Penne and asparagus are the perfect partners for this dish. By cutting the asparagus on the bias you end up with a shape that mimics the penne.
This is also one of those pasta meals that from the time you put the water on to boil until the pasta is cooked is plenty of time to prepare the sauce.
First I sauteed the mushrooms and then added the onions. After a few minutes of onion cooking I added the sliced garlic. By this time the water is boiling and the penne is cooking. The asparagus stems go in and I use a splash of pasta water to steam them briefly. Just as the pasta is being dropped into the vegetables, I add the asparagus tips. Stir it around and add a little reserved pasta water to make a sauce with a teaspoon of olive oil.
John finishes his dish with finishing oil, toasted pine nuts, and parmesan cheese. I go more bare bones keeping it vegan with just a drizzle of good olive oil.
Since we ended up not eating our planned dinner last night, I thought I would do a post on what I eat for lunch. I ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner and a popcorn snack every day and still managed to lose 60 lbs. over the last year. And I have stayed at my goal weight plus or minus two pounds for 6 months.
I am a pretty hungry person generally so I need to eat volume without an abundance of calories. On the plus side I do not eat between meals except for my planned popcorn snack around 5:30 PM and I never eat desserts unless it is for a really special occasion. I play tennis three times a week and try to walk some (which I really dislike) on the other days.
My first lunch pictured is a vegan/vegetarian stir-fry with tofu served over cauliflower rice.
Tofu/vegetable stir-fry
The second picture is a big salad with some chicken breast meat and half a small avocado.
Mixed greens salad with chicken, mushrooms, and avocado
Finally, here is my “famous” null soup. If you are following the current WW plan, it has zero points. (I used to make this without chicken but the current WW diet gives you chicken breast for zero points.
Null soup with chicken
My usual lunch, because I do not go to all the trouble of making these more elaborate lunches every day, is an open-faced chicken sandwich with mustard and lettuce, a pickle, and non-fat Greek yogurt with blueberries.
Another day I will show you what I eat for breakfast. I just want to stress that you do not have to starve yourself to lose weight!
While John’s omelet dinner is truly a BFD, my BFDs have morphed into any dish that includes eggs. This week’s dish is an Asian inspired vegetable stir-fry with a sliced egg-only omelet on top and cauliflower rice underneath. I know me well enough to have learned that not eating enough for dinner will put me on the path of finding something else to eat around 10PM.
Sauté your mushrooms, onions, and garlic first and then add the rest of the ingredients from the hardest to the most delicate afterwards. I started with the carrots and celery and ended up with the kale greens.
Vegetable stir-fry with egg on top and cauliflower rice underneath
Due to some sort of glitch my menu did not appear in the post. So here is a redo with, hopefully, the actual menu.
I have my menu set for the week coming up. It includes four vegan/vegetarian meals, two shellfish dinners, and a chicken entree. Now all I have to do is make my shopping list based on the menu and I am set for the week!
I have my menu set for the week coming up. It includes four vegan/vegetarian meals, two shellfish dinners, and a chicken entree. Now all I have to do is make my shopping list based on the menu and I am set for the week!
Saturday night is usually Leftovers For Dinner (LFD) but the only leftovers we had were some rice and some farro. So I mixed those together and added asparagus as our vegetable and scallops for the protein.
John always does a stellar job searing the scallops. He cooks them for about three minutes on each side. He bastes them with butter at the end of cooking. So delicious!
I had the very hard job (not) of mixing together the farro and rice. I heated it up in the microwave. A squeeze of lemon on top and some chives from the garden made the side dish seem new. I also steamed the asparagus. This was an easy, semi-LFD that seemed like a special occasion meal.
Grilled flank steak with grilled russet potatoes and sherried B. sprouts
Here is how this dinner shaped up. John marinated the flank steak which is a lean but tasty cut of beef which is tender when you slice it across the grain. Then he grilled it to a perfect medium rare.
While he was doing his thing I microwaved the potatoes until they were almost done and then sliced them in half and smeared on some olive oil and salt. At this point I handed the potatoes off to John for some grill time.
While he finished up grilling, I started the sprouts in a large covered pan with the cut sides facing down. I added about a cup of water, a quarter teaspoon of sugar, 2 teaspoons of butter, salt, and maybe two tablespoons of dry Marsala wine. These ingredients cooked covered until the sprouts were almost done and then I took off the lid and let the water evaporate. The sprouts then browned in the butter and sugar. They were super yummy.
We opened a bottle of 2005 Robledo Cabernet Sauvignon and toasted farewell to what we hope will be the last week of a pandemic heavy restrictions. All our adult family is now vaccinated and the grandkids are now eligible and will get their first shots on Monday. It is a time of celebration indeed!
Roasted sheet pan vegetables (and a little tofu) with crispy chickpeas
If you are a vegetable lover like I am then this plateful of vegetables, a little tofu, and chickpeas makes your eyes widen and your mouth water. And if you are someone who likes minimal mess and dinner on the table in short order then this dish is for you.
I cut up the vegetables and tossed them along with the chickpeas and a couple pieces of leftover tofu in some olive oil and salt. I put everything on a sprayed, aluminum foil lined sheet pan. Next I popped the sheet pan in a 425F oven for 25 minutes. And then I was done.
I chose onion, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and carrots for my vegetables. Their oven roasting time is close enough for them to go on the sheet pan together. The chickpeas developed a slightly crisp skin and were a bit denser. Along with an apple for dessert I definitely got my servings of fruits and vegetables in for the day. Plus I felt good about what I was eating!
Tonight we made a new recipe. The original recipe is from the Food Network by Geoffrey Zakarian. I have included my slimmed down recipe for 2 servings below the picture.
Our spaghetti dish turned out super-good. We used whole grain spaghetti, cut down on the oil, and the amount of pancetta. The only difficult part of this recipe is getting the timing right. You want to put the cooked pasta into the vegetable/shrimp/pancetta mixture when the shrimp is not quite cooked. I was glad I had John to wrangle the pasta while I made the sauce.
It is fun to try something new rather than always rely on the same-old same-old. Since Wednesday is my slot for pasta, I can easily add this to my rotation. And by slimming down the recipe, I can totally eat this without any guilt at all!
Whole grain spaghetti with shrimp, pancetta, and Fresno chiles
Spaghetti with pancetta, shrimp, and Fresno chiles. Serves 2
For the pasta pot:
Kosher salt
6 oz. whole grain spaghetti (or whatever you prefer)
For the sauce
Olive oil spray
2 ounces pancetta, cut in small to medium dice
¼ cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
Dash of red pepper flakes
1 Fresno chile, seeds removed sliced thinly in half moons
12 large shrimp, sliced lengthwise
Zest of 1 lemon
2 tsp olive oil
Garnish
1/2 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano or Parmesan
1/2 cup roughly chopped fresh basil
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. When you have finished saute-ing the vegetables in the next step, put your pasta in and cook until al dente. Reserve 1 cup of the pasta water
Spray with olive oil spray a skillet or Dutch oven and place over medium to low heat. Cook the pancetta to render the fat and crisp it, Remove the pancetta from the pan when crisp but leave the fat in the pan. Turn up the heat to medium and saute the onion, followed by the garlic, Fresno chile, and red pepper flakes. Be sure to not let garlic burn.
When your pasta is almost done add the shrimp to the vegetables and put the lemon zest and cooked pancetta in the pan. Cook the shrimp until it is slightly undercooked.
Drain the pasta reserving 1 cup of pasta water and put put the pasta directly into your saute-ing pan. Stir everything together. Add the two teaspoons of olive oil and enough of the pasta water to make a little sauce.
Garnish the plates with the torn up basil and the grated cheese (if desired.)
Usually LFD (Leftovers For Dinner) happens on Saturday night but we ended up with some bits and pieces from last week’s dinner and decided to incorporate the leftovers into an actual weekly menu dinner.
Our leftovers were some chicken gravy, mashed rutabagas, and farro. To this we added some pre-cooked chicken from Costco and mushrooms for the gravy and the new broccoli,
Chicken in gravy, mashed rutabagas, farro, and broccoli
Looks pretty good for a bunch of leftovers doesn’t it? It tasted pretty yummy as well and was ready in the time it took to cook the broccoli and get everything else hot. Try looking in your refrigerator for vegetables that are getting tired and a little of this and that from dinners past and create a whole new dinner with very little effort!
Omnivore 