Teriyaki Pork with Vegetables and Noodles

My daughter and I had been planning to make sushi rolls for a few days now and I was thinking that we might enjoy the sushi rolls along with a teriyaki dish of some sort.   Well, we ended up making the sushi rolls as a late lunch / afternoon snack and I think it was for the best, because I don't think the Teriyaki Pork dish I made really needed any accompaniment.

Photo:  Becky Luigart-Stayner; Jan Gautro

Like most of my cooking, this is a pretty simple dish.   I based this on a Cooking Light recipe with some variation.   I sauteed strips of lean, center cut pork chops in sesame oil until the pork started to brown, then I threw in chopped red bell pepper and green onion, a sprinkle of dried, ground ginger and a sprinkle of garlic powder.  When the started to soften after a few minutes, I poured about 10 fluid ounces of Teriyaki sauce in the pan and mixed everything well, and then removed the pan from the heat.  

For a dish like this, I generally like to serve the veggies and pork in one bowl and the pasta in another bowl and let people mix them together on their plate.   This allows people to get the mix of meat and veggies and pasta they want.   I find that when I mix everything together in one large bowl, all of the good stuff sinks to the bottom of the bowl.   Also, since I am on a diet, I put my scale on the table and weigh the amount of pasta and the amount of veggies and pork I am adding to my serving.   This helps me keep track of how much I am eating and allows me to stay within my calorie budget for the day.

Well, the food was really good.  My wife said she liked it as well, but I think I enjoyed it a bit more.   This is probably something I would make a couple of times per year. 

Sushi Rolls

My daughter and I made sushi rolls this afternoon.   I have never made sushi rolls at home before and I was really surprised at how delicious our home made sushi turned out to be.   We had some cooked salmon left over from last nights dinner.   In addition to the salmon, we also used cucumber, mango, and avocado for ingredients.   We put various combinations of ingredients together to come up with different rolls and they were all really good, but the mango was definitely my favorite.

Broiled Spice Rubbed Salmon, Quinoa, and Lemon Garlic Broccoli

Tonight's dinner was really great.   The food was delicious... like restaurant good.

The spice rub I used on the salmon is the same rub I used a couple of weeks ago... brown sugar, cumin, salt, pepper, onion powder, nutmeg, and paprika.    I coat the salmon with the spice rub and then broil the salmon on high for about 10 or 15 minutes.   This always turns out great and its really hard to beat fresh Alaskan King Salmon!

I decided to make Quinoa because the person I had invited for dinner cannot eat wheat.   I used a Cooking Light recipe I found on myrecipes.com for Quinoa with Toasted Pine Nuts.   This dish also includes shallots and garlic sauteed in olive oil and fresh chopped parsley.   A lot of the dishes I love have these three basic ingredients and although the Quinoa dish does not stand on its own, it was great with the salmon and the broccoli and definitely something I will make again.

 Photo: John Autry; Styling: Cindy Barr

I prepared the broccoli by steaming it to the point where the broccoli started to become tender and then I sauteed the broccoli in olive oil with garlic and lemon juice and salt.   This is a variation on another Cooking Light recipe.   I think I could have used more lemon juice, but the dish was pretty good.   

Middle Eastern Steak and Chicken Kabobs

I was hungry as I scanned through my list of recipes this afternoon to decide what to make for dinner.  It was almost two o'clock and I had not eaten lunch yet.   When I am really hungry something grilled, usually steak, always seems to get my attention.

I decided to make a middle eastern dinner tonight with grilled steak and chicken kabobs, Jerusalem Salad, plain rice, and hummus.    For the kabobs, I use a marinade recipe I got from a Cooking Light Chicken Shawarma recipe.    I made the steak kabobs using the same marinade back in Feburary.

 Jerusalem Salad

I started using my other charcoal grill a few days ago and I guess I am still getting used to it.   The cooking surface sits a little higher above the coals and this grill is a couple of inches larger in diameter.   I switched to this grill because I thought the increase in cooking surface area would work well with my method of pushing all the coals out to the outer edge of the grill as it would give me more cooking surface area not directly over the coals.   And while I do get more center area to work, I wasn't getting quite enough heat at the center and so the kabobs took more than twice as long to cook and I got impatient and took everything off, moved the coals back to the middle and then left the meat on the grill just a few minutes too long resulting in some charring.   The meat was a little dry but the the flavor was really good.   Well, live and learn, I guess. 

My wife usually puts the Jerusalem salad together.   I did all the prep work for her so she could throw it all together.   The salad was delicious.  And the hummus always turns out great. 

Hummus

Turkey Bolognese

I really enjoyed my dinner tonight.   I made Turkey Bolognese using a Cooking Light recipe from myrecipes.com.     Oh, it was delicious.   The fresh oregano, basil, and parsley in the dish gave the sauce a wonderful aroma and flavor.  

Photo by Karry Hosford

 I had a pretty good size bowl of pasta and sauce and it was only about 450 calories.   I used only 1/4 teaspoon of salt rather than the full teaspoon of salt called for in the recipe reducing the sodium per serving from 800mg+ to less than 370mg per serving.

This is a pretty easy dish to make.   I already had chopped onion and parsley in the fridge, so I just needed to chop the oregano and basil and I was ready to start the sauce.   20 min on the stove and dinner is ready assuming you started boiling the water for the pasta around the time you start chopping.

The Asiago cheese really tops this dish off!

Tandoori Grilled Chicken and Indian Spiced Green Beans

Dinner tonight was so delicious!   I made Tandoori Grilled Chicken and Indian Spiced Green Beans.    I made the same meal back on March 17 which was the first time I used this recipe.  I think the chicken breasts turned out better this time than the first time I attempted this dish and they were so good, that in the future I am going to make this recipe with boneless, skinless chicken breasts only.

 Photo: Romulo Yanes; Food Styling: Simon Andrews; Prop Styling: Helen Crowther

I was curious this time to see how much of the thick yogurt based marinade remained on the chicken.   I marinated the chicken for about 5 hours in the refrigerator in two zip lock bags.   I measured the weight of the bags before I put the chicken in and after I removed the chicken and about 1/3 of the marinade remained on the chicken.

The marinade is mostly yogurt and some spices and salt.     Each bag had about 7oz of 2% yogurt (the Cooking Light recipe calls for non-fat yogurt) and 1/2 teaspoon of salt (the Cooking Light recipe calls for 3/4 teaspoon).   I had three chicken breasts in one of the zip lock bags, so I estimated that each chicken breast came out of the bag with 1/6th of the marinade or a little over 1oz of yogurt and about 1/16th of a teaspoon of salt.

As I mentioned in my previous post about this meal, the Indian Spiced Green Bean recipe is based on a Cooking Light recipe for Indian Spiced Okra.    I steam the green beans first, then toast the mustard seeds, and then saute the green beans for a couple of minutes with the curry powder, tablespoon of olive oil, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.   About a pound of green beans (after snapping the ends off), yields about 4 servings, so each servings includes 4oz (raw) of green beans, 1/4 tablespoon of olive oil, and 1/16th of a teaspoon of salt.   Like the last time I tried this, the beans were delicious.

The Cooking Light recipe for the chicken also includes Raita, which is a yogurt, mint, and cucumber sauce.   I made the Raita because my wife really likes it, but I don't really care that much for Raita, so I didn't eat it.

We also made some plain basmati rice to go along with the chicken and green beans and I ate about 3/4 of a cup of rice with dinner.   One my favorite things about going to an Indian restaurant for dinner is Naan, the Indian flat bread.   My wife went out and picked up an order of Naan to go from a local Indian restaurant to go with our dinner and I ate a 1/4 of a piece of bread. 

So, the nutritional breakdown for this healthy, light dinner are as follows:

	Calories	Fat	Carbs	Protiein	Sodium
4oz Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast	118	2.7g	0	25g	194mg
Marinade	18	0.5g	1g	2.4g	150mg
Green Beans	60	4g	6.5g	1.5g	160mg
Rice	181	0	40g	3.3g	0
Naan	80	2.1g	11.5g	3.4g	200mg
Total	377	9.3g	59g	35.6g	700mg

A little high in sodium for dinner, but I was still under 1500mg for the day.

King Salmon from Alaska is in Season!

Wild caught, King Salmon from Alaska is in season.   I am always delighted when I cook fresh salmon for the first time every season.   Its like every year, I forget how good fresh salmon is until I take that first bite.  

My favorite way to cook salmon is to put a spice rub on the salmon and broil it for 10 or 15 minutes.    I use a spice rub of garlic powder, brown sugar, cumin, paprika, salt, and pepper.   I don't really use exact measurements to prepare the spice rub... I just put a little of everything in a little bowl and mix it up and then sprinkle it on the fish.

To go along with the salmon I made plain rice and zucchini sauteed in olive oil.    This is one of my daughter's favorite meals and she ate about a quarter pound of salmon, a good size serving of zucchini, and a serving of rice.   It always makes me happy to see her eat good, healthy food.

For myself, I had about 5 oz of salmon, a half cup of rice, and a serving of the zucchini.  My whole dinner was about 500 calories and there's some good omega-3 going on with the salmon.

Grilled Pork Chops, Potato Soup, and Chard Sauteed with Onions and Garlic

My daughter's 3rd grade class has been visiting a local vegetable garden and learning about growing and cooking fresh vegetables.    She brought home a little cookbook of recipes they have been trying at school recently and she decided she wanted to make dinner for her mother for Mother's Day using recipes from the cookbook.

She made (with some help), Potato Soup and Chard Sauteed with Onions and Garlic.   To go along with this, I grilled some pork chops outside on my charcoal grill.    It was a delicious dinner, but somewhat high in saturated fat.    I have been trying to keep the calories from saturated fat to below 7% of total calories, but with this dinner, almost 14% of my calories for the day came from saturated fat!

The primary ingredients in the soup:   1 stick of butter! (we used only half), 1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream, chicken broth, potatoes, carrots, onions, thyme, salt and pepper.   Really delicious, but you put that much butter and cream and salt in anything and it will taste pretty good, I think.

So, with the soup and a 6oz pork chop (more than I usually eat, but I was hungry today), dinner was 667 calories and 43g of fat including 20g of saturated fat.    Almost 60% of the calories in the meal came from fat and 27% from saturated fat.   Not really a healthy or a very light dinner!

Steak Fajitas (Chevy's style)

The last time I made Steak Fajitas in February I mentioned wanting to try a marinade that was supposed to taste like the marinade used by Chevy's restaurant.   I finally got around to trying it this weekend and I would say the steak fajitas had a similar flavor to Chevy's but I still think Chevy's (on a good day) is better. 

My wife really liked the fajitas and said that they were better than Chevy's.   Anyway, the recipe for the Chevy's marinade is on Big Oven and I do think they were the best Fajitas I have ever made at home.

The recipe says to marinate flank steak overnight... which is a good idea if you are using flank steak.  I didn't have that much time, so I paid more for some very lean and tender New York Strip and marinated the steak for about three hours.

Since I started a diet back in April, I have been avoiding flour tortillas due to the high sodium and calories.   But, I recently discovered Smart & Delicious(TM) Light Flour Tortillas from La Tortilla Factory.  They are about 1/3 fewer calories than regular flour tortillas and much less sodium, and they taste great.   They are a little thinner than the tortillas I am used to eating, but with such delicious steak inside, it all worked.

I also sauteed bell pepper and onions to put in the fajitas along with the steak.   I ate two steak fajitas for dinner with about 2oz of steak in each fajita, a little sour cream, onions and bell bepper and some salsa and the whole dinner was about 600 calories.   That's a little more than I have been eating for dinner, but I still stayed within my calorie budget for the day.

Chicken Piccata and Pasta with Spinach and Prosciutto

Its been awhile since I made Chicken Piccata.   The last time I made Chicken Piccata was really, I think the first time I felt like I did the recipe justice.   And this time I think the sauce turned out even better than the last time. This dish is so flavorful and surprisingly healthy.

 Photo:  Johnny Autry; Styling: Mary Clayton Carl

Using a 6oz chicken breast (uncooked weight) per serving, this delicious dish is only 365 calories.   Although it does have almost 600mg of sodium, but not a problem if you have been careful with your sodium intake for lunch and dinner.

I served the chicken with a side dish of Cheese Tortellini mixed with Prosciutto, sauteed spinach, and pine nuts.   This is a pretty simple dish, but it didn't really turn out for me.   The spinach and prosciutto kind of clumped together and did not mix well with the tortellini.   It was ok, but no one ate the left overs the next night.   The left over chicken picatta on the other hand was great for a second night.  

Spicy Southwestern Tabbouleh

I enjoyed the Bulgar with Cranberries I made a few days back so much, that I was looking for other variations of tabbouleh to make.    I found this recipe for Spicy Southwestern Tabbouleh and I had intended to try it out over the weekend, but just didn't have the chance, so I tried making it for dinner tonight.  

Photo: Becky Luigart-Stayner; Styling: Cindy Barr

 Not really a good idea for a week night since there are more than 25 ingredients many of which need some chopping.   The worst is cilantro.   Pulling the leaves off takes me a long time and this recipe called for a cup of chopped cilantro... that's a lotta cilantro!

Anyway, I did finally finish and it really was delicious and I am looking forward to having leftovers of this dish over the next couple of days.

I also made lemon garlic halibut.   I sprinkled salt and pepper on fresh halibut and then marinated the halibut in minced garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil for about 20 minutes.   Then I cooked the halibut over medium heat in a pan with some olive oil for about 6 or 7 minutes.    Turned out great!

Dinner was late getting to the table and I spent about 2 hours in the kitchen on this meal!  Of course, during that time I made a separate dinner for my daughter and helped her with plan a pool party while I cooked dinner.  

This is another pretty healthy dinner.  The tabbouleh is a little over 200 calories per serving and the halibut was about 150 calories for each 4 serving... so the dinner was just a little over 300 calories.

I am doing well on my diet and I have lost 10 lbs since April 12th, when I started tracking my weight and being disciplined about what I eat.

Greek Salad with Grilled Chicken (High Sodium version)

I used the chicken I grilled last night in the Greek Salad I made for dinner tonight along with some homemade hummus and pita bread.    The salad was delicious, but when I added up the sodium... I was kind of shocked.   I knew it was going to be high but not that high!   Almost 1300mg of sodium per serving!  Yikes!   So my total sodium intake yesterday was almost 2800mg.  

Becky Luigart-Stayner; Lydia DeGaris-Pursell

If I had more time before I needed to prepare the salad I would have added up the sodium ahead of time.   Most of the sodium is in the dressing.    But the olives and feta also add a lot of sodium to the salad and I used more olives and twice as much feta as was called for in the recipe!

Sodium contributors to the dressing:

1/2 teaspoon of salt...          1179mg
1/4 cup of chicken broth....   140mg

Other major sodium contributors:

2oz of feta cheese...              860mg
20 kalamata olives...           1600mg

Total sodium...                    5101mg

Per serving (4 servings)     1275mg


Next time I make this, I am going to go easier on the olives, feta, and cut the amount of salt in half.   That should put this meal at under 400mg of sodium!

Grilled Chicken, Asparagus, and left over Mashed Potatoes

I haven't been very adventurous this week.   I guess with the warm weather I have been wanting to do more grilling outside and I haven't been that motivated to search through recipes.   So, I have mostly been making some of my old standards which are simple enough that I don't need a recipe.   

I grilled about 3lbs of organic, boneless, skinless, chicken breasts this evening.    I have been experimenting with my grilling technique and my outdoor cooking has been turning out great.   The chicken breasts tonight were cooked perfectly.   Great texture on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside.   I did not add any seasoning to the chicken except salt and pepper.

I cooked enough chicken for dinner tonight, tomorrow night, and four 3oz servings I can freeze and use for lunches over the next couple of weeks.   Its really convenient to have something healthy and delicious available in the freezer that I can take with me to work and heat up for lunch or even for dinner in a pinch.

We had left over mashed potatoes from last night's dinner and I also served fresh asparagus sauteed in olive oil.    Not sure yet what I am going to use the chicken for tomorrow night.  Maybe I will make a greek salad with grilled chicken.

Filet Mignon!

If you like a grilled steak, in my opinion, there is no better cut than Filet Mignon.   Its so tender and juicy when cooked well.    And I did a great job grilling the steak this evening, if I do say so myself.

Now when I was planning out my calories and nutrition for the day, the most amount of steak I could fit into my daily budget was about 3oz.   (That's 3oz after cooking).   That's a small steak, about 4oz before cooking, but at $30/lb for organic, grass fed, beef, eating less does save me some money.   I ended up buying about 3/4 lb for me, and my wife and daughter and we had about an ounce of steak left over.

To go along with the steak, I made mashed potatoes and fresh spinach sauteed in olive oil.   The whole dinner was a little over 400 calories not counting the apple I had for dessert.     I was hungry that day and if I wasn't on my diet I could easily have eaten twice as much.   Having steak that good and eating only 3oz is really good training if you are trying to improve your will power.