Dinner Times Deux

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Too busy to type, but not too busy to eat!

Last night I came up with an interesting dish - stuffed yellow sweet potatoes!

I had taken a chicken breast out of the freezer before leaving for work thinking I'd make salads when I got home, but ham kept calling my name...  I knew we had a couple of sweet potatoes, there was some broccoli in the fridge...  Ham steak, baked sweets, and broccoli. Done.

Except...

When I was checking out, a coworker asked what the ham was for.  I told him "Ham steak, baked sweets, and broccoli."  He replied, "Gee, that sounds awfully boring, for you."  I got into the truck and thought, "he's right - it does sound boring".  Baked Stuffed Sweet Potatoes were born!

First, I baked the two sweet potatoes.  Whilst they were baking, I took the aforementioned chicken breast and diced it.  Into a skillet it went with a drizzle of olive oil.  When it was about 3/4 cooked, I added the diced ham, some cut up steamed broccoli and about 2 oz of grated manchego cheese.  A bit of salt and pepper.

When the potatoes were done, I sliced 'em in half, scooped out the potao, leaving a 1/4" shell, and mixed the scooped potato into the ham/chicken/broccoli/cheese mixture.  I didn't add any butter or anything - I let the cheese and the potato be the binder.

IT got scooped into the shells, and back into a 350° oven for about 20 minutes.  (I didn't use it all.  Most, but not all.)

Dinner was served.

It was a great combination of flavors - definitely not boring and  reasonably healthy!  A 4 oz plain, baked sweet potato is less than 120 calories.  These spuds were probably about 6 ounces, so allowing for a bit more, call it 200 calories. Chicken, 100 calories, ham, another 100 calories, max.  25 calories for the broccoli and roughly another 100 calories for the cheese. 525 calories for dinner.  Not too shabby.

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Tonight it was time to have some fish!  6 ounce cod fillets - 135 calories.  Baked in the oven with a drizzle of olive oil, and half a plum tomato - maybe 30 calories.  350° for 10 minutes.

I cut up a zucchini and a yellow squash (maybe 50 calories per serving) A drizzle of olive oil  and another 2 plum tomatoes, diced - 50 more calories per serving - and then the big one - gnocchi!  That was a whopping 240 calories per serving - half the bag for the two of us.  What's rather amusing about that was I used to cook the entire bag for the two of us and still think it wasn't enough.

It was all sauteed  with a bit of garlic, and a pinch of Italian seasoning, and then a splash of red wine.  I would have used the fresh herbs out back, but it was pouring rain (as in torrential downpour) just as I started cooking.  That's why I keep a well-stocked larder - to cover emergencies and not wanting to get soaked.

Actually, the whole reason I decided to serve it up this way was because I thought a real-sized portion of the gnocchi would just look too small on the plate.  This way, with the veggies and the gnocchi mixed together, it became a really generous accompanyment to the fish.

And it made for a better picture!  :)

Oh... and we're both losing a bit of weight!


Me-O My-O Jambalay-O

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Just what the birthday-boy ordered!  Something quick and easy and spicy!  It's my own version of instant Jambalaya.  Chicken, andouille sausage, peppers, onions, tomatoes - and last nights leftovers, along with some red pepper flakes and tabasco.  Served over black rice.

It was really good.  Don't need a lot of spices - the andouille takes care of that.  Just cook it up and eat it up.

Angel food cake with a bit of lemon curd on top, and this birthday boy is done!

It was just a perfect day.


A Simple Stirfry

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As I was plating dinner tonight, Victor commented on how much rice we have over-eaten and/or thrown away over the years.  I don't really remember when I started cooking a full cup of rice for the two of us, but have you ever looked at how much a HALF cup makes?  I am just constantly amazed at how much food we were actually consuming (or sometimes wasting) every day.  I'm also amazed at how much better I feel just by cutting back.  Obviously, we're not starving ourselves over here even with the new-sized portions...  I think we can have our cake and eat it too!

There was some escarole and spinach that needed using up today or throwing away tomorrow...  I chose the former...  I threw it into a skillet with some mirin (Victor's newest favorite thing!) and wilted it down to nothing.

One single chicken breast cut up and sauteed in the tiniest amount of olive oil.  Red onions, yellow pepper, mushrooms, zucchini and other assorted squashes...  Soy sauce, rice wine, chili paste, hoisin sauce...  Mixed everything together.  I suppose I couls have used something red.  Oh well.

Done.

I cooked way more than we needed (old habits die hard), but the rest went into the fridge for lunch tomorrow.

Dessert was a bowl of fruit with some low-fat vanilla yogurt on top.

A little yard work, a little treadmill work...  I'm ready for number 57!


20 Bottles of Beer on the Wall

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We've been going through the basement getting ready for the big neighborhood yard sale on August 1st... We have lots of things we're going to offer - from computers and scanners and TVs and DVD players to dishes, glassware - stuff we've had forever and just don't use any more.

One thing that's been on a shelf in the basement forever is 20 bottles of St Pauli Girl beer.

One of the more ludicrous aspects of the Pennsylvania Liquor Laws (as if the whole thing wasn't ludicrous) is that one can only buy full cases of beer - from a beer distributor.  Doesn't that promote responsible drinking?  "I'm sorry, sir, you can't purchase a single six-pack for your weekend of football watching, you have to buy 24.  Drive safely."  Yes, one can buy individual bottles from certain bars and restaurants with off-sale licenses, but that's just as stupid.  "Thanks for the fun happy hour, Mr Bartender.  Can I have two beers for the ride home?!?"  Yeah... makes a lot of sense...

Totally asinine, especially, if you're not a huge beer drinking family.

This particular 20 bottles of beer came about because of Victor's mom's 75th bithday bash - back in 2001.

After the party, it went into the fridge in the basement.  Then the fridge died.  For a couple of years we pretended it didn't have anything in it and it just sort of lived in the corner with stuff piling on top and around...

One day, I got up the nerve to open it...

Other than a little musty smell, it wasn't too bad.  There were the aforementioned 20 bottles of St Pauli Girl, and some sodas.  The sodas were in packs so they were easy to get upstairs and to the trash.  The beer was single bottles, so it went onto a shelf.  For another 4 years.

We hauled the fridge to the curb, called the trash company, and arranged for them to pick it up for a rather exorbitant fee.  They hauled it away, but were a bit messy with the parts, and I ran over a door hinge and got a flat tire.

tire

I called them and they didn't charge for the pick-up and we bought a new tire.  All because I had to buy a case of beer we didn't really need in the first place!

Okay... that's stretching it a bit, but you get the point.  Having to buy a case of beer at a time is stupid.  Especially if you don't drink a lot of beer.

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It gets old and you have to throw it away.

Next time I'll just drive to Delaware.

In the meantime, the basement is getting cleared out and the shelves are being emptied.

And if we're smart, we won't fill them back up, again.


A Sunday Steak

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Lean Cuisine - eat your heart out!

An eye of the round steak, mashed potatoes with green onions, green beans, asparagus, and a beef-and-tomato sauce - 500 calories.  It was maybe a 5 oz steak, small potato, a couple of green onions.  The potatoes had no added fat - just  a splash of non-fat milk.

I boiled down a cup of beef broth with a teaspoon of tomato paste.  I fried the steaks in a dry pan and added a splash of red wine after they were cooked, and reduced it.  I then added the reduced beef broth and thickened it with a pinch of cornstarch.

The veggies were blanched and then roasted with a drizzle of olive oil, salt, pepper, and a bit of garlic.

So just for grins and giggles I decided to see how this fared against a Lean Cuisine meal.  The only "Beef" meal I found on the website was "Steak Tips Dijon" which was roasted potatoes, green beans, and seasoned cooked beef product.  Not my words - theirs.  Seasoned cooked beef product.

Ingredients:

roasted potatoes, green beans, seasoned cooked beef product (beef, water, dextrose, soybean oil, modified cornstarch, potassium chloride, salt, potassium and sodium phosphates, caramel color, natural flavors), skim milk, red peppers, water, onions, brown sugar syrup, dijon mustard (vinegar, water, mustard seed, salt, white wine, citric acid, tartaric acid, spices), white wine, modified cornstarch, brown sauce flavor (maltodextrin, dehydrated tomato, salt, yeast extract, sugar, dehydrated beef, flavors (made from milk), soy sauce (soybeans, wheat, salt), xanthan gum, citric acid, caramel color, lactic acid), butterfat, garlic puree, spicy prepared mustard (vinegar, mustard seed, water, salt, spices, turmeric, natural flavor), soybean oil, salt, spices.

My 500 calories vs their 280.

Seasoned cooked beef product. I'm almost speechless.

It probably took as long to cook our entire meal as it would have taken to heat the lean cuisine-thing.  The absolute longest item was boiling the potatoes.  (They wre grown down the road by my friend, Elizabeth, as were the green beans.)  The steak was three minutes on one side, two minutes on the other. The veggies were blanch for 30 seconds and under the broiler for maybe three minutes.

Fast food - and infinitely better than seasoned cooked beef product.


A Sunday Feast

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Once upon a time, I would make Sunday Breakfast.  It would usually consist of three eggs cooked in butter, a 12oz package of thick-sliced bacon, a mound of fried potatoes, and a mountain of buttered toast and a couple of varieties of jam (have to have our fruit, ya know).  Probably in the neighborhood of 1800 or so calories - probably a bit more.  The perfect way to start the day, right?!?  (Well...  I think so!)

Alas, those 1800 calories would now have to last me until tomorrow morning.  I could probably sneak an apple in, but that would pretty much be my alottment for the day.  Times do change.

Instead, today, I did a modified Eggs Benedict.

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A mini-croissant (150 kcal), 2 poached eggs (150 kcal), 2 slices of deli ham (1 oz 35 kcal), and provolone (1 deli-slice, divided 30 kcal).  365 calories, total.  What a difference!  Maybe a cup and a half of cubed watermelon for another 150 calories. 515 calories vs a conservative 1800 calories.  You be the judge.

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I know I will never be a person who can eat an egg-white omelette.  I will never buy liquid eggs, and the only time you'll see me separating eggs in the kitchen is if I'm making meringue or an angel food cake.  Knowing this, it helps to know there's only 75 calories in a whole, large egg, along with 13 vitamins - including vitamin d in the yolk - and many minerals.  And it's a complete protein.  It's one of the best 75 calories you can put into your body.

And the other nice thing about this morning's breakfast is that it actually filled me up.  Quality vs quantity.

I didn't really need that semi-miserable-overly-stuffed feeling.  (I'll save it for Thanksgiving!)


Pasta? Of Course!

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Fresh from the garden vegetables, langostinos, and a few ounces of pasta.  Maybe 650 calories including the parmesan cheese on top.  Not bad for what's supposed to be forbidden food.  At about a hundred calories per ounce of pasta, it's doable provided you're not splitting a pound of pasta between two people!

We're more or less doing our own version of Weight Watchers... nothing is off limits, but item A has to offset (or compliment) item B.  I think my sister put it as "Less eat.  More move."   It makes sense.

One thing I'm finding interesting is that as I'm paying more attention to what I'm eating, it's tasting better!  Granted, we're hitting peak season for fresh produce and we've been the recipients of some absolutely wonderful home-grown vegetables, but everything is still tasting better.

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Fresh-picked when ripe from a couple of miles away vs picked before its prime so it can be shipped around the world...  Hmmm... which one do you thing is gonna taste better?!?

Tonight's dinner started with lots of fresh oven-roasted vegetables.  Actually...  tonight's dinner started with Victor saying he would cook dinner.  I had gotten as far as taking the langostino out of the freezer this afternoon.  I had a vague idea it was going to be a langostino/vegetable dish, but that was about it.  Victor took over and that was all right by me!  (It's all part of him spoiling me for a 4-day birthday celebration!)

He took assorted squash, green beans, peppers, asparagus, and garlic and roasted them in the oven with a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper.

He pureed a couple of tomatoes and cooked them down with an onion, garlic, red wine, fresh herbs from the garden, and S&P.

Then he cooked off about 6 ounces of bucatani, drained it, and quickly mixed the roasted vegetables with the langostino and sauce, mixed in the pasta, and onto the plates it went.

A few shavings of parmesan and slivers of fresh basil finished it off.

Quick photo.  Eat.

Now to figure out how to make a low-calorie Sunday Breakfast.....


More Summer Salads

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I hate to admit it, but I'm rather enjoying this new eating regimine...  Actual breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert - with no between meal snacks - is doing me well.  It's actually kind of fun to look forward to a meal instead of just eating non-stop all day long. On the other hand, exercise sucks.  All of you people out there who talk about how wonderful you feel after almost killing yourself doing some stupid-assed exercise routine?!?  Well...  I have your endorphins right here.  Sheesh.  The day I feel fabulous with my labored breathing and aching body is the day you can plant me six-feet under.

The reality is... I don't need six-pack abs.  I just don't want 12-pack abs anymore.

So...  Onto the treadmill I go.  Trust me... food is much more fun.

Like tonight's salad...

A bed of spinach and a few mixed greens, corn cut from an ear of white corn, half a zucchini, some cherry tomatoes, a handful of raspberries, a hard-cooked egg, and a pork chop sliced and sauteed with a drizzle of olive oil and a splash of red wine ...

And dessert tonight is Birthday Cake.

My birthday is Tuesday, but Victor decided we needed to start celebrating, so he made an angel food cake. From scratch, of course.  Fresh-sliced strawberries and - we thought - whipped cream.  The calorie-gods must have been looking down upon us because lo and behold, the cream was sour.

Oh well...  There's always tomorrow!


Pollo Italiano

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I overdid it when I went produce shopping, Monday.  I really have no idea what I was thinking.  Walking through the store, stuff just kept jumping into my cart.  I had dozens of ideas for everything and yes, I'm sure I'll be able to get through it all (there's always a big pot of vegetable soup that can be made) but I just wasn't thinking of how many meals I actually had to cook... (Not as many as I bought for, for sure!)

To top it off... we've been getting garden-fresh produce from friends and neighbors.  It figures that as soon as we decide to start eating less, food starts multiplying.

It's a communist plot.

But I digress.....

One thing I did want to make was Michael Chicarello's Cauliflower alla Parmigiana.  I had seen the recipe a while back and it really intrigued me.  I'm glad I kept it!

Cauliflower alla Parmigiana

FROM: Michael Chiarello's Casual Cooking Cookbook-Signed
Cauliflower is much more respected in Italy than it is in America, where its main role seems to be as an inexpensive filler on cruditý platters. Italians prefer to cook it with butter and Parmesan until it's richly browned and caramelized from its natural sweetness. This is the alla parmigiana method, and cauliflower is only one of many vegetables prepared this way. You can use the same technique on asparagus, broccoli, fennel, zucchini, Swiss chard stems, or artichokes.

Ingredients
Serves: Serves 4

  • Unsalted butter for the baking dish, plus 2 1/2 tablespoons
  • 1 cauliflower, about 1 1/2 pounds, separated into large florets
  • Sea salt, preferably gray salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions
Preheat the oven to 425°. Butter an 8-by-10-inch oval baking dish, or a dish of equivalent size.

Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil. Add the florets and boil until they are slightly softened but still retain some crispness, about 4 minutes. Drain well, then slice them lengthwise so the stems are about 1/4 inch thick.

Arrange the slices, overlapping them tightly, in the prepared baking dish. Season with salt and several grinds of black pepper, then dot with thin slices of butter, using 2 1/2 tablespoons. Sprinkle with the cheese.

Bake uncovered until lightly browned on top, about 30 minutes. Serve hot.

Even as written, it's only about 125 calories per serving, but I used about half the called for butter and cheese. It still was really good and a great accompaniment to the chicken.

The potatoes were thick-sliced and then oven-roasted with a drizzle of olive oil, paprika, garlic, salt and pepper.  Into the same 425° oven with the cauliflower. About 160 calories.

4 ounce chicken breasts sauteed in olive oil.  Half a red onion, an orange bell pepper, one huge meaty tomato, a handful of mushrooms, garlic, and fresh basil and oregano from the garden.  A generous 260 calories.

All that food and less than 600 calories.  Not too shabby.

I really do think the key to my success is going to be NOT eating at work all day long, and I've been really good, thus far.  I haven't been eating the handfull of cookies that used to start my day, I stayed away from the creme brulee I served all day on Tuesday, and today, I cooked up three pounds of thick-sliced, applewood-smoked bacon for the crew...  three pounds of it - and didn't touch a slice.  None.  Nada.  Zip.

I figure if I can pass up bacon, I  can do this!


Root Canals and Turkey Soup

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During my regularly-scheduled tooth-cleaning and exam last week, it was discovered that I had cracked my back molar.  Just an itty-bitty crack, but not a good thing to have happen.  I was lucky it was caught when it was.

So... today, I had a root canal.  And a temporary crown.  And no fabulous drugs to take home with me.  And it only cost me $687.00 out-of-pocket.  Thank goodness I have insurance.  (I could have used the drugs to get over the shock of the cost.)  Oh well.

Victor, figuring I probably wouldn't be in the mood to cook or eat (he was 50% correct) made a most excellent Turkey Soup with the carcass from Monday.

He boiled down the carcass and added little shell pasta, carrots, onion, celery, escarole, fresh green beans, asparagus... He also baked off a couple of empanadas I had frozen last week.

The soup was just loaded with flavor - and all that healthy good stuff.  I enjoyed every luscious drop.

Time to take another couple of Tylenol and see about some fruit salad for dessert.....


Pseudo-Asian Leftover Salads

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It's Day Two.  I was actually a good boy all day long.  I ate breakfast (something I rarely have done on a work-day) and didn't continually munch at work all day long (something extremely unusual).  Sometimes stubborn and pigheaded can be good things...

Breakfast was the key.  It's a habit I am going to have to get into right away - as in immediately - if I want to succeed in not eating all day long at work.  Shredded Wheat with Bran is my favorite morning munch, and a banana thrown in is bonus.

So tonight's dinner started with some round steak cut up and marinated in teriyaki sauce, garlic, rice wine, ginger, and black sesame seeds, and then grilled on the barbie.

The salad consisted of last night's corn salsa, oven roasted red potatoes from Sunday breakfast, steamed broccoli, blackberries, heirloom cherry tomatoes, all on a bed of mixed greens.

Victor made a dressing of mirin, LOTS of fresh garlic, balsamic, S&P and just a splash of olive oil.  Perfect.

In typical fashion, it kept getting larger and larger as I added things (I did mention that I have to work on portion control...) but I didn't finish everything, and I went for the broccoli, tomatoes, greens...  I ate all the corn salsa because it rocked even more on day two.  Yum, indeed.

One good thing was noting that I really don't need to make the salads so big and I now have a better idea of what's going to fill me up.  I think the whole thing is a bit of a learning experience.  I have my Bowes and Church's to watch portions and calories, so that's half the battle - having a reasonable idea of calories consumed.  (That whole salad up there was just under 600 calories!)

If I can keep the pigheadedness alive, I think I'll be able to do this!


Grilled Turkey Breast with Corn Peach Salsa

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It's officially Day One of our weight-loss-and-smaller-portions regime.  I started my recipe search over at Words to Eat By - a great food blog written by Debbie Koenig.  Debbie is a great cook, a wonderful writer, and the wife of Victor's sister-in-law's sister's son, Stephen.  We're almost like cousins - or something.  Okay - that's pretty much a stretch, but Debbie is the person responsible for me writing this blog.   It was Thanksgiving 2005 that they were here for the festivities.  Debbie was writing Words To Eat By and pretty much convinced me that I should write one, too.  That weekend I installed a blogging program on my recipe website.

The rest, as they say, is history.

So... fast-forward to this morning...  I had been on WtEB yesterday looking for ideas and had found a great-sounding recipe for Grilled Chipotle-Lime-Tequila Chicken.  While that in and of itself sounded great, the Corn and Peach Salsa she served along with it was the deciding factor.  The only problem was, I had already pulled a big ol' bone-in turkey breast out of the freezer. (It had been there since Easter - Victor's mom got it as a freebie from one of the local grocery stores.)  But I wanted that salsa... Tonight's dinner was born!

I decided that I was going to BBQ the turkey breast.  Had I roasted it in the oven, I would have been compelled to make gravy, mashed potatoes, probably sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, a small batch of dressing...  You do see where this is going...  Turkey in the oven pretty much requires all of the traditional accompaniments.  A turkey on the grill can become anything at all.

So...  I dusted the breast with chipotle powder, cumin, garlic, salt and pepper.  I put it on the grill with briquettes around the side and slow-cooked it with lid for about 2 1/2 hours.  Perfect.

I had been to Gentile's earlier in the morning for my weekly produce binge, so while the breast was cooking, I made the corn salsa.

Corn-Peach Salsa - from Words to Eat By

Serves 6

Kernels from 2 ears extremely fresh corn (if it’s not perfectly fresh, you’ll have to cook the corn first, then cool it)
1 ripe peach, peeled and diced fine
½ small red onion, diced fine
10 pappadew peppers, diced fine [I used pappadews because the chicken it’s going with is quite spicy—if you want a spicy salsa, too, substitute one small jalapeno, minced]
Juice of ½ lime
8 mint leaves, chopped
Fleur de sel

Combine all ingredients except fleur de sel in a bowl and stir. Refrigerate for ½ hour or more to let the flavors meld. Just before serving, sprinkle with fleur de sel.

This salsa should probably have some cilantro in it, so if you’re crazy enough to like that dirty-dish-water-tasting weed, go right ahead and swap it for the mint.

I made it pretty much just as stated - with fresh uncooked white corn and the mint.  While I am a huge fan of that dirty-dish-water-tasting weed, cilantro, the idea of mint in a spicy salsa intrigued me.  I'm glad it did. I swapped out the pappadew peppers for Goya Aji Picante Hot Pickled Peppers because I just happened to have them in the cabinet.

The salsa rocked.  I'm a huge fan of fruit salsas to begin with, but the fresh corn and perfectly ripe peaches really went well together.

Since I hadn't marinated the turkey, but still wanting that kinda boozy, citrusy, smoky flavor, I decided I'd make a bit of  a sauce out of the marinade.  Alas, I had no tequila and no limes in the house!  I had every other liquor in the world as well as lemons and oranges - but no tequila and lime.  A bit difficult to make a chipotle tequila lime sauce without two key ingredients, right?  Right.  So I didn't.  I made a chipotle orange sauce, instead.

Chipotle Orange Sauce

  • 1 cup chicken broth
  • juice of 1 large orange
  • 1 canned chipotle pepper in adobo, finely minced
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 1 tsp cornstarch mixed with about 2 tbsp water

Mix first 4 ingredients in a small saucepan.  Bring to boil and reduce to about 1/2 cup.  Thicken with cornstarch to desired consistency.

Brown rice cooked with cumin, chili powder, and cherry tomatoes,  and zucchini waffle-cut on the mandoline and then put under the broiler.

The portions were smaller than in days (weeks/months/years) past.  We ate without going back for seconds, and we have leftovers for some fun lunches!  We were both on the treadmill this morning and will be going back on tonight.

All-in-all, a successful first day!