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Pregnancy Food Battles

Tom insists that my first trimester was WAY worse than I remember. Right now, I can only think of a few days in which I was grumpy because I knew I had to eat food, but I didn’t want to. According to Tom, the magnitude of my suffering was only rivaled by my “trooper” attitude. I guess this is a good thing; my ability to conveniently forget things that suck will come in handy in April. I can see it now:

During labor: “GAH IT HURTS SO BAD I HATE YOU TOM I’M NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN NO MORE BABIES!”

Two weeks later: “Meh, that wasn’t so bad.”

…yeah, probably not. Anyway, it’s a good thing I started this blog post while in the throes of morning sickness; otherwise, I’d have no idea what the past three months were really like. I still think I was incredibly lucky.

***

My first trimester could be described succinctly by Strong Bad’s and Strong Sad’s comments from about 1:30 to 1:41 of this video:

This has got to be my only pregnancy complaint so far: eating food was really hard for a few weeks. I didn’t even want it anymore—the idea of food was about as appealing as cleaning a toilet or taking a chemistry exam. I had totally lost the ability to understand why food is a positive thing.  I was expecting to have those weird pregnancy cravings you always hear about, the kind that would send Tom on a midnight shopping adventure to get pickles and ice cream, or whatever. Instead, my personal definition of a “craving” was “anything that sounded remotely, hypothetically, temporarily edible.” Tom quickly learned not to trust me with buying the groceries, because I’d only buy things that seemed edible (read: not much).

I particularly had problems with anything sweet (including most fruits) and anything saltier than, say, bread. Soups and hot, heavily-sauced, salty dishes were off the menu. You guys, I have two big tubs of delicious Thai curry that are about to expire because I haven’t been able to eat curry in months.

I actually lost several pounds at one point, prompting Tom to start texting me almost every day, making sure I was actually eating.

For the most part, I tried to exercise self-discipline and eat as healthily as possible (yay hummus and smoothies!). However, there were times when this was much harder than it should have been, like that horrid week when I couldn’t make hummus because I was out of garlic, or when everything I would normally put in a smoothie was suddenly poisonous. Now that my stomach is behaving again, I’m trying hard to make up for lost nutrition (don’t ask me how many YAMS! I’ve eaten in the past week. I don’t even want to know).

Today, I’m going to share some of my more embarrassing “pregnancy recipes” from those early weeks. Hopefully you’ll find these as entertaining as I do.

Peaches

Ingredients:
~6 large peaches

Directions:
Peel peach. Eat. Repeat every two hours for as long as you are awake.

Minimal-Fruit Green Smoothie

This was the only smoothie I could stomach, and even it met with limited success.

Ingredients:
2 cups spinach
1 peach
Large handful of carrots
1 frozen strawberry
1 cup water

Directions:
Prepare smoothie according to standard procedure. Realize this would be revolting to many people. Drink 3/4 of the glass, and decide there’s no way you can force down any more. Wonder when your stomach got so small and dainty, and why it couldn’t have been like that when you were actively trying to lose weight. Store remaining smoothie in fridge indefinitely.

Apples With Peanut Butter

Ingredients:
1 apple
Peanut butter

Directions:
Decide you need an apple. Decide an apple is not enough calories to constitute a meal. Slice apple, and cover several slices with peanut butter. Retire to couch for resulting stomachache. Wonder whether the apple or the peanut butter was the culprit; shun both.

PB&J

Ingredients:
2 slices of bread
Peanut butter
Jam
Peach

Directions:
Make PB&J sandwich according to standard procedure. Start eating. Wonder who in his right mind decided that putting PEANUT BUTTER on BREAD was a good idea. Wonder if bread has gone bad. Decide bread has gone bad (it hasn’t). Discard half eaten sandwich. Eat peaches instead (see above).

“Bread”

It’s like a sandwich, without any sandwich fillings. Sandwich fillings are problematic.

Ingredients:
1 ciabatta roll (obtained while wandering around HEB like a pregnant zombie who’s lost her taste for human brains (or anything else, for that matter))

Directions:
Remove ciabatta roll from package. Eat morosely while contemplating your poor life choices.

Club Crackers and Jam

Ingredients:
Club crackers
Jam

Directions:
Decide club crackers are the only thing in the world that sounds good. Eat crackers plain until your mouth gets dry. Decide to risk a little bit of jam. Decide jam is okay. Eat almost an entire sleeve of club crackers in one sitting. Feel gross. Gag when Tom tries to force-feed you club crackers when he comes home.

Failure Pasta

I had a day when the only thing I wanted was a ton of pasta with alfredo sauce, eating-for-two style. Here’s my alternative.

Ingredients:
Pasta
Garlic salt
Parmesan cheese
Broccoli florets

Directions:
Cook pasta according to package instructions. Toss some broccoli in pasta water toward the end of cooking to feel better about the fact that you’re about to ingest pure carbs and salt. Drain. Sprinkle with a little bit of garlic salt and cheese. Feel ashamed at how much better your stomach feels after eating this. Contemplate how something so right can feel so wrong (or is it the other way around?).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st0obbFrWkM

Shrimp Pasta

This one has actually been a more-or-less weekly staple in our household since we’ve been married, but pregnancy’s made it weird.

Ingredients:
Canola oil
1 onion
1 red bell pepper
Pasta
Pasta sauce
Frozen shrimp

Directions:
Feel bad that you haven’t cooked an actual meal in days. Cook pasta according to package instructions. Sauté vegetables in oil. Add pasta and sauce. Simmer shrimp in sauce until fully cooked. Wake up at 3 A.M. with disgusting shrimp aftertaste. Swear off shrimp forever (or at least until you can forget this experience).

And, because David Sorensen insisted, here’s what I’ve eaten nearly every day since I’ve been able to eat again.

YAMS!

Ingredients:
1 YAM!, cut into small pieces
1 broccoli crown, cut into florets
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
~1.5 tbsp olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Rosemary
Thyme

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine YAM!, broccoli, and garlic. Drizzle with olive oil, mixing to combine. Add salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, and any other toppings. Mix well, and dump onto foil-lined baking sheet. Try to achieve monolayer coverage (think Langmuir). Bake YAMS! and other things for 45 minutes.

Serves 1. Seriously, eat the whole thing. You really need to.

***

Man, those were good times.

And now, I’m going to text Tom and see if he can bring home some pickles and ice cream on the way home from work.

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Freezer Fudge: A Story of Betrayal

Sometimes I’m a terrible wife.

As some of you know, I occasionally like to dabble in making “healthy” versions of “food.” I love a good black bean burger, I’m still working on trying to perfect my spinach-based, “naturally-sweetened” chocolate “milk”shake, and you should really ask Tom about “death soup” sometime—it’s the one meal I’ve made that Tom has steadfastly refused to try (he also rejected the black bean burgers, but he took a bite first). As is probably becoming clear, Tom is understandably not enthusiastic about my efforts. Most of the time I try to “keep it real” and make meals that Tom is actually willing to eat.

But  a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon this recipe for health-nut freezer fudge:

I’m a sucker for cookie dough anything, and I’ve been wanting to experiment with the food processor more often. Plus, the main ingredient is chickpeas, and I’m always a fan of chickpeas. As I Googled around, trying to figure out where one buys
“soft dates,” I concocted an evil plan to trick Tom into eating and falling in love with this fudge. It was going to be the gateway drug that led Tom into embracing my wacko cooking experiments.

When Tom came home from work the day I made the fudge, he asked me what I’d been up to. “Oh, you know, the usual,” I said. “Working, cleaning the things, making freezer fudge…” I mentioned the fudge casually, trying not to give away my master plan.

“Freezer fudge?!” he said, eyes lighting up as he swiveled around in his chair. “You’re so cool!”

Man, did I start to feel guilty. How could I take advantage of my innocent Tom’s trust like that? Seeing the pure joy in his face, I almost wished I had made him real fudge. But I tuned out my conscience, telling it that I was looking out for Tom’s cardiovascular health, and that he would thank me someday.

The fudge actually tasted pretty good when I tried it the next day, but it definitely wasn’t sweet enough for Tom’s taste—it probably needed more dates. Disappointed, I made peace with the possibility that freezer fudge would not be enough to revolutionize our kitchen activities.

Still, I was determined to get him to eat some of my creation. I waited until Tom was finishing off his after-dinner cookie before asking, “Ready to try some fudge?” I knew he would decline, as he had already eaten dessert, but I had to build his anticipation without seeming too eager and rousing his suspicion. Sure enough, Tom was clearly disappointed at having to put off his fudge experience. Again my conscience prickled, but it was too late to turn back—I was committed.

The next night, Tom excitedly pulled the fudge pan from the freezer. I faltered in my resolve, muttering that I didn’t think I had sweetened it enough. I hadn’t anticipated that his expectations would be this high, and I needed to lower them for my plan to work. Every single one of Tom’s female relatives, from his mom to his sisters to his grandmothers to his aunts, makes fantastic desserts, so Tom was very much accustomed to confectionary perfection. It became clear to me in that moment that I hadn’t thought this fudge thing through. My plan was doomed.

Tom, having sampled the failure fudge, thought for a moment. Then he said, “You know, I’m not a huge fan. But I really appreciate you doing this kind of thing for me.” He gave me a big hug. I felt like a criminal.

I managed to hold it together for a few hours, but eventually I cracked. The guilt was just too much. “Tom,” I said, “I can’t lie to you anymore. That fudge is made of chickpeas and dates.”

He made a big show of feeling betrayed. As I begged for forgiveness, I promised I would make him real fudge sometime. But then, Tom didn’t really have much of a foundation to stand on, considering how many of the cookies I’d recently made “for his home-teachees” he’d rapturously enjoyed.

“You think we can blend in some garlic and salvage the fudge as hummus?” Tom asked.

“I think the chocolate chips might make it a little weird.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Such a waste of ingredients that could have been good on their own!”

And that’s the story of how I deceived my husband and ended up with a sad pan of unwanted fudge in my freezer. I’d like to say I learned a valuable, life-changing lesson from this experience, but basically all I’ve got is that chickpeas are meant for hummus, not desserts. And maybe that I shouldn’t trick Tom. Sorry, Tom.

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Hummus!

I promise this isn’t going to be a food blog. It’s not that I don’t like food blogs—I LOVE food blogs—it’s that I don’t cook well enough to sustain that kind of awesome in the long term

That said, it’s a busy time around the Nysetvold pad. Tom and I are graduating and moving and tying up all sorts of loose ends. Therefore, I’m doing a cop-out blog post about one of my favorite foods: hummus!

My dad has this wonderful tradition of making Sunday dinners for our family. Often he does some sort of Arabic or Indian dish, and he is the one who introduced us to hummus. Now we can’t let a Sunday pass without it, regardless of dinner’s ethnic origin.

Happy Easter from the Cardon family!
Happy Easter from the Cardon family!

Cardon family hummus is slightly different from the traditional stuff; no one in my family likes tahini, so we leave it out. Authentic or not, it’s delicious. But if you like tahini, it should be a simple matter of adding some. Hummus is versatile and wonderful. It’s also healthy—and with a glycemic index of 6, it shouldn’t spike anyone’s blood sugar at all.

And now, the recipe:

The Best Hummus Ever!

1 cup dried chickpeas (canned chickpeas also work, but I would advise reducing the garlic)
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp lemon juice
3 large garlic cloves
1 tbsp olive oil

Soak the chickpeas overnight, and boil them for a half hour just before you make the hummus. Chop the garlic in a food processor, then add the chickpeas. Process. Add salt, lemon juice, olive oil, and enough water to reach your desired consistency, and process again. Serve on pita chips, pita bread, rice, apples, cookies, or just eat it straight with a spoon. Not that I’ve ever done any of those last few things…frequently…

 It’s a good day for garlic lovers! Happy hummus-ing!

Current word count: 33,225. It’s going slowly toward the end, but I’m going to make it!

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Green Smoothies?! Green Smoothies!

“Tom, what should my first real blog post be about?”

“Food. Talk about food.”

Who am I to ignore such great advice from my excellent husband? Today I’m going to unveil the food item I’ve been making more than any other the past few months:

Courtesy of: Kimberly Snyder. My smoothies never look like this.

Now wait a minute—don’t just brand me as some sort of hippy and leave, never to return. Hear me out.

Green smoothies have definitely improved my quality of life. This is the first time I’ve made it through an entire school year without getting sick, despite plenty of exposure and stress. I don’t crave chocolate as much, and I have more energy. I don’t have to worry about getting enough fruits and vegetables, because I can just drink them all in one fell swoop. Also, I may or may not have lost six pounds by replacing a meal or two a week with a smoothie, making no other changes to my lifestyle.

Now if I can just get Tom to join me, we’ll be all set.

In my opinion, the internet makes the whole smoothie experience way more complicated than it needs to be. “Use only organic produce.” “Make sure it’s a 70:30 vegetable:fruit ratio.” “Don’t eat anything less than 40 minutes before or after smoothie consumption.” “Sip it slowly through a straw and swish it around your mouth before you swallow it.” Ain’t nobody got time for that. Just play around with it until you’ve got something you’d look forward to drinking. You can hardly go wrong.

To start, here’s a simple smoothie recipe I’ve been enjoying lately. Be warned: the frozen berries will turn your “green” smoothie purple. It’s still awesome.

Citrus Berry Surprise [pronounced “soo-PREEZE”] Smoothie

2 cups spinach
1 cup water
1 apple
1 orange
0.5 cup frozen berries of choice

Place ingredients in blender and blend until smooth.

Happy smoothie-ing, friends!

 

P.S. On a writing-related note, I’m working on a 35,000-word novella for Brandon Sanderson’s creative writing class. Right now I’m at 27,522 words. Good times!