Back in November, I made an amazing squash gratin casserole for Thanksgiving and it was a huge hit. However, it was also a huge pain in the tuchas (Jewish accent!) and so I knew that it would be a WHILE before I was able to make it again. A while was apparently a little over 2 months and I had to do it when I was on my staycation in early February. I actually forgot to buy onions and went without them and using the George Foreman Grill was a huge improvement over a grill pan (because the veggies grilled on both sides at once and I could walk away from it and it didn't fill my apartment with smoke and set off my smoke alarm!). What I love about this is that it's healthy with all sorts of veggie/fiber goodness and still so tasty (thanks to the Italian cheeses: Parm and Mozz). Also, for a 6-8 serving platter, it came out to be pretty cheap and there was plenty of leftover cheese to use elsewhere. I also wound up with quite a few leftover tomato slices, which I eventually put to use elsewhere.

Click the link above for a list of ingredients and instructions

Well, the casserole turned out great and I learned to do a few other things. For example, I did some research and read some other blogs and found out how to deal with all my leftover basil. I can never manage to use all of mine. First, I started to add it to snack salads (this one was cucumber, some red bell pepper and some chopped basil dressed with balsamic vinegar). On the left is a big piece of bell pepper loaded with fat free cream cheese by the way.

Then I started to do some research and found that some bloggers out there have been freezing their basil. Some froze it in oil (so not my thing, feel that oil adds unnecessary calories ) and some processed it into puree, also with oil (doubly not my style). The thing I found that required the least amount of effort was simply chopping up the basil, dumping it into an ice tray and freezing it with water into ice cubes.

The reviews said that it wouldn't really be suitable for use as "fresh" basil garnish but would be fine in sauces etc. I have yet to find out if this is the case, but promise to try soon!

Also, never having been one to put all my eggs in one basket, I realized that the casserole is well....more of a side than a main for most people. It was time to start defrosting a few more of my hand-removed chicken breasts. I never posted this but I accidentally bought bone-in chicken breasts at the supermarket and was surprised at how cheap they were. Well, like Ikea, they required some manual input, though it was more like disassembly =) Anyway, I coated them with a spice mix (any store bought spice rub will do, but probably S+P+Italian Seasoning would be fine too)

To the chopped chicken I added the remainder (1 cup?) of a frozen and sauteed veggie mixture (this was peppers and onions), also chopped and about 1.5-2tbsp Fage Greek Yogurt 0%. Of course, some more S+P went in too. I bet some cumin or  paprika would have been perfect here, but it didn't come to me at the time.

The chicken salad was later to be portioned onto toast and topped with cheese for chicken salad melts by the Boyfriend, who does not take pictures of his food like I do =)

So, I know a lot of people don't love to eat leftovers. I happen to enjoy leftovers, but even I sometimes get bored of them. My favorite thing to do is to adapt leftovers to salads, sandwiches or side dishes. It's easiest to throw anything on top of a bed of lettuce, add a few fresh veggies, a sprinkle of dressing and call it a salad. And it's amazingly tasty. I find salads to be one of the most satisfying meals because you can make it into whatever you want. Buffalo chicken salad, burrito salad, tropical salad, hearty veggie salad...you name it. Plus every single bite tastes just a bit different. You get a crouton with one, a protein with another, a bit of a jalapeno there, a bite of cheese somewhere else....how can you go wrong?

So far, the things that I've found go best in salads are 1) frozen/sauteed veggie mixtures 2) any yogurt-based salad: tuna, chicken, salmon 3) shrimp dishes 4) meatloaf-like dishes.

Also, you can portion almost anything into a snack or side and put anything between bread. That being said, that casserole was divvied into 6 portions and I ate each a little differently. The chicken salad was stretched into two types of meals too. It's harder to do the same with leftover ingredients, but not impossible =)

So kids, I hope we learned something today: cook in multiple servings, while you're already in the kitchen, cook 2 dishes. Or if you're REALLY good at multitasking, cook 3 or 4 =)

Ciao!
Dr Jules

Why not, we did Valentine's Day on February 16th and I decided to cook a dinner that was going to be as unhealthy as it needed to be! And you know what? It turned out to be pretty healthy ANYWAY! And tasty!

On The Menu
New York Strip Steak with Red Wine Mushroom Sauce
Brussel sprouts baked with bacon and almonds, dressed with truffle oil and balsamic vinegar
Potatoes Gratin with Gorganzola cheese
Red Wine
Chocolate Covered Strawberries

In fact, after the meal, Boyfriend questioned me about the budget that went into this meal for comparison with restaurant prices.

FYI: $12 2 steaks, $3 Brussels sprouts, $1 2 potatoes, $3 Portabello mushrooms, $10 for the wine, $4 for the Gorgonzola cheese, $4 for strawberries, $3 for chocolate and other stuff that we already had in the fridge: probably $3. That comes out to $43 total. In a restaurant, a steak dinner with potatoes, a vegetable side, a bottle of wine and a dessert would run us at LEAST $100-150!

But you know what, it's not about the price....this meal was well portioned for the both of us so we didn't get up feeling too stuffed for comfort (though sharing a whole bottle of wine we may have felt too tipsy for comfort!) and we had leftovers both of the dinner and of the ingredients (sprouts, chocolate, strawbs, mushrooms, cheese) so we used them in other meals. But....it did take me just under 2 hours to fully prepare and there was a lot of cleanup that went with it.

Potatoes Gratin With Gorganzola
(Serves 2+1 leftover)

1. Thoroughly wash and slice 2 baking (Russet) potatoes into 1/4" thick slices.

2. Spray one side of all the slices with olive oil (or cooking spray) and place them on a baking sheet lined with foil, oil side down. Spray other side with oil and season liberally with salt, pepper, any herb you like on potatoes (I like Italian Seasoning) and garlic powder


3. Bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes. Flip each slice over after 30 minutes.
4. At 40 minutes, put a tiny slice of gorganzola cheese on each slice (or if you have crumbles, spread evenly) and continue to bake for about 4 more minutes. Obviously, the more decadent you want to be, the more cheese you can add).

*These come out really nice, crispy and tasty. The gorganzola adds a really nice touch. Obviously you can use any kind of cheese: blue cheese, Parmesan cheese, goat cheese....whatever works.

The Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Almonds (Serves 2+ 1 leftover serving)

Add liberal S+P, balsamic vinegar, consider 1tsp truffle oil (omit for healthy salads).

Bake at 375 (or at 400 along with the potatoes) for about 20 minutes. Make sure to toss about 15 minutes in.

See below for healthy makeover version!

The Steaks (2 New York Strips)
1. Add some dry steak seasoning rub or just some S+P+garlic onto the steaks and let them come to room temperature.
2. Heat a pan to medium, add about 1tbsp olive oil and throw on the steaks.
3. Keep them on the pan for about 3min/side
4. Take them out of the pan and allow the steaks to rest until you are ready to eat (at least 6 minutes)


The Mushroom Sauce
1. Chop Portobello mushrooms
2. Add 2 tbsp butter (or any substitute) into a pan and allow to melt on medium heat. Whisk in 2 tbsp flour until blended
3. Add about 1/2 cup wine and 1/2 cup beef broth (no sodium added)
4. Bring to a simmer and allow the sauce to reduce until it's at the consistency you want it to be at.
5. Make sure to do some taste testing to add S+P and consider vinegar.

The Dessert (Serves 2)

Wash and COMPLETELY dry 10ish strawberries

Break 2/3 of a Hershey Bar into a bowl and microwave for 40 seconds, mix and microwave again. The chocolate should be melted.

Dip the strawberries in the chocolate and place onto a piece of wax paper on a plate in the fridge

Allow to cool while you eat dinner =)

My Plate

My steak was slightly bigger than a deck of cards, which is what is considered an appropriate portion of meat. As you can imagine, it's about 1/3 the size of anything I'd get at a restaurant and it is half of one of the steaks I bought.

About 1/2 potato slices with some Gorganzola cheese and about 2/3 cup of the Brussels Sprouts Salad
1/2 slice of bread, a few tbsp of the mushrooms sauce and 1 glass of wine.

I did have seconds of both the sprouts and the wine (well maybe more than just seconds of wine)

**Check out how nice and pink the interior of my steak is!**

His Plate

Leftover tally: 1 serving of steak with 1/2 cup sprout salad + about 4tbsp mushrooms sauce. There would have been extra potato left over but I dropped them all over the floor before they were even baked! There was plenty of gorganzola, about 1/2 of the package of mushrooms and about 10 uncooked brussel sprouts left over too.

Wow, that was a looong post. I think I'll just leave it at that tonight. Also look out for recipe updates on the Recipage site.

XO!
Dr. Jules

The blog is back and rolling, not that I feel like I have any sort of real readership. But something about it is comforting so I am glad I can keep working on it. If it had been shut down entirely, I would have stopped.

Anyway, I'm  back and don't have any NEW recipes,  but I will soon (tonight?) post a few lunches/dinners/breakfasts that I've cooked up since my last post.

Just a quick digression though: Valentine's Day was yesterday. Did anyone do anything special? And if so, did anyone make dinner? I feel like going out for dinner on V-D can be really tough. It's hard to make a reservation and all the restaurants have limited pre-priced 3-course menus. I can't think of something less romantic than stuffing myself with 3 courses on a day when I'm supposed to look sexy! Anyway though, Boyfriend was on call Tuesday so we boycotted V-D and are having a date night tonight. He got me a gift, I will be cooking him something that used to moo. =)

Stay tuned for the V-D post! It will NOT be healthy, it will NOT be low-cal and I will NOT feel good about eating it but will just have to turn those feelings of guilt into some more intuitive eating next week (holiday and vacation-free, no excuses!)

I deleted the site and I got it back but now can't edit it once I close this one window! What do I do?

Well...not quite. I'm still technically on vacation for another 9 hours. My vacation was 2 weeks (out of the 4 allotted to me) and I barely posted anything at all! Well it's also because I barely cooked anything at all. Quite frankly, the idea of making something and then being on staycation alone in the house with a new batch of anything is just a little too difficult for me! No willpower at all. I have at least 2 friends who think that's ridiculous.

OK, down to business. Before we left for our ski vacation, I did make 2 things I have no yet blogged. I hope to make a batch of blueberry pancakes today as well. The first, above, were skinny cheddar biscuits that I modeled on a recipe from Skinny Taste(click here for the original post). I skinnified them just a little.

I also prepared a batch of cranberry sauce. Really easy stuff though. It's kind of tart, but I happen to love it that way when it's combined with some vanilla yogurt. I just put a pack of frozen cranberries in a pot along with 1 cup of water, 2 cinnamon sticks and 1 tbsp sugar. I also added 2 packets Sweet N Lo and a squirt of sugar free maple syrup. I brought the water to a boil and let it simmer while the berries began to pop. It was messy but in the end I had a nice big batch of yogurt and cereal topping! If I happened to have made a turkey sandwich, I totally would have used this on top.  I'm going to finish this post now and start afresh with posts including food, exercise and social nonsense now that I'm all caught up. Below is my yogurt parfait that I took to work with me: 1 cup yogurt, 2-3 tbsp cranberry sauce, another squirt of sugar free maple syrup, topped with a fiber/nut Trader Joes cereal. Simple but so good and crunchy =) See you next time!

In the interest of keeping this very long post as short as possible, I will limit this to vacation recap and not discuss any new recipes (they are on the way, I promise). I am stocking up a few oldies but goodies and one new (semi-stolen) recipe that I love. Man, if I were to post more often, the posts would be shorter AND the process would be so much less hateful and I would then do it more often. What a great cycle that would be. Kind of like eating healthy making you feel good and making you want to eat healthy foods more often. Also, alcohol making you feel bad and leading you to drink less often....Too bad none of these things happened during my vacation thus far...-

Above is the beginning and the end of our first night out in Utah. We figured since we were going to be in a place where the restaurants were cheaper on the whole, why not go to the most expensive place in town and pay what we would have paid for a semi-special night out in NYC. We chose Bambara and gosh was it a great choice! The place was decorated in black and white, making it very chic and it was small but...spacious. The meal started with a bread and hummus platter (complimentary) and we went to town on that hummus. I generally love it when restaurants provide a complimentary bread with something more interesting than butter. I would also love it if the bread were more interesting but I don't want to be TOO much of a snob ;-) (hehe). We continued on with a stuffed peppers appetizer and two main courses (a gnocchi dish and a tuna). Both were spectacular, but none were photographed before being devoured. The star (I think) was the dessert. It was photographed because it was MASSIVE. That boat of a plate it was sitting on is a pasta dish. Seriously. The pastries are filled with ICE CREAM. It is SWIMMING in hot fudge and wonderful black cherries and those "fries" underneath are sliced almonds. The last time I was faced with a dessert that rich I ate and ate and ate until I was sick and thought it was worth it. Well I ate and ate and ate this dish (I ate my whole half, Boyfriend did not manage to finish his....willpower) and waddled the whole 0.8 miles back to the hotel happy as a clam. A really, really stuffed clam. Moving on...

Our next night out was to Eva, a much less pricey tapas and cocktails place. Unfortunately we had consumed 1.5 beers each while soaking in the outdoor hot tub (human soup!) so we were not really drinking that night. Still, it was really great. We started with two appetizers: Roasted Brussel Sprouts and Sweet Potato Gratin. While the Gratin was a bit on the heavy side for me, the Brussel sprouts (left) were incredible. They were roasted with macadamia nuts. I WILL be recreating this dish (perhaps subbing in much less expensive almonds) in the VERY near future. I fell like this whole time I've been being so silly, eating Brussel sprouts whole. Silly me. We also had a lamb kebab (remarkable for coming with grapes on the skewers-yum!) and a Shrimp and "Grits" dish. This was also pretty nice and came with a sunny side egg on top. We would later realize that this was a recurring theme throughout SLC menus. Two nights later we went to the Copper Onion. This was kind of in the middle for fanciness (and price). We had an appetizer of Brussel Sprouts (I couldn't resist after Eva!) and sauteed mushrooms (middle picture). Surprise, the mushrooms had a sunny side egg on top! Both dishes were kind of the oily side (hence no link!). We continued on to a sturgeon dish (ok) and a Wagyu beef stroganoff (right picture) which was nice, but nothing to write home about. Also, cooking Wagyu beef to medium-well makes it taste the same as rump roast. We ended with a peach and blueberry pie a la mode (caramel ice cream). It was awesome. The crust had that touch of salt that's easily one of my favorite things on a pie. I ate my half of that too. Boyfriend continued to exercise moderation. We finished our dining out with some super junk food (fried, slathered in sauce, covered in sour cream, you name it) at the Beerhive which boasts a very wide variety of beers on tap. Utah, by the way, sells all it's beers at a 3.2% alcohol content, so you have to really go out of your way to find the strong stuff. Or go to Beerhive (they don't have a site!).

Finally, here's something more like what some of the people who read this site are looking for. Hotel Room Nachos! I mentioned in my previous post that our money does not grow on trees so we have been employing quite a few money-saving methods on our vacation. Not the least of which happened to be making our own breakfasts and packing our lunches. As an aside, we also didn't rent a car, used public transportation and walked everywhere (1.5 miles one way was our record, 0.7miles was our average, so figure at least 1.4 miles per day of walking). So we were also party green!
Anyway, our breakfasts consisted of yogurts with boxed cereal purchased at the supermarket, fruit and sometimes, cookies (guilty). We also bought a bunch of deli meat (3/4 lb each of turkey, chicken and roast beef), cheese (1/2lb pepperjack for him, Laughing Cow for me) and a loaf of bread. We took about a quarter of each of these with us to the mountain, left them in the lodge (unrefrigerated, yes!) and assembled sandwiches for lunch. Honestly, it was super tasty because the bread and the meat were both more gourmet than what we would be getting in the lodge AND it was a lot cheaper than buying a sandwich for $8! AND finally, we had 2 nights where we ate "in". Our first night we bought a supermarket enchillada (to microwave) and a shrimp ring. Our second eat in night was more innovative. I made hotel room nachos. A great money-saving idea.
Hotel Room Nachos (hers-healthier)
Ask your hotel to provide you with plates (or get paper plates from a market)
Spread each plate with tortilla chips (the flavored ones are great)
Shred (manually) 3-4 pieces of any deli meat all over the plate (I used 2 slices chicken, 1 slice turkey)
Take a fork and "crumble" 2 wedges of Laughing Cow Cheese over the chips
Top with Salsa
We also lucked out in the fact that our last ski lodge had salad bar toppings for "free" so I picked up some chopped tomatoes and lettuce from them.
Pop all that into the microwave in shifts for 1 minute each.

This wasn't a lot of work and tasted great and was easy to make in a hotel room. The only utensils required were plates and a plastic fork and knife.

Ok, this was huge. I'm going to describe the actual SKIING in the next post (hopefully Thursday?). I will, however, continue this post with something I think is worthwhile to share: a shopping list for thrifty vacationers.

Ski vacations are super expensive and it is the season, so maybe some of you readers are planning on taking them. Ever since I started taking ski trips without my family, I've learned that shopping for food and making at least some of your own meals is a must because lodges are expensive and sometimes you're just not in a big enough town to easily go out to eat. Here's a few staples I've found are great to have on hand. This is a list for 1 health-conscious girl and 1 not-too-picky guy for ~7 days. Also keep in mind these are meals for a rather active day!

Breakfast Items
1 box cereal
14 yogurts (more expensive than 2 tubs but more convenient)
4 bananas
4 oranges

Lunch Items (we packed our meals for 3/6 days+ had leftovers)
3/4 lb each of 3 different deli meats (try to keep 2 lean like chicken/turkey)
1/2 lb cheese
Laughing Cow Wedges (I find these are AMAZING on sandwiches)
Granola/Oatmeal Bars (Fiber Ones are the best!)
Chocolate Fun Sized Candies (for Him)
Gatorades
Loaf of fiber-heavy/whole grain bread

Dinner/Snack/Apres Ski Items
Chips (Tortilla is preferred)
Salsa
Cookies
Sunflower Seeds
Consider dried fruit/nut mix
Chocolate Bar
Beer!

All of these are easily storable in any hotel mini fridge and they make for a nice variety of meals (change up the Yogurt flavors, change up your sandwich assembly and fruit accompaniment).
In Utah this all cost us about $100 (including the beer and our meal "in" of shrimp and enchilladas). That came out to 7 breakfasts, 3 lunches and 2 dinners (per person, so that's actually 24 meals). So, about $4/meal. I realize that a coffee/bagel would be less than $4, but there's no way you can get a ski lodge lunch for $4 and certainly not a healthy dinner!

Lastly (I promise this time!) here is the skiiers Mecca. The ultimate reward for a day spent doing some pretty intense stuff: chili in a breadbowl (with cheese).

The reason why I didn't want to pack lunches every day is because I know Boyfriend goes crazy for this stuff and also for big juicy burgers, so I thought I'd leave room for him to get get those things (and share with me!).

We had this on our 4th day and burgers on our 5th and 6th ski days.
There hasn't been a lot of dieting that week. Well I have vacation for 1 more week but judging by how it's been going, I think I'm going to continue with a milder degree of decadence anyway.

P.S. I did consistently have at least 1 alcoholic beverage every day but I never went beyond 2. I consider this pretty mature. Week 2 of the vacation appears to feature 1 alcoholic beverage every other night.

Adios amigos, I'm off to bed!

Hello from Utah! We are here for a ski vacation this week and I still haven't closed out last weeks kitchen adventures! Our first night featured a fancy-pants dive bar with jazz music, local brews and some interesting food. We started by sharing the alligator cheesecake (left) which was more like a quiche. It wasn't particularly impressive but it was certainly tasty. We left feeling nicely buzzed, nicely full and ready for a full day of skiing the next day. There hasn't been any fresh snow, but what there is is pretty soft and we had a great time going through some mini powder. It kind of looked like what you see below, though that's neither of us.

Also of note are the muffins I made earlier this week. These were essentially the same as the Salmon Muffins I made for Mother's day 2011 and they received less enthusiastic reviews from Boyfriend. I thought they were pretty similar.

This recipe made 9 muffins (as you can see)
They cooked up nice and golden and were super tasty straight out of the oven.

In one bowl....
(Note this is one of the few exceptions I will make to my one bowl per mix rule)

4oz smoked salmon, chopped
4 servings (8tbsp) fat free cream cheese
 Big handful of chopped dill

In another bowl...
4 eggs
2 servings Egg Beaters
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
S+P
Not shown: 1/2 cup 0% Greek Yogurt (Fage)

Baked at 375 degrees for 20 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean)

For about 100 calories a pop, these were super satisfying (fiber, protein, dairy....yum!) and really held up well.

I thought that the next day, they were a little hardish (but softened after a 30 sec nuke) but the ones I put in the fridge were just as good as new (also after a 45 sec nuke).

I also froze 2 and I imagine they'll taste just great!

A quick word about eating at ski resorts and other touristy areas. We try to stay pretty thrifty, and one of the major money sinks at ski resorts is the $20 you can pay for 2 lunches. The lunches are usually mediocre and wind up making you feel full and have a difficult time skiing. BUT, we make sure to make a quick trip to a grocery store, stock up on some gourmet cold cuts, some delicious craft bread and some fancy-ish cheese. For the equivalent of 1 day of lunch, we buy 4 days worth of sandwhich ingredients, snacks and fruits. On top of that, we also avoid a daily trip to Dunkin Donuts by keeping a few single-serving yogurts and a box of cereal for daily breakfast. The sandwiches that we make are superior than anything we'd find on the mountain and the yogurt/cereal combo is great and healthy. Just a suggestion for your next adventure trip! What do you all do in that situation? Does anyone know any place in salt lake city that's particularly good?

That's it for today, folks! Will blog soon!

There was an excess of apples in my fridge and an excess of root canals going on in my mouth, so I had to find a way to soften these guys before they were too soft to eat! I think even still there were a few that will wind up going bad before I can use them up =(

Anyway, I decided to double the recipe for my Oatmeal Apple Pie and get the apples into a nice chewy form for me and Boyfriend (it was a 25%/75% arrangement). Stewing in that pot is 1 large green apple and 1 little green apple. Also added is 1.5tbsp I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and 1.5 tbsp brown sugar. Basically I just heat them on medium heat until the apples begin to soften and turn a little caramel in color. The butter will melt, combine with the sugar and the released juices from the apples to form a little broth at the bottom which adds nicely to the "pie". Actually this is more of an adaptation of my Oatmeal Breakfast Bars than anything else.

Ingredients (Makes 8 Slices)
1 large green apple (in 1" cubes)
1 small green apple (in 1" cubes)
1 cup Instant Oatmeal (300cals)
1 cup Slender Soy Vanilla Milk (70 cals)
1.5 tbsp margarine (I Can't Believe It's Not Butter is best) (75 cals)
1 tbsp brown sugar (~40cals)
1 serving Egg Beaters Egg White (25cals)
1-1.5tsp Cinnamon
0.5tsp Ginger
1 tbsp Walden Farms Caramel Sauce
2 packets Sweet N' Lo

Total Damage=660 cals (maybe round it off to 700 total)
Each slice comes out to less than 100 calories. If I had walnuts on hand, I would have thrown them in for a little extra kick.

Still, these came out YUMMY and they went fast. Who knows, maybe if I get some time tomorrow I'll be able to get to those other apples before they're gone.

FYI, by fast I mean that I started these on Monday and they were gone by Wednesday afternoon!

I also have a Savory Recipe coming up but lets first talk weekends and exercise.

The savory recipe is super easy. It was adapted from Skinny Taste

Ingredients
1 eggplant (though I think this was 1/2 of a giant one)
Panko crumbs (I poured out around 1 cup but only used half that amount)
Egg Beaters Egg Whites (I poured out 2 servings but only used half)
Black sesame seeds
Salt+Pepper (1tsp each)

Overall, this turned out to be a slightly wasteful recipe. I am pretty sure I threw away at least $1.50 worth of Panko, Black Sesame Seeds and Egg Whites. But the snack itself is very cheap overall. Especially if you already have all the ingredients on hand and just need to buy the veg!

Also I think that Italian Breadcrumbs (seasoned) would have worked better here. That's what the original recipe calls for but that's not what I had sitting in my pantry. Oh well. Next time. 

Directions
Cut the eggplant into equal-sized pieces as shown above. Leave the skin on, it's the best part (hello fiber!)
(Feel free to also salt and pepper the eggplant and let it sit for an hour if you happen to have the time)
Place the egg whites in one bowl and the dry ingredients in another.
Thoroughly soak the eggplant pieces in the egg wash then pick them up, let the excess liquid drip off and dip them into the bread crumb mixture.
Bake at 450 degrees in a Pammed baking tray for about 15-20 minutes (flip halfway through)

I served these with tomato sauce for dipping. They were yummy, like Eggplant Parm without the cheese and the guilt! Still, Italian Breadcrumbs next time!

Finally, a quick word about excersise. I think I've mentioned before that I started to do some really early morning hot yoga (6:20am class!) and it's been feeling REALLY good. I've done it three times so far. The first two times I felt that the class was a gentler version of the evening classes and the last time it was HARD. But I'll tell you what, I greatly preferred the hard class because if I want to relax in the morning, heck I'll just stay in bed for an extra 1.5hrs! If I'm up, if I have trudged through an NYC winter at 6am 1/2 mile to the studio, I'd better be getting a good workout! I think I'm going to persevere and keep doing the morning classes and hope that some of them are harder than others.

Finally, tonight we are going to a Russian Restaurant Party (better known as all you can eat, all you can drink debacle). Unfortunately I generally wind up both eating and drinking more than I should (or want to!) and feeling bad later. My goals for tonight are to understand that I will still drink and eat more than I should, but at LEAST I will seriously attempt to NOT eat anything "simple". So I will not put into my mouth the following things: breads, pastas, cheeses, cold cuts. These I can and do get anywhere. Ok, gotta go get pretty!

Ciao!

I'll discuss these in the middle of the post, promise =) Before that I will bore you half to death with my lunches all week (that bored me half to death!). What with a big wedding weekend and various other commitments, I didn't want to do a whole lot of cooking and was even less inclined to do a whole lot of lunchtime eating. So I packed salads. Lots o' salads. And had salads for dinner. But, you know what? Salads are amazing. Each bite tastes totally different based on whatever is on your fork, there's cruch, softness, saltiness, cheesiness, protein, and volume. Oh so much volume! To be perfectly fair though, this was one of the first weeks where I could even EAT a salad (teeth are well on their way to being fixed again!) so I went way overboard. Here's the breakdown....

1 can of tuna (chunk light in water) + some chopped up left-over grilled vegetables (eggplant and zucchini) + 1.5 big tablespoons cottage cheese + S+P + some "Everything Bagel" seasoning called Bagel-It which my dentist's son makes and she gave me to try.

*Yes, I've spent so much time with her in the past 2 months we've gotten close*

The Bagel-It mix is amazing. It really  makes your salads taste like you're eating them on/with a bagel! Yuummmm . By the way, this was a LOT of food and combined with the bread made for a VERY filling ~300-350 a

I would not reccomend using cottage cheese in place of another dressing, but it was what I had on hand. It was ok, but the texture was only "eh".

Then there was the amazing 400 calorie lunch that took forever to eat, was completely delicious and filled me way up to the top.

Salad: more leftover grilled zucchini and eggplants + 1 serving FF feta cheese + mixed green salad + some TJ's lite parmesan ranch dressing. On the side we have puffed kamut which I put over the salad right before eating because while it does provide that croutony crunch and bready taste at a fraction of the caloric cost, it doesn't hold up well to moisture at all. If you go to any big supermarket they have these in big plastic bags and they are really cheap! I think that calling this salad 150+the 50cals of kamut is pretty accurate.

For a little appetizer/palate cleanser I had 2 wedges of Laughing Cow Lite (they have SO many flavors now and I love them all except the Swiss).

Dessert was a Vitatop muffin: Chocolate Chocolate Chip. SO good. Not as good as the Fiber One Peanut Butter Brownies, but definitely tasty.

 

Here's the salad with the Kamut mixed in. I am not sure if this was one in which I chopped up some rehydrated and lightly sauteed dried shittake mushrooms.

If you've never tried the dried shittakes I would highly reccomend them. They are super cheap (esp if you live near an asian supermarket) and are VERY VERY strong in flavor. So if you DO like mushroom flavor, go out and get some of these things. They last forever anyway.

This salad DEFINITELY has the mushrooms, you can see them all piled up on top. The FF feta cheese is crumbled on. It may not look like a lot but it's a very sharp flavor and that 1 serving (at 40cals!) makes a big difference. I know I've gone over this before, but I really like the fat free feta cheese, better than it's higher fat cousins. It is harder and saltier and I don't know, I would take this kind over any fancy feta any day.

Ok, on to the main event. I call this post "Back to Basics" because I haven't tried anything new and simply decided to go back to a few old favorites (i.e. the salads and these baked oatmeal bars). I've made them before a few times but have kind of let it go for a while, and once these were done, I was immediately asked to make another batch. My mom, who was one of the first people who tried my recipes, still makes these bars when company comes around and they go like hot cakes! Interestingly, I recently met someone who I had given the website url to a while back who has been reading the blog and has tried the Cauliflower Pizza Crust. She gave it a thumbs up (Hi Elena!) but has not commented on the site as of yet =)

Ok, on to the bars. I didn't want to stray from my original recipe (see Recipage) too much in terms of the base ingredients, so it's still 1.5 cups rolled oats, 1.25 cups milk, 1 egg. The diference is that I used a Slender Soy Vanilla milk and instead of egg I used 1 egg equivalent of egg whites. The original recipe I used also called for 3/4 cup of dried fruit and 1/4 cup nuts. I think in this batch there was just about 1cup (maybe a litte more) of finely chopped dried fruits (apples, cherries, prunes, apricots). The second batch (with no pictures) had cherries, apricots and dried bannanas. Other things I added: cinnamon, vanilla, Sweet N Lo (or sugar), maple syrup/or caramel syrup. Both batches were delicious. You'll notice up top the his (2) and hers (1) baggies for on-the-go breakfast.

The process is so easy: mix all the ingredients, allow them to sit around for a while, then dump it all into a baking dish lined with parchament paper.

Cook at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes or until pressing on it doesn't cause liquid to come out. I think I even baked a batch at 400 degrees once in like 25 minutes and it came out just fine.

Finally, take out to cool and cut into about 10 pieces. Or whatever you think is a good serving size. I cut them into 10 so each piece would be roughly just over 100 calories.

They refrigerate well (I would say 4 days) and freeze REALLY well (microwave x 40 seconds).

If you're a skiier like me, make a batch of these and take them to have as a mid-mountian of lift chair snack =)

Moving along....
Boyriend assembled us a picnic-style dinner one night when we couldn't decide whether or not to order in or scavenge our refrigerator. Wisely, he chose to scavenge.  Included: remainder of grilled veggies, some olives, some random spreads (red pepper and artichose), some slices of TJ's seeded bread, 2 slices of my Bakery Light 45 calorie slice breads (Peppridge Farm makes it best), a few slices of turkey breast and a few slices of cooked turkey bacon.

And the star of the meal: The Rogue Chipotle Ale. I thought this was awesome, and Boyfriend thought it was so-so. This is the best of all possible scenarios because he didn't finish his half and I got to have the remaining 1/3 of his glass =)

So...picnic dinners....I know I've said this before, but they are one of my absolute favorite things. First, I feel like it's kind of an intimate thing, taking stuff from the same plate. Second, it allows for SO MUCH VARIETY (a piece of bread with pepper tampenade+turkey, another piece of bread with artichoke spread+bacon, another with turkey, bacon and a little mustard, another with just the spread!). The combinations aren't endless, but they are at least many. Thirdly, picnic dinners are a great way to eat what you have on hand (since there's no such thing as "not having an ingredient"). Finally, and maybe  most importantly, these kind of "make it yourself" sandwiches and plates remind me of hiking and other sporting activities that I love to do with Boyfriend. There's nothing I love more than a good, loooonnggg, strenuous hike and it's even better when you get to sit on top of whatever you were hiking up and have a delicious meal.
I'll say it even again, I. LOVE. PICNIC. DINNERS. =)

Finally, I've obviously already failed in my New Years Resolution to blog more frequently and be more consciencous about putting up my meals, but I guess being in a wedding, fighting a cold (grr!) and planning ski trips has kind of pushed that to the side. The weather is finally getting colder and wetter (preventing any early morning yoga, grr again) and Boyfriend and I are going to chase the only snow on the East Coast up to Killington for the MLK weekend. It will be crowded but worth it for potentially the only good skiing we can get this year. We have a big week-long trip planned to Tahoe and unfortunatley, they haven't had an inch of snow in over a month. This stresses me out to no end since I feel that it will be both money and time wasted in what is generally a time-limited sporting season. Hopefully I'll have some meals to post from the weekend =)  

Why are my soups always so "meh"? They're not bad, and they're warm and cozy and usually quite pretty,  but they just aren't that great! Maybe it's my reluctance to use cream/butter/oil/beans/lentils?

Anyway, with TJ's Seeded Bread it was pretty nice and savory. But I wasn't really satisfied with just the soup so I also bought a pack of Pop Chips. These are soooo  yummy but guess what, on the ingredient list, they don't actually list potatoes! Sure, potato starch and potato flakes, but I don't think that's the same thing! The Seeded Bread, on the other hand, is amazing. So delicious and has something in it that makes you think of parmesan! Yummmmm. =)

Continuing the soup chronicles (my teeth are ALMOST DONE!...but not quite yet and I had many appointments this week) is a V8 Broccoli soup. I bought this kind of on a whim because it had a decent profile (180 calories/2 servings, 40% sodium...which is actually good for canned/boxed soups!). It was actually pretty yummy and VERY VERY creamy. Kind of tasted unnatural though (big surprise). Up after that was a Sophie Banana Cream Pie Greek Yogurt (0%) with a 1/2 serving of low fat graham crackers "dissolved" inside. This yogurt is ah.mazing! It is so creamy and flavorful and SO HARD TO FIND even in Manhattan. But now that I know where it is, I suspect I will be paying a few extra $$ to get it. The graham cracker becomes soft when mixed into the yogurt and makes it really taste like a banana cream pie, complete with crust. For those of you with intact teeth who want chew, just don't mix them in. =)

Continuing on (these are not consecutive days, but I did eat soup a lot as the temperature dropped and my teeth became more sore!) another broccoli soup, this time by Imagine. Now I had already tried the Portobello Soup (also 180 cals/36% sodium) and found it to be a little lackluster but overall a winner since it was cheaper than the V8. The Broccoli (at 120 cals/36% sodium) was similar. Not as creamy, not as flavorful, but with the bread it turned out A-OK. This whole lunch: 2 slices light bread, 2 pieces Laughing Cow Light, 2 servings soup, 2 clementines and 2 pieces of chocolate was just about 400 calories. This was great because it had a lot of variety and took a nice long time to eat! =)

Sigh, soup isn't only for lunch. This is a Campbell's Heart Healthy Cream of Chicken Soup (210 calories/2.5 servings, somewhat higher sodium). I actually probably only had 2 of the servings since I always dump out a soup-spoon full of the soup and add more water (more soup, easier to dissolve!). I always have to re-season with some cumin and pepper anyway. Sigh. This is my stand-by soup.  It's satisfying and voluminous and most importantly-cheap. Does the job.

Bean dip for an app.

Actually my teeth are ok with some chew. So I could have, say, 2 celery sticks without being miserable. But I can't have anything where I have to take big bites like a sandwich.

This TJ's Roasted Red Pepper Tampenade (super low-calorie, super healthy) is delicious. It's well seasoned, tastes SO FRESH and comes in a darling little jar. This was a super-thick spread on a piece of Seeded Bread, but even a nice thin spread is more than enough.

I think this was something I actually had for breakfast one morning. The bread softened with the tampenade.

Finally, a tiny little snack  before bed: a tea for one and a cup of watermelon pieces =)

One last bit!

Lunch was a bunch of arugula, a sliced up turkey sausage and a "dressing" of leftover bean spread. This was simple and tasty,  but nothing to write home about...but I guess it was something to blog about!

My New Years Resolution? To post more! And to really post meals. I  know I've said this before and statistically I'm likely not to do it. Oh well. =)

Now that the holidays are over I think I can finally avoid drinking more than 2-3x/week! Phew, my body was NOT having any of that and was just expanding out of spite. Grr. One wedding coming up (but it's actually a 2-day affair) and then quietness for a while. Yay!