Diary of a Skinny Cook

Frozen Yogurt

2010-02-25T14:36:00.000-08:00

We are celebrating my 3y birthday this week so I bought Chocolate Frozen Yogurt. It was the Kroger brand and it was good. There was only 100 calories per 1/2 cup. Some of my favorite ice cream is 250-350 calories for 1/2 cup. I am happy. Now when I want ice cream I will not make my pregnant belly any bigger with frozen yogurt!

Banana Meatloaf

2010-02-23T13:42:00.000-08:00

I thought that I should mention my sojourn into disaster last week. I found a recipe for Banana Meatloaf. I thought wow that is really good on calories and if I sub out ground beef for ground turkey it will be really great. Remember that I am pregnant and a crazy cook.

Danny came home and I gave him the meatloaf. He asked," Do you smell that? It smells like fruit."

He took a bite. "I smell banana." I told him that it was banana meatloaf. That was the last bite he took. I smelled like banana bread, but tasted like meatloaf. My banana may have been too ripe.

On the tally the girls liked the meatloaf, Danny hated it, and I was undecided until that night when I was brushing my thought about the meatloaf then threw it up. I am now against it. I am not even going to post a link to where I got it from because it is not worth it. Fruit and meatloaf should not be combined!

No Sugar Grape Jelly

2010-02-23T13:04:00.000-08:00

I made homemade Jelly for the first time in December 2009. I added something like 6 cups of grape juice and 5 cups of sugar. It was really good but tons of sugar. Today I tried the No sugar needed pectin. I just used 4 cups of juice and the pectin. It is very sour. I am not sure if Danny is going to like it. I will have to keep trying to find a recipe that does not have so much sugar but just enough to not be sour. We haven't tried it out on a peanut butter and sandwich yet. It my still be good there!

Italian Chicken Revised

2010-02-17T17:19:00.000-08:00

My mom likes to make Italian Chicken by marinating chicken breasts in bottled Italian dressing. Yesterday I had a craving for it. My only problem was that I didn't have any in the fridge. I got creative and made up my own way with a healthier result.

1 package dry Italian seasoning

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup water

chicken cut up in strips

I started to make the dry package up of Italian seasoning when I realized that I didn't have the vinegar that the package called for. So I sub it out with water. Then marinated the chicken in the fridge for about a half hour. I cooked it in a 9x9 inch foil tin or just line the bottom of the pan with foil. Bake at 350 F for 30-40 mins.

The chicken is really tender and tasty! I served mine with corn and mashed potatoes. (The whole dinner is off what I was craving!!)

Everyone liked it and ate everything. Sucess!

Ground Turkey Meat

2010-02-13T16:25:00.000-08:00

I really thought I would be a better blogger. But the pregnancy has made me so nausea that I have had a hard time even eating dinner let alone cooking it. I am starting to feel better so I feel that I can start to talk about food again. The easiest replacement meat that we have made is switching ground beef to ground turkey. The only difference is it is less greasy and better for you. Smiths sells their brand for $2.49 a package. I haven't had any complaints about it. I am sure that kids or husbands would not even know. (the same is true for turkey burgers.) Switch the meat, feed them, then ask if they liked it! Good luck!

We still eat

2010-02-01T11:09:00.000-08:00

I thought that I would let the family know that we still eat everyday. We just are using the same things that I have already found. Our favorite is the turkey burgers on the sandwich thins they are so yummy. We are re-trying the salmon soon. But today I must confess to making Grandma Lou's Clam Chowder. It has 1/2 and 1/2 in it. I am sure that there are healthy recipes out there, but why mess with the best!

Salmon

2010-01-28T11:32:00.000-08:00

We ventured into the world fish last night. Danny cooked the Salmon in the oven and seasoned with with seasoning salt and lemon. I really like it. Alison took one bite and said it was good. Danny wanted it prepared a different way. A slab of fish is not his ideal dinner. So now I am on a mission to find fish on sale and prepare in a healthy way with more ingredients included in the menu. If you have any good ideas let me know!

Chicken Noddle Soup

2010-01-26T13:05:00.000-08:00

I thought that every day I would be posting and eating healthy. Then my family was sick. We passed the stomach flu from person to person in our family. We are all healthy on. The only other excuse I have for not posting is on the days that I babysit I am usually to tired to post. I will try to get better.

I made the best Chicken Noddle Soup last night. So good.

I start with boiling the chicken covered in water and add a chicken bullion cube per cup of water. Once the chicken is cooked I remove it and pull it into little bit size pieces. Then add it back into the water you cooked it in. I like to add onion, carrots, corn, celery, and a potato. I add whatever amount I have on hand. Then simmer this pot for a few hours. About 20 minutes before you serve add the egg noddles. It was so good.

Steak Tacos

2010-01-12T21:06:00.000-08:00

You know that my favorite new book is Eat this Not That. They have an great recipe for steak tacos (found on page 294) Here is how I made it!

I followed the instructions with marinading a pound of steak in 1 cup orange juice, 1tsp cumin, 2 garlic cloves, 2 cups cilantro. Puree in blender.(I choose not to add the 2 chippotle peppers in adobo called for in the recipe. Marinate steak for at least 30 mins.

Remove steak from marinaded and season with salt and pepper. Cook your steaks. We did ours to medium rare. One steak I cook more because Danny said it was still mooing!

Slice the steaks. Last step is to compile the taco on a soft shell tortilla, add guacamole, minced red onion, fresh cilantro, and a squeeze of lime. So good!

According to the book there is 250 cals.

Oroweat Sandwich Thins

2010-01-11T15:46:00.000-08:00

I found this great new product at the store. It has no high fructose corn syrup or trans fat. They have 100 calories and 5 grams of fiber. We ate then with our burgers on Saturday and really liked them. If you can't tell I get really excited when I find something I like that is on the healthy side!

Banana Orange Oatmeal

2010-01-09T09:23:00.000-08:00

I tried this oatmeal here. As usual I didn't follow the instructions to the T and this time I ended up hating the results. Instead of using orange juice I used the frozen Dole pine-strawberry-orange juice. It was too strong! I am going to give this recipe another try following the instructions this time. (I have 25lbs of oatmeal. That is going nowhere fast.) I am bound and determined to find a good recipe for oatmeal. I will keep you posted!

Spaghetti

2010-01-08T16:22:00.000-08:00

Spaghetti is a stand-by at my house. I threw together a romaine salad and called it dinner. Everyone but my 2 year old ate. The kid drives me crazy. Tonight I need to plan my shopping trip for food for the next week. I am going to be babysitting a little girl next week and I am thinking simple for dinner. Adding one more kid to watch makes me so much more tired than just watching my two.

Oven Baked Pork Chops

2010-01-07T09:38:00.000-08:00

I made these tasty pork chops found here. They were really easy to make. My 5 year old told me that she doesn't eat meat. She is a vegetarian. I am hoping that this is a one day thing. My 2 year old just wanted butter and bread. My husband and I really like them. ***Confession time*** I am trying to switch from white rice to brown rice, but I can not figure out how to cook the brown rice. The first time I tried to make it in the rice cooker. It never fully cook. Last night I tried to make it in a pot on the stove and I still could not get it to cook all the way through. I am still have a couple cups left in the bag. I am not going to give up, I just am going to do some more research.

Mexicalli Quiche

2010-01-06T10:18:00.000-08:00

This is a yummy recipe I found a few years ago when my husband tried weight watchers for a couple of weeks. The diet didn't stay, but this recipe did. Mexicalli Quiche is easy to make. My husband and I like it. My 5 year old likes it and my 2 year old tells me it's gross.

My only suggestion would be to find a deep dish frozen pie. I can never get all the egg mixture into the pie. I always end up dumping some or spilling some in the oven.

Sorry there is no picture. I tried to take one. It didn't look very good. I should learn how to take pictures of to make them look appetizing not blobs of food on a plate!

Breakfast Shake

2010-01-05T10:14:00.000-08:00

Success I found this Weight Watchers Shake recipe years ago but never tried it. It was so good the Low-fat Sunshine Shake can stay!

Of course I had to make a few changes.

I could not find grapefruit juice in the frozen juices at the store. So I cheated and bought Dole's Orange Peach Mango blend. I put in a 1 1/2 cups of juice instead of 1 cup orange juice and a 1/2 cup grapefruit juice. I also forgot to add the vanilla. Everything else I followed the recipe. So good!

Corn Tortillas instead of Flour Tortillas

2010-01-05T09:45:00.000-08:00

Last night for dinner we had tacos. Following the advice in Eat this not that, I changed from using flour tortillas to corn tortillas and iceberg lettuce to romaine lettuce.

The verdict on the corn tortillas is the trash. My kids didn't like them and my husband and I couldn't take more that a few bites. I found some hard shells in the cabinet and saved dinner. I thought replacing food with healthier food was going to be easier.

With the romaine lettuce the kids didn't make a fuse and ate it. Romaine can stay!

On with the healthy cooking!

2010 Start of Healthy Foods

2010-01-05T09:25:00.000-08:00

I am a good cook. If my husband tells me that my food is good I say,"I know!" Then I stop kidding and thank him. I do have a major flaw in how I cook. It seems that the fatty the food, the worse it is for you to eat, the better I am at making it.

For Christmas I received the book Eat This Not That for the supermarket. It really opened my eyes to the kind of crap that I buy and put into my families bodies. The book is not a diet book and I have no plans of ever going a diet, but I do have plans to buy and make healthier food for my family. So let the adventure begin.