May 31, 2006
Paula Zahn Now Show Tonight!
That's right bloggiefriends, they gave us about four hours notice. We'll be on the show tonight at 8 pm.
Can somebody tape it?
Posted by april at 4:36 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 23, 2005
Vaguely Southwestern-ish CR Friendly Zoned Lunch
Try this:
50 g black beans, soaked overnight, cooked and drained (the 50 g is raw)
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
1 teaspoon fresh raw cilantro (or thereabouts)
1/2 jalepeno pepper, chopped and seeds removed (do not rub your eyes!)
or, a few canned jalepenos, chopped
1 tablespoon rice protein 55 calories and 7.5 g protein for my brand
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup eggwhites, cooked, chopped
mix it all together, serve hot.
That's 310 calories, 35 g protein, but almost no fat. The eggwhite is a cheap trick to up the protein, but it actually tastes good and adds some more solidness to the soup, making it more filling.
Serve this on the size: Lime Guacamole
Take however much avocado you need to Zone out the previously spent calories, and mash it up with the juice of one fresh lime. Throw in a touch of garlic powder and a dash of tabasco or whatever your favorite hot sauce is. Voila! Fat!
If you want to be really fancy, serve a dollop of the guacamole right on top of the soup. It's like the sour cream they put on black bean soup in restaurants, except better and better for you.
If you want to defeat the entire CR purpose of this dish, drink a giant frozen margarita with the meal.
Posted by april at 12:29 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
April 22, 2005
Stuffed Vegetables
I used to have a cookbook that described stuffing vegetables as follows:
"Stuffing vegetables is a time consuming and tedious process that yields delicious results."
Well, that's inspiring.
I find that stuffed vegetables make nice entrees for a CR meal, and they impress the CR'd and non-CR'd alike, which is of course the entire point of cooking. Some of my favorite quick and easy stuffed vegetables involve bell peppers, which stand up nicely in a baking dish and have such charming little hats when you cut off the tops to stuff, then replace them to cook and serve.
Another vegetable that stuffs well is yellow summer squash. These little critters can be cut in half lengthwise, then baked or microwaved until tender. Then scoop out the insides and mix with whatever stuffing you like. I suggest a stuffing of 1 oz goat cheese, 20 g chopped tomatoes, and 20 g chopped red peppers. Top with a shake of dried basil, if you feel like it, but don't feel like you have to. Then bake at about 325ish for about half an hour in a shallow foil lined baking dish. Serve hot.
Here's another variation on the stuffed vegetable theme, one that will make almost an entire meal. Cut whole eggplants in half lengthwise and microwave until gushy. Scoop out the insides (don't get crazy perfectionist on this... they won't scoop out as nicely as the squash), chop, and drain in a collander and cover with a light dusting of half salt to remove that bitter eggplant taste. Let stand while you chop some tomatoes, locate your dried oregano (it's somewhere on the spice rack, no doubt, or you can just use prepared Italian spices from a shaker that you can buy at the grocery store for $3 max) and open a can of tomato sauce. Open a bottle of dry-ish red wine and add about a fourth cup to the tomato sauce in a saucepan, heating gradually. Throw in some garlic if you like garlic. Stir in tomatoes and the reserved salted eggplant. Add the dried oregano (use your judgement on amounts, probably a teaspoon-ish) and pre-heat the oven to 325. Fill the eggplant husks with the tomato sauce mixture, bake for about half an hour or until hot all the way through. Test to make sure the bitterness has left the eggplant before serving... if it has not, cook a bit longer. Eggplants vary a lot in bitterness, so I can't give you an absolute. Enjoy a low calorie stuffed treat! You can use other veggies if you want... you get the idea.
The nice thing about making stuffed vegetables is that they give the CR'd plate a sense of balance, and they're great for presentation. It's too easy to get into the habit of eating heaps of varying sizes of vegetables and protein when you're at home alone... when company is over, especially non-CR'd company, it's good to show off how pretty our food is. You can serve a protein dish, like a piece of fish or a bean soup with rice protein, on the side. Colorful, tasty, filling CR friendly meal!
Posted by april at 12:18 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 3, 2005
Lasagna
One thing you should be aware of is that when I do the recipe crunch for food I make for MR, I put the two of us together into one DWIDP foodlist. Then he eats 2/3 of it and I eat 1/3. That's cause I'm half of him! Isn't that cute???
Friday night I made my amazing lasagna. He loves it. This time we used Quorn "ground round," which is like ground beef. Quorn is made of some kind of fungus and it's a meat substitute. MR had me bring a bunch from home because they don't sell it in his stores here.
Here's how you make my lasagna:
(the DWIDP seems incapable of saving the right amounts to text so I'll spell it out to you)
100 g zucchini, chopped
100 g red bell pepper, chopped
90 g part skim mozarella cheese sliced into very thin slices
1/2 cup lowfat cottage cheese
100 g arugula
10 g basil
100 g shitake mushrooms, chopped
400 grams no salt added tomato sauce
89 g (3 oz) dry-ish red wine
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 cloves garic.
garlic powder, salt
To make the tomato sauce, boil the garlic (minced) in the red wine for about ten minutes. Cut down the heat and add tomato sauce. Throw in a bit of garlic powder and salt to taste. (You can use half salt -- indeed, if MR is looking over your shoulder, you must.) Allow to simmer for another twenty minutes... you can do the simmering while you chop the other veggies. Just as you're about to add the sauce to the lasagna, stir in a teaspoon of olive oil.
Mix up the cottage cheese with the basil and a few dashes of garlic powder and a dash of salt. Set aside. Put down a thin layer of arugula, cover with an thin layer of zucchini. Put down a layer of cottage cheese. Follow with a thin layer of red pepper. Follow with ground Quorn, or any other ground beef substitute (like Gardenburger) or just skip it all together. Follow with shitakes. Continue until you're out of all the ingredients. Cover with the tomato sauce, allowing it time to drip down into the rest of the mixture. Top with the mozarella cheese. Bake at about 400 for about 45 mins. Serve with a glass of pinot noir (3 oz for each of us is in the recipe crunch.)
Here's the nutrition info:
NUTRIENT TOTALS:
Abs. Values %RDA/SA
Calories 925.69__cal 46%
Protein 56.91__gm 103% RDA
Total Fat 42.64__gm 66%
Sat. Fat 22.65__gm 113%
Mono. Fat 14.05__gm 49%
Poly. Fat 3.17__gm 48%
Carbohydrate 67.79__gm 23%
Fiber 17.59__gm 59%
Cholesterol 100.10__mg 33%
Vit. A 8467.40__IU 169% RDA
Vit. B6 1.40__mg 87% RDA
Vit. B12 1.06__mcg 53% RDA
Vit. C 163.40__mg 272% RDA
Vit. E 8.51__mg 106% RDA
Thiamine 0.68__mg 61% RDA
Folacin 256.41__mcg 142% RDA
Riboflavin 1.26__mg 97% RDA
Niacin 8.05__mg 54% RDA
Panto. Acid 6.33__mg 127% SA
Calcium 1227.50__mg 102% RDA
Copper 2.40__mg 120% SA
Iron 7.79__mg 52% RDA
Magnesium 263.08__mg 94% RDA
Manganese 5.35__mg 178% SA
Phosphorus 1043.89__mg 87% RDA
Potassium 2858.50__mg 143% RDA
Selenium 41.97__mcg 76% RDA
Sodium 3418.41__mg 142% SA
Zinc 17.04__mg 142% RDA
Tyrosine 2.97__gm 310% RDA
Lysine 6.18__gm 858% RDA
Phenylalanine 3.49__gm 364% RDA
Leucine 6.46__gm 673% RDA
Valine 4.22__gm 502% RDA
Methionine 1.84__gm 614% RDA
Cystine 0.78__gm 260% RDA
Tryptophan 0.93__gm 516% RDA
Threonine 3.23__gm 673% RDA
Isoleucine 3.90__gm 541% RDA
It does have more saturated fat than we would normally eat, but since our diets are usually so low in saturated fat, and it also rocks out on the calcium, it's okay for sometimes. MR and I are at mindnumbingly low risk for heart disease. So yes, Dan, go out to Trader Joes and buy your goat cheese! You could alternatively skip the mozarella all together and use a whole lot more cottage cheese mixture, which cuts out saturated fat almost all together and makes it more ricotta-like. You could also sprinkle a little bit of fresh grated parmesean on top.
Tonight I'm making a shrimp dish. Tomorrow I fly home to Philly... alas, coming down from the mountaintop is always rough. But MR is going to pack me some of Sherm's megamuffins and Sherm's binging brownies to soften the transition.
Posted by april at 12:27 PM | Comments (4)