eat heat

fresh pasta with red gravy and meat

2011-10-02T19:58:00.000-07:00

I saw an episode of No Reservations a couple of weeks ago that took place in Naples. One of the trips that Tony took was to some Grandma's house to eat Sunday dinner. She simmered a pot of meat with tomato sauce all day and served it over pasta. It looked really freaking good. So I tried to recreate it. Here's what you need:

2 tablespoons olive oil
4 short ribs, fat removed, coat with salt and pepper
3 Italian sausages
4 cloves garlic, diced
1 large sweet onion, diced
1/2 cup savignon blanc (or some other good white wine)
2 tablespoons oregano
28 oz can/jar high quality crushed tomatoes
28 oz can/jar high quality tomato sauce
2 small cans high quality tomato sauce

I started out with a 2 qt sauce pan, and added the olive oil on medium heat. When the oil was hot, I added the short ribs and sausages. Cook those until they're brown, then remove them from the pan. Add the onion and cook until it is translucent. Add the garlic and cook for one minute. Add the oregano and cook for 30 seconds. Add the wine to deglaze the pan. Cook until you no longer smell alcohol coming from the pot. Turn down the heat to as low as it will go. Add the meat back to the pot, add the crushed tomatoes and the large can/jar of tomato sauce. Stir and cover. Let the pot simmer all day. The longer it goes, the better it will be. I let mine go for 7 hours. I added two small cans of tomato sauce around hour 6 because it needed more liquid.

I highly recommend making spaghetti with this. The fresher it is, the better it will be. I made mine from scratch and all the flavors together were phenomenal. I served the meat on the side. I also garnished the dish with some fresh Parmesan.

Of course I kicked up the heat on the dish. I used crushed red peppers, though some drizzled habanero olive oil would be good too. Also, note that if you use fresh pasta, take a little less on your plate than usual. I find that it fills you up more than the old dried stuff.

Cheat Days

2011-09-05T19:55:00.000-07:00

As you know, I think diets are prone to failure, which is why my "Eat Heat" plan
is not a diet, but a lifestyle change. I have to chuckle every time I hear someone say "I'm on a diet, but <insert day> is my cheat day" or I'll eat whatever I want at this meal because I'll cheat this time. Let me preface what I'm about to say with a statement of encouragement: if you're losing weight or maintaining weight loss on a plan like this, by all means keep it up. It obviously works for you. However, my experience has been that one cheat day leads to another or the fact that you have cheat days indicates the underlying problem of what lead you to gain weight in the first place hasn't been sufficiently addressed.

In my plan, you can "cheat" anytime you want. I put "cheat" in quotes because my definition of cheating and what others on diets refer to as cheating are two very different things. In my book, cheating is when you eat something that you know is unhealthy and high in calories. It is a single event and not a chain of events throughout a day. On my plan, I eat something spicy with the meal so I'm not hungry in a couple of hours. I also eat in moderation and I exercise at some point during the day to get rid of a good portion of those calories. The net calorie gain over a typical day is minimal. In contrast, typical diet cheat days involve disregarding your diet habits and reverting to what got you to gain weight in the first place.

Case in point: today. I ate lunch at Sonic. I probably consumed close to 1000 calories. This is double my typical caloric intake at lunch. I ate a Chicago dog with my meal, which had "heat" from the sport peppers on it. To counteract what I ate, I did a half hour session on the elliptical (on an off day - I typically do intense workouts on Sun, Tues, and Thurs) to burn about 500 calories. Then I went to the park and played with my son for about an hour, which burned another couple hundred calories. By taking corrective action immediately to counter unhealthy eating, you don't build up excess calories and you get in the habit of taking action. It also makes you think a lot more carefully about what you eat.

By the way, in about 5 months on my plan, I've lost between 30-40 pounds (I don't weigh myself) and am down two whole pant sizes. I have almost completely replaced my wardrobe and look forward to doing it again in the next year.

Forward! Rice

2011-08-21T19:58:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite stores to browse is Penzey's spices. I like the fact that Penzey's sells most of their spices in little (< 1.0 oz) jars for you to sample. Inevitably I spend at least $25 on a mix of said jars every time I go there. I went there yesterday and got one of their new seasonings called Forward! I'm not that excited about it; the brand name has the exclamation point in it.

Of course once I got home, I had to try to figure out what to do with the spices I purchased, so I opened up Penzey's latest catalog (sign up for it if you don't get it; it's free and has lots of good recipes in each issue) and they had four recipes for Forward! Tonight I made the Forward! rice, which I modified slightly. I substituted blackberry jelly (I smashed it up in the pan) for the Raspberry Enlightenment and I diced the onion really small, so the 3-year old wouldn't notice it.

To kick up the heat, I added some habanero sauce to the rice. I paired the rice with a medley of grilled red bell peppers and grilled sweet onions, black beans, and grilled pollo asada (I got the pollo asada from Sprouts). The flavor pairings here are ridiculous. The rice itself has a couple layers of flavors, with the sweetness of the jelly and the heat from the habanero sauce, and the uniqueness of the Forward! Add to that the sweetness of the onions and the punch from the chicken and this was a great, flavorful, not to mention healthy, summer meal.

grilled potatoes

2011-08-07T20:51:00.000-07:00

I grill potatoes all the time during the summer. They're dead simple to make and they taste great. Here's how to make them (heat kicked up, of course):

Slice a potato into thin slices
Shred up some pepper jack cheese
Slice up some red onion
Salt and pepper
Your favorite heat enhancer (sliced, fresh jalapenos work nicely)

Spray a piece of foil with cooking spray. Throw all the ingredients on the foil, making sure all ingredients land on said foil, otherwise they won't get cooked. Wrap said foil tightly. Throw on grill. Cook on med heat for 1/2 hour, flipping at some point in the middle of the cooking process.

I digress...

I think Scott Roberts had a great post on Foodie Blogs a couple of days ago. I try not to partake in many of his pet peeves because I share most of them. In particular I do the following to avoid the food snobbery:
1. My pictures, in general suck. Actually I'm too lazy/busy to take a lot of pictures then upload them, resize them, yadda yadda yadda. Besides I'm trying to lose weight and help you to do so, so who cares what the lighting looks like on my raviolis. Want to know what one of my ideas/recipes looks like? Make it. You should like it, since they have all been test kitchen approved by yours truly. If you don't like it, play with the recipe until you do like it.
2. I like to give meal ideas with common ingredients that are targeted to enhancing the heat factor in common foods that are typically bland.
3. I make it known that you too should experiment! You know what you like. I'll plant an idea in your head and you can take it in all different directions. There are no right or wrong answers here.

pico de gallo ravioli with green chile sauce

2011-07-24T19:35:00.000-07:00

Since I started the plan for eating heat to lose weight, I have been thinking out-of-the-box for ways to incorporate spice into every day meals. I don't add heat for the sake of adding heat either; I am careful to make sure the flavor combinations work. Making something that tastes bad defeats the purpose of the plan. I want to eat things that taste good, are healthy, and are filling.

I like to make my own ravioli. There is simply no better ravioli than fresh, homemade ones. My dough recipe is simple; 2 cups of flour and 3 eggs, then run it through the food processor until is makes a ball (this recipe is from p.21 of The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles, which is a Cook's Illustrated book that should be in everyone's collection). Let it rest for at least 1/2 hour, then run it through the pasta machine of your choice.

When I make ravioli, I typically make a ricotta and parsley filling that obviously doesn't add any heat. I was thinking one day that ravioli would taste good in a Southwest fusion type dish. My idea was to make some pico de gallo, mix it with a version of the ricotta filling, and top it with some green chile.

This dish turned out phenomenally well. I can't stress how good (and healthy) this dish is. Here's the recipe:

Green Chile Sauce
This recipe is adapted from this TLC cooking recipe. I cranked up the heat on this one.

6 large Anaheim Chiles
3/4 pound fresh tomatillos
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon dried Turkish oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped

1. Roast the chiles on a grill until the skin is brown. Remove them from the heat, put them in a bowl, and cover it with plastic wrap. Wait 20 minutes, then peel off the skin and cut off the tops.

2. Boil the tomatillos in a saucepan for 20 minutes.

3. Place everything in a food processor and pulse it a few times to the desired consistency.

Pico de Gallo
Follow the recipe from the Homesick Texan blog for the pico de gallo. It is perfect as is.

Ravioli Filling
1 cup low fat ricotta cheese
3 oz queso fresco, crumbled
1 egg yolk
3 heaping tablespoons pico de gallo
salt and pepper to taste (note I used Penzey's California Style Seasoned Pepper)

Mix everything up in a bowl. That's it.

Assembling the Dish

I boiled the ravioli for about 4 minutes. Then I drained them, covered them with some of the green chile sauce, and added some queso fresco on top. In the picture, you might be wondering why the ravioli are red. The answer is that I have a three year old and I wasn't sure he would like the pico de gallo ravioli, so I added some red food coloring to the dough for those. The non-colored ones were his (they had my standard ricotta filling).

Pico De Gallo

spicy eats at at&t park

2011-07-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

If you haven't been to AT&T Park, you have to get there. It is one of my favorite parks in MLB. There are a lot of food options there, spicy and otherwise. My favorite is the Stinking Rose Garlic Chicken sandwich, albeit it is not spicy hot, but it is loaded with flavor. The stand where they sell this sandwich is on the first level, third base side.

Want to make it at home? Here's the recipe, along with two suggestions on how to jack up the heat on it:

Luckily the Stinking Rose provided the recipe for this chicken, so I didn't have to do any test kitchen research. The sandwich version is on a good hoagie roll and the chicken is pulled. If you make this at home, don't add the cream to the sauce. It's extraneous, though if you like cream, go for it.

Here are two ways to spice it up:
1. Chicago style: this sandwich reminds me of a chicken version of an Italian Beef sandwich. Nothing goes better with Italian Beef than a little giardiniera, so give it a try on the chicken sandwich.
2. Take some sliced pepperoncini and toss them in a spiced olive oil, like habanero olive oil. Put that on top of the sandwich.

low fat greek yogurt

2011-07-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country. I have yet to make anything from either of those magazines that didn't taste great. Their scientific approach to cooking fine tunes recipes and identifies subtle tweaks to the process of cooking that leads to a great end result.

They also do a great job of reviewing products. A couple of months ago (May-June 2011 edition of Cook's Illustrated), they did a review on lowfat Greek yogurt. Here I'm going to take that review a step further and review lowfat Greek yogurts on the basis of their taste and how full they make me feel.

I almost always take a lowfat Greek yogurt to work to eat at lunch and is something that has been a staple to keeping me full at work. They are typically 100-150 calories and are different than traditional (American) yogurt in that they are much thicker and they give you the sensation that you actually ate something.

Admittedly, I haven't tried all of the yogurts they tested and that is simply because they don't sell a couple of them here. I have tried the following: Voskos, Brown Cow, Dannon, Fage, Chobani, Athenos, and Greek Gods. I also tried Siggi's skyr, which is an Icelandic style yogurt.

I'm not going to review all of these, but I will tell you about three of them. My favorite, by far, is Fage. They have the widest array of flavors and the taste will punch you in the mouth. It is bold, thick, filling, and good. My favorite is the blueberry acai. Do follow the directions on the container: DO NOT mix the fruit in with the yogurt. You should dip the yogurt in the fruit as you eat it. The taste profile is completely different and good.

On the flip side, I don't like the Athenos. It is bland and watery and comparable to cheap (American-style) yogurt. Based on their ad campaign, I expected more. If you're going to spend lots of money advertising a product, I expect it to be good. Or at least competitive. This stuff is neither.

Finally, I'll tell you about Siggi's. This is one most of you probably haven't heard of and it's also not Greek-style. It is Icelandic skyr, which is actually thicker than Greek yogurt. I like this product, but I'm not entirely sure why. It is gritty and the flavor is not bold, it's actually subtle. Maybe it's because it is very filling. You almost have to chew this stuff. It's an interesting and good experience.

If you've made it this far, you may be asking yourself, (pardon my French) "What the heck does this have to do with eating spicy foods?" The short answer is nothing. But, it has everything to supplementing your diet with healthy foods to keep you feeling full and not eating calorie-loaded snacks between meals.

transforming a summer cookout: chicken, squash, and potatoes

2011-07-13T20:57:00.000-07:00

My Southern audience would be quick to point out that throwing some chicken on a hot grill is not BBQ, but rather a cookout, so I think I got my title correct. Regardless, typically when we think of an American cookout, although the food has that distinctive grilled taste, it rarely packs any heat. I'll show you how to change that with some typical summer foods.

Chicken breast, summer squash, and potatoes are bland. If you bake or grill them without much seasoning they are not very exciting. If you're like me (or like I used to be), you probably would bypass them for something more tasty, yet less healthy, like a well-marbled fatty steak and fries.

Here's one way to kick up all three of my menu items:

Coat the chicken breast with a nice, spicy rub. I like El Mexicano Hot Carne Asada, though if you're not in the Bay Area it might be hard to find. A reasonable substitute might be a 75/25 mix of seasoning salt and cayenne pepper. Grill the breast on a hot grill.

Get some summer squash and fingerling potatoes and cut them into medallions. Then make this recipe for summer squash. Use the same seasoning for the potatoes. By the way, a serving of the summer squash is 23 calories and the taste is awesome.

Ok we're almost there. Grab a bit of each and put some Tapatio hot sauce on them. WHAT? Dude you just ruined my nice veggies and chicken! Try it. You might be surprised at how nicely it enhances all of the flavors.

egg white omelette

2011-07-11T20:35:00.000-07:00

An egg white omelette on its own is boring and bland. I used to think of an egg white omelette with cheese as a tasteless entity that was just there. It lends itself to being consumed along with some fatty meats or high carb pastries. Of course you could eat a bowl of fruit with it, but since I am not a fan of most fruit, that's not an option for me.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the Coach Lyng at Vic's in Pleasanton, CA and it opened my eyes to a whole new way to eat an omelette. Basically, I ditched the cheese and replaced the flavor of the cheese with some good salsa.

Here's how I make my omelettes now:
3 eggs, whites only
2 tbs chopped mushrooms
1 tbs small diced bell pepper
1 tbs small diced red onion
1 tbs jalapeno spread
1/4 tbs butter
cooking spray
several tbs of your favorite salsa

Chef's note: spray the pan with cooking spray first. Why use the cooking spray and butter? The cooking spray is to lubricate the pan so the omelette doesn't stick. The butter is to saute the veggies so they don't brown as easy. The veggies will brown quick with just the cooking spray and the omelette will stick if you use the little amount of butter I recommend.

Melt the butter in a small fry pan. Saute all the veggies until soft. Add in the eggs. When the eggs are no longer runny, fold over both sides. Top with copious amounts of salsa. I like Trader Joe's Salsa Verde on this omelette.

I originally made this omelette with a bit of reduced fat cheese and a side of my baked red potato wedges, which is what I showed in the accompanying picture. I think the salsa and no cheese option is way more tasty and filling.

spicy eats at coors field

2011-07-07T20:47:00.000-07:00

I went to Coors Field last weekend to see the Royals vs. the Rockies. The game was over after the second inning, so I went exploring in the stadium for good food. They are a couple of stands around the stadium that offer "extreme hot dogs". I saw the Diablo dog and I had to get one, thought I made some modifications to it.

Pay attention because you will want to make this dog. It is a large dog with diced onions, jalapenos, jack cheese, and "5 alarm chili" on it. I substituted green chile sauce for the 5 alarm chili, which made this dog awesome. I also got extra jalapenos on it, which I would recommend. It had fresh jalapenos on it, sliced, with the seeds in. If you make it at home, use a whole jalapeno per dog. When I make this dog again, I'm going to ditch the cheese because it's just wasted calories and doesn't really add anything to the meal.

Here's how to assemble the dog: put the dog in the bun (grill the dog), put a lot of green chile sauce on the dog, cover with onions, then cover with jalapenos.

spicy eats at the o.co coliseum

2011-06-30T19:33:00.001-07:00

The o.co Coliseum is the name du jour of the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum, home of the Oakland A's and Oakland Raiders. It is also the closest pro stadium to me, so I'll start my new (spicy) sports eats section there. It may seem like an otherwise odd place to start, but there is actually a nice spread of food options there.

In Section 118, there is arguably the best spicy food option in the major leagues: Saag's sausages. Specifically, get the Big Atomic Hot sausage with onions and peppers (and some mustard). It is $7.50, but I promise you, you will not need anything else with it. The atomic hot is reasonably spicy, but it also has great flavor. Saag's is a sausage company out of San Leandro, CA, which is the next town south of Oakland. I would compare the quality of their sausages to some of the premium in the country, such as Usinger's in Milwaukee.

Interested in more about Saag's? You can buy their Atomic Hots and other sausages here.

top 3 of the week: june 26, 2011

2011-06-28T20:56:00.000-07:00

Here are the top 3 recipes I have found this week that involve the heat:

linguine and spicy clam sauce - I had to put a recipe from Chef Josh Thomsen of the Meritage after that awesome meal I had there on Sat. night

asparagus, jalapeno, pecans, and feta - a nice summer side dish from Jalapeno Madness

nuoc cham dipping sauce - a really good looking sauce from Closet Cooking. I am going to make it and try it with grilled fish.

weigh in

2011-06-28T20:48:00.000-07:00

Big weigh in tomorrow. This is the 3 month mark since I started my new eating regimen. I am guessing I'm down about 30 lbs. This is by far the easiest way I have lost weight ever. If you haven't tried my plan yet, give it a few weeks and see how you do.

I ditched the idea of keeping my original belt to mark how much weight I lost. Last week my pants were falling down at work and I decided to drill a new hole in my belt with a pair of scissors. I got the hole drilled, but I also sliced my thumb open; a nice 2 in gash. I didn't even realize I did it until I was meeting with someone and saw the blood all over my hand. This past weekend I bought a new belt.

top 3 of the week: june 19, 2011

2011-06-20T20:02:00.000-07:00

This week I had the chance to make one of the recipes that I'm listing...

cajun roast beef sub - I didn't make this one, but Boar's Head meats are premium, so I can't imagine this mayo they use being anything but awesome.

singapore-style chicken fried rice - I made this on the weekend and it is great. I recommend pairing it with a nice serving of Sambal Oelek.

carne asada quesadilla - I made quesadillas with Cacique cheese for a party about a month ago. They were phenomenal. With it being grilling season, this dish should work well any night of the week.

happy father's day

2011-06-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

I got this book for Father's Day. I want to make everything in it. It is a steal for $16.50. I have cooked several of his recipes and they were all great. I made the taquitos for New Year's Eve one year - the recipe is in the book. It is a great summer cooking book. Lots of out-of-the-box ideas that could involve the grill. Go get it.

baked red potato wedges

2011-06-19T06:41:00.000-07:00

My baked red potato wedges are probably the most versatile side dish I make. They go well with anything. There's no heat in them, but I like to dip them in Trader Joe's Jalapeno Sauce. The recipe is a little different than usual in that I brown the potatoes before baking them to make them extra crispy. Here's the recipe:

Small red potatoes, cut in 6 pieces
olive oil
garlic powder
salt
pepper

Preheat the oven to 375. Put the wedges on a baking sheet and drizzle olive oil on them. Coat both sides with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Take a flat frying pan, add 1 tablespoon olive oil, and heat it on medium-high. Add the potatoes. Cook them just long enough to brown both sides. Return the potatoes to the baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes until soft inside.

mexxi's mole poblano

2011-06-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

Mexxi's in San Ramon had a special last night of mole poblano over chicken enchiladas. It was friggin' ridiculous. One of the three best restaurant meals I've had this year. By the way, their cochinita pibil was also one of my top 3 this year. The mole poblano came with two huge enchiladas, rice, beans, and a salad. All for $11.95. I got a side of their habanero sauce for the rice. I only ate half of the dish and saved the rest for later. In the past I probably would have eaten the whole thing, but I was plenty full on half of it.

top 3 of the week: june 12, 2011

2011-06-12T19:10:00.000-07:00

Here are my top 3 picks this week. For the black bean salsa recipe, you might want to run the beans through a food processor before mixing with the rest of the ingredients, especially if you don't like cold black beans.

hot and spicy black bean salsa (shopping list)

jalapeno and beer brined pork chops (shopping list)

jalapeno downtown chicken (shopping list)

shopping list for all three recipes

deep dish pizza

2011-06-12T18:51:00.000-07:00

If you've been to Chicagoland, you've undoubtedly tried some form of deep dish pizza. It is incredibly good tasting, but you'll gain two pounds just looking at a slice of it. I'm going to show you how to cut a ton of calories out of this dish, add in the heat, and end up with a great re-creation of the dish.

Let me preface this recipe with the following warning: this recipe will make a lot of food. Plan on freezing a bunch of it. It will make at least four deep dish pizzas.

You'll need four pie tins before starting. Spray them with cooking spray.

Here's the recipe for the dough. It is a recipe my wife's family has used for years. The dough is really easy to make and work with.

2 packages of yeast
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 cups flour
1 cup lukewarm water

Combine the yeast and water in a medium mixing bowl. Add the butter and the flour. Mix the dough until it comes off the sides of the bowl. Knead the dough for 2 minutes. Let it sit covered for at least 30 minutes.

While the dough sits, make the sauce. I have been working on perfecting this sauce for about three years. It is unbelievably good. It has a bite from the lemons.

1 sweet onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, diced
1 tbs Turkish oregano
salt
pepper
28 oz tomato sauce can
4 high quality tomatoes chopped
2 bay leaves
juice of 2 lemons
1 tbs olive oil

Sweat the onions for 5 min in the olive oil on medium heat. Add the garlic and cook two minutes. Add the salt, pepper, and oregano and cook another minute. Deglaze the pan with the tomato sauce. Add in the tomatoes and the bay leaves. Squeeze the lemons into the sauce. Cook on medium heat, covered for 30 minutes. Before blending, scoop up two ladles of the thick sauce and set aside. Discard the bay leaves. Blend to desired thickness with an immersion blender.

In yet another pan, you'll need to make the filling for the pizza. In case you haven't noticed, I like onions and peppers. A lot. Here's my favorite filling:

In this recipe, I replace butter or olive oil with tomato sauce and I braise/saute the veggies.

1 bell pepper, sliced
2 jalapeno peppers, cut into round slices with seeds left in
1 onion, sliced
1 can artichoke hearts chopped
2 Jenny-O hot italian turkey sausages, casing removed and crumbled
the tomato sauce we set aside prior to blending
cooking spray

Spray a pan with cooking spray. add the onions, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, and tomato sauce and cook over medium heat until the onions are translucent. Add in the sausage and artichoke hearts. Cook until the sausage is done. Here's what it should look like:

Preheat your oven to 375. Divide the dough into four parts. Stretch the dough so it covers the pans. Bake the dough for 5 minutes. Add the filling. Cover it with a ladle of sauce. Cover the sauce with a handful of mozzarella cheese and some parmesan cheese. Cover that with more sauce. Bake for 10-15 minutes, checking every 5 minutes to make sure the crust doesn't burn. You can cover the crust edge with tin foil if you're worried about it burning.

Cut each pie into 6 slices. A serving is 2 slices.

extreme couponing

2011-06-11T20:55:00.000-07:00

We recently started watching the show Extreme Couponing and we quickly got hooked on it. The amount of time that these people spend on clipping coupons and grocery shopping is unreal. But to me, what is more unreal is the types of things, specifically food, that these people buy. What did you accomplish if you go to the grocery store and buy 135 candy bars for $5 or less? Do you really need to buy 240 bottles of Powerade?

A common theme with a lot of the people on this show is that they spend X amount of dollars a week on groceries, where X is a small number. In a lot of these episodes, they'll spend their X dollars, get numerous carts full of food, and very little of it will be anything nutritional/good to eat. Where is the produce? Where is the meat? I think you get the idea. What can you cook that tastes good or is good for you with 93 bottles of hot sauce and 37 packages of cream cheese?

I'm all for clipping coupons and stocking up on food. I do it all the time. I just think this show is either A. dishonest in what people are spending or B. promoting crappy eating habits.

I will say that a lot of the people do donate and share some of their bounties, so that is good. I think it would be more interesting to see how these people are using the food they purchase, so copy cats don't start doing this and eventually end up on Hoarders.

How does this tie in to Eating Heat? For me, one of the keys to losing weight and being healthy on this plan is the variety of great, fresh food that I eat. I have no limit to the amount I'll spend to eat quality fresh veggies. I'm lucky. A lot of people on this show do have a limit to the amount they spend. I think they would be serving their families a lot better by spending $5 on ingredients for a great homemade pasta sauce than buying 135 candy bars, even if you donate a bunch of them.

print friendly

2011-06-06T20:59:00.000-07:00

I just found a cool widget/app/whatever you want to call it. It is print friendly. If you click on any of my posts, there is a button at the bottom which will generate a printable version or pdf of the post, which may come in handy if you want to make one of my recipes. Also, if you go to the print friendly page, you can paste in a url and it will generate a print-friendly version of the page or a pdf of the page.

top 3 of the week: june 5, 2011

2011-06-05T17:13:00.000-07:00

This is my first Top 3 of the Week post. All three of these have different heat characteristics. I haven't made any of these recipes yet, but they look really good. Each recipe has a printable version of the recipe and a shopping list for the recipe (when available). Click on the link at the bottom to get the shopping list for all three recipes.

Chipotle Lime Fish Tacos (printable recipe) (shopping list)

Chicken Pepper Ham Rollups (shopping list)

Pappardelle with Spiced Butter (printable recipe) (shopping list)

shopping list for all recipes

chicken stir fry

2011-06-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

We used to go out to dinner on Friday and Saturday nights. Most of the time on Saturday we would end up getting pizza. Since we have started eating healthier, we have cut out the Saturday night restaurant trip and replaced it with eating at home.

Last night, we made a chicken stir fry from a recipe I found on bigoven.com. The recipe appealed to me because it used a bunch of veggies that we got in our last shipment from Farm Fresh to You. The recipe is great and I made some white rice to go along with it. Just a precaution, there is a bit of prep work required for this dish.

As for the heat in this dish, you get a little bit of it from the dried peppers in it. I kicked it up some more with sriracha. If you really want to be adventurous, slice up a habanero and infuse the oils along with the garlic and ginger.

The meal is roughly 400 calories per serving. Compare that to 750-1000 (or more) calories in your typical pizza dinner. Not to mention all the calories you burn prepping the dinner. Am I saying don't eat pizza? Of course not, I'm just showing that there are a lot of fun alternative things you can do on a Saturday night. If you have the thought in your head of cooking at home, you can plan on doing it and make it happen.

spicy half-fast gyros

2011-06-01T20:42:00.000-07:00

The problem with a lot of sauces, spreads, and dressings that are "low fat" is that they just suck. They don't taste like the real thing or they try to be cute by adding big chunks of things that shouldn't be chunked to distract your palette from the fact that the sauce sucks. Such is the case with Trader Joe's low fat Tzatziki sauce. Almost everything we have bought from Trader Joe's is great, but this, pardon my French, is a real stinker. I bought this sauce to use as a dip for the naan I talked about in this post. The sauce has big chunks of cucumber in it and is way runnier than real Tzatziki sauce. On the plus side, it is only 30 calories for a 2 tablespoon serving.

My wife wanted to chuck this sauce, but I had an idea for it. Here it is:

Take your food processor and dump the whole tub of sauce in it. Add a habanero. Pulse the mix to your desired thickness. Although I didn't do it, I believe you could thicken this sauce with plain Greek yogurt and it will taste good. If it doesn't taste good, send a message to my complaint department, which can be reached by clicking here. Regardless, doing these simple things made the sauce way better and gave me the heat I like. The creaminess of the sauce tames the habanero to some extent.

To make my half-fast gyros, you'll need a think steak (about 4 oz), good tomatoes, and a sweet onion. You'll also need a conduit for these goodies; I found these tortilla breads, which are like pitas, but probably more calories than pitas. Regardless, they were only 140 calories, so no harm no foul. By the way, these gyros are half-fast because they are quick to make and completely non-authentic.

Back to the cooking...grill up the steak. Cut the onions in thin slices and cut the tomatoes in wedges. When the steak is done, throw the bread in the steak pan to warm it up. Add the veggies, chop the steak and add it, add the sauce, fold the bread, and enjoy.

For those counting calories, one of these gyros, which are quite big, especially if you load up on the tomatoes and onions, is between 350 and 400 calories. Add a standard size serving of rice for a side and you got a huge dinner for 600 calories.

jalapenos and naan

2011-05-31T20:45:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for an easy to make, different snack, check this out. It is an adaptation of a snack we had at a party a couple of weeks ago. The original recipe is as follows:

Take a naan and cut it into 2 inch triangles. Brush it with olive oil, then sprinkle it with salt and pepper. Bake at 350 for about 7 minutes. Let the naan cool, then spread a small bit of low fat cream cheese on top. Top that with a slice of cucumber and black olives. This is very tasty, but let's crank up the heat on this recipe.

Start with the olive oil. Take a habanero and slice it thin. Take 4 cloves of garlic and smash them. Put 1/4 cup olive oil in a pan and add the veggies. Simmer on medium heat until the garlic is brown. Turn off the heat. Let the oil cool.

Cut the naan in 2 inch triangles and brush it with the olive oil. Bake at 350 for 7 minutes. Let the naan cool. Spread a little low fat cream cheese on the naan. Slice up a fresh jalapeno. Leave the seeds in too. Put a slice or 2 on top (add some cucumbers and black olives too, if you like). If you're bold, substitute a habanero for the jalapeno. If you're stupid, substitute a ghost chile.

*** As a side note, use real naan in this recipe. Don't try to cut calories with whole wheat pitas, for example. They suck and they ruin this recipe. Just limit what you eat of these to about 3 or 4 at a time for about 100 calories.