We are looking forward to three plant-based meals, three seafood dinners, and a chicken entree this week. Staying on track diet-wise with delicious, varied, and healthy choices.
Our Leftovers For Dinner (LFD) were a replay of July 22nd’s Chana dal. We had made a double portion and froze half so all we needed 0to do was defrost the container, cook some new rice, and lay down a bed of kale from a pre-packaged bag.To add more freshness I broke off the fat stems of the kale and added them to the stew and cut up a bunch of cherry tomatoes to garnish my dish.
Chana dal is an Indian vegan dish made up of dried split chickpeas, some tomatoes, onions, garlic, cumin seeds, and water. It only takes 15 minutes under high pressure in my Instant Pot. After my vegan pasta dishes it is my favorite totally plant based meal.
I have been having a little problem with wanting seconds lately so I gave myself strict instructions to only have one bowlful. To sweeten the deal my reward for abstaining would be a sliver of our daughter’s delicious zucchini cake. It sounds silly that I bargained with myself but it worked! I had an ample bowlful of Chana dal, a yummy sliver of cake, and a happy scale this morning.
Since this blog is all about eating healthy, losing weight, and maintaining a weight loss, I thought I would post a wrap-up of my weeknight dinners. I want to stress that all the pictures of delicious dinners are photos of my actual plate. So when I say in my tag line “It’s what I eat” I mean exactly that.
Friday night’s dinner is pretty straight-forward although any dinner that includes scallops is pretty special. John does such a good job cooking them especially since we are not quite so strict on how much fat can go into the pan anymore. For my part I steamed the potatoes and sautéed the green beans with some garlic, I also made the tartar sauce which, to be honest, is good on the potatoes and the green beans as well as the scallops.
Since it was in the mid-90s on Thursday, I decided to shift from sheet pan roasted vegetables to cool salads. I made my usual parsley forward tabbouleh and looked through a bunch of recipes to find a carrot salad that was not icky sweet.
I found a recipe on the NYTimes cooking site and adapted it for our use by cutting down on the oil, substituting mint for parsley, omitting hard boiled eggs and olives for garnish, and adding dried cranberries. I also left the cumin seeds whole for some texture.
Moroccan Carrot Salad adapted from a recipe by Martha Rose Shulman
1 pound carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon, divided, extra virgin olive oil (to taste)
2 large garlic cloves, minced
Salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, lightly toasted
2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (to taste)
1/4 cup chopped mint and 1/4 cup dried cranberries
Place the carrots in a steamer above 1 inch of boiling water, cover and steam 5 minutes until tender. Remove from the heat, rinse with cold water, and drain on paper towels.
Heat 1 teaspoon of the olive oil and some olive oil spray in a large, heavy skillet and add the garlic and cumin seeds. Cook, stirring, until the garlic and cumin seeds smell fragrant, and then stir in the carrots, pepper, and salt to taste. Stir together for a few minutes, until the carrots are nicely seasoned. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice, remaining 2 teaspoons of olive oil, and the mint. Add plumped dried cranberries. Taste and adjust salt and lemon juice as desired. Serve at room temperature.
Our dinner with two salads and the sautéed chicken cutlets was delicious. However making the salads was a lot more time consuming than simply putting some vegetables on a sheet pan in the oven. But the kitchen stayed relatively cool and I have discovered a carrot salad that I want to make again!
Yay, it is pasta night! Every time we have pasta I always say to John, “I could eat pasta every night of the week!” Originally broccolini was going to be our green vegetable. Since the store was all out, broccoli was a good choice. While the heavily salted pasta water was heating up, I sautéed the mushrooms, spices, onions, and garlic. Once the penne is cooked and drained (reserving a cup of pasta water) I put the broccoli in the pan and then it gets cooked really quickly in the hot pasta and pasta water.
I am already looking forward to next week’s pasta dish!
Tonight we were supposed to be using the mahi mahi in a Brazilian fish stew. We would have to do a lot of amending to the recipe to make it healthy enough for us to eat, i.e. use light coconut milk, thicken the sauce somehow, add coconut extract to boost the flavor. It just seemed like too much. What I really wanted was a piece of fried fish and tartar sauce. So what with my whining and suggesting something different, John acquiesced and went about trying to make a fried fish that was not really fried.
We had already discussed using panko breadcrumbs and a little oil and non-stick spray. John seasoned the panko and used a combo of light mayonnaise and Dijon mustard to get the breadcrumbs to sort of stick on. He cooked the fish for three and a half minutes on each side. Obviously the breading did not totally stick on but the fish was delicious with a little crunch. It was especially good dipped in the tartar sauce that I made which was a combo of light mayo, nonfat Greek yogurt, yellow mustard, relish, salt, onion and garlic powders, and some lemon juice.
I also made the zucchini which was sauteed in a little olive oil and a touch of butter. First I cooked a leek that I had cleaned and cut up. While this was going on over low heat, the zucchini was sprinkled with kosher salt to pull out extra water. I added the rinsed and dried zucchini (our daughter’s striato d’Italia zucchini which she grew from imported seeds) and a couple of cloves of sliced garlic to the pan along with chopped tarragon that I have grown on our patio. I think my zucchini dish was pretty amazing. Yum!
I am so glad that we decided to change our preparation of the fish. I am really liking this frozen mahi mahi that we bought from Costco. So far it has been excellent in tacos and now as sort of fried fish. I am sure we will make this dinner again and improve on the outcome of the semi-frying.
Looks like we are in for a hot week so grilling outside keeps the kitchen cool. John cooked the flank steak to medium and it was very tasty. I actually cooked the potatoes in the microwave first and then handed them off to John to get a little char on them for extra flavor. I cooked the broccoli in a little water and a little butter. This is a really quick and easy dinner that satisfied my craving for some meat!
I have been extra hungry lately and feeling a little deprived. This week I am going for more of a comfort food menu to see if that will help. My dinners are a little more meaty than usual. I want something to chew.
Spicy Thai basil eggplant with tofu is a dish we ordered when we used to eat out before the pandemic and the dieting. We periodically try to make it at home with varying results. Saturday’s rendition was closer. Some day when we finally get it right I will post a recipe.
Here it is cooking on the stove. John has marinated the tofu in the sauce which we will steam all the components (eggplant, tofu, onion, basil, red bell pepper, Fresno chile, and garlic) in off heat at the end.
We serve our dish with a combo of rice and cauliflower rice and a green salad with a sweet Asian dressing. The creaminess comes from a combination of light mayonnaise and non-fat Greek yogurt. It is a good counterpoint to the spicy eggplant/tofu.
We just need to get the sauce right. We went a more nuoc cham route last night which was good but not quite right. Also ours was not spicy enough. We have ordered this dish in various places from Mojave, CA where normal meant blow-your-head-off spicy to Idaho Falls where it was also amazingly spicy. So we need to land somewhere between really, really spicy and our pretty bland meal last night.
Omnivore 