Low Calorie Recipes

[Gifted Gourmet]

And now from Slate Online there comes this item:

America's Waistline: The politics of fat

Contesting the usual origin story about fat—excess calories, individual blame—is high on the activist agenda. The preferred account is that fat is genetic and/or glandular, thus not anyone's fault. Alternatively, fat is caused by the diet industry: "We're getting fatter because of dieting," as one activist puts it. "The way to fatten an animal is to starve it and then re-feed it. Your metabolism slows down when you're eating less. People on diets are predisposing their body to gain more weight."   The origin question is important in the politics of fat because it shapes the approach to policy and advocacy issues. For instance, should the primary battle now be to ensure that obesity is included under the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Interesting stand on the issue of weight .. how say you all who have posted on this particular thread?

(you must realize that I am simply playing Devil's advocate here ... not plugging for any particular stance on the issue of fat and health)

[jgm]

Here's a recipe that can be made as healthy as you want:

Put an electric skillet in the middle of the table. If using an extension cord, MAKE SURE it's heavy enough. Put chicken stock in it, about 4 to 6 cups. If using canned, at least half, if not all of it, should be low sodium, or it will get too salty.

Each person is allotted a corner of the skillet. (This is a maximum 4-person recipe.) Into your corner, drop pieces of raw chicken, shrimp, lean beef, or lean pork, plus whatever vegetables you like. (Obviously, use safe food handling practices.) Things like carrots should be sliced pretty thin so that they will cook in a couple of minutes. When meat is cooked through and vegetables are to your liking, use a slotted spoon to lift it out of the pan and onto your plate. If your calorie allotment for the day will allow it, you can add white or brown rice with it.

When the meal is over, you'll have great broth for a soup later in the week.

[Daniel]

Diet is not a bad word if used in a sentence properly..

For example:

My diet consists of rich foods and desserts..

[KatieLoeb]

Soup!!! Lots of vegetable and veggie stock based pureed soups fill you up and are good for you. Also the Cabbage Soup from the Cabbage Soup diet (the diet is bullshit but the soup is delicious) is very high fiber and filling and is actrually very tasty. A high potassium broth made with chicken or veggie stock and watercress and spinach thrown in to wilt is excellent.

I lived on a cold zucchini soup most of the summer.

2 large green or yellow summer squash/zucchini, cut into 1/4" coins

8 oz. low fat sour cream

handful of fresh dill, or a tsp of ground cumin

salt & pepper

Steam zucchini above 1.5" of water about 10-15 minutes until soft. Place zucchini, steaming water, sour cream, herb/spice of your choice, salt & pepper into a blender and puree until well incorporated. Chill and enjoy. This is also good hot, but I liked it cold during the summer.

[AzianBrewer]

Diet is that 4 letters word!!! I have no problem eating fatty food since I normally rack up 40 miles a week in the park, street and treadmill.

[helenjp]

Well, this is the only non-specific (despite a slight Body for Life bias!) topic I could find in this forum, so here goes...

Ever since the Meat and Morality topic, I've been thinking about what longterm sustainable good healthy eating is, in the practical terms of what we buy, how we prepare it, and what our meals look like.

Specific eating plans don't seem long-term to me, because I have a skinny, fussy husband, and two ravenous teenage sons as well as myself to feed - I want to think about healthy diet overall.

Totally agree with KatieLoeb about soups.

As for foodstuffs, since some healthy eating involves leaving the mainstream, I really need to plan/get back into planning menus to make this work longterm.

My first goal is to increase green vegetable intake - not only through recipes, but via better storage so that I can keep leafy veg on hand in better condition (currently I TRY to store green veg upright, wrapped in newspaper in the vegetable drawer of my fridge), and growing a small supply in containers, for freshness and variety.

Favorite dark green vegetable dishes:

* Rapini or similar dark greens boiled together with pasta, served with a little oil and pepper.

* Rice congee with a soft-boiled egg (preferably a salt-pickled one!) and dark green vegetables drizzled with a little sesame and chili oil.

* Curd rice (rice with yogurt, left for a few hours, eaten with pickles, fresh cilantro, green chilis, and scallions).

P.S. * Cooking vegetables with their leaves, e.g. turnips, is a favorite method with me.

[redglass]

Hungry? Yes, but I can put up with it, partly by guzzling 2 liter bottles of diet soda.

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I'm a little late to this party, but for me, if I drink diet soda, it makes me RAVENOUS- I found that when I cut it out of my diet I wasn't nearly as hungry and could control what I ate much more easily. something about the fake sugar fooling your body and your body going through a sugar crash even though it hasn't actually ingested any sugar...

[Dave Hatfield]

I've gone through the posts on this thread and still don't find many real recipes so I thought I'd try to start the topic over again.

I've recently had a couple of minor strokes and really need to watch what I eat so I'm really interested in low calorie, low fat, low sugar, low salt dishes A real challenge!

I'm looking for any & all contributions.

To get started I've posted three recipesher.

Let's hear your favorites!

edited to correct spelling.

Edited March 1, 2009 by Chris Hennes (log)

[KatieLoeb]

Today I had the crazy idea to take the bag of green zucchini I'd bought at the market and turn it into "noodles", so I could still feel like I was eating pasta, but without the carbs. I rinsed off the zucchini, cut off the ends and sliced them longways on the coarse slicer of my mandoline, making long strips like perciatelli. I then blanched them in boiling salted water for two minutes and drained and cooled them with cold water. I sauteed a couple of cloves of garlic, a thinly sliced onion for a few minutes in olive oil and added back in the zucchini "noodles". Stir fried for a minute and added a jar of pepper and onion spaghetti sauce that was low in sugar. Added a heaping spoon of homemade pesto and stirred to combine. Served with a sprinkle of good grated cheese I was almost as happy as I would have been eating real pasta. All the flavor was there and the zucchini had retained a little bit of crunch. I don't know the actual calorie count on this, but I suspect you could easily eat a whole lot more than you could of pasta for the same calories. And it's quite filling.

[Darienne]

We have used shredded cabbage in place of noodles. Just about pulls it off...not quite, of course...but close. You can use cabbage leaves for lasagna also.

This topic being raised again today s a kind of do-do-do-do do-do-do-do(singsong voice). I really need to lose a chunk of weight and my DH is in my face about it now. My recent MRI is saying some very unpleasant things which might result in back surgery...I hope not...but losing the weight would sure help. Not to mention that being unable to walk or stand, and hating, hating, hating, getting wet in the middle of the day makes exercise difficult. So caloric reduction has to be it.

I'm going to go back over this thread and download all the recipes, look up all the noted cookbooks. And try to come up with some of my own to share.

I should add that learning to make delicious homemade ice cream using only milk and cornstarch can only be a plus!

[Kerry Beal]

We have used shredded cabbage in place of noodles.  Just about pulls it off...not quite, of course...but close.  You can use cabbage leaves for lasagna also.

This topic being raised again today s a kind of do-do-do-do do-do-do-do(singsong voice).  I really need to lose a chunk of weight and my DH is in my face about it now.  My recent MRI is saying some very unpleasant things which might result in back surgery...I hope not...but losing the weight would sure help.  Not to mention that being unable to walk or stand, and hating, hating, hating, getting wet in the middle of the day makes exercise difficult.  So caloric reduction has to be it.

I'm going to go back over this thread and download all the recipes, look up all the noted cookbooks.  And try to come up with some of my own to share. 

I should add that learning to make delicious homemade ice cream using only milk and cornstarch can only be a plus! 

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Darienne,

Check out the weight watchers thread as well. It's got some excellent recipes. Notably Jensen's link to a lentil soup that I truly love.

[llc45]

Today I had the crazy idea to take the bag of green zucchini I'd bought at the market and turn it into "noodles", so I could still feel like I was eating pasta, but without the carbs.  I rinsed off the zucchini, cut off the ends and sliced them longways on the coarse slicer of my mandoline, making long strips like perciatelli.  I then blanched them in boiling salted water for two minutes and drained and cooled them with cold water.  I sauteed a couple of cloves of garlic, a thinly sliced onion for a few minutes in olive oil and added back in the zucchini "noodles".  Stir fried for a minute and added a jar of pepper and onion spaghetti sauce that was low in sugar.  Added a heaping spoon of homemade pesto and stirred to combine.  Served with a sprinkle of good grated cheese I was almost as happy as I would have been eating real pasta.  All the flavor was there and the zucchini had retained a little bit of crunch.  I don't know the actual calorie count on this, but I suspect you could easily eat a whole lot more than you could of pasta for the same calories.  And it's quite filling. 

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Katie -

That sounlds like an excellant idea. We have an abundance of zucchini and love pasta. Will definitely give this a try.

[Darienne]

Darienne,

Check out the weight watchers thread as well.  It's got some excellent recipes.  Notably Jensen's link to a lentil soup that I truly love.

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Will check out the WW thread. Love lentil soup. Ate the end of it for lunch. Lentil spinach soup. Now if only the DH would tolerate a bit of lamb in it.

Thanks, Kerry.

p.s. the blog was no longer. Do you have this particular lentil soup recipe? I can see that the WW version would have no lamb in it anyway.

Edited August 10, 2009 by Darienne (log)