Faux Fried Rice and Stir Fry

I made this recipe a year or two ago and really liked it so I'm not sure why I haven't made it again. But for some reason, fried rice has sounded good lately and I recalled making this and thought I'd see what the bf thought of it too.

Faux Fried Rice
1 head of cauliflower
1/2 bag of frozen peas and carrots
1 bunch green onions
2 eggs
ginger
soy sauce

1. I've heard you can grate the cauliflower with a cheese grater but I think it is much cleaner to use the food processor. Cut the head of cauliflower into a few chunks and put it in the food processor with the grating blade in it. Make sure it all gets grated into tiny pieces somewhat resembling rice.

2. Put a little bit of olive oil in a hot pan and stir fry it until it starts to get tender. Add the chopped green onion, peas and carrots, ginger and a couple tablespoons of soy sauce.

3. Once the veggies are tender, push them to the side of the pan. Scramble two eggs and cook on the empty half of the pan. Once they are cooked, mix them into the cauliflower mixture. Enjoy!

For the stir fry, I marinated some thin cut top round steaks in Mrs. Dash (salt free) Spicy Teriyaki marinade for a couple hours. Then I sliced it up and cooked the meat until about done. I stirred in some frozen stir fry veggies and cooked until tender. I also added garlic. Yum! It looks like fried rice doesn't it? But there isn't a single grain of rice on that plate!

No Posts for a few days...

Gerald is out at the mine so I'm trying to finish the leftovers (chili and meatloaf) I have in the fridge before I leave for Seattle tomorrow after work. I will be gone for a few days and probably won't cook again until Friday. Let's hope that doesn't mean I will get totally derailed from healthy eating while I'm away! I'm still working on learning how to cook smaller amounts of things so I don't have to eat so many leftovers (or throw out so much food when it goes bad). Anyway, I hope you all have a great week....look for updates this weekend!

Puffy Apple "Omelet"

I'm not sure why they call this an omelet (hence the quotations in my title). At any rate, I got this recipe from from a magazine rack recipe card book I picked up last week "Taste of Home Comfort Food Diet." I love apples so I thought I would give it a try. The original recipe calls for sugar and all-purpose flour but I substituted Splenda and whole-wheat flour.

Puffy Apple Omelet
3 Tbsp. flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs, separated
3 Tbsp. fat-free milk
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
3 Tbsp. sugar (or substitute)
TOPPING:
1 large tart apple thinly sliced
1 tsp. sugar (or substitute)
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

1. In a small bowl, combine flour and baking powder. In another small bowl, whisk the egg yolks, milk and lemon juice. Stir into dry ingredients, mix well and set aside.

2. In another small bowl, beat egg whites on medium speed until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in sugar 1 tablespoon at a time on high until stiff peaks form. Fold into yolk mixture.

3. Pour into a shallow 1-1/2 qt. baking dish coated with cooking spray. Arrange apple slices on top. Combine sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over apples.

4. Bake uncovered at 375 degrees for 18-20 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Serve immediately.
Makes 2 servings.

Surprisingly, this was REALLY GOOD! It wasn't super sweet like most apple things. I'm pretty sure you could get kids to eat this too. I'll be making it again sometime for sure!

Bison-Veggie Loaf

I've used Bison in place of ground beef in the past, but I've never made a meat loaf with it so I thought I would give it a try.
Bison Veggie Loaf
1 lb. ground bison
1 egg
1 slice grain sprouted bread
shredded carrots
chopped green onions
chopped spinach
chopped red & yellow peppers
minced garlic
chili powder (I used a heaping teaspoon)
Worcestershire sauce (I'm guessing I used a Tbsp)


Preheat oven to 350. Mix all the ingredients together and form it into a loaf. Put in a pan and bake for about 35 minutes or until done. Adding veggies to a meatloaf is a great way to eat more veggies and to feed them to your kids without them really noticing. If you are going to use carrots that are chopped rather than shredded, you will want to cook them a little before mixing them into your meat mixture or else they will still be crunchy...I learned that the hard way once before. However, shredding carrots isn't the easiest task in the world for keeping the skin on your fingers either....However, my veggies were still a little bit crunchy so if you don't want them to be firm, you will definitely want to saute them a little before mixing them with the chopped bread, egg and meat.

This meatloaf turned out great! I ate it with a small baked sweet potato and some steamed broccoli. I almost didn't even miss the BBQ sauce I normally put on my meatloaf...the chili powder gives a nice little kick of flavor that kind of replaces the BBQ though.

Chicken Chili

First I would like to say THANK YOU Alberta for sharing this recipe. This is the white bean chicken chili recipe I had a couple weeks ago and fell in love with. When Alberta made it, it was probably the best soup I've ever eaten. I'm not sure what is different or if she adapted the recipe when she made it, but mine didn't taste like hers. This is the original recipe:
Richard's Chicken Chili
3/4 c. chopped onions
1-2 Tbsp. minced garlic
lg can garbanzo beans
lg can white corn
lg can cannellini beans
black beans (optional)
1 lb. cubed chicken breast
1 Tbsp. cumin
1 tsp. crushed red pepper, cayenne or chili powder
1 can chicken broth
small can of diced green chilies

Put a little oil in a pot and saute the garlic and onions. Add the cumin and the pepper/cayenne/chili powder. Add the rest of the ingredients, cover and cook over medium heat for 40-45 minutes stirring often.
You can top the soup with fresh cilantro (THIS IS DEFINITELY A MUST!). You could also add sour cream, cheese or tortilla chips but keep in mind all these things are calories!

One thing I know she did differently was used shredded chicken (I think she had cooked a whole chicken and shredded it off the bone). I used boneless, skinless chicken breast and I definitely think it was better when it was shredded. I'm also pretty sure that one can of broth would not have been enough. I buy the cartons, not cans, and I definitely used more than would have been in a can. I'm going to need to talk to her to see what else she did differently because although this turned out good, it wasn't nearly as good as hers...but then again, I very rarely follow a recipe so I can't expect that someone else does either!

I have some bison burger laid out for tonight so I'm currently trying to decide what I'll make with it....

Smoked Salmon and Veggie Frittata

I'd like to say this turned out AMAZING, but I think I ruined it with the salmon. Normally, I'm pretty sure it would have been good but there was a really fishy gross taste to this salmon that didn't sit well with me. So it is a good thing I didn't use much of it. This was also my first attempt at making a frittata so those of you who are experts don't laugh at me!

The first thing I did was chopped up a SMALL Yukon gold potato into tiny squares. I put it in the pan with some olive oil and put the lid on. I cooked it until the potato was tender (have to flip a time or two). While that was cooking, I chopped some green onion, tomato, spinach and the smoked salmon. Once the potatoes were tender, I added the veggies and salmon along with garlic and pepper. Let that cook for about a minute. I scrambled 3 Omega 3 brown eggs and a splash of milk. I poured that over the top of the veggies and put the lid back on the pan until the egg firmed up and was done.

I would caution you to be VERY careful if you have a flat top stove. I hate mine and wish I had a gas range, but I don't. The heat stays really high on the stove I have so I have to be extra careful. I was also cautious to make sure I used a non-stick pan. Eggs can be a mess if you don't use the right pan! Anyway, I ate half of the frittata with a slice of grain sprouted bread (flour-less). Now I have the other half for breakfast before work! Tonight was my first time trying this specific brand of grain bread and it is so good! I used to eat Ezekial 4:9 bread but I didn't like how dry and cardboard-like it was. This brand is great though! It is chewy and tasty and I think I may have found a new love!

And a little off topic, but a few other things I've been doing lately. The first is using a smaller plate (salad plate). Most of the time I'm totally satisfied after eating from a small plate. If I eat a bunch of salad with my meal then I will still use a big plate, but I'm trying to be sure that even when I use a big plate that I don't fill it. Water has also been critical for me. This water bottle has helped me drink so much more water! I'm not sure what it is about drinking through a straw but it makes the water go down so much easier. This is a 24-ounce bottle and I fill it at least 4 times but usually 5 times a day....that is almost a gallon of water! I've cut back to only drinking coffee one or two days a week. So aside from hot tea, water is pretty much the only thing I drink nowadays.

I've got History class tomorrow night and a Biology test to take at lunch so I likely won't be cooking tomorrow. I'll try to think of something good for you guys to cook over the weekend...it's almost here! Yay!

Leftovers for lunch

It took every ounce of willpower I have to not go to McDonald's for lunch today! Someone had something at work that smelled like french fries and it made me salivate. I got in my car thinking I was going to go to McDonald's and get a kid's meal for lunch. But by the time I got to the intersection towards my house I had talked myself out of it. I decided to come home and make do with what I already had here.

Most of the ingredients are self explanatory by looking at the picture. In the little container is the rest of the Greek yogurt from yesterday that I made ranch out of. I just stirred in a little bit of the powdered Hidden Valley ranch dip until it tasted good. I spread that on the inside of the pita and added the spinach, tomato, onion and 1/2 the chopped up chicken breast from last night. I ate it with a mandarin orange. Yum! I'm glad I found the willpower to skip McDonald's!

Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken

I've been looking for more ways to use spinach because I know how good it is for me. But quite frankly, when it is cooked and slimy (think canned or frozen) it makes me want to vomit. I love spinach salads and I don't mind chopping up fresh spinach and putting it in things. You still can't get me to eat a blob of it by itself though...its all about the texture for me! Anyway, I found a recipe that looked good but needed tweaking (as in it used mayonnaise and bacon) so I started with it and adapted it into this:
Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken Breast
3 chicken breast (or however many you want to make)
1/2 a cup of plain, low fat Greek yogurt
1/4 cup feta (I like the flavored ones)
garlic
onion powder
Mrs. Dash (Tomato, Basil & Garlic)
Spinach--chop up a handful


I started by mixing together the yogurt, feta, garlic powder, onion powder and Mrs. Dash in a small bowl. Once that was thoroughly mixed I added the chopped spinach. Then I butterflied the chicken breast. This would have been a lot easier to do if the chicken breast was thicker or still a little frozen. I purposely chose smaller breasts because I figured it would cook more evenly. The best thing is to just try and make sure you cut it pretty close to the mid point and don't cut yourself...or cut all the way through! Don't cut it into 2 fillets, make sure you leave it connected a little on the one side. Once the chicken was cut, I spread some of the filling on one side. After closing it up I sprinkled it with some more Mrs. Dash and garlic. Then I sprayed a small glass casserole dish with olive oil and put the chicken in it. I cooked it for about 35 minutes in a preheated 375 degree oven.

For sides I chopped up a really firm roma tomato and sprinkled it with salt and pepper (once again, I'm still trying to force myself to like tomatoes again...slowly I'll get there!). I also sliced a small zucchini and very thinly sliced some red and yellow pepper. I cooked those in a little bit of olive oil with more garlic and pepper. I don't like my zucchini overly cooked so I was sure to keep the peppers really thin so they would cook in the same time as the zucchini. I would guess I cooked the combo for about 4 minutes before taking it off the heat.

Seriously, my taste buds are in heaven after eating this meal! You should try it and I guarantee if you like the ingredients, you will love this meal. The original recipe used mayo instead of the Greek yogurt and then also wrapped the chicken in a slice of bacon. As you can see, I left that out to make it healthier. I look forward to making this again in the future and I'm really glad I have leftovers! I think I will chop up some of it to eat in a pita with more raw spinach tomorrow for dinner! YUM!

Roasted Pepper-Sweet Potato Soup

I bought peppers from Costco this weekend and since Gerald is gone this week at the mine I wasn't sure what to do with them. I figured I should try something new. I searched for some recipes for soups but didn't find one that totally suited my taste so I took the base of a few of them and meshed the recipes to come up with my own. It turned out quite good actually (even though it looks a lot like baby food!).


I started out by halving a red pepper and two orange peppers and scraping out their seeds. I then put them on the ickiest baking sheet I had and under the broiler on high. While these were roasting, I chopped up two small sweet potatoes. I put the sweet potatoes in the pot and just barely covered them with reduced sodium beef broth and turned them on high. I let them boil until tender. I also chopped up two tomatoes and half an onion and added those to the potatoes when they were about done.


I flipped the peppers about halfway through (I put the skin side down for a while first so the meat of the pepper would get cooked). I finished the peppers with the skin side up and started to blacken them. Once they were good and tender I pulled them out, let them cool for a while then scrapped the skin off of them. If they are done enough, the skins should come off relatively easily. I then sliced the peppers and added them to the potato mixture.


I turned off the stove and put the whole mixture in the food processor and pulsed it until it was smooth. I realized that it was probably a tad thicker than I wanted it to be so once it was fairly smooth I put it back in the pot and added a little more broth. I also stirred in some cumin, pepper, garlic powder and Sriracha. I tasted it once then decided to add a little more cumin (I wanted to make sure I didn't overdo it!). I heated it back up and ta-da! It was quite flavorful!

And for those of you that are readers but aren't my Facebook friends, I lost 2.6 more pounds this week for a total of 8.3 in the last 3 weeks! This healthy eating and exercise thing really works! I'm now a firm believer that you don't need to go on a "diet" to lose weight...you merely need to make sensible, healthy choices and cut out the processed junk that we all love so much!

Slacker over the weekend!

Sorry readers, I was a slacker over the weekend and never turned on my computer...and I wasn't about to post a blog using my iPhone because it would be filled with type-o's!
Anyway, Friday we had a Costco run and a trip to Fred Meyer to do and since I hadn't grocery shopped in over a week I didn't have much fresh food. So, we had Subway for dinner. It sure was delicious but then I started to worry about eating the bread and how I have such an addiction to it....
Saturday, my other half made me scrambled eggs with red and yellow peppers, onions and spinach and some turkey sausage. Yum!
We had his family over for dinner on Saturday and I was scrambling to have everything ready so I forgot to take a picture of my plate or the cooking process. So for that, I apologize, the pictures are of the leftovers...definitely not pretty! Someday, I will invest in a super sweet camera that can even make leftovers look good...until then, you are stuck with what I show you!
The menu consisted of crock pot pork tenderloin in apple cider, mashed potato/cauliflower/carrots and spinach salad.


I LOVE pork cooked in apples! I started by chopping up 3 apples and putting them in the bottom of the crock pot. Then I chopped half an onion and put that in there too. I browned the tenderloin on the stove top before putting it in the crock pot. Then I poured in about half a bottle of apple cider (not the sparking kind like Gerald thought I was talking about!...the kind that looks like apple juice!). I cooked it on high in the crock pot for about 4 hours then turned it down to low for 2 more hours. Mine was actually in there for longer than that due to a power outage for an hour in the beginning but it hadn't gotten hot yet when the power went out so I'm not sure how to account for that time!. Anyway, as you can see, it was so tender it totally shredded before I could even get it out of the crock pot....DELICIOUS!


The mashed potato/cauliflower/carrot recipe is one I had previously gotten from Weight Watchers but I no longer remember that one exactly. I use 4 Yukon gold potatoes (peeled), a large head of cauliflower) and about 1/2 a bag of baby carrots chopped small. Cut up and peel the potatoes just as you would for making mashed potatoes, cut the cauliflower into flowerettes and chop the carrots. Add it all to boiling water and boil the hell out of it until it is all tender. Then you can either put it in the food processor if you like it really smooth, or just mash it with a potato masher. I added some Butter Buds, chopped green onions, garlic, pepper, salt, chives and a little fat free milk before mashing it. Gerald's mom really enjoyed these....not sure about his brother but he isn't much of a veggie eater (so I'm pretty sure he would wither away if he lived with us!).

I also made a spinach salad and a green bean salad. You can see the spinach salad recipe in a prior post but the green bean salad is french cut canned green beans (chilled), diced onions, oil, vinegar, maggi, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and some other random seasonings.



We also got some super delicious fruit that was probably the best part of our night after going to see Just Go With It for the second time!