Do you miss New Orleans? I do! Frankly, I miss the svelte figure I had when I was last in New Orleans, pre-quitting smoking days. Recently I had the bad / good news that I am pre-diabetic. That is, one of my blood sugar numbers, the three month average, is in the pre-diabetic blood sugar range. I blame that on Christmas cookies. I am not going to dismiss it, the other me has to go. Not the other me in the evil twin sister sense. The other me I packed on from quitting smoking, one pregnancy, one sedentary job. The pregnancy weight hung around because I quit smoking. Get that kids? Don’t ever start. As kids, we all thought that my Dad just packed in some calories as compensation for the quitting smoking. Not so. Finally, researchers are finding that nicotine, hold on for this one, revs your metabolism. Shocker! Smokers have been saying this for years and doctors, for many years, blamed the victim. And they wonder why we are digging up tree roots for home remedies. Just kidding, don’t dig up tree roots. I happen to know that I was burning at least an extra 500-1000 calories a day when I quit, but yet still gained another pregnancy’s worth.
Ranting over, on to the recipes.
If you haven’t guessed by now, Mrs. Lane, when she wants to eat, wants to eat food that is flavorful. Really, she’d rather step out the back door three times a day and photosynthesize in order to spend more time doing fun things, like making designer garments or painting. Le sigh! But since she must, she cooks. Or rather, these days, she delegates the cooking, and if there is no one home to whom to delegate, she eats baby bel cheese and crackers with a couple of glasses of wine and then goes to bed at eight. Don’t knock it, she lost five pounds that way last spring!
Now, with these new test results, she must pay attention to what is going in the mouth. Not that eating Julia’s recipes were an everyday occurrence, mind you. The everyday diet had slipped to something more like the Taco Bell diet, almost. Dinner from a bag became more commonplace as Mrs. Lane has another problem, advanced osteo-arthritis, which makes standing painful these days. Handicapped space and everything.
To get back the body which used to do the Russian Trepak, Mrs. Lane has to watch the portion sizes, add some fiber and reduce the fat. This includes saying goodbye, mostly, to an old friend, Coca-Cola. To be able to continue on this plan without jumping off and diving face first into some Potatoes Dauphinoise, the food has to taste decent and be reasonably filling.
And Dessert, Mrs Lane will need dessert. For some reason, when cutting fat and sugar, dessert cravings result. Must be that cutting of fat and sugar making Mrs. Lane want some fat and sugar, duh. I need to have something legal to eat and diet frozen yogurt gets, well boring, after a while. Last night, after having made Sole Meuniere, with reduced fat, but all the lemon, Mrs. Lane found herself trolling the kitchen for something more to eat. Sometimes the diet cookbooks have a great recipe, but most times they are not simple, and not so tasty. Mrs. Lane prefers real recipes modified to fit my plan.
Bananas Foster
Per Serving:
1/2 cup vanilla ice cream
1 tsp butter
1 T brown sugar
1/2 – 1 banana, sliced about 1/2 thick or cut in half lengthwise then halved
1 T banana liqueur (or 1/2 rum and 1/2 banana liqueur)
Melt butter over medium heat until bubbling
Mix in brown sugar
Add bananas
Cook bananas, stirring frequently until bananas are slightly softened
Add liqueur
Ladle over ice cream
Notice that Mrs. Lane didn’t set fire to it. Really isn’t necessary since we are not putting on a show here. Also, there may not be quite enough volume to set things ablaze. Enjoy!
Mrs. John Sloan 