Weight watching

Our friend Yasmin Dinar has been staying with us for a few days. Yasmin lives in Denver and has some work in the Bay Area right now so we're lucky to have her with us. Like many attractive 30-somethings, Yasmin likes to look good and takes excellent care of herself. We were surprised to hear that she has been going to Weight Watchers, and that she has lost 10 pounds. Who knew she had 10 extra pounds to lose? Yasmin always looks fabulous.

I've never been interested in weight loss diets, although at 5'4" compared with Yasmin's 5'10", there have been times when I could've taken off a pound or two. I just love to cook and to eat, and have always preferred to exercise more, or to just accept myself as I am. Good or not so good. Diets aren't for me.

When Yasmin arrived carrying two bags of vegetables and fruits from Trader Joe's, I was glad anyway. I love vegetables and fruits. Of course, she bought so many that we could hardly fit them in the fridge.

I wanted to be supportive, and to keep the fridge functional as well, so I decided to cook three or four vegetables for every dinner, plus a small portion of meat or fish. For breakfast we feast on fruit and oatmeal. It's been great.

You know, it's fun to search out all kinds of new and different vegetable recipes. I've made zucchini with red bell pepper and tomato, served with sauteed portobello mushrooms. Normally, zucchini doesn't appeal to me, but Yasmin bought a box of it, so oh well. The next night we had steamed julienned zucchini and carrots. It was really good. Tonight we're going to have cauliflower with egg and parsley, a recipe I dug out of an old Pierre Franey cookbook, plus more of the stuffed cabbage rolls we made last night. I do love cauliflower, so it will be wonderful. This is the most un-diet diet ever - it's delicious!


I might lose a pound or two, unintentionally, from having Yasmin here. And maybe we'll just keep this veggie-mania going after she leaves on Friday. Thanks, Yasmin!

Too-many-plums tart

Wayne picked up a box of big purple plums at Costco last week, but they weren't quite ripe yet. Suddenly it became clear that when they did get ripe, they'd all be ready at once! Yikes...there must be 15 of them!

I'm not much for making desserts, but I do like something sweet and fruity for breakfast. So I dug through the cookbooks and came up with a blueprint for a simple plum tart. It wasn't bad for a first try. Actually it was just fabulous with a good steaming cup of coffee.

Make a single pie crust, or you could use a frozen one. It's easy to make, though, and flakier:

• Put one cup all-purpose flour in a medium bowl with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Mix it up with a fork.
• Put an ice cube into 1/2 cup cold water and set it aside till you need it.
• Cut up 6 tablespoons cold butter in little pieces.
• Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender until it resembles course meal. Some small pieces of butter should still be visible.
• Add some of the ice water to the flour and butter, mixing with the fork until it just holds together. You probably won't use all the water.

Gather the dough into a rough ball with your hands and wrap it tightly in cling film, pressing it down to flatten it a little. Put it in the refrigerator to rest and chill for 1 hour, or in the freezer for 20 minutes. [It could also be refrigerated overnight (not freezered!!) if you want to eat quicker in the morning. Take it out first thing in the morning, before you do the plums, if you do this.]

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Meanwhile, seed 4 large or 5 medium plums and cut them into slices. It's better if they're not quite ripe. Toss them with a little sugar and whatever else you want...I put in some chopped candied ginger and grated orange peel. You could use raisins or dried cranberries instead.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator or freezer. Put a sheet of parchment down on your rolling surface and discard the cling film. Lightly flour the parchment and the top of the disk of dough. Roll it out until it is fairly thin and more or less circular. Carefully brush off extra flour and transfer the dough-laden parchment to a big cookie sheet.

Pile the plums in the center of the crust, fanning the slices out until you have about 2 inches still free all around the edges. Fold those edges of dough back up over the plums...they'll only come up partway leaving the center beautifully plummy.

Brush the foldover dough with 2 tablespoons melted butter, dripping any remaining over the center plums. Sprinkle all with about 2 tablespoons sugar.

Bake at 400 degrees for 45 to 55 minutes, or until the tart is lightly browned. Let cool for 10 minutes or so before digging in. This is a perfect time to put the coffee on. Yum!!