Taming Thai

So tonights dinner was my first ever attempt at Thai cooking. I would say it was successful. However, I did learn a few things. Here we go....

First: This is my favorite brand of Jasmine Rice. It does REALLY well being cooked in the microwave. (This was not a new lesson tonight but it's new to you.)



Second: I added a lot of extra vegetables to this recipe. In fact... I didn't even use what the recipe called for. I used snow peas, carrots, Chinese eggplant, red bell pepper, onion, water chestnuts, baby corn, and bamboo shoots. I steamed all the veggies (except the water chestnuts, baby corn, and bamboo since they were canned) as the directions say. Next time, I will leave the snow peas and eggplant out of the steaming process and let them cook toward the end in the sauce. After steaming, my eggplant was mush once it got stirred in and the snow peas were just a little over done. Also, I think this was veggie overkill. Next time I will omit the water chestnuts and baby corn. Here are some before pictures of my ingredients:




Also a side note: Most of the vegetables did not change the Points Plus Value but the Water Chestnuts did. So I added 1 Points Plus per serving.

Third: The next time I make this recipe, I will adjust proportions of ingredients a little. Since this was my first time working with several of the ingredients I was scared to tweek it at all. For the lemon grass, I will probably add another 1/2 tablespoon. For the basil, 1 tablespoon is plenty. Then there is the Green Curry Paste... There is a note on this recipe that says depending on which brand you buy, the level of heat may vary. Well keeping this in mind, I chose not to add the jalapeno at all to my Curry. I used the Thai Kitchen brand and I suppose buying it at Publix should have tipped me off that it was tamed for American palettes. I found the heat to be lacking a little bit (which is shocking since I don't like hot foods). So next time I think I will add a Thai Chile as is written in the recipe.

Here is the finished dish. Despite my insecurities with the ingredients, I feel like this was very good. Next time, it will be even better!




Also, if you live in the Athens area, there is a great Asian food market called Fooks Foods. It is on Baxter Street catty cornered from Clarke Central High School. It is small but they have a good variety and that is where I got my snow peas and Chinese eggplant. They also sell the infamous Thai Chiles!!

Monday Night Dinner

So I fail at remembering to take a picture of tonights dinner. I apologize. I need to say, my sense of timing is well... not functional apparently. My potatoes took more like 40 minutes to cook and I left the top on for the fist 25 minutes. Early edit... hopefully I caught this before anyone tried to make them. :)

Menu for the week of January 31st

Holy smokes... I can't believe it's almost February. This year is already flying by. So this week is kind of an abbreviated cooking week since I will be heading to my Mom's on Wednesday (and I don't really trust Chris meddling in the kitchen) but I am still going to post what I am cooking.

Monday- New York strip steaks with blue cheese
Asparagus and baby potatoes

Ok, here is my secret on steaks... stove top (or grill) AND oven. The best way to do it is season your meat (I love McCormick's Montreal Steak Seasoning). Get your grill or a grill pan screaming hot. Sear the meat for 1-2 minutes per side. Then place the meat in a baking dish and cook accordingly:
(Cook time based on a one inch thick steak in a 400 degree oven)
Rare: 5 minutes
Medium: 6-7 minutes
Well done: 8-9 minutes
I know that blue cheese is an acquired taste and truly I only like it in certain application but, blue cheese and beef is amazing. I will drop a little bit on top of each steak a couple minutes before they are done and put them back in the oven.

For the asparagus, I like to oven roast it. Trim and wash the asparagus. Spread out on a baking sheet spray with a little bit of olive oil cooking spray. Top with 2-3 cloves of minced garlic and some sea salt to taste, toss to coat. Roast in the oven for about 5 minutes (keep an eye on it, sometimes it cooks much faster).

For the potatoes I am going to use an Erin adaption of and Eric Ripert recipe. I am going to use the little potatoes that for the life of me I cannot think of what they are called. They are about an inch in diameter, average. Anywho... In a heavy bottom pan (I like to use my new cast iron dutch oven), add the potatoes in one even layer. Add enough chicken broth* to come about 3/4 of the way up the potatoes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Braise the potatoes in the broth, uncovered for about 15-20 minutes or until potatoes soften. Most of the liquid will be absorbed or evaporate, this is ok. When potatoes are tender, add Kraft Reduced Fat Parmesan cheese. (This is where you have to use your best judgement for calculating points) I use enough cheese to make sure all the potatoes get a little. If I had to estimate I would say its about a tablespoon total. Stir potatoes and serve warm.

As far as points for this meal, I cannot give a realistic estimate. There are too many variable (ex: size of steak, how many potatoes you want to eat, etc.). I think this is an instance of count what you can and estimate as best as possible with the rest of the items. This is why I could never work for Weight Watchers. :)

*For the chicken broth, I use Swanson 99% Fat Free Reduced Sodium Chicken Broth


Tuesday- Chicken Green Curry

I am so excited about this!! Chris and I recently discovered Thai as a cuisine we enjoy and I love Green Curry. So I found this WW recipe and I am going to try it. I am adding a few vegetables that they did not use but I will list those out with the review on Tuesday night. Here is the link:

http://www.weightwatchers.com/food/rcp/index.aspx?recipeid=143411

Wednesday- Mexican Style Brown Rice Casserole

This is a recipe I have made a few times now. I love it and even my "meat and taters" husband enjoys this vegetarian casserole. I do make a couple substitutions though. Instead of the refried beans, I use one can of drained and rinse black beans. Instead of frozen spinach, I tear up a few handfuls of fresh spinach. It just gives it a little better consistency. Also... I probably add extra cumin as it is a favorite spice of mine. :) Also, I am going to make this ahead of time and leave it for hubby to finish baking. This works great... I feel pretty confident it would also freeze well prepared to be baked later.

http://www.weightwatchers.com/food/rcp/index.aspx?recipeid=126221

Again, sorry for the abbreviated week but I hope you enjoy none the less and I will update on Tuesday to let you all know how the Green Curry was!

The week in review..

Ok, so this weeks dinners were quite successful. I did make a few adaptations to a couple of recipes.

For the Italian Pepper and Egg sandwich I added some 2% Mozzarella cheese which gave it just a little boost. Don't forget to add the points if you do this.

For the soup, I used tomato puree and 1 can of chicken broth instead of the crushed tomatoes. It gave the soup a better consistency.

This sloppy joe recipe is a keeper!! Yummo!



Next up is Chicken Ropa Viejo... this was awesome! For this recipe, I don't drink a lot of white wine so I used what was available: the Carinena wine I talk about below instead of the dry white wine.

I also made the Cuban Style Black Beans. VERY good. The only thing I did different here is used frozen cilantro. I forgot to pick up fresh at the store so I used a product I picked up at Trader Joe's.



I don't recommend it for salsa or things like that but for a soup or this side dish of black beans it was very effective. It comes as frozen cubes. 1 cube equal 1 teaspoon of cilantro. Handy...

Here is our dinner... Delicioso!



Finally, my last exploration for the week. We tried a new wine with our Latin inspired dinner. It's a Spanish wine made by vineyard called Carinena. It is their 2009 Rose Wine. It is very nice. It is a little dry but very smooth and I tasted undertones of raspberry. It was a nice compliment to this meal.



Hope you all enjoy!

Menu for the week of January 24th

Ok, here it is:

Monday:Italian Pepper and Egg Sandwiches with Roasted fingerling potatoes
http://www.weightwatchers.com/food/rcp/INDEX.aspx?recipeid=185391&sc=11
http://www.weightwatchers.com/food/rcp/index.aspx?recipeId=79471
7 Points Plus for dinner

Tuesday: Italian Soup with garlic bread
This is an adaption of a recipe I saw on television once and wasn't able to find so here is my version:
Ingredients:
2 sprays of cooking spray
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced (or more if you like)
2 zucchini, thinly sliced
2 carrots, thinly sliced
2 ribs of celery thinly sliced
1 large can of crushed tomatoes
1-2 cans of diced tomatoes (I am on a Hunt's Fire Roasted Tomatoes kick, so I will probably use those.)
Italian seasoning
1 bay leaf
Directions:
Saute onion and garlic in spray until onion is transparent. Add zucchini, carrots, and celery saute for about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes and stir in Italian seasoning to taste. Add bay leaf let simmer on med-low heat for 20 minutes. Remove bay leaf before serving.

For the garlic bread, I like to use Sara Lee Light and Delightful Hot dog buns spread with Brummel and Brown Spread and topped with Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb seasoning.

Soup: 3 Points Plus for 1 cup Garlic Bread: 4 Points Plus for one whole hot dog bun

Wednesday: Southwestern Sloppy Joe's and Kraft 1/2 the fat Macaroni and Cheese
(I know this doesn't seem Weight Watchers friendly, but mac and cheese and sloppy joe's go together like pb and j. It is a necessary function of my upbringing to eat these two items together so this is my splurge for the week.)

http://www.weightwatchers.com/food/rcp/index.aspx?recipeid=131971

Sloppy Joe's: 8 points plus 1 Serving of Mac and Cheese: 8 points plus

Thursday: Chicken Ropa Vieja with Cuban Style Black Beans and rice
(This recipe I got from a website I have not used before but a friend references frequently: Skinnytaste.com I am very excited to try this!)

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/01/chicken-ropa-vieja.html
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/01/quick-and-deliciouso-cuban-style-black.html

Ropa Vieja: 5 Points Plus Black Beans:3 Points Plus
(I don't know off the top of my head what rice I will use, so I will add those points later).


And like any realist, I am willing to bet Chris and I will go out to eat at least once this week so I did not plan a meal for Friday and the weekends are usually reserved for whatever is leftover in the house.

Hope you enjoy!

Moroccan Slow Cooker Stew

Ok, so this is not on the menu for this week, but I did make it last week and I was pretty happy with the outcome. This is a recipe I found from the Weight Watchers website. It is a vegetarian dish so to beef it up a bit, I served it over cous cous (I used the Marakesh brand large cous cous). The cous cous added 4 Points Plus for 1/2 cup serving but at 9 Points Plus for the whole meal, I didn't feel bad about it.

Moroccan Slow-Cooker Stew
5 Points Plus per serving
Ingredients:
1 spray(s) cooking spray
1 small onion(s), chopped
1 clove(s) (medium) garlic clove(s), minced
1 cup(s) carrot(s), baby
1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2-inch cubes*
1 cup(s) canned crushed tomatoes
1/2 cup(s) vegetable broth
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp Durkee Ground Cumin Seed, or other brand
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
15 oz canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/2 tsp table salt
Instructions
• Coat a small skillet with cooking spray. Add onion and garlic; sauté for 5 minutes.
• Place squash in a 3-quart or larger slow cooker (crockpot). Add sauteed onion and garlic, carrots, tomatoes, broth, cinnamon, cumin and red pepper flakes. Cover and turn on to low heat; simmer for 6 hours.
• Add chickpeas and salt. Stir, cover and heat for an additional 5 minutes. Yields about 1 1/3 cups per serving.

Note: I did add a little extra cumin because I love it.

I really meant to take a picture of this but I was too excited to eat it and forgot. Hope you enjoy!

More Stupid Blog

Ok, after much deliberation, I have finally decided what to put on my blog!

Since I started my weight loss in May, people have continuously asked me to just send them a copy of my grocery list and menu for the week so they can eat the same thing. Well... I am not sure how well that will work out for everyone because people have different tastes. However, I have decided to do it. This blog is going to be the vehicle that delivers the information about what I am eating and how to make it!

I will probably start either today or tomorrow. I don't know yet when I will sit down and plan a menu.