre-recipe post, explaining a little of this and that.

I play around both with American recipes and Swedish ones, but in the end, it's a Swedish kitchen that I have. That means that the measurements in my recipes tend to be in grams and deciliters, especially the recipes I've made up myself. It also means that a recipe of mine might not work as well in the States -- I've discovered, for instance, that flour here doesn't have the same amount of protein and that that can really ruin a cake. When I write the recipes in English I will write with the American system of cups and ounces, but that means some of the measurements might look quite strange. I will, however, attempt to post the recipes in both English and Swedish. This is surely fun for the whole family.

I use a kitchen scale to measure a lot of my ingedients, which I know is uncommon in America. However, if you're interested in food, or especially if you're interested in losing weight or watching what you eat, I would heartily suggest you get a kitchen scale! And that you learn the metric system. And that the U.S. nutrition labelling guidelines switch to "Nutrients per 100 grams" instead of this "Nutrients per What Some Committee Has Decided Is One Serving" nonsense.

But I digress.

For me, cooking is fun not just because I like food and like to try out new ingredients and meals. It's also a challenge to try to make the food healthy as well as tasty. Both the Swedish and the American governments have departments whose job it is to decide how we should eat. To American ears that all sounds very big-brother; perhaps most of us don't actually know it, but it is The USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services that came up with that food pyramid that was all over food packaging about 10 years ago. In 2005 they revised their Dietary Guidelines in a way that accounts more for the fact that we're all different sizes and genders and that children eat, too. In Sweden, the body that tells us how to eat is Livsmedelsverket. I know that the U.K. has government dietary guidelines as well, from hearing Gillian Keith mention them often on the TV show You Are what you Eat.

It may not come as a shock to anyone, but all of these dietary guidelines are very similar. The U.S. version now suggests we eat 2 cups of fruit and 2 1/2 cups of vegetables per day. The Swedish version states that we need 500 grams of fruit and veg daily, about 250 grams of each. This works out to the same amount, basically (and it's also an example of how Americans measure by volume and Swedes by weight!). What I like about the USDA Dietary Guidelines is that they go into detail about different kinds of vegetables and why we need them. They've also included appendixes with lists of calcium, fiber and vitamin content of various foods, different diet suggestions depending on age, gender and activity level, etc.

Okay, what am I getting at? I know that most people are not the types to sit and read an 84-page PDF about how the government thinks you should eat. But it's the kind of thing that I admit to thinking is pretty fun, and I like having a goal to strive towards in my quest to eat more healthily. And it's nothing extreme, like becoming a strict vegan or only eating raw food or never eating bread and meat on the same days or drinking gelatinated flax seeds every morning to get your proper weight-loss chi activated.

So the recipes that I make for my little family reflect these guidelines to the best of my ability. I try to make every lunch or dinner portion contain at least 125 grams of vegetables, and make an effort to vary them among the 5 types of green leafy, orange, beans, starchy, and "other". I try to use whole-grain carbs and pack in some fiber here and there. I try to vary the type of meat we eat and choose lower-fat alternatives when it won't drastically affect the taste or consistency of our food. You won't find a lot of dairy and fruit in my lunch and dinner-type recipes, however, because I pack those in for breakfast and snacks.

Aside from trying to follow guidelines for what our food should contain, I also struggle to make sure we don't eat too much of it. I've been overweight since I was 16, and at its worst I weighed 115 kg. When I moved to Sweden, rather than the pounds melting away as everyone predicted (it's magic fairy dust in the air that keeps Europeans slim, don't you know), I stayed at the same weight while Fredrik went up about 15 kg under my influence. A few years later, Fredrik found the website Viktklubb.se, where members can devise a personal weight-loss program and, by writing in what they eat and what exercise they do, get their Calories counted up for them as a tool to keep them on track. This website has been nothing short of a miracle for me. I'm a mathematician and obsessed with numbers (ask me how many steps it takes to get from my house to my office), so having a concrete and simple way to count my Calories was just the thing. When you count Calories, no food is forbidden; it's much better to make that pasta with cream instead of skim milk; the key is to eat a reasonable amount of it.

I lost 35 kg in 2 years, and then hit a plateau. That plateau was named "full-time employment with paid lunches." But I'm still workin' on it, dag-nabbit. (Fredrik also lost his 15 kg, and I'm very proud of him!)

So, the point at the end of my rambling is this:

• My recipes may look strange to an American if they call for five-twelfths of a cup of something, or give the amount by weight instead of volume, but now you understand why. But I will attempt to round off to the nearest sensible unit.
  
• I try to pack in lots of veggies and grains and goodness into dinner when I can.
  
• Lunch and dinner recipes are almost always under 600 Calories, and if you're a follower of Atkins or GI or the Pineapple Method or whatever, that's great for you I'm sure, but this is how I do things.
  
• I'm a geek who reads and re-reads government publications.