Avoiding diabetes for boards

Everyone has their own plan to survive boards. My friend Lauren seems to be the queen of this: she has pre-made healthy homemade meals (vegetable soups, butternut squash mac-and-cheese) in single servings in the freezer, a fashion theme for each day ("On Fridays we wear PINK!") to keep it interesting, and even a customized daily yoga plan from her yoga teacher. All tricks, of course, to get herself to study every day for five weeks. My role model.

My plan for boards is to not get diabetes. I love to snack, especially while studying, and I recently realized that the bowls of free bite-size candy around school could become a problem given the long days sitting in front of a computer. I also realized that I prefer savory snacks to sweet, but that sweet is what's usually easy and available.

So, for week one, I premade a couple of these kale salads from Smitten Kitchen, which are really good (or I wouldn't repost them). I substituted tomato for dried cranberries, skipped the cheese, and used olive oil and balsamic instead of making a salad dressing, but the real "secret ingredients" that make this salad are the lemon zest (not sour or bitter like lemon juice, but complements the kale) and chopped scallion (pretty subtle). Crunchy, refreshing, and yet hearty with the almonds and quinoa!

I also made these whole wheat English muffins from the NY Times Recipes for Health: not particularly healthy, as they had about half a stick of butter for six (large) muffins, but incredibly delicious. Easy to make, I would make them again in a heartbeat (next weekend?).

Finally, tonight I'm planning on filling veggie tacos with this savory/salty/crunchy-looking avocado-cabbage slaw.

Ever feel like you can't muster the energy to be creative? Board studying is leaving little room in my brain for anything else, including even the most minimal decisions... And this is when it's good to have some trusted recipes to turn to. (Or it would be grilled cheese every night...)

Happy New Year!

Chinese, that is. My entire life I've had Chinese-American friends, so at this point the holiday seems as regular and relevant to me as Rosh Hashana. Just sayin'.

This week we've been studying lung cancer, pneumonia, tuberculosis... all disturbing diseases that eat away at you, leaving you breathless and in pain. I suppose the latter two are success stories, in the U.S. at least, but I think of the people who died of those diseases before there were cures, or those who health care successes have yet to reach. As in the first 100 pages of "The Magic Mountain" that I managed to get through this summer, with young (rich) people slowly dying of tuberculosis in the Swiss alps.

Lung cancer is still terrifying, of course, with about a 14% five-year survival. My grandmother on my mother's side died of lung cancer, and I've been wondering what that must have been like for my mother, a doctor, as the most healthcare-literate person in the family. I imagine that most people want to be hopeful when they receive a devastating diagnosis, but that such optimism would evade a doctor familiar with the numbers and the process. I wonder if it's unfortunate that she died just a few years before a ground-breaking pulmonary adenocarcinoma drug, or if it wouldn't have mattered anyway. These are not things we talk about.

Anyway, do you ever notice a paucity of salads at potlucks? That's often the case here, and anything raw is usually appreciated. Here's my contribution to a New Year potluck, scrapped together from here and here and what I happen to have in the cupboard.

Napa cabbage salad:

• 1 Napa cabbage, sliced as thin as possible
• 2 carrots (or peppers, sweet peas, bean sprouts), sliced as thin as possible
• handful of peanuts
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 bunch scallions/green onions
• handful of cilantro, chopped
• rice wine vinegar (I substituted rice wine and white vinegar)
• soy sauce
• chili oil or chili flakes
• sesame oil
• sugar
• white pepper

Slice all of your veggies. Chop the garlic, scallions, and cilantro. Stir together about 1/2-1 tablespoon of each of your sauces, sugar, and chili, adding each to taste (the recipes cited above may help you here). Toss in your garlic and herbs, then cabbage and veggies. Enjoy!

P.S. Suggestions welcome if anyone has a favorite cabbage slaw recipe! I wasn't able to find any one recipe that looked perfect.

Asian cabbage slaw

Last night we had a family BBQ with homemade Korean fried chicken and pulled pork. The theme was high fats balanced by vinegar and spice. To top our pulled pork sandwiches, we made an Asian cabbage slaw, sans mayo. On my own, I would make this again with peanuts, tofu, or chicken as protein and eat it for lunch.

Asian cabbage slaw:

• 1 small-medium head of red cabbage
• 1 carrot
• sushi vinegar (or white vinegar plus sugar)
• sesame oil
• chili flakes
• black pepper
• optional: chopped cilantro, roasted peanuts, fried tofu, etc.

Slice the cabbage as thin as you can. Shred the carrot with a vegetable peeler or grater. Toss both with a few generous splashes of sushi vinegar, to taste (about 1/4 cup): the sour-sweet vinegar should balance the spicy-sharp cabbage. Toss with ~1 tsp sesame oil: enough to add a hint of flavor, but not enough to be overpowering. Add chili flakes and black pepper to taste: just a pinch of each. Toss with cilantro or peanuts, etc.

I neglected to take a photo, but the slaw was a rich purple with specks of orange: crunchy and bright!

Honesty

A few weeks ago, I bought a huge head of cabbage with the intention of recreating the delicious vinegar-based coleslaw that I'd had at the 2nd Ave Deli in NYC the weekend before. I chopped up the cabbage with some carrots, added white vinegar and sugar, and left it in the fridge to marinate and soften. But no such magic happened: the resulting slaw was crunchy, cold, and bland. So what to do?

Mark Bittman's recent piece on cabbage gave me some ideas: basically, cabbage can be used as a substitute for noodles, or to add some crunch and substance to any old meal. Always craving Chinese food, I thought, why not try Moo Shu Cabbage? I will admit that this recipe is not for everyone (*cough, mom*): but if you are inclined to crave greasy late-night Chinese food, perhaps try this healthier, homemade version... And no more cabbage posts for a while, I promise.

Moo Shu Cabbage:

• 1/4 head white cabbage, cut off of the core and thinly sliced
• 1 carrot, peeled and shredded or thinly sliced
• 1/2 onion, sliced
• chopped garlic and ginger optional
• 1 scallion, chopped
• ~1 tbsp canola oil
• ~2 tbsp white vinegar
• pinch of sugar
• drop of soy sauce
• Hoisin sauce
• 2 eggs, beaten

Heat the canola oil, then add the veggies, vinegar, and sugar, sauteing until soft and adding water as necessary to keep the vegetables soft without burning. The cabbage should be cooked through with only the slightest crunch at the end. Add the eggs and scallion, then adjust soy sauce to taste. Serve with about a teaspoon of Hoisin sauce.

Exam week

Too panicked (positive spin: focused) to do anything but study the week before an exam, we regress to a hunter-gatherer state. There's often free food in the student lounge if you can be there in the 30-second-to-two-minute window before it disappears. If you sign up for a lunch-time talk or panel for visiting students, the school will supply you with cold wraps and stale cookies to sustain you until dinner. There's the 10% staff discount at the hospital cafeteria: my roommate prefers the $0.89 mac-and-cheese deal.

I've identified the fresh-food options at the convenience store and Italian deli on my block: eggs and dairy at Stewart's; onions, cabbage, and green peppers at Sainato's. It's not like living in a big city, but neither is the rent. Combining these with whatever produce I have left on the bottom shelf of my fridge usually gets me through the week. This recipe makes a lot, all the better to share with your stressed-out friends.

Cabbage soup:

• Head of cabbage, cut off of the core and sliced into thin strips
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1/2 head of garlic, cloves peeled and sliced or rough-chopped
• some other chopped vegetable: I used half a celery root; you could use a potato, carrot, or celery rib
• something sour: white vinegar or half a lemon (I used both)
• cooking wine if you have it
• salt and pepper (whole peppercorns if you have them)
• herbs on hand, such as chopped dill, parsley, thyme, or rosemary
• white beans, rice, pasta, or crusty bread optional
• few tablespoons of olive oil
• 1-2 tbsp butter

In a large soup pot with a lid, melt the butter and olive oil at medium heat, then add the garlic and onion. Saute for a few minutes before adding the cabbage plus vegetable. Add the vinegar and wine, then cover the vegetables with cold water. If you're using thyme or rosemary, add them now; dill or parsley can be added at the end instead. With a lid on the pot, cook at low heat for 30-60 minutes until the vegetables are soft (or until you reach a good study break). Separately, cook the beans, rice, or pasta, or toast a few slices of bread. Before serving, season the soup with lemon juice, herbs, salt, and pepper, and serve with the starch of your choice! 

A little bland-looking, but then again so is mac-and-cheese, and I'd argue that this is just as comforting: