A Word about Diets – Peach and Blueberry Crostata

Spring is here and every mad housewife in America is planning her By-Summer-I-Will-Get-Into-My-Bikini diet.  Even if we haven’t fit into a bikini in ten years, this is our aim.  It sits in our top bureau drawer, every morning staring us in the face.  You probably have one in slimming black.  Of course you do.    

We all have our dieting secrets—from eating grapefruit for breakfast, to drinking lots of water, to replacing a meal with vigorous exercise, to using small plates, to brushing our teeth and putting on lipstick to save us from nibbling.  Then there are the diet plans: the Scarsdale diet, the New Beverly Hills diet, the Atkins diet, the cabbage soup diet, the glycemic index diet, the Perricone diet, the Zone, and my personal favorite, the Mad Housewife red wine diet. 

The problem with diets is they are not normal eating and are by definition out of balance.  If your eating is out of balance, probably your life is out of balance as well—too busy, too anxious, too much computer and desk time, not enough sleep, not enough time for yourself, not enough exercise.

I know a great diet.  Stop eating.  I’m not being peevish, I’m serious. 

Food writer M.F.K. Fisher once wrote, "I cannot count the good people I know who to my mind would be even better if they bent their spirits to the study of their own hungers."  Most of us who want to lose weight don’t eat because we are hungry.  We eat out of habit, nervous energy, or worry.  For pleasure or comfort.  In order to regain balance, you need to know and embrace your hunger.   

Here’s an experiment.  Skip two or three meals—we’re not trying to be Gandhi here.  Go on with your daily life aware of your hunger, how is comes and goes, how is starts as a desire for food, then a gnawing, then a stabbing pain, how after a glass of water it disappears.  Hunger can make you light-headed, or give you a boost of energy.  Hunger can heighten your senses, or make you irritable.  Imagine you are a hunter, how hunger would help you track game.  Break your fast with a tiny meal—half an apple cut into thin slices, a few baby carrots, three ounces of chicken or turkey.  Imagine this is all you could find to eat.  Imagine you had to share this with your family.

Fasting is about finding gratitude for life, for food, for wine, for a time when you are not doing something for other people but for yourself.  Without gratitude, one fails to respect food.  Without respect for food, you eat the wrong foods.  If you respect chicken, you won’t let a breaded over-salty, over-cooked cardboard drumstick pass between your lips.  Yuck!!  Your body will crave healthful foods—fresh fruit, vegetables, and lean meat. 

I ran across a web article that listed the ten most healthful foods for women: blueberries, salmon, yogurt, oysters, kiwi, sweet potatoes, spinach, tomatoes, walnuts, and chocolate.  No dreary diet here.  These are some of my favorite foods! 

Let’s put them in a single menu, served with Mad Housewife Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot (for the resveratrol, of course). 

   

Oysters soup (use the Mad Housewife potato and leek soup recipe and toss in oysters)

Salmon served with raita (a cucumber and yogurt sauce)

Sweet potatoes roasted with maple syrup

Spinach salad with tomatoes, walnuts, and kiwi

Blueberry and peach crostata

One Hershey chocolate kiss

 

A beautiful meal—orange, green, and blue—to satisfy your eyes and your stomach.

For most of my adult life, I denied myself dessert.  But then I realized that to approach eating with any idea of denial is to betray the essence of food.  Healthful eating is about balance, not self-denial. 

A small slice of dessert with a glass of Mad Housewife completes a dinner, completes the day, calms you, and lets you enjoy a quiet moment to yourself.

Your bikini will still be there next year. 

 

Peach and Blueberry Crostata 

 

So easy to make and simply gorgeous.  Serve with a glass of Mad Housewife Merlot.

 

 

 

1-1/4 cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon lemon zest

¼ teaspoon salt

1 stick unsalted butter

1 egg yolk

3 or 4 large peaches sliced ¼ inch thick

1 pint blueberries

1 tablespoon flour

¼ cup raspberry or grape jam (or any other fruit jam)

2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar

 

1.     Whisk together in bowl flour, sugar, lemon zest, and salt.  Add butter, softened and cut into pieces.  Mash with fork until mixture resembles crumbs.  Add egg yolk, and work dough together into a ball.  Refrigerate dough for an hour until dough is like clay.

2.     Removed dough from refrigerator, and roll out to an eleven inch circle between two pieces of parchment paper. 

3.     Peel off top sheet of paper and slide bottom sheet of paper onto a pizza pan.

4.     Spread jam over the crust, leaving a 1-inch border.  Fold over the border to form a rim.

5.     Toss peaches with 1 tablespoon flour.

6.     Lay sliced peaches in single layer on dough, either straight across in a scalloped pattern, or in concentric circles.  Arrange blueberries.

7.     Bake crostata 25-35 minutes in 375 degree oven.  Let cool, then powder top with confectioner’s sugar.  Alternatively, serve warm with vanilla ice cream.