This is a funny title if I say so myself. But it is so easy to think you are eating smart and then find out you got caught in a fat trap. I am always looking for shortcuts. Most of the time at home it is just me and my husband. If I buy a large head of cauliflower or broccoli, it often goes bad before I get to use it all. So I buy veggies in a tray as if I were serving veggies and dip. The only thing you have to watch for is the dip in the centre and that seems to vary from tray to tray. A lot of the dips are laden with fats and calories or points. If you happen to get one like that, serve yourself tzaziki, or yogurt with salsa, horseradish or mustard or use just plain hummus.
Sometimes when making a stir-fry I often used to eyeball the olive oil as I circled the wok with the oil. Whatever it was, it was probably too much. So now I use PAM or a pastry brush to oil the wok and then use wine, soy sauce or chicken broth so the contents are moist and don't dry out. You can even add water if you want. Dry season it then.
I always thought of salads as a light meal or appetizer but they can be a high-cal landmine. If you plan on making a salad a main meal then you have to have a balance. So this is the ratio I learned is a good one to follow: 3/4 fresh fruit or veggies, 1/4 of lean protein like chicken, 2 tbsp. of calorie-dense foods like cheese, nuts, dried fruit or croutons. Pomegranate seeds are good to add at this time of year because they are said to reduce inflammation in the joints.
That being said here a a couple of my latest recipes.
Veggie/Bean/Meat Soup
This isn't so much of a recipe as a way to successfully use leftovers. Most soups can be mixed and matched. I often find a small bit of this or that left over and don't like to waste it. In this case, I have bought a jar of tasteless homemade broccoli soup.
A Polish lady helped me around the house many years ago. She could make soup out of a stone in short order and made it taste good. I remember being sick in bed and she had made a tomato broth that was out of this world in no time flat. I asked her what was her secret. She said you needed something sour to make the soup taste good, like vinegar, wine or lemon. She was absolutely right.
This broccoli soup didn't have that. The second leftover soup was vegetable beef from the butcher. That was delicious but there wasn't much left. I combined those two and remembered I purchased a bean salad that was too tart with vinegar. It was just what I needed to balance the tasteless broccoli soup. The combination was great. And while I was at it I added about 1/4 cup of leftover corn. This soup is the gift that keeps giving. It was a delicious combination and with the right balance can be used for any soup.
The next recipe is:
Apple-Fennel Salad
Start to finish: 40 minutes
Makes 8 to 10 side-dish servings. I am guessing 5 or 6 points
When I followed the original recipe it was too sour from the lemon that had to be used so the apples didn't turn colour. Again it lacked balance. It needed sweet to offset the sour so I added, mint, cranberry sauce, orange juice and maple syrup. I eyeballed it but lets say it was about 1/4 cup of each.
3 lemons
4 tart crisp apples
2 medium fennel bulbs
6 tbsp. canola oil
2 tbsp. mayonnaise
4 tbsp. flat leaf parsley
1/4 cup mint
1/4 cup cranberry sauce
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup maple syrup
salt and pepper
If you wish you can also add pomegranate seeds
1 I use a microplane to grate the lemon rind first and put aside since it is hard to do after you have squeezed the lemons. Squeeze the juice of two lemons in a bowl. Leave the skin on the apples, core them, halve them and thinly slice them and put them in the bowl tossing as you go so the apples don't turn brown.
2 Cut off the fennel stalks but reserve some fronds. Remove any wilted outer layers on the bulbs; quarter them and thinly slice. Toss in with the apples and combine.
3 For dressing, squeeze juice from the remaining lemon and add grated rind you had set aside. Whisk in all the remaining ingredients except the fennel fronds. Just use them for garnish.
4 Drain some of the juice from the apple fennel mixture and toss with dressing to coat. Add fennel fronds and pomegranate seeds if you are using them to garnish.
This is a healthy salad and fennel adds a light but pleasant licorice flavour.
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