Wow - it looks like has been a while since any singles posted. I have found a site that I like for recipes - and many of them can be changed for smaller amounts. Food Fit

I am participating in the National Body Challenge through the Discovery Channel. I am feeling better and I think my blood pressure is slowly on the way down. (I have got to get it down!!)

Tonight I tried a chicken with sherry cream sauce. I went ahead and made it for 4 since my week will be hectic to begin with. It was yummy.

Want to add a recipe, too.. while I am at it

Avocado Tuna Salad

This is a recipe that easily will serve one, you can make a sandwich with it and then save whatever's left and eat it the next day (unless you're like me, and sometimes you can't stop yourself from demolishing it). I try to bulk up on the veggies, but I don't so much have exact measurements for how much I use of all of them.


1/2 avocado
1 can of tongol tuna
diced celery
dill relish
chopped green onion
juice of a lime
cumin, up to 1 tsp (to taste)
chili powder, 1/2 tsp
1 to 2 tsp mustard (I use the yellow kind, again to your taste)
dash of Frank's original Red Hot (optional, I like it)

What, no mayonnaise??? No imitation fat free salad dressing?? Nope! The trick is to mash up the avocado like guacamole and let it serve as the binding for the salad. In fact, if you can't tell from the seasonings, guacamole is the inspiration for this dish (as I LOVE the stuff). I wanted a completely mayonnaise-less tuna salad, but liked the consistency and flavor that the mayo gives it. So I use avocado instead. Mash avocado, then combine with the rest of the ingredients. Wonderful on multigrain bread with some tomato--and if you're feeling like cheese, which I'm often not, a slice of sharp or smoked cheddar is marvellous on it.

Kali
That is a great idea!

A good rule of thumb is that anything you can buy frozen, you can make from scratch and freeze.

I would suggest using brown rice to up the fiber content and you can buy it in bulk. Add some beans, and you have a great meal : )

I am not only single but also young and broke and living in the city--the student area, no less. The produce section of the local grocery (we call it "Kro-ghetto" instead of Kroger, you can imagine what it's like) leaves much to be desired. Most students in my position find themselves eating a lot of ramen, a lot of pre-packaged foods or foods out of a pouch. I am a cooking fanatic and am loathe to do that, not only because I love cooking, but I hate the idea of eating things for which I don't know all of the ingredients. But as far as fresh foods go.. well, I don't have the money or the selection available to eat as much as I would like.

So, I had this idea. I am sure I'm not the first one to have it, so if anybody has any tips, let 'er rip (as Dad would say). You know those boxed rice meals, the Lipton pouches, the Zatarains boxes? The ones that come with all the spices and stuff already in them, and you just drop them into a pot and let them cook? Well, what if, on a day when I had a lot of time to bum around the kitchen, I made up a bunch of those from scratch from my OWN spice mixes, bagged them up in ziploc bags or in tupperwares, and saved them for a day when I didn't have the energy to put them together? Has anybody done anything like this? Does anybody have any tips, if so? I like this idea because I can cut out all the unnecessary sodium, high fructose corn syrup (my mortal enemy, grr!), hydrogenated oils, etc. Plus, I can eat real rice instead of those fakey half-pasta "rice" mixes that Lipton has.

Any tips would be helpful.

quote:

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Originally posted by SheriaVa:
Something I've been meaning to do for MONTHS is to buy a bottle of REAL sherry. For years, I cooked with "cooking sherry" from the grocery store which I know now that most chefs and food connoisseurs look down their nose at. So while in Whole Foods yesterday, I went to the wine section and asked for help. They didn't have much selection of sherrys and, even within the small selection, most of it was too pricey (IMHO) for cooking experimentation. But I did find a bottle for $12.95 and home it came.

I poured sherry into a ziplock baggie with a pork tenderloin. I added fresh thyme, garlic, ground pepper and a bit of season salt and let it marinate in the fridge for 2-3 hours. Then I put it in a covered roasting pan with a bit of chicken broth and roasted it in the oven about 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

While with the CT sisters at The Mustard Seed, I had some GREAT roasted red skin potatoes with dill and decided I must recreate them to go with my pork. I partially boiled the baby red skin potatoes first, sliced them, and laid them in a baking dish. Sprayed a bit of olive oil with my Misto, added fresh ground pepper, chopped baby dill, and I think a little oregano and season salt. Baked them at 425 until they were brown.

Meanwhile, I cooked some green beans in some veggie broth with some baby dill added as well.

Once I had removed the finished pork tenderloin to "rest," I reduced the "juices" from the pork and the chicken broth and added a little of the green bean broth too. I added 2 slices of potato and mashed them around in the juices and the potato starch helped thicken the "sauce."

I portioned out 3 oz. of pork tenderloin for each lunch and spooned a little sauce over each portion. I added some roasted potatoes to each container and put some string beans into a separate, smaller container.

I gotta tell you...most of the time, I'm pretty happy with my work lunches but they aren't anything to write home about. Today, I felt like I was eating a gourmet meal. WOWZA! The pork was SO fragrant with the sherry and fresh thyme and the potatoes were yummy too.

This is what I've been wanting to do...to experiment more and step up my cooking skills. This was definitely one successful experiment!

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Sheri,

This sounds SOOOOOO good! And very "oooh la la" I may have to get a beef roast and give it a try sometime soon. Our anniversary (15 years) is in a few days (the 27th), but I won't have the $$ for a really great dinner that night. I'm going to do it the following Monday (payday ). And this sounds just perfect for that night! Thank you!

The new (Team Martha) television show "Everyday Food" was on our local PBS channel today. Here are the recipes:

http://weta.org/everydayfood/recipes.php

Not sure if this is something KD covered or if I saw it somewhere else, BUT...

I have a huge weakness for pasta. I thought I would try an idea I saw for zucchini "pasta" and tell you what I thought. I'm posting it here because I think it's a great single recipe.

I took a zucchini and used a cheese slicer to slice it into long whole strips. then i cut them in half again so they were kind of like egg noodles. I cooked them in a pan for LITERALLY 1-2 minutes. They were so thin, it was that fast. Then I stuck some bottled tomato sauce on it and voila. It isn't just like eating pasta...no comfort carb feeling or anything. So if you're really in the mood for main dish pasta, I would just do ww and portion control. But I think this would make a GREAT easy side dish to heavier main entrees we typically might expect pasta to be served with. (ex. chicken parmesan) Plus it really was super easy and fast. You can just whip it up at the end using the same pan you cooked in.

Sheri, this is one of my most favorite salads to make:

Greens
Crumbled blue cheese (the good stuff, so you don't have to use much)
Sliced red onions
Walnuts
Raspberries

And, for the kicker, your own raspberry vinaigrette dressing: olive oil, raspberry balsamic vinegar (it's on the grocery store shelves here), a dollop of sugar-free raspberry jam, and a sprinkling of dried basil. I pack it in a teeny tiny tupperware with a layer of plastic wrap set across the opening, then put the top on. No leaks that way.

The same general idea (oil, vinegar, jam) works really great with apricot jam, too, and I think it's great with orange marmalade.

D

Another "Sheri's Signature Salad" this week. Spring greens topped with:

1) Broiled sirloin steak (marinated in spice rub for an hour and then in sherry and Worchestershire for another). Oh baby, is it good!

2) Chopped cukes and radishes and halved grape tomoatoes.

3) A small sprinkling of chopped walnuts.

4) A small sprinkling of herbed croutons.

5) Paul Newman's Lowfat Raspberry Walnut dressing.

6) A handful of fresh raspberries.

I'll report back after lunch to see if this combo is successful as the last.

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...WELL. It tastes fine but the corn tortillas basically disintegrated...

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In a Queso Fundido, the filling is baked separately in a casserole, and then scooped into tortillas immediately before eating. That way, the tortillas don't get soggy.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Sheltieguy,

Sheri. . .Rachael Ray has a recipe for a "Mexican Lasagna" on the Food Network boards that's easily cleaned up. . .I'm making it again tonight, since the leftovers are (dare I say it?) even BETTER than the original. It's basically a taco casserole. . .I even use whole wheat tortillas in it to no ill effects.

D

quote:

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Originally posted by p7eggyc:
I always have this problem with corn tortillas. One thing you might try instead is layering your ingredients in an 8x8 casserole dish and then just cutting it into 4 2x2 square servings. If you chill it off in the fridge before you try to get it into your work lunch containers it should cut into nice neat squares.

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Ah, excellent idea, thanks. I was starting my cooking marathon SO late last night cuz of lunch with a friend that I didn't want to let it set in the fridge before portioning into containers for my lunches. But next time, I will try to plan ahead for that cuz I'm SURE it will be easier than what happened...which was sticking in the spatula and trying to "grab" a section of casserole and having it fall apart and then having to scoop it into the container in pieces. It looks REALLY disgusting. LOL

I'm about to stop for lunch right now so we'll see how it heats up and whether I can tolerate it even for today, much less for all week! hehe

Sheri,
MMMMM...sounds yummy even if they didn't 'look' right. Story of my culinary life!

You could try and fry them in a dry pan or maybe with just a misto spray of evoo on each side and see how that works.

I always have this problem with corn tortillas. One thing you might try instead is layering your ingredients in an 8x8 casserole dish and then just cutting it into 4 2x2 square servings. If you chill it off in the fridge before you try to get it into your work lunch containers it should cut into nice neat squares.

That's a trick Joanna Lund uses a lot in her cookbooks. She does an exchanges type program and has tons of books. I like her ideas but her recipes call for a lot of prepared foods and artificial sweeteners so I just haven't used her stuff much. Might work for some of you though. She talks about food not taking any longer to prepare than it takes to eat. An idea I'm sure most of us can get behind. She also has a focus on hard to please family members (like her hubby I guess is a pretty tough sell).

Peg

Well, I experimented with my menu for my work lunches again this week but this experiment wasn't QUITE as successful as the last few weeks. As you guys know, I don't use recipes much...I got in my head what I wanted to make, something I've never made, and I just threw it together. Well, it is an enchilada-type dish. Chicken, black beans, red bell peppers, onions and a little LF cheddar cheese rolled up inside corn tortillas and baked with a red sauce all over the top.

WELL. It tastes fine but the corn tortillas basically disintegrated. I thought I was going to be able to pull out two "enchiladas" for each lunch but it was more like a casserole by the time it was all over! It came out of the dish in many pieces. LOL

So the corn tortilla package said that frying them first would help keep them from cracking and such but obviously I didn't want to fry them if I was trying to make a healthy dish! So, any recommendations for the future or is this just destined to happen?

quote:

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Originally posted by grrlscout:
But I also like Annie's Naturals low fat gingerly vinaigrette.

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I had that in my cart on Monday at Whole Foods and then put it back when I found the peanut one by Tamari, cuz that seemed closer to what I was looking for/in the mood for at the time.

I'm totally with ya on "super salads" Sheri. That's what I eat for lunch probably at least 3 days a week.

Some of my add-ons:

• toasted raw pumpkin seeds
  
• sliced almonds
  
• cubed avocado
  
• fancy lil tomatoes (teardrop or yellow pear)
  
• grated asiago or romano

My typical dressing is olive oil and a sprinkle of kosher salt. But I also like Annie's Naturals low fat gingerly vinaigrette. Sometimes I make my own vinaigratte. I like to make an asian one, similar to yours. Swicthing around with different oils and vinegars and seasonings is fun. Sometimes I add a dab of chili paste to it.

Another lunch experiment this week has gone well, so I thought I'd post. I have not been getting nearly enough veggies lately, esp. in the way of greens, so I knew I wanted my lunches this week to be salad-based. As much as I can enjoy a salad when in the mood, I tend to not enjoy "just plain salad," so I wanted to do something to "kick it up a notch" (as Emeril would say) so I could enjoy it all week.

I found a lowfat peanut dressing at Whole Foods on Monday (Tamari was the brand, I think) and marinated boneless chicken breasts in that for a few hours. Since the remnants of Frances were dumping rain on us, I broiled rather than grilled the chicken. Once it cooled, I cubed it, weighed out three 3-oz. portions, and put each portion into a small plastic container.

Other salad topping preparations:
1. I chopped up some baby plum tomatoes and cucumbers.
2. I toasted some pecans (didn't add any oil).
3. I crushed a few crostini (also from Whole Foods) for croutons.
4. I made a dressing with rice wine vinegar, toasted sesame oil and a dab of smooth peanut butter (my first time attempting to recreate the great asian peanut salad dressings I've had in restaurants).

In packing it for lunches, I packed the salad (storebought spring greens) in a large plastic container with the cukes and tomatoes, put a small serving of dressing in a separate tiny container, and combined a small serving of croutons and pecans in another tiny container.

In assembling to eat, I poured the dressing over the salad greens, poured the chicken cubes over that, and poured the croutons and pecans over that, and then tossed it a bit to mix the dressing in a bit.

The peanut dressing went great with the peanuty marinade for the chicken and the pecans were a great addition for not only crunch but flavor. It was one of the best salads I've ever made!

Sheri,
Sounds like a great gourmet feast! Now I am thinking about a pork loin.

Something I've been meaning to do for MONTHS is to buy a bottle of REAL sherry. For years, I cooked with "cooking sherry" from the grocery store which I know now that most chefs and food connoisseurs look down their nose at. So while in Whole Foods yesterday, I went to the wine section and asked for help. They didn't have much selection of sherrys and, even within the small selection, most of it was too pricey (IMHO) for cooking experimentation. But I did find a bottle for $12.95 and home it came.

I poured sherry into a ziplock baggie with a pork tenderloin. I added fresh thyme, garlic, ground pepper and a bit of season salt and let it marinate in the fridge for 2-3 hours. Then I put it in a covered roasting pan with a bit of chicken broth and roasted it in the oven about 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

While with the CT sisters at The Mustard Seed, I had some GREAT roasted red skin potatoes with dill and decided I must recreate them to go with my pork. I partially boiled the baby red skin potatoes first, sliced them, and laid them in a baking dish. Sprayed a bit of olive oil with my Misto, added fresh ground pepper, chopped baby dill, and I think a little oregano and season salt. Baked them at 425 until they were brown.

Meanwhile, I cooked some green beans in some veggie broth with some baby dill added as well.

Once I had removed the finished pork tenderloin to "rest," I reduced the "juices" from the pork and the chicken broth and added a little of the green bean broth too. I added 2 slices of potato and mashed them around in the juices and the potato starch helped thicken the "sauce."

I portioned out 3 oz. of pork tenderloin for each lunch and spooned a little sauce over each portion. I added some roasted potatoes to each container and put some string beans into a separate, smaller container.

I gotta tell you...most of the time, I'm pretty happy with my work lunches but they aren't anything to write home about. Today, I felt like I was eating a gourmet meal. WOWZA! The pork was SO fragrant with the sherry and fresh thyme and the potatoes were yummy too.

This is what I've been wanting to do...to experiment more and step up my cooking skills. This was definitely one successful experiment!

Thanks Grrlscout! I ordered 6 of their brochures. They look like good stuff...one was on snacks and another was on breakfast. 2 challenging areas for me.

Peg