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 Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 8:41 pm
Probably a misleading topic title, but I find that I don't like the amount of fat/carbs/whatever that recipes, and many other things have in them. So I just wanted to post a few things I find helpful in my life, and give room for sharing in general.
Salad: The green enemy turned green fun!
I've never liked salad, it was a major hurdle when I moved to a wilderness lodge that served salad twice a day. ._. (And sometimes the salad was more appetizing than the main food!) So I got by.
When I left there, I was pretty adamant that I'd never eat salad again... there seemed to be no way to make it tasty without slathering it in some ugly cream based nastiness brought to us from valley farms or wherever. (I don't like ceasar or ranch dressings because of their fat content)
That is... until I was sitting around looking at an avocado, wondering just how to make it mine.
I call it Yadsi dressing. It is an acronym: Yummy Avocado Dressing for the Salad-ly Impaired. : D
Yadsi Dressing
You takes the avocado, and you mush it up in a bowl.
Add liberal amounts of lime and lemon juice. (Probably no more than three tablespoons or so of both.
Add a bit of water, and some salt (No more than a teaspoon though!)
And then you mix it all up!
There, you have a very nice salad dressing that is low in fat, and the fat that it DOES have is good for you.
The OTHER thing I have done is...
Spaghetti noodle replacement theory!
Noodles are loaded with not good for you things... we know this, or at least I do.
There are two things that you can do which are very good.
You can ladle out your spaghetti sauce over mixed green salad (Another tasty way to have salad)
Or you can take a page out of the raw foodie people and put a zucchini into a food processor and put your spaghetti sauce over that! : D
Happy eating!
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Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 8:44 am
Ooo I like your suggestion for salad dressing! That sounds really good, I'll have to give it a shot sometime. :3
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Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 5:21 pm
i think rice noodles are better for you than normal pasta noodles, and they taste really good with lots of different kinds of sauces
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Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:51 pm
Hm. That's a good point to make.
Sandwiches! The yummy gut enlarger
I've always had a problem with sandwiches, I *LOVE* them, and I'll eat one and want another sometimes.
The easiest way to have your sandwich and eat it too, is to cut in half, and put the other half in the fridge to wait for your 'second serving' craving, if you're like me, or just until you're hungry again.
Some other tips.
Cheese: Slice it extra thin, there are things in kitchen stores to help us with this if we're bad at it. Or better yet, use grated cheese and make sure you can see some bread between them cheesy bits. You get taste, and less ... cheese.
Meat: The best meat substitute I know is Hummus, (I could be called a hummus queen) I'll post a recipe below, but it's dead simple. It adds a middle eastern flair to your snammich and it's much better for you.
Veggies: You can put anything in a sandwich, we all know. But it depends on the way you put it in.. but you pack them veggies in there!
Grated carrot goes very well on a hummus sandwich. Put it on the hummus side, and put spinach between the carrot and the other piece of bread. Tres yum.
Mostly this is about the wonders of hummus, it can replace your meat and your mayonnaise or ranch or whatever you prefer to put in your sandwich.
Hummus is ALWAYS best to make yourself, usually commercial brands are made by throwing a can of chick peas in a processor without draining and rinsing them, and then you have this salty odd taste to your hummus. Bleh! Commercial brands are almost ALWAYS higher in fat than what you'll make yourself and hummus is a big one for that.
Hummus base:
A can of chick peas, Drained and rinsed!
Garlic.*
Lemon juice.
Olive oil
You'll need to add water if you're not adding yogurt and tahini to thin it out a little bit.
*How much garlic you put in depends on you. If you like garlic a lot a lot a lot, which is wonderful, you can put up to 10 large cloves in like I do.
For people who do not follow the garlic religion, you should put at least three well sized garlic cloves in.
Optional:
Tahini Tahini keeps forever in your fridge *it's sesame seed paste* and adds a yummy creamy nutty taste to your hummus. If you add it in, add only around 3 tsp max.
Basil It's tasty! : D
Parsley See above. Also tasty.
Cayenne Is very very good for you, but it's not for everyone. It adds a very nice bite to your hummus. I personally add around eleven-fourteen shakes of my cayenne shaker. Experiment with your hummus, beginners who don't mind spicy should maybe start with 3-4 shakes.
Plain Yogurt. The love of my life, yogurt goes into almost everything I make. Use it fairly sparingly adding it spoon by spoon and pulsing between spoonfuls until you reach the right consistency. It makes your hummus like heaven.
How can you tell I ate a sandwich with hummus on it just now?
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 5:33 am
Pasta Substitute
Spaghetti squash! Split it open and scoop out the seeds and pulp. Place face-down on a cookie sheet (both halves, or save one half for the next meal). Cover with about a cup or two of water and sprinkle a tablespoon of salt into the water. Bake in a 400 degree oven for about an hour -- just until the skin of the squash starts to turn a bit brownish in spots. Remove from the oven and use a fork to pry the strands of squash away from the shell and into your bowl, fluffing them a bit so they come apart from one another. Looks almost exactly like pasta. You can use this in ANY way that you'd normally use spaghetti noodles. I like it in pasta salad, or under marinara sauce; I also make a terrific 'noodle' kugel with this.
Zero-Fat Hummous
You can make this yourself. Use one can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained, dumped into the food processor. Add a tablespoon of lemon juice, half a teaspoon of salt, and HALF of a clove of garlic (because you still want to have some friends when you're finished). Whir it all up. You can use this on sandwiches or as a dip for veggies. If you want an olive oil or tahini flavor, add ONE teaspoon of either, or HALF a teaspoon of each -- these are both fats, and will add substantially to the calorie count. When using hummous as a dip for veggies, I do add half a teaspoon of olive oil, but I also toss in half a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar, and then I sprinkle a bit of paprika on top.
Sandwiches
Use Weight Watchers bread. No, it isn't quite as delicious as full-fat, full-carb bread. However, three slices of WW bread have equal calories to one slice of regular bread (yes, even the Double Fiber breads). Load the sandwich with vegetables. Tomato, lettuce, alfalfa sprouts, cucumber slices, onion slices, green pepper slices. Go crazy with the veggies, just like they do at Subway. Add ONE thin slice of meat or cheese -- bonus points if you use low-fat or fat-free. For flavor, decorate your bread with mustard and a very thin spray of olive or canola, instead of a big dollop of mayonnaise, and don't skip the salt and pepper.
Desserts
Instead of reaching for fudge, cookies, pies, and cakes, think about fruit. Few things are nicer or more refreshing, especially with spring about to start, than a cup of sliced strawberries sprinkled with a little Splenda and a little cinnamon, garnished with a mint sprig if you're feeling fancy.
If you MUST have a richer dessert, try this instead of eating a whole big candy bar. Core an apple (per person) and stick it in a pie tin. Cut up a Snickers bar into about six smaller pieces (bonus points if you use the one that's got 1/3 less fat, or whatever they're saying it is, and/or sugar-free -- yes, they do make sugar-free, low-fat candy bars). Push two of the pieces into the center of the apple. Bake at 300 Fahrenheit for about half an hour, until the apple's skin looks tight around the flesh, and maybe a little bit wrinkled or puckered just at the edge where you can see skin and flesh. Voila -- you've only eaten a third of a candy bar, and you got a whole dessert!
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Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:03 pm
Sandwhich;
PITAAA! Why has noone mentioned pita?
I use a whole wheat pita, then sautee some beansprouts, and other veggies that I like, I add a bit of lean meat if i'm in an especially hungry mood, or an egg, then cook it all up in a wok, shove it inside a pita and add some fresh lettuce.
So tasty.
I add a few tablespoons of soy and ginger salad dressing to it for flavor as well, but soy sauce and a bit of fresh ginger could be just as tasty.
Hummis;
I find that adding seasame seeds, or a little bit of seaseme oil adds a lot ot hummus. Plus seaseme is full of good fats.
I also like to add a splish of soy sauce.
If you have a food processor some nice red pepper..mmmm
or other veggies, can be added right into the hummis.
Pasta;
the sauce is where it's at. You can add TONS of vegetables to pasta sauce to make your pasta healthier and more filling. Plus, if you dont like the texture of veg, you can run your veggies through a food processor and add it to the sauce.
I do love carbs, and I feel that SOME carbs are necessary, so generally i use a sparing amount of whole wheat noodles as well, about half a cup.
Pizza;
Whole wheat crust, load it up with veggies and tomato sauce, sprinkle sparingly with a bit of feta and parmesan, and you have a healthy alternative to pizza. n_n
You can throw anything on a pizza, just steer clean of any processed meats or cheeses like thay put on a regular 'delivery' type pizza. Although they do have thin-crust, whole wheat options, so if you are unavoidably eating takeout, that's one way to go. Whole wheat thincrust vegetarian, easy on the cheese!
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Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 10:30 pm
EE!
Garlemis dressing!
Another creation of salad improving wonders from my kitchen.
This is as it says, garlic. Garlic and lemon. But there's also olive oil and water.
So you take around 7 cloves of garlic.
Add about 3 table spoons of lemon juice.
Add around one tablespoon of olive oil.
And as much or little water as you like.
It's best heated and put directly on the salad. The lemon balances the garlic very nicely so you don't get any of that burning ouch sensation, and the olive oil balances the acids in the lemon. (or at least that's what seems to happen) not too sour, not too garlicky.
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Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 10:24 am
Groovy Spleen Sandwhich; PITAAA! Why has noone mentioned pita? Probably because pita contains the same amount of calories, carbs, and fats that are in "regular" bread. Pizza crust, by the way, contains a good deal MORE calories and fats than regular bread. The toppings can be healthy if they're veggies and low/non-fat cheeses, but the crust is still a killer.
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 12:44 pm
Divash Groovy Spleen Sandwhich; PITAAA! Why has noone mentioned pita? Probably because pita contains the same amount of calories, carbs, and fats that are in "regular" bread. Pizza crust, by the way, contains a good deal MORE calories and fats than regular bread. The toppings can be healthy if they're veggies and low/non-fat cheeses, but the crust is still a killer. Depends on what kind you get, I suppose. Personally, the whole wheat Pita's I eat have 1/2 the fat, a lot less sodium, and less carbs than 2 slices of whole wheat bread, at about the same calories. Plus, you can put sauteed vegetables in them, let's see a piece of bread do that n_n It's all about reading labels. I've seen some breads that can go up to about 280 calories per 2 slices. Obviously pizza crust is bad, which is why I mentioned the thin, whole wheat crust, which cuts about half the calories out. I'm not saying go out and order yourself a whole large, but a slice of thincrust, wholewheat with lots of veggies is not exacty 'junk'.
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