Yum, fish tacos again!

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Beebamom

I was reading through my recent menus and decided that it was all too plain – a protein, a starch and a vegetable. I think my recent weight gain from our trip to Italy encouraged me to eat strictly. But now after three weeks, I’ve taken off the 3.5 lbs. I gained and can be more adventurous again.

I love fish tacos. We use ono which we buy frozen from Costco. After seasoning the fish, John sears the pieces on all sides and edges and it is quickly done. I make a crema out of nonfat plain yogurt, cumin and salt. We also have some fresh salsa, cabbage, and avocado. There’s a little chopped cilantro and green onion for garnish. For the beans, I take a can of black beans and add some of the salsa and some cumin. So even though there are a lot of components, it’s mostly just chop and assemble. Fish tacos definitely make me feel like I am not on a diet. (Even though this is week 50!)

Fish tacos

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Pan seared bison with mushroom sauce, sweet potato and Brussels sprouts

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Beebamom

As promised, here is the exotic meal of the week. This year I think I have had beef twice. So finding a low calorie alternative is a good thing. We bought these bison medallions in the freezer case at Whole Foods.

Frozen bison medallions from Whole Foods

I know the picture is a little blurry but for each 6 ounce portion of bison the calorie count is 180 and there are 2.5 grams of fat. That is way low. Fish low. The bison doesn’t taste quite like beef and it is definitely a little chewier. But the overall impression is similar.

Bison nutritional information

After bringing it up to room temperature, blotting and seasoning the fillet, John cooked the bison in a little oil for three minutes on the first side and two minutes on the second side. While the bison was resting, he deglazed the pan with a brunoise of onions and some sliced mushrooms. He added some red wine and, after letting that cook down, he thickened the sauce with some ketchup.

In the meantime, I microwaved the sweet potato and then finished it with butter spray, salt, pepper and freshly ground nutmeg. I cooked the Brussels sprouts, halved and cut side down, in a smidge of water and 2 teasponns of lowfat butter substance. They were seasoned with salt, pepper and a little sugar. Dry sherry was added as the water evaporated. Then they were left to brown.

Pan seared bison with mushroom-red wine sauce, sweet potato and Brussels sprouts

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Sauteed red snapper with butternut squash and green beans

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Beebamom

I have always been afraid to cook fish at home. When I was growing up, we never had fish – not even on Fridays when, as a Catholic, you couldn’t eat meat. My father abhorred fish. Apparently it was forced upon him as a child. In fact, even our cat was not allowed to eat a canned fish cat dinner. That’s how strong his aversion to fish was. So I never learned to cook fish. But I like fish even though I don’t think I ate until I was in college.

The first thing to get started was the butternut squash. I cut it in half and scored it. Then it’s sprayed with butter spray and seasoned with salt, pepper and nutmeg (microplane some from a nut) and baked in a 400 degree oven for about 45 minutes. This one looked especially good when I took it out of the oven. After that, I mashed it up and corrected the seasoning.

Roasted butternut squash

John took care of the fish. He seasoned it and dusted it with a little flour. The fish was cooked in a little oil, butter and spray. It’s hard to cook fish with no fat at all. Each side cooked for only a few minutes.

Red snapper fillets

I also made some green beans. This time I only frenched a few of them since they were small enough to eat whole without being tough and fibrous.

Another easy dinner that was delicious and filling.

Red snapper with butternut squash and green beans

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Lazy chicken dinner

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Beebamom

Yikes! Chicken again? In an attempt to show what I actually eat on a day to day basis, it’s difficult not to have the same thing come up again and again. I do, however, promise bison this coming week. What makes this chicken dinner lazy is that I bought the chicken pre-cooked from the grocery store. I’ve decided that their rotisserie chicken is much better than any whole chicken I could cook at home. So while I prepared the broccoli and pressure cooked the rutabagas, John made some gravy and sliced up the chicken. In about twenty minutes we had a lazy chicken dinner.

Store bought chicken in gravy with rutabagas and broccoli

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Pantry special! Pasta with tuna, mushrooms, arugula and olives

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Beebamom

It has been a weird week. The beginning of the week started out with a low fiber diet followed by two days of no food, followed by my birthday celebration. So it was either feast or famine. After my “procedure” which, by the way, turned out well, I came home exhausted and hungry. John and I tossed around several different ideas for dinner. Mostly, though, I wanted something easy and something that I didn’t have to go to the store to get ingredients for. So we made a pantry special, a dinner made from staples in the pantry and a few odds and ends from the refrigerator.

I had some olives left over from our tree trimming party and some arugula that I like to keep around for salads. Since I couldn’t eat the arugula over the past several days it was looking a little past its prime. I also had some parsley and green onions. Going into the pantry I found some spaghetti (although not whole wheat pasta which I would have preferred) and a can of tuna. Ah, dinner.

While I cut up some of the vegetables, John sauteed the mushrooms. He boiled the pasta and added some chicken stock after he drained it. Then we added the tuna, mushrooms, arugula and olives to the hot pasta. We dished it out and added a topping of green onions and parsley. A drizzle of olive oil and it was done. An easy, inexpensive dinner made in about twenty minutes that was tasty and soul satisfying.

Pasta with tuna, mushrooms, arugula and olives

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Seared scallops with baked potato and green beans

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Beebamom

I can’t believe I’ve never posted a menu including scallops. Scallops are my favorite protein. John gets them really dry and then gets our cast iron pan really hot. Just a touch of oil brushed around the pan is enough to sear them beautifully. He cooks them for maybe two, two and a half minutes per side. They are terrific. And talk about fast food! It’s important, though, to get scallops that have not been soaked in tri-polyphosphate. They are really impossible to get a good sear on if they’ve been treated. Usually you can only get scallops frozen, so check the label to make sure that the only thing in the package is scallops.

As an aside, we went to market day in Eymet, France. Eymet is pretty far inland but nonetheless live scallops were being sold in the shell. We live pretty close to the ocean but you never see live scallops.

For the rest of the dinner, I baked some russet potatoes in the oven at 450 convect. The convection makes the skin crunchy. I made John broccoli and I had green beans (again). I made a tartar sauce out of lowfat mayonnaise, plain yogurt, garlic powder and sweet pickle relish. It was a really good dinner.

Seared scallops with baked potato and green beans

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Roast breast of chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Beebamom

I have been sick this week and didn’t feel much like cooking or eating. On top of that I am scheduled to have a diagnostic test next week which puts me on a low-fiber diet. Low-fiber, not a really good thing if you are trying to feel sated while eating low-calorie. So probably I am going to pretty grumpy for the next five days.

Anyway, this dinner is a throwback to when I was growing up. At our house we always had mashed potatoes. It really didn’t matter what else was being served. Green beans were always the vegetable of choice. In the New Jersey summers my father would grow green beans along with his tomatoes and lima beans. He had the most impressive tomatoes. He grew them in cages and they would top 6 feet high and were resplendent with delicious red orbs. I think he loved those tomato plants more than his kids.

Once again I digress. I made the mashed potatoes with russet potatoes and whipped them with “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, Light” and a quarter cup of low-fat milk. I made Brussels sprouts for John, and I frenched a bunch of green beans just for me. The gravy is from a packet and weighs in at about 20 calories for 1/4 cup. John did his usual masterful job on the chicken. So low-cal, low-fiber dinner = success.

Pan roasted chicken with frenched green beans, mashed potatoes, and gravy

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Pork stir-fry

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Beebamom

John always seems reluctant to have stir-fry but we had leftover pork and it needed to be used. There was only 5 oz. of pork and 1 cup of rice to split between the two of us so we needed to bulk it up with lots of vegetables. It is a good thing I like to chop things up. Included in the stir-fry were carrots, celery, cabbage, broccoli, bell pepper, Anaheim pepper, a hot red chile, garlic and onion. The stir-fry is seasoned with soy sauce and a couple of drops of sesame oil. I think John also threw in a few peanuts and sesame seeds. It was tasty, filling and low calorie.

Stir-fry of pork and vegetables with brown rice

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Roasted pork tenderloin with sweet potatoes and broccoli

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Beebamom

I am working on getting back on the diet express. I seem to have taken the local lately with too many stops and layovers. I lost about 1/2 lb. over Thanksgiving week and it’s full steam ahead now. Or at least until my birthday in December.

Last night John made rosy pork tenderloin which was moist and delicious. He cooked it in a slow oven (250 degrees) until the internal temperature was 128 degrees and then seared it on all sides until it was browned and the internal temperature had risen another 10 degrees or so. I made the sweet potato in the microwave and seasoned it with salt, pepper and nutmeg. For some added zing to the broccoli, I added red pepper flakes along with salt. The dinner was pretty filling but not as filling as a GBOF (giant bowl of food.) I added some tomato to make the plate look more colorful. From a photography point of view, it was not a success. I think I need some matte finish neutral colored plates.

Pork tenderloin with sweet potato and broccoli

In terms of portion size, I had 3 ounces of pork, 4 ounces of sweet potato and probably a cup of broccoli.

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Shrimp creole again

Posted on November 27, 2011 by Beebamom

I know I need to broaden my repertoire since here is shrimp creole making a second appearance. We have this pretty frequently since it is low in calories, tasty and you get to eat a giant bowl of food (GBOF).
My last picture of this was pretty dismal so I thought I’d try again. I added some broccoli in the hopes that it would make the picture more attractive. I was wrong. This is just not a pretty dish.

Shrimp creole, take 2

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