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Roasted Veggies

19 May

It’s beet season!  I love beets, though I only discovered that recently.  The one thing I dislike about beets, however, is how they turn everything bright pink. But they’re worth it.  I have never just cooked up beets myself, however, so I had to Google the best way to peel a beet. Turns out it’s pretty easy! Just roast them and then use a spoon to slide between the skin and the beet under running water and it just peels right off.

They cook up so beautifully that I just had to take a few glamour shots…


We were in a veggie roasting mood, so we also threw some mushrooms, onions, carrots, and (our new favorite) daikon onto a pan and cooked up a zero point veggie feast!

In general, you can basically roast any veggie.  To keep it point free, put it on a Silpat and then spray it quickly with some cooking spray.  Put in a 400 degree oven and roast for about 20 minutes (thicker, heavier veggies may take longer).  I test for doneness along the way, however, this formula works for most hard vegetables.

A Review of Weight Watchers Pre-packaged Food- Part 1

14 May

I have now officially been on Weight Watchers for 9 weeks.  I have lost a total of 14.2 pounds and honestly, my only regret is that I didn’t do this sooner.  Is it easy? Hell no. But it’s pretty damn simple.  I’m not hungry, I’m not craving, and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on that much.  Sure, I miss pigging out on super indulgent foods that I love, however, I have come to terms with the fact that pigging out really isn’t that much more satisfying that tasting it…  And if it’s really good, eating half of it. 

A lot of Weight Watchers is about trading.  Finding good substitutes for foods that “cost” fewer points.  There are some things that I think are worth trading out and some things that I would rather take the hit on the points.  First, there are the simple things, like trading out white carbs for brown (they keep you fuller longer and believe me… there IS brown rice that tastes GOOD), eating higher fiber yogurts, and eating some pre-packaged foods.  Now I know there is a lot of controversy about packaged foods.  And yes, some of these have ingredients that I can hardly pronounce. But in the end, I think the substitutions are mostly worthwhile, and they aren’t every day foods. (“Cookies are a sometimes food!”)

First, we’ll start with the worst. Hungry Girl has introduced me to some GREAT food substitutions.  Unfortunately, tofu noodles aren’t one of my favorite choices. 

Points for this is nearly zero.  So you want to eat them like you would pasta.

The problem is, these want so badly to be like pasta, but they’re just not!  It starts getting bad early on… I read before opening the bag the instructions to “reduce the authentic aroma.”  Yikes! They don’t lie… these kind of smell like fish.  YUCK.  I gave them a chance, however, and after par boiling the smell was hardly noticeable.

The problem is, the texture just isn’t right.  It reminds me of calamari.  And calamari is just fine, but it’s not pasta.

Sad.  Fail. 

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Next up we have two frozen meals from Healthy Choice.  The first is a new (I think) version called “Cafe Steamers” that steams pasta, meat, and veggies in a basket over the sauce that you later mix in.

It was quite delicious! Excellent flavor and veggies tasted super fresh.  Of course, the portion like all frozen diet meals was small, but I didn’t feel hungry afterwards.

The second Healthy Choice selection was an entree that included dessert.  This, again, had great flavor and it was a decent sized portion.  The berry crisp was decent (though I prefer their apple better).  The biggest problem I had was really about slight deception….

Look at the picture… now look at the veggies… See that? See the measily half a cauliflower piece and ONE carrot lying helplessly at the bottom of that photo? Not exactly the veggie mix I was expecting.  I guess broccoli is cheaper!

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Next up we’ll go into dessert.  These are by far some of the best trades!  I have lost 14 pounds and I have eaten dessert almost every single night.  How can you beat that?!

Weight Watchers brand makes these “Giant Vanilla Fudge Sundae Cones.”  The ice cream is a little bland, however, there is a secret portion of fudge in the very bottom of the cone that is DELICIOUS.  It feels so indulgent and it’s just two points!

Next up are the new Skinny Cow Single Serving Cups.  They are just the perfect portion and the one I tried had SO much flavor! WOW! And again… just 2 points!  I will be stocking up on these.  DELICIOUS!

Next up are the Smart Ones sundaes. (OO! Coupon on the site!) I have tried both the brownie and the cookie dough.  (Mint Chocolate Chip is in the freezer… I’ll let you know).  I thought the brownie was decent, but the cookie dough is SOOO good.  It’s a little chalky perhaps, but it has all the right flavors.  I like that they have a cookie crumble on the bottom and some great solid chocolate chips.  Mmm Mmm Mmm.

Last up in the “dessert” category is my new addiction.  Again, Hungry Girl turned me onto VitaTops.  They are vitamin, fiber filled chocolatey treats for 100 calories and low fat… that translates to ONE POINT!!  WOW! They are delicious and they come in many flavors.  Beyond chocolate, I’ve tried the Apple & Berries and it is SO good… great for breakfast!  My favorite so far is the Deep Chocolate.  You can get them from Fresh Direct, however, they ain’t cheap.  I ordered a sampler pack from the Vitalicious Website that included the brownies and the tops.   

I definitely prefer the tops.  (They are in the frozen section in your grocery.  They can be microwaved, but I actually prefer them frozen since the chocolate chips stay nice and crunchy).

Hungry Girl runs a lot of promos, so when I ordered again (YES! I love these things!) I got 24 tops for $29.99 and free shipping. WOO!  (Right now she is running another promotion where you get 5% off with code HUNGRYGIRL2010.) 

They are so filling and delicious! I can’t say enough good things about these…

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…Until we get to Better’n Peanut Butter.  OH BOY!

This.

Is.

The.

Best.

I am obsessed.  Normal peanut butter is 4 points per tablespoons. Reduced fat is 2 points per tablespoon.  Better’n? 1 Point per tablespoon!  That means I can have four times as much. Right?  

I thought it would be tough to match the taste of peanut butter but I have found I actually PREFER this.  Well named product.

It’s not quite as thick as regular peanut butter (more the consistency of thick hot fudge I’d say) but it’s not oily or wet like organic peanut butters.  It’s just absolutely delicious.

As if you couldn’t make it better… spread some Better’n on a VitaTop!

WOAH NILLY!

We have a winner!

Zuni Chicken & Bread Salad Recipe

7 May

For all the cooking I’ve done recently, a full chicken was new to me… and quite intimidating.  Not to mention I have a childhood fear of raw food… especially chicken.  Remember that commercial where they made the contaminating bacteria glow green? Yeh… scarred for life! 

ANYWAY… Whole chickens were on sale at Fresh Direct so I went for it.  While looking for recipes, I happened upon the recipe for the Zuni chicken and bread salad.  We enjoyed this very much when we ate at Zuni in December, so I thought it would be fun to try.  I read a few versions (here is and 2… and turns out the original “real” recipe is insanely long) and combined a few ideas to make a simpler version (see recipe at the end of this post).

We started with the intimidating raw bird and Mike was nice enough to do most of the handling.

The recipe called for finding “pockets” near the tail under the skin.  I didn’t even know these existed, but turns out they make perfect little pockets for spices.

We went with kosher salt and made a mix of rosemary, thyme, and sage (no parsley this time).

We actually “found” a few more pockets than probably were normal… but why not?


After making sure the chicken was fully herbed, we coated the entire thing in kosher salt. 

Then we put the chicken in the fridge for 2 days to season.  The salt brined the chicken and made it SUPER moist.  I’m still not positive on the science, but I can tell you that it certainly works! (And no… it doesn’t make the chicken taste super salty at all)

I took my awesome Lodge Logic Double Dutch Oven (where the lid doubles as a skillet!) and browned the chicken on both sides over high heat.

Then it went into the oven.

While the chicken cooked, I started on the bread salad.  I had bought some whole grain peasant bread from FreshDirect a few days prior and left it on the counter to get nice and stale.  You were supposed to carve most of the crust off, however, I think my bread was extra crusty and made this difficult… so I just left some of it on and tore it up.

I then tossed them with some olive oil and put them under the broiler to brown.  It then got tossed with some garlic, shallots, white raisins, pine nuts, scallions, and dressing.

Then tossed with some arugula.

After some flipping of the chicken, it came out beautifully.

With crispy skin and juicy meat, I was so impressed with how beautiful this looked!

And it tasted damn good too.

The bread salad was good… but no where near the Zuni salad.  I thought our chicken could have been in competition though!

I was impressed at how easy this chicken was to make for the impressive end result.  The bread salad? I’ll probably skip that myself from now on.

This was all done prior to Weight Watchers (I somehow forgot to post this months ago!)  Though we did the chicken again (sans bread salad) recently and, of course, the bulk of the points come from the skin.  I saved up my points, however, and 1/4 chicken comes to about 9 points. Not terrible!

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RECIPE
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Zuni Style Chicken (simplified)

Ingredients:

  • One small whole chicken- rinsed and thoroughly dried (inside and outside), innards and fat removed from neck
  • Springs of rosemary, sage, and thyme (~1 Tbl. of each)
  • Optional: Garlic Powder
  • Lots of kosher salt (~1 Tbl. for stuffing and then as much as you need for coating)
  • Black pepper (we used very little since I’m not a big fan)

Directions:

  1. About 2 days before you want to eat it, start with a very dry bird
  2. Mix spices and 1 Tbl. kosher salt in a small dish (we also added garlic powder on one occassion… damn good)
  3. Slide your finger into the pockets between the breast meat and the skin to open them for stuffing
  4. Season the outside of the chicken liberally with kosher salt and black pepper
  5. Sprinkle a little salt inside
  6. Cover loosely and refrigerate for 2 days
  7. When ready to start cooking, heat oven to 475 degrees
  8. Heat an oven proof skillet over medium/high heat
  9. Place chicken in skillet and brown on both sides for just a few minutes
  10. When oven is heated, place chicken breast side up in pan and place in oven for 25 minutes  (this is a good time to start the bread salad below)
  11. After 25 minutes of roasting, it should be starting to brown.  Flip the chicken oven (this is a moment where I wanted “food safe” oven mits!)
  12. Roast for another 15 minutes, then flip again (if you are also making the bread salad, you should be to step 11 where you can put the mixture into the oven with the chicken at this point)
  13. Roast another 10 minutes
  14. Chicken should be 180 degrees when a thermometer is stuck into a meaty part of the chicken
  15. Remove from oven, cover with foil, and allow to rest for at leat 30 minutes before serving

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Bread Salad

Ingredients:

  • Recipe called for “Generous 8 ounces slightly stale open-crumbed, chewy, peasant-style bread (not sourdough)” – I did my best and found whole grain parbaked bread from FreshDirect
  • ~2 tablespoons olive oil + 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons Champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar
  • Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon dried currants plumped in 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar and 1 tablespoon warm water for ten minutes or so (we used golden raisins instead)
  • 2 tablespoons pine nuts
  • 2 to 3 garlic cloves, slivered
  • 2 shallots, sliced thin
  • 1/4 cup slivered scallions (about 4 scallions), including a little of the green part
  • 2 tablespoons lightly salted chicken stock or lightly salted water
  • A few handfuls of arugula, washed and dried
  • Chicken drippings from roasted chicken

Directions:

  1. Carve crust off bread, leaving as much bread as possible (they called for 4 cups… but I got maybe 2 cups… it was fine though)
  2. Tear bread into pieces (a little bigger than bite sized works) and lightly coat with olive oil
  3. Heat broiler and broil the bread chunks for just a few minutes until they start to brown and a few char a bit
  4. Combine about 1/4 cup of olive oil with the vinegar and salt and pepper to taste
  5. Toss about 1/4 cup of this tart vinaigrette with the torn bread in a bowl; the bread will be unevenly dressed. Taste one of the more saturated pieces. If it is bland, add a little salt and pepper and toss again.
  6. Soften garlic, scallions, and olive oil in a pan and toss with bread chunks (don’t brown)
  7. Drain currants (or raisins) and toss with bread mixture
  8. Toss in pine nuts (can be browned quickly if desired, but careful… they brown fast!)
  9. Dribble some of the chicken drippings from your roasted chicken and toss all together
  10. Check for seasoning and taste and adjust accordingly (I wound up adding a lot more salt and some more vinegar)
  11. Put bread combination into a pan and put it into the oven with the chicken for the last 10 minutes to warm
  12. Just before serving, toss with arugula and serve alongside chicken (or underneath if you want to be more authentic to Zuni)