šŸ„¬ Back to eating healthy. 11/30/19

Posted on December 1, 2019 by Beebamom

I am back from cruising around Southeast Asia. We had an incredible time seeing the beautiful people and places of this region. During our two weeks we took two cooking classes, one in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and the other in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Plus we had a dinner cooked for us by a famous Vietnamese chef in Hue, Vietnam. Hopefully I can try some of these new recipes in the weeks to come.

It is our first day home and we are jet lagged and do not have the energy to go to the grocery store so we decide to make our dinner from kitchen and pantry staples, Spicy Chickpeas with Pasta.

I add a can of spicy Rotel instead of regular canned tomatoes and my celery and carrots are a little limp but they will work in a stew. The recipe calls for some greens which we do not have so I run out back to see my little parsley plant is still alive! So armed with a handful of parsley and the green leaves from the celery, we have the bitterness from greens that we need.

Spicy chickpeas with pasta

 

 

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Cruising on vegetables. 11/23/19

Posted on November 23, 2019 by Beebamom

In case you are wondering about whether there are vegetarian choices on a cruise, I have found that Viking, especially at lunch, has a lot of vegetarian choices. Every day there are usually two types of rice, always pasta, and potatoes. Sometimes farro. Then there are a whole array of vegetables to pair with these. Today there were black beans, some delicious chickpeas with figs, eggplant in a spicy ratatouille, and cabbage in soy sauce to name a few.

Black beans, chickpeas, steamed vegetables, and spicy ratatouille

In addition there are always steamed vegetables, pizza margarita, and frequently lentils. And of course there all sorts of salad fixings. My lunch is almost always vegetarian or vegan and I am happy and satisfied with it.

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šŸŸ A fish story. 11/22/19

Posted on November 21, 2019 by Beebamom

Eating sanely while on a cruise is a difficult task. I thought I was going to sail right through this challenge but I was wrong. An extra piece of bread, a cookie, a glass of wine or two, it is all available and hard to pass up. But here is a dinner that I felt good about eating.

Lemon grass cured salmon first course

Seared tuna entree

I even ordered extra vegetables!

It is important to give yourself a little pat on the back when you do something right!

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Cruising. 11/18/19

Posted on November 19, 2019 by Beebamom

Hi, all! I am on vacation and taking a cruise. Everyone knows that cruising is the worst way to try to stay on your healthy lifestyle plan. So here is what I am doing to try to avoid gaining back half of the 18 pounds I have lost.

A good breakfast is the best way to start the day but how to avoid all those tasty pastries and breakfast meats?! Order room service!! Each morning I order only what I actually want to eat. So far it has been eggs, one piece of bacon, toast, and tea. Since my at-home breakfast would never include that piece of bacon I feel like I am treating myself.

For lunch my go-t0s are fish and vegetables. Here is a picture of my lunch today. Vegetables only! It is true that some are tempura fried but this is so much better than a greasy hamburger and French fries!

Vegetables galore! Eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, onions, cauliflower, tomatoes, beans, sunflower seeds and more!

For dinner I stayed on my plan accidentally! I ordered the Destination Menu. It is supposed to be local cuisine. So I ordered Hainanese chicken. It turned out to be a poached chicken breast with a little rice and cucumber. It tasted the way it looks! Bland and dry. But definitely a spa type dinner.

Hainanese chicken

When you are on vacation donā€™t just decide it is too hard to eat properly. Adopt some losing strategies!

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šŸŸ The Habit Grill hack. 11/12/19

Posted on November 13, 2019 by Beebamom

When it comes to sort of fast food, I like to eat at The Habit Burger Grill. Ā But I do not want to spend precious WW points eating a burger on a bun. That would be more than half of my total daily points! At The Habit you can get their burgers and sandwiches as a lettuce wrap. So I order the tuna filet sandwich as a lettuce wrap.

Tuna lettuce wrap

I am not satisfied with a piece of tuna in a bunch of lettuce, though. I bring along a toasted pita half, cut a pita-sized portion of the tuna and stuff it, some lettuce, and a slice of tomato into my pita. Now I have a nice hand-held sandwich to eat. WW points=4 for the tuna and its dressing (no teriyaki sauce, please) and WW points=2 for the pita, so a total of 6 WW points.

Tuna filet with lettuce and tomato in a pita

But I am not done yet! In addition I get a totally free salad with the leftover lettuce, tomato, and tuna!!

Leftovers salad

To embellish your salad there are lemon slices and pepperoncini. Granted it is a little messy getting your pita pocket sandwich made but this a great way to stretch your WW points budget.

 

Posted in American, Dining out, Fish, Healthy tips, pescatarian, Vegetables, WW points | Tagged | 1 Comment

Diet disaster! 11/11/19

Posted on November 12, 2019 by Beebamom

NOTE: I will not be cooking for the next couple of weeks but will post when I come across some food related item of interest.

We had a plan. It was a good plan. It involved poaching shrimp, cooking up some zucchini, and having a modest amount of small, new potatoes. But at 6 PM when John looked in the freezer for the shrimp no shrimp was to be found. Apparently we had eaten it all up the last time we had shrimp and had not replaced it. Oh no, what to do!? We are both hungry and now we have no plan. I suggest fish. John vetoes that. I suggest linguine with tomato sauce. John is totally on board.

So I made a quick tomato sauce with some canned and some fresh tomatoes. John, at my suggestion, cooks 8 ounces of whole grain linguine. We indulge. This morning I am up a hard fought for pound. I have shown remarkable control these past 7 weeks but put me near pasta and I lose all my will-power. Oh well, it is back on the righteous train on Tuesday. Sigh.

Note: For a vegan dish omit parmesan cheese.

WW points – 13

Giant portion of whole grain linguine with basil and parmesan cheese

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šŸ„¬ Grilled portobello mushrooms with coleslaw (again!) 11/10/19

Posted on November 11, 2019 by Beebamom
Grilled portobello mushroom with coleslaw

What can I say? I love this dinner! So I guess you will see it popping up on my blog about once every ten days. It is simple and easy to prepare, delivers big flavor, and fits really well into my diet plan.

Speaking of my diet plan, I have lost a little over 16 lbs. in 7 weeks and it really was not a struggle at all. Basically all I had to do was mostly cut out my wine drinking, substitute popcorn for chips, and eat a healthier mostly plant and fish based regimen. I am rarely hungry, I can go out to lunch easily, and look forward to finding new and interesting things to prepare.

John grilled the mushrooms after marinating them and I made the coleslaw. The dressing for the coleslaw consists of a combo of light mayo, Greek yogurt, mustard, vinegar, celery seed, salt, and a little sweetener. We served the our mushroom burgers with some grilled onions, a little mayo, and basil.

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šŸ„¬ Spicy Thai basil eggplant with tofu. 11/9/19

Posted on November 10, 2019 by Beebamom

Spicy Thai basil eggplant with tofu is our favorite dish to order when we go out to a Thai restaurant. We have tried over the years to replicate it at home usually with rather lackluster results. Before making it this time I did a new search and found a new recipe to try from One Green Planet. We got some stellar results. We made some changes, of course, to adapt the recipe to our current diet plan, cutting way back on the cooking oil and the sugar in the sauce. And we do wish we had made a bit more sauce. But this rendition was very good. The tofu emerged as the real star. We will make it again.

I added a small green salad with a creamy sweet mayo dressing like you sometimes get in Thai restaurants. We served our eggplant and tofu over rice. Omit the salad or change the salad dressing for a completely vegan experience.

WW points not including rice = 4

Spicy Thai basil eggplant with tofu

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šŸ¦ƒ Happy Early Thanksgiving! 11/8/19

Posted on November 9, 2019 by Beebamom

Next week we are going to go to Southeast Asia. How exciting is that?! While we are there we are going to learn about history and see the sights plus take some culinary classes! We are really hoping to become more well-rounded cooks. However, we are missing Thanksgiving. Our son has taken over cooking duties for his and his wifeā€™s family and our daughter is going to celebrate her first Friendsgiving. So all bases are covered.

Tonight John cooked a chicken breast that he had paillarded. We defrosted some turkey gravy that we had been saving since last Thanksgiving. I made mashed butternut squash and broccoli. We toasted each other with a glass of Chardonnay. Happy Thanksgiving!!

WW points = 2

Chicken breast with turkey gravy, mashed butternut squash, and broccoli

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šŸ„¬ Moroccan chickpea stew. 11/7/19

Posted on November 8, 2019 by Beebamom

Moroccan chickpea stew was a new recipe for us. It had mixed reviews. Instead of using dried apricots I substituted an apple and that substitution made the whole dish way too sweet for me. Our daughter agreed but John liked it. There is a long list of ingredients and a lot of choppingā€”onion, garlic, ginger, turnip, fennel, apple, carrot, cilantro, and chard. Although there are all those different vegetables plus chickpeas everything tasted pretty much the same (except for the apple.) We will have to do a major rework of this recipe if we are going to eat it again. WW points = 4.

P.S. I got my recipe from the NYTimes Cooking site but there are lots of similar recipes on the internet for free. Ā Some include potatoes. Others use raisins for sweetness. Many do not have an overtly sweet component. Next time I will try a recipe more aligned with my I-hate-anything-sweet-in-my-savory-dishes point of view! Find a recipe that sounds good to you!

Moroccan chickpea stew

Posted in Legumes, Middle Eastern, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian, WW points | Tagged | Leave a comment