The joys of a minimalist closet

Part 2

'When I look in my closet, I don't see lack. I see freedom.'

When I reached my 30-pound weight-loss goal, I went shopping with my daughter but didn’t buy anything. I did try on some jeans and shorts to try and figure out my size. I was down three sizes, but I wasn’t done yet. I had just reset my goals and had 10 more pounds to go.

So I continued wearing the smallest of my large clothes as I had been doing throughout my weight-loss journey. Of course, this meant my wardrobe had shrunk considerably, but I found that I liked having a lean wardrobe.

On the first anniversary of my weight-loss journey, Oct. 17, 2013, I had lost 38 pounds and was two pounds shy of my goal. I celebrated by cleaning out my closet. It was also my birthday month, so I bought two new outfits in size small. These were the first additions to my closet since I had started losing weight.

As I began removing  all the clothes that were now too large for me, my thoughts went back to the summer I had tried to trim down my closet to twelve days of outfits. Now that I had so few clothes that fit, I could have that closet that I still longed for. Since I was not working outside the home, I decided to apply a rule of 5’s to my closet. (For a working wardrobe, I would have a rule of 12’s.) No more than five skirts, five dresses, five blouses, five pairs of slacks, five jackets, etc. And one more thing…before I bought and added anything to the closet, it had to pass the “love test.” I mean, I really had to love whatever I bought. It wasn’t going to take up space and become lost and forgotten. My wardrobe would now be like my iTunes playlists. All the songs are loved, not just liked. Anything I took out to wear would be something loved and special to me.

At first, it was a little difficult to pack away so many “good clothes” to give away. But as I kept going, it got easier. It took about three days to clean out my closet. I couldn’t believe how much stuff was crammed into such a small space. Instead of 12 pairs of pants that I had tried to have at one point, I counted more than 20 pairs. No wonder, I couldn’t find anything when I was getting dressed.

When it was done, I had three pairs of pants that I could wear: two from my new birthday outfits and an additional pair of khakis. While going through boxes, I found a pair of medium pants that I loved and added them. I kept four skirts that were size large but smallish with elastic waistbands. I found three large tops/blouses that were also smallish and with the two new tops with the birthday outfits, that gave me five tops. I didn’t have any dresses. I had two jackets that still worked and they stayed. For my knit shirts, I made this modification to my rule of 5’s. I would keep five shirts in white with varying sleeve lengths and up to five in pink. Other colors would share the rule of 5’s.

This rule of 5’s was going well until I got to my hoodies. I counted eight and loved them all. I have always loved hoodies. Although all of them were size large, they still fit in a comfortable way.  The only thing to do was keep out five and pack away three. That’s what  I did, and that’s still working. I just change out the colors occasionally.

My workout clothes, shorts and everyday tees are kept with my sleeping clothes in a dresser.  I kept all my large pajamas, because they are comfortable and I love them.

It’s been more than two years now, since I cleaned out my closet, and it’s still a minimalist closet. I love having just a few clothes. When I look inside my closet, I don’t see lack. I see freedom. I’ve gradually taken out more of the large sizes and replaced with small sizes.  For the past three winters, I’ve had one dress and four skirts. I’ve learned to make new outfits with these four skirts, using different tops and accessories. 

Last summer, I had four dresses and five skirts. I never felt like I was wearing the same clothes over and over. I’m always getting new ideas for interchanging skirts and tops and accessorizing my dresses.  I’m still applying the “love test” when I shop and before buying anything for my closet.  

After reaching my weight-loss goals, I have to say that having a minimalist closet is another huge achievement for me. For me, maintaining a bare but preferred wardrobe ranks with maintaining my 40-pound weight loss. I do love living light.

~~~B~~~

The joys of a minimalist closet

Part 1

It was probably about 10 years ago that I picked up a magazine one evening, and instead of flipping through it, my eyes were held… well mesmerized, by what I saw on the back cover. It was an ad for a company that organized closets. A picture of a closet showing racks holding a few skirts, a few pairs of slacks and a few tops, along with some shelves holding a few knit shirts and sweaters continued to hold my longing gaze. 

Every article of clothing was clearly visible, so I counted them. Hanging from the racks were 12 skirts, 12 pairs of slacks, 12 tops and 6 jackets. On the shelves were 12 knit shirts and 6 sweaters.  With empty spaces on the racks and shelves, these numbers were surprising. I would have guessed about half that number. The closet looked mostly bare, and I loved it.

As I thought about these numbers, I realized this closet provided work clothes for two weeks, without wearing the same outfit more than twice in a month. Wow! Not only did I see order in this closet, but I also saw freedom. This closet contained a well planned wardrobe. Not hunting for missing pieces or stressing over endless choices. Even the cleaning and care of this wardrobe looked easily manageable.

Trying to achieve this for myself at that time was very difficult. But I had a plan. Instead of trimming down my closet, I would just remove all but two weeks of wardrobe and store the rest. About once a month I would trade some items from the closet for those in the boxes.

So that’s what I did. I liked the results so well, that for several days I kept my closet doors open so I could see all the neatness and order. This worked for a few months.

But then, the seasons changed and I kept transeasonal pieces, while adding other seasonal and new clothing. It wasn’t long until my closet had returned to a packed and messy site.

I still longed for a slightly bare closet, filled only with what I needed and loved. But the problem was that I just couldn’t part with anything in it.

~To be continued~

Why I still use white flour

As I continuously learn more about healthy eating and make changes in the way I shop for food and prepare meals, I'm still buying and baking with white flour. This might seem a little odd to some, since I do strive to eat as clean as possible most days.

I love bread and most of the bread I eat is made with whole wheat or whole grains. I rarely eat white bread. But certain breakfast foods just need biscuits, and I still make them, occasionally.

There is much to read about why white flour should be avoided, and I have read many of those articles. I have also tried following very restrictive diets and failed. For me, the key is moderation or limitation.

For many years, I have used White Lily flour. When I learned about the possible harmful effects of potassium bromate, used as dough conditioner in some flour and breads, I checked and White Lily uses absorbic acid as a dough conditioner. That was good to know. I really like this flour. It's made from a winter wheat and has a softer texture. I even like the analogy of this winter-grown wheat becoming softer, just as the winter seasons of life can make us softer.

Most of my uses for white flour are in baking cookies, biscuits and scones and pizza dough. I don't like pizza dough made exclusively from whole wheat flour, but I will add a cup of whole wheat to the white flour. Not always though, because I really like pizza dough from white flour.

Another reason I'm not that concerned about the white flour in my baking is because when you consider that a cup of flour contains about 125 grams and that a medium-sized cookie has about 3 grams of flour...well that seems like moderation to me. A slice of pizza could have 35-40 grams, but I don't eat pizza everyday or every week.

Anyway, I just felt like I needed to speak to this in case anyone was wondering why so many of my recipes call for white flour.

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Cooking Goals

Five recipes I want to learn to make this year

One of the bonuses of losing 40 pounds and maintaining the weigh-loss is that I have learned to make some of my favorite foods from scratch, while saving on calories and sodium and sugar content.

During the first year of my weight-loss journey, I learned to make pizza dough and cinnamon rolls from scratch. Making my own pizza reduces the sodium content to more than 200 mg, and calories are reduced 200-300, depending upon the size of the pizza. My cinnamon rolls have about half the calories of commercial cinnamon rolls, with fewer ingredients and no food dyes. 

Other cooking accomplishments from that first year include Lentil Soup and making seasonings from scratch for tacos, chili and spaghetti. 

Each year of this journey I have been making more of my favorite foods from scratch, but I want to add more. Here is my list for this year:

1. Shepherd's Pie

I love the Shepherd's Pie at Cheesecake Factory and want to make a similar version. I have a recipe, but I'm still a little daunted at the first step: braising the beef. I've never done this, and it requires more time than I usually give to a recipe. This a rollover goal from the past two years, so it's going at the top of my list for this year. I hope to have a picture and a story on meeting this goal soon.

2. Baked Beans

Whenever I make baked beans, I first reach for a can of baked beans and add a few of my own preferred ingredients. This is another of those recipes that requires more prep and cooking time. First of all, I always dread the inspecting part of beans and lentils. You know...spreading a cloth out and dumping the beans and lentils on it and looking for the broken and bad ones to throw away. And then the additional ingredients needed to complete the dish are not always in my pantry. I'm not sure if I would always make them from scratch, but I want to try...at least once.

3. Chicken Tetrizzini/Lasagna

Many years ago as a newlywed, I made chicken tetrazzini...once. Starting with a whole chicken, I spent an entire Saturday working on the laborious task of deboning the chicken and preparing the long list of ingredients for the recipe I was following. By the time it was ready to serve, I was tired of looking at it and too tired to even eat it. I haven't had this dish very often, but always enjoyed it when someone else made it. But I want to try it again. I now have a recipe for Chicken Lasagna, which is very similar, so I will start with it first. 

4. Yeast Rolls

Now that I have learned to make pizza dough and cinnamon rolls, I want to try yeast rolls. I love them. My paternal grandmother made the best yeast rolls I have ever eaten, but she didn't leave a recipe. When I asked my aunts about her yeast rolls, I was told that my grandmother didn't use recipes. She just made up her own recipes. In the past, I have also made yeast breads with good results, so I want to try the rolls. 

5. Popsicles 

Last year, I found a recipe for pineapple coconut popsicles that I wanted to try. But I couldn't find any molds that were made in the USA. Recently, I remembered that I have some ice trays, made in the USA, stored away in a kitchen cabinet. So I plan to use those and make popsicles in a bowl. Who needs a stick to hold them anyway?

I could have added more than five, but I will start with these. 

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These delectable mini pumpkin cholocate chip muffins have only 95 calories each. 

Make pumpkin chocolate chip muffins

 for dessert ... or for breakfast

So many delectable flavors in one little muffin...chocolate, cinnamon, pumpkin. These muffins can be served at the end of a meal or at the beginning of the day, accompanied with yogurt or morning coffee or both. 

Sometimes, I like to replace the granola I have with my yogurt with this muffin. Occasionally, I make regular size muffins and other times I like them mini-size. 

Another variation to make them a little healthier, I will substitute 1/2 cup whole wheat flour for the white flour. The whole wheat flour will give the muffins a coarser texture, and I like these muffins for my yogurt. Muffins made with all-white flour will have a smoother, cake-like texture. 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cupes all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup plain yogurt with 1/4 cup water added or 1/2 cup buttermilk

2 tablespoons coconut oil 

1 cup canned pumpkin puree

1 large egg

3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine flour with next six ingredients (through cloves) and stir well with a whisk. 

In a large bowl, combine granulated and brown sugars with yogurt or buttermilk, oil, pumpkin puree and egg. Beat until well blended. Add to flour mixture and beat until combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Place paper liners in muffin cups or coat with oil or cooking spray. Spoon batter into prepared cups. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center. Remove muffins from pan immediately. Yield: 12 regular size muffins or 24 mini muffins.

Nutritional info for regular size muffins: 1 muffin, 190 calories; total fat, 6.2g; saturated fat, 4.2g; cholesterol, 16.4 mg; sodium, 185.2mg; total carbs, 32.9 g; fiber, 1.3 g; sugars, 19.4g; protein, 3.4 g.

Nutritional info for mini muffins: 1 muffin, 95 calories; total fat, 3.1g; saturated fat, 2.1g; cholesterol, 8.2 mg; sodium, 92.6 mg; total carbs, 16.4g; fiber, 0.7g; sugars, 9.7 g; protein, 1.7 g.

Strawberry Cheesecake Cookies

Pretty and tasty, make strawberry cheesecake cookies for a sweet treat

Last week, I decided to make these cookies, using the half package of cream cheese (8-ounce package) left over from frosting I had made for cinnamon rolls. (I only put a dollop of frosting on cinnamon rolls.) 

I hurriedly mixed the cookie batter, just before I was planning to leave the house, and only had time to bake one dozen. I used a teaspoon to drop the cookies onto the baking sheet. Of course, I had to try one immediately out of the oven, and it was very tasty. I put the remaining batter into the fridge.

Two days later, I baked another dozen cookies from the refrigerated batter. The previous dozen had all disappeared. My daughter told me she liked these even better than my lemon cookies. That's saying something, because sometimes all seven dozen from my lemon cookies recipe will disappear a in a week. (The recipe for the lemon cookies can be found on my Sweets and Treats page.)

On the third day, I took the remaining batter and baked another dozen cookies. Some of the cookies in this batch were a little larger than the other two batches I had previously baked. I decided I liked the cookies a little larger. 

When I bake these cookies again, I plan to double the recipe and drop the batter with a tablespoon for a slightly larger cookies. These cookies are so good with coffee. 

Hint: I had frozen strawberries on hand, and that's what I used. The berries are so much easier to chop while frozen or slightly frozen. I let them thaw just a bit. If using fresh strawberries, I would suggest washing and capping them, and then putting them into the freezer until firm. Otherwise, the berries may be watery and messy from chopping/slicing.

Ingredients:

4 ounces cream cheese, softened

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, softened (Do not melt butter. Let soften at room temperature.)

2/3 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup strawberries, sliced into small pieces

 (I filled a cup with small/medium strawberries and then sliced them.)

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix together cream cheese, butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla extract; beat until creamy. In a separate bowl, combine flour and baking powder, blending well. Add flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stir together. Fold in strawberries. With a tablespoon or teaspoon, drop dough onto baking sheet, lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 14 minutes or until edges of cookies are slightly brown. Yield: 24 cookies dropped from a tablespoon and 36 cookies dropped from a teaspoon.

Nutrition info for batch of 24 cookies: one cookie, 97 calories; total fat, 5.7g: saturated fat, 3.5g; cholesterol, 23.5 mg; sodium, 21 mg; total carbs, 10.8g; fiber, 0.1g; sugar, 5.7g; protein, 1.5g.

Nutrition info for batch of 36 cookies: one cookie, 65 calories; total fat, 3.8g; saturated fat, 2.3g; cholesterol, 15.6 mg; sodium, 14 mg; total carbs, 7.2g; fiber, 0.1g; sugars, 3.8g; protein, 1g.

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Scones and soup

When I began making these scones

Top right photo shows scones baked, using Method 1.

Bottom right scones were baked, using Method 2.

last fall, I thought they would add a hearty side to a bowl of soup, especially to one of the thinner soups.

Since most soups are usually under 200 calories per serving, these scones, at around 130 calories each, won't break the lunch or supper budget in calories.

Depending upon the method of baking, each scone will also provide around 100-150 mg. of calcium. There are two methods of baking the scones, and I like them both. My family prefers the crispy and thin scones from Method 2. 

From each batch, I serve half the recipe and freeze the other half. Either way the scones are baked, they freeze well. I reheat them in the oven at 300 degrees to keep them crispy.

Spinach Scones with Feta Cheese

 Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups self-rising flour

1 teaspoon sugar

1/3 cup butter

1 cup chopped frozen spinach, thawed

3/4 cup feta cheese

3/4 cup whole milk

2 tablespoons whole milk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. 

In a large bowl, cut butter into flour until mixture is crumbly. Stir in feta cheese and spinach. Add 3/4 cup milk and stir until all the ingredients are moistened. Next, proceed to either Method 1 or 2. 

Method 1

Turn dough onto lightly floured wax paper. Pat dough down and shape into two rounds about eight-inches each. Place each round on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Cut each round into eight wedges and slightly separate the wedges . Brush tops with the 2 tablespoons milk. Bake 15-18 minutes or until golden. 

Method 2

Turn dough onto lightly floured wax paper. Pat dough with flour and shape into two rounds. With a rolling pin, roll out each round of dough and cut with a biscuit or cookie cutter. Each round will yield 10-12 scones, depending on the size of the cutter used. (I use a diamond-shape cookie cutter.) Place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Brush tops with the 2 tablespoons milk. Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden. These scones will be thinner and crispier.

Nutritional info for Method 1 with 16 servings: Each serving, 128 calories; total fat, 5.7g: saturated fat, 3.7g: cholesterol, 18 mg: sodium, 324.6 mg: total carbs, 15.4 g: fiber, 0.8g: sugars, 1.1g: protein, 3.5g.

Nutritional info for Method 2 with 24 servings: Each serving, 85 calories: total fat, 3.8g: saturated fat, 2.5g: cholesterol, 12 mg: sodium, 216.4 mg: total carbs, 10.2g: fiber, 0.5g: sugars, 0.7g: protein, 2.4g.

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One more thing ..... I don't feel guilty           about ANYTHING I eat

From time to time, I come across recipes with a lure, "eat this without guilt," or something similar to that.

I don't feel guilty about anything I eat...not even if I go over my daily calorie allowance. That doesn't happen often, but it does occasionally. First of all, when that happens, I know when and how much I'm over. Daily tracking keeps me on track. At the end of the day, I know how many calories I'm over or under and that the adjustment will come from the days I'm under my daily allowance.

I don't feel guilty over my indulgences, because I've learned to plan for them. Usually, I know when I'm going to eat out, and I will "save up" for the calories. If I plan to have dessert with the meal, I will abstain from added sugar at home that day. When it comes to sweets, I watch the "added sugar" even more closely than the calories. If I eat out and order dessert, I enjoy it without any guilt. And if I go over the recommended daily amount of added sugar on a particular day, I don't get upset over it. It's still much, much better than it was before I started tracking.

It's the same for sodium. Most days, my sodium intake is well within the guidelines. But the days I eat out, it does go over. In fact, one meal eaten out may contain more than the day's allowance for sodium, Since my sodium intake is no longer unbridled on a daily basis, the few days it goes over are not a great concern.

Although I don't eat white bread as much now and have cut back on using white flour, I still make biscuits and breads a few times a month and enjoy them very much. I do eat whole wheat or whole grain bread every day.

For me, consistent tracking on a daily basis just takes care of the "off days" and eliminates any guilt.

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