Do you love food? If you do, I’ll bet you’re also a great cook and you’ve probably collected a ton of recipes over the years. But as a busy gal, I’m thinking that perhaps like me, you’ve probably fallen into the same old rut and you find yourself cooking the same exact things week in and week out. It can get pretty boring. Can’t it?
No dieting, seriously …
Now if you’re following me and you’re hip to what I teach, then you know that I don’t endorse dieting at all, unless there is a medical reason for it. My philosophy is that in order to make peace with food, you can eat anything you want, but not necessarily everything you want. It’s all a question of amounts. The wisdom of the grandmothers advocated moderation in all things. A little is great. But too much is well, just too much. When you start to listen to your body, you just don’t want to feel all plugged up with heavy foods.
Phases of Eating
I tend to go through phases with my eating; eating jags. Depending upon what they are, sometimes they last for days, weeks, months or just a few meals. There’s no real rhyme or reason to it, it’s just based on what I want and how I feel.
Recently after dealing with some painful personal losses, I’ve wanted to feel reconnected to my Nana, so one of my favorite ways of remembering her is to get in the kitchen and cook up a storm. For me, there’s just something so healing in chopping up onions and dicing garlic.
Generally I tend to prefer the process of cooking over eating, but this time I really wanted to eat some of my old favorite heavy foods that reminded me of simpler times and feeling so close and loved by my Nana.
So after several days of making pasta, chicken parmagiana, garlic bread, and home made red and cream sauces, I was really ready to lighten up my meals again.
This morning ready for something different, I decided to look for new ideas in my bookshelves. Back in my Weight Watcher days, whenever I would attend the meetings, I used to buy every Weight Watcher cookbook as soon as it was available.
Don’t Rush to Toss Out Your Old Diet Cookbooks
When I first made the decision to stop dieting, I shunned my cookbooks and considered more than once the possbilility of throwing them all away, ditching them in the trash along with the old diet mentality. But something in me held off and I stacked them away, knowing that perhaps I might want to use them again one day.
Lo and behold when I cracked open the pages of some of my old favorites, they were packed with wonderful recipes. For some reason, I only seem to remember the recipes that were all prepared with lots of artificial ingredients, fat free this and sugar free that.
Then as I browsed through the pages, I found so many fabulous ideas for great meals. I noticed that most of the recipes are really great and they don’t have the hideous substitution ingredients that burned a mark in my memory.
After leafing though several books, I decided to try out the recipe you see pictured above. It’s called, “Honey-Ginger Chicken with Orange Rice.” So tonight I’m going to give that a try and add my own variations. I’m not all that excited about the orange rice, so I’ll make some noodles and whip up a lighter peanut sauce. Anyway lots of good things here. It’s all a matter of where you look and your mindset.
Opening yourself up to possibilities
How ‘bout you? What fun and fabulous thing can inspire you to think outside your box? You know it’s really your thinking that has to change if you’re going to get thinner without dieting. It’s that black and white, good and bad, right and wrong, judgmental thinking that keeps us stuck in our boxes, thinking that we can’t do things when we really can. Are you ready to give it a go and step out of your old comfort zones, wherever they may be?
What great recipes are sitting around on your shelves gathering dust? Just because it says, diet, low fat or non fat, doesn’t mean that you can’t take the bones of the recipe and add whatever you want to make it suit your taste. So leave a comment and let me know what’s cookin’ in your kitchen.
And if you’re not yet following me on Twitter, it’s a great way of getting more tips and inspiration packed into your day. Come join me on the micro-blogging site, Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/thejuicywoman