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.

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.

Meal Planning

I thought it might be a good idea to go through my meal planning process and start setting goals for the budget.  So what I do is, every Sunday, or Monday if I get distracted on Sunday, I plan out my meals for the week based on what I have left over from the week before.  I also like to at least consider what the Tuesday grocery store flyers say will be on sale and what’s in season, but I usually just end up making what sounds good.  I have the Pepper Plate App for my Kindle where I can schedule the meals for the week and type up a grocery list.  I also use www.caloriecount.about.com to calculate the nutritional value of my meals.  It is a lot better for me if I calculate the meals before I cook, that way I am much more aware of what is influencing the meal and what my goals are.  I have noticed that sometimes they will give you different information so you have to use common sense and double check the values if they look funny.  I use www.livestrong.com as my confirmation.  There are a ton of websites and apps for your phone that will calculate nutritional information I have just been using calorie count for a long time so a lot of my recipes are stored there.

My menu for this week

Sunday plus 2 lunches – Thai Basil Stir Fry (6 servings)

Monday – Cilantro Chicken, Potatoes and Broccoli

Tuesday plus 2 lunches – Chicken Enchiladas (6 servings), Spanish Rice, and Salad

Wednesday plus 1 lunch – Vegetable Risotto (4 servings) and Salad

Thursday  plus 1 lunch – Cajun Chicken Pasta (4 servings) and Salad

Friday – Should cook but no plan yet

I like to keep a decently stocked pantry and plenty of vegetables so I have most of the things I need on hand all the time and then I just have to replace them every once in a while.  I like to keep different types of rice, homemade pasta in the freezer, pastas I don’t make like penne, bread crumbs, a bag of onions, and all kinds of spices.  For standard spices I go to Penzey’s because they are really good, not cheap, but good.  For any Indian spices like cumin, cardamom, turmeric, etc, I buy at an Indian grocery store.  They are ridiculously cheap there, every store I’ve been to has been.  They are always “expired” so I buy them as whole seeds.  Spices that are old and already ground will not be as flavorful as whole spices freshly ground.  I buy large quantities and store them in the freezer.

So for my grocery list this week I had to purchase the meat and almost all of the vegetables.  I already have the pasta and the rice, but I did have to replenish my stock of Arborio rice for the risotto, but now I will have enough for quite a while and I do like to make risotto pretty often.  So you can see that buying in bulk may make your grocery bill a little high one week but when you use the ingredients often it evens out over all.  And when I say bulk I don’t mean I have turned my laundry room into a pantry filled with 50 boxes of cereal and 100 1-lb bags of rice like on those coupon shows, I mean I purchase 2 or 3 bags of rice when they go on sale or a couple packages of chicken and freeze what I don’t need.  I am not denying those people are “saving” tons of money, but in my opinion having 50 bottles of ketchup that I got for $2 doesn’t do anything for me when I go through 1 bottle of ketchup a year. Who wants 50 year old ketchup?

So thinking about this, I realized that counting cost/serving based on my grocery bill for the week didn’t make sense since I already had a lot of the ingredients.  So I am going to try to break down the cost of the meal based on the amount of the ingredients that I actually used, regardless of when I paid for them.  We’ll see how that works, sounds like a lot of work. 

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.

Balsamic Glazed Meatloaf and Smashed Cauliflower

Last night turned out to be a Food Network inspired meal, even though I make both of these so frequently I feel like they are my own, but honestly I stole them.  There really are few recipes that after making a few times I don’t change at all, but Bobby Flay’s balsamic meatloaf needs no alterations from me.  Ok I take that back, he uses meats that I can’t eat so I have changed it to turkey and chicken, but other than that it’s the same.  This is one of our big meals that will be lunch for a few days, but you could cut this in half pretty easily for 4 servings.

1 zucchini, diced

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 yellow squash, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

¾  tsp red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tbs olive oil

2 eggs, beaten

1 tbs thyme

¼ cup flat leaf parsley, chopped

1 lb ground turkey

1 lb ground chicken

1 cup bread crumbs

½ cup parmesan

1 cup ketchup, divided

¼ cup plus 2 tbs balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Heat olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium high heat.  Add the zucchini, squash, bell pepper, garlic, ½ tsp red pepper flakes,  and salt and pepper, to taste, and cook until almost soft, about 5 minutes.  Set aside to cool.

Whisk together the eggs and herbs in a large bowl.  Add the meat, bread crumbs, cheese, ½ cup ketchup, 2 tbs balsamic vinegar, and the cooled vegetables and mix until just combined. 

Mold the meatloaf on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Whisk together the remaining ketchup, balsamic vinegar and ¼ tsp red pepper flakes in a small bowl.  Brush the mixture over the entire loaf.  Bake the meatloaf for 1-1 ¼ hours.  Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing.

Serves 8, 400 calories, 14 g fat 

I used 99/1 turkey and chicken breast that I ground myself to keep it lower in fat. 

With this I made a smashed cauliflower inspired by Rachael Ray.  This is a delicious way to trick your husband/kids into eating vegetables.  Really I guess that’s kind of the theme of this whole meal, cauliflower covered in cheese and meatloaf stuffed with vegetables, sneaky.

½ head cauliflower

3 tbs boursin garlic and herb cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Steam the cauliflower until it is tender. Mash the cauliflower with a fork or a hand mixer and stir in the cheese, salt and pepper.

Serves 2, 100 calories, 10 g fat

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.

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.