Mahi mahi on a bed of greens with spicy rice and beans and taco toppings
For Taco Tuesday I decided to skip the tortillas and put my taco innards on a plate. The thing with tacos is once you have taken your first bite they are hard to put down so you just keep eating them until they are gone. I need my dinners to have volume and to take a while to eat! I put down a bed of greens and then put my taco dinner on top of it. I made spicy rice and beans and, along with fish, had shredded cabbage, salsa, cilantro, and a squeeze of lime. I finished my dinner way after John finished his two tacos. Know thyself! The secret to weight loss and maintenance is doing what works for you.
As a first course on Monday we started out with a tossed green salad with lots of extras. Mushrooms, carrots, cabbage, cherry tomatoes, and some spicy pepperoncini gave interest and texture to the salad. John complimented me on the salad saying that anytime someone else makes the salad it is especially good.
Tossed green salad with carrots, pepperoncini, mushrooms, cabbage, and cherry tomatoes
For our main course we had whole grain penne which was mixed with the pesto I made last week. It was sooo good. I froze the rest of the pesto and will use it the next time we have pasta. I think I’ll eat very carefully that day so I can have another ounce of pasta!
Soft scrambled eggs on top of sautéed onions, mushrooms, carrots, cabbage, and broccoli with a raw spinach base
It’s Sunday so it must be BFD (Breakfast For Dinner)! While John was busy making his usual omelet, I was chopping up and sautéing my BFD veg. I cooked the mushrooms and onions first and then added everything else. I gave the dish an Asian twist by adding soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, fish sauce, and a pinch of sugar. When the vegetables were cooked I put them on top of raw spinach causing it to wilt slightly. Lastly I cooked my eggs turning off the heat when they were still pretty runny and letting the residual heat in the pan cook them to a soft consistency.
Is this as quick, easy, healthy, and delicious as it looks? Definitely!!
This week John and I are celebrating our 49th wedding anniversary! Almost 50 years! Wow, the time has flown by and I think we are happier than ever. We have had a wonderful life together and are hoping for many more years. We are having a dining out celebration on Thursday and a cooking for ourselves celebration on our actual day, July 17. Happy Anniversary to us!!
When it is too hot to cook the best thing to do is to have an assembled dinner. Since it was around 104F yesterday, we decided on a Southwest chicken salad. We set up the ingredients on the kitchen island and each of made our own salad.
Salad greens ready to be dressed with chicken, olives, black beans, corn, tomatoes, scallions, pepperoncini, and salsa
Since we usually serve this with ranch dressing, I bought some Skinny Girl ranch dressing which only has 10 calories for 2 tablespoons. It’s not as good as the real thing but it was not terrible. So we kept the kitchen as cool as possible and enjoyed a colorful and filling dinner.
My red lentil sundae has rainbow kale on the bottom, then a 50/50 rice/cauliflower rice combo, next red lentils, and finally a dollop of Greek yogurt with a kale garnish
I know it is hardly the sundae you were looking for but this is a delicious vegetarian (or vegan minus the yogurt) dish that is super healthy, tasty, and pretty to look at. I first had this red lentil stew at a restaurant nearby and was blown away with how delicious it was. I was determined to make it for us at home. I found a recipe on an Afghani recipes site and adapted it for our use.
Heat the olive oil over medium-low heat in a medium sauce pan. Add the onion, garlic and ginger and saute for about 5 minutes until the onion is translucent. Add the salt, turmeric, cumin, cayenne and let them cook in the pan briefly and then add the lentils and broth, stir and turn the heat up to high. When the liquid boils, turn the heat down to a simmer, cover and cook until the lentils are very tender, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and add the lemon juice and adjust salt if needed Serve with a spoonful of plain yogurt (or not) and rice, greens,warm pita or nan bread.
We probably make this once a month because it is so easy and so delicious. I also love it because I do not feel guilty if I go in for seconds. Using a 50/50 rice combo definitely keeps the guilt factor at bay!
We were supposed to be preparing shrimp tonight but we opted to change the menu to a favorite of ours, clam chowder. I have taken a traditional recipe for New England clam chowder and lightened it up so that it fits within my healthy eating plan. It reminds me very much of a clam chowder we once had at the Binnacle, a restaurant (sadly no longer) in Mystic, Connecticut.
Healthy clam chowder
My recipe, which I am including below, only contains 2 tablespoons of cream. Of course you could make it richer by adding more cream, half and half, or even milk. I love that it contains so many pantry ingredients. Only the leeks are a little out of the typical.
Originally John was going to pan sear the cod and I was going to make some sort of vegetation. I don’t know, maybe I was planning on doing a sheet pan veg but I made that veg yesterday and our lackluster fish needed something more exciting. Hmm, I have a mango and a Fresno chile, what can I do with that?
Voila! Vietnamese mango salsa!! It is a combination of corn, scallions, Fresno chile, and mango in a Vietnamese nuoc cham sauce. It was great! There was sweetness from mango and corn, spiciness from chile and scallion and the salty umami bomb from the nuoc cham. Here is my lo-cal recipe for this sauce.
Nuoc cham. (Light version)
1/3 cup water
1 packet Splenda
Juice of one lime (1/2 cup)
1/4 cup fish sauce
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 small spicy chile, sliced
6 drop sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon soy sauce
Whisk all ingredient together. This recipe is just something I made up so you really need to taste it as you go along. It might need more lime juice depending on the lime, or maybe more sweetener if you like things really sweet (I don’t). Fish sauce is very intense so maybe start out with a tablespoon and work your way up to an acceptable fish sauce level for you. I actually do not know how much sesame oil I put in, once again the sesame oil is up to you. At the end I correct how it tastes with a little soy sauce. Start with a quarter teaspoon.
As it turns out we took a mediocre fish and turned it into a yummy dinner by making an inventive salsa.
We were too busy to go to the grocery store today so I ended up with a sheet pan of vegetables which did not really go with chicken piccata. But since they still tasted really good, the dinner was a success.
John cut a large-ish chicken breast into smaller pieces and pounded them to a uniform thickness. He dusted the pieces with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and a little Wondra. After sautéing the pieces in a combination of cooking spray and 2 tsp of olive oil he made a sauce with chicken broth, capers, lemon juice, lemon zest, and mushrooms. A little butter (2 tsp.) thickened the sauce.
I gave the little potatoes and cabbage a head start in a 425F oven and after 10 minutes added onion, carrots, and celery to the sheet pan. All the vegetables were sprayed with olive oil and salted before they went in the oven. The vegetables were cooked and browned in about 30 minutes. Roasting vegetables is such an easy and delicious way to prepare them and the clean-up is minimal.
Tonight we started with a salad since we were having pesto rather than vegetables in our pasta. The salad had a mix of greens, mushrooms, scallions, and cherry tomatoes.
I make a very low fat salad dressing using two of the Good Seasons Italian dressing packets. To do this I substitute all the oil in the preparation with water and keep the vinegar content the same. Then I add 2 teaspoons of olive oil and mix it all together with a plunge blender. With the blender still running I add 1/4 teaspoon of xanthan gum. The xanthan gum stabilizes the emulsion and gives the dressing a salad dressing texture.
Mixed green salad with cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, and scallions dressed with low fat Italian dressing
The whole grain spaghetti with pesto was made using basil from our back patio. I bought two of the basil plants you see in grocery stores and planted them in pots. Because they were too top heavy with leaves to stand up in the pots, I cut lots of the top leaves off, enough to make pesto. Pesto is a combination of basil, parmesan, pine nuts, and olive oil. It is very yummy and I still have enough left to freeze some for two more dinners.
Whole grain spaghetti with pesto and basil garnish
Omnivore 