I am a man in his 60s who is married to a gorgeous woman who tells me she wants me around for 30 more years. To that end, at my age, it becomes important to eat healthy. Eating healthy, she says – insists, actually – means eating more fruits and vegetables. They are not only healthy, she says, but eating five servings of them a day means less room for things like charred-rare ribeye and calamari fritti.
In decades prior, I would have argued that life was not meant to be spent in a way that on the day you die, you will be in a state of perfect health. In my 60s, though, I can start to see this lovely woman's point. Through no fault of mine, or hers, my appetite for death-hastening cuisine has declined in what I can only describe as a natural sort of way. No longer will my body let me consume six tacos for dinner. I can go two, at the max. If it is a natural thing, that must mean something.
I wouldn't have a problem if five fruits and vegetables a day left room for two tacos at dinner and a brisket sandwich for lunch, with a few chips. But they don't. A "serving" of fruits and vegetables is one cup. You'd be surprised (if you haven't tried it) how much focus is required to pack in five cups of fruits and vegetables a day and leave room in the 60-year-old appetite for just a little of the good stuff.
There is a secondary problem. I am a man who does not much like fresh fruit, or frozen, canned, jarred, dried, candied, powdered or juiced fruit, for that matter. Oranges aren't bad. Strawberries are okay, but NOT A CUP AT A TIME. After long consideration - months, she says - I decided I could probably handle one orange every morning, and some strawberries, if they were disguised, and so I would try joining her in the fruits and vegetables – aficionados call them F&Vs – routine.
After three weeks, I am holding my own, mainly because I like vegetables, even spinach. Three cups of packed fresh spinach cooks down practically to nothing and tastes great with a skillet-grilled steak with onions and mushrooms (which of course contribute to the F&V count). I realized that the F&V scheme can be connected to the traditional Southern "meat and three" (meat and three sides of vegetables) style of eating. This cheered me up.
Then, Tuesday afternoon (it was Cinco de Mayo), F&V merged with Stretch Cooking. In celebration of my new direction, Karen had given me a sturdy, skillet-shaped wire basket from Williams-Sonoma, with which to grill vegetables over charcoal. Last Saturday, on the Weber, I grilled a big batch of carrots, zucchini, summer squash, baby broccoli, onions, mushrooms, and green and red peppers, in batches, with this device, then dumped them in a baking pan and left them in the covered Weber (I was worried about the carrots being done) for half an hour. They turned out very nicely.
Tuesday afternoon, Cinco de Mayo, I contemplated enchiladas for dinner. I had half-pound packages of hamburger in the freezer, some great enchilada sauce from Trader Joe's, and Porkyland's tortillas, the best on the planet. Then I thought: how can you stretch that? I thought about the cache of grilled veggies. With the enchiladas, I had planned to scarf a mound of lettuce and tomatoes for my three evening V's. That is a lot of lettuce. And of course that is the purpose: eat more lettuce, less room for enchiladas. You see how Stretch and F&V were merging. In each, once they are opened in your life, there is a bit of the Pandora's Box.
In a 6-quart dutch oven, I browned the hamburger and added a bit of olive oil and half a chopped onion to soften the onion. I chopped and added two roma tomatoes (the V count was skyrocketing tonight) and let them cook, stirring, until they were mushy and starting to act as a thickener. I added half a cup of leftover coffee and stirred to deglaze the bottom of the pot. Then I rough-chopped and added the leftover grilled vegetables, probably six cups in all, and half a cup of the Trader Joe's enchilada sauce. I stacked four Porkyland's tortillas, sliced them into eighths, and threw them in, stirred the pot, and let it simmer for an hour.
The result was pretty darn good, packed in my three V's with ease, and made at least two meals worth of leftovers. Recipes are essential, of course, in the kitchen. But a lot of my cooking comes from head-doodling, of which this is an example.
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