Healthy "Reuben" with Coleslaw

The other day we were having coffee at our coffee shop and I picked up one of the magazines and actually found a good idea.  I try pretty hard to plan out my week’s meals so that I can go to the grocery store just once a week, but I’m not always good about it and I’m not always good about pairing the right meals together during the day to make sure we get the total calories and nutrients we need.  So in this magazine, Clean Eating, they have 14 day plans of meals that include breakfast, lunch, dinner, and 2 snacks with the total the calories, fats, etc for each day.  I thought this was a good idea to give us a specific plan on what we should eat throughout the day every day to help stay on track.  We’ve made it through the first 4 days and so far it has worked really well for us.

They have a website,  www.cleaneatingmag.com , where you can download all of their meal plans, it even comes with a shopping list.

I went through one of the Winter meal plans and picked out the meals and snacks that I thought looked good and then substituted in some of my own low fat/low cal recipes as well.  The biggest problem with this is it is a meal plan for one person, and they have you make one serving of everything just about, so there is a lot more cooking involved than even I normally do.

The first recipe I tried, and modified for my needs, was the clean Reuben.  I don’t think I can say this is anything like a Reuben but it was still good and surprisingly filling.  J loves Reuben’s so he was on board with trying this, but once he saw it he was a little scared he would still be starving after dinner, but we were both stuffed and satisfied.

Sandwich
½ lb pastrami seasoned turkey
2 oz Jarlesberg light, sliced
4 slices rye bread

Coleslaw
2 cups shredded red cabbage
2 cups shredded green cabbage
1/2 cup shredded carrots
¼ cup red wine vinegar
¾ cup plain Greek yogurt
¼ tsp black pepper
¼ tsp salt

Dressing
¼ cup plain Greek yogurt
5 grape tomatoes, diced
Dash of salt to taste



Prepare the coleslaw: In a medium bowl combine cabbages and carrots, stir in vinegar, yogurt, salt and pepper.  Let sit for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the dressing: In a small bowl, stir together the yogurt, tomatoes and salt until well mixed.  While stirring, mash the tomatoes to release their juices.  Set aside.

Assemble the sandwiches by dividing the dressing among the slices of bread.  Place 1 oz slice of cheese on each sandwich.  Top with the turkey then pile about ¼ cup coleslaw on top of the meat.  Finish with the second slice of bread and press firmly.  Broil the sandwiches either in toaster oven or oven for 2 minutes, flip and broil for 2 more minutes.  Serve with ¾ cup coleslaw on the side.

Serves 2, 525 calories, 12 g fat

You pretty much have to get it out of your head that this is a Reuben, because it’s not, but it is a pretty good turkey sandwich.

Thanksgiving Inspired Baked Sweet Potatoes

We are finally in the new house and I’m exhausted.  We have had people at the house working which has made it very difficult for me to finish putting the house together and making time to cook has been near impossible.  I am struggling to get back into a routine but now that all the contractors are gone I’m hoping I can get back to normal.  I have only cooked a couple times and nothing ground breaking but I did make this recipe and thought it was decent, a simple meal for a week night.

2 sweet potatoes
0.75 lbs ground turkey (99/1)
½ tsp dried rosemary
½ tsp dried thyme
1 carrot, diced
¼ cup frozen green peas
1 tbs butter, divided
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Pierce the sweet potatoes all over then microwave for about 10 minutes or until just beginning to soften.  Remove the potatoes from the microwave and wrap in foil then cook in the oven for another ~20 minutes or until completely softened.  If I’m in a hurry I will start the potatoes in the microwave as it goes much quicker, but I try to minimize the amount of microwave time as it dries them out.  The microwave will boil the water in the potatoes which gets steamed out, but when in the oven wrapped in foil, you won’t lose as much water.

Meanwhile, season the ground turkey with rosemary and thyme and brown until no longer pink.  Cook the peas and carrots in a pot with a little water until the carrots are softened.

Once everything is cooked, cut open your potatoes, add ½ tbs butter to each potato (if desired) and top with turkey, peas and carrots.  Season with salt and pepper.

I am very intrigued by the Paleo diet and this was one of my attempts.  I made this with a boat load of steamed vegetables and as a result of being stuffed with broccoli this recipe turned into 4 servings at 300 calories and 4 g fat each.  If you didn’t have a side that was as much volume as what I did and made this into 2 servings it would still have only been 600 calories and 8 g fat, still not bad at all.

Moving has been pretty stressful and I have been trying to cook and eat healthy even though I have had no time to plan anything and it has been a real struggle.  Since Thanksgiving is approaching I was in the mood for a simple and quick Thanksgiving inspired meal, and this is what I came up with.  I am not going to tell you it was spectacular, but it was really easy and I did enjoy it, so there you go.

Lemon Garlic Chicken and Potatoes

After nearly 3 years of trying to sell one of our two houses, we finally sold one, thank goodness! We are moving out next weekend so now starts the packing.  This meal worked out pretty well on a night when I wanted something that didn’t taste like minimal effort but was.  I had a few vegetables to chop and a marinade to make and that was basically it, I just had to let it bake while I sorted through cobweb covered stuff in the back of a closet in a room that I never even go into.  Why oh why do I have so much junk?  What’s weird is about 90% of the extra stuff that we have are books.  Classic literature, the entire set of Harry Potter, How To books on every random thing J ever once had an inclination to try to make himself and never has, and text books like you wouldn’t believe.  Our closet could probably serve as a library for a small University.

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
4 Yukon gold potatoes
½ lb green beans
1 zucchini
1 yellow squash
¼ cup olive oil
3 tbs lemon juice
1 lemon
4 cloves garlic
1 ½ tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 F.
Stir together the oil, lemon juice, minced garlic, salt and pepper in a large bowl.  Slice the squash into strips then toss the green beans and squash in the marinade then remove to a baking dish using tongs.  Chop the potatoes into ½” pieces and stir in the marinade.  Remove and spread on top of the vegetables.  Bake the vegetables for 25 minutes to give the potatoes enough time to cook.  Meanwhile, let the chicken sit in the marinade.
After 25 minutes place the chicken on top of the vegetables and return to the oven for an additional 30-35 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.  Remove from the oven and allow the chicken to rest for 5 minutes before serving to keep it moist and tender.

Serves 4, 580 Calories, 23 g fat

Turkey Chili

This is one of those meals that I throw together when I don’t have a lot of time.  I think chili is one of those dishes that everyone has a very specific flavor they have in mind, and none are wrong.  You can easily change the meat, the types of beans, and adjust the seasonings to get a variety of different flavors.  This is a real good dish to find a base recipe then experiment and season to taste to get the flavor you want.

1 small onion
3 cloves garlic
1 lb ground turkey, 99/1
1 tbs olive oil
2 tbs chili powder
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper
6 oz amber beer
1 tbs hot sauce
1 tbs cocoa powder
15 oz can black beans
15 oz can butter beans
15 oz can kidney beans
14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
1 avocado
5 tbs shredded cheddar cheese
3 tbs cilantro

Heat the olive oil over medium high heat.  Add the onions and garlic and cook until the onions are beginning to brown.  Add the meat and break up into small chunks as it browns.  Add the salt, pepper, paprika, and chili powder and finish browning the meat.  Once the meat is cooked through pour in the beer and let it cook down and boil off the alcohol.  Add the cocoa powder, hot sauce, beans and tomatoes.  Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for as long as you can wait to eat, preferably about an hour, but you can eat it right away if you are in a hurry.  Ladle chili into bowls and top with shredded cheese, cilantro, and avocado.

5 Servings, 470 calories, 12 g fatIf you don’t normally buy beer you could cut it out.  I think it changes the flavor a little but not so much that you would really miss it if it was gone and it would save you about 15 calories.  The cocoa is the dominant flavor for me in this recipe.

Cajun Chicken Pasta

At the end of the week the last meal usually ends up being an episode of Chopped.  I try to make something with whatever ingredients I have leftover in the kitchen from the beginning of the week.  This is a real simple dish that I have modified to be more waistline friendly while still being flavorful.

1 large chicken breast
1/2 cup fat free sour cream
1/3 green bell pepper, diced
1 large carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
4 oz linquini
1-2 tsp cajun seasoning
Olive oil


Emeril's cajun seasoning (~2/3 cup)

2 tbs salt
2 tbs garlic powder
1 tbs black pepper
1 tbs onion powder
1 tbs cayenne pepper
1 tbs dried leaf oregano
1 tbs dried thyme 
1 tbs lemon pepper seasoning

Cook the linguini to al dente.
Heat one turn of olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet.  Slice the chicken into 1" pieces and season with the cajun seasoning.  Cook the chicken through and add the vegetables.  Cook until crisp tender then remove from heat and stir in the sour cream.  Serve over the linguini.

Serves 2, 425 calories, 7 g fat

The original recipe called for heavy cream and I honestly don't see any deficiency in flavor by substituting with sour cream and it saves about 50 calories/serving.

I like to have this cajun seasoning on hand all the time so I make this 2/3 cup batch and store it in the freezer.  It adds a ton of flavor to a creamy pasta sauce like this or can be used for blackened chicken or fish.

Vegetable Risotto

Last night was one of my favorites, vegetable risotto.  Watching Gordon Ramsay yell at people all the time over risotto had me a little intimidated by it initially, but one day I just tried it and it’s really not that hard.  Granted he would probably throw me out of my own kitchen if he saw my risotto but it tastes good to me.  So the way it works is you coat the rice in fat then slowly add hot stock to the rice and that releases the starch.  This creates a rich, thick creamy sauce.  You have to stir the rice constantly so you are kind of stuck in front of the stove for like 20 minutes, but I think it’s completely worth it.  You can use lots of different combinations of vegetables but this time I actually went with what was in season and did a summer squash risotto.

3 tbs butter, divided

1 clove garlic, minced

2 zucchini squash

1 yellow squash

3 cups mushrooms

½ cup peas

1 ½ cup Arborio rice

Dry white wine

Chicken stock

¼ cup parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

You will need a total of 4 ½ to 5 ½ cups of liquid and you can divide that between the wine and stock however you like.  I usually do about 2 cups wine and 3 cups stock.  There are a lot more calories in the wine than the stock so you can cut it back or out if need be.

In a large saucepan melt 1 tbs butter.  Add the mushrooms and cook until browned.  Dice or cut the squash into bite-sized strips and add to the mushrooms.  Season the vegetables with salt and pepper after each addition.  Cook until the squash is crisp tender.  The squash doesn’t take as long to cook as the mushrooms so that’s why you want to start cooking the mushrooms first. Remove from heat and set aside.  The sauce pan that I use is big enough for either the vegetables or the rice so I put the vegetables in a large bowl and use the same pan to cook the rice.

Bring the chicken stock to a simmer in another pot.  Melt 2 tbs butter over medium high heat in your rice sauce pan.  Add the rice and stir to coat well with a wooden spoon.  Cook until the rice is translucent, 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly.  Add ½ cup of the chicken stock and stir constantly.  Continue stirring the rice until all of the liquid is gone then add ½ cup wine.  Since the wine is cold or room temperature I add it slowly so it heats up quickly in the pan.  Stir the rice constantly until the liquid is absorbed.  Continue the process with the rest of the chicken stock and wine until the rice is thick and creamy and softened. Once the rice is fully cooked add it to the vegetables, stir in the cheese and peas and additional salt and pepper to taste if necessary. 

Serves 4, 525 calories, 12 g fat

A typical risotto is much creamier than this because you usually add more butter and cheese but this is one of the few times where I actually don’t think all that extra cheese is needed.  The rice makes the dish creamy and a little bit of cheese adds to it and makes it just a little bit richer.  It of course would be nice if it had more cheese, but I actually don’t think it’s necessary.  This also makes a good lunch the next day.

Don’t be intimidated by Chef Ramsay, just try it.

Thai Basil Chicken Stir Fry

Last night I made Thai basil chicken stir fry.  The star of the dish is of course basil, and what did I do, I forgot to buy basil.  Brilliant.  Usually on Sundays we end up running around town because we don’t want to just sit at home on our last day of freedom.  For me every Friday feels like the last day of school and Sunday is the last day of summer vacation so we always try to do as much as we can on Sundays.  I already had my grocery list done and had it with me so we could stop at the grocery store on the way back from whatever random thing we ended up doing.  By the time we got to the grocery store and finished with the shopping it was already 7:15.  That is a little late for me, I like to start dinner closer to 6 or 6:30 and so of course J tried to convince me that it was way too late to cook so we should just go ahead and order pizza.  But I stood my ground, I knew I was making a stir fry and I can have it done in 30-45 minutes. So don’t let those voices distract you from your goal, making the stir fry didn’t take too much longer than having a pizza delivered and I saved at least 500 calories.

2 large chicken breasts, cut into ½” strips (Mine were 1 ½ lbs total)

1 tsp olive oil

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 cups mushrooms, sliced

2 carrots, chopped

2 cups sugar snap peas

1 tsp crushed red pepper

1 ½ cup chopped fresh basil leaves

3 tbs soy sauce (low sodium)

1 ½ tbs fish sauce

3 tbs rice vinegar

2 cups jasmine rice

Boil 3 cups of water.  Add the rice and stir to keep it from initially sticking to the bottom of the pot.  Return the water to a boil, cover and turn off the heat.  By the time the stir fry is ready the rice will be perfectly fluffy and all the water absorbed.

Heat the olive oil to medium high-heat and cook the onion and garlic until lightly browned.  Add the chicken and cook until browned.  Add the mushrooms and cook until browned.  Add the vegetables and cook until crisp tender.  Add the remaining ingredients and stir to coat well.  Serve over the rice.

6 Servings, 450 calories, 5 g fat

Stuffed Chicken and Ricotta Mashed Potatoes

The name of the game last night was to try to use up ingredients I have bought over the last two weeks.  Cheese is expensive so I wanted to try to use the boursin cheese and the ricotta cheese and try to make a meal with a reasonable amount of calories.  My goal for the day is 300 calories for breakfast, 100 calorie morning snack, 400 calorie lunch, maybe a 100 calorie afternoon snack if I get home early enough, and then 600-800 calories for dinner for me and a little bit bigger serving for my husband. 

So I had a couple chicken breasts in the freezer that I bought for the chicken parmesan, boursin cheese from the smashed cauliflower, spring mix from the Caesar salad, potatoes from the chicken and dumplings, and ricotta cheese from the ravioli. So I made a stuffed chicken with boursin cheese and spinach that I picked out of the spring mix with ricotta mashed potatoes.  Now I know what you are thinking, no way that is less than 800 calories, but oh my friend I am just that good.

2 small chicken breasts (6-7 oz)

2 tbs boursin cheese

¼ cup spinach, torn into bite sized pieces

¼ cup bread crumbs

1 tbs Olive oil

6 toothpicks

Preheat oven to 350 and get your toothpicks out. 

Pound the chicken breasts so they are as thin as you can get them before they tear, about ½”.  Crumble the boursin cheese and sprinkle it across the entire breast.  Place the torn spinach on the breast as well.   

Start at the small end of the breast and start rolling it up, rolling as tightly as you can and making sure the stuffing stays inside as you go.  Once you get to the end try to tuck in any straying ends to try to keep any stuffing from being exposed.  Use 3 toothpicks to keep it rolled up.  Coat the chicken with bread crumbs.  This is where you need to be careful, the calories in the bread crumbs and the olive oil add up quick, so don’t go crazy.  Heat the olive oil over medium heat and once it’s hot add the chicken, one at a time.  Turn the chicken multiple times just to brown the bread crumbs.  You want to try to get the bread crumbs browned all the way around with as little olive oil as you can.  Browning it in the skillet before you put it in the oven will keep the bread crumbs stuck to the chicken better but you want to minimize how much oil is soaked up.  Remove the chicken to a sheet with a cooling rack and bake for 25 minutes.  It’s better if you put the cooling rack on a sheet because something is going to drip out of your chicken and it’s much easier clean up if there is something underneath to catch it rather than having to clean the oven.

2 Servings, 480 calories, 21 g fat

Ricotta Mashed Potatoes

4 new potatoes (was about 11 oz for me)

3 oz ricotta cheese

¼ cup skim milk

Salt and pepper to taste

 Cut the potatoes into 1” pieces and boil in water until soft, I leave the skin on but that's a personal preference.  I wanted mine chunky today so I mashed with a fork.  Stir in milk and cheese and add salt and pepper to taste.  You can always add more milk if you like it a little less fluffy and if you can spare some extra calories feel free to add more cheese.

2 Servings, 180 calories, 4 g fat

Now try and tell me you aren’t impressed.  That is a pretty filling and flavorful meal for 660 calories, of course yours will vary depending upon the size of the chicken breasts and the potatoes you use so be aware of that.  What’s great about the stuffed chicken is once you get the hang of how much filling to put in it and how to roll it up well you can stuff it with anything you can think of.  I have tried to do a stuffed chicken without breading it before and it didn’t taste very good.  Just seasoning and baking the chicken didn’t work for me so I think you really have to bread and pan sear it.

This week groceries were $31 and made 12 servings at $2.57/meal, I'll take it.

Pasta Primavera

I like to try to make one vegetarian meal a week and this one is my go to.  It’s super simple and very filling.  I use mushrooms and then pretty much whatever vegetables I happen to have.  Today the only vegetable I had with color was carrots so the nearly monochromaticness of the dish didn’t look too pretty, but was still good. 

6 oz whole wheat penne pasta

1 tbs olive oil

½ cup red pepper, diced

1 clove garlic

2 cups cauliflower, chopped

2 large carrots, chopped

2 cups baby bella mushrooms, sliced

1/3 cup parmesan cheese

½ tsp basil

½ tsp oregano

½ tsp crushed red pepper

Salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet with a lid, heat the olive oil over medium heat then cook the onion and garlic until tender, do not brown.  Add the mushrooms and cook until soft.  Add the vegetables and cover.  The water in the vegetables will cook out and steam them, but stir periodically to make sure they don’t stick.  I have a Teflon skillet so my vegetables don’t ever stick, but I am not sure what would happen in a non non-stick pan.  If they do start to stick you could add a little chicken stock or water to generate some steam and lubrication between the vegetables and the pan, but don’t add too much because you don’t want to boil your mushrooms. 

Cook until crisp tender then add the basil, oregano, crushed red pepper, salt and pepper.  Stir in the cooked pasta and parmesan cheese. Easy Schmeesy.

Serves 2, 500 calories, 14 g fat

This is also good to double and have for lunch.  Of course the highest contributor to the calories in this is the pasta (280 calories/serving), so if you want to have this with some bread or a salad and 500 calories is close to your meal limit you can always cut back on how much pasta you add.  Some other vegetable combinations that I might do are carrots, spinach, broccoli or red/orange bell pepper, asparagus, cauliflower and I usually add green peas no matter what I do but I forgot to buy some this week.  Feel free to experiment with this, you can’t screw it up.

Falafel and Tzatziki

Last night I had another interesting request, falafel.  I do realize how lucky I am to have a husband who wants to try things other than meat and potatoes and will eat pretty much anything I put in front of him.  This was super easy but how I made it turned out to not be as low cal as I normally like. There were two things I did that I probably should have thought about before eating. Sometimes I forget to count calories until after I've already eaten, not quite as effective that way.  First, I pan fried the patties the whole time, I probably could have seared the outside to get a good crisp then baked them on a rack to heat them through.  Second, those pita pockets were deceptively high in calories, each one was 160 calories so even though we needed 2 pockets worth of falafel, we didn’t really need to pita pockets.

Falafel

1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

1 tbs flat leaf parsley

1 small onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tsp ground cumin

Salt and pepper to taste

Olive oil

4 whole wheat pita pockets

Add everything but the oil to a food processor and pulse until the beans and onions are a course meal.  Form the mixture into 10 patties.  If it’s not sticking add a little water.  Heat enough olive oil to coat the bottom of a skillet to medium heat.  Pan fry the patties and turn so both sides are browned and crispy.  Remove the patties from the skillet to drain on a plate with paper towels. 

Tzatziki

¾ cup Greek yogurt

½ cucumber, diced

1 tsp lemon juice

1 clove garlic, minced

Salt to taste

You need your food processor again.  Add everything to the food processor and pulse until the cucumber is no longer chunky.

And that’s it, super simple.  I was a little rushed last night so this was all I did, but if you have a little bit of extra time, to make the tzatziki better you can put the yogurt in a cheese cloth or non-terry cloth kitchen towel and drain out the water.  There is most likely a few different things in your kitchen you could use to do this.  You could use a colander over a bowl or one of those big strainers set over a bowl. 

Serves 2, for the falafel, pita pockets and tzatziki it was 750 calories and 21 g fat.  One pita pocket and less olive oil would have helped a lot.

With this I had a salad with mixed greens, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, feta cheese, and a balsamic vinegar/olive oil dressing.

Baked Ziti with Turkey Meatballs

Last night was the big meal to get us through lunches for the rest of the week, but you could easily cut this recipe in half for just 4 servings.  This is pretty simple but for me it’s good comfort food, I can’t turn down anything with pasta and cheese.  

2 lbs 99/1 ground turkey

1 cup pine nuts

1 cup bread crumbs

2 eggs, beaten

olive oil

1 cup parmesan cheese

4 oz mozzarella cheese

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp garlic powder

28 oz canned diced tomatoes with basil and oregano

16 oz whole wheat penne pasta

Mix turkey, nuts, bread crumbs, eggs, and the seasonings and form the meat into 1" balls. Heat 2-3 turns of olive oil over medium-high heat and brown the meatballs.  Be sure not to crowd the pan, I did this in 4 batches and had to add additional olive oil for the third batch.  Turn the meatballs a few times so they are browned all the way around.

Cook the pasta to al dente. Puree the tomatoes and season the sauce to taste with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and oregano.  Mix the sauce and ½ cup of parmesan cheese in with the pasta.  For me, tubular pasta I always break down and buy, even though I know it would taste better if I made it myself, but there is no way I have the time to roll up a ton of little tubes of pasta, I do have a day job.

Spread the pasta into a 9x13 baking dish and top with the browned meatballs.  Top the meatballs with thinly sliced mozzarella cheese and the rest of the parmesan cheese. 

Bake at 350 to melt the cheese and finish cooking the meatballs, about 15 minutes.

Serves 8, 650 calories, 27 g fat

This is pretty high in fat but I love cheese, so every once in a while I do splurge.  You could cut back on the cheese or use low fat mozzarella, which would also save some calories too, but cheese is not something I like to buy cheap or fat free/low fat.  There is a popular concept in healthy cooking that suggests using less or low fat cheese because you won’t notice the difference.  I think if the cheese doesn’t add enough to your meal such that you won’t notice if there is less or you won’t be able to taste the difference between an amazing fresh mozzarella ball versus fat free, plasticy like shredded cheese, why waste the calories and add it at all? If it adds to your dish, go for the gold, if not, leave it out, and this dish with its gooey awesomeness definitely calls for cheese.

Caesar Salad

So last night’s meal was a little different.  This weekend I think my husband had a Caesar salad for the first time, and actually liked it quite a bit.  So that is what he requested for dinner, odd I know.  So I made a Caesar salad using some of the roast chicken I had left over from last week and also made a soup from the roast chicken carcass.  I will admit I am not a very good soup maker; they never have as much flavor as I am anticipating.  “It tastes like soup” is what my insightful husband had to say about it.  But since I had the chicken bones, plus extra carrots, celery, and potatoes that I bought last week, soup seemed to make the most sense to go with the salad.

Caesar Salad

2 big handfuls of greens, I used sweet baby spring mix which has romaines, spinach, arugula and some other greens

2 tbs parmesan cheese

1 tbs pumpkin seeds, or sunflower seeds

½ hard-boiled egg

½ cup croutons

¼ cup diced chicken

Dressing

2 tbs Greek yogurt

2 tsp olive oil

½ tsp malt vinegar

1 tsp mustard, something spicy like whole grain or Dijon

Salt and pepper to taste

You can make this a meal on its own or as a side, depending upon how much protein you add to it.  I didn’t want this to be the whole meal so I only used ¼ cup chicken so we could have something to go with it.  

As I prepared the recipe, 124 calories undressed, 200 calories and 11 g fat dressed.  If you use 2 8-oz chicken breasts that would get you up to 600 calories

So I think there are 3 really quick ways to ruin a salad.  1. Dirty greens.  Be sure to wash your greens well, grit isn’t a texture that adds much to a meal.  2.  Wet greens.  Make sure you dry the greens really well before assembling the salad, sogginess also doesn’t add much.  If you don’t have a salad spinner, which I don’t, I usually wash them, dry them and let them set aside well before I actually start cooking.  3. Dressing the salad prematurely.  You don’t want all of your dressing to sink to the bottom.  Especially if you are using an oil/vinegar mix be careful of this because the oil and vinegar will start to separate.

For the dressing I used Oikos Greek yogurt.  I usually use the yogurt of the Gods or whatever that one is called, but I succumbed to advertisements and thought I would try it and let me tell you that John Stamos was right.  This yogurt is really good, my husband didn’t turn into John Stamos, but he’s close enough for me to begin with so that's ok, I will definitely be switching to this yogurt anyway.  I also used this unbelievable mustard that my in-laws brought us back from Germany.  So I apologize you have no chance of making your dressing as good as mine because this is quite possibly the best mustard in the world.  Every time I open the jar I have to refrain from just eating it with a spoon, sounds crazy to do with mustard I know, but it is so good.

So I feel like this is already getting kind of long and I still have the soup to tell you about.  It really wasn’t that good so I will just tell you what I did briefly and you can experiment to improve upon it.

I cut up the chicken carcass, added salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, bay leaves and simmered for 30 minutes, the timing may have been where I went wrong in the first place but the hubs was “starving”.   Then I removed the bones and added potatoes, carrots, and celery and cooked until tender.  I took off all of the chicken that was still left on the bones and added back to the stock, seasoned again and served.  The more I ate the more used to it I got, but it was a little bland, “just tasted like soup”.

Chicken and Dumplings

This meal makes me feel like a kid again, sitting at my grandmother’s kitchen table.  I will admit that this attempt doesn’t compare to hers, but still turned out decent.  I think today I under-seasoned it.  I didn’t taste the broth before adding the dumplings, my mistake.  

I had this for lunch the next day and I think it was a lot better after sitting.

2 ½ pounds chicken breasts
7 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon dried basil
¼ teaspoon dried thyme
1 ½ pound new potatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
4 carrots carrots, cut into ½” pieces
2 ribs celery, cut into ½” pieces
1 small yellow onion, sliced
5 oz peas
Dumplings
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, cold
¾ cup milk
¼ cup parsley

Boil the chicken breasts in the water over medium heat until cooked through. Be sure not to overcook them or the meat will be tough. When done, remove the chicken and set aside to rest.  If you slice the chicken while it's hot it will be dry and tough. Add the seasoning and vegetables to the broth and simmer until the vegetables are softened. 

Meanwhile, mix the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Cut in the butter until it is broken up into fine pieces. Mix in the milk and parsley.

Cube the chicken and add to the broth. Stir and TASTE, this is where I failed. Season the broth again if necessary. Drop heaping tablespoon sized dollops of the dumplings in the stew. Simmer uncovered for ~10 minutes then cover and simmer for another ~10 minutes or until the dumplings are tender and cooked through.

Serves 8, 550 calories, 20 g fat

This is my second big meal of the week, so I won’t have to cook again until next week. These groceries cost me about $45. Lunch and dinner for 2 people for 7 days, that's about $1.61/serving, not too bad.

Roast Chicken with Pistachios, Peppers and Corn

I love a good roast chicken. I rarely make them because I have it in my head that they are some big to-do, but what could be easier than putting some seasoning on a chicken and throwing it in the oven for an hour, pretty much nothing. I found some interesting sides to go with this chicken that turned out pretty well.

1 2-lb chicken
2 tbs lemon juice
2 tbs olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbs chopped fresh thyme
2 tbs chopped fresh rosemary
1 tbs chopped fresh sage
1 lemon
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Whisk lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, thyme, rosemary, and sage in a small bowl and set aside. Rinse the chicken and pat dry. A dry chicken going into the oven will make the skin crispy. Season the chicken all over with salt and pepper and place in a resealable plastic bag. Pour the marinade into the bag and spread over the chicken. Seal and chill for 4-24 hours.

Preheat the oven to 450. Place the chicken in a roasting pan and gently pat off some of the excess marinade, leaving the herbs. Stuff the sliced lemon and a few sprigs of thyme into the chicken cavity.

Roast until well browned, 30-35 minutes, then lower the temperature to 375 and continue roasting for 30-40 minutes or until a thermometer registers 165 in the thickest part of the thigh. Transfer the chicken to a carving board and let rest 20-30 minutes.

It is very important to let the chicken rest before slicing it to keep the juices inside. This will deliver an absurdly juicy chicken with beautiful golden skin.

For the sides I made a chopped pistachio concoction to eat with the chicken, simulating a pistachio crust on the chicken. I was really quite impressed with this, the flavors really complimented each other well and it gave the chicken a completely different flavor if you ate it alone or with the pistachios. I also made a side of peppers and corn that was pretty tasty, not quite as flavorful as I was anticipating, but still good.


For the pistachios, this is enough for 2 servings of chicken

3/4 cup coarsely chopped unsalted shelled pistachios
¼ cup thinly sliced chives
1 tbs lemon juice
1 tbs olive oil
Salt to taste


Peppers and corn

2 bell peppers, cut into thin strips (I used 1 orange and 1 yellow, but I think I should have done red and orange, the yellow just didn’t add much flavor)
1 cup red onion, diced
1 tbs olive oil
1 jalepeno, diced
1 can corn
1 tbs flat leaf parsley
2 tbs red wine vinegar

Saute the onions in the olive oil over medium heat until tender, not quite browned. Add the bell
peppers and jalepeno and season to taste with salt and pepper and cook until soft, about 10-12 minutes. Add the corn, parsley and vinegar just before serving. One tip that I learned in a cooking class is you should be seasoning your vegetables every time you add something new to the skillet. This way the seasoning cooks into the vegetables as they are cooking, rather than coating the surface of something that is already cooked. So salt and pepper your onions, then when you add the peppers, salt and pepper again.

A few times a week I like to make something kind of large so we have a couple days worth of leftovers to eat for lunch, and this works well for that.

The entire dinner is about 800 calories. If you ditch the pistachios (or just use less than I made) you’ll save about 330 calories. The amount of calories in those pistachios took me by surprise.

Chicken Parmesan

Today my husband requested chicken parmesan. I of course readily obliged as this is also one of my favorites and any chance I have to eat fresh pasta I take it.

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded thin

Bread crumbs (I like the Italian seasoning flavored bread crumbs)

2 Eggs

Garlic powder

Dried Oregano

Dried Basil

Salt

Black Pepper

¼ cup Parmesan cheese
Olive oil

14 oz canned diced tomatoes with basil and oregano

After pounding the chicken breasts as thin as possible without tearing, dredge in egg wash seasoned with salt and pepper then coat with bread crumbs seasoned with garlic powder, oregano, basil, and parmesan cheese. Heat enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a skillet over medium heat, once hot add each breast, one at a time, adding additional oil in between if needed. Just cook the chicken long enough to brown the bread crumbs on each side. I finish cooking the chicken in the oven at 375 for 20 minutes and I think the pan you use is critical. I put a cookie cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet and cook the chicken on the rack. This way the juices run out into the cookie sheet and the breading stays intact. I hate it when the breading gets soggy and comes off, this keeps it crispy.

For the sauce I cheat a little and use canned diced tomatoes with basil and oregano. I pulse it in the blender to break down the big chunks and season to taste with more basil, oregano, garlic powder and salt.

Serves 2, the vast majority of the calories in this are in the chicken, so you can set your calories based on how big of a piece of chicken you use. For 2 large chicken breasts it will be about 750 calories.

I think the most important tip you should take from today is not to be intimidated by homemade pasta. Making pasta is not that difficult and it is well worth the effort. Once every month or two I make a big batch and then separate it into 2-4 serving sizes in individual baggies and throw it in the freezer. An hour or so before I need to cook the pasta I put the baggy in a bowl filled with warm water to thaw it. This way I can have fresh pasta any time and rolling out the pasta once it’s thawed might add 10 minutes to your time in the kitchen versus using dried pasta. I promise that 10 minutes is worth it. I will post my pasta recipe another day.

To go with this I made a spinach salad with carrots, feta cheese, dried apricots, pine nuts and a red wine vinegar/olive oil dressing.

Chickpea Cauliflower Curry

Today is my first day of this endeavor.  I have been cooking nearly every day for a few years, bur never really thought about sharing any of my experiences with other people. I like to experiment and try new recipes and hopefully I can inspire someone else to also.

Last night I made a chickpea cauliflower curry with an Asian carrot salad. I think my curries taste pretty good and they are really pretty easy, but they never turn out looking very pretty, so I could not bring myself to have my unattractive looking curry as my first post, but I will go ahead and give you the recipe anyway.

1 small yellow onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tbs vegetable oil

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds

6 whole cloves

1 tsp cinnamom

3/4 tsp cayenne pepper

salt to taste

1 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 head cauliflower, chopped to bite-size pieces
1 can garbanzo beans
1 cup basmati rice
¼ cup green peas

2 servings, 800 calories, 10 g fat

In a large skillet, heat the vegetable oil over medium heat, fry the onions and garlic until tender and lightly brown, about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the whole spices in a medium-high heated skillet just until they become fragrant, about 30 seconds. Do not let the spices burn, if they do, start over.  Grind the spices in a spice mill or coffee grinder to a powder. Once the onions are cooked, add all of the spices and mix well.  Add the drained garbanzo beans and cauliflower and toss well to coat the spices on the vegetables. Cover the skillet and let cook until the cauliflower is tender, about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep vegetables from sticking. Before serving I like to taste this to see if I need any more salt. The curry can taste a little bitter if there isn’t enough salt. I think salt brings out the flavors of the spices and you can have a completely different flavor depending on how much salt you add.
Serve over basmati rice. I like green peas in my rice with Indian food.

You could use any meats or vegetables with this, just use the spices as your  base and add what you like.  You could even add coconut milk if you like your curry saucy and sweeter.

Asian Carrot Salad

1 small carrot, julienned
½ small zucchini, julienned
Small handful sugar snap peas, julienned
¼ orange or red bell pepper, julienned
1 tbs rice wine vinegar
Salt to taste

2 servings, 55 calories, 0 g fat

This is a really easy way to get my husband to eat more vegetables, and I think it’s pretty. Just remember to cut all of the pieces so they are bite-sized, I always hate when my vegetables are too long to put in my mouth, you don’t look very graceful fumbling to get a long piece of carrot in your mouth.