⚓️ Vietnamese sour soup, Take 2. 12/19/19

Posted on December 20, 2019 by Beebamom

We re-made our authentic Vietnamese sour soup a little less authentic on the second try. This time we made it more to our liking adding a vegetable broth and more vegetables, a little less tamarind, and a more balanced fish sauce, sugar, salt combo. We also cut the shrimp and pineapple in smaller pieces so that they were more the size of the okra pieces. We found the two rice paddy herbs but after tasting them we only used one and threw the other one away. In the future I will stick to cilantro.

For the original recipe see 12/14/19.

Vietnamese sour soup, Take 2

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🍗 White chicken chili. 12/17/19

Posted on December 18, 2019 by Beebamom

Our take on white chicken chili is based on a recipe from Food Network that you can find here. It is super easy utilizing such time savers as rotisserie chicken and canned cannellini beans. Instead of two cans of the white beans we used one and one of non-fat refried beans to thicken it up. We also used only the breast meat from the chicken and saved the rest for John to have for lunches thus week. Part of a jar of medium Herdez green salsa added some kick as well as a Serrano chile instead of a jalapeño. Even making half a recipe we have some leftover which will probably join the chicken thighs and legs on John’s lunch menu this week.

Rather brown white chicken chili with a dollop of Greek yogurt and cilantro leaves

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🥬 Spicy Thai basil eggplant. 12/16/19

Posted on December 17, 2019 by Beebamom

We are still working on getting this to taste like our favorite Thai dish. The problem is, I think, since we are cutting down on oil and sugar that it is probably impossible to get it to taste like a restaurant meal. Tonight’s seemed a little heavy on the soy sauce and the eggplant needed to be fried more (that is a problem with cutting down on the oil.) But all in all a pretty good rendition. I should have gotten a red bell pepper so it would not seem so monochromatic but the grocery store only had orange and yellow so that is what I went with.

In the picture you will notice that I skipped having rice and filled the space with lettuce and a salad dressing that tastes like the sweet dressing at Asian restaurants. I made it from a combination of light mayo, Greek yogurt, yellow mustard, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, salt, and Splenda.

Note: salad dressing is not vegan

WW blue points = 4 (sesame and canola oils, brown sugar)

Spicy Thai basil eggplant with salad

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Weekly Menu

Posted on December 17, 2019 by Beebamom

I am a little late getting the menu up this week. We are concentrating on having a really good week both health-wise and diet-wise since Christmas week will be difficult.  We have already started with spicy Thai basil eggplant on Monday and we are planning on white chicken chili on Tuesday. I put our week’s ideas down in a random order so we can make whatever appeals to us on any day.

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⚓️ Vietnamese (sweet and) sour soup with prawn. 12/14/19

Posted on December 16, 2019 by Beebamom

Making this dish was quite an adventure when we prepared it in Ho Chi Minh City during a cooking class. It was also quite an adventure preparing it at home. There are a lot of ingredients and some are not available in your local grocery store. So John and I ventured out to our local Asian supermarket, Ranch 99. Even there we did not find everything we needed and had to improvise. This may be due to the fact that we did not know where to look or maybe the name was different. But in the end we made a fairly accurate tasting soup. Here is the recipe given to us by the Saigon Cooking School –

Recipe for sour soup

We had to substitute celery for elephant ear and cilantro for the herbs. Here is the mise en place. Once the cooking starts it moves quickly and it is good to have everything ready.

Mise en place for sour soup

After sautéing the garlic and adding the water you place the tamarind paste in a sieve and lower it into the boiling water. You stir it around and press it through the sieve until it is mostly gone except for a few seeds.

Sieving the tamarind

Once you have the tamarind in the broth you add the rest of the vegetables and shrimp and cook for a few minutes until they are done. At this point you add the fish sauce, sugar, and salt. We used about a teaspoon of sugar and added extra fish sauce to bring it to an approximation of what we wanted. John added some additional sugar to his bowl and I added some additional salt to mine. We both went with a squeeze of lime.

Pot with vegetables in the soup

As far as what we would do differently I would cut up the shrimp and the pineapple into smaller pieces. We might use chicken stock or vegetable stock instead of just water. John has suggested using cilantro stems in the soup instead of just the leaves for garnish. I suggested putting some snow peas in for more bulk. We are very pleased with how this turned out. It tasted pretty much the same as we made at the cooking school. We are going to try it again next week with the modifications we think will make it perfect for us.

Vietnamese sour soup

 

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🐟 Seared scallop dinner. 12/13/19

Posted on December 14, 2019 by Beebamom

I skipped a post for yesterday since it was our leftover dinner for the week. We had leftover stuffed peppers. But on Friday we had one of my favorite dinners—plump, seared, ocean scallops with new potatoes and snow peas. And don’t forget homemade tartar sauce! Yum! It makes an ordinary week night dinner seem like a special occasion.

I start steaming the potatoes ahead of John searing the scallops. They only take 15-20 minutes depending on their size. When they are done John heats up the cast iron pan with a little vegetable oil until it is smoking and then lays the scallops in.

In the meantime I have stringed and refreshed the snow peas in some ice water and put them in the pan that the potatoes have just come out of. I spray it with some buttery Pam first. The water still clinging to the snow peas gives them a quick steam and then I add a teaspoon of light butter. The whole dinner cooks in about a half an hour and it is sooo good!

WW blue points = 7 (oil, light butter, mayo, potatoes)

Seared scallops with new potatoes, snow peas, and tartar sauce

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🦃 Peppers stuffed with ground turkey and farro. 12/11/19

Posted on December 12, 2019 by Beebamom

Inspired by a blog post by Cooking Without Limits for stuffed peppers, I decided to try making some myself. John was busy installing a new modem and router so I had to come up with a recipe on my own. One thing I do know about ground turkey is that it tends to taste sweet and lacks texture.

In order to counteract the sweet and mushy problems, I chopped up some mushrooms and seared them hard. I also sautéed onions and garlic. I seasoned with every new ingredient.

Mushrooms and onions cooking

I also seared the ground turkey and mixed it together with the vegetables. Next step was to add oregano and chile flakes and deglaze the pan with white wine. I added a can of petite diced tomatoes and some farro that I had cooked earlier. I took a taste. Still too sweet! At this point I used my ultimate fixer, fish sauce. With a little tomato sauce it tasted great.

I stuffed 4 half peppers that I had microwaved to soften and added some additional tomato sauce, covered the dish, and baked it for 30 minutes at 350F. We really enjoyed our turkey stuffed peppers tonight!

WW blue points = 8 (oil, farro, ground turkey)

Yellow bell pepper stuffed with ground turkey

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🦃 or 🥬 Everyday lentil stew. 12/10/19

Posted on December 11, 2019 by Beebamom

Our everyday lentil stew is an easy, quick dinner that can be stretched into a soup or served tighter as a hearty stew. You can make it vegan or add some turkey sausage, as we did today, or go whole hog with pork sausage. The homely brown lentil is a great, cheap, healthy ingredient to add some protein in a variety of dishes.

While I was at my chopping station taking care of the vegetables, John inspected the lentils and rinsed them off. I always start chopping what I know he will cook first. So, mushrooms, onions, garlic, carrots, and celery get a quick sauté in succession. Then he added 4 ounces of diced turkey sausage followed by chicken or vegetable stock. Season with salt and pepper, a few chile flakes, and add a couple of bay leaves. Bring to boil, lower to simmer. Watch some half hour program, read a magazine, or write your blog and it is done.

WW blue points – 3 (oil, turkey sausage)

Lentil stew with vegetables and turkey sausage

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🍗 Chicken Marsala, smashed potatoes, broccoli

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Beebamom

Tonight we had an upscale version of our usual chicken, starch, vegetable dinner. The sauce that John made for the chicken had sauteed mushrooms, Marsala wine, chicken stock, and finely diced onions in it. He flamed off the alcohol and used the liquid to deglaze the pan. He added 2 teaspoons of butter to it at the end. It was yummy. I steamed some small new potatoes and then smashed them so they would soak up the sauce. I cooked the broccoli in a small amount of water. Our dinner was a nice change from our usual chicken fare.

WW blue points – 5 (oil, butter, potatoes)

Chicken breast Marsala, smashed potato, broccoli

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Weekly menu 12/8 – 12/14/19

Posted on December 9, 2019 by Beebamom

This week I have planned seven possible dinners plus the realization that we may need to eat a leftovers dinner. We are going to try to duplicate the sour soup we made in our cooking class in Ho Chi Minh City. There are some old favorites like sautéed scallops and chicken Marsala and a new recipe for lentil rice. As always everything John and I make will fit into our WW diet plan AND be delicious.

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