Broccoli and Cauliflower Au Gratin

This was another one of those dishes where the first thing to mind after a bite of this is “holy cow”.  This was surprisingly rich, simple, and low cal.  This was so good there is no reason why you shouldn’t be making this right now so I will just get right to it.

2 cups cauliflower
2 cups broccoli
1 small yellow onion, sliced in rings
2 tsp olive oil
1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped
1 ½ cup milk, non-fat
2 tbs flour
½ cup shredded gouda cheese
½ cup shredded havarti cheese
1 tbs dry mustard powder
½ tsp black pepper
Salt to taste
2 tbs bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place cauliflower, broccoli, and carrot in a steamer basket over water and steam until tender.  Remove from burner and set aside.
In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, sauté onion in olive oil for 1 to 2 minutes, or until translucent.  Add milk and flour and heat for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.  Stir in cheese and mix until melted.  Season with mustard, pepper and salt.

In an 8x8 glass dish, add cauliflower and broccoli in an evenly distributed layer.  Pour cheese-carrot mixture over top then sprinkle with bread crumbs.  Bake for 25 minutes to brown the bread crumbs.  Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

As a side, 4 generous servings, 230 calories, 13 g fat

This was easy to throw together and was oh so good.  It obviously adds a lot more calories than just eating the cauliflower and broccoli alone, but it’s just so good and every once in a while you need a change.  Make this change, you won’t be sorry.  The key of course is the cheese, you must use high quality cheese or this isn’t worth it.

Green Pea Basil Pesto

Pesto is such a nice alternative pasta sauce when you are tired  of tomato based sauces.  I tend to stay away from Alfredo sauce, not only because it's more fattening  but its not really one of my favorites.  This pesto uses green peas to thicken the consistency a little and to add some volume with out spending a fortune on basil, but feel free to leave it out if you are totally anti pea. Just be sure you cut way back on the olive oil and garlic.

1/2 cup fresh basil
3 cloves garlic
1 tbs pine nuts
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup green peas
1 tbs parmesan cheese
salt to taste

In a blender pulse the basil, garlic, and pine nuts until coarsely chopped.  Add  the olive oil and peas and puree into a thick paste. Add  the cheese and salt and pulse to mix.

Yields about 1cup. The entire cup is 590 calories and 58 g fat. I recommend about 1 tbs per serving which would be about 40 calories and 4 g fat.

You could put this on pasta or for a new chicken recipe you could bake some chicken breasts then spoon a little of this on top and trick your family onto thinking you made something totally new that was super complicated, even though it took less than 5 minutes to mix all this in the blender. What you have left over can go right into the freezer in an air tight bag/container. Another cool trick I learned is to spoon the pesto into an ice cube tray and freeze it then once the cubes are frozen pop them out and store  them in a Ziploc bag. Then when you need a couple tbs worth you can get what you need easily and just stir them into your dish.

Sweet Potato Macaroni and Cheese

I found this recipe on Delish.com and really liked the concept, but I had to adjust it to decrease the probability of giving my husband a heart attack.  I was very pleased with how this turned out, I do not think my adjustments resulted in anything lacking at all.  It was rich, creamy, cheesy and full of flavor, and saved a ton of calories and fat.  I think the type of cheese you use will definitely make or break this dish.  I suggest going for a semi-hard cheese with a strong flavor.  I found a chipotle Gouda that was very good.  I have tried making macaroni and cheese before with various types of cheeses and have found on occasion it turns out gritty like the cheese didn’t get creamy or melt fully or something.  This cheese turned out really creamy and the flavor was strong enough to add taste but wasn’t overwhelming at all.

5 cloves garlic

1 sweet potato, peeled and sliced into ½” rounds

1 tbs olive oil

1 cup elbow macaroni

1 tbs butter

2 tbs flour

1 ½ cup skim milk

4 oz cheese, like Gouda, cubed

1 tsp rosemary

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

1 tsp bread crumbs

Boil a pot of water big enough for the sweet potatoes.  Once the water is boiling add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes.  Remove the garlic and blanch in ice water.  Return the water to a boil and add the sweet potatoes, cook for 5 minutes to soften.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat then add the softened sweet potatoes.  Stir and turn regularly to prevent sticking.  Cook the sweet potatoes until they are caramelized and seared on both sides.  Remove from the skillet, dice and set aside.

Cook the macaroni to al dente and set aside.

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat.  Add the flour and stir frequently, cook for 3 minutes.  If you don’t cook the flour long enough your sauce will taste like flour, but be careful not to let it burn either, that also won’t taste good.  Slowly add the milk to the flour while stirring continuously.  You are now stuck at your stove, don’t stop stirring.  Stir the milk to dissolve the flour in the milk and keep the milk from burning on the bottom of your pot.  After some time the mixture will start to thicken then boil, once it boils reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for 2 minutes.  Add the cheese and stir to melt it.  Mince the blanched garlic and add to the cheese mixture.  Add the seasonings, diced sweet potatoes, and the pasta and stir to combine.  Dish the macaroni and cheese out into a small greased baking dish or 4 ramekins and top with the bread crumbs.

Broil in the oven to brown the bread crumbs and heat everything through. Enjoy a rich, cheesy, flavorful macaroni and cheese without the guilt.

Servings, 4 sides, 370 calories, 15 g fat

Spanish Rice

I have discovered a simple way to make Spanish rice a little healthier.  Now this is definitely not as good as the real thing, but it doesn’t take too much effort and there is no lard involved so that's a plus.

½ green bell pepper, diced

½ small yellow onion, diced

1 clove garlic

1 cup brown rice (or white if you prefer)

2 cups water or chicken broth

1 tsp cumin, ground

1 can rotel tomatoes with chilies

Salt to taste

1 tsp olive oil

Heat the olive oil in a medium pot to medium-high heat.  Add the onion and cook until softened, then add the bell pepper and garlic and cook until the pepper is softened.  Pour in the water/broth and bring to a boil.  Add the rice and return to a boil.  Cover the pot and reduce the temperature to medium.  Cook for 15 minutes then remove the pot from the heat but leave the lid on.  Allow the rice to sit, with the lid on, for another 15 minutes.  All of the water should be absorbed by then and you should have fluffy rice.  Add the cumin, rotel and salt to taste.  The seasoning is kind of what makes this dish, so if it’s under seasoned it won’t be good.  Add more cumin if you think it needs it and don’t be afraid with the salt, add a little at a time and taste, I think I used about ½ tsp.  You can return the rice to the burner on medium for a couple minutes to cook out some of the tomato juice if it looks soupy.

Serves 4, 200 calories, 3 g fat

Savory Polenta

Last night I indulged in one of my guilty pleasures, sausage.  Now I know sausage is super bad for you, which is why we eat it maybe 3 times a year.  For anyone unaware, cured meats like sausage and bacon contain sodium nitrite, which is a preservative, and when consumed with foods high in protein, like meat, the sodium nitrite can form nitrosamines which create cell damage.  So in short, studies show that consuming foods with sodium nitrite increase your risk of colon cancer.  So don’t feed your kids hot dogs routinely and check that theur lunch meats are sodium nitrite free!  And hey, I’m a chemist, feel comfortable blindly believing everything I have to say, but I do encourage people to do their own research.

So anyway, off my soapbox, with my sausage I decided to make a polenta.  I tried a new recipe for it, this one is from Alton Brown and it was really simple and turned out pretty good.  It was not at all pretty though, in fact it was so unappetizing looking I didn’t even bother attempting at taking a picture.  I am really working on trying to take better pictures, but this one was hopeless. Give me some time I’ll get there, it’s not as easy as it looks.

¼ cup red onion, thinly diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp olive oil

2 cups chicken stock

½ cup polenta

1 tbs butter

1 ½ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

1 oz cheese, grated

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Heat the olive oil in an oven-safe skillet to medium-high.  Cook the onion and garlic until the onion is translucent.  Add the chicken stock and polenta and stir to break up any lumps.  Transfer the skillet to the oven and cover.  Cook for 35-40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes to break up any lumps.  Remove from the oven and stir in the butter, salt, pepper, and cheese.  I used Manchego cheese since I had some in the refrigerator leftover from a recipe last week, but you could use pretty much anything.  Maybe a parmesan, gruyere, or gouda.

Servings, 2 sides, 260 calories, 13 g fat

I know this is a crazy thing to say, but I actually thought this was too rich.  I actually couldn’t eat it all it was so rich.  I think next time I will cut back on the cheese and maybe the butter.  J didn’t think it was too rich, he had no problem eating his portion and what I couldn’t eat of mine, so maybe 1 oz of cheese won’t be too much for you.

So a couple days after making this I went to a restaurant and had the most amazing polenta that put me to shame, so I will be trying this again.

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.

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.

Artichoke and Sun-Dried Tomato Ravioli

Ok so I have a confession.  Our goal was to try to only go out to eat one night a week, and so far we’re not doing too well.  This week we were going to go out on Friday and then I was going to make ravioli on Saturday.  We ended up going out for dinner on Friday, actually not to Boondoggles pat on back, but then after dinner we thought, well we can either go home and watch the Olympics, or we can go to Bdogs and watch the Olympics, so guess what we did. 

Then on Saturday, Since J would be at work I was going to have all sorts of time to clean the house then prep everything for a big meal of homemade ravioli and was also thinking of attempting to make cannolis.  After breakfast he kind of put a wrench in my plan for the day and decided he didn’t have enough work to do to go in, which I really prefer it just changed my plans.  It was nice because he stayed home and helped me clean the house (Score) and then we were able to hang out all day, but of course he was feeling more like going out Saturday night than my homemade ravioli (I know, I think homemade ravioli sounds pretty amazing too), and I didn’t argue.  So as we were trying to decide where to go to dinner we came up with a few places that sounded good, but only two of them would we be able to watch the Olympics and one was 30 minutes away and the other 5, so to Bdogs we go again.  I swear, twice in one weekend, that's even a lot for us. 

But then on Sunday I actually do get to make my ravioli and for my first time they were pretty good if I do say so myself.  I looked at a couple other recipes to try to figure out filling proportions and ended up being pretty far off.  I ended up with more filling than pasta and made more servings than I thought I was.  I also don’t think my calorie estimate is going to be very accurate today because of all this so today calories don’t exist.

8 oz ricotta cheese

1 cup artichoke hearts, diced

½ cup sun-dried tomatoes, diced

1 egg, beaten

Salt and pepper to taste

6 sheets of pasta about 2 inches wide rolled to setting 2

1 egg white

Mix the cheese, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, whole egg and salt and pepper in a medium bowl until well combined.  After rolling out the pasta lay it on the table and place spoonfuls of filling down it such that there is about 1 inch between each spoonful and they are about ½ inch from the edges.  Paint around the filling with a brush or paper towel dipped in the egg white.  Egg whites are a chef’s glue, this will get the two layers of pasta to stick together.  Take a second sheet of pasta and lay it on top.  Press down around the filling until it feels well sealed then cut in between each one to make the individual raviolis.  Set aside while you prepare the rest but don’t stack them on top of each other or they will stick together.  Once they are all done cook in a pot of boiling water until they float, about 2-4 minutes.  

This ended up making 3 servings and I still had about ¾ cup worth of filling left over, I didn’t do too well on proportions today.

Alone I think these tasted just fine and I don’t really think they needed a sauce, but I made a sage butter sauce anyway.

3 tbs butter, melted

1 tbs chopped fresh sage

That’s it just pour it over the ravioli.  I don’t know that the butter really added a lot, other than calories that I am ignoring today, but I do think the sage did, so you probably could just add a little sage to the filling and get the same effect, I think the sage complimented the filling pretty well.

I served this with a mixed green salad with dried apricots, pecans, and red wine vinegar/olive oil dressing and spaghetti squash (only because I had a craving not because it really went with the meal).

This week groceries were $55 and made 17 meals at $3.23, could be better but not too bad at all.

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.

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.