JAZ

Maggie, I don't know why this never occurred to me, but that's a great idea.

Interesting -- one of the things that make Pop Chips a good choice for me is that I don't find it difficult to eat just a few. While I find Cheetos, Munchos and Fritos much better, they're way too easy to overdo for me, which is why I buy them rarely.

I don't use Greek yogurt, but I do use regular yogurt (strained) in salad dressings or to replace some (not all) of the mayonnaise in things like tuna salad, chicken salad and potato salad. I would be more likely to buy Greek yogurt if I could find a good brand that has a plain, whole-milk version. All I see around here is low-fat and non-fat stuff.

There's a lot of evidence that the Body Mass Index formula is the wrong tool to use when determining weight ranges for individuals, but it seems to be the measure that everyone uses. From a piece on NPR: And the LA Times: I know Weight Watchers uses the BMI to determine members' weight goals -- one of the reasons I chose the online option instead of going to meetings was to avoid that whole mentality (I'm also not a meeting kind of person).

If you like Funyuns, you should try Tim's Cascade Maui Onion Rings. Unfortunately, I think they're only available in the Northwest. But they put Funyuns to shame. I'm also a fan of Munchos, but since joining Weight Watchers I've come to appreciate Pop Chips as a decent lower-calorie option.

I'm not sure what types of lettuce you have, but this recipe from the NY Times is a very good, if somewhat fussy, way to use up romaine. (I'm not a fan of Alex Wichtel's writing, so I suggest you skip the essay and scroll down to the recipe.) It's a sort of deconstructed warm Caesar salad. I make a simplified version with either quail or half a Cornish game hen, because I can't find poussins where I live.

My everyday dressing is a vinaigrette with Dijon style mustard and fresh herbs if I have them, but for a change, or particular salads, I've come up with a few good, fairly low-point alternatives. For creamy style dressings I use a combination of (real) mayonnaise and whole milk yogurt for the base, which works pretty well. Creamy herb dressing: I tend to use whatever herbs I have on hand -- usually parsley and dill, but basil and chives end up in it sometimes. 1 Tbsp mayonnaise 3 Tbsp whole milk plain yogurt 1 tsp vinegar 1 tsp olive oil 1 very small garlic clove 1 Tbsp dill 1 Tbsp parsley salt and pepper to taste This makes enough for about three big salads for me, and I figure it at 2 pts. per serving that way. Faux remoulade I use this for shrimp or crab salads. (I throw all the ingredients in a small food processor, but if the celery and scallion are finely minced, you can whisk by hand.) It's 5 points for the entire recipe, which for me is enough for 2-3 big salads. I also use it on sandwiches instead of plain mayonnaise. 1 Tbsp mayonnaise 1 Tbsp chopped celery 1 Tbsp chopped scallion 1 Tbsp ketchup 1/3 cup whole milk plain yogurt (drained in cheesecloth for 20-30 minutes to thicken it slightly) 1 Tbsp Creole or other whole grain mustard 1 Tbsp parsley 1/2 tsp prepared horseradish 1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce I'm also in the process of developing a spicy avocado and cilantro dressing, but I don't have my notes on that with me. I'll post it when I'm at my other computer.

The reason I asked is that when I enter 300 grams of "beans, dry" into the current WW database, I don't get anything close to 35 points.

May I ask what you mean by "pseudo-WW"? It sounds as if you might be trying to combine old points values for foods with the new points allowances, which doesn't work.

I also have two GelPro mats. One looks as good as it did when I bought it and the other has curled. It's great that they replaced it for you. The kitchen where we teach has some GelPros but also a brand called Wellness Mats that are much more comfortable than GelPro, so if I were going to buy another, that's what I'd buy.

Ideally, I like to have an empty dishwasher when I start dinner. Doesn't always happen, but when it does, I load as I go -- sort of. At least I use the breaks in cooking to get used dishes, pots and pans into the dishwasher. But when I load as I go, I don't care much about placement -- my goal is just to get stuff out of my way. So often, after dinner, I rearrange everything that's already in there so it fits better. I'm not terribly concerned with making sure it's full, because most of the time I just cook for myself, so there's plenty of room. But I run the dishwasher at least once a day.

The author of Salted is Mark Bitterman, not Mark Bittman.

With another look at the question, Alexandra Petri from the Washington Post weighs in: and

I think with the Weight Watchers recipes (the official ones, that is), they do a good enough job with recipes that are naturally low in calories and fat, but really fail when they try to make low fat versions of "classics." For instance, they recently featured a recipe for a chickpea salad with feta cheese and olives that sounded good, if not terribly creative. But a while back I saw a recipe for "lightened up" eggs Benedict that substituted low-fat mayonnaise, hot water and lemon juice for the hollandaise. That's just wrong.

I've seen one called E-mealz which has different plans for different grocery store chains (I assume to take advantage of sales), various diets (the "portion control" plan is pretty popular with Weight Watchers members, apparently) and families or couples. I think the sample menus sound pretty wretched, but as Lisa mentioned, for someone unfamiliar with menu planning and cooking, it might prove useful.

Over on the WikiGullet project we've been working on the entry for "simmer." Like most of the seemingly easy entries, it's turned out to be a little more complicated than I expected. My question is this: is simmering a term that refers to the temperature of a cooking liquid, or is it an actual cooking method? My first inclination was to define "simmer" as cooking food in very hot but not boiling water. But then, I thought that a better description of "simmer" was what you do with liquid, or mostly liquid dishes like soups or stews. So you poach foods in a simmering liquid, but, for instance, you don't simmer fish -- you poach it. Of course, since I'm asking here, I have no idea what's right. What do you think?

I've found a surprising number of Mexican or Mexican-inspired dishes that are point-friendly without too much tweaking. I'm not sure how authentic they are, but so far I've made red chicken enchiladas that are pretty low, snapper Vera Cruz, a Mexican style shrimp cocktail and arroz verde. I'm eager to hear what you come up with.

I use a spice mixture called Cavender's All Purpose Greek Seasoning. I doubt there's anything Greek about it -- it's mostly salt and glutamates in various forms, but it's an easy way to season all kinds of fish and poultry. I use it in tuna salad too.

We are considering building the menu around a traditional meal, but due to a nightmarish private class last year, I doubt we'll ever teach a Thanksgiving menu again. One thing we're thinking of is traditional Southern foods with a modernist twist -- for instance, the MC version of fried chicken and something with pimento cheese. But at this point we're open to just about anything, so keep the ideas coming.

Robert Wolke wrote about this in What Einstein Told his Cook -- his conclusion was that if you have to squeeze your citrus fruit by hand, then the microwave plus rolling (in that order, I believe) helps in getting more juice out. But if you have a juicer, the mechanical pressure of the juicer will get as much juice out of the fruit without the microwaving or rolling. Edit to correct the order Wolke specifies -- it's microwaving, then rolling that allows more juice to be extracted.

Pasta and poached eggs. Pasta because it seemed like such a huge project; poached eggs because they seemed impossible.

When you're going to make a batch of stock, save up your older ice in ziplock bags (assuming you have room in your freezer). When you need to cool your stock, put a couple of the bags into the stock, and fill your sink with the rest of the ice and water. You can chill down a gallon of stock really fast that way, and get rid of your old ice.

I think there used to be an Edible Atlanta, which now has apparently been replaced by Edible Metro and Mountains. I found Edible Atlanta to be preachy and one-dimensional; this one seems a little better balanced. Mostly, though, I just find the whole concept tiresome.

This topic got me thinking about how I decide on side dishes to match mains, or vice versa. In some cases I always have the same combinations -- for instance, when I have macaroni and cheese (which I eat as a main dish), I always have broccoli florets in a mustard vinaigrette with it. I make a Normandy style pork dish with apples and a cider cream sauce that I almost always pair with sweet and sour braised cabbage. But with other dishes, I change the accompaniments. I have some side dishes that I think of as "universal donors" because they go with a lot of different proteins, and there are some main dishes that can go with a wide variety of side dishes. So do you have combinations you won't change? How do you decide what goes with what?

I really like this celery root salad, but I can rarely find decent celery root around here, so tonight I tried it with julienned broccoli stems. Definitely a keeper.