It's possible that I may have put on a few pounds.
So I'm reaching into my annals of diet history and busting out my low calorie goodies for the New Year. Being the piggy that I am, I insist that my food always have flavor and be of a substantial portion- no celery sticks and cottage cheese for me (at least not without serious alteration.) Here is my first "diet" offering of the new year, a barley dish that's good for a low-calorie lunch (and way better than a stupid diet shake) or for a filling side dish to serve at dinner with a little grilled sirloin steak.
This recipe can be served warm or cold, but I usually eat it cold like a salad, and it's just about 220 calories per serving. It's also full of things that are very good for you, especially since they aren't cooked.
Ingredients:
1 cup pearl barley
2 bunches of curly parsley, most stems removed, and chopped finely
2 cups of grape or cherry tomatoes, quartered (measure before chopping)
1 or 2 large garlic cloves, chopped very fine (adjust to your own taste)
1 rounded tablespoon of pine nuts
3 ounces of crumbled feta cheese
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
juice and zest of one small lemon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
This makes about 5 one-cup servings (very packed cups.)
Simmer the barley in a pot of salted water for 45-60 minutes. Drain and add to the rest of the ingredients and toss everything really well together. You can fill it out with even more tomatoes if you'd like a bigger plate of food.
You can lower the calories even further by omitting the cheese (add a little more salt if you do this), then it will be only about 170 calories per serving, but do not omit the olive oil for any reason, for that way lies madness...
(Because of the raw garlic, I wouldn't eat this for lunch at work, if you need to talk to people at work, leave out the fresh garlic and a little Tabasco sauce and a dash of garlic powder.)
I'm having to watch my weight a bit, so please excuse the calorie counting. (Has anyone noticed that I like the word "cream" a lot? That could explain the extra weight...)
1 bunch Swiss Chard
1 half white or yellow onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon sherry
1/4 cup flour
5 eggs
2 ounces crumbled feta
2 tablespoons pine nuts
a small handful of fresh dill
a small handful of fresh parsley
zest of half of a lemon
a dash of nutmeg
a teaspoon of black pepper (or to taste)
a teaspoon of garlic salt (or to taste)
9 inch deep pan, I used a square glass one
(see below for sauce ingredients)
Preheat over to 350 or 375 depending on how hot your oven runs
Remove
the stems from the chard leaves and chop fine. Also chop the onion up
and saute them both in the olive oil on med-high heat until soft, adding
the sherry and sprinkling with a pinch of salt about halfway through.
After about ten minutes or so, add the rest of the chopped chard leaves and take off the heat and cover, letting the leaves just steam for a
few minutes. Let it all cool.
Beat the five egg whites until stiff.
In
a bowl mix the 5 egg yolks with the rest of the flavorings, pine
nuts and feta etc., then toss with the flour and the cooked and
cooled chard mixture (but don't add the liquid that has come out of the
chard though). Stir in a 1/4 of the egg whites, then fold the rest in
gently as you would for any souffle.
Spray the pan (9x9-ish) with a bit with PAM or
something then fill and bake for about 45 minutes. The top should be
brown and the middle moist, but not soupy.
For bechamel-like sauce (to add the nice creamy element),
cook 1 tablespoon flour and 1 tablespoon olive oil on med-high for a
minute until bubbly, then add a scant cup of skim milk and a pinch of
salt and pepper and a dash of Tabasco and cook, stirring with a whisk,
until thick.
Cut the slightly cooled souffle into four pieces and top each with bechamel.
275 calories per serving OR 220 calories per serving without the sauce
Cooked lettuce. It's sweet and lovely. Please don't try to be a lettuce snob and substitute something darker like kale or dandelion greens in this dish. The whole point here is to have mild sweetness- this is a happy, smiley dish. It's a dish to make you feel cozy. You may watch re-runs of Happy Days or Mork and Mindy while you eat this, you may not discuss obscure 19th Century Russian literature or translate the works of Thucydides.
Ingredients:
8 ounces of lean ground beef
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup of cherry tomatoes slices in half
1 small head green lettuce, or half of a normal sized one, roughly chopped
1/2 sweet onion, sliced thinly
2 tablespoons of sherry
1/2 cup warm water
salt and pepper
1 teaspoon dried dill (very important)
Over med-high heat, cook your ground beef in the olive oil until it is well browned. Add the sliced onions and salt and pepper to taste, and cook for another 2-3 minutes, still on med-high. Add the tomatoes, sherry and water. Let this bubble up, then stir in the dill and lettuce and turn the heat down to a low setting (like a 3) and cook for another 7-10 minutes.
I took the picture before adding cheese, but if you are a dairy fanatic like I am, you can sprinkle on top a mild soft cheese, a dab of Greek yogurt, or a knob of Irish butter.
This recipe serves two, with each serving adding up to only 325 calories, assuming you use lean beef and limit yourself to 1 ounce of goat cheese to top each serving. I am not suggesting you count calories, but you have to admit, that's a nice lunch for that caloric price!
I've been eating toast and cheese, or cereal, for breakfast during my illness, and to be honest it probably made me worse. Today I finally had a good breakfast that left me feeling light and energetic, but had lots of fresh flavor.
If you don't like eggs, just make the same thing and add more zucchini or some mushrooms- and just know that I think you're a little weird.
Ingredients:
2 green zucchini, quartered lengthwise and then sliced
1/2 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1 teaspoon savory
1/2 teaspoon (or more) garlic salt
several dashes of black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 ounce of crumbled feta, or whatever sharp cheese you have
2 good quality organic eggs
salt
In a non-stick skillet heat your olive oil on high and add the zucchini and garlic salt. Cook for about 2 minutes then add the savory, a bit of pepper and the tomatoes. Continue to cook on high for another 3-5 minutes, depending on how much you like your veggies cooked, making sure you stir them around once in a while.
After the veggies are cooked, add the feta cheese evenly over the top, then crack your eggs over the top as well. Now COVER the pan with a lid or foil, and turn the heat down to low/med-low. On my stove the eggs were done to over medium-ish in four minutes, but you can lift your lid after 3 minutes and poke your yolks gently to see if they are the way you like them. This method is kind of nice because your eggs are basically steaming, so you don't have to flip them.
Salt and pepper the eggs and serve yourself right away, with good hot coffee of course, and if you're a bread person I would go with toasted sourdough.
Well it's been awhile. Between having two different flu viruses and a cold, plus moving, I've been too sick and tired to cook for the past six weeks. I've been eating a lot of street tacos from the little Mexican place down the street, and more Chipotle burritos than is good for anyone. I'm also heartily sick of In-n-Out, and tired of turkey sandwiches. It's about time for some REAL food.
It doesn't get any more "real" to me than beef stew.
Ingredients:
1 to 1 1/2 pounds of beef (or lamb) stew meat
1/4 cup of some kind of organic flour
1/4 cup of good olive oil or Irish butter
1 large sweet onion, chopped
2 medium carrots, chopped (don't peel them)
3 celery stalks, chopped
1/2 fennel bulb, chopped
1 clove of garlic, whole
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon dried or fresh thyme
1 tablespoon dried savory
1/2 teaspoon dried orange peel
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon A1 Sauce
1/2 cup tawny port
1-2 cups of warm water, just enough to cover the ingredients
Cut the stew meat into small even pieces and then toss them in the flour to coat. Heat the oil or butter up in a medium sized pot, and then brown the meat pieces over medium-high heat for a couple of minutes (you don't have to brown them evenly, just get some brown stickiness going on). Remove the meat from the pan and set it aside, and yes, you have to do that.
Now you can throw in all of the chopped veggies, I like to chop them pretty small so they sort of melt into the stew. Plus I've noticed kids and grown men who are weird about eating cooked vegetables like it better that way. Put the salt and pepper in with the veggies, and cook them, still on medium-high heat, stirring frequently. After about ten minutes, add the tawny port and then let it heat heat up before you add the stew meat and juices back in and turn the heat down to simmer.
Next, add the warm water, just enough to cover everything, and also add in all of the spices. Cook on a good simmer, on my stove it's about a 2, uncovered, stirring occasionally for at least one hour.
Use a wooden spoon to stir, I swear it makes it taste better.
You can cook the stew up to 1 1/2 hours, or even two, but if you go up to 2 hours, turn the heat down to a slow simmer after the first hour. More than two hours will dry the meat out, so don't leave it too long.
Serve over mashed sweet potatoes (not yams, that would be sort of redundant with all the carrots) or mashed sunchokes.
You're a fool if you don't at least consider drinking a big mug of porter or stout with it. Tonight we're drinking Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout
It's cloudy and chilly, and that means only one thing, I need to stuff myself with comfort food. Nothing is more comforting than roast chicken. Okay, maybe a grilled rib eye is...or bread pudding...or macaroni and cheese...never-mind. The POINT is that hot juicy chicken, and sweet melt-in-your-mouth yams are pretty damned comforting.
Le recipee eez as follows <---say that with le faux French accent, because it makes it fancier.
5 organic chicken drumsticks ( I say 5 because that's what comes in a vacuum sealed package from Costco, one or two more or less really doesn't matter)
4 large yams, or 5 medium sized ones (yams are orange inside, sweet potatoes look almost like regular potatoes inside, although they work fine too)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup fruity and/or sweet white wine like a moscato
1 heaping teaspoon dried lavender (I have purchased this at Target, believe it or not, and also Cost Plus)
1 teaspoon dried orange peel, or zest an orange (you can use the juice too, whatever)
1 heaping teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 heaping teaspoon lavender
1 heaping teaspoon marjoram
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 heaping teaspoon rosemary
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Wash the yams and cut them in half lengthwise. In a roasting pan (if you don't have one, your big lasagna pan will work fine) arrange your drumsticks and your yams in a single layer, don't stack anything, you want everything snugly laying side by side. You also want the skin side of your yams facing down. Pour the wine over everything, then pour the olive oil over. Next sprinkle all of your seasonings as evenly as possible, concentrating the garlic and rosemary on your chicken. The amounts on the seasonings are just a guideline, feel free to sprinkle on the seasonings right out of the bottle, and just go for it until everything has a nice even dusting!
Roast in the oven for 45 minutes at the 425 degree temperature, then add a 1/3 cup water and tilt the pan a bit so it runs around, then cook another 10 minutes on 300 degrees.
During cooking, the sugars from the yams will ooze out and get really dark colored, don't worry about it, it's not hurting anything. (Although you might have to soak the pan a bit before you wash it.)
When you serve your dish, pour a little of the syrupy glaze from the bottom of the pan over the chicken. You might want to serve a glass of that white wine that you used to cook it with, I mean what the hell are you going to do with that bottle of wine? You don't want to be one of those people who keeps open bottles of wine in their refrigerator for a year. That's just embarrassing. And it's insulting to the winemakers of the world.
P.S. Cost Plus World Market is a good place to get spices at a decent price, as is Trader Joe's and Target (it was weird buying spices at Target, but they have been pretty good so far for the price.)
Cereal, toast, pancakes...all delicious. The problem is, when I eat these carb-a-riffic breakfast foods I feel weak and hungry an hour or two after. So most of the time for breakfast I eat either Greek yogurt with honey, cinnamon and almonds, or eggs cooked in some way with vegetables or herbs. Today's omelette came out extra tasty, so here we go:
2 eggs
2 tablespoons of water or milk
2 teaspoons of olive oil
1 chopped green onion
1 big handful of baby kale (I got a bag of organic at Costco for next to nothing)
salt
black pepper
nutmeg (don't skip this, it's the best part)
1 slice sharp sharp Tillamook cheddar (or other sharp cheese)
(grape tomatoes on the side for acidity and color)
Easy peasy, start with a teaspoon of the olive oil in a small non-stick pan over medium heat. Toss in the green onion and kale, salt them ever so slightly, and cook just until the kale wilts down. Remove the kale and onion from the pan and put the other teaspoon of olive oil in. While this is heating, in a bowl whip the heck out of your eggs and water (or milk) and add a good pinch of salt and pepper and a WHISPER (a half-dash?) of nutmeg.
Pour into the pan and cook. I like to gently push the eggs toward the middle of the pan with my spatula and then tilt the pan around in a circular motion, letting the uncooked egg from the top layer of the omelette run to the sides of the pan and cook there. Once you have just a very thin sheen of uncooked egg on that top layer, place your kale, onion, and your slice of cheese on one half, then use your spatula to flip the other half of the circle to cover everything.
Turn the heat off and let it sit in the pan for a minute until the cheese melts inside, then serve immediately with an extra sprinkle of good black pepper over the top and some tomatoes on the side.
This actually kept me going until lunch, so it's eggs for the win.
