Fish tacos, black beans and rice

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Beebamom

One of the reasons I like to have fish tacos is that instead of wanting to drink wine with it, I feel like beer is a good choice. Our beer choice (when not in Germany or the Czech Republic) is O’Doul’s non-alcoholic beer. Low in calories, 12 ounces only costs me one point. Two four ounce glasses of wine equals four points but 24 ounces of O’Doul’s is only two. (I still use the old WW formulation for points.) Unfortunately not every meal goes with beer.

John cooked some ono which we wrapped with small corn tortillas. We added some salsa, cabbage and crema made from non-fat yogurt, salt and cumin. The brown rice and the black beans were enhanced with salsa.

Fish tacos, black beans and rice

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Grilled flank steak, curried mashed cauliflower and Brussels sprouts

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Beebamom

In a departure from the norm, John grilled flank steak. We had bought a couple of flank steaks ages ago from Costco and then cut them into 6 oz. portions. I am always loathe to eat red meat because I have to charge myself so many points for it. However, I looked up the calorie and fat content on multiple sites for flank steak and found that it really is about the same as pork tenderloin.

Along with the flank steak I made my usual Incredibly Yummy Brussels Sprouts and steamed some cauliflower. Much like rutabagas, mashed cauliflower gives one the impression that you are having a starch when you are not. We toasted some curry spices and mixed that in for more flavor. I think we will be making this dinner more often!

Grilled flank steak, curried mashed cauliflower and Brussels sprouts

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Lobster tail, roasted small potatoes and vegetables

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Beebamom

Wednesday seems like a fine day for a dinner of lobster tails. We got a couple of good sized ones at Costco and John steamed them. They were served with a squeeze of lemon. Since I was feeling a bit on the lazy side (since I am not over my jet lag), I opted for piling a bunch of vegetables and potatoes on a sheet pan and roasting them in the oven with a spray of olive oil cooking spray and some salt and pepper. This was an easy, though not inexpensive, dinner.

Lobster tail with roasted small potatoes and vegetables

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Dover sole, brown rice and herbed green beans and mushrooms

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Beebamom

In looking at the picture of last night’s dinner, I’ve decided that there was probably too much food of the same color on the plate. John quickly sauteed the seasoned sole in some cooking spray. I made the brown rice using the Cook’s Illustrated oven method – perfect rice every time! The green beans I cut in half diagonally. I sauteed the mushrooms in some cooking spray and then added the beans. I let them get a little char and then I added about a half cup of water which steamed them until they were done and the water had evaporated. I added some chopped up parsley, chives, and marjoram. I added chive flowers for some decoration. Of course, I also seasoned everything with salt. When you are not using fat to cook with, salt is about the only way to enhance flavor.

Dover sole with brown rice and herbed green beans and mushrooms

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Chicken with mushroom gravy, rutabagas and broccoli

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Beebamom

I am home from my trip. The weight damage was bad – 6 lbs. I have never been anywhere that has so much heavy food as Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. Frequently we went out for Italian food just to try to find something lighter. Fortunately, I’ve managed to lose about 4 lbs. since getting home. I always think that vacation weight gain is usually kind of transient. If you tackle it right away before it’s made its way solidly to your hips, you can lose it pretty quickly.

It was such a relief to come back to Chicken Monday. We had the standard meal with 3 ounces of meat, low calorie gravy from a packet with some sauteed mushrooms (sauteed in olive oil cooking spray), rutabagas made in the pressure cooker, and broccoli. After all the heavy food that I have eaten, this dinner seemed just right.

Chicken with mushroom gravy, rutabagas and broccoli

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There is no light food in Germany

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Beebamom

I have tried to choose items from menus that would fit into a healthy lifestyle. Mostly I have failed miserably. Here are some things I have eaten –

Tried to eat vegetarian on the Lufthansa flight and got a potato pancake with vegetables in a buttery sauce. This was listed as gnocchi and vegetables.


Chicken and mushrooms with noodles. Heavy cream sauce


Ordered perch. It came with cream sauce and fried potato puffs.

Salad for dinner? That's a lot of ham.

Gave up and ate bratwurst but gave one of them away. Thought that saurkraut would not be too bad.

Asparagus is in season. This is probably the lightest thing I have been able to find for lunch.

So needless to say, this has not been going easily. At least we have done a ton of walking but I think I would have to walk 24 hours a day to work off all this food. Sigh.

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Chicken tacos, black beans and cole slaw

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Beebamom

As we are leaving on Wednesday for a trip to Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic, we are in eat down mode. The chicken tacos for Chicken Monday were pre-cooked slices. Pre-cooked chicken is hard to rewarm without making it quite dry. But the rest of the taco was good, the beans were very good and the coleslaw which was made with the yogurt crema made a nice change from a regular salad.

The places we are going to are not known for their light cuisine. I think eating properly will be a challenge. I will take pictures of what I would consider the best choices possible over the next couple of weeks.

Chicken tacos on corn tortillas with cabbage, salsa, cilantro and crema served with coleslaw and black beans

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Whole wheat penne with shrimp and vegetables

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Beebamom

Ah, comfort food! I love pasta but a little pasta has to go a long way these days. This dinner is 2 ounces of whole wheat penne and 4 ounces of shrimp. The rest of the bowl is filled with vegetables. The whole dish is moistened with chicken stock. I love a GBOF (giant bowl of food.)

Whole wheat penne with shrimp and vegetables

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Bean burger with bolani and salad

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Beebamom

Thursday I needed something easy and low calorie for dinner. These days my go-to dinner when I need to eat with no fuss I choose chipotle bean burgers from the freezer. Tasty and nutritious, the burgers can be ready in two minutes. I also warmed up a piece of sweet potato bolani. Bolani is a stuffed Afghan bread. A large hunk of the sweet potato one has less than 100 calories. They had several different samples to try at Costco and they were all very tasty. Under my bean burger and bolani I had an arugula salad with fat-free dressing. My whole dinner was satisfying and prepared in less than 5 minutes.

Chipotle bean burger, sweet potato bolani and arugula salad

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Chicken Monday and a new, more slender me

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Beebamom

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this week is a difficult one with a couple of eating challenges. The first was a birthday celebration of one of our best friends. That took place last night. I had a salad with seared tuna and squid ink risotto with scallops. It was really good and not too terrible from a diet standpoint. Unfortunately I OD’ed on the bread. Oh well, nobody’s perfect. The second challenge will be tonight when we have our Passover seder (I know wrong day but it was when we could all get together.) We are having beef burgundy, mashed potatoes, green beans and matzoh ball soup. I’ll just have to eat small portions.

Anyway, on Monday, we had Chicken Monday. It’s good to eat right whenever it’s possible. I know that I will have to continue to have Chicken Mondays for the rest of my life.

Chicken, smashed potatoes and asparagus

I thought I would include a picture of John and me in our new more slender versions. He’s lost 45 lbs. and I have lost 62 lbs. Wow, that makes a grand total of 107 lbs. lost!

The new versions of John and Mary

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