Archive Page 3

The True Adventures of Mock Chopped Liver

Published May 16, 2011 Uncategorized 2 Comments
Tags: , ,

Each year my congregation has a community seder at Passover. About 80 people attend. We hire a caterer for the main course, but members are assigned traditional foods, such as the haroset or the matzoh balls to put in the soup.  This year they requested that I make my famous chopped liver, using my mother’s age-old recipe. But they also asked if I could possibly make a “mock” chopped liver for the vegetarians among us, or those who don’t like liver in any form.

Now I’m not sure why anyone would mock chopped liver. It is a high fat food of the gods, which should be treated with utmost respect.  And, I am not going to include the recipe for chopped liver as if it were healthy and low fat, although I’ll tell you the secret formula at the end of this post.  Just so you know the difference:

The chopped liver is to the left – the mock is to the right

But what would mock chopped liver consist of? I decided it should be essentially like chopped liver – braised onions lending their caramelized sweetness to the same mix of hard boiled eggs, chicken-flavor broth crystals and …what?  I decided to use mushrooms in place of the chicken livers, in the exact same proportion as the chopped liver.

The recipe is:

For each pound of mushrooms, sliced (I used ordinary button mushrooms) use
1 hard boiled egg
1 fairly large onion, sliced vertically
1 Tablespoon canola oil
Chicken-style (vegetarian) soup mix or bullion cubes (crushed) to taste

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Sauté the onions until golden brown and somewhat caramelized.  Remove to a bowl. Add mushrooms to the same pan. Sauté  until soft and somewhat browned. Put onions, mushrooms, and egg through a food grinder. If you use a food processor instead of a grinder, pulse so that the mixture is coarse. Add soup mix to taste, mixing it in thoroughly. Makes 6 servings at 3 grams of fat/serving.  I actually thought the mock chopped liver, which is actually a mushroom pate, tasted better than the real thing – oh sacrilege! And I plan to make it again just to eat with crackers.

I actually think I could make this without any oil – just sauté the ingredients in a non-stick pan coated with cooking spray, adding hot water periodically to “steam fry” the onions and mushrooms. This is how I usually cook onions – without oil. You get the same rich caramelized taste. Then the mock chopped liver would only be about 1 gram of fat/serving.

But wait, I said there was an adventure. I made the mock chopped liver the day of the seder (the chopped liver had been made 2 days before). This meant I got up early and sautéed 6 onions and six pounds of mushrooms. This took several hours, because while I have a very large sauté pan, I still had to cook them in several batches. I confess I was working with some haste, so that I would have time to take a nice hot shower before driving to the seder location. I ground the mushrooms, eggs, and onions into the large metal bowl of my mixer. The bowl was very full. I then set the bowl aside while removing the grinder from the mixer so I could use it to mix the seasoning into the mock chopped liver. In my haste, I bumped the full bowl and it crashed to the hard kitchen floor. Miraculously, it landed upright, with most of the food in it. But the impact shot some of the contents out of the bowl …

Onto the floor
(I had already cleaned it off the wall, which was coated)

Onto the ceiling

On the wall above the refrigerator, which was across the room.

There was mushroom mix on cabinets, walls, random dishes, and other locations that reveal themselves daily. I hastily cleaned and headed for the hot shower.  I still haven’t figured out how to get it off the wall above the refrigerator.

So what am I – chopped liver?

There is no way you can make chopped liver low fat (I’ve tried), so you should make it once a year, eat it and enjoy, and give the leftovers to deserving people so it doesn’t tempt you from the refrigerator.

The reason it isn’t low fat is not only because it is made with chicken livers and eggs, but because the onions and livers are cooked in Chicken Fat! I render my own chicken fat. To render chicken fat (an ancient art practiced by my mother and grandmother) remove all the skin and fat from a large raw chicken. (Use the naked chicken for something else.) The skin and fat from one chicken makes enough fat for about 3-4 pounds of liver. Place the skin and fat into a large sauté pan, and cook slowly over a medium low heat for several hours until there is golden liquid fat in the pan, and crisp bits of skin, known as gribenes. Wikipedia says that gribenes are crisp chicken or goose skin cracklings somewhat similar to pork rinds. Gribenes are a byproduct of schmaltz (the Yiddish term for chicken fat) preparation.

When I was young, my mother would fish these bits of skin out of the pan onto a paper towel to drain, and then sprinkle the hot gribenes with salt for anxious children to grab as snacks. My advice is to nibble one…and then speedily put them in the garbage or feed them to your dogs, or whatever it takes to get the addictive little bits out of the house. I rendered enough chicken fat to freeze some for next year.

Once you have the chicken fat, follow the same proportions and procedure as for the mock chopped liver, substituting the liver for the mushrooms. I usually use the same pan I rendered the fat in, and cook it all in one day.

Sweet Potato Salad

Published April 27, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: , , ,

Two weekends ago was our community clean up day. We resourceful residents rise early of a Saturday, don our sweats and gloves, pick up our big white trash bags, and get to work cleaning the roadsides up and down the hills of our semi-rural community. Usually, it’s a crisp sunny spring day, but this has been a soggy April and the day dawned with a steady cold drizzle. My neighbor, who is in her 70s, and I questioned our sanity as we shivered along picking up the beer cans and bottles that had been strewn along the mountainside road in front of our homes. Since our road overlooks the city, weekend nights see cars parked along the road, with people looking at the lights…or whatever else people do in parked cars on weekend nights, and tossing their beverage containers out their windows.  At any rate, by the time we dropped off our filled bags at the designated corner, we were both ready to go home and warm up before we picked up the salads we made for the post clean up potluck.

This salad originally appeared in the AARP magazine. I thought it would be a little different than ordinary potato salad, and have a bit more color.  The instructions said to bake the sweet potatoes for an hour, but in my opinion, that made them too mushy. The pieces did not maintain their shape well.  I think 45 minutes is more than enough. You could even microwave them until just soft.

I made a double recipe because I was taking it to a potluck. But the rain kept a lot of people away, so I had lots of leftovers. As an experiment, I reheated one serving as a sweet potato side dish. It worked very well, although the celery remained crisp, and that texture was a little different – but still good.

Sweet Potato Salad

4 small sweet potatoes
1/4 cup low fat mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon mustard (I used Dijon)
4 celery stalks, sliced 1/4-inch thick
1 small red bell pepper, cut into 1/4-inch dice
½ of a 20 ounce can of pineapple tidbits, drained
2 scallions, finely chopped
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup coarsely chopped toasted pecans
Chopped fresh chives (optional)

Preheat oven to 400˚F. Wrap each sweet potato in foil and bake for 1 hour (see above for my cautions). Unwrap; let cool. Peel; cut into 3/4-inch chunks.

In a large bowl, mix mayonnaise and mustard. Add sweet potatoes, celery, red pepper, pineapple, and scallions; toss gently. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate about 1 hour (I actually chilled mine overnight, since I wanted to make it ahead of the clean up day.)

Fold in pecans and sprinkle with chives if using. Makes 8 servings at 5 grams of fat/serving.

NOTE: Anticipating a desire to take this to work for lunch, I removed 2 servings and put them in separate containers before I added the pecans. Without the pecans, the salad has less than 1 gram of fat/serving.

Packed up and ready to be taken to the potluck.

Orange Kiss Me Cake

Published April 6, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: , ,

When I was in elementary school, my mother took a home catering course that was held in the cafeteria of a local school. Although my mother worked part-time as a bookkeeper, her primary identity was as the keeper of a home with four children – she was a homemaker. This was, after all, the Fifties. There were a number of such classes offered to help women perfect their home-making skills.

I only remember a few things she learned to make: tiny carrots made out of Velveeta cheese and a bit of parsley, another appetizer consisting of little circles of toast with a mound of ground beef ornamented with circles of mustard and ketchup, to be served hot to guests who would no doubt be in awe of your culinary skills.  My mother was a already a great cook of traditional foods, and I don’t remember her newly learned appetizers appearing many times after the initial introduction to the relatives at a family party.

One recipe that stayed, however, was Orange Kissimmee Cake (for the town of Kissimmee, Florida). We always giggled because we thought it was “Kiss Me” cake, which to our childish minds had a tinge of naughty.  But it was one of my favorite cakes, redolent of nuts, orange, cinnamon, and raisins. It was bitter and sweet – a grown up cake so different from frosted cakes. The recipe I found in Susan Purdy’s “Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too” was similar to my mother’s recipe (and Purdy calls it Orange Kiss Me Cake – tee hee), although considerably lower In fat. My mother ground up the orange with walnuts and raisins, using the same hand grinder that she used to make chopped liver for the holidays – this recipe only uses nuts on the top of the cake. I lowered the fat content further by substituting some of the oil with applesauce.

A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE about oranges.  This recipe calls for one whole orange to be ground up whole, with the skin, which is what my mother did. But Florida oranges are very different from the navel oranges available in stores in most of the U.S. Florida oranges are juice oranges and have thin skins, and very little bitter white pith. Navel oranges have thick skins, and lots of bitter white pith.

If you are going to use a navel orange, which I did, you will need to remove the thin orange zest, then peel the orange to remove the white pith, and cut the remaining fruit in eighths to be ground with the zest and raisins. If you are fortunate enough to have a thin skinned Florida orange, you can just grind it skin and all.

Orange Kiss Me Cake

Butter Flavor cooking spray
2 cups sifted all purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon mace
2 Tablespoons toasted wheat germ
1 orange (see note above) cut into eighths and seeded
1 cup seedless raisons
2 Tablespoons canola oil
1/3 cup + 2 Tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg plus 1 large egg white
1 cup orange juice

Orange Glaze
½ cup orange juice
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar

Topping
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ cup finely chopped toasted pecans (note – I would have preferred to use walnuts, like my mother did.  I think it would be better that way – or at least more like I was used to)

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 9×13 inch pan with cooking spray. Dust with flour and tap out excess flour.

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and mace into a bowl. Stir in wheat germ.

In a food processor or meat grinder, grind together the orange sections (and zest for non-Florida oranges) and raisins. If you are using a food processor, be careful not to puree the mixture – you want it coarsely textured in about 1/8 inch bits.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, combine oil, applesauce, sugar, egg, and egg white. Beat until well blended. Alternately add the flour mixture and the orange juice, beating on low speed, and starting and ending with the flour mixture. Stir in the orange/raisin mixture. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and level the top. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the cake is golden brown on top and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

While the cake is baking, prepare the glaze and topping. In a small saucepan over medium heat, stir together the glaze ingredients (orange juice and sugar) until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat. In a small owl stir together the sugar, cinnamon, and nuts. Set aside.

Remove cake from oven when done. Set the pan on a wire rack. While the cake is still hot, prick the top all over with a toothpick or bamboo skewer. Spoon the glaze evenly over the cake. Sprinkle on the topping. Allow the cake to sit for about 2 hours to absorb the glaze and to cool thoroughly. Cut into squares and serve. The original recipe said it made 12 squares, but these would be very large. I made 24 servings at about 3.5 grams of fat/serving.

In the pan


Heading to a potluck

If you should happen to have some leftovers, this cake freezes well, although some people have been known to eat the pieces while still frozen rather than waiting for them to defrost.

Wild Rice Pilaf

Published March 22, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: , , ,

Before I totally forget to post it, here is the recipe for Wild Rice Pilaf that I served with the Moroccan Braised Veal Shanks. It is a fine side dish, and also was good to eat plain for lunch the next day. The original recipe was from Cooking Light.  My only caution is to make sure that the wild rice cooks until tender. It may take longer than you think – so leave plenty of time and check it periodically after an hour.

Wild Rice Pilaf

1  1/4 cups water
2 (16-ounce) cans fat-free, less-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
1  1/2  cups uncooked wild rice
1 Tablespoon butter
3 cups sliced mushrooms
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
1/3 cup chopped pecans, toasted
3/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Cooking spray

Bring water and broth to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add wild rice; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour or until tender. Drain.

Preheat oven to 325°.

Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and onion; sauté 6 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in parsley, pecans, poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper. Combine rice and mushroom mixture in a 2-quart casserole coated with cooking spray. Cover and bake at 325° for 25 minutes.  Makes 8 servings at about 5.4 grams of fat/serving.

Leprechaun Soup

Published March 17, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: , , ,

Every St. Patrick’s Day I fall prey to the desire to make corned beef and cabbage. I choose a nice corned beef brisket and set to the task of cooking it.  Despite the fact that I cut away all visible fat, and simmer and drain it several times, it is still greasy – and I inevitably get sick from eating it. It also never tastes as good as I remember it from my mother’s kitchen.

So this year I decided to make something a little healthier. I suppose this recipe, originally from American Profile, is “Leprechaun” because of its green color, and the corn represents the leprechaun’s gold, although I prefer my gold in 24 karat bars. No leprechauns were damaged in its making.

The soup is rather light, more of an appetizer  than a meal soup, although with a nice wedge of Irish soda bread it would make a nice lunch.  This also gave me a chance to use the new toy I got myself for Christmas – a mighty  immersion blender.  I plan to do a lot more with it in the future.

Leprechaun Soup

3 tablespoons butter
1 (10-ounce) package frozen green peas, thawed (They seem to only have 16 ounce packages of frozen peas now, so I weighed out 10 ounces from the bag.)
1 medium head Boston lettuce, chopped (I used the remains of a bag of butter lettuce – which had a few leaves of red butter lettuce in it)
4 green onions, chopped (green and white parts)
5 cups lower-sodium chicken broth or vegetable broth
1 (15-ounce) can corn kernels, drained
1/4 teaspoon salt
Coarsely ground black pepper
Non-fat sour cream

Melt butter in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Add peas, lettuce and green onions. Cook until onions are translucent, stirring frequently.

Add broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until peas are tender, about 8 minutes. Working in 1-cup batches, purée mixture in a blender. Return puréed mixture to the pan. (Otherwise, stick your immersion blender in the pan and whirl away – it’s much easier.) Add corn and cook over medium-high heat 2 to 3 minutes, until thoroughly heated. Season with salt and pepper.

Ladle soup into individual serving bowls and top each serving with a tablespoon or so of  sour cream. Makes 5 servings at about 6.5 grams of fat/serving.

I forgot to put in the dollop of sour cream before I took the photo – and we all know that everything is better with a dollop of sour cream.

 

Moroccan Braised Veal Shanks

Published March 13, 2011 Uncategorized 1 Comment
Tags: , , ,

Some friends came to dinner the other night, and I needed to make something that met both their dietary habits and my desire not to have leftovers that have too much fat for me to eat. One of my principles is to only make food that I can eat – and that includes leftovers in the freezer for lunches and hasty dinners.  My friends don’t eat gluten and most starches, including potatoes and rice, and I, of course, focus on low fat eating.  I was beginning to feel like that nursery rhyme about “Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean.”

I started the meal with roasted cherry tomatoes over goat cheese and baby greens.

I am really enamored of these roasted cherry tomatoes.  I make them every couple of weeks and spoon them hot over chicken or fish, or most frequently cold on good bread or crackers spread with a Laughing Cow cheese wedge and topped with the tomatoes.

I really felt like making something Moroccan, but had to find a recipe that wasn’t heavy on fruit and honey, which are so typical of this North African cuisine. These braised veal shanks were perfect, and they even contain sweet potato, which is one of my friend’s favorite dishes (and one of the few starches she still eats.)  Instead of serving it over couscous, which would be its more usual presentation, I made a wild rice pilaf, which I will post later. Wild rice is actually a grass, and not in the same category as wheat and other grains.

This recipe, originally from Cooking Light, kind of puzzled me, because the serving size math seemed to be wrong. It called for 4 pounds of veal shanks. Even if there were a pound of bone in the veal shanks, that still leaves about 48 ounces of meat. But the recipe said it made six 3 ounce servings, which is mathematically impossible. That would only be 18 ounces of meat, total, and this made much more.  I used cross-cut veal shanks, which may have been a bit meatier, even after the fat was trimmed away, although many pieces had only a little meat.

The finished braised veal filled one of my largest pans.

I estimate that there were easily 12 servings – I’m going to be eating the leftovers forever – yum.

Moroccan Braised Veal Shanks

Spice rub:
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon black pepper
4 (16-ounce) veal shanks (because I used cross-cut shanks, I just purchased 4 lbs., rather than 4 shanks.

Remaining ingredients:
1 Tablespoon olive oil
3 cups chopped onion (I chopped the onion, celery, and carrot in the food processor)
3/4 cup chopped celery
3/4 cup diced carrot
2 Tablespoons chopped garlic cloves
2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 Tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon ground coriander
3 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 cup dry white wine
3 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
3 cups (1/2-inch) cubed peeled butternut squash or sweet potato (I used sweet potato)
4 carrots, cut into 1-inch-thick pieces (about 8 ounces)
1 14 ounce can drained canned chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
4 teaspoons (or more) chopped fresh mint (optional) for garnish

Preheat oven to 350°.

To prepare spice rub, combine first 6 ingredients in a small bowl. Trim fat from veal; rub surface of veal with spice rub. Set aside.

Heat oil in a (very) large Dutch oven or large heavy stockpot over medium-high heat. Add veal; cook 3 minutes on each side. Remove from pan. Add onion, celery, diced carrot, garlic, and ginger; cover, reduce heat, and cook 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in 1 teaspoon turmeric, paprika, and coriander. Add broth, wine, juice, and tomato paste, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Return veal to pan; bring to a boil. Cover and bake at 350° for 45 minutes. Turn shanks; add squash, carrot pieces, and chick peas. Cover and bake an additional 45 minutes or until veal shreds easily with a fork. Remove veal from pan, and remove meat from bones.  Return veal to pan  and stir into other ingredients.

Serve veal and vegetable mixture over couscous or other pilaf. Garnish with mint, if desired. Makes 12 servings at about 6 grams of fat/serving.

Veal with wild rice pilaf

Dried Cherry Chili

Published February 27, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: , , , ,

Sometimes I think that winter dishes should be called “things in bowls”.  That is because we have been having weather that makes the outdoors look like this


And this:


Now I admit (somewhat grudgingly) that it is all quite beautiful, especially when the sun shines on the snow. But when it is combined with temperatures well below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, it quickly loses its charm.  Time to take out the soup pot and make things in bowls and keep the kitchen and my tummy warm.

 

This recipe, which came from the Cherry Marketing Institute, originally was made with ground turkey. But I am not fond of chili with ground turkey – the regular ground turkey is not that low in fat, and I think that ground turkey breast does not have a good texture in dishes like chili. But this chili is great with ground buffalo. I don’t use store bought packages of ground buffalo. It is somewhat higher in fat than buffalo meat from a roast or some such, because I expect they use fattier cuts of meat. If you made this recipe with packaged ground buffalo, it would probably be closer to 12 grams of fat/serving, which isn’t that bad, but not as low as I like. I grind my own meat from buffalo roasts. I usually grind large amounts using the electric grinder attached to my mixer, but this time I wanted to grind only the pound I needed for the chili. So I used my food processor. Trim the buffalo of all fat and cut into about 2 inch pieces. Place in food processor and pulse several times until meat is ground to the texture that you want. Don’t overprocess – you’re looking for ground meat, not pate.

When I saw cherries and chili, I wondered how it would work out. I’m not sure I want sweet chili. But this chili is actually a nice, rich, somewhat spicy chili. The cherries are just a burst of tart-sweet flavor every now and then. It has beans, but not too many – and they’re black beans, which are a little different.

Dried Cherry Chili

2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth, divided

4 ounces dried tart cherries, chopped (¾ cup)

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

1 Tablespoon fresh chopped garlic

2 teaspoons finely chopped jalapeno

1 pound ground buffalo

1 roasted red bell pepper, cut into ¼-inch cubes

1 Tablespoon, plus 1 teaspoon, chili powder

1½ teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon dried mustard

½ teaspoon dried oregano

4 cups chopped fire-roasted tomatoes  (2 15 ounce cans will work)

1 (16-ounce) can black beans, drained

¼ cup chopped cilantro

 

Heat 1 cup of broth. Place cherries in small bowl. Add hot broth and set aside.

Heat olive oil in a 4-quart saucepan over medium heat. Add onion; sauté until onion is soft, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and jalapeno; cook 1 minute. Do not brown. Add buffalo; cook until it is no longer pink.
Add bell pepper, chili powder, cumin, coriander, mustard and oregano. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, about 2 minutes. Add tomatoes and remaining broth; bring to boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, about 5 minutes. NOTE: I used bottled roasted red peppers to save time.

Stir in beans, cilantro and cherry mixture. Continue cooking until thoroughly heated. Makes 8 servings at 5 grams of fat/serving.

I added 1 ounce of reduced fat cheese and homemade corn chips, adding 7 grams of fat to the overall meal.

Dijon Chicken Stew

Published February 13, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: , , ,

When you are eating low fat, you wind up eating a lot of chicken breasts. It’s inevitable.  Fortunately, chicken breasts are rather “neutral” and can be made in a lot of interesting ways, from breaded chicken fingers to curries. But I am always looking for something new to do with them so I don’t get bored. This is a very tasty way to make chicken that is a little different. The sauce is rather brothy, so much so that I plan to experiment with the recipe to create a soup. I had a bit of trouble finding escarole – maybe because it is winter. You could probably use another kind of greens, but escarole has the right crunch. The original recipe was from Eating Well, and I reduced the amount of olive oil to lower the fat a bit. It reheated well for lunch, but I’m not sure it would freeze well because the greens might lose their texture, which is a big part of the charm of the dish.  I served it with a nice crusty bread.  Warning – this is VERY garlicky – which I loved, and was one of the real attractions of the stew.  But if you’re not a garlic fan, you might try to reduce the garlic by half. Don’t eliminate it though. Garlic is one of the  flavors that make this stew special.
Dijon Chicken Stew
1/4 cup water
2 Tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup sliced shallots
1/4 cup chopped garlic
1 Tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary or 1 teaspoon dried (I don’t like rosemary – I used marjoram and I think you could use which ever herb is your favorite.)
1 cup dry white wine
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
8 cups chopped escarole (1 medium head)
1 14-ounce can reduced-sodium chicken broth
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper


Whisk water, mustard and cornstarch in a small bowl; set aside.
Heat oil in a Dutch oven or large pan over medium heat. Add shallots, garlic and rosemary (or other herb); cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add wine, cover and bring to a boil over high heat. Uncover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the wine is almost evaporated, 5 to 6 minutes.
Add chicken, escarole and broth. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is cooked through, 3 to 5 minutes. Whisk the cornstarch mixture and add to the pot. Bring the stew to a boil and cook for 1 minute or until slightly thickened. Season with salt and pepper.  Makes 4 servings @ 3.5 grams of fat/serving.

Ginger Pumpkin Tomato Soup

Published February 7, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: , ,

It is still cold, and to add insult to injury, it is snowing.  After I made six pounds of buffalo pot roast this morning to fill my freezer (and heat my kitchen), I decided to make more soup – the overall cure for cold and snowy weather. I had canned pumpkin left over from an earlier project, so that became the basis of my recipe search. This soup was a reader contribution to American Profile (another of those magazines that gets tucked into print newspapers).   Although the ingredients seemed a bit odd together, I did have them all in the house, and it was quick to make. I minced my onion and celery in the food processor, which gave them a nice texture in the soup. Also, since I had already used the processor, I just reused it to puree the stewed tomatoes.

The soup is quite thick and has some texture. It was really good with a dollop or two of non-fat sour cream in it (Everything is good with a dollop of sour cream!). I ate it for dinner tonight, packed one container to take for lunch this week, and the rest are carefully packed and labeled in the freezer for other cold days which, no doubt, are yet to come.

Ginger Pumpkin Tomato Soup

2 Tablespoons butter

1 1/2 cups minced yellow onion

1 cup minced celery

3/4 teaspoon dried ginger

1 14 ounce can of chicken or vegetable broth

1 (14-ounce) can Mexican-style stewed tomatoes

2 cups (or a 15 ounce can if you’re not using up leftovers) pumpkin purée

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Non-fat sour cream

Melt the butter in a Dutch oven or heavy skillet over medium heat (I used my ever-present big wok). Add the onions and celery. Cook for about 10 minutes, until the vegetables are softened (and your kitchen smells warms and delicious.) Sprinkle the dried ginger on top, and sauté for 30 seconds. Add the broth, and bring to a low boil, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, purée the canned tomatoes (with the juice) in a blender or food processor. Stir the tomatoes and the pumpkin into the broth mixture, and simmer covered for about 20 minutes. If the soup is too thick, add more broth or a little water. Season with pepper, and garnish with sour cream. Makes 6 servings at about 3.5 grams of fat/serving.

Chips and Dip

Published February 6, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: , ,

It is officially chip and dip time.  I actually am very found of the crunch of chips, particularly good corn chips, but most of them have too much fat for me to eat them often – and I haven’t yet found really low fat corn chips that taste good. Most of them are also too salty for my taste. But there are good corn tortillas that don’t have much fat. And it occurred to me that a tortilla is a corn chip waiting to happen.

Cumin Corn Chips

12 six inch corn tortillas (the kind that have about 1.5 fat grams for 2 tortillas)
Cooking spray
Sea salt or kosher salt to taste
Crushed cumin seeds

Preheat oven to 400. Spray 1 side of each tortilla with cooking spray; cut each tortilla into 8 wedges. Place the wedges on a large baking sheet; sprinkle with salt and cumin.
Bake for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Check frequently to make sure they don’t burn. Cool. Makes 3 servings, at 3 grams of fat for 32 chips. NOTE: you could really spice these up with cayenne pepper or other spices.

Sesame Wonton Chips

OK, these were kind of experimental, and I have mixed feelings about them. The recipe came from Relish, one of those little magazines that comes stuffed in your newspaper (for those of you who still get a paper newspaper.)  I think I would like them better if I had a fruity dip or salsa, rather than the creamy dip I made.  I also think that the wontons need to be cut in half, either into rectangles or triangles. The big square wonton wrappers are kind of ungainly once they are crisp.

Sesame Wonton Chips

2 Tablespoons honey
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
½ teaspoon garlic powder
30 wonton wrappers
sesame seeds

Preheat oven to 400. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray. Whisk together honey, soy sauce, and garlic powder. Lay wonton wrappers out on prepared baking sheets. Brush with soy sauce mixture and sprinkle lightly with sesame seeds. Bake for 7 minutes or until lightly browned and crisp. Makes 6 servings at about .5 grams of fat/serving.

I sprinkled some of them with black sesame seeds for contrast.

Lemony Dijon Dip (adapted from Costco magazine)

1 cup non-fat Greek yogurt
4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 Tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon dried dill weed
2 teaspoons lemon zest
Freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste

Makes about 1 cup of dip, with 0 grams of fat/serving.

« Previous Page — Next Page »

ABOUT KAREN

I have lost 200 pounds. I did not do it through surgery – I don’t like knives and needles – or by joining a club, vigorous exercise, or rigorous dieting. I did it by gourmet cooking. To be precise, by cooking low fat, really delicious food. I love to cook as much as I love to eat. Food magazines are some of my favorite reading. I would feel deprived if I couldn’t have the sensuous experience of good food crossing my lips. This blog is about my perpetual feast, my passionate love of food, with recipes, photos, and occasional advice and principles that I have learned along the way.

More about me.

AddThis Feed Button

Follow me on Twitter

  • Ordered capri pants from Land's End in the hope that summer will someday happen. #still 48 degrees 2 weeks ago
  • It was snowing this morning. In May! The snap peas I planted are shivering in horror. I think the geraniums fainted. 3 weeks ago

Archives

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.