Yum-balaya, The Anytime Soup

I haven’t written since May. Before you get on my case for being a lazy slacker, I must announce…. drum roll please… I’m pregnant!

I’ve had a bit of a tough time sticking to my usual Diet It Up routine. Spending time cooking means taking precious hours away from my new favorite pastime… sleeping!

Now that I’m into the second trimester, my energy is slowly making a comeback.  I even found a full hour to cook a real meal this weekend that wasn’t covered in cheese, peanut butter or pickles. The husband was thrilled.

I was flipping through my recipe binder and found this JAMBALAYA recipe that I saved. I don’t even remember making this. But, if I went through the effort of three-hole punching, I must have liked it. Getting the three-hole punch treatment is a pretty big deal.

Jambalaya is a soup-meets-stew concoction that we can thank our good friends in Louisiana for popularizing. It’s a great way to use up leftovers. Got some chicken lying around? Throw it in. Want to use crab instead of shrimp? Go right ahead. Shoot to include a seafood, poultry and smoky sausage element in your own version.

To avoid using a really greasy pork sausage, the supermarket had these neat little turkey/chicken andouille sausage bites that taste exactly like the pork version. I’m completely going to buy these again and turn them into pigs-in-a-blanket for football season.

I topped each bowl of Jambalaya off with a big ice cream scoop of brown rice. Don’t be turned off by making a stew in the middle of August like your crazy pal Trish. The sauce/broth is light enough that it’s perfectly appropriate any time of year.

I will try my best to post up delicious words of healthy wisdom on a weekly basis. One the managers in the office just referred to my growing baby belly as “huge” so I’ll be making a conscious effort to stay on track!

Big Rob's Buffalo Dip

I’m completely obsessed with hot sauce. It’s sour and spicy and basically makes everything taste delicious. To top it off, it’s virtually calorie free. I splash a whole bunch of Texas Pete on my eggs every morning. But the absolute best way to showcase hot sauce in all its glory is the classic buffalo chicken wing.

Not only are buffalo wings completely immersed in butter, but they’re usually fried to boot! Ten cent wing night at the bar will easily max out your calories for the next three days. And that’s not counting the beer. Who in their right mind can have wings without beer?

I have to 100% credit my friend Rob for his buffalo wing dip recipe. It’s amazing. “Rob, come on over and watch football” is secret Trish code for “Rob, come on over and bring dip!” I asked for his recipe years ago but never tried to make it myself.

Nothing can top the original, but I’ve done my best to make a really tasty football snack that’s lighter than the classic buffalo wing or Rob’s ooey, gooey delicious dip. Using leftover chicken from my BLUE RIBBON CHICKEN, this app comes together in no time.

The bubbly, rich BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP tastes exactly like a buffalo wing dunked in blue cheese. It isn’t fried, it’s a great throw-together app to use up extra white meat chicken and you can dunk big hunks of celery instead of having to eat a bowl of tortilla chips. Score!

* Get cooking. Let me know what you think. Love it? Hate it? I’m interested in hearing your feedback and suggestions.

Blue Ribbon Chicken

If the opportunity is presented to have a fancy meal at a nice restaurant, I’m the first to sign up. But, sometimes you just need to kick back and embrace your trashy side. My trashy side involves a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

This is the easiest dinner in the whole world. Rinse off a whole chicken and remove the bag of assorted nasty bits from inside. Pat him dry. Smear the whole bird, inside and out with a light coating of vegetable oil and sprinkle with your favorite spice rub (salt and pepper would also be fine).

Pop open a can of beer. Take one for the team and drink half of it. Plunk the bird on top of the half-sipped beer can and transfer to a roasting pan. Cook at 450 degrees for 10 minutes. Then drop the temp to 325 and cook for about an hour or until a thermometer reads 165 degrees. If it wasn’t the dead of winter, you could also use the grill.

I completely forget how great simple roasted foods are. Sometimes, the less you fuss with something, the better it tastes. This was an INSANELY juicy chicken. The steam from the beer keeps the meat tender and moist. Since I was taking the time to make one, I went ahead and made two. The second bird I shredded for use in other recipes.

I should warn you that I recently re-joined Weight Watchers. I’m intrigued by their new plan and thought I would give it a try. But, I promise my blog won’t become a “points” fest. If I happen to know the points for any of my upcoming recipes, I’ll go ahead and include them. In this case, the entire plate of chicken, including a baked sweet potato and gravy was 10 points.

In the name of starting 2011 off on the right foot, do yourself a favor, stoop down to the PBR level and make a great tasting healthy meal.

* Get cooking. Let me know what you think. Love it? Hate it? I’m interested in hearing your feedback and suggestions.

Empanadas: a pocket full of Cuban flavor

I’ve been lucky enough to make it through round one of the Project Food Blog competition. Needless to say, I’m pumped! This week we’ve been asked to embrace another culture and take on the challenge of recreating a classic ethnic dish. I’m a half Italian (hooray for Lasagna) and half Hungarian (bring on the sour cream) girl, so Cuban food isn’t exactly something I have any life long experience with.

My husband is half Cuban. On Christmas Eve instead of celebrating the Feast of the Seven Fishes that every Italian kid was part of, his family makes pernil (slow roast pork) black beans and rice and platanos maduros (fried sweet bananas). I was a total skeptic, bratty even. How’s it going to feel like Christmas Eve without everything I’m used to?

After the first bite, I immediately dropped my reservations. There’s something about a hearty bowl of black beans and rice that can make an outsider instantly feel like family. Cuban food is just plain comforting. You can feel the love in it. I thought this contest would be a cool opportunity to take a stab at recreating some of the flavors from my husband’s childhood. Operation “learn to be a respectable honorary Cuban” is on!

It was pretty tricky to find a classic Cuban meal that fits into the Diet It Up philosophy. Fried bananas and white rice are not exactly staples in my diet. I remember hearing about Grandma’s Ropa Vieja. Ropa Vieja is a tomato based Cuban beef stew and it literally means, “old clothes.” Who came up with a silly name like that? So, I did a little research. Since the stew is made of shredded beef and thin slices of peppers and onions, the resulting dish looks like a mess of shredded old rags. Ah ha! Very clever!

“Authentic” is a tricky word to master in ethnic cooking. Food is inherently regional. In the US, some people put mustard on their hamburger. But here in NY, if you send a burger out of the kitchen with mustard, we’re sending it right back. Some variations on Ropa Vieja use flank steak. Grandma used chuck roast so, I’m going with chuck.

The roast is browned and then slowly braised in a Dutch oven. If you want to hop on the American crock-pot bandwagon, you can certainly make the roast in the crock-pot. I normally shy away from fatty cuts like chuck, but you need the moisture. It helps the meat to shred nicely. I don’t trim any of the fat before cooking. I let the meat cool in the braising liquid and skim off any grease that collects on top. I also remove any remaining fatty bits from the meat while shredding.

The stew is finished with a rich, tomato based sauce laced with sautéed green peppers and onions. A true Cuban would serve a scoop of stew with yellow rice. I would of course go with brown rice. But no matter what your rice preference, Ropa Vieja is an amazingly flavorful Cuban dinner. The slow-cooked element really secures that classic Cuban feel.

But isn’t this supposed to be a recipe for empanadas, you ask? I took the leftover stew and transformed it into ROPA VIEJA EMPANADAS. Who’s the clever one now?! If you aren’t familiar with them, empanadas are stuffed, crescent-shaped pastries. Cuban empanadas are typically filled with meat and then deep-fried. They can be eaten for lunch or as a mid-day snack.

I took a short cut from the American supermarket and bought the dough pre-made. Goya makes “discos” in the frozen food aisle that work just as well as making dough from scratch. But if you have a favorite pastry dough recipe, by all means, put it to good use here. Once the dough is filled with stew, I crimp the pockets closed to form the classic crescent shape. I’m breaking from tradition slightly to bake instead of fry. Sorry Grandma, it had to be done.

After just a few minutes in the oven, the pastry dough puffs up and turns a beautiful golden brown. Even without frying, the dough is still flaky and the stew stays nice and juicy on the inside. For a health conscious eater, empanadas are pre-portioned. I’ll eat one for lunch and won’t be tempted to go back and scoop a second portion. This really is the perfect Cuban meal to-go. We gobbled them up in a few minutes flat.

I may not be a little Cuban grandma, but I know I did my husband’s family proud with this meal. It was authentic and delicious. I might have even earned the highly regarded “honorary Cuban” status after all!

* Voting opens on Monday, September 27th on FoodBuzz. Remember to vote for your favorite healthy home cook, me!

No Woman, No Fry

I know I’ve been writing a lot lately about the concept of baking instead of frying. At the risk of beating a dead horse, I have one more point to make on the subject. Let’s discuss the ultimate classic Italian comfort food, parmigiana. In this case, eggplant parmigiana.

I never quite understood why the eggplant in eggplant parm needs to be fried at all. The purpose of frying anything is to develop a nice crispy crust so the food crunches when you bite into it. You take the time to bread all of these little rounds of eggplant, fry them in hot oil, only to turn around and kill the crisp coating with soggy tomato sauce and globs of melted mozzarella cheese? What gives?

There’s certainly a time and a place for frying. This isn’t it. It just isn’t necessary. I’ve tried those diet cookbook attempts to make a parmigiana without the breading at all. That’s taking it a bit too far. Just cut one large eggplant into rounds. Coat them lightly in egg, then seasoned breadcrumbs and bake the slices at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes on a cookie sheet. Flip them half way through cooking so both sides brown.

I’m sure everyone’s Italian grandma has their own take on this dish. Here’s my spin. For the sauce, I mix an 8 oz. can of plain tomato sauce with 2 cups of my favorite pasta sauce. My favorite pasta sauce happens to be my own. Humble, I know. It’s the typical “Sunday gravy” type of red sauce cooked for hours with meatballs, sausage…the works. The little can of plain tomato helps thin it out a bit and disperse some of the meaty flavors.

I layer the eggplant slices with the sauce mixture in a 1-1/2 quart CorningWare baking dish and top with 1 cup of reduced fat mozzarella and 2 tablespoons grated Pecorino. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees until the cheese is bubbling.

You’ll end up with a delicious Italian feast with plenty of leftovers for lunch the next day. Serve the meal with a side salad instead of greasy garlic bread and you’ll have a stick-to-your-ribs dinner people will want you to make again and again.

* Get cooking. Let me know what you think. Love it? Hate it? I’m interested in hearing your feedback and suggestions.

Recipe Slimdown #1: Chicken Croquettes

The offer always stands to send me your favorite gut-busting recipe and I’ll take a stab at slimming it down. Here are the results of my first official recipe recreation project:

Q: “So, I'm sitting at lunch today and I had an idea for a Diet It Up version of something I ate a lot of as a kid; chicken croquettes. It was a puree of chicken with very distinctive spices, inside a crunchy shell. They used to make them at the German deli and they called them chicken balls. You could also buy them frozen (Banquet, Swanson, or Tyson used to make them)."

A: I’ll be 100% honest. Until this email, I literally had never heard of a chicken croquette. Potato croquettes? Yes. But, chicken? No way. I did some research on the subject and apparently, this was a big time 1950’s diner meal. Basically, ground chicken is mixed with a rich béchamel sauce, formed into balls, breaded and deep fried. These were often served atop a bed of mashed potatoes with thick, creamy white gravy.

Weaver used to sell chicken croquettes in the freezer case at the supermarket. The product has since been taken off the market. My guess is that most people aren’t going to invest 20 grams of fat in one little chicken ball and Weaver decided to pull them. Just my speculation.

I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull off a tasty 2010 version of this classic with significantly less calories. I started with the ground chicken and spices. I used some low-fat cream of chicken soup as the base instead of the heavy butter and flour béchamel. Some seasoned breadcrumbs and an egg white helped to bind the croquette together.

I would recommend chilling the mixture for at least an hour before trying to form it into balls. When it was very cold, you could pack the meat together like a meatball. As it warmed up, it was a little harder to get them to hold together. I coated the croquettes in panko and tossed them in the oven, crossing my fingers that I wouldn’t end up with a mess of broken-up chicken slop.

Surprisingly, these CHICKEN CROQUETTES turned out great! The inside is light and fluffy and the breaded crust is crispy without the added oil from frying. I ditched the gravy and served mine with some homemade BBQ SAUCE. The BBQ was the perfect tangy, spicy complement to the chicken. I may not be lucky enough to have tried the original, but my spin on this dish was pretty darn tasty.

* Get cooking. Let me know what you think. Love it? Hate it? I’m interested in hearing your feedback and suggestions.

Not So Porky Sausage & Peppers

I’m certainly not revealing any ground-breaking news here. At this point, the world has become so health conscious, everyone knows that sausage is NOT very good for you. If you’re one of the few people out there living under a rock, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. Sausage isn’t the key to perfectly clear arteries. But when I need a quick dinner that I can throw together in 15 minutes after work, sausage and peppers is a solid go-to. The easiest fix is to swap out the pork for turkey, but I was reluctant to try turkey Italian sausage. Some things are best left un-fussed with.

Most sausages made from anything other than pork lack the proper casing that makes sausage so great. I like when the outside gets all dark and crispy and pork-free casings just don’t crisp-up. I couldn’t get them to brown. They basically end up steaming in the pan and come out looking pale and grey; not very appetizing. Despite my clear prejudice, I decided to try it anyway. After some trial and error, I found the trick to dealing with the turkey sausage thorn in my side. First, the links need to be very dry. Roll them on a paper towel to make sure they aren’t carrying along any excess moisture. Second, your pan needs to be screaming hot so the second the meat hits the surface, they start to brown. Slimy sausage problem solved!

If you make this simple substitution to your favorite recipe for sausage and peppers, you can save over half the amount of fat as the original. A typical grilled turkey sausage link has around 9G of fat. A pork sausage can have up to 22 grams of fat per link! That’s approximately 30 percent of the amount of fat you’re supposed to have in one day and it’s squeezed into this one measly link of sausage. I’m sharing my own recipe here. My suggestion is to buy hot sausage. Everything’s better when it’s a little spicy. What’s life without a little spice anyway?

* Get cooking. Let me know what you think. Love it? Hate it? I’m interested in hearing your feedback and suggestions.

The Great Mac & Cheese Caper

A few weeks ago on a Friday night I was eating dinner at a local BBQ joint with some friends. As we’re chowing down on ribs and pulled pork, I spotted a big bowl of macaroni and cheese on my friend’s plate. Trying to abide by the Diet It Up lifestyle, I opted for a side of corn on the cob instead of the ooey, gooey macaroni. But, that mac & cheese looked damn good! Fearing her dinner would soon become a victim of my wandering fork, my friend challenged me to come up with a mac & cheese recipe that won’t leave us girls (or guys) feeling like we just ate a pound of dairy. A challenge? When do I ever shy away from a culinary adventure? Little did my cheese-addicted friend know that she would soon be recruited to come over on a Sunday afternoon to act as honorary taste-tester. This one’s for you, Cyn.

My Hearty Mac & Cheese is adapted from an Ellie Krieger recipe. I made a few of my own tweaks to bump up the flavor. I’ll tell you how the recipe tastes before scaring you off with the unexpected culprit in this diet mac & cheese caper. The macaroni is rich and creamy and the breadcrumb topping adds a little crunch. It’s cheesy and delicious. What makes this a Diet It Up entrée, you ask? The base for the cheese sauce is made with frozen pureed winter squash. Don’t walk away! There’s no reason to be afraid! It doesn’t taste like squash at all. The cheese is still the shining star of the recipe. I’ll admit, if you served this to me and pitched it as "the greatest mac & cheese you’ll ever have in your life" I might argue with you. But, it certainly doesn’t taste diety. This is a lighter alternative to classic comfort food fare. Some people live their lives by the credo, "everything’s better with bacon" but I’m going with the slogan, "everything’s better with CHEESE." Enjoy!

Get cooking. Let me know what you think. Love it? Hate it? I’m interested in hearing your feedback and suggestions.

Drury Lane Meatloaf

Rachael, Rachael, Rachael. I’ll agree that Ms. Ray is a nagging personality to listen to for even a 30-minute meal. If she says E-V-O-O one more time I just might reach through the TV and slap her silly. But, the gal sure can cook. I find myself doctoring up a lot of her recipes. I thought her Meatloaf Muffin idea was genius. I’m a self-proclaimed Sliver Queen. “Oh, don’t mind me; I’m just having another little SLIVER.” Well that sliver turns into five more slivers and before I know it, I’ve eaten an entire second portion. Then, I plop down on the couch grumpy and defeated. Meatloaf, you won’t get me this time! This recipe is a perfect way to control portion size. Just have two mini loaves with a veggie on the side and you’ve got yourself a comfort food feast that won’t leave you feeling plump.

I’m calling my spin on Rachael’s creation Mini Turkey Meatloaves with Barbecue Sauce. I’m using ground turkey instead of ground beef. This cuts some of the fat and believe it or not, I actually prefer the turkey. It has a much softer texture. Just be careful to avoid ground turkey breast. Ground white meat has the texture of rubbery marbles. Yick! Having some dark meat in the mix really does help to keep the loaves nice and juicy. I also cut the amount of BBQ sauce in half. BBQ is jam packed with sugar, but it’s also full of flavor. Half the amount delivers the same taste without the unnecessary sugar spike.

I know you’re tempted to serve meatloaf with a side of creamy mashed potatoes. Who wouldn’t be? Mashed potatoes are actually one of my top 3 favorite foods in the universe. The universe! That’s huge. But, in the spirit of cutting carbs, I paired the meatloaf with some roasted brussels sprouts. OK, wipe that disgusted look off your face. Brussels sprouts are delicious if you treat them with respect! Toss them in olive oil, salt and pepper and roast them in the oven at 400 degrees for 35 minutes. The outsides will brown and crisp up nicely. You won’t be sorry you gave them a chance.