Pan Caramelized Summer Squash on Pasta

This is an amazing 20 minute dinner that tastes delightfully gourmet, but requires minimal effort on your part, the only thing you need are plenty of saute pans.

Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients:

2 zucchini
2 yellow squash
4-6 TB extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
8 oz. pasta like penne or farfalle
1 tsp fresh thyme (or 1/2 tsp dried)
1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Chop zucchini and squash into thin discs
2. Arrange zucchini and squash into saute pans for fit - so each disc has its own space and no disc overlaps. I usually need to use two to three ten inch pans depending upon the size of the squash.
3. Once you figure out the proper arrangement, take the zucchini out of the pans.
4. Add 2 TB olive oil to each pan. Heat on medium heat until the oil shimmers when you move the pan.
5. Add garlic and saute for a few seconds, then turn down the heat to medium-low
6. Add zucchini and squash to pans. Let cook for about ten minutes, undisturbed. (The low heat will cook the squash and caramelize it, instead of burning it).
7. Meanwhile, cook your pasta according to package directions (I recommend salting the water even if the package doesn't specify that)
8. After the ten minutes have elapsed, flip the zucchini and squash. You should hopefully notice some caramelization. Let the squash cook undisturbed for about 5 more minutes, undisturbed.
9. After the five minutes is up, flip the squash. If it doesn't look caramelized, let it cook for another 5 minutes, checking every minute or two.
10. Once your squash is caramelized, add thyme and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. At this point, you can mix the squash up so it's evenly seasoned.
11. Once the pasta is done, toss it with the zucchini, squash, garlic, and olive oil used to cook it. The pasta should look evenly coated with oil. If there's less oil than you'd like, add a bit more.
12. Sprinkle the pasta with parmesan cheese and add salt and pepper to taste.

Bon Appetit!

Day 2 was a success!

Today wasn't as hard as I feared. I had a bunch of errands to run in the hour before my afternoon snack, which helped curb my hunger by forcing me to concentrate on something else besides my stomach.

Here's what I ate (a bit of a repeat of yesterday)

Breakfast: Sausage, Egg, and Cheese "Biscuit" (toasted whole wheat English muffin topped with, Morningstar Farms veggie sausage patty microwaved, 1 slice 2% milk cheddar cheese, 1 egg scrambled in 1 tsp olive oil).

Lunch: Eggplant Tofu and Grilled Chicken Breast

Afternoon Snack: Blueberries and string cheese

Dinner: Bison Chili and Jiffy Corn Muffin


I'm a busy gal, so I don't have time for variety (and I like to finish all my leftovers).

I've implemented an eating timetable to make sure I stick to my diet and don't succumb to cravings, which would be really easy, especially with my 9.5 hour workdays.

Breakfast between 9 and 9:30am
Lunch at 1:00pm
Afternoon snack at 5:00pm
Dinner between 8 and 8:30pm

With this schedule, I eat all my meals, except dinner, at my desk, so I have to majorly plan ahead. Tonight, I exemplified that. After dinner, I started marinating chicken breasts for dinner tomorrow night (but more on that tomorrow), I made breakfast for tomorrow, snacks to take into work for the next two days, and got my lunch for tomorrow all set (Bison chili again...not that I'm complaining :) It's my last full serving that's not in the freezer and I intend to savor it).

Oof...12:20am. Day 2 is definitely over. And I'm getting up early tomorrow for a special delivery...but like my chicken that's marinating in the fridge, that will have to wait until tomorrow :)

Bison Chili! (or my first Gourmet Diet original recipe)

I have had a craving to make chili for a couple weeks now, so I have finally decided to indulge this craving for my first meal on my gourmet diet. With all my cooking adventures (including having stuffed chicken breasts and making Crab Rangoon), I don’t believe I have ever made chili before, so this is truly an adventure for me.

To up both the adventure factor and the health quotient, I have decided to make my chili with ground buffalo meat. I love bison burgers whenever I can get them, but I’ve never had the pleasure of cooking with buffalo, so I’m going to change that today as well.

Now, to find a recipe… I know chili generally has ground meat, beans , onions, garlic, tomatoes, and chilis (hence the name). That’s about it. I searched Epicurious.com for bison chili and found nothing. After a quick perusal over at bisoncentral.com (thanks for the link Google!), I discovered that cooking with buffalo is not much different than cooking with ground beef, so I set out on Epicurious again and just searched “chili.” I got pages and pages of recipes, which I skimmed. None of them sounded particularly inspiring to me. They either seemed too weird or too plain. Instead of choosing the best sounding recipe, I decided to make up my own based on what I learned about chili from reading these recipes, and what I know my own tastes are.

Here are my takeaways about chili from reading these recipes:

1.       I was right about the basic ingredients (ground meat, beans, onions, garlic, tomatoes and chilis), but more specifically, people usually use ground beef, kidney beans, canned tomatoes, and canned chipotle chilis in adobo sauce.

2.       Along with salt and pepper, cumin, chili powder, and cilantro are the most commonly used spices. A lot of people also add, strangely enough, to me, oregano.

3.       People often add water, beef broth, and, most commonly (and surprisingly to me) beer to their chili

4.       It seems the steps are usually: sautee the onions and garlic, brown the meat, add tomatoes and spices, let cook.

So I can work with that and make my own chili recipe. How am I going to make it unique and satisfying for me? Here are some thoughts I had while reading these recipes:

1.       I want to do something different with the spices since I’m using buffalo, and the flavor is a bit gamier than beef, I think maybe even sweet. A few people mentioned they added cinnamon and cocoa powder to their chili. Cinnamon is a definite yes. I’ll have to think on the cocoa powder.

2.       I love black beans, but also appreciate kidney beans, especially in chili, so I think I’ll do half black beans and half kidney beans in my chili

3.       I appreciate the smokiness of the adobo sauce, but I love the flavors of canned green chilis and jalapenos.  I need to think about what kind of peppers to put in my chili…maybe a combination of all three?

So now with this vague idea of chili set in my head, I’m off to the store to buy ingredients.

I ended up getting 2 pounds of ground buffalo, a can of green chiles, a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, 2 jalapenos, 2 white onions, and a can of black beans and a can of kidney beans. Also, 2 28 oz cans of diced tomatoes.

And here is what I ended up with:

Ingredients:

2 large white onions

6 cloves garlic

2 jalapeno peppers

2 pounds ground bison

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 28 oz. cans diced tomatoes in juice

1 can chipotle chiles in adobo sauce

2 15 oz. cans of beans (I used 1 can kidney beans, 1 can black beans)

12 oz. can Mexican beer (I used Tecate, because it was in my fridge)

Spices:

I don’t measure seasonings, because I season to taste and I have a good general idea of proportions. I included proportions in my recipe to guide you.

Salt

Pepper

Cumin

Chili Powder

Garlic Powder

Cinnamon

Onion Powder

Cayenne Pepper

1.       Roughly chop 2 large white onions

2.       Peel and mince 6 cloves of garlic (or however much you want. I really LOVE garlic)

3.       Seed and chop 2 fresh jalapeno peppers (I used two fairly large ones and mostly seeded them. I like some of the heat that the seeds provide, but not all of it). I also chop them wearing latex gloves to avoid getting the head on my hands and accidentally wiping my eyes (yes, I’ve done it before!)

4.       Put 2 pounds ground bison in a bowl. Season with equal amounts salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, cinnamon, and onion powder.  Mix the seasonings into the bison with your hands until it’s well blended (you’ll season the chili itself later, but it’s sometimes easier for meat to absorb seasonings if it’s put in it before it’s cooked. And I don’t count calories for spices so approximate amounts are okay).

5.       Heat 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil in large stock pot

6.       Add garlic and stir. Cook until aromatic, about 30 seconds

7.       Add onions. Let soften, stirring occasionally (I like using a wooden spoon). This takes about 3- 5 minutes.

8.       Add jalapenos. Stir, then let cook about one minute, until the color starts coming out.

9.       Add seasoned bison until its browned. Stir and mash it separate.

10.   Add two 28 oz. cans of diced tomatoes in juice (no salt added), 1 4.5 oz can diced green chilles (with juice). Stir.

11.   Chop 2 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (canned) and add to the pot.

12.   Drain and add 2 15 oz. cans of beans (I used 1 can of black beans and 1 can of kidney beans)

13.   Season. I added about 1 tablespoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of pepper, 1 tablespoon cumin, 2 tablespoons chili powder, ½ tablespoon cinnamon, ½ tablespoon onion powder, 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper. Stir.

14.   Cover and let simmer for a couple hours, stirring occasionally and seasoning to taste.

15.   After about an hour, add a 12 oz. can of Mexican beer (I used Tecate, because that’s what I had in my fridge). In my seasoning, I also added about an additional tablespoon of adobo sauce from the can of chiles. Let simmer for another hour.

16.   Makes ten 1.5 cup servings, so serve and enjoy! I garnished it with chopped green onions and cilantro and eating it with 1 Jiffy corn muffin (made from the mix…don’t want to mess with a classic!)

Each serving is 325 calories J (with the Jiffy corn muffin, we’re at about 491 calories for the meal!) It was so so so good, and my non dieting boyfriend devoured it and couldn’t stop telling me how tasty it was. This is hearty, good for you, delicious, stick to your ribs food, that’s diet friendly. Woohoo! First kitchen experiment for The Gourmet’s Diet is a success.

Day 1 complete!

The first week of a diet is always the worst. I get hungry and crave food that would sabotage my diet. It didn't help that today, I got into work and discovered a bag full of chocolate treats that a client had dropped off after I left for the holiday break. I somehow got through the day without even opening the plastic on the See's sampler, just to see what the chocolate map said I had in store for me when I did get to reward myself.

I know I said that no food was off limits during my diet, but I know from experience that I do a LOT better on diets if I make myself go the first week without dessert. It resets my sugar cravings and helps keep me in check when I do have the chance to indulge.

So what did I eat today?

Breakfast: 315 calories
Yogurt parfait with granola crisps (2/3 cup nonfat vanilla yogurt mixed with 1/2 cup strawberries, 1/2 cup total blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries; 1 serving yogi strawberry granola crisps)

Lunch: 384 calories
Homemade version of Panda Express Eggplant tofu (I can't take credit for the recipe I use, but I'll post it later)
4 oz. grilled chicken marinated in soy sauce, garlic, ginger, salt, pepper, and mustard seed.

Snack: 151 calories
1 piece string cheese; 1 cup blueberries

Dinner: 491 calories
Homemade Bison Chili (recipe coming tomorrow)
1 corn muffin made from the Jiffy Mix


Total calories: 1341

Today was a success for 2 reasons:

1. I planned ahead -- my Eggplant Tofu and chicken for lunch was leftover from last week, and I made Bison chili yesterday as one of my big meals for the week. My recipe (that I will post tomorrow!!) ended up making 10 servings. Four of those servings are living in my freezer until a day when I don't have time to cook or need to grab something quickly to bring to work for lunch.

2. I kept focused on my goal, not just to lose weight, but also to prove this experiment a success. I didn't dig into my candy bag several times today because I reminded myself about how I wanted to succeed.

So far, so good. Tomorrow is my first weigh in (yeah, I chickened out this morning...) and day 2...usually the hardest day. Wish me luck!

The Gourmet's Diet -- the plan

Today was day 1 on my diet. It went surprisingly well. There were a couple rough patches, but I toughed them out. Before I delve farther into my day, I should probably tell you all the plan I created for myself and how I created it, and why, because I'm a lot about process. So without further ado: the story of The Gourmet's Diet?

So when I decided to go on a diet, the first thing I did, besides give myself carte blanche to eat an entire order of sweet n sour chicken and with a side of an undetermined number Nacho Cheese Doritos dipped in ranch dressing, because, hey, the diet doesn’t start until January 3, was try to figure out which diet I was putting myself on. I have tried the Abs Diet and EDiets.com before, both with success. The Abs Diet, I gave up on during a particularly rough finals period when I didn’t have the time to pay attention to anything besides the 800 pages of Labor Law reading I missed during the semester. It was my favorite diet so far because I hadn’t felt deprived of anything, but there were too few rules for me. I’m a stress eater, so I would rationalize eating a whole CPK pizza because it had a salad on top, chicken, and I ordered the honey wheat crust. In other words, calorie counting or portion control was not emphasized enough for me.

I used EDiets.com during my junior year of college and had a lot of success. I lost 20 pounds in 3 months and felt great. Unfortunately, I gained all that back, plus some, for several reasons, mostly because I stopped calorie counting (as as much as I hate calorie counting, it works for me). I can't go back on EDiets.com though, because of one simple fact.– the Ediets recipes can't hold my interest for more than a day. They work within what I call a chicken with steamed vegetables model -- in other words, obviously healthy food that has no chance of offending anyone. Nothing against those recipes, because they obviously work for weight loss, but I prefer more variety in seasoning, cooking techniques, and types of cuisine than they provide. So what changed in the past 5 years, between my junior year of college and now that makes EDiets.com a more unattractive choice? I got a bit more serious about practicing my cooking skills.

I love to cook, and while that has been fostered and encouraged by my mom and grandma's awesome skills, it's only been in the past 5 years that I've really started working at it, creating my own recipes, exploring new cuisines, and putting a pasta maker on my birthday wish list.

So in order for a diet to work well with my current lifestyle and preferences, I need to be able to search Epicurious.com for “mushrooms” or "steak" or "polenta" and feel free to choose the most awesome recipe that comes up. I know I have to give up some things (no homemade macaroni and cheese for me), but that doesn't meat I have to give up everything I love about how I experience food. I like easy and I like convenient, but above all, I want the food I eat to feel decadent! So I went searching for a diet book that would give me that experience and surprise, surprise, none existed. I could not find a diet plan that was actively encouraging me to cook and explore and try new foods.

I had two choices (well, three, but not dieting isn’t one of them because I’m already about to bust out of my fat pants…and I bought 2 new pairs of fat pants because apparently my fat pants size is my current size):

1.      1.. Go to the Abs Diet or EDiets.com and suck it up until I get into those pinstripe pants

2.      2.  Realize I’ve read enough diet books to know what to do and create my own.

Clearly, if you’re reading this, you’ve realized I chose option number 2. 

Before I go on, my inner J.D. wants to stipulate something – I have no formal training in anything diet related or health related, and cannot be considered an expert in any formal way. I have, however, been on plenty of diets, have read a lot of diet books, and know my way around a kitchen thanks mostly to my mom and grandma.

In French, the word “gourmet” can mean a person who savors and enjoys food, but not to excess. And that is a quality I want my diet to embrace. So without further ado, here is The Gourmet's Diet:

I'm following 5 simple rules:

1.       Have a daily caloric limit

a.       I admittedly have a portion control problem (because I really love food), so I diet best if I count calories fairly religiously. I chose my caloric limit based on my estimated basal metabolic rate, or the number of calories I burn in a day by just existing. I figure if I eat only what I need to just exist, and because I do more than just exist every day, I should lose weight. If this doesn’t work, I’ll adjust downward. Anyway, my daily limit is 1600 calories.

2.       Divide that caloric limit up evenly

a.       If I don’t eat consistently and evenly, I will eat crap at the end of the day. It happens. Here are my breakdowns:

Breakfast: 300-400 calories

Lunch: 400-500 calories

Snack: 100-200 calories

Dinner: 400-500 calories

b.      So my range, following this, is between 1200-1600 calories per day. That sounds healthy. I’ll count those calories with a Livestrong.com Daily Plate tool.

3.       Exercise at least 5 days per week, for at least 20 minutes per day

a.       Self-explanatory, I think. Plus, I really do enjoy working out.

No eating at a restaurant during the week - cook!
                 a.    How would this be The Gourmet's Diet without a cooking requirement? Cooking will not
                        only allow me to count my calories better, but will help me enjoy my food more because at
                        each meal I savor the fruit of my accomplishment.

4.       Plan ahead!

a.       This is the most important rule. This rule will help me follow all the other rules. How?

                                                               i.      Weekly Menu – at least one night a week, I will plan to cook something large and elaborate so I can have it for lunch and dinner throughout the week. The day per week will be determined each week so I can plan around my schedule.

                                                             ii.      Prepare meals and portion sizes ahead of time so I’m never grazing (or so hungry I buy buttermilk ranch pretzels and eat the whole bag while I’m cooking…true story).  I will have food waiting for me so I can enjoy it.

                                                            iii.      Freezer meals – instead of frozen dinners, I will make extra servings of food I make throughout the week, specifically so I can freeze them and defrost them when I am just too busy or tired or lazy to cook. Et voila! Instant tasty dinners that are leaps and bounds better than anything Lean Cuisine makes.

And that is The Gourmet’s Diet. It’s an experiment, and I’ll be tweaking it as time goes on, but fingers crossed that week one, at least, proves a success!

Hello Blogland!

I'm Paige. I'm 26, live in Los Angeles, and love to cook (among other things). I'm new to blogging, but am hoping that the potential someone will read  this blog might keep me accountable for one of my New Year's Resolutions.  Unsurprisingly, that resolution is to lose weight. However, I don’t have a magic number in mind, I have a magic pair of pants. These blue jeans are AWESOME.  Not because they do anything special for my butt (unless covering me up so I don’t get cold or groped or stared at counts…), but because they have pinstripes on them. I LOVE pinstripes.

And my diet begin date is January 3. That’s the day I go back to work after the holidays, and it’s also a Monday (I refuse to start a diet on a weekend, it’s just cruel!).

So I have one more day of eating like crap before I weigh in. One more day to get myself sick of all junk food before I turn over a healthier leaf for 2011.

“So, what’s the plan?” you ask (or you should, because it’s near impossible to be successful with anything without a well-thought out plan). I have something up my sleeve that I haven’t seen out in the ether yet. Something that will hopefully make my diet seem less like work and more like fun. Something that won’t deprive me of not only the food I love, but the relaxation and satisfaction that comes with the preparation of that food.

The outline of the plan comes tomorrow.  Come Monday, I have weigh in and day 1. Eep!