OT - Got a decent somewhat-healthy recipe?

[rhull]

Due to health reasons, my wife and I are restricted to eating fairly low-fat meals (no eating out, lots of vegetables, etc). Lately we've been getting in a bit bit of a funk with all our regular recipes (and we do have a few good ones).

I spent a couple hours searching online, but I can't really come up with anything that seems decent. I figure there's got to be a few people here who try to "eat healthy". :)

If anybody can share a decent somewhat-healthy recipe, we would really appreciate it.

[mrohde]

Ken posted a chicken and wild rice recipe a while back. You may have to de-fat it a bit, but it's good. I've got a soup recipe posted to the same thread. It might not be de-fattable enough, but it's real good, too.

http://www.woodworking.com/dcforum/d...rum=DCForumID8

[rhull]

>Ken posted a chicken and wild rice recipe a while back. You
>may have to de-fat it a bit, but it's good. I've got a soup
>recipe posted to the same thread. It might not be
>de-fattable enough, but it's real good, too.
>
>http://www.woodworking.com/dcforum/d...rum=DCForumID8

Unfortunately, the cream, bacon, and cheddar cheese sort of kill those recipes for us. Somehow, I don't think they'll be the same without those ingredients.

I'll post up a few recipes tonight that we've gotten a lot of miles out of.

[mrohde]

Ken's didn't have bacon or cheese. I suspect that some flour and milk would replace the cream in his. That shouldn't be too bad, should it?

[rhull]

>I suspect that some
>flour and milk would replace the cream in his. That
>shouldn't be too bad, should it?

<Rob makes his skeptical face>

[dcarter636]

The Scarsdale Medical Diet book has some very good near zero fat recipes that we like. I don't know if it is still in print but it would be worth a look. Mind you I'm not endorsing that weight loss system even though it helped me lose 40 lbs three different times. :)

[rhull]

Here are two fairly healthy, fairly low-fat recipes that we've been eating for the past 5 years. They're both fairly easy to make, and taste great, to boot.


Chicken with Angel Hair and Mustard-Wine Sauce (Serves 2)

1 1/4 cup Hidden Valley Ranch light dressing
3 teaspoons dijon mustard
2 boneless chicken breast halves
1/2 cup dry white wine
or
1/4 cup white wine, 1/4 cup lo/non-fat chicken broth
8 ounces angel hair pasta
olive oil

Wisk mustard and dressing and set aside.
Start boiling water for pasta.
Cube chicken, salt and pepper a little.
Saute chicken in a small amount of olive oil until chicken is cooked through.
Add wine (or wine & chicken broth) to chicken. Cook at medium-high heat to reduce liquid by about 2/3 so it's thick.
Add ranch/mustard to chicken and stir until mixed well.
At the same time that you add ranch/mustard to chicken, put the pasta in the boiling water.
The pasta will take roughly 5 minutes to cook. Stir the sauce until it's starting to bubble, then reduce heat until pasta is done.
Serve pasta with chicken sauce.

We often eat this with some (light) garlic bread, or stringbeans.



Chicken Casserole (serves 2)

2 boneless chicken breast halves
2 slices swiss cheese (we use swiss cheese Veggie Slices - tastes no different than real cheese in this recipe)
1 can low-fat Campbells cream of mushroom soup
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 1/2 cups stovetop stuffing
1/4 cup margerine

Preheat oven to 350F.
In a greased (light baking spray) pan, place chicken.
Place "cheese" over chicken.
Mix soup and wine and pour over contents of pan.
Melt butter and mix with stuffing. Pour stuffing over contents of pan.
Cover pan with aluminum foil.
Bake about 55 minutes.

[rhull]

So, uh...Nobody eats any healthy meals??? Or do all you bums stick the LOYL with all the cooking??

[Breaddrink]

Pumpkin soup is a good one, rob.
We had it just last night in fact.

Great way to get rid of halloween pumpkin actualy.

This is the cheaty version that uses condensed soup to help it, but you can do the all stock thing too...May possibly need thickening afterwards mind but the large quantity of pureed pumpkin adds a LOT of body, so don't quote me on that.

40 ounces (weight) of coarse pureed pumpkin.(about 4.5 cups) Canned is fine if you can't be bothered with real stuff.
1 cup of onions (roughly diced)
1 can of campbells 98 percent fat free chicken soup (+ it's 1 can of water)
1 can of campbells 98 percent fat free mushroom soup (+ it's 1 can of water(Or use 2 mushroom if you want to keep it vegetarian))
2 cups of stock (I find chicken works well).
1/2 tsp nutmeg
pepper to taste (I tend to go heavy on the pepper as it works well with the nutmeg in that warm winter soup way)
Generaly if you've used stock cubes it shouldn't need any salt.

Cook onions prior to adding to the mix (I usually just microwave them in water until soft)
Apart from that, stick it all in a pot and simmer for 10 minutes.

That makes roughly 10 cups at vaguely 65 calories per cup. Filling as hell and tastes really remarkable.
It's nearly pure carbs, though admittedly not many of those either, so if you wanted to add some meat or even some potatoes to pick up the calories, I can see this being a good base for a chowder.

You can boost it still further by adding milk at the end as it makes a very thick smooth soup that can stand some thinning, and for everyone else you can cook the onions in butter until brown before adding liquid ingredients.

It can be pureed together at the end too, but I rather like it with the onions and soup bits still chunky.
Very farmhouse cuisine. It's one of those rare recipes that tastes excellent as the low fat version and I've tried all the alternatives listed. They all work well.

I'm going to go get the leftovers right now in fact. MINE!

Amount Per 1 cup
Calories 65.7
Calories from Fat 14.4
Total Fat 1.6g
Total Carbohydrate 11.6g
Protein 2g

Rob.

[Lou_williams]

Heathy and no fat are not the same thing. It is very hard to cook without any fat. But there are ways to do it and still get good flavor.

You will need to modify any recipe to add flavor with herbs and spice to replace the flavor that comes from the fat. Steam as much as possible and that limits the kind of protein you can prepare.

Also the kind of fat that is in foods has lots of health factors. The kind of fat in fish is very heart healthy and the body needs some fat to function. So it might help to know if that is an option.

If I had the job of cooking very low/no fat, I would be looking at steam, Microwave (also a form of steam) grilling, roasting and braising.

make your own stock, and use it to add flavor to steamed, and braised items.

Sorry I don't use recipes. I was trained to cook based on taste and cooking methods. You start with stocks and sauces and them move up to methods and combinations.

Low fat means that flavor has to come from other places and that means a bit of trial and error. Good luck

Lou

"This parrot is no more" (MPFC)