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Category Archives: Healthful Eating
Fast Food Can Be Healthful, too
By special request, here is an encore of a post from last year.
Thaw salmon and season lightly
With quality cookware and ingredients, a supercharged healthy meal is less than half an hour away. On the menu: wild Alaskan salmon fillets, steamed broccoli with red bell pepper, and steamed butternut squash. The food is high in nutrients and antioxidents, especially if it’s not overcooked. I prefer steaming over low heat. More of a technique than a recipe, here is how to have a great and easy meal in a short time.
What you’ll need to make dinner for four: Four salmon fillets, two large bunches of broccoli, one red bell pepper, one medium butternut squash, Butter Buds or Molly McButter, and pumpkin pie spice mix.
Salmon: Be sure to buy wild Alaskan salmon. It may be pricey but it’s worth it, both in nutrition and taste. If frozen, thaw in the refrigerator before cooking. Place fillets in a dry, preheated skillet–skin side down. Sprinkle lightly with pumpkin pie spice. Cover, reduce heat to its lowest setting, and cook for fifteen minutes. Do not lift the lid to peek. Serve salmon with…
Butternut Squash: Rich in beta carotine, butternut squash often is overlooked. It doesn’t need butter, salt, or much of anything to season it. It’s tasty on its own. To serve four, buy a medium size Butternut squash.
I cut the squash into long strips and scrape away the seeds. Then using the Kitchen Cutter and #1 cone, I grate the squash (you can use a hand grater or food processor if you don’t own a Kitchen Cutter). Steam the grated squash in a 1-quart covered sauce pan over low heat. As with the salmon, don’t lift the lid. As soon as the lid spins, turn off the heat and leave covered for about ten minutes. The cooked squash will be the consistency of mashed potatoes. Sprinkle with pumpkin pie spice (Tying the flavor with the salmon) and stir.
The broccoli and red bell pepper make a colorful dish, rich in vitamins and fiber. Wash one red bell pepper and enough broccoli flowerets to feed four. Julienne the pepper. Steam with broccoli in a covered two-quart sauce pan over low heat. As soon as the lid spins, turn off heat and leave covered for fifteen minutes for crisper vegetables, twenty for more tender. Sprinkle with Butter Buds or Molly McButter and serve.
Steam in covered pans over low heat
The three dishes take only about thirty minutes including prep time. Because the food is steamed over low heat, the pans come clean easily. The food is delicious without a lot of additives or salt, and it’s figure-friendly.
Colorful and delicious.
Filed under cooking, Fish, Healthful Eating, Salmon
Guilt-free Pizza
Are you shunning America’s favorite fast food because it’s rich with fat and calories? Good news: You can have your pizza and eat it, too. The caveat: you need to make your own. With the growing availability of whole grain, thin crusts, you can make pizza that isn’t labor-intensive.
Today I took leftover pasta sauce (which I’d made using ground lean turkey, lots of garlic and onions, and San Marzano tomatoes crushed using my Vitamix) and spread it on a store-bought crust. I added a few items (sliced Crimini mushrooms, a bit of green bell pepper, and sweet onion), topped with reduced fat Mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese plus a sprinkle of Redneck Pepper Italian. I baked it ten minutes in a preheated 450° oven (but I used a Pampered Chef stoneware baking pan. If you use a metal pizza pan, reduce heat to 425°). After removing it from the oven, I sliced it into six pieces (3 servings).
You can use any combination of toppings you like. There are pizza sauces available. Just read the labels to be sure you don’t get too much fat or sugar. Shred your own cheese or buy it already shredded and ready to use. The two big offenders that make pizza less healthful are meats and refined flour crusts. If you stick to meat-free or lowfat meats like ground turkey, and if you use a thin, whole wheat crust, you can enjoy two slices of pizza without wrecking your diet.
Filed under Healthful Eating
Gravy Train
Several have asked me about my fat-free roux method for making gravy or sauce. Traditional roux is made from browning equal amounts of fat (typically butter) and flour. Although my gravy isn’t fat-free (I finish it with a Tbsp. of butter for flavor and gloss), mine is a lot lower in fat calories. I recently made a batch of this gravy to reheat leftover cooked turkey. The turkey flavored the gravy while the gravy gently warmed the turkey. That’s a win-win!
Start by preheating a quality, heavy-duty skillet. To make one cup of gravy, add two tablespoons flour to the dry skillet over medium heat. Whisk often to cook the flour. Season the flour as desired. When the flour turns light brown and emits an aroma indicating it’s cooked, remove the skillet from the heat.
Carefully add about a pint of broth or stock, whisking into the roux. Stand back as the hot skillet may steam from the cold liquid (as an additional step, preheat your broth or stock before adding it to the roux). After roux is incorporated into the liquid, return the skillet to medium heat. Whisk occasionally.
Allow the gravy to thicken and reduce, then lower the heat. If using the gravy to reheat cooked food (see photos) such as leftover turkey, place the food in the gravy and let it cook gently until warmed.
To serve, remove all food from the gravy and plate for serving. Remove skillet from heat. Stir in one pat (approx. 1 Tbsp.) butter to finish the gravy. Pour into gravy bowl to serve.
Filed under cooking, gravy, Healthful Eating, sauces, turkey
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