Noodle Salad with Peanut Sauce

There probably is a lot to update in the healing department but I think I will talk about the recipe first.

I have made this salad a million times, a different way each time.  When I thought about making it I realized I was missing some things I like to put in it.  My horoscope, however, said not to spend any money today, and that seemed really pertinent since right now I have no money.  {Side note:  I do not normally make any decisions based on the horoscopes that show up on my google home page.  Today however, I was feeling very spend-ish.  Like I might go to the health food store and spend money on tahini, tamari, and sesame seeds.  Instead I decided to make a fabulous dish with whatever was in my cabinets.  Kind of like the show "Chopped" only there is no chicken intestines or olive loaf.}

I was invited to a small gathering of some teacher friends.  We really enjoy each other but don't have enough time to see each other.  So I would be cooking for 4.  So, of course, I made enough for 20.  Learning cooking first at a restaurant  really warped my ability to figure out how much to make.   I only make this salad in the summer, and the trick is to make the noodles early before the heat of the day makes it impossible.  I cooked a whole box of organic whole wheat spaghetti at around 8 am.  Then I decided, I might as well do the whole thing.  The only risk with this is that my sauce may really soak into the pasta, but I will bring along a little rice vinegar to brighten up the flavor.


Ingredients:
1 box spaghetti
1/4 C chopped onion
1T of ginger paste or grated ginger (very optional)
1 crown (3 C chopped) broccoli
2 handfuls of baby spinach (amount is not important)
1 1/2 C peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)
3/4 cup hummus (you could use tahini, but I only had hummus available)
{Side note:  Up to this point in the ingredients I was meticulously measuring what I was eyeballing for measurements because I don't measure.  It turned into a game of guess how much onion that is.  I am freakishly right on the money for eyeballing measurements.  Huzzah.  After this, I got in the zone of sauce making and the amounts are approximate (or maybe exactly right since I am a genius at eyeballing)}
Olive oil
Toasted sesame oil
2T Braggs Liquid Aminos (or soy sauce, or tamari)
1t fish sauce (optional)
1T sugar (honey would be better, but I was sticking to cabinets)
Now you need about 1/4 to 1/2 C of liquid.  I used to use orange juice.  You could use lemon juice but then you need more sugar to balance it.  Today I used peach-lemonade.  Perfect.
Rice Vinegar (about 1/2-3/4 C)

Directions:
Pasta
Cook the pasta in generously salted water.  Drain.  Add about 1/4 C olive oil to the pasta to keep it from sticking.  This is salad and it will be chilled.  The pasta needs to hang out without sticking together.

Use olive oil to keep noodles from sticking together

Transfer to a large bowl

Veggies
In a medium pan, cook onion in some toasted sesame oil.  Add some ginger paste.  Add broccoli with a little liquid (2T) (water, wine, whatever) to steam it a little.  Add 2 handfulls of spinach and cook until they are wilted but not so cooked they disappear.  If you're smart, you would cook garlic at this step.  I totally forgot.  Add this mixture to the pasta and stir.

My guess was 1/4 cup chopped

Sure enough 1/4 C

My guess was 3 C and 1 crown chopped was indeed 3 C

Sorry that it's blurry but Ginger Paste is so handy to have around 

Cooked broccoli and onions are underneath a couple handfuls of spinach

Sauce

Stir cooked veggies into pasta with sauce

In a food processor:  Put in peanut butter and hummus and blend thoroughly.  Then add Braggs and fish sauce.  Blend and then taste.  You'll probably say, wow that's too salty, I want to bring back the sweetness of the peanut butter.  Add the sugar, blend, and taste again.  You'll say ok, now I just need liquid.  Add juice - start with a small amount, blend and taste.  I would be surprised if you need more saltiness, but you can add more Braggs if needed.

Add the sauce to the pasta.  Yum.  Taste.  You'll say, wow that's good but it needs something.  Add in a little rice vinegar.  Stir and taste.  You'll say, wow yes.  Cool, more of that.  And so on until you have achieved perfection.  Serve on top of a bed of spinach.  Garnish with sesame seeds if you have them.  I used more leaves and cherry tomatoes on top.  If you're alone, just eat right out of the bowl until full and you'll say garnish, shmarmish this is so good.  This picture is deceiving.  It is not a regular sized plate.  It is a large serving plate.  This recipe would easily serve 12 as a side dish and 8 as a main dish.

Health Stuff
When I last blogged, I hadn't yet seen the surgeon and he had told me to stay home and rest.  Well, I couldn't quite stay home because I stopped getting pay checks and I started to feel panicked about money.  Sometimes I forget that I am in a we situation and my husband has money to give me to hold my individual stuff over and can pay our house stuff without my help.  Anyway, I went back for the last 5 days of school which felt great anyway, because I got to finish everything up and talk to the students.  I'm really going to miss my AP Biology class.  There were some awesome people in that class.

I saw the surgeon, and he had a student intern with him.  They concluded that things were not going well.  I had concluded this a while ago.  It felt like they were just staring at me and nodding in collective pity.  What do I do?  Wait and see.  Rest and walk.  Wait and see.  Continue on medication for now.  Up this one so you can lower that one.

My hopeful hypothesis is that I am a very slow healer and I have too much inflammation in there.  I am all for getting another steroid epidural but I guess they don't want to mask what is happening.  My hopeless hypothesis is that I have permanent nerve damage from compression of the nerve root for all those years.  Thankfully I have two hypotheses to bounce back and forth between.

At times, the pain is so intense I cannot imagine going back to work ever.  Other times, I feel like I have some management of it.  At times, like in the middle of the paragraph I hit a point where I MUST nap.  I just slept for two hours.  Sleep is necessary sometimes.  I'm not quite as weepy as I was, but falling apart always seems like a possible option.  Cooking is definitely a time to reflect, to focus, and also to escape.  I get very absorbed in the moment and think of nothing else.

Home and Spanikopita

So surgery number 3 is done.  Only minor tinges of leg pain here and there - which is the least leg pain I have had in over 5 years.  Back pain of course from the surgery but that's totally different than nerve pain.  For those who haven't kept track - Surgery 1 last June - attempt least invasive option of removing bone on my nerve root (lumbar S1), Surgery 2 in December - full fusion with lumbar cage and three screws.  Then no leg pain for 3 weeks but then grew new bone spurs on nerve b/c of bone enhancing meds to encourage fusion.  Surgery 3 yesterday - remove all the bone spurs and scar tissue to free up the nerve root.  I am trying to hold this line of desperately hopeful and realistically staying in the moment.  I can't really imagine being able to deal if it doesn't work and I don't want to live in the fear.  So, I feel my fear as it comes, cry a bit, and move on.

So I made Spanikopita on Monday and ate it last night.  Can I tell you that this cooking ahead thing was a great idea!!!!

I've posted this recipe on FB but wanted to share it here.  I learned about this easy version from my friend Kim.  You can make it in about 20 minutes and throw it in the oven.  If you don't eat it all at once, it stays great in the fridge.  If you were going to freeze it - I would say you could freeze it before or after baking.  I was thinking of using those cute little brownie pans with no edges to make individual ones without depending on weird folding mastery of phyllo dough.

Spanikopita Recipe (adapted from Kim Shute)

1/2 package of phyllo dough (thawed)
Olive oil - lots (3/4 cup maybe in total)
1 box spinach
1 C frozen peas
1 small onion chopped
2-4 garlic cloves chopped finely or pushed through the garlic gadget that I don't have.

1 small container of ricotta
1-2 packages of feta to taste.
lemon zest
2 eggs

In a large pan, saute the onions in olive oil (1-2 T) until nice and soft but not crispy.  Add in whole thing of spinach (stems and all) and the peas.  Cook until wilted not cooked down entirely.  Add garlic for last 30 seconds of cooking - keep stirring.  Burnt garlic is gross.

Put in food processor and chop until all integrated.

In large bowl, combine the spinach mixture, the ricotta, the eggs, the feta (crumble it in as you go), and the zest (maybe 1/2 T).  Salt and pepper to taste.  (I don't use pepper ever, but you might).

Assembly:
Use large pyrex glass baking dish or 2 small ones.  Unravel your phyllo dough so you can get the layers out.  Get a small dish of olive oil and pastry brush ready.

Brush a layer of oil on bottom of dish.  Add one layer of dough.  For this recipe you do not need to go crazy making your layers of dough neat at all.  Even if edges fold over each other, it won't matter one bit.  Add 5-6 more layers to the bottom with a little bit of oil brushed on between layers.  You also don't need to vigorously oil each one, there's a lot of moisture that moves down through it from the spinach stuff.

Add half the mixture.  Put on another 5-6 layers of dough with a little oil in between the layers.  Then add the rest of the mixture.  Top with another 5-6 layers of dough.

I bake with aluminum foil on top, which I take off at the end to crisp up the top,  I think it takes about 40 minutes at 350, but you want to keep an eye on it.  It's done when nothing is giggling in the spinach mixture (the eggs will have pulled it together).

This is completely easy and delicious.  It is not the same as the more authentic version with a million layers and tons of butter, but this way is way easier and actually tastier in my opinion.

I squeeze a little lemon on top when I serve it.

Sorry - I forgot to take pictures this time, this is from last time.

Spinach Triangles

I did big cooking. Big.  I decided to prepare myself some yummies for the week of recovery.  I made spinach triangles, chicken pot pies, and spanikopita (which I still have to finish).

Ok, I seriously made all three of these dishes simultaneously which made it much easier, sort of.  In essence, they are all things you cook and then stuff into something else.

Spinach Triangles
First, I made the dough for the spinach triangles:
3 C flour
1/2 t yeast in 1/4 C warm water with 1 T maple syrup
1/2 C olive oil
1/2 cup more water.

Combine and knead until a nice dough is formed.  Oil the dough ball and let rise until doubled in size.

The recipe for them is here at Wandering Spice
I made minor mistakes adjustments along the way.  While the dough was rising in a warm spot, I made the filling.

Filling:
2 packages baby spinach
salt
lemon juice
olive oil
lemon zest
1 small onion chopped fine and cooked in olive oil

I varied these amounts to taste.  You can follow the recipe link above for real amounts.

Woah.  Realizing I need to back way up here for this all to make sense.

Okay, so I needed to cook so that I have food to heat up and eat that is healthy and yummy since I am having surgery Tuesday.  Yesterday I realized that I am not functioning well without an unreasonable amount of pain medication so today I wanted to take it very slow.  We had a lot to do and Nate asked me to make a list.  So I took out the sticky notes from my personal binder organizer (will share that bit of genius on another post) and made a post for each task and put them on the frige.  This way, we can pull them off when done.  Cleaning, cooking, shopping.  Basically.  And all I can think about making is spinach triangles.  I had them at Pita Pocket near the Walmart in Dartmouth and they were good but I put both my hummus and my tabouli on them.  They were just spinach and onions in dough.  Then my friend brought me some from the Lebanese place in Fall River near BCC and they were so different and yummy.  I tasted a sweetness, a lemony bit and a crazy spinach texture.  How do they get spinach like this?  Well, that part at least, I did figure out.

You take the raw spinach, chop it up and put it in a bowl.  Then, put some salt on it and massage it in (kind of like the massaged kale salad that I will have to post some time soon).  Then squeeze the excess water out of the spinach.  I should have rinsed the spinach but I didn't.  I used the Maldon sea salt so it's not bad to have the salt in there.

Then I realized I had rotten lemons.  So I used the bottled lemon juice.  The mixture tasted perfect but once cooked, it really needed more lemon.

I rolled out the dough and made one batch of small ones, using a biscuit cutter.  Hold the circle in your hand, use a fork to put in a bit of the filling, then lift up three parts to the middle to make a little package.  I brushed a little egg wash on them before baking them at 350 until golden brown.  The next two batches I made big ones using a super large mug as a guide.  This recipe made 6 large triangles, and 9 small ones.

Yes, they are totally delicious.  Next time I would add way more lemon.  I intend to buy some new lemons and then squeeze more on before eating.  I froze three of them unbaked for this week.  

The chicken pot pie recipe is here.  I froze all of them unbaked and can just bake when I want them.  Actually, Nate can bake them for me.  

Today I will finish off the spanikopita and take some pictures of it.  I have a lot to learn about food photography but I think I am getting a little bit better.  

I must say I am totally freaking out about surgery tomorrow.  I have done a lot of work on feeling my fears and hopes, but still it is very intense.  I know this one is much simpler than last time, but still it is for lack of a better new word here, intense.  

Anyway, if you want to come visit, I will share my frozen yummies with you :)

Dressing Things Up (Veggie Burgers)

Did I tell you that I am an MOH?  Matron of honor.  Yesiree.  I have never before had this honor and I am so excited!  It means so much to me that Jeanine would ask me and that I would get to do fun stuff like try on beautiful dresses.  This is finally the one.  It will be in charcoal gray instead of pink.  It's so pretty!  

I haven't been feeling all that great.  I've been thinking about denial and stuff.  I went to the neurologist last week, we went over my MS history and he pronounced me as "primary progressive MS." This is very rare type.  I had come in planning on saying something like, "Do I really have this?  I don't fit the relapsing remitting pattern, I only have a few annoying symptoms, blah blah blah."  Denial.  

Over the years of being not 100% healthy, I have received much advice.  I've probably given other people some of that advice too.  It's crap you know.  You will not get healthy as soon as you learn whatever lesson is there to be learned.  Switching to only pomegranate juice will not fix all things.  The fact that one doctor told you there is no such thing as MS does not mean he/she was correct or that I don't have something significant.  I do not just have Lyme Disease.  And hence, I never talk about it.  Ever.  The other advantage of this strategy has been that it really supports the denial angle I've got going.  The same discussions have occurred around my spine issues - you just have to see this doctor, healer, specialist in BOSTON, acupuncturist, nutritionist, shamen, and so on.  The weird thing is that no one really ever asks me how I do deal with it or who's opinion I do take under advisement.  I'm not meaning to sound like a bitch here - it's just something I'm starting to understand about chronic illness.  People around me are desperate to see me get better.  They think they see me getting better sometimes when I am in intense pain.  Denial, right?  Sometimes I think it's because I am pretty.  I smile and joke around constantly - it's the way I am.  Does pretty equal wellness?  

I'm on some new medication for my tremors which should also turn my overall nervous system down a notch.  I am still acclimating to it and it is making me really tired.  Oh - the neurologist is very familiar with esophageal spasms and has about a million ideas.  The neuro dude is one of the best MS doctors in the country - for those of you who worry about doctor things.  He's very open to my ideas - very pro-natural stuff - just likes me to keep good data on what I do use and how it works.  

So what does this have to do with food you ask?  I was thinking about dressing something up.  I love veggie burgers and I hear people say that they hate them.  Like everything it's how you serve it.  This is a Trader Joe's veggie burger.

Veggie Burger All Dressed Up

1/4 onion, sliced

1 C spinach

4 T or more barbecue sauce (I always misspell barbecue sauce - why doesn't it have a Q?)

1 pita warmed in the oven

1 slice of Muenster cheese

Sautee onion in some olive oil until is starts to caramelize.  Make room in the middle and put the burger in the center.  Cook 2 minutes then flip.  Put cheese on.  Throw spinach over top and cover.  Keep an eye on it so nothing burns.  Serve on top of a warmed pita.  This is so good that I ate it for 3 days in a row.

Smoothies in Green and Pink

Since I am a smoothie loving freak of a woman, people always ask me about what I put in mine.  So, I have shared this important information with many of you before, but since you will ask me again, it will be here for all of time (or until the death of the internet as we know it).

I have a bunch of pain things to share about today, but this time, recipe first, bitching later.

I have used Spirutein shake mix for a long time now.  I have not had any other flavors beside chocolate because, really, what else is there?

You really have to mix this in the blender for it to come out tasty.  You use 1 scoop of shake mix per person.  Then 8 oz milk (dairy or almond or whatever).  Add 4-5 frozen berries.  I love frozen strawberries in it.

Organic frozen berries are not so expensive.  (You know what else is delicious?  Frozen organic cherries!  I love them heated up a little with some plain yogurt! - sorry for excessive exclamation points but they are so good!)

So if you blend up milk, protein powder and fruit, you get this lovely smoothie right here.  

Nate loves these so I'm guessing many picky eaters would like it.  It keeps you full for many hours.  Lately, I add 2 more things to mine:  Spinach and peanut butter.  I add a handful (1 C ish) of baby spinach leaves and 1 T of smooth peanut butter.  Then blend until no spinach is visible (chunks of spinach leaves is not desirable).  Then it looks more like this.  

I read about green smoothies and decided to try it since I can't eat salad anymore.  This smoothie is very filling.  I had this for breakfast today and I wasn't really hungry until after school (but my appetite is a weirdo anyway these days).  Your question, of course, is "can you taste the spinach?"  The answer is no, not at all if you blend it thoroughly.  I do think the addition of peanut butter helps make the spinach work.  

Enjoy.  What are your smoothie recipes?  Please share in the comments.

Okay, now for some sharing.  I went to the pain doctor today since it has been 22 days since the most recent epidural injection.  I've gotten significant relief but the past 2 days, I have had more leg pain.  Last week, I hardly took any pain medications and the doc and I discussed that I don't seem to have any issues of dependency (whew).  I am so relieved that when I need to stop these, I won't have any problems.  I got some new prescriptions since I was absolutely, completely out of medicine.  I always fantasize that I won't need more and wait until I have none to get more.  

The doc just had to put his 13 year old wheaten down last weekend and I practically jumped to talk more about Orso (pictured with me above).  Orso passed on about 6 weeks ago and my heart aches for him daily still.  I tell Nate everyday, "I miss Orso."  That's all I can really say.  

I went to fill the prescriptions.  I used to be totally anonymous in this town.  After teaching for 4 years here, not so much anymore.  The pharmacy tech is a student teacher at the high school.  She knows what I take for medicine.  I am not invisible.  One of the meds requires a waiting period because they don't store it in the store.  I would have had to wait 2 days, but the nice student teacher offered to drop it off at the other CVS so I can pick it up tomorrow.  She didn't think I was a junkie.  She thought I needed help.  Sigh.  I was so caught up in feeling self conscious, I almost missed a human being being super kind to me.  

The pain doc thinks it's really promising that I got some relief.  It means it's not hopeless.  The nerve is not permanently damaged.  He generally thought I seemed much better overall after the fusion.  That seems like really good news and feedback, but it doesn't actually go all the way into my brain.  As long as there is pain in my leg, there is pain in my leg.  

The other day in school this woman that I have never met took out her pointer finger and pointed at me up and down and said, "You got really skinny.  You weren't heavy or anything, but you got really skinny."  I tried to decide if this was a complement, a complaint, a general statement.  I said, "Yes."  I am such a wackadoo sometimes.  What should I have said?  

So I am starting to consider this week's baking adventure.  I have this lemon yogurt cake in mind and my friend made it and said it was wonderful.  I've also been wanting to reproduce Bertucci's rolls.  And I want to try to make chocolate eclairs!