caramelized onion gnocchi in parmesan cream sauce

Gnocchi is one of my most favourite pasta type dishes, in fact the only thing that even comes close is fresh, home made pasta. With the dense yet pillowy texture and that perfect chew it's hard not to love. A perfect combination is created when you douse the gnocchi with a heavy cream sauce - it's hearty, heavy and just delicious. I don't make it often because the whole combination there is bad for my waistline (and my self esteem) but oh do I love it when I have it.

Looking at the gnocchi in the fridge, knowing that I was going to do a standard alfredo sauce on it I couldn't help but wonder what else to throw in. Asparagus is always an option, and it's delicious. Pretty much any green vegetable really, but I also wanted to add some depth of flavour. The richness of the sauce needed something a little bit complex to play against. Luckily my most recent kitchen obsession, caramelized onions, seemed like the perfect match.

Anything as creamy and rich as this does need some sort of green accompaniment to provide at least that illusion of eating healthy. A light salad of spring greens would do the trick, as would a side of broccoli or any other light vegetable. What I happened to have was asparagus, but any old green thing will do as long as it's fresh. I also maybe made stuffed mushrooms that inspired me to give my recipe a new spin there, but that's not so relevant to the gnocchi.

I also made a somewhat more perfected cream sauce this time round than in my last go. The trick, obviously enough, is a heavier cream so things thicken a little better. I also played somewhat with my ratios.

Caramelized Onion Gnocchi in Parmesan Cream Sauce

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 4 yellow onions, sliced
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 cup half and half
• 1 cup freshly grated parmesan
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1 package gnocchi

Directions

1. In a stainless steel or cast iron saute pan bring the olive oil up to medium heat. Add the onions to the pan, lightly salt (use your first teaspoon salt here). Saute, stirring frequently, to caramelize. The process takes about 15-25 minutes and you're looking for the onions to begin to get crispy brown bits and the pan will get lots of little bits stuck on.
2. Once the onions are caramelized, chuck in the 1 tablespoon butter and allow to melt and slightly deglaze the pan. Set aside for later.
3. Bring a large pot of salted water to a roiling boil. When it's boiling, cook your gnocchi according to package directions which in my case was for two minutes.
4. While the water comes to heat, melt the butter in a medium sauce pan. Add the cream to the melted butter and bring to a light simmer. The mixture will thicken fairly quickly as it simmers.
5. When the cream and butter has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon, bring the heat down to the lowest setting and add the remaining salt, the pepper and your parmesan. Stir until the cheese melts entirely.
6. Take the caramelized onions and add them to your cream sauce, stir it all up.
7. Add the drained gnocchi to the sauce, stir it all up until the sauce is coating every delicious little bit of your gnocchi.
8. Serve. Garnish with more parmesan if you want, but really? The sauce is enough.

eat right, feel right

Maybe the other week when I posted about frustration with my weight I was being a little overdramatic. I can be that way. Holiday food and all that garbage certainly leads to little bit of fluctuations. Certainly I wasn't happy with what I was eating and it was definitely showing on the scale, although not in a terrible way, just in being at the top end of my weight range. I did certainly thow a hissy fit that resulted in some delicious vegetables coming home during the grocery trip the next week, and we had a week of pretty rocking vegetable based meals while I was in charge of the kitchen. Luckily work gave me a day time schedule that let me do most of the cooking.

I cut back on the crap pretty quickly. Stopped buying junk food for no reason whatsoever and started eating decent things that make me feel healthy and happy. What do you know but almost immediately, the scale started telling me a story I like again. Two steady weeks at the exact number in the middle of my weight range - right where I want things to be. I don't want to lose more weight I just really don't want to be gaining any back.

It's amazing how much eating things I feel good about equates to a number on the scale that I like to see. My body sends some pretty strong signals physically and emotionally when I'm not meeting its nutritional needs and almost as soon as I start listening to those signals things start getting back to normal pretty darned quickly. It's not always easy and its not always fun (sometimes the effort involved in eating healthy seems a little bit ludicrous) but it always pays off in the end.

weight woes

I spend a lot of time talking about how I like to eat healthy (whole foods, home cooking, junk food home made instead of crappy and processed). This is all true, but lately it's not the whole picture. In the past month or so my occasional forays onto a scale have been making it clear that I'm not doing as well as I'd hoped. I always forget how maintaining weight can be just as much effort as losing it.

See, I have a "weight" that I consider mine, and anytime I step on the scale I expect to see a number that's within five pounds either way of that. If things are trending significantly to the high or low end of the range I get on a scale a little more often and try to watch my eating habits more. I've been coming in on that high end more often than not, and I'm not feeling so great about it.

It's been hard staying on track with a diet that's satisfying and healthy since we moved in with my mom. (Among the many other things I've struggled with.) Lack of control of the fridge and grocery lists definitely contribute. I only cook dinner a couple days a week now, so options aren't so tailored to things I enjoy eating. When store bought crap is in the house I eat it: it's why I didn't let it come in our front door before, because it was a recipe for disaster.

Being back at work, and working rotating hours (retail hours, essentially) has also played into this. I'm not in the mood to make something healthy when I walk in the front door at 9:30 and I know it. I don't always have my mornings to leisurely have a couple of lattes for breakfast and deliver some dairy with my caffeine. It's harder to maintain good habits when my schedule is all over the place.

Let's also just be upfront and say that I've just slipped into some lazy habits as well. I'm not opposed to buying the occasional bag of chips or fancy popcorn, but it's become too common of an occurence. I don't need to keep a container of gummi bears by the tv stand. It's just poor decision making on my part because I'm never happy with the result.

So I'll be paying a little more attention over the next few months to how I'm taking care of myself, and trying to make sure that I make healthy eating a priority. Crap is still totally allowed, but no more processed cookies and cakes and convenience food that I can just as easily make myself. If I want junk I can put some effort into it. It's a rule that's served me well in the past.

unrecognizable

For the past five years, I've had the chance to do something really fun. I get to help run a weekend Scouts camp. (Technically, it's a moot. But I digress.) I put in my decade in Girl Guides as a kid, have the 10 year pin to prove it, and thoroughly enjoyed my time. But I bowed out just before high school; my life was falling apart and I needed to regroup and a lot of things fell by the wayside. I never did get that orange belt.

Anyhow, my university roommate is super involved in Guiding, still, and one of her big initiatives is throughing an annual Guiding and Scouting camp. So every May for the past five years, I dig out sleeping bags and air mattresses, pack a bunch of clothing into a weekend bag, show up on Friday and just do what I'm told. I'm your basic lackey: I'll run registration and the cash box, I'll score the parachute game and feel queasy for the people drinking the blender concotions, help out with dinner or just go wherever a useful body is needed.

Last year I got to be in charge of making cotton candy, and I may or may not have eaten an Oh Henry! bar covered in the pink stuff. Delicious. But again, I digress.

This year I threw my back and was told on no uncertain terms that I would not be camping when plugging in the espresso machine made me whimper. (I'm a wuss. It's ok.) It was really important to me that I help at least a little bit, though, so Bunny and I made the drive on to help with the Friday setup. I tied knots in ropes and plugged in a hose - not the most useful I've ever been.

Friday also marked the first time someone has ever completely not recognized me due to weight loss. It's very, very strange. This was followed by about 10 minutes of oh my god you look so good.

I know that none of the many people who have commented on my weight loss mean anything untowards by it. Extended family and acquaintances are really just trying to say something nice to me. When you lose fifty pounds or more (hey: I've got no idea what I weigh right now. I know what the scale said last, but that was months ago) it's a big change, and it would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise. It's hard not to remark on it when the last time you saw me I was in a dress twice as big as the one today.

The problem is, it makes me uncomfortable. I don't like all eyes on me, commenting on my appearance. I feel like I'm being judged. When people tell me how beautiful I look now, I wonder if they're really saying I looked terrible before. Coming from people who never paid attention to my appearance before, it makes me feel as if being "thin" (and I still don't think I am that, I mean have you seen all the jiggles in my belly???) suddenly makes me more worthwhile of their time and attention. But what happens if I stop being thin again? Do I go back to being unworthy?

Then, of course, after complimenting me endlessly, people want to keep taking about it. They want to know how. How'd I do it? What did I change? How long did it take? Really, this is almost worse than the compliments. Yes, I did set out to lose some weight. It also got accelerated by some illnesses, including a stomach issue that plagued me for months and made it almost impossible to eat much. It's hard not to lose weight when you can't eat. I'm being complimented for getting sick. Huh?

There are a few things about my weight loss that I am proud of. I treat a box of cookies or a bag of chips much more reasonably than I used to. I try not to binge eat anymore. I'm proud of that. I eat less processed food. I don't avoid crap or junk food, but I make the effort to make it myself. I found a way to incorporate the dairy food group into my diet.

There are so many things that need to change, health-wise, about my eating though. I need to cut the flipping sugar. My coffees and teas will be just fine without so much. I should learn how to eat breakfast. Breakfast right now is a latte, which is more than I used to manage but still not ideal. I need to eat more fruit, and snack on less junk. It'd be nice if I got more exercise, and was more active in general. I'm working on making that a priority, but the motivation comes and goes.

So I'm not a big fan when someone wants to tell me "how great I look now".

body image highs and lows

I had a whole big long post written, and then deleted the whole thing. It had nothing to do with what I want to say.

I've been thinking lately about body image. About the things I like and dislike about my physical appearance. I've been thinking about how I feel about disliking different parts of my body.

Even though I've been fat for most of my life, my size has never been my biggest dislike. I have quirky dislikes that don't entirely make sense and are completely unchangeable, as far as I know.

I dislike my hands, particularly my fingers. I don't like how square my palms are, because I feel like they are masculine. I have short fingers. I had a vague recollection of being told "no" on piano lessons as a child based on my fingers, but I may have made that up in my subconscious. I always wanted long, elegant fingers and narrower hands.

I hate my toes, particularly my (practically non-existent) toenails. They're so small that I can't really get a pedicure, because I have almost non-existent (toe)nailbeds. I don't look very pretty in peep-toes.

I very intensely dislike my nipples. Even though everytime I've expressed this sentiment to the men in my life I've been told that they are cute and unique. I worry about breastfeeding.

I dislike the shape of my belly. Not so much the size, as the shape. I look at my stomach and how it dips and bulges along my natural waistline. Even at my smallest I feel like I have rolls of fat there and the lowest part is saggy. I am the only person who has ever noticed this. It doesn't bother anyone else.

I hated the limits of my body. That my ankles tended to twist far more easily than others. I hated my migraines and digestion issues. That I couldn't swim as fast as the other girls in my class. That no matter how hard I practiced my body resisted all the gymnastics and ballet I threw at it. I didn't understand why my body wouldn't, or couldn't, do the things I wanted it to. I hated knowing that my mother is the most flexible person on earth (at least according to her chiropractors) and that I don't bend easily.

These aren't things that are never going to truly go away. They bother me more than being fat ever bothered me. Which, I think, is a good thing. I can't diet away annoying toenails and I can't exercise my way into longer fingers. I can lose or gain weight, but the shape in my belly that I dislike won't change. I might get more fit in the process of getting thin, but I could get fit without it. In a way, these dislikes made it easier to accept and be comfortable with my size. I might not like how big I was, but it wasn't my biggest physical concern.

The things that bothered me about my body had more to do with how I can use it and the identity I see for myself. I am more bothered by things I can't change than the things that I can. I don't like to feel as if I am masculine, and I felt like my hands were at odds with my desire to be a musician, and it bothered me when my body stopped me from doing the things I wanted to do.

I could do with more body confidence than I have. It would be good to not have the immediate reaction I have to seeing my belly when I'm naked. It would be nice not to sit around hating my toenails. I'm starting to let go, though. I'm starting to be ok with the fact that my nipples aren't the ones I would have chosen, and that my hands don't comfortably reach a full octave stretch.

I'm ok with the things I don't like about my body, though. I feel like they speak to my own standards of beauty, and I like that they made yo yo dieting seem pointless when I was younger. I feel like my reactions to these aspects of my body are more reflective of how I think than what society tells me I should think.

revelation in the bathtub

The other day, I was laying down in the shower, as I do, thinking. Thinking about my body, as it happens.


You see, I have never really liked my body, as is. I have always wanted smaller thighs, a flatter belly, less jiggle to my upper arms, less pudge in my cheeks. At my highest highs, I felt this way. At the smallest I've ever been in my adult life (lasted all of 2 months in my first year university), I felt this way. I would lay in the bathtub looking at myself, or stand sideways in front of a mirror, sucking in my stomach thinking: if only I were that size, I'd be happier with my body. It's still too big, but that size would be better.

To say that most weight loss in my life hasn't been healthy would be an understatement. I starved myself for a year spanning the end of high school and the begining of university. Or I've lost weight because I've been so damn dizzy and nauseous that I couldn't eat. Even now, if I'm being honest, a large part of my weight loss has been illness-related, though I've also wised up about portion control and balancing meals.

The difference: at my smallest in first year university I looked at my body and said if only I lost 20 more pounds, I would be prettier and more lovable. if I were as small always as I am when I am sucking in my gut, I'd be closer to being thin.

Now? I suck in my gut and I think damn, that would be kind of gross if I got that small. Or, if I lost 10 pounds that would put me right into a healthier weight range for my body size (height, build, etc). Even more than that: If I strengthened my ab muscles, maybe my back would hurt less. Or, I wish that I could do more with my body. When I stop and look in a mirror I think damn, I'm looking kind of hot today. I'll take this.

Here's the thing: my body isn't perfect. At no point has it ever been perfect, nor will it ever be perfect. And that's ok. Do I like enjoying how my body looks? Sure. But being thinner has not magically fixed all the problems in my body: it doesn't stop me from having dark, noticeable arm hair, it doesn't stop the strange shape my belly takes where it looks like I have rolls, even when I'm smaller, it doesn't change the fact that my thighs still rub together or that I don't like my fingers.

Boo fucking hoo.

So what I think I have fat, fugly fingers? They dance across a keyboard quite easily, and I are the biggest part in making my beautiful needlepoint projects. One looks beautiful in my engagement ring.

Those thighs? Help me walk. Look damn hot in demin. Hold my weight.

My belly? Indentations and funny rolls are far less concerning than the nausea that has been plaguing me for months.

Those are just the things that I dislike about my body. That's not speaking about how much I love my ass*, or enjoying my collarbones. I've reached the point where, yes, I still want and need my body to be aesthetically pleasing. Yes, I think it can be pleasing even with flaws.

More importantly, though? I want a body that works. Something that performs what I ask of it. That helps me go where I want to go, physically and mentally. That makes me happy.


*Note: Bunny will (I'm sure) want me to note that that's actually his ass.

confessions of a (former) fat girl - adventures in shopping

Most of my life I have worn a size 14-16. Maybe not "fat girl" material to some people, but it certainly felt fat to me. Not large enough that I always had to shop in plus sized stores, but large enough that it could be a stretch to find things in normal stores at times. My weight has dropped at certain points, and tottered back up (I have sugar love. It's a bad thing. And a terrible lack of portion control at times), just enough to give me hints of what I like best about my body. At any size, I have a fairly hourglass shape, with is helpful. I have a defined waist, even at my largest, and I have collarbones I love when I get smaller.

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been losing weight and needed to go get interview clothes yesterday to accomodate that. Bunny and I went to a couple of really nice stores first, to try on suits on sale, see if I could find something that was perfect. No dice. If I was going to spend $200 I didn't want to spend another $50 on alterations right now. I needed something a bit more affordable.

I did, though, have a pleasant surprise in the size department. My jeans that fit are a 10, but I didn't necessarily take that to be too much of an indication of anything, so I went into the fitting room with pants in sizes 8, 10 & 12 while fully expecting that I would be wearing the 10s or 12s. I was wrong. I haven't worn a size 8 in eight years, actually, but apparently I do now. I can live with that.

What was even better, though, was getting to try on different styles of clothes and seeing how the fits worked. I tried on several suits that just weren't quite what I wanted or needed, and as I said I'm not paying $200 right now for not quite right. When I have steady income, sure. That's what tailors are for. Right now, no.

In the end, RW&Co ended up making me happy. I got a gorgeous jacket with some interesting flair (I'll post more about it later) and some nice matching black pants. A slim boot cut pant. Pants that are cut very close to the body, that don't do a whole lot to camoflage the size and shape of my thighs.

Two years ago, this would have been a no go. I tried the straight cut and skinny jean look and it was terrible, went nowhere. I do have a pair of straightcut pants from larger sizes to wear tucked into boots, but it hasn't historically been the most flattering. Now? I can wear pants that are cut close to the leg and still look good. In fact, look amazing.

In the change room I had one of those "I don't want to take this off" moments that I dream of. When those moments happen I try to listen, as I don't think I've ever been disappointed in the purchases that result from them. I felt smoking hot. It was amazing.

I'm excited to wear these pants. (And we'll talk jacket later, I promise. I do have a love affair with them, after all.)