Low GI “Korean Style” Vegetable Pancake

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Mama Cormier

Anyone on a low GI diet knows that flour based recipes don’t fit into the program. Years ago I had a traditional Korean pancake and I loved it. Actually there are many versions of these pancakes. The one I had was filled with lots of shredded cabbage and onion. I’ve come up with a version made without flour. Some of you might call this a frittata.

Ingredients

2 eggs or egg substitute

1 tablespoon cream (optional)

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup finely chopped onions and sweet pepper

thinly sliced green onion and chives (more traditional)

1 cup broccoli slaw or cole slaw

3 thinly sliced fresh mushrooms

2 tablespoons shredded cheese (optional)

Heat 2 teaspoons of olive oil over medium heat in a small pan and add the onions and peppers and cook just till the onions sweat.

Add the slaw and cook for a few more minutes until it is tender crisp. Add the mushroom and continue cooking until they are soft.

Whisk the eggs, cream and salt and pepper together and pour over the vegetable mixture in the pan. With a spatula lift the edges of the egg mixture so that the uncooked eggs flow to the edges and cook. When the egg is mostly set and doesn’t run when the pan is tilted add the cheese. Cover the pan with a lid and remove from the burner. Leave covered until the cheese melts.

Plate and garnish with cucumber or tomato slices and add a little hot sauce, soy sauce or chipotle ketchup. I used my husband’s homemade chipotle ketchup. To die for! Enjoy!

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Hooray for the Weekend!

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Mama Cormier

…… but with it come some challenges.

I always look forward to the weekend but after a week of successes on the scale I always worry about the next two days.

For dinner tonight my husband made pasta with homemade bolognas sauce. Carbs are often my enemy but he did use a whole wheat pasta and he measured exactly half a small box for the two of us. We also had a nice big salad with it and we decided to forgo the wine tonight.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we will probably go on one of our long walks with the dog and I will try to run some laps at the rugby pitch. Later in the afternoon we are invited to our neighbour’s birthday party. I know there will be lots of good food but there are usually some healthy options to choose from. Will I have some birthday cake? All depends on the cake. I’ve learned that not all sweets are created equal and some just aren’t worth it.

I don’t know if it’s the weather or my husband’s next round of chemo next week but I have the urge to clean, organize and purge. I’ve started doing more of that in my classroom and now I want to extend it to my house. I have to be careful that I don’t use that as an excuse to not get outside and move. Wish me luck! Happy weekend everybody!

Girls on the Run – Week Two

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Mama Cormier

The phone rang at 6:30 this morning. It was my friend L reminding me that I had to be at school by 7:30 for soccer tryouts. It’s never good when the coach is late. After a quick shower, I grabbed a protein bar and hurried out of the house by 7:15.

I pulled into the parking lot by 7:29 and could see that about 20 of the girls and two of the assistant coaches were already waiting on the soccer field. I grabbed my 3 bags from the car and dragged myself into the building to drop off my stuff and fetch the bag of soccer balls from the gym. When I finally got back outside we discovered that most of the balls needed to be inflated. Luckily many of the girls brought their own balls so the drills were already underway.

I never did find time to eat my protein bar. My first meal of the day happened at lunch. I thought that I could find a minute to read over the activity sheet for tonight’s Girls on the Run meeting but I made the mistake of trying to read it in the staff room. What I did read looked rather straight forward and the story attached to it inspired me to share it with my library classes in the afternoon.

When 3:00 came around I looked over the activity sheet again and went into panic mode because I was suppose to make a special box for one of the activities. Luckily Coach C had it under control and she decided that both teams could use the same box and do that particular activity together. Thank Goodness!

The day was colder than it had been the day before but not nearly as bad as the week before. We worked on negative traits that we wanted to change and focused on the positive things that we do and want to continue. It tied nicely into the story whose message was not to listen to negative or pessimistic comments when trying to pursue a goal or dream.

I think Coach P and I make a good team. During the run we encourage the girls and I even ran/walked a loop of the track today. After the girls left for the day the four coaches sat around and discussed the activities and how well the girls participated. I feel good about the program but I’m not sure it’s getting me ready for that 5 km walk/run.

It was a long day today. After Girls on the Run, Coach P and I had a parent council meeting and I didn’t get home till 9:00. At around 6:00 I finally ate that protein bar and I made supper when I got home. Way too late to eat but I knew that if I didn’t eat something I would graze for the rest of the night. It will be interesting to see if the scale has me up again, at the same weight or down somewhat. When I eat irregularly, like I did today, my body goes into starvation mode and I usually gain weight.

Food and Me – Part 2

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Mama Cormier

In my family food was very important. My dad always said that all one ever needed in life to be happy was “family and good food”. For me food symbolized Love. You ate all your food because it was prepared with love and to not eat it was wasteful and hurtful.

I remember a time when my middle sister did not want to eat her cheese sandwich. My parents were always worried about her weight and not because she was too heavy. Quite the opposite. They always thought she was too thin. They tried all kinds of approaches to get her to eat more. I vividly remember one evening when she wasn’t allowed to leave the dinner table until the sandwich was consumed. I’m not sure why I sat with her but I do remember trying to coax her to eat that sandwich. She absolutely refused. In the end I think she won out but the battle was far from over. My parents were so desperate that they sent her away to a farm for a week to fatten her up ( on the advice of our family doctor ). Nothing seemed to help. I think this constant battle convinced me that I needed to eat anything put in front of me in order to be the “good daughter”.

Don’t get me wrong, my middle sister was dearly loved by my parents and at times I was jealous of the constant attention they gave her. She was always the “cute one and the needy one”. I found other ways to get attention. Early on I was given lots of responsibility; one of the downsides of being the oldest child. I learned to cook when I was 8 years old and fondly remember my very first cookbook. It was the Carnation Milk Cookbook for Kids. I’m not sure if that was the exact title but I think I made every recipe in that book. It was my go to book. Years later my sister and I figured out that she was probably lactose intolerant and that’s why she wouldn’t eat that cheese sandwich. Nobody knew about those things back then. My poor sister had to suffer through all my milk laden recipes. Years later when my sister hit her teens she seemed to overcome her intolerance for milk products and started to enjoy cheeses and whipped cream. She however remained the “skinny sister” and even today my younger sister and I call her the “skinny one”.

I can’t believe I found a picture of my favourite cookbook as a child. I did get the title wrong, as you can see. WOW!

Courtesy of: http://www.vintagecookbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/kcb18x.jpg

Food and Me – Part 1

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Mama Cormier

Waste Not Want Not

As long as I can remember, food has played an important part of my life. My parents grew up during WWII when food was scarce and to waste food was unthinkable. Apparently at the age of one my mother was told that I was too thin. A plump baby was the sign of prosperity and good health. We were always expected to eat everything on our plates. Not wanting to disappoint my mom and dad I always cleaned my plate.

Only twice in my life can I remember not eating what was put in front of me. We owned a reference book on mushrooms and of course most of them were considered poisonous and inedible. The message from the book that stood out for me, even at the young age of 8, was that unless you were an expert on mushrooms you should NEVER pick wild mushrooms for consumption. Our house backed onto a huge abandoned field and one day my mother went back there and picked mushrooms and made a huge pot of mushroom soup. Normally I loved mushroom soup but I refused to eat it, convinced that it would be the death of me. Needless to say, it didn’t kill anybody but I wasn’t going to take that chance.

The second time I refused it eat a meal happened on our first visit back to Germany. My sisters and I (ages 11,9 and 5) stayed with our maternal grandmother while our parents spent a few days with my father’s brother and sister. Oma thought she would surprise us with a meal that my mother used to LOVE as a child. We were grossed out when she put bowls of hot sweet milk with elbow macaroni in front of us. None of us could eat it. Later that day the drained and slightly sweet macaroni appeared at dinner with a ground beef sauce. My grandmother wasted nothing. I’m sure she used the milk in something we ate while we were there. I remember how sad my Oma was when we wouldn’t eat her “special treat”. Talk about feeling QUILTY!!!!

Welcome to Carol’s World

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Mama Cormier

I’m about to enter a new phase in my life and I need to figure out which direction I want to go. The problem is I want to do it all. I’m a mother, wife, teacher, coach, artist, and librarian. I love teaching, crafting, reading, gardening, walking the dog, baking and painting. I want to travel more and explore the world with my husband. I also want to stay healthy and I’m trying to move more and eat better.

I hope to divide this blog into categories that address my interests and my journey into retirement. I’m still teaching and coaching and would also like to include some of the upcoming highlights of my experiences in education. This week, for example, I’m about to embark on a new program at school called Girls on the Run. I’m one of 4 coaches and we will be working with 32 girls, ages 8 to 11. At the end of 10 weeks of training, all of us will be walking/running a 5 km race. I know I can walk that far so my personal goal is to try and run for at least half of it. I’ve added a link for Girls on the Run if you want to know more about this organization.

Girls on the Run in the GTA

I know that this blog will evolve and change over the next few months and years as my journey into retirement evolves. I look forward to sharing my experiences and maybe even hearing from some of my fellow bloggers.